Sparkling lights descended like a blizzard onto the crystalline towers of the empty city of Thanel where it rested near the heart and brain of Autochthonia. Cloudy inclusions and cracks now raddled much of the Pole of Crystal, but here at least the Great Maker's processors were clear and undamaged.
The lights coalesced into one mass which flowed into the highest, central tower, and the mass fused into a single humanoid form like a golden statue-yet a statue that moved and breathed.
"Transcendent Architect," spoke the voice of the city. "You have returned. Are the prophecies coming to pass?"
"As predicted," Transcendant Architect acknowledged. "The Slayer has departed and the Prison cracks open. The Unclean has awoken and the Seraph descended. The Master has returned. I have not seen the Condor land, though it may come soon, nor is there carnage in the streets."
"We can only hope the Condor does land soon," intoned the voice of the city. "The portal will not reopen until Abaddon walks the Earth."
"Then he had better walk it soon," the Architect mused. "You bought Autocthon several thousand years, but now he's dying faster than ever."
"You know I cannot return through the portal," the city said. "My avatars require my presence on the same dimensional plane."
"I know, Nelumbo," the Architect acknowledged. "Killing Buffy Summers will be up to me."
In Rats' Alley
"I don't get it," Faith admitted. "You glow, your witchy stuff is stronger, but you're not any stronger."
"Y'think?" Amy held the compress over her eye and groaned. "Maybe I've got some totally different power and I can't be any stronger."
"Maybe," Faith said. She hadn't meant to hurt Amy at all. It was her fault. Again.
"Um," Harmony said, trying to sound cheery, "maybe if you planned out some tests instead of just guessing?" She held out a list on notebook paper, festooned with little pictures of hearts and unicorns.
Amy took it. "Sounds sensible to me," she said, shooting Faith an accusing look. Basic physical tests. Sparring. Academic "stuff", which Harm seemed to think was mostly memorization. What? "Flirting? What the hell, Harmony?"
"Lilah gets people to do whatever she wants," Harmony said reasonably. "It could be a special power thing, but what if she's just...good at it? I mean, the way Slayers are good at fighting."
"Huh. Yeah, that's what I thought," Faith admitted. "I suggested that to Kate."
"I can't do all of this, Harm. I've got to eat and sleep!" Amy laughed and marked out some of the list. "Good ideas though. You really are learning to think things through."
"Thanks," Harmony said. She grinned bashfully and fled.
"Not as dumb as she looks," Amy acknowledged.
"I feel like that scene from Unbreakable," Amy said as Faith added more weights to the barbell.
"Funny," Faith snickered. "You don't look like Bruce Willis. You're a lot sexier though."
"How high is it?"
"Getting up around five hundred pounds." Faith said nervously. "You ok down there?"
Amy grunted and-slowly, painfully-lifted the barbell from its moorings. "Think...that's all I've got," she wheezed, and set it down.
"Not much by Slayer standards," Faith admitted. "But it's a hell of a lot more than you look like you can handle."
Amy slithered off the bench and stood. Without warning, Faith tossed the hundred-pounder she was holding at Amy. The witch threw her hands up too late, half-caught it one-handed, and promptly dropped it, skipping aside just in time. "Faith! What the hell!"
"I don't get it," Faith backpedaled. "That should've been nothing. I thought..." She trailed off, her face a confused, helpless mask.
Amy decided to let it go. Faith was right; if they were at all the same that should've been an easy catch. "It wasn't on the schedule," she said thoughtfully.
Faith's foot climbed toward Amy's face in what seemed to be slow motion, and Amy spun aside. It was slightly harder than blocking the Slayer's fists, but sparring was on the list even if the kick wasn't.
"Five by five," Faith acknowledged. "Not on my level, same as before, but still better than you should be."
Amy went with her whim. She put a hand on one hip, leaned against a bench, and fluttered her eyelashes a little. "Wanna take a break?"
Faith burst into laughter. "I'd love to, but it's not on the schedule. Any other time I'd say fuck the schedule, but Lilah's still on the loose cause we did that last week."
