Title: 3 Flavours of Evil
Author: Ash Jay - ashj@sympatico.ca
Rating: PG 13
Pairing: Willow/Ginny - sort of Ginny/Tom, Tom/Willow. Yikes.
Category: Humour, Romance, Dark Themes.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me, I mean no offence, and it's probably best that way all around.
Note: A Secret Santa story for Jo, and I hope you like it. It went strange places. *grins*
***3 Flavours of Evil***
"I keep telling you," Willow said, "It was an accident!"
There was no reply.
Willow hated not being able to see what was going on. She tilted her head to the side, listening. Were they still out there? Were they moving?
Did they make this blindfold itchy on *purpose*?
Of course they did, she decided. Great. Not just evil, then - petty evil. The kind of evil that would sneak into your house, kill your loved ones, and still take the time to short sheet your bed and remove all of the clean towels from the bathroom. They'd probably take the guest soaps too, the bastards.
Delirium, she thought. A symptom of blood loss.
One of her favourite symptoms, actually. At least her hands had gone numb. She flexed them experimentally, feeling the rawness around her wrists where the ropes held them high above her head. She was stretched on tiptoe in an effort to keep some of her weight off of the ropes, but she wouldn't be able to keep that up forever.
First she'd fall, then she'd scream, then she'd pass out. Then... what?
"The suspense is killing me, guys." Willow said into the darkness, hoping that she sounded less desperate than she felt. "All right, so actually it's the ropes that are killing me, but the suspense isn't helping. You're supposed to tell me your plan, you know - it's in the rulebook! Page fifty six, right after the section on what forks you should use while dining with the Borgia's?"
"Really?" A female voice said from somewhere off to her left.
Willow tried to turn in that direction, and instantly regretted it as the movement reopened old cuts. She felt the blood as a warm and familiar wetness on her wrists.
"No," Willow said after a moment when no other comment seemed forthcoming, "not really. But I thought, hey, other universe. Who's going to know?"
"Oh," the other voice said, sounding disappointed. "So no Borgia etiquette, then?"
"Nope. Are you one of the bad guys?"
"No!"
"I hope they show up soon. I'm much much better at arguing my way out of things when I'm not unconscious," Willow said. "And also, I'd like to know what kind of doom I'm in for."
"What?" the voice said in a squeaky tone. "What... *What*?"
"You know," Willow said airily, waving a metaphorical hand, (her actual hands being both securely tied and largely numb at this point), "what kind of nasty sharp death trap I'll wake up in, and what are its positive aspects. Like, if it's fire demons? I can expect some kind of ironic human marshmallow set-up, but hey- warm! It's like the glass half full, half empty deal, but with death. See?"
"I think so," the voice said slowly, "but it's not fire demons."
Willow brightened. "Hey, that's right! You know about this universe, right?"
Another long pause and then the voice said, "The universe we're in presently, you mean?"
"That's the puppy."
"Ah," the voice said cautiously. "Yes."
"Wonderful," Willow said happily. "All right, start with your name, because otherwise I'm going to have to give you some kind of nickname, and I'm notoriously bad at that."
The pause before the other girl answered suggested that she was considering all the many reasons why someone might have tied Willow up, and agreeing with some of them.
"My name is Vi-Ginny," the Ginny formerly known as 'voice' said, and Willow smiled into the darkness.
"Willow here, Ginny. Suffering from dizziness, delirium, and a general inter-dimensional hangover, but firmly on the side of good. You too? Yes? Good. Now, could you please tell me who has us hanging here? Vampires?"
Ginny laughed. "This is the same idea as the Borgia book, right? You *are* loopy."
"No vampires," Willow said. "Check. All right then, who has us?"
"Death Eaters," Ginny replied matter-of-factly.
Willow considered that.
"Death Eaters," she said eventually.
"Right,"
"What, recreationally?" Willow asked, "because I've met a few incarnations of death, and that's a hunt I wouldn't like to be a part of. Not to mention the actual meal, because let's face it, how many ways can you cook bone? And then there's, um -"
"It's not literal," Ginny said quickly when Willow paused for a breath.
