A Dark Vision

Chapter Nine

Buffy dialed Willow's number again. The call went straight to voicemail. Again. She nearly threw the phone in frustrastion, but managed to stop herself. She didn't want to have to replace it. Willow hadn't answered anyone's calls for a week, and no one had seen her either. Buffy knew she was probably okay. She was a powerful witch, she could take care of herself. But there was definitely something wrong. Buffy wanted to help Willow, to reach out to her, but how could she do that when she couldn't get in touch with her at all?

But she wan't giving up. Willow couldn't have just disappeared into nowhere, she had to still be around in Sunnydale. The thought came to her that maybe she'd left town, but where would she have gone? She didn't really know anyone outside of town either, apart from Angel, who Willow had never been close with. But where could she be in the town? No one had seen her. Not Buffy, not Tara, or Xander, or even Spike. She hadn't been at UC Sunnydale either, when Buffy had gone over there to ask around. It was like she'd vanished.

As Buffy left for patrol, she thought that at least she could comfort herself by thinking that if Willow was dead her body would have turned up. Probably. She was fine. Fine. So why was Buffy still worried?

Patrol went smoothly enough. Until Spike showed up,which of course he did. Because Buffy was in just the right mood to see him now.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Just thought you'd want some help on patrol is all."

No way was that all he wanted. No way. After that night they'd spent together, she was never gonna get rid of him. But she wasn't sure she wanted to. She knew she should stay away from him - they'd spent the better part of the last four years trying to kill each other - but she was drawn to him. Especially since his chip didn't work on her anymore. If she was in her right mind that would only make it worse, but how had her mind been right since she'd come back?

"Fine. Just dont try to-"

Spike smirked. "Try what? You afraid I'll get carried away? Or are you afraid you will?"

Damn Spike, always guessing what she thought. He only got it right about half the time, but that didnt stop it hitting a nerve when he did. Although, thinking about it, maybe he knew her better than she thought. When he'd said she'd had a death wish, she'd thought it was way off base. Then she'd sacrificed herself. Death wish wasn't a term she'd use, exactly. At least not about then. She'd let herself die, sure, but it hadn't been something she wanted. Just the least-worst option. Now... maybe.

"Have you seen Willow at all? Heard anything even?" Buffy said, hoping the change of subject would take.

"Heard bugger all, apart from some demon blokes talking about her being missing, which is what we already know. Nothing."

Buffy looked him in the eyes, but she couldn't see any obvious tells. If he was lying, he was doing it a lot better than he usually did.

"If you're lying..." she couldn't even finish. What would she do? If she had ever really been going to stake Spike, she'd have done so. And yet, this time was different. It was Willow.

"I'm not! I haven't seen Willow."

"And Drusilla?"

He didn't say a thing. She saw the rage in the way he tensed his jaw, but he didn't yell or try to fight. He turned around and started to walk away. She grabbed him, pulling him back. He glared at her with hard eyes and lunged for were kissing again and she wondered how that had even happened. She'd been angry. They were both angry. Why was this the way they responded to it?

Somehow she found they were on the floor, the ground cool against her back. Dimly she wondered if they should go somewhere else, but the thought remained at the back of her mind as she lost herself in Spike's touch.

Why was Willow here?

She'd asked herself that several times since she'd been here with Drusilla, and she had no answer. She knew this was wrong. She should go back to the others and like, apologize or something. She should stake Drusilla, or burn her. She shouldn't be here. More than that, she shouldn't even want to be here.

And yet she stayed. She couldn't work out why, but she did want to be here. Drusilla made her feel accepted. She made her feel like she could do anything she wanted. Drusilla didn't worry that Willow was using too much magic, she didn't worry about how dark the magic was, about it tainting her or corrupting her. Willow still didn't know what Drusilla's real motives here were, and she knew she should be more worried about that. But she was lost in this, swallowed up by the ecstasy of power. The darkness was like nothing she had ever felt or experienced.

She looked at her hands and saw her veins were tinted, darkened. That should bother her. She knew it was a sign of overusing dark magic and it would only hurt her. But if she really cared about that she would have listened to Tara. And she hadn't. That was what had got her here.

"Drusilla, you said you saw me. In a vision?"

Drusilla nodded silently.

