A/N: A few people have mentioned that the last part or so has included a lot of transcribed stuff, and this part is no different. The thing is, when I take them out or just skim over them or mention them briefly, it just doesn't seem to read right. I'm leaving them in – and this is especially true for this part – because they are very integral to the story. It's needed to understand the rest, if that makes any sense.
The door to Xander's apartment wasn't a problem to open. Even if she didn't know that he kept the spare key under the mat outside of the door – and she had told him hundreds of times just how clichéd that was – she could have just opened it with her wave of her hand. She liked the key way better. It made her feel like she wasn't intruding or that she wasn't supposed to be here, wasn't sneaking around in his home while he wasn't there.
She never had felt that way here, of course. She'd come here a lot when he wasn't around, to study or just to be alone for a little while, and he'd always encouraged it, liked it even when she was there when he got home. He said that his home was her home, and vice versa, just like it had always been when they were kids and they'd just walked into each others houses unannounced, no matter how much Anya objected to it now.
Although, when Willow was fourteen, she had opened the back door one time and saw Mr Harris bending over the open refrigerator in the kitchen, searching for a beer, wearing only a vest and grubby white boxer shorts, scratching himself, and she had quickly changed her course of action after that.
That was an image she didn't need reminding of, and had told herself that in the future she would always knock loudly. But then, the flaw in that plan was no one ever answered the door in the Harris house and she'd still have to let herself in, so she made sure she always yelled her entrance so that she didn't get any more nasty shocks. On the plus side, though, there was that one time when she'd walked into Xander's bedroom and caught him shirtless, but the less said about that the better...
The curtains in the apartment were pulled closed and she guessed that they had been that way for at least a week judging by the dust particles and spider webs resting on them, but even in the darkness she could see that the place wasn't what you'd describe as clean. Or tidy. There were empty pizza boxes, takeaway cartons, beer cans and bottles strewn around the darkened place, lining the floor and the furniture, and somewhere inside of her she felt a pang of something. She could feel his warmth here, his familiarity, his scent, but she refused to allow herself to be ruled by memories, feelings from days past that had no bearing on what she was doing here now.
It was useless to think of them, but something inside of her brain wasn't listening, and instead threw images at her of him taking a sick day, and them sitting on the sofa for hours at a time, having movie marathons while Anya was earning her beloved money and annoying Giles. They would sit there on the sofa, eating popcorn and ice cream and everything else that was bad for them but made ideal film food. Or they'd play board games that were years old, and Xander would blatantly cheat but still lose.
Just the feeling of being next to him, having his arm around her shoulders, had always comforted and reassured her in ways no one else had ever been able, not even Tara, and even at times when she didn't think she needed those things. But the times when she needed it the most, like after Buffy's death, when she didn't think she'd ever be okay again, he had held her and it felt a little better just because he was there and he understood.
She made herself a path in the rubbish on the floor and followed the debris, walking through the living room and dining area to the bathroom before she realised how dumb it was to think that he'd actually put his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper there. He was a man, newly-single after a few years of having someone cleaning up after him and telling him to put his dirty socks in the laundry, so, logically, the best place to find what she was looking floor was on the floor of his bedroom.
The blinds were closed in here, too, but the blades allowed in some of the moonlight from outside, and she briefly paused there, not really looking at anything, just standing and waiting, although she didn't know what for.
She thought that maybe some unconscious part of her was waiting for him to appear in the doorway, dirty and sweaty from work, and making crude jokes about how he'd always hoped to find her waiting for him in his bedroom like he had done one time before when she had been in there looking for a movie he'd borrowed.
She'd found that a perfect time to remind him that this wasn't the first time. She had brought up the awry love spell Amy had cast back in high school that had caused her to go extra extra goo-goo for him, when she had dressed in only one of his shirts and waited in his room to seduce him. She had reminded him that he had been nothing but chivalrous in not taking advantage of her while she was under the influence. Or, at least, he had been so scared out of his wits that he'd made run for it like he was fleeing a particularly heinous laughing clown at his sixth birthday party.
