Chapter 30
There were a lot of people bustling about in the streets. A musician was playing his harmonica on the corner. As Spike passed him, the song changed, and Spike started humming along. Faith was only a few paces behind, following Spike. The crowd was dense, and he was difficult for her to follow. She watched him go up to a young woman in line to get into a club. He whispered in her ear, and she walked off with him, hand in hand. Faith tried to follow, but it was getting more difficult. Spike had his arm around the young woman now.
"So, um, what kind of name is Spike?" the girl asked.
Faith tried to keep up, but she lost him in the crowd. She became frantic, wanting to save this girl's life and prove that Spike wasn't bad at the same time. After about an hour, she gave up and decided to do a quick patrol. The night was progressing and there were other people out there she had to save.
Cordy opened her eyes and looked around her. It was nighttime and Xander was sitting beside her on the bed. Angel paced the floor while Buffy sat in a rocking chair. "Hi."
"You're awake!" Xander said.
"Yeah."
"How do feel?"
"Been better."
"You still have your visions. I thought they weren't supposed to hurt anymore." Buffy said.
"This wasn't normal. If that word actually applies to anything that ever happens to me. The visions are usually like a lawn sprinkler. This was like Niagara."
"You guys should let her rest." Xander said.
"No. I'm ok." Cordy said, taking his hand.
"What else can you tell us?" Angel asked.
"Big, powerful, clawing its way up through the bowels of the earth to slaughter us all. Yeah, that pretty much covers it."
"Did you see anything that could give us a location?"
"No, just the big beastie. It's coming, Angel, and it won't stop, not until we're all.. It won't stop."
"He's right. You should probably get some sleep." Buffy said.
"Yeah, because impending doom: almost as good as warm milk."
"Whatever's coming, we'll figure out a way to stop it."
"It'll be too late. I can feel it. There's something.. I don't know. I think I know more about this thing.. or, I knew more when I was all high and mighty, but I just can't get at it."
"Maybe if Lorne read you again." Angel said.
"You think he would after what happened the first time?"
"Buffy and I could hold him down."
"Angel, we need to know more. I need to know."
"We're on it." Angel and Buffy left. Angel drove the van to Wolfram and Hart and they snuck in through the basement. Moving stealthily and silently, they moved upwards to Lilah's office.
Lilah opened the door to her office and stopped in mid-sentence when she saw Buffy was playing Solitaire on her computer and Angel toying with a letter opener. "Lemme get back to you." she hung up the phone.
"Close the door." Angel said.
"How did you get in here?" Lilah closed the door. "Vampire detectors, my ass. Well, here we are, all nice and cozy. Let's talk about.. hmm, gee, let me guess.. Lorne. How's he doing? Still green?"
"I told you we were gonna have a conversation."
"Swell, but I'm having a bit of a day, so let's say we skip the usual two- step, you threaten me, I threaten you, yadda, yadda, yawn. Jump directly to the throwing you out on your thick, meaty heads. Cause, you know what? You're not getting anything out of me this time either."
"Didn't think we would, but Gavin.. he was more accommodating. Say, do you have Spider Solitaire on here? Game's addictive!" Buffy said, not looking up from the computer.
Lilah looked over at a chair and found Gavin bound and gagged on the couch. "Couldn't you two have at least tortured him a little bit more?"
"Really wanted to, but he wouldn't stop talking long enough to get into it."
"I have a cure for that."
"Vindict on your own time. We're kinda on the clock here." Angel said.
"What did he tell you?"
"You're trying to decipher what you took out of Lorne's head. Hundreds of psychics probing and prodding.. Well, not quite that many now, because every time they peel back a layer, their brains end up decorating the walls." Buffy said happily, finally looking up.
"You should see the cleaning bill. Now that is terrifying."
"Anything you got on what's coming. now would be a good time." Angel said.
"Not big on sharing."
"Think we're joking?"
"Not unless you've conjured up a sense of humor to go with that soul. Look, you got it straight from the weasel's mouth. Whatever Lorne gleaned from reading Wonder Girl.. it's protected. Try and unlock it: ka-blooey. Thanks for stopping by."
"You're trying to hide it. I can smell it on you."
