Comes the New Whirlwind (PG: Mild Profanity)

[Altoz]

PROLOGUE:

Price, Drusilla and Hekate stood on the Sunnydale Hills, overlooking the city as it sprawled beneath them:
"Are you sure you want to do this, Hekate?"
"If it means keeping Momma sane and deadly, I'm for it. Whew. I'm getting some fairly hardass whitewicca readings from down there. Are you two sure you want to come with me?"
"It's a retrieval mission. We need to build up our thaumaturgic strength to attack Angelus and stop him. That means the Magic Box. Besides, you'll enjoy the darkmagick texts within it."
"You're tellin' me. I can already feel them pulling at me, wanting me to connect with them, to read their precious treasure. Damn, Price, it's like a drug. Dru? What about you? Have you had any visions?"
"None that make any sense, darkheart. Some of them show me fighting alongside the blinding whiteness. I would never do that."
"What about you, Price? Do you want to risk exposing your hand and their knowing that you've been turned?"
"It'll have to happen sooner or later, Hekate. I'm going to regret it. We were friends once. But now is as good time as any."

THE MAGIC BOX:

Tara looked up as the figure entered the shop:
"Can I help you?"
The young woman removed her hood. Her hair was glistening black and her eyes without any cornea or iris visible. She said:
"I'd like the top row darkmagick texts, please."
'I'm sorry. They're only there for serious scholarship and consultation. Have you been properly warded against their effects? Have you got authorisation from accredited thaumaturgic research organisations? Because I'm getting definite signs you might be a darkmage, however young you are."
"Look, lady, I really don't have time for this bureaucratic shit. Just give me access now."
"That does it. Out."
"You pitiful puny whitewicca. If you won't give me access, I'll take it."
"No, you won't." Tara threw up a strong ward- so powerful that it knocked Hekate over in her tracks.
"Whoa. Sorry lady, didn't realise you were preg..." Hekate broke off. Her eyes widened:
"What the Hadeans... that's parthenogenesis. Your whitewicca is fortified 'cause you're an expectant mother."
"Actually, that makes both of us. Look, kid. We don't really care why you need them, but you're not getting access to those books." Willow had materialised alongside her partner:
"Aw, both you ladies in love with one another? That's awful sweet. No, seriously. You look good together."
"Thanks for the compliment, but hey, I've tasted that sort of darkmagick. Don't go down that path. It corrupts and changes you, and all you care about is power."
"Well, thank you, Red, but I didn't ask for a morality lecture. I don't use this to destroy indiscriminately. I use it to aid my parents- my fosterparents."
[Doug? Buffy? Are there a couple of darkmages in town, because we've got one here- a strong one.]
[I wish we could help out, Willow, but Doug, Oz and I have our hands and paws full in Hammerfell right now.]
[Is it more important than this..... Hey!]
Hekate shook her head: "Sorry, no reception available on this telepathic wavelength. Look, this is simple. Call off the ward and just let me use the books. That's all I want."
"Wait a minute, I know that sigil. It's the one for the Greek goddess Hecate, who presides over witches, ghosts and crossroads." Tara glimpsed Hekate's medallion
"That's my name. don't disuse it. Sure, blondie here is channellin' Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Isis, Amphitrite, Rhea, Gaia and most of the other momma goddess mojo goin; right now. But I've taken the name of the active dark goddess that I have for good reason."
"Seeking power and revenge isn't a good reason." Willow countered.
"Enough talkin'. Hand 'em over. Now!" Darkness and lightning embedded inside it swirled around Hekate as she poised herself to strike...

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Altoz]

PART TWO:

HAMMERFELL PARK:

Buffy was in combat pose as she circled around Drusilla:
"Look, I don't know what you're doing back here now, Dru, but you don't have Spike to protect you anymore."
"Isn't it interesting that when it's a vampire male that kills a slayer, you always provide him with an alibi- like my late beloved. Yet not me. Why is that?"
"Is that some kind of dig at the relationship that I had with him?"
"I've moved on since then- is that the modern idiom? New allies, new childer and new core of my existence. I'm sorry for what happened to Spike- but it wouldn't have if he hadn't been with you, admit it."
"Hang on, you almost sound lucid."
"Call yourself a slayer? It's ridiculous that you've lasted as long as you have. No-one has been able to permanently end your life and stop you from troubling us."
"That's because I won't let them. Why are so sane and focused, Drusilla? After almost two centuries?"
"I want vengeance. Vengeance against Angelus for turning me the way he did. For the rape, and everything that happened after it."
"Oh, you know something you're not telling me. Wait, is it about Angelus? Is he back? Why didn't anyone in Los Angeles tell me?"
"Your Watcher Father Lonnergan evacuated Chase, Charles Gunn and Winifred Burkle to Westbury."
"And Wes Wyndham-Price? What happened to him? Did Angelus kill him?"