Something had happened then. Nothing that could have been detected by anyone else, but he had told her, somewhat sadly, that he wished he'd taken the chance they'd been given when he had it, and he wasn't just talking about the spell.
She didn't reply to that comment for at least a few minutes after, because she wasn't quite sure if she had heard him right. There was a silence that had fallen between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable as they had held each other's stares and she wondered if she was supposed to read between the lines of the statement, even though she already knew what he had meant by the look in his eyes.
Ignoring that feeling of loss and emptiness that threatened to fill her if she gave in to it, she slowly moved around the room, looking for what she needed. She found it on the bed among the ruffled comforter and blankets and yet more empty pizza boxes and beer cans: a shirt that had obviously been worn.
It was a light blue shirt that she had bought for him a few months ago. It wasn't for any special occasion, but just because she'd seen it in a store window and thought it would suit him. He had smiled when she gave him it wrapped in some old Snoopy Christmas paper she'd found left over from the previous year, and he said that she didn't have to buy him gifts as he tore into it. He had redeemed his initial disappointment that the gift wasn't any kind of candy with a look that showed her he was really touched by the sentiment before killing the tender moment by asking if this was her way of telling him he was a crappy dresser.
She reached out to touch the piece of clothing that seemed to have fared better than everything else in here. The shirt had been folded, albeit shabbily, and placed at the end of the bed. Her hand seemed to tremble as she touched it, until her eyes saw what her limb was doing and intentionally grabbed the shirt unfeelingly, her face set with will and determination as she left the room quickly.
She went back to the living room, kneeling beside the sofa and clearing away as much of the mess around her as she could, and laid the shirt out in front of her. What she had been looking for, the few drops of blood on the collar of the garment, was barely visible in the dark, but she knew it was there.
He had been complaining about it a few days ago, how he'd nicked his skin whilst shaving and the blood had stained the shirt. At the time, she'd just hugged him and said she'd just buy him another one, a better one. But that hadn't appeased him because he'd wanted to wear that one, pouting like he did when she'd demanded her Barbie back when they were five.
She turned the shirt over so that it was bloody-side down on the carpet, and fixed on it with her still-black eyes. "Blood of the slain, hear me," she said quietly. "Guide me to Xander's killer."
The droplets of blood that had dried on the collar of the shirt rose to the surface, now clearly visible as it pooled disturbingly over the material, reminding her of what had happened to her shirt when her own blood had been spilt earlier in the day. The blood droplets separated and parted from itself, forming a disturbing red map of Sunnydale on the shirt, a glowing dot indicating what she had been looking for like a tiny fire in one little spot, the little orb moving slowly with her prey.
Anya stood before the big round table in the middle of the Magic Box, surveying the now-blank pages of the books heaped on the table as she lifted one from the pile and watched the empty pages flick by.
"I wasn't sure whether or not you'd be here," Tara told her, walking slowly down the few stairs in the entrance of the shop, the other girl seemingly not having heard the bell above the door ring.
Anya rolled her eyes. "You people again," she muttered under her breath. "When are you going to get the message?" she wondered, sitting down on the partly pulled out bench. "I came here to get away from you."
"We weren't sure what happened to you," Tara said. "One minute you were there, the next minute you'd gone. We were worried."
"I couldn't stay there," she said quietly, not looking back at her friend. "I couldn't watch them...take him away..." She quickly shook off the tears that were once again threatening her. "Besides," she said, referring back to the original statement. "It's not like I have an elsewhere to be. I figured I might as well come here and see what Willow was so interested in with this stuff."
Tara walked forward, standing at Anya's side. "And?" she asked.
"It looks like she went straight to the Dark Arts books," she told her. "Sucked them dry."
Tara closed her eyes, her fears being realised as she nodded, not surprised. "Willow's out for blood, big time," she told Anya. "We need to find her before she finds Warren. Is it okay if I use some things for a locator spell?" When Anya turned to look at her, she put her hands in her pockets. "I'll pay for the supplies, I promise," she told her quickly.
