"Dead Girls' Party" - Rated PG
“You know,” said Cordelia, “I can think of at least six things I’d rather be doing on a nice cold January night than fighting my way into an Econolodge in Boulder, Colorado.”
“Why are they staying in an Econolodge, anyway?” Tara asked. “Didn’t Buffy used to own, like, a castle and a private plane and enough high-tech stuff to endow a university?”
“Maybe Willow has finally talked some financial sense into her,” said Anya. “Luxury hotels are overrated. I like a motel where the people in the next room can hear what you’re doing.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Moving on. My guess is that these vamps are tapping into their own demonic essence to power this mystical shield around the building. That should make them weaker.”
The dozen vampires lounging around the snowy parking lot all laughed. “Strength is not always relevant, little ghosts,” the leader said. “We have physical form. You’re illusions. That makes us stronger.”
“Little ghosts?” Cordelia crossed her arms and gave her patented Superior Cordy glare. “That’s wrong in both a descriptive and metaphysical sense. You’re Laurent, aren’t you? Used to run with Spike and Drusilla back in Europe?”
“Indeed I am,” said the head vamp. “And you are Cordelia Chase, emissary of the Powers That Be and still, I beg to repeat, a ghost in our dimension. As are your two bookends here,” he added, glancing dismissively at Tara and Anya. “You can’t fight us. You can’t even touch us.”
Cordy glanced at the motel room door, and its accompanying dark window, that the vamps had congregated near. “You realize behind that door are two of the most dangerous women in the world, right?”
Laurent shrugged. “Sound asleep. And they’ll stay that way until it’s too late. It’s only a few minutes until midnight. The shield will hold until then. After that, you’re free to do as you like with the Slayer’s corpse. We don’t have to fight you, and we don’t have to fight them. We just walk away laughing.”
“Burning your own essence to power a barrier is a lot of trouble to go through for just one Slayer, isn’t it? There are two thousand more, after all. More coming in every day, too.”
“And without Buffy Summers to hold them together, they’ll be leaderless. We’ll be able to pick them off one by one. Maybe even in twos. We’ve all seen examples lately of what happens when those pretty little girls try to slay solo.” All the vampires laughed.
“Only a few minutes to midnight, Cordelia,” Anya reminded her. “Buffy doesn’t have much time.”
“And if only you could hold stakes or swords in your incorporeal little hands, you might have a fighting chance at saving her,” scoffed Laurent. “Even dead, this is more our world than yours. When we died, we had the basic loyalty to stay here instead of running off into the boring heavens. You can touch nothing in this plane. Your time is past. You’re out of style, emissary.”
Cordelia was running out of patience as well as time. “Out of style? You did not just say that. I can’t speak for Tara and that hippy-chick thing she has going on, or Anya and her vintage 1958 skirt-and-sweater set. But this outfit is the celestial equivalent of Marc Jacobs. You don’t get to disrespect these threads, even in Colorado.”
She glanced at Tara and at Anya. “You two ready to do this?” They both nodded. Cordelia called up her celestial energy. Mystical silver fire danced around her hands and through her hair.
“Gonna be a beautiful sunny day today, Laurent,” she called.
“In seven hours or so,” the vampire replied. “Seven hours too late for your Buffy. Or have the Powers given you the ability to make the world spin faster?”
“That’s the problem with you undead. You always think of the hard way first.”
Cordelia sent a column of silver fire high into the air above the parking lot, focusing it on a single point in space. “Miss Maclay, cast your spell right where I’m pointing, please. Miss Jenkins, a bit of demon mojo so we don’t melt all the ski slopes and panic all the nice people of Boulder.”
Tara gestured up at the terminus of Cordelia’s energy stream and cast a spell. A small point of light appeared there, a hundred feet or so in the air. Cordy’s power took hold of it, and it quickly spiralled into a portal the size of a swimming pool. Anya, concentrating on the darkness around it, held it at that size.
Blue sky shone down through the portal, bathing the parking lot in midday sun. “Looks like the smog’s lifted in Bangkok,” Cordelia observed. “Good picnic weather.”
It was too late for the vampires to panic, of course, and in short order Cordelia, Tara and Anya were the only ones standing in a parking lot that seemed to have gotten a whole lot dustier.
