Part 32: Roadmaps in Black and White
When Xander entered their guests' assigned quarters, it was very obvious he'd walked in on the middle of a very intense conversation. All five members of the Future Set were in a football huddle, and five pairs of eyes were fixed to the door.
Jesus. This was so close to high school when he'd walk by pre-closet gropage Cordelia and her Cordettes that he was getting flashbacks. All he needed was someone to give him that famous Snyder sneer and the déjà vu would be complete.
He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back, mostly because he knew shoving his hands in his pockets the way he wanted to would only give away the fact he was nervous. "It's no secret that we have a problem," he stated.
Catherine watched him with haunted dark eyes while the other four occupants turned to look at her.
"First, no mention of Faith. Not to anyone. I even hear a whisper, peep, or slip, there will be hell to pay and I'm telling you right now, I won't be the one paying it." Xander placed as much emphasis on the threat as he could, hoping against hope that these trained killers wouldn't see that it was decidedly empty.
"But what about…" Charlie began.
"I said said nothing and I meant it," Xander cut him off. "According to Catherine, I've got no choice but to admit that me and her are related. It goes no further than me, understood?"
"Agreed," Catherine quickly answered. She gave Charlie an unreadable look. "As far as we're concerned, you're the only one who knows the whole story about me. How and who you choose to share it with is not up to us."
A round of reluctant nods accompanied Catherine's agreement and he could feel his spine slightly relax. "First thing's first. Before I go marching down there to pass out the cigars, I need to take a look at that journal."
"But…" Catherine began.
"Not negotiable," Xander cut her off.
"The timeline," J'Nal squeaked.
"The timeline is fucked," Xander growled. "Accept it. Mourn. Move on."
The five of them quailed under the weight of the dropped octave in Xander's voice.
"You know it's a sign of yet another apocalypse when I have to be the logic guy around here, but Catherine voted me into the your little clubhouse the second she came clean about her relatives," Xander continued, clenching his hands behind his back. "She told me because she knows that if this little venture of yours is going anywhere, someone has to read the damn journal. Savvy?"
"Sa-vie?" Ruda tasted the word uncertainly.
"Do. You. Understand." Xander bit on each word.
"Wow. He's definitely got the family temper," Charlie remarked in a clear attempt to diffuse the situation.
Xander closed his eyes and took a brutal breath through his nose, forcing his jaw to relax. "Sorry. I don't mean …"
"If it helps, I don't blame you," Charlie said sympathetically. When everyone in his group looked at him, he added, "Oh like none of you have never been spirit-read by a Gypslin and heard infor you didn't want to know."
"My family knows better," Catherine said firmly as she rolled her eyes.
"If these Gypsum guys are anything like Gypsies, preach it sister," Xander agreed. "'Cept, I've got something a little more complicated than a crystal ball on my hands. Since none of you have asked me to cross your palm with silver, my theories that you guys are running a big con? Beginning to look like a whole lot of wishful thinking."
"You thought we were lying?" Ruda sounded crushed.
"Can you blame him?" Catherine said gently. "We'd think the same thing."
"So then why go along…" Ms. Tikri began.
"Because there was, I mean is, the chance you're telling the truth," Xander answered.
"Or, barring that, you'd at least get some mystical objects out of it," Catherine nodded. Xander was surprised to notice she actually seemed, well, not pleased, but definitely on the approval train.
"That, too," he admitted. "Which leads to this: I need to see the journal first before we go down there so I can try to avoid problems we don't need." He held out a waiting hand and tried to control the slight tremor in his fingers as he felt every muscle in his chest tighten.
Catherine stood, the journal clenched tightly in her right hand. She didn't look at him as she stepped forward and held it out. They stood like that a few moments and Xander wondered if the two of them looked like bookends to the others. He took a deep breath, and grasped the book. That was Catherine's signal to let go and she stepped back, her face turned away. Xander could almost imagine she was fighting to keep her expression neutral.
Hell, it's what he'd do in her place.
Maybe we're not so different, Xander thought as he looked down at the journal, feeling the cool leather through his calloused fingertips. He wanted to apologize, although he wasn't sure what he'd be apologizing for. Was it because he'd been the one to finally force the issue with his temper tantrum? Or was it because Catherine got stuck with Harris genes? Either way, he was pretty sure Catherine wouldn't take an apology at all well.
Time seemed to slow down as his left hand opened the cover.
He really wasn't surprised that the journal opened somewhere in the middle. He quickly scanned the facing page and fought a hard swallow. He spotted the word 'Moscow' and shut the book with an indrawn breath.
"Been obsessively reading this entry, hunh?" he asked. He was surprised that his voice sounded normal, almost bored.
"You might say that," Catherine admitted.
