CHAPTER 6
Like most vampires, Jake was not a morning person. Especially not this morning.
"Goddamnit!" he screamed. "Those freakin' bastards!" He was half-walking, half-stumbling around the studio floor, a bottle of Bacardi hanging loosely from one hand. "Goddamn humans, man, staking him like it's their God-given right or something!" The one or two mouthfuls of rum left in the bottle sloshed violently with each of Jake's angry gestures. He began to sob and raised the bottle high. "Bobby, man, hope the waves in Hell are tasty," Jake said, drinking deeply. Some of the booze spilled onto his shirt, soaking into the cloth and mingling with his tears.
Walpurgis walked up to him. There was a *pish*, like a silenced bullet through a window, and Jake realized that he was now only holding the neck of the bottle. The rest was in shards on the floor, cut off by Walpurgis' sword.
"Enough," the vampire swordswoman said. "This does not help."
"Aw, dammit," Jake said drunkenly, slumping to the floor. "Me an' Bobby been riding the surf together for fifteen years, man. What am I supposed to do now?"
"Take revenge," Walpurgis said. "It will help. I know."
Jake looked up at her. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. But something began to grow behind them.
"Yes," Walpurgis said. "Let your hatred grow. Hate replaces the sadness and gives you strength."
Jake nodded. The burn of fury in his chest blacked out all other sensation, even the shards of glass that dug into his hand as he crushed the bottle stem.
-----
Tara was on a ladder, peering through jars of herbs on the higher shelves of the Magic Box. The store was deserted save for herself – Anya was off doing some sort of research on her computer, leaving Tara, who needed to be there anyway, to mind the store.
The bell over the front door jingled. "May I help y-" Tara started, before she realized who it was. "Oh. Faith."
"Hey," Faith replied. "Giles said I could use the training room out back."
"Sure," Tara said.
"What'cha doing?" Faith asked.
"Getting some things together for the enhancement spell," Tara said. She glanced down at her list. "I still need belladonna, Dragon's Eye root, and…monkey buns?" She looked closer at the paper. "Oh. Donkey bile." She held the paper up. "Willow's handwriting's a little like code."
"I know what you mean," Faith said. "I think my friend Sonya learned to write by watching her arthritic great-grandma."
"Who's Sonya?" Tara asked.
"Somebody I knew in prison. My best friend." Tara could just barely perceive a note of sadness in Faith's voice.
"You must miss her," Tara said.
"Yeah," Faith said quietly.
They were silent for the next several seconds. The only sound was the clinking of bottles and vials as Tara continued to root for supplies among the Magic Box's crowded shelves.
"I'm sorry," Faith blurted suddenly.
"Hmm?" Tara said. She had been concentrating very hard on finding what she needed and wasn't sure she had heard correctly.
"I'm sorry about what I said the first time I met you," Faith said. "When I was Buffy, I mean. There was no reason for me to make fun of you like that."
"Oh. It's-" Tara started, then stopped. Tara had been about to say it was okay, but it wasn't, really. People had mocked her speech impediment all through her younger years, which had just made her more nervous every time she spoke. The more nervous she got, the more she stuttered, creating a vicious cycle that had led her to barely speak at all for a long time. Going off to college, where the students were generally more open-minded and less casually cruel, had helped Tara begin to overcome her some of her anxiety, as had her friendship with Willow. But the night Faith insulted her, it was as if Faith had transported Tara right back to her junior high days, when kids she barely even knew yelled "T-T-Tara!" as they flew by on their bikes or skates.
And yet, Faith's apology had a surprising force to it. Faith had once been the epitome of bullies – cruel for the sake of cruelty and completely careless of anyone else's life or property, let alone their feelings – and now she was saying she was sorry. It was as if the people who had hurt Tara in the past had elected a representative to apologize for all of them. That thought made Tara feel a little bit better.
Having found what she needed on the shelves, Tara climbed down the ladder and looked at Faith for the first time since she had walked in.
"Thanks," Tara said. Faith was visibly relieved, and Tara chuckled softly.
"What?" Faith said.
"It's just, of all the people you could be apologizing to right now, why did you pick me?"
"I betrayed Giles, I choked Xander half to death, and I threatened to slash Willow's throat. Out of everyone I know in this town, I think you're the only one I CAN apologize to."
Tara hesitated more a moment, then said, "I did something once that I thought they couldn't forgive me for. I was ready to go home to my family, even though my family is pretty awful. But Buffy and everybody forgave me anyway. I mean, what I did wasn't attempted murder or anything, but…I guess what I'm saying is that I think the things you've done since you got here mean something to us. They certainly mean something to me," Tara said, thinking of Faith's attempt to protect Willow from Walpurgis.
"Thanks," Faith said. She paused, then said, "I can see why Willow likes you. She was so hyper and worried all the time. Having you around must mellow her out."
"Well, it would certainly mellow ME out if she were here right now," Tara said.
"She's gonna be okay, right?" Faith said, her brow furrowing. "Giles said she just needs to be the Girl in the Plastic Bubble for a little while. Which is not an exact quote, but you get my drift."
"I didn't mean that," Tara explained. "It's just…the enhancement spell. Willow did most of the research on it, and she's got a lot more power than me. I just wish she could be the one to cast it."
Faith nodded. "And I keep thinking about this certain blonde chick who could have handled this whole situation way better than I can." She paused. "But you know what, T? We're it. We're the ones that God or Fate or whoever put in front of Walpurgis. Maybe we're not the best ones for the job, but hey, we're the only ones." She took half a step closer to Tara. "Look I know I don't know you real well, but I know that you can do this. I trust you to do this."
"How can you know that?" Tara asked.
"It came to me in a dream."
Just then, the bell above the door jingled again, and Xander walked in. "Oh, hey," he said, seeing Faith and Tara by the door. He held out a small burlap bag to Tara. "I got the stuff you asked for."
"Thank you," Tara said, taking the bag. "How did it go at the hospital?"
"Not bad. We got Willow into a room with southern exposure, so she'll be safe for the daylight hours, but it was a little hard convincing the chaplain that a crystal-wearing gal named Rosenberg is a Catholic. Luckily, I turned on the ol' Harris charm. Which is to say that I begged. Anyway, it's done."
"What's done?" Faith asked.
Before Xander could answer, his pager went off. He took it off his belt and glanced at it; it was his own phone number, followed by "911".
"It's Anya," he said. "She probably wants me to open the register and check on the money."
Xander went behind the Magic Box's counter and grabbed the phone. Faith and Tara could only hear Xander's end of the conversation.
"Anya, what's-…Yes, I want to hear your idea…Yes, I'll check the register right now…YES, it's all there, now will you tell me the idea already?...Huh…Oh. OH. That's good. That's REALLY good." Xander glanced at his watch. "Sure, there's enough time, if I get started right now. See you later, OK? Yes, you are also my little cinnamon roll of love. Now I gotta go." Xander hung up.
"'Cinnamon roll of love?'" Faith said, raising one eyebrow.
"Well, look at the time," Xander said, looking at his watch again as he headed for the door. "See you at Giles'."
-----
The group spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon engaged in a variety of tasks. To get Faith's legs back in shape, Sarah came to the gym and guided Faith through a regimen of intense exercise alternating with brief rest and hydration breaks. To Tara, who was in the front room of the Magic Box poring over spell books and mixing ingredients, it sounded like a workout only a Slayer could survive. Anya was at the hospital looking in on Willow and making some sort of arrangements, and Giles was ensuring that there were enough crossbows, bolts, stakes, swords, and axes to go around. Xander was in his garage doing something, though no one knew exactly what.
At five o'clock that afternoon, the entire group assembled at Giles' apartment. The meeting was by Tara's request, and the purpose of it was to cast the first phase of the enhancement spell. Once everyone had arrived, Tara asked them to seat themselves in a circle on Giles' living room floor. She had taken away the coffee table and rug and put in their place a small copper cauldron, sitting on top of a Sterno flame and filling the room with the smell of herbs. The curtains were closed, so that the room was lit only by the Sterno flame, giving everyone's face a bluish cast.
"I suddenly want fondue," Anya said, looking at the setup.
Once everyone was seated Tara took a deep breath and began to explain how the spell would work. "Like I said before, the joining spell we used last year with Buffy won't work because it requires a strong bond among everyone casting it. The enhancement spell doesn't need as much of a bond, but it does require all of us to share a part of ourselves with the others."
"Whoa," Xander said, "are we talking about removal of body parts, here? 'Cause I just remembered that I need to go walk my dog. I mean, I need to go buy a dog. And then walk it. Could take a while."
"No body-part removal required," Tara said.
Tara reached behind her and picked up the small burlap bag Xander had brought her. She carefully lifted out the contents – six slate roof shingles and six long nails – and passed them around so that everyone had one piece of slate and one nail.
"On your slate," Tara said, "you need to write a secret. It should be something meaningful to you that you have never told anyone before. Scratch it on with the nail. Then put your slate back in the bag." Tara placed the bag in the middle of the circle, next to the cauldron.
The noise that emanated from the group over the next few minutes was ghastly. Six steel nails scratching against slate made for a teeth-clenching racket. The noise died out gradually as each person finished and placed his or her slate back in the burlap bag. Giles was the last to do so, after which Tara took the bag up.
"Now I'm going to pass the bag around," she said. "Each of you should take one slate from it. If you get your own slate, put it back and choose another."
"And if you can spell a word using all six slates, you get fifty bonus points," Xander added, getting no laughs and several funny looks.
"Faith, you go first," Tara said, passing her the bag. "Just take out a slate and read it to yourself. When you're done, put it face-down on the floor."
The Slayer reached in without looking, took out a slate, and looked at it. It read:
"The first time I went patrolling with Willow, I was so scared, I thought I was going to throw up. But I didn't want Willow to think that I couldn't handle it or that I didn't fit in with her other friends, so I never said anything."
Faith put the slate on the floor, writing-side down, and passed the bag to Sarah. Sarah took out another piece and read it:
"Hank Summers has something terribly special, and he treats it like it scarcely matters. For that, I hate him as much as I have ever hated anyone. And yet, justified as it is, that hatred makes me feel less human somehow, less good. And I hate that even more."