"Chanel?" Lilah asked, shooing Buffy out of her chair.
"Fear."
"Well, you're both very imposing in this light."
"You're not afraid of us, Lilah. You're afraid of what's coming. Maybe we can help each other, huh. The enemy of my enemy.."
"Can kiss my ass too. You two wanna play hero? Go find another sandbox."
"Normally, this would be the part where I'd make a grand threat, but thanks to Gavin.."
"Like he knows anything."
"That's the point. This thing caught you by surprise, too. You had no idea it was coming."
"So, what? I'm supposed to throw in with Mr. and Mrs. Goody cause the great unknown has me shaking in my pumps?"
"It's a win-win for you, Lilah. You help us, we stop it, Wolfram and Hart makes you employee of the month for protecting everything they set in motion for the last thousand years. You help us and we don't stop it, well, I mean the only way that's gonna happen is if this thing kills us. And if that's the way it goes, you win again. So, you can keep playing it hard, or you can play it smart. It's up to you." Buffy said.
"You've been doing this Slayer thing for way to long."
"She's better at it than you are at your job." Angel said.
"How sweet and so NOT touching." Buffy took a step forward and Lilah flinched almost imperceptibly. Buffy smiled and backed off. "All right. I'll give you what I have so far."
"Sure you know where you're going?" Xander asked. He and Cordy were walking through some old factory.
"Exactly? No. But, for the first time since I've been back, I feel like I have a purpose, like a reason for being here. Before, all I felt was empty.. like I was waiting for my life to start." Cordy said.
"I remember those days."
"Yeah. It's called being 18."
"So that's what that was called!" Cordy smiled a little as they headed out into an alley. She stopped suddenly. "What is it?"
"This place. I've been here before."
"In your vision?"
"No." Cordy stared harder. "Oh my God! This is where Buffy nearly died when we first saw Holtz."
Suddenly, something burst up from the ground in front of them, surrounded in red light. The force of the explosion sent Xander and Cordy to the ground. The Beast was huge and he cast a horned shadow on the moist pavement. It had two enormous horns on top of its head, and it was a hulking beast.. the one Cordelia saw in her visions. Xander went at him with a sword, but the Beast just threw him across the alley into the side of a steel dumpster.
"Xander!" Cordy cried. She crouched on the ground, but the Beast grabbed her by the throat and lifted her several feet in the air to its eye level and stared into Cordelia's face. She didn't scream or thrash, just stared back at it looking a little frightened. Xander ran to her aid, attacking the Beast again. The Beast put Cordelia down and threw Xander across the alley again. "No!"
The Beast walked toward Cordelia. She tried to crawl away from it backwards on her back, but she couldn't get away from it. Where the Beast held her neck before, the skin was now red and torn.
Xander stood and yelled, "Stay away from her!"
The Beast looked at Xander, then at Cordelia and laughed. Then with a single effort, he jumped up to the top of the nearby five story tall building. When the thing was gone, Cordelia crawled over to Xander, who appeared hurt and was bleeding from the mouth.
"Go pool yourself. I'm gonna find my girlfriend." Gunn said.
Angel moved to block him as Buffy stood beside Wesley. "No you're not. If we don't stop what's coming, it won't matter where Fred is, or any of us."
"We've got stuff that's going to help us stop this thing. Or, it's supposed to." Buffy said. She handed the folder to Wesley who took it and took out a few papers before passing the rest to Lorne.
They got to work. Lorne sat down, looking at the papers that were now spread across the coffee table. The papers were completely covered in mystical symbols, and there were hundreds of the sheets of paper. Angel was pacing. Wesley was sitting on the couch next to Lorne and Buffy and Gunn were sitting on the couch across from them.
"That's everything Wolfram and Hart could decipher from what they took outta Lorne." Buffy said.
"They just handed these over?" Wesley asked.
"Lilah: she can be very giving." Angel said.
"You trust her on this?" Gunn asked.
"No, but she's got an interest in stopping the end of the world before it ruins Wolfram and Hart's end of the world, so.." Buffy said.
"Ok, what's the plan?"
"You're holding it. We figure out what all this means, then do something large and violent."
