Enjoy. Unbeta'd, but damnit I order you to enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!
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Back From the Dead
Frederick slammed his hand on the table and bounded to his feet. "That's outrageous!"
Giles turned to the elder computer specialist who had been learning just as much as his pupils in the last few weeks. "Please, do calm yourself."
The man heaved a breath and looked around the room at the stares. All were watching him. Slowly he reached behind for the chair and sat back down.
"It is a rather odd proclamation Mr. Giles." Nathan said and looked back at Audrey who nodded in agreement.
Giles closed his eyes a moment and let his head tip down before looking back up at the 7 children and 4 adults that now whispered to each other their disbelief. Each asking questions not considered before.
"Please, I do have a reason for telling you this," He began and saw the eldest of the watchers, a dark skinned white haired man who'd been present at the naming of the newest slayer and her watcher. The man was the lead watcher of Slayers. He had survived through 3 charges and could recite from memory several pages of Diaries. Giles suspected he would be the most difficult to convince.
"Mr. Giles. Do you have any evidence of this?" The dark man asked simply.
Giles picked up the book lying in front of him and lifted it so the others could see it. "I do. The personal Diary of Crawford Emerson."
"That's impossible." The woman near the end of the table proclaimed and shook her head. "It was lost 60 years ago."
"And it was found, by me, half that time ago." He said rather flippantly and set the book down in front of the dark man who's eyes looked much like a child's on Christmas morning. Wide and waiting in anticipation
The expert needed no more prompting. He had the pages open and exposed in seconds and quickly began skimming the pages.
A young man with sky blue eyes staring at the Head of the Council spoke out. "How did you find it?"
A girl with blonde hair to match the blue eyed boy, his sister, echoed the sentiment. "Yes. How?"
Giles cleared his throat. "Has anyone been volunteered to the libraries?"
The children all groaned quietly. Duty in the library was often a punishment for children.
Most of the adults in the room smiled at the youngsters' reaction. The children hated the never ending cataloguing and replacing of books.
"Yes well, I had the privilege myself, but enjoyed it. I often went to help Mr. Gregory of my own volition."
And then the children tried to hide their chuckles.
Giles knew that had this been a popularity contest, he could have just lost a few points. But he wasn't worried. If anything, now he did have the others' respect now-a-days. So he went on, "That included cataloguing new books, and going through them for the listings."
The woman cut in. "Do you mean to tell us this came in with a shipment of texts?"
"That is exactly what I am telling you."
"Dear Lord." They all turned their attention to the man who'd spoken.
The aged diary was set down and the man who knew all there was to know of Slayers looked back to Mr. Giles. "She went to Akoshta."
"Then you do know about it?" Giles asked the man.
But the man shook his head. "Only pieces from other logs and Diaries I have read. But that is the only way she could have been made fully human."
Frederick whipped his head around. "What?"
"She was fully human?" Audrey asked, then turned to Nathan. "What does that mean?"
"Where is she now?" The older woman at the end of the table asked.
Giles put a hand up trying to silence the group. They quieted and he tried to answer what he could. "Samantha is alive. She was stripped of her slayer powers by the sisters of Akoshta, and returned to live her life for serving humanity beyond the scope of what is normally expected of a slayer." He took off his glasses and began to wipe them clean. "And if my assumptions are correct, she is or will soon be, in Sunnydale."
"Sunnydale? Why?" The young blonde girl asked.
He set his glasses back in place and looked over the group once more. "To bring Buffy and Spike home."
Again Frederick interrupted. "Bring her back? WE haven't even figured out where she is. And how will an old woman possibly accomplish what we can not?"
Giles leaned forward and eyed the overweight, and under trained computer expert. "Frederick, that old woman probably knows more about the forces we are dealing with than all of us combined."
"Yes." Nathan blurted out. "If she was not killed by the Tomar, then she knows how to stop it." Then the boy looked back at Giles. "But I still don't understand how that can bring Buffy home."
