CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE VISION
"Angel Investigation, we help the hopeless," an Irish man said as he picked up the phone. He listened to the person on the other end for a moment, his feet casually on the desk in front of him, his chair leaning back at a slightly dangerous angle.
"You think your husband's a vampire?" Alan Francis Doyle asked, jotting down the basics of the conversation on a piece of paper in front of him. "What makes you say that?"
He listened again and sighed. It wasn't the first time any of their 'clients' had thought that there was something supernatural to their spouses.
"Alright, so he's going out late and night and coming home just before sunrise with dark marks on his neck. Now, can you tell me if you've seen him in the sunlight?…You have?… When?"
Doyle sighed. "If you've seen him in sunlight today, then no your husband's not a vampire."
Doyle looked up as he saw his boss enter the office from the apartment area downstairs. The Irish half-Bracchen demon waved hello before retuning his attention back to the phone call.
"What do I think?" Doyle repeated, trying to stall for time. "Well, uh…your husband may well just like having a drink or two after work, y'know. With the ladies."
There was silence on the other end, followed by the dial tone. Doyle laughed and hung up the phone, looking towards his boss, the ensouled vampire Angel.
"Another paranoid wife?" Angel asked.
"Bite marks on his neck and getting in at dawn," Doyle explained. "You'd think that if she was that worried, she'd have just checked his pulse or something."
Angel laughed slightly and shook his head. He had to admit that when he'd met Doyle in Sunnydale he'd never have thought they would have got along so well. The truth of it was that Doyle had turned out to be an incredibly good and loyal friend to him.
It had been Doyle's idea to start Angel Investigations, and to charge a small fee for their services if their clients were able to afford it. Angel had been against it at first, but some of the cases he took up, he was more than willing to be paid for it.
"I was wondering-" Doyle stopped suddenly as he felt another of his bone-crunching, mind-numbing visions rip through his mind. He doubled over, clutching at his head as Angel looked on, unable to do anything for his friend except to pass over a glass of scotch as soon as the vision had finished.
Doyle downed the shot of alcohol and looked to Angel.
"That was just…bizarre."
"What?" Angel asked, standing and shrugging into his jacket, making sure he had the keys to his convertible in his pocket.
"Twelve blocks east, on the corner of Twelfth and Main in about four hours," Doyle replied, "there's a blonde girl fighting vampires. She killed 'em all, but…there was something else there with her. Something I couldn't see, but…"
"But?" Angel prompted.
"It felt dark. It wanted to hurt her."
"And the girl?" Angel asked.
Doyle hated the visions weren't always that clear. He'd gotten a good look at the girl, but it wasn't someone that he recognised.
"She's powerful whoever she is," Doyle replied.
"A Slayer?" Angel asked.
"More powerful than that."
Angel felt his heart sink. "A witch?"
Doyle shrugged. "Maybe. But I've never met a witch with that much power before."
The brooding vampire moved to his desk and rummaged inside a drawer until he reached the bottom of his folders. He took out a small envelope that held a single photograph. He removed the photo and handed it to Doyle, who's eyes went wide in recognition.
"Was that her?" Angel asked.
Doyle nodded. "That's her. But…how'd you know that?"
Angel sighed and got out a piece of paper, scribbling a note before sealing it an envelope. He walked to the window and opened it, whistling loudly into the evening.
Doyle watched in confusion, wondering if Angel had finally lost his mind. He was startled to see a large brown owl fly through the window and land on Angel's desk, nipping at Angel's fingers.
"What the hell?"
Angel tied the envelope to the owl's leg before stroking the feathers on it's back.
"Make sure he gets this as quickly as possible," Angel instructed the large bird that had followed him back from England a year before. He'd only sent one other letter to Hogwarts, and that had been the previous January, but the owl had stayed in Los Angeles. Angel had learned to summon the owl and it had never failed to immediately come to him.
"Alright, I've seen some damn weird things before, but that was just…what was that Angel?" Doyle asked.
"The girl you saw in your vision is a good friend of mine," Angel explained.
Doyle knew there was more to Angel's relationship with the girl from his vision, but he knew enough about the brooding vampire to know that if he didn't volunteer the information, he was less likely to explain if he was pushed to answer things.
"She's meant to be in England, studying at a school called Hogwarts," Angel continued.
"Hogwarts?" Doyle asked. He'd heard of the school before. "As in the school for witches and wizards?"
Angel nodded. "That'd be the one. I owe one of the Professors a few favours, and I have a feeling that he has no clue that Buffy is back in California."
"Buffy?" Doyle asked. "And she'd be who?"
