A light dissection for Dawn turned out to be completely unbinding. She had an idea, but to get it to work, she had to take the journal apart. Literally.
Dawn locked her bedroom door. She took the foot-soak pan from under her sink. She filled to a depth less than a quarter of an inch, adding a squirt of hand soap. Then, Dawn placed the spine of the Damas Journal into sudsy warm water. She could hear Giles flipping out somewhere across the Atlantic, reminding her in his crimped British tone that the Damas book was over five centuries old and one should never, ever submerse an invaluable text in any liquid, least of all water.
After a few minutes soaking, she opened her desk drawer and removed a silver letter opener. She inserted the blade into the end of the book, under the softened leather binding. She sliced through spine. Its lacing popped wetly, like spaghetti noodles.
The journal fell apart in sections. Dawn wiped away the water, careful not to smear the entries Damas had so painstakingly inked.
Dawn separated the pages by hand, one by one, laying them across her bed in order from the first to the last. When she was done, the crisp, warped pages covered all of her bed, the floor between bed and bedroom door, her desk and the seat of her chair. Dawn stood back, having papered herself into the corner. She tucked her hair behind her ears.
“So, Mr. Damas,” she said. “What is it you’re trying to tell us?”
~*~
“Okay,” MK said. “Your turn next.”
Anjelica shook out the tension from her hands. She raked her plain hair back from her forehead, then tossed it playfully over her shoulders. Pursing her lips, she pranced in front of MK, exaggerating every heel-toe motion of her foot. She came to a stop inches from the smaller girl, striking a commanding pose.
“All right, Miss Mouse,” she barked. “What the hell kind of vampire you gonna slay with moves like that?”
MK shuddered, chewing her lip.
“What are you laughing at, maggot?” Anjelica bellowed, riding on the wave of MK’s enthusiasm. “Did I say something humorous?”
MK burst into peals of laughter. Anjelica joined in.
Buffy witnessed the whole charade from the glassed-in lobby and couldn’t resist the opportunity to bust in on their game.
“What is going on in here?” Buffy yelled, all drill-sergeant-y.
Anjelica and MK bounded to attention. MK squeaked. Both girls relaxed a little when they saw that it was Buffy.
“We are so glad to see you,” Anjelica said.
“And glad that you’re feeling better,” MK added.
Buffy crossed the training floor to form in a rough triangle with them. “Where are the others?” she asked.
The sense of wrongness that Slayers often get in some situations crept into her belly.
Both girls leapt to explain.
“They went out on patrol with Kennedy,” Anjelica said.
“And they never came back,” MK finished.
Anjelica said, “We’ve been here all night...”
“...Because Kennedy said we were either with her...”
“...or with you. Which was against her,” Anjelica said.
“What?” Buffy said.
“It’s true,” MK said. “They were taking out a nest...”
“And they never returned,” Anjelica said. “So we’ve been waiting.”
Buffy wrung her hands. This felt bad. Major bad. She said, “Why didn’t you call us?”
Anjelica glanced at MK then nodded. “We tried that,” she said.
“Busy for hours,” Anjelica said. “Finally we gave up.”
“We fell asleep,” MK explained.
Buffy chewed on her thumbnail. Right now that protein-rich breakfast Willow and William pressed upon her wasn’t sitting so well.
“Get the weapons. Take as many as you can carry,” Buffy said, with a nod of finality. “You’re coming with me.”
Anjelica headed toward the storage room, with MK in tow.
MK stopped halfway. She said, “What about the others?”
Buffy swept a look around the school. Heaviness settled on her, and with it, certainty.
“There are no others,” Buffy said. “Let’s go.”
~*~
Autumn in London had once been his favorite time of year. A century ago, fall began with the smell of burning, of fires lit in hearths to carry warmth to the families who snuggled down so peacefully, so obliviously in their cozy beds. There was also the wet, smoky scent of burnt leaves that conjured memories of massacres with Drusilla at his side.
It was a Halloween scent, one of haystacks and scarecrows, of death and blood and divine destruction. How he treasured it.
William could smell it now. October. He breathed it in.
Could almost taste it.
“You’re smoking?”
William opened his eyes. Xander stood on the flagstone patio, hands shoved into pockets, the look of ‘I-knew-you-were-up-to-no-good’ on his face.
He scoffed. “Allow me this once vice,” William said. He took a long drag from the cigarette, drawing the hot smoke into his lungs. He closed his eyes, almost prayerfully. Then, blowing it out, he said, “Took all the rest, they did.”
Without a word, Xander joined William on the picnic table.
“How’s the girl?” William asked, after a bit. He mashed out his cigarette on the tabletop.
“Going home,” Xander said. “She’s scared. Been through a lot. We can’t expect...”
“Course not,” William said. “But you did expect. 'm I right?”
“Damn right. Can’t she see that there won’t be a home to go to if she’s not here to play her part in the saving of it?” Xander said. “I get that she’s put off by the whole predestination thing. That’s a bitter pill to swallow if you’ve never had to wonder what the plural is for apocalypse. That said, she seems well-versed with magics and alternate dimensions, yet...”
