Bedknobs and Boomsticks

Issue 5
Written by Brian Lynch
Pencilled by Stephen Mooney
Colours by Andrea Priorini

“Okay. Consider me crossed-over. What now?”
Willow Rosenberg

Beck is dozing off, the bright glare of the motel’s neon-lights shining into the room she’s in with Betta George. The telepathic fish has woken up and he’s repeating the same phrase over and over again. He’s frightened and starts to become more and more frantic:

“We have to go.”

He screams it at Beck’s brain until it wakes her up with a start. She’s relieved he’s awake, and begins recapping what’s happened since he passed out. George tells her to stop. He knows. He saw it all. Every person they ever killed together, revelling in the death. He urges her to listen to him. “We need to get as far away from here as possible,” he warns.

Elsewhere, in one of the many ‘Chapels of Love’ in Vegas, an Elvis impersonator/celebrant is offering choices to the couple standing before him. The couple are anxious to get on with it, but he thinks they should take the more expensive option for their ceremony, since it’s more special.

The ‘groom’ does not look happy in the slightest. As he stands there, Spike sighs. Drusilla is next to him, in full wedding attire, clearly enjoying herself. Spike tells the impersonator that he knows he’s not just an impersonator, and that he knows he can get a message out of Vegas – a message of the magic variety. Since he saved this particular Elvis’ life, he agrees. Good, Spike thinks. Dru is getting to him and that’s why he’s made this call for help. Also, he thinks Andrew must be on his mind. Spike begins his message…

In an unknown location, in a room full of witch and magic paraphernalia, a tiny action figure sized Spike appears on the carpet. “Help me, Willow Rosenberg. You’re my only hope.”

He knows how pathetic that sounded. It’s a one-way message – Willow can only hear him, and not respond, so Spike, without another person on the other end, starts to leave his message. He goes off on an emotional tangent – he’s babbling because he doesn’t quite know what to say:

“I need your help. I have a possessed friend and I’m trapped in Las Vegas. Everyone on Team Mopey has been tagged so they’re useless. Not even sure if anyone recently associated with me can make it through the barrier created by an evil corporation known as Wolfram & Hart. It’s a whole thing, they’re shite, I’ll fill you in. Point is, you can cross the barrier with your hoo-doo. You can make it through.”

He explains why he’s not going to Buffy. He doesn’t want to bother her. He doesn’t know where he stands, so she’s not to tell anyone about this call. Unless she’s black-eyed, in which case she should ignore it. He asks after everyone, even Xander and hopes all is well – but if Buffy is in danger then she is the priority. Willow has to help Buffy first.

Soon, he’s outside a demon biker bar on the outskirts of Vegas, called The Lunar Cycle. ‘Jeremy’ is in the trunk of the car, pleading to be let out. He’s had enough now and just wants this whole experience over. Spike wants Jeremy safe, so he warns him to behave or he’ll call some lawyers he knows. ‘Jeremy’ starts to protest, but Spike hits him and he goes out like a light.

Inside, a Gorgon waitress takes Spike’s order. He’ll have some pig’s blood – and so will his companion, he says – before Drusilla can protest anymore. Keep the beer coming though.

Some tentacled demons, clearly recognising Spike from the movies made about him, start to taunt him about the movie, the gender swap and him working on the side of goodness. They grab a hold of Spike and drag him from his seat. Spike tells them he agrees about the movie being bad, but also tells Drusilla to stay sitting – she will attract more attention.

People start to look on and suddenly, a green glow fills the air. The demons stop what they’re doing, and start glowing as well, shining brighter and brighter. Drusilla too. Suddenly, they’re transmogrified into kittens, cute as buttons, and all fall to the ground with a meow.

Willow Rosenberg has arrived.

The first thing Spike checks on is Buffy’s wellbeing. Willow says never mind about her – she’s just managed a teleportation spell by splitting her atoms sub-atomically. She’s feeling tingly. Spike says he has that effect on people. He makes sure everyone else is okay: Xander, Giles, Dawn… Willow assures him that everyone’s fine. He goes silent, awkward, not sure of whether he should say more to her.

She pulls him into a hug and asks him if that ‘was so awful?’ Not at all, he thinks. He looks at her and, with great affection, tells her “No. It’s a bloody wonderful moment, all tingly, unbeating heart three sizes larger. Good to see you, Will.”

On the highway, Betta George is reassuring Beck that they’re doing the right thing, getting away from Spike. But Beck is already aware of his past, and knows he’s different now. Betta George knows this as well, but he thinks that if she knew what he knew, she’d want to flee. As Beck prepares to turn back, a group of cars speed towards them.

A lawyer in a suit gets out, accompanied by armed security. Wolfram & Hart. And they want George and whatever information he found in Drusilla’s mind. Beck’s prepares to fend them off with her flames, but there’s no need.

Using a smoke bomb, the mysterious John is amongst the security, cutting them down as if they were not there. Beck and Betta George start to flee in the opposite direction, back the way they came, as John drags the lawyer towards them. Beck thinks she can handle him, but George yells at her to run.

