Disclaimers, et al, can be found at the beginning of Part I.
ALL IN
Part II
Valerie finished her dinner and fidgeted nervously. She had checked into the Bonaventure late the prior afternoon, and she had relied on room service for food from then on, giving the bellboys careful scrutiny through the peep hole before letting them in.
* Buffy knows exactly where I am--I'm practically within walking distance of the Hyperion. Why hasn't she just sent a team over to retrieve me?* Valerie shook her head in dismay, and was considering throwing caution to the wind and just calling the Hyperion when the phone rang. She picked it up: "Yes?"
"Miss Calendar?" The voice on the other end of the line was polite, and Valerie immediately recognized it as the front desk clerk.
"Yes, what is it?" Valerie replied.
"There's a small package here for you--would you like it brought up to your room?" The clerk sounded a bit harried--Valerie had noted that there were two conventions being held in the hotel, and the hallways were swarming with middle-aged men who had consumed a few too many drinks..
"Thank you--that would be nice." Valerie replied. The clerk thanked her and broke the connection.
Valerie waited impatiently for several minutes before someone knocked softly at the door. She went to the peep hole and looked: the bellboy standing there was the one who had brought up her dinner an hour before. She opened the door, accepted the package, and tipped the bellboy--who left with a smile.
Valerie walked to her bed and sat down, looking at the package. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, and was addressed to Jenny Calendar, c/o the Bonaventure Hotel. The return address read: "B. Summers, Hyperion Hotel." Valerie sighed in relief and opened the package. It contained a hooded cloak that was an odd silvery color, and a note. Valerie opened the note, which read:
*
Sorry it took so long to get back to you--something nasty is going on, which is why the cavalry hasn't arrived yet. I've figured something out that will let us get together without intolerable risk. Wait until 9:00 PM, catch a cab to MacArthur Park, and put on this cloak when you arrive-- make sure the hood is up and drawn. Walk to the northeast corner of the park, sit on the stone bench next to the historical marker sign, and wait for me to show up. We'll take it from there.
Be careful,
Buffy Summers
*
Valerie looked at the cloak and sighed in relief. Buffy had come through-- now it was just a matter of waiting it out until nine-o-clock. She smiled, and called room service again. A big dessert sounded like a good idea about then.
* * * * *
Buffy frowned, and glanced over her shoulder. She could see Vi and Kennedy standing a hundred yards away to the south, and beyond them another fifty yards were two more Slayers she couldn't identify at the distance. The teams were rotating their posts, on the theory that fresh eyes in any one place might spot something the prior teams hadn't. It had been dark for almost four hours, and it was just after nine in the evening. Fortunately, there were relatively few civilians at the park at that hour, but Buffy knew that they'd have to be careful to avoid innocent casualties in this job. She pulled out her cell phone and hit the redial button. She heard a click, and asked simply, "Xander--where are you?"
"A hundred and fifty yards south of you--I'll check in with Vi and Kennedy, then head to your position. Figure three minutes, Buffy." Xander's voice was crisp, and the certainty in his voice gave Buffy a sense of irrational comfort. "See you in a few."
The connection broke, and Buffy shook her head in dismay as she looked at Faith. "Faith--I should have done a better job of trying to talk Valerie into coming up here. Hell, I should have just offered her a job--how much would refurnishing the Hyperion have gotten her for a commission? That might have been enough--I should have thought of it."
"Don't go there, Buffy." Faith's reply was blunt, and Buffy blinked as the younger Slayer added, "You told her the score, and she had the right to try to live a normal life. Any one of us could be a target--the upside is that when you go after one Slayer, you have to deal with all of us. We'll get her back--or make something pay with a lot of pain. Better yet, let's do both."
Buffy smiled thankfully at Faith and glanced to the south--where she could see Xander talking with Vi and Kennedy. Faith noted the look, and sighed to herself before commenting, "Xander's got this routine down pat--it's nice to have him helping us out for now. I'm going to miss him when he goes east with Helen."
Buffy flinched, and turned to take a look at the trees north of them before turning to Faith and replying, "He hasn't decided to take that job yet-- he's still thinking about it."
Faith raised an eyebrow. "Really? What's to think about? A big, important job--with a nice salary, and a boss who's pretty obviously ready to add some nice perks."
Buffy glared at Faith and snapped, "Xander's not interested in her--Helen thinks he's attracted to someone else."
* And in other news: water is wet, rocks are hard, and the Cubs haven't won the World Series for a while * Faith managed to bite down the sarcastic comment, and replied, "You don't say--have you thought of talking to whoever it is and getting her to lean on Xander a bit? I'd just as soon keep him around--given that I'd be pushing up daisies three or four times over if he hadn't been here."
Buffy frowned. "We've been kind of busy with this crisis--but I'll think about it. We need to find out who it is first."
Faith looked over to the east for signs of movement, and took the opportunity to roll her eyes at Buffy's comment. "You know Xander pretty well, B. Give it some thought, think of who Xander might feel that way about--it'll come to you." * And if it doesn't, I can go to Willow and see if she can zap up a Clue Stick big enough to penetrate your thick skull *
Buffy smiled, oblivious to Faith's annoyance. "Thanks, Faith. I just hope it isn't you--not that I wouldn't want you and Xander to be happy, but after the whole Willow/Xander/Cordelia/Oz thing, I'd just as soon not have any more soap operas to deal with. I think you and Robin are great for each other."
Faith felt a moment of warmth towards the older Slayer, and sighed inwardly before replying, "Yeah, we are. We'll shoot the breeze about this later, Buffy. Right now, let's take a closer look at those trees to the north."
Buffy nodded, and the Slayers moved off--not noticing the fog creeping in from the south.
* * * * *
Willow felt a surge of nausea, but forced herself to look at the picture that Fred had called up on the screen. It was a Naganis demon--eight feet of teeth, horns, and muscle that tended to be more than a match for anything that wasn't a Slayer or lucky enough to be carrying a pocket full of iron pyrite dust. This one had been reduced to a mass of shredded and bleeding flesh, and Willow carefully noted the damage before turning away and saying, "This looks like a match for Buffy and Helen's description, Fred. What was the cause of death?"
