Chapter 6: Fear, Itself

Buffy

Buffy was really tired of caring about Parker. She knew that he was so not worth her time, but he kept breaking into her brain and stealing all the silverware.

That was a good metaphor. She was going to use that for the poetry class she was currently failing.

She looked up after she finished scribbling down a note to check that Willow was still where she'd been two minutes ago. The circle of chairs in the middle of Stevenson's common room was slowly filling up with girls arriving for the first Wicca club meeting of the year. Amy was sitting down next to Willow. She caught Buffy's eye and waved. Buffy waved back. The Wicca club had a lot more places set than Buffy had expected. Sure, this was Sunnydale, but the college campus was pretty isolated from the Hellmouthy stuff that went on in the rest of the town. It seemed kind of weird that so many girls, especially ones from out of town, would be interested in witchcraft.

Then again, that movie with teenage witches was pretty popular.

Buffy went back to her homework. She had so many papers to write that she wouldn't have been able to keep track of all of them without Willow's calendar hanging on their wall and screaming all their deadlines at them in red ink. Wasn't college supposed to be easier than high school? She was sure that someone had told her that before.

Wait, Lucy said that. Her opinion on anything academicy had to be taken with a grain of salt.

College was not easier than high school.

Buffy checked on Willow again. A pretty blonde girl in plain clothes had joined the circle and Willow seemed to be trying to engage her in conversation. The girl blushed and ducked her head. She probably wasn't a vampire. Vampires didn't tend to blush.

Lucy and Spike had both been seen outside during the day a few times over the past three weeks. They were the only vampires they all knew by sight but the number of "barbeque fork stabbing" deaths hadn't gone up, so it didn't look like they were sharing the spell that Giles was pretty sure Lucy had cast. Then again, that spell did involve human sacrifice, so they probably should have been keeping more of a lookout for skinned bodies than vampire victims.

They were keeping a lookout for any bodies. Vampires not burning in sunlight was making them all paranoid.

Willow's meeting lasted almost an hour. Buffy kept looking up from her assignments to make sure that she hadn't disappeared. She didn't get much work done. When Willow finally came to join her, she was halfway through a reading that she'd had for a week and needed to finish before class in an hour.

"Hey, Buffy," Willow said. "Did you get a lot of work done?"

"Surprisingly so." Movement behind Willow caught Buffy's eye and she looked over Willow's shoulder at the blonde girl who'd been sitting next to her during the meeting. "Hi?"

The girl gave a hesitant wave.

"This is Tara," Willow said. "She actually does magic, unlike everyone else in the Wicca club, except for Amy. Bunch of wanna-blessed-bes."

"They're t-t-trying," Tara said.

"They think doing magic is a stereotype they have to fight against," Willow grumbled.

Buffy got the feeling that Willow wouldn't be going to any future Wicca club meetings.

It turned out that Tara's next class—Introductory Art History—was in the room next to Buffy's. The three of them walked there together, Willow coaxing tidbits about spells and rituals out of Tara the entire way. Based on the various magial disasters Willow had caused, almost everything Buffy heard from Tara sounded like a good idea.

"So, your mom was a witch?" Willow asked.

Tara nodded. "She t-t-taught me a lot."

Willow sighed. "Jenny, our high school computer science teacher, she's been teaching me but she's a technopagan, not a witch, so she knows a lot of stuff but most of it's using computers and that's been really useful but I'm kind of interested in the more traditional magic too and Amy's at about the same level as me so she can't teach me anything and I was hoping that joining the Daughters of Gaea would help with that but nope."

Tara didn't seem to know how to respond to that. Buffy smiled at her. The first dose of Willow-babble was always a doozy, but Tara would get used to it if she decided to spend any time around them.

"This is our stop," Buffy said.

Willow headed towards one of the desks in an alcove across the hall from their classrooms. "I'll be here. Have fun!"

Buffy had linear algebra. She wasn't going to have fun.

As planned, Oz and Devon met up with Buffy and Willow after their classes were over for the day. The two Dingoes were talking about the Halloween party that the Alpha Deltas were having the next night. Willow and Tara were continuing their discussion on traditional witchcraft, but Tara grew silent when they approached the boys and fell to the back of their group.

