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Chapter Four
Tara awoke with a start. It took her a moment to recognize the bed she was in, and her heart sank knowing the small spot of warmth nearby wasn’t Willow. Tara tried to move quietly when a soft sigh came to her ears. She looked over at the chair and saw Dawn wrapped in a blanket sleeping in a position that proved she was a teenager. Tara blinked her eyes and focused on the soft light on Buffy’s dresser. There, wrapped around a candlestick from downstairs, was Betty sleeping on her back and covered with a soft blue flame in her sphere. Tara smiled and tried to get out of bed silently.
“Hunh?” Buffy said coming awake.
“Five more minutes,” Dawn said without moving.
“Morning...” Betty began as a yawn overtook her.
“I’m sorry,” Tara said softly. “I didn’t want to disturb you. You all looked so, so...”
“If you say cute I shall snort derisively,” Betty grumbled. “I haven’t looked cute asleep for...a very long time. Ow!” the salamander grumbled as she rolled over. “Sorry, popping noises and bone conduction can be startling.”
“Its the gravity,” Buffy complained as she stretched. “Morning gravity is the worst.”
“What?” Dawn asked as she simply stood up and stretched. “First bathroom!”
“Hey!” Buffy huffed but Dawn made it to the door first.
“One day-” Tara started.
Spike was asleep on the pile of pallets. One flared with blue flame and drove itself into his heart...
“Tara?” Buffy asked with a gentle worried tone.
“Buffy,” Tara said with shock in her voice. “Last night I-I-I...I staked Spike.”
“In a dream?” Buffy asked with a thoughtful frown.
“No,” Tara said in a frightened whisper. “You were crying and, and-”
“You did what I couldn’t do,” Buffy said with a sigh.
“I used magic and I killed,” Tara said with panic beginning to show. “Buffy, that’s not me!”
“And axing a demon is you?” Buffy asked cautiously.
“That was different,” Tara insisted. “He was going to kill Willow!”
“The book,” Betty hissed. “Perhaps its trying to make you into what it wants. That would fit from that damned thing. I knew we should have burned the last two-”
Buffy and Tara both stared at Betty as she shut her jaws and turned a shade of dark pink. Buffy crossed her arms.
“Okay, Betty, out with it!” she demanded.
“It was when I was with the League of Flame,” Betty said reluctantly. “I was going through an idealistic phase and out to save the world. Hanging out with young people can do that to you and they were all so damn young. Anyway, Berasus the Silver had scryed a new collection of unstable magic in an impossible book of dark magic. We tried to destroy them all, but Berasus wanted to to study the last two, to figure out how it had happened so we could make sure it never happened again. Sounded good at the time.”
Tara heard the regret and hurt in the salamander’s voice.
“What happened?” she asked gently.
“Young and out to save the world, remember?” Betty sighed. “Berry was trying to turn a young woman away from sorcery and to white magic. Greta Manstein came across as a bird with a wing down. In reality she was a bloody vulture. I was guiding a lava flow away from a village when she killed him and took one of the books. She showed up in Berlin calling herself Von Manstein. Tarque went after her, but he was centuries away from his full power. She nearly killed him before he realized no amount of dragon honour was going to get through to a pocket reality if the owner didn’t want him there. Jane...I think part of her did die.”
“What happened to Manstein?” Buffy asked. “And the other book?”
“Von Manstein grew more powerful and she got arrogant,” Betty said grimly. “She also embraced the whole Berlin decadence scene, so much so she ended up trusting the wrong young lecher. He killed her, took the book and flat disappeared. As for the other book there was a young Watcher whose Slayer had just been called. She kept it safe. I think that’s the one we have here. I doubt the Council of Watchers understood just how dangerous this thing was until Warner stole it after the war.”
“What war?” Dawn asked coming back into the room.
“Second World,” Betty replied. “We were discussing the book’s history.”
“Oh!” Dawn said suddenly. She ran out of the room and came back in a few seconds with a sheet of paper. “We found those other books of Willow’s!”