"One of the most powerful women on earth. She's the daughter of a very dark wizard, but she was trained to be a Slayer. And I have a bad feeling that she actually is a Slayer now, if your vision is any indication."
Angel took a seat behind his desk and replaced the photograph in his drawer.
"Aren't we going to help her?" Doyle asked.
Angel sighed and shook his head. "It's not up to me," he replied.
Doyle looked at him incredulously.
"But the vision!"
"You said she killed them all," Angel said.
"Well, yeah," Doyle agreed. "But…but that thing that was haunting her…it's dark. Darker than anything I ever did see."
"Doyle, the Powers give you the visions so that you can guide me to help whoever needs it. I know for a fact that it's not my responsibility to help her anymore. As much as I would like to…it's not for me to do anymore."
"So whose job is it then?" Doyle asked.
Angel sighed and silently prayed that his owl would get to Hogwarts in time. "It's Harry's."
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Giles, Dumbledore and Hermione were still cloistered away in the Room of Requirement, reading through books, trying to find out as much about the First Evil as they possibly could. They were somewhat surprised by what they'd found out, though none of it made them any less worried about what it was trying to do to Buffy.
"Listen to this," Hermione suddenly said, straightening in her chair as she looked up at the two Professors. "The First Evil can only take the non-corporeal form of any person who has died within the previous twenty years. It is a master of manipulation within both the waking world and the realm of dreams. The First is able to choose whom it shall appear to and what form to appear as."
"That's how it's been appearing as James and Lily and all the others," Giles commented. "They've been dead less than twenty years."
"But…why is Buffy seeing herself then?" Hermione asked.
Giles sighed and remembered the flippancy of Xander telling the Scoobies the news of what had happened down in the Master's lair over two and a half years before.
Yeah, Buffy died and everything…Wow, harsh.
"She was dead. Momentarily. She was drowned, and Xander Harris used CPR to revive her," Giles explained.
Dumbledore however had had his attention caught by another piece of the information.
"The First can choose whom it shall appear to," Dumbledore repeated. There was something about the First's earlier visit that had stuck out in his mind. Something that he should have picked up on earlier.
The First had chosen to show itself to Dumbledore and Giles at the exact moment that it had told Buffy of the damage she could still do at Hogwarts. He'd wondered when he'd need to ask the Slayer to leave for the safety of herself and the other students.
"We played right into it's hands," Dumbledore said, angry at himself for not realising it earlier.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
"When the First showed itself to you and I earlier, what was your first reaction to what it said to Buffy?" Dumbledore asked.
Giles thought back and remembered his first instinctive reaction. He'd been somewhat shamed by the initial thought, but it had been there.
"That Buffy shouldn't be at Hogwarts," he admitted softly.
"That was my reaction as well," Dumbledore said. "And it's the exact reaction that the First wanted. It can choose when to appear before us. It chose that moment so that we would begin to doubt her."
Hermione caught on quickly even though she hadn't been there when the First had appeared to them.
"You mean, it wants Buffy away from Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.
"Of course," Giles exclaimed, putting all the pieces together. "It taunted her with the damage she could do, but…the truth of it is, the longer she stayed within Hogwarts, the more likely it would be that she would begin to get used to its presence within the school walls. If the First had her away from here, away from her friends and the staff, it would be taking away her base of support."
"So, by isolating her, it's going to manipulate her even more," Hermione surmised.
"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed.
Hermione felt a bucket load of guilt slam through her. She couldn't help but think that it was partly her fault for letting Buffy leave when they'd been talking earlier in the Gryffindor Tower. Logically she knew that there was nothing more she could have done to get Buffy to stay, but she still felt the guilt.
"So now it has Buffy exactly where it wants her," Hermione said softly. "With none of her friends and none of her family. She and Harry broke up and…"
Hermione stopped suddenly. She remembered Harry's soft voice from breakfast earlier.
We broke up this morning…I broke up with her.
"Hermione?" Giles prompted.
Hermione jumped to her feet. "I'd bet my entire book collection that Harry got a visit from one of the ghosts. Those two have come through worse than this and still managed to stay together. The only thing that could have possibly have convinced Harry to break up with Buffy…"
"Would be James or Lily," Giles finished. "Of course. Dammit, why didn't we see this before?"
"We have to tell Harry," Hermione said. "You found her with a locator spell before, maybe you could try it again."
Dumbledore nodded, and the three of them moved out of the Room of Requirement, heading towards the Gryffindor Tower. They weren't even half way there when they were intercepted by Harry who was clutching a letter in his hand, a frantic look on his face.
"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked.
"It's Buffy," he replied breathlessly. "She's in LA."
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More to come…right now!
Toodles.
DKG.