Samson and the Broken Dolls - chapter 6

It's a measure of the sheer power of Wolfram and Hart, that even with the casualties of Helm's Deep littering the alley, and a blazing inferno behind them, there's a complete lack of the emergency services racing to the rescue. Not that the God-King stepping over the legs of the giant she slaughtered needs any rescuing as she answers him, "Of course. They are in the bag you carry."

He indulges himself with a victory leap over the carcass. "Nice bag. Good quality."

Illyria kicks a dead Earth Monster into a wall where it explodes into dirt. "It was offered in tribute to Jasmine's mother. It was fitting."

It takes a while, but they come to the end of the sea of slain and take a moment to take what savour of victory they can. "Shame the old man didn't think to get us some nice false passports. It's a bloody long drive to Brazil, even if we use the cash, the contacts and some shortcuts through borders I know. Hope the car's got a decent stereo."

Rounding the corner to find it, it hasn't.

"The Angelmobile, I might have known."

She climbs over the door into the convertible. "You wished for other transport?"

He takes the car keys out and stashes his bag in the boot. "Well, the Porsche was a bit of all right. But beggars can't be choosers."

"I am no beggar."

Ruling the passenger seat, she breaks his heart as he jumps into the driving seat. "Pull the other one, Princess, it's got bells on."

"Bells?"

The Plymouth starts on the first twist of the key, and he powers off towards the Interstate. The sheer exhilaration of speed feels so damned good; having control of his life back in his own hands feels even better. "I'll explain later. For now, I'm driving. You just tell me where."

"Had more than enough of Gods breaking down dimensional walls, or me for that matter, Illyria. Costs too much." He tries to out-run loss with speed. "Cost everything."

He won't give her everything, but he can't help answering her head-tilt with a grudging, "Glorificus."

She directs him to the right even as she looks back. "A mewling child -"

There's no way he can listen to a back in the day story staring Glory, not when he still has the dreams, the nightmares, so he cuts Illyria off with, "A dead one."

And that pleases her. She sits up infinitesimally straighter, if it's possible, tells him to turn left and states, "I chose my companion well."

Spike really needs that cigarette. "Wish you had, love, wish you had. But, I'm not up to talking about her. Or Fred really, but you were saying about strings."

But Illyria opens her bag and takes out a book. "Winifred Burkle could hold symbols in her mind. Limited human symbols, but even the scribblings of infants express meaning. That enabled her to grasp meaning in what was beyond a human mind. It was how she opened portals."

And he's seeing just what Angel did leave in the hotel, what he missed amidst the obvious money, transport and concealment, and what the fragments of Fred could see in that office. "And you've still got that, right? You could open us a portal right next to where we need to go, yeah?"

It's Illyria looking at him, but Fred's there shading her eyes. "I... am uncertain. I have knowledge of worlds beyond measure. I saw the tapestries of creation, though they have been ripped away from me. It is possible that trying to see only one thread is beyond what I can still do, or I could pull us through every world at the same time."

"Neither of us would survive that, right?" Off her look. "Course not. Look, I don't like magic much, believe me I don't, but we dunno how long of a head start we've got, or how long these tattoos will do the trick. If you can magic us through to the Senior Partners -"

She buries her nose in the book, with a small Fred voice, "I kinda don't know where they are."

"Right. So we'll need a locator spell - which brings us back to Rio. There's this demon bar, a block back from the Copacabana Palace Hotel, if there's a slayer and a ludicrously powerful witch in town, it'll scare the locals - they'll know. Aim for there. If it doesn't work, we'll stop and pick up some music for the journey since we'll still have the money to do it."

She looks into the book and says, "Drive."

He does, and as they pass a movie lot, the world turns swirly silver.

Suns that don't burn him even as he slams on the breaks to avoid slamming into a tree. Suns that give him that feeling that Toto's not in Kansas again. "I see a marked lack of a Sugar Loaf Mountain, bloody great massive Concrete Christ, hot birds in floss bikinis, buses to the Maracana Stadium, pickpockets, Bob's Burginhos, dodgy demon bars, or unstable but insanely powerful witches. Illyria, this fucking well isn't Rio!"