"Because, the portal was opened. And it did close." Giles grinned at the boy and then looked over the faces of the small crowd to the only person who had yet to say anything.
The woman at the end of the table, a stout sturdy woman with a build to match her reputation as a stern and forthright, looked back at him with deep black eyes and pushed her short raven hair back from her face. As strict as she was, she was also dedicated. In her years serving she had become familiar with several demons and the paths they take. To be more specific she knew almost anything one would want to of portals and doors to dimensions. How they are formed, and by whom.
Like most in her family, she was an expert on demons, and this lead to interest involving the specialty she had been born to study. She looked around the group, trying to decide exactly how to approach the subject. "Mr. Giles, although I do know I have a personal interest in this, all I can tell you is that if the portal was opened, using the rites the Tomar are said to perform, and the necessary beings were present, the only way to get Buffy and Spike back would be through a portal opened at the time immediately following the last." She said and saw slightly confused faces staring back as she scanned the room. "That is to say, if the calculations Nathan has is correct, then I would suggest letting the Tomar proceed. It is their only chance."
Giles nodded. "I came to the same conclusion."
"But what of the crystal?" The blonde girl asked.
The dark man peered towards the girl. "According to the notes made by Crawford, the Slayer Samantha still possesses it."
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1943
"It should work." Buffy said seriously and looked to the other slayer for confirmation.
Sam nodded. "We'll need to keep Spike away from the vortex, or Dru will see him," She looked over to Spike. "Even if she is as crazy as you say, it could really cause a problem."
"No argument here, pet." Spike agreed.
"We'll need to lay low tonight though." Ashton said.
Spike nodded. "Yeah. They get word two slayers are after them and the whole party's liable to be cancelled."
"I'll need to get back to my flat. I still have duties tomorrow and all my weapons are there." Sam told them.
"I'll go with Sam then," Buffy said to Sam, then looked back at Spike. "Business as usual tomorrow, then we can meet here before we head out."
"A sound plan." Ashton said.
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Sunnydale, 2002
Slowly, Michelle stood and stared at the small stone held by the old woman.
Xander shook his head. "Your who?"
Richard stood up. "That's not possible ma'am."
"Your Sam?" Tara asked.
Anya smiled. "Did you enjoy the book on vampires?"
Christian watched with interest.
Dawn took a few steps forward and motioned towards the crystal. "Is that the same one?"
Sam smiled at the long haired brunette. "Yes Dawn. It's the same one."
The brunette whipped her head up "How do you-?" Dawn began to ask.
"Know your name?" Sam finished.
Dawn just nodded.
Sam smiled and looked back to Willow, who was now upright and staring open mouthed. Then to Tara who let Willow lean on her. Xander stood in front of the counter and Anya walked up to his side.
Sam smiled back to Dawn. "Buffy told me so much about you, I feel I almost know each of you."
"Buffy!" Dawn remembered and looked to Willow. "The crystal. We can get Buffy!" She smiled.
"We can." Sam agreed. "But we have to get this to the Tomar." Sam explained.
"What?" Richard stood up. "We can not hand it over to them."
"No." Tara shook her head. "Sam is right."
"Huh?" Xander looked at the wiccan. "Don't we usually try to keep the evil demon's separate from their even more evil talismans?"
"I understand." They heard Christian say. "Only they can access the power. We don't have the people needed. The demons."
Dawn raised a brow. "So we have to give the bad guys what they came for?"
Sam nodded.
"Wait." Xander held his hands up. "Then what?"
"What do you mean, honey?" Anya asked perplexed and held his arm tightly. "Then Buffy comes home."
Exasperated, Xander turned to his wife. "I know An. But then we have a big vortex in the middle of the soon to be new location of "Blocks of Socks". Sunnydale's newest store dedicated to footwear."
"Hmm. Yes." Anya turned back to Sam. "A vortex to another time would be inconvenient in the middle of a store."
