Chapter 8

Divine sociopaths

"Red!" Constantine blinked. "Luv, are you okay?"

They were at the Summers residence, having decided to stop by there for a while to drop Dawn off. Predictably, Dawn had complained all the way to the house about Buffy's overprotectiveness, but had been overruled. To their considerable surprise, Willow had opened the door to greet them.

"I'm okay," she said, with a reassuring smile. Her friends looked very relieved and she let them into the house, wondering what she was going to say – by the looks of all the weaponry they were holding – probably from the training room – they had been just about to go out and look for her. A straightforward answer would have been 'I'm sorry for making all of you worry, but I went out to talk with the dark elf Nalfein and then I slept with him' but unfortunately, it'd have a straightforward and probably unwelcome response.

"Where have you been?" Buffy demanded. "We were so worried!"

Willow decided to be truthful… mostly truthful. "I went to um, talk to the dark elf. His name is Nalfein Do'Urden," she added, glancing at Constantine. Her mentor rolled his eyes.

"Bloody hell."

"What? Why did you do something like that? He could have hurt you!" Buffy frowned. "Did he hurt you?"

Willow could tell her best friend was itching for an excuse to go and kill Nalfein. "No, he didn't. He was um, quite courteous." And gorgeous, and very experienced, but Willow kept her counsel on that, concentrating on trying not to dwell on what had happened. After everything she had extricated herself from the situation as quickly as possible, to Nalfein's amusement, and then run off home to clean up in case her friends noticed anything. The dark elf seemed perfectly content to let her go, and his soft laughter that rang behind her as she exited the crypt was mocking, but oddly enough, he seemed to be mocking himself, and not her.

"And Rose was right," Willow said, sitting down on a sofa. "He's here to engineer a breaking to let out Lloth… "

"Oh hell," Constantine muttered. "I was 'fraid of that." The first thing Lloth would probably do if she manifested here would be to be revenged on him for being part of (in her eyes) a conspiracy that lessened her power. Actually, Zaknafein had been the one who knifed her, but the Goddess was a sociopath.

"And he needs to find something called 'the key'… with this." Willow took the spider pendant out of her pocket, dangling on the end of its chain. It immediately began to glow as it had when they first met Nalfein. "It glows in the presence of the key, and Nalfein said one of us has it."

"How did you get it from him?" Xander asked curiously, taking the pendant from her and looking at it closely, then passing it to Anya with a shudder. "I hate spiders."

"I asked for it," Willow said, which was the perfect truth, leaving out the rest of it, as to what had happened in return. She had expected to feel cheap at the end of it, and not a sense of sated fulfillment, and she wondered if the pendant was actually Nalfein offering her his idea of a graceful excuse for what she had done, giving in to her desires over common sense.

"And he gave it to you?" Xander grinned. "So, is he all…" Xander waved his hand in the air vaguely to indicate head-over-heels love.

"Yeah. It was a bit embarrassing, since he knew I did something to him," Willow admitted. "He said his dispel magic spells didn't… didn't work, and that it was probably just an information spell and not that the spell had slipped through his shields, since some demons tried to put domination spells on him some time ago and they didn't work. Either."

"Information spell?" Giles mused; accepting the pendant as it went round. "Maybe the clause slipped through."

"Maybe," Willow said, though she hoped that it was what Nalfein said he thought it was – that his love had come of his own accord, hence saving her from having to debate morality and prudence with herself. It was easy to try and place oneself in the 'good' side, but when it came down to decisions…

"So he can't do the breaking thing now?" Buffy asked the question that she thought most important.

"Well, he gave me his word that he wasn't going to be the one to do it." Willow said with a grin. That had been another achievement, she'd privately thought.

"As in, there're more friggin' dark elves around?" Constantine asked shrewdly, "Or he's not going to do it?"

"I took it to mean that he's not going to do it," Willow frowned, wondering if there were double meanings to the other things Nalfein had said to her, "But I can ask him again later."

"Later? You're still going to speak to him?" Buffy seemed astonished.

"He just stranded himself on this world by giving that thing to me," Willow pointed at the pendant, which had reached Constantine. "So I… I thought at least I could just speak to him now and then." She smiled sheepishly. "Um. Right?"

Everyone save Constantine seemed to look to Buffy for a decision on the matter. Buffy shrugged. "Well, if he was that nice, then I suppose it's the end of the matter, and if he didn't want to hurt you… um, just tell us where his crypt is so if one day you don't come back we can go there and kill him." Willow grinned at her, relieved that her friend didn't seem to be making so big an issue out of it – but well, Buffy had so far taken one vampire lover, and seemed set to take another. At least Nalfein was alive. Buffy continued, "We'd put the pendant somewhere safe, and forget about it."

