4. “Rock And A Hard Place”Willow knew that Buffy had been planning to go on patrol alone. She had a lot of issues to work through, and Buffy usually worked through them by working through a few vampires. Willow was tempted again to nudge her towards Elias; after all there were others ways to relieve frustration. She looked at Tara who was nervously scanning the graveyard, Willow took her hand and Tara smiled and relaxed a little. “So this Denise spilled the beans about what Amy is doing?” Buffy asked.
        “Oh yes, she was very friendly.” Tara agreed, and winced a little as Willow squeezed her hand harder.
        “Didn’t we tell her to get out of town?” Buffy wondered.
        “Yeah, but it seems she decided that the statute of limitations had run out on that. So she came back here to go to college.” Willow explained.
        “Great, and now she’s found a bunch of like minded whackos to work magic with,” Buffy paused, “Sorry.”
        “It’s ok Buffy I don’t think they should be playing with magic either.” Tara reassured her.
        “I think they are just misdirected, they need someone to point them the right way.” Willow suggested, and saw the frown that crossed Tara’s face. “Anyway Denise told us where the coven was meeting, we were going to check it out and see exactly what they have been up to. We’ll meet up with you at the Bronze later, ok?”
        Buffy stifled a sigh of relief, “No problem you can give me the full scoop and we can figure out if this is something else we need to worry about.”
        Before the mayoral initiative that had led to the construction of UC Sunnydale the land had been a private ranch belonging to a family that had been there since before Sunnydale was created. Somewhere along the line the money had gone and the ranch had been swallowed up by debt and taxes. Willow suspected that Mayor Wilkins had manipulated that situation, all part of his plan to create a feeding ground for the demons he had conspired with. The campus brought hundreds of extra potential victims to Sunnydale each year and had probably been down as the second course on the Mayor’s banquet after his Ascension.
Not every part of the original land had been redeveloped. The family had built a small private chapel in a quiet corner of their property and despite the fact that it had fallen into disuse it had never been demolished; some local historical society had claimed it was a landmark and had managed to block every attempt to have it demolished, without ever raising the support to have it restored and preserved properly. Naturally a place with a roof and no prying eyes had attracted the attention of plenty of students over the years, and as hallowed ground it was a perfect spot for the coven to gather.
        Willow looked around the innards if the chapel; it had been cleaned up and a number of candles were placed around it. There were traces of magical symbols painted on the floor that had been washed away, and there was a lingering scent of herbs in the air. Willow got a good vibe from the place. “Well it looks like they are sticking to white magic.” Willow pointed out positively.
        “Hmmm.” Was Tara’s only response.
        “Look Tara I was thinking, maybe we should actually think about joining the coven.” Willow blurted it out.
       
I knew it. Tara had seen this coming since Willow had heard the word ‘coven’ mentioned. “Baby I really don’t think that’s such a hot idea.”
Willow wasn’t going to be put off, “I know that it’s Amy’s creation, but we know way more magic than she does we could…”
        “Take it over and make it ours?” Tara was looking askance at Willow as she made the suggestion.
Willow made a sour face, “No, I just mean we could show them the proper way to do things.”
        “Honey we could, I just don’t think we should.” Tara countered.
        “Now you’re losing me.” Willow sounded confused.
        “Willow the girls in the group thought witchcraft was a joke. Now Amy’s persuaded them with a few cool tricks I still don’t think they take it seriously. You have to respect the magic, if you don’t it can be; bad.” Tara couldn’t think of anyway to express just how bad.
        Willow could understand the logic of the argument,
still…”Maybe we should stake them out, see what they’re up to and then decide what to do.”
        Tara hesitated, clearly Willow wasn’t going to let this go easily, “Ok we’ll check them out and then we’ll decide what to do.”
        “Right, once we have all the facts we can make a decision.” Willow was hoping that if it didn’t turn out to be as bad as Tara thought then she could talk her girlfriend round; a chance like this to actually be part of a coven wasn’t to be thrown away lightly.