Sam smiled. They were just like Buffy described. "It's alright. Once Buffy and Spike are back, all we have to do is smash the crystal. The vortex will close and no one will be able to open it again." She explained.
"Well then," Xander looked sheepish. "That answers that."
Dawn shook here head. "But how are we supposed to give it to the Tomar. I mean, we can't just walk up and hand it to one of the demons." She looked back to the table with the children of the council still seated at it. "Can we?"
Sam pursed her lips. "I was hoping you could help me with that."
Willow shook her head. "We don't even know where they are."
Richard looked back at the computer still open and ready for more searches, then back to Christian. "How hard is a locater spell to do on something like that?"
The brunette spell caster stole a glance at the stone still held in the elder Slayer's hand, then back to Richard. "It wouldn't be easy. Someone would have to know what they were looking for."
"Someone like the Tomar?" Richard asked.
Christian shrugged. "Yeah. I would suppose they have what they need on hand. Why?"
"Well, I just wonder if they are looking as hard as we have been. Maybe we could leave it for them to find."
"We could check. See if they have been looking for it." Tara said.
The boys looked up to see the others had been listening.
"It'll just take a few minutes to set up the spell." Tara explained and began to gather ingredients from the shelves.
Sam marveled at the group. No wonder Buffy and Spike wanted to get home. And no wonder the blonde slayer had lived so long with the support of this group behind her.
Christian followed Tara around the shop and discussed the spell as she plucked items off the store shelves. "You will be contriving a spell to locate a locator spell?"
Tara nodded and dropped a dried root into a small bag. "Um, yeah."
Christian watched as she dropped some mother wart into the small paper bag. "How will you detect the separate magics?"
She looked down into the bag and back up to the young man . "Entores oil. It could separate them." She said and went behind the counter to get a small vile which also landed in the bag. Then she surveyed the items at her disposal and smiled. "And excretions of questle to add color." She grinned and looked back to see a confused spell caster. " I mean to tint the separate magics. You know, so I can tell what properties belong to the crystal, what belong to the talisman it is now, and, if there is one, what belong to a locator spell."
Christian nodded and smiled. "Questle because they have the power to change the tint of inanimate objects."
Tara gave him another quiet smile and headed back to the table to prepare the mixture.
While Tara made the concoction, the others prepared the training area for the spell. Samantha stood back and let the group work.
Xander cleared the room and Willow set up candles while Dawn and Michelle prepared incense. Richard tried to explain some of it to Sam, who was more familiar with this than most slayers, but still enjoyed learning what she could. Anya, of course, manned the store.
When everything was set up, Tara began the chant with only Willow, Christian, and Sam in the room. The others were on call outside. Too much nervous energy could disturb the spell, and since all were on edge, the smaller the group the better.
As Tara chanted the onlookers saw her head fall back and her eyes slide shut before she straightened and stood. Then her eyes opened and began to move quickly from one face to the other.
It took a moment for the shy blonde to adjust to her vision. The colors were strange and other worldly. Not just pink the aura of magic around Willow, or the Green surrounding Christian, or even the golden halo that seemed to laminate Sam. The colors of the walls blinked from green to blue. The floor seemed not quite there.
But as her mind adjusted, so did her eyes. Things became more solid and she let her gaze fall back to the former Slayer. "Ok Sam." She called, and heard her voice echo in her head and ears.
Sam held out her hand and kept a close eye on Tara, as all three were. Again she unfurled her fingers slowly. The crystal was fully visible to the blonde now.
At first, Tara saw the white, pure energy that flowed from the crystal itself. The untapped energy. Then the energy darkened and spread, filling the space between Sam and herself. At first, it seemed like a shadow until it reached the walls of the training room.
When Tara saw the shadow had gone as far as it could she began the chant again, hoping to coax the spell along, but instead the area the shadow covered suddenly burst into a flowing pool of red and green twisting in and around each other. The light of the power was high and bright casing Tara to shield her eyes.