"Oh, hey, new girl," Devon said when he noticed Tara hiding behind Willow. "Hi. I'm Devon, he's Oz."

Oz raised a hand in silent greeting.

"This is Tara," Willow said. "She's a witch and she knows a lot and we're going to study magic together since the Wicca club was a major flop. Giles would like her. Do you think I should introduce her to Giles?"

"Maybe let her get used to us first." Devon gave Tara an apologetic smile. "Our group's kind of wild."

That was one way to put it.

Tara nodded. "I should g-g-get going. I've g-g-got study plans. It was nice to meet you."

"You too," Buffy said.

Tara made it a step away from their little huddle. Then Lucy came around the corner of the building. Buffy tensed.

"Tara!" Lucy grinned. "Awesome, we don't have to go looking for each other."

A soft smile crossed Tara's face. "Hi, Lucy."

"You know each other?" Willow asked.

Lucy looked over at them. "We're in the same Italian class. Tara's like a language genius. Dead languages are so much easier than ones you have to actually speak."

Tara blushed and ducked her head.

Buffy wasn't about to let Willow's new friend walk away with a vampire, even if that vampire was her cousin. Luckily, Devon asked Lucy a question about her classes and that was sure to keep Lucy distracted long enough for Buffy to figure out how to get Tara away from her without making Tara suspicious. Five minutes later and Buffy was still coming up short. She hadn't taken a French class because she wasn't a masochist, but that would have been a great excuse.

"We should get going," Lucy said. "We've got plans to enjoy the sun and work on vocab."

"How's Spike?" Buffy blurted out.

Lucy stopped looking over the entire group and focused on Buffy. "He's good. How's Parker?"

Buffy hoped that the mental swearing she was doing was loud enough to drown out any details of her disastrous experience with Parker. Judging by the murderous look on Lucy's face, her hope was futile.

"I'm killing him," Lucy said.

"No, you're not," Buffy said. "You're really not."

Lucy glared at her and then sighed. "Fine. But I'm punching him in the face. And breaking his nose."

That was fair. Part of Buffy wanted to ask for pictures.

Devon looked from Lucy to Buffy and back again. "Whose nose are we breaking?"

Lucy pointed at Devon. "Buffy is my cousin. I call dibs on the nose-breaking."

"I can still punch him," Devon said.

That was also fair. And, honestly, Buffy found it easier to not try to stop Devon from punching people.

"We really should get going," Tara said.

Lucy nodded. "See you tomorrow." She waved at them, and she and Tara left too quickly for Buffy to try to stop them.

"Tomorrow?" Willow asked. "We're going to see her tomorrow?"

"Well, yeah. I invited her to the party," Devon said.

Buffy and Willow glared at him.

Devon frowned. "What?"

Sunnydale had been quiet on Halloween the year before. Buffy, Kendra and Faith had patrolled the whole night and not come across any demons. Kendra had planned to patrol again, but Buffy, Faith and Devon had talked her into spending at least a little time at the Alpha Deltas' party with them. There was no point spending all night searching for demons if the demons were staying home. Still, Buffy had accessorized her Little Red Riding Hood costume with a basketful of weapons, just in case.

They met up at the Dingoes' place since it was on their way. When Buffy, Kendra and Faith got there, Sam was complimenting Willow on her costume.

"The armour's fantastic." Sam poked Willow's sleeve of actual chainmail. "Why'd you choose Joan of Arc?"

"Well, I figured we had a lot in common, seeing as how I was almost burned at the stake last year, and plus she had that close personal relationship with God," Willow said.

"Oh." Sam nodded. "That explains Oz's costume."

Buffy looked over at Oz, who didn't look like he was wearing a costume. He pulled aside his corduroy jacket to reveal one of those red and white name tags with "God" written on it stuck to his t-shirt.

"Neat," Faith said. "We still waiting on Boytoy?"

"He'll be here soon," Soul said. He straightened the collar of his greaser jacket. "Devon, you didn't invite Lucy to our house, right?"

"I already told you I just invited her to the party!" Devon called from the tiny washroom in the front hall that had the biggest mirror in the house. He stepped out with his mime makeup half done and glared at Soul. "I don't have a death wish."