"You don't need a spell," Anya told her, albeit slightly reluctantly. "I can feel her."
Tara looked confused. "You can...?"
"Feel her," Anya repeated. "Her thirst for vengeance, it's overwhelming."
Tara was slightly taken aback. "Is that, like, left over from your Vengeance Demon days?" she asked inquisitively. "You just sense her?"
"No," Anya told her, looking away from her for a second. "Not left over."
When Anya made eye contact again, Tara saw the look there, meaningful and speaking volumes. "Oh," she said simply, before her eyes widened as she realised the enormity of it. "Ohhh..."
"Yeah," she said simply, the ringing of the bell above the door signalling someone else coming in, and Anya looked over, seeing Buffy.
"When?" Tara asked her.
"When do you think?" Anya asked sourly.
"Is everyone okay?" Buffy asked worriedly, rushing over to them impatiently. "Did Willow—?"
"Got her power boost and took off," Anya interrupted her, showing her one of the blank books.
"Anya's..." Tara began, looking at Anya and then at Buffy, not quite sure how to phrase herself. "Anya was saying she knows where Willow is."
"A spell?" Buffy asked.
Tara shook her head nervously. "Not exactly," she told her. "Anya has...decided on a career change. You know, one that involves her being...you know...again."
Buffy was wide-eyed as she stared at Anya. "Oh," she said simply, no other words coming after. "You mean that you're all demony again? As in vengeance and death and torturing unfaithful men?"
"It's not limited to cheaters," Anya said simply. "Or men, for that matter."
Buffy took a minute to process the information, before switching back to Slayer mode. "So, Willow's all wrathy..." she said. "Why don't you go to her? Isn't that your gig?"
"Normally, I'd have to..." Anya said defensively, "but she doesn't want me."
Buffy nodded, understanding the meaning in the Demon's words. "She wants to do it herself."
Anya nodded. "Yeah."
"Look, Anya, we don't have much time," Buffy said quickly. "Which side of this are you on?"
Anya hesitated, looking between them, not quite sure which way to go.
"If you know where she is, you can help us," Tara said desperately. "Please..."
Anya stood up, sighing and rolling her eyes. "I'll help," she told them, the decision made but clearly not happy about it. "But I'm helping Willow," she pointed out. "I'm doing it for Xander." At Buffy and Tara's nods, she knew they understood the stipulations. "She's close to him," she told them. "He's in the woods."
If Willow had been her normal self, she wouldn't have dared gone near the woods at night, at least not without Buffy and a whole armoury to protect her. Not tonight, though. Tonight she was the danger out here, no demon in their right mind would even think of attacking her, and she knew that.
When she looked up and around her, it didn't seem like there were any stars in the sky, and that seemed apt to her, because she didn't feel like she would ever be able to look at them the same now, not when she'd spent so much time with Xander when they were younger watching the tiny masses of gas and making shapes and names out of them. She'd tried the same thing with Tara a few times, too, but it hadn't been nearly as funny as it had been with him.
With the bloody shirt still in her hand, Willow walked calmly through the dense forest woodland. The bushes jutted into the pathway and the long, thick branches from the trees that hung down bent out of the way, her will controlling them with barely any effort or acknowledgement from her.
In another part of the same woods, Warren was running for his life, feet tripping over themselves, pushing bushes and branches out of the way as he struggled through the forestry, breathing heavily, his eyes scanning his surroundings in fright, his hands firmly holding his backpack to his frame.
There was a disturbing smile on Willow's face as she came to a clearing in the land, a smile that looked out of place with the starkness of her dark hair and pale complexion. She looked around, the night air unsurprisingly calm and contradicting the vengeance she felt inside. "Run all night, Warren," she said in a singsong voice that carried through the breeze to his ears. "I'll still find—" She was interrupted when something hit her from behind with a great force, making her fall with a heavy thud face-first onto the ground, the shirt falling from her grasp forgotten.
Warren stood over her body, his hands still on the long-handled axe embedded in Willow's back. Finally he let go of the weapon, staring down at her, looking nervous, waiting for her to move, to react. A couple of seconds passed by, moments feeling hours to him, before he finally began to smile a little with self-importance, relief forming on his hard, square features.
