Buffy leapt to her feet and ran for the stairs, pushing past Tara. A living grey-green tide surged down the stairs and over the edge of the loft to fall with repulsive squashing noises to the floor below. Hundreds - or perhaps even thousands - of frogs carpeted the floor of the loft, squirming wetly against each other, burying Willow under their cold shapes. Buffy began kicking them aside, shovelling them away with both hands trying to reach her friend.
"Ranae delenda sunt!" Willow shouted suddenly, and a wave of magic licked out from her; the frogs shivered into dust and vanished. She looked up, trembling, eyes black with unspent power, to meet Tara's horrified gaze over the edge of the loft. "Tara, I-"
Tara backed away down the stairs, her expression closed. Willow fell back to the floor, pressing her face into her hands. Buffy could only hold her as she rocked and cried.
**********
When Willow had calmed down and dried her tears, the two of them descended again to the lower level into an uncomfortable silence. Buffy looked around at the averted faces, seeing the sidelong glances and how they sidled away when she met their gaze head on. Willow squirmed beside her at this show of mistrust, her eyes so downcast and miserable that Buffy wanted to scream. She found herself in one of those rare moments of clarity when everything became so sharp and detailed it seemed the world would cut her if she moved.
"That's enough," she snapped, drawing everyone's attention. "This guilt-trip attitude is not going to help us get out of here. I'm beginning to think it's going to take a lot more than my imagination to get us out of this situation. If that means I have to ask Willow to handle magic again, and face the consequences later, then that's what I'll ask."
She drew a deep breath and continued. "What good does it do if Willow manages to keep her promise, but we're trapped here?" she asked. "Even if she uses magic, we may not all make it out of here. Or we might. And that's the only situation in which any of this might even come close to being appropriate. Let's save the recriminations until we actually have the luxury, shall we?"
Buffy turned to Tara. "Tara, you said you could repair Spike's amulet? Now would be a good time. Dawn, you and Xander keep helping Will research on the spells we can use to attack or get us out of this mess. Whatever she needs, you get - got it?"
"We got," Xander replied, practically snapping a salute. Dawn didn't even venture a protest.
Channelling my inner drill sergeant, she thought. Works like a charm.
Spike gave Tara no little trouble, writhing so vigorously in his bonds attempting to evade her touch that the chair was rocking dangerously onto two legs. Buffy moved to help her hold him down. After a number of attempts, she finally settled on using her own weight to hold the chair down by straddling his legs. She pinned his arms tightly to his sides by wrapping her arms around him. "This had better not take too long," she warned Tara. "I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold him."
Some roguish, trouble-making part of her brain found a moment to note that whatever was controlling Spike's mind, his body still responded to her presence as it always had. She could feel him growing hard beneath her and her hips involuntarily rocked in reply. This would be a lot more fun without the audience - and the nightmare possession is a major turn-off, too, she thought, before attempting to banish her frivolous, lascivious self to the base of her brain where it belonged.
"Done," Tara said from behind the chair where she had been working on the amulet on Spike's bound hand. "Call to him, Buffy. See if you can bring him back."
Buffy released her hold around Spike's torso; sliding her hands up to his shoulders so she could lean back and see his face. "William," she crooned gently, "wake up. Come back. It's all been a bad dream and I'm waiting for you right here."
She watched in wonder as the black depths of his eyes slowly resolved back to glacial blue. His stare was fixed at first, until he recognized her and what her body so close was doing to his. His head darted forward as suddenly as a serpent strike and drove his mouth onto hers. In an instant she had curled her fingers tightly in the hair at the back of his neck and was responding passionately. I must be depraved. Wasn't I the one just telling him I wasn't an exhibitionist? That this wasn't the right time? We could be attacked and killed any minute, and all I can think about is how good it feels to--
"Geez, you two," said Dawn, looking up from the pile of books and magical supplies on the table. "Get a room, would you?"
Buffy reluctantly broke away from Spike's lips. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, resting her forehead against his, the better to take in those eyes. And I thought I was afraid about what would happen to me in these dreams.
"Maybe you should lose me. I haven't been much more than a liability this trip," he said, clearly angry with himself.
She drew back and stared at him, mock sternly. "Are you trying to make me lose my temper and beat your wimpy English butt for you? You aren't going anywhere, except with me, off to do something monumentally stupid and dangerous. Is that clear?"
His lip curled in a lazy smile at this sign of her affection. "Yes love," he replied.
"Cut him loose," she directed Xander, getting up from Spike's lap.
