Buffy

After a second, I managed to find my voice. "Uh, I have a mom?" I managed. The woman, Nyx, laughed.

"You do, and she is an excellent one. Her love for you, and yours for her, is almost radiant. But you are more than Buffy Summers, and thus, you are not only the daughter of Joyce Summers. Be welcome in my garden, Daughter of Night, and may you enter and leave it in your own time, by your own choice." Then she stepped aside, and after a second, I nerved myself up to cross the threshold.

Inside the door, it was like stepping into a greenhouse. The whole area was open to the sky, though I bet there wasn't any way to get down from above. Magic was like that. Flowers of a hundred different kinds were blooming everywhere I looked, mostly in shades of white or purple. Every so often were spots of brilliant red, which when I looked closer, were poppies.

"So, uh, not to be rude, but how do you know my name?"

Nyx smiled again. It wasn't smug, or mean, or mocking. It was a welcoming, gentle smile, like my mom when I'd made it home at the end of a long patrol. "Come, have tea with me, and I'll explain… well, as much as I can. Some things can't be put into words, after all, and there are things that even I don't know."

She led me along a path out into an area that was open to the foggy sky. The moonlight beaming down seemed gentler somehow, the green richer and warmer than the eerie glow I'd been seeing all night. A wrought-iron table, painted white, sat in the middle of the clearing, two chairs sat in front of it. These chairs had cushions of black velvet, and a teapot sat on the table between them.

"Uh– I hate to be rude, but I remember this thing about pomegranates…" I began, hanging back.

"Don't worry," Nyx laughed, "you're very much not Persephone. Eating the food of the dead, or of the fae only binds you to that world if you didn't already belong there. As a child of both worlds, you may come and go, and partake as you wish. And yes, I'll explain that too. Sit, eat, and gain strength for your journey."

I didn't feel like she was lying to me, and she had enough power, she could turn me into a spot on the pavement with a wave of her hand. So not much point in lying anyway. So after a second, I shrugged and took the other seat, allowing her to pour me some tea.

I had to smile a little– not much had survived from that mess on Halloween, but my love of a good tea setting had, prompting Giles to proclaim that there might be hope for Americans after all. Which was usually when I threatened to microwave it, just to see the look of horror on his face.

The tea was served with some sort of sweet iced spice cake, and Nyx waited for me to try both tea and cake before getting down to business.

"I know your name because you are my daughter, Buffy Summers, as so many of your predecessors have been. Do you know how the Slayer came to be?"

I shook my head. "All Giles knows is that there's been one back to at least ancient Egypt, probably to before the first African exodus. One girl in all the world, with badass powers and a giant target on her back, fighting the good fight against the ghoulies and ghosties and things that go 'Grr' in the night."

"An excellent summation, so far as it goes. And your Watcher is correct, it does go back to the days when humans still all lived on one continent, when the Old Ones still walked the Earth, scorning the powers of the world and the mortals they thought they enslaved. A trio of wizards, with powers great and vast, took a young girl, and they infused her with the essence of a creature of shadow. This creature bonded with her, and she became something other, something inhuman, but still a defender of humanity. She was driven to hunt and slay the creatures of darkness, the alien ones who had no place within her world."

I blinked, a few things falling into place. The scans that Mendel had taken of me back in May had stripped down to a two-part soul signal, more like Nick's than Spike's. If one line was my soul, and the other one had been the Slayer, then…

"The Slayer is a human soul fused with a native magical soul, to the point where they can't be separated," I said slowly. "But then how does it get passed on? How are there multiple potentials? How are Faith and I both Slayers at the same time?"

"Do you know what my name means, Buffy?"

"Uh, Night. And that book called you the Queen of the Night, too. Why?"

Nyx put her teacup down, looking thoughtful. "Let me see if I can put this into words. You are aware how magic is shaped by the thoughts and feelings of people, not just magically talented ones. That belief is a force that may take shape all on its own?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I heard from the Ghostbusters how they wound up catching the ghost of Sherlock Holmes once, because enough people believed in his existence. Apparently he's still tormenting the containment unit with his violin."