J'Nal's face was scrunched, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "Do it again," he said.
Xander blinked rapidly as he refocused on the witch. "Do what?"
"Open the journal." J'Nal's wondering eyes were fixed not on Xander's face, but on the book in his hands.
The small hairs on the back of Xander's neck prickled a warning that something seriously weird was going down. "Why?"
"I think…" J'Nal shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what was about to say. "I'm not right. I can't be."
Xander studied the witch for a few moments and, keeping his eyes fixed on the dark-skinned man, he grasped the edge of the cover and lifted.
J'Nal's eyes widened as he cocked his head to the right. "What entry did it open to?" he asked with a dawning sense of wonder.
Xander looked down. "Hunh. Looks like the same page."
"Flip through the pages." The witch sounded like he was fighting excitement.
Xander looked blindly down and did as he was told. He was able to move through four pages before he hit a dead end. "That's weird," he muttered. It was almost as if the pages after the entry had been glued together, forming a single block that refused to budge. Not only would the pages not separate, but also the single mass remained locked to the back cover. Xander then tried flipping through the front part of the journal. No dice. The front pages were as tightly locked as the back pages. The effect was like having two leather-bound blocks of cheap wood encasing four flimsy pieces of paper.
"Son of a…" Xander began.
"Unbelievable," J'Nal breathed.
"What? What's going on?" Catherine asked.
"The journal's been magically locked," J'Nal said. "He can't see anything but the pages he needs to see."
Catherine's eyes widened. "What? How? When?"
"You don't know?" Ruda asked.
"How would I know?" Catherine's mind was reeling. "J'Nal, can you get a sense…"
"No," J'Nal quickly answered. "I can't place the aural signature at all. It's definitely not Prima magics, of that I'm absolutely certain. But as to what kind of magics it is? I honestly couldn't tell you."
"We're saved!" Charlie cheered. When everyone looked at the doctor in disbelief, he added, "Probably not, but it was a nice fantasy while it lasted."
Xander closed the journal, tapping it thoughtfully in his left palm. "I wonder…just because I can't, doesn't mean someone else can't."
"You're not actually saying it's keyed only to you, do you?" Ms. Tikri asked with her eyes narrowed in thought.
"Hello! My best friend the witch makes with the funky wunky on a pretty regular basis," Xander reminded them. "She may be good at bibbidi-bobbiding now, but I remember more than a few spells that went really wrong because she or someone else didn't think through all the angles. Believe me, I still have the psychological scars to prove it. And that's with a witch I know. I don't even want to think about a witch that I don't know. Plus, your guy with the in with Hecatate has no clue about what's going on, so this revelation isn't exactly putting me in a comfort zone."
"Bib'ity bobi'ting? J'Nal asked.
"He has a point," Charlie said.
"Right," Catherine nodded as she held her hand out. "Journal please. Let's see if someone can read over our shoulders."
Xander handed it back, grateful to get the disturbing weight off his hands.
"Leave the room," Catherine ordered.
"Why?" Xander asked.
"I want to see if this is locked down just because you touched it and the best way to figure that out is if you're not here," the Watcher Honoria pointed out.
Can't argue with that, Xander thought as he nodded and left. He was only in the hall for only a few seconds, grinning uncomfortably at Andrea and Susan as they stood guard outside the guests' room, when he heard Catherine's intense voice call out.
"Come in!"
Xander opened the door and he was able to see the fanned pages literally snap together. He was pretty sure he only imagined the cartoon-sounding crack that accompanied this.
"I'll be," Charlie said with a grin.
"Looks like the threat of your presence in the same room is enough to trigger the spell," J'Nal announced.
"I'm not so much worried about me getting a peek at something I shouldn't. I'm more worried about someone who's not me being able to read it," Xander said with a frown.
"Again, you seem to think this spell is keyed to just you. Why?" Ms. Tikri insisted.
"Okay, think about this. Originally, you guys only had to deal with me and Faith, right?"
Five heads nodded.
"So, maybe the spell is keyed to me and Faith because, hey, we're the only ones who would've had a chance of seeing this entry," Xander said.
"Oh, hada," Charlie slumped, "which means that anyone else might…"
"…be able to read it," Catherine finished for him.
"You're all assuming an awful lot," Ms. Tikri pointed out. "No one knows when this spell was cast."
"She's right," Catherine agreed. "We know it works with your presence, but we don't know anything else."
"We're going to have to test it," Xander warned.
"Why? We can refuse to show them," Ruda said as she crossed her arms in a posture that showed no one was going to get past her if she didn't want them to. "Eyes only. That's what I say."
