Buffy Fanfic: Wolfbane (Part 2)
Buffy Fanfic: Wolfbane (Part 2)
###
"Will?" Buffy asked, and offered half an apple. Willow shook her head. They were sitting outside, enjoying the sunshine like half of Sunnydale High. Also, Buffy was enjoying a dandy tuna-with-walnuts sandwich, courtesy of Mom. "You're sure? You never turn down apple."
"I'm not feeling really great," Willow confessed.
"Well, you look great," Buffy said, and handed her half an apple anyway. "Which is what counts, right? So, did you get any sleep last night?"
She said it casually, with just a little bit of eyebrow to give it the you can tell me spin. Willow blushed right up into her hair and took a bite of apple.
"Oooh, who's the bad girl?" Buffy smiled, and scooted closer on the stone bench. "Okay, give it up. I don't have a love life, I have to share yours."
"Buffy!" Willow's blush faded into a gorgeous, sated smile. She lowered her voice. "It was great. Really great. It was ... perfect."
There was an echo in Willow's soft words of something Buffy had firsthand knowledge of, the feeling of being lifted up to some other place, of being more than herself, wrapped in love so deep it was like being reborn. Angel. She tried not to think about it, that one perfect night in his arms, the one time she'd ever felt so utterly part of someone else.
At least for Willow it would last.
"So where's Mr. Lucky today?" Buffy asked, only half playfully. If Oz pulled a guy on them and spent a couple of days letting Willow worry ... but she didn't believe it. Especially when Willow continued smiling.
"With the Dingoes," Willow said. She took another bite of apple. "They needed him. He's in Santa Monica -- "
She broke off, because Giles was walking toward them. With Anya. And from their expressions, it wasn't going to be a hello-how-are-you kind of conversation.
"You told him?" Willow asked, looking at Buffy with a plea in her eyes.
"Uh, no, not yet -- "
"Then don't. Until tomorrow when Oz gets back. Please!"
There wasn't time to promise, whether she would have or not, because Anya's eyes fixed on Willow, and she said to Giles, "She's got it."
"What?" Willow yelped, and then dropped the apple. "I don't -- "
"The book," Anya interrupted, and snapped her fingers. "Come on, hand it over, I haven't got all day. God, I hate English tests, and I have one in ten minutes."
"Giles?" Buffy asked. He had barely glanced at her, but he wasn't exactly looking at Willow either. Something was up, big time. She hadn't seen Giles this wigged in -- well -- ever.
"Stay out of it, Buffy. Please. Willow, we know you have the book. We need it back. Now."
Willow looked pale and trembly. "But I don't -- I don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe she doesn't," Anya said. "Belphagior's strength is that he makes you forget what you've done and hides his presence. She could have it and not even know."
Willow looked from Anya to Giles, clearly mystified. "But I -- "
"Oh, hell, this is getting us nowhere," Anya said, and reached for Willow's book bag. She upended it on the grass, spilling out toadroot, a sandwich bag full of mandrake, a half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- a history text -- a novel --
A black leather book with gilt edged pages that gleamed knife-bright.
"Hey!" Willow protested, and reached for it. Anya got there first, scooping it up, holding it close to her chest. "Hey, that's -- "
"Not yours," Anya said. "Believe me, you don't want it."
Oh man. Buffy suddenly got it. Willow had found the spell for Oz in there, and it was some forbidden magic book. This was not good. Promises or not, Giles needed to know about Oz. Now.
"Uh, Giles? I think we'd better move this inside," she said.
"Yes, I think so," he nodded. "Willow?"
Willow mutely began putting things back in her book bag. Her hands were shaking, too. She looked really pale now, and scared.
"No, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know -- I didn't remember I had it. I wouldn't lie to you, really, I wouldn't."
"I didn't think you would," Giles said. It was as much comfort as Giles ever offered, at least in public. He frowned slightly when he saw how her hands were trembling. "Willow, are you all right?"
Anya looked up, sharply. Willow said, "I just feel a little -- "
She staggered. Buffy grabbed her and held her up, braced her with an arm under her shoulders. "Giles!" she snapped. "What's happening?"
"I don't know," he said, and reached to help.
Anya, still standing with the book held to her chest, said, "I do. Get her in the library. Hurry."
###
In his career as Buffy's watcher, Giles had experienced many levels of terror, everything from the sheer panic of fighting for his life to the quiet gnawing despair of not knowing where his Slayer was or what had happened to her.
But in many ways, seeing Willow sicken literally before his eyes was worse. She reclined now on the couch in the reading pit, her head in Buffy's lap, pale as one of the vampires Buffy hunted.
"She's dying," Anya said. She put the book down on the table and looked straight at Giles for the first time.
"Dying." The word held all the bitter fury he felt, and all of the shame. "How do we stop it?"
Anya looked at him mutely, opened her mouth just as a student blundered into the library, probably another bloody sophomore intent on another bloody book report. Giles turned on him and snapped, "The library's closed. Get out."
The student ran. Not left -- ran. Giles thought perhaps he should do something about his rage. He'd put it on his list.
He turned quickly to Anya and said, tightly, "Now."
"She must have used the book," she said. "Belphagior is the prince of tempters. You want it, you'll find it in the book. He must have offered her something she couldn't refuse."
Quite clearly, Giles remembered having the book in his hands, the whisper of Jenny's voice, the knowledge that he could have her back, real and human in his arms, if only he would say the words. Something she couldn't refuse. What would that have been for Willow?
From the reading pit, Buffy said reluctantly, "Oz."
Giles turned toward her. Buffy stared down at Willow's pale face, tucked a blanket more firmly around her friend's trembling body.
"She cured Oz. He's not a werewolf now."
"What? When?"
"Last night." Buffy looked up, flinching at what she saw in his face. "I found out last night. I should have told you."
"You bloody well should have!" he shouted at her. "How could you keep this from me? Knowing -- "
"I didn't --"
"You knew she shouldn't have been working major magics! I've told you both how dangerous -- " He realized how ragged his voice was, how desperate, and caught his breath. Buffy's eyes were filled with tears. "Anya. What's it doing to her?"
"Belphagior keeps his bargains," she said. "If she wanted Oz cured, he's cured, but in payment he's destroying her from the soul out."
Silence. Giles tried to speak, and couldn't. Willow whimpered softly and curled on her side, and Buffy put a hand gently on her forehead. Anya wasn't finished.
"It's pain at first," she said. "The pain gets worse. Before long, her body will begin to break down. In the end -- she'll be glad to die."
"I brought this here," Giles said numbly. He sat down, unable to stand a moment longer under the terrible weight of knowledge. "How could I have?"
Anya looked distantly compassionate as she said, "Well, you're human."
"How long does she have?" Buffy asked. She was crying, Giles saw, but her voice was utterly steady. Utterly focused. She smoothed hair back from Willow's face. It wasn't clear whether Willow had heard any of what had been said; her eyes were shut, and she was panting in shallow, agonized breaths. As Giles watched, his entire body aching with sorrow, she began to moan.
"Belphagior takes his payment quickly," Anya said. "She'll be dead by midnight."
Buffy said, steadily, "So what do we have to do to stop it?"
There had never been any real warmth between Anya and Willow; it showed now in the flinty depth of Anya's eyes. She had, after all, been a demon. And a vengeful one at that.
"What makes you think you should?" she asked. "Willow made the deal. Maybe it's a price she wants to pay. Dying so Oz can live a normal life. Who's to say that's not a good trade?"
Fury rose up in Giles, hot and strangely comforting, and without even thinking he was on his feet, around the table, holding Anya's wrist in a painful grip. She stared into his face, eyes wide and surprised. And, yes, frightened.
"Who are you to even suggest it?" he grated. "I will not let her die. And neither will you. We'll destroy the book."
"Giles, this book has been on this earth for five thousand years, since the first words were ever written. For all I know, it started out as a piece of stone with pictographs carved on it. Don't you think people have tried to destroy it? Look, let me save you the trouble: you can't stop this. There is nothing you can do."
He thought, quite calmly, that if he broke her wrist she might change her mind. It seemed very logical to him in that moment. A simple application of pressure in order to achieve a goal.
But it was Buffy who stopped him by saying, in that deadly quiet voice of hers, "Giles."
He let Anya go, because the temptation was simply too great. Buffy eased Willow off her lap, made sure she was as comfortable as possible, and then walked over to Anya. Grabbed her by the throat and rammed her bodily up against a bookcase. Next to Dickens, Giles thought. Very appropriate.
"Know what?" she asked. "Nobody kills my friend. Not you, not your buddy the book, nobody. If I can't get him, I'll start with you and work my way up."
"Oz!" Anya wheezed. Buffy loosened her grip just enough to let her gasp a breath. "Maybe Oz could reverse it. If he wanted to."
"Where is he?" For the first time, Giles realized he hadn't seen the boy. Hadn't even really thought of him.
Buffy turned blindly toward him, her eyes bright with fear. "Willow said he was in Santa Monica. She -- she didn't get a chance to tell me where."
From the couch, Willow whispered, in a voice gone transparent with agony, "Club -- Club Dead."
Giles went to her, knelt on the floor beside the couch and put his hand on her forehead. She was burning up, heat radiating from her as if she was being broiled alive. She opened her eyes at his touch, and tried to smile bravely.
"I'm okay," she whispered.
A second later, she went into a violent convulsion. Giles threw himself across her and held her down, felt Buffy's strength join his, and heard himself gasping to keep back tears. Oh God. Oh God, this was his fault, entirely his, keeping the deadliest knowledge in reach of little more than children --
Willow went limp under their hands. Giles cried out and felt for a pulse -- still there, but weak. Her skin looked as translucent as old porcelain, her lips and eyelids faintly blue.
As he watched, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
"She bit her lip," Buffy said breathlessly, and wiped it away. "I'll get Xander. We're going to Santa Monica for Oz. You -- stay here and do whatever you can."
"Yes," Giles said. Assuredly, yes. Everything he could do, without reservation or pause for consideration of his own life. If he had to make his own deal with Belphagior, the demon of the book, then so be it. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
But first he had to be sure Buffy would not be here to stop him.
"Be careful," he said, and handed over his car keys.