"About time," Xander muttered under his breath as he set to work with a knife to cut Spike's bonds. "This is about getting us out of here, not fulfilling Spike's fantasies."
"Not to worry, Harris," he mocked. "We crossed this particular one off the list some time ago. Still, it's always nice to revisit the classics, don't you think?" He made no effort to disguise the effects that Buffy's proximity had had on him; in fact, he seemed positively ready to flaunt it.
"Numbers one and two on the list of things I really don't need to know." Xander stood up, dropping the cut sections of twine to the floor. "If you ever do anything to hurt her, I'll come by and stake you myself."
"If I ever step over the line she's set, she'll take care of me herself." Spike replied, standing and rubbing his wrists as though that action would restore his nonexistent circulation. "I'm hers, you understand. Hers to love . . . hers to kill, if it ever has to come to that. She knows that as well as I do." With an insolent toss of his head, Spike dismissed Xander and anything else he might have to say, in favour of moving to the window to stand behind Buffy as she surveyed the dark landscape outside the window. "What's the plan, love?"
He brought one hand to the back of her neck and kneaded firmly at the tight muscles he found there. She arched, cat-like, back into the pressure of his fingers. Starved for touch. Both of us. Only a week apart from her and it's years too long. I swear I'll kill anyone who tries to keep us apart after this, chip or no.
"I have to get us out of here," she said, apropos of nothing. "I'll do anything I can, use anyone I have to, in order to make that happen, and not apologize for it. What kind of a person does that make me?"
"Assuming that's not just a rhetorical question, pet, I'd say it makes you a warrior - and a leader. People will do what you tell them to because they know that by doing so they stand the best chance of surviving." He leaned in closer and nuzzled her neck, making her shiver - and not because of the temperature. "I know I'd follow you anywhere."
"In your case," she retorted, "you're definitely thinking with the wrong head again." She laughed, but the light-hearted moment passed quickly. "Come on, let's see what we can contribute."
"Know what I'd like to contribute," he said on a soft growl, but offered no protest as she drew him back to the group.
"I'm tired of waiting here while he attacks us at his leisure. I say I take the fight to him." Buffy said to the others gathered at the table. "Will, do you remember the spell we used to defeat Adam? The one that linked you, Xander and Giles to me? I think something like that might be what I need to take on the Nightmare Master - because I don't think any one of us could face him alone. See what you can find."
"Gotcha," Willow replied. "A little e pluribus unum coming up."
**********
"It's not really the same spell," Willow explained a short while later. "This one doesn't just pull a few talents from each person, it draws on their actual life force - since you'll probably need everything you can get."
"Then how do I help?" Spike growled, leaning forward threateningly. "Not being on the living team."
Uh, well . . . I can add a twist to it to draw on magical essence too," she added, looking uncertainly at him. "That should do it."
"Better." He subsided back into his chair, placated for the moment.
"Sounds dangerous," Buffy commented. She was disturbed at how easily Willow had slipped on the mantle of dark magic again.
"Oh, it is," Willow confirmed, with an unmistakable undertone of dark glee in her voice. Tara looked away. "If you have to use it, the rest of us are essentially incapacitated. And if you're killed . . . so are we. But if we get into a situation where you actually need to use it, we'd be unlikely to survive without using it. Still interested?"
"Willow . . . Buffy, this is old magic. Wild magic," Tara protested. "Beyond just black and white. It's not something we should be trying."
"We may not have a choice," Buffy replied bluntly, then turned back to Willow. "How long does it take to cast?"
"I can do all the preliminary spellcasting here, and set it up so that all it takes from you is a trigger word. Say half an hour at the outside." Willow got up and rummaged in the collection of manuscripts and papers littering the floor in front of the bookcase, returning with a large, yellowed scroll.
"From this parchment we choose a symbol for everyone to represent how we're linked to Buffy. Then during the ritual itself, we all take turns to draw our symbols onto her to complete our connections."
"Fingerpaint on Buffy. This could be my new favourite game," Spike said with a grin. "Beats the hell out of Parcheesi, anyway."
"Spike-" Buffy began warningly - though to her chagrin she thought her tone sounded less like Spike you pig, and a lot more like oh, yes please than she had intended.
"I know, Slayer. Oink, oink." Made you smile, at least. That'll do.
Willow unrolled the stiff parchment across the table, pinning the corners beneath some of the other books to keep it flat. "Look at these symbols," she directed them, with a wave of one hand.