“She needs her family,” William said simply.
“You know, I never really cared for you,” Xander said.
“I never cared for you not caring,” William answered.
“Shut up for a second,” Xander said.
William shrugged.
“I never really cared for you,” Xander repeated. “Until just, like, last week. Sometime.”
Furrows formed in William’s forehead. “Is that right?”
“You really have no idea, do you?” Xander said, with a giant-sized sigh. “You are one lucky bastard, and I don’t even think you know it.”
William looked tired. He shook his head. “Believe me,” he said, bitterness choking him. “I know how lucky I am.”
Xander squared his shoulders, staring straight at William. He said, “You’re just...” he swallowed. “You’re the guy who’s got our Buffy. I wish to everything it wasn’t you. But it is. So. Just don’t let her down. Okay?”
William glared at Xander with a mixture of bland amusement and seething dislike. “Remind me later to thank you,” he said. He practically vaulted from the table and stalked off toward the back door.
“Thank me for what?” Xander called to him.
William hesitated, his hand on the door. “For saving my life,” He jerked the door open and went inside.
~*~
Having witnessed the hole in the world firsthand, the cave system beneath Stonehenge was a less than stunning revelation. Angel arrived there at sunset with Thellian. They navigated the chambers and vaults, descending into the catacombs below.
Buffy had been there. Not only her, but all of them. He could smell them all over the place.
Until they reached the final chamber, the one that the Priestess herself had unearthed beneath Boadicea’s tomb. At that point, the only scent he could smell was her sickly yellow taint of corruption.
The Priestess, for all her crackling fury, made no impression upon Angel. He knew that the trouble with dark magics was that they fed off the life force of its user. People who abused the black juice usually shriveled up like human jerky. But The Priestess had found a clever way to circumvent this problem. She became a vampire. The dark magics suddenly had a renewable resource in the form of fresh blood.
Angel doubted strongly that The Priestess, also known to him as Amy the Rat Girl, could have managed such a feat on her own. Someone must have acted as her benefactor. Judging by the way Thellian sneered at her, Angel also doubted that it was any of his vampire clique.
They found the Priestess strutting and swishing around the cavernous room, flourishing her dark energy tendrils, like they were all that. Thellian greeted her with a bow devoid of affection.
“You are fourteen minutes late,” she said, sliding her purplish forked tongue over her blistered lips.
“Time means nothing, Priestess,” Thellian told her. “Your impatience is a human attribute.”
The Priestess’ eyes glittered in torchlight like water beetles. She placed her hands on her hips and quietly fumed.
“Where is our captive?” Thellian said, maintaining his calm command.
“In the next chamber,” The Priestess hissed. “She is already on the Circle.”
~*~
Andrew returned to the church of the Sisters where his chalk drawing, blurred now by humidity, remained etched into the dust. He put Clarisse aside, concealing her in shadow. The bird, too damn clever for Andrew’s own good, told him to go to hell in several languages, some demonic, before he put a drop cloth over the cage. This only muffled the mynah’s raucous chatter.
He began the conjuration ritual anew, changing the phase of the moon by erasing a sliver of it with the heel of his hand. With the circle drawn and the objects arranged, Andrew perched, legs crossed, to wait again for midnight. The conditions were less than ideal, and trying this conjuration again could be disastrous, like he could summon a Volkswagon van full of demonic spiders, but Andrew had to try.
Nighna waited until Andrew stopped fidgeting before approaching him.
“There are wards against what you’re doing,” she said.
Andrew popped up to his feet with a strangled squeak.
Nighna walked purposefully toward him, dangling a silver device between her finger and thumb. “Cell phones,” she told him. “You should look into them. Can’t believe you haven’t, actually. You are the consummate technophiliac.”
“How are you here? Did I conjure you then fall asleep?” Andrew asked.
Nighna lowered her eyelids. “Sweetheart, as I recall there never was much actual sleep with us.”
Andrew brandished his chalk at her, thinking (or hoping) that it was a cross. Then he dropped the chalk, realizing that it couldn’t help him. And neither could a cross, for that matter. She was a demon, not a vampire.
So he went for the thing that would. Andrew darted backward, picked up his knife, and crouched beside Clarisse’s cage.
Nighna froze. For a moment. Then she started her patient procession toward him. “Well played, Andrew. But you won’t do it.”
Andrew ripped back the cover. He rammed the knife’s blade between the bars. Clarisse’s cries shattered the air, sending waves of pain into his skull.
“Stop,” Nighna shouted.
Andrew waited. Clarisse rattled inside the cage, molting black feathers like a cat sheds in the summer.
Nighna took another cautious step forward.
“Freeze,” Andrew said. “Andy’s done playing.”
“All right, Andrew. What do you want?” Nighna asked.