Sarah passed the bag to Giles. His slate read:
"I used to think Giles must be the smartest person in the world. I was a powerful demon, and he was just an ordinary mortal, but he still took my power away. So I thought nothing bad could ever happen to us as long as he was in charge. But he's just as lame as all of us, and I shouldn't blame him for Buffy being dead."
Giles tried to avoid looking at Anya as he passed the bag to her. Anya took out a slate that simply read:
"I never used to be scared of getting killed. Now I am."
Anya put down her slate and gave the bag to Xander. His slate read:
"If Faith hadn't improved as much as she has in the past year, I was under orders to kill her. And I believe I would have followed them."
Xander gulped and passed the bag, now with only one slate left inside, to Tara. The last slate read:
"One of these days, Anya's going to start talking about having kids. That scares me because I don't have any idea how to be a father. Other than the kind that drinks and yells a lot, that is."
Tara placed her slate on the floor. She looked back up at the group, then at the small cauldron in the middle of the circle, and finally up towards the ceiling.
"We breathe of the same essence," she said, "and we each know the heart of another. We ask you, spirits, to put the Slayer in the center of our circle. Where she has weakness, place our strength instead. Where she has doubt, place our conviction. Where she may hesitate, give her our will to act. We ask this in humility and with all our hearts."
Just as Tara finished her invocation, the cauldron, which had been merely steaming before, bubbled up to a rapid boil, filling the room with herb-scented steam. Everyone gasped sharply, feeling as if something had been drawn suddenly out of them with their breath.
The cauldron soon stopped bubbling and everyone felt normal again. Tara got up and opened the curtains.
"So that's it?" Faith asked. "I don't feel any different."
Tara picked up the bag of slates from the floor and handed them to Faith. "When the time comes, and you're about to face Walpurgis, you'll need to smash these. That's when you'll feel the effects. But don't do it too soon – I don't think the spell will last for more than a few minutes, and you'll be very weak after that."
"One-shot deal, huh?" Faith said. "Gee, and I was afraid there was going to be pressure."
Xander looked at his watch. "OK, we've got three hours to sundown. Everybody go over your parts of the plan one more time, get your weapons together, and, um, have a snack, or a nap, or something." He started for the door. "Faith, you're with me."
"He's been waiting all day to say, 'You're with me,'" Anya commented.
Xander waved for Faith to hurry up as he walked rapidly out the door.
Xander drove Faith to his apartment complex and parked his car just outside the garage door, which he opened to let himself and Faith inside, then closed it behind them. There was a red pickup truck parked in the garage with a 55-gallon drum in the flatbed.
"Nice truck," Faith said.
"My friend Tito lent it to me," Xander replied. "I told him I had to move some stuff, which wasn't exactly a lie."
"So what are we doing here?" Faith asked.
"We're here for this," Xander said. He walked to a corner of the garage, picked up what Faith first thought was a six-foot closet rod, and brought it over to her. "I made it this afternoon."
Xander handed the pole to Faith, who saw now that it was a spear of solid oak. Instead of a metal head, however, the spear simply came to a sharp, slightly blackened wooden point at one end.
"Giles told me how people used to fire-harden spear tips back before they had metal," Xander said. "I turned three of these into giant matchsticks before I got it right."
Faith hefted the spear and moved it around a bit. Xander had lightly scored the middle four feet of the spear with a knife, providing Faith with an excellent grip on the weapon. Other than these grooves, however, the shaft was flawless, with no knots or splits that were visible to the eye. Primitive though the weapon was, it had obviously been made with great care.
"Thanks," Faith said. "It's perfect."
"No prob. Practice with it some if you want – I gotta go get my crossbow."
Xander headed inside. Faith practiced a few thrusts and parries with the spear, and tried not to think too much about whether or not this meant that Xander had begun to forgive her.
-----
At seven-thirty, they all met once again at the Magic Box, where Tara grabbed a few last-minute supplies and Xander went over the plan one last time. At the end, he concluded, "Just remember, if Walpurgis comes at you, don't even think; just run. All the other vamps are fair game."
"But won't Walpurgis know this is a trap?" Anya said. "I mean, she knows we wouldn't put Willow back in the hospital without protecting her somehow."
"Right," Xander said, "but we know that she knows, so it's okay."
"Yes, but won't she know that we know that-"
There was a loud bang. Everyone jerked their heads around to see that Giles had dropped a heavy book on the counter.
"I thought it best to nip that discussion in the bud," Giles explained.
"Well," Xander said, "once we've all recovered from our heart attacks, let's mount up."
"He's been waiting to say 'mount up' for-" Anya began.
"Anya," Xander interrupted, "have you checked the register yet this afternoon?"
"Oh! I nearly forgot! So sweet of you to remind me, pookie." She gave Xander a little kiss and skipped over to the register. Faith and Tara grinned slightly at Xander, who wished he hadn't said anything.
The others gathered up their weapons and other supplies and headed out.
-----
Walpurgis sliced the air neatly with her single-hand sword, sweeping it up diagonally, then looping around and down as if she were disarming her opponent and cutting him in half in one continuous motion. Going with the momentum of her last cut, Walpurgis turned gracefully and beheaded a second invisible adversary, then a third, on and on, with an elegant parsimony of motion that made Jake's mouth hang open. When she finished, she turned and faced him.
"Whoa," he said.
"If that was a compliment, then thank you," Walpurgis replied.
"I don't get it," Jake said "Why do you even need to practice?"
"No one is untouchable," Walpurgis answered. "The streets of this town are choked with the dust of those who thought otherwise."
Jake glanced up at the only window in the room – a small, high one near the ceiling. "Sun's down," he said. "We gonna go soon?"
"No."
"What?"
"We will wait. Humans are not at their best late at night; we will go in the early hours of the morning."
"You think they're waiting for us?"
"Of course they are. That is what I would do."
"Whatever you say," Jake replied. "As long as I get the one who did Bobby."
"You will have your chance," Walpurgis replied. "Now, go and tell the others that they are to be ready at two o'clock."
"Yes ma'am," Jake replied, with a growl of anticipation.
-----
Xander was on his third coffee run of the night. Bleary-eyed, he marched towards the hospital cafeteria, where he would order several more styrofoam cups of the most potent motor oil that cafeteria science could concoct.
Just then, the walkie-talkie in Xander's jacket squawked. Willow's use of magical telepathy in their battle with Glory had convinced Xander that communications among the group were of critical importance. Plus he got to use cool code names and stuff.
"Rat's Nest, this is..." the voice from the radio began. "Um, what am I called again?"
"Eagle's Nest, Anya, you're Eagle's Nest," Xander sighed.
"Oh, yeah. Anyway, I'm cold and sleepy. Bring me coffee immediately."
"Coffee on the way. Anything to report?"
"No boogers sighted."
"Bogeys."
"Right. No bogeys. Is this how modern males assert their dominance, by making up words that women aren't supposed to know?"
"Anya, you're breaking up," Xander said, clicking the TALK button up and down several times. "I'll talk to you when I get to the roof."
Maybe this is Walpurgis' master plan, Xander thought as he put the radio back into his jacket pocket. She can just wait to attack until after we drive each other crazy.
-----
Walpurgis led a group of more than a dozen vampires down a dark, dripping sewer tunnel. She had studied carefully several maps of the town's extensive tunnel system, and she was impressed with both the size and navigability of it. Clearly, Sunnydale's founders had intended for there to be a certain amount of traffic down here. It pleased Walpurgis that so much of the job of creating an underground metropolis had already been done.
Just up ahead, her dark-adapted eyes could pick out several small shafts of light filtering down from above. Moving as quietly as possible, she moved up to see that the light was coming through a large sewer grate. This was it.
Two of her followers boosted Walpurgis up. She lifted the grate slightly and peered through the crack between the pavement and the metal. There was nothing to see but black tires against gray concrete. She could hear the echo of distant footsteps, voices, and car engines, but no particular sounds stood out.
Walpurgis gave an all-clear gesture to the vampires below her, who passed it on to the others. Then she pushed the grate aside and climbed to the surface. Once she was up, one of the others passed her shield to her. Her sword hung from her hip; the time for stealth ended now.
It was then that Walpurgis noticed two significant things. One was an odd smell that she did not recognize. The other was the sound of someone stepping through the doorway of a nearby stairwell.
"Guys, I brought some more- Oh crap!" cried the young man who emerged from the stairwell. He had been carrying four styrofoam cups of coffee; he dropped these at his feet, then leaped back to avoid being splashed by the hot liquid.
"You," Walpurgis said, "are the boy who shot at me."
"Oh," Xander said, sounding terribly nervous. "Yeah, I guess that was me."
"How did you know I would come this way?" she asked.
"You were a forest bandit, right? Like Robin Hood, but without the pesky giving to the poor? Somebody like that doesn't drive up to the battlefield in a great big surfmobile, WALPURGIS," he finished loudly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Walpurgis saw movement in the bed of a red pickup truck parked behind her. The bed was covered in a tarp, which was yanked away by the man and two women hiding underneath it. At the rear of the bed was a metal barrel, standing upright. As one of the women released a latch to let the tailgate down, the other woman and the man shoved the barrel off the back of the truck. There was no lid on the barrel; the clear liquid inside poured rapidly onto the concrete and followed the slight slant of the pavement into the sewer.
"What is that?" Walpurgis asked, backing off. She could hear a commotion below; it seemed that her minions recognized the fluid, even if Walpurgis herself did not.
"My own refreshing blend of gasoline and kerosene," the young man said in the doorway said, casually reaching one hand behind him. "Oh, and may I offer the lady a light?"
The boy pulled out a gun of some kind and fired it at the ground. A red flash streaked from the end of the gun and struck the liquid, causing it to burst into flame. Walpurgis heard running and yelling in the sewer below.
"Flare gun," Xander said. "Don't leave port without it."
"You will die now," Walpurgis said simply. She drew her sword and charged at Xander. Xander, never one to ignore his own advice, turned and ran like hell up the stairs with Walpurgis in hot pursuit.
