CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Doc's Revenge Begins
The next morning the atmosphere in Buffy's house was definitely tense. William and Buffy kept a distance from each other and Tara announced at breakfast that she was going to be staying in her own apartment again. She'd been maintaining it, though at a distance. She and Willow would occasionally stop there to pick up mail on the way back from school.
Buffy wanted to ask what had happened. But she didn't. She figured she could do that later when she and Willow were alone.
"I'll be back tonight though," Tara said, "for when you all go downtown again to fight with the Shadows."
"You don't have to," Buffy offered. "We can get Jonathan to cast the spell for the lighting."
"No. He might have to fight again. You need someone to just concentrate on the lights. I'll meet all of you here tonight and travel with you. I just won't be coming back afterward. I'm going to take some things over to my apartment this afternoon."
There wasn't much anyone could say. Dawn felt things the most. She was losing Tara once again. And she could see that something was wrong between William and Buffy. There didn't seem to be much she could do about anything. So instead, she thought about Zachary, who was coming over later in the day.
Tara left the house exactly at noon. It was an especially bright day, but her mind was so preoccupied that she didn't notice Amy watching her from down the block. Amy was leaning against a tree with a large black SUV in front of it. She let Tara get about a block ahead of her and then she followed.
Buffy found Willow in her room banging things around. She was refilling the drawers she had given over to Tara with her own clothing again. Then she rearranged her shoes in the closet, thumping them against the walls and floor. Buffy considered leaving her friend to herself. But she knocked on the door and came in anyway.
"Are you all right?" Buffy asked.
"No," Willow said, angrily. "I'm not. Tara doesn't believe me. How can you have a relationship with someone if they won't trust you? I know what I did before was wrong. But I didn't do this and she just won't believe me!"
Buffy came into the room and closed the door. "What is it you didn't do?"
"I didn't kill Warren. I could have killed him for the way he treated Tara . . . and Spike. But I didn't." Willow had one black sneaker in her right hand and she raised it up and down to punctuate her words. "I zapped him a couple of times with magic. I threw him against the wall. And when he tried to go at us again, I threw him harder against the wall. It was enough to make him pass out, but not enough to kill him. Amy showed up yesterday at school and told us this story about how Warren died and that his insides were all broken up but that there weren't any marks on the outside of his body, except where he hit the wall. Tara assumed that I was out of control with my magic and that I killed him. But I didn't, Buffy. I swear." She threw her shoe at the floor and it bounced two feet away on the carpet. "Why doesn't she believe me?"
"Are you sure it wasn't just the curse that killed him?"
"I don't know. Maybe. But why were his insides all broken up? The curse shouldn't have done that. Why didn't Tara believe me? You believe me, don't you?"
Buffy wanted to. She really did. But like Tara, she had her doubts. She had seen Willow's power when she vanquished Eric and his henchmen to another dimension. Could she just not have known her own strength? "Are you sure?" Buffy asked cautiously.
"As sure as I can be."
"Well, if you didn't do it, who did?"
"Who knows? Maybe some other enemy of his came in after we left. Warren wasn't exactly a nice guy. Maybe some other magic person came in, saw him in that weakened conditioned, and took advantage. Amy is right about one thing. From the description of his body, his death was probably caused by magic."
"Unless it was somehow caused by the curse . . . which of course would still be magic."
"Maybe his whole insides imploded because of the curse. I don't know. I only know that I didn't kill him!"
"Well, then. We can ask Jonathan tonight when we see him if he knows of any magical enemies Warren might have had. And you can do some more investigation on the curse. See if you can learn how it kills its victims."
"I'll try," Willow said. "I'll hack back into the Watcher's website again and see what I can dig up."
"You do that," Buffy said. Willow was already digging her laptop out from under a pile of clothes. So, Buffy left her to it.
Zachary came in sometime around three o'clock in the afternoon with a couple of shopping bags full of clothes. William had been reading in the diningroom.
"Wow!" Dawn said. "You really brought a lot of stuff."
"As it turned out, my mom had been dying to get my dad to clean out his closet," Zachary said, putting the bags down. He stretched his fingers. They were decorated by red echoes of the bag handles. "My mom did most of the weeding out herself. All good stuff. But she knew he was never gonna wear it again."