Failure. Which meant success. "Okay, let's break out the homework."
Fifteen tests later, Amy was feeling much more confident about what was happening. Fourteen aced tests, while the one she'd taken out of order at random had gotten her the equivalent of a B-. Okay, she knew algebra pretty well. But she'd never even gotten to study calculus, the last paper she'd done, and she'd still gotten every problem right. That was just...impossible.
"Time," Faith said belatedly. "Wish I could do that, but I guess it's just not part of the Slayer package."
"Since when do Slayers come with a package?" For best results, hopefully Faith had forgotten this part of the schedule. "Not that I'm complaining, of course. I'll take whatever you got."
Faith's eyes widened. "Shit, Amy. I knew we were gonna do this, but...all of a sudden it's like I went ten rounds with Dracula an' then he got away." She sidled toward Amy. "Damn! I'm about ta pop right here."
"All just part of the test," Amy said with a wink.
Faith put one hand in Amy's hair and clenched tight. "It better not b-" The Slayer squeezed her eyes shut. "I mean, please don't do that to me, Ames. I gotta...I gotta go if we're not gonna-"
Amy reached into Faith's hair and took careful, deliberate hold. "We're gonna. I'm sorry. A little teasing was part of the test."
"Okay," Faith said heavily. "Just...I nearly raped and killed Xander once. Would've, if Angel hadn't stopped me. I gotta feel like I'm halfway in control of myself, Amy. K?"
Amy nodded. "I'm sorry. Never again." She'd had her experiment. She knew how her powers worked now. She kissed Faith forcefully on the lips. "Bedrooms are free right now."
Faith grinned. "You're on."
"They're having sex," Buffybot said. She didn't sound quite as excited about it as she did about most things.
"Good times," Harmony agreed. Faith didn't interest her, but if the Slayer was happy and she wasn't dust, Harm was happy too.
"I'm going to go talk to Mr. Wood," the Bot said. "I'm bored and I miss sex. Maybe I should go back to Warren."
"No!" Harm said. "He was totally taking advantage of you! I hope you find someone soon, but you deserve better." That was what you were supposed to say, right? "We can go out and patrol while Faith's busy helping Amy. That'll keep you distracted."
"O-kay," Buffybot grumbled. "I guess I don't really want to go back to Warren."
"Good. Let's see if anyone else is game." If anything really tough came along, they could use the help.
"Behold," the Master intoned. "Behold the weapon from before this Age dawned. A weapon made by the Old Ones themselves!" They had not taken on their present form then, but that was of little matter.
Weeping Raiton Cast Aside might have smiled at him; her mask shifted slightly. He did not need her approval, but she had her uses.
"Come to me," he said, beckoning. "Come forward and take it. Take history beyond mankind's history in your hands."
The acolyte reached out and opened the golden box, revealing a cavity filled with oily shadow. She touched it, and it flowed up and over her hand, coating her in darkness.
"It stinks of her," the acolyte murmured disapprovingly. "I can smell the Slayer on it."
"She has worn it," Weeping Raiton agreed. "That is why the Neverborn led me to this one. Wear it well, child of night."
"She was never worthy of it," the Master said. "Is it not a gift more fitting to you?"
"Yes," the acolyte said after a long pause. "Yes. Thank you for the present, great-grandpapa."
"You are most welcome, my dear Drusilla."
"Can't say I like being out hunting vamps with a vamp," Robin said under his breath. Harmony glanced over her shoulder and scowled at him.
"Werewolf," Oz reminded him.
"Do you even change anymore?' Robin asked.
"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry," Oz said. "Don't make me angry."
"I was suspicious of Harmony too," Buffybot said, "but she's been good so far. And if she's bad, Shoat can kill her with a thought."
"Please don't remind me," Harmony complained. "I try to only think about it when I wanna do something bad."
"You think of doing bad things much?" Robin wondered.
"Not when I'm out hunting," Harm admitted. "I can be violent and no one thinks it's bad if I'm only hurting demons."
Robin made a face. She didn't like it. Who said humans didn't have a game face, anyway?
