Beth frowned down at her smoothie as she swirled it with her straw. Since she no longer saw Nadja at school, their visits had become more infrequent and much more public. They'd taken to spending a lot of time at the mall, though not for shopping. Currently they were occupying seats in the brightly lit food court with garish colors working as accents to the dirty white of everything else. All in all, way worse place to meet up than St. Renevier's cafeteria.
"It's so lonely without you at school," Nadja complained. "I eat lunch alone and it's so sad!"
While Nadja was upset over eating lunch alone, Beth would have liked such a thing. Samson kept company, even with she wished he didn't. Thankfully, he didn't require her to talk back much, as he kept up a pretty steady stream of words all by himself. He was a bit like Hamlet with all his soliloquys, except Samson had an audience. Sorta. For all the listening she was doing, he might as be talking to himself.
"Look, we're working on it," Beth assured. "We just need to find out how the school system is involved in this ritual. Until then, we've got nothing and can't get the Council involved without warning the school first."
Nadja pouted, taking a long sip of her smoothie. She glanced around the mall, watching as children, adults, and teenagers chatted and moved around in the food court. "Somebody's going to go soon. I know it. I think more kids are being taken than normal."
"Think they're behind or getting overexcited about how close they are to finishing?" Beth inquired.
Nadja gave her a sharp look. "I don't have a lot of background with evil people who kill others for mysteriously demented reasons. I mean, I've seen a lot of horror films, but that's all fake."
"Well, there's a bit of reality in every piece of fiction," Beth argued. "And despite popular belief, I don't have much experience in this either. My family tells me a lot of stories about all the cool stuff they've done, but I've never been a part of the action. I'm too young or something. I'm tagged as someone's who is 'detrimental to victory.'"
"Verbatim?" Nadja asked sympathetically.
"It's the smarty-pants British way of saying she's the weakest link," she muttered.
Shifting forward, a serious look overcame Nadja's face as they tried to work out their disappearance mystery. "Well, okay, then let's think in terms of horror movies. Like, ghosts and stuff. I think it's common that the hauntings get worse as the ghosts step up their game. And usually bad stuff picks up right before the possession, right?" Nadja pointed out.
"Very true. So maybe they're getting close to finishing then. 'It's always darkest before the dawn,' right?"
"Okay, that is both scientifically incorrect and not applicable to this situation," Nadja replied.
"It's their dawn though. Whatever it is that they're doing, they're doing more work until they succeed because they are so close now," she explained.
"And we want to stop them before they finish," Nadja stated. "We need to step up our game then."
"And we're trying so hard," she groaned. "I've been hitting the books like a woman possessed and I'm getting nothing because we have nothing. We know very little about this entire setup. They could be invoking some old god, or raising a demon, maybe creating a portal to a hell dimension, who knows?"
"This is so hopeless," Nadja sighed, shoulders slumping. "Unless something happens soon, we're screwed. We're all screwed. All those hundreds of people that have died will never see vengeance at our hands. This is disappointing. I had thought that with you and your family in town, this would all get solved, but that's not how it works. No one's that spectacular."
"I'm sorry," she sympathized. "I know this is so anticlimactic right now. I want some Deus Ex Machina to come and tell us how to solve this conflict."
Nadja allowed a half smile. "Wouldn't that be a kicker? I'd take this hopelessness for that."
"We'll figure this out," she assured. "We're the heroes, aren't we? And the heroes always win."
-.-
Sitting in the library during lunch, surrounded by the heavy tombs she'd brought to school to spend time searching through, Beth did not feel like a hero. Heroes were not shown to do book work, so why did she have to? The unfairness of it all.
She had gone off to find some secluded table hidden behind the bookcases, hoping to avoid Samson. She had work to do dammit, and she didn't need him around asking, "what's this?" and "what's that?" and "why are you reading books about demonic energy?" He would only drag her down.
"Hey, there you are. I was looking for you," Samson greeted, coming around the corner of a bookshelf. Okay, maybe hiding where Samson was wasn't her best plan. She should have hidden behind the bleachers. They expected her to be there anyway.
"Look, I'm kind of busy right now," she said, motioning towards all the books.
He didn't get the clue. "Wow, these books look really old." He picked one up, flipping through the pages.
"They are very, very old," she agreed, slowly taking the book from his hands.
"What's all this for?"
Demonic Ritual. Nope, throw that one out the window. "History," she blurted out. Geez? History? Looking at the titles, he'd think she was researching Lizard Congress of the Illuminati. Monsters, goddesses; he was going to see right through that.