-----
Walpurgis chased Xander up five flights of stairs before she realized that she was losing her focus. She was not here to kill the boy, but to take the young witch. For all Walpurgis knew, the boy was purposely diverting her, or leading her into a trap. Therefore, upon reaching the fourth floor of the hospital, Walpurgis stopped running, sheathed her weapon, and walked through the stairwell doors into the very same corridor where she had broken the Slayer's legs just one night ago.
Which was why Walpurgis found it so odd to see the Slayer standing right there in the hallway.
The dark-haired girl was leaning against the wall next to an open janitor's closet. In her left hand, she held a burlap bag with something heavy inside. Upon seeing Walpurgis, the Slayer reached her right hand into the closet and pulled out a six-foot spear.
"Even a Slayer does not heal so fast," Walpurgis said. "You used magic, yes?"
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Faith replied. With that, she whipped the burlap bag to the side and smashed whatever was inside against the wall.
-----
Jake led six other vampires – those who had not been either incinerated or frightened away by Xander's petrochemical cocktail – up through a manhole just outside the hospital building. It was more exposed than the sewer grate, but the manhole clearly offered the safer path.
Anxious for revenge, or just some good old-fashioned carnage, the vampires half-ran into the parking garage and down the ramp to the bottom level, where their enemies awaited. Jake knew the humans were armed and had all manner of tricks up their sleeves, but the vampires had both strength and numbers on their side. They would drink their enemies' blood tonight, whatever the cost.
The vampires turned the corner, ready to face the axes and arrows of their opponents. Instead, however, they saw the four humans leaning against cars or on all fours on the ground, retching violently.
"Dude," Jake said to no one in particular as a smile grew on his face, "they're pukin'."
-----
The rush Faith felt when the slates shattered was like the vertiginous thrill of a 200-foot bungee-jump. Every single nerve tingled wildly. Her vision was suddenly so clear she could see every edge, line, and shadow in the hallway in perfect detail, her hearing so acute that she could count the number of separate conversations, beeping monitors, and hissing oxygen tanks in the entire ward.
Faith looked at Walpurgis, aware of every detail – the scratches on the surface of her shield, the way her jacket didn't quite fit her shoulders, and the eyes that were such a dark brown that the light seemed to fall into them and never emerge again. Walpurgis raised her sword and shield and advanced cautiously, apparently aware that something about Faith had changed since their last encounter.
All right, Faith thought, we've got the longer weapon, and we're in a nice, narrow hallway. Let's keep her at a distance.
She lowered the point of her spear to the level of Walpurgis' chest. As soon as the vampire stepped into range, Faith faked a thrust at Walpurgis' neck, just above the rim of the shield, then yanked the point down and went for her leg instead. Walpurgis whipped her sword violently downward, knocking the spear point aside. The vampire charged forward, forcing Faith to run backwards to get her spear point up again before Walpurgis could close the distance.
Think, think, Faith said to herself. The problem was that Walpurgis' shield covered most of her torso. That only left the legs and head as targets, both of which Walpurgis could protect with her sword.
Before Faith could decide what to do next, Walpurgis slapped the point of Faith's spear to the side with her sword and held it away with her shield as she ran in for the kill. Faith backpedaled as fast as she could, but it was no use; the vampire was advancing too rapidly. In desperation, Faith choked up on the spear and swung the butt end around to set aside Walpurgis' incoming sword thrust. Walpurgis quickly brought her sword up and around for a downward cut. Faith lifted her spear over her head and took one more step back to protect herself.
The sword blade sheared straight through the center of Faith's spear and missed Faith's skin by less than an inch. The Slayer was intact, but now her back was against the wall at the end of the corridor, and her spear had become a pair of sticks.
Walpurgis swung her shield around and smashed Faith across the face with the edge. Instinctively, Faith sprang sideways, letting the blow's momentum assist her and avoiding the sword cut that followed.
Then Faith turned and ran away.
-----
Walpurgis watched the Slayer flee. Clearly, the young woman had used some kind of enchantment to increase her power, but it still wasn't enough to overcome Walpurgis' speed and skill. Nonetheless, Walpurgis reminded herself that her purpose here was to turn the witch, not to kill another Slayer.
She walked back down the hall, towards Willow's unguarded room.
-----
The vampires gathered around the four vomiting humans. Jake had thought at first that it might be some kind of trick, but he couldn't imagine anybody performing such a bodacious technicolor yawn just to lure in an enemy.
Jake quickly selected a target – the woman who had killed Bobby. He walked up to her and waited, not wanting to get puke on his Birkenstocks. When it seemed she had finally finished vomiting, Jake grasped her by the shoulders and yanked her up until her toes hung a few inches above the ground. Her eyes opened and her alertness seemed to return as she realized the danger she was in.
"I hope it wasn't something you ate," he said, his anger rising at the memory of Bobby bursting into dust by this woman's hand, "'cause it's snack time. Say goodnight." He pulled her closer and bared his fangs for the kill.
"Goodnight," the Watcher said, right before she head-butted Jake in the face. Taken by surprise, Jake dropped her and staggered back. Sarah kneed him in the groin, then grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head down, and smashed her elbow against the back of his neck. Jake fell to the ground.
The other six vampires closed in. Sarah threw a kick at one, but it was blocked and then they were on her. The Watcher was soon held fast by five pairs of unnaturally strong hands. A sixth pair came up to her temples, grasping her head for a fatal neck break.
At least, she thought, I won't outlive my Slayer.
-----
Walpurgis entered Willow's room and looked down at the young witch. She appeared to be sleeping. Her face was pale and slightly puffy with illness, and an IV slowly dripped liquid into her veins. Walpurgis had seen IVs on television – there were so many programs set in hospitals – and understood that they kept patients from dying of thirst when they were too weak to drink. That was good. She didn't like her blood too thick.
The vampire reached down and gave Willow's disorderly red hair an almost loving stroke. "Welcome to the family, my child," she whispered as her eyes changed from brown to yellow. She leaned down and sank her fangs deep into Willow's neck. The young woman whimpered softly.
Walpurgis drank deeply. The power in the witch's blood added to its flavor, making it simultaneously smooth and heady. And...spicy?
She pulled her head away. There was a tingling in her mouth and throat that quickly became a burning sensation, like she'd eaten a spoonful of black pepper. The feeling worked its way down into her stomach, becoming more agonizing every second.
Walpurgis ran to the sink next to the hospital room's small lavatory and coughed up as much of the blood as she could. It hurt even more coming up than it did going down, but Walpurgis knew that whatever was in it would do less harm outside her than in.
"What's the matter?" came a weak voice from the bed. "You don't like it hot?"
"What..." Walpurgis sputtered, trying to get her breath, "what did you do?"
Willow pointed to her IV. "The Catholic chaplain blessed all my saline for today. I've been getting nothing but holy water for fourteen hours." The girl's eyes narrowed. "Now find someone else to adopt."
Just then, Walpurgis saw Willow's eyes flick towards the door. Sensing danger, the vampire turned and raised her shield blindly. There was a thunk as the sharp end of what was once Faith's spear hit the shield dead center, right Walpurgis' heart would have been had she not moved.
In a single motion, Walpurgis drew her sword and slashed at Faith's midsection. Faith pulled her hips back and whipped her other spear fragment down at Walpurgis' head. The vampire raised her shield, blocking the blow.
Walpurgis pressed forward, swinging her sword again and again. She circled and looped the blade in a series of cuts so fast and forceful that Faith was forced to retreat, using her sticks as best she could to ward off the rapid-fire attacks.
Faith backed out the door to Willow's room. The vampire could not swing her sword in the narrow doorway, so she switched to thrusts, jabbing at Faith's face, legs, and torso, continuing to force the Slayer back.
She's like a possessed sewing machine, Faith thought crazily. And I'm gonna be the one with the stitches if I don't get moving.
Faith retreated faster, then turned and accelerated into a full run. This time, Walpurgis gave chase.
-----
Sarah felt the hands close tightly around her head. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tight.
Then the hands were gone. Instead, there was only dust raining lightly down onto her shoulders and neck. Sarah turned her head to see Giles standing behind her with a stake in his hand. Then Tara's voice cried, "Caecate!" and two vampires suddenly let go of and put their hands to their eyes, howling and staggering blindly away.
The three vampires still holding onto Sarah let go and turned to face their new attackers. One punched Giles in the jaw and knocked him out, but the grin of satisfaction ran away from its twisted face as it felt the sharp point of a crossbow bolt penetrate its chest. The vampire caught a glimpse of Anya reloading in the stairwell doorway before the vamp collapsed into dust.
Another vampire charged at Tara but was blindsided by Xander. The young carpenter pulled the vamp to the ground and staked it before it could recover.
The third vampire threw a punch at Sarah's face. She backed up and blocked, then caught the monster's wrist, twisting it painfully and almost forcing the vampire to the ground. But the creature was too strong; it yanked its arm back so hard that Sarah was pulled head-first into the side of a parked car. She slumped to the ground.
The vampire growled and looked up to see what enemies were left. Xander was still on the ground, and Anya was fumbling with her crossbow, but Tara was raising her arm for another spell. The vamp went for her, moving with supernatural speed. Its fingers were only inches from her throat when she cried "Pulsare!"
There was a blue flash, and the vamp flew back as if it had been hit in the chest with a troll hammer. The vampire crashed head-first through the windshield of a parked sedan. Before the creature could extricate its head and shoulders from the mass of ruined glass, Tara ran forward and staked the vampire where it lay on the hood of the car.
Xander and Anya, for their part, hurried over and finished off the two blinded vampires. Then the three Scoobies surrounded Jake, who still lay on the ground clutching his crotch. He looked up at them with a mix of pain and confusion on his face. "What the hell..." he began.
"Well," Anya said with a hint of bitterness, "SOMEONE didn't tell us that her enhancement spell mainly enhances your ability to vomit."
"An," Xander said, "when the vampire asks 'What the hell', you don't actually answer, you just stake him."