"Giles will insist. Robin definitely will. Willow probably will ask, but if you shove back hard enough she might not push the issue," Xander said. "Everyone else will probably just go along with whoever wins the argument. Honestly, I can't blame anyone for wanting to take a look, if only because of the cat-murdering curiosity factor. This is pretty heavy stuff. In Robin's or Giles's shoes I'd probably do the same thing."
"We still don't know who placed the spell on this book," J'Nal said.
Xander felt the prickle on the back of his neck again. "Is that good or bad?"
"In one way, it's good. Means that it won't be a simple matter of breaking the spell since we don't know who cast it or what form of magic was used. In one way, it's bad because, as you pointed out, we're not able to predict how the spell will act and react to different people or a change in environment," J'Nal explained.
"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," Xander muttered. He took a deep breath. "Well, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. Let me see the entry and read it over before we go down there."
Catherine handed the journal back to him and Xander was surprised that he felt a lot less dread about reading its contents. If the spell held up for people not him a lot of potential problems would simply cease to exist. At the very least that deserved a small 'yay' from team Harris.
He sat on the edge of the bed and tried desperately to ignore the expectant gazes of the room's occupants burning a hole through his forehead. He took a deep breath, opened the journal, and began to read.
***
From the Journal of Alexander Harris, September 20, 2008, Moscow, Russian Federation:
…could be worse, at least we're in the capital. However, that's all in how you look at it. Moscow is full of the noveau riche with bling-bling cars and bling-bling jewelry. More than few people around here have suspicious lumps under their suit jackets and you can smell the ink drying on our rubles. I'm not sure if that inky-fresh smell is because the government had just printed it or because the counterfeiters are going for broke.
Faith's a wreck. Every time she turns a corner, her Slayer sense goes off the charts. Shouldn't be all that much of a surprise. All these people going for the go-go lifestyle? You know that there's something in the crowd that's not exactly human just waiting to thin the herd. Much as Faith wants to give the old Slaying game a try in a whole new country, she's really trying hard to keep a low profile because this retrieval mission gives both of us a bad feeling. Although that could be the food we had in the hard currency restaurant last night.
I vote we hit McDonald's in Red Square before again braving the uniqueness that is the Russian dining experience.
We're stuck in low-profile mode, so all the Slayer senses going haywire have to be ignored. Short of us tripping over a fangface, we're keeping the stakes packed and hidden. It's bad enough that we look like tourists because we don't dress flashy enough, but flashing a stake in this crowd? We'll be gunned down faster than you can say 'Bonnie and Clyde.'
Our summer school-inspired dip into Russian speaking and Cyrillic reading is less than no help. My Russian's pretty good, except I have no idea what I'm saying half the time—you truly haven't lived until you ask someone if you can order the toilet for dinner in the Russian equivalent of a tourist information booth with a flawless accent. Faith can puzzle out what people are saying, but sounds like she's coughing up a fur ball whenever she tries something more complicated than Da! or Nyet!
As for Cyrillic? I knew that was going to be a disaster before we got our passports. Best not go into it here.
Somewhere in this example of capitalism gone really wrong is a Slayer. Devon is usually pretty good at narrowing it down to one person, getting a name, and sometimes an exact street address. Slow as the process is, you can't beat them on accuracy.
Until now.
This time we've got two candidates and Devon isn't sure which one is which. Wills says Lady Haversham believes that someone has cast a misdirection spell on the actual Slayer to throw anyone looking for her off the scent. It's unclear whether the real Slayer is being masked because some local witch is trying to hide the girl from evil eyes or to hide the girl from us. This could be an attempt to protect her from threats—and I can see how we'd be seen as a threat—or hide her so she can do damage.
Surprise, surprise, Faith figures some mastermind is using the Slayer as an enforcer. Back in Cleveland I thought she was being paranoid or projecting. Looking around now that I'm here? Faith is probably right.
It doesn't help that there's a good chance our two candidates might have mafiya connections. The father of our first candidate is a low-level bureaucrat for the
Hate to interrupt myself like that in the middle of a sentence, but information about the Slayer candidates have to wait. A team of five people approached us, claiming they were from more than 800 years in the future. As follows:
A woman who claims to be a Watcher is in charge. Roughly 5'11", long dark hair, keeps it tied back, brown eyes. Claims she is from Providence, but from a new version. Her Slayer looks Indian as in from India, long dark hair, 4'10", eyes almost black, older than she looks, is not clear on her age because of "calendar issues," name sounds like Roo-dah. The two have been paired for two years.
Also on the team: a man who is a prime witch, whatever that is, with something that sounds like a British accent, African decent, white hair, hazel eyes; and a doctor, Caucasian, red hair, blue eyes, with the friendly name of Charlie. They've been on the team for 19 months. They brought a reporter with a name like Tiki along with them and her hair is so blonde you'd think it was white in the right light.
