it's like a buddy movie (only without the buddy part)
Chapter Nine: Yo Quiero Taco Bell
"That's just great. Did I mention the badness?" Xander looked around - or would, if he could do any actual looking in the lack of light. And the slight fuzziness inside his head wasn't helping. "What happened to the lights?"
"Quit your grousing. It's this way." Xander could hear Spike’s footsteps moving away from him as he spoke
"Hey! Kinda way-less right now." The footsteps continued to move away from him. "Spike? Hello? I can't SEE any ways. Or anything else."
"Bollocks." Xander could almost hear Spike's eyeroll. The footsteps came back towards him. "Hold out your hand."
Xander blinked. "Uh, I think that's carrying the whole 'truce' thing a little past far."
"I was just going to hand you my lighter, you nitwit. Here." A scrape of metal, and then Xander could see Spike, holding his lit Zippo in front of him. "Rather fond of this thing, so I'd better get it back or you'll pay. And far more than what I'd steal from your wallet for it."
"Fine. Understood. Thanks." Xander accepted the lighter and followed Spike as he headed down the tunnel. After a few minutes and more than a few turns down nastier and nastier tunnels, Xander spoke up. "So... where exactly are we going to do this beating-up for fun and profit?"
Spike replied over his shoulder without missing a stride. "Just a hang-out for locals when the bar's not available for the usual barflies. Back-up location for poker games and the like. There's a bloke there that usually has a clue about what's happening. B'sides, all else fails, he owes me a Burmese."
Xander waited for Spike to finish the sentence, and was about to say "A Burmese what?", but he decided not to bother. Maybe money from Burma is legal tender in demon-dom? Instead, he asked, "And how many more sewers do we have to crawl through before we get there?"
"You haven't had to do the least bit of crawling. And we're here." Spike stopped at a ladder bolted to the wall and headed up. Xander considered the possibilities of climbing the ladder with the Zippo still lit, be he decided that maybe that wasn't the best plan. Besides, the lighter was close to too hot to hold on to anymore already. He flipped the lid closed and followed Spike up the ladder.
By the time Xander reached the top of the ladder, Spike was already opening the door on the other side of the landing. Xander following him through and into a... kitchen? "What the...?"
"Mexican 24-hour joint. Great rolled tacos." Spike turned to the cook, who'd barely looked up at their entrance. With either of its heads. "¿Donde esta Emilio?"
"Allí." The cook pointed a brownish-purplish arm out towards a door that looked like it led to the seating area.
As Spike strolled out to the restaurant floor to find this Emilio guy. Xander piped up, "Wait. You speak Spanish?"
"Just a bit. Enough to deal with Emilio's toadies and get by south of here. That, and the very important phrase 'Dos cervezas, por favor.'"
"That's all beyond me. Best I can do is 'Yo quiero Taco Bell.'"
"And we're all very proud. Can we get on to business here?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry."
Spike stopped at a table where a short, pudgy, sorta-yellowy skinned demon was about to chomp on a very large burrito. "Hello, Emilio."
The demon looked up, a little bit of panic on his face. "Spike! Good to see you. How's things? Can I get you something? Bowl of menudo, maybe?"
"No, lookin' for something not on the menu tonight."
Xander tuned out of what was gonna be a lot of threatening and looked around the dining area. The sky outside was starting the get gray - not long until sunrise. Was it really that late? Wow, how time flies when you're having absolutely no fun whatsoever. Inside, it looked like your average taco joint, except the place didn't have a single human in it. Besides him. Usually a hugely bad sign.
A bell attached to the front door jingled, and Xander turned to see who the new arrival was.
Bad sign, meet bad reality.
Tall. Antlers. Slime.
Great.
Xander turned back to Spike. "Uh..."
"Later."
"No, Spike, you really need to..."
"Shut your trap, Harris. I'm trying to have a conversation here."
"Yeah, well, I think the conversation's about to make a big switch."