"It's too much!" She cried. "Please!"
Tara!" Willow called and ran to her lover's side. Without thinking the red head tried to hold the wavering wiccan. The instant the two made contact, Willow saw flashes of red and green before her. From all around the two colors assaulted her senses. It wasn't just that she saw the intense light, it was that she could feel it, taste it, hear it. And the sounds around here seemed wrong. She could hear her name being called, but the voice was hallow, and not quite there. She looked through the colors to finally see Tara.
"Tara, are you ok?"
"I'm ok. Can you handle this?"
Willow looked around again and smiled. "Yeah. I'm ok. This is the power of the talisman?"
"Yes. We need to dig deeper."
The two looked back at Sam's hand and focussed their combined energy to see into the light. Both sets of eyes studied the swirl of light, and tried to manipulate it's rhythm. Willow slid a thought between on red strand, while Tara pulled aside a green. Inside, a new line of light appeared. At first it held no color, just a presence of individuality. Something not belonging to the item under scrutiny.
A fine line of nothingness soon began to fill with shades of orange and stretched towards the door of the training room that led to the ally.
"We have to follow it." The two spoke in unison to the room before heading to the door.
Sam nodded at the couple as they began to go out the door. She followed and turned back to Christian, who was still unsure of what had happened. The two hadn't said a thing after Willow grabbed Tara. Not until they started to leave.
"Tell the others they found something. I'm going to go with them so we can hide the crystal." Sam explained before going out the back door.
Christian stood in the empty room. "O-kay." And he went out into the store.
Thankfully there was only one customer browsing near the front of the store. Xander, who stood behind the counter reading one of the texts on demons was the first to spot the slightly confused young man. "How's it going in there?"
"Well-" He was cut off by the phone.
Xander held up a finger to tell the boy to wait a minute and picked up the phone. "Magic Box."
"Xander."
Xander smiled . "Hey there G-man. Find anything out?"
"Not as such, but I gathered several of the watchers who have been working on the situation and all agree with our deduction."
"Glad to hear it. Tara's doing a locator spell as we speak." Xander informed him.
"A locator spell? To find the Tomar?"
"Yeah. Since we have the crystal, we have to give it to them so they can open swirly door thing."
"You have it? How?"
"Oh yeah, there's another slayer in town. Sam. But wait, you knew about her, right?"
"I thought she may be going to Sunnydale, I had no idea she was there at present."
"Present she is. Actually, in the training room she is."
Just then Xander heard Christian clear his throat. "That is what I came to tell you. She followed Tara and Willow. They found the tracing spell or locator spell, I'm not sure. Just that they were following it. Sam is with them."
"Well, there you go." Xander began to Giles. "Tara and Wills found the-" He stopped speaking as one of the words he'd heard registered and stared at the spell caster. "Did you say 'they'?"
Christian nodded.
"As in 'Willow and Tara did the spell'?"
"Not exactly, Tara recited the words, but it was strong. She was being.. well I'm not sure, but she was scared. Then Willow tried to hold on to her. Hold her up or. but she was pulled into the spell and no one said anything until they both said they were going to follow the trail. Sam went with the crystal so she could place it where it could be found, I assume."
Xander couldn't believe his ears. "Giles I have to go."
"I heard." The watcher related. "Be cautious, but I do believe Willow has overcome her dependency on magic. She may have been drawn in simply because of her feelings for Tara."
"Either way, I need to make sure they're ok." Xander said without further explanation and hung up the phone.
"Now," He said and walked towards Anya who was bidding her latest customer good-bye. "We tell the others and you show me which way they went."
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Ok guys, I really have a good ending all set up in my head, but you gotta at least try to review. I mean. Come on. Really. To Jill.. I give you great thinks. At least one person is reading. For you my dear.. I continue. And of course to Rogue Angel. You kick ass and you know it. *Smiles*
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Back From the Dead
Frederick slammed his hand on the table and bounded to his feet. "That's outrageous!"