Buffy and Tara looked at the printout. Buffy frowned.
“Published in 1924?” she asked.
“Look at the next to last line!” Dawn said eagerly.
“D. Cooper, N. Richardson, M. Kavanagh, P. Anderson et al?”
“Take the initials of the last names and you have?” Dawn said smiling.
“Cracker?” Buffy wondered. “Oh, right, its an anagram thing. That’s kind of stretching it.”
“It’s a start,” Tara said gently.
“There might be more,” Dawn said quickly. “Charlotte’s blinking.”
“You’re using Willow’s Powerbook?” Tara asked with a look of horror. “Honey, she’ll...oh, sorry...”
Dawn gave the witch a quick hug. “We’ll get her back,” Dawn said fiercely, then she gave Tara a shaky smile. “And then you can protect me because I can’t get that Avril Lavigne video off that I accidently downloaded.”
“Dawn,” Buffy began reflexively.
“Before you ground me for life let’s look at what Betty and I found,” Dawn said quickly. The teen pulled the laptop around and pulled up the first file. “It looks official.”
“It looks legal,” Buffy added. “Where did this come from?”
Betty conferred with Dawn for a moment. Then the salamander tilted her head. “Connecticut,” she said using the American pronunciation. “New Haven, I believe. It’s just part of a docket from a trial in 1921.”
“What’s the other file?” Tara asked hopefully.
Dawn opened it and frowned at the small size. “It’s the history of the other book about the heart. Looks like it was only published for a few years. It was required at Yale in 1924 until 1927.”
“I wonder how much they gouged them for it,” Buffy asked, her own memories of college textbook prices giving her voice a sullen edge.
“Three years,” Tara mused. “When did that other copy of the magic book disappear in Berlin?”
“I heard about it in ‘Twenty-Eight,” Betty replied thoughtfully.
“Maybe not so thin,” Dawn said brightly.
“Maybe,” Buffy agreed reluctantly. “Either way you need to get ready for school.”
“But you need me for research!” Dawn protested.
“The importance of education can’t be overlooked,” Betty said reluctantly.
“We won’t try anything without you,” Tara promised.
“But...” Dawn stopped and took a deep breath. “Okay. Not being immature here. I’’ll get dressed.”
“And I’ll track down our leads,” Betty said. “I’ll poke around the records of New Haven’s courts and then head to Yale.”
“Yale?” Buffy asked.
“Yale’s in New Haven,” Tara explained.
“And Yale has a marvelous medical history library,” Betty said happily. “You could get lost in those stacks...if you weren’t careful and, ah, dedicated.”
With that Buffy and Tara left Dawn’s room and Betty swirled away in a soft red flame. As they closed the door Buffy sighed.
“Will could have left all of this and gone to Yale,” Buffy said tiredly. “She could have gone anywhere. She stayed here because of me.”
“And because of that she and I met,” Tara pointed out with a soft smile. “Thank you.”
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Jonathan Levinson glared at his cellmate again. Andrew Wells had been pacing. Now he was looking at his hand and wrist like it was the most important thing in the world. Jonathan was about to ask him what was so damn important when Anya swirled into the holding area looking more blonde than he remembered.
“Are you from Warren?” Andrew asked almost instantly with a breathless hope.
“Are you important to him?” Anya asked curtly.
“Yes!” Andrew hissed conspiratorially.
“No,” Jonathan said suspiciously.
“Keep it down, Jerk-athan!” Andrew snapped. “This is my break-out.”
“Not exactly,” Anya replied suddenly in the cell next to Andrew. “This is your chance to tell me everything about Warren Meers.”
“Why should I do that?” Andrew said with a brittle bravado.
“Because,” Anya grinned as her face shifted to her demonic visage. “If you don’t I’ll pull your spleen out through your left nostril and believe me, that will hurt like a bitch. Trust me on this.”
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“I’m not sure about a project with multiple objectives,” Lilah Morgan said politely.
