Chapter 4:
Xander watched her run away, but the searing pain in his chest took precedence and he forced himself to look at the wound. Looking down the scent of fresh blood wafted up in his nose, almost making him throw up. Trying to look at the wound in as clinically a manner possible he noticed that while it hurt terribly, it appeared as if the slice had not gone through his ribs and no internal organs had been hit. Of course, the fact that it had actually cut in his ribs told him the knife couldn't possibly be normal.
He sat down, still holding the wound with his hands, until he suddenly remembered where exactly he was. "Oh shit." Less then 10 meters behind him was a bar filled with demons and vampires who would love to kill him, and he was just sitting there with a chest wound they would undoubtedly smell as soon as one of them opened the door. That wouldn't do.
Gathering his strength, he started to walk away from the bar. In an attempt to keep his mind from the pain he wondered about Dawn. She had been acting rather strange and while he had at first shrugged it of as the year she had spent in Europe, a lot of what went on there was strange enough. Now he wasn't so sure anymore, while some of her behavior was undoubtedly influenced by her experiences there, he doubted that it was anymore normal to stab people there than it was in the States.
By then however he had reached a crossroad and he thought he saw car lights moving towards him. As he waited for it to reach him he hoped it was someone that might help him and finally he had some luck. Hailing the taxi, he allowed himself to drop inside while telling the driver where to take him.
. . . .
Once again Xander found himself on the street outside Vlad's, but this time there were two of him. One Xander tried to talk Dawn into explaining her actions and eventually grabbed her by the arm, eliciting the painful response that had been so unexpected. The other him stood apart from all this and tried to understand what it was that had caused this sudden change in his friend.
He moved in front of her before his other self grabbed her and watched her carefully. Even during the short exchange of words he noticed the pain in her eyes, trying to hide something from herself but not completely succeeding. When the other Xander grabbed her arm, Dawn's eyes seemed to change and for a moment it was as if someone else was looking through her eyes, someone old and powerful. Someone that was not quite human.
. . . .
When he woke up Xander was at first a little disoriented, he felt a pressure on his chest and couldn't immediately remember what had happened. Until he suddenly recalled that Dawn was missing and she had left him a present. He opened his eyes and looked around, his mind still a little foggy from the painkillers. Recognizing the hotel room the two of them had shared for the last days he looked over to Dawn's bed in the hope that she was in it.
No such luck however, it didn't even look like it had been used which meant that she was still somewhere out there. So he needed to find her but considering the size of the city he doubted he could accomplish such a task all by himself. He would need to call Buffy and tell her what he had allowed to happen to her little sister.
Groaning in despair at the thought, Xander got up and noticed his chest was bandaged. How did that happen? It took him a moment to remember the exact order of events that had taken place the night before.
The taxi had taken him to a hospital, which must be where he had acquired the professional bandages. Believing he had spent enough time in hospitals he had demanded to be released and they had eventually agreed to let him go, after which he had come back to the hotel.
He had a feeling that there was something missing though, something that had happened before he had returned to the hotel. Shaking his head he wondered for a moment what kind of painkillers they had given him to make his head this fuzzy.
By the time he had finally managed to finish his breakfast, it was already one o'clock and he had gathered enough courage to call Buffy and face her wrath. Unfortunately though, he still couldn't get a connection to anybody in Cleveland. This just wasn't normal and there was only one person who could be behind this sudden inability to call them.
Valen, if he ever saw the bastard again, he was going to kick his grey-haired ass from New York to Los Angeles and back. Hanging up the phone in despair he thought of something that might enable him in getting a message through. Going through his stuff he looked for his list of phone numbers, maybe he could call someone that might pass the message along. It wasn't as good as a direct connection but if it got the others here that didn't matter to him.
No, most of the names he encountered all belonged to people living in Cleveland so they probably couldn't be reached either. He looked further, encountering numbers to people that could never again be reached, neither Anya nor Cordelia would ever be able to answer another phone call. Wait a minute, Cordy. He skipped through the alphabetized list until he encountered the numbers listed under 'D'. While he couldn't stand the guy, maybe Angel would be able to reach Buffy and tell her.
