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Author's Chapter Notes:
For the tattoo in the last chapter, go to this web addy http://www.celticunited.com/?command=viewProduct&page=listings&product=10980
Once there, go down to the S. The one with Rights Protected through it is the one I based Spike and Buffy's tattooes on, with the faces being Spike and Buffy's.
Chapter 16 HUSH

Serina stepped into the airport terminal with her carry-on bag in hand. She glanced around at the milling crowd while she tried to determine the identity of Rupert Giles by looks alone. That's when she noticed a very properly dressed man sitting next to a sprawling, sardonic bleached blond man. She was busy admiring the blonde's features when he turned to look at the ladies bathroom exit, and his features lit up giving him the appearance of a fallen angel. Serina watched as a petite blond haired girl strolled over to the two men.

"That was not very nice," the girl said in an admonishing tone. "Sending Harmony to Angel for secretarial training." She plopped down next to the blond man. "I just had to listen to him rant about her for the last ten minutes. I finally had to hang up on him."

"I'm a bad, rude man. Besides, she was distracting the head minion, pet," the blond man replied in a lower class British accent. He flung his arm around the girl's shoulders to pull her close to his side. "Brian said that the others were going to hold her down and stake her. She kept mentioning unicorn wallpaper." The man shuddered violently in his seat.

"Miss Brenan's plane should be here now," the older man's crisp British accent was much more refined than the blond man's. "Buffy, did either of you hear back from Cordelia or Doyle?"

"It was a dead end, Giles," Buffy answered. "They did find Wesley though. Doyle said he's the ex-Watcher." She poked the blond man in the side while she giggled. "Wes' pretty put out to find out that he's related to one of the most notorious ... gang member on PCP ... in the history of the Council."

"Ha, bloody ha, Slayer."

"Hey, it's true. That's what Principal Snyder said you were when you came by the school that first time." Buffy smirked at the blond man before she turned her attention towards Giles. "You find anything out about my dream, Giles?"

"Nothing as of yet." Giles shook his head thoughtfully. "Anya is checking her sources as we speak." He turned to look across the terminal. "Looks like we have our shadows, though."

Serina looked in the direction that the Watcher had, and she noticed several young men with military haircuts and stances, all the while trying to look casual. She quickly returned her gaze to the trio waiting for her. Serina knew the next few days would be busy with introductions, explanations and planning. She was eager to get started.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE NEXT DAY

Serina could feel the disgust pouring out of Willow. It was quite obvious to the new coven leader that whatever Willow had expected from this group she wasn't getting. Serina studied the other girls, dismissing each one until her eyes fell upon a girl with honey-blond hair that she was desperately trying to hide behind. She smiled to herself as she swept across the room towards the group, most of which jumped noticeably when her crisp, British voice addressed them.

"Willow, darling, when you said you were meeting with a Wiccan group, I just had to come down to meet them." Serina kept her eyes the shy girl, who she stood in front of and addressed personally. "I like you, dearie. Tell me your name."

"Oh, she's new. I'm the one to talk to," one of the other girls said while she stood up.

"I wasn't talking to you." Serina announced while she made it quite clear she wasn't going to talk to the other girl.

"T-Tara McClay, ma'am," Tara stuttered.

"Tara. What a beautiful name." Serina grabbed Tara's hand to pull the girl to her feet. "Now why don't you come have a lovely tea with Willow and me?"

"T-that would be nice," Tara whispered while she watched the red headed girl gather their belongings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy came up to the table where Serina, Willow, and Tara sipped tea and quietly chatted. She dropped into the chair, plopped her books on the table amd laid her head down on them.

"Is everything okay, Buffy?" Willow asked. She gave the other two witches a concerned look.

"Walsh's vibes are getting weirder," Buffy muttered. "Ronald slipped us a report that she's hyping the soldiers up on demonic steroids, but he hasn't a clue what's going on with her."

"That can't be good," Willow said. She slouched down in her chair. "Riley's acting a bit more odd, too. He tried to corner me this morning with the 'Spike is bad' propaganda. He was getting quite adamant about it when two of the other frat boys showed up and dragged him off."

"Walsh's pushing for a private meeting after the holidays." Buffy lifted her head off the books to look at the other occupants of the table. Willow had sent her a mental message about Tara, and as soon as Buffy had seen the girl, she had known that the young witch was not going to have any problems with the Scoobies. "I told her no, of course. That the meeting had to be in public with all of us in attendance."

"Bet that went over well." Willow grimaced at Buffy.

"Like a lead balloon," Buffy grumbled. "Then I called Giles. He can't find out anything about The Gentleman except they want seven of something. Knowing our luck, it'll be something nasty and grisly."

"Think positively, Buffy. Maybe they want seven cute cuddly kitties."

"Oh yeah, that's heartening. Maybe they'll offer them up to Clem and make him their god." Buffy giggled at that thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"He is becoming more and more aggressive towards the Slayer, ma'am," Forrest said. "We had to drag him away from Miss Summers in the hallway today. Yesterday Saunders and Greene had to drag him away from Miss Rosenburg. He's lucky he's not up on assault charges."

Walsh stared at the man currently strapped to the table. He was whimpering and twitching almost convulsively. Maggie touched his skin. While he looked fevered, he was cool to the touch. She moved to unstrap the red skinned demon on the next table while she spoke.

"It is possible he needs another shot of Whu demon secretions." Maggie looked down at the demon, who suddenly squeaked at her words. Its eyes darted to the bound soldier as it visibly shrank as far away from him as it could in its bindings. Walsh looked back at Riley and then at the demon. "Why would that make a demon scared? Answer me, damn it."

