4.“Cold Comfort”Sunnydale General was at the sharp end of the town’s unspoken problem. The police could get away with creating a work of fiction and calling it an investigation. The hospital had to deal with the constant stream of victims that the Hellmouth generated, it actually had to find a way to treat the survivors and cope with the fact that more than one corpse had simply elected to walk out of the mortuary, not to mention the fact that its blood bank needed more security than the towns S&L.
The hospital reception had some of the manic energy of an episode of ER, without the good-looking staff and with the addition of an antiseptic odour that barely covered other more, ‘organic’ scents. Willow walked up to the nurse’s desk with the clipboard and the form on it, all filled in with Willow’s immaculate handwriting. The Nurse glanced over it ignoring Willow’s nervous expression. “This all seems in order, just tell Miss Rosenberg to take a seat and we’ll get to her as soon as we can.” The nurse announced brusquely before turning to the next prospective patient. Willow sighed with relief and turned back to where Tara and Faith were standing.
“So did they buy it?” Faith asked in a voice that was loud enough to make Willow look around, half expecting to find a security guard hovering over her shoulder.
“Yes they accepted your details and they will treat Faith Rosenberg as soon as they can.” Willow said cautiously, not able to shake the sense that someone might be eavesdropping.
“No sweat sis.” Willow winced as Faith said the word. “I’ll take a seat and behave myself; scout’s honour.”
Willow seriously doubted Faith’s ability to behave, and a look round the reception area suggested they could be here quite a while. She supposed they could just leave Faith here and agree to meet up later. That would mean trusting Faith to keep up her side of the deal and help them; though if Faith reneged that wouldn’t necessarily be a tragedy. The look of concern on Tara’s face killed the idea. Tara was just too soft hearted to abandon an injured person, even if it was Faith. There was also another matter that occurred to Willow which ruled out leaving Faith here alone. “Will you too be ok here while I go check something out?” Willow asked. Telepathically she added,
Tara I’m going to go find Cordy, just to make sure the two of them don’t run into one another. Don’t really want a catfight in here.Tara nodded. “No problem baby, we’ll be right here, or in with the doctors.”
As it happened Willow needn’t have worried. Cordelia was lying in her bed looking pale and fragile. Willow hadn’t been entirely joking when she had said she was mad at Xander for making her feel sorry for Cordy; it was
unnatural. She just couldn’t shake off the feelings of sympathy. Cordelia had gone out with Xander far longer than she had with anyone else, and had taken a lot grief from her friends over dating him. Willow had no idea how intimate the relationship was but it seemed clear that she had strong feelings for him. Willow had been convinced that sooner or later that Cordelia would get over it and dump Xander. Nothing could have shocked her more than the fact that it was Xander who had wound up cheating.
Willow knew she could just sneak back down corridor with Cordelia being aware of her, but her accursed conscience nudged her into tapping on the doorframe. Cordelia looked over and looked confused, as though not quite sure if Willow was really there. “Willow? What are you doing here?” Cordelia’s expression hardened. “If Xander Harris sent you here…”
Willow raised a hand. “I’ve hardly even spoken to him since, well, you know.”
“He humiliated me in front of you and your girlfriend?” Cordelia offered.
“Well yeah that.” Willow replied awkwardly. She decided to try and move on to safer ground. “How are you doing?”
“Still got a big hole in me.” Cordelia responded bitterly.
Her attitude began to annoy Willow; then she reminded herself that Cordy had every excuse to indulge in a little self-pity. “Maybe I should come back when you’re feeling a little better.” Willow said quietly and turned to go.
She halted at the voice behind her. “Willow?” Willow turned to see Cordy with a pained smile on her face. “The doctor says I am getting better, I’ll probably be out of here in a few days.”
Willow smiled back. “That’s good to hear.” She was looking Cordelia’s expression and was hit by a sense of familiarity, exactly like the one she had experienced when she was looking at that group picture in the office. “Cordelia does your dad now someone named Dillard.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Haven’t heard of them.”
Willow was going to let it go when she realized she might be trying the wrong angle. “He owns a yacht called the
Miranda.”
Now Cordelia nodded. “His name is Dillard? Yeah I remember his yacht, daddy thought it was cool, and he said if pulled off some big deal he was going to get one.” Naturally Cordelia remembered a big yacht but not a person’s name. ”Why are you asking me about this?”