Five minutes later however he had to give up on that idea as well. There just was no way to get anyone to help him; he'd have to do it by himself. He was pretty sure he could do it, the only thing he didn't know was if he'd be fast enough. The state his friend was in meant she might do anything, but how and where should he start. A pang of pain from his chest made it clear that physically going out and looking for her in the city wasn't something he would be able to do at the moment.
Using a computer to find her was no use either, besides the fact that he had no idea how to go about that, he doubted there was anything useful on it about her. A memory of the night before suddenly flashed through his head and he once again saw Dawn holding her knife in the bar with that blood-thirsty look on her face. The knife, he could try to find out more about the knife until he was healed enough to go out and look for her. After all, a magical knife might be the reason for her behavior.
. . . .
Sitting in the library he was deeply engrossed in a book when one of the librarians softly spoke to him. "I'm sorry sir, but we'll be closing shortly."
Xander looked up, not immediately understanding. "I thought you didn't close until nine?"
"It's a quarter to nine." Was the reply she gave him.
He looked at the clock hanging on the wall and noticed she was right and as he was made aware of the time Xander noticed the hollow feeling in his stomach. He blinked in confusion as he wondered how he could have lost so much time when the librarian spoke to him again "We'll open tomorrow at 10, you can come back then, but would you mind placing these back where they came from?" At this she indicated the piles of books surrounding him.
"Oh yeah sure." He thought for a moment and then asked her. "Do you have any older books about mythology as well? Maybe some obscure tomes or ancient manuscripts you don't place in the public area?"
"I'm sorry, but no. Can't you find what you're looking for in there?"
"No, none of these even mention it."
"I don't really know much about books like that but why don't I ask my colleagues if they know anywhere you can go for these obscure tomes? I'll leave a message at the reception with the information they can give me and you can pick that up tomorrow morning."
"Thank you." He flashed her a grin "What's your name?"
"I'm Annie."
"Well Annie, I really appreciate you doing this for me. My name is Xander by the way." Making small talk the two of them then placed the books back on their shelves.
. . . .
The next day Xander was walking around the city, visiting the stores mentioned on the list he had collected at the library earlier. While some of them had indeed sold the kind of books he was interested in, none of these held any clues to the origin of the knife, or even its powers. For easy reference he had made a sketch of it, which he used to query the store-owners about it. But besides comments about his lack of skill when it came to drawing even that hadn't gained him anything.
By now he had visited over half of the stores on his list and was starting to feel the pain of his chest wound again. Unlike the day before he hadn't dosed himself up on painkillers, since he felt that it had interfered with his ability to research. The drugs prevented him from being able to concentrate very well and he really needed to be as clearheaded as possible. This did mean that he had to rest even more often.
While passing through the streets in the direction of the next store on his list, he walked past an antique shop. While the name 'Ye Olde Shoppe' sounded more like it came out of Harry Potter than something that was actually used in the real world, he decided he might as well try it. Walking towards the entrance he noticed the plague next to the door saying 'Selling the finest antiques since 1885 AD'. He actually had to blink when he saw that and tried to remember what he had read in those books about the little wizard. When he recalled that something very much like that sentence had been used he looked a little nervous at the entrance. Okay, he decided to make a promise to himself, if anyone in there was actually waving a wand he would leave.
After pushing open the door and entering the dusty smelling shop his first thought was about how Giles would have loved this place. He looked at all the old books that were displayed and almost subconsciously he started looking for a tweed-wearing older man. But when he couldn't find anyone matching that description he approached the only other person in the store, a young woman peering at the titles in one of the racks.
Only when he was standing next to her she finally noticed him and quickly turned around, almost dropping the book she was holding. "Hi, welcome to the shop. I'm Alice, what can I do for you?" Without bothering to wait for an answer she continued. "You're looking for a gift aren't you, yes that's it. What is it you're looking for? You look like someone who was thinking about buying a book and you're in luck, we have some nice works in both Greek and Latin. Or maybe you want something from the Ancient Near East."