Giles turned to the elder computer specialist who had been learning just as much as his pupils in the last few weeks. "Please, do calm yourself."
The man heaved a breath and looked around the room at the stares. All were watching him. Slowly he reached behind for the chair and sat back down.
"It is a rather odd proclamation Mr. Giles." Nathan said and looked back at Audrey who nodded in agreement.
Giles closed his eyes a moment and let his head tip down before looking back up at the 7 children and 4 adults that now whispered to each other their disbelief. Each asking questions not considered before.
"Please, I do have a reason for telling you this," He began and saw the eldest of the watchers, a dark skinned white haired man who'd been present at the naming of the newest slayer and her watcher. The man was the lead watcher of Slayers. He had survived through 3 charges and could recite from memory several pages of Diaries. Giles suspected he would be the most difficult to convince.
"Mr. Giles. Do you have any evidence of this?" The dark man asked simply.
Giles picked up the book lying in front of him and lifted it so the others could see it. "I do. The personal Diary of Crawford Emerson."
"That's impossible." The woman near the end of the table proclaimed and shook her head. "It was lost 60 years ago."
"And it was found, by me, half that time ago." He said rather flippantly and set the book down in front of the dark man who's eyes looked much like a child's on Christmas morning. Wide and waiting in anticipation
The expert needed no more prompting. He had the pages open and exposed in seconds and quickly began skimming the pages.
A young man with sky blue eyes staring at the Head of the Council spoke out. "How did you find it?"
A girl with blonde hair to match the blue eyed boy, his sister, echoed the sentiment. "Yes. How?"
Giles cleared his throat. "Has anyone been volunteered to the libraries?"
The children all groaned quietly. Duty in the library was often a punishment for children.
Most of the adults in the room smiled at the youngsters' reaction. The children hated the never ending cataloguing and replacing of books.
"Yes well, I had the privilege myself, but enjoyed it. I often went to help Mr. Gregory of my own volition."
And then the children tried to hide their chuckles.
Giles knew that had this been a popularity contest, he could have just lost a few points. But he wasn't worried. If anything, now he did have the others' respect now-a-days. So he went on, "That included cataloguing new books, and going through them for the listings."
The woman cut in. "Do you mean to tell us this came in with a shipment of texts?"
"That is exactly what I am telling you."
"Dear Lord." They all turned their attention to the man who'd spoken.
The aged diary was set down and the man who knew all there was to know of Slayers looked back to Mr. Giles. "She went to Akoshta."
"Then you do know about it?" Giles asked the man.
But the man shook his head. "Only pieces from other logs and Diaries I have read. But that is the only way she could have been made fully human."
Frederick whipped his head around. "What?"
"She was fully human?" Audrey asked, then turned to Nathan. "What does that mean?"
"Where is she now?" The older woman at the end of the table asked.
Giles put a hand up trying to silence the group. They quieted and he tried to answer what he could. "Samantha is alive. She was stripped of her slayer powers by the sisters of Akoshta, and returned to live her life for serving humanity beyond the scope of what is normally expected of a slayer." He took off his glasses and began to wipe them clean. "And if my assumptions are correct, she is or will soon be, in Sunnydale."
"Sunnydale? Why?" The young blonde girl asked.
He set his glasses back in place and looked over the group once more. "To bring Buffy and Spike home."
Again Frederick interrupted. "Bring her back? WE haven't even figured out where she is. And how will an old woman possibly accomplish what we can not?"
Giles leaned forward and eyed the overweight, and under trained computer expert. "Frederick, that old woman probably knows more about the forces we are dealing with than all of us combined."
"Yes." Nathan blurted out. "If she was not killed by the Tomar, then she knows how to stop it." Then the boy looked back at Giles. "But I still don't understand how that can bring Buffy home."