"What kind of history?" he asked, sounding not at all suspicious. She really hoped his classes didn't require a lot of comprehensive analysis of text because that lie should not have gone down that smoothly.
"Medieval type stuff." Not a lie, technically speaking. Many of these books were from medieval time period where everyone transcribed things by hand.
"I can see. Is this an Old English to Modern English dictionary?" he asked, picking up the only new looking book of the bunch. "I had to use one of these when I read Beowulf."
"I only need it when I can't translate a word," she supplied.
"Oh, wait, are you really well-read into Old English?" Did he want her to say yes or for her to brag by pulling out her list? Sumerian, Armanian, Fyarl…
"Yes," she responded, closing her text with a resounding thud.
"Heavy," he noted. "You bring all this to school with you? That certainly must have been a strain on your back. You've got to watch out for stuff like that."
She shrugged. For her, it was really no problem, just bulky. But for him, and he assumed for her, it should be.
"Yeah, well, I needed extra time for work," she explained. Also, not a lie, technically speaking.
"Having a hard time?" he asked sympathetically.
And there was her out. She nodded vigorously. She really needed to stop doing that before she everyone thought she looked like a possessed bobble head. "Uh-huh. Real trouble. History is not my strong point." Wow, these half-truths just kept a-comin'.
"Oh, I'm really good a history if you need any help," he offered.
She smiled at his request. "Thanks, but I think I'm fine." Like you'd be able to help me anyway, she added mentally. He might know the ins and outs of William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea, but he would be severely lacking in knowledge about magic. Probably. Actually, she didn't have a clue. For all she knew, he had a knack for sorcery moreso than Magic: The Gathering.
"Well, I'll leave you to your work. Wouldn't want you to fail," he said, standing up as he excused himself.
She flashed him a grateful smile. "Thanks, Samson."
He shook his head. "It's no problem. I'll see you on the bus, right?"
"Yeah," she promised. Okay, so maybe Samson wasn't so bad. At least he was easing up on her and was no longer acting like a barnacle stuck to S.S. Elizabeth.
-.-
If Timothy complained one more time about his wet pant leg, Zack was going to hurt someone. Preferably Timothy, since that would get the guy to shut the hell up.
"I told you to watch for wet spots," he repeated for the seventh time that night. He had said it when he was driving, again when they had parked, a third time about fifteen minutes in when Holden had said something about how damp it was, and then the other four times after Timothy had found a puddle with his foot.
"It did rain earlier," Sam reminded him. "You should have worn boots like the rest of us, not your tennis shoes."
Timothy made an incoherent sound, something akin to resentful agreement.
Zack moved his flashlight side to side, casting light over the woods. The moon was out, but not full, to avoid werewolves of course. Zack wasn't sure how common those were around here and he did not want to find out.
"Why are we here again?" Timothy whined. Again with the complaining. Geez, he should have left the kid back in his parent's house with his dry floor and video games.
"I told you, this is where the rituals are happening," he reminded Timothy. "We're helping someone out."
"You mean the Slayer's kid?" Timothy asked.
He repressed a groan. "Yes, which I mentioned when I brought this idea up at lunch yesterday."
"I wasn't listening," Timothy admitted, not even sounding the least bit apologetic. "I just heard 'adventure' and agreed to go."
"I said adventure," Sam said. "It is too. Helping a slayer. Well, a slayer by association. The slayer's involved, right?"
"Why wouldn't she be?" Holden responded. "She's the Slayer. It's her job. It's why she's here. It's just that her daughter had direct contact with potential victims."
"What are we looking for?" Timothy asked.
Timothy wasn't joking earlier; he hadn't been listening at all.
"Do I need to repeat my entire spiel again?" Zack asked.
"It would help, yeah."
He sighed, looking heavenward. Was there someone up there listening, who could answer why he had such useless friends?
"Beth was kidnapped and taken to the woods as a sacrifice for their ritual. We're coming back out here to see if we can find anything. My cousin tells me that Beth and her family are without any new information. Plus, the school may or may not be heavily involved with everything," he explained in as quickly as he could clearly, not wanting Timothy's short attention span to miss anything a second time around.
"So wouldn't it have been better to have searched the principal's office?" Timothy suggested like Zack was dumb for going out into the woods, which was not entirely wrong since if something attacked them, they were as good as dead.
"You offering?" he asked.