“Its not as much multiple objectives as it is a chance to use one to enhance the other,” the senior mage of the working group explained. “With the power and spells of the book we can put a sure hold on the new seer, perhaps even strengthen their ability to predict and interdict the future.”
There was a cheerful but muted buzz and Lilah frowned.
“Excuse me,” she said to the assembled sorcerers. “This might have a bearing on this.”
“I hate cell phones,” muttered the Black Griffon Society sorceress.
“Data recovered and the false flag planted,” Lilah said as she called up a file on her computer and projected it on the white board. The words ‘University of California at Sunnydale, Student File # UCSD 09-753-0318 appeared. “Just the basics, I’m afraid but it will give us more information for the scrying teams.”
“So that’s our little witch,” an adept of the Black Moon School observed drily. “Oh my goodness,” he said with a predatory smile. “‘Religion: White Wiccan’.”
“How nice,” Lilah said with the same smile.
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“You know, you could take a nap until Betty gets back,” Buffy suggested as Tara wolfed down her second slice of bacon. “Reading that bad book yesterday seemed to take a lot out of you.”
“It-It was intense,” Tara admitted. “It was like studying w-w-with my mother.”
“Wicca lessons must have been intense,” Buffy said lightly.
Tara put down her food and looked away-and down. Buffy saw the fall of hair across Tara’s face and felt the kitchen lose much of its warmth. “I’m sorry,” the Slayer said.
“S-sorry,” Tara sighed. Then she lifted her head. “My mother didn’t follow Wicca.”
“Oh, I just thought...”
“She was traditional,” Tara explained. “I wanted to do magic, I had to really, but the training for it wasn’t...nice. And some of the spells weren’t nice either. I think that’s one reason I could believe I was going to be a demon.”
“What do you mean by not nice?” Buffy asked warily.
“Training or spells?” Tara asked.
“How about both?”
“I had to get the spells right or Momma would let me feel just a bit of what the spell could do to me if I failed,” Tara replied. “And if I tried doing spells on my own she’d use a switch. She used to tell me I had no idea how dangerous the places and powers we touched could be. Of course I couldn’t do what she could. The best I could do was help her, sometimes. She could do spells I couldn’t even get right in practice. Sometimes she did...curses.”
“And you couldn’t, or was it because you wouldn’t?”
“Curses felt wrong,” Tara shrugged. “I remember once Beth asked me to curse this girl who was making a play for a guy Beth thought was hers. I r-r-refused and Beth told my m-mother.”
“What happened?” Buffy asked.
“The girl transferred out the next week,” Tara answered. “Beth was kind of nice to me after that, at least until the cancer made Momma too weak to do anything.”
“What about the Wicca thing?” Buffy asked after a long moment.
“I started that when I was fourteen,” Tara winced. “I w-was good at it, and the spells didn’t feel bad.” Buffy saw Tara wince again at some memory. The Slayer got up and sat next to Tara. Buffy sat quietly, close but not crowding and waited. Tara closed her eyes. “Momma tore up my first Wicca book. She scolded me, told me she wasn’t raising some simpering dishrag. She wanted me to be a real witch, not some whiny fake waving crystals around and singing about the moon.”
“What did you do?” Buffy asked gently.
“I hid my magic books after that, even my spellbooks,” Tara replied sadly. “Just after that Momma had her first chemo treatments and things looked like they were going to get better. She had to use the soft magics while she was sick. But when she got stronger she tried to go back to ‘real’ magic. She wasn’t strong enough and I had to help her. Things didn’t go so well. I think at the end she just gave up.”
Buffy didn’t say anything. She just put her hand over Tara’s and sat next to her in the sunlight kitchen.