"Because, the portal was opened. And it did close." Giles grinned at the boy and then looked over the faces of the small crowd to the only person who had yet to say anything.
The woman at the end of the table, a stout sturdy woman with a build to match her reputation as a stern and forthright, looked back at him with deep black eyes and pushed her short raven hair back from her face. As strict as she was, she was also dedicated. In her years serving she had become familiar with several demons and the paths they take. To be more specific she knew almost anything one would want to of portals and doors to dimensions. How they are formed, and by whom.
Like most in her family, she was an expert on demons, and this lead to interest involving the specialty she had been born to study. She looked around the group, trying to decide exactly how to approach the subject. "Mr. Giles, although I do know I have a personal interest in this, all I can tell you is that if the portal was opened, using the rites the Tomar are said to perform, and the necessary beings were present, the only way to get Buffy and Spike back would be through a portal opened at the time immediately following the last." She said and saw slightly confused faces staring back as she scanned the room. "That is to say, if the calculations Nathan has is correct, then I would suggest letting the Tomar proceed. It is their only chance."
Giles nodded. "I came to the same conclusion."
"But what of the crystal?" The blonde girl asked.
The dark man peered towards the girl. "According to the notes made by Crawford, the Slayer Samantha still possesses it."
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1943
"It should work." Buffy said seriously and looked to the other slayer for confirmation.
Sam nodded. "We'll need to keep Spike away from the vortex, or Dru will see him," She looked over to Spike. "Even if she is as crazy as you say, it could really cause a problem."
"No argument here, pet." Spike agreed.
"We'll need to lay low tonight though." Ashton said.
Spike nodded. "Yeah. They get word two slayers are after them and the whole party's liable to be cancelled."
"I'll need to get back to my flat. I still have duties tomorrow and all my weapons are there." Sam told them.
"I'll go with Sam then," Buffy said to Sam, then looked back at Spike. "Business as usual tomorrow, then we can meet here before we head out."
"A sound plan." Ashton said.
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Sunnydale, 2002
Slowly, Michelle stood and stared at the small stone held by the old woman.
Xander shook his head. "Your who?"
Richard stood up. "That's not possible ma'am."
"Your Sam?" Tara asked.
Anya smiled. "Did you enjoy the book on vampires?"
Christian watched with interest.
Dawn took a few steps forward and motioned towards the crystal. "Is that the same one?"
Sam smiled at the long haired brunette. "Yes Dawn. It's the same one."
The brunette whipped her head up "How do you-?" Dawn began to ask.
"Know your name?" Sam finished.
Dawn just nodded.
Sam smiled and looked back to Willow, who was now upright and staring open mouthed. Then to Tara who let Willow lean on her. Xander stood in front of the counter and Anya walked up to his side.
Sam smiled back to Dawn. "Buffy told me so much about you, I feel I almost know each of you."
"Buffy!" Dawn remembered and looked to Willow. "The crystal. We can get Buffy!" She smiled.
"We can." Sam agreed. "But we have to get this to the Tomar." Sam explained.
"What?" Richard stood up. "We can not hand it over to them."
"No." Tara shook her head. "Sam is right."
"Huh?" Xander looked at the wiccan. "Don't we usually try to keep the evil demon's separate from their even more evil talismans?"
"I understand." They heard Christian say. "Only they can access the power. We don't have the people needed. The demons."
Dawn raised a brow. "So we have to give the bad guys what they came for?"
Sam nodded.
"Wait." Xander held his hands up. "Then what?"
"What do you mean, honey?" Anya asked perplexed and held his arm tightly. "Then Buffy comes home."
Exasperated, Xander turned to his wife. "I know An. But then we have a big vortex in the middle of the soon to be new location of "Blocks of Socks". Sunnydale's newest store dedicated to footwear."
"Hmm. Yes." Anya turned back to Sam. "A vortex to another time would be inconvenient in the middle of a store."
