Connor sighed and looked around him. He still didn’t understand how or why he was here, in this room, this house, hell, in this country. He’d never even been outside of the States before. Well as far as he knew! But then it seemed as if he didn’t know much. According to Angel, his life was not what it appeared. There’d been a spell, a ‘reality shift’ that had been cast in order to keep him safe. Safe from whom, Angel hadn’t been quite so clear about.
In fact there was a whole bunch of stuff that Angel hadn’t been very clear about. And before he had a chance to ask questions, he’d been shoved on a private jet and whisked off to England to do … what? Something else he wasn’t clear about.
All Angel would say was that he, Connor, was some sort of warrior. Okay, so there was mounting evidence to support that theory, what with the injury free van incident and the demon fighting. But he didn’t really feel like a warrior, just like an ordinary college kid lost in some wacky dream. Despite killing that Sahjhan dude, he’d been pretty set on slipping back into his ordinary life as soon as they’d left Mr Vail’s place.
Instead, Angel had gotten all gloomy and serious and insisted they accompany him into his office in order to be party to ‘the truth of things’. But, from what Connor could work out, they hadn’t gotten far into that before the phone call came from England, from Mr Giles, who seemed to be in charge around here, informing them that ‘Buffy’ and ‘Dawn’ were missing. Which seemed like a bad thing all round. But what it had to do with him, Connor was still in the dark.
It didn’t really seem like they needed another warrior. Not only did they have Faith, but the place was apparently teeming with girls just like her, just like the two he’d sparred with earlier in the week. Slayers they were called, lots of them even younger than he was, but obviously with more experience. At least they all seemed to have a ‘purpose’, which was more than he could say for himself.
So if they didn’t need his fighting skills, he wasn’t sure why Angel had stuck him on the plane, instantly produced passport in hand. He was beginning to suspect that the vampire had done it just to get him out of the way, distract him from asking all of those awkward questions that Angel, with a gleam of panic showing in the whites of his eyes, just wasn’t ready to deal with.
So here he was stuck, bored, redundant and superfluous to needs. ‘Here’ was the Research Center of what looked like a pretty awesome place called Ashdown, home of all the slayers and their watchers. He’d like to have been able to wander around, check out some of the facilities, and some of the chicks. Man, there were something like 1300 little super powered hotties running around outside this room, some sort of teenaged boys' dream come true. So yeah, checking out the merchandize would be infinitely more pleasant than being stuck, bored witless, in here.
At least he’d managed to tune in some of the time, enough to know that he was on Team Dawn, charged with finding and rescuing the teenage sister of the capital S Slayer, Buffy. Who was also missing! Sucked to be that family. The girls were like surrogate daughters of Mr Giles, and the Slayer was the girlfriend of that kind of punk, sort of scary dude Spike. Someone had mentioned he was a vampire, although Connor didn’t see how that could be right, given that he’d seen him walk out to the carpark in full sunlight.
Apparently Dawn was something called a Key, which meant she had the ability to open portals and shift through space and time. Which made him wonder why she didn’t just open a portal back to Ashdown. Nobody else was mentioning this, but maybe they all thought it was because she was either unconscious or too badly injured to make her mojo work. Or dead. Connor hoped not, because she seemed like a very nice girl, everyone said so, and even though he didn’t know her, he thought that rescuing someone would be kinda cool. Sort of knight in white armourish. So yeah, alive would be good.
They’d established a few other facts over the course of the morning. Dawn had ended up in the sick room at her school the day before. The school had rung Giles to ask him to come and pick the girl up. Both Giles and Spike had headed for the school, but by the time they’d got there, Dawn had disappeared.
The school hadn’t been particularly cooperative the previous afternoon, but now that Dawn had been gone for some time, and the police were involved, they’d admitted that another student, a boy by the name of Bobby something had signed himself out at the same time. More worrying was the news they’d had from the police about an hour ago. The address, phone number and details of the boy and his family had turned out to be fake. So yeah, this was getting kinda serious now.
The police were still treating it like a regular abduction, but because of the mystical elements, which they couldn’t exactly explain to the detectives involved, the Ashdown crew were convinced it was more supernatural in nature. But what those supernatural forces might be was still anyone’s guess.