Cordelia let the portal close. “It’s always sunny somewhere, boys,” she remarked to what used to be the vamps. “Shield’s gone. Let’s go, ladies. Time’s wasting.”
They passed through the outer wall of the hotel room and entered a dark space where two young women snored away in twin beds. The Slayer Scythe stood propped up in a corner near the door.
Tara gazed longingly toward the second bed. “Focus, Tara,” Cordelia said to her. “Plenty of time afterwards. Buffy needs us now. Things should start happening any minute. You two remember the words I taught you to say, right?”
Tara and Anya both nodded. “Now, why was Buffy going to die tonight?” Anya asked.
Cordelia glanced at the clock on Buffy’s nightstand. Still eight minutes to midnight.
“When the Shadow Men created the Slayer line, they were worried about the possibility of a Slayer living long enough to become old and feeble and useless. Old back then meaning, like, thirty. Rather than having to murder their own Slayer, or wait until she died of old age before another could be called, they specified an expiration date. At the stroke of midnight on every Slayer’s twenty-sixth birthday, a killing spell would descend on her and stop her heart. And a new, younger Slayer would be activated.”
“That sounds harsh,” said Tara.
“The Watcher’s Council thought the same thing,” Cordelia said. “Sometime during the Renaissance they came up with a counter-spell to undo that little problem. Only a handful of Slayers have ever lived to their twenty-sixth birthdays, but when they do, they have to have this spell said over them or they’re toast. Unfortunately it was a secret, and with the Watcher’s Council gone, none of the mortals in this world even remember that anymore. Unless Giles happened to look through just the right book…”
Anya looked concerned. “Does this mean we’ll have to do the same thing with all two thousand Slayers? And all the new ones that are getting zapped with the power?”
“No. Slayer magic is a mix of celestial and demonic power. Big-ticket stuff. But the killing spell is only earthly. When Willow expanded the Slayer magic, the spell couldn’t keep up with it. Only the Senior Slayers have anything to worry about. We’ll take care of Faith too, if she’s a good girl.”
“Five minutes left,” said Tara. “And is it just me, or is it getting a lot colder in here?”
“It’s not just you. Anya, would you do the honors first?”
Anya stepped over to Buffy’s bed and stuck her ethereal hand into the sleeping woman’s back until she touched her beating heart. “Chokmah,” she said. “This one has the wisdom to continue. Let her be spared.”
Cordelia stepped in next, touched Buffy’s heart, and said “Ometz. This one has the courage to continue. Let her be spared.”
And finally, Tara’s turn. “Ahava. This one has the love to continue. Let her be spared.”
Buffy snorted and shifted in the bed. “Nnn… mom, no… twisty balloon animals…” she murmured, then resumed snoring.
The warmth was already returning to the room. “Done,” Cordelia said with a sigh of relief.
Tara was already kneeling by the other bed, gazing down at Willow. “Love you,” she said softly. She leaned down and gave the sleeping woman a kiss on the forehead that didn’t quite connect… at least not physically. Willow smiled in her sleep and snuggled against her pillow.
“She still wears jammies to bed,” Tara observed lovingly.
“Buffy doesn’t,” commented Anya, pointing to the Slayer’s lower body protruding from the sheets. “Leopard panties and red socks.”
“Now, now,” Cordy admonished. “Let’s not waste the afterlife pointing out the fashion disasters of the living.” She and Anya joined Tara by Willow’s bedside.
“She shouldn’t be sleeping alone on such a cold night,” Tara commented with a sigh. “And neither should Buffy. Whatever happened to that other Slayer who was in love with her?”
Cordy just shook her head. “Don’t even get me started.”
“Is it getting chilly in here again?” Anya asked.
They turned around to find that the room was chilly because the door was slightly open. This concern was only a prologue to the greater concern, which was that a vampire was crouched down right next to Buffy.
“Life stinks, doesn’t it?” the vampire said in a stage whisper. “Or stank, in our cases. Oh, well. The Slayer gets to be a corpse tonight one way or the other.”
“How did you get in here through that locked door? And why aren’t you dust in the parking lot like the others?” Cordelia demanded.