"I see you've given it considerable thought." Wesley said.
"So all this came out of my head? No wonder it made me greener." Lorne said.
"If Wolfram and Hart hadn't extracted it, you'd be a paler shade of dead." Angel said.
"Yeah, well, remind me to send 'em a fruit basket." Lorne sipped his cocktail as the phone rang. "Mmm. Saved by the continuous bell."
"You've been logging the calls?"
"Every last squishy one."
"Grab a map, start marking the locations. See if they're concentrated in any one area. Whatever's happening, whatever Cordy's seen, the answers are in these pages. We need to figure this out."
Half an hour later, Wesley, Gunn, Buffy, and Angel were still sitting on the couches, trying to decipher the data contained in the papers on the table in front of them.
"We're never gonna figure this out." Gunn said.
"We have to keep trying." Buffy said.
"Normally I'd agree, but this is a waste of time." Wesley said.
"It's all we have."
"Then we must be missing something. This is gibberish. Bits and pieces of glyphs, archaic languages, symbols.. all jumbled together."
"Do you recognize any of them?"
"Uh, heat, fallen, shrine, flesh.. none of it makes any sense."
"Ah, we gotta keep at it until it does." Angel said.
"Maybe we should call Giles. Fax this stuff over to him." Buffy said.
"If worst comes to worst, we won't rule it out."
"You know, maybe we should just take a step back." Gunn said, standing and walking around.
"We don't have time. Cordy said whatever's happening is going down right now."
"Then perhaps you should have addressed this earlier." Wes said, flipping through the pages. "We could sift through this muddle from now 'til doomsday, whether that's tomorrow or a thousand years from now."
"Wait, go back. The last sheet, flip it back." Gunn said.
"What is it?" Buffy asked, walking over to Gunn.
"I don't see anything." Wesley said.
"Cause you're looking too close." Gunn said. He lined up two of the papers, showing a triangular symbol that was completed when they were lined up properly. The pattern of the symbols and glyphs weren't nonsensical after all. There were areas that were more densely written on than others. Gunn grabbed a stack of the papers from Wesley, pushed the coffee table out of the way, and started arranging the papers on the floor, matching up the denser areas, which started to form lines.
"Ok. So what the hell is it?" Buffy asked.
When arranged properly, the papers formed a symbol that looked like a square with diagonal lines connecting opposite corners forming an X pattern within the square. Wes, Buffy, Angel and Gunn stood and stared at it.
"The Eye of Fire." Angel said.
"Ancient alchemical symbol for fire." Wesley said.
"And destruction."
"You had us at fire." Buffy said, motioning towards Gunn and herself.
"Um, guys?" Lorne called. He held up the map. "I hate to be the little demon that cried apocalypse, now-ish, but uh.." He gestured to the map with a marker. He had plotted the locations of the disturbances with a red dot for each call, and the dots formed a square.
Angel walked up and drew diagonal lines, connecting the corners of the square formed on the map when Lorne plotted the incidents. Angel pointed to where the lines crossed. "That's it."
"What?"
"The focal point of the disturbances." Wesley said.
Suddenly the building shook with the force from an earthquake. Buffy jumped and ran up to Angel. He slipped his arm around her comfortingly. "Whatever's coming, that's where we'll find it."
"I know that area.. the old Kimball building's down there. They did a retro on it, put a club up on the roof. The, uh, Sky Temple or something." Gunn said.
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. Watering hole for the tragically hip." Lorne said. "Actors, models, all the hot mamas and yamas."
"A shrine of the flesh." Wesley said.
"So, who's thirsty?" Angel asked, heading to the weapons cabinet.
"Let's do it." Gunn said.
"Hey, I know location's everything, but, um, maybe we should hold off on the down-payment till we know what we're dealing with or how to stop it." Lorne said.
"If it's alive, we kill it. If it's not, we bury it." Angel threw a crossbow to Wesley. "You in?"
"You know it." Wesley said.
The guys started to head out before they realized that Buffy hadn't followed them. Angel turned back to her and found her standing in the same spot she had been. Her hand was grasping her neck and blood seeped through her fingers. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear, before she collapsed to the floor.
