Chapter Eight

Spike could not sleep. In his mind, his fight with Buffy played, over and over again. The whole fight was in all honesty bloody stupid, but nonetheless, it was a fight. He did not know what had really started it – though he believed his words to Dawn, that things had been intense the last few weeks, what with the wedding coming up, Christmas, and of course the baby, who was soon to be delivered.

The thought made him smile, despite recent events.

Buffy looked out the window of the cab. The dark night made it hard to see much of anything, but that did not matter. She did not see what she was looking at anyway.

She rested one hand on her huge belly, and felt the baby kick. It was a strange sensation, to have something within you kick, but it was a wonderful sensation all the same. She had not thought that she, as the Slayer, would ever get the chance to have a child. Yet here she was, with the baby soon in her arms.

She let her thoughts slip, wondering if the child would be a boy or a girl, and wondering who it would look more like – her or Spike.

Spike.

She had tried and tried to keep him out of her thoughts, but without succeeding. She could not remember why she had gotten so mad at him. The coordinator had been putting her to sleep too – she had just been putting on an interested face. She did not blame Spike for not doing the same. And yet at the time, it had seemed as the most annoying thing in the world.

The fight had been dumb. It had also been unnecessary. Or maybe that was just it; it had been needed for them to realize that they should not be fighting. Buffy had been with Spike every moment of the day – and night – for the last few weeks, and maybe that was what was showing now. That and the fact that her hormones still seemed to be playing her every now and then.

The cab stopped outside of a small, cute looking hotel. "We are here, ma'am," the driver said.

"Thank you." Buffy paid him and left the car after retrieving her bag.

She had decided to use the hotel reservation when she had the chance, even if it would not be the special just-her-and-Spike-weekend she had hoped it to be. After she had signed in, she took the elevator to the fourth floor and found her room. It was small, with one big comfortable bed in the middle, and two tables on the sides. One chair stood in a corner, and a TV was placed on a small shelf on the wall.

She flopped down on the bed, the bag hitting the floor at the same time.

I miss him already, she realized. I've been away from him for only a couple of hours, and I already miss him.

Slowly, she laid down on the bed. She pulled her feet up as high as her swollen belly would allow it, and before long, she drifted off to sleep.

The two black shadows outside of the window watched as the Slayer fell asleep. The night was quiet except for the flapping of the two creatures' wings, and they did not disturb the peace in any way when they informed their Master of the girl's whereabouts.

"They have fought," Kaicynn told her Lord through telepathy. "The Chosen One and the vampire that is not have fought."

"She is missing him," Kayarin added.

"This is going to the plan then," the dark voice came back. Kayarin almost gave in to the shudder growing inside of her at the sound of the voice, but stopped herself. Her Master would feel her fright.

"What are we to do, Master?" Kaicynn and Kayarin asked unanimously.

"You are to take her, Twins. You are to take her and bring her to me. And see to it that she is unhurt!"

A soundproof barrier was set around the hotel room Buffy was staying in, so when the Twins entered the building, no one heard the glass being smashed. Kaicynn and Kayarin placed their hands over the sleeping Slayer, and she twitched for a second beneath the hands of such dark creatures, before falling into an oblivious unconsciousness.

The twins lifted her into the air through magic, and flew after her, leaving the room empty behind.

Spike woke up the next morning feeling uneasy. It was not a feeling he enjoyed, and for a second, he had to think of just why he was feeling it. Then he remembered.

Buffy.

Fight.

He got off the couch and stretched his slightly aching back – the pains of being human, he thought. Then he jogged up the stairs and peeked into Buffy's room, to see if she had come home during the night. He was not surprised to find that she was not there. He believed that if she had come home, he would have heard it.

Spike walked back downstairs silently, to not wake Dawn up. On the kitchen table laid the note he and Buffy had left for Dawn the night before, with the phone number and the address for the hotel. He quickly dialed the number.

"Hi, I'm calling for Buffy Summers? Room number 408? Thank you."

The woman on the other end did the connection for him, and his ear filled with the ringing signal once more.

When more than ten signals had gone through, he began wondering where she was. He let another five go, but without anyone picking up. A small worry began growing inside of him, because the woman in the reception had told him she had not seen Ms. Summers this morning.

He dialed the number for the hotel once more, and the receptionist was surprised to hear that no one was answering.

"Would you go up and check on her, please?" Spike asked.

"Well, we don't normally…"

"This is important – she is almost nine months pregnant, who knows…" Spike was not used to pleading, but on the other hand, lots of the human ways were still not like him.