Sam smiled. They were just like Buffy described. "It's alright. Once Buffy and Spike are back, all we have to do is smash the crystal. The vortex will close and no one will be able to open it again." She explained.
"Well then," Xander looked sheepish. "That answers that."
Dawn shook here head. "But how are we supposed to give it to the Tomar. I mean, we can't just walk up and hand it to one of the demons." She looked back to the table with the children of the council still seated at it. "Can we?"
Sam pursed her lips. "I was hoping you could help me with that."
Willow shook her head. "We don't even know where they are."
Richard looked back at the computer still open and ready for more searches, then back to Christian. "How hard is a locater spell to do on something like that?"
The brunette spell caster stole a glance at the stone still held in the elder Slayer's hand, then back to Richard. "It wouldn't be easy. Someone would have to know what they were looking for."
"Someone like the Tomar?" Richard asked.
Christian shrugged. "Yeah. I would suppose they have what they need on hand. Why?"
"Well, I just wonder if they are looking as hard as we have been. Maybe we could leave it for them to find."
"We could check. See if they have been looking for it." Tara said.
The boys looked up to see the others had been listening.
"It'll just take a few minutes to set up the spell." Tara explained and began to gather ingredients from the shelves.
Sam marveled at the group. No wonder Buffy and Spike wanted to get home. And no wonder the blonde slayer had lived so long with the support of this group behind her.
Christian followed Tara around the shop and discussed the spell as she plucked items off the store shelves. "You will be contriving a spell to locate a locator spell?"
Tara nodded and dropped a dried root into a small bag. "Um, yeah."
Christian watched as she dropped some mother wart into the small paper bag. "How will you detect the separate magics?"
She looked down into the bag and back up to the young man . "Entores oil. It could separate them." She said and went behind the counter to get a small vile which also landed in the bag. Then she surveyed the items at her disposal and smiled. "And excretions of questle to add color." She grinned and looked back to see a confused spell caster. " I mean to tint the separate magics. You know, so I can tell what properties belong to the crystal, what belong to the talisman it is now, and, if there is one, what belong to a locator spell."
Christian nodded and smiled. "Questle because they have the power to change the tint of inanimate objects."
Tara gave him another quiet smile and headed back to the table to prepare the mixture.
While Tara made the concoction, the others prepared the training area for the spell. Samantha stood back and let the group work.
Xander cleared the room and Willow set up candles while Dawn and Michelle prepared incense. Richard tried to explain some of it to Sam, who was more familiar with this than most slayers, but still enjoyed learning what she could. Anya, of course, manned the store.
When everything was set up, Tara began the chant with only Willow, Christian, and Sam in the room. The others were on call outside. Too much nervous energy could disturb the spell, and since all were on edge, the smaller the group the better.
As Tara chanted the onlookers saw her head fall back and her eyes slide shut before she straightened and stood. Then her eyes opened and began to move quickly from one face to the other.
It took a moment for the shy blonde to adjust to her vision. The colors were strange and other worldly. Not just pink the aura of magic around Willow, or the Green surrounding Christian, or even the golden halo that seemed to laminate Sam. The colors of the walls blinked from green to blue. The floor seemed not quite there.
But as her mind adjusted, so did her eyes. Things became more solid and she let her gaze fall back to the former Slayer. "Ok Sam." She called, and heard her voice echo in her head and ears.
Sam held out her hand and kept a close eye on Tara, as all three were. Again she unfurled her fingers slowly. The crystal was fully visible to the blonde now.
At first, Tara saw the white, pure energy that flowed from the crystal itself. The untapped energy. Then the energy darkened and spread, filling the space between Sam and herself. At first, it seemed like a shadow until it reached the walls of the training room.
When Tara saw the shadow had gone as far as it could she began the chant again, hoping to coax the spell along, but instead the area the shadow covered suddenly burst into a flowing pool of red and green twisting in and around each other. The light of the power was high and bright casing Tara to shield her eyes.