Buffy believed him, but sometimes it really didn't seem like that was true. He'd invited Lucy somewhere after all.

Soul rolled his eyes. "Sure you don't. Pass me my comb, babe?"

"You're never going to get your hair to lie flat," Sam said. He passed Soul the comb anyway.

Xander arrived a few minutes later dressed in a black and white tux. He said he was James Bond, but the consensus was that he could easily have been a waiter. They left for the party after Devon finished his makeup, cutting across campus to get to the Alpha Delta house. They passed plenty of other people in costume. The Beta Delta Gamma sisters were easy to spot in their matching blue mechanics' overalls with the sorority's crest on the back—Rosie the Riveter à la UC Sunnydale. There was another group dressed in military green that had gotten way too into their costumes. Sneaking around through the bushes with futuristic-looking guns at the ready was so unnecessary.

"So, this is going to be like, a haunted house?" Faith asked.

"Yeah, you have to go through it to get to the party," Devon said. "Oz and I were there earlier helping to set up. It's going to be fun."

Faith smirked. "Feels like a haunted house is going to have to work hard to scare us."

"How many ghosts should we expect?" Kendra asked. "I assume they're harmless and that's why we haven't gotten rid of them."

"It's a pretend haunted house. No ghosts," Willow said.

Kendra's face made her processing-new-information frown. Buffy wasn't sure how this hadn't come up last Halloween or at any point during the year. Blame the Mayor for keeping them too busy.

"I see," Kendra said. "So, it's to have fun being scared, like horror movies?"

"You got it, Sis." Faith clapped Kendra on the back.

It was absolutely criminal that Kendra's old Watcher had kept her isolated from pop culture and other people. There were a lot of days when Buffy wanted to slap him.

The Alpha Delta house was pretty quiet when they got there. Buffy and Kendra both frowned at the door.

"Should it be this...still?" Kendra asked.

That was a good way to describe the house. It seemed to be lying in wait, like a predator.

"Their soundproofing is pretty good," Oz said. "They wanted to cut down on the noise complaints."

Faith was the one who climbed the stairs and threw open the door. "Come on, it's not any use just standing there."

The entry hall was empty. It was as worn down as expected from a frat house, with spider webs spanning the corners and half melted pillar candles dotting surfaces to make it look more like a haunted house. Most of the lights were turned off.

Buffy looked at Kendra. "Do you hear anything?"

Kendra shook her head slowly. Buffy didn't hear anything that could have been the party either.

All nine of them moved forward as a group with Buffy and Kendra at the head. They made it halfway down the hall before a skeleton jumped out in front of them with a knife raised. Someone screamed.

"It's fake," Kendra said.

The skeleton stabbed down and its knife cut through Kendra's sleeve. She reacted in a split second, kicking the skeleton into the wall where it broke apart. Its bones made hollow sounds as they hit the floor. They were plastic.

"You got attacked by a fake skeleton," Xander said. "How's about those weapons, Buffster?"

"Hey, guys? Where's the door?" Soul asked.

Buffy turned around. Where the front door had been was a stretch of blank wall. That definitely wasn't good.

"What do we do now?" Willow asked.

Kendra looked at all of them with a determined expression on her face. "The only way out is through."

"Kendra's right. There should be other people here. We should look for them while we figure out what's causing this," Buffy said.

"I'm going to place my bet on magic," Xander said.

That was a safe bet. Most things they got involved in were due to magic if it wasn't demons.

Willow's eyes lit up. "Magic! I know a spell that could help us. It summons a guide."

Before any of them could raise objections—and Buffy definitely had objections—there was a scream ahead of them and then the sort of crash that came from a body hitting the ground. There was a scramble to run towards the noise. The two Slayers reached the body at the bottom of the stairs first. The frat boy's broken neck was painfully obvious.

Kendra focused on the top of the stairs. "I don't see or hear anything that could have pushed him."

Buffy still handed out the weapons. She ended up emptying her basket. Apparently, she and Kendra were the only ones who'd been paranoid enough to go to a Halloween party armed. Well, Devon had a bottle of holy water, but Devon always had a bottle of holy water. He drank the stuff. It didn't count as a weapon.