"One of us has the key, right?" Anya asked, watching the glowing pendant. "So do we want to find out who?"

"Who cares," Buffy said with a shrug. "Unless one of us is wearing something newish and occult… " Everyone shook their head.

"Wonder if the key is a thing," Constantine muttered, poking the pendant. "This bloody thing would be better off far, far away from the Hellmouth."

"Well, I'd put it with the other things in the Magic Box," Giles said, taking the pendant from Constantine and pocketing it. "At least if a thief comes for it, it wouldn't be too obvious amongst all the other stuff. Or, we could um, ask Angel… "

Buffy shuddered. "Oh please. You can talk to him if you want to ask. I'm going on patrol," she added curtly, then walked out of the house, idly wondering why any mention of Angel seemed to bring a burp of unreasonable pique nowadays. She went looking for Spike, without thinking why that action seemed so natural to her now.

The rest of the group, uncomfortable, talked a bit about inconsequentials and then drifted off, Dawn to go upstairs to commence her daily battle with homework. Willow realized that she was left in downstairs with Constantine, who was studying her critically.

"Anythin' else you left out in front of them about Nalfein, luv?" he asked quietly.

"I… "

"You're a terrible liar, luv," Constantine said, unconsciously echoing Spike. "Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to guess?"

Willow chewed at her bottom lip, unwilling to admit what she had done. "There's nothing more I'd like to add."

"If you like," Constantine shrugged. "Who am I to judge, eh? Bit of a warnin' – if you're playin' with fire… "

"I'd get burned," Willow completed the maxim with a forced grin. "I know."

**

"So, the pendant is with Giles now, and the thing's sort of concluded," Buffy told Spike as she ducked a punch from a vampire, punched the thing in the stomach, and then staked it in the back with one fluid move. Without looking to see if it turned into ashes, she engaged the next one, a roundhouse kick that caught it in the neck, then a flurry of timed punches that knocked it down long enough for her to stake it.

Spike snorted as he danced around a hulking, beefy vampire that tried ineffectually to get his meaty hands on the blond vampire. "You think he gave it to her that easily, luv?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" Buffy grunted as a vampire got lucky and got a scratch in on her shoulder, tearing her shirt. "Hey!"

"I think it's obvious she didn't say everythin'," Spike replied, kicking out the legs of the big vampire from behind and swiftly staking him.

"You think she wasn't sayin' the truth?" Buffy asked belligerently, defending her friend.

"I didn't say that, Slayer. I was suggestin' she left out some of it. Doubt this elf would give her the pendant so easily."

"You're just jaded, Spike," Buffy replied, finishing off the last vampire. "Maybe he loved her enough to give her anything she wanted," she added a little wistfully.

"It was a spell, Buffy," Spike said, approaching her, a sense of irritation welling up inside him. Was she implying that she didn't think he loved her, or that she didn't think he loved her enough? She hadn't even asked him for what she wanted – if she wanted anything. "Bloody hell, it's not real."

"I suppose so," Buffy sighed. "What is real love, then?"

"If this is going to turn into a psychoanalysis of Peaches, I'm going to find some vampires to have fun with," Spike growled.

Buffy hugged herself, wishing the memories would go away, or that they wouldn't hurt so much, and listened to the silence of the night. She looked blankly into the distance, and then asked in a remote, dreamy voice, "Do you love me, Spike?"

The vampire approached and embraced her tentatively, as if afraid she would run, or worse, stake him. With her new attitude towards him, he didn't know what to expect from her any longer. "With all my undead heart, Slayer."

Buffy closed her eyes and luxuriated in his arms for a while, enjoying the leather-and-smoke smell that seemed to be a part of Spike… and remembered what she wanted to ask of him next. "Would you give me anything I wanted, then?" She was careful to keep her voice remote, as though she was only considering a theoretical question. "Anything in the world, Spike?"

"Yes," the vampire said unhesitatingly.

"Even your duster?"

Spike looked down at her with shock. "My duster?"

"I like your duster," Buffy grinned mischievously at him, plucking at the lapels.

"I like my duster too, Slayer," Spike protested with grudging admiration at her newfound deviousness, realizing that she had tricked him. "Slayer… "

"You said 'yes', Spike." Buffy pouted. Score four to the Buffster, she added mentally as the vampire's face twisted into a curious mix of anguish, amusement and resignation.