One hand covered her mouth as Nyx let out a delicate laugh. "Excellent, then you understand. The existence of magical creatures such as myself is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. We are as humans perceive us, and human perception of us is shaped by our powers and actions, to the point where it's difficult to separate cause and effect. I am a goddess of night, yes, but also of death– for so many cultures see death not as an end, but as a sleep, from which the soul will waken, either to reincarnation or to a life in another world."

"... This isn't the afterlife." It wasn't a question– I was sure of that. Nyx nodded.

"You're correct. This is… the term I like best is 'Otherworld.' As you're aware, there is a world, or many worlds in fact, intertwined with your own like vines upon a trellis. Separated by the thinnest of veils, overlapping and yet separate. These worlds may merge, or separate, and they are all anchored to human minds. Some to that of a single strong mind, others to a group, or humanity as a whole. This world is one of the latter."

Okay, so it's a magical world, built from the minds of all humanity, which means… "This is Death as a place," I said slowly, putting things together. "'The undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns.' And if you ever tell Giles that I quoted Hamlet and didn't mangle it, I will… I don't know yet, but it'll be mean."

Nyx smiled. "My lips are sealed, and yes, you're right. So, I am a goddess of Death, emerged from human minds and thoughts and fears and hopes. As a psychology student, do you know of what Jung termed the Shadow?"

"Sure, it's a collection of all the repressed thoughts and feelings people have. Not always bad or negative, but usually not things people want to admit, so there'd be a lot of fear and antisocial stuff… Oh. Boy."

"I am often considered the mother of Shadows, and my children have roamed the earth since humans were human enough to create us," Nyx said. "My child, a Shadow formed of the urge to hunt, to kill, to slay… was bound into a girl. And thus, all Slayers are my daughters in my eyes."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense, and when she died, the Shadow with all its power was passed onto another girl, but that doesn't explain the rest of it."

Nyx put another spice cake on my plate, and I started nibbling on it almost automatically as she spoke. "Shadows are malleable and infinitely divisible. We are large, we contain multitudes. The spell that bound my child to the First Slayer also divided that essence, sending it out into the Sea of Souls, where it became bound up in other girls who were then born into the world of light. When an active Slayer died, one of these was chosen, I don't know by what. Perhaps by something in the Slayer, that hybrid of human and Shadow that was no longer quite one or the other. Perhaps by greater forces than that."

"So Faith and I have pieces of the same Shadow-slash-soul inside us, and it's like Willow's magic phones, still all one thing even in pieces. Which is why sometimes we get dreams of each other's Slayage. Okay, that makes sense– is that what's up with Minako? Because she kind of feels like me, but kind of not."

"Minako is… a slightly different case," Nyx replied. "Please understand, there are things I may not yet speak of, but what I can tell you is that she is not a Slayer. She does, however, have a Shadow bound inside her, a piece of Death."

"'The Light of Calamity,' that thing Feather Ontario was talking about. How do you have a piece of Death in your soul?"

"Death is a very complex concept, so you can imagine there are a vast number of Shadows that embody it in one form or another. The Dark Emperor, Erebus, wishes to absorb that shard to make himself more powerful. I do not think the girl would survive."

I forced myself not to crush the very nice teacup in my hand. "You wouldn't be telling me this if you didn't have a suggestion."

Nyx's smile was more like a hunting cat this time. Which didn't bother me, I was feeling kind of like a mouser myself right now. "You're correct. I can help you rescue her, but it will be your quest at heart. And it will be dangerous. You are a daughter of Death, but that does not mean that what makes you human, what makes you Buffy, can't be killed."

"Been there, done that, got the t-shirt," I shot back, but I held her gaze to let her know I was taking this seriously. Didn't matter– there was a little girl depending on me, and like hell was I going to let her down.

"Excellent. Then I have a gift for you, my daughter. Please accept this with my blessing."

Not sure exactly how she did it, but one second she was setting aside her teacup, and the next, she was handing me a sheathed short sword, roughly the same size as the one I'd been carrying… whiiich had disappeared at some point during the tea break, freaky.

"Don't worry," Nyx said, obviously reading my mind. "I just sent it aside, you'll have it back when you leave here."

