CHAPTER SIX: LATIN
Xander reached Buffy's room first, shocked to see Dawn and Tara trying to hold down a flailing Slayer. He gently pushed his way past the young girl and sat on Buffy's bed, forcefully holding down Buffy's shoulders.
He tried to speak to her calmly, but the Slayer could only thrash and moan, screaming wordlessly. The rest of the group finally made their way into the room, each of them staring uncomfortably at the sight that met their eyes.
"Oh my god." "Good lord." "Buffy." "That can't be good."
The shocked whispers came from each of the people standing stock-still in the doorway. They entered cautiously and hovered around the bed.
Cordy leaned towards Wesley. "I saw this. In my vision."
"Did you see how to stop it?" he asked gently.
She shook her head, tears in her eyes once more. She could still recall the pain of the vision. Not the mind-numbing, bone-crushing pain that always came with the visions, but Buffy's pain of the experience. She could feel the pain and fear and sadness and defeat that the Slayer was feeling. She had never known anything to feel like that before.
"She's burning up," Xander managed to get out, even as he held her down. Willow raced to the bathroom to get another wash-cloth, the first one too stained with the Slayer's sweat to be useful.
Wesley stepped forward cautiously and placed a gentle hand on the Slayer's forehead. Buffy stilled instantaneously. Willow raced back into the room shocked to see that Buffy was calm.
The room looked on in shocked silence.
Dawn looked at Wesley with something akin to awe in her eyes. "How did you do that?"
Wesley removed his hand and looked at his palm as though the answers were written on it. He found nothing different from usual.
Buffy moaned in pain and opened her eyes.
"Giles?"
Her voice was weak, hoarse from the screams that had been tearing at her throat only moments ago. Tara's heart broke at the desperation that went into that one word. Buffy's hand groped blindly and found Wesley's, squeezing it tightly, though Wesley was shocked to realise the squeeze hadn't hurt.
"You came…I knew…"
Wesley looked at the girl nervously. He glanced around the room in confusion.
"Where is Mr Giles?" he asked quietly.
Willow, Tara, Xander, Anya and Dawn shifted uncomfortably. Wesley looked at Cordy who just shrugged in confusion.
"Did something happen to him?" Wesley asked.
Dawn scowled and shook her head. "He went back to England."
Wesley and Cordy's eyes widened in shock. Neither of them had been expecting that answer.
"He left? Wow. Why? I always thought he'd never leave," Cordy said.
Willow gave a weak smile. "That's what we all thought but…he left so that Buffy could…uh…deal with stuff."
Xander snorted in disgust. "Yeah. Leave the poor girl all alone so she can try and deal with being ripped out of heaven. Like that's gonna happen."
Cordy almost fainted on the spot. That was the pain she had felt from Buffy. That was the feeling of defeat that she had got from the tiny Slayer. She swallowed hard. She'd never felt that much misery coming from any of the other visions she'd had. There was always fear and terror, but never such sadness, such sorrow and anger and defeat. She'd wept because of it.
"Heaven?" Wesley repeated quietly. He looked down at the blonde girl clutching his hand desperately. She was muttering soft words incoherently, the only words he recognised was Giles name over and over again.
He knelt down beside the girl, straining to hear what she was saying.
"Auxilio ab alto, in omnia paratus."
Dawn too strained to hear. She scrunched up her nose in confusion. "Is that even English?"
Wesley shook his head in consternation. "She's speaking in Latin. Do…do you have a pen?"
Willow quickly retrieved a pen from Buffy's desk, handing it to Wesley with a piece of paper. He listened again to the mutterings of the Slayer, always the same phrase. He wrote the words and stared at them in confusion.
"What is it?" Cordy asked. "What does it mean?"
"By aid from on high, prepared for all things," Wesley said quietly. "It's the motto for the Watcher's Council. It's…part of the oath that Watcher's take before they are given over to a Slayer."
"Ad infinitum, semper paratus," Buffy muttered.
"Without limit always prepared," Wesley translated.
Dawn looked worriedly at her sister. It wasn't everyday that her sister began spouting off Latin phrases while fighting a fever of 105.
"Is she…is she saying that from m-memory?" Tara asked nervously.
Wesley shook his head. "I'd say not. It's not often that a Slayer even hears the oath, let alone learns it. Especially not in the original Latin. And for her to be spouting it now…I'd fathom a guess that this will point us in the right direction."
"Well, it's obviously Slayer related," Dawn pointed out. "I mean, she was going nuts until Wesley touched her, and…well, you're a Watcher. Or…you were at least. And now she's channelling her inner-Giles or whatever that was."
Xander looked towards Wesley, his suspicion written clearly on his face.
"This isn't some sick test from the Watcher's Council is it?"
Wesley shook his head. "The Cruciamentum is the only test that the Council makes the Slayer go through. No this is…something entirely different."
"We've checked out so many Watcher's Diaries that it's not funny. There's nothing in them," Willow complained.
Wesley scratched his head thoughtfully. "I've never heard of anything like this before. At least, not in the Diaries. Uh…have you contacted Mr Giles? Asked him about it? It's quite possible he would know."
Willow again looked at her watch. "What's the time difference?"
Wesley checked his own watch. "You should be right to call him. No doubt he'd wish to know about this sort of thing any way."
Willow nodded and left the room again, an eerie silence descending over the small space even though there were so many people there.