###
In any car made in the second half of the century, the trip to Santa Monica would have taken about three and a half hours. In Giles' car -- which, okay, wasn't quite that old except in dog years -- it took five, even with Xander's foot crushing the pedal to the floor the whole way. It was safer for Xander to drive, Buffy had decided. Xander wasn't inclined to smash into things without warning, or take his rage out on drivers that got in the way.
She needed really badly to smash something. Somebody. Soon. When all this was over, the vampire population of Sunnydale was going to in serious trouble.
"Club Dead," Xander repeated. He'd said it about a hundred times on the way already. "Club Dead, Club Dead, Club Dead ... okay, is it me, or is that kind of a bad thing?"
"It's a Goth club," Buffy said, staring out the window at passing headlights, flickers of other lives, places where her friend wasn't dying a lonely, painful, terrible death. "Mission Avenue. Take a right."
"Oh." Xander, who was dealing with this about as well as Buffy herself, and better than she'd expected, frankly, glanced over at her, face pallid in the dashboard lights. Night was falling.
Midnight was coming.
"So ... you've been there before? Club Dead, I mean?" Xander asked. Conversation. She hadn't been able to manage much so far, and this one didn't have much shelf life, either.
"No," she said, and shut it down. Xander drove, fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, shifting in the seat. She wanted to scream at him to stop, but she knew it was just his way of dealing, his way of not thinking about Willow. She'd seen his face when he'd bent over Willow and kissed her. That had been an I'm-off-to-save-your-life kiss, but it had also been goodbye, in case. Xander wasn't a fool. He knew how bad things were.
"Goth club," Xander said. "I forgot my eyeshadow and big silver chains, think I'll pass the dress code?"
In spite of herself, Buffy smiled. "Gee. Maybe they'd like to try to stop us. That'd be -- fun."
Xander looked at her, eyes wide and dark. There was something in Xander. He was like Giles that way, not quite the gentle soul he seemed to be most of the time.
"Oh yeah," he breathed. "It would be fun."
She held up her fist. He tapped it.
Enough said. Oz was coming back, and if they had to kick every Gothic ass in California to do it ... cool.
###
Anya dropped another priceless book carelessly on the table, opened it to the first page, and made a frustrated noise. She was, Giles knew, exhausted. He didn't care. She could be exhausted for the rest of her life, but she would have one. Willow wouldn't.
"Read," he ordered.
"It's useless," she said, and clapped her hands over her eyes. "Come on, give me a break. I can't keep up with this."
"What does it say?" He was, if anything, just as tired. His eyes felt as if they'd been sandblasted, and his blood sugar level had fallen to China. None of which mattered in the least. "Focus. These are the books I can't make out, the ones written in dead languages. You're the only one who can decipher them."
She didn't move. Didn't take her hands from her eyes. "It's by Abdul somebody or other, and I don't think you want what's in here. It's overkill."
"Overkill is precisely what we need."
"Look, you don't summon an Elder God to take care of Belphagior. That's like using a nuclear weapon to clean your house. Trust me."
She swept it off the table, onto the huge pile of books lying haphazardly on the floor around her. How many? Hundreds, perhaps. He'd thoroughly lost count.
"I'll get the next," he said, and stood up. His legs almost gave way, but he braced himself and waited for the spots to stop dancing in front of his eyes.
Anya said, "You're going to do her a hell of a lot of good when you fall down and smash your skull open."
"Yes, I'm sure you'll be very pleased," he snapped. Anger made him steadier. Adrenaline was quite as good as a chocolate bar for a quick energy boost. He stalked to the remotest shelves and pulled another armload of books at random, piled them on the table.
He went to where Willow lay unconscious on the couch and took her hand. Light, it felt -- almost ethereal, as if it was being eaten away from within. Which, Anya had assured him, was exactly the case. Her pulse was still thin but steady.
Her breathing changed, sped faster. Her eyelids flickered.
"She's waking up," he said. Anya looked up wearily from her book.
"There's nothing we can do for her," she said.
"No," Giles said. "I'm phoning the hospital."
"What?"
He ignored her and went around to the counter, pulled the phone close and began dialing.
Anya's hand slammed down on the posts, cutting the connection.
"Don't be stupid," she said. "They can't help her. And we won't be able to perform any rituals at all in a hospital, not without letting half of Sunnydale know what we're doing. Keep her here."
Willow woke up with a scream. The sound cut through Giles like a razor, left him. He hung up the phone and went back to her, held her tight as agony racked her slender body. Anya watched, her face gone still. Her eyes were intent as she watched them.
"They could give her something for the pain!" he said. "For God's sake, she can't survive like this!"
Anya reached over to the case lying nearby, took out a tranquilizer dart that fit into the gun they kept for Oz-related emergencies. Before Giles could protest, she plunged it into Willow's thigh.
Willow sighed, trembled, and went limp in Giles' arms, her breath warm and fast against his neck, her hair spilling over his shoulder. He cradled her close, struggling against helpless sorrow, and looked mutely at Anya.
She put the tranquilizer dart down next to the case and went back to the table. Pulled another book from the stack he'd left.
"Anya," he said. She didn't look up. "You said we needed to save them for the end. To keep her calm."
She said nothing at all. The dry whisper of turning pages told him what he needed to know. He looked at the clock.
Six hours until midnight.
###
Club Dead wasn't. In fact, it was packed, jammed to the walls with pale-faced refugees from the dark side. Xander, who had to this point felt pretty worldly -- after all, he'd survived years of Buffy and the Hellmouth -- had a whole education in the five minutes it took Buffy to charm their way in the door. Piercing, for instance. Ears, sure. Noses. Tongues. He was down with all that. Eyebrows, too. But he really wasn't sure about the nipple thing. And the belly button. And --
"Xander." Buffy grabbed him by the arm and towed him away from the whole subject. "Okay, look, stay with me. If we get separated, head back here to the door, I'll bring Oz!"
She was shouting, but he could barely hear her over the techno-synth Crystal Method ripoff being blasted from the sound system. A tall, incredibly skinny girl with a shaved head and an all-over tattoo shoved in between the two of them, grabbed Xander's ass, then flicked her tongue at Buffy. Buffy stared up at her with eyes like stone until she moved on.
"Watch your back," she yelled to Xander, and pushed a bulky, muscled guy with shoulder-length dyed-black hair out of her path.
"Hey, don't leave me!" he shouted back. She didn't hear him. It didn't matter. In two or three steps, he ended up the centerpiece in a slam-dance sandwich, and lost sight of her completely. Calm. I'm going to be calm. I can do that. Xander suddenly had a vivid impression that if he turned around he'd find Willow behind him, her eyes huge and amazed and fascinated, looking to him for -- well, not for protection, he knew better, but -- for assurance. She'd always done that, since the first day he'd tripped over her on the playground. She'd look at him with this secret delight in her eyes that said Look at this, Xander, isn't it wildly cool? And he'd have seen that in some weird, possibly deranged way, it was.
He turned around.
Willow wasn't behind him. Willow wasn't going to be behind him ever again if they didn't get Oz and get out of here.
Somebody shoved him, hard. He slammed into the big, muscular guy Buffy had swatted out of her path like a mosquito, who steadied him back on his feet, patted him on the back, and said, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Xander said. He studied the ferociously big guy, the piercing, the dyed hair. The intelligent, amused blue eyes. "Sorry. I'm new."
"Obviously." The guy really was huge, he towered over Xander by at least six or seven inches. He stuck out his hand, which was the size of a canned ham. It had silver death's-head rings on every finger. "Quentin."
"Xander," he said, and shook hands. Quentin had a frequent flyer card at the tattoo parlor, too. "Uh, look, I need to get to the stage. You see a way?"
Quentin looked up, over the crowd, and shook his head.
"Better stay here where it's not so crazy."
Xander's mind blew trying to wrap around the concept, but he shook it off, raised his voice and said, "It's life and death, Quentin. And I'm not talking about the metaphor. Thanks anyway."
He turned away and tried to shove between a girl wearing a corset any vamp would be proud to have in her closet, and a guy dressed as Dracula, complete with cape and sash. No good. He backed up to try again, and was brushed -- gently -- out of the way by a hand as huge as a canned ham.
"Excuse us," Quentin rumbled, and parted the seas.
Xander was reminded, again, that it was good to have friends.
###
Buffy was about two-thirds of the way to the stage when she realized something important about Club Dead. Goth, sure -- she had no objection to the Goths, though they were pretty clueless about the whole undead chic thing -- but more importantly, Club Dead was a hunting ground for vampires. A smorgasboard of easy victims.
There were at least three or four in the room that she could immediately sense, probably more at the fringes. Buffy turned to look for Xander but he was lost in a sea of moving bodies. Overhead, crimson curtains billowed and flashing strobes made everybody look terminal.
She reached out and tapped a burly guy in motorcycle leathers on the shoulder. He turned to stare at her with puppy-dog eyes, and smiled.
"What's a girl like you -- "
"Don't waste it on me," she advised. "Give me a boost up."
She said it like there was no question he'd do it. So he did. He put his hands around her waist, lifted her up, and set her on his shoulder, where she balanced with one hand on his head -- oh God, what was that in his hair -- and scanned the crowd, marking vamps. Even in a Goth club, they didn't blend. Lapels too wide on the coats, and a big dependence on '70s disco fashion. They had the black part of the ensemble, just not the, well, coolness factor.
She remembered what she was there to do. Not vamps this time. She scanned for any trace of the Dingoes. A band was setting up on stage, but the lights only caught them in flashes, and she wasn't sure --
Yep. The guy carting an amp was definitely Dylon. And as she watched, Oz walked in stage left with part of the drum kit.
She tapped a leather-clad shoulder and said, "Down, Simba." He expressed her to the dance floor again.
"How about a drink?" he suggested. She put her hand flat on his leather vest, looked up into his face, and smiled. "Uh -- no?"
"Sorry," she said, wiped her icked hand as discreetly as she could, and turned to the stage.
The serious dancers -- the ones that didn't think it was a good night without bruises and loose teeth -- were pounding each other to the beat ten-deep in front of where she needed to be. Even as a Slayer, she wasn't bulletproof, and besides, the cute but sensible shoes she'd thrown on this morning weren't going to win a Doc Marten throwdown.
Not much room for a launch. She turned back to Motorcycle Boy, who was frankly checking out her ass.