Suddenly, as if waiting for him to feel safe, waiting for him to smile, Willow rose to her feet, lifted by the magick within her. She turned to face Warren's horribly shocked and terrified expression, reaching her arm around to her back where the weapon was still stuck and gave it a yank. "Axe," she said coldly, throwing the object to the ground, "not gonna cut it."
Warren broke into a run again, panting heavily in fear of the witch, Willow walking leisurely behind him as he reached into the backpack, pulling something from it. He came to a stop in the forest as he yanked a pin from atop the object he had just retrieved from his bag – a small, square, wooden box – and watched as small, metal wings appeared at the sides. He grinned to himself with some fear and some excitement as the wings began to flap lightly in the wind, the little box lifting from his palm, eventually picking up enough momentum with its flitting movements to zoom away like a bat into the night.
She didn't run after him. He wasn't worth the sweat or the energy. She'd catch up with him sooner or later, she knew that, so calmly she walked through the shrubs. She didn't look surprised when she saw something flying towards her, just curious when the winged box that Warren had let loose a few moments ago stopped a few inches away from her, hanging in the air. As the box let loose a loud explosion that seemed impossible for something that was so small a few seconds ago, fire and energy emanating from the thing, she reacted without fear.
"Freeze," she called out. Instead of the force of the explosion expanding continuously outwards to spread and wreak chaos on whatever it could find, it simply surrounded her in a shimmering ball of solidified air and fire at her command, like someone had frozen time. She effortlessly stepped forward out of the orb, shattering it as she passed through its atmosphere effortlessly into large pieces like fragmented glass.
Thinking he had gotten a reprieve, that he'd bought himself some time, even though in the horror movies he'd seen this was when the bad guy popped up out of nowhere, he continued his escape, running desperately through the woodlands, looking back over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the surrounding for any sign of her. When he did eventually turn back to the direction he was heading in, there she was, black-eyed and waiting, different to how she had looked on the few occasions he'd seen her before. The sight of her shocked him into stopping short, taking large gulps of air with exhaustion and fright.
"That's cute," he said, laughing nervously. "That's a cute trick."
She stayed silent, not wanting to waste words on this pathetic waste of a human body, and she slowly advanced towards him, her pace menacing and sure, making him back away from her, more nervous and scared than he had been before.
"It was an accident, you know," he blurted out nervously.
"Oh," she told him coldly, "You mean, instead of killing one best friend, you killed the other one."
"It..." he stammered out, "It wasn't personal, that's all." Looking around, he tried to conspicuously grasp around in his pants pocket, obviously looking for something, still backing away from her and her fury as she continued advancing on him certainly.
"Well, this is," she told him as he turned to run away, holding out both of her hands and sending out a huge blast of magical energy at the man, the sight purple and black and more forceful than she had used on Buffy and Tara, knocking him from his feet in one sweep.
He quickly pulled his arms from the backpack he had been trying to hold onto, his jacket coming off in the process. "Capture!" he yelled, throwing something from his sack at Willow that looked like a small ball of blue slime.
The substance hit her in the stomach, although it wasn't long before it grew, expanding first around her torso and pinning her arms to her sides, and then moving as if with a mind of its own up and down her sides until her whole body and head were immersed in a shimmering, transparent blue. She watched from inside the mystical hold as he seized his opportunity to jump to his feet and run again, leaving his bag of tricks behind him. Her black eyes began to glow a fiery orange, melting two holes in the energy, the heat passing through the substance until the cocoon slid down her body and dripped to the ground like hot molten lava.
The darkness overtook her again, her eyes now back to black, as she stood where she was, still not attempting to run after him. "Irritite," she said, the Latin translation of the word 'entangle', and waited for it to take hold.
Warren could feel exhaustion cutting into his bones, but he couldn't stop, couldn't risk her catching him again. Then, as if waiting for him, the vines from the nearby trees whipped out and took hold of him, wrapping around his legs and then his wrists. He was trapped, spread-eagled between two of the huge trees, looking around him in total shock and terror, panting heavily.