"The Naganis was working for W & H in Bangkok--an assassination mission eighteen months ago. They assigned another demon to create a photographic record of the mission for intimidation purposes, and he got these shots before getting the hell out of there, and I don't blame him." Fred frowned at the data file, and added, "The demon reported seeing a flash of blue light before the Naganis went down, and noted that he was in line of sight of the target for fully twenty seconds before he escaped, but that there was no further fire."
"Might take a while to rack that spell up again--it's nasty." Willow frowned, then asked: "Did W & H do a full autopsy?"
Fred nodded, and pressed a few buttons. A densely printed page of information appeared on the screen, and Willow read rapidly, looking for obvious anomalies. Three-quarters of the way down, she found what she was looking for: "Corpse was drained of all magical properties--useless for harvesting organs and fluids."
Willow blinked, and considered the state of the Naganis' body, and that of the Slayer in Buffy's dream. Willow didn't have a Slayer's intuition, but her recent experience with Xander reminded her that a magically null corpse was as rare as a thousand carat diamond. Something had drained the magic from the Naganis, and killed it violently in the process. Her eyes widened, and she snatched her cell phone without hesitation and hit the speed dial for Buffy.
She waited for several seconds, and felt a chill as she heard the recorded message saying that Buffy was out of the area of service for her cell phone. She tried Xander, then Faith: same result. She turned to Fred with an appalled expression on her face and said, "Something's blocking communications in the park--I can't get anyone on the line."
"That's not all." Gunn walked in and flipped a few switches on a panel. Three overhead monitors flickered on and showed a thick fog moving into MacArthur Park. "That started happening about three minutes ago--and the weather isn't right for it." He flipped another switch, and the screens went blank. 'We've got five cameras in the park, and they're all dead. No signal at all."
"I've got to warn them--they'll be sitting ducks!" Willow cried out, and Fred and Gunn heard Willow mumbling something under her breath. The only discernable word was "Hermes."
Wesley walked up and commented, "Maybe we shouldn't panic--it might be just a momentary--"
Willow's eyes went as black as midnight, and all three of the people standing near Willow took two steps back involuntarily. After a few seconds, Willow's eyes returned to normal, and she gave her friends an apologetic look before whispering, "Sorry--gotta go!" Her outline blurred, and she vanished with a thunderclap that coincided with the exit door being slammed violently into the corridor wall, shattering it into splinters.
Fred, Gunn, and Wesley looked at each other, and it was Gunn who finally broke the silence: "OK, that was cool."
* * * * *
Valerie sat on the bench and waited. The cab had dropped her off at the northeastern corner of MacArthur Park, and she had waited for the cab to pull away before slipping the cloak on and pulling the hood up, carefully drawing the hood closed so as to conceal her face. She had slipped into the park and found the bench near the sign, and sat down.
After a few minutes, it struck her how deserted the park was on this night. It was not even 9:30 yet, and it was a clear and warm night given the time of year. That made it all the more odd when she saw a fogbank quickly drifting in from the south. In less than a minute, everything within her line of sight was obscured by the strange phenomenon--which was not as cold as she expected it to be. She squinted, but could make out no objects beyond about thirty feet. She coughed nervously, and realized that the sound was muted. She felt a chill. * This might be Buffy's way of providing cover for bringing me in--but my instincts are telling me to get the hell out of here, and I'm going to listen to them * She stood up and turned toward the northeast exit of the park.
"Going somewhere, Miss Wallace?"
Valerie froze at the voice coming from her left, then forced herself to turn and face it. She saw only empty space for an instant before a robed figure faded into view. It appeared to be man-sized, and was pointing what looked like a wand or baton at her: its tip glowed a soft blue. Valerie stayed where she was, though she was carefully evaluating the distance between the stranger and herself, and wondering if it had the same vital spots as a human being. She was carrying two stakes in her pockets and a throwing knife at her hip, concealed under her cloak. She managed a smile and replied, "Apparently not. Let me guess--you're the bad guy, right?"
The figure raised its head slightly, and Valerie flinched at the sight of red eyes within the hood. Her reaction provoked laughter, and the figure called out, "You're too easily put off by simple parlor tricks: my eyes simply allow me to see in the dark." It pulled back its hood, and Valerie saw the features of a man in his late sixties or early seventies, marred by a nasty scar that started on his right temple and went down to his throat. The man nodded, and added, "The real differences are ones you can't see."
Valerie stared at the man, while slowly slipping her right hand downward to grasp the throwing knife. "You look human--why would you want to hurt me? I've never done anything to you."
The man chuckled, and his voice was cold as he replied, "My dear, if I was who I appeared to be, the very fact that you had chosen to turn your back on your Calling would be enough for me to have sought your death by the most expedient means available. Miss Summers and her lackeys have turned what was once a sacred duty into a polite request, and were it not for a rather high fatality rate among the Council of Watchers last year, she would have stood at the head of their enemies list for such presumption."
Valerie's eyes narrowed: Buffy had told her about the old Council, but even her less-than-complimentary description hadn't made them seem *this* ruthless. Abruptly, she remembered something the man had said, and she snapped, "So you're *not* a Watcher? Who are you, and why have you lured me here?" She tensed as she waited for an answer, looking for an opportunity to throw the knife now resting in her hand.
The man chuckled. "You've seen far too many movies, Miss Wallace--you hope that I will talk long enough for rescue to come unexpectedly, or that I will let slip some information that will help you make a miracle escape." Valerie glared at the man, and he reacted with a smile and a nod as he added, "Very well--I will humor you. Once upon a time, there was a member of the Council of Watchers who saw the decay of discipline within the organization, and foresaw that it would not be long before it ceased to be an effective force in holding back the attempts by the forces of darkness. To forestall that fate, he bargained with what he believed to be lesser evils to give him power to make the Council more ruthless than it had ever been, disregarding mercy and wisdom in favor of ruthlessness and draconian adherence to archaic laws. When a Slayer who--in spite of great ability-- did not conform to the long-established traditions of the Council, he sought her demise, by both direct and indirect means. When she defeated him and forced him to accept her status as the Chosen One, he bided his time, knowing that sooner or later she would perish, and the Council would remain and resume its status at the head of the Forces of Light." He paused--noting that Valerie seemed fascinated in spite of herself--then chuckled again and concluded, "But then a strange fellow in a priest's costume blew up the Watchers' Headquarters, and Mr. Quentin Travers was forcibly separated from his body--after which I took up residence there, inheriting his memories and abilities. I hope he enjoys his new accommodations in the afterlife--the nice thing about being frozen in ice up to your chin is that you don't have to worry about posture any more."
