A
Altoz
Guest
Sunnydale, May 2002:
EARLIER:
"Willow?! Are you okay?!"
"What happened?"
" Xander... Warren Meers shot him. He's dead." There was a curious lack of emotion in Buffy's delivery, but Willow put it down to emotional exhaustion after everything she'd been through this year.
Their eyes shone obsidian black without any trace of a cornea and they were not gentle when they arrived at the Magic Box. Anya Emerson was ready with a large ceremonial axe:
"Stay back. I'm warning you, I am the owner here and I will defend this place!"
Around her, Chinese lanterns and lightbulbs burst, evocative of the power that was in her vicinity:
"Where do you keep the Black Arts books?" Warren Meers asked her.
"Why the hell do you think I'll co-operate with you? You murdered the man I loved, you-"
Anya got no further as she was flung back, hard, against a precariously stacked set of volumes.
"We need power."
"Not...with those books..." Anya said weakly, trying to raise herself from the ground as Andrew Wells glared down at her:
"Should we kill her too?"
"No. She's not one of our core targets." Meers responded, deadpan.
Anya became aware that something was wrong with both of them. From what she'd seen of them, they were panicky and lost control easily when their facile pretensions were punctured. She wanted to get up so badly, launch herself at Meers in particular, do anything to fill the monstrous hole inside her being after she'd heard about Xander's murder on the radio. But she made herself lie still as the two men levitated a set of texts down onto the centre table and then the words and symbols from them flowed over their arms., across their chests and along their faces: "That's better." Meers intoned.
At the bar, later, Meers ordered: "Whiskey, straight up. And get a round for the house. I feel expansive" He and Andrew sat at the bar counter, alongside a gamefaced vampire who seemed quite intent on watching an alligator. Andrew cleared his throat:
"You do realise this man killed one of the slayer's friends, don't you?"
"Uh huh. What are you both, wiccans?" The demonic bartender sounded apprehensive
"He shot him, the construction worker." Silence reigned in the bar for about a minute:
"You didn't kill the slayer. She'll be after you both, big time."
But Meers only shrugged: "Bring it on."
The barkeeper stammered: "Get out of here. I don't want you and the slayer in a barfight. You heard me, get out of here. She's got your spoor and she'll track you down soon. I'm an empath. She's enraged."
RAVELLO DRIVE:
Dawn stepped through the open door, calling: "Buffy?"
Then she noticed the living room television had been left on as it replayed the morning's events:
"Hey? Hello? The door was...."
Then she realised her house and saw the figure sprawled across the pallet and the sheet that covered his face, and the bullet wounds that had ended his life:
"Xander?!" Dawn sobbed.
SUNNYDALE HILLS:
Another tragedy was enfolding, in the hills above the town. Spike had rode away from Sunnydale after he had tried to rape Buffy and realised something had to be done so he could become the kind of man she might love. Abruptly, his head erupted with agony and he felt his bike slam away from him and he rolled in a leather and flesh pile. He shakily got up, brushing himself off:
"Oh hell! My duster's torn..."
Then he felt the blinding pain inside his skull again and fell to his knees. From out of the shadows stepped two strange figures. He realised them, in puzzlement:
"Meers? Wells? Are you responsible for this, you...?"
He gamefaced and tried to get up, to attack the two...weaklings. Then he saw their eyes. There was no light in them, nothing but contempt:
"Yes, that's right, William. We know about the Initiative implant. We know what it does to you. We've turned up its yield. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?"
Meers brutally punched Spike in the stomach and to the vampire's shock, he felt it:
"You and your alpha male pretensions, you freak. Thinking the slayer could ever love you, or something like you."
"Wait until I recover from this. You'll both pay-"
Then the pain erupted in his head again and he remembered very little of the next few minutes. He had found himself lashed to a tree, tied down with chains that burnt into him, festooned with crucifixes. He realised that he was splayed against a tree as pain erupted around his shoulders. Then it repeated. And it continued for hours. And it didn't heal. Three hours later, the two men finally untied him:
"The slayer will...."
Meers shook his head: "No, you stupid vain leech, she won't. Don't you understand? You're an asset to her. We can't have that, can we, Andrew?"
