Part 5
Flashes of malice
//Future New Orleans//
It came like a torment, sweeping the streets of its inhabitants. It did not care for human flesh, it did not care for the living. It stormed through, beneath and above buildings, it searched frantically for what it needed. Blood, but not of ordinary men, it wanted the blood of those that hunted it. Not far away, hidden in a cloak of invisibility, the witch caught her breath, it was too fast for her. It needed to be stopped and all that was left was she. Where were the times when she was just a useless pawn in the game of good and evil? Where were the times she only watched others fight while she hid away, frightened? Buried in the past, she answered herself as she, feeling the approaching danger, rose herself off the ground and still invisible, advanced through New Orleans like a tempest, bringing with it, only fury. It felt her, it knew she was there, it wanted her dead.
Willow decided running wasn't the best option. If it would not find her, it would look for her son and then Joy and kill them as it had killed the three slayers that had united against it. She thanked whatever powers the heaven held that her son was far away from New Orleans. It would be hard for it to find him there, in the gigantic steel maze that Los Angeles had become. She had only recently realized what he and Joy were doing there. It was a foolish plan, one she feared, because no matter what, it would alter her and every single particle of the existent world. And she'd forget herself and all things familiar to her. It was a frightening thought. She entered a large warehouse, with steel doors and let her cloak fade away into nothingness. It had already sensed her and was heading with all its speed towards her. It was the time to fight back, but she could not kill it.
It slammed into the shut doors with all its strength. The doors shook violently under the pressure. What was she supposed to do? She could not kill it, she doubted she could imprison it, but she promised herself to try, for the sake of her child, for the sake of humanity and for its sake. The doors burst open and it smiled viciously.
"There you are," it snorted and in the flash of a lightening, it attacked.
In Sunnydale Joy started breathing hard and her hands began to shake.
"What's wrong?" Buffy immediately jumped.
"Nothing. I-I just thought I saw something," Joy hid away her terrified face. Her aunt Willow wouldn't be able to fight it for long if what she had seen had been from the future. It had no mercy, it had no soul, it was a monster.
"Joycie, moma say she can't hold on much longer," Jacques told her, startling her even more. "You gotta move fast, petite."
"I'm doing the best I can," Joy whispered making sure no one else could heard her besides Jacques, but the cajun was already gone. Joy knew he was troubled by the situation. He feared for his mother's and his father's safety, but his mother's the most. Willow had hidden his father, Remy, after he had gotten hurt, somewhere where no one besides those who knew the craft could find him. But if it managed to get past his mother, it would know where his father was too, because once with the blood it stole its victim's memories as well. And Jacques could do nothing to prevent it, only die and follow them to the nether realm. Which he'd probably wind up doing anyway, if his parents were alive or not. Their last hope was Joy.
"Did you just say something?" Willow asked suspiciously, but Joy shook her head. The front door opened and Alexander Harris strolled in, seeming in the best of moods. Of course that changed once he passed through the living room and because of the dark tripped on Angel and went crashing down on the floor.
"You shouldn't put your..." he trailed off when he saw what exactly he had tripped on as Angel rose to his feet, a little groggy. "What is *he* doing here?" Xander pointed towards the vampire. "Is something wrong?"
"Does there have to be something wrong if I show up?" Angel asked pulling himself together. Buffy, Xander and Willow gave him a look that was a sure 'yeah'.
"No offense, but usually there is," Buffy told him before making a little shadow in the kitchen so he could come in.
"Oh, this is just great. I want to get away from a crazy vampire and I run into another," Xander said annoyed. He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep since Spike had moved into his apartment. The thought of a mad vampire in the room next door just didn't seem to want to let him rest. Joy looked at him oddly. He was so different from the Xander Harris she knew. This Xander was young, careless, funny and...sober. The tragedy of Sunnydale would turn him into a bitter old man, with white strands of hair, wrinkles around his eyes, a fallen smile and an always full bottle of alcohol in his pocket. She didn't really like him and whenever he visited, a thing he did very rarely, she tried to avoid him. She didn't feel like listening to the blabbering of a drunk. But in many ways she felt so sorry for him, because he had missed his great chance to become the hero he had always wanted himself to be, a chance which was stolen by a kiss, by a demon he knew so well. Anyanka had died a hero in Sunnydale and even if he never admitted it and played an angry role whenever he was asked of it, he missed her and blamed himself for her death. Willow took him in whenever she ran across him in her long journeys and she was the one who gave him money monthly in a private account too. Xander never knew it was her money - he thought it was his share of the inheritance Giles had left them - and she didn't want him to find out either. No matter what state Xander would reach, Willow would never abandon him, because even if he was bitter, grim and drunk, under that sad exterior it was still the old Xander who loved even crayon breaking Willow, the evil witch who tried to destroy the world and plain Willow Rosenburg without her smoke and mirrors. Her mother had pitied him and never refused to welcome him in their house, but he would never stay long, he'd always eventually fight with her father. Spike couldn't understand this fatal change, and at some point Joy couldn't either, but now she knew better, pain changed people.