"Let's see." Dawn picked up one off the shopping bags and headed for the couch. "Come on, William," she called behind her. "Come see what Zachary brought you."
William put down his book at once and abandoned it on the diningroom table. "So much!" he exclaimed, seeing the size of the bags. "Your father is truly a generous man. You, uh, wouldn't happen to have any sleeping clothes in there, would you?"
Zachary had been pulling things out of the bags alongside of Dawn. Pajamas were one thing he hadn't thought of. "Well, I didn't bring actual pajamas," he said. But I can drop round tomorrow with a few more things. Um. Usually I sleep in running shorts and a tee shirt. I'll see what I can dig up like that."
Dawn snuck a side glance at her boyfriend. She was wondering what he might look like in shorts and a nice tight tee. From what little she could see in his warmer January garb, she guessed that he had nice meaty thighs to go with his nice round . . . Stop, she thought. She had to stop thinking like that. After all, she'd only started going out with him. But she had to admit to herself that she was looking forward to the hot days of summer with its long afternoons on the beach.
"Pajamas," William continued, his blue eyes sparkling behind his spectacles. "That is something that I really could use. I would be so appreciative."
"Sure," Zachary said.
"Your dad certainly likes plaid," Dawn said, holding up three shirts of varying plaid designs.
"Yeah well, I think that's sort of required in the hardware business. You have to look country. But there are lots of solids here too. And several pairs of jeans and khaki pants."
"It's wonderful," William said. "I simply can't thank you enough."
At this point Buffy came in from the kitchen where she was trying to decide what they should have for dinner. Without Tara present she figured it was up to her. And because they were going to fight with the Shadows again that night, she wanted to start dinner early. She had settled on frozen fried chicken, the TV dinner kind with vegetables and such included. This was her favorite method of cooking. Unfortunately it wasn't the most cost conscious of meals. "What's going on?" she asked, seeing all the men's clothes strewn across her couch.
"Zachary brought over some clothes for William," Dawn said, the big bright smile on her face saying it all.
"Yes, he's been most kind," William agreed. "My only concern is about where to keep everything."
Buffy thought of offering to let him keep them in her room. But she knew proper William would never agree to that. "You can keep them downstairs in the basement. We've got line strung up down there for hanging laundry. You can use that."
"I've got tons of extra hangers," Dawn said.
"That would be truly wonderful," William said.
"Are you staying for dinner," Buffy asked Zachary.
"No, thank you Miss Summers. My mom's expecting me home. But I'll be back later to pick up Dawn to take her out to the movies."
"Fine. Just don't get her home too late. William will report to me if you miss curfew. Won't you, William?" Buffy looked toward William, who quickly looked away.
"Yes, of course," he said in a small voice.
At dinnertime, William showed up at the table in some of his new clothes. He had on a plaid shirt of green and yellow, with a pair of khaki pants. Again, Spike obviously didn't get his fashion sense from William. It was all the ladies could do not to laugh. Spike the big bad vampire was just not the green plaid type.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was after dark when Tara left her apartment to head off for Buffy's. She was running a bit late and wondering if she should have asked Xander and Anya to pick her up. She lived in a quiet neighborhood of mostly older people, so it was lonely out on the street. She moved at a good clip, not paying much attention to her surroundings. After all, she was late and this wasn't a particularly demonic part of town.
She was just rounding an enormous privet hedge when a little man stepped out in front of her. She started, but the man was so small and seemingly harmless that she didn't think anything of it. "Excuse me," she said.
"Of course," the man answered. "My fault. I'm afraid these old eyes of mine don't see so well at night anymore. That happens when you get to my age."
Tara smiled politely.
"You wouldn't happen to have the time, would you?"
"Of course," Tara said. Her mother had always taught her to be nice to old people. She glanced down at her watch. "It's just seven o'clock." When she looked up at him again she thought for a second that he seemed familiar somehow. Maybe she'd seen him around the neighborhood.
"Thank you so much. It seems I'm just on time." While she had been glancing down at her watch, he had been looking around the street to make sure they were quite alone. "Good night," he said very pleasantly with a twinkle in his eye.