"Slayer… "

"And my name is Buffy."

"Buffy, can we talk about this?"

"No."

"But it's my duster!"

"I know." She rubbed against him, grinning as his body reacted to her, and he groaned. Immediately, she pulled away, and put her hands on her hips.

"I'm waiting… "

"C'mon, Slayer!"

"Are you going back on your word, Spike?" Buffy's lower lip trembled as if she was about to burst into tears.

Spike sighed, heart wrenching at the sight, even though he knew she was faking it, then let go of her, and began to shrug off his black leather coat. The things he did for this girl… "This had better be worth it, Buffy," he growled at her.

"Oh, it is," Buffy said happily, taking the duster from him and pointedly ignoring the actual meaning of his words.

**

The next few days were relatively uneventful. Buffy proudly wore Spike's duster around, and the vampire's pleading looks she ignored, or brushed aside with exclamations along the lines of 'I'm so in love with this coat!' and such. Spike wondered if it was a sign that he was turning into his sire when he realized he was beginning to get jealous of the attention his coat was getting from her.

Constantine spent the days manipulating customers at the Magic Box and wondering why he was staying in Sunnydale – he'd already told Willow most of the basic rules, and had already given her advice on creating her own style – advice that she hadn't actually needed. As like a friend of his whose magic was released when she spoke backwards – such that if she wanted, say, a bowl of strawberries she'd say 'seirrebwarts raeppa', Willow's style was also speech-magic, though in her case, talking in Latin. There wasn't much else he could do here, but he didn't have any pressing engagements elsewhere, and he felt bound to at least watch Willow through getting freed of the gods.

Willow finished calling up the gods and had compiled a list of items. She avoided the cemetery, though gifts still showed up on her bed which Constantine could tell she liked very much. He had no idea what they meant and didn't particularly want to know – Willow took to explaining them to Buffy and Dawn, and the Summers sisters seemed to find the gifts rather sweet. A handmade, white teddy bear, a smoky gray kitten with green eyes, which had been given to Dawn after the kid had pleaded… the gifts went on. Three days after Willow had compiled the list of items they found every single thing on the list for Goddesses stacked up neatly on the kitchen table, along with yet another white card with a dragon symbol. Sometimes the dragon on the cards was curled up, asleep, sometimes in flight, sometimes roaring. Willow collected the cards and put them in her diary.

It turned out that the 'sacrifice' was easy – Willow just had to put her hand on the thing and go "I sacrifice this to so-and-so", insert the Goddess' name and a few more flowery terms. Willow seemed more relaxed than ever when all the holds on her soul had gone, losing the normal tension she felt whenever she thought of using magic, though she admitted that other than feeling more complete than she had ever had since using magic, her power didn't seem to have diminished. Constantine shrugged and just told her that she usually wouldn't feel different in any case.

She spent time reading English-Latin texts. One annoying thing about having her own style – she needed to be more proficient in Latin.

She did, however, feel extremely guilty about ignoring the dark elf, especially after all the gifts she had actually needed that had solved her problem. Constantine was mildly worried about how he'd actually known about the items, but Willow was too happy with them to try and scrutinize the circumstances. She decided to go and see him today and thank him. Waiting until everyone was out of the house for the day, she put on tight white jeans and a spaghetti-strap soft blue blouse before realizing what she was doing, then blushed and put a dark blue cardigan over it. She wasn't dressing for the occasion… was she?

**

"It's Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!" Dawn sang cheerfully as she followed Buffy and Constantine into the Magic Box. Saturday had no school, and as far as Dawn was concerned, along with Sunday, the weekends were then holy days where she had all day to pester her sister.

Dawn grinned as she watched her sister walk to the training room to start, still wearing Spike's duster with Spike at her heels, reminding Dawn of a trained dog. The poor vampire! The game was cruel, but she had a feeling that both sides were enjoying it, which was very strange. Still, she never proclaimed an understanding of vampires. Maybe they were all masochists.

Constantine winked at Anya as he entered, and began 'harassing' a blond girl. Dawn called it harassing, at least… when she'd asked Constantine if he was using magic, he'd shaken his head and winked at her. Wondering if she could learn how to do that – on boys - she wandered around the counter to join Anya, and noticed that on the shelf under the counter, there was a bright source of light.