"A crazy vampire's after you?" Angel asked seriously.
"Oh, no, I live with one," Xander said casually.
"You live with a crazy vampire?" Angel was confused. "Are you...dating a vampire?" he tried. At first Xander laughed, then let out an ew, followed by a longer eeew.
"No, he's not," Buffy cleared the situation.
"But he's living with one," Angel pointed out. "Is he that desperate?" he asked trying to address Buffy alone, but found that the others could hear too.
"Hey!" Xander was offended. "It's Spike," he clarified.
"Spike?" Angel lifted an eyebrow. "Then you're the one who's crazy."
"It was her brilliant idea," Xander pointed towards Buffy. Angel seemed surprised.
"He's getting special treatment?" Angel looked over at the slayer who felt rather uncomfortable in the middle of this conversation.
"He...he got a soul, but something's driving him insane," Buffy told him trying to make it sound unimportant.
"Spike, with a soul?" Angel found the idea amusing. "No wonder he's insane," he chuckled. "Anyone who'd kill with that kind of sickening hatred and wake up in the morning with a conscience would go insane."
"It's not the soul. Or at least I don't think it is. Something's in that basement," Buffy told him, not finding the situation funny. Spike was in a terrible shape, he was confused, loathing himself and hurting himself. There was nothing to laugh about.
"Basement?" Angel asked still not wiping the smile off his face.
"Sunnydale High's basement," Buffy clarified. "I kinda bumped into him on the first school day when ghosts were haunting down there. I was freaked when I saw him, he's been missing for months."
"He was here before?" Angel asked even more confused. How did Spike fit into the scooby gang, especially since he only recently gained a soul?
"Yeah, he's been helping out for the last couple of years. Remember those soldier guys?" Angel nodded. "Well, they put a chip in his brain."
"He can't bite anyone anymore," Willow told him.
"A little out of need at first, but he helped out. He did turn on us a couple of times, but he was our number one source in the underworld, so we wound up needing him more than we thought," Buffy told him.
"And then he fell in love with Buffy and built that stupid robot..." Dawn stopped mid sentence realizing she had let her enthusiasm get the best of her. "Ops, I guess I shouldn't have mentioned that."
Joy stared at Dawn. Once all the truth got out, it wouldn't be so easy to get them back together. And unfortunately there was no way around it, she thought as she stared at the surprised Angel.
"In love with you?" the vampire repeated shocked.
"Is that so hard to believe?" Buffy's claws were beginning to show.
"Oh, look at the time," Xander suddenly said feeling a big Buffy-Angel marathon about to start. "Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda late?"
"You go ahead, I'm staying," Buffy said her eyes not unlocking from Angel's.
"But I'm definitely coming," Dawn said with a smile, knowing that if she'd stay Buffy'd eventually turn on her for starting the whole argument in the first place.
"And I have to go...uhm, to the library," Willow found an excuse quickly. "Joy, wanna come with me? We could look up gholas," she looked over at Joy and then whispered to her: "Come on, you don't want to be around for the fireworks. There's going to be screaming, fighting and possibly kitchen ware flying around."
Joy smiled, it sounded exactly like one of the many stories she'd grown up with. She nodded and decided to join Willow, Xander and Dawn in the car.
"I hope that house is still standing when we're back," Xander said sighing.
"We left poor Connor in there," Dawn suddenly remembered he was still in the bathroom upstairs. "If he's lucky, he'll sleep through the whole thing, but let's get real, that won't happen."
"Connor?" both Willow and Xander asked.
"Angel's son. The one he had with Darla?" Dawn suddenly realized they hadn't met him yet.
"There's something new. Vampires having children," Xander said shocked.
"But it's probably a one time thing with prophecies and stuff like that," Willow assured him. You'd be amazed, Joy thought.
"Would you mind if I'd hang around the highschool a bit?" Joy suddenly suggested. She had always wanted to see it in reality, the place where evil was unstoppable, and practically pounded under the floors of the building known as Sunnydale High.
"I guess that would be okay," Willow really needed to get back to studying anyway.
"Cool. I can say you're my cousin from...LA," Dawn smiled at the perspective.
Meanwhile far away, outside of Los Angeles, one of Wesley's men was guiding him to the warehouse where the strange portal had opened the previous day. He wasn't sure, but he thought it might have some connection to the girl Lorne kept on blabbering about. His head still hurt from all the 'not of this world' speeches he got from the drunk demon. Somewhere between the first and the twentieth time Lorne had repeated that phrase, Wesley had convinced himself the two events were tied together.