Andrew Wells looked down at the bloodsoaked, contorted body of the vampire, blood running from wounds to his face and upper abdomen. He had nothing but contempt:
"Time to go to hell, Willie." Meers struggled upward with the weakly resisting vampire as Andrew produced a stake. At that moment, Spike realised that he was an instrument in a greater game and that his usefulness was at an end. He swallowed, and then, realising the inevitable, bowed his head: "I loved you, slayer-" He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence as the stake made contact with his vampire's unbeating heart and pushed roughly into him. He gritted his teeth as his body erupted into pinpoints of fire and ash and then his body disintegrated.
"Faster," Buffy intoned.
"I'm going as fast as I can, Buffy."
Buffy shoved Willow aside and applied her strength to the pedal: "Faster!"
"Hey! Would you cut that out? I can sense him too. He's close. We'll catch him and he'll go to jail. Look, I realise you're mourning Xander. I am too. But you're different somehow. Like you were when you thought you were a mental patient and tried to kill the rest of us."
"I know this isn't how either of us wanted it, Willow, but sometimes you don't have a choice."
"Yes, we do, Buffy. There's a reason I'm not using magic right now. What's gotten into you? You're not...seeing things again, are you? Hearing voices? Don't listen to them if that's the case. You're the slayer, the Chosen one."
"Turn right!" There was something akin to panic in Buffy's voice as Willow obeyed.
WESTBURY:
"Doug? Are you almost through?"
"Ready and waiting, Rupert. What the hell happened? Why did the alarm just go off an hour back?"
"WatcherSat picked up something happening in Sunnydale."
"Demonic incursion?"
"No, something far more mundane. I'm afraid one of Buffy's team was shot and killed. A chap around your age, Xander Harris."
"Aw no. Met him in LA a couple of years back when I had to pull him out of something. Poor slayer. So she needs reinforcements?"
"It's more than that, Douglas. Can you feel it as well?" And then Doug Mercer did:
"Gaia. That feels like a tidal wave of darkmagick. Is that...Willow Rosenberg?"
"No, and that's why we're taking the Hebrew parchment with us. We can't afford to take any chances. Something's wrong there, Doug. Badly wrong."
"I'm just glad you loaded up with whitewicca magicks beforehand, Rupert. We need to deal with this, before things get out of control." The two men vanished from Rupert Giles farmhouse as Doug's teleport spell took them across the Atlantic Ocean
SUNNYDALE HILLS:
"Buffy!"
"Thank goodness you're here, Giles. I needed you earlier today. Why didn't you respond then? Xander would still have been-"
"I know, and I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose people that close. Jenny. And Joyce."
"Doug. Doug Mercer. Watchers Field Agent. It's a honour to meet you at last, Buffy..." Buffy ignored the warrior's outstretched hand. Willow caught sight of the pentacle around his neck:
"Oh wow. You're a wicca as well?"
"Willow Rosenberg? It's good to see you. And... you're not the source of this darkmagick?"
She swallowed: "I had that kind of problem myself. I've been trying to restrain myself from doing magic as a consequence. What happens if I lose control again?"
"But you can feel it?"
"Yes. What is it?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"Wait a minute. It could be connected with Warren Meers and his group. Three of them. Self-styled supervillains. We...underestimated them."
"Consulting now..." Doug said, bringing his cellphone up:
"You know, you're different from most of the Watchers I've met. More conventionally dressed and...oh." She noticed the necklace of rainbow rings:
"Damn it. He slipped by us as well."
"Buffy. I get that you're angry and grieving. I think we all are. But that's no excuse for..." Giles broke off as he noticed Buffy had fallen to her knees and embraced Spike's duster. Then she got up and sniffed the air and yelled: "NO! No, not him as well!"
"Blazes." Doug's eyes widened as he became aware of the imprint of the staked vampire as well.
"What is it?"
"Dead...vampire. Spike? That's his coat... oh Buffy..." Willow moved toward her friend, trying to comfort her, but Buffy said levelly:
"They've killed him too. I may not have loved him, but I didn't want him to end like this. For a while at least, he was a friend, and..."
"Buffy? What is it, what's wrong?"
"When I get to Meers, he's a dead man."
Willow joined them: "Buffy, I know what Spike meant to you. I'm grieving for Xander too. But we don't kill people. Not human beings. It won't bring either of them back. I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through. Please. You're not yourself."
"Buffy-slayers do not kill humans, that's not our way. Please. Calm down. Stop. You're not Faith. Please. If you go down this road, you'll end up like her."
