"She's gone around the bend," Spike said, staring at the empty doorway through which Buffy had disappeared.
"No, she hasn't," said Willow. Her voice was rueful and quiet, but there was a kind of helpless laugh in it too. "Don't you see what she's doing, Spike?" she said when he turned to her. "Yelling at us, making us hate her to try and chase us away. Being as nasty as possible so we'll stay mad and let her do this alone." She glanced at the doorway and raised her eyebrows. " 'Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill' was going a bit overboard, though."
Dawn giggled suddenly, wildly, in spite of herself. "I think she borrowed it from Faith. 'Get this straight, I don't need any of you!' "
" 'You bunch of stupid humans,' " Xander added.
"But I still don't understand. You told her what Tara said, Dawn, and Buffy doesn't usually discount her. If there's no way to fight and win, what's the point on going?'
"Tara didn't say there was no way to fight and win. She said there was no way to fight and survive. Right, Dawn?" Giles looked at her.
The fit of giggles dissolved away. Startled herself, Dawn tried to examine the dream, but she knew no more than the words that hand sprung from Tara. No one can fight her and live.
"You mean Buffy thinks-" Slow, thunderous outrage was smoldering in Xander's eyes. "She thinks she's going to go and stop Jezebel even though she gets killed herself? Like some sacrificial lamb?"
"More like Tara." Conner said soberly
"No," Dawn said. "I think she's just keeping her promise to Tara, to stop Jezebel from getting to the fates no matter what it costs."
"To try, at least," Spike said softly, and it sounded as if he were quoting. "Even if you know you're going to lose." He looked up at the rest of them suddenly. "I'm going after her."
"Of course," said Willow patiently.
Spike hesitated. "Uh-I don't suppose I could convince the rest of you stay home?"
"After all that inspiring talk about teamwork? Not a chance."
"I was afraid of that. So . . ."
"So." Said Dawn, "We're out of here."
They gathered weapons, axes and swords. Outside, there was no sign of Buffy. The sky was pale purple, shading to apricot in the west. Twilight of the solstice eve, Dawn thought, and hairs on her arms tried to lift.
"Jezebel said the old farmhouse in the woods- that must mean the Francher place." Xander said
"That makes sense. No one goes there and it's isolated." Willow said
"I know these woods pretty well, and I know the path Buffy will probably use. I think we should take a different one." Xander said.
"So Buffy won't see us and kill us?"
"SO Jezebel won't see us, or not all of us, so maybe we'll have a chance of getting to Victoria. Somehow or other we've got to get Victoria out of the equation; as long as Jezebel can threaten to hurt her she can make Buffy do anything she wants. And it's always best to plan ahead, to get a jump on the enemy. Jezebel said meet there after dark; well we'll be there before dark and maybe we can surprise her."
Dawn was deeply impressed by this strategy. No wonder Buffy loved him, she was thinking. I would have just rushed in, yelling.
Xander picked out an almost invisible path between the oak trees. The undergrowth was especially lush this time of year, with mosses, grasses, flowering plants, and ferns. Dawn had to trust Xander knew where he was going, because she certainly didn't. Above, birds were giving one last burst of song before seeking out a roost for the night.
It got dimmer. Moths and lacewings fluttered past Dawn's face. After stumbling through a patch of toadstools covered with feeding slugs, she was intensely grateful that this time she'd worn jeans.
At last Xander stopped them. "We're getting close," he said, his voice low. "There's a sort of bluff where we can look down and Jezebel might not see us. Be quiet and careful."
Dawn had never taken so much trouble placing her feet before. Fortunately the leaf litter was wet and not crackly. After a few minutes Xander dropped to his stomach and gestured for the rest to follow. Dawn kept telling herself, fiercely, that she didn't mind the centipedes and earthworms her sliding fingers dug up, that she had no feelings one way or another about cobwebs in the face. This was life and death, and she was competent. No dweeb, no baby, but competent.
"Here," Xander whispered his voice barely audible. Dawn Scooted on her stomach up to him and looked.
