CHAPTER 50
William’s new hair color was met with mixed reviews. Dawn and I loved it. I, of course, thought he looked incredibly sexy, and Dawn decided he looked very cool. It took a few days for Connor to warm up to it. At first, he declared it ‘weird’, but then came around to settle on ‘not so bad’.
Grandmother was the one who really hated it. When she first saw it, she snarled at him, “What in God’s name did you do to your hair?”
“Thought I needed a change.” He shrugged in reply. “You don’t like it?” He goaded her, acting as if her opinion mattered.
“No, I don’t. I think it is hideous,” she said in a haughty tone. “You look like a derelict, a street urchin, someone who’s good for nothing.”
“Suits me then, huh?” Will actually winked at her when he made that comment.
Drusilla’s response was an exasperated ‘hmmph’ before she left the room. Every time she saw him afterwards, she would glare menacingly at Will’s head. I wasn’t sure why she was so upset about it, but William reveled in her displeasure.
Will’s new hairstyle also did wonders for his Halloween costume. He wore the leather duster, while trying different ways to wear his hair – slicked back, spiked up, or naturally wavy with a bit of gel. Either way he wore it, Spike looked a whole lot more sinister with the bleached hair. Not to mention hot.
Once again, on Halloween morning, Drusilla forbade us to go into the attic because of the party they were having at the manor. Apparently, the Halloween ball was now an annual event. She told us that an important announcement was going to be made that night, and she didn’t want any sort of disturbance from us to ruin it.
We nodded in agreement, even though we knew we weren’t going to obey her command. Will and I had already planned for something like this, and had found the thick blankets we used last year to cover the windows. Since we were doing the haunted house, only minimal light was needed so candles and lanterns would be sufficient.
For the haunted house, Will and I had set up a maze for the kids to walk through using pieces of furniture. We rigged up different props to pop out at the twins as they walked between dressers, wardrobes, boxes, and other miscellaneous pieces of furniture. I was glad William was smart because there was no way I would have been able to pull this off by myself. Having taken physics as one of his classes in school, he was able to devise a series of pulleys and trip wires using rope, the furniture and the attic rafters. As soon as the twins turned a corner in one spot, their feet would walk into a piece of rope which would then loosen the knot on the leg of a dresser to release a plastic skeleton from the ceiling in front of them.
Dawn and Connor were going to love it.
****************************************************
Much like last year, the twins and I dressed downstairs while Will put the finishing touches on the attic.
Connor looked fantastic as a semi-turned werewolf. As we had discussed, I had sewn pieces of the coat onto his clothes so that fur came out at his wrists, feet, chest and neck. I made mutton chops for his cheeks, and we got him a pair of fangs for added effect. Dawn also looked adorable in her witch costume, and she decided to ditch the broom we had made for a book of spells since that was more in character from Will’s stories. I had poured myself into the leather pants and tucked one of the wooden stakes in the back pocket of my pants and another in my black leather boot. Since I knew Will had wanted me to, I paired the pants with my red tank top and the necklace I found; the cross perfectly nestled in my cleavage. My makeup was done up in excess, with heavy eyeliner around my eyes and bright red lipstick painted on my lips. I wanted to drive him wild.
Costumes complete, Adam once again planned a light dinner, serving us soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The kids were fidgeting half way through the meal and couldn’t wait to go up into the imaginary world that Will and I had created.
When we reached the top of the stairs after dinner, Will - or should I say Spike - was waiting to meet us. A smile graced my lips when I saw Will dressed in all of his glory once again. His body donned the same black shirt and jeans it did last year, only now he looked even sexier since the definition of his muscular body could be detected beneath the cotton. His newly platinum blond hair was slicked back, and this time, I knew he was definitely wearing eye-liner. He reached inside the pocket of the leather duster resting upon his shoulders and brought an unlit ‘cigarette’ up to his lips, which showed off his nails painted with black polish.
“Oi, what you want, Slayer?” Will asked in a fairly decent British accent rather than the terrible Hollywood Dracula voice he tried to do last year. He crossed his arms over his chest while his eyes heatedly looked me up and down, the cigarette precariously dangling from his mouth.
“Spike,” I said, the menacing tone slipping naturally from my lips as I stood up straighter against his gaze. “I need your help. There’s a new demon in town.”
“Should be a little nicer then, shouldn’t you, pet?” He raised his scarred eyebrow, tilting his head as he brought the cigarette down to his side. His eyes never left mine.
“Do I have to remind you who’s in charge here? I can kick your ass from here to next Sunday with that chip in your head. So are you going to help, or do I have to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Pointy?” I whipped the stake out from behind my back and held it up to his chest in front of his heart.
“No need to get testy, love.” He held his hands up in surrender. “You know I’m always at your service.” He winked and smiled the sweetest of smiles.
The twins watched this exchange between us in silent fascination. They had no idea that we had rehearsed this little conversation the night before. We wanted them to really get into the characters of the Slayerverse, so Will and I came up with the scenario of Buffy coming to Spike for help with a new demon in town. Of course, that would lead us to investigate the abandoned house up the road which is how they would get to our haunted house.