"Good night," Tara said with another polite smile. And she started away. If she hadn't been in such a hurry, she might have noticed the man's dark aura as she had noticed Amy's the day before. But she didn't.
Doc let her get just past him and then he whipped out his long tongue and pulled her back into his waiting knife. She was too unprepared to fight back and it was over quickly. To make it look like a robbery, he took the satchel that she was carrying. With gloved hands he withdrew her wallet and removed the small amount of cash within. Then he tossed both wallet and bag over her body. He left her close to the privet hedge but not too far into the shadows. He wanted her to found quickly and to be identified.
- - - - - - - - - -
At seven-thirty, Xander and Anya arrived at Buffy's, once again with Jonathan in tow. Zachary and Dawn had already left for the early show at the downtown Cineplex.
Willow had spent most of the day researching the diamond's curse of madness. But there wasn't much. Basically everyone who'd fallen to the curse had died by doing something crazy. Their madness had killed them, but not directly. She was hoping to find out something from Jonathan. When they came in, she was right there ready to question him. "Did Warren have any enemies?" she asked, getting right into his face.
Jonathan had seen enough of Willow's power in the last couple of days to fear her. This just wasn't the group he remembered from high school anymore. Willow was a powerful witch, going with another witch. Anya was a former demon. Spike was a vampire. And the leader of them all had somehow become some kind of an immortal according to Anya. "Uh, enemy?" His voice stuttered slightly. "What do you mean, enemy?" He was thinking actually that Warren had considered all of the people standing around him as his enemies. But he didn't think it was a good idea to say that to Willow.
"You know, someone who really hated him."
Jonathan thought for a moment. "No. We were just starting on our reign of terror here in Sunnydale. We didn't have much of a chance yet to tick people off."
"Did he have any magical friends?"
"Uh, yeah. There was me . . . and then there was Andrew. But he sort of killed Andrew, so I guess I'm all that's left."
"Why the twenty questions?" Xander asked.
"Warren died," Willow answered. "And I just wondered if it was the curse, or something else."
"No. I don't know anyone who would have been out to get him," Jonathan answered.
"It was probably the curse finally turning his brain to glue," Anya offered.
"Yeah," Xander agreed.
"Yeah, most likely," Willow said. "Where's Tara? She should be here by now?"
"She's not here already?" Xander asked.
"She, uh, was going to come from her apartment tonight," Willow said. She didn't want to get into any explanations about her and Tara in front of Jonathan.
"Will?" Buffy called from upstairs. "Could you help me with all the weapons?"
"Sure," Willow called. "On my way."
Anya looked around into the diningroom and saw William sitting alone at the table behind a book. Where Spike often liked to be noticed, William was good at folding into himself and disappearing. Anya elbowed Xander and then leaned into him, hiding her smile.
"Hey there, William," Xander called, understanding his fiancée's signal. "How's it going?"
"Fine. Thank you very kindly," William answered. He gave them a polite smile, but made no attempt to get up and commune with them. Now that he knew what they were doing with their evenings, he wanted to keep what distance he could from the whole dirty business.
"See you've got some new clothes," Xander said.
"Yes. Young Zachary was so kind as to bring me some things that his father no longer required. They fit quite adequately."
"Yes," Xander said.
Jonathan peered past Xander into the diningroom at William. His expression was not as charitable. He clearly found the vampire a strange sight in his new green plaid shirt.
For the next hour or so everyone went into the livingroom and milled around, talking about this and that. Anya mentioned that she was keeping up a minor correspondence with Giles just to let him know how the store was running. Buffy asked how he was. She hadn't talked to him since Christmas, since she had come "out" about her relationship with Spike. She was afraid that Giles would give her a hard time. She kept meaning to at least write him. Then she wouldn't have to hear any disappointment in his voice.
"Oh, he's fine," Anya said. "Caught up in Watcher stuff mostly. Hunting down demons, undoing evil spells."
"Where IS Tara?" Willow asked. She was standing at the front door, looking out the little window.
"I don't know," Buffy said. "But if she doesn't get here soon, we'll have to go without her. I promised the Shadows I'd be there. Why don't you try calling her?"