“I work here,” the vamp said with a shrug. He held up his all-access key card. “Night shift. Takes care of the first problem. And that high-profile SUV out there took care of the other. Those things provide lots of shade. They may not be green, but they’re the vampire’s friend when Mr. Sun comes to call.”
“You’re not going to hurt her,” Cordelia stated.
“Sure I am,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t think you can do another one of those sunlight portals in here. And you still can’t touch me, or hold any weapons, or any of that good stuff that might make things difficult. These mortals can’t see or hear you, so you can’t even warn them.”
“You do know that the Slayer Scythe exists simultaneously in both our dimensions, don’t you?” Cordy crossed her arms and looked at him like a teacher confronting a dim student.
The vampire thought a minute. “Seems like Laurent mentioned something like that. But he also said only Slayers can touch it in your dimension. And none of you three are Slayers. Besides, I don’t see the Scythe anywhere around here.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” agreed Cordelia. “And I still say you’re not going to hurt that girl.”
“Why not?”
His head popped off as the Scythe sliced cleanly through it. He dusted.
“That’s one big reason,” Cordelia said with a shrug.
“Oh, yeah! Critical hit, baby!” Amanda whooped and waved the Scythe triumphantly over her head. “Massive damage!”
“The rookie shoots and scores,” Cordy said appreciatively. “Nice sneaking, kid. And watch where you wave that thing. It’s corporeal. You could break a lamp or Buffy or something.”
“Good one, Amanda,” Tara said.
“I just pretended he was a Turok-han,” Amanda said. “I don’t like Turok-han.”
“Housekeeping isn’t going to be happy about all this dust,” Anya noted.
“Neither is Buffy when she wakes up and sees it,” Cordelia said. “But she actually gets to wake up on her twenty-sixth birthday, which is the best we can do. The rest is up to her.”
“Happy birthday, Buffy,” Anya said to the snoring Slayer. Tara blew a kiss across the room toward Willow.
“It’s still early,” said Anya. “I hear there are some good outlets in this town. Anybody want to check them out before they open and imagine all the great bargains we could be getting?”
“That’s the problem with heaven,” Cordy said. “No shopping.”
Amanda used the Scythe to quitely push the door closed, and propped it back up in its corner before they left. Buffy sighed and rolled over in her bed. Seven hours later, she woke up.
“Why are they staying in an Econolodge, anyway?” Tara asked. “Didn’t Buffy used to own, like, a castle and a private plane and enough high-tech stuff to endow a university?”
“Maybe Willow has finally talked some financial sense into her,” said Anya. “Luxury hotels are overrated. I like a motel where the people in the next room can hear what you’re doing.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Moving on. My guess is that these vamps are tapping into their own demonic essence to power this mystical shield around the building. That should make them weaker.”
The dozen vampires lounging around the snowy parking lot all laughed. “Strength is not always relevant, little ghosts,” the leader said. “We have physical form. You’re illusions. That makes us stronger.”
“Little ghosts?” Cordelia crossed her arms and gave her patented Superior Cordy glare. “That’s wrong in both a descriptive and metaphysical sense. You’re Laurent, aren’t you? Used to run with Spike and Drusilla back in Europe?”
“Indeed I am,” said the head vamp. “And you are Cordelia Chase, emissary of the Powers That Be and still, I beg to repeat, a ghost in our dimension. As are your two bookends here,” he added, glancing dismissively at Tara and Anya. “You can’t fight us. You can’t even touch us.”
Cordy glanced at the motel room door, and its accompanying dark window, that the vamps had congregated near. “You realize behind that door are two of the most dangerous women in the world, right?”
Laurent shrugged. “Sound asleep. And they’ll stay that way until it’s too late. It’s only a few minutes until midnight. The shield will hold until then. After that, you’re free to do as you like with the Slayer’s corpse. We don’t have to fight you, and we don’t have to fight them. We just walk away laughing.”
“Burning your own essence to power a barrier is a lot of trouble to go through for just one Slayer, isn’t it? There are two thousand more, after all. More coming in every day, too.”
“And without Buffy Summers to hold them together, they’ll be leaderless. We’ll be able to pick them off one by one. Maybe even in twos. We’ve all seen examples lately of what happens when those pretty little girls try to slay solo.” All the vampires laughed.