        Much as she loved Willow and Tara Buffy was glad to go off on her own; all that ‘coupleiness’ was getting to be a downer. It wasn’t their fault but the comparison with her own love life was just too depressing. Angel had gone away to LA; Parker was a bastard, and Riley Finn… Buffy hadn’t even realized she was interested until he pulled his disappearing act. She wondered if this was some new level of rejection she had achieved, men leaving her before she even dated them.
        Three short, sharp, cracks grabbed Buffy’s attention. It wasn’t part of her usual Sunnydale scene and it wasn’t until it was repeated that it registered it was gunfire, followed by a sound like rocks tumbling over one another that Buffy figured had to be some sort of roar, she turned and sprinted towards the sound. The sound had originated somewhere in the woods that bordered the cemetery she had been checking out. Fighting her way through the undergrowth in the dark without winding up sprawled on the ground was a serious challenge and it took Buffy a couple of minutes to reach the source of all the noise, and it had gone disturbingly quiet before she stumbled into the clearing.
        It was pretty obvious why the gunfire had stopped, there were half dozen men wearing uniforms and night vision gear strewn around the opening in the trees. Buffy had seen them on the campus and assumed they were dressed up for Halloween, but the weapons they were carrying weren’t water pistols, and from the way a couple them were lying they weren’t playing dead. Whoever they were they were playing for keeps, and losing. “
Oscar one status check, Oscar one report, over.” The voice startled Buffy and then she spotted the radios strapped to the hip of one of the commando guys.
        She picked it up and thumbed the ‘talk’ button, “Oscar one is a little busy being unconscious right now, I thin you had better come and find him.”
        “
Who the hell is this? Identify yourself!” The voice demanded. Buff found two small rocks and pinned the radio between them with the talk button pressed down, she just hoped whoever the shouting guy was he could actually track the radio down. Buffy knew she should get out of the clearing but she wanted to get some clue as to who these people were. Pulling off their masks Buffy had a vague sense of familiarity, which finally crystallized as she remembered the name of one of them, Forrest, a buddy of Riley Finn and one of the frat boys from Lowell house. Buffy had a hard time believing this was some sort of initiation gag, she wasn’t about to hang around for their buddies to show up and she could see a line of beat up trees marking out the trail of whatever had done this. Buffy decided that right now it was more important to trace the whatever than watch over a bunch of boneheaded frat boys.
        The trail wasn’t exactly a straight line. Whatever she was tracking seemed to be zigzagging, either it had a terrible sense of direction or it had no idea of where it was going. Buffy was getting tired of trying to track the thing and nearly breaking her ankles tripping over roots and animal burrows. She was thinking of taking a rest on a large rock when the rock turned towards her. The thing looked like a large badly carved statue, all angles and edges instead of a smoothly carved surface and there were empty pits where the eyes should have gone. Buffy began to back up, the creature moved with her, “Right, not going to be that easy,” she muttered.
A torn off branch was lying on the ground and Buffy snatched it up and spun round to smash into the back of the creatures knees. The branch snapped and pain shot through Buffy’s arms; otherwise the attack had no impact. The demon swung an arm round and caught Buffy in the chest sending her flying through the air. Her body slammed into the ground and the shock left Buffy immobilized and she knew she was about to be stomped. A ball of light whizzed over her head and smacked into what passed for a chest on the demon. It let out one of its avalanche roars and staggered back. Apparently having had enough of being attacked for one night it turned and stomped off into the dark.
        Buffy tried to struggle upwards but didn’t get much further than resting on her elbows before Willow and Tara were at her side. “Are you Ok?” Willow asked anxiously.
“Nothing that a body transplant wouldn’t fix.” Buffy groaned, “I thought we were going to meet at the Bronze?”
Willow shrugged, “It was early, so we thought we should come back and see how you were doing.”
Buffy took Willow and Tara’s hands and let them pull her to her feet, “Thanks.”
“Do you want to go after it?” Tara asked dubiously.
Buffy shook her head, “Not without some heavier weapons, a wrecking ball would be nice.”
“The spell just bounced off as well, I think it just got fed up and left.” Tara pointed out.
“Yeah, I think it had a good idea, I think it’s time to retreat to a hot bath and a couple of aspirin.”