"Uh no, I'm not stupid," Timothy spat. "Wait."
Holden and Sam exchanged looks, snickering.
"Well, it's stupid to be out here. We could become something's dinner," Timothy reminded everyone.
"You have your cross, don't you?" Zack asked.
"That only works with vampires!" Timothy hissed. "There are other, bigger, nastier things than Vampires out there!"
That was a matter of opinion, he thought. Vampires were pretty bad. Of course, one might say he was biased, but he dismissed such an idea. Surely most would agree with him.
"Did you hear that?" Holden suddenly asked, flashlight beam swinging widely.
They all stopped, listening for whatever had alerted him. It was quiet and Zack wondered if the woods were actually as dangerous as everyone said they were. Sure, demons and monsters must come through once in a while, but infested seemed too strong a word for the woods. Maybe they all slept here during the day.
A crack of a branch reached their ears and they all turned off their flashlights. Whatever was making that sound, Zack didn't want to be seen by it.
Sam tapped him on the shoulder and pointed forward. The sound was coming from in front of them.
Quietly, Zack crept up towards the sound, entourage in tow. He heard some low buzzing sounds, like voices. People or Vampires? He really hoped it was the former.
They crouched down behind a mess of bushes where they could hear whoever it was better.
"Why can't the Harbingers do this?" one asked. Male. Sounded slightly Italian, if Zack knew his accents. Which, he really didn't.
"Not their job," another responded. Woman. Sharp and strict. She sounded like a math teacher or a very stern mom.
"I hate this. I'll be glad when this is all over," Possibly-Italian grunted.
"Soon enough," the angry lady responded. "Just a few more and then this is all over and done with and we can move on with our lives. I'll be retiring and moving to Tahiti."
Possibly-Italian snorted. "After all this, no one is going to want to live here."
Zack and his friends waited as the man and woman exchanged a few more words before falling silent. The wet crunch of shoes on leaves told him that they were still there, doing whatever it was people do out in the woods. He figured they weren't vampires since vampires couldn't exactly retire. Also, what vampire wanted to go to Tahiti?
It felt like hours before the footsteps started to recede. A few mumbled words faded as the two left. He waited a few good moments before moving. Sam was the first over the bush, his excitement having reached its maximum capacity. He was ready to dive into it.
"I have no idea what the hell this is," Sam announced from the other side of the bush.
Zack came around and stopped when he saw what it was the two people had been working on.
"What is it?" Timothy asked, head tilted as he studied it. "You know magic, right Zack?"
He nodded numbly. "Yeah and this is a whole lot of bad."
"How bad?" Holden asked. "Like, end of the world bad? Or just death to Bellevue bad?"
He shook his head. "I dunno." He pulled out his phone, snapping a quick photo. "Here, we got to get this to Beth. She's got the books for this stuff. I've never seen anything like this."
"That's what you get for not dabbling in the dark arts," Holden tsked.
"Come on, let's get back to my car."
The group left the clearing, throwing looks over their shoulder to see the symbol once again. It was just salt, out in the dirt, marking the ground. Zack didn't know what it meant, but its presence left a rotting feeling in his stomach.
-.-
Beth was jolted awake by a loud bang on her window. She snapped up out of bed, covers flying. What the bloody hell was that? She heard the bang again. Someone was throwing something at her window. How rude.
She got out of bed, walking over to the window with a sour expression on her face. She shoved the window up and hissed out, "You better quit it unless you want some new problems!"
"Beth!" She looked down to see Zack and a couple of boys she didn't recognized standing in her yard. Well, her dad was going to kill them.
"What the hell, Zack?" she asked, irritated that she had to be worried for so many people's well-beings so late into the night it was basically morning. "If my dad saw you, you'd be as dead as dead gets!"
"I have something you need to see!" he responded. "Wait, your dad isn't home, is he?"
She rolled her eyes, climbing out her window and jumping down to the ground below. Someone let out a low whistle as she walked over to meet them.
"No, and you're lucky. He's got a sixth sense about trespassers," she told him. "Who're your friends?"
"Timothy, Holden, and Sam," Zack listed off quickly, pointing his hand at each of them so absentmindedly Beth didn't think they were called the names Zack said they were. Because if so, Sam looked really pissed to be here.
"Alright, what you need?" she asked, hands on hips.
"Freaky shit is going on in the woods," one, supposedly Timothy according to Zack's less-than-stellar pointing skills, blurted out.