"It's too late for that, Giles. Much too late. We don't do things your way this time. Nor do we do them together. You can't stop me. It ends tonight. Warren Meers dies." Buffy gunned the engine of the motorcycle and it roared back toward Sunnydale, its lights in the distance.
[Willow, baby?]
[Tara, honey? Are you all right?]
[The ward's holding. I think Dawn's back, I just hope she hasn't seen- Willow? It's Buffy. I think I know what's happening.]
[Is she having another psychotic break?]
[I only wish she was. No. I managed to get to your computer and load the astrology programme. Oh. There's someone there with you?]
[Doug. Doug Mercer, Watchers Field Agent. So this isn't psychological? She's not having a psychotic break due to unresolved grief and mourning and loss?]
[No. It was in the Chinese Ta'ang Dynasty astrological codex. Dao shengbai. "The Inverted Chalice."]
"Blazes."
"What is it?" Willow asked
"Giles? We need to get back to Sunnydale and fast. It's the dao shengbai curse. Meers and whoever else is working with him has activated it. It requires three sacrificial victims to curse the slayer and she has to kill another three as a consequence of the darkmagick influence she's under."
"Of course. We need to make sure that doesn't happen. Doug, take us there." And after that, there was only silence on the desolate highway as the wind whipped around in a tornado.
RAVELLO DRIVE:
They materialised on the doorstep:
"Tara? Dawn?"
Willow searched upstairs and found Dawn crouched beside her bed:
"Dawn? Tara, sweetie?"
"Willow? Where's Buffy?"
"We need to talk about this. What's happened." Giles sat on the sofa, as Dawn lay her head in Tara's lap, gripping Willow's hand.
"Buffy...may try to kill Warren Meers." Giles said, after he'd introduced Doug to Dawn.
"Why not? I'd do it myself if I had to." Dawn said coldly.
"We don't work that way, Dawnie." Tara said softly.
"He killed Xander. And Spike, from what you've told me. He has to pay." Dawn insisted.
"From out of the mouth of babes. Just saying... if he was a vampire, he'd be dust." Doug commented.
"Being an inhuman bastard doesn't give us the license to kill." Willow replied.
"The problem is, he'll kill someone else to try to activate the dao shengbai spell. Perhaps one of us. What do we do then?"
TO BE CONTINUED
EARLIER:
"Willow?! Are you okay?!"
"What happened?"
" Xander... Warren Meers shot him. He's dead." There was a curious lack of emotion in Buffy's delivery, but Willow put it down to emotional exhaustion after everything she'd been through this year.
Their eyes shone obsidian black without any trace of a cornea and they were not gentle when they arrived at the Magic Box. Anya Emerson was ready with a large ceremonial axe:
"Stay back. I'm warning you, I am the owner here and I will defend this place!"
Around her, Chinese lanterns and lightbulbs burst, evocative of the power that was in her vicinity:
"Where do you keep the Black Arts books?" Warren Meers asked her.
"Why the hell do you think I'll co-operate with you? You murdered the man I loved, you-"
Anya got no further as she was flung back, hard, against a precariously stacked set of volumes.
"We need power."
"Not...with those books..." Anya said weakly, trying to raise herself from the ground as Andrew Wells glared down at her:
"Should we kill her too?"
"No. She's not one of our core targets." Meers responded, deadpan.
Anya became aware that something was wrong with both of them. From what she'd seen of them, they were panicky and lost control easily when their facile pretensions were punctured. She wanted to get up so badly, launch herself at Meers in particular, do anything to fill the monstrous hole inside her being after she'd heard about Xander's murder on the radio. But she made herself lie still as the two men levitated a set of texts down onto the centre table and then the words and symbols from them flowed over their arms., across their chests and along their faces: "That's better." Meers intoned.
At the bar, later, Meers ordered: "Whiskey, straight up. And get a round for the house. I feel expansive" He and Andrew sat at the bar counter, alongside a gamefaced vampire who seemed quite intent on watching an alligator. Andrew cleared his throat:
"You do realise this man killed one of the slayer's friends, don't you?"
"Uh huh. What are you both, wiccans?" The demonic bartender sounded apprehensive
"He shot him, the construction worker." Silence reigned in the bar for about a minute:
"You didn't kill the slayer. She'll be after you both, big time."
But Meers only shrugged: "Bring it on."
The barkeeper stammered: "Get out of here. I don't want you and the slayer in a barfight. You heard me, get out of here. She's got your spoor and she'll track you down soon. I'm an empath. She's enraged."