“Hello. Hello people.” Connor was zoned out, just staring into space, when this nerdy looking guy, dressed in a tweed suit, shirt and tie, and carrying a briefcase, made his way into the room. “Oooh, visitors. Bienvenu mon amis. Welcome to the Fortress of Multitude, the home of the Slayers of the Vampyrs. Your assistance is très appréciée.”
“Oh my Goddess,” Willow, the redhead said, rolling her eyes, “Would you can it. You know if Dawn was here she’d kick your backside. Stop being such a dweeb and get in here and help us.” She took a deep breath and tried to regain her cool. “Okay guys, this is Andrew, kind of an annoying ex-villain whom we’ve reluctantly adopted and is now in training to become a watcher. Andrew, this is Wesley, Fred and Connor, part of Angel's Investigations Team.”
“Actually, we work for Wolfram and Hart these days,” Wes muttered, “Well, at least Fred and I do. Connor’s kind of here as … back up?” Wes looked at Connor and they both shrugged at the same time.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Andrew said, bowing crisply then fluttering his eyelashes at the two men, which was disturbing to say the least. “And have no fear Fearless Leader, for I have been hard at work researching potential leads in order to free our fair damsel from the brutes who would detain her.”
“Andrew, I swear,” Willow stood up and leaned over the boy, “If you don’t cut out all this pretentious Masterpiece Theatre shit, I’m gonna turn you into a frog. See how many damsels you can rescue when you’re green and slimy and four inches tall!”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I was just trying to break the tension, you know on account of Dawnie being taken.” His shoulders drooped and he looked up, an earnest, worried look on his face. “She’s my best friend, you know that, and I’ll do anything to get her back.”
“Alright, I know,” Willow’s voice was surprisingly gentle now. “Come and sit down, tell us what you’ve got.”
“Okay, so I’m sure you guys know about the Golden Dawn thing, but I thought I’d do a little background checking of my own, see if I could get a physical address from their domain site.” Andrew ground to a halt as he noticed the confused, blank looks on his teammates’ faces, not just the L.A. crew, but Willow and Oz as well.
“Maybe start from the top,” Oz said, nodding encouragingly at him.
“Really? But I thought you guys would be all up to speed on this.” He looked around again, shocked at the casual shrugs and total lack of awareness they were displaying. “Ohh-kay, she really should have told you about this, but here goes. Dawn came across this website about a month ago, back in mid October, right around the time that Tara came back to grace us with her presence. It was just a random thing, but the site was all about one of those Golden Dawn organizations, you know, all esoteric mysticism, ceremonial magick and initiatory rites.”
Connor had never heard of the Golden Dawn, but the other four were nodding keenly, so he decided to keep quiet on that front.
“Dawn had studied the history of the Order in her Religious Studies class, but this group seemed a little different to the other main revivalist orders. To begin with, it was based in England, whereas most of the other Orders are these days in the States. The name was somewhat different, and may I say, disquieting, as well: The Glorious Order of the Golden Dawn.”
Willow in particular looked troubled by this announcement, although the others looked merely intrigued. Connor tried to school his expression to match theirs.
“But what really freaked her out was the description of their grading rites. Like the other Golden Dawn Orders, admission from the First Grade to the Second Grade was via an invisible Portal Grade. Usually this just related to the demonstration of certain skills and a written examination before the aspirant could be initiated as an adept. But this crowd was a bit more specific. They alluded to the fact that enlightenment could only be achieved by passing through this invisible portal, which in the case of the Glorious Order, was to be controlled by a Gate Mistress.”
At this news Willow gasped loudly and Oz looked concerned.
“I take it that this title is somehow significant.” Wesley stated.
“Yes, yes it is.” Willow answered. “Over the last few months I’ve been carrying out a lot of research on the group known as the Guardians. I take it you’ve heard of them?”
“Indeed.” Wes replied, “The Guardians were an ancient group of powerful mystic women whose role it was to aid the Slayer. But little is known about them, not even whether their members were living beings or ethereal. I had heard that they played some part in Buffy’s retrieval of the Scythe.”