"I'll do that," Willow said. And she went into the kitchen to make the call. But there was no answer. She left a message on Tara's answering machine saying that she should call back as soon as she could and leave a message so she would know everything was all right.
Buffy saw her friend's face as she came back into the livingroom. After what they'd gone through recently with Spike, she could just imagine what Willow was thinking.
"She's not there," Willow said. "At least she's not answering."
"I guess that means you're handling the lighting by yourself," Buffy said to Jonathan. "Think you can?"
"I think so."
"What if we have fighting again? Do I have to face off with all the beasties by myself?" Xander asked.
"I guess you will," Buffy said.
"I for one don't like that idea. Maybe we should get William to come with us," Xander suggested.
"What?" Buffy looked at him as though he was insane.
William looked up from his book in the other room, suddenly terrified.
"Well, he's still got his super strength," Xander said.
"Yeah, but does he remember how to use it?" Buffy said.
Super strength, William asked himself. I? Super strength?
"I'd like to take some time to at least try and train him before we take him out with us."
"But even without training, his strength will go a long way."
Buffy sighed heavily. It made sense to her. Since William wasn't human, whether he knew it or not, he also wasn't likely to get hurt. She remembered that amnesia spell Willow had put them all under. In that situation, Randy had still retained Spike's fighting abilities. Maybe it would work.
If only Tara had been there. She would have pointed out that Spike had stripped all of the basic vampire instincts out of William so that he couldn't be used by Warren to do any damage to anyone. This would include his fighting skills as well. Spike wanted William to be a threat to no one. He was in essence the same milquetoast that he'd been when Drusilla turned him. And that quiet little poet had no knowledge of fisticuffs.
"William," Buffy said, walking into the diningroom. "We need you."
"Me?" William whimpered.
"You may not remember, but you're very strong. We really need your strength tonight. Do you know how to use a crossbow?"
"A . . . a . . .a . . . ."
"Let me show you. It's easy." Buffy gave him a few pointers. She spoke fast and loud so he couldn't interrupt. At the conclusion, she handed the weapon to him and walked away. "OK," she said, "I'm going to get the ray gun and the diamond and we're off. Willow, why don't you leave a note for Dawn to let her know we've spirited William off."
"Good idea," Willow said. "I'll let her know that Tara didn't show up also. Maybe she could call her just after she gets in to see if she's all right."
Before long, they were off with a very timid William in tow. With Buffy walking on one side of him and Willow walking on the other, he didn't dare say anything about anything.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dawn and Zachary arrived home at the proper curfew time. But Dawn wished the night didn't have to end. "William helped me with my composition last night. I think now that it might actually be on time."
"Good," Zachary said. He didn't want the evening to end either and school seemed as good a topic of conversation as any to keep things going. As they talked, he held her hands. "This week we can go over that chemistry stuff."
"I am so not interested in chemistry," Dawn said rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, it's not my favorite either. But we need it to graduate. Next Saturday you wanna do something different? Maybe we could hang out at the mall or something."
Dawn thought for a minute. She didn't really want to go back into that department store anytime soon. And she certainly didn't want Zachary to find out about her life of crime. He was such a straight arrow. "To hang- out?"
"Yeah. Some of the guys go there late Saturday afternoon with their girls. Then they usually head out for something to eat as it gets dark. I thought I might show you off."
Dawn blushed at the thought. She liked it that he wanted to be seen with her. Course, everybody at school already knew they were an item. They met a lot between classes, sat together in study hall, had lunch together, and walked home at the end of the day. Janice was beginning to complain that she never saw Dawn anymore. "Since it's a group thing, can I invite Janice? I don't mean that she'd tag along with us. She can meet us there."
"Sure, just as long as we get some time alone." Zachary's breath slipped away from him and he leaned forward to kiss her . . . when suddenly a flashing red light pulled up to the curb right in front of the house.
It was a police car. It didn't have its siren running, but the light on top was spinning. Two uniformed officers got out and walked up to the porch where Dawn and Zachary were standing.
"Excuse me," the taller of the two officers said, "We're looking for Willow Rosenberg . . ."