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Betty meandered past the shelves, feeling lonelier than she wanted to admit. It wasn’t just the fact that there were no questions about where the good books were or the sleekest tail ever next to her. It was the students in their well lit chairs that stirred a growing nostalgia. She remembered the countless times she’d added light to the lamps or fires of classrooms across the world. The lectures and questions that had flowed under her enhanced light were as bright as a flame. She had learned so much, and been a part of others learning. Now looking at the intent faces of the young humans she yearned for those days. But so much had changed. Fire didn’t work well with electric lights, not even well crafted artisan flames. Nowadays...
“Concentrate, old girl,” Betty muttered as she shook herself.
Then she headed for the stacks with a flip of her tail.
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Willow was calling for help and he couldn’t find her. Xander hurried down the long corridors of the new Sunnydale High he was building, only they kept changing to the old high school. He finally heard her clearly and started to the library but Miller was there at the doors looking at a clipboard.
“You’re not being paid for this, Mr. Harris,” the man in the impeccable suit said. “You’re building the ramp.”
Xander turned and saw the wide, well made ramp leading to the black pit. Above the pit there was a cherry banner that read ‘Welcome Students!’ in bright colors. The bell for assembly rang and rang...
Xander slapped the snooze bar and tried to clear his head. His dreams had been so strange of late, at least the parts he remembered. As he staggered out of bed Xander saw the computer his former financée had insisted on getting. He stopped and in sat down at the keyboard and turned the computer on. He pulled up the e-mail program and hit the only selection on preset.
Hi Will,
I need to talk to y-
Suddenly Xander saw Willow slumped in Tara’s arms. There was no one to send the message to. He looked at the screen but it was blurry and he couldn’t see it clearly. Xander started to head for and then ran to the bathroom and was violently sick. He cried and threw up until he was dry heaving and trembling. He staggered up and looked at the puffy, red-eyed face he was getting used to seeing in the mirror. Xander stumbled into his shower and dressed, then he finished with a shot of vodka just to take the taste of the morning out of his mouth.
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“Sir, are you sure?”
D’Hoffryn looked at the young demon who had spoken out of turn. D’Hoffryn smiled kindly.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s just that the original writing, well,” the young demon felt suddenly very alone and unsure. “Perhaps it’s not a prophecy at all. Maybe it’s a warning.”
“You cannot be bound to ancient understandings, young man,” D’Hoffryn said in an authoritative but gentle voice. “We know more and understand the world better than previous generations. We must take our more complete knowledge and act on it.” Then he smiled. “Don’t worry, we know what we’re doing.”
The other half-dozen senior Vengeance Demons chuckled in a low, self satisfied way.
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Anya held the Leatherman tool as she swirled towards the resonating tone it created under her control. Andrew had given it up as the one thing Warren had given him after a much too brief interrogation. She didn’t do steel well but it was all she had. Warren hadn’t been very sharing, and after the spineless way Andrew had folded at a tiny bit of pain she could see why. Suddenly the tool hummed loudly. Anya looked down and saw the dark haired young man wearing a backpack waiting at the bus stop below. Anya materialized next to him.
“I’d really like to flay you with a dull icicle, but I need you alive,” she snarled. Warren just looked at her.
“Do I know you?” he asked dully.
“You will,” Anya promised.
She touched her amulet and started the binding spell. The world became full of light and thunder. Even with her amulet’s protection Anya was stunned. Then all of the small snakes of light became one green bolt and she felt every nerve scream as she was tossed back into blackness.
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Buffy guided more than drove the Jeep downtown. Tara held onto the overhead strap with white knuckles.
“Is my driving that bad?” Buffy asked.
“No, my balance is,” Tara said with a frown. “It’s strange-”
Buffy wheeled over hard as a Corvette cut them off and nearly clipped a city bus. Tara glared at the figure chatting on their cell in the departing sports car.
“Jerk!” Tara snapped.
The left front tire on the car blew and the vehicle headed for the sidewalk. Tara reached out and grabbed the air in front of her. The Corvette stopped at the curb in a screech of rubber. The driver leapt out of the car and tossed a smoking cell phone into the street. A police car coming the other way turned on its lights. Buffy pulled the Jeep over to a stop as the traffic slowed around them.