"One more time?" she asked sweetly. He lifted her up. Instead of sitting on his shoulder, she put her feet flat on it, channeled all the power into her legs, and threw herself out into space.
Tuck and roll. The room whirled around her, a sea of light and upturned faces, red curtains, vampires who certainly had to know now the Slayer was in town.
She landed on the stage flat-footed, in front of Oz.
Who very calmly put down the drum kit with a crash of cymbals and said, "Looking for me?"
He didn't know it was about Willow. He didn't know anything except that the Slayer had just dropped out of the sky into his gig, and he was willing to go. He was willing to give up -- everything. In that second she loved him for it, fiercely and completely.
Over his shoulder, Dylon glared at her and shouted, "What's she doing here?"
Oz's eyes never left hers. He waited.
"We have to get back to Sunnydale," she said. "It's Willow."
All the life left his eyes, left him bleak and dark. He nodded and picked up his guitar.
"You're leaving?" Dylon said. "What, your girlfriend sends the hit squad and you just take off on us? This is a gig, man!"
Oz tried to go around him. Dylon put a hand on his chest and stopped him. Buffy started to take a step forward but this was guy stuff, band stuff, friend stuff, and the one place a Slayer wouldn't be a help.
Oz didn't need her help. He grabbed Dylon's arm and had him down on the stage, face-down, in a Slayerlike length of time. His expression never changed.
"I'm sorry," he said to Dylon. "I love you guys. But don't ever make me choose."
He let go. Dylon jumped to his feet, black hair flying, face gone drinking-man red with anger. The two of them stared at each other for a while, and then Dylon flexed his right arm and said, "You're damn lucky I don't play guitar."
"Everyone's damn lucky."
A smile flickered over Dylon's face. "Well, shit, bro. Go do your thing and let us do ours."
He held out his hand. Oz took it and pulled him into a quick guy kind of hug, complete with back slapping.
"So I'm fired?" Oz asked.
"Bet your ass," Dylon said. "Don't forget next Tuesday, eight, my house. Rehearsal and bad burgers."
Oz took a deep breath and turned to Buffy. "Let's go," he said.
Which was when all hell broke loose.
###
If Quentin's career as the white Dennis Rodman didn't pan out, he had a great future in crowd control, Xander figured. People moved. Big time. In a room that didn't have more than a square foot of unoccupied space, floor-wise, Quentin cleared a path that would have gotten the Secret Service seal of approval.
Until they reached the mosh pit. Quentin stopped to look over the group, glanced back at Xander as if to say so this is important, huh? And Xander nodded. Buffy was on stage, talking to Oz. So close and yet so far.
He saw her turn, suddenly, face intense, eyes focused. She was looking right at him, and she yelled his name.
Well, yeah, he was supposed to be here, wasn't he?
Which was when he felt hands grab hold of his shoulders, jerk him off balance, and he went down. A very scary thing in a crowded club full of Doc Martens.
Uh ... and vampires. One was bent over him right now, snarling, game face on. The red eyes really did glow in the dark, which was not something he really needed to know firsthand.
She slapped his hands away and went for his throat.
Quentin grabbed her in mid-chomp and tossed her like a dwarf into the crowd. Screams erupted. So did more vampires, switching to game faces, shoving through after them.
Quentin yanked Xander to his feet and said, "Well, now you've done it."
"Guess so." Xander tried to catch his breath. "Thanks -- "
The words died in his mouth as Quentin's eyes flashed red.
"--for nothing," Xander finished, and ducked as Quentin grabbed for him.
The screaming started in earnest.
It was a good place to get killed, Xander realized; the place was too crowded, so if the vamps didn't get you, the trampling would. People were making for the six exits, but it was going to take time.
And there were a lot of vampires.
Xander grabbed a stake out of his jacket -- one thing about hanging with Buffy, you learned to pack heat -- and slammed it home in the chest of a female vamp wearing a Vampirella costume of strips of leather. She ashed. He got body-slammed by a panicked pierced lady, her ambiguously gay friend, spun around -- into the arms of his good buddy Quentin.
The vampire.
He went with the stake again, but Quentin was too big, too fast, and just too damn good. And Xander was not Xander the Vampire Slayer, he was Xander the Guy Who Holds The Slayer's Purse.
Pretty much sucked at the moment.
Quentin said, "Too bad, I kind of liked you, Xander."
And he exploded into ash as he went for Xander's throat. Xander spit out flakes, thoroughly grossed, and saw Buffy standing behind the drifts of Quentin, stake still poised. Oz was with her.
"The gift that keeps on giving," Xander said. Buffy turned to stake another vamp. The club was starting to clear out.
"Get Oz out of here -- take his van, it's faster. I'll cover you!" she shouted. Xander nodded and locked eyes with Oz.
They booked, leaving Buffy to Slay without distractions. On the way out Xander remembered he had Giles' car keys, turned and threw them at her. She spun, caught them left-handed, and completed the spin to drive a kick into the chest of a vamp venturing too close.
Damn, she was good. Xander felt a quiet little surge of happiness watching her. His own personal kick-ass friend.
"Go!" she yelled at him. He went.
###
Nine-thirty, and Willow was dying. Giles had abandoned the books to sit with her -- giving her at least that comfort. It was hideously painful, even with all of the chemical comfort of the tranquilizers. She whimpered and wept and trembled even unconscious.
At nine-thirty-five, she began to sweat profusely, a fine mist on her skin as if she'd walked through a paint spray. Her clothes absorbed it, turning sodden; Giles, on the verge of tears or violence, wrapped the child in towels filched from the shower rooms. He bathed her face to keep it clean.
At ten, she opened her eyes and didn't know who he was.
At ten-thirty, Anya used the last tranquilizer dart, looked at Giles, and shook her head. "She won't last until midnight," she said. "She's too weak."
Giles took a deep breath and nodded. He eased out, away from Willow's dead weight, and went to the library table where the book of Belphagior gleamed so fresh and tempting on the table.
"It won't work for you," Anya said. She hadn't bothered to follow him around. "Go ahead. Try it."
He opened the book to the first page.
It was blank. The breath went out of him as if he'd been punched in the stomach. But -- this had been his plan. His plan to save Willow if all else --
Anya said, almost pityingly, "Only Oz has a shot at it. Nobody else."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why do you think?"
Giles slammed the book shut. That wasn't enough. He took it and flung it across the room, gilt-edged pages flying, all mockingly blank. It crashed into the wall and flopped to the floor, perfectly ordered, perfectly undamaged.
"No!" he cried, and rounded on Anya, fists clenched. "There must be a way, something to preserve her life -- "
And then it clicked. Finally.
Anna King. His friend the prescient, the psychic. I saw this and I thought of you. He should have remembered that she was extremely literal about things. It wasn't a clever flirtation, she'd been trying to give him a message. She'd known he'd need the lingum.
Because it housed the power of Pavarti the goddess of fertility ... and Vishnu, the Preserver.
"Watch her," he ordered Anya. She frowned at him. "Just do it!"
Oh, God, Buffy had his car. He left the library at a run, heading for the self-storage where he'd left the lingum until he could find how to dispose of it safely.
###
It was eleven when Oz's van bit the dust. The engine coughed, sputtered, gagged and died, leaving them to roll to a stop on the gravel shoulder.
"No," Xander said. "Oh, no. No, not now!"
He pounded the dashboard. Oz turned the key. Nothing. Not even a click. Alternator, starter, battery -- didn't matter what. Xander flung open the van door and raced to the front, threw up the hood, stared at the grimy motor. As if he'd know. Oz climbed out and joined him, pointed a flashlight into the oil-covered guts, and said two words.
"Oil pump."
Not the two words that rose to Xander's lips. Ever since he'd given Oz the news, told Oz what being unwolfed had cost Willow, Oz had been silent. Focused. Not a lot to say about it.
Now he just stared at his van and said nothing. But he said it really loudly.
"She's going to die," Xander said. "If we don't get there."
He wasn't sure what he was fishing for, maybe just a reaction, some idea that Oz understood. Felt something.
Oz just stood there. Staring down at the engine. Xander blew out his breath in disgust and walked away, kicked gravel, looked up and down the long deserted road.
The full moon came out from behind a cloud and stared at them just as a car topped the hill behind them. Oz looked at Xander, a quick unreadable glance, and then stepped out into the road. Not to the side of the road, to wave his arms -- he went to the center of the road. Right in prime road-kill territory.
"Oz!" Xander shouted as the headlights pinned him in the glare, made his skin ice-white, his hair hot orange. Oz spread his arms. "Hey, no!"
Because all he could think was that Oz was going to get creamed in the hope that it would save Willow. And he didn't want that. Not even for Willow's life.
The car slammed on its brakes. Locked tires shrieked in the still night air, and Xander gasped in a lungful of burning rubber as the car fishtailed, shot forward --
-- and slid to a halt about two feet from Oz, who slowly lowered his arms and bent forward to rest his hands on the hood.
It was a fast sports car with really heavy window tinting. Xander realized almost immediately that it was the perfect vampmobile.
Then the door opened and Buffy Summers stepped out of it, face alight, and said, "Inherited it from a guy in the club who won't need it anymore. So ... you guys need a lift?"
Oz piled into the tiny back seat. Xander slammed the doors on the van and dived for the passenger seat, and Buffy burned rubber heading back to Sunnydale.
Of course, Buffy was driving. That was both good, speed-wise, and bad, safety-wise. But right now, Xander decided he'd take speed.
"You're okay?" he asked Buffy. She looked okay, of course. She shot him a look and the car veered; he grabbed the steering wheel to straighten it out. The look turned into a glare. "Sorry."
"Club Dead really is," she said. "Oz? How you doing?"
She held up her hand. Oz took it and squeezed.
"Get there," he said. "Just get there."
"We will." Buffy sounded sure, but Xander was staring at the dashboard clock.
Eleven o'clock.
It was at least two hours to Sunnydale, even at Buffy-speed.
###
Giles arrived back at the school gasping and winded, his shirt soaked through with sweat. He'd discarded his coat somewhere, thank God, or he'd never have made it. His days of even six-minute miles were long gone, and it had been one hell of a run, both ways.
At least, given the time of night, he hadn't run into any temptations, though he could feel the lingum stirring in the box. It didn't bear thinking on for long. He used his key on the front door and ran down the long hall, past the trophy case, down to the library.
