Gods And Monsters

Chapter Thirty-seven:

After returning to the basement of Sunnydale high only to find Spike absent from the premises, Hel immediately set out in pursuit of his whereabouts. She dedicated hours to searching every cemetery she came upon, with no luck. At least, until the fifth one.

While wandering between graves, she spotted a small chapel.

The front entrance was flanked by narrow white pillars, supporting a peaked porch roof, and lit on either side by lanterns. Above the small structure was a large window, a vertical rectangle capped by a half-circle. The middle front entrance of the chapel jutted out from the remainder of the building, the outer sections offering a glimpse within through a window on either side.

The cemetery lawn ended at the curb as she crossed the paved road and ascended the steps.
Hel arrived at a set of double doors, their white paint chipped and peeling. Opening the right side, she stepped over the threshold.

She left the door ajar, rays of silvery moonlight pouring inside through the gap.

Upon entering, the first thing to catch her eye was a large crucifix positioned at the altar. The walls were pale yellow plaster and a dozen oak pews were arranged on either side of the room in rows. Three arched, stained glass windows adorned each sidewall of the chapel.

She ventured down the central aisle, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet.

From the shadows behind her came an unsettling, but familiar, voice: "Hello."

Hel spun round. "What the hell are you—?"

Spike stood no less than five feet away, bare-chested. A deep blue, long-sleeved shirt dangled from his outstretched hand. "It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide." He discarded his shirt to the outskirts of the room.

"No more mind games, Spike." She spoke softly.

His gaze was glued to the worn-down, faded wooden floor, head bowed. "No more mind games. No more mind."

Daring to advance a single step forward, she raised her arm from her side and brushed her fingertips cautiously against the cuts on his chest that were, thankfully, beginning to heal. "Tell me what happened to you."

He flinched, recoiling violently and covering his chest with his arm. "Hey, hey, hey!" He protested. "No touching. Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark." Finally, his eyes snapped onto hers. He nodded once. "Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through." His fingers were trembling as they began working on the fly of his black jeans, fumbling to unzip them. "Get it hard; service the girl."

Disgusted, she smacked his hands away from the front of his trousers. "Spike, what the Fu—"

Spike's hand reflexively shot forward, closing around her throat, but Hel wasn't fazed. She grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed him across the room with ease. He landed atop a row of pews, smashing them to bits beneath his back.

He propped himself up on his elbows. "Right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced. Because there's no spark. Ain't we in a soddin' engine?" His gaze flitted about the room helplessly.

Tentatively, she approached him. "Have you completely lost your mind?"

"Well, yes." He replied, with startling lucidity. "Where've you been all night?"

"You thought you would just come back here and..." She trailed off, uncertain how to end that sentence.

Puzzled, Spike titled his head ever-so slightly to one side and furrowed his brow. "And what?"

Hel elected to ignore his question, unable to answer it. "Tell me what happened."

His eyes broke away, looking anywhere but at her. "I tried to find it, of course."

"Find what?"

"The spark. The missing... The piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want..." His voice cracked and he exhaled sharply under his breath, his head falling forward as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "God, I can't. Not with you looking."

He sat upright and clambered to his feet, stalking off into the shadows. "So weak. You made me weak. Thinking of you." He began pacing around the room, circling the outskirts. "Angel— he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time. The spark."

She was rendered speechless and immobile, frozen in place, as Spike strode down the aisle towards her.

"I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me, and now, all it does is burn."

She swallowed hard. Sudden comprehension dawned on her moonlit features. "Your soul."

He snorted softly, pausing a short distance behind her. "Bit worse for lack of use."

Hel turned partially to face him. "How?"

"It's what you wanted, right?" He lifted his face to the ceiling above them. "It's what you wanted, right?" His repetition of the question was louder than the original. Pressing his fingertips to his temples, as if attempting to ward off a headache, he lowered his head and made his way past her, in the direction of the altar.

"And— and now, everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I— and him... And it... The thing beneath— beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me to go... Go..." Spike glanced back at her over his shoulder. "To hell."

Her heart sank. The pit of her stomach was twisted into knots and her mind was racing. "Why? Why would you do that to yourself?"

"Hel, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers."

In stunned silence, she watched him approach the six-foot tall crucifix altarpiece erected at the front of the chapel.

"She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love." He spoke with reverence, as if reciting something. It he was indeed quoting scripture, the passage was unknown to her. "He will be loved." Spike stood no more than a foot from the cross, staring at it intently.

"So everything's okay, right?" He sighed, embracing the crucifix as he did so. Draping one arm over each side of the cross bar, he rested his head in the corner of the right vertex.

She brought her hand to her mouth, pressing her fingers to her lips in silent horror as his skin began to sizzle against the Holy symbol. Plumes of smoke arose from every point of contact that his body made with the religious icon.

Her eyes stung, tears pressing at the corners. She felt the overwhelming need to say something, anything, but found herself incapable of uttering so much as a single syllable. The tears came, then. Spilling over the brink of her lower lashes and rolling down her cheeks, the drops trickled past her her slightly parted mouth. Hel tasted salt water on her lips.

"Can— can we rest now?" He pleaded weakly, his words choked by his tight throat and his exhausted body hanging limply on the crucifix. "Hel... Can we rest?" He murmured.