Doc's Revenge Begins
The next morning the atmosphere in Buffy's house was definitely tense. William and Buffy kept a distance from each other and Tara announced at breakfast that she was going to be staying in her own apartment again. She'd been maintaining it, though at a distance. She and Willow would occasionally stop there to pick up mail on the way back from school.
Buffy wanted to ask what had happened. But she didn't. She figured she could do that later when she and Willow were alone.
"I'll be back tonight though," Tara said, "for when you all go downtown again to fight with the Shadows."
"You don't have to," Buffy offered. "We can get Jonathan to cast the spell for the lighting."
"No. He might have to fight again. You need someone to just concentrate on the lights. I'll meet all of you here tonight and travel with you. I just won't be coming back afterward. I'm going to take some things over to my apartment this afternoon."
There wasn't much anyone could say. Dawn felt things the most. She was losing Tara once again. And she could see that something was wrong between William and Buffy. There didn't seem to be much she could do about anything. So instead, she thought about Zachary, who was coming over later in the day.
Tara left the house exactly at noon. It was an especially bright day, but her mind was so preoccupied that she didn't notice Amy watching her from down the block. Amy was leaning against a tree with a large black SUV in front of it. She let Tara get about a block ahead of her and then she followed.
Buffy found Willow in her room banging things around. She was refilling the drawers she had given over to Tara with her own clothing again. Then she rearranged her shoes in the closet, thumping them against the walls and floor. Buffy considered leaving her friend to herself. But she knocked on the door and came in anyway.
"Are you all right?" Buffy asked.
"No," Willow said, angrily. "I'm not. Tara doesn't believe me. How can you have a relationship with someone if they won't trust you? I know what I did before was wrong. But I didn't do this and she just won't believe me!"
Buffy came into the room and closed the door. "What is it you didn't do?"
"I didn't kill Warren. I could have killed him for the way he treated Tara . . . and Spike. But I didn't." Willow had one black sneaker in her right hand and she raised it up and down to punctuate her words. "I zapped him a couple of times with magic. I threw him against the wall. And when he tried to go at us again, I threw him harder against the wall. It was enough to make him pass out, but not enough to kill him. Amy showed up yesterday at school and told us this story about how Warren died and that his insides were all broken up but that there weren't any marks on the outside of his body, except where he hit the wall. Tara assumed that I was out of control with my magic and that I killed him. But I didn't, Buffy. I swear." She threw her shoe at the floor and it bounced two feet away on the carpet. "Why doesn't she believe me?"
"Are you sure it wasn't just the curse that killed him?"
"I don't know. Maybe. But why were his insides all broken up? The curse shouldn't have done that. Why didn't Tara believe me? You believe me, don't you?"
Buffy wanted to. She really did. But like Tara, she had her doubts. She had seen Willow's power when she vanquished Eric and his henchmen to another dimension. Could she just not have known her own strength? "Are you sure?" Buffy asked cautiously.
"As sure as I can be."
"Well, if you didn't do it, who did?"
"Who knows? Maybe some other enemy of his came in after we left. Warren wasn't exactly a nice guy. Maybe some other magic person came in, saw him in that weakened conditioned, and took advantage. Amy is right about one thing. From the description of his body, his death was probably caused by magic."
"Unless it was somehow caused by the curse . . . which of course would still be magic."
"Maybe his whole insides imploded because of the curse. I don't know. I only know that I didn't kill him!"
"Well, then. We can ask Jonathan tonight when we see him if he knows of any magical enemies Warren might have had. And you can do some more investigation on the curse. See if you can learn how it kills its victims."
"I'll try," Willow said. "I'll hack back into the Watcher's website again and see what I can dig up."
"You do that," Buffy said. Willow was already digging her laptop out from under a pile of clothes. So, Buffy left her to it.
Zachary came in sometime around three o'clock in the afternoon with a couple of shopping bags full of clothes. William had been reading in the diningroom.
"Wow!" Dawn said. "You really brought a lot of stuff."
"As it turned out, my mom had been dying to get my dad to clean out his closet," Zachary said, putting the bags down. He stretched his fingers. They were decorated by red echoes of the bag handles. "My mom did most of the weeding out herself. All good stuff. But she knew he was never gonna wear it again."