Anya was standing beside the couch, staring down.
"This had better work, whatever it is," she said. Giles unfolded the top of the box and pulled out the lingum. He discarded the box and the explosion of packing peanuts, raced to Willow and knelt beside her. Anya's eyes widened when she saw what it was he held.
"You're kidding," she said. He came toward her with it, and she backpedaled. "You're not kidding."
Giles laid it on Willow's chest, folded her hands on top of it, and stepped away. Well away. He wasn't sure what the effective range was, but it had already demonstrated its power far too dramatically for him to underestimate it.
On the couch, Willow's breathing stopped.
"Well," Anya said, "Great idea. Too bad it killed her."
Not dead, holding her breath. As Giles' heart pounded, Willow let out a long, shivering sigh. The clenched agony evident in every muscle subsided.
And she moaned. Not a moan of pain. A moan of -- Giles cut the thought very short. It was quite enough that it wasn't a moan of pain.
Willow's eyes fluttered open. "Giles?" she whispered. She licked her lips. "I feel strange -- "
"I'll bet," Anya said archly. "You know, I would have mentioned supernatural mystical fertility objects if I thought you had any lying around the house."
"Never know until you ask," Giles said, somewhat breathlessly. No, he was definitely not beyond the effective range. From the look she gave him, neither was Anya. "Right. Thanks for all your help. Now get out."
"It's just getting interesting."
He pushed her toward the door. "Go before I change my mind."
She did, with one last, somewhat longing look back. She'd be appalled later, of course. Besides, the girl was old enough to be his ancestor. And young enough to be his daughter.
He sat down in the farthest corner of the library, watching Willow as she continued to breathe, continued to live, her whole body alight with the power of the lingum. He thought, somewhat desperately, that it was a good thing the library was as large as it was.
After a time she began asking for him. It took a great deal of hard-won discipline to remember why it was that he shouldn't go.
By midnight, he was in grave danger of losing that as well.
###
They arrived alive. Buffy parked half on the sidewalk, threw open the driver's side door and yelled, "Go!"
The clock read seventeen minutes after midnight.
Buffy was fast, but Oz was motivated; he beat her to the library doors by ten feet, slammed through and skidded to a halt Buffy slid to a stop next to him and took it in quickly. Willow lying on the couch. Giles sitting -- huddling? -- in the corner, hands pressed to his forehead.
The book on the table.
"Oz -- " Giles struggled to his feet and edged around the room, avoiding Willow like the plague. "The book! Open the book!"
After one stricken look at Willow, Oz turned to the table and pulled the black book toward him. Giles joined him.
"Open it," Giles said.
"Then what?"
"I don't know," Giles said soberly. "Open it and we'll see."
Oz flipped the cover. Something like a whisper moved through the room, just below Buffy's hearing; she paused in the act of going to Willow, turned to listen. She could almost hear -- almost --
"Tell me what it says," Giles said. Oz stared down into the book as if it had blinded him. "Oz!"
"I can save her," he said. "It says I can save her."
He turned the page. Then turned it again. Kept flipping, and it cost him, Buffy could see it in the way his hands shook, the way his whole body flinched. Whatever he was looking at, it was like staring into the Hellmouth.
On the couch, Willow screamed and writhed. Buffy leaped to her, tried to calm her down; her skin was sizzling hot, hot as a parking lot in July. She couldn't survive this. Nobody could survive this.
"Giles!" she shouted, desperate. Xander, who'd come in without her noticing, knelt next to Willow and tried to hold on to her.
"Oz!" Giles shouted. "It has to be now! Read the spell!"
Oz read it. It was just sounds to Buffy, something vaguely Latin-like, which was vaguely English-like, in a non-English way. She couldn't tell what it said, only what it did, because all of a sudden there was a fire on the library table, nuclear hot, so incredibly hot she felt it crawl over her skin like instant sunburn.
And then it all went black.
###
Giles woke first, rolled to his feet and -- first thing -- checked Willow's pulse. Strong and normal. She lay quietly on the couch, blankets pulled up around her, as peaceful as if she'd simply fallen asleep there after a long night of research.
His eyes stung with tears when he realized that she was well again, but that would hardly do, not in front of Buffy and the others. He moved along to check them.
Oz lay unconscious but -- except for the sunburn they all seemed to have acquired -- unharmed. Buffy had fallen awkwardly but it hadn't done her any harm so far as he could see; as he checked her over, she moaned and opened her eyes. Xander was likewise undamaged.
The book was gone. Giles stared at the scorch mark on the table for several long seconds before Buffy climbed to her feet, gingerly prodded her sunburned face, and said, "Okay, what the heck was that? Because demonic books don't usually self-destruct, right?"
"Not usually," Giles agreed. Oz was stirring; Giles reached down and helped him up. "I believe Oz needs to answer that question."
Oz braced himself with both hands flat on the table, stared down at the burned spot for a long few seconds, and then turned to the couch, to where Willow lay sleeping. Before Giles could protest -- if he would have -- Oz went to her, sat next to her and took her hand.
"It worked," Oz said.
"You weren't sure?" Buffy asked. "And what weren't you sure about, anyway?"
"The book," Oz said. "It gave you what you wanted, right? So the first page had a spell to cure Willow."
Giles nodded.
"So, my question was, what were all the other pages?" Oz raised his eyebrows. "It was a big book. I wanted to save Willow most of all, but I kept looking, and sure enough, it was there."
"What was?"
"I wanted it to go to hell," Oz said. "And when I said that spell, it had to grant the wish."
My God, Giles thought, a prodigy. But he didn't say it out loud. He watched with a faint smile as Oz pulled Willow into a protective embrace, watched as her eyes fluttered open. The smile faltered as he realized what Willow still held in her hands.
"Buffy," he said. She looked up from where she sat, still gingerly touching her reddened face. "Could you do me a favor, please?"
"I'm your girl."
"Get that statue Willow is holding and put it back in the box, please." He said it with extreme politeness. Buffy craned to look over the back of the couch, where Oz and Willow were still kissing. Deeply.
"The big --"
"Yes. That one. Thank you." He sank into a chair and allowed himself, for the first time, to feel a cautious glimmering of hope and relief as Buffy retrieved the lingum, holding it gingerly at arm's length, and placed it back in the box.
"Want me to go throw it off the docks?" she asked.
"How far could you throw it?"
"China?"
"It's proved itself useful enough. I think I'll keep it." He did not, quite, smile. The lingum was quiet again, no power cascading from it; Buffy eyed the box distrustfully, shrugged, and went to help Xander up off the floor.
Willow and Oz broke apart as Giles approached. She looked tired and weak, but otherwise undamaged. It was, Giles thought, very close to miraculous. As close as he was ever likely to see. And Oz looked -- very much the same.
"You owe Oz your life," he said to her. "You know what it was you set in motion?"
She nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. He reached out and touched her chin to raise it.
"I know," she said. Her eyes were dark with it.
"And you do understand that there will be no more such meddling? Not ever?"
"I won't need to," she said with that hidden streak of stubbornness he'd noted before. "He's not a wolf anymore."
"Bad news," Oz said. "Your book demon bagged the spell. In fact, I'd better get in the kennel, save you guys the trouble of tranking me."
They had no tranquilizers left, of course, but Giles didn't find it particularly prudent to say. Oz went into the cage. As he stripped off his shirt and put it aside, he looked through the bars at Giles.
"She's okay, though," he said. "You're sure."
"I'm taking her to hospital," Giles promised. "I think she's fine, but I want to be absolutely sure."
Oz nodded, and his eyes met Giles' and held. "About that other thing?"
The other thing that Buffy and Xander especially did not need to know. The other thing that it would take Giles a good long time to decently forget. Giles cleared his throat. "I was wondering when the subject might come up."
"Doesn't have to. I'll let you know when I'm okay with it."
Giles nodded, and turned away as the moon took took the boy away. Which made things normal, again.
"Guess I'm on wolf watch after all." Buffy helped Willow to her feet, handed her off to Giles, and said, "Two things. One, your car? It's still in Santa Monica."
Giles closed his eyes wearily. "Oh, perfect. What's the second thing?"
She smiled wickedly and held out a set of keys. "You can use the 'Vette."
###
The next day, after an uneventful day at school, Giles had a visitor. When he answered the knock at his door, he found Anna King on his doorstep, looking every inch the beauty he remembered, her short hair fluttering pale around her face, her china-blue eyes wide. She stepped into his embrace without a word.
"Rupert." She whispered it in his ear, and the feel of her, solid and real, was enough to trigger far too many memories. He let go and ushered her inside. "I hope you don't mind a quick drop-in."
"I mind that it's taken you eight years to do it," he said in mild reproof, and poured her a generous shot of Laphroig. Her favorite, as he recalled. She sat down on his couch, comfortable and elegant in blue jeans and a green angora sweater, kicked her shoes off, and curled her legs under her. Right at home, as always. "What brings you in, Anna?"
"Flight 820 from London, of course, but I ran across some photos, consulted some Watcher books, and ... here I am. You've become something of a legend, Rupert. The Watcher who defied the Council and lived to tell about it. A rebel Watcher for a rebel Slayer." Anna's face lit up with a slow, delighted smile. "I always knew you'd revert."
He found himself smiling back. The scotch tasted like golden sunlight, reminded him of warm afternoons driving through Oxford, wishing that time might last forever.
As it had, in some ways. And always would.
"Did you get my present?" she asked, eyes dancing with mischief.
"Yes, thank God, though you might have been clearer about it. It saved a girl's life, but I had to practically be beaten over the head with it to -- " He came to a sudden stop at the look on her face. "What?"
"It saved a girl's life?" Anna asked, clearly mystified.
"Of course. You sent it because you knew -- you knew what would happen -- "
She shook her head, still smiling. "No, Rupert. I'm not psychic anymore, I haven't been for years. I assure you, I wasn't thinking of any special use you could put it to."
Not psychic. And he'd risked Willow's life on it. Giles fought off a cold chill of might-have-been.
"You're still psychic," he told her. "Never doubt it. But if you didn't have a vision, why did you send it?"
Her smile caught fire, and so did he.
"Really," she said. "I did say it in the note. I saw it ... and I thought of you."
He wondered, for just a brief moment, whether it was the lingum's influence that made him cross the distance between them.
But he didn't think it was.