Spike looked up to see the Chaos demon approaching him, looking fairly... non-threatening. For a big guy with antlers.
"Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" The demon held out his hand to Spike.
Spike glowered up at the demon. "South America," he replied from between clenched teeth. "Yeah, we've met. Name's Spike."
Xander blinked. So Spike DID know this demon!
"Spike. Oh, yeah." The demon dropped his hand and actually looked apologetic. What the hell was going on? "Hey, again, real sorry about that misunderstanding. How is Drusilla? The last I saw her, she was coming back to find you. How'd that work out?"
"She's not here."
Xander was getting a little – no, a lot – confused. Did he say Drusilla? What does that psycho vamp have to do with this guy? This was making less and less sense.
"Well, I, uh... Good to meet you again, Spike. I'm just in town for business, myself. I'll be leaving in a few days."
"And that business is?"
"Nothing that would concern you."
"Wrong on that. Already concerned, mate. We saw you at work. This is my turf, and you're doing mojo on it."
"You and that human witnessed this?" The VERY LARGE demon gestured at Xander. Great.
"Yeah. What of it?"
"You saw the ceremony? And you remember it?"
"Would we be talking 'bout it if we didn't?"
The demon shook its head - and with the antlers, it was not a happy sight. "That's really too bad. I'm afraid that we'll have to take steps." At these words, demons from half the tables stood up and faced the two.
Spike still had his eyes locked on the Chaos demon. "Take a step, and I'll break off your foot."
Xander had heard enough at this point, and any more of this talk was gonna lead to some extreme pain to him personally. "Spike, I don't think any feet-breaking's gonna happen unless it's ours."
"Stay out of this."
"Way too in it already." Xander grabbed the back of Spikes duster and began to back up.
Spike shrugged him off. "I'm not turning tail this time."
"Yeah, you are. Look away from your buddy and check out the party crowd." Xander gestured at the crowd of demons now standing and watching them. "You getting dusted's gonna help us how?"
Spike finally seemed to realize that this was gonna be more than a mano y mano thing. Hey, that's Spanish, right? Guess he knew more than he thought. Xander shook his head. C'mon, self, focus on the impeding doomage. Xander looked behind him to see the salsa bar and the doors to the kitchen.
An idea popped into Xander's head. Not a very good one, but it was something. He whispered to Spike, "Okay, got something resembling a plan. Count of three, make a break for the door."
"That's your plan? Good god, you're not exactly original, are you?"
"Just shut up and do it." The Chaos demon kept moving towards them, and the nice-guy look was gone from his face. This easily had to be the stupidest plan ever, Xander thought to himself, but might as well go for it.
They were about even with the salsa bar when Xander began to count. "One, two, THREE!" Spike made a break for the door, while Xander grabbed the bowl of jalapeno peppers off of the salsa bar and threw them at the demon's face.
Xander could here the demon screaming about his eyes as he raced out the back door and he grinned. Oh yeah. Feel the burn. He slid down the ladder, fumbled for the lighter, and followed Spike back down the tunnels.
After a really long while of racing through tunnels, they paused, and Xander tried to catch his breath. "Are they behind us?" he gasped.
Spike shook his head. "Don't believe so. Can't hear them, at any rate."
Xander continued gasping for air. "Oh, good. I can die here from a heart attack instead waiting for them to come and kill me."
"Still, though, I could have fought him." Spike protested.
"And failed miserably," countered Xander. He held up his hand, took a deep breath, and continued. "Okay, one, we had NO weapons. Two, we were big-time outnumbered. Three, Antler Guy decided that we needed to be stomped on." Xander inhaled another gulp of oxygen and kept going. "So basically, that was about to get seriously painful and possibly fatal."
"But the bloke needs a good pummeling."
"And why is that, exactly?" asked Xander. "Because I'm thinking that it's about a little more than the stuff we saw back at the cemetery."