"Just a name, then? Like, they could have been the 'Death Smokers' or the 'We Punch Life in the Head Gang' or something like that?"
"I... guess so, yes," Ginny said.
Petty, *pretentious* evil, Willow thought. Terrific.
"Oh, but Death Eaters has a much better ring to it, don't you think?" A male voice said, so close to Willow's ear that she could feel his breath on her neck.
"Ngh?" Willow replied cogently, and felt rather than heard it when he laughed.
"Tom," Ginny said, so low that Willow could hardly hear her.
Tom? Willow thought.
"Virginia..." 'Tom' said, his voice moving away from Willow. Which would have been a relief if it hadn't also been moving closer to Ginny, Virginia, Willow's only link to sanity here in the itchy dark.
"Let her go, Tom," Ginny said, and her voice was somehow different than it had been. Harder, maybe. "She's not even from here! Either that, or she's completely crazy."
"Hey!" Willow said.
"Either way, she has nothing to do with this!"
That laugh again, and now that he wasn't breathing down her neck Willow could tell that there were sibilants in that laugh that had nothing to do with echoes. If snakes could laugh, they would sound like that.
Yikes, Willow thought.
"Pretty Virginia, all grown up," Tom said, "and still keeping a piece of my power to remember me by. How...sweet."
"Oh goddess," Willow said out loud.
She could almost hear the snap as his attention returned to her, like the crack of a whip. She told herself that he couldn't have seen her flinch.
"Look," Willow said, "no disrespect meant, but I'm losing a lot of blood here and I've heard this kind of thing before. So if you have any long speeches or evil flirting to do, could you do it after I pass out?"
"Oh, me too!" Ginny said, sounding hopeful, "I'm not going to pass out, but you could *knock* me out. Hit me on the head, that always works for Harry."
"Really?" Willow said with interest, "My friend Buffy swears by the back of the neck."
"Not good in the long run - you can develop neck problems. But with the head, you can use charms to-"
"Enough!" Tom said, and it really was quite impressive how he managed to hiss a word with no 's's in it. Willow could hear the word in her mind long after the sound had died away, and had to make a conscious effort to keep from shivering.
"Right," Willow said. "Quiet now."
"Did you think you could trick me?" Tom said conversationally. "Did you think that I would not feel a powerful evil come so close to me?"
"Powerful evil?" Ginny asked.
"Um, I think he means me," Willow said sheepishly.
"You're evil? You said you were good!"
"I am!" Willow insisted, "But just for the record, you probably shouldn't believe people right off the bat like that. Evil people lie, you know. It's like that riddle with the two guys who always speak the truth."
"Doesn't one of them lie?" Ginny said, distracted.
"Yes, but which one?" Willow asked, nodding sagely before she remembered that Ginny couldn't see her. "That's the trick."
"That is the trick, isn't it...Virginia?" Tom said, and he was very close to Willow. "Virginia isn't a very good judge of character, as it happens. She's too trusting. Why, look at how she's warming up to *you*."
"Hey," Willow said, "I'm a very nice person. I buy presents for no reason, and always, always remember to bring enough coffee and donuts for everyone!"
You know, she thought a second later, the awkward pauses in conversations become much more obvious when I can't see anything.
"*You*," Tom said at last, "are a thing of the dark. Oh yes. I can... taste... it on you."
Something cool brushed her cheek, dry as paper and wholly disturbing and... yes, there was power there. She could it feel stretch over her body like a skin of ice.
"I..." Willow said, her breath catching.
"Willow?" Ginny said, and *right*, Willow thought, and jerked away from his touch.
"I'm not of the dark," she said as firmly as she could with her head spinning from pain and magic, "I've just been there. I've been lots of places. I've been to Toledo, but that doesn't make me a creature of Toledo, does it? No."
"This attempt to fake imbecility will not help you," Tom said. "I know that you have come here to kill me. Or at least... to try." He laughed.
Willow laughed too. "Kill you? Who *are* you? Why would I try and kill you?"
"I was trying to kill him," Ginny volunteered.