She raised her eyebrows. "Are you just figuring that out? How long have you lived here?"
Timothy looked at little taken about at Beth's blasé tone. She was the Slayer's daughter for Hecate's sake, did they think she didn't know about "freaky shit?"
"No, here, look," Zack said, pulling out his phone and showed it to her. "What is it?"
She studied the picture. The angle was odd and it seems his camera's phone hadn't focused that well since the photo was a bit blurry. Plus, it didn't help that the photo was taken at night, when light was scarce. Thankfully, the symbol Zack was showing her was white; maybe chalk or something?
"I have no clue," she admitted. While she had been studying the photo, everyone had been holding their breath, waiting for the verdict. The collective exhale stank of disappointment. And maybe Cheetos?
"I thought you said she knew this stuff," Maybe-Sam muttered.
"You don't know this at all?" Zack asked.
She hated to disappoint, but disappoint she must. "Never seen it in my life. My aunt's the one who knows more about this supernatural, mystical stuff than me. Give me some credit, though. No offense to you, but don't ever pursue a career in photography."
"It's salt probably. Salt's pretty big in witchcraft. We found two people out in the woods making this in a clearing. I think it was pretty close to where you were taken, if not the same place," he told her.
She took the phone from his hand, trying to get a better look.
"Huh. Very…demonic, I would say," she stated. She hoped he hadn't come all the way here for an immediate answer. She wasn't a Demon Encyclopedia for Goddess' sake.
"It's a goat, commonly associated with satanic rituals, so I'd agree with you," he stated dryly.
Well, she had not been expecting sass at what, two in the morning? "Can you send this to me?" she asked, handing him back the phone.
"I don't have your number," he told her. "You think I would have come all the way here to show you this if I could have just sent it to you?"
Well, he didn't have to be the voice of all logical and reason. "Alright," she huffed. "Just let me do it."
She took the phone back, sending herself the picture. Up in her room, she could hear the faint jingle of her text tone as her phone received the message. "There, now I'll look into it. I don't know how soon I'll get results back, but I'm going to hit the books until I can find it. But thanks, all of you. This is going to be helpful. Now, we actually have something."
Zack grinned. "Good."
"Yeah, we risked our lives to get a picture of a salt drawing," Maybe-Sam huffed angrily. "It better be good."
Beth turned to head back up into her room, but before she did, she said, "Oh, and don't ever do something this stupid again. Out in the woods, you're all self-mobile Happy Meals, kay?"
He ducked his head in embarrassment, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, no problem. Can do."
"Now go home." Zack and his friends departed and once they were gone, she jumped up onto her roof, landing quietly enough that those sleeping inside the house wouldn't be disturbed. She climbed back into her room, snuggling under her covers and knowing she had quite a search coming up tomorrow.
-.-
She sat in the quietness of the study, tombs and papers spread out around her as she poured over the texts. She had her phone beside her, along with a sketched drawing of the symbol Zack had gotten a picture of. Most of it was hard to make out, but it looked like a bunch of intertwining lines surrounding the head of the goat. The internet yielded Baphomet, a common satanic and witchcraft symbol, a ram head encased in an upside-down pentagram. She couldn't tell if that was a star on the head of the ram from the photo or not. It didn't look like a star, but Beth also didn't look like a half-vampire so there was that. Since it was a worship sign, it was possible that the disappearances were purely for sacrificial purposes. She supposed Satan had gotten pretty lonely, seeing how many disappearances had occurred in the last ten years here.
Her phone buzzed and her train of thought broke from its tracks, coming to a destructive stop. She pressed answer without even looking at who was calling, pressing the phone up to her ear. "Hello," she said absentmindedly into the speaker.
"Hey," Nadja replied. "How's research going?"
"Terrible," she responded. "How much do you know about Baphomet?"
"Uh, that's satanic, right?" Nadja asked uncertainly.
"So, I'll take that as a 'nothing at all'," she muttered, her eyes scouring the pages in front of her. She closed one tomb and opened another, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder and she flipped through the pages. "I have nothing. It's disappointing. If I can't find anything, I'll have to send it to the Council and see what they can pull up there. This library's not full, but I would have thought I'd find something. I don't know, maybe I'll check the copies of the Watchers' Diaries my mum has. Those usually remark on more obscure things."
"Geez, sounds like a lot of book work."
"I cannot believe how much is included. My mum made it seem like she just went out there and kicked butt, but apparently there's all these books and research. It's so disorganized too. You're just supposed to open up a book at random and get crackin'."