Gwen opened the door. "Open for business. Sorry it's a bit crowded in here right now."
"We'll manage," said the well-dressed man as he pushed past her into the store. Lucky for him, he only brushed her rubber-clad arm. "I'm Brad Gleison, and this is my wife Adrienne. Let's not beat around the bush here: you have our daughter."
"Yeah," Faith said, rising from a shelf she'd been straightening. "I met your daughter in the hospital. I'd never have taken her with me except that someone was tryin' to kill us both. Don't tell me you didn't notice anything unusual about her."
"My daughter was dying of leukemia," Adrienne Gleison said. "I can't express the joy I felt at her miraculous recovery, regardless of any 'unusual phenomena' that may have been involved. If you truly took Cora from the hospital to keep her safe, then I am grateful, but she is still our daughter and should have been returned to us."
"That's not my name any longer," Shoat said from the upper balcony. "Hi mom. Dad. I love you guys. That's why I stayed away."
"Don't be absurd, Cora," her father said. "Come down here this instant. Your mother and I have been incredibly worried about you. We've spent hundreds of dollars to track you down, and we'd have spent millions if we'd needed to. You're the most important thing in the world to us."
"If I'm that important to you, Dad, then you'll go away. I'm hoping that I'll be able to come home to you one day, but-"
"Cora, what could possibly keep you legitimately away from us?" Adrienne walked over and began to climb the ladder up to the balcony. "We're your parents."
Shoat leaned over the balcony. With such an effort that it seemed every tendon in her body seemed stretched taut, she reached down and seized her mother's arm in an iron grip, then yanked her up to dangle from the edge. "You took care of me. You raised me, and I'm grateful. For that, I'm giving you this warning. Stay away from me. I am not good for you. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but it does. I am not your little kid any more."
Still holding her mother in that unnatural grip, Shoat climbed to the top of the railing and leapt down.
Robin Wood had come to terms with the idea that to avert the apocalypse, he was going to have to work with demons and even vampires. As long as he didn't have to work alongside his mother's killer, he'd be fine. It made sense that there were monsters who enjoyed living in the world ruining it more than they anticipated the end result.
It just meant that one day soon, he'd have the current task finished and he could turn on the nasty things and wipe them out. All in good time.
He wasn't quite as sure what to make of the Buffybot. She'd been made in the Slayer's image, only by an asshole and for a vampire. And then there was this persistent malfunction that kept electrocuting the demons they were fighting. What that meant he didn't get at all.
He'd wished for years-in private, of course-that he'd inherited some of his mother's powers. He'd been beaten pretty badly in his early fights. But unless his ability to take the punishment and keep fighting was supernatural, he had nothing special going for him.
Oz might not exactly be a werewolf anymore, but he fought like one. So far they'd encountered two roving bands of vampires, and the quiet man's moves, while efficient, had a ferocity to them that Robin had no way to match. Once he could have sworn he saw Oz tear out a vampire's throat with his teeth.
An odd intuitive tingle caught his attention...something familiar and yet unfamiliar. "Take a left here," he suggested. "Something unusual is-"
A police car, lights flaring, siren howling, shot by and vanished off to the left. "Show stealer," Oz deadpanned.
"We can run ahead," the robot suggested.
Harm shook her head. "Don't rush anything the cops are after. You, like, never know what kind of danger they're there for. Slayers, guys with shotguns...way too risky."
"Heard worse advice," Oz agreed. "And thsy tend to go for mundane problems first."
"I've got a feeling about it," Robin insisted.
"So we check it out," Oz said. "But let's not split the party."
They set off at a quick pace toward the growing cluster of flashing lights.
Shoat flung her mother upward as she landed, catching her in both arms as she came down again. "I'm not your frail little angel any longer. I'm sorry. You need to go before what happened to Doctor Wurth happens to you."
"What happened to Doctor Wurth?" Faith asked. Right, she'd still been unconscious when it happened.
"He died," Shoat said simply. "You guys, you're helping me destroy the monsters. I can't care about you too much, but I can be around you." Miss Kate worried her, but there was nothing she could do about that. She didn't even know why Miss Kate seemed so much like a mom to her.