"Okay, then." I took the sword from her carefully. The sheath was black leather over some type of wood, adorned with brass fittings and a hilt made of some type of whte horn. Carefully, I pulled the blade out of the sheath and had to raise an eyebrow at the gleaming black steel revealed. I'd seen bluing– it didn't get this reflective, and it tended to get wiped or scraped off when the sword got sharpened. This thing was black as night, reflecting the moonlight, and the edges gleamed like razors.

"Does it have a name?" I asked, sheathing it.

"Dyrnwyn," she told me, with a little smile. I had to chuckle– I actually had read "The Black Cauldron" when I was younger. Hopefully I counted as someone of "noble worth," but I figured going to rescue a kid in trouble probably counted.

Taking off my jacket, I quickly got the sword and its sheath settled, then turned back to Nyx.

"When you leave here, you must go and seek out the King of Ruin. He won't be hard to find, he never is. Simply look for the darkest part of the city, and you'll find the gates there. His armies besiege the borders of Erebus's domain constantly, so he will know how to get you through. Tell him truthfully what information he may ask for, but you do not have to tell him all you know. He may ask for a price, but it will not, it cannot be something more than you can bear. You might not like paying it, but it will not cost your life, soul, or honor."

That left a lot of ground uncovered, but I got her point. "Any other hints?"

"Know that you are unique among my daughters– like the Sun herself, you returned from the Darkness to shine again. Have faith in yourself, in your friends, and those you love, and know this– despite what some believe, to live is often a greater, harder thing than to die for those you protect. Do not value your life too low– There are those who would have you believe you exist only to die gloriously. It's bullshit."

That word, at the end of the much more formal speech, had me choking on my laughter. Nyx waited for me to clear my windpipe, then smiled. "Return with your charge when you've retrieved her, and I will have more to tell both of you. For now– finish your tea and cakes. You've a long journey ahead of you."

Well, that sounded like a pretty good idea to me.

Minako

I probably shouldn't be surprised that I managed to sneak in through the air vents. In real life, according to some things I've read, air vents were way too small for people to fit through– okay, maybe a little kid like me, but even that was iffy. In books and movies, though, air vents were like the best way to sneak into an evil stronghold. And a world where evil teddy bears and sentai villains ran around probably had a lot more in common with movies than it did with reality.

After a little while, the vent I was in dead-ended right over a grate. I pulled it carefully up and out of the way, waited a second to be sure the coast was clear, and then lowered myself down carefully. My naginata was tucked away in some sort of subspace pocket, which had been a very nice surprise. But then, that's how the weapons always worked in Featherman, so I wasn't really that shocked.

I landed in a half-crouch on a white tile floor, suddenly glad I was wearing sneakers instead of school shoes. The soft rubber soles meant that I wasn't making much noise at all. The corridor was lit by bright fluorescent lights, with walls of shiny white… plastic, maybe? Everything was bright white and shiny steel, with the occasional bit of glossy black here and there, on what looked like small display screens.

Looking behind me, I saw an elevator. Venus had said I needed to keep going down, but somehow I didn't think that was the right way to do it. Elevators were too easy to keep track of, or meet at the bottom floor. I was trying to be sneaky, thanks.

The other direction led to a set of steel double doors, with a circle design etched into the metal. As I got closer, I realized it was a picture of the moon, craters, rabbit, and all. Well. A marking like that had to be important, right? Taking a deep breath, I pushed the left door open and slipped inside, trying to be as quiet as possible.

The corridor led a few feet farther, into a large circular area that had twelve screens set on the wall around it, and a thirteenth on a pedestal in the middle. Walking up to the pedestal, I poked gingerly at the screen, only to have it flash a red XIII at me and beep discouragingly. Wonderful, they had to be activated in some kind of order. Well, might as well try this logically.

Walking over to the leftmost screen, I laid a hand on it. It beeped and lit up with the Roman numeral I in green, and suddenly a person appeared in front of it.

Except he wasn't actually a person, I realized after a second. He was a hologram, made of blue light. Dressed in a lab coat and what were probably black pants, he was ranting to himself. Several times, he looked right at me, but he obviously didn't see me at all.

"So many lies– it's all built on lies! The whole thing is sick, tear it all down, none of it's real! No love, no hope, no kindness, it's all false! It all needs to burn, to stop, to bring the end! Nothing is true except the peace of the end. Nothing…"

He trailed off and froze in place, and the screen behind him spat something out which skittered across the floor to me. Leaning over, I picked it up, and found a metal ornament, shaped like a Roman numeral II, except that one of the vertical lines had a B printed on it, and the other had a J.