They all leaned in around the table to get a better view, examining the parchment. Love, death, fear, and friendship were just some of the labels for the strange angular shapes scattered across it - the range was dizzying.
"How do we know what symbol to choose?" Dawn wanted to know.
"When I say the cantrip, you hold out your hand over the parchment. There will be one symbol that attracts you more than any other - and that will be the one for you. And it's possible for more than one person to choose the same symbol," she added in explanation.
"I'll go first, then, shall I?" Spike ventured. Willow nodded, and he extended his hand, fingers splayed, over the brittle surface. His eyes strayed across the symbols inscribed there and he sent fervent wishes to whatever powers would listen. Behind him, Willow murmured a sibilant phrase and he felt his fingers drawn, like iron to a lodestone, down to the paper's surface where they stuck fast.
"Love," Willow read from the page, and set him free. "Traced over her heart, of course."
Spike smiled widely in relief, looking for all the world like a boy who had just taken first prize in some contest at the local fair. He sat himself on the couch to await the others' results.
Xander stepped up next, unwilling to seem reluctant to try anything Spike would. He stretched out his hand; Willow repeated the words and his fingers found his own symbol.
"Loyalty," Willow said. "Palms of both her hands."
He straightened, looking smug and daring Spike to comment.
Tara moved forward before either of them could start something. She hesitated a moment, then, letting her breath sigh out between her lips, put herself into Willow's power.
"Mentor, or guide," Willow read, and frowned. That wasn't what she would have predicted. "It should be drawn on the top of Buffy's head."
Dawn's reading left Willow even more confused. At first her hand didn't seem to respond to the invocation at all. Only after several minutes had passed was it drawn reluctantly down to the paper surface. "Blood," Willow intoned. "Over the heart."
"That's because we're blood relatives," Buffy put in, her voice unnaturally bright. "You know, that good Summers blood . . ."
"You're probably right," Dawn replied with a weak smile, before joining Spike on the couch. He slipped a friendly arm around her shoulder.
"And finally . . . friendship for me," Willow indicated. "Drawn on your forehead. Just give me a few minutes to catch my breath, and we'll perform the spell proper. Make sure you can draw your symbol correctly when the time comes."
The time passed quickly, each of them diligently practicing their chosen symbols while Willow chalked a pentagram on the floor of the store. She directed each of them to a position on one of the points. Before guiding Buffy to her place at the centre of the pentagram, Willow told her the word that would trigger the spell and made sure she could pronounce it properly. Declaring herself satisfied, she took up her own point and raised her arms in supplication to unknown powers.
"Six are we, we desire to be one. Alive . . . and undead . . . we come together to join our life and essence in one vessel, our champion, the Slayer."
One by one they came forward and traced their symbols on Buffy's forehead and hands. Friendship, loyalty, love - Spike took her face in his hands and added a fierce, possessive kiss.
"Out of many, we shall be one. Six spirits shall reside in one flesh, and one mind shall rule them all. We will become forever. We implore thee; hold us now in thy grasp.
"So mote it be." For a moment, golden bands of light linked the five standing at the pentagram's points to Buffy, who stood transfixed at its centre. She flung her head back in a soundless wail as the energy pierced her. The light grew almost intolerably bright to their eyes, and then flared and died as quickly as it had appeared. Willow staggered in place and dropped her arms.
"Is that all?" Dawn was the first to break the silence. "I don't feel any different."
"You won't. Not unless Buffy has to use the spell," Willow explained, between ragged breaths. "I left the triggering word out of the incantation; it isn't complete until she says it."
Buffy stood silent in the pentagram, wrapped in her own thoughts. Spike would have taken her into his arms, but she held up a hand and forestalled him. "Is there a reason to stay here any longer?" she asked at last. "Because I'm really feeling the urge now to go kick some nightmare ass."
"Now that's a woman after my unbeating heart," Spike beamed.
"The tower seems to be the power locus here," Tara ventured. "I expect that any portal or passage back to the conscious world will be there."
"Then we're heading for that tower," Buffy declared. "Spike and I will take point. Willow, you and Tara will flank us, to take out anything that comes at us from the sides or tries a magical attack. Xander-"
"I know," he sighed. "Dawn and I stay here, because we don't have any superhero fighting skills or magical powers."
"No. We leave no one behind. You're with Dawn behind us." She took his hands. "I need you to protect her. If anything gets past us, you're my last hope. I know I can count on you."
"Forever," he breathed, overwhelmed by her trust.
"Good. Take whatever weapons you know how to use, we're not staying a minute longer in this place."