Dawn crouched behind a tumbled down bale of cardboard and waited. She heard the grating whir of a lone forklift inside the warehouse, driving back and forth, bundling recyclables.
Beyond that, she heard the sounds of the busy London street. She knew this was the spot where Buffy and Spike had been attacked. She figured that one of these big bales of paper had been responsible for knocking Buffy’s knee out of joint.
Dawn had already made a preliminary sweep of the area in search of clues. She found dust, but couldn’t really tell if it was vampire dust or earthquake dust. She had scooped some into a plastic baggie, but then didn’t know if it would be of much use to them. Other than that, it was an anonymous alley. So she hid herself to wait for the rendezvous.
Andrew thought he picked up a tail twice on the way down from Wapping, where Giles and Company was working on the Watcher Council rebuild. Andrew ducked through alleys and slipped through an old couple’s garden, which warranted him a smack on the head with a bit of wood, but he arrived at the rendezvous point almost on time.
He entered in secret agent mode. He scanned the area expansively, clutching at a folio folder like a mad scientist fleeing from international terrorists. Dawn couldn’t help but laugh. And then she couldn’t help but sneak up behind him and flick his ear.
She had known exactly what kind of reaction to expect from Andrew. For all his quirkiness, he was wicked predictable. He flung his folio to the ground and leapt around, striking a laughably non-threatening kung fu pose. For laughs, Dawn kicked him hard in the shin.
“Ow!” he shouted. He danced around in a tiny circle, theatrically gripping his leg. “Ow. You kicked me. Fiendish girl. I should knock you out!”
Dawn folded her arms. She wished for a second that she smoked so that she could casually flick the butt of her cigarette at him like some daring heroine from the black and white days of movie-dom. She settled instead for tossing her hair over one shoulder.
“You’re late,” she said.
Andrew straightened. He tossed his own hair.
“Yeah well, punctuality is the virtue of the bored,” he said.
“I am bored,” she said. She nodded to the folio on the ground. “You dropped that.”
Andrew scooped it up. He was acting all indignant now, with the sneering and the jerky movements.
“You ready?” she asked.
He fixed her with a questioning and half-suspicious gaze. “We’re supposed to comb the area for clues,” he said.
“Nothing here. Already checked. But there is another place, not far,” she said.
Andrew looked into the deserted alley behind Dawn. “You sure you did the full perimeter scan?”
“Got nothing but dust,” Dawn said. She patted the pocket of her coat. “Picked up a sample. C’mon.”
She struck out to the street, not turning to see if he followed. Of course, he did follow. He caught up to Dawn and walked along beside her for a while in baffled silence. This was Dawn’s preferred method of dealing with Andrew. The more she kept him guessing, the longer he was likely to stay quiet. It was a trick she picked up in Italy when he came to stay with them. Over the summer, she’d had time to tweak it for finesse. Dawn couldn’t figure most people, especially guys. But where Andrew was concerned, she thought she had him down flat as a flapjack.
After a few blocks of Dawn striding purposefully along with Andrew scampering to keep up, Andrew said, “So, what’s this other place all about? You’re all big with the secret-ness.”
Dawn said, “Did you have any trouble ditching Giles?”
They came to an intersection. Dawn looked both ways and crossed without waiting for the ‘Don’t Walk’ sign to change.
Andrew trotted along behind her. He said, “No way. I was all Kitty Pryde in the archives. Told him I’d be in the basement researching the shimmer-demons...”
Dawn cut in. “Do you have the sketches from this morning?”
“Check,” he said. Andrew opened the folio folder to the sketch he’d drawn from William’s description.
Dawn glanced at it. She said, “That looks like Princess Jasmine.”
Andrew waggled his head. “Does not,” he said, mockingly. “Besides, I also got this.”
He pulled out a spiral-bound sketchpad with a green gloss cover. Dawn stopped. She recognized the notebook.
“That’s Willow’s,” she said.
Andrew narrowed his eyes. “I know it.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Nicked it from Giles,” Andrew said.
“Nicked it?” Dawn asked.
“I stole it. When he was talking to Robson and some of the other Watcher recruits. Look,” Andrew opened the notebook and flipped to the pages containing Willow’s sketches and notations about Spike’s aura spell.
Dawn read over them. Her eyes widened.
“You took this from Giles?” she asked.
“Yeah. What of it?”
“It’s brilliant,” she said.
Andrew looked immensely pleased with himself.
Dawn turned and started walking again. Andrew put away the notebook and caught up to her.
He said, “You’re cutting class again. Headmaster will not be pleased. Aren’t you afraid Buffy’ll go Professor Snape on your ass?”
“Please,” Dawn said. “This is way more important than a dumb chemistry practical.”
“Sure, well, you’re already Miss Vegan Expatriate. May as well add Truant and Delinquent to the list,” Andrew said.
“Wow,” Dawn said, sticking out her chin, “Not a Star Wars, Harry Potter or comic book reference in one whole sentence...”
“I speak the colorful language of pop culture,” Andrew said.
“You speak the language of lonely geekdom.”
“Yeah? Well, geeks rule, little girl.”
“They so do not,” Dawn said.
Andrew started to say something else, but Dawn stopped him.
“Look,” she said, pointing. “Mercer Street. We’re here.”
“Where’s here?” Andrew said. He looked across the busy intersection to the gothic cathedral on the corner. Faded sheets of plywood covered its windows and doors. In the cracks of the sidewalk and along the unkempt lawns, gnarled and viny weeds grew in twisted tangles.
“The Temple of the Sisters,” Dawn said. The light at the intersection turned red. Dawn struck out across the street, leaving Andrew to stare up at the contorted cathedral spires that towered like black cutouts against the bright midday sky.