“They did. In fact they themselves created Sagaria, many millennia ago,” Willow said. “Anyway, to make a long story short, I wondered if we might be able to make greater use of the Guardians, forge some sort of beneficial relationship with them. My research led me to the name of one of their high priestesses, a woman who’d lived around 3000 years ago. Her name was Ephesos, and she was Lydian Amazon. It seems likely that the city of Ephesus was named after her. After a lot of research, and with the help of Giles, Rowan and Althanea, I was able to summons Ephesos.”
“Oh Willow,” Wes proclaimed fervently, “This is simply fascinating. What an astonishing achievement. I take it your were able to secure their cooperation?”
“Oh yes, in more ways than one. We received a number of blessings as a result of that visit, not the least of which was the return of my beloved,” at this point she paused and squeezed Oz’ hand, “Our beloved, Tara. Ephesos also shared many details of our roles and the road ahead. She referred to Dawn as the Gate Mistress, describing her as someone who held endless power and resources at her fingertips. Or something like that.”
“Could it be a coincidence?” Fred asked.
“Unlikely,” Andrew said, “Particularly given the statement at the bottom of their homepage.” He reached down and grabbed his briefcase off the ground, flicking it open to draw out a sheaf of papers. As he passed them out, one to each member, Connor could see that they were printouts, the heading, in ornate gold letters, proclaiming ‘The Glorious Order of the Golden Dawn’. The page was illustrated with arcane symbols and diagrams, including pentacles, pyramids, the Eye of Horus, crucifixes and a stylized tree. But the information that was obviously bothering Andrew was printed at the bottom of the page.
‘Dear Friend and Seeker of Knowledge and Power,
The time is nigh and the One we seek is new come to our shores, her power knows no limits. For she is the Gate Mistress, the Holder of the Key. She dwells in the House of Summers, alongside Warriors and Wiccans, Angels and Demons, Makers and Healers. Glory and divine energy emanate from her, and with a touch she may open up all of the untold dimensions of the universe. She will guide us; she will light the pathways of the divine Sephiroth leading to the Dawn of a Golden Age. She is the earthly embodiment of the Golden Dawn. We await her divine presence.”
There was silence while they all read and digested the words of the tract. The silence rapidly turned to shock as everyone, even Connor, could see the correlations between the Order’s eagerly anticipated Gate Mistress and their Dawn.
“How? How could this happen?” Willow gasped, “How did they find out who she was, where she was? And by the way, are they nuts?”
“Quite likely, yes. Golden Dawn organizations have always attracted people with extreme beliefs. Not that there’s anything wrong with the basic precepts of the Order. In fact, the Golden Dawn inspired much of the ritual and magic underlying contemporary traditions, such as Wicca and Thelema. So nutty people, not nutty ideas. After all, who are we to judge?”
“That’s very admirable of you Andrew.” Fred said quietly.
“Thank you attractive, slender woman, uh, I mean … Fred?” he blushed as she nodded. “Now, as for your other question Willow, well, that’s what I've been working on this morning. I’ve been busy trying to trace the organizations physical address through their ISP. After a bit of digging I was able to identify that the website was registered to a David Felkin. Mr Felkin resides in Bristol, along with his wife Andrea and their eighteen year old son Robbie, named after his Great- Great- Great Grandfather Robert Felkin, one of the earliest members of the Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh.”
“Wow,” Connor declared, “So, like a fifth generation adept.”
“Well not directly. From what I gather, the third and fourth generations weren’t really involved in the Golden Dawn at all. It seems this David was fairly recently drawn back into the fold. In fact, from what I can tell, they were nudged into reviving Felkin Senior’s Hermes Lodge in Bristol, by a newcomer to this fair land.”
“Okay, Andrew,” Willow grinned admiringly, “I’ll admit it, you’re more of a technogeek, I mean technomaster, than I could ever be. What you can coax out of the system is astonishing. I bow down to you, oh elite hacker and cyber spy extraordinaire. So spill the beans, who is this newcomer? I assume you know.”