There were a lot of people bustling about in the streets. A musician was playing his harmonica on the corner. As Spike passed him, the song changed, and Spike started humming along. Faith was only a few paces behind, following Spike. The crowd was dense, and he was difficult for her to follow. She watched him go up to a young woman in line to get into a club. He whispered in her ear, and she walked off with him, hand in hand. Faith tried to follow, but it was getting more difficult. Spike had his arm around the young woman now.
"So, um, what kind of name is Spike?" the girl asked.
Faith tried to keep up, but she lost him in the crowd. She became frantic, wanting to save this girl's life and prove that Spike wasn't bad at the same time. After about an hour, she gave up and decided to do a quick patrol. The night was progressing and there were other people out there she had to save.
Cordy opened her eyes and looked around her. It was nighttime and Xander was sitting beside her on the bed. Angel paced the floor while Buffy sat in a rocking chair. "Hi."
"You're awake!" Xander said.
"Yeah."
"How do feel?"
"Been better."
"You still have your visions. I thought they weren't supposed to hurt anymore." Buffy said.
"This wasn't normal. If that word actually applies to anything that ever happens to me. The visions are usually like a lawn sprinkler. This was like Niagara."
"You guys should let her rest." Xander said.
"No. I'm ok." Cordy said, taking his hand.
"What else can you tell us?" Angel asked.
"Big, powerful, clawing its way up through the bowels of the earth to slaughter us all. Yeah, that pretty much covers it."
"Did you see anything that could give us a location?"
"No, just the big beastie. It's coming, Angel, and it won't stop, not until we're all.. It won't stop."
"He's right. You should probably get some sleep." Buffy said.
"Yeah, because impending doom: almost as good as warm milk."
"Whatever's coming, we'll figure out a way to stop it."
"It'll be too late. I can feel it. There's something.. I don't know. I think I know more about this thing.. or, I knew more when I was all high and mighty, but I just can't get at it."
"Maybe if Lorne read you again." Angel said.
"You think he would after what happened the first time?"
"Buffy and I could hold him down."
"Angel, we need to know more. I need to know."
"We're on it." Angel and Buffy left. Angel drove the van to Wolfram and Hart and they snuck in through the basement. Moving stealthily and silently, they moved upwards to Lilah's office.
Lilah opened the door to her office and stopped in mid-sentence when she saw Buffy was playing Solitaire on her computer and Angel toying with a letter opener. "Lemme get back to you." she hung up the phone.
"Close the door." Angel said.
"How did you get in here?" Lilah closed the door. "Vampire detectors, my ass. Well, here we are, all nice and cozy. Let's talk about.. hmm, gee, let me guess.. Lorne. How's he doing? Still green?"
"I told you we were gonna have a conversation."
"Swell, but I'm having a bit of a day, so let's say we skip the usual two- step, you threaten me, I threaten you, yadda, yadda, yawn. Jump directly to the throwing you out on your thick, meaty heads. Cause, you know what? You're not getting anything out of me this time either."
"Didn't think we would, but Gavin.. he was more accommodating. Say, do you have Spider Solitaire on here? Game's addictive!" Buffy said, not looking up from the computer.
Lilah looked over at a chair and found Gavin bound and gagged on the couch. "Couldn't you two have at least tortured him a little bit more?"
"Really wanted to, but he wouldn't stop talking long enough to get into it."
"I have a cure for that."
"Vindict on your own time. We're kinda on the clock here." Angel said.
"What did he tell you?"
"You're trying to decipher what you took out of Lorne's head. Hundreds of psychics probing and prodding.. Well, not quite that many now, because every time they peel back a layer, their brains end up decorating the walls." Buffy said happily, finally looking up.
"You should see the cleaning bill. Now that is terrifying."
"Anything you got on what's coming. now would be a good time." Angel said.
"Not big on sharing."
"Think we're joking?"
"Not unless you've conjured up a sense of humor to go with that soul. Look, you got it straight from the weasel's mouth. Whatever Lorne gleaned from reading Wonder Girl.. it's protected. Try and unlock it: ka-blooey. Thanks for stopping by."
"You're trying to hide it. I can smell it on you."