"No way, little dude," Jake said. The vampire spun on his hip like a breakdancer and swept Xander's feet out from under him. As Xander fell awkwardly to the concrete, Jake made a grab for Tara's ankle. Tara pulled away, and Anya stomped on Jake's groin.
"AAAAAAGH!" Jake screamed, grabbing for his abused genitals again. Xander climbed on top of Jake and jammed a stake into the vampire's heart, causing the fiend to stop screaming and look up at him.
"That was totally uncool," Jake said as he crumbled into dust.
"Okay," Xander said. "Let's get Giles and Sarah upstairs before we get busted for vandalizing the parking garage."
-----
Faith turned a corner and booked down the hall with Walpurgis only two steps behind. The Slayer ran straight for the doors at the end of the corridor, over which a sign read "Diagnostic Radiology".
She sprinted through the waiting room and burst through a door marked "Staff Only". Behind the door was a long, dark room where the only light came from several computer monitors set in front of some large windows that looked in on other rooms. There was no one here at this late hour.
Faith crashed through one more door, ending up in one of the windowed rooms. A huge, tubular machine sat in the center of the dimly-lit chamber like a giant beer barrel with a table rammed through its center.
From here, there was nowhere to run. As Walpurgis pursued Faith into the room, Faith turned and held up her sticks. She circled backwards and around the machine, keeping a partial barrier between herself and Walpurgis.
"All of this has gained you nothing," Walpurgis said. "I will defeat you, and then I will take the witch with me and make her drink until the holy water is flushed out of her. Then I will turn her, and she will sit at my right hand when I make this place my own."
"Yeah, whatever," Faith said. "You wanna kill me? Get in line."
"No," Walpurgis said. "I don't want to kill you. As I have said, kill one Slayer and another comes. I will only hurt you. Just enough, perhaps, that your body will never obey you again. Others will have to feed you, bathe you, change your diapers. Or perhaps," she said, lowering her voice, "you will simply never wake up."
Faith stifled a gasp. Whatever computer whiz had hacked into Willow's hospital records for Walpurgis had also accessed Faith's.
"Okay," Faith said, trying not to look rattled, "I'm figuring there's an 'if' coming up. Like you won't do any of this if I get out of town, or if I become your follower or your personal hairstylist or something. Which you could kind of use."
"No," Walpurgis said. "There is no if. Only when." She swung her sword up and around so forcefully and unexpectedly that it knocked one of Faith's sticks right out of the Slayer's hand. Faith retreated further behind the machine as Walpurgis reached over the table with a wide horizontal cut. The Slayer danced backwards, away from the sword point; the blade smashed into the barrel-shaped structure that covered the rest of the table.
And stuck there.
Walpurgis pulled on the handle of the sword, but even her vampire strength could barely move it. And, the moment she put her shield arm against the machine for leverage, the shield became stuck as well, clinging to the barrel by the metal studs that dotted the shield's surface.
"What is this?" Walpurgis breathed.
"What?" Faith replied. "They didn't have big honking magnets in the Middle Ages?"
Walpurgis was visibly irritated. "I do not need a sword to deal with you," she said. The vampire leaped up and over the top of the MRI machine and landed right in front of Faith.
Go for the head, Faith thought. She swung her remaining stick at Walpurgis' temple, but the vampire was still too fast. She stepped inside the arc of the swing, caught Faith's wrist, and twisted it sharply. Faith cried out in pain and dropped the stick, but reflexively countered with a kick to Walpurgis' face. Walpurgis staggered back and raised her fists, waiting.
The memory of her dream came back to Faith. You have to trust everyone, Buffy had said. Especially yourself.
Faith backed off, giving herself time to think. I've been doing it all wrong, she realized. I've been so worried about not being able to take Walpurgis that I've been THINKING about what to do instead of just trusting myself to do it.
The Slayer took in a deep breath and let it out. Her tense shoulders sank as Faith's body dropped into a lower, more relaxed posture. She looked Walpurgis in the eye.
For the first time ever, the vampire looked concerned.
With a yell, Faith leaped forward and attacked, throwing rapid combinations of kicks and punches that her years of training and experience had drilled into her. Walpurgis was suddenly on the defensive. What attacks she did make, the Slayer blocked and countered instinctively.
Faith landed a roundhouse kick to Walpurgis' ribs, a spinning back fist to the side of her head, and a knee strike to the stomach, forcing Walpurgis to bend forward. The Slayer wrapped her arm around Walpurgis' neck and sank her whole body weight down, forcing the vampire to the floor.
"How?" Walpurgis gasped. "No one is…so fast."
"No," Faith agreed as she reached out and grasped one of her lost sticks. "No one is."
She drove the stick straight through Walpurgis' spine, through the heart, and out the other side. Without a sound, Walpurgis collapsed into dust.
-----
Xander, Anya, and Tara had checked Giles and Sarah and found them to be perfectly alive. Xander volunteered to go upstairs and get somebody from the ER to come down and wheel them up for the usual round of neurological exams that were part of the now-familiar head trauma vacation package. Just as Xander was heading for the stairwell, however, the three Scoobies heard a familiar voice, male and somewhat high-pitched, from the garage entrance.
"My goodness," the voice said. "You've really made a mess in here." Three heads turned to see a short, slender, gray-haired man in a black suit walking towards them with a familiar expression of mild bemusement.
"Doc," Xander said.
The whites of the small man's eyes went black as they turned on Tara. "No more magic today, dear," he said in an eerily conversational tone. "Why don't you take a nap?"
Tara grabbed for a crystal in her pocket and began to shout some Latin phrase, but Doc's tongue snaked out and seized her around the throat, choking off her incantation. The powerful cord of muscle flung Tara sideways into a cement column and knocked her out cold.
Xander pulled out a stake, the only weapon he had on him, and Anya glanced around for her crossbow. Doc walked calmly up to them and opened his left hand, which he had kept closed until now. In his palm was a small pile of silver-black dust. As Xander raised his stake and Anya prepared to make a dash for her bow, Doc blew the dust into their faces.
"Now," the demon-man said, "come with me."
"No!" Anya said firmly. "I mean, I'm not…I…" her voice trailed off. "Yes, master."
"Yes, my lord," Xander said.
"Good, good," Doc said, nodding with satisfaction. "We're going to go see a very old friend of mine."
-----
Faith lay on the floor of the MRI room. She had rolled out of the pile of dust that was once Walpurgis, but that was about all she could manage. Tara hadn't been kidding when she'd said that Faith would be weak when the enhancement spell expired.
The Slayer heard the door open. She hoped that it was one of the Scoobies rather than, say, a security guard, to whom all the weapons and dust would be hard to explain. Faith looked up to see Xander and Anya walk through the door, followed by a small, older man she didn't recognize. Xander and Anya stared straight ahead while the man looked around the room.
"Oh, dear," the man said when he spied the sword, shield, and big pile of dust on the floor. "This is very upsetting."
"Who are you?" Faith asked.
Doc ignored the question. "She said it was like Hell, you know. Being at the bottom of the ocean where nothing lives, not even the light. It took her a long time to reach the surface and get onto dry land again. That's not so hard when you don't have to breathe, but having to stay far enough under water to hide from the sun for twelve hours a day was a bit maddening for her, I think.
"We'd been friends back in the old days, you see. That's why she came to me. She was very weak from all her time in the water, so I brought her here, to the Hellmouth. You'd be surprised how good this place is for a demon's health; Sunnydale is a Lourdes for the lower beings.
"And now you've killed her. Just like they-" he gestured to Xander and Anya "-killed my god. So here's my solution: You'll die, and they'll be punished for your murder."
Doc reached each of his hands into the opposite sleeve and pulled out a pair of long knives. He put one in Xander's hand, and the other in Anya's.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" Xander asked robotically. Doc gave him an odd look.
"Kill her," he said. "Both of you, kill her."
Faith watched them approach. She was still very weak. If she used all her strength, she might be able to trip Xander up with her legs, and maybe even make him fall on Anya. But that would still leave her at the demon's mercy.
"You really shouldn't have invested all your strength in one battle," Doc said with false sympathy. "Now you have nothing left for this one."
"I have one thing left," Faith said.
"Oh? And what's that?"
"Trust."
Xander suddenly pushed Anya aside. Then, before Doc could do more than look puzzled, Xander turned and shoved his knife straight into Doc's gut.
The demon screeched inhumanly and grasped at the knife. Xander punched him in the face, making Doc fall halfway onto the MRI table. Xander grabbed Doc's collar and punched him again and again as he shouted, "I'm gonna say this one more time: No! More! BUTTMONKEY!"
He threw Doc to the floor and grabbed Walpurgis' sword. With one stroke, Xander cut off the demon's head. The head rolled into the corner of the room.
"This won't do at all," the head said.
The face turned as black as the eyes and the head melted into a thick, oily substance that resembled nothing so much as hospital coffee. The body also liquefied, save for the black suit, which was soaked with the stuff.
"Hoo," Xander said. "Glad I'm not responsible for THAT dry-cleaning bill."
Anya had dropped her knife and seemed to be coming around. "Wha- what happened?"
"Evil demon mind control," Xander said. "Always a good time."
He reached his hand down to Faith and pulled her onto her feet. Xander and Anya let Faith put her arms around their shoulders for support.
"I knew it," Faith said to Xander. "I knew you weren't really under his control. Not when you did that 'What is thy bidding' bit."
"It's good to be well-versed in the classics," Xander said smugly.
"But how did you do it?" Anya asked. "How did you keep that dust from affecting you?"
"It wasn't easy," Xander admitted. "Remember when Dracula came to town and turned me into his spider-eating man-bitch?"
Faith raised an eyebrow. That was a story she was going to have to hear sometime.
"After that," Xander continued, "I started reading up on mind control spells at the Magic Box. Especially about how to resist them. The books all said that you need to find a thought – something that will stay in your mind no matter what – and play it over and over again in your head, so you block out anything else that tries to get in there."
"But that's extremely difficult, Xander," Anya said. "What thought could you have that would be so hard to dislodge from your mind?"
"'Everybody have fun tonight,'" Xander recited, "'everybody Wang Chung tonight.'"
