Chapter 6: Hell Hath No Furie.
Willow slowly opened her eyes and rubbed her head, and discovered that she had a large gash across her forehead. She flinched as the tips of her fingers ran across the sore, bloodied flesh.
"Owww!" she whimpered.
Her vision was blurry and she had a major league headache-which she figured was from the blow to the head. Willow attempted to get up and get some water but she then found that her legs were tied together and chained to the wall.
It was only then that she remembered what had happened. Xander. He had called her and was acting really strangely and then hung up on her. She didn't know what was wrong with him! The next thing she remembered was waking up here. But...where was here?
The red head scanned the area as her vision returned. She didn't see anyone around. Yet she could hear voices echoing around the room, the sound waves bouncing off of all the walls and would enter Willow's ears multiple times, which only made her head hurt more. She clamped her hands over her ears to try and muffle the deafening sounds. She almost had it blocked out completely, but suddenly a thunderous roar pierced the makeshift silence. Willow removed her hands from her ears and looked for what had made the noise. It didn't take long, since a humongous black griffin stood before her. It sounded another earsplitting roar as it spread its huge wings to reveal bright, blood red feathers beneath the midnight black ones. It bucked up on to its hind legs and swung its large talons in Willow's direction.
All Willow could do was look on in awe. She had read of these mystical animals but had never once seen one up close. Usually, she would have taken this time to, well, run. But later she would research this animal more thoroughly. Although with the predicament she found herself in she couldn't do either, so she cowered.
"DOWN DEKTOS!!!!" Somebody suddenly shouted.
A tall, dark and handsome man emerged from the darkness. He had black hair, parted to either side of his bright green eyes. He wore a heavy black leather jacket, which was tattered and had maroon splotches on it-which Willow could only hope wasn't blood. As he made his way over to the teen, cowering in her corner, Willow could make out more of his features. He had a caveman-like brow-slightly akin to that of Angel's. He wore all black Chuck Taylor's beneath baggy black jeans. He had scuffed up painted black nails and wore heavy black mascara along with a large chain choker around his neck.
He crouched down so that he was face to face with the red head,
"Hey there." He said menacingly.
"Hi?" Willow replied hesitantly.
"Would you like to get out of those chains?" He asked, in the same cold tone.
"Please, yes." She whimpered.
"Too bad!" He yelled springing to his feet. "I want the boy. When you tell me where he is, then I'll unchain you."
"How should I know!? Xander hasn't said a word to me since he left."
"LIAR! I know he has communicated you. You and the Slayer and her hollow- headed friend." He hissed.
"The note? All he said was that he was in LA and that he was sorry that he'd left in such a hurry. I swear!" She assured with tears of fright behind her eyes. "Why do you need him?" She asked fearfully.
"I need to pursue him, but I cannot find him." He said with his back turned to Willow as he petted Dektos' beak.
"What did he do?"
The man laughed softly, "Do you really think that I would tell you, pitiful mortal? It isn't of your concern. Only of mine and my fellow siblings."
"Siblings?" she asked, trying to milk him for as much information as she could.
"Yes, myself, Tisiphone and Megaera."
It was only then that Willow put the puzzle pieces together and she gasped as the answer came to her. "You're a Furie!"
Again he laughed and waved his hand, rendering the red head unconscious once again. He chanted and teleported Willow back to the Summers' house.
He knew that she would go and tattle on him to the Slayer, but not even a Slayer was a match for The Furies. Even apart from that, he wanted he to tell. The sooner she did that, the sooner they could lead him to the boy and that was exactly what he wanted.
***
Willow awoke to the smell of Jasmine wafting through Buffy's bedroom window. She just lie there caught in her reverie for a minute or two before snapping upright and bolting down the stairs to find Buffy eating a bagel in the kitchen.
"Mornin' sleepy head!" Buffy chimed.
"BUFFY! Library..Giles..now!" she said, out of breath.
***
"So, you say that this man's pet griffin came into Buffy's home and took you to his master's lair in the middle of the night?" the watcher inquired.
"Yeah. I know it's strange but I swear that it's true!" Willow assured.
