Woo, I've almost hit 60 reviews, you guys are fantastic. Well here we go with good ol' chapter 20, filled with drama, conflict and love! Hurray!
"What's Gretel got against us anyway?" Xander questioned as everyone looked back at him and he shrugged "well I personally don't get it" he sighed. Spike resisted the urge to say something insulting
"Surely we could find some memory spell and find out from a real ex-demon" Spike said. Remembering when they'd put that stupid worm charm into his brain.
"Only a vengeance demon can undo her own spell" Buffy chimed in, Anya had once said so herself even if she couldn't remember at the present moment
"Which brings us back to square boned" Xander said pessimistically "what I don't get is why Drusilla would take Jenny…" he changed the subject
"Xand, I have a feeling it was Angelus who took her, he's got more reason too," Willow said while taking another sip of her ice water
"Willows right, we just need to find Jenny somehow" Giles spoke in a rather gruff tone without looking up from the floor
"Why don't you do a locator spell?" Ashley suggested
"Good idea, I'll get on that… but we should really find Gretel and make her reverse the spell" Willow said worriedly
"Wont that mean the whole spell would be reversed?" Buffy said quickly, she wasn't about to lose Spike again.
"Well technically you cast the revival spell, it's the others stuff that Gretel did we need to fix" Robin said, always the wise one
"Like Jenny's nightmares" Giles said, as he looked Buffy in the eye, she immediately dodged away from his gaze and glared at the walls
"And my memories" Anya smiled at the prospect of understanding again
"And I would become a vampire again" Spike said glumly and Buffy understood the pain in his eyes without needing to ask.
"Well I need to go get some supplies" Willow said then looked over at Buffy and Spike "wanna come with?" she offered, she had a feeling Spike would want to be out in the sun as much as possible now. Spike nodded and Buffy smiled knowingly at her best friend
"Me too!" Grace said suddenly as she jumped off the dining table she was sitting on
"You sure? It's just magic shopping" Willow didn't seem to understand the appeal that held next to sitting around and researching
"Positive" she grinned "besides some of my stuffs still there" she hinted
"Right then, off we go" Spike looked outside, the sun was still high in the sky, it was almost 1.00 so he couldn't waste any time in the shadows.
"Faith?" Buffy called back at the last minute "could you call Nicks house and see if Dawns there? She's not picking up her phone" she asked, Faith smiled in understanding and then shut the front door. Buffy took his hand as they walked off with Willow and Grace following behind them
Robin was in the living room talking loudly with the others. Faith watched from a crack in the door then bit her lip. She had no idea if what she was doing would work, but she couldn't help feeling nervous about things, could she? She crept over to the phone in the kitchen and picked up the little notebook next to the phone. It had numbers of everyone Buffy or Dawn would ever need to call. She'd call Nick after she'd found out what she needed to know. Finally she found the page of numbers she was really after. She punched them in carefully, not wanting to hit a seven when she meant to hit an eight instead. She held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring
"Hello" a somewhat exotic voice answered her like they knew she would call
"Hi… are you a seer?" Faith questioned in a barely audible whisper
"Yes, you are in need of assistance?" she asked
"Pretty much yeah" Faith almost laughed "I needed to know… if I should go through with a wedding or not" she gulped, hoping to God that Robin wasn't listening
"You have doubts"
"Yeah… so what? Just tell me do you see danger ahead or what?" Faith wasn't sure what she wanted to hear them say… anything would be good
"You can jump through the ring of fire or you can douse it with water… some burns however do not cause hurt" the woman almost sounded like she was grinning
"Fire? There's gonna be fire at the wedding?" Faith would have yelled if she weren't being so cautious in the first place
"That lies in your hands now" the woman replied
"My hands are going to be set on fire? Or my hands will set fire to my… stop being vague!" Faith complained then the see hung up the phone and left Faith standing in the kitchen with her mouth wide open. Suddenly Robin stepped in the room with a concerned look on his face