RAVELLO DRIVE:
Dawn stepped through the open door, calling: "Buffy?"
Then she noticed the living room television had been left on as it replayed the morning's events:
"Hey? Hello? The door was...."
Then she realised her house and saw the figure sprawled across the pallet and the sheet that covered his face, and the bullet wounds that had ended his life:
"Xander?!" Dawn sobbed.
SUNNYDALE HILLS:
Another tragedy was enfolding, in the hills above the town. Spike had rode away from Sunnydale after he had tried to rape Buffy and realised something had to be done so he could become the kind of man she might love. Abruptly, his head erupted with agony and he felt his bike slam away from him and he rolled in a leather and flesh pile. He shakily got up, brushing himself off:
"Oh hell! My duster's torn..."
Then he felt the blinding pain inside his skull again and fell to his knees. From out of the shadows stepped two strange figures. He realised them, in puzzlement:
"Meers? Wells? Are you responsible for this, you...?"
He gamefaced and tried to get up, to attack the two...weaklings. Then he saw their eyes. There was no light in them, nothing but contempt:
"Yes, that's right, William. We know about the Initiative implant. We know what it does to you. We've turned up its yield. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?"
Meers brutally punched Spike in the stomach and to the vampire's shock, he felt it:
"You and your alpha male pretensions, you freak. Thinking the slayer could ever love you, or something like you."
"Wait until I recover from this. You'll both pay-"
Then the pain erupted in his head again and he remembered very little of the next few minutes. He had found himself lashed to a tree, tied down with chains that burnt into him, festooned with crucifixes. He realised that he was splayed against a tree as pain erupted around his shoulders. Then it repeated. And it continued for hours. And it didn't heal. Three hours later, the two men finally untied him:
"The slayer will...."
Meers shook his head: "No, you stupid vain leech, she won't. Don't you understand? You're an asset to her. We can't have that, can we, Andrew?"
Andrew Wells looked down at the bloodsoaked, contorted body of the vampire, blood running from wounds to his face and upper abdomen. He had nothing but contempt:
"Time to go to hell, Willie." Meers struggled upward with the weakly resisting vampire as Andrew produced a stake. At that moment, Spike realised that he was an instrument in a greater game and that his usefulness was at an end. He swallowed, and then, realising the inevitable, bowed his head: "I loved you, slayer-" He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence as the stake made contact with his vampire's unbeating heart and pushed roughly into him. He gritted his teeth as his body erupted into pinpoints of fire and ash and then his body disintegrated.
"Faster," Buffy intoned.
"I'm going as fast as I can, Buffy."
Buffy shoved Willow aside and applied her strength to the pedal: "Faster!"
"Hey! Would you cut that out? I can sense him too. He's close. We'll catch him and he'll go to jail. Look, I realise you're mourning Xander. I am too. But you're different somehow. Like you were when you thought you were a mental patient and tried to kill the rest of us."
"I know this isn't how either of us wanted it, Willow, but sometimes you don't have a choice."
"Yes, we do, Buffy. There's a reason I'm not using magic right now. What's gotten into you? You're not...seeing things again, are you? Hearing voices? Don't listen to them if that's the case. You're the slayer, the Chosen one."
"Turn right!" There was something akin to panic in Buffy's voice as Willow obeyed.
WESTBURY:
"Doug? Are you almost through?"
"Ready and waiting, Rupert. What the hell happened? Why did the alarm just go off an hour back?"
"WatcherSat picked up something happening in Sunnydale."
"Demonic incursion?"
"No, something far more mundane. I'm afraid one of Buffy's team was shot and killed. A chap around your age, Xander Harris."
"Aw no. Met him in LA a couple of years back when I had to pull him out of something. Poor slayer. So she needs reinforcements?"
"It's more than that, Douglas. Can you feel it as well?" And then Doug Mercer did:
"Gaia. That feels like a tidal wave of darkmagick. Is that...Willow Rosenberg?"
"No, and that's why we're taking the Hebrew parchment with us. We can't afford to take any chances. Something's wrong there, Doug. Badly wrong."
"I'm just glad you loaded up with whitewicca magicks beforehand, Rupert. We need to deal with this, before things get out of control." The two men vanished from Rupert Giles farmhouse as Doug's teleport spell took them across the Atlantic Ocean
SUNNYDALE HILLS:
"Buffy!"