Willow wasn’t about to tell Cordelia about the freezer demon, and there was nothing to suggest that Mr. Chase was connected. “Oh just doing a little sleuthing and came across his name, its no biggy.” She turned and went before Cordelia could see through her transparent lie.
They had only been sat waiting for a couple of minutes when a passing doctor stopped to check on Tara and Faith. The fact that Faith had smiled broadly at him and done her best to thrust her boobs out had probably helped. He had looked at Faiths hands, when he could tear his attention away from her other ‘attributes’. As he conducted the exam he completely ignored Tara. Once that wouldn’t have bothered Tara at all, she had been used to simply being regarded as part of the furniture in Quincy. It had taken some but Willow and her experiences with the gang had made Tara begin to believe that she had a right to be taken notice of. This explained why she found the doctors behaviour unsettling and annoying. The doctor finally stood back. “Well the burns are nasty but not too deep. If you god down that corridor,” he pointed to his left, “And wait in room three I’ll get the nurse to come and dress them.”
“Sure you don’t want to do it yourself doc?” Faith asked.
The doctor shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
As they sat in the room Tara couldn’t help asking. “Why did you do that?”
Faith looked at her. “Do what?”
“Flirt with that doctor, I mean you didn’t even like him.”
“What makes you so sure?” Faith sounded suspicious.
Tara wasn’t going to explain about her ability to see auras. “Just a feeling.”
“It passes the time.” Faith responded.
Was that why you slept with Xander? Just a way of passing the time? Tara decided that question was too dangerous too ask, as much as she honestly wanted to know. Tara couldn’t comprehend why Faith seemed to have gone out of her way to drive off the people who could have been her friends and allies.
Tara was spared having to come up with a conciliatory response as the door opened and the nurse walked in. She was a stern woman in her forties, with no interest in any chitchat. It wasn’t until she was preparing to dress Faiths hands that she bothered to engage in conversation. “That looks like freezer burn,” she commented tersely.
“Well kind of.” Faith replied with disinterest.
The nurse made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Is this some sort of new fad with you young people?”
Faith didn’t seem to be inclined to answer so Tara spoke up. “It was an accident, why would you think otherwise?”
The nurse was preparing antiseptic and bandages and answered over her shoulder. “Because she’s the second person we’ve had in her with those sort of injuries today.”
“You’ve seen someone else with freezer burn?” Tara asked, and now faith was watching the nurse’s reaction as well.
“Oh yes, except that he looked more like he had wrapped himself around a frozen pipe or something. He’s resting up in down in room nine. Where do you think you’re going?” This last was directed at Faith who had gotten off the bed she had been perched on.
“This guy could be someone we know, I want to see how he’s doing.” Faith lied, looking at Tara who reluctantly nodded in agreement.
The nurse place herself firmly in front of the door. “Well that can just wait until I’ve treated those hands, unless you’re enjoying the pain?” Faith could easily have thrown her aside but her hands were throbbing painfully and so she sat back on the bed and the nurse nodded curtly.
It was left to Tara to thank the nurse; Faith was impatient to go find the man. "We said we would wait for Willow." Tara pointed out.
"And I said I'd help with your investigation, you don’t want me breaking my promise do you?” That left Tara with little room for manoeuvre. She was half hoping that Willow would reappear before they located room nine; fortune wasn’t with her as Faith found the treatment room practically straight away.
Tara laid her hand on Faith’s arm. “Maybe we should wait until he comes out, follow him and see where he goes.”
Faith seemed to consider it for a moment. “Nah, where’s the fun in that?”
Faith flung the door open and strode in. Tara hastily shuffled in behind her. The man was clearly of American Indian stock. He had black hair as long as Tara’s and was probably in his mid twenties, though his weather beaten skin could have been taken for some a lot older. His clothing reinforced the impression of someone who lived in a rural environment. He also sported a number of bandages on his hands and face and a surprised expression. “Hi there, I was looking for someone and I figured you could help. They’re about so high, covered in white fur and it hurts like a bastard when you put your hands on them. You met the dude?” Faith asked. The man blinked once and then bolted. Faith made to grab him, forgetting about her damaged hands. He shrugged her off as she flinched form the pain and shoved Tara into her, buying him a few seconds to escape down the corridor. Faith disentangled herself from Tara and looked both ways along the corridor. She swore profusely, there was no sign of the man.