"Uh, I see. I will go up and check that Ms. Summers is okay, and I will call you back in a couple of minutes, is that all right? What was your phone number again, sir?"

He gave it to her, and hung up the phone, anxiously awaiting the phone to ring again.

What if she is in labor and can't come to the phone? he asked himself. What if she is sick? What if something nasty came last night? What if…

The phone rang again, and Spike quickly picked it up.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Summers, I am sorry…" the girl on the other end of the line sounded almost hysterical. "I-I went up there, a-and the window… It was shattered, all over the floor… And-and…"

"Where's Buffy?" Spike almost screamed into the receiver.

"W-well, that is the p-problem… We can't find her."

The phone dropped out of Spike's hand and he stared numbly into the wall.

The Gang was in shock.

After Spike had dropped the phone, Dawn had come down the stairs. Spike's screaming had woken her up. She tried getting to Spike by calling to him, but did not manage to get through to him until she slapped him. First then did he seem to notice she was even there at all.

"What is it, Spike?" she asked.

"Th-the Slayer. She's gone." Then he seemed to realize what he had just said. "Fucking hell," he swore, "She's gone!"

He had explained what the receptionist had told him, and he had ordered her to get dressed while he called the others to a meeting at the Magic Shop. First, he had called Willow and Tara to tell them to drive out to the hotel. They were to check if there were any traces or clues as to who had taken Buffy.

The rest of the gang were now sitting in the Magic Shop, all shocked at the news.

"I'm betting my bloody humanity that whoever was behind the sleep-spell is behind this," Spike muttered. He was holding the paper with the translation of what the now-burnt paper had said, and he was pacing back and forth as he talked.

"Whoever it is obviously wants the baby," Dawn said.

"Well, whatever it is, when we find it, I am gonna kill it!" Xander exclaimed. Anya lifted her eyebrow at him.

"You and what army?" she asked. "This is obviously someone pretty powerful. To take the Slayer from a hotel full of people, without anyone noticing it. Besides, the room was on the fourth floor, and the window was broken so he or she probably came through the window, and that means they're probably pretty into magic – or they can fly. How else could they get a pregnant Slayer out?"

"Anya is right, I believe," Giles said, finally speaking. "Though what it is we are looking for, I still have no clue of. We have to wait for Willow and Tara to report if there is anything in the hotel room."

As if on que, the phone rang. Anya picked it up. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, this is Anya speaking, how can I help you spend your money?"

Pause.

"Oh it's you. You wanna talk to Giles?" She gave the receiver to the Watcher and the rest of the group watched him intently as he "hm"ed and "well"ed through the conversation. Before he was done, he said, "Thank you, this might be very useful… Very interesting indeed."

He hung up and turned to the gang. "They found traces of a soundproof spell performed somewhere during the night, and they got the feeling of that something very dark had been on the bed. They also believe that there were two of them, which might help us, because not too many demons work in pairs. Also, the girls are agreeing with your theory that the creatures have wings, Anya."

"To the books then, I'm guessing," Xander sighed.

"Yes, indeed."

"Not for me," Spike announced. "I'm going to Willy's – somehow I'm sure that that wanker has information."

"Can I come?" Dawn asked enthusiastically.

"Absolutely not." Dawn pouted, but Spike stayed strong, and the girl settled for researching with Xander, Anya and Giles.

"Ah! I don't know anything! I'm telling ya, I don't know!" Punch. "Ow! Hey, now let's be…" Right hook. "Okay, okay, maybe I know something." Eyebrow lift. "Oh yeah, it's all coming back to me now…"

"So talk before –"

Spike did not have to finish the sentence; Willy threw his hands up in the air. "All right," he said in a low voice. "Maybe I know. There are these chicks – two of them. Twins by the looks of it. Keeps talking about a 'Dark Lord', and I might have heard them mention the Slayer's baby a time or two."

Spike growled, and pressed Willy up against the wall. "Anything else you just 'might have heard of'? Like where they might hang out?" he pressed.

"Well… No…" Spike pressed at his throat a little harder. "It's some caves, I think! I don't know where! They've just mentioned caves!"

"Anything else?"

"No!" Willy replied. This time, it seemed honest to Spike. He eyed him for another second before releasing his grip on the other mans throat. With a final stare, he turned around and walked out of there, his duster blowing around his legs making him look invincible.

If only that had been how he felt.

Buffy felt as though her head was about to explode. At the same time, everything – reaching from her toes to her hair, out into her fingers and to the tip of her nose – hurt. She was scared to open her eyes, for she did not know if that would make the pain worse.