"Thank goodness you're here, Giles. I needed you earlier today. Why didn't you respond then? Xander would still have been-"
"I know, and I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose people that close. Jenny. And Joyce."
"Doug. Doug Mercer. Watchers Field Agent. It's a honour to meet you at last, Buffy..." Buffy ignored the warrior's outstretched hand. Willow caught sight of the pentacle around his neck:
"Oh wow. You're a wicca as well?"
"Willow Rosenberg? It's good to see you. And... you're not the source of this darkmagick?"
She swallowed: "I had that kind of problem myself. I've been trying to restrain myself from doing magic as a consequence. What happens if I lose control again?"
"But you can feel it?"
"Yes. What is it?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"Wait a minute. It could be connected with Warren Meers and his group. Three of them. Self-styled supervillains. We...underestimated them."
"Consulting now..." Doug said, bringing his cellphone up:
"You know, you're different from most of the Watchers I've met. More conventionally dressed and...oh." She noticed the necklace of rainbow rings:
"Damn it. He slipped by us as well."
"Buffy. I get that you're angry and grieving. I think we all are. But that's no excuse for..." Giles broke off as he noticed Buffy had fallen to her knees and embraced Spike's duster. Then she got up and sniffed the air and yelled: "NO! No, not him as well!"
"Blazes." Doug's eyes widened as he became aware of the imprint of the staked vampire as well.
"What is it?"
"Dead...vampire. Spike? That's his coat... oh Buffy..." Willow moved toward her friend, trying to comfort her, but Buffy said levelly:
"They've killed him too. I may not have loved him, but I didn't want him to end like this. For a while at least, he was a friend, and..."
"Buffy? What is it, what's wrong?"
"When I get to Meers, he's a dead man."
Willow joined them: "Buffy, I know what Spike meant to you. I'm grieving for Xander too. But we don't kill people. Not human beings. It won't bring either of them back. I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through. Please. You're not yourself."
"Buffy-slayers do not kill humans, that's not our way. Please. Calm down. Stop. You're not Faith. Please. If you go down this road, you'll end up like her."
"It's too late for that, Giles. Much too late. We don't do things your way this time. Nor do we do them together. You can't stop me. It ends tonight. Warren Meers dies." Buffy gunned the engine of the motorcycle and it roared back toward Sunnydale, its lights in the distance.
[Willow, baby?]
[Tara, honey? Are you all right?]
[The ward's holding. I think Dawn's back, I just hope she hasn't seen- Willow? It's Buffy. I think I know what's happening.]
[Is she having another psychotic break?]
[I only wish she was. No. I managed to get to your computer and load the astrology programme. Oh. There's someone there with you?]
[Doug. Doug Mercer, Watchers Field Agent. So this isn't psychological? She's not having a psychotic break due to unresolved grief and mourning and loss?]
[No. It was in the Chinese Ta'ang Dynasty astrological codex. Dao shengbai. "The Inverted Chalice."]
"Blazes."
"What is it?" Willow asked
"Giles? We need to get back to Sunnydale and fast. It's the dao shengbai curse. Meers and whoever else is working with him has activated it. It requires three sacrificial victims to curse the slayer and she has to kill another three as a consequence of the darkmagick influence she's under."
"Of course. We need to make sure that doesn't happen. Doug, take us there." And after that, there was only silence on the desolate highway as the wind whipped around in a tornado.
RAVELLO DRIVE:
They materialised on the doorstep:
"Tara? Dawn?"
Willow searched upstairs and found Dawn crouched beside her bed:
"Dawn? Tara, sweetie?"
"Willow? Where's Buffy?"
"We need to talk about this. What's happened." Giles sat on the sofa, as Dawn lay her head in Tara's lap, gripping Willow's hand.
"Buffy...may try to kill Warren Meers." Giles said, after he'd introduced Doug to Dawn.
"Why not? I'd do it myself if I had to." Dawn said coldly.
"We don't work that way, Dawnie." Tara said softly.
"He killed Xander. And Spike, from what you've told me. He has to pay." Dawn insisted.
"From out of the mouth of babes. Just saying... if he was a vampire, he'd be dust." Doug commented.
"Being an inhuman bastard doesn't give us the license to kill." Willow replied.
"The problem is, he'll kill someone else to try to activate the dao shengbai spell. Perhaps one of us. What do we do then?"
TO BE CONTINUED