"So, who wants to keep going?" Buffy asked. "This is probably the last chance we'll have to turn back."

"Turn back how?" Sam asked.

Buffy looked pointedly at the small battle axe that Xander was holding in one hand. It could possibly make a hole to the outside if they tried hard enough.

"We're with you," Sam said.

"The hallway we came from is gone too," Soul said. "I don't think we have a choice."

The party was supposed to be going on upstairs, so that was where they tried to go, key word being "tried". The house wasn't only sealing them in; it was also getting them turned around. Hallways doubled back on themselves and the stairs didn't go up even when that was the direction they were climbing. Decorations also kept coming to some form of life. A swarm of rubber bats dive-bombed them outside a bathroom, Faith fought dagger-to-scythe against a plastic Grim Reaper, and the less said about the giant black and silver tinsel spider the better.

"This really isn't working," Faith grumbled. "Maybe Red should try that spell."

"Do you want to be talking in Pig Latin again?" Devon asked. "Because last time Willow tried a spell, we were talking in Pig Latin and Sam had to do vocals."

"That only happened once," Willow said. "And I fixed it."

"After turning me, Oz and Devon into pigs," Soul said.

Willow blushed. "Well, that's not going to happen with this spell."

Buffy shook her head. "I don't think we should risk it."

"We're not getting anywhere walking around in circles," Willow protested. "It'll just be a tiny spell and then we'll have a guide to get us to the attic."

"Your spells have a bad track record," Kendra said.

Kendra wasn't wrong. Willow was good at spells that could be used to fight vampires and anything that she'd practiced a lot, like levitation. When she tried new spells, they tended to blow up in her face or, more often, the faces of anyone in the same room as her. Giles and Jenny both said that it was normal for a student witch not to get spells right the first time, but they didn't need a magic mishap right now.

"I'm still learning!" Willow said. "And, and I know this spell. I know I can do it!"

"But you've never done it before, Wils. It could make things worse," Buffy said.

Willow scowled. "I'm not going to mess it up. I'm not your sidekick!" She disappeared around the corner without another word.

"Willow!" Buffy tried to follow but found her way blocked by a wall that hadn't been there before. "She's gone."

Oz pushed to the front of the group and hit the wall with his mace. It didn't even dent. A low growl filled the air. Buffy quickly realized that it was coming from Oz.

"Dude, you're growing fur!" Devon exclaimed.

Oz's eyes flashed yellow. The fur sprouting on his face and hands grew thicker as they watched.

"The hell's happening? It's not the full moon," Faith said.

Oz shook his head. His breathing became ragged. "I can't—I'll hurt you."

"Use your meditation," Sam said.

"I can't!" Oz turned and ran. Like Willow, the path he took was blocked off when they tried to follow.

Buffy swore under her breath. "We've got to stick together. Does anyone else feel like—Where's Xander?"

"Not here?" Soul said.

"Gods, this is just like him." Buffy glared at everyone who was left. "No more splitting up."

The three Dingoes nodded quickly.

"The house might be trying to divide us," Kendra said. "We may not have a choice."

Unfortunately, Kendra seemed to be right. Buffy turned away for a second and Sam and Soul both vanished. Then a pair of ghoulish arms dragged Devon into a closet and when they opened it he was gone.

"This sucks," Faith said. She kicked a wall and a rubber rat scampered out of a hole near her foot.

"Everyone knows we're going to the attic," Buffy said. She didn't say that it would be fine. That would be jinxing it.

A disembodied cackle echoed through the hall. Buffy ducked to dodge the witch on a broomstick that was suddenly swooping down on them and then she was falling through darkness so absolute that even her eyes couldn't see through it. She tightened her reverse grip on the knife she was holding and prayed that she wouldn't stab herself with it when she hit the ground.

If she ever hit the ground.

The fall seemed to last forever. The air rushing around Buffy was cold and carried whispers. There were screams prematurely cut off, muffled sobs and snarling accusations that she was too late. When she finally crashed into a concrete floor, Buffy's heart was racing.

Buffy was pretty sure she hadn't broken any bones, but she didn't have time to check. She rolled into a crouch when she heard a yell and looked around what seemed to be a basement decked out like a graveyard. Over by a cross-shaped headstone, a dark-haired boy was kicking uselessly at the red-scaled demon holding him up by the neck. The demon twitched its fingers and dropped the boy to the ground, neck snapped like a twig.