"Actually." Xander attempted to break her monologue.
"Yes, the Near East will do." Alice went on. "How about the Epic of Gilgamesh? We've got a nice version of it in cuneiform, well not really of course since it's on paper, but it's still the same symbols. It's relatively modern, originally published in the sixties. Only 60 dollars and for that I'll throw in a modern English translation as well, what do you say?"
"I'm sure that's nice, but it's not"
"Excellent, do you want any gift-wrapping?"
"STOP!" Xander shouted, finally managing to shut the woman up.
She looked at him with teary eyes and stammered "That's rude, you shouldn't shout at someone like that especially when they're only trying to do their job." She sniffled a little, managing to make Xander feel even worse about shouting.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not looking for a gift. I need to find information and when I saw your shop I thought I might find what I'm looking for."
The woman's tears disappeared as fast as they had come and she suddenly looked a lot more competent and able to help him. "Really? What are you looking for then?"
He handed over the drawing of the knife and told her what little he knew about it.
"So it's from Europe you say? Any idea how old?"
When he indicated his lack of knowledge about that she turned towards one of the bookcases at the back of the shop and took a book out.
"Does it have any magical properties?" She asked him then.
While he hadn't expected that question, Xander knew the answer to that. "Actually yes, it's supposed to be able to destroy anything magical."
"Sounds dangerous." Muttering some things that Xander couldn't hear she then asked him if he knew whether it had any markings on it.
He had to think about that, "There could be, I think there might be something of a blue shield on the haft, but I'm not sure."
Alice then grabbed a piece of paper and pencil before sketching something on it, apparently a skill she did possess. The drawing consisted of a picture of a large shield with several designs, for which he didn't know the name, on it. "Could this be it?"
Tracing the design with his finger he tried to remember what he had seen only once in the past few days, at a time that he was having some problems of his own. "Yes, I think that if you color the shield blue this might be it, although I'm not sure about these things inside it. I didn't really get a good look at it."
She now looked quite smug. "I had a feeling that might be it, I was thinking who would need something that destroys magical beings and while there are a couple of them, there's only one that uses a shield design."
"And that is?"
"The Faithful."
"The Faithful? Who are they?"
"An offshoot branch of the Order of Byzantium."
"You mean the Knights, don't you?" Xander asked unhappily.
"The Knights are only part of that ancient Order, that supposedly exists only to destroy a magical being called the Key. The Knights are those who actually do the destroying but there are a number of people with other functions as well."
Holding up his hand in order to interrupt her explanation he told her "I know what the Knights are and do. What I don't understand is what they've got to do with those Faithful you mentioned."
"I thought that would be pretty obvious. The Faithful are those members who did not believe Earth was safe even after the death of Glorificus, which is why they broke away from the Order."
"And they made this knife?"
"Probably yes, while the Faithful weren't powerful enough to go after the Key during their first years they probably spent that time creating it. Even then getting the necessary components to build a weapon like this would not be very difficult for them, nor would the actual creation be an insurmountable problem. After all, the Order always had quite extensive contacts and they could still use quite a lot of these. At least, that had been the case until the entire leadership and most of their members were killed last autumn."
While he hadn't known about the size of the Order or their contacts, he realized that he should have thought of that himself. Those members that had been in Sunnydale during the whole Glory thing could not have done everything by themselves, there just hadn't been enough of them. The parts about the Faithful and in particular the death of their leaders were unknown to him however, although there was something about it that sounded familiar. With a by now familiar feeling of impending doom he posed his next questions. "They were killed? Where did that happen?"
"I believe it happened somewhere around London, I'm not to sure about the exact details though."
This definitely struck a chord in Xander's head, as he realized where Dawn had gotten her knife. Unfortunately this still didn't tell him what he was looking for. "Could such a weapon be made to influence people, I mean possess her or something?"
"I doubt it, while the amount of magic needed to create something like that dagger is enormous, weapons just don't influence people. You can't compare the real world with those stories that contain sentient swords."
"Oh." The comment came out dejected as the hope that it hadn't been Dawn who attacked him shattered.