Comments, brickbats, all welcome here! Thanks!
-- Julie
###
"Will?" Buffy asked, and offered half an apple. Willow shook her head. They were sitting outside, enjoying the sunshine like half of Sunnydale High. Also, Buffy was enjoying a dandy tuna-with-walnuts sandwich, courtesy of Mom. "You're sure? You never turn down apple."
"I'm not feeling really great," Willow confessed.
"Well, you look great," Buffy said, and handed her half an apple anyway. "Which is what counts, right? So, did you get any sleep last night?"
She said it casually, with just a little bit of eyebrow to give it the you can tell me spin. Willow blushed right up into her hair and took a bite of apple.
"Oooh, who's the bad girl?" Buffy smiled, and scooted closer on the stone bench. "Okay, give it up. I don't have a love life, I have to share yours."
"Buffy!" Willow's blush faded into a gorgeous, sated smile. She lowered her voice. "It was great. Really great. It was ... perfect."
There was an echo in Willow's soft words of something Buffy had firsthand knowledge of, the feeling of being lifted up to some other place, of being more than herself, wrapped in love so deep it was like being reborn. Angel. She tried not to think about it, that one perfect night in his arms, the one time she'd ever felt so utterly part of someone else.
At least for Willow it would last.
"So where's Mr. Lucky today?" Buffy asked, only half playfully. If Oz pulled a guy on them and spent a couple of days letting Willow worry ... but she didn't believe it. Especially when Willow continued smiling.
"With the Dingoes," Willow said. She took another bite of apple. "They needed him. He's in Santa Monica -- "
She broke off, because Giles was walking toward them. With Anya. And from their expressions, it wasn't going to be a hello-how-are-you kind of conversation.
"You told him?" Willow asked, looking at Buffy with a plea in her eyes.
"Uh, no, not yet -- "
"Then don't. Until tomorrow when Oz gets back. Please!"
There wasn't time to promise, whether she would have or not, because Anya's eyes fixed on Willow, and she said to Giles, "She's got it."
"What?" Willow yelped, and then dropped the apple. "I don't -- "
"The book," Anya interrupted, and snapped her fingers. "Come on, hand it over, I haven't got all day. God, I hate English tests, and I have one in ten minutes."
"Giles?" Buffy asked. He had barely glanced at her, but he wasn't exactly looking at Willow either. Something was up, big time. She hadn't seen Giles this wigged in -- well -- ever.
"Stay out of it, Buffy. Please. Willow, we know you have the book. We need it back. Now."
Willow looked pale and trembly. "But I don't -- I don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe she doesn't," Anya said. "Belphagior's strength is that he makes you forget what you've done and hides his presence. She could have it and not even know."
Willow looked from Anya to Giles, clearly mystified. "But I -- "
"Oh, hell, this is getting us nowhere," Anya said, and reached for Willow's book bag. She upended it on the grass, spilling out toadroot, a sandwich bag full of mandrake, a half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- a history text -- a novel --
A black leather book with gilt edged pages that gleamed knife-bright.
"Hey!" Willow protested, and reached for it. Anya got there first, scooping it up, holding it close to her chest. "Hey, that's -- "
"Not yours," Anya said. "Believe me, you don't want it."
Oh man. Buffy suddenly got it. Willow had found the spell for Oz in there, and it was some forbidden magic book. This was not good. Promises or not, Giles needed to know about Oz. Now.
"Uh, Giles? I think we'd better move this inside," she said.
"Yes, I think so," he nodded. "Willow?"
Willow mutely began putting things back in her book bag. Her hands were shaking, too. She looked really pale now, and scared.
"No, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know -- I didn't remember I had it. I wouldn't lie to you, really, I wouldn't."
"I didn't think you would," Giles said. It was as much comfort as Giles ever offered, at least in public. He frowned slightly when he saw how her hands were trembling. "Willow, are you all right?"
Anya looked up, sharply. Willow said, "I just feel a little -- "
She staggered. Buffy grabbed her and held her up, braced her with an arm under her shoulders. "Giles!" she snapped. "What's happening?"
"I don't know," he said, and reached to help.
Anya, still standing with the book held to her chest, said, "I do. Get her in the library. Hurry."
###
In his career as Buffy's watcher, Giles had experienced many levels of terror, everything from the sheer panic of fighting for his life to the quiet gnawing despair of not knowing where his Slayer was or what had happened to her.
But in many ways, seeing Willow sicken literally before his eyes was worse. She reclined now on the couch in the reading pit, her head in Buffy's lap, pale as one of the vampires Buffy hunted.
"She's dying," Anya said. She put the book down on the table and looked straight at Giles for the first time.
"Dying." The word held all the bitter fury he felt, and all of the shame. "How do we stop it?"
Anya looked at him mutely, opened her mouth just as a student blundered into the library, probably another bloody sophomore intent on another bloody book report. Giles turned on him and snapped, "The library's closed. Get out."
The student ran. Not left -- ran. Giles thought perhaps he should do something about his rage. He'd put it on his list.
He turned quickly to Anya and said, tightly, "Now."
"She must have used the book," she said. "Belphagior is the prince of tempters. You want it, you'll find it in the book. He must have offered her something she couldn't refuse."
Quite clearly, Giles remembered having the book in his hands, the whisper of Jenny's voice, the knowledge that he could have her back, real and human in his arms, if only he would say the words. Something she couldn't refuse. What would that have been for Willow?
From the reading pit, Buffy said reluctantly, "Oz."
Giles turned toward her. Buffy stared down at Willow's pale face, tucked a blanket more firmly around her friend's trembling body.
"She cured Oz. He's not a werewolf now."
"What? When?"
"Last night." Buffy looked up, flinching at what she saw in his face. "I found out last night. I should have told you."
"You bloody well should have!" he shouted at her. "How could you keep this from me? Knowing -- "
"I didn't --"
"You knew she shouldn't have been working major magics! I've told you both how dangerous -- " He realized how ragged his voice was, how desperate, and caught his breath. Buffy's eyes were filled with tears. "Anya. What's it doing to her?"
"Belphagior keeps his bargains," she said. "If she wanted Oz cured, he's cured, but in payment he's destroying her from the soul out."
Silence. Giles tried to speak, and couldn't. Willow whimpered softly and curled on her side, and Buffy put a hand gently on her forehead. Anya wasn't finished.
"It's pain at first," she said. "The pain gets worse. Before long, her body will begin to break down. In the end -- she'll be glad to die."
"I brought this here," Giles said numbly. He sat down, unable to stand a moment longer under the terrible weight of knowledge. "How could I have?"
Anya looked distantly compassionate as she said, "Well, you're human."
"How long does she have?" Buffy asked. She was crying, Giles saw, but her voice was utterly steady. Utterly focused. She smoothed hair back from Willow's face. It wasn't clear whether Willow had heard any of what had been said; her eyes were shut, and she was panting in shallow, agonized breaths. As Giles watched, his entire body aching with sorrow, she began to moan.
"Belphagior takes his payment quickly," Anya said. "She'll be dead by midnight."
Buffy said, steadily, "So what do we have to do to stop it?"
There had never been any real warmth between Anya and Willow; it showed now in the flinty depth of Anya's eyes. She had, after all, been a demon. And a vengeful one at that.
"What makes you think you should?" she asked. "Willow made the deal. Maybe it's a price she wants to pay. Dying so Oz can live a normal life. Who's to say that's not a good trade?"
Fury rose up in Giles, hot and strangely comforting, and without even thinking he was on his feet, around the table, holding Anya's wrist in a painful grip. She stared into his face, eyes wide and surprised. And, yes, frightened.
"Who are you to even suggest it?" he grated. "I will not let her die. And neither will you. We'll destroy the book."
"Giles, this book has been on this earth for five thousand years, since the first words were ever written. For all I know, it started out as a piece of stone with pictographs carved on it. Don't you think people have tried to destroy it? Look, let me save you the trouble: you can't stop this. There is nothing you can do."
He thought, quite calmly, that if he broke her wrist she might change her mind. It seemed very logical to him in that moment. A simple application of pressure in order to achieve a goal.
But it was Buffy who stopped him by saying, in that deadly quiet voice of hers, "Giles."
He let Anya go, because the temptation was simply too great. Buffy eased Willow off her lap, made sure she was as comfortable as possible, and then walked over to Anya. Grabbed her by the throat and rammed her bodily up against a bookcase. Next to Dickens, Giles thought. Very appropriate.
"Know what?" she asked. "Nobody kills my friend. Not you, not your buddy the book, nobody. If I can't get him, I'll start with you and work my way up."
"Oz!" Anya wheezed. Buffy loosened her grip just enough to let her gasp a breath. "Maybe Oz could reverse it. If he wanted to."
"Where is he?" For the first time, Giles realized he hadn't seen the boy. Hadn't even really thought of him.
Buffy turned blindly toward him, her eyes bright with fear. "Willow said he was in Santa Monica. She -- she didn't get a chance to tell me where."
From the couch, Willow whispered, in a voice gone transparent with agony, "Club -- Club Dead."
Giles went to her, knelt on the floor beside the couch and put his hand on her forehead. She was burning up, heat radiating from her as if she was being broiled alive. She opened her eyes at his touch, and tried to smile bravely.
"I'm okay," she whispered.
A second later, she went into a violent convulsion. Giles threw himself across her and held her down, felt Buffy's strength join his, and heard himself gasping to keep back tears. Oh God. Oh God, this was his fault, entirely his, keeping the deadliest knowledge in reach of little more than children --
Willow went limp under their hands. Giles cried out and felt for a pulse -- still there, but weak. Her skin looked as translucent as old porcelain, her lips and eyelids faintly blue.
As he watched, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
"She bit her lip," Buffy said breathlessly, and wiped it away. "I'll get Xander. We're going to Santa Monica for Oz. You -- stay here and do whatever you can."
"Yes," Giles said. Assuredly, yes. Everything he could do, without reservation or pause for consideration of his own life. If he had to make his own deal with Belphagior, the demon of the book, then so be it. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
But first he had to be sure Buffy would not be here to stop him.
"Be careful," he said, and handed over his car keys.