"So you're a demon--you could have just said so," replied Valerie, watching the creature as it smirked at her. "Of course, the backstory will be interesting when the Slayers find you and hack you into little pieces."
The demon laughed, and Valerie felt cold fear creep up her spine as it waved its free hand--causing the fog to clear away from them for about a thirty foot radius. Its voice was clearer now, and Valerie shivered as it said, "My dear, the Slayers have been combing this park for the better part of half an hour, and you have not seen them, and they have not seen you. A little property of that cloak you're wearing. By the time they know you are here, it will be far too late for them. You are bait, and your usefulness to me is finished."
Valerie felt a low snarl come from her throat, and she brought the knife up faster than she could ever remember doing anything. The blue light from the wand struck her in mid-throw, disrupting her aim somewhat, though the blade still struck the demon in the left thigh with a meaty thump.
Valerie felt intolerable pain from every part of her body, and she tumbled to the ground helplessly as a horrible scream was torn from her in spite of her best efforts to remain silent. Her last sight was of grim--if mildly pained--satisfaction on the face that had belonged to Quentin Travers, and her last thought was a prayer:
* Please let them stop him *
* * * * *
Buffy heard the faint scream to the north of her, and she felt a moment of horror and failure.
* No *
She ran through the fog, knowing that Faith was right behind her and hearing the heavier footsteps of Xander not far behind them. She had the impulse to tell Xander to try to find the others--the fog had killed communications and deadened sound to the point where the teams could no longer hear each other--but she knew it was futile: Xander would not let his friends go into danger alone.
They broke out into a fog-free area, and Buffy quickly spotted the limp form lying about thirty feet away, in the center of the clear zone. The Slayers ran up to the body, and Buffy had to bite on her lip to stop from crying out: Valerie looked as she had in the dream--torn apart and burned badly. Buffy looked around carefully, and Faith checked in the opposite directions at the same time. Nothing there--but Faith quickly spotted the oddly-colored liquid on the ground a few feet away. "Something got hurt over here, Buffy--and I don't think it was human." She pointed at a trail of purple fluid that went about five feet to the east, then stopped. "Bleeding stopped fast." She spotted a stained throwing knife at the end of the trail, and added, "It must heal fast, or it's hell on wheels with Band-Aids."
Buffy didn't respond--and Faith turned back to see that the older Slayer was staring at Valerie's body, tears filling her eyes. Faith was about to walk over and try to snap Buffy out of it, then saw that someone better suited for the job had arrived. She sighed and turned back to look for lurkers in the trees on the east border of the park.
"Buffy--we need to hold it together for now." Buffy looked up and saw that Xander's eye was also moist, but his jaw was set and his voice quivered with controlled anger as he said, "We'll get this guy, but we can't drop our guard. One funeral is going to be bad enough."
Buffy nodded and whispered, "The show must go on." She called out to Faith, "Faith, come look at the body with me--I want to see if the spell left any visible traces that might give us a hint of how to fight it, and I want another pair of eyes." She looked at Xander and said simply, "Watch our backs."
Xander nodded, and started watching the tree line. Both Buffy and Faith were also looking up regularly at the trees to the north and east--only occasionally looking to the wall of fog to the south and west: it should be hard for something to see well enough to fire from within it. They had been at it for two minutes when Xander suddenly felt a tingle go down his spine as he was about to look to the east. Obeying an impulse he didn't understand, he quickly turned to the south.
A figure was fading into view, leveling a wand like object that was glowing an ominous azure. Xander winked, and noticed that the figure seemed to be moving very slowly as it pointed the wand at Buffy and Faith. He was standing near the line of fire--he sensed that if he moved now, he could interpose himself in the path of the lethal energy. It might do no good-- an attack that could reduce a Slayer to shredded and burned flesh might well treat his merely human, unshielded body like so much tissue paper. He could try to cry out and hope that Buffy and Faith would dodge in time, but his inner instincts told him that this would be futile.
In a moment that seemed to be frozen in time for no reason he could discern, Xander weighed his options and considered the two friends who were facing certain death, against his own certain death for an action that might be for naught. Xander thought briefly, sighed inwardly, and dove forward as the wand emitted a burst of blue light.
Xander felt his perceptions change abruptly--he was sailing through the air at normal speed, and he felt the beam strike him squarely. He felt his body convulse, though for some reason he felt no pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Buffy and Faith were unharmed. As his consciousness fled, he smiled and thought:
* All in *
* * * * *
The demon snarled as the human dived into the path of the bolt, blocking it and sending him tumbling into a bare patch of ground. * How did he react so quickly? * It was distracted from this thought by a sudden burst of feedback as some of the bolt rebounded along the path it had traveled and struck the wand. The device heated up, and the demon dropped it with a howl of pain. After an instant, it looked up and saw a truly terrifying sight.
Two Slayers were glaring at him, and their hands were already in motion. The demon tried to cast its cloaking spell and flee, but the pain from the feedback clouded its mind, and the spell fizzled as a throwing knife struck home in its throat. The demon gurgled and dropped to its knees, and it looked on helplessly as the dark-haired Slayer charged forward with a rather lethal-looking axe. In the instant before its head went rolling into the fogbank, the demon had a thought that would have been very familiar to the man whose body it had occupied:
* I seem to have miscalculated *
* * * * *
Faith screamed in rage and triumph as the demon's head rolled, and Buffy broke out of her shock to see Xander convulsing on the ground. She started to go to him, but froze when she heard a familiar voice shouting in restrained terror: "Buffy, *NO*! Don't touch him!"
Willow had appeared in the clearing as if she had teleported, and she had only just managed to shout out the warning before she dropped to her knees, panting and pale as a ghost. She ran over to Willow, glancing over at Xander and waving to Faith as she did so, and helped her friend to her feet, asking urgently, "Why not, Willow? He got hit by that spell that killed Valerie--we've got to help him."