Doug's ward was on full as a new intruder walked through the trees:
"Stay where you are. I'm protectin' the slayer from any rearguard attacks. There's an experienced senior vampire that she's confronting."
"Now is that any way to talk to an old friend, Doug?"
As he cleared the last branches, there he stood. Doug sounded relieved as he said:
"Thank Gaia it's you, mate. Where were you? Willow and I have been tryin' to..."
Then he saw what must have happened as he registered several things. Wes wasn't breathing, nor was his heart beating, and there was something wrong with his mouth:
"Tell me what you see. "Old friend."
"No. Oh no. Y-you've turned. How? Who did it to you?"
"I was dying alone. Angelus is back, in case you want to know. Except you didn't, did you? All that matters to you is protecting Buffy Summers."
"Okay, thanks for that, Wes-"
"Call me Price. Everyone has to pay one, now."
"I'll find a way to turn you back-"
"You know you can't do that, Doug. I died through massive organ failure after a fatal assault. Only I wasn't a latent wiccan waiting to be activated like you were."
"Does that change anything? I could easily have died if that wasn't the case? Is that it? Are you Angelus' childer?"
"Try further down that bloodline."
"Spike's staked. Drusilla? She did this?"
"I asked her to, Doug. I was exhausted. She obliged. Since then, I've travelling with her and a...new friend."
"You've killed, haven't you? Because if you haven't-"
"You and your precious moral absolutes, Douglas. But yes. Two people. And you must fear that I'll attack you, otherwise you wouldn't have been keeping your ward on full ever since I walked into that clearing. I'm a 'leech' to you, now, aren't I? Someone you need to protect others from?"
Any further conversation was ended as there was a cry from the park entrance:
"Buffy!" Doug yelled and ran toward it.
"Dru!" Price shouted and followed him.

At the entrance, Buffy had managed to battle Drusilla into a position where she held her stake next to the vampire's unbeating heart:
"Thank Gaia. Are you okay?!"
"Give me one good reason I shouldn't do this, Doug."
"Well, she killed Kendra."
"Yes, and Spike murdered a Chinese potential in Shanghai in 1898, and then Nikki Wood in 1978. And Angelus murdered Jenny Calendar. But for some reason, there's a double standard there, isn't there, slayer?" Drusilla retorted.
"At least Spike reformed and Angel's state was only temporary."
"Ahem." Price cleared his throat:
"No, you don't get to do this, Price. Former friends or not, you will not attack the slayer and get away with it. Because you know me. I will fight you and I wiil give you no quarter whatsoever." Doug turned, as wiccan energies crackled around his hands.
"Well now- that's academic, isn't it?" Hekate said as she blasted Buffy off Drusilla's form:
"Thank you, darkheat. You're always there for me."
"Did that slayer bitch hurt you, Momma? Because if she did, I'll gut her."

Willow and Tara appeared on the scene a second after:
"Meet Hekate. She has some sort of creepy mother-daughter thing going on with Dru." Willow said, as she counterattacked, hitting Price with a barrage of her own energies while Doug and Tara warded Buffy from potential harm:
"There's nothing 'creepy' about it, Red. Dru and Price saved me from abuse. She's more of a mother to me than the mother I never knew. And if you hurt her, I will bring the Hadean fires down on your slayer's head."
Oz had appeared on the scene somewhat later as he had had to dampen down his latest wolfside reversion but he entered, registered the situation and joined Buffy, Willow, Tara and his partner:
"No. You've got what you wanted. The sun's almost up. Time to go. Before it's too late."
"All right. But this isn't over. Not even remotely." Drusilla said as she helped Price to her feet and Hekate enshrouded them in a dark ball of power and enchantment as she rapidly left Sunnydale with her two associates.

EPILOGUE:
"What just happened?" Buffy asked, as Tara saw to the slayer's wounds of the moment.
"I guess we just collided with another manifestation of the new dark... you don't think so, baby?"
"It wasn't the same kind of evil as the one associated with Amy Madison. I could feel that." Tara replied as she finished applying the peroxide and bandaging Buffy's arm.
"Given the strength of your empathic powers now, Tara, I accept what you say. But Gaia. We've lost Wes to them. With his Watcher skills, that's a major strategic loss."
"Doug, are you okay? He used to be your best friend."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's the part that really hurts, Danny. Because I wasn't there for him. I didn't even know about...Angelus. Buffy, he said Angelus had beaten him to a pulp and almost killed him. He was dying- Drusilla turned him. And he's with her now."
"You're not omnipotent, loverman. Buffy, what do you want us to do?"
"I'm sorry, Doug. I know this must hurt like hell for you. What did Wes-"
"He calls himself "Price" now."
"What did Price have to say about Angelus?"
"He's come back, but he's restricted himself to Los Angeles." Doug said.
"I think that Hekate kid might have had something to do with that. She's warded LA in somehow, so he isn't coming back to Sunnydale. And she must also have thrown Angelus off childertracking Dru and Price. She's got a lot of natural dark mojo. She was powerful enough to grab some of the residual darkmagick from the corpses of Warren Meers and Andrew Wells. Fortunately, Tara and I held her off from the darkmagick books at the Magic Box." Willow replied
"The problem is, if we leave Sunnydale, Amy will turn something loose here to attack civilians. Our priority is here."
Doug nodded: "There's something else. Watchers Special Ops evacuated the surviving members of Team Angel. But that leaves no-one to protect LA."
"Damn it. We really have no choice, do we?"

THE END