"Although…" She looked pensive for a moment, causing Xander's hope to flare back into life. "No, that's so unlikely, it could never happen."
"What? Tell me, please." Anything, even if it sounded ridiculous, that offered the slightest of chances that Dawn had not done those things of her own volition had to be explored.
"Well, it sounds ridiculous, but if we assume some things, it might be possible that there is a chance that…"
"Just tell me, please." Xander knew that he sounded desperate, but it didn't matter.
"Okay, let's assume that like I said a lot of magic had gone into the weapon."
"Sure, no problem."
"The dagger has been created for only one goal. To destroy a powerful magic, agreed?"
"Yes."
She paused a moment to gather her thoughts and Xander had a feeling that this was where she was going to make her leap of logic. "What if the dagger did not gain sentience, but did get a feeling for what it's meant to destroy? I'm not sure what to call it, a hunger maybe? Yes, that might work, a hunger for magic."
"Okay," He could follow her logic here, sort of, but it didn't really tell him what kind of effect this would have. "But how could something like that affect anyone?"
"Well, with a weapon like that, there might be some kind of feedback between the user and the dagger. Which in turn would mean that this hunger could be felt by the user." After that Alice stopped talking for a moment and looked at him in consternation. "Oh, but I don't think that would have been enough to influence your friend. The effect would hardly be noticeable, even in a battle with magical beings, it would at the most steer her in the direction of the most powerful enemy."
While the logic about all this was a little shaky in his opinion he had no wish to give up on this possibility. "Is there no way this could change her attitude or anything?"
"I'm sorry, but no." As she noticed the dejected look on his face she tried to comfort him. "I understand this isn't what you wanted to hear, but it's the only answer I can give you."
"I understand." The great range of emotions that the conversation had put him through had exhausted him and now he only felt empty. The dull ache in his chest was also steadily becoming worse and he knew that it wouldn't be long until he had to return to rest. "You wouldn't happen to know of any book that might be written about it, do you?"
"No, the knights didn't exactly allow information about them to be published and it would have been created sometime during the last couple of years anyway."
"Oh." Another possibility gone. "And there really is no way your theory could be responsible for the change in behavior?"
"Not unless she is almost pure magic herself, no."
"What? Why?" The emptiness of moments before was quickly being replaced by once-again rekindled hope.
"Well, if it were used by something it is meant to kill, the dagger might just try to influence the user into killing herself. If something like that went on long enough, it might even drive her crazy. But well." Alice shrugged. "This would only work if the user is really magic, and not a magic user such as a witch. I don't think something like a vampire or even a Slayer would be influenced like that. In fact the only kind of person I could think of that something like this might work on is if for example the Key was made human and the dagger had actually tasted her blood."
After profusely expressing his gratitude for her help, a jubilant Xander left the store and went back to his hotel room in order to get some rest and let the wound heal. Once he was capable of doing more he could go and look for Dawn. He now had a reason for her behavior and was pretty sure he could save her from herself once he had found her.
It wasn't until he was drifting into sleep that he realized there had been something strange about the entire conversation he had with Alice.
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Post-fic comments: Not the longest chapter, or the most exciting but it was necessary for the rest of the story. As always comments are welcome, the next chapter will be... different is probably a good word. By the way, for those of you who have read Rebirth: Noir, yes that is the same shop and owner and no while I've never stated in which city they are, they haven't left the United States.
PomegranateQueen: As you've read in this chapter you were right about the knife. For a more in-depth explanation on how she got it and where it came from you could read Rebirth: Family since it explains its origins better than this one does.
Physicsteach: Thanks for the criticism (and the good stuff as well of course). I thought I had discovered all the to/too and then/than mistakes but it's obvious I was mistaken but I hope it's starting to get better. I wrote this story several months ago, in fact it was the first one I actually wrote and I know they're there and so I do my best to get them out before I post. The explanation with Xander might indeed have been a little abrupt and I'm sorry for that especially since you might be right about the reason for it. Dialogue is because of the same reason as the spelling thing, I try to improve it but I'm afraid it's not what I'm best at.