"Man, I wish I had heard something! I know that I could have done something. I mean I'm the Slayer-and your best friend, I should have woken up." Buffy hung her head.
"No, no Buffy! It is best that it happened! Now we know about this guy after Xander." The red head pointed out.
"But back on subject, Willow you say he and his two siblings are after Xander?" Giles asked groggily while taking occasional sips of tea out of his "Kiss the Librarian" mug.
"Does that mean that I'll never get my car back?" Cordy asked.
"Okay.uh, yeah. He said that they-his siblings-were Tisiphone and Megaera." Willow explained, fully awake.
"The Greek Furies?" Giles inquired, all of a sudden much more awake and alert.
"Yup."
Buffy and Cordelia just sat through this looking confused and dazed. But Buffy decided that she should have a part in it so she put in her two cents,
"The Geek what's?"
"Here, all will be explained once I can get my Greek mythology tomes out of the boxes in my office. Willow, Buffy and Cordelia, will you please get onto the Internet and look for any information pertaining to these deities?"
"Of course." Cordelia chirped, in a not so 'chirpy' way. It was a much more 'why did you get me up so early on a Saturday morning' kind of chirp.
As the teens logged onto the 'Net Giles began to rummage through his dilapidated boxes for any book which could be of any use in this situation. He found few and brought them out to the large rectangular table and then went to see what Willow had found.
"How is it going, Willow?" the librarian asked kindly.
"Well, I found all sorts of stuff on Greek gods but only a few things on the Furies, and they all say the same thing, 'They punish criminals but are particularly concerned with matricide. There are three Erinnyes'-another word for the Furies, Tisiphone, Megaera and one other who isn't mentioned, I haven't found anything on him."
"I'd go out on a limb and say that he's our guy." Buffy added.
"Well, yeah." Cordy said.
"Good work. I'll start skimming my texts and see if I can procure any other information about him. In the meanwhile, keep looking and alert me should you find anything which could be relevant." The Watcher professed.
"Cool. But, you know. Some of us need our beauty sleep so..can I go home?" Cordelia pleaded.
Giles sighed; he wasn't in the mood for fighting or arguing so he caved, "Very well. Just be sure that you are back later, or at least that you check in the either Buffy or Willow so that you know what is going on."
"Okay!" she shouted already having her mother's car keys in hand and being half way out the door.
"Well good. Let's get to work, girls." Giles said turning back to the other two, staring blankly at the computer's luminous screen, reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of Greek mythology.
After hours of research they had, in fact discovered a few interesting facts. Once it was 12:00 they had decided to check in with each other and report on what they had found out.
"Well, Willow, what did you and Buffy find?" Giles inquired, rubbing his eyes and quickly cleaning his glasses.
"What didn't we find?" Buffy said, mimicking Xander.
Willow just rolled her eyes and took out the yellow legal pad on which they had been writing down facts. "Okay! Well, they pursue wrong doers relentlessly, until death, often driving them to suicide and they were created from the blood of Uranus when he..was castrated."
Giles cringed and crossed his legs.
Buffy, then, took over. "Uranus is the sky god and first ruler. He is the son of Gaea-the Earth goddess, who created him without help, i.e. sex. He then became the husband of Gaea and together they had many offspring, including twelve of the Titans. Man they were busy little beavers, huh?" She giggled but still went on, "His rule ended when Cronus, encouraged by Gaea, castrated him. He either died from the wound or withdrew from earth."
Giles nodded, not uncrossing his legs, "Very good, girls! I, myself, found out a few very interesting facts. For instance, Cronus was the ruling Titan who came to power by castrating his Father Uranus. But, you have already covered the castration issue so, I don't think we need to go over that again." He said clearing his throat a little uncomfortably. "Yes, well..um..did either of you find any other information on the third Furie?"
"Nope. Well, kind of. Tell him, Willow." Buffy said pushing the red head a little.