He swept his arm to the side in a ‘well, get on with it’ gesture, and I walked over towards the table where we had set up different activities. “So you brought the witch and the werewolf with you too, huh?” Will nodded at Dawn and Connor as they followed me over to the table. “Must be a pretty big nasty if you’re using all the troops.”
“Just show me the map of the town so we can start our research.” I pulled the chair out roughly from the table and sat down. “And the sooner I can get away from your annoying self,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Your endearments touch me so, love.” I looked up as if startled that he heard me. “Vampire hearing, pet. You should watch what comes out of that mouth of yours. Never know what I might hear,” Will teased as he unrolled an elaborate map we had made of our version of Sunnydale and laid it on the table before us. The twins let out small gasps of awe as they looked at the detailed town we had created. “Right then, let’s get started,” Will said and began pointing out different areas on the map.
Although the twins hadn’t spoken since we entered the attic, once Will and I started looking at the map they got into character, joining in on the conversation. We had made little puzzles that needed to be solved in order to figure out where on the map the demon was hiding, and the twins were excited to try to solve them. Will had made a book of demons with drawings and descriptions of each one. Dawn and Connor poured over it trying to figure out which was the correct demon that had been attacking the town from my description of the slayer’s one encounter with it on her nightly patrol. While Will worked on the demon book, I had created a book of spells and weapons with ways to defeat each of the demons described in his book. Once the twins figured out which demon we were dealing with, they had to go to the spell book to discover how to banish it. We created the ultimate role-playing game.
“Ha, we’ve got it!” Connor said excitedly as he put the spell book down next to the open demon book. “It’s a Fyarl demon, and we need to kill it using something silver.”
“Where’s it at?” Will asked.
“Here,” Dawn pointed to a section of the map. “It’s in the abandoned house at the back of Shady Hill Cemetery.”
“Good job, guys.” I gave them congratulatory pats on the back, leaving them glowing that they concluded correctly, before turning to Will. “Spike, do you have anything silver in your crypt?”
“Yeah, hold on a minute.” Will went over to another table, grabbed some objects, and came back to lay them out in front of us. There was a fork, a butter knife, a letter opener, and a ball point pen.
I picked up the letter opener. “This is it? What the heck am I supposed to do with any of this?”
Will shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all I got. Just shove them in the demon’s eye or something.”
“Fine. They will have to do. Let’s go.”
Everyone else grabbed one of the remaining objects, and we all followed Will through the attic towards our haunted house. Will and I had made gravestones out of boxes before the entrance to make it seem like it was in a cemetery. As we approached the entrance, Spike pointed it out.” There it is. I’m going to go around back and check it out.”
I nodded my head in agreement, knowing he was going to get into position for his part in the scare tactics. “Ok, you guys go in this way. I’m going to head over to the side of the house, see if I can find it.”
Dawn turned to me with wide-eyes. “You’re not going in with us?”
“Uh, uh. It will be easier if we split up. Do you remember what the demon looks like?” I asked the twins.
“Yes. Big, with horns,” Connor replied.
“Okay, good. Just remember, if you see it, you can call me or just shove your silver weapon into its body somewhere.” Connor and Dawn looked down at the fork and pen they were carrying with doubt that these household objects would do anything to protect them. “I’ll see you soon.” I ran off in the opposite direction from where Spike went, leaving the kids arguing about who was going to go in first.
I knew that Will was already where he needed to be, which was on top of one of the high wardrobes. He was to throw some netting over them when they turned the first corner, and when I heard the first scream, I knew he had just been undeniably successful. Hurrying now, I put on the white elbow gloves that we had drawn on to make my arms look veiny and bloody, stretched out on the floor and shimmied underneath a dresser. Once they escaped from the netting, they would encounter the falling skeleton. The second scream I heard would be my cue to get ready to grab their ankles when they passed by.
Upon hearing the second set of screams, I stretched out a little bit more in preparation to grab. Connor’s feet were the first ones I saw, and as he stepped right in front of the dresser, I wrapped my fingers around his ankle and gave a hard tug, stopping him in his tracks. He looked down to see the grotesque arm grabbing him and screamed again, which must have alerted Dawn because that’s when her scream started. I grabbed her ankle then too. After shaking them a bit, I let go and they hurried past me to the next section of the maze.
I ran down to the last wardrobe in the maze. This was where the big finale was to take place; where they would find the Fyarl demon. I got the stick out of the wardrobe and waited for Will. From the sound of Will’s evil laughter, I knew he just sprayed them with silly string over the top of one of the dressers. A few seconds later, Will came jogging from the other side.
“I got them good.” He winked before giving me a quick kiss. I smiled giddily, handing him the stick I was holding before I shoved him playfully into the wardrobe and shut the door.
The twins had a couple more twists and turns to go before they got here, so I positioned myself behind the wardrobe and waited. Another scream from Dawn meant they had just passed the hanging man, and I knew they encountered the swinging ghosts when a series of screams could be heard a minute later. That meant they should have been rounding the corner any minute.