“Maybe we should walk,” she said carefully.
“Yes, walking,” Tara agreed with a shaking voice. “It’s good for us and for the environment.”
Buffy just looked at her friend as the shaken witch got out of the Jeep and leaned on the door. They walked past the stricken car as a young man and the cop looked at the the shredded front tire. The officer shook her head as they passed.
“I’ve never seen a blowout like this,” she muttered.
“It’s shredded,” the driver said in shocked voice. “And my cell battery must have shorted out at the same time.”
“You were driving a stick shift and talking on a hand-held cell at the same time?” the officer asked opening her notebook.
Buffy waited until they were clear of the small crowd and only then turned to Tara. “Did you do that?” she asked as evenly as possible.
“Not alone,” Tara said still nervous. “I might have been able to do the tire if I’d concentrated and expanded or maybe contracted the air inside but...”
“But?”
“Cars are metal!” Tara whispered worriedly. “And other stuff that’s not natural.”
“Very much so since it was a Corvette,” Buffy agreed.
“I stopped a car!” Tara said.
“Okay,” Buffy said hearing the panic edging into the witch’s voice. “What else did you stop?”
“What do you mean?” Tara asked.
“You stopped the idiot from crashing and maybe hurting other people,” Buffy pointed out. “You and Will have done some incredible things when lives were on the line.”
“She really did most of it,” Tara said with a hint of pride. Then Tara looked down suddenly.
“We’ll get her back,” Buffy said.
“Thanks,” Tara said softly brushing her eyes.
“Now, let’s get these magical doohickies,” Buffy said as she reached for the Magic Box’s door. “And-what the heck?”
Tara and Buffy looked at each other and then into the darkened, closed up store.
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“Who is this?” Doctor Watson asked Lucinda as she held up one sheet of the drawing. The familiar figures were still there, but now there was a new figure separate from several others that were like him but in a cluster. The figure seemed to be pointing and shouting at a crying girl. The doctor wasn’t sure where the smoking shoes fitted into the story.
“He’s her boss, like Mr. Wilson is daddy’s boss, only Mr. Wilson is nice,” Lucinda explained. “He sent me crayons and a pad with pandas on it. I like pandas.”
“I like pandas too,” Georgia confided with a nod. “Now, what about this one?”
Lucinda looked at the drawing. Georgia had been startled to see this one, a small girl on a hospital bed with IVs attached. That was normal. The crowd of people with daggers, robes and what appeared to be briefcases surrounding her were not.
“Oh, they’re just trying to get me,” Lucinda shrugged.
“Why, Lucinda?”
“For the pictures.”
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“Good lords of pain and taxes!” D’Hoffryn fumed. “I wanted one puny mortal! How could she screw that up?”
“I believe it was a robot-” The younger demon said.
“I can see that, thank you!” the senior demon snapped as he brought his hand down on the crystal ball. “Anya, you hot-headed idiot! Did you even bother to look at the aura of your victim? Of course not. Because there wasn’t one!”
“Does this mean we’ll have to abort?” the youngster asked hopefully.
“Of course not!” snorted another senior Vengeance Demon. “Maclay is definitely the one who will unlock the Orb’s power.”
“‘And the oldest seven’s amulets will open the complete power of the Orb’” another older demon quoted. “Think of the wrongs that will cry out to be avenged with all that power.”
“But the original writings-”
“We know what we’re doing!” seven voices snarled as one.
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“Nothing’s missing out of the training room,” Buffy said as she came out of the back.
“All of the books are here,” Tara added. “The cash register’s off with the drawer out and nothing seems to be missing.”
“She never opened the store?” Buffy wondered.
“No, the mail’s been picked up,” Tara observed. “Maybe she got a call, you know, f-from some girl.”
“Or she...”
“No!” Tara said quickly. “I mean...I’ve got to check on Willow!”
“Wait,” Buffy said quickly. “Don’t you need the book?”