Willow visibly gathered herself, then managed to whisper, "If any of us touch him, he'll die, and I think we will too." The fog was dispersing quickly, and Willow reached for her cell phone, hitting the redial button. She didn't wait for the person picking up to speak: "Send a trauma team to the northeast corner of the park. No Slayers or demons--normal humans only, using null magic protocols. No slip-ups, or Xander's dead." She paused, and listened for a moment before saying, "I'm fine, Fred. Never tried that spell before--it's got some interesting poss--" Her voice trailed off, and she collapsed in a dead faint.
Buffy and Faith looked at each other in confusion, then reached for their own phones to call the others. The threat was gone--but one of their own was dead, and another was fighting for his life.
* * * * *
"Very nicely done--perfect in the execution and timing. Not bad at all for a first assignment."
Lilah turned away from the gathering crowd of Slayers and turned back to Doyle, who had just complimented her. "It wasn't so hard--the kid's got a built in reflex for putting his neck on the line. I just had to turn him the right way and make sure he got there in time." Lilah frowned, then asked: "By the way, you told me to make sure I was out of his body before the beam hit--what would have happened if I hadn't?"
"He would have died instantly, and your immortal essence would have been incinerated beyond recovery," replied Doyle. Lilah flinched, and Doyle nodded and intoned, "With great power comes great vulnerability when the bad guys use the right mojo on you."
"Gee--I'm *so* glad you didn't tell me that in advance." Lilah replied sarcastically, shaking her head. Doyle smiled, and Lilah asked, "So--what do we do now?"
"Back to base for paperwork--they've got some good people working on the rest of this operation." Lilah scowled, and Doyle chuckled and inclined his head at a glowing doorway. "Come on--those reports don't write themselves."
* I should have chosen the fire * grumbled Lilah inwardly, but she followed Doyle without audible complaint.
* * * * * Buffy sat quietly in the chair just inside the door, watching silently as Xander lay on the bed in the intensive care ward of Wolfram & Hart's private clinic. He was still glowing blue, though his apparently undamaged clothes had been replaced by a hospital gown. A simple IV needle had been inserted into his left arm, and he had been restrained by straps to keep his occasional convulsions from ripping out the needle or otherwise causing him harm.
When she had recovered, Willow explained the conclusion she had come to after reading the autopsy report for the Naganis demon, and why it had caused her to risk an extremely dangerous spell to warn them about what the Travers-demon had at its disposal. The Naganis' corpse displayed two unusual characteristics: extremely extensive damage, and total absence of the high levels of magic intrinsic to a powerful demon.
"The demon was using a kind of anti-magic--one that reacts violently with the magic that is found in living creatures." Willow had glanced at Xander's still form at that point, flinching as he convulsed under the restraints. "The more magic within the creature, the more violent the reaction. Any demon would be destroyed by the physical damage caused, unless it was so large that the beam could only affect part of its body. We saw what it did to Valerie--it would have done the same to me or any other witch or Slayer. The magic in normal humans tends to concentrate in the brain, the heart, and the bloodstream. The reaction with the anti- magic would almost certainly cause fatal strokes, blood clots, and ruptured blood vessels."
"But Xander's a Null." Fred had commented, quickly realizing what Willow was leading to.
"Exactly," Willow had replied, her expression twisting with concern for her friend. "The anti-magic has nowhere to go, since there is no magic in his body for it to interact with, and no other magic close enough to him for the anti-magic to be drawn away or to react with--thank the Goddess that he wasn't wearing any protective magic tonight. It's just sitting there, and from the way he's reacting to it, it's screwing up his normal bodily functions. We need to keep him completely isolated from magic while we figure out a way to draw off and neutralize the anti-magic, and we need to do it before his body shuts down from the imbalance."
Buffy had been sitting in the chair for thirty-six hours, only getting up for bathroom breaks. She had eaten very little--and it was only Willow and Fred's combined threats to sedate her and hook her up to an IV that had made her accept that much--and had not slept at all. A steady stream of visitors had come to see Xander, and they had all shivered at the sight of Xander glowing and silent in the bed, and of the stark black tape line that indicated the closest point of safe approach for anyone not wearing special protective clothing--and even that was only for ordinary humans. Willow had banned Dawn from the ward altogether because of the unknowable risk that her unique state might trigger a reaction that could kill her or Xander at a much longer range than anyone else. Dawn had been shaken up by the order, but had not argued it. She was back at the Hyperion, waiting for word that Buffy had promised to send her as soon as something had changed.
Faith had visited only once--Buffy had quickly delegated her supervisory duties to the younger Slayer, and Faith had protested only briefly before turning to go. She looked back at Xander and whispered, "He knows you're here, Buffy. Believe in him--he'll come back." She had left after that, and Buffy had sighed and turned back to her vigil.
Giles and Angel had sat with her for some hours--they were the only ones who weren't subject to her orders or critically necessary to the research effort, and they had noted that she took comfort in their presence after token resistance--though her eyes never left the bed and its occupant. Angel had said very little, though his eyes betrayed sadness and a certain amount of resignation as he watched Buffy watch Xander. Giles had stood next to Buffy, and his eyes crinkled with restrained affection as he commented, "I will never understand how fate has given one man such reckless courage and such improbable fortune. He should be dead two dozen times over by now." He smiled at his Slayer and added, "Which leads me to believe that he will survive on this occasion as well. Get some sleep, Buffy--you won't be helping Xander if you collapse from exhaustion." He had departed, and in spite of her own formidable will, Giles' words helped erode her resistance. After a few minutes, her head slumped, and Gunn--who had poked his head in while running an errand for Fred and Willow-- retrieved a blanket and draped it over the exhausted Slayer.
* * * * *
Buffy's eyes snapped open. The room was strangely quiet, and Buffy stood up, looking around. The lights had dimmed, and the blue glow around Xander's body could be seen throughout the entire room. Buffy could see Xander's expression was peaceful, and that relieved her somewhat. She set her jaw and whispered, "Please hang on, Xander. I don't want to have to go on without you."
"Then isn't it about time you made sure you won't have to once the big jerk wakes up?"
Buffy whirled at the familiar voice. She saw a tall, dark-haired woman with dark, sad eyes and a calm expression that belied the rather blunt tone of the question she had just asked, standing in the doorway and watching her. The Slayer stared, and there was shock in her voice as she whispered:
"Cordelia?"
. . .to be continued.