"Did you get through?" he asked curiously
"Get through? To what? What are you talking about?" she forgot about the other phone call she was supposed to be making
"Nick" Robin drawled out the word, giving Faith a look of utter concern
"Oh right yeah I was just doin' that now" she laughed a little hysterically as Robin nodded in confusion and left the room. Faith sighed and began dialing the new number with shaking fingers
"Yes?" a boy laughed as he answered the phone and Faith immediately knew he didn't just wake up happy. Or maybe he had, but either way she'd heard too many guys laugh like that
"Hi" she now sounded almost venomous as she found out that Dawn had indeed spent the night with him, but she was – more or less – in safe hands for now
"Oh, holy water" Buffy examined the bottles on the shelves "newly blessed too" she found it sad how that intrigued her
"Yeah and look at this, Rabbits feet, buy 3 get the fourth for free!" Willow was awfully chipper now that there was magic sale going on right under her nose
"And though this is terribly exciting, don't you think we can go yet?" Spike groaned, shopping it turned out, was not his thing – human or vampire
"Give us a minute" Buffy replied gazing into a large tub of looked to be tadpoles but there was a sign above them saying Do not touch – Cursed
"Yeuch!" Buffy looked away, slightly afraid of being near cursed tadpoles
"Gracie? How's it going up there?" Willow called up the wooden staircase up to the small room where Grace had once lived for so long
"Fine! Hang on!" she yelled back
"Take your time!" Willow grinned, and happily began looking at the book section
"Bloody hell" Spike jumped when he realized that he was leaning against a large wooden cross, a little blonde haired girl giggled as he jumped, he glared at the girl till she ran back to her mother
"Its just a cross" Buffy laughed at him and he glared at her too
"A bloody big wooden cross!" he exclaimed
"Oh no, better run now before it gets ya!" she laughed as Spike whacked her playfully across the head and she laughed even more
"Found it!" Willow held up the items she needed to create a locator spell and grinned in triumph
"We can go now!" Spike said thankfully when Grace bounded down the stairs with a small suitcase in hand
"Not yet" she said quickly dashing any hopes Spike had of leaving the store while it was still bright outside, he groaned in defeat "I just have a few things here and there I need to pick up" she grimaced at Spikes annoyed look
"You guys can head back and I'll meet you there" she said quickly
"What about Angel and Dru?" Willow said worriedly, clutching her bag of supplies that she could thankfully get free of charge since Grace was somewhat the owner now
"Nothing the littlest slayer cant handle" Spike grinned, hopeful again
"I'm not little" Grace snapped at him playfully
"Space-efficient slayer?" he joked then got kicked in the shins by both Buffy and Grace at the same time in separate shins.
"We'll see you back home okay?" Buffy smiled at her and Grace gave her thumbs up. She waved goodbye as her friends left the shop. She sighed in relief then quickly started rummaging through the bookshelves until she found what she needed
Charms and Curses – Creating and Reversing – Advanced Volume
"Score" she mumbled as she saw the last of the browsers leave the store too. She took out her little yellow sticky pads and began writing down a spell and its instructions. When she finished she began frantically searching the shelves for ingredients she would need. She put everything she would need into her suitcase and then made for the door. She glanced down at the first sticky note there first line read Takes 6-7 weeks to prepare – must have raven feathers – crow feather dangerous and will botch curse
"I'm going to make everything right again…" she mumbled, ignoring the tugging feel of guilt in her heart. She pulled her suitcase out of the store and slammed the door "I'm going to make everything right…" she repeated again and began walking back home
Sorry for the delay I came down with an annoying case of 'chronic appendicitis' which is like the slower, more painful version of normal appendicitis and the sucky side is that I still have it! But enough whining, reviews would be great since I'm a little unsure about this chapter. But I do however like the last part
Any guesses on what Grace is going to do? Hehehe