Okay, I got it. I needed to find the screen that had a place for this to fit into. I made my way along the line until I found one with a niche underneath in the right shape, and fit the plate into it. The screen blinked to life with a green "II" on it, and another hologram appeared.

This one was a woman, dressed in the same lab coat, but a nice blouse, skirt, and heels under it. She had glasses on, and I couldn't see her eyes, but her voice sounded just as frantic as the guy before her.

"It's all rotten, you know," she said, though I wasn't sure who she was talking to. "All of them, all they want is– they're disgusting. Why would anyone want to bring children into a world so full of decay, violence, disease? Why do they think I'd want to– with anyone, let alone them? They all need to be destroyed, all of them, all of us, just so we can leave this damn world in peace."

She froze in place, and another plate was spat out. This one was a heart-shaped shield with what I recognized as the symbol of Venus on it. Putting it into the appropriate screen got me a mousy woman ranting feverishly about how everyone walked all over her and she just wanted it to end. Plus another plate, this one in the shape of a scepter.

After that, I fell into a routine. Plate got rant got plate. IV was a man complaining about how fathers weren't respected by their children and husbands by their wives, that people no longer knew their place. Honestly, he was lucky he was a hologram, because I was sort of tempted to take my naginata to his knees.

V had a man talking about the breakdown of society, no respect for traditional values, and how everything was descending into chaos and madness. I could feel my eyes rolling– even the little old men who played chess in the park didn't sound that unhinged about it.

VI was a woman ranting about how everybody had abandoned her, how the world was falling apart, and the fact that everyone was trying to go it alone, making themselves miserable and tearing the world apart at the seams.

VII gave me a man who spoke very earnestly about how the world was doomed because everything was just so awful, and there was no way to fix it, no way at all. It would be better just to lie down peacefully than keep beating against a fruitless problem, wouldn't it? Again, I'm glad he was a hologram, because I kind of made a hand sign I probably shouldn't have.

I… uh, honestly didn't let VIII get more than couple sentences out before burying my naginata in the screen. Anybody who complained about "subhuman scum" ruining the "purity of the nation" was not worth listening to. Lucky for me, the screen spat the next plate out anyway.

IX gave me a man who bitterly spoke of how no one wanted to be independent anymore, how we were all dependent on our phones and our tvs and how the rest of the world saw us while depending on the government to carry us. Which, I had to check and make sure he wasn't an American, because what?

X whined about "wishy-washy government types" who were afraid to make hard decisions and were slow to act when things went bad. XI wailed about how everything was just so hard, and she was tired, and she just wanted everything to stop. And XII just said that he didn't give a damn anymore, people were all horrible anyway, so why not be one of the ones to bring it all to an end?

By the time the last plate spat out, a skull, I was about fed up with hearing a bunch of grownups whine about how awful the world was, and why they wanted to end it. If you want to die, just die, don't try and take the rest of us with you! I'd heard my aunt and uncle comment occasionally how they were glad I hadn't died with my parents, but it made things so much harder. But at least they tried not to let me hear it, and they'd fed me and given me a place to live. They hadn't just whined all day.

But I was pretty sure that what I needed would be unlocked here– just a hunch. So I took the plate back to the central pedestal and put it into the niche on the leg. The console beeped and lit up with a green XIII, and another hologram appeared, this one of a man in a shirt, tie, and dress pants, no lab coat. His hair was messy and his eyes were sad. But those eyes suddenly focused on mine, and he took a deep breath.

"If you're hearing this," he stated, "then thank God, I haven't failed."

Buffy

Nyx escorted me out of the garden, and, a lot like Mom sending me back to the dorms after a visit, gave me a couple more spice cakes in a bag, "to eat on the way." Then she disappeared back behind the golden scrollwork doors and I was left alone, standing on the pavement under the foggy green moon.

Okay, so she'd told me to head for the darkest part of the city, that I'd find the gate to the Kingdom of Blood there. I scanned the bits of skyline around me, taking in what shadows I could see through the fog. That way, with the faintest hint of gold, that was back toward the library, the way I'd come from.