As always, comments are welcomed and desired.
ALL IN
Part II
Valerie finished her dinner and fidgeted nervously. She had checked into the Bonaventure late the prior afternoon, and she had relied on room service for food from then on, giving the bellboys careful scrutiny through the peep hole before letting them in.
* Buffy knows exactly where I am--I'm practically within walking distance of the Hyperion. Why hasn't she just sent a team over to retrieve me?* Valerie shook her head in dismay, and was considering throwing caution to the wind and just calling the Hyperion when the phone rang. She picked it up: "Yes?"
"Miss Calendar?" The voice on the other end of the line was polite, and Valerie immediately recognized it as the front desk clerk.
"Yes, what is it?" Valerie replied.
"There's a small package here for you--would you like it brought up to your room?" The clerk sounded a bit harried--Valerie had noted that there were two conventions being held in the hotel, and the hallways were swarming with middle-aged men who had consumed a few too many drinks..
"Thank you--that would be nice." Valerie replied. The clerk thanked her and broke the connection.
Valerie waited impatiently for several minutes before someone knocked softly at the door. She went to the peep hole and looked: the bellboy standing there was the one who had brought up her dinner an hour before. She opened the door, accepted the package, and tipped the bellboy--who left with a smile.
Valerie walked to her bed and sat down, looking at the package. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, and was addressed to Jenny Calendar, c/o the Bonaventure Hotel. The return address read: "B. Summers, Hyperion Hotel." Valerie sighed in relief and opened the package. It contained a hooded cloak that was an odd silvery color, and a note. Valerie opened the note, which read:
*
Sorry it took so long to get back to you--something nasty is going on, which is why the cavalry hasn't arrived yet. I've figured something out that will let us get together without intolerable risk. Wait until 9:00 PM, catch a cab to MacArthur Park, and put on this cloak when you arrive-- make sure the hood is up and drawn. Walk to the northeast corner of the park, sit on the stone bench next to the historical marker sign, and wait for me to show up. We'll take it from there.
Be careful,
Buffy Summers
*
Valerie looked at the cloak and sighed in relief. Buffy had come through-- now it was just a matter of waiting it out until nine-o-clock. She smiled, and called room service again. A big dessert sounded like a good idea about then.
* * * * *
Buffy frowned, and glanced over her shoulder. She could see Vi and Kennedy standing a hundred yards away to the south, and beyond them another fifty yards were two more Slayers she couldn't identify at the distance. The teams were rotating their posts, on the theory that fresh eyes in any one place might spot something the prior teams hadn't. It had been dark for almost four hours, and it was just after nine in the evening. Fortunately, there were relatively few civilians at the park at that hour, but Buffy knew that they'd have to be careful to avoid innocent casualties in this job. She pulled out her cell phone and hit the redial button. She heard a click, and asked simply, "Xander--where are you?"
"A hundred and fifty yards south of you--I'll check in with Vi and Kennedy, then head to your position. Figure three minutes, Buffy." Xander's voice was crisp, and the certainty in his voice gave Buffy a sense of irrational comfort. "See you in a few."
The connection broke, and Buffy shook her head in dismay as she looked at Faith. "Faith--I should have done a better job of trying to talk Valerie into coming up here. Hell, I should have just offered her a job--how much would refurnishing the Hyperion have gotten her for a commission? That might have been enough--I should have thought of it."
"Don't go there, Buffy." Faith's reply was blunt, and Buffy blinked as the younger Slayer added, "You told her the score, and she had the right to try to live a normal life. Any one of us could be a target--the upside is that when you go after one Slayer, you have to deal with all of us. We'll get her back--or make something pay with a lot of pain. Better yet, let's do both."
Buffy smiled thankfully at Faith and glanced to the south--where she could see Xander talking with Vi and Kennedy. Faith noted the look, and sighed to herself before commenting, "Xander's got this routine down pat--it's nice to have him helping us out for now. I'm going to miss him when he goes east with Helen."
Buffy flinched, and turned to take a look at the trees north of them before turning to Faith and replying, "He hasn't decided to take that job yet-- he's still thinking about it."
Faith raised an eyebrow. "Really? What's to think about? A big, important job--with a nice salary, and a boss who's pretty obviously ready to add some nice perks."
Buffy glared at Faith and snapped, "Xander's not interested in her--Helen thinks he's attracted to someone else."
* And in other news: water is wet, rocks are hard, and the Cubs haven't won the World Series for a while * Faith managed to bite down the sarcastic comment, and replied, "You don't say--have you thought of talking to whoever it is and getting her to lean on Xander a bit? I'd just as soon keep him around--given that I'd be pushing up daisies three or four times over if he hadn't been here."
Buffy frowned. "We've been kind of busy with this crisis--but I'll think about it. We need to find out who it is first."
Faith looked over to the east for signs of movement, and took the opportunity to roll her eyes at Buffy's comment. "You know Xander pretty well, B. Give it some thought, think of who Xander might feel that way about--it'll come to you." * And if it doesn't, I can go to Willow and see if she can zap up a Clue Stick big enough to penetrate your thick skull *
Buffy smiled, oblivious to Faith's annoyance. "Thanks, Faith. I just hope it isn't you--not that I wouldn't want you and Xander to be happy, but after the whole Willow/Xander/Cordelia/Oz thing, I'd just as soon not have any more soap operas to deal with. I think you and Robin are great for each other."
Faith felt a moment of warmth towards the older Slayer, and sighed inwardly before replying, "Yeah, we are. We'll shoot the breeze about this later, Buffy. Right now, let's take a closer look at those trees to the north."
Buffy nodded, and the Slayers moved off--not noticing the fog creeping in from the south.
* * * * *
Willow felt a surge of nausea, but forced herself to look at the picture that Fred had called up on the screen. It was a Naganis demon--eight feet of teeth, horns, and muscle that tended to be more than a match for anything that wasn't a Slayer or lucky enough to be carrying a pocket full of iron pyrite dust. This one had been reduced to a mass of shredded and bleeding flesh, and Willow carefully noted the damage before turning away and saying, "This looks like a match for Buffy and Helen's description, Fred. What was the cause of death?"