5. “Stony Ground”Giles missed his library; not only for all those shelves filled with books that he had cherished and protected but also for the fact that without it his living room had become the sole focus for the activities of Buffy and all her friends, acquaintances, and enemies. And none of the aforementioned was inclined to actually knock before they came in. “Hi Giles.” Willow announced as she marched in.
        “Good morning Mr. Giles.” Tara added.
        “Hey.” Buffy offered as she limped through the door.
        That sight dispelled any annoyance Giles might have felt at the trio barging in, “Buffy what on earth happened?” he rushed to guide her into a comfortable chair.
        “I’m ok, you should see the other guy.” Buffy joked. Unconvincingly.
        Giles frowned, “Who exactly was ‘this guy’?”
        Willow stretched a hand above her head, “About so tall, looked like he had been carved out of a chunk of flint.”
        “Felt like it too.” Buffy muttered, “And it wasn’t alone, ran into a bunch of commando guys who were armed to the teeth, stone face had pretty much gone straight through them.”
        “Some sort of vigilante or militia group?” Giles speculated.
        Buffy shook her head, “Their uniforms were too; uniform. And they had what looked like top of the line equipment,” she didn’t mention the fact that she recognized some of them; she wasn’t going to share that until she figured out what it meant.
        “We also found the place where the coven has been meeting.” Tara mentioned since she could see Willow wasn’t going to bring it up.
        “So they are actually a functioning coven? They aren’t simply posturing?” Giles asked.
        “No, Amy definitely seems to have got them doing real magic.” Tara was resolute, and wanted to make sure that everyone remembered that Amy was the one behind the coven.
        “Hmmm the girl seems determined to follow her mothers path despite our efforts to warn her off.” Giles commented.
        “Exactly, and she’s trying to take a bunch of people with her.” Tara could see the surprise on the others faces, she rarely sounded angry. She just needed to try and get across how serious this really was.
        “The coven just seems to be interested in white magic, I don’t think they’re interested in doing anything bad.” Willow interjected.
        Giles looked at the pair intently. Usually Willow and Tara were completely in step; to the point where even such a small disagreement was unsettling.
        Buffy turned in her chair, “Guys I know this coven is a big deal with you, but I think the walking mountain should come top of our list. I mean magic, bullets, they all bounced off this thing. I think we need to hit the books.”
Tara saw Willow nodding in agreement, “We did say we were going to check out what the coven are actually doing.” Tara reminded her.
“Well we don’t know when they’re holding their next get together, we could snoop around at the next Wicca meeting.” Willow suggested.
“Actually the coven is meeting tonight, for something big.” Tara laid her trump card and smiled at the astonishment on Willow face.
“How did you find that out?” Willow sounded somewhat dazed.
“I called Denise and she told me.” Tara explained.
“You
called Denise?” Now Willow’s tone was frosty.
“She gave me her dorm number so we could keep in touch.” Tara explained, not quite seeing why this was so important.
“Wasn’t that nice of her.” Willow practically growled in reply, and pretty much put an end to the conversation.
The regenerative powers that went with being the Slayer meant that by lunchtime Buffy was feeling pretty good again, physically at least. She was still disturbed by the sight of her fellow students being part of some sort of government monster squad, and being housemates of Riley Finn. He had seemed like such a genuine open guy, how could he be connected with something like this? However could these people really be running around Lowell house without him knowing anything? And why had he dropped out right after Maggie Walsh’s death? She wanted to know the answers to those questions before she shared what she knew with her friends.
As she approached Lowell house Buffy spotted one of the frat boys standing outside with his arm in a sling, he was one of the commandos she had unmasked the previous night; which ruled out any chance that it was mistaken identity. As the boy walked away Buffy saw that he had been talking with Elias Carter. “Hello again.” Buffy called out cheerily as she approached Elias.
“Buffy, hi.” Elias was clearly surprised, but not unhappy about seeing her.
“That guy looked kind of beat up, must have been a heck of a party.” Buffy hoped she was being subtle.
“Well I think it was a lot of alcohol, an argument over whose team was best, and it all just go out of hand.” Elias answered without missing a beat, before Buffy could ask any more questions he put one of his own, “What brings you here?”