"Is this it?" Wesley asked as he entered the warehouse. "Doesn't look like..." his words trailed off as he noticed the huge crater in the middle of the building. "What could've done something like this?"
"You would've known if we would've figured it out," the man told the ex-watcher as he leaned on the wall and lit himself a cigar. "We tried everything. Telepaths, black magic, we tried finding residue, shadows, tracks...anything. This crater's all there is. That and the sighting of the portal. We got lucky Jeff was around here. He saw the whole thing. People ignored it as usual. Said it was a storm."
"Just like every time," Wesley noted as he touched the burnt earth that formed something like a crust around the crater. "It's still warm. Did your spells do this?"
"No. It's been like that since we found it," the man told him as Wesley took a little earth in his hands and smelled it.
"Hmm, it smells like...acid," Wesley said before standing up and with a scrutinizing gaze taking in the entire crater. "It's like a whirlwind," he pointed towards the lines outside the crater, the crates, or rather what was left of them formed a strange shape around the crater. "The portal practically burned whatever it is that came through it into the ground. Or..." he stepped inside the middle of the crater. The earth didn't smell like acid there. "It formed a protective shield around the person that came through, pushing all of the power outside it. Because it was forced outside, the power of the portal gained enough magnitude to burn the crater into the ground. The person remaining unharmed."
"But if the power got strong enough only when it was pushed outside, there's no point to building the shield. The portal wouldn't be strong enough to harm whatever came through it," the man contradicted him.
"Maybe it needed a shield. Depends what came through it. Where it came from," Wesley looked around himself. There was a way. An extreme way. It depended on how desperate he was to find out what came through that portal. It was dangerous, but somehow he felt that this small piece of information was vital. "I need you to go back in town and get me a few things," he turned determined towards the man who had accompanied him.
Back in Sunnydale in the Summers kitchen, Buffy and Angel were still staring at each other.
"Don't you think you're over reacting?" Angel asked as he thought to himself that he had almost forgotten how cute she looked when she was mad.
"Why?" Buffy asked her hands on her hips. "Because you suddenly think I'm not attractive enough to make even Spike fall in love with me?"
"Back up a moment," Angel told her. "I didn't say that. You could attracted an army of men, but Spike...It's...ironical."
"Like a vampire being in love with the slayer?" Buffy asked and Angel had to admit it had stung a little.
"Yeah," he agreed mostly just to tick her off. Agreeing would make Buffy much madder than disagreeing. Especially when it came to them. Something suddenly dawned on him. "You're trying to avoid something."
"What?" Buffy was acting pissed, but Angel could read the truth on her face. There was something she was hiding from him.
"You slept with him!" the vampire realized. "That's what that smell was. You..."
"Smell?" Buffy was about to let out an ew, horrified at the thought she somehow stank of Spike. It had been months since he had last touched her. Could have the smell persisted that long? Or had she unknowingly held on to it, as a memory of what had been good between them.
"How could you..." he said a little disgusted. He told himself he wasn't aloud to judge her, he had done so much worse in his lifetime as a good and evil vampire, but he couldn't hold back. This was his slayer, the one person who was sat on the highest pedestal in his mind, the one who was in his heart an eternal hero, who would be too righteous to lower herself to the level of a vampire like Spike. He suddenly remembered the state she had been in the last time he had seen her. Maybe it had been a desperate cry for help. A cry he willingly ignored.
"Because *he* was here," Buffy's voice rose higher hiding a bitter tone behind it. From the living room, where he had desperately tried to fall asleep again, Connor rose to his feet, annoyed. Standing in the kitchen doorstep, he gazed from Buffy to Angel.
"Would you mind keeping quiet?" he asked sleepily before adding to Angel's annoyance: "And what are you complaining about, father?" he pressed that word. "I thought you were in love with Cordelia now," the boy returned to the living room, satisfied with himself, leaving a wicked smile to cross his lips before crashing back down on the couch.
"So that's it..." Buffy was about to explode.
"Buffy, calm down," Angel tried to reason with her, but it was too little too late.
"Don't you tell me to calm down! How can you come to Sunnydale, in my house and play the offended one when all the time you're doing...god knows what with Cordelia in LA. Oh," she suddenly realized something. "That's why you're really here, aren't you? To get her memory back. Cause she doesn't remember you now, does she? You just wanted to speed things up, so you could finally be back with her!"
"Buffy, don't do this," Angel tried one last time.
"Do what? Assume I'm the only one you couldn't have a relationship with? I'm really starting to wonder if you just didn't want us to work. I mean, look at you now, in your happy little life. With your son. Your girlfriend. Cordelia for god's sakes!" Buffy yelled.
"She's not the girl you used to know," Angel said and realized that was the worst thing he could've said.