“Well at least I got a piece of him,” she commented. Something fell from her hand and dangled on a thin leather strap. Tara examined it. It was carved from some sort of bone or tooth into a highly stylized face, maybe a charm of some sort.
“What the heck happened?” Willow was standing in the doorway. Tara took the talisman and went to her lover; she hoped she would be forgiven for breaking her promise.
5.“Inuit”Faith’s hands were beginning to itch, that was a good sign that they were healing, so she could pretty much ditch the witches if she wanted to. They were probably expecting her to anyway. Of course maybe that was the best reason for not doing it, just to surprise them. Willow wasn’t really paying attention to faith; she was more interested in the charm and the well being of Tara. She passed the carving from hand to hand, as if she could somehow extract some information just from the feel of the thing. “I think it’s quite old.” Tara commented.
Willow took another close look at the thing. “What makes you think so?”
“Well it’s so smooth. Like it had been handled a lot. What do you think Faith?”
Faith was taken aback at Tara including her in the conversation. “Well maybe, hell it’s not the kind of thing you wear unless you have to.”
Willow decided that Faith had a point. The face definitely wasn’t the kind of thing you would make to sell to tourists; it was too severe, and too downright ugly.
“Well that means there’s a good chance that Giles will be able to tell us something about it.” Willow said. Faith simply grunted in response.
It had been a bone of contention between the couple and the slayer. Faith had wanted to go after the man. Willow and Tara had been less than thrilled by that idea. They didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves in the hospital, especially the kind that would have resulted in names being taken, and checked. Faith on the other hand had been a long way from enthusiastic about going to see Giles; as far as she was concerned he was Buffy’s Watcher. She was sure that if it ever came to it he would throw her to the wolves to save his precious Buffy.
When they reached Giles apartment Faith’s doubts seemed to be confirmed. At first Willow and Tara managed to keep Giles attention on the subject of frost demons and the charm. It wasn’t possible though to prevent him noticing Faiths bandaged hands, and once he go the story of how it happened out of her he swung the full weight of his disapproval onto her. “So after going off on patrol without so much as informing you then roped Willow and Tara into getting you medical attention?”
“I didn’t rope anyone into anything, I went, I asked, I offered to help them out, they said ok. I mean it wasn’t like I had to fight my way to the front of the queue.” Faith snapped back.
“Uh people.” Willow tried to interject; neither Giles nor Faith was listening however.
“That is not the point. You are a Slayer, you do not go around hiring out your services.”
“Mr. Giles.” Tara’s intervention got no further than Willow’s.
“Ok I’m out of here. See you later girlfriends.” Faith called out. As she flung the door open to storm she stopped. Xander was stood there, hand half outstretched to open the door, blocking her path. "Well if it isn't Mr. big mouth himself," she sneered.
“Faith, Willow, Giles.” Xander’s voice was rising and filling with panic.
Faith looked amused. “Relax lover boy, the Watcher was just explaining how everything was all my fault, and was I just leaving.” She barged Xander out of the way and strode down the path, leaving him speechless behind her.
“Well that went well.“ Willow commented to Giles.
Giles turned to her. “Well I’m sorry but she behaved in a highly irresponsible manner and as her Watcher I have to try and guide her.”
“Like I said, it went really well.” Willow emphasised.
“And what would you have me do? Pat her on the head for encouraging you to engage in fraud? Or her other…misconduct?” Giles modified his sentence as he registered that Xander was still in the doorway.
“Maybe this wasn’t the best time, I just figured you guys would be here and I wanted to help with whatever you’re working on.” Xander explained sounding rather lame.
Willow turned to Xander intending to brush him off. As she did so she caught a glance from Tara, a warning to be kinder this time. After just pulling up Giles for his handling of Faith it would look pretty bad if she just dissed Xander in front of him. Giles decided to take advantage of Xander’s offer to change the direction of the conversation. “Perhaps we should concentrate on the matter at hand,” he looked at the charm. “It’s clearly not Central or South American, the materials and execution are incompatible. And I think we can also rule out the plains or the east coast.
Willow nodded. “So probably from somewhere in the north, like Canada or Alaska.”
“Quite possible.” Giles agreed.
“Somewhere cold in other words.” Willow pointed out, failing to entirely keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Giles remained calm. “It’s a reasonable assumption, but until we have done some research it is only that.”