###
In any car made in the second half of the century, the trip to Santa Monica would have taken about three and a half hours. In Giles' car -- which, okay, wasn't quite that old except in dog years -- it took five, even with Xander's foot crushing the pedal to the floor the whole way. It was safer for Xander to drive, Buffy had decided. Xander wasn't inclined to smash into things without warning, or take his rage out on drivers that got in the way.
She needed really badly to smash something. Somebody. Soon. When all this was over, the vampire population of Sunnydale was going to in serious trouble.
"Club Dead," Xander repeated. He'd said it about a hundred times on the way already. "Club Dead, Club Dead, Club Dead ... okay, is it me, or is that kind of a bad thing?"
"It's a Goth club," Buffy said, staring out the window at passing headlights, flickers of other lives, places where her friend wasn't dying a lonely, painful, terrible death. "Mission Avenue. Take a right."
"Oh." Xander, who was dealing with this about as well as Buffy herself, and better than she'd expected, frankly, glanced over at her, face pallid in the dashboard lights. Night was falling.
Midnight was coming.
"So ... you've been there before? Club Dead, I mean?" Xander asked. Conversation. She hadn't been able to manage much so far, and this one didn't have much shelf life, either.
"No," she said, and shut it down. Xander drove, fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, shifting in the seat. She wanted to scream at him to stop, but she knew it was just his way of dealing, his way of not thinking about Willow. She'd seen his face when he'd bent over Willow and kissed her. That had been an I'm-off-to-save-your-life kiss, but it had also been goodbye, in case. Xander wasn't a fool. He knew how bad things were.
"Goth club," Xander said. "I forgot my eyeshadow and big silver chains, think I'll pass the dress code?"
In spite of herself, Buffy smiled. "Gee. Maybe they'd like to try to stop us. That'd be -- fun."
Xander looked at her, eyes wide and dark. There was something in Xander. He was like Giles that way, not quite the gentle soul he seemed to be most of the time.
"Oh yeah," he breathed. "It would be fun."
She held up her fist. He tapped it.
Enough said. Oz was coming back, and if they had to kick every Gothic ass in California to do it ... cool.
###
Anya dropped another priceless book carelessly on the table, opened it to the first page, and made a frustrated noise. She was, Giles knew, exhausted. He didn't care. She could be exhausted for the rest of her life, but she would have one. Willow wouldn't.
"Read," he ordered.
"It's useless," she said, and clapped her hands over her eyes. "Come on, give me a break. I can't keep up with this."
"What does it say?" He was, if anything, just as tired. His eyes felt as if they'd been sandblasted, and his blood sugar level had fallen to China. None of which mattered in the least. "Focus. These are the books I can't make out, the ones written in dead languages. You're the only one who can decipher them."
She didn't move. Didn't take her hands from her eyes. "It's by Abdul somebody or other, and I don't think you want what's in here. It's overkill."
"Overkill is precisely what we need."
"Look, you don't summon an Elder God to take care of Belphagior. That's like using a nuclear weapon to clean your house. Trust me."
She swept it off the table, onto the huge pile of books lying haphazardly on the floor around her. How many? Hundreds, perhaps. He'd thoroughly lost count.
"I'll get the next," he said, and stood up. His legs almost gave way, but he braced himself and waited for the spots to stop dancing in front of his eyes.
Anya said, "You're going to do her a hell of a lot of good when you fall down and smash your skull open."
"Yes, I'm sure you'll be very pleased," he snapped. Anger made him steadier. Adrenaline was quite as good as a chocolate bar for a quick energy boost. He stalked to the remotest shelves and pulled another armload of books at random, piled them on the table.
He went to where Willow lay unconscious on the couch and took her hand. Light, it felt -- almost ethereal, as if it was being eaten away from within. Which, Anya had assured him, was exactly the case. Her pulse was still thin but steady.
Her breathing changed, sped faster. Her eyelids flickered.
"She's waking up," he said. Anya looked up wearily from her book.
"There's nothing we can do for her," she said.
"No," Giles said. "I'm phoning the hospital."
"What?"
He ignored her and went around to the counter, pulled the phone close and began dialing.
Anya's hand slammed down on the posts, cutting the connection.
"Don't be stupid," she said. "They can't help her. And we won't be able to perform any rituals at all in a hospital, not without letting half of Sunnydale know what we're doing. Keep her here."
Willow woke up with a scream. The sound cut through Giles like a razor, left him. He hung up the phone and went back to her, held her tight as agony racked her slender body. Anya watched, her face gone still. Her eyes were intent as she watched them.
"They could give her something for the pain!" he said. "For God's sake, she can't survive like this!"
Anya reached over to the case lying nearby, took out a tranquilizer dart that fit into the gun they kept for Oz-related emergencies. Before Giles could protest, she plunged it into Willow's thigh.
Willow sighed, trembled, and went limp in Giles' arms, her breath warm and fast against his neck, her hair spilling over his shoulder. He cradled her close, struggling against helpless sorrow, and looked mutely at Anya.
She put the tranquilizer dart down next to the case and went back to the table. Pulled another book from the stack he'd left.
"Anya," he said. She didn't look up. "You said we needed to save them for the end. To keep her calm."
She said nothing at all. The dry whisper of turning pages told him what he needed to know. He looked at the clock.
Six hours until midnight.
###
Club Dead wasn't. In fact, it was packed, jammed to the walls with pale-faced refugees from the dark side. Xander, who had to this point felt pretty worldly -- after all, he'd survived years of Buffy and the Hellmouth -- had a whole education in the five minutes it took Buffy to charm their way in the door. Piercing, for instance. Ears, sure. Noses. Tongues. He was down with all that. Eyebrows, too. But he really wasn't sure about the nipple thing. And the belly button. And --
"Xander." Buffy grabbed him by the arm and towed him away from the whole subject. "Okay, look, stay with me. If we get separated, head back here to the door, I'll bring Oz!"
She was shouting, but he could barely hear her over the techno-synth Crystal Method ripoff being blasted from the sound system. A tall, incredibly skinny girl with a shaved head and an all-over tattoo shoved in between the two of them, grabbed Xander's ass, then flicked her tongue at Buffy. Buffy stared up at her with eyes like stone until she moved on.
"Watch your back," she yelled to Xander, and pushed a bulky, muscled guy with shoulder-length dyed-black hair out of her path.
"Hey, don't leave me!" he shouted back. She didn't hear him. It didn't matter. In two or three steps, he ended up the centerpiece in a slam-dance sandwich, and lost sight of her completely. Calm. I'm going to be calm. I can do that. Xander suddenly had a vivid impression that if he turned around he'd find Willow behind him, her eyes huge and amazed and fascinated, looking to him for -- well, not for protection, he knew better, but -- for assurance. She'd always done that, since the first day he'd tripped over her on the playground. She'd look at him with this secret delight in her eyes that said Look at this, Xander, isn't it wildly cool? And he'd have seen that in some weird, possibly deranged way, it was.
He turned around.
Willow wasn't behind him. Willow wasn't going to be behind him ever again if they didn't get Oz and get out of here.
Somebody shoved him, hard. He slammed into the big, muscular guy Buffy had swatted out of her path like a mosquito, who steadied him back on his feet, patted him on the back, and said, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Xander said. He studied the ferociously big guy, the piercing, the dyed hair. The intelligent, amused blue eyes. "Sorry. I'm new."
"Obviously." The guy really was huge, he towered over Xander by at least six or seven inches. He stuck out his hand, which was the size of a canned ham. It had silver death's-head rings on every finger. "Quentin."
"Xander," he said, and shook hands. Quentin had a frequent flyer card at the tattoo parlor, too. "Uh, look, I need to get to the stage. You see a way?"
Quentin looked up, over the crowd, and shook his head.
"Better stay here where it's not so crazy."
Xander's mind blew trying to wrap around the concept, but he shook it off, raised his voice and said, "It's life and death, Quentin. And I'm not talking about the metaphor. Thanks anyway."
He turned away and tried to shove between a girl wearing a corset any vamp would be proud to have in her closet, and a guy dressed as Dracula, complete with cape and sash. No good. He backed up to try again, and was brushed -- gently -- out of the way by a hand as huge as a canned ham.
"Excuse us," Quentin rumbled, and parted the seas.
Xander was reminded, again, that it was good to have friends.
###
Buffy was about two-thirds of the way to the stage when she realized something important about Club Dead. Goth, sure -- she had no objection to the Goths, though they were pretty clueless about the whole undead chic thing -- but more importantly, Club Dead was a hunting ground for vampires. A smorgasboard of easy victims.
There were at least three or four in the room that she could immediately sense, probably more at the fringes. Buffy turned to look for Xander but he was lost in a sea of moving bodies. Overhead, crimson curtains billowed and flashing strobes made everybody look terminal.
She reached out and tapped a burly guy in motorcycle leathers on the shoulder. He turned to stare at her with puppy-dog eyes, and smiled.
"What's a girl like you -- "
"Don't waste it on me," she advised. "Give me a boost up."
She said it like there was no question he'd do it. So he did. He put his hands around her waist, lifted her up, and set her on his shoulder, where she balanced with one hand on his head -- oh God, what was that in his hair -- and scanned the crowd, marking vamps. Even in a Goth club, they didn't blend. Lapels too wide on the coats, and a big dependence on '70s disco fashion. They had the black part of the ensemble, just not the, well, coolness factor.
She remembered what she was there to do. Not vamps this time. She scanned for any trace of the Dingoes. A band was setting up on stage, but the lights only caught them in flashes, and she wasn't sure --
Yep. The guy carting an amp was definitely Dylon. And as she watched, Oz walked in stage left with part of the drum kit.
She tapped a leather-clad shoulder and said, "Down, Simba." He expressed her to the dance floor again.
"How about a drink?" he suggested. She put her hand flat on his leather vest, looked up into his face, and smiled. "Uh -- no?"
"Sorry," she said, wiped her icked hand as discreetly as she could, and turned to the stage.
The serious dancers -- the ones that didn't think it was a good night without bruises and loose teeth -- were pounding each other to the beat ten-deep in front of where she needed to be. Even as a Slayer, she wasn't bulletproof, and besides, the cute but sensible shoes she'd thrown on this morning weren't going to win a Doc Marten throwdown.
Not much room for a launch. She turned back to Motorcycle Boy, who was frankly checking out her ass.
"One more time?" she asked sweetly. He lifted her up. Instead of sitting on his shoulder, she put her feet flat on it, channeled all the power into her legs, and threw herself out into space.