Again, Willow rolled her eyes but began to read off more of their notes, "There was slight mention of a feud between the Gods and the Lower Powers- like the Fates, the Furies, et cetera-about one of the Lower Powers using his or her powers for evil instead of good. So this Being was then robbed of their powers and was then erased from all texts. It was then said that only the blood of a mortal with a true heart could then restore the Beings powers. But at the time, the gods figured that such a person would never exist so they completely forgot about the Being after awhile. This made us think, what if the Lower Power mentioned here is the third Furie? Because he is mentioned but never by name, only as 'the third Furie.' I know it is far fetched, since we're talking about Xander, but what if this guy is after Xander's blood?"
Giles looked surprised, "Very good, Willow!"
Buffy cleared her throat.
"And Buffy. I think that we should look into this." The Librarian paused for a minute and then scrambled to put his glasses back and began to flip through one of his books.
"Ah..ah! Here! The third Furie! Alecto!"
"How can he be in there if he was erased from all sources?" Buffy inquired.
"This is a copy that my friend gave me as a birthday present a few years ago which was made QUITE a long time ago. It must be so old that the gods couldn't have changed it before it was taken out of Greece." He explained distantly as he continued to read the text.
"What does it say, Giles?" Willow asked curiously.
"It says that, uh, Alecto was in charge of the smiting of the individuals who were seen to have been worthy of...well, death. He has a giant black griffin as a pet. It says that it's name is Dektos and it had blood red feathers on the undersides of it's wings, which is actually died with the blood of those the two have smote. But yes, back to Alecto himself, um, one day a mortal complained that Coronus had been cruel to his family so he wanted Alecto to smite him. Alecto said that be could not do that but the man persisted and, seeing that Alecto had such a temper, ended up killing the man and.my God..hanging the man's entrails across the small town, like garland. Once Zeus and Hera found out about Alecto's atrocious deed he and the other God's took away his power. But the other two Furies were not happy about this decision so they vowed to get even with Zeus so since that day they have been searching the world for the one with a true heart so as to get back at the Higher Powers."
"Okay. Well, at least we know more now. I think it is time to see what we can do to stop him though. So lets get on that." Buffy nodded and went to the book cage to look at weapons, which might kill a Furie. If there was a big uber God-thing after one of her best friends, then she was prepared to go to war and she knew that she'd win. Nothing would be able to touch Xander, even with a thirty-foot pole, as long a she was around!
TBC...
Willow slowly opened her eyes and rubbed her head, and discovered that she had a large gash across her forehead. She flinched as the tips of her fingers ran across the sore, bloodied flesh.
"Owww!" she whimpered.
Her vision was blurry and she had a major league headache-which she figured was from the blow to the head. Willow attempted to get up and get some water but she then found that her legs were tied together and chained to the wall.
It was only then that she remembered what had happened. Xander. He had called her and was acting really strangely and then hung up on her. She didn't know what was wrong with him! The next thing she remembered was waking up here. But...where was here?
The red head scanned the area as her vision returned. She didn't see anyone around. Yet she could hear voices echoing around the room, the sound waves bouncing off of all the walls and would enter Willow's ears multiple times, which only made her head hurt more. She clamped her hands over her ears to try and muffle the deafening sounds. She almost had it blocked out completely, but suddenly a thunderous roar pierced the makeshift silence. Willow removed her hands from her ears and looked for what had made the noise. It didn't take long, since a humongous black griffin stood before her. It sounded another earsplitting roar as it spread its huge wings to reveal bright, blood red feathers beneath the midnight black ones. It bucked up on to its hind legs and swung its large talons in Willow's direction.
All Willow could do was look on in awe. She had read of these mystical animals but had never once seen one up close. Usually, she would have taken this time to, well, run. But later she would research this animal more thoroughly. Although with the predicament she found herself in she couldn't do either, so she cowered.
"DOWN DEKTOS!!!!" Somebody suddenly shouted.
A tall, dark and handsome man emerged from the darkness. He had black hair, parted to either side of his bright green eyes. He wore a heavy black leather jacket, which was tattered and had maroon splotches on it-which Willow could only hope wasn't blood. As he made his way over to the teen, cowering in her corner, Willow could make out more of his features. He had a caveman-like brow-slightly akin to that of Angel's. He wore all black Chuck Taylor's beneath baggy black jeans. He had scuffed up painted black nails and wore heavy black mascara along with a large chain choker around his neck.
He crouched down so that he was face to face with the red head,
"Hey there." He said menacingly.