“Well I can help with that, I can look at pictures as well as the next guy.” Xander offered. “But if someone could fill me in what’s actually happening that would be cool.”
Willow laid out the story about Dillard, the frost demon, and the yacht. When she was finished Xander still looked worried. “I remember Cordy mentioning that yacht a couple of times, her dad was hanging out with this guy.”
“Yeah I found that out at the hospital.” Willow knew what that admission would lead to and Xander didn’t disappoint her.
“You spoke to Cordy?” Xander sounded apprehensive and a little hopeful.
“I did, but only have after I promised I wasn’t there on your behalf.” Willow didn’t see any point in hedging with Xander, and she still wasn’t that concerned about how he was feeling.
He did look pretty devastated as he said. “Oh, right,” he shook it off. “So research.”
That jarred Giles back into action. “Yes research, I’ll need to get some books from the library, most what I have here covers medieval Europe.”
“Well I could help carry and fetch, and look.” Xander reminded them.
Willow sighed; he was clearly determined to work his way back into their good books, so she might as well take advantage of it. “Fine you and Giles can hit the books. Tara and me will head back to the dorm, I left my laptop there and we may need it. Besides we haven’t eaten all day and I could use a shower.” Truthfully Willow just wanted a break, it had been a long and frustrating day,
and I don’t think it’s going to get any better, she thought gloomily.
The haze of gloom that Willow felt had lifted after they got back to the dorm room. Willow had hopped in the shower first and was now lying on the bed wrapped in a towel and stretching her feet to relive the tension that had built up in them. She wondered if perhaps it was time to learn to drive, or at least get a good pair of sneakers. Tara was still in the shower, but Willow could feel her presence in the room. It was a faint scent in the air and the myriad of little personal touches she had left around the room. Willow couldn’t help but feel brighter in this place and she wondered how she had managed without it. That unfortunately brought up a subject she didn’t enjoy thinking about, which was that technically she wasn’t supposed to be here. If she hadn’t interfered with history Willow wouldn’t have met Tara until she started at UC Sunnydale next year. Should she share her knowledge with the others? Would it make Buffy feel any better about breaking up with Angel if she knew she was going to meet someone else at some point in the future? Willow doubted it. Should she tell Xander that he would know the touch of a woman again? It probably would make him feel better and right now Willow didn’t think he deserved that. As for the other stuff, it was either too vague, too depressing, or too outright freaky to share. Willow sighed; for the time being she would just have to keep her secrets and hope things worked out for the best. They certainly had for Willow since that trip to Quincy all those months ago, in fact nearly a year ago, in fact as she thought about it almost
exactly a year ago. Sunnydale had kept them both so busy that it had almost passed her by. Just what was she going to do to mark that occasion?
The laptop gave out as series of pings and Willow reluctantly got up off the bed. She hadn’t completely slacked off since getting back to the campus; she had set up the computer to do some searching all by itself and now it was demanding attention.
Tara walked back in brushing her wet hair and wrapped in a bathrobe. She knew they should really be getting on with the investigation but she was tingling all over and surely they could spare some time for a little fooling around? That idea was killed off as she saw that Willow was pulling her clothes back on. “We need to go, and we need to go now.” Willow said, agitated. Tara didn’t bother to ask why, in Sunnydale there was only one answer, something bad had happened.
6.“Cooling Off”The stack of books that had been moved from the coffee table to the floor was growing. Each had been checked and found wanting. A smaller group were lying open on the sofa they were the ones that Xander thought might contain something useful. Giles was reading through another volume while looking at the charm. He looked up and checked the time. “Where are those girls?” he wondered out loud. Xander could think of an obvious possibility, given his tenuous status at the moment he kept his mouth shut and carried on looking through the books.
As it happened Willow and Tara finally showed up about fifteen minutes later. Giles was going to scold them until he saw their grim expressions. “I take it things have somehow gotten worse?”
Willow grimaced. “I had my computer watching the police files, it flagged up a report about a block of ice in an underground garage.”
The pair had made their way to one of Sunnydale's more expensive apartment buildings. A block of steel and copper tinted glass separated from its surroundings by a moat of grass, hedges and trees. The area had been thoroughly sealed off by the police; which had naturally led to a crowd of onlookers blocking Willow and Tara’s view of the site, and getting into the garage was out of the question, at least by any normal means. “Willow are you sure you want to try this?”