"The Naganis was working for W & H in Bangkok--an assassination mission eighteen months ago. They assigned another demon to create a photographic record of the mission for intimidation purposes, and he got these shots before getting the hell out of there, and I don't blame him." Fred frowned at the data file, and added, "The demon reported seeing a flash of blue light before the Naganis went down, and noted that he was in line of sight of the target for fully twenty seconds before he escaped, but that there was no further fire."
"Might take a while to rack that spell up again--it's nasty." Willow frowned, then asked: "Did W & H do a full autopsy?"
Fred nodded, and pressed a few buttons. A densely printed page of information appeared on the screen, and Willow read rapidly, looking for obvious anomalies. Three-quarters of the way down, she found what she was looking for: "Corpse was drained of all magical properties--useless for harvesting organs and fluids."
Willow blinked, and considered the state of the Naganis' body, and that of the Slayer in Buffy's dream. Willow didn't have a Slayer's intuition, but her recent experience with Xander reminded her that a magically null corpse was as rare as a thousand carat diamond. Something had drained the magic from the Naganis, and killed it violently in the process. Her eyes widened, and she snatched her cell phone without hesitation and hit the speed dial for Buffy.
She waited for several seconds, and felt a chill as she heard the recorded message saying that Buffy was out of the area of service for her cell phone. She tried Xander, then Faith: same result. She turned to Fred with an appalled expression on her face and said, "Something's blocking communications in the park--I can't get anyone on the line."
"That's not all." Gunn walked in and flipped a few switches on a panel. Three overhead monitors flickered on and showed a thick fog moving into MacArthur Park. "That started happening about three minutes ago--and the weather isn't right for it." He flipped another switch, and the screens went blank. 'We've got five cameras in the park, and they're all dead. No signal at all."
"I've got to warn them--they'll be sitting ducks!" Willow cried out, and Fred and Gunn heard Willow mumbling something under her breath. The only discernable word was "Hermes."
Wesley walked up and commented, "Maybe we shouldn't panic--it might be just a momentary--"
Willow's eyes went as black as midnight, and all three of the people standing near Willow took two steps back involuntarily. After a few seconds, Willow's eyes returned to normal, and she gave her friends an apologetic look before whispering, "Sorry--gotta go!" Her outline blurred, and she vanished with a thunderclap that coincided with the exit door being slammed violently into the corridor wall, shattering it into splinters.
Fred, Gunn, and Wesley looked at each other, and it was Gunn who finally broke the silence: "OK, that was cool."
* * * * *
Valerie sat on the bench and waited. The cab had dropped her off at the northeastern corner of MacArthur Park, and she had waited for the cab to pull away before slipping the cloak on and pulling the hood up, carefully drawing the hood closed so as to conceal her face. She had slipped into the park and found the bench near the sign, and sat down.
After a few minutes, it struck her how deserted the park was on this night. It was not even 9:30 yet, and it was a clear and warm night given the time of year. That made it all the more odd when she saw a fogbank quickly drifting in from the south. In less than a minute, everything within her line of sight was obscured by the strange phenomenon--which was not as cold as she expected it to be. She squinted, but could make out no objects beyond about thirty feet. She coughed nervously, and realized that the sound was muted. She felt a chill. * This might be Buffy's way of providing cover for bringing me in--but my instincts are telling me to get the hell out of here, and I'm going to listen to them * She stood up and turned toward the northeast exit of the park.
"Going somewhere, Miss Wallace?"
Valerie froze at the voice coming from her left, then forced herself to turn and face it. She saw only empty space for an instant before a robed figure faded into view. It appeared to be man-sized, and was pointing what looked like a wand or baton at her: its tip glowed a soft blue. Valerie stayed where she was, though she was carefully evaluating the distance between the stranger and herself, and wondering if it had the same vital spots as a human being. She was carrying two stakes in her pockets and a throwing knife at her hip, concealed under her cloak. She managed a smile and replied, "Apparently not. Let me guess--you're the bad guy, right?"
The figure raised its head slightly, and Valerie flinched at the sight of red eyes within the hood. Her reaction provoked laughter, and the figure called out, "You're too easily put off by simple parlor tricks: my eyes simply allow me to see in the dark." It pulled back its hood, and Valerie saw the features of a man in his late sixties or early seventies, marred by a nasty scar that started on his right temple and went down to his throat. The man nodded, and added, "The real differences are ones you can't see."
Valerie stared at the man, while slowly slipping her right hand downward to grasp the throwing knife. "You look human--why would you want to hurt me? I've never done anything to you."
The man chuckled, and his voice was cold as he replied, "My dear, if I was who I appeared to be, the very fact that you had chosen to turn your back on your Calling would be enough for me to have sought your death by the most expedient means available. Miss Summers and her lackeys have turned what was once a sacred duty into a polite request, and were it not for a rather high fatality rate among the Council of Watchers last year, she would have stood at the head of their enemies list for such presumption."
Valerie's eyes narrowed: Buffy had told her about the old Council, but even her less-than-complimentary description hadn't made them seem *this* ruthless. Abruptly, she remembered something the man had said, and she snapped, "So you're *not* a Watcher? Who are you, and why have you lured me here?" She tensed as she waited for an answer, looking for an opportunity to throw the knife now resting in her hand.
The man chuckled. "You've seen far too many movies, Miss Wallace--you hope that I will talk long enough for rescue to come unexpectedly, or that I will let slip some information that will help you make a miracle escape." Valerie glared at the man, and he reacted with a smile and a nod as he added, "Very well--I will humor you. Once upon a time, there was a member of the Council of Watchers who saw the decay of discipline within the organization, and foresaw that it would not be long before it ceased to be an effective force in holding back the attempts by the forces of darkness. To forestall that fate, he bargained with what he believed to be lesser evils to give him power to make the Council more ruthless than it had ever been, disregarding mercy and wisdom in favor of ruthlessness and draconian adherence to archaic laws. When a Slayer who--in spite of great ability-- did not conform to the long-established traditions of the Council, he sought her demise, by both direct and indirect means. When she defeated him and forced him to accept her status as the Chosen One, he bided his time, knowing that sooner or later she would perish, and the Council would remain and resume its status at the head of the Forces of Light." He paused--noting that Valerie seemed fascinated in spite of herself--then chuckled again and concluded, "But then a strange fellow in a priest's costume blew up the Watchers' Headquarters, and Mr. Quentin Travers was forcibly separated from his body--after which I took up residence there, inheriting his memories and abilities. I hope he enjoys his new accommodations in the afterlife--the nice thing about being frozen in ice up to your chin is that you don't have to worry about posture any more."