In the opposite direction, beyond Nyx's garden, I could see lights flashing on and off in a bunch of colors, reminiscent of the Las Vegas Strip. Something told me I'd find actual life down there, though it might not be the kind I wanted to meet. Then again it might, Nyx's world seemed like it was reasonably non-hostile, at least if you followed the rules. Whatever, it wasn't where I needed to be heading just yet.

Off to my left, I could see an eerie green glow around the buildings. Not friendly, but it wasn't dark, either. Which just left the right, which… there was still light that way, but not as much. It was as good a direction to start in as any, and so I headed off that way.

Along the way I dusted another four of those not-quite-vampires. I hadn't asked Nyx about them, but from the whole "black smoke" thing they did when they went poof, I figured they had something to do with Shadows. Maybe low-level bits of bad feeling, or some of the creepy death energy Sunnydale threw out like really twisted souvenir t-shirts. Whatever, they were a sign I was getting out of Nyx's area of direct influence, anyway.

Following the street, I went from what looked like townhouses and duplexes, some with lights in the windows, to apartment buildings, to square brick warehouses and garages. Fewer and fewer signs of life, more signs of age and decay, and of course, fewer lights. Finally, I came to a warehouse that had only a single lamp over the front door, no lights burning in the windows at all.

There was something written on a sign over the door, and I had to squint at it for a few minutes to be able to read it in all the shadows. After a second, I realized it was written in Greek letters, and I swore to myself.

I'd picked up Sumerian and Latin in self-defense during high school, even if I'd never managed more than a C in French. (Monique had offered to help with that via correspondence, and I was seriously considering taking her up on it.) Aramaic and Hebrew were sort of mushed together in a distant third. Greek, though, had been at the bottom of the list, just because most of the prophecies made in it had been translated into Latin somewhere along the way. If we really needed to go back to the source material, well, that's what Giles was for.

Of course, after getting dumped into that weird temple the last time I was in the magical world, I'd started studying up. Still couldn't make heads or tails of the actual language, but at least I could sound the letters out and get the occasional word or two. After a few moments, I finally figured out what I was looking at.

"Echthros." Enemy, in Greek, often used in the Bible. Joy. Well, I wasn't getting any younger, and Minako wasn't getting any more rescued. Time to see what was waiting inside. Drawing my sword, I pushed the door open and made my way cautiously inside.

It was pretty much your normal warehouse– dark, empty, creepy, the edges littered with crates and pieces of yuck. Plus the usual cobwebs and dust that suggested it was the housekeeper's century off. Nothing I hadn't seen a few million times in Sunnydale. Still, they say familiarity breeds contempt, and also careless and stupid mistakes. So I kept my ears and eyes open as I moved to stand in the barely-lit center of the room.

And… yep, a whispering sound of a robe dragging across concrete, I'm good. (Seriously, you fight enough cults, you get very good at picking out that particular sound. The Children of the Dragon were still the only group of whackos who'd figured out that pants are much better for stealth.) I turned to face the sound, blade out, and stopped to get a good look.

It was a man, or at least looked like one. Old, white, long gray hair, wearing a robe in black and red, holding a giant tome bound in what I really, really hoped was just cow leather. Oh, and he had a blindfold wrapped around his eyes, or where his eyes should have been. I really didn't want to know if they were there behind that scrap of faded gray fabric or not.

"Pardon me, but can I interest you in a subscription to 'Wizard's Home Companion?'" I quipped, not lowering my sword. You didn't necessarily need to see to cast spells, so it's not like this guy's blindfold made him any less dangerous.

He sneered at me. "Foolish child, you meddle in affairs you don't understand, and scorn the wisdom of those sent to teach you."

I rolled my eyes, though I didn't take my attention off him. "I also have a nasty habit of putting the milk carton back in the fridge with like, a quarter of a glass left. It's a sad failing, Willow despairs of me."

Another sneer, and I expected him to continue the witty banter portion of the evening, but instead, he began to chant something in a language I couldn't quite catch, and didn't want to. I produced the stake from my pocket and tossed it at him, but he batted it aside with his book without missing a beat. Then a plume of shadow appeared in the middle of the floor and… coalesced, it was like watching a dust explosion in reverse. It pulled together into a human figure, who raised her head and looked at me, and despite myself, I staggered back.