They were gazing down on the Francher homestead-or what was left of it. It had crumbled into the earth long ago, taken back by the forest. Now it was only a foundation, building stones covered with flowering weeds and prickly brambles, and one tall chimney like a lonely monument.
"There's your grandmother," Conner breathed in Dawn's other ear.
Victoria was a dim figure sitting against the chimney. Her pale blue dress showed up in the gathering dark, but her auburn hair looked black. Something white shone across her face, and after a moment Dawn realized it was a gag. Tape or a bandage. From her strange posture-arms behind her, legs stretched straight out in front- Dawn also guessed she was tied.
Poor Grandma, she thought, Dawn couldn't imagine anything worse than being abducted by a psycho fate who'd tried to kill your grandchildren, dragged out here to the woods and bound, and then left to wait, with your life depending on a Slayer.
"Look!" said Spike. Is that her? Jezebel?"
Dawn had seen it too, a ripple of movement on the opposite side of the chimney. As she strained her eyes Jezebel appeared, her white blouse loose to her thighs. She glanced down at Victoria and she shrank from her, trying to lean away. Jezebel's laughter sounded so clearly in the quiet air that Dawn flinched.
"That's her," she whispered, dropping down behind the screening ferns. "But where's Buffy? It's almost dark now."
Maybe she got smart and decided not to come," said Conner
"No such luck," said Willow. She was looking through the ferns to the south. Dawn glanced that way herself and started.
Buffy was standing at the edge of the clearing, having materialized there as if out of thin air. Not even Jezebel had seen her coming, Dawn thought. She stood silently, making no attempt to hide herself or the sword she was carrying. There was something in her stance and the way she looked over the scene before her that made Dawn remember Buffy was from a long line of proud warrior's. She said nothing, waiting for Jezebel to notice her, refusing to be rushed.
When Jezebel did turn south she went still, and Dawn got the feeling she was surprised Buffy had sneaked up on her. But then she laughed and spread her arms.
"Slayer! What a coincidence; I was just thinking of you!"
Slowly, Buffy looked Jezebel up and down from the ends of her White blouse to the top of her windblown head. What Buffy said was:
"You asked for me. I'm here. Let my grandmother go."
Did I say that?" Looking genuinely surprised, Jezebel pressed two hands to her chest. Then she shook her head, chuckling. "I don't think so. Let's talk first."
Buffy nodded, as if Jezebel had confirmed something bitter she'd been expecting. She took the sword from her shoulder and held it in front of her, handling the unwieldy piece of metal deftly, easily. "I'm listening," she said.
"Not as dumb as she looks," Spike murmured from behind the ferns, a not of respect in his voice. "And she's not so anxious to get killed as I thought," Conner added. "She's being careful."
Jezebel gestured toward Victoria, the tips of her fingers brushing the auburn hair. "Why don't you come here so we don't have to shout?" But she didn't threaten to hurt her prisoner, Dawn noticed.
"I can hear you just fine," Buffy replied.
"Good," Xander whispered. "That's it, Buffy!"
Dawn though, was studying her grandmother. The captive woman was struggling. Tossing her head back and forth as if she were frantic or in pain. But Dawn got a strange feeling about her grandmothers movements, especially those violent jerks of the head, as if the woman was straining to reach the sky. The sky . . . Dawn's gaze lifted up to it, where full darkness had fallen and a waning moon shone over the trees. That was why she could see that Victoria's hair was auburn now: the moonlight, she thought. Then, with a shock, her eyes dropped to the tree just above Buffy, whose branches were rustling slightly in the absence of any wind. "Conner?" she whispered alarmed.
Buffy was focused on Jezebel, every sense, every muscle, every atom of her slayer powers honed and turned toward the banished fate before her. But in that tree directly above her . . .
All thoughts of strategy, of asking Xander what to do, fled Dawn's mind. She bolted up from her place of concealment and shouted.
"Buffy! Above you! It's a trap!"
Buffy leaped aside, neat as a cat, just as something plunged down on the exact place she'd been standing an instant before. The moon lit the scene perfectly, enough for Dawn to see the white of the werewolf's bared teeth.