"So you're a demon--you could have just said so," replied Valerie, watching the creature as it smirked at her. "Of course, the backstory will be interesting when the Slayers find you and hack you into little pieces."
The demon laughed, and Valerie felt cold fear creep up her spine as it waved its free hand--causing the fog to clear away from them for about a thirty foot radius. Its voice was clearer now, and Valerie shivered as it said, "My dear, the Slayers have been combing this park for the better part of half an hour, and you have not seen them, and they have not seen you. A little property of that cloak you're wearing. By the time they know you are here, it will be far too late for them. You are bait, and your usefulness to me is finished."
Valerie felt a low snarl come from her throat, and she brought the knife up faster than she could ever remember doing anything. The blue light from the wand struck her in mid-throw, disrupting her aim somewhat, though the blade still struck the demon in the left thigh with a meaty thump.
Valerie felt intolerable pain from every part of her body, and she tumbled to the ground helplessly as a horrible scream was torn from her in spite of her best efforts to remain silent. Her last sight was of grim--if mildly pained--satisfaction on the face that had belonged to Quentin Travers, and her last thought was a prayer:
* Please let them stop him *
* * * * *
Buffy heard the faint scream to the north of her, and she felt a moment of horror and failure.
* No *
She ran through the fog, knowing that Faith was right behind her and hearing the heavier footsteps of Xander not far behind them. She had the impulse to tell Xander to try to find the others--the fog had killed communications and deadened sound to the point where the teams could no longer hear each other--but she knew it was futile: Xander would not let his friends go into danger alone.
They broke out into a fog-free area, and Buffy quickly spotted the limp form lying about thirty feet away, in the center of the clear zone. The Slayers ran up to the body, and Buffy had to bite on her lip to stop from crying out: Valerie looked as she had in the dream--torn apart and burned badly. Buffy looked around carefully, and Faith checked in the opposite directions at the same time. Nothing there--but Faith quickly spotted the oddly-colored liquid on the ground a few feet away. "Something got hurt over here, Buffy--and I don't think it was human." She pointed at a trail of purple fluid that went about five feet to the east, then stopped. "Bleeding stopped fast." She spotted a stained throwing knife at the end of the trail, and added, "It must heal fast, or it's hell on wheels with Band-Aids."
Buffy didn't respond--and Faith turned back to see that the older Slayer was staring at Valerie's body, tears filling her eyes. Faith was about to walk over and try to snap Buffy out of it, then saw that someone better suited for the job had arrived. She sighed and turned back to look for lurkers in the trees on the east border of the park.
"Buffy--we need to hold it together for now." Buffy looked up and saw that Xander's eye was also moist, but his jaw was set and his voice quivered with controlled anger as he said, "We'll get this guy, but we can't drop our guard. One funeral is going to be bad enough."
Buffy nodded and whispered, "The show must go on." She called out to Faith, "Faith, come look at the body with me--I want to see if the spell left any visible traces that might give us a hint of how to fight it, and I want another pair of eyes." She looked at Xander and said simply, "Watch our backs."
Xander nodded, and started watching the tree line. Both Buffy and Faith were also looking up regularly at the trees to the north and east--only occasionally looking to the wall of fog to the south and west: it should be hard for something to see well enough to fire from within it. They had been at it for two minutes when Xander suddenly felt a tingle go down his spine as he was about to look to the east. Obeying an impulse he didn't understand, he quickly turned to the south.
A figure was fading into view, leveling a wand like object that was glowing an ominous azure. Xander winked, and noticed that the figure seemed to be moving very slowly as it pointed the wand at Buffy and Faith. He was standing near the line of fire--he sensed that if he moved now, he could interpose himself in the path of the lethal energy. It might do no good-- an attack that could reduce a Slayer to shredded and burned flesh might well treat his merely human, unshielded body like so much tissue paper. He could try to cry out and hope that Buffy and Faith would dodge in time, but his inner instincts told him that this would be futile.
In a moment that seemed to be frozen in time for no reason he could discern, Xander weighed his options and considered the two friends who were facing certain death, against his own certain death for an action that might be for naught. Xander thought briefly, sighed inwardly, and dove forward as the wand emitted a burst of blue light.
Xander felt his perceptions change abruptly--he was sailing through the air at normal speed, and he felt the beam strike him squarely. He felt his body convulse, though for some reason he felt no pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Buffy and Faith were unharmed. As his consciousness fled, he smiled and thought:
* All in *
* * * * *
The demon snarled as the human dived into the path of the bolt, blocking it and sending him tumbling into a bare patch of ground. * How did he react so quickly? * It was distracted from this thought by a sudden burst of feedback as some of the bolt rebounded along the path it had traveled and struck the wand. The device heated up, and the demon dropped it with a howl of pain. After an instant, it looked up and saw a truly terrifying sight.
Two Slayers were glaring at him, and their hands were already in motion. The demon tried to cast its cloaking spell and flee, but the pain from the feedback clouded its mind, and the spell fizzled as a throwing knife struck home in its throat. The demon gurgled and dropped to its knees, and it looked on helplessly as the dark-haired Slayer charged forward with a rather lethal-looking axe. In the instant before its head went rolling into the fogbank, the demon had a thought that would have been very familiar to the man whose body it had occupied:
* I seem to have miscalculated *
* * * * *
Faith screamed in rage and triumph as the demon's head rolled, and Buffy broke out of her shock to see Xander convulsing on the ground. She started to go to him, but froze when she heard a familiar voice shouting in restrained terror: "Buffy, *NO*! Don't touch him!"
Willow had appeared in the clearing as if she had teleported, and she had only just managed to shout out the warning before she dropped to her knees, panting and pale as a ghost. She ran over to Willow, glancing over at Xander and waving to Faith as she did so, and helped her friend to her feet, asking urgently, "Why not, Willow? He got hit by that spell that killed Valerie--we've got to help him."