“The guy’s name is Chuck Mathers. Funnily enough, he’s a descendant of Samuel Mathers, one of the Golden Dawn’s Founding Fathers. The family emigrated to the States several generations back. And interestingly, his last listed address was Sunnydale California.”
“Oh my Goddess.”
“Yeah, freaky huh?”
“So what does he do?” Connor asked. “I mean for a job? I mean, I guess that’s relevant isn’t it?”
“Well I thought so,” Andrew said, smiling flirtatiously at Connor. “In fact it was the first thing I looked up. I thought it might help me track down his whereabouts since he arrived in England. But, interestingly, he’s been unemployed since sometime in January 2001. Medical leave. I hacked into Sunnydale General’s archived admission records for that month. Seems Mr Mathers had a little bit of a psychotic break back then. He spent several weeks in the psych ward, then was released.”
“Nooo,” Willow said, “It couldn’t be. I mean, none of them survived. Well at least I guess a bunch of them survived, but none of them would have been able to function mentally again. Would they?” She paused, her eyes flicking from Andrew to Wesley.
“I assume you’re referring to the incident with Glory.” Wes replied vaguely. “Giles only passed on the barest of details, but from what I understand, she used the psychic energies of her human victims to stabilize her own deteriorating mental state. The process left the targets’ minds scattered and broken. It’s difficult to say whether or not a person in that condition could indeed recover his or her faculties.”
“Well I don’t think he recovered them too fully,” Andrew said. “But I’m pretty sure he followed us here from Sunnydale. According to arrivals, he was on the same flight Willow as you, Buffy and Dawn. I mean he obviously survived the collapse of the Hellmouth, but how he ended up on the same flight I couldn’t say. Maybe just coincidence. Or maybe he recognized all three of you at the airport and decided to head in the same direction.”
“You think he’s the one with the Dawn fixation?” Oz asked.
“I’d say it was almost indisputable.” Andrew was quiet for a minute, as if deciding whether or not to share his thoughts. “The thing is, I’ve accessed his pharmaceutical records since he arrived in England. For the first couple of months he was regularly filling scripts for Lithium and Olanzapine, anti-psychotics used to treat schizophrenia, and acute manic episodes. But unless he’s getting them under the table, he’s been off his meds for the last ten weeks.”
“And you think that coincides with this Golden Dawn thing?” Fred asked.
“Well, I've read all of Giles’ accounts of the Glory days pretty thoroughly.” Andrew said. “From what I understand, Glory’s brain suckees perceived certain things in different ways. Those that saw Dawn were often in awe of her, praising her light and beauty.”
“Yeah,” Willow agreed, “Even Tara was all with the Dawn worship after Glory got her nasty mitts into her.”
“So, maybe, if this guy came off his meds, he might have remembered that time, parts of it at least, and got Dawn somehow mixed up with Glory and ‘boom’, 1 + 1 = 3. Then maybe he got chatting to some bloke down the pub, talked about magic and esoteric stuff, the one guy admits his Great-Great-Great used to be a ceremonial magician, the other guy’s all how fascinating so was mine, then ‘bam’ lets revive their practices, yes lets and I’ll lead you to the next great thing. And so it goes.”
“Not that I’m doubting your research skills Andrew,” Wes said firmly, “But that’s a hell of a lot of speculation. Still I’m sure there’d be no harm checking things out if you’ve got an address.”
“Yeah, I’ve got addresses for the both of them, both in Bristol.”
“Meanwhile, Oz and I can follow up with the boy who’s gone missing,” Willow said. “What was his name again?”
“Ahh, let me see, it’s here somewhere,” Wes said, shuffling through his pile of papers. “Oh, here it is. Right, the lad’s name is Bobby Falcon. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Why…?”
“Sounds suspiciously like Robbie Felkin, don’t you think?” Connor said. “You know, teenage son of the Golden Dawn guy. The not crazy one. Or at least the less crazy one.”
“Oh my Lord,” Wes said, “You’re right! You’ve just provided the missing link between Dawn Summers and the Glorious Order. Well done lad.”
“And well done to you Andrew,” Willow said proudly, her warm tone belying the impatience she’d displayed earlier. “You’ve done an amazing job of pulling together all of the threads of this plot, weaving them into a coherent whole. You’re going to make an amazing Watcher.”