Dawn found that the front doors to the cathedral, which looked out at a perfectly normal neighborhood children’s park, had been boarded over and then secured with a bulky chain and almost cartoonishly huge padlock.
“Um,” Andrew said, as Dawn rattled the chains, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“We have to get inside,” Dawn said.
“Yeah, but why?”
Dawn knocked on the plywood.
“Stop that,” Andrew whispered. “There could be some Call of Cthulu beast in there ready to go In the Mouth of MadnessLondon-style."
“There isn’t,” Dawn said.
“Oh, and you’re sure of that how?”
“It’s not Cthulu. It’s the Temple of the Sisters,” Dawn said.
“And they are who, exactly?”
Dawn stepped back from the door and looked up as if trying to determine the best way to Spider-man the building. She said, “I found something. In the new texts that Giles brought home. I’m not five out of five on the translation, but I think this is a church that was once dedicated to an ancient religious sect called The Sisters.”
“So they’re like fighting nuns?”
Dawn shook the chains again, harder this time. Her hands came away grimed with dark orange rust. She wiped them on her jeans.
“Sorta,” she said. “More like some kind of protectors. And they fit Buffy’s and Spike’s descriptions of the shimmery demon guys.”
Dawn went around the other side of the building, with Andrew following close behind. Here, the sidewalk was pushed up in places by the roots of three hoary oak trees.
“I don’t get it,” Andrew said. “If they are protector-types, why did they attack Buffy and Spike?”
Dawn looked up at the sturdy branches of the oaks. She said, “Not sure. That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“We are so not climbing those,” he said.
“Maybe not you,” Dawn said. She stretched up on tiptoe and hopped to catch the lowermost branch of the middle tree. Andrew walked back and forth making exasperated sounds as she pulled her legs up to lace them around the branch. So she was hanging there, hair streaming away from her face, when Andrew tossed his folio folder to the ground.
“Just hang on one second,” he said. He hurried around the corner toward the front doors. Dawn did her best to hoist up onto the branch, but all she managed was a shimmy in the direction of the wall. Seconds later, she heard Andrew rattling the chains on the door.
“Andrew!” she called out.
Then, Dawn heard a loud distinct ‘pop.’
Andrew came quickly around the corner.
“What did you do?” she asked, still hanging upside down.
“Just hurry, okay?”
Dawn swung down. She picked up the folio folder and joined Andrew.
When they rounded the corner, Dawn saw that the padlock was opened and a piece of ply board was pulled back just enough that they could squeeze through.
“How?” she said, gaping at him.
“I was a super villain,” he said. “Remember?”
“Huh,” Dawn said. She stepped past him into the dim interior.
It was empty inside, save for a few piles of crumbling stones. Against the far wall stood an altar. Most striking, though, was that everything – walls, floor, windows, stones – was shrouded with gossamer threads of spider webs.
“It’s very Tim Burton in here,” Andrew whispered.
Dawn took a few hesitant steps inside. Andrew remained by the door. Bands of pallid light fell through the high windows. Beyond them, Dawn saw a dark recess to the left of the altar. She thought she saw something there...
“Hello?” she called out.
Andrew slapped the sleeve of her coat. “Have you learned nothing from 28 Days Later?” he whined.
“Is that the one with Sandra Bullock?”
“No,” he said, in a harsh whisper. “It’s the one with the rageaholic zombies who shred their victim’s limbs every time they yell out ‘hello’.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. She walked further into the small chamber. Soon, she stood alone in the center of the room.
She felt a weight of disappointment settle into her heart. She had hoped that she would find all the answers right here, perhaps even spelled out for her plain English on thick, elegant stone tablets. She had not imagined the place might be abandoned and desolate.
“I don’t think there’s anything here,” she said.
“Check the altar,” Andrew called. He still had not dared venture into shadows beyond the open front door.
Dawn walked toward the altar. As she drew closer, two lamps on either side of the altar began to glow with a weak but sanguine light. With each step she took, the lamps glowed brighter.
“Um, Dawn,” Andrew said. His voice sounded far away. “Is that supposed to happen? ’Cause it’s kinda cool. But also, weird.”
She took the small step that led up to the altar and stood before it. Drapes of spider’s silk drifted in the faint breeze conjured by the open door. There were objects – indistinct yet alluring shapes – hidden beneath the threads. She reached to touch them...
And something caught her wrist.
Dawn leapt. She screamed, and it echoed wildly into the rafters. But when she turned, she found that it was just Andrew.
“What?” she said, pulling her hand back.
“I was calling you for a whole five minutes,” Andrew said. “You were in a trance or something.”
“No I wasn’t,” Dawn said. “I was looking...”
She looked down at the objects arranged on the altar. The shroud of webs had fluttered back, revealing a collection of heavy silver medallions. Each one bore a different geometric symbol, like a knot-work design, on its face.
“Twenty-one,” Andrew said, counting them. “There are twenty-one...”
“Get out the notebook,” Dawn said, breathless.
Andrew opened Willow’s notebook.
They held the pages between them and close to the pale light of the lamps.
“Look,” Dawn said, pointing to the centermost medallion in the arrangement. “That’s it.”
Andrew squinted. “What’s it?”
“The connection,” she said. She folded the page over to bring Willow’s sketch next to the medallion. Both showed a collection of seven stars – the Pleaides. Dawn smiled to herself. She traced the pattern on the medallion with her fingertips.
“So, what?” Andrew said, quietly. “How does this help in our plan?”
“I think we know who created William,” she said. She closed Willow’s notebook and stepped away from the altar. “Now all we need to know is why.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This story was nominated for best Andrew characterization at the SunnyD Awards! Nod to my dear Heather for her Fighting Nuns comic strip.