END CHAPTER 6
Like most vampires, Jake was not a morning person. Especially not this morning.
"Goddamnit!" he screamed. "Those freakin' bastards!" He was half-walking, half-stumbling around the studio floor, a bottle of Bacardi hanging loosely from one hand. "Goddamn humans, man, staking him like it's their God-given right or something!" The one or two mouthfuls of rum left in the bottle sloshed violently with each of Jake's angry gestures. He began to sob and raised the bottle high. "Bobby, man, hope the waves in Hell are tasty," Jake said, drinking deeply. Some of the booze spilled onto his shirt, soaking into the cloth and mingling with his tears.
Walpurgis walked up to him. There was a *pish*, like a silenced bullet through a window, and Jake realized that he was now only holding the neck of the bottle. The rest was in shards on the floor, cut off by Walpurgis' sword.
"Enough," the vampire swordswoman said. "This does not help."
"Aw, dammit," Jake said drunkenly, slumping to the floor. "Me an' Bobby been riding the surf together for fifteen years, man. What am I supposed to do now?"
"Take revenge," Walpurgis said. "It will help. I know."
Jake looked up at her. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. But something began to grow behind them.
"Yes," Walpurgis said. "Let your hatred grow. Hate replaces the sadness and gives you strength."
Jake nodded. The burn of fury in his chest blacked out all other sensation, even the shards of glass that dug into his hand as he crushed the bottle stem.
-----
Tara was on a ladder, peering through jars of herbs on the higher shelves of the Magic Box. The store was deserted save for herself – Anya was off doing some sort of research on her computer, leaving Tara, who needed to be there anyway, to mind the store.
The bell over the front door jingled. "May I help y-" Tara started, before she realized who it was. "Oh. Faith."
"Hey," Faith replied. "Giles said I could use the training room out back."
"Sure," Tara said.
"What'cha doing?" Faith asked.
"Getting some things together for the enhancement spell," Tara said. She glanced down at her list. "I still need belladonna, Dragon's Eye root, and…monkey buns?" She looked closer at the paper. "Oh. Donkey bile." She held the paper up. "Willow's handwriting's a little like code."
"I know what you mean," Faith said. "I think my friend Sonya learned to write by watching her arthritic great-grandma."
"Who's Sonya?" Tara asked.
"Somebody I knew in prison. My best friend." Tara could just barely perceive a note of sadness in Faith's voice.
"You must miss her," Tara said.
"Yeah," Faith said quietly.
They were silent for the next several seconds. The only sound was the clinking of bottles and vials as Tara continued to root for supplies among the Magic Box's crowded shelves.
"I'm sorry," Faith blurted suddenly.
"Hmm?" Tara said. She had been concentrating very hard on finding what she needed and wasn't sure she had heard correctly.
"I'm sorry about what I said the first time I met you," Faith said. "When I was Buffy, I mean. There was no reason for me to make fun of you like that."
"Oh. It's-" Tara started, then stopped. Tara had been about to say it was okay, but it wasn't, really. People had mocked her speech impediment all through her younger years, which had just made her more nervous every time she spoke. The more nervous she got, the more she stuttered, creating a vicious cycle that had led her to barely speak at all for a long time. Going off to college, where the students were generally more open-minded and less casually cruel, had helped Tara begin to overcome her some of her anxiety, as had her friendship with Willow. But the night Faith insulted her, it was as if Faith had transported Tara right back to her junior high days, when kids she barely even knew yelled "T-T-Tara!" as they flew by on their bikes or skates.
And yet, Faith's apology had a surprising force to it. Faith had once been the epitome of bullies – cruel for the sake of cruelty and completely careless of anyone else's life or property, let alone their feelings – and now she was saying she was sorry. It was as if the people who had hurt Tara in the past had elected a representative to apologize for all of them. That thought made Tara feel a little bit better.
Having found what she needed on the shelves, Tara climbed down the ladder and looked at Faith for the first time since she had walked in.
"Thanks," Tara said. Faith was visibly relieved, and Tara chuckled softly.
"What?" Faith said.
"It's just, of all the people you could be apologizing to right now, why did you pick me?"
"I betrayed Giles, I choked Xander half to death, and I threatened to slash Willow's throat. Out of everyone I know in this town, I think you're the only one I CAN apologize to."
Tara hesitated more a moment, then said, "I did something once that I thought they couldn't forgive me for. I was ready to go home to my family, even though my family is pretty awful. But Buffy and everybody forgave me anyway. I mean, what I did wasn't attempted murder or anything, but…I guess what I'm saying is that I think the things you've done since you got here mean something to us. They certainly mean something to me," Tara said, thinking of Faith's attempt to protect Willow from Walpurgis.
"Thanks," Faith said. She paused, then said, "I can see why Willow likes you. She was so hyper and worried all the time. Having you around must mellow her out."
"Well, it would certainly mellow ME out if she were here right now," Tara said.
"She's gonna be okay, right?" Faith said, her brow furrowing. "Giles said she just needs to be the Girl in the Plastic Bubble for a little while. Which is not an exact quote, but you get my drift."
"I didn't mean that," Tara explained. "It's just…the enhancement spell. Willow did most of the research on it, and she's got a lot more power than me. I just wish she could be the one to cast it."
Faith nodded. "And I keep thinking about this certain blonde chick who could have handled this whole situation way better than I can." She paused. "But you know what, T? We're it. We're the ones that God or Fate or whoever put in front of Walpurgis. Maybe we're not the best ones for the job, but hey, we're the only ones." She took half a step closer to Tara. "Look I know I don't know you real well, but I know that you can do this. I trust you to do this."
"How can you know that?" Tara asked.
"It came to me in a dream."
Just then, the bell above the door jingled again, and Xander walked in. "Oh, hey," he said, seeing Faith and Tara by the door. He held out a small burlap bag to Tara. "I got the stuff you asked for."
"Thank you," Tara said, taking the bag. "How did it go at the hospital?"
"Not bad. We got Willow into a room with southern exposure, so she'll be safe for the daylight hours, but it was a little hard convincing the chaplain that a crystal-wearing gal named Rosenberg is a Catholic. Luckily, I turned on the ol' Harris charm. Which is to say that I begged. Anyway, it's done."
"What's done?" Faith asked.
Before Xander could answer, his pager went off. He took it off his belt and glanced at it; it was his own phone number, followed by "911".
"It's Anya," he said. "She probably wants me to open the register and check on the money."
Xander went behind the Magic Box's counter and grabbed the phone. Faith and Tara could only hear Xander's end of the conversation.
"Anya, what's-…Yes, I want to hear your idea…Yes, I'll check the register right now…YES, it's all there, now will you tell me the idea already?...Huh…Oh. OH. That's good. That's REALLY good." Xander glanced at his watch. "Sure, there's enough time, if I get started right now. See you later, OK? Yes, you are also my little cinnamon roll of love. Now I gotta go." Xander hung up.
"'Cinnamon roll of love?'" Faith said, raising one eyebrow.
"Well, look at the time," Xander said, looking at his watch again as he headed for the door. "See you at Giles'."
-----
The group spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon engaged in a variety of tasks. To get Faith's legs back in shape, Sarah came to the gym and guided Faith through a regimen of intense exercise alternating with brief rest and hydration breaks. To Tara, who was in the front room of the Magic Box poring over spell books and mixing ingredients, it sounded like a workout only a Slayer could survive. Anya was at the hospital looking in on Willow and making some sort of arrangements, and Giles was ensuring that there were enough crossbows, bolts, stakes, swords, and axes to go around. Xander was in his garage doing something, though no one knew exactly what.
At five o'clock that afternoon, the entire group assembled at Giles' apartment. The meeting was by Tara's request, and the purpose of it was to cast the first phase of the enhancement spell. Once everyone had arrived, Tara asked them to seat themselves in a circle on Giles' living room floor. She had taken away the coffee table and rug and put in their place a small copper cauldron, sitting on top of a Sterno flame and filling the room with the smell of herbs. The curtains were closed, so that the room was lit only by the Sterno flame, giving everyone's face a bluish cast.
"I suddenly want fondue," Anya said, looking at the setup.
Once everyone was seated Tara took a deep breath and began to explain how the spell would work. "Like I said before, the joining spell we used last year with Buffy won't work because it requires a strong bond among everyone casting it. The enhancement spell doesn't need as much of a bond, but it does require all of us to share a part of ourselves with the others."
"Whoa," Xander said, "are we talking about removal of body parts, here? 'Cause I just remembered that I need to go walk my dog. I mean, I need to go buy a dog. And then walk it. Could take a while."
"No body-part removal required," Tara said.
Tara reached behind her and picked up the small burlap bag Xander had brought her. She carefully lifted out the contents – six slate roof shingles and six long nails – and passed them around so that everyone had one piece of slate and one nail.
"On your slate," Tara said, "you need to write a secret. It should be something meaningful to you that you have never told anyone before. Scratch it on with the nail. Then put your slate back in the bag." Tara placed the bag in the middle of the circle, next to the cauldron.
The noise that emanated from the group over the next few minutes was ghastly. Six steel nails scratching against slate made for a teeth-clenching racket. The noise died out gradually as each person finished and placed his or her slate back in the burlap bag. Giles was the last to do so, after which Tara took the bag up.
"Now I'm going to pass the bag around," she said. "Each of you should take one slate from it. If you get your own slate, put it back and choose another."
"And if you can spell a word using all six slates, you get fifty bonus points," Xander added, getting no laughs and several funny looks.
"Faith, you go first," Tara said, passing her the bag. "Just take out a slate and read it to yourself. When you're done, put it face-down on the floor."
The Slayer reached in without looking, took out a slate, and looked at it. It read:
"The first time I went patrolling with Willow, I was so scared, I thought I was going to throw up. But I didn't want Willow to think that I couldn't handle it or that I didn't fit in with her other friends, so I never said anything."
Faith put the slate on the floor, writing-side down, and passed the bag to Sarah. Sarah took out another piece and read it:
"Hank Summers has something terribly special, and he treats it like it scarcely matters. For that, I hate him as much as I have ever hated anyone. And yet, justified as it is, that hatred makes me feel less human somehow, less good. And I hate that even more."