John fires his weapon, a large bazooka, at Beck and, too late, she realises that it’s a heat-seeker. The resulting blast leaves Beck and Betta George at John’s mercy, unconscious on the ground.

As night approaches, Willow and Spike are in the car, heading into the desert. She tells him how much he’s changed – look, he even took a kitten! He then tells her the cat is Drusilla and, suddenly, the car skids out of control and a loud explosion takes the passenger door off!

Willow is hovering in the air, looking down at him. Please, she insists, tell me that was a joke. Willow gestures in the kitten’s direction and it turns back into Drusilla.

Willow is disgusted. Drusilla, although delighted with the experience, recognises Willow’s power flaring up and vamps out. Spike restrains her, telling Dru that she is not helping her case. Willow is eager for him to let her go: “Unleash the psycho, let’s do this. At least then I have a reason for coming here.”

Spike explains that Drusilla was brought here by Wolfram & Hart, and employed by them to distract him, but they mis-judged his intentions this time. Spike says that everyone deserves a second chance, we help the helpless – does Drusilla not deserve that too? He brings up their pasts and their friends’ history: Angel, Faith, Andrew… what makes Drusilla different, if she wants to change?

Willow has no answer. She tells him to find a dead body for the demon to go into and urges him to get on with it – but keep her on a tight leash, she orders, pointing at Dru. “Oh,” the vampire pouts, “I liked Willow for a moment.”

In his lair, John has the lawyer, Beck and Betta George hung on a wall. He kills the lawyer to prove a point and then has his magic users open a pathway so he can communicate astrally with Spike.

In the desert, Spike has a dead snake in his hand. ‘Jeremy’ is not amused. Willow thinks it’s fitting. Before they can transfer the demon out of Jeremy, an image of John appears in the sky. It’s voice booms as it addresses Spike. “Let me tell you a little something about me.”

He tells Spike of his past: a normal man, bored, working in an office, nine till five. Standard life, but boring. So boring, in fact, that one day he killed the cleaning lady just to alleviate said boredom.

He grabbed her and straggled her. Got the biggest rush of his life. Imagine how that would feel with someone he cared about? He killed his family. His friends. Everyone he knew, just to recreate that rush, but nothing ever did.

One day, whilst trying to push himself, he decided to change it up and took on the world of the supernatural. He started feeling a rush, but this one kill was the wrong girl and he was cursed by her people.

They removed his soul.

Without it, killing never felt the same. He couldn’t feel the rush, no matter what he did. It was all meaningless and stagnant. Just going through the motions.

Wolfram & Hart found him. They helped him “see the light. I was held prisoner all that time because they needed a balance. Soul for a soul. Restore one, means to take one.”

But that’s over with, the image says. Now he has found a way to make it alright – okay, Spike will lose his soul in the process, but hey, he had a good run – and he’ll sacrifice Spike’s friends to get what he wants.

As Willow and Drusilla look on in shock, the image coolly states, “See you soon, Spike”, and evaporates into nothing…

CONTINUITY

Betta George reveals that he saw all of Drusilla’s and Spike’s memories in Dru’s head, referring to their days travelling Europe in the 19th Century. He read Drusilla’s mind in Everybody Loves Spike and has been unconscious since.

Spike previously threw Kr’Ph into the trunk of his car to transport him in After the Fall: Chapter XVII. He does the same to ‘Jeremy’ here.

The Elvis impersonator mentions that Spike previously saved him when he was caught in the ‘Elvis’ giant in Alone Together Now.

Spike makes a Star Wars joke – and claims it’s because he has fellow Scooby Gang member Andrew Wells on his brain. He hasn’t seen Andrew since The Girl in Question. The joke is also a double one – James Marsters’ character on Torchwood also called his former partner using Obi-Wan’s famous line.

When he communicates with Willow, Spike asks after all of the other Scooby Gang members, even Xander. He also tells Willow not to respond to the message if she’s all ‘black-eyed’, referring to her turn as Dark Willow in Buffy season six.

Willow is seen wearing Tara’s dress from Once More, With Feeling. She also wears it again in the opening arc of Buffy season eight. Willow and Spike, presumably, have not seen each other since Chosen.

The demons in the bar attack Spike because he fights against demons. They also mention the films made about Spike. They are not fans.

Willow turns the demons and Dru into kittens – formerly Spike’s favourite tender when playing poker. We saw him play in Life Serial, and later, in Buffy season nine, he’ll have more issues with cats.

Willow says Dawn is ‘kinda hard to miss’ – a reference to her large stature in the opening arc of season eight.

Willow and Drusilla haven’t actually come face-to-face since Becoming (Part 1). They’ve never actually engaged with each other, having only ever been in a room together three separate times – in What’s My Line? (Part 2), Innocence and Becoming (Part 1) – and they never actually speak until now.

Spike mentions that Angel, Faith, Andrew, Willow and himself have all had dark moments and pasts that have been forgiven, when defending Drusilla to Willow.

COVER GALLERY