"Oh you can open your eyes, Princess. It's dark here."

It seemed whatever had spoken had read her mind. The voice chilled her bones though, and she was reluctant to open her eyes. Whoever had spoken had told the truth – it was dark. A couple of candles, placed near what looked like walls of a cave, were the only light sources. It was damp and chilly.

"How lovely to see that you are awake. Twins!"

Twins? Buffy did not understand what was happening; her mind was too fogged with pain. It also annoyed her that she could turn neither her head nor her body to look around, more than too see the candles out of the corner of her eye. She was tied to some sort of bench, and had no strength to break the ropes.

He Slayer Sense tingled and she could hear flapping. Two creatures had entered the place, and from the sound, Buffy thought, they were flying. Soon, she got it confirmed, as the two creatures – women, twins, by the looks of it – came over her.

"Bind her so I can do the spell," the dark voice instructed the Twins.

"W-what spell?" the Slayer asked in a small voice. "Who are you?"

At that, a cloaked form moved forward. Its hood made it impossible for Buffy to see its face until it was just next to her, leaning over her. Then she could see that where a face with eyes, nose, mouth and other human features would have been, there was only a gap. Something gray, foggy, swirled around inside instead. She did not know why – Buffy had seen lots worse in her days – but it frightened her more than anything else had ever known. She could not even scream.

"I am the Dark Lord. I am just doing a spell to take your baby," the gray fog told her.

That is when she screamed.

"What do we have? Spike?"

This time it was a full Scooby meeting. All members of the Gang were there – Tara and Willow were back from the hotel and Spike had returned from his visit at Willy's bar. Dawn, Anya, Xander and Giles had not moved from the books since Spike left.

"Willy said there are two 'chicks' as he called them, in on this," Spike told the group. "A set of twins. And someone they call 'the Dark Lord'. He didn't know anything about the latter. But he said they'd mentioned caves. Didn't know where though."

"That fits with what we found at the hotel!" Willow exclaimed. "Both Tara and I got the feeling that there had been two demons there, though they seemed kind of like one at the same time. Twins would explain that."

"We found twins here," Dawn filled in and gave a book to Willow. Spike looked at the pages over the witch's shoulder.

"They are very dark demons," Dawn continued. "The book says that they from the beginning were one, but that she didn't obey some hellgod, and as punishment, the hellgod split them into two. Problem is, though the hellgod thought that would make the demon weaker, it only gave it more strength. The power of the original demon doubled when it was turned into twins."

"Is there anything in there on destroying these lovely ladies?" Xander asked.

"Well, there is something," Giles chimed in. "It mentions that the demon is completely dark, as in extreme evil, and that good would destroy it."

"It's not much to go on, but it's a start…" Spike muttered. "What do the rest of you lot have?"

"Not much. There is an old text about some half ancient evil that was turned into fog some thousand years ago, and in the text, a Slayer's baby was mentioned. Some old prophecy, I think." Xander handed Spike the book.

Spike muttered to himself as he read through the text. "Anya!" he said finally, "Hand me that paper with the translation of the text…" The former vengeance demon, for once, handed Spike what he had asked for without any remark.

"Changes the face… Old evil… Wrong time… Bloody hell, this is the evil we are fighting!"

"Huh?" Xander asked, not getting anything.

"Watcher, come here." Giles moved forward. "This is the same bloody prophecy, written in slightly different ways, isn't it?"

Giles looked closer at the text in the book, and then at the piece of paper. "Very possible, since our translation might not be completely accurate. But I believe it is."

"In that case, I'm thinking we need to find this bleeding thing fast, or we're about to have an apocalypse actually happening."

Icing mumbling echoed through the room. The Twins were chanting in some language Buffy did not understand, nor did she care to actually try and listen. The fog of the creature she had just seen seemed to lay upon her, and she could no longer control her own body. She felt a pain soaring through her, but the fog still seemed to erase it. She was dimly aware that she parted her legs when the pain came, and equally dimly aware that someone had taken off her pants and instead had clad her in a black gown.

The mumbling began growing, and suddenly, a second shot of pain went through her. This time, the fog was not enough to block it out, and she screamed.

Around her, the twins stopped chanting.

"It is done," they said. "Now all is wait."

The cloaked creature seemed to chuckle to himself as the girl in front of him screamed in pain once again. She tried to turn, wanting to get away, but the ropes holding her were keeping her from getting her will fulfilled.

"Soon Slayer, soon it will all be over."

She screamed again.

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