Forrest and Graham stepped forward, tazers in hand, and the red skinned demon stared at the woman with startling blue eyes before it launched a response.

"While the skin secretion of Whu demons make a human stronger, it is extremely addictive. If taken in small amounts it can be an aphrodisiac, but prolonged exposure to the toxin tends to make humans sexually aggressive."

"What's the cure?" Walsh demanded. She glanced over at Riley at the same time the red skinned demon did.

"Cold turkey. The only way the toxin can leave the body is through sexual emissions." The demon scrunched its face up in disgust. "The easiest way to do this would be manual stimulation."

"There is no way I'm jacking Finn off," Forrest blurted out. A frantically nodding Graham joined him. The two soldiers backed slowly towards the door.

"Stand firm, soldiers," Walsh ordered. She could see despite their military training to always obey their commander, the two soldiers were fighting the urge to bolt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The pale gray hands opened the ornate box and the faint sound of whispers would have been heard by anyone out late enough to be in the vicinity of the deserted campus church clock tower. Several buildings away the breath of a sleeping boy turned into a faint mist that curled out the nearby window. The mist danced through the air to the clock tower where it settled into the ornate box. More and more curls of mist entered the room until the pale hand slammed the box shut. A horrible gray face with silver teeth fashioned into a perpetual grin graced the face of the creature that held the box. His white sunken eyes and tight skin pulled tight over his bald head were something out of a nightmare.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow woke up to the sound of footsteps outside her door, but strangely there were no voices to go with the noise. The lack of vocal sound was quite disquieting to the redhead. She flung back the covers, and she grabbed the robe from the foot of the bed. Willow donned the robe, cinched it at the waist and walked over to the dorm door.

Willow flung open the door, but when she went to ask the passing student why everyone was so quiet, she found that no sounds would come out of her mouth. Willow reached out to grab someone, and even though it looked like the boy squeaked no sound spilled from his lips, either. That effectively answered Willow's question of whether whatever was going on affected only her.

Buffy, something weird's going on, Willow sent out to the Slayer. I can't make any noise, not even an 'eep'. The guy in the hall couldn't speak either.

Yeah, we've got the same problem here, Buffy replied. So does Xander and Anya. I contacted Doyle and they're fine down in L.A. So, it's just us.

I'll get Serina and Tara and meet you guys at Giles' Willow said while she got dressed. When she was done, she went up one flight to the other witch's room where she quietly knocked on the door. She smiled at Tara when the honey-blond opened the dorm room door.

Willow and Tara walked down the sidewalk hand in hand like many of the other people that they saw; each person scared to lose contact with their companion.

The only business that appeared to be open and doing business was the liquor store. The two girls heard sirens, horns honking, and dogs barking, but no human voices were heard from any one. They passed a prayer meeting with the words Revelations 15:1 on a nearby chalkboard.

I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues--- last, because with them God's wrath is completed,* Tara thought to herself. She had studied the Bible extensively with her mother before she'd died.

A man with a dry erase message board saying 'message boards $10 stood in front of the magic shop. Willow and Tara stared at each other and both nodded. Willow dug a $20 bill out of her jeans pocket, handed it to the man, and then picked up two boards and two pens. They were about to walk on when Tara held up her hand. She quickly wrote, Serina needs one.

Willow nodded before quickly digging out another $20 bill and buying two more boards, just in case. The two girls quickly made their way to Serina's where they handed the woman one of the boards. Then the three of them hurried on to the Watcher's apartment where they knew the gang was waiting for them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once inside Giles' apartment, Willow introduced Tara with a quickly drawn note and then went to stand by each person she hadn't met while writing their name on her dry erase board. Tara noticed that only one person in the room had a non-supernatural aura, but even his had an unusual flux about it. It was a colorful light show for the young wicca. She could see the magical powers in Serina, Willow and Giles and the demonic powers in Anya, Spike and Buffy. Theirs were the most dramatic and powerful she'd ever seen before in her life.

It took only a few minutes of watching the interactions of the group for Tara to realize that some of the group could communicate telepathically. She found the idea fascinating and watched them closely. Tara could tell the two blonds, Buffy and Spike, were the leaders but that Buffy, more than Spike, deferred to her mentor, Giles. She stood behind Willow and watched with amazement as Willow deftly surfed the web. Tara's attention then turned to Anya and Xander, who were watching the television.

Xander put his hand up in the air and snapped his fingers. Then he pointed to the television before turning the sound up. The reporter on the screen was talking about Sunnydale.

"Big news item from Sunnydale California. Apparently the entire town has been quarantined due to an epidemic of, as strange at this may sound, Laryngitis. It seems the town has been rendered unable to speak. There's no word yet what might have caused this or what other effects might be seen from this epidemic.

"Local authorities have issued a statement, a written statement, I should say, blaming recent flu vaccinations. A few skeptics call it a city wide hoax. In the meanwhile Sunnydale has effectively shut down all schools and businesses will be closed for the time being and residents are advised to stay home and rest up. Centers for disease control have ordered the entire town quarantined. No one can go in or out until the syndrome is identified or the symptoms disappear. We'll bring you more on that as it develops."

Willow turned her attention back to her laptop. One of the files captured her attention, and she remembered the rings that Spike had found with the Gem of Amara. They were the rings that allowed two people to communicate telepathically. Just what Giles needs to stay in communication with us. She sent the thought out to the others, who readily agreed, and then she proposed the idea to the Watcher.

Buffy and Spike decided that patrolling was of the utmost importance after dark since the town would probably be in total chaos. They left the others diligently researching while they checked on Joyce, Reggie, and the minions. Spike and Buffy even took a chance on visiting Willy at the Alibi Room, but the depressed bartender had no clues about what was happening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1988





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