"Let's see." Dawn picked up one off the shopping bags and headed for the couch. "Come on, William," she called behind her. "Come see what Zachary brought you."
William put down his book at once and abandoned it on the diningroom table. "So much!" he exclaimed, seeing the size of the bags. "Your father is truly a generous man. You, uh, wouldn't happen to have any sleeping clothes in there, would you?"
Zachary had been pulling things out of the bags alongside of Dawn. Pajamas were one thing he hadn't thought of. "Well, I didn't bring actual pajamas," he said. But I can drop round tomorrow with a few more things. Um. Usually I sleep in running shorts and a tee shirt. I'll see what I can dig up like that."
Dawn snuck a side glance at her boyfriend. She was wondering what he might look like in shorts and a nice tight tee. From what little she could see in his warmer January garb, she guessed that he had nice meaty thighs to go with his nice round . . . Stop, she thought. She had to stop thinking like that. After all, she'd only started going out with him. But she had to admit to herself that she was looking forward to the hot days of summer with its long afternoons on the beach.
"Pajamas," William continued, his blue eyes sparkling behind his spectacles. "That is something that I really could use. I would be so appreciative."
"Sure," Zachary said.
"Your dad certainly likes plaid," Dawn said, holding up three shirts of varying plaid designs.
"Yeah well, I think that's sort of required in the hardware business. You have to look country. But there are lots of solids here too. And several pairs of jeans and khaki pants."
"It's wonderful," William said. "I simply can't thank you enough."
At this point Buffy came in from the kitchen where she was trying to decide what they should have for dinner. Without Tara present she figured it was up to her. And because they were going to fight with the Shadows again that night, she wanted to start dinner early. She had settled on frozen fried chicken, the TV dinner kind with vegetables and such included. This was her favorite method of cooking. Unfortunately it wasn't the most cost conscious of meals. "What's going on?" she asked, seeing all the men's clothes strewn across her couch.
"Zachary brought over some clothes for William," Dawn said, the big bright smile on her face saying it all.
"Yes, he's been most kind," William agreed. "My only concern is about where to keep everything."
Buffy thought of offering to let him keep them in her room. But she knew proper William would never agree to that. "You can keep them downstairs in the basement. We've got line strung up down there for hanging laundry. You can use that."
"I've got tons of extra hangers," Dawn said.
"That would be truly wonderful," William said.
"Are you staying for dinner," Buffy asked Zachary.
"No, thank you Miss Summers. My mom's expecting me home. But I'll be back later to pick up Dawn to take her out to the movies."
"Fine. Just don't get her home too late. William will report to me if you miss curfew. Won't you, William?" Buffy looked toward William, who quickly looked away.
"Yes, of course," he said in a small voice.
At dinnertime, William showed up at the table in some of his new clothes. He had on a plaid shirt of green and yellow, with a pair of khaki pants. Again, Spike obviously didn't get his fashion sense from William. It was all the ladies could do not to laugh. Spike the big bad vampire was just not the green plaid type.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was after dark when Tara left her apartment to head off for Buffy's. She was running a bit late and wondering if she should have asked Xander and Anya to pick her up. She lived in a quiet neighborhood of mostly older people, so it was lonely out on the street. She moved at a good clip, not paying much attention to her surroundings. After all, she was late and this wasn't a particularly demonic part of town.
She was just rounding an enormous privet hedge when a little man stepped out in front of her. She started, but the man was so small and seemingly harmless that she didn't think anything of it. "Excuse me," she said.
"Of course," the man answered. "My fault. I'm afraid these old eyes of mine don't see so well at night anymore. That happens when you get to my age."
Tara smiled politely.
"You wouldn't happen to have the time, would you?"
"Of course," Tara said. Her mother had always taught her to be nice to old people. She glanced down at her watch. "It's just seven o'clock." When she looked up at him again she thought for a second that he seemed familiar somehow. Maybe she'd seen him around the neighborhood.
"Thank you so much. It seems I'm just on time." While she had been glancing down at her watch, he had been looking around the street to make sure they were quite alone. "Good night," he said very pleasantly with a twinkle in his eye.
