~Oz~



I guess none of us had realized how tired we were. When I woke up in the
morning, Willow was still pressed against me, her fingers digging gently into
my shirt. I slowly pulled myself away, careful not to wake her, and joined
Giles and Cordelia in the kitchen where they were having coffee together.

"Hey. What time is it?"

Giles looked at his watch. "Almost nine."

"Oh." I nodded towards the coffee maker. "Can I snag a cup? I was a little
more tired than I thought I was and I need to get over to Mrs. Walter's house
this morning to get those books." Giles handed me a cup of coffee and I took
it gratefully.

His mouth was open, dismay covered his face. "I should have woken you
sooner," he apologized. "I... Stupidly let it slip my mind. As though I can
afford to let anything slip my mind."

"Maybe not stupidly," Cordelia suggested with a bright smile. "Maybe
pleasantly."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Maybe forgetting for a while will help you later on,
Giles. You're looking a little ragged. No offense."

He blinked slowly and then shook his head. "Ah, none taken."

I finished off my coffee and then headed back over to Willow, giving her a
kiss on the cheek before I started out the door. "I shouldn't be too long.
It's a fifteen minute drive from here, and I thought I should pick up some
clothes for Willow and I. Forty minutes, max."

Giles smiled at me and Cordelia patted my arm. "Be safe," she said helpfully.

"You too," I replied, trying to figure out what it was that was different
about her this morning.

Maybe I just wasn't used to her being helpful.
* * * * * *

I sped a little and got there in almost exactly ten minutes. Even though
Giles had been trying to be patient, I could tell that he was anxious about
what was going to happen and wanted these books as soon as possible. When I
got to Mrs. Walters house, I started to knock and the door swung open.

As though it hadn't been closed.

The small hairs on the back of my neck started to raise. "Mrs. Walters?" I
called out.

Nothing responded. It was a simple quiet and I don't even know what alarmed
me so much; people often forgot to shut their doors all of the way. Maybe it
was my sixth sense. Maybe it was that it was *too* quiet, and I remembered
that Mrs. Walter's had a dog. Stepping inside, I looked around, exhaling
heavily. The house had been trashed.

I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed in and out, calming myself.
Burglars was the most reasonable conclusion to come to, but things had only
been fairly reasonable in Sunnydale for the past four years. For a hundred
years before that, nothing was. Keeping a lookout for anything ready to jump
out at me, I walked through the house.

When I got to the living room, I sighed with regret. I knew that smell.

That was blood.

Quickening my pace, I moved into the kitchen and was assaulted from all sides
with the smell, tears springing to my eyes at what I saw. The smell was so
strong, the scene so morbid that the coppery taste of the blood fell onto my
tongue and I nearly gagged with anger and guilt, the stench of death choking
me.

Mrs. Walters was laying on the cold tile, her cheek-- or what was left of
it-- pressing to the floor. A pool of dark, sticky blood surrounded her
head, was splashed onto the walls. Even the ceiling was bathed in it. It
was like a horror scene from one of those old Freddy movies. In all of my
time in Sunnydale, I had never seen this sort of carnage.

Both of her eyes were removed, gouged out, and she only had one finger left.
Some of her skin had apparently been torn off, as well as handfuls of hair--
ripped out of the scalp. The woman, middle-aged and once so pretty as I
remember, had no teeth left, no discernible beauty. Her dog lay at her
feet, dead of a broken neck.

And two inches away from her hand, was a message that she wrote in her own
blood.

"Wolf," I read softly, "No tell hide cabinet help them."

I heard a growl and turned around quickly, intending to kill whatever I saw
before I realized that it was me growling. The pressure built in my chest
and suddenly I was furious, completely enraged. So much that I saw my hand
change to wolf form and struggled to fight it back. I could now half-wolf
when I needed the extra strength, but if I lost control I knew there might be
no going back. Don't lose control, I told myself harshly. You can't afford
to.

With a huge effort, I saw my hand transform and I backed out of the kitchen,
shaking. Hide what cabinet? My eyes darted around the room frantically,
looking for any sort of cabinet that had not been opened already in the
search through her home. Flying from room to room and still seeing nothing,
I ran out and got in my van as fast as I could.

And I floored it.
* * * * * * *

When I got back, I ran into Giles's apartment and stopped, sucking in breath.
The rest of the group, who had all woken up by then, looked up at me in
surprise. I tried to focus my thoughts; they were all over the place.

Willow got up, concern shading her eyes a darker green. She touched my
cheek. "Oz. What is it? ...Tell me."

I swallowed and then nodded. "Mrs. Walters was dead when I got there. I...
I don't think I've seen anything like it before. She wrote me a note."

"Before she died?" Giles raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Do you think
she perhaps knew of her death before it happened?"

"No." I shook my head, searching for the right words. "Right before she
died was more like it. She reached out and wrote it in her own blood. 'Wolf
no tell hide cabinet help them,'" I recited. "I looked around for the
cabinet that she wanted me to... hide, I guess, but I didn't see anything
that hadn't already been torn apart."

Buffy thought for a moment, her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure it didn't say
'hid' or 'hidden'?"

I frowned. "Could have. It was hard to look at."

Willow pulled me into her arms and I rested my cheek against her shoulder
comfortably, my heart returning to its normal pace with her against me. I
breathed in deeply-- that scent, strictly Willow, was home to me.

"All right." Buffy nodded decisively. "Why don't you drive me back? You
don't have to go in if you don't want to."

"No, that's all right."

"Do you want me to come?" Willow offered in a small voice.

"No!" My answer came out louder than I intended and she flinched. I cursed
at myself silently and touched her jaw. "I just mean... I don't want you to
see that. You shouldn't have to."

"Is it that bad?"

I nodded, meeting her eyes. "Yeah."

"Okay." She kissed me tenderly. "Hurry back."

I smiled at her and Buffy tugged on my sleeve.

And then we were off, to face something that neither of us wanted to face in
the first place.