Sarah passed the bag to Giles. His slate read:
"I used to think Giles must be the smartest person in the world. I was a powerful demon, and he was just an ordinary mortal, but he still took my power away. So I thought nothing bad could ever happen to us as long as he was in charge. But he's just as lame as all of us, and I shouldn't blame him for Buffy being dead."
Giles tried to avoid looking at Anya as he passed the bag to her. Anya took out a slate that simply read:
"I never used to be scared of getting killed. Now I am."
Anya put down her slate and gave the bag to Xander. His slate read:
"If Faith hadn't improved as much as she has in the past year, I was under orders to kill her. And I believe I would have followed them."
Xander gulped and passed the bag, now with only one slate left inside, to Tara. The last slate read:
"One of these days, Anya's going to start talking about having kids. That scares me because I don't have any idea how to be a father. Other than the kind that drinks and yells a lot, that is."
Tara placed her slate on the floor. She looked back up at the group, then at the small cauldron in the middle of the circle, and finally up towards the ceiling.
"We breathe of the same essence," she said, "and we each know the heart of another. We ask you, spirits, to put the Slayer in the center of our circle. Where she has weakness, place our strength instead. Where she has doubt, place our conviction. Where she may hesitate, give her our will to act. We ask this in humility and with all our hearts."
Just as Tara finished her invocation, the cauldron, which had been merely steaming before, bubbled up to a rapid boil, filling the room with herb-scented steam. Everyone gasped sharply, feeling as if something had been drawn suddenly out of them with their breath.
The cauldron soon stopped bubbling and everyone felt normal again. Tara got up and opened the curtains.
"So that's it?" Faith asked. "I don't feel any different."
Tara picked up the bag of slates from the floor and handed them to Faith. "When the time comes, and you're about to face Walpurgis, you'll need to smash these. That's when you'll feel the effects. But don't do it too soon – I don't think the spell will last for more than a few minutes, and you'll be very weak after that."
"One-shot deal, huh?" Faith said. "Gee, and I was afraid there was going to be pressure."
Xander looked at his watch. "OK, we've got three hours to sundown. Everybody go over your parts of the plan one more time, get your weapons together, and, um, have a snack, or a nap, or something." He started for the door. "Faith, you're with me."
"He's been waiting all day to say, 'You're with me,'" Anya commented.
Xander waved for Faith to hurry up as he walked rapidly out the door.
Xander drove Faith to his apartment complex and parked his car just outside the garage door, which he opened to let himself and Faith inside, then closed it behind them. There was a red pickup truck parked in the garage with a 55-gallon drum in the flatbed.
"Nice truck," Faith said.
"My friend Tito lent it to me," Xander replied. "I told him I had to move some stuff, which wasn't exactly a lie."
"So what are we doing here?" Faith asked.
"We're here for this," Xander said. He walked to a corner of the garage, picked up what Faith first thought was a six-foot closet rod, and brought it over to her. "I made it this afternoon."
Xander handed the pole to Faith, who saw now that it was a spear of solid oak. Instead of a metal head, however, the spear simply came to a sharp, slightly blackened wooden point at one end.
"Giles told me how people used to fire-harden spear tips back before they had metal," Xander said. "I turned three of these into giant matchsticks before I got it right."
Faith hefted the spear and moved it around a bit. Xander had lightly scored the middle four feet of the spear with a knife, providing Faith with an excellent grip on the weapon. Other than these grooves, however, the shaft was flawless, with no knots or splits that were visible to the eye. Primitive though the weapon was, it had obviously been made with great care.
"Thanks," Faith said. "It's perfect."
"No prob. Practice with it some if you want – I gotta go get my crossbow."
Xander headed inside. Faith practiced a few thrusts and parries with the spear, and tried not to think too much about whether or not this meant that Xander had begun to forgive her.
-----
At seven-thirty, they all met once again at the Magic Box, where Tara grabbed a few last-minute supplies and Xander went over the plan one last time. At the end, he concluded, "Just remember, if Walpurgis comes at you, don't even think; just run. All the other vamps are fair game."
"But won't Walpurgis know this is a trap?" Anya said. "I mean, she knows we wouldn't put Willow back in the hospital without protecting her somehow."
"Right," Xander said, "but we know that she knows, so it's okay."
"Yes, but won't she know that we know that-"
There was a loud bang. Everyone jerked their heads around to see that Giles had dropped a heavy book on the counter.
"I thought it best to nip that discussion in the bud," Giles explained.
"Well," Xander said, "once we've all recovered from our heart attacks, let's mount up."
"He's been waiting to say 'mount up' for-" Anya began.
"Anya," Xander interrupted, "have you checked the register yet this afternoon?"
"Oh! I nearly forgot! So sweet of you to remind me, pookie." She gave Xander a little kiss and skipped over to the register. Faith and Tara grinned slightly at Xander, who wished he hadn't said anything.
The others gathered up their weapons and other supplies and headed out.
-----
Walpurgis sliced the air neatly with her single-hand sword, sweeping it up diagonally, then looping around and down as if she were disarming her opponent and cutting him in half in one continuous motion. Going with the momentum of her last cut, Walpurgis turned gracefully and beheaded a second invisible adversary, then a third, on and on, with an elegant parsimony of motion that made Jake's mouth hang open. When she finished, she turned and faced him.
"Whoa," he said.
"If that was a compliment, then thank you," Walpurgis replied.
"I don't get it," Jake said "Why do you even need to practice?"
"No one is untouchable," Walpurgis answered. "The streets of this town are choked with the dust of those who thought otherwise."
Jake glanced up at the only window in the room – a small, high one near the ceiling. "Sun's down," he said. "We gonna go soon?"
"No."
"What?"
"We will wait. Humans are not at their best late at night; we will go in the early hours of the morning."
"You think they're waiting for us?"
"Of course they are. That is what I would do."
"Whatever you say," Jake replied. "As long as I get the one who did Bobby."
"You will have your chance," Walpurgis replied. "Now, go and tell the others that they are to be ready at two o'clock."
"Yes ma'am," Jake replied, with a growl of anticipation.
-----
Xander was on his third coffee run of the night. Bleary-eyed, he marched towards the hospital cafeteria, where he would order several more styrofoam cups of the most potent motor oil that cafeteria science could concoct.
Just then, the walkie-talkie in Xander's jacket squawked. Willow's use of magical telepathy in their battle with Glory had convinced Xander that communications among the group were of critical importance. Plus he got to use cool code names and stuff.
"Rat's Nest, this is..." the voice from the radio began. "Um, what am I called again?"
"Eagle's Nest, Anya, you're Eagle's Nest," Xander sighed.
"Oh, yeah. Anyway, I'm cold and sleepy. Bring me coffee immediately."
"Coffee on the way. Anything to report?"
"No boogers sighted."
"Bogeys."
"Right. No bogeys. Is this how modern males assert their dominance, by making up words that women aren't supposed to know?"
"Anya, you're breaking up," Xander said, clicking the TALK button up and down several times. "I'll talk to you when I get to the roof."
Maybe this is Walpurgis' master plan, Xander thought as he put the radio back into his jacket pocket. She can just wait to attack until after we drive each other crazy.
-----
Walpurgis led a group of more than a dozen vampires down a dark, dripping sewer tunnel. She had studied carefully several maps of the town's extensive tunnel system, and she was impressed with both the size and navigability of it. Clearly, Sunnydale's founders had intended for there to be a certain amount of traffic down here. It pleased Walpurgis that so much of the job of creating an underground metropolis had already been done.
Just up ahead, her dark-adapted eyes could pick out several small shafts of light filtering down from above. Moving as quietly as possible, she moved up to see that the light was coming through a large sewer grate. This was it.
Two of her followers boosted Walpurgis up. She lifted the grate slightly and peered through the crack between the pavement and the metal. There was nothing to see but black tires against gray concrete. She could hear the echo of distant footsteps, voices, and car engines, but no particular sounds stood out.
Walpurgis gave an all-clear gesture to the vampires below her, who passed it on to the others. Then she pushed the grate aside and climbed to the surface. Once she was up, one of the others passed her shield to her. Her sword hung from her hip; the time for stealth ended now.
It was then that Walpurgis noticed two significant things. One was an odd smell that she did not recognize. The other was the sound of someone stepping through the doorway of a nearby stairwell.
"Guys, I brought some more- Oh crap!" cried the young man who emerged from the stairwell. He had been carrying four styrofoam cups of coffee; he dropped these at his feet, then leaped back to avoid being splashed by the hot liquid.
"You," Walpurgis said, "are the boy who shot at me."
"Oh," Xander said, sounding terribly nervous. "Yeah, I guess that was me."
"How did you know I would come this way?" she asked.
"You were a forest bandit, right? Like Robin Hood, but without the pesky giving to the poor? Somebody like that doesn't drive up to the battlefield in a great big surfmobile, WALPURGIS," he finished loudly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Walpurgis saw movement in the bed of a red pickup truck parked behind her. The bed was covered in a tarp, which was yanked away by the man and two women hiding underneath it. At the rear of the bed was a metal barrel, standing upright. As one of the women released a latch to let the tailgate down, the other woman and the man shoved the barrel off the back of the truck. There was no lid on the barrel; the clear liquid inside poured rapidly onto the concrete and followed the slight slant of the pavement into the sewer.
"What is that?" Walpurgis asked, backing off. She could hear a commotion below; it seemed that her minions recognized the fluid, even if Walpurgis herself did not.
"My own refreshing blend of gasoline and kerosene," the young man said in the doorway said, casually reaching one hand behind him. "Oh, and may I offer the lady a light?"
The boy pulled out a gun of some kind and fired it at the ground. A red flash streaked from the end of the gun and struck the liquid, causing it to burst into flame. Walpurgis heard running and yelling in the sewer below.
"Flare gun," Xander said. "Don't leave port without it."
"You will die now," Walpurgis said simply. She drew her sword and charged at Xander. Xander, never one to ignore his own advice, turned and ran like hell up the stairs with Walpurgis in hot pursuit.