She calmly walked around one of the trees and stood in front of him. "Cute tricks," she told him.
"Look, I'm sorry for shooting you, okay?" he stammered out.
"Does it look like that's what's bothering me?" she asked.
"You're really asking for it, you know that?" he said angrily.
"I'm asking for it?" she asked him incredulously.
"I'm gonna walk away from this," he told her. "And when I do, you're gonna beg to go join your little friend."
Willow frowned, realising something as he waited helplessly for her to do whatever she wanted to do. "He wasn't your first..." she told him sadly.
Warren looked around nervously. "Uh... first who?" he asked with a failing mask of oblivion.
"Xander," she told him. "He wasn't the first person you killed. There was a girl..."
Warren shook his head. "I don't know what you're talk—"
"Reveal!" Willow called.
"I should have strangled you in your sleep," Came a haunting voice to Warren's ears. He quickly looked around him for the owner, a girl stepping out from behind the same tree Willow had appeared from not long ago. The girl, Katrina, Warren's own ex-girlfriend fixed her dead eyes on him, her skin deathly pale. "Back when we shared a bed," she continued. "I should have done the world a favour."
"It's a trick," Warren said loudly, a nervous laugh in his voice.
"Why, Warren?" Katrina asked him sadly. "You could have just let me go."
He couldn't look at his victim, kept his eyes fixated on Willow and his surroundings, anywhere but at the dead girl as the witch watched him calmly. "Make it shut up!" he yelled at her. "Make it go away."
"It didn't have be like that," Katrina told him.
Warren's eyes and nostrils flared in anger. "I'm not kidding!" he yelled at Willow.
"How could you say you loved me," Katrina continued, "and do that to me?"
Warren suddenly shipped his head around to look at her, glaring furiously. "Because you deserved it, bitch!" he screamed, only to find that she was gone.
"Because you liked it," Willow sneered at him.
"Oh, shut up!" Warren told her.
"You never felt you had the power with her," Willow said. "Not until you killed her."
"Women," Warren said viciously, laughing nastily. "You know, you're just like the rest of them. Mind games."
"You get off on it," she said, moving closer to him, watching as he trembled in fear, despite the bravado. "That's why you had a mad-on for the Slayer. She was your big O, wasn't she, Warren?"
"Are you done yet?" Warren spat at her, still shaking. "Or can we talk some more about our feelings?"
Anya hurried through the forest, Buffy and Tara close behind, following curiously.
"What's happening?" Buffy asked her. "What do you feel?"
""She's stronger now," Anya told them. "Close."
"What about Warren?" Tara asked. "Has she—"
"He's still alive," Anya said. "She's not done."
"Help!" Warren yelled desperately into the night. He looked at Willow, his eyes pleading his case. "Let me go," he said, before raising his voice again. "Somebody!" he yelled out. "Help!!"
"What's the matter?" Willow asked, a smile on her face. "Thought you wanted to talk."
"No," Warren said quietly.
"Okay," she said, opening her hand to reveal the bullet that had come from her own wound earlier. "I'll talk." She waved her other hand, her free hand, and Warren's shirt ripped open.
"What-what are you doing?" Warren asked nervously.
"Shhh," she told him.
Warren's eyes were wide, seriously freaked. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry, okay?" he told her pleadingly. "I'm sorry."
She held the bullet in the air between her thumb and her forefinger, the small metal object an inch or so from Warren's bare chest, right over the place where his heart beat somewhere inside him, the same place the bullet had hit Xander. She let go of the bullet, leaving it to hover in the air, a look of absolute hatred on her face.
"Wanna know what a bullet feels like, Warren?" she asked him. "A real one?" When he looked down at the bullet nervously, and then back at her, she continued. "It's not like in the comics," she told him.
"No," Warren said. "No."
"I think you need to," she said with feeling, emphasis on her words. "Feel it."