"Hey, ugly!" Buffy swept the demon's legs out from under it and stabbed her knife into its chest. The papier-mâché it was made of deflated.

"You're too late."

The dead boy stood. In the back of her mind, Buffy realized he was the same boy who'd broken his neck falling down the stairs earlier. That thought didn't process because she was too busy feeling guilty. If she'd been a second faster the demon wouldn't have killed him.

"You can't save everyone," the dead boy said. "You've got so many people to lose...and they're not here now, are they? Are they dead or did they run away like everyone else?"

If Buffy's heart could have beaten any faster, it would have.

The dead boy grinned. "Oh, but you're not all alone. You've got us."

Rotting, skeletal hands burst through the floor that had changed from concrete to soil and grabbed at Buffy's ankles. Buffy couldn't stop herself from screaming.

The dead (were they really dead? Had more people died while they'd been running around the maze in the house?) yanked Buffy's ankles with the sort of strength she'd expect from vampires. She lost her balance and face-planted onto the dirt. More hands caught her clothes and started dragging her down. Her body sank into the ground.

When Buffy tried to pull herself out of the hands' grasp she nearly choked herself. Most of the hands were grabbing her cloak. She undid the bow at her neck and then she only had the two hands around her ankles to fight against. She kicked one foot and heard the snapping of delicate finger bones.

The dead boy kept taunting her as she fought to escape. Buffy ignored him. His insults were nothing compared to Angelus's (at least, that was what she told herself).

Buffy blinked and then there was a door in the wall in front of her. She lunged forwards, feeling grasping hands miss her by the tip of an overgrown nail (ew). The door splintered under her fists.

The room Buffy entered was filled with people. Most of them were curled up and whimpering. She spotted Oz sitting on the floor in a corner of the room, shaking but fur free. He was the only one of her friends she was able to find before she was nearly knocked over.

"Buffy! You're alive!" Lucy hugged Buffy for a few seconds before letting go and quickly retreating. "You're not dead!"

"No, very alive," Buffy said. A scream made her turn back towards the door.

"Get them off me!" Willow came running in, waving her hands around her head. "Get them off!"

Oz looked up, looked at his hands and then hurried over to Willow. "What's wrong? Willow?"

Willow blinked and lowered her hands after a few seconds. "Couldn't get them off."

Oz gave Willow a hug.

They were joined by Kendra, who eyed Lucy with suspicion. The other Slayer looked pale. "Were we all brought here?"

"Seems so, Second," Spike said. The door that he'd entered through disappeared behind him. He rocked back on his heels when Lucy treated him to his own collision hug. "Any idea why?"

"Fear," Lucy said.

"The house wanted to scare us and then we all got so scared that we ended up here," Buffy said.

"I'd offer my opinion, but you jerks aren't gonna hear it anyway," Xander muttered. "Not that 'didn't go to college' boy has anything important to say."

Buffy looked over at where Xander was rocking back and forth on the edge of a chair. "Xander? What's wrong with you?"

Xander looked up. "Could you—You heard that? You can see me?"

"Loud and clear, Boytoy," Faith said. "Yo, Vin, you okay?"

Devon was being helped to his feet by Sam and Soul. He was vampire-pale and shaking so badly that he was making Sam and Soul shake too. He groaned and shrugged. Buffy didn't even want to try to guess what had scared him.

"We've got to get out of here," Buffy said.

"That's kind of hard with all of the doors gone," Sam said. He squinted at something on the floor. "Is that blood?"

If that question had to be asked, it was probably blood.

Buffy moved so she could see what Sam was talking about. There were a few drops of blood on the floorboards in between lines of red paint.

"I s-s-saw them p-p-painting that," Devon said. "F-f-from a b-b-book."

"This book," Xander said. "Which I cannot read."

Willow took the book from Xander and flipped through it. "That looks like the Mark of Gachnar? Hang on a sec, my Gaelic's not that good."

A rumbling voice shook the room. "RELEASE ME!"