Looking more closely, she realized that it was the spider pendant, wedged between two things that she didn't really want to know what they were. Curiously, she picked it up – she hadn't touched it on the night it had been going around the group.

"Oh, so it's here!" she grinned at Anya. "It's pretty… "

The glow seemed to grow a lot brighter when she touched it, and then it flashed incandescent.

"Dawn!" Giles shouted in alarm. It was a little too late.

"Ouch!" Dawn dropped the spider pendant, clutching at her hand in pain. Somehow, there was a gash in her palm, as though the spider had bitten her. Mesmerized, she watched as the blood welled up, and time seemed to slow.

**

The crypt was as silent as she remembered it as she descended the stairs. This time, Nalfein was seated cross-legged on the flat surface of the intact tomb, eyes closed, one hand on each knee. The staff was leaning on the part of the tomb behind him, and the opal fire seemed to flare a bit brighter when she approached. Nalfein, however, gave no indication that he knew of her presence.

"Nalfein?" she asked tentatively.

Still as a statue. Considerably unnerved now, Willow walked more closely to him and put her hand on his, and couldn't resist caressing it a little. "Are you okay?"

When the dark elf didn't respond, Willow climbed up onto the tomb. He was still breathing, so… unless it was a trance, in which case she shouldn't interrupt… but what if whatever he was tranced for wasn't a good thing? Or was this some elvish form of sleeping? A rather dangerous kind of sleep, if he didn't wake up when she touched him… unless he relied far too much on his wards and was trusting her not to do anything to him. He had revealed previously that he had fixed it such that his wards would not work on her.

Willow studied his face closely, then on impulse, pressed her lips to his. His mouth parted immediately, and she deepened her kiss, not knowing why she was getting herself into this again – only that, by the Gods, he still tasted so good. When she broke it off, his eyes were open, and twinkling with mischief. He pulled her into his lap.

"Why, you… " Willow tried to glare, but began to giggle.

He smirked at her. "What are you here for, Willow?"

"Well, I was going to thank you for everything," Willow said, subsiding.

"Everything, beloved?" the elf chuckled, with wicked emphasis, stroking her hair. Her traitorous heart leaped at the last word.

"Yeah," Willow leaned on him and listened to his breathing. They sat like that for a while, until Willow began to feel drowsy and safe in his embrace. He seemed content to be silent and passive.

"It has begun," Nalfein murmured suddenly.

"What?"

"Nothing important," the elf replied, and kissed her deeply, one of his hands straying down her belly, rubbing her languidly through the fabric.

"Nalfein… " Willow moaned, as he seated her such that she was straddling him.

"I love you," Nalfein whispered, and murmured an apology to her in the dark elven tongue. When Willow was about to ask him what he had said, he ignored her question, occupying himself by licking at the expanse of exposed skin that her outfit showed, and then slipped off her cardigan. After that, Willow forgot that he had said anything.

**

Spike watched Buffy as she went through her practice routines with a hunter's grace – not taking off his beloved duster at any time. She was doing stretching exercises, eyes closed in concentration, her body's amazing flexibility giving Spike certain ideas that were best saved for a bedroom.

"When am I goin' to get my duster back?" He knew the answer to this, but he wanted to hear her voice.

"Never, Spike," Buffy smirked, eyes still closed arching her back, legs tucked underneath her. "I loved this thing since the first time I saw it. Now I get to spend some quality time with it at last… "

"Really." The jealousy flared, and he clenched his fists before how stupid it was hit him, and he relaxed with an effort, glad that she hadn't seen anything.

Actually, Buffy had divined that there was a sudden freezing tone in his voice, and she snickered inwardly and decided to see how much farther she could push him. "Oh yes. That's why I didn't make that much effort to kill you even when you were evil. More evil. Whatever. Sometimes vampire clothing also gets dusted. I don't understand why."

Spike didn't either, actually. "Are you sayin' that you can take me on, Buffy?"

Buffy opened her eyes as she breathed out, relaxing her body's position. "Anytime, luv," she drawled, mimicking his accent, then slowly looked him up and down. "The question is – can you take me on?"

She squealed as he pounced on her, growling, and they wrestled for a bit like some mutated pinball bouncing off equipment before she finally finished up on top, pinning his hands to his side. "Ha!" she exclaimed in triumph, cheeks flushed with the exertion. Spike didn't complain, since his current position offered an excellent view down Buffy's low-cut blouse.

"Dawn!" Giles shouted suddenly, from outside, and their heads snapped up sharply at Dawn's cry of pain. Immediately, they scrambled to their feet and ran for the door.

