The Game by SLynn

Chapter 6: The Answer

Not long after Constance left, Anya left as well. She was in the back room again, and they could only assume she was crying. Tara had tried to comfort her, but this time her help was rejected.

Buffy and Tara sat at the table looking at the cards and trying to decipher the meaning behind them. Giles and Willow continued to pore through the books looking for references to Zothos and games the immortal might have played. Both seemed hopeless.

Tara wrote as Buffy talked.

"If we put the cards in the order we got them its: Zothos: A, Willow: C, Rupert: H, Xander: L, Anya: O, Tara: R and Buffy: S. What does that make?"

"Achlors," Tara answered, "I don't think that's a word."

"Me either."

"What if we put them in alphabetical order by name?"

"Yeah, good idea. What does it make now?"

Tara quickly wrote it down.

"Oshrcla. That doesn't sound right either."

"No," Buffy said, her head beginning to swim. It was getting to be just after ten o'clock.

"How about from oldest to youngest?" Tara suggested.

Before Buffy could reply, they heard the back door slam. Everyone jumped. Anya, her face still wet with tears, stormed over to the table.

"This is your fault," she said, leaning into Buffy.

"How is this her fault?" Willow asked, jumping to her friend's defense, "Do you think Buffy runs an ad in the paper or something saying 'Hey bad guys, come and get my friends?'."

"No," Anya said, still staring at Buffy, "but if Xander hadn't been in love with her none of this would have happened. If she could have kept Riley around, he'd be the one being tortured and beaten. He'd be the one who gets killed, not Xander!"

Buffy remained still, but continued to look up at her.

Tara got up and stood between the two before Willow had the chance. She felt like she owed it to Anya to do so. The two of them were the newest members and that made them more alike then the others could realize. It was hard trying to fit in with people who had already shared so much.

"Anya," she said quietly, "this isn't going to help him."

"Nothing is going to help him," she yelled, "Don't any of you get it? She is an immortal. Immortal's always win. Didn't any of you read Greek mythology? They don't just do these things randomly. You can't stop her. You can't find a way to beat her. She'll win, and she'll kill him."

She paused for a moment, fatigued.

"She'd kill us all if she wanted to," she whispered.

"Come on," Tara said, ushering her away from the table, "you need to rest."

As Tara walked Anya to the back, Willow sat down next to Buffy.

"She's wrong," she whispered, wanting to believe.

"Is she?"

Willow didn't know what to say.

"That's why she took Xander," Buffy said, looking to her with tears in her eyes, "not that he loves me now, but he did once. She told me she was thinking of taking you Giles, but didn't. Because it would hurt Xander more knowing I was in pain trying to help him."

Still no one replied.

"Wait," Giles said, standing and looking deep in thought, "I think that's it."

"What?" Willow and Buffy said together, clearly confused.

"Maybe she's not really after you Buffy."

XXXXxxxxXXXXxxxxXXXXxxxxXXXX

'I almost wish she'd just beat me again,' Xander thought, as Constance went on and on about her latest visit with his friends.

He'd stopped listening probably half an hour ago. She loved to talk. At first he had been hurt by what she had said, but now he was alright. He didn't blame Anya. He wouldn't want her to take his place. Earlier, when he had nearly died, he had accepted his fate, and now he felt the same. He knew what he had to do.

'Still, it would be nice to have some peace and quiet.'

As if she could read his mind, she slapped him. He jerked his head up, looking at her.

"You're not listening."

"Sorry," he muttered, turning down his eyes.

She wasn't in the mood to hear excuses. She clutched his throat and pulled him to a standing position.

"I could kill you," she said, this time, not even a trace of a smile on her lips.

That was it. Xander couldn't take it anymore.

"Then do it already," he said, looking straight into her pale, soulless eyes.

She smiled.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she said, pushing him against the wall, "Then your little Buffy gets off free. You want me to break the rules. No, I play fair."

"This is playing fair?" he asked, his voice full of sarcasm.

He felt the bones in his neck vibrate. She was as angry as he'd ever seen her.