Willow gave her a sideways look. “Honey if Amy Madison could do this spell we can do it.” Tara didn’t see that as any great recommendation, and Willow could tell. “I promise you I’ve checked it out and I’ve even improved on it.”
Tara could see that Willow was determined to go through with the spell. “Ok we’ll give it a try, just make sure we can break it when we want to?” Willow nodded and took Tara’s hands. She slowly and clearly pronounced a series of runic incantations. A faint glimmer ran over the pair and they felt a faint tingling sensation. Apart from that the spell had seemed to have no effect. They stood looking at one another for a moment, and then Willow shrugged.
“There’s only one way to find out if this has worked.”
Officer Lay was sweating, not only was it a hot night but he had been stuck with lugging a camera tripod that was both heavy and awkward. He just hoped the sergeant didn’t see him or he would be back on that fitness regime again. As he staggered up to the barrier his colleagues cleared the way and pulled the barrier back, not quickly enough for Lay’s liking. Willow and Tara had fallen in step behind Lay. Tara knew it was silly to be holding her breath but she couldn’t help it, she was afraid the least sound might break the spell. As they walked through the police line it was clear that the magic had succeeded, no one was paying the least bit of attention to them. The spell didn’t actually make the girls invisible; it simply made it so that others saw what the caster wanted them to see. In this case that meant no one paid any attention to either Willow or Tara. They strolled into the garage and were confronted by a scene of confusion.
The police officers were moving around looking busy, but there didn’t seem to any pattern to their actions. Willow couldn’t really blame them given the circumstances, which were that there was a column of ice stretching from floor to ceiling with a car frozen inside it. Tara was looking past the ice to a cluster of people stood in a circle in one corner if the garage. She nudged Willow, still unwilling to speak, and pointed. Willow nodded in return and gestured towards the frozen car before walking away to take a closer look at it.
As she stepped past the milling police officers Willow could see that encased car was a Mercedes convertible, preserved perfectly, right down to the glass in the windshield. The ice was almost perfectly clear so Willow could make out every detail and at first she was relieved that it appeared to be empty, then she noticed that there was a patch of milkier, less transparent ice centred around the drivers seat. As she looked the outline of the patch became clear, it was a seated human figure. Willow felt a knot in her stomach. There had been someone in the car when this had happened and she was sure that whatever had happened to them was worse than simply being frozen to death.
Tara soon saw what was grabbing the attention of the circle of people and hesitated about going any closer. The mayor of Sunnydale was holding court. “So gentlemen have we got the press contained?” he asked reasonably.
A man with a shield tucked in to the breast pocket of his jacket answered him. “Yes sir, the press seems happy enough to accept the hoax story.”
“Well that’s fine.” The mayor answered and then his face hardened, “Now what progress are you making on putting a stop to this? We cannot have our most prominent citizens vanishing. It’s bad for business and draws a lot of attention, and you know how I feel about attention.”
There was much exchanging of glances among the assembled senior officers before the one with the badge spoke up, giving the mayor bad news was a risky business. “Well sir this isn’t the kind of thing we usually investigate. We usually focus on damage control; quite often that Summers girl puts in an appearance.”
The mayor appeared to accept that. “Yes it’s typical of today’s youth. Always underfoot when you’re trying to get things done and then when you have a job for them they’re nowhere to be seen.” He stopped talking and looked around.
“Is something wrong sir?” The man with the badge asked.
“Just that feeling you get sometimes that someone is looking over you shoulder, I’m sure it’s nothing.” Tara could have sworn that he was looking straight at her. She began to back away and then turned and walked back to where Willow was still studying the ice.
“After that the two of us got out of there as fast as we could. I’m going to set up my laptop and check what’s on the police computers.” Willow finished up.
Giles looked at Tara. “It was a dangerous thing to do,” he had become used to Willow being a little reckless, especially where magic was concerned. He expected Tara to act as a restraining influence.
Her reply was disarming. “We did need to find out about what happened Mr. Giles, and now we know this isn’t just about a yacht or a car, it’s about people.”
“Well that’s true,” Giles conceded. “And if the mayor is taking a personal interest that make matters considerably worse.”
Tara picked the charm up off the table. “Did you manage to make any progress with this?”
“Oh yeah, it’s from the frozen north alright.” Xander explained.