"Yes, well, but you've met him before, which would probably help," Willow said. "Mind you, I'm not saying that I'd be averse to killing him *now*, what with tying me up with razor rope being his idea of a handshake 'hello'."
"If you didn't come here to kill me, then what?" Tom said, still far too close to her. "Have you come to join me, pretty girl?" His hand swept down her back and Willow made a small noise in her throat.
"Gay!" she said quickly. And getting gayer by the minute, she thought to herself with a shudder as his hand touched on the curve of her hip before slowly withdrawing. "Flattered, though. Yes. Thank you for the thought."
"Pity. Not that it'll make a difference in the end..." There was a pause, and then something pulled on the ropes holding Willow's wrists, and there was fire on her skin and light behind her eyes and Willow thought that she must be screaming and Ginny's voice was an animal's cry of pain.
The ropes twisted again and Willow could taste blood in her mouth.
Minutes later, when the darkness was back and the ropes were still, she heard a satisfied hiss of indrawn breath and remembered that he was there.
"Oh, I think I'll have to keep you both," Tom said, his voice sounding thick, almost drugged. "You look lovely together, do you know that? A matched pair. I've always been fond of red hair."
"I'm - " Willow began. Her voice cracked.
"Yes?"
"I'm really more of an auburn," she said, her voice hoarse.
He laughed. "Oh, I think you'll be a redhead for me," he said, and Willow had the unpleasant feeling that he wasn't talking about buying her a new box of Loreal's Crimson Sunrise, available at drug stores everywhere.
"I don't know why you're here," Tom continued, "but I'll find out. And then, in time, you and I together will find a way that you can... be useful."
"Leave her alone!" Ginny spoke for the first time since the ropes and Willow's heart sank when she heard how fragile the other girl's voice sounded.
Tom moved so fast that Willow felt the air stirred by his passing hit her like a wind.
"Oh," he said, "I'm not forgetting about you, Virginia. We'll have our time together, I promise. You have my soul - or a piece of it. It seems only fair that you return the favour, don't you think?"
Small hurt noises and silence and...
"Shh, my darling girl. You'll only hurt yourself," Tom said so softly that Willow could barely hear him. Her stomach turned over when she heard Ginny cry out.
Another few seconds of silence and Willow was struggling mindlessly, trying to pull her hands free, the ropes slippery with blood and sweat against her wrists, the pain not even registering.
And then she heard his footsteps walking away, dying away, and Ginny was crying like she couldn't help it, gasping sobs like a child crying.
"Ginny?" Willow said, "Are you all right?"
"He's going to, oh, god..."
"Ginny!" Willow said sharply.
The sobs cut off like someone had thrown a switch.
"It'll be all right, I promise," Willow said. "I'll get us out of here."
A long pause.
"Are you... what he said?" Ginny asked at last.
"Evil?"
"*Powerful*," Ginny said, and now Willow could hear the hope in her voice.
"In my own world, with my own magic, yes. But this place is... strange. The magic is," she groped for words, "too big. I can't get a grip on it."
"Yes, but with your wand - "
"I don't use a wand," Willow said.
"You... how can you do magic without a wand?"
"Not very well," Willow said. "No, no, sorry. Old joke. Dizzy over here. Seriously, I can't do much right now. I can't even untie myself, since my own blood is on the ropes. Bad mojo. I might be able to untie you, though, if I could *see* if anyone else was in the room. Tom seems like the kind of guy who'd hide in corners and watch us."
"He's gone," Ginny said.
"But - " Willow said, then stopped. "You're not blindfolded, are you."
"No."
"Petty, pretentious, *inconsistent* evil. Yeah, I can see why he assumes that everyone wants to kill him." Willow shook her head. "And hey, if you want to kill him some other day after I've gotten my bearings here? Call me."
"Deal," Ginny said, and her voice was stronger. "Can you really untie me?"
Willow concentrated, and there was a blurry picture forming on the back of her eyelids. It was like a watercolour painting... a watercolour painting that had had a cup of coffe upended on it. She could see herself, a blurry hurting shape in red and black. And that must be Ginny over there, she was... she was a golden thing.