"Chanel?" Lilah asked, shooing Buffy out of her chair.
"Fear."
"Well, you're both very imposing in this light."
"You're not afraid of us, Lilah. You're afraid of what's coming. Maybe we can help each other, huh. The enemy of my enemy.."
"Can kiss my ass too. You two wanna play hero? Go find another sandbox."
"Normally, this would be the part where I'd make a grand threat, but thanks to Gavin.."
"Like he knows anything."
"That's the point. This thing caught you by surprise, too. You had no idea it was coming."
"So, what? I'm supposed to throw in with Mr. and Mrs. Goody cause the great unknown has me shaking in my pumps?"
"It's a win-win for you, Lilah. You help us, we stop it, Wolfram and Hart makes you employee of the month for protecting everything they set in motion for the last thousand years. You help us and we don't stop it, well, I mean the only way that's gonna happen is if this thing kills us. And if that's the way it goes, you win again. So, you can keep playing it hard, or you can play it smart. It's up to you." Buffy said.
"You've been doing this Slayer thing for way to long."
"She's better at it than you are at your job." Angel said.
"How sweet and so NOT touching." Buffy took a step forward and Lilah flinched almost imperceptibly. Buffy smiled and backed off. "All right. I'll give you what I have so far."
"Sure you know where you're going?" Xander asked. He and Cordy were walking through some old factory.
"Exactly? No. But, for the first time since I've been back, I feel like I have a purpose, like a reason for being here. Before, all I felt was empty.. like I was waiting for my life to start." Cordy said.
"I remember those days."
"Yeah. It's called being 18."
"So that's what that was called!" Cordy smiled a little as they headed out into an alley. She stopped suddenly. "What is it?"
"This place. I've been here before."
"In your vision?"
"No." Cordy stared harder. "Oh my God! This is where Buffy nearly died when we first saw Holtz."
Suddenly, something burst up from the ground in front of them, surrounded in red light. The force of the explosion sent Xander and Cordy to the ground. The Beast was huge and he cast a horned shadow on the moist pavement. It had two enormous horns on top of its head, and it was a hulking beast.. the one Cordelia saw in her visions. Xander went at him with a sword, but the Beast just threw him across the alley into the side of a steel dumpster.
"Xander!" Cordy cried. She crouched on the ground, but the Beast grabbed her by the throat and lifted her several feet in the air to its eye level and stared into Cordelia's face. She didn't scream or thrash, just stared back at it looking a little frightened. Xander ran to her aid, attacking the Beast again. The Beast put Cordelia down and threw Xander across the alley again. "No!"
The Beast walked toward Cordelia. She tried to crawl away from it backwards on her back, but she couldn't get away from it. Where the Beast held her neck before, the skin was now red and torn.
Xander stood and yelled, "Stay away from her!"
The Beast looked at Xander, then at Cordelia and laughed. Then with a single effort, he jumped up to the top of the nearby five story tall building. When the thing was gone, Cordelia crawled over to Xander, who appeared hurt and was bleeding from the mouth.
"Go pool yourself. I'm gonna find my girlfriend." Gunn said.
Angel moved to block him as Buffy stood beside Wesley. "No you're not. If we don't stop what's coming, it won't matter where Fred is, or any of us."
"We've got stuff that's going to help us stop this thing. Or, it's supposed to." Buffy said. She handed the folder to Wesley who took it and took out a few papers before passing the rest to Lorne.
They got to work. Lorne sat down, looking at the papers that were now spread across the coffee table. The papers were completely covered in mystical symbols, and there were hundreds of the sheets of paper. Angel was pacing. Wesley was sitting on the couch next to Lorne and Buffy and Gunn were sitting on the couch across from them.
"That's everything Wolfram and Hart could decipher from what they took outta Lorne." Buffy said.
"They just handed these over?" Wesley asked.
"Lilah: she can be very giving." Angel said.
"You trust her on this?" Gunn asked.
"No, but she's got an interest in stopping the end of the world before it ruins Wolfram and Hart's end of the world, so.." Buffy said.
"Ok, what's the plan?"
"You're holding it. We figure out what all this means, then do something large and violent."