“Hear, hear, I couldn’t agree more.” Wes added warmly. “A little less with the affectation couldn’t hurt, but otherwise, I think you’ll do well.”
It was late afternoon by this stage and already closing in dark. They decided to have a quick meal, throw together some clothes, and travel across to Bristol in one of Ashdown’s vans. Apparently, if they took the M4 it would only take them two and a half hours. They could book into a motel, get a good night’s sleep, and be ready to check out the lay of the land in the morning.
That sounded fine to Connor, especially the bit about a good night’s sleep. After all, he was really just along for the ride.
He headed off to the kitchens with Oz to rustle up some dinner and throw their bags in the van, leaving the other four to pack up the papers and laptops and gather up a few volumes of spells and the bits and pieces they'd need to work those spells. He wasn’t familiar with any of that sort of stuff, better for him to stick to the catering side of things he thought.
As he and Oz made their way through the back door of the lounge room, carrying garlic bread, a bowl of salad and a big pot of spaghetti between them, he heard Fred asking Willow what Dawn looked like.
“It might be a good idea if we know who we’re looking for,” she added in her soft Texan drawl.
“Oh gosh yes. I should have thought of that earlier.” Willow said. “Let’s just eat, then I’ll go and grab the photo album from my room and you can check out the photos on the way.”
Dinner was a noisy affair. The six member team that was looking for Buffy, plus Giles’ wife Cat, were there as well, and the conversation was peppered with the successes and frustrations that each team had encountered during the day. Apparently the others were heading out first thing in the morning, they had an 8 o’clock flight to Tbilisi International Airport in Georgia.
Finally, everyone had been well fed and watered, the van was packed and they were ready to hit the road. Willow nipped back to her unit, ostensibly to get her photo album, but also, Connor suspected, to share a little farewell time with the third member of hers and Oz’ relationship, the girl called Tara.
Minutes later they were back in the van, the both of them up front. Oz was driving and Willow was co-pilot. Fred and Wesley had settled themselves into the bench seat at the back, which meant he was stuck sitting with Andrew. The boy might be a hacker extraordinaire, and an awesome Watcher-in-training, but he made Connor feel uncomfortable. He was so gushy and OTT. He’d just have to suck it up and cope.
Oz got the van started and they were off, down the driveway, onto the road and out into the night of an English countryside. Connor was disappointed he couldn’t see anything, although he supposed that wasn’t the point.
As they sped down the lane Willow said “Oh, that’s right,” and fossicked around until she came up with something she that she was then waving around in front of him.
“Connor, can you pass this back to Fred?” she asked sweetly.
He took the photo, almost didn’t look at it, but glanced down just as he was turning to face the back. “Oh my God.” The words slipped from his lips almost before he was aware of them. He couldn’t believe it. This was Dawn? He flushed hot then cold. His heart was thumping excessively loudly in his chest, his hands were shaking and he just stared down at the photo, transfixed by the face of the girl that had haunted his dreams.
Willow, Fred and Andrew were all looking at him strangely. They'd probably heard his exclamation, noticed the way he was trembling.
“What is it sweetie?” Fred asked. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, “Yeah. It’s just that … I know this girl. Well actually, I don’t know her, but we have definitely crossed paths.” He shook himself, remembering the day that he’d crashed into her outside of the Wolfram and Hart building. He’d just about knocked her off her feet, and not in the good way unfortunately.
She had absolutely mesmerized him at the time, he’d been entranced by her glow and her quirky expressions and her fine butt. And there wasn’t a day, or a night, that had gone by since without him thinking about her, dreaming of her sparkling blue gaze. He knew he’d annoyed her; her emotions flitted across the surface of her face loud and clear. But to be honest, that was part of the attraction. He’d been the one swept off his feet.
Reluctantly, he handed the picture back to Fred. At that moment he made a vow to himself. He may not know who he was anymore, but whoever he might be, he was going to find Dawn, find her and rescue her. Nothing was going to stop him from making sure that she got home safe and sound. Nothing!
q95;