"Wow," Willow whispered to herself, the shapes falling back into shadow.
"What's wrong?" Ginny said,
"Nothing," Willow said quickly. One good thing about being covered in my own blood, she thought - nobody can tell that I'm blushing.
She refocused on the picture and concentrated on the dark lines surrounding the golden figure. Pressure here, pressure there, and...
A thump from her left, and a gasp.
"Did it work?" Willow said.
"I'd say so," Ginny said carefully. "The ropes are gone. Gone, gone. Vanished."
"That's good, right?" Willow said, not sure what was making Ginny sound so strange.
"It's very good, but... you didn't say anything. Or... oh, it doesn't matter. But I know some people that are going to be *dying* to talk to you. I hope you like answering questions."
"Only if I know the answer," Willow said promptly, and Ginny laughed.
"Yes, I think you'll do fine with them. Hold on, I'm standing up. Ow. Ow, ow, ow."
"What?"
"Pins and needles. Sure you want me to cut you down? This is fiercely unpleasant."
"I'll take my chances," Willow said, smiling.
A feeling of warmth on her arm, and *that* had been was what was wrong with Tom. Tom with his dry hands and his cool breath and his voice like an intruder in her mind and - "Ginny?" she said.
"Yes?"
"Could you take off the blindfold first? I - " she paused, "I want to see."
Another pause and then hands were on her, and a second later the blindfold was falling. Willow's skin burned where it had been touching, but it didn't matter. Ginny was very close, and she *was* shining, even with blood on her face and on her lips.
"Wow," Willow said again.
Ginny smiled, and it was so bright that Willow thought she might go blind if she looked directly at it, something like the sun, but more kissable, kissable if she moved just a -
Ah.
And Ginny tasted of blood and tears, flavours of salt, but sweet all the same and unbearably soft and Willow closed her eyes again and saw Ginny shining there in the darkness.
Ginny moved back, everything lost all at once, and Willow opened her eyes and hoped that Ginny would still cut her down and...
"Wow," Ginny said softly.
_____________
The End
No, really. The fic is over. Shocking, eh? *grins*
Author: Ash Jay - ashj@sympatico.ca
Rating: PG 13
Pairing: Willow/Ginny - sort of Ginny/Tom, Tom/Willow. Yikes.
Category: Humour, Romance, Dark Themes.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me, I mean no offence, and it's probably best that way all around.
Note: A Secret Santa story for Jo, and I hope you like it. It went strange places. *grins*
***3 Flavours of Evil***
"I keep telling you," Willow said, "It was an accident!"
There was no reply.
Willow hated not being able to see what was going on. She tilted her head to the side, listening. Were they still out there? Were they moving?
Did they make this blindfold itchy on *purpose*?
Of course they did, she decided. Great. Not just evil, then - petty evil. The kind of evil that would sneak into your house, kill your loved ones, and still take the time to short sheet your bed and remove all of the clean towels from the bathroom. They'd probably take the guest soaps too, the bastards.
Delirium, she thought. A symptom of blood loss.
One of her favourite symptoms, actually. At least her hands had gone numb. She flexed them experimentally, feeling the rawness around her wrists where the ropes held them high above her head. She was stretched on tiptoe in an effort to keep some of her weight off of the ropes, but she wouldn't be able to keep that up forever.
First she'd fall, then she'd scream, then she'd pass out. Then... what?
"The suspense is killing me, guys." Willow said into the darkness, hoping that she sounded less desperate than she felt. "All right, so actually it's the ropes that are killing me, but the suspense isn't helping. You're supposed to tell me your plan, you know - it's in the rulebook! Page fifty six, right after the section on what forks you should use while dining with the Borgia's?"
"Really?" A female voice said from somewhere off to her left.
Willow tried to turn in that direction, and instantly regretted it as the movement reopened old cuts. She felt the blood as a warm and familiar wetness on her wrists.
"No," Willow said after a moment when no other comment seemed forthcoming, "not really. But I thought, hey, other universe. Who's going to know?"
"Oh," the other voice said, sounding disappointed. "So no Borgia etiquette, then?"