Willow squeaked. "Uh, Mark of Gachnar, summoning spell that calls fourth a demon—"

"Called Gachnar?" Xander guessed.

"Yeah. Fear demon," Willow said. "Gachnar's trying to manifest itself. To come into physical being."

"RELEASE ME!" the voice said again.

"Let's not release the fear demon and allow it to come into physical being," Soul said.

"I'm good with that," Faith said.

There was a roar. Buffy thought that it was Gachnar again until Xander screamed and a door-shaped chunk of the wall fell in.

"It's Giles," Xander said. "Giles with a chain saw. And Anya. Glad you could make it."

Anya—wasn't that the girl who used to be a vengeance demon?—ran into the room, bunny ears tied to her head bobbing, and hugged Xander so tightly that it didn't look like she was letting go any time soon. Giles followed, holding a chain saw in one hand and removing his safety glasses with the other.

"Am I ever glad to see you," Buffy said. "How do we defeat Gachnar?"

"Gachnar?" Giles asked. "Yes, that would make sense. Willow, may I?"

Willow handed Giles the book. Giles read over the page it was open to with agonizing slowness.

"Giles, verdict?" Buffy asked.

Giles looked up from the book. "Gachnar is a fear-eater that is currently gathering power to manifest. Before the demon has arrived, there are several ways the summoning can be reversed. Destroying the Mark—"

Buffy immediately put her foot through one of the painted lines. The faster Gachnar was dealt with the better. She was tired and she wanted to go home.

"—is not one of them and will instantly cause the demon to manifest on the physical plane," Giles continued. He looked at Buffy with a familiar expression of dismay crossed with annoyance.

The remnants of the Mark of Gachnar began to glow a seasonally appropriate pumpkin orange.

"Oops," Buffy said.

"We can still fight it, can we not?" Kendra asked.

"Well, yes, but I haven't translated that part yet," Giles said.

The glow from the sigil turned blood red. Buffy focused on where the demon would likely appear but still felt Kendra relax into a fighting stance behind her. Times like this it felt like the two of them were the mind-readers, not Lucy.

When the light disappeared, Buffy didn't spot the demon at first. Then she looked down.

"That's...tiny," Buffy said.

"Huh." Faith moved closer and squinted at the demon that was a foot tall, if that. "It's kind of cute."

Gachnar started yelling at them, but its voice was so quiet that it was difficult to hear what it was saying, even with Slayer hearing. Buffy heard something about being the great and terrible lord of nightmares and the usual dramatic demon posturing.

"Aww," Xander said. "Who's a terrifying yet adorable little fear demon? You are. Yes, you are."

Giles sighed. "Xander, please don't mock the fear demon."

Xander looked over at Giles. "Is it going to curse me?"

"No, but it's tacky," Giles said.

"Fair," Xander said.

"Will there be any negative consequences if we kill it?" Kendra asked.

They all waited for Giles to check the book while Gachnar continued screeching at them.

"It doesn't appear so," Giles finally said.

Kendra nodded and then unceremoniously stepped on Gachnar. There was a crunching sound.

"That looked like it was satisfying," Xander said.

"It was," Kendra said.

Around them, the other former partygoers began to come out of their paralyzing fear. The door had reappeared when Kendra turned Gachnar into a smear of demon goo on the floor and most people immediately ran for the exit. The only ones who didn't were Larry and a boy who kept looking at the door but followed Larry when he went up to Buffy.

"Hey, Class Protector," Larry said. "I'm guessing this was a graduation day situation?"

Buffy gave a small smile. "Not quite as bad as graduation day, but yeah. Who's your friend?"

"This is Jay, my boyfriend. He's from out of town." Larry looked over his shoulder at Jay. "Jay, this is Buffy Summers. She's ninety percent of the reason I'm still alive."

Jay didn't seem to know how to respond to that. He waved with a look of confusion on his face.

"Congratulations," Willow said. "Nice to meet you, Jay."

"You too?" Jay said.

Giles adjusted his glasses. "We ought to get going. It won't be long before someone arrives to investigate the 'gas leak', or whatever it is they decide on this time."

"I'm thinking it'll be 'gas leak'. It's a classic for a reason," Xander said.

Jay looked around at every other person in the room and offered to help Giles with his chain saw.