“I wanted to see how Riley was, Riley Finn.” Buffy’s explanation was only half a lie.
“Finn? You know Finn?” Elias’ response was harsher than he intended.
“Not that well, but he was Professor Walsh’s TA and he was nice so I wanted to see how he was doing.” Buffy was surprised at the vehemence of Elias’ response, but found she wanted to explain.
“Oh right, of course. Sorry bad day.” Elias floundered as he tried to backtrack, “Anyway sorry to have to tell you but he’s left. Apparently after the death of the Professor he didn’t want to stay here.”
Buffy just stared for a moment, “Oh, makes sense I guess, “ her tone was disappointed and she turned and walked away without another word. She didn’t wonder how come Elias knew so much about Riley and where he had gone.
Elias berated himself; he should have kept things casual, answered Buffy's questions and sent her on her way. Instead the moment she mentioned Finn's name he had been annoyed and off his guard. Elias was honest enough with himself to admit that he had been jealous. That didn’t make much sense, yes she was pretty but there were plenty of other cute co-eds around the campus, and several who had made it clear that they were available. And yet there was something about Buffy Summers that drew him. Elias tried to figure out exactly what it was; there was something in the way she moved, and in the look she had given him.
Her eyes, it finally clicked into place. Buffy smiled and played nice but there was something in her eyes that said this was someone who had been places and seen things, and not good things either. And that didn’t fit in with the whole cute co-ed thing. “Carter?” Elias turned to be confronted by another of the commandos in civilian gear.
“We aren’t due to debrief for a couple of hours.” Elias reminded him.
“I know that, but that girl you were talking to; I wouldn’t swear to it but she sounded like the one on the radio last night.” The soldier waited nervously for a response.
Elias considered this, “You couldn’t swear to it?”
“No, it just sounded similar.” The commando confirmed.
“Alright I’ll take it under advisement, we’ll cover the rest formally later.” The commando took the hint and walked away. Elias turned the information over in his mind, Buffy Summers would warrant some very close attention and soon.
Tara could see Willow was still annoyed form the vicious way she was folding up clothing and shoving it into a drawer. Things had been a little out of synch for the past day or so and she supposed that Willow was venting a little steam, still she didn’t want to see another innocent sweatshirt maimed, “Honey I’m really sorry; I didn’t think anything of it, I thought Denise just wanted us to join the coven.”
Willow looked to Tara and knew that she meant exactly what she said. As hard as it was to believe Tara still couldn’t see what Willow saw every time she looked at her. The way that shy girl from Quincy had blossomed into such a beautiful desirable woman. Part of what made Tara so special was of course the very way that she didn’t see that. “I know you didn’t baby, I just wish you had told me about it sooner.” Willow explained soothingly.
“I was going to, but we were in such a hurry to get over to Giles.”
Willow nodded, “You know we could just go over to the coven meeting and introduce ourselves.”
Tara frowned, “Well we could but that would probably mean an argument with Amy again, and she might just call off the whole thing. Or she might decide to be on her best behaviour. Either way we won’t get to see what they are really up to.”
Willow still wasn’t happy with the way Tara made the coven sound so sinister; she really couldn’t believe that people whose wildest idea was a bake sale would throw themselves into some dark demonic ritual. Still she didn’t want to argue about it. “Ok so we so we keep out of sight and we see what happens, but if it turns out to be of the good can we at least talk about joining?”
“We can talk about it.” Tara conceded.
Using the ‘cloaking’ glamour always made Tara uneasy, not so much because of the magic as Willow’s habit of using it to get as close to the target as possible; sooner or later someone was going to try and walk right through one of them and Tara was pretty sure the spell couldn’t cope with that. She had persuaded Willow that they should shelter under a tree some twenty feet from the chapel. They could see everything without taking any risk of being discovered.