"Oh, yeah, stand up for her, sure gonna make me feel better," Buffy gave him a cross look before turning away from him.
"Look," Angel came up behind her, not wrapping his arms around her or anything, just standing there. "It wasn't about Cordelia. I promised Joy I'd help her out and I will. I only thought of Cordelia after I agreed to come here," he let his chin fall on her shoulder. He was keeping his own nerves at bay. The idea of her and Spike together was just too horrible for him to bare and it was obvious she cared for him. That's what made him mad. Sex was sex, but love was different. He wanted her to accept his love for Cordelia, but he didn't want her to love another. At least not Spike. It was a selfish thought, he knew, but it came too natural to hold it back. After all he had abandoned her so she could have at least one normal thing in her life. A lover with a beating heart, but she was too stubborn to see through that. "So are you and Spike still...."
"Together?" Buffy asked, the rage that had a couple of moments ago vanished returning. "I don't think that's any of your business."
"I know you're not sleeping with him anymore," Angel said and Buffy was very close to slapping him across the face.
"Lucky you have your super senses. Guess what? I don't. Are you sleeping with Cordelia? You know I can't smell a thing," Buffy gave him an acid smile.
"I don't want to do this," Angel said enraged now too.
"Funny. You keep starting it," Buffy pointed out. Angel remained silent. "Fine. I think I should go to work. We'll hunt tonight and that's it."
"Fine," they stared at each other for a moment before Buffy stormed out and Angel went back in the living room and tried to go back to sleep, both feeling miserable for that they'd said, both thinking they were right. Connor stared at the ceiling. This was getting more interesting by the minute.
Back in the warehouse outside of Los Angeles, Wesley's man was finally returning with the things he had requested.
"What exactly are you planning to do?" the man asked Wesley while he handed him a brown paper bag. "This wasn't easy to get. Luckily I wasn't the one who had to...remove it."
"Dead men don't need hearts. Especially if it helps us out," Wesley said as he looked inside the bag to make sure it was what he needed. He drew a symbol in the middle of the crater and put the heart on it.
"That's it?" the man asked Wesley as he looked at the symbol, making sure he had drawn it correctly.
"It needs one more thing," Wesley said taking out a dagger from his pocket and cutting right on his wrist without flinching an instant. As the blood dripped on the dead heart, the symbol came alive, swallowing the organ in its depts. "Coeme devire essere denkaram," Wesley spoke in an old language as he sat himself and his bleeding wrist in the middle of the symbol, while his man watched with fascination. It was black magic. The old sort that saw the light of day every few decades if not centuries.
Something like a current formed around Wesley, seeming to want to push him upwards, but his feet were set down firmly. This particular spell recreated the exact feelings and consequences of other spells. It wasn't long before Wesley lost himself in a torrent of images that did not come of this world. He saw a far away place, and a far away house, where oddly enough he felt as if he belonged. He saw swings in a garden and three children playing. A girl with white hair, a boy with red hair and the hypnotizing eyes of a mystic and another boy, with a somewhat sad smile, with chocolate eyes and black hair. That third child seemed to stare at him and he pitied him, without knowing who he was. He just knew something terrible had happened to him or would happen. Then the world went speeding by him and he found Los Angeles and many graves beside it. And in this Los Angeles he could feel nothing of the old, only one thing stirred memories inside him. A memorial house with Fred's name on it. Something screamed from under that steel giant, something that held remembrance and strangely, death. Then he found himself inside a building that he knew was the warehouse he was in, but in another time. He saw a young man with red hair and knew he was the boy in that garden and his eyes had not changed over the years. He asked: "Are you ready?" and Wesley nodded. Before something took him away he saw a sad young woman staring back at him from a mirror. She had white hair and green eyes he had seen that sad before on her mother. A bad feeling overcame him as he watched that image, a feeling of something horrible to come. He went crashing back into the warehouse, the crater recreating itself as he did. He landed on the floor barely conscious. He knew why she was there or at least he assumed he knew. That girl was there to kill both Buffy and Angel and he had to get to Sunnydale to stop her.
On the hellmouth, in the corridors of the Sunnydale High, Joy Summers fell to the floor. Someone seemed to have entered her mind, violating her most hidden thoughts. As she lay unconscious on the floor and people roamed around her, she saw flashes of what was happening back home. She knew they came from Willow through the mental connection they shared. She saw her being hunted through the streets of New Orleans by something. She saw it rip through the doors of the warehouse Willow had hidden in. She heard its voice full of hatred. Joy woke up crying in the nursery of the highschool.
"Are you all right?" Dawn asked concerned.
"I'll be fine," she said knowing that was a complete lie. It was dangerously near Willow and it might be unstoppable. Even for Willow. Because it was her mother.