-----
Walpurgis chased Xander up five flights of stairs before she realized that she was losing her focus. She was not here to kill the boy, but to take the young witch. For all Walpurgis knew, the boy was purposely diverting her, or leading her into a trap. Therefore, upon reaching the fourth floor of the hospital, Walpurgis stopped running, sheathed her weapon, and walked through the stairwell doors into the very same corridor where she had broken the Slayer's legs just one night ago.
Which was why Walpurgis found it so odd to see the Slayer standing right there in the hallway.
The dark-haired girl was leaning against the wall next to an open janitor's closet. In her left hand, she held a burlap bag with something heavy inside. Upon seeing Walpurgis, the Slayer reached her right hand into the closet and pulled out a six-foot spear.
"Even a Slayer does not heal so fast," Walpurgis said. "You used magic, yes?"
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Faith replied. With that, she whipped the burlap bag to the side and smashed whatever was inside against the wall.
-----
Jake led six other vampires – those who had not been either incinerated or frightened away by Xander's petrochemical cocktail – up through a manhole just outside the hospital building. It was more exposed than the sewer grate, but the manhole clearly offered the safer path.
Anxious for revenge, or just some good old-fashioned carnage, the vampires half-ran into the parking garage and down the ramp to the bottom level, where their enemies awaited. Jake knew the humans were armed and had all manner of tricks up their sleeves, but the vampires had both strength and numbers on their side. They would drink their enemies' blood tonight, whatever the cost.
The vampires turned the corner, ready to face the axes and arrows of their opponents. Instead, however, they saw the four humans leaning against cars or on all fours on the ground, retching violently.
"Dude," Jake said to no one in particular as a smile grew on his face, "they're pukin'."
-----
The rush Faith felt when the slates shattered was like the vertiginous thrill of a 200-foot bungee-jump. Every single nerve tingled wildly. Her vision was suddenly so clear she could see every edge, line, and shadow in the hallway in perfect detail, her hearing so acute that she could count the number of separate conversations, beeping monitors, and hissing oxygen tanks in the entire ward.
Faith looked at Walpurgis, aware of every detail – the scratches on the surface of her shield, the way her jacket didn't quite fit her shoulders, and the eyes that were such a dark brown that the light seemed to fall into them and never emerge again. Walpurgis raised her sword and shield and advanced cautiously, apparently aware that something about Faith had changed since their last encounter.
All right, Faith thought, we've got the longer weapon, and we're in a nice, narrow hallway. Let's keep her at a distance.
She lowered the point of her spear to the level of Walpurgis' chest. As soon as the vampire stepped into range, Faith faked a thrust at Walpurgis' neck, just above the rim of the shield, then yanked the point down and went for her leg instead. Walpurgis whipped her sword violently downward, knocking the spear point aside. The vampire charged forward, forcing Faith to run backwards to get her spear point up again before Walpurgis could close the distance.
Think, think, Faith said to herself. The problem was that Walpurgis' shield covered most of her torso. That only left the legs and head as targets, both of which Walpurgis could protect with her sword.
Before Faith could decide what to do next, Walpurgis slapped the point of Faith's spear to the side with her sword and held it away with her shield as she ran in for the kill. Faith backpedaled as fast as she could, but it was no use; the vampire was advancing too rapidly. In desperation, Faith choked up on the spear and swung the butt end around to set aside Walpurgis' incoming sword thrust. Walpurgis quickly brought her sword up and around for a downward cut. Faith lifted her spear over her head and took one more step back to protect herself.
The sword blade sheared straight through the center of Faith's spear and missed Faith's skin by less than an inch. The Slayer was intact, but now her back was against the wall at the end of the corridor, and her spear had become a pair of sticks.
Walpurgis swung her shield around and smashed Faith across the face with the edge. Instinctively, Faith sprang sideways, letting the blow's momentum assist her and avoiding the sword cut that followed.
Then Faith turned and ran away.
-----
Walpurgis watched the Slayer flee. Clearly, the young woman had used some kind of enchantment to increase her power, but it still wasn't enough to overcome Walpurgis' speed and skill. Nonetheless, Walpurgis reminded herself that her purpose here was to turn the witch, not to kill another Slayer.
She walked back down the hall, towards Willow's unguarded room.
-----
The vampires gathered around the four vomiting humans. Jake had thought at first that it might be some kind of trick, but he couldn't imagine anybody performing such a bodacious technicolor yawn just to lure in an enemy.
Jake quickly selected a target – the woman who had killed Bobby. He walked up to her and waited, not wanting to get puke on his Birkenstocks. When it seemed she had finally finished vomiting, Jake grasped her by the shoulders and yanked her up until her toes hung a few inches above the ground. Her eyes opened and her alertness seemed to return as she realized the danger she was in.
"I hope it wasn't something you ate," he said, his anger rising at the memory of Bobby bursting into dust by this woman's hand, "'cause it's snack time. Say goodnight." He pulled her closer and bared his fangs for the kill.
"Goodnight," the Watcher said, right before she head-butted Jake in the face. Taken by surprise, Jake dropped her and staggered back. Sarah kneed him in the groin, then grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head down, and smashed her elbow against the back of his neck. Jake fell to the ground.
The other six vampires closed in. Sarah threw a kick at one, but it was blocked and then they were on her. The Watcher was soon held fast by five pairs of unnaturally strong hands. A sixth pair came up to her temples, grasping her head for a fatal neck break.
At least, she thought, I won't outlive my Slayer.
-----
Walpurgis entered Willow's room and looked down at the young witch. She appeared to be sleeping. Her face was pale and slightly puffy with illness, and an IV slowly dripped liquid into her veins. Walpurgis had seen IVs on television – there were so many programs set in hospitals – and understood that they kept patients from dying of thirst when they were too weak to drink. That was good. She didn't like her blood too thick.
The vampire reached down and gave Willow's disorderly red hair an almost loving stroke. "Welcome to the family, my child," she whispered as her eyes changed from brown to yellow. She leaned down and sank her fangs deep into Willow's neck. The young woman whimpered softly.
Walpurgis drank deeply. The power in the witch's blood added to its flavor, making it simultaneously smooth and heady. And...spicy?
She pulled her head away. There was a tingling in her mouth and throat that quickly became a burning sensation, like she'd eaten a spoonful of black pepper. The feeling worked its way down into her stomach, becoming more agonizing every second.
Walpurgis ran to the sink next to the hospital room's small lavatory and coughed up as much of the blood as she could. It hurt even more coming up than it did going down, but Walpurgis knew that whatever was in it would do less harm outside her than in.
"What's the matter?" came a weak voice from the bed. "You don't like it hot?"
"What..." Walpurgis sputtered, trying to get her breath, "what did you do?"
Willow pointed to her IV. "The Catholic chaplain blessed all my saline for today. I've been getting nothing but holy water for fourteen hours." The girl's eyes narrowed. "Now find someone else to adopt."
Just then, Walpurgis saw Willow's eyes flick towards the door. Sensing danger, the vampire turned and raised her shield blindly. There was a thunk as the sharp end of what was once Faith's spear hit the shield dead center, right Walpurgis' heart would have been had she not moved.
In a single motion, Walpurgis drew her sword and slashed at Faith's midsection. Faith pulled her hips back and whipped her other spear fragment down at Walpurgis' head. The vampire raised her shield, blocking the blow.
Walpurgis pressed forward, swinging her sword again and again. She circled and looped the blade in a series of cuts so fast and forceful that Faith was forced to retreat, using her sticks as best she could to ward off the rapid-fire attacks.
Faith backed out the door to Willow's room. The vampire could not swing her sword in the narrow doorway, so she switched to thrusts, jabbing at Faith's face, legs, and torso, continuing to force the Slayer back.
She's like a possessed sewing machine, Faith thought crazily. And I'm gonna be the one with the stitches if I don't get moving.
Faith retreated faster, then turned and accelerated into a full run. This time, Walpurgis gave chase.
-----
Sarah felt the hands close tightly around her head. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tight.
Then the hands were gone. Instead, there was only dust raining lightly down onto her shoulders and neck. Sarah turned her head to see Giles standing behind her with a stake in his hand. Then Tara's voice cried, "Caecate!" and two vampires suddenly let go of and put their hands to their eyes, howling and staggering blindly away.
The three vampires still holding onto Sarah let go and turned to face their new attackers. One punched Giles in the jaw and knocked him out, but the grin of satisfaction ran away from its twisted face as it felt the sharp point of a crossbow bolt penetrate its chest. The vampire caught a glimpse of Anya reloading in the stairwell doorway before the vamp collapsed into dust.
Another vampire charged at Tara but was blindsided by Xander. The young carpenter pulled the vamp to the ground and staked it before it could recover.
The third vampire threw a punch at Sarah's face. She backed up and blocked, then caught the monster's wrist, twisting it painfully and almost forcing the vampire to the ground. But the creature was too strong; it yanked its arm back so hard that Sarah was pulled head-first into the side of a parked car. She slumped to the ground.
The vampire growled and looked up to see what enemies were left. Xander was still on the ground, and Anya was fumbling with her crossbow, but Tara was raising her arm for another spell. The vamp went for her, moving with supernatural speed. Its fingers were only inches from her throat when she cried "Pulsare!"
There was a blue flash, and the vamp flew back as if it had been hit in the chest with a troll hammer. The vampire crashed head-first through the windshield of a parked sedan. Before the creature could extricate its head and shoulders from the mass of ruined glass, Tara ran forward and staked the vampire where it lay on the hood of the car.
Xander and Anya, for their part, hurried over and finished off the two blinded vampires. Then the three Scoobies surrounded Jake, who still lay on the ground clutching his crotch. He looked up at them with a mix of pain and confusion on his face. "What the hell..." he began.
"Well," Anya said with a hint of bitterness, "SOMEONE didn't tell us that her enhancement spell mainly enhances your ability to vomit."
"An," Xander said, "when the vampire asks 'What the hell', you don't actually answer, you just stake him."