Tuck and roll. The room whirled around her, a sea of light and upturned faces, red curtains, vampires who certainly had to know now the Slayer was in town.
She landed on the stage flat-footed, in front of Oz.
Who very calmly put down the drum kit with a crash of cymbals and said, "Looking for me?"
He didn't know it was about Willow. He didn't know anything except that the Slayer had just dropped out of the sky into his gig, and he was willing to go. He was willing to give up -- everything. In that second she loved him for it, fiercely and completely.
Over his shoulder, Dylon glared at her and shouted, "What's she doing here?"
Oz's eyes never left hers. He waited.
"We have to get back to Sunnydale," she said. "It's Willow."
All the life left his eyes, left him bleak and dark. He nodded and picked up his guitar.
"You're leaving?" Dylon said. "What, your girlfriend sends the hit squad and you just take off on us? This is a gig, man!"
Oz tried to go around him. Dylon put a hand on his chest and stopped him. Buffy started to take a step forward but this was guy stuff, band stuff, friend stuff, and the one place a Slayer wouldn't be a help.
Oz didn't need her help. He grabbed Dylon's arm and had him down on the stage, face-down, in a Slayerlike length of time. His expression never changed.
"I'm sorry," he said to Dylon. "I love you guys. But don't ever make me choose."
He let go. Dylon jumped to his feet, black hair flying, face gone drinking-man red with anger. The two of them stared at each other for a while, and then Dylon flexed his right arm and said, "You're damn lucky I don't play guitar."
"Everyone's damn lucky."
A smile flickered over Dylon's face. "Well, shit, bro. Go do your thing and let us do ours."
He held out his hand. Oz took it and pulled him into a quick guy kind of hug, complete with back slapping.
"So I'm fired?" Oz asked.
"Bet your ass," Dylon said. "Don't forget next Tuesday, eight, my house. Rehearsal and bad burgers."
Oz took a deep breath and turned to Buffy. "Let's go," he said.
Which was when all hell broke loose.
###
If Quentin's career as the white Dennis Rodman didn't pan out, he had a great future in crowd control, Xander figured. People moved. Big time. In a room that didn't have more than a square foot of unoccupied space, floor-wise, Quentin cleared a path that would have gotten the Secret Service seal of approval.
Until they reached the mosh pit. Quentin stopped to look over the group, glanced back at Xander as if to say so this is important, huh? And Xander nodded. Buffy was on stage, talking to Oz. So close and yet so far.
He saw her turn, suddenly, face intense, eyes focused. She was looking right at him, and she yelled his name.
Well, yeah, he was supposed to be here, wasn't he?
Which was when he felt hands grab hold of his shoulders, jerk him off balance, and he went down. A very scary thing in a crowded club full of Doc Martens.
Uh ... and vampires. One was bent over him right now, snarling, game face on. The red eyes really did glow in the dark, which was not something he really needed to know firsthand.
She slapped his hands away and went for his throat.
Quentin grabbed her in mid-chomp and tossed her like a dwarf into the crowd. Screams erupted. So did more vampires, switching to game faces, shoving through after them.
Quentin yanked Xander to his feet and said, "Well, now you've done it."
"Guess so." Xander tried to catch his breath. "Thanks -- "
The words died in his mouth as Quentin's eyes flashed red.
"--for nothing," Xander finished, and ducked as Quentin grabbed for him.
The screaming started in earnest.
It was a good place to get killed, Xander realized; the place was too crowded, so if the vamps didn't get you, the trampling would. People were making for the six exits, but it was going to take time.
And there were a lot of vampires.
Xander grabbed a stake out of his jacket -- one thing about hanging with Buffy, you learned to pack heat -- and slammed it home in the chest of a female vamp wearing a Vampirella costume of strips of leather. She ashed. He got body-slammed by a panicked pierced lady, her ambiguously gay friend, spun around -- into the arms of his good buddy Quentin.
The vampire.
He went with the stake again, but Quentin was too big, too fast, and just too damn good. And Xander was not Xander the Vampire Slayer, he was Xander the Guy Who Holds The Slayer's Purse.
Pretty much sucked at the moment.
Quentin said, "Too bad, I kind of liked you, Xander."
And he exploded into ash as he went for Xander's throat. Xander spit out flakes, thoroughly grossed, and saw Buffy standing behind the drifts of Quentin, stake still poised. Oz was with her.
"The gift that keeps on giving," Xander said. Buffy turned to stake another vamp. The club was starting to clear out.
"Get Oz out of here -- take his van, it's faster. I'll cover you!" she shouted. Xander nodded and locked eyes with Oz.
They booked, leaving Buffy to Slay without distractions. On the way out Xander remembered he had Giles' car keys, turned and threw them at her. She spun, caught them left-handed, and completed the spin to drive a kick into the chest of a vamp venturing too close.
Damn, she was good. Xander felt a quiet little surge of happiness watching her. His own personal kick-ass friend.
"Go!" she yelled at him. He went.
###
Nine-thirty, and Willow was dying. Giles had abandoned the books to sit with her -- giving her at least that comfort. It was hideously painful, even with all of the chemical comfort of the tranquilizers. She whimpered and wept and trembled even unconscious.
At nine-thirty-five, she began to sweat profusely, a fine mist on her skin as if she'd walked through a paint spray. Her clothes absorbed it, turning sodden; Giles, on the verge of tears or violence, wrapped the child in towels filched from the shower rooms. He bathed her face to keep it clean.
At ten, she opened her eyes and didn't know who he was.
At ten-thirty, Anya used the last tranquilizer dart, looked at Giles, and shook her head. "She won't last until midnight," she said. "She's too weak."
Giles took a deep breath and nodded. He eased out, away from Willow's dead weight, and went to the library table where the book of Belphagior gleamed so fresh and tempting on the table.
"It won't work for you," Anya said. She hadn't bothered to follow him around. "Go ahead. Try it."
He opened the book to the first page.
It was blank. The breath went out of him as if he'd been punched in the stomach. But -- this had been his plan. His plan to save Willow if all else --
Anya said, almost pityingly, "Only Oz has a shot at it. Nobody else."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why do you think?"
Giles slammed the book shut. That wasn't enough. He took it and flung it across the room, gilt-edged pages flying, all mockingly blank. It crashed into the wall and flopped to the floor, perfectly ordered, perfectly undamaged.
"No!" he cried, and rounded on Anya, fists clenched. "There must be a way, something to preserve her life -- "
And then it clicked. Finally.
Anna King. His friend the prescient, the psychic. I saw this and I thought of you. He should have remembered that she was extremely literal about things. It wasn't a clever flirtation, she'd been trying to give him a message. She'd known he'd need the lingum.
Because it housed the power of Pavarti the goddess of fertility ... and Vishnu, the Preserver.
"Watch her," he ordered Anya. She frowned at him. "Just do it!"
Oh, God, Buffy had his car. He left the library at a run, heading for the self-storage where he'd left the lingum until he could find how to dispose of it safely.
###
It was eleven when Oz's van bit the dust. The engine coughed, sputtered, gagged and died, leaving them to roll to a stop on the gravel shoulder.
"No," Xander said. "Oh, no. No, not now!"
He pounded the dashboard. Oz turned the key. Nothing. Not even a click. Alternator, starter, battery -- didn't matter what. Xander flung open the van door and raced to the front, threw up the hood, stared at the grimy motor. As if he'd know. Oz climbed out and joined him, pointed a flashlight into the oil-covered guts, and said two words.
"Oil pump."
Not the two words that rose to Xander's lips. Ever since he'd given Oz the news, told Oz what being unwolfed had cost Willow, Oz had been silent. Focused. Not a lot to say about it.
Now he just stared at his van and said nothing. But he said it really loudly.
"She's going to die," Xander said. "If we don't get there."
He wasn't sure what he was fishing for, maybe just a reaction, some idea that Oz understood. Felt something.
Oz just stood there. Staring down at the engine. Xander blew out his breath in disgust and walked away, kicked gravel, looked up and down the long deserted road.
The full moon came out from behind a cloud and stared at them just as a car topped the hill behind them. Oz looked at Xander, a quick unreadable glance, and then stepped out into the road. Not to the side of the road, to wave his arms -- he went to the center of the road. Right in prime road-kill territory.
"Oz!" Xander shouted as the headlights pinned him in the glare, made his skin ice-white, his hair hot orange. Oz spread his arms. "Hey, no!"
Because all he could think was that Oz was going to get creamed in the hope that it would save Willow. And he didn't want that. Not even for Willow's life.
The car slammed on its brakes. Locked tires shrieked in the still night air, and Xander gasped in a lungful of burning rubber as the car fishtailed, shot forward --
-- and slid to a halt about two feet from Oz, who slowly lowered his arms and bent forward to rest his hands on the hood.
It was a fast sports car with really heavy window tinting. Xander realized almost immediately that it was the perfect vampmobile.
Then the door opened and Buffy Summers stepped out of it, face alight, and said, "Inherited it from a guy in the club who won't need it anymore. So ... you guys need a lift?"
Oz piled into the tiny back seat. Xander slammed the doors on the van and dived for the passenger seat, and Buffy burned rubber heading back to Sunnydale.
Of course, Buffy was driving. That was both good, speed-wise, and bad, safety-wise. But right now, Xander decided he'd take speed.
"You're okay?" he asked Buffy. She looked okay, of course. She shot him a look and the car veered; he grabbed the steering wheel to straighten it out. The look turned into a glare. "Sorry."
"Club Dead really is," she said. "Oz? How you doing?"
She held up her hand. Oz took it and squeezed.
"Get there," he said. "Just get there."
"We will." Buffy sounded sure, but Xander was staring at the dashboard clock.
Eleven o'clock.
It was at least two hours to Sunnydale, even at Buffy-speed.
###
Giles arrived back at the school gasping and winded, his shirt soaked through with sweat. He'd discarded his coat somewhere, thank God, or he'd never have made it. His days of even six-minute miles were long gone, and it had been one hell of a run, both ways.
At least, given the time of night, he hadn't run into any temptations, though he could feel the lingum stirring in the box. It didn't bear thinking on for long. He used his key on the front door and ran down the long hall, past the trophy case, down to the library.
Anya was standing beside the couch, staring down.