“Only a few minutes to midnight, Cordelia,” Anya reminded her. “Buffy doesn’t have much time.”
“And if only you could hold stakes or swords in your incorporeal little hands, you might have a fighting chance at saving her,” scoffed Laurent. “Even dead, this is more our world than yours. When we died, we had the basic loyalty to stay here instead of running off into the boring heavens. You can touch nothing in this plane. Your time is past. You’re out of style, emissary.”
Cordelia was running out of patience as well as time. “Out of style? You did not just say that. I can’t speak for Tara and that hippy-chick thing she has going on, or Anya and her vintage 1958 skirt-and-sweater set. But this outfit is the celestial equivalent of Marc Jacobs. You don’t get to disrespect these threads, even in Colorado.”
She glanced at Tara and at Anya. “You two ready to do this?” They both nodded. Cordelia called up her celestial energy. Mystical silver fire danced around her hands and through her hair.
“Gonna be a beautiful sunny day today, Laurent,” she called.
“In seven hours or so,” the vampire replied. “Seven hours too late for your Buffy. Or have the Powers given you the ability to make the world spin faster?”
“That’s the problem with you undead. You always think of the hard way first.”
Cordelia sent a column of silver fire high into the air above the parking lot, focusing it on a single point in space. “Miss Maclay, cast your spell right where I’m pointing, please. Miss Jenkins, a bit of demon mojo so we don’t melt all the ski slopes and panic all the nice people of Boulder.”
Tara gestured up at the terminus of Cordelia’s energy stream and cast a spell. A small point of light appeared there, a hundred feet or so in the air. Cordy’s power took hold of it, and it quickly spiralled into a portal the size of a swimming pool. Anya, concentrating on the darkness around it, held it at that size.
Blue sky shone down through the portal, bathing the parking lot in midday sun. “Looks like the smog’s lifted in Bangkok,” Cordelia observed. “Good picnic weather.”
It was too late for the vampires to panic, of course, and in short order Cordelia, Tara and Anya were the only ones standing in a parking lot that seemed to have gotten a whole lot dustier.
Cordelia let the portal close. “It’s always sunny somewhere, boys,” she remarked to what used to be the vamps. “Shield’s gone. Let’s go, ladies. Time’s wasting.”
They passed through the outer wall of the hotel room and entered a dark space where two young women snored away in twin beds. The Slayer Scythe stood propped up in a corner near the door.
Tara gazed longingly toward the second bed. “Focus, Tara,” Cordelia said to her. “Plenty of time afterwards. Buffy needs us now. Things should start happening any minute. You two remember the words I taught you to say, right?”
Tara and Anya both nodded. “Now, why was Buffy going to die tonight?” Anya asked.
Cordelia glanced at the clock on Buffy’s nightstand. Still eight minutes to midnight.
“When the Shadow Men created the Slayer line, they were worried about the possibility of a Slayer living long enough to become old and feeble and useless. Old back then meaning, like, thirty. Rather than having to murder their own Slayer, or wait until she died of old age before another could be called, they specified an expiration date. At the stroke of midnight on every Slayer’s twenty-sixth birthday, a killing spell would descend on her and stop her heart. And a new, younger Slayer would be activated.”
“That sounds harsh,” said Tara.
“The Watcher’s Council thought the same thing,” Cordelia said. “Sometime during the Renaissance they came up with a counter-spell to undo that little problem. Only a handful of Slayers have ever lived to their twenty-sixth birthdays, but when they do, they have to have this spell said over them or they’re toast. Unfortunately it was a secret, and with the Watcher’s Council gone, none of the mortals in this world even remember that anymore. Unless Giles happened to look through just the right book…”
Anya looked concerned. “Does this mean we’ll have to do the same thing with all two thousand Slayers? And all the new ones that are getting zapped with the power?”
“No. Slayer magic is a mix of celestial and demonic power. Big-ticket stuff. But the killing spell is only earthly. When Willow expanded the Slayer magic, the spell couldn’t keep up with it. Only the Senior Slayers have anything to worry about. We’ll take care of Faith too, if she’s a good girl.”
“Five minutes left,” said Tara. “And is it just me, or is it getting a lot colder in here?”
“It’s not just you. Anya, would you do the honors first?”