"No way, little dude," Jake said. The vampire spun on his hip like a breakdancer and swept Xander's feet out from under him. As Xander fell awkwardly to the concrete, Jake made a grab for Tara's ankle. Tara pulled away, and Anya stomped on Jake's groin.
"AAAAAAGH!" Jake screamed, grabbing for his abused genitals again. Xander climbed on top of Jake and jammed a stake into the vampire's heart, causing the fiend to stop screaming and look up at him.
"That was totally uncool," Jake said as he crumbled into dust.
"Okay," Xander said. "Let's get Giles and Sarah upstairs before we get busted for vandalizing the parking garage."
-----
Faith turned a corner and booked down the hall with Walpurgis only two steps behind. The Slayer ran straight for the doors at the end of the corridor, over which a sign read "Diagnostic Radiology".
She sprinted through the waiting room and burst through a door marked "Staff Only". Behind the door was a long, dark room where the only light came from several computer monitors set in front of some large windows that looked in on other rooms. There was no one here at this late hour.
Faith crashed through one more door, ending up in one of the windowed rooms. A huge, tubular machine sat in the center of the dimly-lit chamber like a giant beer barrel with a table rammed through its center.
From here, there was nowhere to run. As Walpurgis pursued Faith into the room, Faith turned and held up her sticks. She circled backwards and around the machine, keeping a partial barrier between herself and Walpurgis.
"All of this has gained you nothing," Walpurgis said. "I will defeat you, and then I will take the witch with me and make her drink until the holy water is flushed out of her. Then I will turn her, and she will sit at my right hand when I make this place my own."
"Yeah, whatever," Faith said. "You wanna kill me? Get in line."
"No," Walpurgis said. "I don't want to kill you. As I have said, kill one Slayer and another comes. I will only hurt you. Just enough, perhaps, that your body will never obey you again. Others will have to feed you, bathe you, change your diapers. Or perhaps," she said, lowering her voice, "you will simply never wake up."
Faith stifled a gasp. Whatever computer whiz had hacked into Willow's hospital records for Walpurgis had also accessed Faith's.
"Okay," Faith said, trying not to look rattled, "I'm figuring there's an 'if' coming up. Like you won't do any of this if I get out of town, or if I become your follower or your personal hairstylist or something. Which you could kind of use."
"No," Walpurgis said. "There is no if. Only when." She swung her sword up and around so forcefully and unexpectedly that it knocked one of Faith's sticks right out of the Slayer's hand. Faith retreated further behind the machine as Walpurgis reached over the table with a wide horizontal cut. The Slayer danced backwards, away from the sword point; the blade smashed into the barrel-shaped structure that covered the rest of the table.
And stuck there.
Walpurgis pulled on the handle of the sword, but even her vampire strength could barely move it. And, the moment she put her shield arm against the machine for leverage, the shield became stuck as well, clinging to the barrel by the metal studs that dotted the shield's surface.
"What is this?" Walpurgis breathed.
"What?" Faith replied. "They didn't have big honking magnets in the Middle Ages?"
Walpurgis was visibly irritated. "I do not need a sword to deal with you," she said. The vampire leaped up and over the top of the MRI machine and landed right in front of Faith.
Go for the head, Faith thought. She swung her remaining stick at Walpurgis' temple, but the vampire was still too fast. She stepped inside the arc of the swing, caught Faith's wrist, and twisted it sharply. Faith cried out in pain and dropped the stick, but reflexively countered with a kick to Walpurgis' face. Walpurgis staggered back and raised her fists, waiting.
The memory of her dream came back to Faith. You have to trust everyone, Buffy had said. Especially yourself.
Faith backed off, giving herself time to think. I've been doing it all wrong, she realized. I've been so worried about not being able to take Walpurgis that I've been THINKING about what to do instead of just trusting myself to do it.
The Slayer took in a deep breath and let it out. Her tense shoulders sank as Faith's body dropped into a lower, more relaxed posture. She looked Walpurgis in the eye.
For the first time ever, the vampire looked concerned.
With a yell, Faith leaped forward and attacked, throwing rapid combinations of kicks and punches that her years of training and experience had drilled into her. Walpurgis was suddenly on the defensive. What attacks she did make, the Slayer blocked and countered instinctively.
Faith landed a roundhouse kick to Walpurgis' ribs, a spinning back fist to the side of her head, and a knee strike to the stomach, forcing Walpurgis to bend forward. The Slayer wrapped her arm around Walpurgis' neck and sank her whole body weight down, forcing the vampire to the floor.
"How?" Walpurgis gasped. "No one is…so fast."
"No," Faith agreed as she reached out and grasped one of her lost sticks. "No one is."
She drove the stick straight through Walpurgis' spine, through the heart, and out the other side. Without a sound, Walpurgis collapsed into dust.
-----
Xander, Anya, and Tara had checked Giles and Sarah and found them to be perfectly alive. Xander volunteered to go upstairs and get somebody from the ER to come down and wheel them up for the usual round of neurological exams that were part of the now-familiar head trauma vacation package. Just as Xander was heading for the stairwell, however, the three Scoobies heard a familiar voice, male and somewhat high-pitched, from the garage entrance.
"My goodness," the voice said. "You've really made a mess in here." Three heads turned to see a short, slender, gray-haired man in a black suit walking towards them with a familiar expression of mild bemusement.
"Doc," Xander said.
The whites of the small man's eyes went black as they turned on Tara. "No more magic today, dear," he said in an eerily conversational tone. "Why don't you take a nap?"
Tara grabbed for a crystal in her pocket and began to shout some Latin phrase, but Doc's tongue snaked out and seized her around the throat, choking off her incantation. The powerful cord of muscle flung Tara sideways into a cement column and knocked her out cold.
Xander pulled out a stake, the only weapon he had on him, and Anya glanced around for her crossbow. Doc walked calmly up to them and opened his left hand, which he had kept closed until now. In his palm was a small pile of silver-black dust. As Xander raised his stake and Anya prepared to make a dash for her bow, Doc blew the dust into their faces.
"Now," the demon-man said, "come with me."
"No!" Anya said firmly. "I mean, I'm not…I…" her voice trailed off. "Yes, master."
"Yes, my lord," Xander said.
"Good, good," Doc said, nodding with satisfaction. "We're going to go see a very old friend of mine."
-----
Faith lay on the floor of the MRI room. She had rolled out of the pile of dust that was once Walpurgis, but that was about all she could manage. Tara hadn't been kidding when she'd said that Faith would be weak when the enhancement spell expired.
The Slayer heard the door open. She hoped that it was one of the Scoobies rather than, say, a security guard, to whom all the weapons and dust would be hard to explain. Faith looked up to see Xander and Anya walk through the door, followed by a small, older man she didn't recognize. Xander and Anya stared straight ahead while the man looked around the room.
"Oh, dear," the man said when he spied the sword, shield, and big pile of dust on the floor. "This is very upsetting."
"Who are you?" Faith asked.
Doc ignored the question. "She said it was like Hell, you know. Being at the bottom of the ocean where nothing lives, not even the light. It took her a long time to reach the surface and get onto dry land again. That's not so hard when you don't have to breathe, but having to stay far enough under water to hide from the sun for twelve hours a day was a bit maddening for her, I think.
"We'd been friends back in the old days, you see. That's why she came to me. She was very weak from all her time in the water, so I brought her here, to the Hellmouth. You'd be surprised how good this place is for a demon's health; Sunnydale is a Lourdes for the lower beings.
"And now you've killed her. Just like they-" he gestured to Xander and Anya "-killed my god. So here's my solution: You'll die, and they'll be punished for your murder."
Doc reached each of his hands into the opposite sleeve and pulled out a pair of long knives. He put one in Xander's hand, and the other in Anya's.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" Xander asked robotically. Doc gave him an odd look.
"Kill her," he said. "Both of you, kill her."
Faith watched them approach. She was still very weak. If she used all her strength, she might be able to trip Xander up with her legs, and maybe even make him fall on Anya. But that would still leave her at the demon's mercy.
"You really shouldn't have invested all your strength in one battle," Doc said with false sympathy. "Now you have nothing left for this one."
"I have one thing left," Faith said.
"Oh? And what's that?"
"Trust."
Xander suddenly pushed Anya aside. Then, before Doc could do more than look puzzled, Xander turned and shoved his knife straight into Doc's gut.
The demon screeched inhumanly and grasped at the knife. Xander punched him in the face, making Doc fall halfway onto the MRI table. Xander grabbed Doc's collar and punched him again and again as he shouted, "I'm gonna say this one more time: No! More! BUTTMONKEY!"
He threw Doc to the floor and grabbed Walpurgis' sword. With one stroke, Xander cut off the demon's head. The head rolled into the corner of the room.
"This won't do at all," the head said.
The face turned as black as the eyes and the head melted into a thick, oily substance that resembled nothing so much as hospital coffee. The body also liquefied, save for the black suit, which was soaked with the stuff.
"Hoo," Xander said. "Glad I'm not responsible for THAT dry-cleaning bill."
Anya had dropped her knife and seemed to be coming around. "Wha- what happened?"
"Evil demon mind control," Xander said. "Always a good time."
He reached his hand down to Faith and pulled her onto her feet. Xander and Anya let Faith put her arms around their shoulders for support.
"I knew it," Faith said to Xander. "I knew you weren't really under his control. Not when you did that 'What is thy bidding' bit."
"It's good to be well-versed in the classics," Xander said smugly.
"But how did you do it?" Anya asked. "How did you keep that dust from affecting you?"
"It wasn't easy," Xander admitted. "Remember when Dracula came to town and turned me into his spider-eating man-bitch?"
Faith raised an eyebrow. That was a story she was going to have to hear sometime.
"After that," Xander continued, "I started reading up on mind control spells at the Magic Box. Especially about how to resist them. The books all said that you need to find a thought – something that will stay in your mind no matter what – and play it over and over again in your head, so you block out anything else that tries to get in there."
"But that's extremely difficult, Xander," Anya said. "What thought could you have that would be so hard to dislodge from your mind?"
"'Everybody have fun tonight,'" Xander recited, "'everybody Wang Chung tonight.'"
END CHAPTER 6