"This had better work, whatever it is," she said. Giles unfolded the top of the box and pulled out the lingum. He discarded the box and the explosion of packing peanuts, raced to Willow and knelt beside her. Anya's eyes widened when she saw what it was he held.
"You're kidding," she said. He came toward her with it, and she backpedaled. "You're not kidding."
Giles laid it on Willow's chest, folded her hands on top of it, and stepped away. Well away. He wasn't sure what the effective range was, but it had already demonstrated its power far too dramatically for him to underestimate it.
On the couch, Willow's breathing stopped.
"Well," Anya said, "Great idea. Too bad it killed her."
Not dead, holding her breath. As Giles' heart pounded, Willow let out a long, shivering sigh. The clenched agony evident in every muscle subsided.
And she moaned. Not a moan of pain. A moan of -- Giles cut the thought very short. It was quite enough that it wasn't a moan of pain.
Willow's eyes fluttered open. "Giles?" she whispered. She licked her lips. "I feel strange -- "
"I'll bet," Anya said archly. "You know, I would have mentioned supernatural mystical fertility objects if I thought you had any lying around the house."
"Never know until you ask," Giles said, somewhat breathlessly. No, he was definitely not beyond the effective range. From the look she gave him, neither was Anya. "Right. Thanks for all your help. Now get out."
"It's just getting interesting."
He pushed her toward the door. "Go before I change my mind."
She did, with one last, somewhat longing look back. She'd be appalled later, of course. Besides, the girl was old enough to be his ancestor. And young enough to be his daughter.
He sat down in the farthest corner of the library, watching Willow as she continued to breathe, continued to live, her whole body alight with the power of the lingum. He thought, somewhat desperately, that it was a good thing the library was as large as it was.
After a time she began asking for him. It took a great deal of hard-won discipline to remember why it was that he shouldn't go.
By midnight, he was in grave danger of losing that as well.
###
They arrived alive. Buffy parked half on the sidewalk, threw open the driver's side door and yelled, "Go!"
The clock read seventeen minutes after midnight.
Buffy was fast, but Oz was motivated; he beat her to the library doors by ten feet, slammed through and skidded to a halt Buffy slid to a stop next to him and took it in quickly. Willow lying on the couch. Giles sitting -- huddling? -- in the corner, hands pressed to his forehead.
The book on the table.
"Oz -- " Giles struggled to his feet and edged around the room, avoiding Willow like the plague. "The book! Open the book!"
After one stricken look at Willow, Oz turned to the table and pulled the black book toward him. Giles joined him.
"Open it," Giles said.
"Then what?"
"I don't know," Giles said soberly. "Open it and we'll see."
Oz flipped the cover. Something like a whisper moved through the room, just below Buffy's hearing; she paused in the act of going to Willow, turned to listen. She could almost hear -- almost --
"Tell me what it says," Giles said. Oz stared down into the book as if it had blinded him. "Oz!"
"I can save her," he said. "It says I can save her."
He turned the page. Then turned it again. Kept flipping, and it cost him, Buffy could see it in the way his hands shook, the way his whole body flinched. Whatever he was looking at, it was like staring into the Hellmouth.
On the couch, Willow screamed and writhed. Buffy leaped to her, tried to calm her down; her skin was sizzling hot, hot as a parking lot in July. She couldn't survive this. Nobody could survive this.
"Giles!" she shouted, desperate. Xander, who'd come in without her noticing, knelt next to Willow and tried to hold on to her.
"Oz!" Giles shouted. "It has to be now! Read the spell!"
Oz read it. It was just sounds to Buffy, something vaguely Latin-like, which was vaguely English-like, in a non-English way. She couldn't tell what it said, only what it did, because all of a sudden there was a fire on the library table, nuclear hot, so incredibly hot she felt it crawl over her skin like instant sunburn.
And then it all went black.
###
Giles woke first, rolled to his feet and -- first thing -- checked Willow's pulse. Strong and normal. She lay quietly on the couch, blankets pulled up around her, as peaceful as if she'd simply fallen asleep there after a long night of research.
His eyes stung with tears when he realized that she was well again, but that would hardly do, not in front of Buffy and the others. He moved along to check them.
Oz lay unconscious but -- except for the sunburn they all seemed to have acquired -- unharmed. Buffy had fallen awkwardly but it hadn't done her any harm so far as he could see; as he checked her over, she moaned and opened her eyes. Xander was likewise undamaged.
The book was gone. Giles stared at the scorch mark on the table for several long seconds before Buffy climbed to her feet, gingerly prodded her sunburned face, and said, "Okay, what the heck was that? Because demonic books don't usually self-destruct, right?"
"Not usually," Giles agreed. Oz was stirring; Giles reached down and helped him up. "I believe Oz needs to answer that question."
Oz braced himself with both hands flat on the table, stared down at the burned spot for a long few seconds, and then turned to the couch, to where Willow lay sleeping. Before Giles could protest -- if he would have -- Oz went to her, sat next to her and took her hand.
"It worked," Oz said.
"You weren't sure?" Buffy asked. "And what weren't you sure about, anyway?"
"The book," Oz said. "It gave you what you wanted, right? So the first page had a spell to cure Willow."
Giles nodded.
"So, my question was, what were all the other pages?" Oz raised his eyebrows. "It was a big book. I wanted to save Willow most of all, but I kept looking, and sure enough, it was there."
"What was?"
"I wanted it to go to hell," Oz said. "And when I said that spell, it had to grant the wish."
My God, Giles thought, a prodigy. But he didn't say it out loud. He watched with a faint smile as Oz pulled Willow into a protective embrace, watched as her eyes fluttered open. The smile faltered as he realized what Willow still held in her hands.
"Buffy," he said. She looked up from where she sat, still gingerly touching her reddened face. "Could you do me a favor, please?"
"I'm your girl."
"Get that statue Willow is holding and put it back in the box, please." He said it with extreme politeness. Buffy craned to look over the back of the couch, where Oz and Willow were still kissing. Deeply.
"The big --"
"Yes. That one. Thank you." He sank into a chair and allowed himself, for the first time, to feel a cautious glimmering of hope and relief as Buffy retrieved the lingum, holding it gingerly at arm's length, and placed it back in the box.
"Want me to go throw it off the docks?" she asked.
"How far could you throw it?"
"China?"
"It's proved itself useful enough. I think I'll keep it." He did not, quite, smile. The lingum was quiet again, no power cascading from it; Buffy eyed the box distrustfully, shrugged, and went to help Xander up off the floor.
Willow and Oz broke apart as Giles approached. She looked tired and weak, but otherwise undamaged. It was, Giles thought, very close to miraculous. As close as he was ever likely to see. And Oz looked -- very much the same.
"You owe Oz your life," he said to her. "You know what it was you set in motion?"
She nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. He reached out and touched her chin to raise it.
"I know," she said. Her eyes were dark with it.
"And you do understand that there will be no more such meddling? Not ever?"
"I won't need to," she said with that hidden streak of stubbornness he'd noted before. "He's not a wolf anymore."
"Bad news," Oz said. "Your book demon bagged the spell. In fact, I'd better get in the kennel, save you guys the trouble of tranking me."
They had no tranquilizers left, of course, but Giles didn't find it particularly prudent to say. Oz went into the cage. As he stripped off his shirt and put it aside, he looked through the bars at Giles.
"She's okay, though," he said. "You're sure."
"I'm taking her to hospital," Giles promised. "I think she's fine, but I want to be absolutely sure."
Oz nodded, and his eyes met Giles' and held. "About that other thing?"
The other thing that Buffy and Xander especially did not need to know. The other thing that it would take Giles a good long time to decently forget. Giles cleared his throat. "I was wondering when the subject might come up."
"Doesn't have to. I'll let you know when I'm okay with it."
Giles nodded, and turned away as the moon took took the boy away. Which made things normal, again.
"Guess I'm on wolf watch after all." Buffy helped Willow to her feet, handed her off to Giles, and said, "Two things. One, your car? It's still in Santa Monica."
Giles closed his eyes wearily. "Oh, perfect. What's the second thing?"
She smiled wickedly and held out a set of keys. "You can use the 'Vette."
###
The next day, after an uneventful day at school, Giles had a visitor. When he answered the knock at his door, he found Anna King on his doorstep, looking every inch the beauty he remembered, her short hair fluttering pale around her face, her china-blue eyes wide. She stepped into his embrace without a word.
"Rupert." She whispered it in his ear, and the feel of her, solid and real, was enough to trigger far too many memories. He let go and ushered her inside. "I hope you don't mind a quick drop-in."
"I mind that it's taken you eight years to do it," he said in mild reproof, and poured her a generous shot of Laphroig. Her favorite, as he recalled. She sat down on his couch, comfortable and elegant in blue jeans and a green angora sweater, kicked her shoes off, and curled her legs under her. Right at home, as always. "What brings you in, Anna?"
"Flight 820 from London, of course, but I ran across some photos, consulted some Watcher books, and ... here I am. You've become something of a legend, Rupert. The Watcher who defied the Council and lived to tell about it. A rebel Watcher for a rebel Slayer." Anna's face lit up with a slow, delighted smile. "I always knew you'd revert."
He found himself smiling back. The scotch tasted like golden sunlight, reminded him of warm afternoons driving through Oxford, wishing that time might last forever.
As it had, in some ways. And always would.
"Did you get my present?" she asked, eyes dancing with mischief.
"Yes, thank God, though you might have been clearer about it. It saved a girl's life, but I had to practically be beaten over the head with it to -- " He came to a sudden stop at the look on her face. "What?"
"It saved a girl's life?" Anna asked, clearly mystified.
"Of course. You sent it because you knew -- you knew what would happen -- "
She shook her head, still smiling. "No, Rupert. I'm not psychic anymore, I haven't been for years. I assure you, I wasn't thinking of any special use you could put it to."
Not psychic. And he'd risked Willow's life on it. Giles fought off a cold chill of might-have-been.
"You're still psychic," he told her. "Never doubt it. But if you didn't have a vision, why did you send it?"
Her smile caught fire, and so did he.
"Really," she said. "I did say it in the note. I saw it ... and I thought of you."
He wondered, for just a brief moment, whether it was the lingum's influence that made him cross the distance between them.
But he didn't think it was.
Comments, brickbats, all welcome here! Thanks!
-- Julie