And to see the white flash of Jezebel's eyes as she whirled on her. For one stunned instant she stared at her, and then lightning crackled.
From an empty sky.
It was only later that Dawn would realize the strangeness-the fearsomeness-of this. At the time she scarcely noted that the sky was clear and star swept and that the jagged blue bolt that forked down struck the palm of Jezebel's upraised hand. The next sight she saw was so terrifying as to black everything else out: Jezebel folding her hand over that lightning, gathering it somehow; and throwing it at her.
Buffy was yelling, telling her to get away, get away! Dawn heard her while she stared, paralyzed, and then something grabbed her and wrenched her aside. The bolt snapped over her and a smell like ozone. She landed facedown in moss and rolled over to grasp Xander's hand and thank Xander for saving her, only to find that it was Conner.
"Stay here! Right here!" he shouted, and bounded away.
Those dreadful words. They catapulted Dawn right up, and she was running after him before she knew what she was doing.
And then the world turned into chaos.
Jezebel whirled back on Buffy, who was grappling with the werewolf, beating him. The werewolf, was making terrible sounds as Buffy threw him to the ground.
Willow was running toward Victoria, approaching from behind the chimney so Jezebel wouldn't see her. Dawn saw her reach her grandmother and saw the flash of the silver dagger as Willow cut the cords around Victoria's wrists. Then Willow was half carrying, half dragging Victoria behind the chimney to work on her feet.
A sound like antlers clashing made Dawn spin around. Jezebel had come at Buffy with a sword of her own-it must have been lying flat on the ground before. It looked just as sharp as Buffy's.
Than Dawn saw something else and cried out wordlessly. Behind Buffy, the werewolf had gotten up again and was crouching; Buffy's back was to him. And Dawn couldn't warm her in time.
But she'd forgotten about Xander. Head down, ignoring claws and fangs, he was charging at the werewolf, tackling him like a first rate linebacker before he could leap. The werewolf went flying sideways with Xander on top of him.
Dawn was overwhelmed. So much was happening. Willow was sawing through Victoria's ankle cords; Xander was pummeling the werewolf with Spike and Conner's help. Buffy was using that sword the way she was trained to. Jezebel laughing deliriously, seeming exhilarated by the exercise, as they traded blows with deadly speed and accuracy.
But the boys seemed to be in trouble now. The werewolf and swiped at Spike and Conner sending them into a tress and knocking them out. But Xander the werewolf was gripping him and snarling, trying to get a hold on his throat. Wildly, Dawn looked around for a weapon, entirely forgetting the small dagger in her pocket. Her eyes fell on a dead oak branch. She picked it up and ran to where Xander and the werewolf were struggling.
Once there, though, she faltered. She didn't dare use the stick for fear she'd hit Xander with it. He and the werewolf were rolling over and over in a blur of motion.
Then Xander was on top of him again, holding the wolfs head down, holding himself clear. Dawn saw her chance and aimed the stick. But the wolf saw her. With a burst of supernatural strength, he gathered his legs and scent Xander soaring off him backward. Xander's head struck a tree with a sound Dawn would never forget. The dull sound of a rotten melon bursting. He slid down the front of the tree and was still.
Dawn was gasping, stunned. She might have started toward Xander, but the wolf was there in front of her, breathing hard, bloody saliva running down his chin. As if in a dream, Dawn raised her stick, but she could feel it shaking in her hands. Xander was still-was he breathing? Dawn could hear the sob in her own breath as she faced the werewolf. This was ridiculous; how could he be keeping her away from Xander, how could he be trying to hurt them all? How could he be doing any of this?
"All alone in the woods, little girl?" he said, and his voice was a thick and guttural growl, shaped at the minute into words. In that instant she knew who she was facing. That was Willy the snitch, who owned the Alibi Room. Oh, God, he's ugly she thought. Ropes of red spit hung out of his mouth. And those yellow eyes with the slitted pupils-in them she saw cruelty of the shark, and the crocodile, and the wasp that lay it's eggs in a caterpillar's living body. All the cruelty of animal nature in those two yellow eyes.