“I know the spell,” Tara said confidently as she sat in a chair at the research table. “Watch over me?”
“Sure,” Buffy started. Then she shrugged because Tara was already gone.
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“No!” Willow called out uselessly. “Don’t do it!”
In front of her a young woman handed Rack a bundle of sage.
“Did you pay for it?” he asked.
“You said it had to be taken,” the woman said. “I took it. Now please, I’m feeling so weak.”
Rack nodded and then smiled as he touched the woman’s arm. Willow could see a bit of red flow into the woman and a large amount of cooler looking green magic flow out into Rack.
“You’re stronger than you think!” Willow yelled angrily. “It’s like you’re taking cheap magic steroids for God’s sake! You don’t need him! Can’t you feel what he’s doing to you?” Willow watched as Rack escorted the now giddy woman out with a hand on her rump. “How could you be so stupid?” The distraught redhead slipped to the smooth floor of her red prison. “How could I have been so stupid? Oh, don’t do this, Rosenberg! No despair, no fading! Tara’s going to get me out!”
Willow looked for something to make her think. She looked at the bundle on the desk. It was a smudge and the vaguely familiar price tag was still on it.
“Why sage?” Willow wondered. “Why stolen sage to be more precise? Sage is from the family Lamiaceae, genus and species Salvia officinalis if it’s the kitchen sage. Tara said sage is earth elemental and so body and its Crone so things like silence, oh yeah, and happy stuff like graveyards...of course! By stealing it you can reverse the magical polarity from a good growing thing to a harmful mimic if knowingly stolen.”
“Honey?” a familiar voice asked.
Willow whirled and looked at Tara on the other side of the cold red wall. The blonde looked tired, her mouth downcast and eyes that should be blue but for the crimson shield were hiding worry and pain.
“Tara,” Willow said trying to touch her. “You’re so tired, baby.”
“I’m fine,” Tara said quickly. “Finey McFine.”
“You’re using black magic to get into this place, aren’t you?” Willow asked in a rush. “This is a dark magic spell, you were taught how to use it even if you’re too smart to go down that path, and you’re-you’re hurting yourself to get here.”
“I had to see you,” Tara said softly.
“You’re not answering my question,” Willow said fighting back tears. “Which means it’s a big yes.”
Tara looked away from Willow’s eyes. Willow knew that meant she was going to try to lie. Suddenly Tara looked past Willow and scowled. Willow followed her gaze and saw the row of trophies.
“That’s yours! the blonde growled.
“Tara!” Willow shouted with as much power as she could muster. “Tara Maclay! You listen to me right now!”
“Sorry,” Tara mumbled as she looked down.
“Honey, this isn’t going to work,” Willow said softly. “It’s tearing you apart-”
“I’m fine,” Tara interrupted urgently.
“You were going to go all butch and big scary witch at the same time, baby,” Willow said with a gentle sadness. “You need to be at your best, honey, or you’re going to get hurt and even if you can get me out but you get hurt because of me then I’m not really going to get out of here, not really. That’s kind of jumbled but you understand, don’t you?”
“I understand,” Tara said so softly after a long second.
“I’ll be okay if you are,” Willow said.
“I love you,” Tara said suddenly with urgent longing.
“I know,” Willow replied with a real smile. “I love you too, but you have to go, baby.”
Tara just looked at her lover for a moment that could have held the life of a star, then she was gone. Willow leaned against the wall and sighed.
“What the Hell is going on here?” Rack bellowed.
Willow whirled around to see a giant face swim into focus in front of her.
“Strawberry, you just might be a problem,” Rack said with a frown. “I just felt something nasty around here.”
“Did you look in a mirror?” Willow snapped.
“Nice try, kid,” Rack grinned. “I think next time we recharge my happy little home I’m starting with this cell.”
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To Be Continued
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, just tickles my SOH. So I guess she doesn't need the actual ashes to restore Willow? I was amused by Betty's pique at the fuss over the fire:
that was so sad.