"It's too much!" She cried. "Please!"
Tara!" Willow called and ran to her lover's side. Without thinking the red head tried to hold the wavering wiccan. The instant the two made contact, Willow saw flashes of red and green before her. From all around the two colors assaulted her senses. It wasn't just that she saw the intense light, it was that she could feel it, taste it, hear it. And the sounds around here seemed wrong. She could hear her name being called, but the voice was hallow, and not quite there. She looked through the colors to finally see Tara.
"Tara, are you ok?"
"I'm ok. Can you handle this?"
Willow looked around again and smiled. "Yeah. I'm ok. This is the power of the talisman?"
"Yes. We need to dig deeper."
The two looked back at Sam's hand and focussed their combined energy to see into the light. Both sets of eyes studied the swirl of light, and tried to manipulate it's rhythm. Willow slid a thought between on red strand, while Tara pulled aside a green. Inside, a new line of light appeared. At first it held no color, just a presence of individuality. Something not belonging to the item under scrutiny.
A fine line of nothingness soon began to fill with shades of orange and stretched towards the door of the training room that led to the ally.
"We have to follow it." The two spoke in unison to the room before heading to the door.
Sam nodded at the couple as they began to go out the door. She followed and turned back to Christian, who was still unsure of what had happened. The two hadn't said a thing after Willow grabbed Tara. Not until they started to leave.
"Tell the others they found something. I'm going to go with them so we can hide the crystal." Sam explained before going out the back door.
Christian stood in the empty room. "O-kay." And he went out into the store.
Thankfully there was only one customer browsing near the front of the store. Xander, who stood behind the counter reading one of the texts on demons was the first to spot the slightly confused young man. "How's it going in there?"
"Well-" He was cut off by the phone.
Xander held up a finger to tell the boy to wait a minute and picked up the phone. "Magic Box."
"Xander."
Xander smiled . "Hey there G-man. Find anything out?"
"Not as such, but I gathered several of the watchers who have been working on the situation and all agree with our deduction."
"Glad to hear it. Tara's doing a locator spell as we speak." Xander informed him.
"A locator spell? To find the Tomar?"
"Yeah. Since we have the crystal, we have to give it to them so they can open swirly door thing."
"You have it? How?"
"Oh yeah, there's another slayer in town. Sam. But wait, you knew about her, right?"
"I thought she may be going to Sunnydale, I had no idea she was there at present."
"Present she is. Actually, in the training room she is."
Just then Xander heard Christian clear his throat. "That is what I came to tell you. She followed Tara and Willow. They found the tracing spell or locator spell, I'm not sure. Just that they were following it. Sam is with them."
"Well, there you go." Xander began to Giles. "Tara and Wills found the-" He stopped speaking as one of the words he'd heard registered and stared at the spell caster. "Did you say 'they'?"
Christian nodded.
"As in 'Willow and Tara did the spell'?"
"Not exactly, Tara recited the words, but it was strong. She was being.. well I'm not sure, but she was scared. Then Willow tried to hold on to her. Hold her up or. but she was pulled into the spell and no one said anything until they both said they were going to follow the trail. Sam went with the crystal so she could place it where it could be found, I assume."
Xander couldn't believe his ears. "Giles I have to go."
"I heard." The watcher related. "Be cautious, but I do believe Willow has overcome her dependency on magic. She may have been drawn in simply because of her feelings for Tara."
"Either way, I need to make sure they're ok." Xander said without further explanation and hung up the phone.
"Now," He said and walked towards Anya who was bidding her latest customer good-bye. "We tell the others and you show me which way they went."
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Ok guys, I really have a good ending all set up in my head, but you gotta at least try to review. I mean. Come on. Really. To Jill.. I give you great thinks. At least one person is reading. For you my dear.. I continue. And of course to Rogue Angel. You kick ass and you know it. *Smiles*