Anya stepped over to Buffy’s bed and stuck her ethereal hand into the sleeping woman’s back until she touched her beating heart. “Chokmah,” she said. “This one has the wisdom to continue. Let her be spared.”
Cordelia stepped in next, touched Buffy’s heart, and said “Ometz. This one has the courage to continue. Let her be spared.”
And finally, Tara’s turn. “Ahava. This one has the love to continue. Let her be spared.”
Buffy snorted and shifted in the bed. “Nnn… mom, no… twisty balloon animals…” she murmured, then resumed snoring.
The warmth was already returning to the room. “Done,” Cordelia said with a sigh of relief.
Tara was already kneeling by the other bed, gazing down at Willow. “Love you,” she said softly. She leaned down and gave the sleeping woman a kiss on the forehead that didn’t quite connect… at least not physically. Willow smiled in her sleep and snuggled against her pillow.
“She still wears jammies to bed,” Tara observed lovingly.
“Buffy doesn’t,” commented Anya, pointing to the Slayer’s lower body protruding from the sheets. “Leopard panties and red socks.”
“Now, now,” Cordy admonished. “Let’s not waste the afterlife pointing out the fashion disasters of the living.” She and Anya joined Tara by Willow’s bedside.
“She shouldn’t be sleeping alone on such a cold night,” Tara commented with a sigh. “And neither should Buffy. Whatever happened to that other Slayer who was in love with her?”
Cordy just shook her head. “Don’t even get me started.”
“Is it getting chilly in here again?” Anya asked.
They turned around to find that the room was chilly because the door was slightly open. This concern was only a prologue to the greater concern, which was that a vampire was crouched down right next to Buffy.
“Life stinks, doesn’t it?” the vampire said in a stage whisper. “Or stank, in our cases. Oh, well. The Slayer gets to be a corpse tonight one way or the other.”
“How did you get in here through that locked door? And why aren’t you dust in the parking lot like the others?” Cordelia demanded.
“I work here,” the vamp said with a shrug. He held up his all-access key card. “Night shift. Takes care of the first problem. And that high-profile SUV out there took care of the other. Those things provide lots of shade. They may not be green, but they’re the vampire’s friend when Mr. Sun comes to call.”
“You’re not going to hurt her,” Cordelia stated.
“Sure I am,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t think you can do another one of those sunlight portals in here. And you still can’t touch me, or hold any weapons, or any of that good stuff that might make things difficult. These mortals can’t see or hear you, so you can’t even warn them.”
“You do know that the Slayer Scythe exists simultaneously in both our dimensions, don’t you?” Cordy crossed her arms and looked at him like a teacher confronting a dim student.
The vampire thought a minute. “Seems like Laurent mentioned something like that. But he also said only Slayers can touch it in your dimension. And none of you three are Slayers. Besides, I don’t see the Scythe anywhere around here.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” agreed Cordelia. “And I still say you’re not going to hurt that girl.”
“Why not?”
His head popped off as the Scythe sliced cleanly through it. He dusted.
“That’s one big reason,” Cordelia said with a shrug.
“Oh, yeah! Critical hit, baby!” Amanda whooped and waved the Scythe triumphantly over her head. “Massive damage!”
“The rookie shoots and scores,” Cordy said appreciatively. “Nice sneaking, kid. And watch where you wave that thing. It’s corporeal. You could break a lamp or Buffy or something.”
“Good one, Amanda,” Tara said.
“I just pretended he was a Turok-han,” Amanda said. “I don’t like Turok-han.”
“Housekeeping isn’t going to be happy about all this dust,” Anya noted.
“Neither is Buffy when she wakes up and sees it,” Cordelia said. “But she actually gets to wake up on her twenty-sixth birthday, which is the best we can do. The rest is up to her.”
“Happy birthday, Buffy,” Anya said to the snoring Slayer. Tara blew a kiss across the room toward Willow.
“It’s still early,” said Anya. “I hear there are some good outlets in this town. Anybody want to check them out before they open and imagine all the great bargains we could be getting?”
“That’s the problem with heaven,” Cordy said. “No shopping.”
Amanda used the Scythe to quitely push the door closed, and propped it back up in its corner before they left. Buffy sighed and rolled over in her bed. Seven hours later, she woke up.