"Somebody should have warned you," Willy said, dropping his jaw to laugh the way a dog does. "Because if you go out in the woods alone, you might meet the Big Bad-"
"Snitch!" a voice finished for him, and with a feeling of gratitude that bordered on the religious, Dawn saw Willow beside her. Willow, holding her dagger, which shone liquidly in the moonlight.
"Silver, Willy," Willow said, brandishing it. "I wonder what silver does to a werewolf's members? Want to see?" All Willow's soft shyness, her standoffishness, her cool observer's dispassion were gone. This was the essential Willow, a warrior Willow, and although she was smiling, she was mad.
"Yes!" shouted Dawn gleefully, feeling power rush through her. Suddenly she could move. She and Willow, together, were strong. Willow was stalking Willy from on side, Dawn held her stick ready on the other. A longing she'd never felt before shot through her, the longing to hit Willy so hard his head would come flying off. She could feel the strength to do it surging in her arm.
And Willy, with his animal instinct, could sense it, could sense it from both of them, closing in on either side. He recoiled, caught himself, and turned to try and get away from them. They turned too. In a minute they were all three orbiting like a mini solar system: Willy turning around and around in the middle; Dawn and Willow circling him, looking for a chance to attack.
One, two, three. Some upspoken signal flashed from Willow to Dawn. Just as Willy leaped at Willow, trying to knock the knife aside, Dawn hit. Remembering the advice of a distant boyfriend who'd tried to teach her to play baseball, she imagined not just hitting Willy's head but through his head, hitting something on the opposite side. She put the whole weight of her small body behind the blow, and the shock of the connecting nearly jarred her teeth loose. It jolted her arms agonizingly and it shattered the stick. But Willy fell like a bird shot out of the sky.
"I did it! Yes! All right! Yes!" Dawn shouted, flinging the stick away. Triumph erupted from her in a primal shot. "We did it!" she grabbed the heave body by the back of the mane and pulled it off Willow, where it had fallen. "We . . ."
Then she broke off, her words freezing in her throat. "Willow!" she cried.
"It's all right," Willow gasped her voice tight with pain. And weakness, Dawn thought, chilled as if doused with ice water. Willy had clawed her leg to the bone. There were huge, gaping wounds in the thigh of Willow's jeans and in the white skin that showed clearly through the torn cloth. And to Dawn's absolute horror, she could see inside the skin too, could see flesh and muscle ripped and red blood pouring out.
"Willow." She cried frantically. They had to get Willow to a doctor. Everyone had to stop now; everyone must understand that. They had an injury here; they need to get an ambulance, to call 911. "Willow," she gasped, almost weeping.
"Tie it up with something." Willow's face was white. Shock. Going into shock. And so much blood; so much blood coming out. Oh, God, thought Dawn, please help me. She looked for something to tie it up with, but there was nothing.
Something dropped on the ground beside her. A length of nylon cord. Dawn looked up.
"Can you use that?" Victoria uncertainly, her teeth chattering.
She was wearing the blue dress, her auburn hair straggling and stuck to her face with sweat and blood. Even as she spoke she swayed, and fell to her knees beside Willow.
"Are you hurt?" Dawn gasped.
Victoria shook her head, but then she bent forward, racked with nausea. But there was no time to worry about Grandma now. Willow was more important.
Dawn tied the cord above Willow's wounds, her mind running desperately over things she'd learned from her sister. Buffy said a tourniquet couldn't be too tight or left on too long or gangrene set in. But she had to stop the gushing blood. Oh, Willow.
Dawn, help Buffy," Willow was gasping, her voice almost a whisper. "She's going to need it. . . ." She sagged backward, her breathing torturous, her slitted eyes looking up at the sky.
Wet. Everything was wet. Dawn's hands, her clothes, the ground. Wet with Willow's blood. And Xander, Conner, Spike was still lying under the trees, unconscious. She couldn't leave them, especially not with Willy there. He might wake up.
Dazed, she turned to her grandmother, who was shivering and retching, sweat beading her face. Useless, Dawn thought. But she had no other choice.