"Sweetheart," Dad said, "what happened to Doctor Wurth waa nothing to do with you. It was a horrible accident, that's all."
"What happened to Doctor Wurth?" Gwen asked. She seemed nice, but touching her was dangerous, too. They had that much in common, but Shoat didn't know her too well yet.
"He was exposed to Ebola," Mom said. Shoat could see how someone might think that. "He bled out in a matter of minutes. I heard it was rather gruesome. They told me it was a quarantine failure."
"Then how come no one else caught it?" Shoat asked. "Ebola doesn't spread well because you have to contact the infected blood, but if you do it's pretty contagious."
"Because even though accidents happen," Dad said, "hospital quarantine procedure is actually pretty good. You can't blame yourself, Cora."
"I can't blame Doctor Wurth," Shoat said. "He didn't know. But if you die because you didn't listen to me, I will blame you."
"The night is bleeding!" Drusilla proclaimed. She could see it happening. The stars were falling, the sky was cracking, and the Grand Watchmaker's clockworks were seizing up. "Look at the way it trickles!"
The police were pointing guns at her. Silly men with silly toys thought they would make her come down off the carriage roof. They had warned her they would shoot, which was especially foolish because she knew that already.
The guns barked at her like nasty bad dogs, but little cawing ravens caught their tiny rocks in midair and tossed them away. It was so nice to have pets that didn't fall asleep for no good reason. Her birds flew at the constables and tore out their eyes as they deserved.
Someone was on his way, someone she had seen in her sweet prince's dreams. "You remind me of the babe," she murmured, and the Old Ones whispered back, What babe? "The babe with the power," she explained, but her mirth must have offended the Old Ones, because they were silent. They were such killjoys.
The wizard who was a wolf appeared behind one of the police cars. Then the babe with the power, the silly goldenhaired bint, and a stranger who was not alive or dead and yet was nothing like her at all. The last one looked familiar to her eyes, but not to her Sight. Drusilla stamped her foot. She was very put out at her Sight for not telling her what it ought.
The wolf ducked down and hid his eyes. Was she not pretty enough to look at? How rude! Her birds bit his arms instead. A kraken reached its tentacles at the empty-headed one, but she scurried up a building to escape them.
"Go to him," she said to the wingéd shadow behind her, and that devil flew at the sweet dark-skinned boy. He didn't know himself or his power. That was well. She didn't want them to make acquaintance.
The notdead one. Where was it? It had lightning inside, lightning and more toys than she had ever seen. Sometimes the toys changed. Suddenly a great weight landed on her back and bore her down from the carriage roof. She tried to stomp her foot at the Sight again, but of course it was in the air. Her foot, of course, not the Sight.
The notdead thing that looked like a girl began trying to hit her in the face, but shadows made a helmet and the walking toy could only batter her hand against it. That was what it was: a marionette. But perhaps one day it would be a real girl. Stories were such strange dreams.
"How dare you-!" Brad began. Amy considered shutting him up, but when he stopped himself she did nothing. He wasn't being violent or purposefully hateful; he just didn't understand what was happening. Sure enough, "Cora, why would you say that? I don't understand. I swear to you, what happened to Doctor Wurth was nothing you did."
"I cared about him," Shoat said. "He'd been my doctor since I was three. But I'm not allowed to care about people any more, only about killing the monsters that come to get them."
"Cora," Adrienne said, "we talked about this. Monsters were the picture in your head for the cancer. There aren't any real monsters."
"I didn't think there were," Shoat said. "But it turned out I was wrong. And now I'm one of them. And when I've killed all the others I'll die too."
"I don't think they understand," Amy said to Shoat. Ordinary people took a long time to understand or believe. Her father had never really understood what her mother had done at all. "Your parents need time."
"They don't have it," Shoat said. "It's too bad, but they don't. Mom, I drank the Alzheimer's out of three old ladies and an old man in long-term care, and the cancer out of another girl in my ward. They sent her home. You remember Alicia?"
