Chapter Nineteen
“But…you said Buffy was happily reuniting with Spike in a miraculously safe LA,” Dawn accused, her blue eyes scanning the guilty faces of the two men she’d trusted more than any other in the world. And then her gaze fell on the heroic Angel and she came very close to a snarl at his hang-dog expression. “Where the hell is my sister?” she demanded, no longer patient with this reluctant meeting.
Giles coughed and Xander rubbed his eye patch, looking nervously to his co-conspirators in the ruse before carefully stepping forward, his hand outstretched toward Dawn in an effort to calm her reaction.
“From what Angel said—”
“Angel said?” interrupted Dawn almost malevolently. “So Angel knows where they are? I take it Spike’s with Buffy? And maybe Willow, too, being that she hasn’t answered any of my calls for the last two days?”
Giles coughed again and then attempted to impart the only real knowledge they had managed to glean so far. “Angel has recounted what he saw and we’ve contacted the coven in order to try and trace them,” he reassured, though it was obvious from his voice that worry had been living at his side for those same two days.
Keen eyes glared at Angel and Dawn strode toward him, determination to know exactly what was going on in every step. “What, exactly, did you see?”
Angel blinked and then shot a hurried look to Giles and Xander before crumbling at their lack of support. “Right. Well, I’d just killed the dragon—”
“Oh spare me the “I-am-a-hero” speech. I am so not in the mood.”
“Fine,” he huffed, completely put out. “There appeared to be two Buffys, though I didn’t notice that until I heard all the buildings around me rattle. We all thought more demons were about to arrive from another dimension. Instead, someone who looked exactly like Spike came running through this tear in front of us, grabbed Buffy and then ran back through. The Spike we know kind of freaked out a little bit,” Angel marvelled, tilting his head to the side in amazed contemplation, “then took off after her. That’s when I saw the other Buffy, and Willow grabbing hold of her before they both disappeared through the tear and then it sealed up and everything was silent.”
Dawn stared at him, stunned. “You’re telling me that a rogue Spike kidnapped Buffy, and then the real Spike flipped, chasing after my sister, and another Buffy then chased after him with Willow hanging on for dear life?” At Angel’s nod she cracked, a snort of amusement preceding the giggles. “Did anyone check Angel for hallucinogens?”
“He’s not imagining it, Dawn. We have corroborating stories from a number of Buffy’s team. Not to mention the mystical evidence at the scene.” Giles thought it prudent to intervene now before Dawn got carried away as usual. They’d dillydallied enough and it was urgent that they made more headway with recovering their head slayer. And Willow…
Giles took out his handkerchief and clutched it tightly in his hand. Buffy was like a daughter to him, of course, but what he felt for the witch defied description. His experiences with Willow over the last few years had allowed her to burrow deep into his heart and if anything had happened to her, he didn’t think he could live with himself.
“So you’re actually telling me my sister and best friend have been kidnapped, presumably into another dimension, two whole days ago and you’re only just telling me about it now? Gee, I thought things would change once I…” She shook her head. Who had she been kidding? No matter how old she got she’d always be Buffy’s kid sister. Just because the Slayer herself was showing good faith and sharing the important things with Dawn now it didn’t mean that anyone else was suddenly going to. There wasn’t even any point getting angry at them over it. All that would do now would be to delay the rescue effort. Her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed on the Head of the Council. “There is going to be a rescue, right? You aren’t just going to leave them there?”
“Of course we’re going to go rescue them,” Xander nearly shouted, clearing his throat and regaining his control. “We wouldn’t leave them there, Dawnie.”
“Good. Because I’m going.” Dawn crossed her arms across her blossoming body and defied anyone to argue with her.
Not one of them even tried, though at least two sets of chocolate coloured eyes seemed to be distracted by the outline of her breasts. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, she released her arms and allowed them to drop to her sides, her face flaming when Xander and Angel just focused more intently on her slightly visible cleavage.
“Quite right,” agreed Giles, completely missing the not-so-subtle ogling by the other two, but the whip crack of his voice was like a bucket of cold water and both brunettes suddenly came back to themselves, shuddering and squirming in reaction.
Dawn hid a smile and stored the information away for another day. She hadn’t seen Angel since the day they’d stopped in LA after the Hellmouth had collapsed, and then he hadn’t paid much attention to her, being so blinded by the sight of Buffy and her not-so-mortal wound beneath her shirt. And Xander had disappeared so soon after they’d reached London that she hadn’t even had the chance to wish him luck on his travels, let alone say goodbye. She felt resentment toward both of them, and if she could use her boobs to get one back, well, she was a woman now. Where would be the wrong?
“So when do we go?” she asked, eager to go find Buffy and kick Spike for being an idiot all year.
There was a loud ‘pop’ in the room and a wild-haired blonde witch stood straight as an arrow in the centre of the room, her eyes shrewd as she looked at each and every one of them. Finally her scan was at an end and she turned to Giles, her finger pointing behind him at Dawn. “That one was never in this other world and the other two are deceased. As are you. I think it would be of great advantage to take them all.”
“Hey!” spluttered Angel and Xander together. Neither of them were going to stay behind when Buffy was in who-knew-what kind of danger. Still, hearing they wouldn’t be facing their own doubles put a bit of a dampener on the experience.