End Part 5
Flashes of malice
//Future New Orleans//
It came like a torment, sweeping the streets of its inhabitants. It did not care for human flesh, it did not care for the living. It stormed through, beneath and above buildings, it searched frantically for what it needed. Blood, but not of ordinary men, it wanted the blood of those that hunted it. Not far away, hidden in a cloak of invisibility, the witch caught her breath, it was too fast for her. It needed to be stopped and all that was left was she. Where were the times when she was just a useless pawn in the game of good and evil? Where were the times she only watched others fight while she hid away, frightened? Buried in the past, she answered herself as she, feeling the approaching danger, rose herself off the ground and still invisible, advanced through New Orleans like a tempest, bringing with it, only fury. It felt her, it knew she was there, it wanted her dead.
Willow decided running wasn't the best option. If it would not find her, it would look for her son and then Joy and kill them as it had killed the three slayers that had united against it. She thanked whatever powers the heaven held that her son was far away from New Orleans. It would be hard for it to find him there, in the gigantic steel maze that Los Angeles had become. She had only recently realized what he and Joy were doing there. It was a foolish plan, one she feared, because no matter what, it would alter her and every single particle of the existent world. And she'd forget herself and all things familiar to her. It was a frightening thought. She entered a large warehouse, with steel doors and let her cloak fade away into nothingness. It had already sensed her and was heading with all its speed towards her. It was the time to fight back, but she could not kill it.
It slammed into the shut doors with all its strength. The doors shook violently under the pressure. What was she supposed to do? She could not kill it, she doubted she could imprison it, but she promised herself to try, for the sake of her child, for the sake of humanity and for its sake. The doors burst open and it smiled viciously.
"There you are," it snorted and in the flash of a lightening, it attacked.
In Sunnydale Joy started breathing hard and her hands began to shake.
"What's wrong?" Buffy immediately jumped.
"Nothing. I-I just thought I saw something," Joy hid away her terrified face. Her aunt Willow wouldn't be able to fight it for long if what she had seen had been from the future. It had no mercy, it had no soul, it was a monster.
"Joycie, moma say she can't hold on much longer," Jacques told her, startling her even more. "You gotta move fast, petite."
"I'm doing the best I can," Joy whispered making sure no one else could heard her besides Jacques, but the cajun was already gone. Joy knew he was troubled by the situation. He feared for his mother's and his father's safety, but his mother's the most. Willow had hidden his father, Remy, after he had gotten hurt, somewhere where no one besides those who knew the craft could find him. But if it managed to get past his mother, it would know where his father was too, because once with the blood it stole its victim's memories as well. And Jacques could do nothing to prevent it, only die and follow them to the nether realm. Which he'd probably wind up doing anyway, if his parents were alive or not. Their last hope was Joy.
"Did you just say something?" Willow asked suspiciously, but Joy shook her head. The front door opened and Alexander Harris strolled in, seeming in the best of moods. Of course that changed once he passed through the living room and because of the dark tripped on Angel and went crashing down on the floor.
"You shouldn't put your..." he trailed off when he saw what exactly he had tripped on as Angel rose to his feet, a little groggy. "What is *he* doing here?" Xander pointed towards the vampire. "Is something wrong?"
"Does there have to be something wrong if I show up?" Angel asked pulling himself together. Buffy, Xander and Willow gave him a look that was a sure 'yeah'.
"No offense, but usually there is," Buffy told him before making a little shadow in the kitchen so he could come in.
"Oh, this is just great. I want to get away from a crazy vampire and I run into another," Xander said annoyed. He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep since Spike had moved into his apartment. The thought of a mad vampire in the room next door just didn't seem to want to let him rest. Joy looked at him oddly. He was so different from the Xander Harris she knew. This Xander was young, careless, funny and...sober. The tragedy of Sunnydale would turn him into a bitter old man, with white strands of hair, wrinkles around his eyes, a fallen smile and an always full bottle of alcohol in his pocket. She didn't really like him and whenever he visited, a thing he did very rarely, she tried to avoid him. She didn't feel like listening to the blabbering of a drunk. But in many ways she felt so sorry for him, because he had missed his great chance to become the hero he had always wanted himself to be, a chance which was stolen by a kiss, by a demon he knew so well. Anyanka had died a hero in Sunnydale and even if he never admitted it and played an angry role whenever he was asked of it, he missed her and blamed himself for her death. Willow took him in whenever she ran across him in her long journeys and she was the one who gave him money monthly in a private account too. Xander never knew it was her money - he thought it was his share of the inheritance Giles had left them - and she didn't want him to find out either. No matter what state Xander would reach, Willow would never abandon him, because even if he was bitter, grim and drunk, under that sad exterior it was still the old Xander who loved even crayon breaking Willow, the evil witch who tried to destroy the world and plain Willow Rosenburg without her smoke and mirrors. Her mother had pitied him and never refused to welcome him in their house, but he would never stay long, he'd always eventually fight with her father. Spike couldn't understand this fatal change, and at some point Joy couldn't either, but now she knew better, pain changed people.