But it's not Illyria looking at him, it's Angel's lost girl.

Where there was battle armour, there's a Delilah outfit made of coins, rapidly topped off with a coronet taken out of a bag and partially covered with the cloak the crown was wrapped in.

He knows all too well who it is, can still taste the blood of the original, but he has to say it. "Who the bloody hell do you think you are now?"

It's Cordelia's mouth and voice speaking the words, "The Venerable Monarch of Pylea, General of the Ravenous Legions, Eater of Our Enemy's Flesh, Prelate of the Sacrificial Blood Rites, and Sovereign Proconsul of Death."

Spike can't help it. "Not bad."

The answering head-tilt and satisfied tone is purest God-King. "It is but a shadow of who I was - but it will do."

But he can't help wondering, "How the fuck do you think you'll get away with playing the cheerleader?"

"It is a more complex modulation of my form, but not unduly demanding, and one that will no longer be required once I have reclaimed my army and restored order to this world. They will recognise that their ruler has grown only stronger in her absence - become a higher being able to change her form."

"And that always works so well." It's only the crystal clarity of her blood that's stopping her giving him the headache to end all headaches. "Look, I thought Wolfram and Hart were everywhere. Doesn't this place have a Wolfram and Hart ready to send in the orcs on our heads?"

"My Wesley, Charles, Cordelia Chase and the vampire destroyed the agents of my enemies, the Covenant of Trombli. This world was left in chaos with the failure of their Groosalug before he came to your world. Soldiers require order and a cause. They will embrace my restoration."

He can't help getting out of the car and striding off into the woods, singing, "God Save the Queen, the fascist regime!"

She follows him. "I do not understand."

He spins round to face her. "No, you wouldn't. "Anarchy! Highness."

"Leadership."

He'd kill to have a cigarette for emphasis. "Overthrowing the system." But he's caught between the romance of song and the practical adaptability that's kept him and his alive against all the odds for more than a century.

To meet it's match in the pragmatic God-King giving him the head-tilt taste of his own medicine. "We require this world as a base. It is the only dimension with an army we can take to protect ourselves from our enemies should our protective runes fail - and they will fail. Your world's warriors are too scattered to make effective allies, even if they would aid us."

"Can't go dragging Buffy into our mess, I said that. Girl's been put through enough."

"They would be destroyed with us in our defeat. But this dimension offers everything we require to build the power that will destroy our enemies, even suns that do not consume you."

"That is a bonus." And it is. A weird one, but an appealing one. "Looking at the world through the glass back in the office, it was good, you know. Was going to miss it if we lived through bringing down the roof. But this, feeling the sun on my face without frying, it does feel nice." But he refuses to ask he if he's freckling; he's not ready to share everything with her, not yet.

"I will make this world my arsenal, its people my army and wield it as a sword against my enemies."

It's a plan, a good plan, a practical one, and the only one they've got apart from the kamikaze option. He sees that. But he does have to focus on what she's missing out. "And rescue Angel."

But she's implacable. "He will endure."

He steps right into her face. "Getting the old sod back isn't negotiable, Illyria."

And she closes the space between them to almost nothing. Her breath washes over him and through him. "You will be my champion, Groosalug to my Princess, as we lead our army to victory over our enemies. The Wolf, the Ram and the Hart shall feel our blades at their throats, and together we will force them into the Deeper Well for eternity."

Spike's gone through his dreams, passed beyond his nightmares and fought his way back through both on his way to that one last impossible battle in the alley. Facing the applause of the poetry crowd, he'd known there were no more dreams to dream or nightmares to fear - that he'd been there, done that, and was ready to burn down the final curtain. He'd thought there were no windmills to tilt at. But she's offering warrior and poet, "The ultimate fight, the ultimate windmill, yeah?"

"And ultimate victory." Standing in woodland in a harem girl outfit, Illyria should sound delusional, but she doesn't. She's Boadicea unleashing her chariots, Elizabeth calling foul scorn, Buffy telling him they're going to win. She's a force of nature, beyond irresistible.