"Hi?" Willow replied hesitantly.
"Would you like to get out of those chains?" He asked, in the same cold tone.
"Please, yes." She whimpered.
"Too bad!" He yelled springing to his feet. "I want the boy. When you tell me where he is, then I'll unchain you."
"How should I know!? Xander hasn't said a word to me since he left."
"LIAR! I know he has communicated you. You and the Slayer and her hollow- headed friend." He hissed.
"The note? All he said was that he was in LA and that he was sorry that he'd left in such a hurry. I swear!" She assured with tears of fright behind her eyes. "Why do you need him?" She asked fearfully.
"I need to pursue him, but I cannot find him." He said with his back turned to Willow as he petted Dektos' beak.
"What did he do?"
The man laughed softly, "Do you really think that I would tell you, pitiful mortal? It isn't of your concern. Only of mine and my fellow siblings."
"Siblings?" she asked, trying to milk him for as much information as she could.
"Yes, myself, Tisiphone and Megaera."
It was only then that Willow put the puzzle pieces together and she gasped as the answer came to her. "You're a Furie!"
Again he laughed and waved his hand, rendering the red head unconscious once again. He chanted and teleported Willow back to the Summers' house.
He knew that she would go and tattle on him to the Slayer, but not even a Slayer was a match for The Furies. Even apart from that, he wanted he to tell. The sooner she did that, the sooner they could lead him to the boy and that was exactly what he wanted.
***
Willow awoke to the smell of Jasmine wafting through Buffy's bedroom window. She just lie there caught in her reverie for a minute or two before snapping upright and bolting down the stairs to find Buffy eating a bagel in the kitchen.
"Mornin' sleepy head!" Buffy chimed.
"BUFFY! Library..Giles..now!" she said, out of breath.
***
"So, you say that this man's pet griffin came into Buffy's home and took you to his master's lair in the middle of the night?" the watcher inquired.
"Yeah. I know it's strange but I swear that it's true!" Willow assured.
"Man, I wish I had heard something! I know that I could have done something. I mean I'm the Slayer-and your best friend, I should have woken up." Buffy hung her head.
"No, no Buffy! It is best that it happened! Now we know about this guy after Xander." The red head pointed out.
"But back on subject, Willow you say he and his two siblings are after Xander?" Giles asked groggily while taking occasional sips of tea out of his "Kiss the Librarian" mug.
"Does that mean that I'll never get my car back?" Cordy asked.
"Okay.uh, yeah. He said that they-his siblings-were Tisiphone and Megaera." Willow explained, fully awake.
"The Greek Furies?" Giles inquired, all of a sudden much more awake and alert.
"Yup."
Buffy and Cordelia just sat through this looking confused and dazed. But Buffy decided that she should have a part in it so she put in her two cents,
"The Geek what's?"
"Here, all will be explained once I can get my Greek mythology tomes out of the boxes in my office. Willow, Buffy and Cordelia, will you please get onto the Internet and look for any information pertaining to these deities?"
"Of course." Cordelia chirped, in a not so 'chirpy' way. It was a much more 'why did you get me up so early on a Saturday morning' kind of chirp.
As the teens logged onto the 'Net Giles began to rummage through his dilapidated boxes for any book which could be of any use in this situation. He found few and brought them out to the large rectangular table and then went to see what Willow had found.
"How is it going, Willow?" the librarian asked kindly.
"Well, I found all sorts of stuff on Greek gods but only a few things on the Furies, and they all say the same thing, 'They punish criminals but are particularly concerned with matricide. There are three Erinnyes'-another word for the Furies, Tisiphone, Megaera and one other who isn't mentioned, I haven't found anything on him."
"I'd go out on a limb and say that he's our guy." Buffy added.
"Well, yeah." Cordy said.
"Good work. I'll start skimming my texts and see if I can procure any other information about him. In the meanwhile, keep looking and alert me should you find anything which could be relevant." The Watcher professed.
"Cool. But, you know. Some of us need our beauty sleep so..can I go home?" Cordelia pleaded.