"A crazy vampire's after you?" Angel asked seriously.
"Oh, no, I live with one," Xander said casually.
"You live with a crazy vampire?" Angel was confused. "Are you...dating a vampire?" he tried. At first Xander laughed, then let out an ew, followed by a longer eeew.
"No, he's not," Buffy cleared the situation.
"But he's living with one," Angel pointed out. "Is he that desperate?" he asked trying to address Buffy alone, but found that the others could hear too.
"Hey!" Xander was offended. "It's Spike," he clarified.
"Spike?" Angel lifted an eyebrow. "Then you're the one who's crazy."
"It was her brilliant idea," Xander pointed towards Buffy. Angel seemed surprised.
"He's getting special treatment?" Angel looked over at the slayer who felt rather uncomfortable in the middle of this conversation.
"He...he got a soul, but something's driving him insane," Buffy told him trying to make it sound unimportant.
"Spike, with a soul?" Angel found the idea amusing. "No wonder he's insane," he chuckled. "Anyone who'd kill with that kind of sickening hatred and wake up in the morning with a conscience would go insane."
"It's not the soul. Or at least I don't think it is. Something's in that basement," Buffy told him, not finding the situation funny. Spike was in a terrible shape, he was confused, loathing himself and hurting himself. There was nothing to laugh about.
"Basement?" Angel asked still not wiping the smile off his face.
"Sunnydale High's basement," Buffy clarified. "I kinda bumped into him on the first school day when ghosts were haunting down there. I was freaked when I saw him, he's been missing for months."
"He was here before?" Angel asked even more confused. How did Spike fit into the scooby gang, especially since he only recently gained a soul?
"Yeah, he's been helping out for the last couple of years. Remember those soldier guys?" Angel nodded. "Well, they put a chip in his brain."
"He can't bite anyone anymore," Willow told him.
"A little out of need at first, but he helped out. He did turn on us a couple of times, but he was our number one source in the underworld, so we wound up needing him more than we thought," Buffy told him.
"And then he fell in love with Buffy and built that stupid robot..." Dawn stopped mid sentence realizing she had let her enthusiasm get the best of her. "Ops, I guess I shouldn't have mentioned that."
Joy stared at Dawn. Once all the truth got out, it wouldn't be so easy to get them back together. And unfortunately there was no way around it, she thought as she stared at the surprised Angel.
"In love with you?" the vampire repeated shocked.
"Is that so hard to believe?" Buffy's claws were beginning to show.
"Oh, look at the time," Xander suddenly said feeling a big Buffy-Angel marathon about to start. "Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda late?"
"You go ahead, I'm staying," Buffy said her eyes not unlocking from Angel's.
"But I'm definitely coming," Dawn said with a smile, knowing that if she'd stay Buffy'd eventually turn on her for starting the whole argument in the first place.
"And I have to go...uhm, to the library," Willow found an excuse quickly. "Joy, wanna come with me? We could look up gholas," she looked over at Joy and then whispered to her: "Come on, you don't want to be around for the fireworks. There's going to be screaming, fighting and possibly kitchen ware flying around."
Joy smiled, it sounded exactly like one of the many stories she'd grown up with. She nodded and decided to join Willow, Xander and Dawn in the car.
"I hope that house is still standing when we're back," Xander said sighing.
"We left poor Connor in there," Dawn suddenly remembered he was still in the bathroom upstairs. "If he's lucky, he'll sleep through the whole thing, but let's get real, that won't happen."
"Connor?" both Willow and Xander asked.
"Angel's son. The one he had with Darla?" Dawn suddenly realized they hadn't met him yet.
"There's something new. Vampires having children," Xander said shocked.
"But it's probably a one time thing with prophecies and stuff like that," Willow assured him. You'd be amazed, Joy thought.
"Would you mind if I'd hang around the highschool a bit?" Joy suddenly suggested. She had always wanted to see it in reality, the place where evil was unstoppable, and practically pounded under the floors of the building known as Sunnydale High.
"I guess that would be okay," Willow really needed to get back to studying anyway.
"Cool. I can say you're my cousin from...LA," Dawn smiled at the perspective.
Meanwhile far away, outside of Los Angeles, one of Wesley's men was guiding him to the warehouse where the strange portal had opened the previous day. He wasn't sure, but he thought it might have some connection to the girl Lorne kept on blabbering about. His head still hurt from all the 'not of this world' speeches he got from the drunk demon. Somewhere between the first and the twentieth time Lorne had repeated that phrase, Wesley had convinced himself the two events were tied together.