The coven appeared to consist of seven girls including Amy, who was clearly the leader of the group. Willow knew that was one strike against the coven to start with, and they were bringing an awful lot of paraphernalia for one little meeting. A sheet was spread in the middle of the chapel and Willow caught a glimpse of runic symbols before it was laid down. The coven was clearly planning something, something big. Willow could tell from the way that Tara was squeezing her hand she was very unhappy with this and Willow’s chances of talking Tara round were slipping away. The coven took up positions around the cloth holding candles and chanting. Amy was holding a bell that she rang at certain points in the chant. A ball of pure white light rose up from the floor and hovered in the midst of the group. Willow thought it looked quite lovely, and then there was brilliant flash that blinded everyone for a few seconds.
As Willow’s eyes recovered she saw the light was now a vivid scarlet and what appeared to be gas or dust was pouring out of it and forming a swirling cloud in the roof of the chapel, little lightning flashes emerged from the dust, whatever it was it was very pissed off.
6. “Hard faced”The coven scattered screaming and crying as the cloud of dust swirled over their heads, flickering with angry red flashes. Amy was frozen against a wall of the chapel, trapped behind the point of light that was pulsing and wavering. Suddenly Amy made a gesture with her hands and the light guttered and died. The cloud was unaffected however and flowed out of the chapel in apparent pursuit of the coven. From their place of concealment Willow and Tara saw the cloud spread out but not dissipate. Willow let the concealment spell collapse and dashed out to confront the, whatever it was. Tara followed close behind. “Any good spells for driving away clouds?” Willow asked.
        “Not really.” Tara admitted.
        Willow sighed, “So I guess we go with what we know.” Willow grasped Tara’s hand and then raised her free hand towards the angry looking cloud, letting a bolt of lightning loose. The bolt went straight through the cloud without seeming to do any damage. It had an effect though; the cloud drew itself into a tight swirling mass and shot away from the chapel and vanished into the night.
        “I guess we had an easy one coming.” Willow commented. Tara nodded but kept scanning the sky; that cloud had looked mean, for a cloud anyway, and she wouldn’t have surprised if it just dropped straight down on top of them.
        The real problem was at ground level, “Where the hell did you come from?” Amy practically screamed at them.
        “We just saved your butt you know, a thank you would be nice.” Willow snapped back.
        “Thank you, now what the hell are you doing here?” Amy persisted.
        “We wanted to what you were doing here.” Tara admitted.
        Amy looked disgusted; “We were trying to summon a guardian spirit, something to create peace and safety over the campus. Instead we got that thing.”
        Tara looked horrified, “A guardian spirit? That’s way to dangerous for amateurs to try.”
        Amy got angrier, “We are not amateurs, and I had everything just right for the spell, “she stopped and gave Willow and Tara a hard look,” Were you using a spell to snoop on us? Or a glamour to hide from us?”
        “We wanted to see what you were doing without you hiding anything from us.” Willow conceded reluctantly.
        If Amy had been angry now she was incandescent, “You morons ruined the spell, you distorted the flow of the magic with that glamour, which you stole from me in the first place!”
        Willow was equally indignant, “We did not ‘distort the flow of energy’, you’re just making that up, Right baby?” she glanced at Tara and the anger drained out of her face as she saw Tara frowning, “It is nonsense right baby?”
        Tara hesitated, “I don’t think it’s very likely,” she answered.
        Amy looked triumphant, “I guess that’s as close to an admission of guilt I’m going to get out of you two. Now I have to go and find my sisters and explain this wasn’t their fault,” she stalked off leaving Willow and Tara looking at each other miserably.
        Willow had to stare at her breakfast to remind herself exactly what she was eating. The act of tasting and chewing wasn’t providing much information. All her senses were dulled after the previous night. After the encounter with the ‘dust devil’ she and Tara had tried to come up with some scheme to make things right, with each other as much as anything else. The problem was that they couldn’t even agree where to start. Willow disliked this sense of being out of step, but she simply couldn’t see anyway of doing it short of just surrendering over the whole coven issue and Willow wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
        Tara had taken her time in the shower, hoping the hot water would wash away the tension she felt; it hadn’t worked. The encounter with the coven last night had come close to fulfilling her worst expectations. The spell they had been trying was far too powerful far anyone but the most experienced witches, and then only in extreme circumstances. It should have been the end of the matter, proof that she had been right all along, except that she couldn’t rule out the possibility that using that glamour had interfered with the spell. Magic that complicated could be fragile and had to be done just right. Tara didn’t really believe that was the case; she just couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t just her pride talking.