Kendra.

It wasn't actually her– there wasn't any spark of life, or humor, or anything in those eyes, which were completely black, sclera and all. (See, Giles, I can remember big words! Sometimes.) But it was her face, though there was an ashy tone to her skin, and she was wearing a black turtleneck and leggings, rather than any of the outfits I'd ever seen her in. Then again, this was the land of the dead, how did I know it wasn't her? How did I know anything, really?

Then she drew a bastard sword from God-knows-where and lunged, and I tabled the existential questions really quickly. First order of business was not getting my tastefully-clad butt spitted by anyone or anything. I backpedaled out of the way of her swing, raising my sword more to buy time than anything.

"Kendra?" I ventured. "Can you hear me?" She didn't answer, just came in with another swing, which I managed to deflect with Dyrnwyn. Okay, she had the teensiest bit of reach on me with that other sword, but my blade was definitely better. The edge hadn't so much as noticed the impact of her sword when I'd parried.

"Kendra Young, are you in there?" I persisted, as we traded blows. I made sure that my footwork didn't bring me anywhere near Book Dude, as I was not about to give him a free shot at my back. Kendra continued not saying anything, just kept coming.

"Don't waste your breath," Book Dude gloated. "She is a true Slayer, immune to your petty tricks! A great warrior against the night, who laid down her life in the service of her calling, as is right!"

I growled, but forced myself to keep my focus. I'd irritated enough enemies into doing something stupid and ending up shish-kebab, I wasn't going to let someone else do it to me. I mean, talk about embarrassing. I'd never live it down– oh, you know what I mean.

But yeah, my words weren't going to get through to her, because there was nothing there. It had taken a while to be really sure what I was getting from the Slay-dar, but this wasn't a ghost, or a spirit, or anything like that. It wasn't even a Shadow, some tiny piece of her still caught in the teeth of the world. It was just a face, an image, drawn from… oh.

"Survivor's guilt is a bitch," Nick's voice whispered in my memory. That's what this was, survivor's guilt, plus… ah. An old man with a book, sending a girl out to fight and die with no help, no backup, no life. A man who couldn't see the truth and thought he knew everything. How metaphorical. But that meant I had a better idea for how to deal with this fight.

Killing something with Kendra's face would hurt like fire, even if I knew better, but hey, I was the Slayer. Killing monsters wearing friendly faces was part of the job. But killing Kendra wouldn't do any good, he'd just conjure up another Slayer shade. Because that was how it worked. Crunch all you want, we'll make more. No, if I was going to end this, I was going to have to take my complaints to the top. Which meant figuring out how to get past my opponent.

Okay, so. This thing is the ideal Slayer as far as the Watchers are concerned. Two drives– kill the enemy and die for the cause. It has to know feints, and strategy, but it doesn't, it can't understand the sheer level of balls-to-the-wall craziness that comes from letting a Slayer and a half-demon biologist compare notes.

So, fake a hole in my guard and bait it into doing an overhead slash. Block the slash with my own blade, and slide down to lock guards, which is a bad, bad idea under normal circumstances. Hold the sword hilt with one hand, wrap the other around her torso like we're dancing and pivot, then throw her off– away from Book Dude. Keep the momentum, both hands on the hilt, swing around and–

The book dude's head parted company with his shoulders, sending him puffing away into the same black-red smoke everything else had tonight. The shade, on the other hand, just slowed to a stop, sword lowered, giving me an empty stare that still seemed… curious somehow.

"Go on," I said, managing to force my voice out past the knot in my throat. "There's so much more than all of this. Go find the sunlight– if anyone deserves it after this, it's you."

For just a second, I could swear I saw those lips turn up in a smile, and then she puffed into smoke and was gone. Somewhere outside, a siren began to howl, the walls of the warehouse began to flake off, and the concrete beneath my feet turned into metal plating. When the transformation stopped, the roof was gone, the walls were rusted iron, and the door I'd entered by was corroded shut. But there was a hole torn in the corrugated metal that formed the back of the warehouse, leading down what looked like a badly-lit alley. Shock.

Sheathing Dyrnwyn, I climbed through the hole and headed off again. This was turning into one hell of a night.