"Is this it?" Wesley asked as he entered the warehouse. "Doesn't look like..." his words trailed off as he noticed the huge crater in the middle of the building. "What could've done something like this?"
"You would've known if we would've figured it out," the man told the ex-watcher as he leaned on the wall and lit himself a cigar. "We tried everything. Telepaths, black magic, we tried finding residue, shadows, tracks...anything. This crater's all there is. That and the sighting of the portal. We got lucky Jeff was around here. He saw the whole thing. People ignored it as usual. Said it was a storm."
"Just like every time," Wesley noted as he touched the burnt earth that formed something like a crust around the crater. "It's still warm. Did your spells do this?"
"No. It's been like that since we found it," the man told him as Wesley took a little earth in his hands and smelled it.
"Hmm, it smells like...acid," Wesley said before standing up and with a scrutinizing gaze taking in the entire crater. "It's like a whirlwind," he pointed towards the lines outside the crater, the crates, or rather what was left of them formed a strange shape around the crater. "The portal practically burned whatever it is that came through it into the ground. Or..." he stepped inside the middle of the crater. The earth didn't smell like acid there. "It formed a protective shield around the person that came through, pushing all of the power outside it. Because it was forced outside, the power of the portal gained enough magnitude to burn the crater into the ground. The person remaining unharmed."
"But if the power got strong enough only when it was pushed outside, there's no point to building the shield. The portal wouldn't be strong enough to harm whatever came through it," the man contradicted him.
"Maybe it needed a shield. Depends what came through it. Where it came from," Wesley looked around himself. There was a way. An extreme way. It depended on how desperate he was to find out what came through that portal. It was dangerous, but somehow he felt that this small piece of information was vital. "I need you to go back in town and get me a few things," he turned determined towards the man who had accompanied him.
Back in Sunnydale in the Summers kitchen, Buffy and Angel were still staring at each other.
"Don't you think you're over reacting?" Angel asked as he thought to himself that he had almost forgotten how cute she looked when she was mad.
"Why?" Buffy asked her hands on her hips. "Because you suddenly think I'm not attractive enough to make even Spike fall in love with me?"
"Back up a moment," Angel told her. "I didn't say that. You could attracted an army of men, but Spike...It's...ironical."
"Like a vampire being in love with the slayer?" Buffy asked and Angel had to admit it had stung a little.
"Yeah," he agreed mostly just to tick her off. Agreeing would make Buffy much madder than disagreeing. Especially when it came to them. Something suddenly dawned on him. "You're trying to avoid something."
"What?" Buffy was acting pissed, but Angel could read the truth on her face. There was something she was hiding from him.
"You slept with him!" the vampire realized. "That's what that smell was. You..."
"Smell?" Buffy was about to let out an ew, horrified at the thought she somehow stank of Spike. It had been months since he had last touched her. Could have the smell persisted that long? Or had she unknowingly held on to it, as a memory of what had been good between them.
"How could you..." he said a little disgusted. He told himself he wasn't aloud to judge her, he had done so much worse in his lifetime as a good and evil vampire, but he couldn't hold back. This was his slayer, the one person who was sat on the highest pedestal in his mind, the one who was in his heart an eternal hero, who would be too righteous to lower herself to the level of a vampire like Spike. He suddenly remembered the state she had been in the last time he had seen her. Maybe it had been a desperate cry for help. A cry he willingly ignored.
"Because *he* was here," Buffy's voice rose higher hiding a bitter tone behind it. From the living room, where he had desperately tried to fall asleep again, Connor rose to his feet, annoyed. Standing in the kitchen doorstep, he gazed from Buffy to Angel.
"Would you mind keeping quiet?" he asked sleepily before adding to Angel's annoyance: "And what are you complaining about, father?" he pressed that word. "I thought you were in love with Cordelia now," the boy returned to the living room, satisfied with himself, leaving a wicked smile to cross his lips before crashing back down on the couch.
"So that's it..." Buffy was about to explode.
"Buffy, calm down," Angel tried to reason with her, but it was too little too late.
"Don't you tell me to calm down! How can you come to Sunnydale, in my house and play the offended one when all the time you're doing...god knows what with Cordelia in LA. Oh," she suddenly realized something. "That's why you're really here, aren't you? To get her memory back. Cause she doesn't remember you now, does she? You just wanted to speed things up, so you could finally be back with her!"
"Buffy, don't do this," Angel tried one last time.
"Do what? Assume I'm the only one you couldn't have a relationship with? I'm really starting to wonder if you just didn't want us to work. I mean, look at you now, in your happy little life. With your son. Your girlfriend. Cordelia for god's sakes!" Buffy yelled.
"She's not the girl you used to know," Angel said and realized that was the worst thing he could've said.