Willow visibly gathered herself, then managed to whisper, "If any of us touch him, he'll die, and I think we will too." The fog was dispersing quickly, and Willow reached for her cell phone, hitting the redial button. She didn't wait for the person picking up to speak: "Send a trauma team to the northeast corner of the park. No Slayers or demons--normal humans only, using null magic protocols. No slip-ups, or Xander's dead." She paused, and listened for a moment before saying, "I'm fine, Fred. Never tried that spell before--it's got some interesting poss--" Her voice trailed off, and she collapsed in a dead faint.
Buffy and Faith looked at each other in confusion, then reached for their own phones to call the others. The threat was gone--but one of their own was dead, and another was fighting for his life.
* * * * *
"Very nicely done--perfect in the execution and timing. Not bad at all for a first assignment."
Lilah turned away from the gathering crowd of Slayers and turned back to Doyle, who had just complimented her. "It wasn't so hard--the kid's got a built in reflex for putting his neck on the line. I just had to turn him the right way and make sure he got there in time." Lilah frowned, then asked: "By the way, you told me to make sure I was out of his body before the beam hit--what would have happened if I hadn't?"
"He would have died instantly, and your immortal essence would have been incinerated beyond recovery," replied Doyle. Lilah flinched, and Doyle nodded and intoned, "With great power comes great vulnerability when the bad guys use the right mojo on you."
"Gee--I'm *so* glad you didn't tell me that in advance." Lilah replied sarcastically, shaking her head. Doyle smiled, and Lilah asked, "So--what do we do now?"
"Back to base for paperwork--they've got some good people working on the rest of this operation." Lilah scowled, and Doyle chuckled and inclined his head at a glowing doorway. "Come on--those reports don't write themselves."
* I should have chosen the fire * grumbled Lilah inwardly, but she followed Doyle without audible complaint.
* * * * * Buffy sat quietly in the chair just inside the door, watching silently as Xander lay on the bed in the intensive care ward of Wolfram & Hart's private clinic. He was still glowing blue, though his apparently undamaged clothes had been replaced by a hospital gown. A simple IV needle had been inserted into his left arm, and he had been restrained by straps to keep his occasional convulsions from ripping out the needle or otherwise causing him harm.
When she had recovered, Willow explained the conclusion she had come to after reading the autopsy report for the Naganis demon, and why it had caused her to risk an extremely dangerous spell to warn them about what the Travers-demon had at its disposal. The Naganis' corpse displayed two unusual characteristics: extremely extensive damage, and total absence of the high levels of magic intrinsic to a powerful demon.
"The demon was using a kind of anti-magic--one that reacts violently with the magic that is found in living creatures." Willow had glanced at Xander's still form at that point, flinching as he convulsed under the restraints. "The more magic within the creature, the more violent the reaction. Any demon would be destroyed by the physical damage caused, unless it was so large that the beam could only affect part of its body. We saw what it did to Valerie--it would have done the same to me or any other witch or Slayer. The magic in normal humans tends to concentrate in the brain, the heart, and the bloodstream. The reaction with the anti- magic would almost certainly cause fatal strokes, blood clots, and ruptured blood vessels."
"But Xander's a Null." Fred had commented, quickly realizing what Willow was leading to.
"Exactly," Willow had replied, her expression twisting with concern for her friend. "The anti-magic has nowhere to go, since there is no magic in his body for it to interact with, and no other magic close enough to him for the anti-magic to be drawn away or to react with--thank the Goddess that he wasn't wearing any protective magic tonight. It's just sitting there, and from the way he's reacting to it, it's screwing up his normal bodily functions. We need to keep him completely isolated from magic while we figure out a way to draw off and neutralize the anti-magic, and we need to do it before his body shuts down from the imbalance."
Buffy had been sitting in the chair for thirty-six hours, only getting up for bathroom breaks. She had eaten very little--and it was only Willow and Fred's combined threats to sedate her and hook her up to an IV that had made her accept that much--and had not slept at all. A steady stream of visitors had come to see Xander, and they had all shivered at the sight of Xander glowing and silent in the bed, and of the stark black tape line that indicated the closest point of safe approach for anyone not wearing special protective clothing--and even that was only for ordinary humans. Willow had banned Dawn from the ward altogether because of the unknowable risk that her unique state might trigger a reaction that could kill her or Xander at a much longer range than anyone else. Dawn had been shaken up by the order, but had not argued it. She was back at the Hyperion, waiting for word that Buffy had promised to send her as soon as something had changed.
Faith had visited only once--Buffy had quickly delegated her supervisory duties to the younger Slayer, and Faith had protested only briefly before turning to go. She looked back at Xander and whispered, "He knows you're here, Buffy. Believe in him--he'll come back." She had left after that, and Buffy had sighed and turned back to her vigil.
Giles and Angel had sat with her for some hours--they were the only ones who weren't subject to her orders or critically necessary to the research effort, and they had noted that she took comfort in their presence after token resistance--though her eyes never left the bed and its occupant. Angel had said very little, though his eyes betrayed sadness and a certain amount of resignation as he watched Buffy watch Xander. Giles had stood next to Buffy, and his eyes crinkled with restrained affection as he commented, "I will never understand how fate has given one man such reckless courage and such improbable fortune. He should be dead two dozen times over by now." He smiled at his Slayer and added, "Which leads me to believe that he will survive on this occasion as well. Get some sleep, Buffy--you won't be helping Xander if you collapse from exhaustion." He had departed, and in spite of her own formidable will, Giles' words helped erode her resistance. After a few minutes, her head slumped, and Gunn--who had poked his head in while running an errand for Fred and Willow-- retrieved a blanket and draped it over the exhausted Slayer.
* * * * *
Buffy's eyes snapped open. The room was strangely quiet, and Buffy stood up, looking around. The lights had dimmed, and the blue glow around Xander's body could be seen throughout the entire room. Buffy could see Xander's expression was peaceful, and that relieved her somewhat. She set her jaw and whispered, "Please hang on, Xander. I don't want to have to go on without you."
"Then isn't it about time you made sure you won't have to once the big jerk wakes up?"
Buffy whirled at the familiar voice. She saw a tall, dark-haired woman with dark, sad eyes and a calm expression that belied the rather blunt tone of the question she had just asked, standing in the doorway and watching her. The Slayer stared, and there was shock in her voice as she whispered:
"Cordelia?"
. . .to be continued.
As always, comments are welcomed and desired.