"Good night," Tara said with another polite smile. And she started away. If she hadn't been in such a hurry, she might have noticed the man's dark aura as she had noticed Amy's the day before. But she didn't.
Doc let her get just past him and then he whipped out his long tongue and pulled her back into his waiting knife. She was too unprepared to fight back and it was over quickly. To make it look like a robbery, he took the satchel that she was carrying. With gloved hands he withdrew her wallet and removed the small amount of cash within. Then he tossed both wallet and bag over her body. He left her close to the privet hedge but not too far into the shadows. He wanted her to found quickly and to be identified.
- - - - - - - - - -
At seven-thirty, Xander and Anya arrived at Buffy's, once again with Jonathan in tow. Zachary and Dawn had already left for the early show at the downtown Cineplex.
Willow had spent most of the day researching the diamond's curse of madness. But there wasn't much. Basically everyone who'd fallen to the curse had died by doing something crazy. Their madness had killed them, but not directly. She was hoping to find out something from Jonathan. When they came in, she was right there ready to question him. "Did Warren have any enemies?" she asked, getting right into his face.
Jonathan had seen enough of Willow's power in the last couple of days to fear her. This just wasn't the group he remembered from high school anymore. Willow was a powerful witch, going with another witch. Anya was a former demon. Spike was a vampire. And the leader of them all had somehow become some kind of an immortal according to Anya. "Uh, enemy?" His voice stuttered slightly. "What do you mean, enemy?" He was thinking actually that Warren had considered all of the people standing around him as his enemies. But he didn't think it was a good idea to say that to Willow.
"You know, someone who really hated him."
Jonathan thought for a moment. "No. We were just starting on our reign of terror here in Sunnydale. We didn't have much of a chance yet to tick people off."
"Did he have any magical friends?"
"Uh, yeah. There was me . . . and then there was Andrew. But he sort of killed Andrew, so I guess I'm all that's left."
"Why the twenty questions?" Xander asked.
"Warren died," Willow answered. "And I just wondered if it was the curse, or something else."
"No. I don't know anyone who would have been out to get him," Jonathan answered.
"It was probably the curse finally turning his brain to glue," Anya offered.
"Yeah," Xander agreed.
"Yeah, most likely," Willow said. "Where's Tara? She should be here by now?"
"She's not here already?" Xander asked.
"She, uh, was going to come from her apartment tonight," Willow said. She didn't want to get into any explanations about her and Tara in front of Jonathan.
"Will?" Buffy called from upstairs. "Could you help me with all the weapons?"
"Sure," Willow called. "On my way."
Anya looked around into the diningroom and saw William sitting alone at the table behind a book. Where Spike often liked to be noticed, William was good at folding into himself and disappearing. Anya elbowed Xander and then leaned into him, hiding her smile.
"Hey there, William," Xander called, understanding his fiancée's signal. "How's it going?"
"Fine. Thank you very kindly," William answered. He gave them a polite smile, but made no attempt to get up and commune with them. Now that he knew what they were doing with their evenings, he wanted to keep what distance he could from the whole dirty business.
"See you've got some new clothes," Xander said.
"Yes. Young Zachary was so kind as to bring me some things that his father no longer required. They fit quite adequately."
"Yes," Xander said.
Jonathan peered past Xander into the diningroom at William. His expression was not as charitable. He clearly found the vampire a strange sight in his new green plaid shirt.
For the next hour or so everyone went into the livingroom and milled around, talking about this and that. Anya mentioned that she was keeping up a minor correspondence with Giles just to let him know how the store was running. Buffy asked how he was. She hadn't talked to him since Christmas, since she had come "out" about her relationship with Spike. She was afraid that Giles would give her a hard time. She kept meaning to at least write him. Then she wouldn't have to hear any disappointment in his voice.
"Oh, he's fine," Anya said. "Caught up in Watcher stuff mostly. Hunting down demons, undoing evil spells."
"Where IS Tara?" Willow asked. She was standing at the front door, looking out the little window.
"I don't know," Buffy said. "But if she doesn't get here soon, we'll have to go without her. I promised the Shadows I'd be there. Why don't you try calling her?"