"Nope. Are you one of the bad guys?"
"No!"
"I hope they show up soon. I'm much much better at arguing my way out of things when I'm not unconscious," Willow said. "And also, I'd like to know what kind of doom I'm in for."
"What?" the voice said in a squeaky tone. "What... *What*?"
"You know," Willow said airily, waving a metaphorical hand, (her actual hands being both securely tied and largely numb at this point), "what kind of nasty sharp death trap I'll wake up in, and what are its positive aspects. Like, if it's fire demons? I can expect some kind of ironic human marshmallow set-up, but hey- warm! It's like the glass half full, half empty deal, but with death. See?"
"I think so," the voice said slowly, "but it's not fire demons."
Willow brightened. "Hey, that's right! You know about this universe, right?"
Another long pause and then the voice said, "The universe we're in presently, you mean?"
"That's the puppy."
"Ah," the voice said cautiously. "Yes."
"Wonderful," Willow said happily. "All right, start with your name, because otherwise I'm going to have to give you some kind of nickname, and I'm notoriously bad at that."
The pause before the other girl answered suggested that she was considering all the many reasons why someone might have tied Willow up, and agreeing with some of them.
"My name is Vi-Ginny," the Ginny formerly known as 'voice' said, and Willow smiled into the darkness.
"Willow here, Ginny. Suffering from dizziness, delirium, and a general inter-dimensional hangover, but firmly on the side of good. You too? Yes? Good. Now, could you please tell me who has us hanging here? Vampires?"
Ginny laughed. "This is the same idea as the Borgia book, right? You *are* loopy."
"No vampires," Willow said. "Check. All right then, who has us?"
"Death Eaters," Ginny replied matter-of-factly.
Willow considered that.
"Death Eaters," she said eventually.
"Right,"
"What, recreationally?" Willow asked, "because I've met a few incarnations of death, and that's a hunt I wouldn't like to be a part of. Not to mention the actual meal, because let's face it, how many ways can you cook bone? And then there's, um -"
"It's not literal," Ginny said quickly when Willow paused for a breath.
"Just a name, then? Like, they could have been the 'Death Smokers' or the 'We Punch Life in the Head Gang' or something like that?"
"I... guess so, yes," Ginny said.
Petty, *pretentious* evil, Willow thought. Terrific.
"Oh, but Death Eaters has a much better ring to it, don't you think?" A male voice said, so close to Willow's ear that she could feel his breath on her neck.
"Ngh?" Willow replied cogently, and felt rather than heard it when he laughed.
"Tom," Ginny said, so low that Willow could hardly hear her.
Tom? Willow thought.
"Virginia..." 'Tom' said, his voice moving away from Willow. Which would have been a relief if it hadn't also been moving closer to Ginny, Virginia, Willow's only link to sanity here in the itchy dark.
"Let her go, Tom," Ginny said, and her voice was somehow different than it had been. Harder, maybe. "She's not even from here! Either that, or she's completely crazy."
"Hey!" Willow said.
"Either way, she has nothing to do with this!"
That laugh again, and now that he wasn't breathing down her neck Willow could tell that there were sibilants in that laugh that had nothing to do with echoes. If snakes could laugh, they would sound like that.
Yikes, Willow thought.
"Pretty Virginia, all grown up," Tom said, "and still keeping a piece of my power to remember me by. How...sweet."
"Oh goddess," Willow said out loud.
She could almost hear the snap as his attention returned to her, like the crack of a whip. She told herself that he couldn't have seen her flinch.
"Look," Willow said, "no disrespect meant, but I'm losing a lot of blood here and I've heard this kind of thing before. So if you have any long speeches or evil flirting to do, could you do it after I pass out?"
"Oh, me too!" Ginny said, sounding hopeful, "I'm not going to pass out, but you could *knock* me out. Hit me on the head, that always works for Harry."
"Really?" Willow said with interest, "My friend Buffy swears by the back of the neck."
"Not good in the long run - you can develop neck problems. But with the head, you can use charms to-"
"Enough!" Tom said, and it really was quite impressive how he managed to hiss a word with no 's's in it. Willow could hear the word in her mind long after the sound had died away, and had to make a conscious effort to keep from shivering.