"Grandma, listen to me," she said. She picked up the largest piece of the stick she'd used on Willy and put it into Victoria's hands. "You stay with them. Loosen that tourniquet every twenty minutes or so. And if Willy starts to wake up, if he even twitches, you hit him as hard as you can with this. Understand? Grandma."
"But what are you going to do?"
Dawn looked toward the clearing.
"No, Dawn." Victoria's hand grasped her, and Dawn noted with some part of her mind the broken nails, the rope burns on the wrists. "Stay here where it's safe. Don't go to them. There's nothing you can do . . ."
Dawn shook her off and made for the clearing before she lost her resolve. In her heart, she knew her grandmother was right. There was nothing she could do. But something Xander had said before they left was ringing in her mind. To try at least. She had to try.
Still, in those next few horrible minutes all she could do was look.
So far, Buffy and Jezebel had been trading blows with such violence and accuracy that it had been like a beautiful, lethal dance. But it had been an equal, or almost equal match. Buffy had been holding her own.
Now she saw Buffy bearing down with her sword, pressing Jezebel to her knees, forcing her backward, farther and farther back, like a limbo dancer seeing how low he could go. And Dawn could see Jezebel's face now, mouth slightly open, staring up at Buffy with what looking like astonishment and fear.
Then everything changed.
A the very bottom of her descent, when Jezebel had bent back as far as she could go, when it seemed that she must be about to collapse or break, something happened.
Jezebel smiled.
And then she started pushing back.
Dawn saw Buffy's muscles knot, saw her arms go rigid, trying to resist. But Jezebel, still grinning madly, eyes wide open, just kept coming. She unfolded like some terrible jack-in-the-box only slowly. Slowly. Inexorably. Her grin getting wider until it looked as if it would split her face. Like a Cheshire cat.
A cat, thought Dawn.
Cat with a mouse.
Now Buffy was the one grunting and straining, teeth clenched, trying to hold Jezebel off. But Jezebel and her sword bore down, forcing Buffy backwards, forcing her to the ground.
Grinning all the time.
Until Buffy was lying on her back, her own sword pressing into her throat with the weight of Jezebel's sword across it. Jezebel looked down at her and beamed. "I'm tired of playing, little girl." She said and she straightened and threw her own sword down. "Now it's dying time."
She took Buffy sword away from her as easily as if she were taking it from a child. Picked it up with a flick of her wrist and broke it over her knee, showing how strong she was, how strong she had always been. How cruelly she had been playing with Buffy.
One of the halves of the sword she tossed over her shoulder across the clearing. The other she jabbed at Buffy. Using not the handle, but the splintered one, broken into a dozen tine sword points. She jabbed down with a force that seemed almost casual, but Buffy screamed. She did it again and again, eliciting a scream each time.
Dawn cried out, soundlessly.
She had never heard Buffy scream before. She didn't need to be told what kind of pain must have caused it. She didn't need to be told that Buffy was, if not dying now, about to die. That Jezebel, with her hand now raised, was going to finish it with one more plunging blow. Jezebel's face was tilted to the moon in a grin of obscene pleasure, showing that this was what she liked, where she got her thrills. From killing.
And Dawn couldn't move, couldn't even cry. The world swam around her. It had all been a mistake, she wasn't competent; she was a baby after all. She didn't want to see the final thrust, but she couldn't look away. And all this couldn't be happening, but it was. It was.
Jezebel flourished the splintered sword and with a smile of pure ecstasy started to bring it down.
And a spear shot across the clearing and struck her in the middle of the back, landing and quivering like a giant arrow, like half a giant arrow. It made Jezebel's arms fling out, dropping the stake; it shocked the ecstatic grin right off her face. She stood, arms extended, for a second and then turned, the stick in her back wobbling slightly.
Dawn's eyes were too dazzled by waves of gray dots to see, but she heard the voice clearly as it rang out, cold and arrogant and filled with absolute conviction. Just five words, but they changed everything.
"Get away from my sisters."
AN: Sooooo. Tell me what you thought hehehe.