And she's offering him the fight; the ultimate good fight against the forces of darkness. It's magnificent, overwhelming, an impossible he knows in his bones they can turn into a miracle. Something beyond glorious and the girl's offering it to him, not Angel - not anyone that's not him - but him, Spike. It's everything he wants; everything he's ever wanted. He wants it so badly he can taste the blood of the minions of the senior partners, feel their bones shatter into the slipperiness of marrow in his hands, hear their dying howls. Spike wants nothing better than to unleash a battle cry letting slip the dogs of war - but he's got responsibilities he hates but can't forget. "And rescue Angel."

"He would challenge me."

"'S not an option, Gloriana - not for me. Not for Wes too, I reckon, if the poor sod was here." It's a low blow, Spike knows that, but he's good with those, and they work.

"You frustrate me. Wesley frustrated me. But I will grant your request - for his sake."

"It's appreciated, Highness." And the strange thing is that he does appreciate it. Spike doesn't want to think too hard why.

Or see just how implacable Illyria is. "But the vampire cannot walk your world freely. There can only be one ruler in a kingdom."

"One liberator, love. And there bloody well can be more than one of them!" He will teach her.

"I will allow him to take the place of My jailer - the one he killed."

"In the tree? Nice little cave with no view or cable? Prime spot for a thousand years of brooding? Bloody great draft from the hole in the world?" And he's back there on that bridge facing the decisions of madness. Condemn what's his or nameless, faceless thousands, millions. Walk away from her, lost in a strange world, leaving Angel to no hope of release ever and Illyria to walk a path back to absolute rule. Or walk with her, share what he's learnt and win a glorious war of liberation across dimensions culminating in bringing down the ultimate in corporeal Evil - achieve a matched set - and rescue the old man from years of torment that the twisted sod'll probably enjoy on many levels.

"Yes." She's still in his face.

And he can't rescue Angel on his own. He knows that. He's suicidally brave, not suicidally stupid. Rescue Angel. "Ruler of all he surveys? Keeping his enemies underfoot for all eternity?"

"That, or his death." Her breath mingles with Spike's own. "I grant you the boon of choice."

And Angel will no doubt take it out of his hide - eventually, but there is no choice. "He'll love it." He sighs. "And it'll keep him out of mischief." He can't say that's not unappealing, he wishes he could. "But I'm not sure about this Groosawhatsit business."

He's answered with Cordelia's knowing smile. "The Groosalug overcomes all things."

That, that he knows he can do. "Had enough practice at that one, love."

"Come, it is time to restore monarchy to this world - and accomplish the complete destruction of the upstarts that call themselves the Powers That Be and the Senior Partners."

He stops walking and looks at her. "Bring down the Devil and God, so to speak?" Off her nod, it's heady. After all, what have the Powers ever done for him and his but damn and torment them, or let others do the job for them while they laugh. "Now that would be worth getting damned for. Know I'm already booked in, got the sneak peak, after all"

And it strikes him that completing the Gotterdammerung might just be the perfect way out of the bleeding unfair Catch 22 of souled vamphood and the after-death. He can't help grinning. Pavayne was wrong, Angel was wrong. He's not doomed; he can save himself and with his own two hands - save his loved ones too. He can't help giving her his own feral grin. "Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm in."

"Good. I... need you. I dislike that fact, but it is truth." He's used to that; he can cope. At least she's honest.

And this time, this time he knows they're going to win. "Be bloody magnificent, love. Put the bastards that fuck with all of us where they belong, yeah? Down that bloody great big hole. Biggest baddest battle of all time, a dance to end all dances, finally let people be who and what they want to be without some buggers pulling the puppet strings. We do that, it'd be one hell of a victory!"

Her eyes are on the castle on the far horizon, but her words are all to him. "I agree. Nothing is sweeter than victory."

And his attention's all on her. "You never bloody well shut up, do you?"

She gifts him her grin of 'enjoying tormenting Spike'. "No."

"You know what, Louis?" And he can see he's going to have to explain the reference, but there's eternity to do it, and for the first time in a long time he's looking forward to eternity. "This is not just going to be the start of a beautiful friendship and the end of the entire ruling order of the universe, it's going to be fun!"