"Right," Willow said. "Quiet now."
"Did you think you could trick me?" Tom said conversationally. "Did you think that I would not feel a powerful evil come so close to me?"
"Powerful evil?" Ginny asked.
"Um, I think he means me," Willow said sheepishly.
"You're evil? You said you were good!"
"I am!" Willow insisted, "But just for the record, you probably shouldn't believe people right off the bat like that. Evil people lie, you know. It's like that riddle with the two guys who always speak the truth."
"Doesn't one of them lie?" Ginny said, distracted.
"Yes, but which one?" Willow asked, nodding sagely before she remembered that Ginny couldn't see her. "That's the trick."
"That is the trick, isn't it...Virginia?" Tom said, and he was very close to Willow. "Virginia isn't a very good judge of character, as it happens. She's too trusting. Why, look at how she's warming up to *you*."
"Hey," Willow said, "I'm a very nice person. I buy presents for no reason, and always, always remember to bring enough coffee and donuts for everyone!"
You know, she thought a second later, the awkward pauses in conversations become much more obvious when I can't see anything.
"*You*," Tom said at last, "are a thing of the dark. Oh yes. I can... taste... it on you."
Something cool brushed her cheek, dry as paper and wholly disturbing and... yes, there was power there. She could it feel stretch over her body like a skin of ice.
"I..." Willow said, her breath catching.
"Willow?" Ginny said, and *right*, Willow thought, and jerked away from his touch.
"I'm not of the dark," she said as firmly as she could with her head spinning from pain and magic, "I've just been there. I've been lots of places. I've been to Toledo, but that doesn't make me a creature of Toledo, does it? No."
"This attempt to fake imbecility will not help you," Tom said. "I know that you have come here to kill me. Or at least... to try." He laughed.
Willow laughed too. "Kill you? Who *are* you? Why would I try and kill you?"
"I was trying to kill him," Ginny volunteered.
"Yes, well, but you've met him before, which would probably help," Willow said. "Mind you, I'm not saying that I'd be averse to killing him *now*, what with tying me up with razor rope being his idea of a handshake 'hello'."
"If you didn't come here to kill me, then what?" Tom said, still far too close to her. "Have you come to join me, pretty girl?" His hand swept down her back and Willow made a small noise in her throat.
"Gay!" she said quickly. And getting gayer by the minute, she thought to herself with a shudder as his hand touched on the curve of her hip before slowly withdrawing. "Flattered, though. Yes. Thank you for the thought."
"Pity. Not that it'll make a difference in the end..." There was a pause, and then something pulled on the ropes holding Willow's wrists, and there was fire on her skin and light behind her eyes and Willow thought that she must be screaming and Ginny's voice was an animal's cry of pain.
The ropes twisted again and Willow could taste blood in her mouth.
Minutes later, when the darkness was back and the ropes were still, she heard a satisfied hiss of indrawn breath and remembered that he was there.
"Oh, I think I'll have to keep you both," Tom said, his voice sounding thick, almost drugged. "You look lovely together, do you know that? A matched pair. I've always been fond of red hair."
"I'm - " Willow began. Her voice cracked.
"Yes?"
"I'm really more of an auburn," she said, her voice hoarse.
He laughed. "Oh, I think you'll be a redhead for me," he said, and Willow had the unpleasant feeling that he wasn't talking about buying her a new box of Loreal's Crimson Sunrise, available at drug stores everywhere.
"I don't know why you're here," Tom continued, "but I'll find out. And then, in time, you and I together will find a way that you can... be useful."
"Leave her alone!" Ginny spoke for the first time since the ropes and Willow's heart sank when she heard how fragile the other girl's voice sounded.
Tom moved so fast that Willow felt the air stirred by his passing hit her like a wind.
"Oh," he said, "I'm not forgetting about you, Virginia. We'll have our time together, I promise. You have my soul - or a piece of it. It seems only fair that you return the favour, don't you think?"
Small hurt noises and silence and...