The bullet moved forward slowly, pushing its way through the hair on his chest, through the first layers of skin and muscle. "Oh, god!" Warren cried out in pain. "Stop it!"
She watched his face contorting in pain, corresponding with the bullet moving through him. "It's not going to make a neat little hole," she told him factually and calmly. "First, it'll obliterate your internal organs. Your lung will collapse. Feels like drowning."
"Please," Warren begged. "No."
The bullet continued to penetrate his body, slowly and horrifically, and Willow continued to watch him. "When it finally hits your spine," she told him, "it'll blow your central nervous system."
"Oh, please, stop, god!" he begged, his voice strained, tears in his eyes now as the pain coursed through every part of his body, his face covered in perspiration as he tried to struggle free from his bonds. "Please—"
"I'm talking!" Willow told him angrily, lifting a hand in the air gesturing across Warren's face, his lips suddenly sewing shut from her motion with large, ugly pieces of black thread, making him whimper and groan behind them, his eyes wide in fear. "The pain will be unbearable, but you won't be able to move," she told him.
"Bullet usually travels faster than this, of course. But the dying? It'll seem like it takes forever." She paused, affected by her own words, looking at the tiny wound in his chest that she had caused, watching as he grunted behind his restraints and squeezed his eyes closed in pain.
"Something, isn't it?" she said pensively. "One tiny piece of metal destroys everything." She ignored him when he groaned loudly, continuing her own thoughts. "It ripped his insides out..." she said quietly. "Took his smile away. From me. From the world."
She looked him in the eyes again, shaking off that feeling again, satisfied that her actions were causing this change in him, his trembling and groans of pain and fear giving her some sense of achievement. "Now the one person who should be here is gone..." she told him, "...and a waste like you gets to live. He was worth a million of you, do you know that?" she asked. "Probably more..."
The hole in his chest was bleeding now, not a lot, the bullet hadn't gone that far yet, but enough to fill her nostrils with the coppery, metallic scent. "Tiny piece of metal," she repeated through clenched teeth. "Can you feel it now?
"I said, can you feel it?" Willow yelled at Warren, listening to his continued grunts through his sewn-up lips, until she eventually waved her hand in the air again, the stitches disappearing.
"Please!" Warren screamed in pain. "God! I did wrong, I see that now. I need-I need jail!" he begged her, his voice breaking with sobs. "I need..." he trailed off. "...But you," he told her, stammering out his words with uncertainty and pain clouding his thoughts, "You don't want this," he said. "You're-you're not a bad person. Not like me."
Willow simply glared at him, ready for her next move.
"Willow!" she heard a familiar voice yell.
The witch looked over to where her friends stood. Buffy, Anya and Tara were a few hundred feet away from her, rushing forward with worried expressions, their eyes pleading with her to stop.
"Oh," Warren said, his eyes flicking from her to them and back to her again, "and when you get caught," he told her, "you'll lose them too. Your friends." He was panting now, the bullet taking its toll on him. "You don't want that," he told her desperately. "I know you're in pain, but—"
Willow sneered at him. "Bored now," she said simply, making a casual gesture with her hand, an unseen bolt of magic ripping through the air to Warren as he yelled out in agony, tearing his skin off his body in one single piece and breaking as it hit the air, bloodying up the forest.
"Oh, my goddess..." Tara said to herself in disgust.
Willow stood looking at Warren's skinless body, unaffected by the sight of it sagging limp against the vines that still held him in place.
Buffy's face crumpled with horror. "What did you do??" she asked her in disgust. When Willow didn't respond, simply carried on watching the body, she raised her voice. "Willow, what did you do?"
She looked over at her friends, and then back at the body, no emotion or hint of regret at what she had done. There was no hand gesture or any kind of warning the slumped body burst into flames and burnt to nothing in the blink of an eye. Willow turned to the others. "One down..." she said calmly.
Smoke began to furl up from the ground, around Willow's body as her eyes flashed with the orange and red fire she had used earlier. Lightening flashed brightly in purple and black as her whole body dissipated into smoke and disappeared, leaving the people who loved her staring in horror.