"Well, you'll tell me if you find anything, won't you?" Nadja asked. "Zack's going bonkers over here waiting to hear what it is he found."
"Well, I hate to let you tell him, but I've got diddly-squat right now," she grumbled. She closed another tomb. "I am wasting away my Saturday though."
"You want me to come over and help?" Nadja asked.
"No, it's okay. I think I've got this. Plus, who else will keep Zack from giving himself an ulcer?"
"Wait, you think I'm doing that? Oh no, he's entertainment."
She smiled. "Gods, you'll let him run himself ragged."
"You betcha."
She turned pages, running her eyes over words, glancing at pictures. She read the name of the symbols off in her head. Udjat, Black Mass Indicator—unbaptized baby sacrifices? Augh—Seal of Danzathlar—
"Wait," she said, going back a page.
"What?" Nadja asked.
"Seal of Danzathlar," she read aloud. "The picture here. It looks like Baphomet, except without the star on its head. It's basically the same though."
"What's it for though?"
"Says it's a mystical seal. Oh, here's a new thing. Seen in Sunnydale—that's where my mum's from— and it was the opening to 'Boca del Infierno'."
"Oh, well. Okay. Uh, is that Spanish? I don't speak Spanish," Nadja admitted.
"Well, I knew a girl who knew Spanish. I think Infierno means like sickness," she guessed. "Or was that Infermo? In-something."
"So something of sickness?" Nadja asked.
"I don't know. Maybe they're trying to put a great plague over Bellevue. Zack said the lady who was there making it said afterward no one as going to want to stay in Bellevue."
"Okay, but you say plague and I think locus, or bubonic."
She pushed that text aside and pulled out another book that listed it in its index. "I'm looking for more information of this boca thing," she told Nadja. "aha, here's an entry on it. 'Boca del Infierno,' also known as—"
Fuck.
"What?" Nadja asked desperately. "What? Don't leave me hanging, Beth."
"It means Mouth of Hell," she whispered.
Boca del Infierno, also known as Mouth of Hell, or Hellmouth, is a location where the barriers between dimensions are weak, creating a portal between Earth and several hell dimensions. Due to this weakening, the Hellmouth is a "hot-spot" for demons and supernatural creatures. Known locations of Hellmouths include Sunnydale, California; Cleveland, Ohio; and Easter Island, Chile.
"Hellmouth," she said, her voice rising. She stood up suddenly, chair scraping against the hardwood floor, her mind going into overdrive. "They're opening a Hellmouth in Bellevue."
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh FUCK.
"I don't know what a Hellmouth is, but that sounds seriously bad," Nadja moaned.
"It's a literal portal to hell dimensions! I have to go, I have to tell my parents," she said. "This is majorly bad." She ended the call, shoving her phone into her pants pocket and grabbing the book, running downstairs to find her parents.
"Mum! Dad!" she shouted, taking the stair two at a time, reaching the bottom floor in record time. She turned the corner at too fast a speed and crashed into the coffee table.
"Slow down, Speedy Gonzalez," Willow said, coming out from the kitchen when she heard the crash. "Your parents are out grocery shopping. Whaddya need, Bethie?"
"Look at this!" she screeched, shoving the phone in Willow's face and slamming the book down on the dining room table.
"Ooh, what am I looking at?" Willow asked, studying the picture. She chewed her lip as she considered it. "Looks kinda familiar in an ooky, not-so-good way."
"It's the seal of Danzalthar!" she cried, throwing her hands up in the air. "They're trying to open a Hellmouth in Bellevue!"
Willow looked up from the picture, her expression unreadable. "Where did you get this photo?" She asked, her voice deadly calm. Witch Willow was all business now.
"Zack and a couple of his friends went out into the woods to find some clues and they happened upon two guys out there making this symbol," she explained. "He got a picture of it and sent it to me."
"This is serious. I need to call Buffy. She needs to know about this." Beth bit her lip, looking down at the page in the book. It depicted a Hellmouth, which tentacles and creatures with sharp mouths clawing their way up out of the earth, some already devouring humans. Fire spewed out from the hole; the world was burning. She swallowed.
-.-
"This one or this one?" Spike asked, holding up two "different" bottles of bourbon.
"Either one, both taste bad," Buffy replied and he shot her a withering look before putting one back down on its shelf and the other in the basket.
"We need rice next," she told him. "Why do we need rice?"