"Oh, yeah, stand up for her, sure gonna make me feel better," Buffy gave him a cross look before turning away from him.
"Look," Angel came up behind her, not wrapping his arms around her or anything, just standing there. "It wasn't about Cordelia. I promised Joy I'd help her out and I will. I only thought of Cordelia after I agreed to come here," he let his chin fall on her shoulder. He was keeping his own nerves at bay. The idea of her and Spike together was just too horrible for him to bare and it was obvious she cared for him. That's what made him mad. Sex was sex, but love was different. He wanted her to accept his love for Cordelia, but he didn't want her to love another. At least not Spike. It was a selfish thought, he knew, but it came too natural to hold it back. After all he had abandoned her so she could have at least one normal thing in her life. A lover with a beating heart, but she was too stubborn to see through that. "So are you and Spike still...."
"Together?" Buffy asked, the rage that had a couple of moments ago vanished returning. "I don't think that's any of your business."
"I know you're not sleeping with him anymore," Angel said and Buffy was very close to slapping him across the face.
"Lucky you have your super senses. Guess what? I don't. Are you sleeping with Cordelia? You know I can't smell a thing," Buffy gave him an acid smile.
"I don't want to do this," Angel said enraged now too.
"Funny. You keep starting it," Buffy pointed out. Angel remained silent. "Fine. I think I should go to work. We'll hunt tonight and that's it."
"Fine," they stared at each other for a moment before Buffy stormed out and Angel went back in the living room and tried to go back to sleep, both feeling miserable for that they'd said, both thinking they were right. Connor stared at the ceiling. This was getting more interesting by the minute.
Back in the warehouse outside of Los Angeles, Wesley's man was finally returning with the things he had requested.
"What exactly are you planning to do?" the man asked Wesley while he handed him a brown paper bag. "This wasn't easy to get. Luckily I wasn't the one who had to...remove it."
"Dead men don't need hearts. Especially if it helps us out," Wesley said as he looked inside the bag to make sure it was what he needed. He drew a symbol in the middle of the crater and put the heart on it.
"That's it?" the man asked Wesley as he looked at the symbol, making sure he had drawn it correctly.
"It needs one more thing," Wesley said taking out a dagger from his pocket and cutting right on his wrist without flinching an instant. As the blood dripped on the dead heart, the symbol came alive, swallowing the organ in its depts. "Coeme devire essere denkaram," Wesley spoke in an old language as he sat himself and his bleeding wrist in the middle of the symbol, while his man watched with fascination. It was black magic. The old sort that saw the light of day every few decades if not centuries.
Something like a current formed around Wesley, seeming to want to push him upwards, but his feet were set down firmly. This particular spell recreated the exact feelings and consequences of other spells. It wasn't long before Wesley lost himself in a torrent of images that did not come of this world. He saw a far away place, and a far away house, where oddly enough he felt as if he belonged. He saw swings in a garden and three children playing. A girl with white hair, a boy with red hair and the hypnotizing eyes of a mystic and another boy, with a somewhat sad smile, with chocolate eyes and black hair. That third child seemed to stare at him and he pitied him, without knowing who he was. He just knew something terrible had happened to him or would happen. Then the world went speeding by him and he found Los Angeles and many graves beside it. And in this Los Angeles he could feel nothing of the old, only one thing stirred memories inside him. A memorial house with Fred's name on it. Something screamed from under that steel giant, something that held remembrance and strangely, death. Then he found himself inside a building that he knew was the warehouse he was in, but in another time. He saw a young man with red hair and knew he was the boy in that garden and his eyes had not changed over the years. He asked: "Are you ready?" and Wesley nodded. Before something took him away he saw a sad young woman staring back at him from a mirror. She had white hair and green eyes he had seen that sad before on her mother. A bad feeling overcame him as he watched that image, a feeling of something horrible to come. He went crashing back into the warehouse, the crater recreating itself as he did. He landed on the floor barely conscious. He knew why she was there or at least he assumed he knew. That girl was there to kill both Buffy and Angel and he had to get to Sunnydale to stop her.
On the hellmouth, in the corridors of the Sunnydale High, Joy Summers fell to the floor. Someone seemed to have entered her mind, violating her most hidden thoughts. As she lay unconscious on the floor and people roamed around her, she saw flashes of what was happening back home. She knew they came from Willow through the mental connection they shared. She saw her being hunted through the streets of New Orleans by something. She saw it rip through the doors of the warehouse Willow had hidden in. She heard its voice full of hatred. Joy woke up crying in the nursery of the highschool.
"Are you all right?" Dawn asked concerned.
"I'll be fine," she said knowing that was a complete lie. It was dangerously near Willow and it might be unstoppable. Even for Willow. Because it was her mother.
End Part 5