        As she walked into the refectory Tara spotted Willow sat looking a little forlorn waiting for her. Tara’s heart melted, they couldn’t let this come between them, they had to find a compromise that they could both live with and that would put a smile back on Willow’s face. Tara filled her tray with the first things that came to hand and made her way over to the table, only to find an Amy shaped object getting in the way. “I hope you two had a good night.” Amy asked venomously. She was wearing the same clothes as the previous night and her hair was a mess.
        Willow rose from the table and moved to Tara’s side, “What do you want Amy?”
        “I don’t want anything, but thanks to you a couple of the sisters have dropped out of the coven and I need all the Wicca I can get to stop that demon.” Amy explained belligerently.
        “You’re asking us to help you?” Willow was incredulous.
        “I’m; asking you to help the coven, you’re partly responsible for this so I thought you might actually want to put it right.” Amy pointed out.
        “We did not cause this, you shouldn’t have even tried summoning such a powerful spirit.” Tara wasn’t going to let Amy palm the blame off on to them.
        “So you’re sure you didn’t disrupt the magic now?” Amy asked. Tara hesitated and Amy went on, “That’s what I thought.”
        Willow wasn’t happy with the way this was going, “What is it your planning Amy?”
        “A binding spell,” Amy made it sound blindingly obvious, “I mean you can’t exactly shove a stake through its heart.”
        “How exactly do you plan to do it?” Tara asked cautiously.
        “We get the coven together, we draw the demon to us, and then we bind it to some physical object, and bury it in the deepest hole we can find.” Amy answered.
        Tara’s eyes went wide, “Are you crazy? You want to put those girls back in harms way after what happened last night?””
        “I’m doing what I can to put things right, what about you?” Amy retorted. Tara glanced at Willow, who looked unhappy and confused, and was conspicuously not jumping in to help, “You know suddenly I’m just not hungry.” The tray clattered on to the table as Tara abandoned it.
        In the dorm room Tara started taking slow deep breaths to try and calm herself, she couldn’t remember being so mad. This whole situation was spiraling towards outright disaster and no one else could see it;
Willow can’t see it. That was what troubled Tara the most, the sense that Willow wasn’t on her side this time, and that was unnerving beyond words, like someone had just taken out one of her major organs.
        There were was a knock at the door and Willow walked in, “You don’t need to knock to come into your own room.” Tara pointed out, still on edge.
        “I just didn’t want to get in the way of any flying objects.” Willow explained and saw the joke fall flat.
        “Did you get rid of Amy?” Tara asked, hoping that Willow was going to answer with a simple yes.
        “Sort of.” Was Willow’s actual answer.
        “Sort of as in you listened to her plan and agreed to try and talk me into it?” Tara knew this could only end one of two ways, and one of those ways would involve her giving in and going along with the coven; she just couldn’t bring herself to do that, so that only really left one possibility.
        “Tara I know it’s not a great plan, and I don’t much like Amy, but really what choice do we have?” Willow pleaded.
        “We got to Giles, we go to Buffy, we go to our friends and we work on this the way we always do.” Tara stated firmly.
        “This isn’t something Buffy can slay, and this is partly our fault.” Willow countered.
        “I don’t believe that.” Tara pointed out.
        “But there is a chance it’s true, and the coven will try this even if we don’t help.” Willow continued to argue, even though she could see it was a losing battle.
        “Then we should go to them, tell Denise and the others how dangerous this really is.” Tara knew she sounded harsh but this was her last throw of the dice.
        “I think the priority is stopping the demon.” Willow said.
        “Willow I can’t go along with Amy and the coven, you aren’t going to persuade me otherwise.” There just wasn’t any point in dragging this out any further.
        “Ok then. I said I would go help them work on the binding spell, so I guess I’ll see you later.” Willow opened the door and walked out slowly and reluctantly. Tara held back until the door closed, and then the tears ran down her cheeks.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Willow: ...I have to tell you....
Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the
person you l-love
Willow: I am