Giles was annoyed at being preempted. “To be more accurate it belongs to the
Paquana tribe of Alaska. It’s some form protection charm. Unfortunately as with most Native Americans they pass along their history and legends verbally. So far I haven’t come up with any source that’s recorded them.”
Willow started up the search engine on her laptop and put in the name of the tribe. While it worked away Willow turned her attention to the slightly trickier matter of getting into the Sunnydale PD system. The initial parts of the report only told her what she had already seen at the garage, and in a lot less detail. It seemed the police were already trying to erase any inconvenient facts. The search engine pinged and grabbed the screen. The results were sparse but interesting. “This tribe made a news story a couple of months back,” she announced.
“What sort of news?” Giles prompted.
“The tribe was involved in a land dispute. The story says that they won their case and a piece of land was added to their tribal reservation, a piece of oil rich land.”
“If this Dillard is as shady as the IRS thinks he is, or was, then maybe he was trying to grab all that black gold and someone got mad about it.” Xander suggested, and looked around to see if he was making sense.
Unfortunately as far as Willow could see he was making sense, because the police report was heading in the same direction. “Uh guys, according to the cops the car belonged to a man named Andersen, and he had invested money with Dillard,” she found a picture and hesitated. “He was also in that picture of the men in front of the
Miranda.”
That grabbed Xander’s attention. “Are you saying Cordelia’s dad could be involved?”
Giles tried to calm him. “I think Willow is saying that Mr. Chase knew both men, and even if he is uninvolved in whatever links Dillard and Arthurs he may know something about it.”
Tara nodded. “So we should talk to him anyway, he might be able to give us some clue, “ she avoided the obvious point that if he was involved then they really needed to talk to him, preferably before he became an ice cube.
7.“Thin Ice”For a 'Fortress of Darkness' the Chase house was actually pretty nice. When they were young Willow and Xander had spent a lot of time talking about the place. Naturally they were never invited to visit. Instead Willow had pictured the place, not figuratively either. She had created maps, blueprints and everything. In her vision it was a medieval fortress with a wide moat around it. Xander had suggested that the moat was filled with sharks and crocodiles; Willow pointed out they were ecologically incompatible. The reality was a large but perfectly normal house. It had a big front garden with a broad driveway snaking up to the L-shaped house. The main part of the house was a three storey white stone clad house in a classical style. The short arm of the L was a garage with room for three or four cars. There were series of carefully shaped shrubs dotted about the neat lawn, in a thoroughly tasteful manner. Money and taste, but no manners. Willow thought as she squared herself up to the task of confronting Mr. Chase.
Tara seldom saw Willow this psyched outside of the dorm room. Her girlfriend was seriously into this whole sleuthing thing. Tara had always liked ‘Scooby gang’ better than ‘Slayerettes’ for describing the group that worked with Buffy. She supposed Willow would be Velma, who come to think of it never seemed to be interested in boys. Xander was a shoe in for Shaggy. That sort of left only one female part open, and that was where the analogy broke down; Tara just couldn’t see Buffy Summers as Daphne.
The front door of the Chase how was intended to be imposing, or possibly just plain intimidation. There was a short flight of stairs leading up to porch that had thick fluted columns to either side and the doors themselves were dark stained Oak with back metal fittings. Willow wasn’t in a mood to be impressed; she was foot sore and wanted some answers. She pressed the button of the doorbell firmly and held it for several seconds before letting go. Her nerve almost failed when Mr. Chase himself opened the door. She took a deep breath. “Mr. Chase I’m Willow Rosenberg and this is Tara MaClay, we’re friends of Cordelia’s.” Willow almost choked on the word, but she didn’t think that ‘mortal enemies’ would get them through the door.
Chase looked at Willow for a moment. “Yes I believe my daughter has mentioned you a couple of times. Please come in.” The man’s civility took Willow by surprise but she stepped inside while the going was good, Tara gave Mr. Chase a friendly smile and followed Willow in.
The elder Chase led them to a spacious lounge with a red leather sofa and matching armchairs set about. One wall was dominated by a home entertainment system. The fact that neither TV, radio, nor music was playing suggested that it was there more for the benefit of a certain daughter than for his own use. “Cordelia is still in the hospital, though she is doing better,” he explained as gestured for them to take a seat.
Willow stayed standing. “I know, I mean I saw her in the hospital today she did look a lot better. When she was injured I thought.
“You were there when she was injured?” Mr. Chase interrupted.