"I'll do that," Willow said. And she went into the kitchen to make the call. But there was no answer. She left a message on Tara's answering machine saying that she should call back as soon as she could and leave a message so she would know everything was all right.
Buffy saw her friend's face as she came back into the livingroom. After what they'd gone through recently with Spike, she could just imagine what Willow was thinking.
"She's not there," Willow said. "At least she's not answering."
"I guess that means you're handling the lighting by yourself," Buffy said to Jonathan. "Think you can?"
"I think so."
"What if we have fighting again? Do I have to face off with all the beasties by myself?" Xander asked.
"I guess you will," Buffy said.
"I for one don't like that idea. Maybe we should get William to come with us," Xander suggested.
"What?" Buffy looked at him as though he was insane.
William looked up from his book in the other room, suddenly terrified.
"Well, he's still got his super strength," Xander said.
"Yeah, but does he remember how to use it?" Buffy said.
Super strength, William asked himself. I? Super strength?
"I'd like to take some time to at least try and train him before we take him out with us."
"But even without training, his strength will go a long way."
Buffy sighed heavily. It made sense to her. Since William wasn't human, whether he knew it or not, he also wasn't likely to get hurt. She remembered that amnesia spell Willow had put them all under. In that situation, Randy had still retained Spike's fighting abilities. Maybe it would work.
If only Tara had been there. She would have pointed out that Spike had stripped all of the basic vampire instincts out of William so that he couldn't be used by Warren to do any damage to anyone. This would include his fighting skills as well. Spike wanted William to be a threat to no one. He was in essence the same milquetoast that he'd been when Drusilla turned him. And that quiet little poet had no knowledge of fisticuffs.
"William," Buffy said, walking into the diningroom. "We need you."
"Me?" William whimpered.
"You may not remember, but you're very strong. We really need your strength tonight. Do you know how to use a crossbow?"
"A . . . a . . .a . . . ."
"Let me show you. It's easy." Buffy gave him a few pointers. She spoke fast and loud so he couldn't interrupt. At the conclusion, she handed the weapon to him and walked away. "OK," she said, "I'm going to get the ray gun and the diamond and we're off. Willow, why don't you leave a note for Dawn to let her know we've spirited William off."
"Good idea," Willow said. "I'll let her know that Tara didn't show up also. Maybe she could call her just after she gets in to see if she's all right."
Before long, they were off with a very timid William in tow. With Buffy walking on one side of him and Willow walking on the other, he didn't dare say anything about anything.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dawn and Zachary arrived home at the proper curfew time. But Dawn wished the night didn't have to end. "William helped me with my composition last night. I think now that it might actually be on time."
"Good," Zachary said. He didn't want the evening to end either and school seemed as good a topic of conversation as any to keep things going. As they talked, he held her hands. "This week we can go over that chemistry stuff."
"I am so not interested in chemistry," Dawn said rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, it's not my favorite either. But we need it to graduate. Next Saturday you wanna do something different? Maybe we could hang out at the mall or something."
Dawn thought for a minute. She didn't really want to go back into that department store anytime soon. And she certainly didn't want Zachary to find out about her life of crime. He was such a straight arrow. "To hang- out?"
"Yeah. Some of the guys go there late Saturday afternoon with their girls. Then they usually head out for something to eat as it gets dark. I thought I might show you off."
Dawn blushed at the thought. She liked it that he wanted to be seen with her. Course, everybody at school already knew they were an item. They met a lot between classes, sat together in study hall, had lunch together, and walked home at the end of the day. Janice was beginning to complain that she never saw Dawn anymore. "Since it's a group thing, can I invite Janice? I don't mean that she'd tag along with us. She can meet us there."
"Sure, just as long as we get some time alone." Zachary's breath slipped away from him and he leaned forward to kiss her . . . when suddenly a flashing red light pulled up to the curb right in front of the house.
It was a police car. It didn't have its siren running, but the light on top was spinning. Two uniformed officers got out and walked up to the porch where Dawn and Zachary were standing.
"Excuse me," the taller of the two officers said, "We're looking for Willow Rosenberg . . ."