He shrugged. "Beth makes the food." Buffy thought of such a statement. Their fourteen-year-old daughter made food for them. Two adults ate a fourteen-year-old's meals. Oh well, Spike had spent most of his life living off of blood and Dawn could attest to what a poor cook Buffy was (not like she had much room to talk, Burner Of All Things Including Ice).
She pushed the cart down the aisle, Spike ambling beside her. He did that a lot. Most people walked, but not him. He ambled. It was a lazy walk, almost a swagger, but not quite. She hadn't seen him swagger since he was a vampire without a human soul. Well, sometimes he swaggered around Angel for what she was sure were male reason. She rolled her eyes. Men. From insider her jacket pocket, her phone began to buzz incessantly. She pulled it out and sighed heavily.
"What?" he asked.
"It's Beth. She probably forgot something," she replied, pressing the call answer button and putting the phone to her ear. "Did you forget to put something on the list?"
"Buffy." It was Willow.
"Wills?" she said and Spike looked at her with interest. "Why are you using Beth's phone? Is it Beth? Is everything alright?" Way to start, Buffy, panicking already and all she's said was your name.
"No, no, Beth's fine. Well, fine is relative. I mean, she's not injured or anything. She's physically well, I think. I mean, I didn't check for her temperature or anything—"
She rolled her eyes. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Spike, murmuring, "She's rambling." He snorted in amusement. He held up a bag of rice at random and she nodded. Rice was all the same, wasn't it?
"What's the problem, Willow?" she asked, calm now.
"Oh, Buffy, it's bad. It is so bad."
She frowned. Spike began to move forward again, pulling the cart with him. She reached out and grabbed his sleeve, making him stop. He turned his head to give her a questioning look.
"What's bad?" she asked. She noticed she could hear someone talking in the background. It sounded a bit like Beth when she had tried to explain why she crashed her bike when she was eight. She had been so worried her dad would ground her, she had gone off fast-talking, her voice getting higher and taking on that British lilt she seemed to have adopted from her father. Why it only came out when she was upset, Buffy didn't have a clue.
"Okay, let me start from the beginning: Beth's friend—,"
"Zack." That was Beth.
"—was out in the woods a few nights ago and he saw someone—,"
"Two someones. A man and a woman."
"Please, one at a time," Buffy cut in, but she didn't think Willow heard her. She sure didn't tell Beth to wait her turn.
"—and they were making a symbol on the ground and when they left, he got a picture of the symbol and he sent it to Beth who's been doing some research on it and she just found out what it is and she showed me—"
Okay, this was just getting obnoxious. "Get to the point, Willow," Buffy snapped.
"The Seal on Danzalthar. Buffy, we think they're trying to open a Hellmouth."
She felt her blood run cold. After the Turok-Kan, she didn't want to be anywhere near a Hellmouth. Closing one, well…Buffy looked over at Spike, who was pretending to be interested in all the different types of noodles the store had.
"We'll be right home," she said. "I want to hear the whole story, got it?"
"Yeah," Willow said weakly.
She ended the call, stuffing the phone into her pocket.
"Everythin' alright?" Spike asked, putting down a box of Rotini.
"We need to go home. They think they know what the ritual is for," she told him. She grabbed his hand, pulling him down the aisle and away from the cart.
"What about the food?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at it.
"It's not important," she snapped.
"Tell me what's going on, Buffy," he commanded, tugging his hand out of hers. She turned around to look at him. He looked so serious, staring at her, waiting for her to catch him up. He hated to left out of the loop.
"Something really bad, Spike," she whispered. She'd done this before. She dealt with a Hellmouth. She closed one. It cost somebody their life, but he came back.
Could he do it again?
"Hey," he murmured softly, stepping closer to her and brushing a hair out of her eyes. "We'll be alright."
Oh, she sure hoped so. Before she had a sister and all the other slayers to take care of. Now she had her family. She had Beth, who she swore she would protect at even the cost of her own life.
"We really need to go now," she repeated. "I'll explain everything in the car, but we really have to leave now."
He nodded, following her out of the store. She hoped Beth was wrong, that she had somehow gotten something mixed up or had jumped to the wrong conclusions. She wanted so badly to believe that. But she knew her daughter. Beth had substantial reason to believe the cloaked people were opening up a Hellmouth and that scared her.
N/A: Buh buh BUM! Finally, the reveal! Of course I must start my own story with a Hellmouth; give the original Buffy a shoutout. There's two more chapters after this, so the story is wrapping up!