“Yes, she didn’t tell you what happened?” Willow couldn’t help being distracted. Cordelia’s father was far from being the ogre she had always imagined.
“Practically nothing, apart from the fact that it had something to do with some boy she was seeing getting himself into trouble she refused to say anything else.” Mr. Chase explained.
“Oh, I see.” Willow was torn. On the one hand not telling her father about dating Xander was kind of shallow; on the other hand she could have dropped Xander into deep, trouble if she had wanted to.
Tara could see Willow was getting sidetracked. “Mr. Chase we wanted to ask you some questions, it’s important,” her voice was quiet but insistent.
“Willow was grateful for the reminder and put her resolve face on. “Yes we need to know what you can tell us about Mr. Dillard and Mr. Arthurs.”
Now Mr. Chase’s features hardened. “I don’t really see how that would be any of your business.”
“You have heard what happened to them? I mean you’ve heard about the yacht and the car?” Willow pressed.
“I saw some nonsense on the news yes, that’s not to say I believe a word of it.” Chase wasn’t giving an inch.
Willow was somewhat taken aback, after all the weirdness his daughter had been involved in could Mr. Chase really be that ignorant?
Right, she didn’t tell him about Xander, why would she tell him about the Hellmouth and the Scooby’s? There was a possibility; she just hated to spring it on him. “You don’t have a weak heart or anything do you?” she asked.
“What? No of course not.” Chase answered nonplussed. Willow looked over her shoulder at the entertainment center and the remote control lifted off the shelf and drifted towards her. She let it float a few inches from her face while she read the labels on the buttons and then she mentally pushed it away again. The handset spun round to point at the entertainment center and then the television sprung into life. It changed channels, the sound went up and down, and the colour and brightness swung wildly. It clicked off again and Willow sent the remote back to where it had come from.
Tara could see the strain on Willow’s face. Picking up the remote was well within Willow’s powers, she had could probably have floated Mr. Chase if she wanted to, the kind of control and focus it took to manipulate the keypad was something else all together. Doing it while keeping the handset in the air had clearly been an immense strain and she was trying to gather her strength again. Mr. Chase was simply standing staring at Willow. Tara looked between the two of them; neither was able to talk. “Mr. Chase, Mr. Chase?” Tara’s voice drew Chase’s attention towards her. “Mr. Chase I know it’s a lot to take in but trust me when I say that what you just saw is actually pretty normal for Sunnydale. There are much stranger things out there, and one of them doesn’t seem to like Mr. Dillard or his business associates.”
Chase slumped into one of the armchairs. “This is insane,” he was talking to himself rather than Willow or Tara.
Willow had recovered sufficiently to answer him anyway. ”It always is. We really need to know about Mr. Dillard’s business, especially if it involved oil or the
Paquana Indians.”
Chase’s look of astonishment grew. “How do you know about that? No don’t bother telling me, I don’t think I want to know.”
“Actually we just asked questions and did a little research.” Tara offered in an effort to make Chase feel a little easier.
Chase could at least understand that, “If you give them one of those demonstrations I’m not surprised you got answers.” Willow didn’t say anything; she just arched her eyebrow in way that made Chase want to get this over with. “Peter came to me and said that the
Paquana were willing to sell the oil rights to part of their land. He needed capital to swing the deal, and do it quietly. He roped in Arthurs, me, Andersen and Ronen Once we had the rights we could resell them for, well for a lot more that he was talking about paying for them.”
What Mr. Chase was telling them fitted in with what Willow had already guessed, and it didn’t seem to take them any further forward. “Was he having any problems? Was there any opposition?”
“No, it was all going well, and I know,” he hesitated as it struck him that
knew might be more accurate. “Peter Dillard couldn’t get anything past me, I would have known if there were any problems with the deal. Any business problems anyway.”
“You didn’t meet any Indians? Or see any of them with Dillard?” Willow was getting desperate.
“No, as far as I know all the meetings with
Paquana took place in Alaska.” Chase answered. He watched Willow who looked to Tara unhappily. “Is there anything I can do? Some way to protect myself?” Chase was anxious.
Willow wished she could offer something a little less lame, but she said it anyway. “Just be careful and warn your business partners to do the same. Don’t worry, we’ll find away to stop this,” she just wasn’t sure if that would be before or after anyone else ended up in an ice cube.
Willow: ...I have to tell you....
Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the
person you l-love
Willow: I am