Chapter 25
"Giles!"
The Watcher looked up at Dawn came crashing against the counter with a horrified look on her face.
"There are so many things missing!"
"Calm down," he said first as he rose from his chair behind the counter. "Now what's missing?"
Dawn quickly rattled off a list of the objects missing from the Magic Box's stores and when she was halfway through, a look of horror and anger came across the man's face. He snarled wordlessly then lunged at the phone, jabbing a number in as Dawn looked on numbly.
"Xander!" he hissed as he got the vampire on the other end of the line. "Willow is going to try and perform the resurrection ritual."
"WHAT?!" came the roar from the other end of the phone, loud enough for Dawn to hear it where she stood. Then he calmed and snarled, "She promised me that she wouldn't."
"Xander…you know that Willow has become very reliant on her magic. I'm…I am starting to fear she's becoming addicted to the power it brings her."
"And she desperately wants her best friend back," growled Xander. "But we can't let her do it, Giles. Bringing her back…God only knows what else might happen!"
He then asked, "Will she need the grave to perform the spell?"
"Yes," replied Giles, "she'll need to be very close to it, practically on top of it."
"I'll go there then. Call Faith and get her scouring the town for her. See if Tara knows where she is."
"Tara's at home," offered Dawn in a soft voice. "She drove me over here."
Giles nodded then said, "Very well, Xander. Be careful."
A growl was all that answered him then the phone on the other end went dead. The Watcher sighed then slammed the phone back into its cradle, cursing vehemently for a moment. Then he took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to calm himself.
"Dawn…would you mind calling Faith and telling her the situation?"
"Sure," replied the teen and moved to the phone as Giles went to sit at the table where they researched. He sank into a chair heavily and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.
As Dawn started her conversation with Faith, he muttered, "Oh, Willow, my girl, what are you thinking?"
---
Willow was seated on the ground, halfway through the ritual, when she got the distinct feeling she was being watched.
And she was right.
From the shadows of the graveyard came a prowling shadow, an almost palpable cloud of anger trailing its path through the graves. Fear clutched at her as she watched it approached, the crimson feline eyes letting her know who it was.
"Xander," she gasped in a choked voice as the huge panther came stalking forward. The halfway done ritual was entirely forgotten and the magical energies gathered from it dissipated upon the wind.
The beast snarled in response, flashing its fangs, and she cringed back.
"Please! I…I can't stand it! I just want Buffy back!"
There was another snarl then a frightening presence thundered into her head with tidal wave force.
YOU PROMISED ME!
The witch starting sobbing as that scream of rage ripped through her skull, gasping, "Xander…Xander, I'm sorry!"
Sorry doesn't cut it, snarled the voice in her head. There was a faint snapping noise and she looked up to see him standing above her, human again.
And the look in his crimson eyes was one of the utmost disdain and betrayal.
"You promised me you would leave the dead to death," he hissed.
"We need her!" screamed Willow.
Xander snarled ferally in response to that and she flung herself backwards at the noise as it spoke to something buried deep within her. And what answered it told her to flee before this predator descended upon her.
"I thought we had covered this."
"We need her!"
"You need her!" bellowed Xander. "People die every day, Willow! And, damnit, I don't need to know that whenever one of my friends dies they can be brought back on a whim! I don't need that!"
He snarled wordlessly then finished, "Else I would start begging for them back every time they died, cursing them to this same existence as me only worse. Because they would have to die first before being brought back!"
"We have to accept death! It doesn't matter if we have the power to bring her back! She's gone…now let her rest in peace."
Willow choked on a sob and breathed, "Xander…"
"You have to stop this, Wills," he hissed. "You have to let her go. Move on with your life."
The witch started to answer then turned her head at the sound of a car. She shrieked as a van plowed in front of her, taking out Xander and Buffy's headstone.
"Wha…who…"
The side door of the van slid open and she recognized Warren from high school. She was too stunned to notice the strange gun he was pointing at her until he fired and everything went blank.
"Quick!" he shouted back into the van. "We have to get her in and get out of here before that nutcase comes back."
"I don't think he's a nutcase, Warren," said Jonathan nervously as he moved to help pull the witch into the van.
"He's gotta be crazy, thinking he's a vampire. Pff, I've seen him walk in sunlight!"
"And I see you three are working hard at pissing me off."
Jonathan and Warren froze at the half-growled words and slowly looked up to see Xander standing on top of their van. As they stared, the wounds he received from being hit first by the van then a tree healed up, leaving only spatters of blood to show where they'd been. And amidst the fury on his face, his eyes burned blood red.
"The hell?" breathed Warren before Xander blurred and completely disappeared. The leader of the group was then slammed in the chest by an invisible force and pummeled back against a tree. As Willow slumped to the ground, Jonathan tried to flee back into the van only to be grabbed at the collar and flung away into Warren as he tried to get up.
Xander blurred back into view them, moving towards the pair jerkily as he fought to control the rage burning through him. He pressed the Rogue back as he snarled, "You're lucky I don't kill humans. Especially not idiots like you."
Warren tried to gasp out something but between several cracked ribs and a concussion he couldn't manage it. Jonathan just stared up at the vampire in horror and babbled mindlessly.
Leaning down, Xander spat, "If you ever touch one of my friends again, I won't be so nice. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind."
The only bruised of the two nodded frantically and helped Warren to his feet, dragging him back towards the van. Before the side door was even closed, the driver was backing up and then they sped away as Xander crouched down next to Willow, his eyes glaring after the vehicle.
Then he jerked the dart they'd shot her with out and carefully picked her up, viciously kicking the magical supplies she had gathered aside as he walked away.
What he didn't realize was that she had been in the middle of the spell when he'd arrived and not at the beginning like he'd thought. And the opening she had made in the nether to get Buffy back had allowed something to break its way back into the world.