They tell us about a Great Darkness that is taking over their planets. The facts as I remember them:
It comes from nowhere and disappears to nowhere. It leaves no traces or signatures, magical, energy, or otherwise. Most of the population simply dies. Those who survive the initial attack are enslaved as mindless minions. The way it was explained, it's like watching a steamroller slowly sneaking up on you while you've got no chance to escape.
The only thing that can save them is the Grail. This Grail is only located in the city where they find Faith and I.
As it so happens, we have the screaming yellow Arrow that points the way to the Grail. The Arrow is of Cleveland origin.
The way it pointed lead us thus:
We had to start near a stadium that was Brown. We traveled West until we hit the Lakeside. Oddly enough, this landed us in Canada, but we kept going until we felt Superior. That done, we turned East on the first Street until we came to an Erie Cemetery. We found the entrance to the underground caverns by the grace of Angel Vaslik's wing. As the caverns were damp, Summer was the only thing that could only warm us, so we followed the path that would take us there. The maze took us right to it.
Be warned:
The ground rises to protect the entrance. Teamwork that splits the team is the only thing that can keep the entrance free.
The Grail has a reptile Guardian. It can be lured away, using teamwork that shatters the team, but ultimately must be killed by one of the splinters lodging in the roof of its mouth.
Popular theory is that this stupid snake hates walnuts, but I think someone's having fun at my expense.
The Grail is alone, practically standing in a spotlight that tells visitors that it belongs only to them. The writings on the edge indicate that it is a focus for powerful protective magic, but it's not in a language any contemporary can translate. The message in the base is one that everyone can translate, regardless of origin.
The Grail is useless to us. It's not for us and we can't use it. So we gave it to the time travelers and they left.
It seems the circuits were connected and completed, just not how I expected. No one can figure out if there were repercussions from their visit or if the visit was the repercussion.
Faith and I figured we needed to contact Devon and try to shake loose more information about our mysterious Slayer…
***
Xander flipped through the few pages he was allowed to see. This was him, a future him, complete with bad handwriting, although the handwriting on most of the pages detailing Catherine and company's visit to Moscow were better than his current scrawl. Obviously his writing skills had improved along the way since there were no flagrant misspellings or tortured grammar.
In fact, as sparse as the language was, the details were picture perfect. Xander frowned. It was almost as if future him had expected someone else to go over this entry with a fine-tooth comb. Well, it makes sense, right? Because if Catherine told the other Xander how they wound up in Moscow, he'd probably know he needed to spell things out good enough for this entry to be found and not so good to set off alarms anywhere.
Still, this entry bothered him. He sounded more Vorlon than a Vorlon, if that was at all possible. There was something so very, very off about it. He just wished…No wishing!
"Can you make any sense of it?" Charlie pushed.
"Wait, let me read," Xander mumbled. "There's something…I don't know…" He bowed his head and silently read and reread the entry. Was it him, or was the arrow thrown in there like an afterthought? No wonder Charlie almost forgot about it when he was talking to Giles.
This doesn't even sound like me, Xander thought. This is, without a doubt, the most boring entry I've ever read in a Watcher's journal and that's saying something.
"He described you guys to a T," Xander muttered. He looked at Catherine. "How many of the Slayer teams in your time match this description?"
Catherine shrugged uncomfortably. "No one. I mean, there are teams where you could find a correlation between the physical description and a real person, but you couldn't find all of them on the same team. The 'two years' clinched it for us."
"I thought I was in there," Ms. Tikri protested.
"I thought you didn't want to get involved," Charlie mildly commented.
Xander looked down and scanned the text. "Yup. In here, too." He grinned. "Fits you perfectly."
"Tell me," Ms. Tikri ordered.
"Can't. Future me tells me not to since he's afraid that might bias your story to the positive," Xander said innocently. He put a hand to his mouth with fake horror. "Ooops. I wasn't supposed to say that."
"He does?" Charlie asked. "I don't remember anyth-- oooof…"
Ruda smiled sweetly. "My elbow slipped."
"Can you make sense of the rest of it?" Catherine pushed.
"Let me think about it because I'm over my whelmed limit," Xander said, feeling his gut clench. "Right now, we've got an even bigger problem."
"We do?" Charlie asked, voice climbing the scale. "We may have destroyed everything for nothing and we have bigger problems?"
Xander gave the doctor a worried look. "Okay, point taken. I've got a bigger problem. Not so much you."
"And what problem is that?" Ruda asked.
"Now we gotta break the news about who wrote this thing to the others," Xander said, "and I've got an unreasonable fear that Giles and Robin are going to whip out the red pens, start criticizing my writing style, and then give me a big old 'F.'"
TBC…