'It'll all be over in a minute,' he thought.

She stood there, nose to nose with him, glaring.

"What," he said, straining to speak against the pressure in his throat, "can't take the slayer out on your own? Have to do it this way? Have to ransom her friends to get her attention?"

She practically growled under her breath, tightening her grip on him. Xander closed his eyes, waiting. Then she just let go. When he re-opened his eyes, she was still standing there, a few steps back, smiling.

"You almost had me," she laughed, "I mean really, I was half a second from just twisting your head right off your body."

Xander said nothing, just remained leaning against the wall.

"No," she said, still smiling, stepping back up and into his face, "not this time. Not yet."

Again, she ran her hand across his face. He turned his face away slightly, in disgust. She quickly jerked his head back to make him look at her.

"Tell you what though," Constance said, no longer smiling, "let me do you a favor."

Before he could react she slapped her hands across his ears, only for a second or two. The pressure, so intense, brought him to his knees. He soon found himself clutching his head as he watched her walk out of the room.

"You won't have to worry about me boring you now," she called out, as she shut the door behind her.

Xander didn't hear her. All he could hear was the very loud, persistent, high-pitched ringing echoing through his head.

XXXXxxxxXXXXxxxxXXXXxxxxXXXX

After Giles initial statement, he got up in a hurry and ran to the books he kept behind the counter. Buffy and Willow followed him, curious at what the watcher might have meant.

He out pulled several large books and paused again.

"Giles," Buffy asked, "what is…"

"Wait a minute."

"But…"

Giles held up his hand. After a moment, he began looking through a particularly old book with a black leather cover.

"She's doing all of this for your soul, right?" Giles said, seemingly asking no one.

"To kill me, yeah."

"No," Giles corrected, "for your soul. She said specifically she wanted your soul."

"What's the difference?"

"It makes all the difference. I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier."

"But you said she wasn't really after Buffy?" Willow asked, clearly as confused as the slayer.

"Well, yes and no."

"Giles, please make with the straight talk. It's really getting late."

"She needs a soul," Giles began, flipping rapidly through the book, "We don't know why yet but, she needs one. You're the one she wants. So, she sets up this game, this contest."

"With Xander as bait, yes, this we know."

"But why Xander?" Giles said, "You said it yourself, it would hurt him more knowing he was the cause of your pain. It's her out."

"I don't think I understand." Buffy said, shaking her head.

"She didn't just waltz in here and demand you play. She very well could have done that, it's in the rules. You could have said no to that and then she'd have nothing. Instead, she takes one of your friends and makes you play."

Giles stopped turning the pages in the book and pointed.

"Here," he said, turning the book towards them, "Anya was right, Greek mythology. The rules of Persephone. Persephone was a goddess, daughter of Demeter, seduced by Zeus and then given to Hades as a bride. She was forced to live in the underworld. Part of Demeter's retribution was to invoke these rules upon those with that kind of power so that none could just steal away with souls. She has to play by them."

"Well, what are they?" Buffy asked, getting near as excited as Giles.

"Basically, she's made an agreement with you. If she wins the contest, she gets your soul. If you win, Xander gets to live. Part of that agreement was that she could not kill Xander until the allotted time."

"We knew that Giles," Willow said, exasperated.

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his temples.

"That's why she took Xander," he said, shaking his head, "she knows you can beat her. And if it looks like you will, she'll kill you."

"I thought she wanted her soul?" Willow said, a bit surprised.

"No, a soul. If not Buffy's, she'll take Xander's. She knows Xander would do anything to save Buffy, even give up his soul."

"Hey guys," Tara called out from the back table breaking their concentration. No one had noticed her slip back into the room several minutes earlier, "I think I've got the answer."

Still preoccupied with what Giles had told them, they hurried back to see what she had found.

Tara had the cards arranged on the table in numeric order: the zero, the two, the four, the six, the thirteen, the fifteen and the eighteen.

No one said anything, they just looked.

S – C – H – O – L – A – R

"Are they on campus?" Tara asked, mainly to Willow.

"No," Buffy said, "she has him at the high school."