“Thank you for coming so urgently, Julia,” Giles greeted dryly.
“This mission is foolhardy,” the witch informed him harshly, her green eyes piercing. “Willow will know how to get them all home if it is at all a possibility.”
“And yet we must still go after them,” Giles said in his most official, though resigned voice. “I am afraid that after all we have been through together, if one is to be lost then so should the rest.”
“Way to be with all the gloom, G-man,” chided Xander.
“I am merely being realistic,” Giles defended irritably. “I have no doubt that Willow would know the way home, and yet it has been two days. We cannot leave them alone only God knows where.”
The others nodded solemnly and the witch merely pursed her lips and nodded abruptly.
“Very well,” she said. “Might I suggest we do this in a larger room?”
Giles consented distractedly and then shepherded the others out his office, leading them all down the hall and into a large and conveniently empty conference room. “This should do I think?”
The witch ignored his query and began to set up for the spell. “I was able to trace the exact exit point of the dimension where your people are trapped. I can send you somewhere close to this point.”
“Why not the exact point?” asked Angel curiously.
“Not only would arriving in the same spot be quite dangerous, only the witch who cast the original spell would be able to do it. I am obviously not that witch,” she admitted with smugly.
“Yes, yes,” Giles interrupted, annoyance making his voice clipped. “No one would ever accuse you of opening a portal for your own gain.” He had the satisfaction of seeing Julia’s lips tighten and her eyes flash angrily at him. There was no need for him to feel fear she might use her power to turn him into a frog—she’d tried it on many an occasion during their infancy through to adolescence and he had it on authority that she still tried to perfect the spell at least once a month. If she hadn’t managed it in the last forty-five years, Giles was more than quietly confident she never would.
“You know, it’s possible that this wasn’t a mercenary kidnapping at all,” Dawn interjected. “Maybe it was a mercy mission. You know, a deranged Spike trying to get his Buffy back but taking the wrong one by accident.”
“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there, kiddo,” teased Xander, though he winked and Dawn knew that he’d already considered the possibility.
“As reassuring as that thought might be, Dawn,” cautioned Giles, “we cannot allow it to make us rest easy until we know for certain.
“Of course, Giles,” she agreed, though deep in her heart, Dawn knew she was right. Buffy and Spike were more right together than anyone would admit and she found it hard to believe that the couple would be as stupid in another world as they’d been in this one.
“Is everyone ready then?” the witch interrupted again, a frown of disapproval on her face.
“As we’ll ever be,” murmured Angel and Giles together, making Dawn and Xander roll their eyes.
Within seconds there was a howling breeze around them, a tear ripping apart the fabric of the world they knew and leaving them with a slim gateway into another—one that hopefully would unveil the mystery of the missing slayer and her vampire and friend.
“Tally ho then, good witch,” Xander called, running toward the blinding light and snagging Dawn’s arm on the way. She screeched as he pulled her through and immediately they were gone, leaving a determined Giles and a curious vampire to follow blindly.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Will groaned.
His head mocked him painfully as he struggled to sit himself up and he gave thanks that at least there were no bright lights to make it worse. All his strength had been sapped in the effort to escape, all his adrenaline tapped leaving him flat and weak now that he was out. He’d found a crypt, in the cemetery closest to the university campus as the thrill of getting free hadn’t lasted much past the exit point. He was barely able to stagger into the crypt and then hide himself inside a stone sarcophagus and beneath an ancient corpse.
“Bloody hell,” he moaned and regretted it the very next instant. He needed blood to rejuvenate his healing abilities and to give his body warmth. Will fancied he’d never felt so bone-numbingly cold in all his years as a vampire and it was a sensation he’d rather not extend if it were at all possible.
Yet he feared going outside.
He had no understanding of what had happened to him, only that his skull throbbed and the thought of feeding his hunger was making it worse. He knew that soldiers were involved—there was no hiding that military stench and he’d been around enough wars in his time to recognise it instantly. Not that the precision of his cage amid a row of identical cages hadn’t given him a little clue.
Feeling defeated, Will sank back amongst the detritus in his tomb and waited.
In his pocket burned the talisman and accepting his already weakened state, he allowed his hand to sink within the fabric and grasp it tight. The silence around him was telling. She’d meant it—every devastating word. She wasn’t coming for him—not without a stake attached to her hand. If he waited here he’d be a dead vamp, just biding time. But where was he going to go, and what purpose could running possibly serve? There was something wrong with him anyway, so maybe it was time to let it all go. He’d lost his heart to a woman who’d never love him and it was a mistake he kept on repeating; a vamp that never learned his lesson was better off dust, he thought.
He’d been an idiot to think another Spike and Buffy—obvious in their feelings for one another—would be all he needed to show Liz the possibilities. You couldn’t force a blind person to see. Seeing wasn’t the important bit anyway, and Liz didn’t feel anything. Not for him, not for the world. He’d lost her and he couldn’t work out where. She’d slipped away during one of those moments when they weren’t linked and Will felt just as defeated himself.
He was pathetic and he knew it.
Stomach growling viciously, head clanging violently, Will closed his eyes and willed himself toward unconsciousness.
Darkness was the only haven he had.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
My apologies for not updating yesterday. Fridays are always crazy for me. Anyway, hope this will help you to forgive me....