Willow had heard she had precognitive abilities, but she'd also assumed that was just rumours. She'd always thought she was just crazy. But it was more than that. Buffy had told her, some time ago, the same thing that Angel had told her - the story of Drusilla, of how she was turned. What Angelus did to her. The trauma from all of that alone would be enough to drive some people crazy, but add in the stress clairovoyance could put on a persons mind, it was amazing that she was as lucid as she could be.

"What was I like? I mean, what did you see?"

"You were the strongest thing I have ever seen. Like a goddess. Dark and brilliant. It was the best thing I've ever seen."

"A goddess... and you came just because of me. Not because of Spike, or because of the Hellmouth, or because of Buffy. You came here because of me."

After she finished speaking she looked up and noticed Drusilla gazing at her, her eyes fixed on Willow's own like a cats on a small bird. She thought she was going to say something, maybe a reference to one of her visions, or something else that made almost no sense to Willow. But she didn't say a word to Willow. Instead, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Willow's.

She was startled by the touch, though not entirely surprised. Her embrace was not death-cold as Willow had feared, but only cool. On a warm Sunnydale night, Willow could almost pretend that she was human. But this was nothing like being with Tara. Everything was different. Willow knew that Drusilla had some sort of feelings for her, but she didn't care the way Tara did. Yet there was something about the way she did care that was at once both endearing and disturbing. It was as if she treated Willow as a mother, a child and a lover all at once. She wondered if it had been at all similar for Spike. The only time he'd ever really spoken to Willow about Drusilla was when he'd kidnapped her for the love spell. Actually that was pretty much the only time they'd talked at all.

"Tara," she whispered, holding her tighter.

Drusilla froze in her arms, not even bothering to pull away. Willow stopped. It took some time for her brain to cath up with what she had said. No. This wasnt Tara, she was nothing like Tara. But for a moment then, she had felt something, and she thought of her... but she didnt even know why.

Tara had made her feel safe and warm and loved. Drusilla made her feel... not afraid, exactly, but thrilled, like a rollercoaster. It was like when she and Tara were first using magic together, but so much darker and more enticing. And Willow didnt even know if Drusilla could love. She was so crazy, and she didnt even have a soul... but she definitely seemed to feel something. Enough that she hoped Willow would say her name instead.

"She isn't here," whined Drusilla. Her voice was strained, shaking, so close to sobbing. Willow wasn't sure whether she should back away from her anger or try to comfort her. She stayed still.

"I didn't mean it," said Willow. "Really."

"You lie. Always lies, all of you. Do you believe them yourself? You wish I was her don't you?"

"I'm still angry at her," said Willow. Which was true. She knew she shouldn't blame Tara for what she thought of her. But she still did. It didn't feel fair to her. There was a little voice inside her whispering that maybe it was Tara who was right - but she ignored that. She loved Tara, and she missed her. But she didn't wish Drusilla was her. Because if she was, nothing like this would be happening. "I love her, yes. But I don't want to be here with her now. I want to be with you, Dru."

And as soon as she said those words, she knew that they were true and that she couldn't take them back.

Andrew didn't know what to do. Warren was gone. Warren was dead. Killed. And Jonathon, he was gone now too, he'd run away and abandoned Andrew, because he didn't want to risk getting hurt. They hadn't meant for anything like this to happen. It was just supposed to be fun, like in the comic books. Supervillains. How could they have thought they could be something in a town like this? The darkness in this place was bigger than them, bigger than they'd ever be. He couldn't carry on alone. The last demon he'd summoned hadn't been under his control for more than a few minutes before it had escaped. Nothing was going according to plan. All he'd wanted to do was find Warren's killer. To get revenge. But he couldn't even do that.

He knew he was in trouble . The Scooby gang would want to come after him after what he'd done. One of their own had been hurt. If it had been him he'd be angry. He was angry about what had happened to Warren, and he was frustrated that he didnt even know whd done it. Maybe he could find out, but he'd tried that already and it had just gone wrong. Demon - summoning wasn't the right way forward, clearly. But what was?

He had to come up with something soon. He knew it. Warren was dead and he couldnt handle it. He had to find out who had killed him and get his revenge. That was what a good supervillain would do, wasn't it?