"I see you've given it considerable thought." Wesley said.
"So all this came out of my head? No wonder it made me greener." Lorne said.
"If Wolfram and Hart hadn't extracted it, you'd be a paler shade of dead." Angel said.
"Yeah, well, remind me to send 'em a fruit basket." Lorne sipped his cocktail as the phone rang. "Mmm. Saved by the continuous bell."
"You've been logging the calls?"
"Every last squishy one."
"Grab a map, start marking the locations. See if they're concentrated in any one area. Whatever's happening, whatever Cordy's seen, the answers are in these pages. We need to figure this out."
Half an hour later, Wesley, Gunn, Buffy, and Angel were still sitting on the couches, trying to decipher the data contained in the papers on the table in front of them.
"We're never gonna figure this out." Gunn said.
"We have to keep trying." Buffy said.
"Normally I'd agree, but this is a waste of time." Wesley said.
"It's all we have."
"Then we must be missing something. This is gibberish. Bits and pieces of glyphs, archaic languages, symbols.. all jumbled together."
"Do you recognize any of them?"
"Uh, heat, fallen, shrine, flesh.. none of it makes any sense."
"Ah, we gotta keep at it until it does." Angel said.
"Maybe we should call Giles. Fax this stuff over to him." Buffy said.
"If worst comes to worst, we won't rule it out."
"You know, maybe we should just take a step back." Gunn said, standing and walking around.
"We don't have time. Cordy said whatever's happening is going down right now."
"Then perhaps you should have addressed this earlier." Wes said, flipping through the pages. "We could sift through this muddle from now 'til doomsday, whether that's tomorrow or a thousand years from now."
"Wait, go back. The last sheet, flip it back." Gunn said.
"What is it?" Buffy asked, walking over to Gunn.
"I don't see anything." Wesley said.
"Cause you're looking too close." Gunn said. He lined up two of the papers, showing a triangular symbol that was completed when they were lined up properly. The pattern of the symbols and glyphs weren't nonsensical after all. There were areas that were more densely written on than others. Gunn grabbed a stack of the papers from Wesley, pushed the coffee table out of the way, and started arranging the papers on the floor, matching up the denser areas, which started to form lines.
"Ok. So what the hell is it?" Buffy asked.
When arranged properly, the papers formed a symbol that looked like a square with diagonal lines connecting opposite corners forming an X pattern within the square. Wes, Buffy, Angel and Gunn stood and stared at it.
"The Eye of Fire." Angel said.
"Ancient alchemical symbol for fire." Wesley said.
"And destruction."
"You had us at fire." Buffy said, motioning towards Gunn and herself.
"Um, guys?" Lorne called. He held up the map. "I hate to be the little demon that cried apocalypse, now-ish, but uh.." He gestured to the map with a marker. He had plotted the locations of the disturbances with a red dot for each call, and the dots formed a square.
Angel walked up and drew diagonal lines, connecting the corners of the square formed on the map when Lorne plotted the incidents. Angel pointed to where the lines crossed. "That's it."
"What?"
"The focal point of the disturbances." Wesley said.
Suddenly the building shook with the force from an earthquake. Buffy jumped and ran up to Angel. He slipped his arm around her comfortingly. "Whatever's coming, that's where we'll find it."
"I know that area.. the old Kimball building's down there. They did a retro on it, put a club up on the roof. The, uh, Sky Temple or something." Gunn said.
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. Watering hole for the tragically hip." Lorne said. "Actors, models, all the hot mamas and yamas."
"A shrine of the flesh." Wesley said.
"So, who's thirsty?" Angel asked, heading to the weapons cabinet.
"Let's do it." Gunn said.
"Hey, I know location's everything, but, um, maybe we should hold off on the down-payment till we know what we're dealing with or how to stop it." Lorne said.
"If it's alive, we kill it. If it's not, we bury it." Angel threw a crossbow to Wesley. "You in?"
"You know it." Wesley said.
The guys started to head out before they realized that Buffy hadn't followed them. Angel turned back to her and found her standing in the same spot she had been. Her hand was grasping her neck and blood seeped through her fingers. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear, before she collapsed to the floor.