We set up a mirror to the side so I could see when they reached a certain point, which was marked with tape on the floor. As soon as they hit it, I knocked on the back of the wardrobe for Will to hear. The wardrobe doors burst open, and Will lifted the stick, revealing a Fyarl demon made of papier-mâché attached to the end of it. Will growled.
Both twins screamed again, frozen in horror. I popped out from the side and with a yell, stabbed the letter opener into the demon’s heart. Will lowered the stick, making it look like the demon was slowly falling, while making ghastly dying noises.
When the replica was dead on the floor, Will stepped out of the wardrobe and looked between the demon and me. “Well, good on us.”
“Thanks for the help. Not,” I said about the vampire’s non-appearance in the take down.
“Hey, who do you think chased it in this direction?” Will rebutted.
I rolled my eyes and started to walk away.
“I helped, Slayer!” Will called after me, following me over to the story area.
Dawn and Connor stood staring between the demon and me and Will, speechless again.
**************************************************************
When the twins finally came out of their daze, they joined Will and me over by the mattresses where he told them the very first slayer story of Buffy and The Gentlemen. Now, many stories and much lore later, we sat to listen to another Halloween tale while munching on some candy. Will started the scary music tape that he played last time and began his story, titled “Fear, Itself.”
The twins and I sat in rapt attention while Will set up the story. Dawn, Connor and Buffy were spending Halloween at a party at Cordelia’s house. Earlier in the day, Cordelia, Devon and Amy were setting up the decorations for the party. Devon had just finished up drawing a pentagram from one of the books from the library onto her basement floor, when Cordelia cut herself while hanging some orange streamers. Nobody noticed the ripple run over the symbol as her blood hit the floor, turning the plastic spiders into real ones.
When everyone arrived at the house, weird things had already started happening, like the peeled grapes used to represent eyeballs had changed into real eyeballs. Will did a really good job of using some of the activities we did last year, as well as some of the props in this year’s haunted house as plot points in the story. He even described Buffy dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, just like my costume last year.
As the three of them walked through the house, doors and walls began to shift and change. It was like they were walking in a circle, never getting to where the party was taking place. Finally, they conceded that they were lost and Dawn wanted to do a guiding spell. Buffy wasn’t too keen on that since a lot of times the witch’s spells didn’t work out perfectly. Dawn went off in a huff with Connor following her.
Connor had caught up with Dawn, but he was having his own problems. Suddenly, he began to transform into his werewolf side despite there not being a full moon. Afraid of hurting Dawn since he wasn’t locked in the cage at the library, he ran away from her and found the bathroom. There, he huddled in the bathtub trying to will himself not to fully transform and let the beast take him over.
With the loss of Connor, Dawn decided to do the guiding spell anyway. This also led to disaster. Her one guiding light suddenly became hundreds and started to swarm around her, attacking her head.
Buffy could hear her screaming, but couldn’t do anything about it. She was trapped alone in a room unable to help. All of a sudden, she fell through the floor into the basement where a strange disembodied voice taunted her about being all alone. ‘But not anymore’, the voice said as dead bodies began coming up from the dirt floor. Even the dead taunted her as she fought for her life.
Little did they know that a bored Spike had tried to join the party, only to be deterred by not being able to find any open doors or windows. Knowing that something mystical was going on inside the house, he went to get Merrick. Returning with the watcher, they created a door which shattered some of the spell.
Dawn, Connor and Buffy found themselves back together in the room where the pentagram was drawn on the floor. Dawn saw the library book and began to translate the wording beneath the symbol, seeing that a demon was trying to release itself. It was gaining power by feeding on their fears.
The walls began shaking, and Merrick and Spike broke through the wall with a chainsaw. Merrick immediately took over, grabbing the book from Dawn and translating more. The demon was named Gachnar, which was one that Will had included in the demon book used earlier in our game.
Buffy wanted to know how to stop it before it manifested, and Merrick began to read, ‘destroying the mark.’ As soon as the words were spoken, Buffy punched a hole in the middle of the symbol. ‘Is not one of the ways to stop it and will, in fact, raise the demon immediately,’ Merrick finished the sentence, looking exasperated with Buffy.
Pulsating light began to stream out of the hole in the rumbling floor. An ugly demon rose from the middle of the chaos. ‘I am the dark lord of nightmares! The bringer of terror! Tremble before me! Fear me!’ A tiny voice emitted from the demon, who stood only half a foot tall.
‘That’s it?’ Spike asked, a little disappointed that there wouldn’t be a fight.
‘Tremble!’ the little demon repeated when he didn’t get the response he wanted the first time. ‘They will all abandon you,’ he spoke to Buffy, revealing her fear from earlier.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she replied, squashing him under her foot like an annoying bug.
The three of us began clapping exuberantly as Will signified the end of the story.
“Thank you so much.” Dawn got up to go hug William and then came over to give me the same treatment. “I think this was even better than last year.” She was beaming in delight, and Connor was nodding his head in agreement.
[Reviews - 1099]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 3663 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry about the delay in updating. I swear I'm trying to get back to once a week, at least. This damn work thing - seriously getting in the way of more important activities. I keep playing the lottery in hopes of becoming independently wealthy, but no luck yet :) Enjoy and review!