"Shh, my darling girl. You'll only hurt yourself," Tom said so softly that Willow could barely hear him. Her stomach turned over when she heard Ginny cry out.
Another few seconds of silence and Willow was struggling mindlessly, trying to pull her hands free, the ropes slippery with blood and sweat against her wrists, the pain not even registering.
And then she heard his footsteps walking away, dying away, and Ginny was crying like she couldn't help it, gasping sobs like a child crying.
"Ginny?" Willow said, "Are you all right?"
"He's going to, oh, god..."
"Ginny!" Willow said sharply.
The sobs cut off like someone had thrown a switch.
"It'll be all right, I promise," Willow said. "I'll get us out of here."
A long pause.
"Are you... what he said?" Ginny asked at last.
"Evil?"
"*Powerful*," Ginny said, and now Willow could hear the hope in her voice.
"In my own world, with my own magic, yes. But this place is... strange. The magic is," she groped for words, "too big. I can't get a grip on it."
"Yes, but with your wand - "
"I don't use a wand," Willow said.
"You... how can you do magic without a wand?"
"Not very well," Willow said. "No, no, sorry. Old joke. Dizzy over here. Seriously, I can't do much right now. I can't even untie myself, since my own blood is on the ropes. Bad mojo. I might be able to untie you, though, if I could *see* if anyone else was in the room. Tom seems like the kind of guy who'd hide in corners and watch us."
"He's gone," Ginny said.
"But - " Willow said, then stopped. "You're not blindfolded, are you."
"No."
"Petty, pretentious, *inconsistent* evil. Yeah, I can see why he assumes that everyone wants to kill him." Willow shook her head. "And hey, if you want to kill him some other day after I've gotten my bearings here? Call me."
"Deal," Ginny said, and her voice was stronger. "Can you really untie me?"
Willow concentrated, and there was a blurry picture forming on the back of her eyelids. It was like a watercolour painting... a watercolour painting that had had a cup of coffe upended on it. She could see herself, a blurry hurting shape in red and black. And that must be Ginny over there, she was... she was a golden thing.
"Wow," Willow whispered to herself, the shapes falling back into shadow.
"What's wrong?" Ginny said,
"Nothing," Willow said quickly. One good thing about being covered in my own blood, she thought - nobody can tell that I'm blushing.
She refocused on the picture and concentrated on the dark lines surrounding the golden figure. Pressure here, pressure there, and...
A thump from her left, and a gasp.
"Did it work?" Willow said.
"I'd say so," Ginny said carefully. "The ropes are gone. Gone, gone. Vanished."
"That's good, right?" Willow said, not sure what was making Ginny sound so strange.
"It's very good, but... you didn't say anything. Or... oh, it doesn't matter. But I know some people that are going to be *dying* to talk to you. I hope you like answering questions."
"Only if I know the answer," Willow said promptly, and Ginny laughed.
"Yes, I think you'll do fine with them. Hold on, I'm standing up. Ow. Ow, ow, ow."
"What?"
"Pins and needles. Sure you want me to cut you down? This is fiercely unpleasant."
"I'll take my chances," Willow said, smiling.
A feeling of warmth on her arm, and *that* had been was what was wrong with Tom. Tom with his dry hands and his cool breath and his voice like an intruder in her mind and - "Ginny?" she said.
"Yes?"
"Could you take off the blindfold first? I - " she paused, "I want to see."
Another pause and then hands were on her, and a second later the blindfold was falling. Willow's skin burned where it had been touching, but it didn't matter. Ginny was very close, and she *was* shining, even with blood on her face and on her lips.
"Wow," Willow said again.
Ginny smiled, and it was so bright that Willow thought she might go blind if she looked directly at it, something like the sun, but more kissable, kissable if she moved just a -
Ah.
And Ginny tasted of blood and tears, flavours of salt, but sweet all the same and unbearably soft and Willow closed her eyes again and saw Ginny shining there in the darkness.
Ginny moved back, everything lost all at once, and Willow opened her eyes and hoped that Ginny would still cut her down and...
"Wow," Ginny said softly.
_____________
The End
No, really. The fic is over. Shocking, eh? *grins*