Andrew scrubbed his shaking free hand over the side of his face. He felt dreadful. He knew what cucumbers must feel like having been pickled.
He said, “The crayola scribbling on my hand. What is it?”
Nighna slid her feet over the stones, inching between a checkerboard of light and dark.
“No toucha,” Andrew said. “Or your bird gets it.”
“It’s my mark,” Nighna said. “You are under my protection.”
“Liar!” Andrew raised the blade. Clarisse howled.
Nighna threw out her hands. “It’s the truth, damn it. I’ve marked you to keep you safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“From Thellian. From Wolfram & Hart. They have a plan, Andrew. It has already advanced beyond the point of no return. Those who aren’t marked are dead. I swear it to you,” Nighna said. All of the smiley flirtatiousness had drained from her face. Andrew looked from her to Clarisse. Unmanly tears welled in his eyes.
“How can I believe what you swear?” he said. “You’re a vile demon seductress who steals men’s shoes and marks them for death. You’re like Emma Frost...”
“Andrew.”
“Or Jean Grey before Dark Phoenix, when she found herself drawn to both Cyclops and Wolverine.”
“Andrew,” Nighna said, louder this time.
“Or Enchantress. You’re the Borg Queen, but I don’t want to be assimilated.”
“Andrew!”
“What?”
“Your friends are doomed,” she told him. “All of them.”
“You’re just trying to frighten me,” Andrew said, gulping like a guppy. “It won’t work.”
“Mr. Giles is in ICU at Parkside Memorial. I put him there myself. Thellian took out the Slayers last night,” she said.
“I’ve been tricked before, but not this time. You’re lying.”
“I’m not. Andrew, the Circle is awake. Thellian will invoke it soon, if he has not already. When he does, any one who does not bear a mark of protection will fall. Understand?”
Despite the sluggishness of his weary mind, Andrew compiled all of this news quickly. It appeared to Nighna that he was eroding, giving in, giving up like a good boy. In a flash, Andrew flung the cage door open, seizing Clarisse by the throat. She pecked him savagely, but he held tight.
Nighna rushed in. Andrew pointed the blade at her.
“You want the bird? I’ll give you the bird,” Andrew said, toying with her. He sounded like a cross between Simon Cowell and Clint Eastwood.
Nighna held still.
“The Circle, Nighna,” Andrew said through clenched teeth. “What does it do?”
~*~
Kennedy flickered in and out of consciousness. Her burning face lay against cool stone. Everything else faded, effaced by the billowy effects of morphine.
They dosed her twice that she could remember. Once, at the Westbury house. Another time, in an armored truck on the way to Amesbury. She caught things in flashes, but now the earth materialized around and beneath her.
Kennedy knew. She was in danger. She felt numbness in her fingers and was slow to realize that her hands were bound behind her back. She licked her lips; they were sticky with blood.
“She’s coming to,” someone said. His voice was laced with a French accent. The same W&H bastard from the house in Westbury.
“Hit her again,” said another.
They came at her with a syringe. Without thinking, she swept to her knees. She head-butted the kneecaps of the nearest blurred figure, then tumbled backward, dashing to her feet.
The world reeled and wavered. Kennedy stumbled into spires of rock – stalactites. She was in a cave. The slick floor betrayed her. She sprawled, clocking her forehead on the stone.
A heavy, scaled hand gripped her by the scruff of her neck. She kicked, scratched, bit, screamed, but the syringe drove deep into her upper arm. Seconds later, she drifted away.
Time passed unbidden. She awoke again to the sounds of voices echoing like water droplets in a pool. Three this time – two men and a woman.
Kennedy summoned what was left of her wrecked wits and strength.
“Give a gold coin to the man in black,” The woman said, humorlessly. “The irony here is that The Slayers have already done a bunch of the work for us. They uncovered the Circle, which had been lost for centuries. They opened the Seals, giving us direct access to this chamber, and recently, I have been informed that they succeeded in waking it. The Ritual has begun, and they don’t even know it.”
“And how do we finish it?” one of the men asked. Kennedy knew that voice.
“Angel,” she said, her mouth barely moving.
“Her blood is the key,” said the other man. His voice drew everything together. Thellian. And Angel. Kennedy squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“Oh Willow,” she whispered miserably. “I’m sorry.”
Angel lifted Kennedy by the shoulders.
“It’s my blood or yours,” he explained.
Kennedy spat in his face. Angel made no move to wipe it away. He twisted his fist in the collar of her shirt.
“I’ll kill myself before I let you vampify me,” Kennedy growled.
Angel’s laughter hummed deep inside his chest. “Good thing that’s not what I intend,” he said.
And without a further word, Angel sliced Kennedy’s throat.
“A vampire with a soul will play a pivotal role in the Apocalypse,” Angel said. He dropped her to the cold rock while she struggled in vain to draw breath.
The last thing Kennedy saw was the icy blue-white tracery inlaid in the stone. She touched it with the palm of her hand and felt nothing.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Additional Warning: Character Death.