Giles sighed; he wasn't in the mood for fighting or arguing so he caved, "Very well. Just be sure that you are back later, or at least that you check in the either Buffy or Willow so that you know what is going on."
"Okay!" she shouted already having her mother's car keys in hand and being half way out the door.
"Well good. Let's get to work, girls." Giles said turning back to the other two, staring blankly at the computer's luminous screen, reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of Greek mythology.
After hours of research they had, in fact discovered a few interesting facts. Once it was 12:00 they had decided to check in with each other and report on what they had found out.
"Well, Willow, what did you and Buffy find?" Giles inquired, rubbing his eyes and quickly cleaning his glasses.
"What didn't we find?" Buffy said, mimicking Xander.
Willow just rolled her eyes and took out the yellow legal pad on which they had been writing down facts. "Okay! Well, they pursue wrong doers relentlessly, until death, often driving them to suicide and they were created from the blood of Uranus when he..was castrated."
Giles cringed and crossed his legs.
Buffy, then, took over. "Uranus is the sky god and first ruler. He is the son of Gaea-the Earth goddess, who created him without help, i.e. sex. He then became the husband of Gaea and together they had many offspring, including twelve of the Titans. Man they were busy little beavers, huh?" She giggled but still went on, "His rule ended when Cronus, encouraged by Gaea, castrated him. He either died from the wound or withdrew from earth."
Giles nodded, not uncrossing his legs, "Very good, girls! I, myself, found out a few very interesting facts. For instance, Cronus was the ruling Titan who came to power by castrating his Father Uranus. But, you have already covered the castration issue so, I don't think we need to go over that again." He said clearing his throat a little uncomfortably. "Yes, well..um..did either of you find any other information on the third Furie?"
"Nope. Well, kind of. Tell him, Willow." Buffy said pushing the red head a little.
Again, Willow rolled her eyes but began to read off more of their notes, "There was slight mention of a feud between the Gods and the Lower Powers- like the Fates, the Furies, et cetera-about one of the Lower Powers using his or her powers for evil instead of good. So this Being was then robbed of their powers and was then erased from all texts. It was then said that only the blood of a mortal with a true heart could then restore the Beings powers. But at the time, the gods figured that such a person would never exist so they completely forgot about the Being after awhile. This made us think, what if the Lower Power mentioned here is the third Furie? Because he is mentioned but never by name, only as 'the third Furie.' I know it is far fetched, since we're talking about Xander, but what if this guy is after Xander's blood?"
Giles looked surprised, "Very good, Willow!"
Buffy cleared her throat.
"And Buffy. I think that we should look into this." The Librarian paused for a minute and then scrambled to put his glasses back and began to flip through one of his books.
"Ah..ah! Here! The third Furie! Alecto!"
"How can he be in there if he was erased from all sources?" Buffy inquired.
"This is a copy that my friend gave me as a birthday present a few years ago which was made QUITE a long time ago. It must be so old that the gods couldn't have changed it before it was taken out of Greece." He explained distantly as he continued to read the text.
"What does it say, Giles?" Willow asked curiously.
"It says that, uh, Alecto was in charge of the smiting of the individuals who were seen to have been worthy of...well, death. He has a giant black griffin as a pet. It says that it's name is Dektos and it had blood red feathers on the undersides of it's wings, which is actually died with the blood of those the two have smote. But yes, back to Alecto himself, um, one day a mortal complained that Coronus had been cruel to his family so he wanted Alecto to smite him. Alecto said that be could not do that but the man persisted and, seeing that Alecto had such a temper, ended up killing the man and.my God..hanging the man's entrails across the small town, like garland. Once Zeus and Hera found out about Alecto's atrocious deed he and the other God's took away his power. But the other two Furies were not happy about this decision so they vowed to get even with Zeus so since that day they have been searching the world for the one with a true heart so as to get back at the Higher Powers."
"Okay. Well, at least we know more now. I think it is time to see what we can do to stop him though. So lets get on that." Buffy nodded and went to the book cage to look at weapons, which might kill a Furie. If there was a big uber God-thing after one of her best friends, then she was prepared to go to war and she knew that she'd win. Nothing would be able to touch Xander, even with a thirty-foot pole, as long a she was around!
TBC...