Outside resembled a scene plucked out of Buffy's nightmares. Dawn seemed to be frozen stiff, her right hand held up in front of her, palm facing out. From the palm, droplets of blood seemed to leave from a cut and fall horizontally, to flatten out on the space between the counter and the table, trying to create some sort of flat, grisly plane. As Buffy watched, horrified, Anya put her hand on Dawn's arm, trying to pull her away, and a crackle of dark purple fire flared, throwing the ex-demon across the room to crash into the bookshelves.

The customers fled screaming, and Constantine hurried up, eyes wide. "Christ! A friggin' Gate!"

"What?" Buffy panicked. "What happened?"

"Dawn picked up the pendant," Giles said quickly. "I saw the stone spider move. It bit her on her palm… and then this happened."

"Do something, Giles!" Buffy cried, as she crossed to the counter. Dawn's eyes were closed, in a grotesque parody of peace. "Will this kill her? Why did it bite her?"

"I think she was the key, luv," Constantine frowned. "All this time we thought it was a thing, but it turned out to be your sis."

"Why? Why her?"

"I don't know." Constantine put his hand forward into the path of the blood – or tried to. More purple fire, though this time it glanced off before it actually hit Constantine. He tried to push his hand forward, as Meri lent him shields and strength, but then Dawn started to scream in agony and he quickly backed off.

Her eyes were open now, and her features twisted as she stared at him with unmitigated hatred, the color of her pupils purple. "Constantine," she spoke, her voice a loud, cavernous boom, and then she smiled cruelly. "Do you know me?"

"The bitch queen, here at last," Constantine folded his arms.

"I will have you watch as your friends die, when I gain control of the power of this world… and then your agony would… you dare!" Dawn-Lloth roared when Constantine yawned at her.

"Heard them all before, luv," Constantine said coldly. He flashed her the Finger and his trademark sardonic grin. "And my reaction to death threats - Up yours."

As he hoped, Dawn-Lloth snarled, and brought up her other hand in a claw. Bright purple fire splashed across his shield with enough force to bring him onto his knees and bark his kneecaps. When she used the magic, however, the blood-flow seemed to slow down considerably.

: Bloody friggin' hell. Can't use offensive or might hurt Dawn. :

: When Lloth fully manifests… or even when she nears that, we won't be able to hold out any longer. This is only a tiny fraction of her power. :

: Christ. : Constantine now understood what Nalfein had meant by him not being the one who would create the Breaking – it had been Dawn's curiosity… had the dark elf known, or had he trusted it to luck? : Friggin' elves! :

"Find Willow!" Constantine shouted at the rest of them as Dawn-Lloth hit him with more energy. Willow probably wouldn't be able to help – but perhaps her dark elf 'friend' could… ah hell, who was he kidding?

Meri's shield broke with a shower of sparks, and with a sigh, Constantine allowed the phoenix to flare up into being, knowing full well that a manifestation would land him in bed for days.

: Can we summon Jarlaxle? : he asked, as Meri slashed at the blood-portal. The blood hissed and began to smoke, but Dawn-Lloth replied with an offensive that sent the both of them out through the door. Meri helped to cushion most of the shock, but Constantine still felt as though he had just been kicked in the back repeatedly. : Fuck. :

"You will rue the day you crossed me," Dawn-Lloth promised.

--

Notes and References:

Speaking backwards: Here I am referring to Constantine's friend Zatanna, who, along with her late father, use magic by speaking backwards. Both were extremely popular stage magicians. I have a suspicion Zatanna has also appeared in Batman.

Dawn: This is a Stupid Plot Device ™, brought to you by the Buffy show. Somehow, a bunch of monks made the green energy which was the Key to the evil Goddess Glorificus ripping open dimensions to go into her homeworld and in the process causing the usual end of the world thingies into a human, living girl. This girl they planted into Buffy's family, and somehow made it such that everyone associated with Buffy knew who Dawn was, and had all the memories of her as a kid, growing up, etc. Even Buffy knew, as if she had always been there. They even managed to alter photographs and all that to put Dawn in them. Impossible, if you ask me, for humans, considering the immense amount of detail they'd have had to put in, but there you are.

Spoilers for the show – Dawn's running blood would have opened the Gate, but since Dawn was of Buffy's blood, Buffy jumped into the portal, closed the gate, and died, to my intense irritation, since I like her and Dawn basically acts like an absolute brat throughout the show. Cue end of Season 5.