"Alicia went into remission," Adrienne said. "These are stories you made up to explain what happened. They're not the truth."
"You think I'm lying?" Shoat yelled, finally losing her cool. Big fat frustrated tears began to trickle down her face. "I never made up stories like this, Mom!"
Brad crouched down to get more on a level with his daughter. "Please, sweetheart. I know you're not lying. But you're confused. Please just come here and give me a hug."
Maybe Amy should intervene. Still crying, Shoat went towards her dad, opening her arms to him. She wouldn't hurt him, would she? Not on purpose, anyway. Besides, what would she do? Turn Shoat into a rat? They'd run screaming, then come back convinced it was a trick.
Shoat probably knew that too. She embraced her father and held him tight for a full minute, maybe more. Suddenly Brad gave a sort of convulsive heave, as if he were about to sneeze, hiccup, or vomit, and a single fly crawled from his nose and buzzed away.
"I'm sorry, Dad,'" Shoat said. "I know I shouldn't have, but I also know you and Mom would've just kept coming back. More people would've gotten hurt. Maybe this way Mom'll stay away."
Another heave. Maybe it was a sneeze. Two flies buzzed out of Brad's nose this time. Five. And then a steady stream as Brad began to cough and choke. Adrienne screamed. Amy began trying to formulate an incantation to Asclepius in her head. Maybe she could-
Flies were swirling around Brad so thickly now she could barely see him, but it looked as if his jerking body was shriveling as she watched. And the energies around him were darker than anything she'd ever seen, dark enough that midnight seemed like noon by comparison. She couldn't affect that.
The cloud began to disperse. Amy covered her face, but the flies made for any available gap and vanished. All that remained of Brad was a skeleton wrapped in paper-thin skin. Adrienne screamed-not an accusation or a cry for help, just mad, wordless terror-and began to shake the door. Amy reached out with her mind and opened it, and Shoat's mother ran screaming into the dark outside.
Tears were streaming down Shoat's face now, but when Faith tried to sit down beside her she yelled and shoved the Slayer away. Amy didn't blame her and didn't try to take Faith's place. After a moment she took Faith's hand and led her away. There was nothing for it but to let her cry it out.
She wasn't sure how long it took before Shoat's crying subsided enough not to be background noiss for everything they did. When she realized she couldn't hear the girl anymore, she peeked in and saw Kate cradling Shoat like an infant. Shoat huddled there and didn't try to get away, but no unseen plagues struck Kate down.
Amy wished she knew why not.
There were too many people with new powers. Amy. Kate. And now Drusilla. Buffybot's programming was having difficulty coping. She pummeled at the vampire's face with her fists, but ravens flew between the vampire and her blows. Big black beetles crawled across Buffybot's skin as if trying to frighten her. It was a good thing she didn't feel fear. They were horribly, horribly yucky though.
"Sound!" Oz yelled. "I need my guitar!" Why would sound hurt it, Buffybot wondered? But she turned her vocal processors up and screamed in Drusilla's face.
Nothing happened. "It's her shadow, you dummy," Harmony shouted at Oz. "Get some lights!" Buffybot didn't thi k that was right either. She yanked one of the policecar flashies free and held it in Drusilla's face. The shadow thing that surrounded her recoiled from the lights, but they weren't constant enough to hold it back, and it didn't look hurt, only inconvenienced.
Buffybot opened her mouth to shout an idea of her own, but the liquid shadow flowed inside her and begin to tear at her insides. Drusilla's powers were going to rip her apart before she figured out a countermove.
Everything had a countermove. That was part of her programming. The trouble was, her programming usually didn't tell her what the counter was, just that there was one. Shadows writhed under her hands, but she forced them back until she could tighten her grip on Drusilla's wrists. Hopefully that malfunction would happen again soon-
Electricity surged through her faulty wiring, and Drusilla shrieked as char spread up her arms. Writhing, she broke free and darted away.
"What the hell was any of that?" Robin Wood asked.
Buffybot shrugged. "I am not programmed to respond in that area." How had her malfunction done what only a cross or holy water should have? Her programming held no answers. "Sorry."