Chapter Seventeen
Trophies of the Merciless
(September)
The hazy red-white glow of a magic-infused being greeted Xander as he peeled open his eyes. For a moment, he was at a loss for the possible reason why there could be for such a sight lying next to him in bed, then the memories began slowly trickling through the pulsing hangover that was rhythmically smashing against the inside of his skull.
He sat bolt upright and clutched the comforter to his chest.
"Faith!" he exclaimed in a somewhat more high-pitched and … terrified … manner than he had intended.
Faith smiled, her expression somewhat akin to that of a cat who had found a saucer of cream, and languorously stretched. As much as Xander appreciated the sight of her taut, slayer-ific body sinuously twisting within arm's reach, he couldn't help but wonder where their clothes might be.
"You're up early," Faith said as she squinted against the light streaming in through the windows. "Unless you've got a really bangin' argument for a repeat performance this morning, I think I'm going to sleep this one off for a bit." She proceeded to close her eyes and lay her head back on a pillow.
"Ummmm …." Xander mumbled as he glanced about the room until he spotted his pants lying in the corner.
Faith cracked one eye open. "Relax, Harris. I had a good time, you had a good time, just … don't make this weird. Okay?"
There was an odd, pleading note in Faith's voice that Xander didn't dwell on as he retrieved his pants, sat down in a chair in the corner of the room, and yanked them to his hips.
Faith sat up, and Xander hurriedly glanced away as she unashamedly let the sheet fall from her chest.
"Didn't I just specifically request that you not make this weird?" she snapped.
When Xander couldn't find an appropriate response, Faith angrily tossed the sheet aside and began pulling on her own clothes.
"Look, Faith …" he began. His words trailed off as he searched for the right words.
"It's fine," she snapped. "I've been here before. You had a bit too much to drink, things maybe feel a little too real this morning, and cuddling wasn't on the menu." She yanked her shirt over her head, and her eyes, which had seemed to ooze relaxed satisfaction only a minute earlier, had returned to their more customary flint-hard appearance.
A twinge … more than a twinge … of guilt settled over Xander. Ignoring the remainder of his clothes, he walked over to the bed and sat down next to Faith.
"Hey," he said as he put his left arm around her. She reached down to push his arm away, was surprised when it didn't move easily, then Xander held up his hands in a mollifying gesture. "Look, I could have handled this morning better."
"You think?" Faith asked as she pulled her hair into a ponytail wrapped a band around its base. "Talk about making a girl feel like shit."
"At least we were both feeling pretty good last night," Xander said in an attempt at levity. "At least, I know I was. It's been a miserable month, and I had a great time."
A shy smile crept over Faith's mouth, which was a start, but she didn't raise her eyes to meet his gaze. "It was fun."
"Faith, I'm sorry," Xander said with a sigh of resignation. "I really am. I'm just, also, really hung over."
Faith finally looked at him. "No big deal."
"You sure?"
She nodded, then her smile twisted into a smirk. "You've improved since high school, Harris."
He put his arm back around her, this time she didn't brush off the gesture, and he pulled her close as he laughed. "I would hope so." With his other arm he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "Really though, what now?"
"What now?" Faith said with a laugh. "What, you and me, what now?"
"Yeah?" Xander asked. He hadn't been lying about how much fun he'd had the night before, but if either of them was going to end up as nothing more than a notch on the other's wooden stake, he judged himself to be the far more likely candidate.
"Don't worry," Faith replied as she stood up. "I'm not going to intrude on your little do-gooder team dynamic you got here. I'm just passing through."
Xander reached out, grabbed her by the hips, and maneuvered her in front of him. Faith stared down at him with a questioning look.
"Faith, don't say that."
She patted him on the cheek. "You're being sweet, but it is what it is. You know me, it's all about ports in a storm."
Faith finished dressing, then smiled and pulled open the bedroom door. "Say," she said as she lingered on the threshold, "can I ask you something?"
"I'm pretty sure we're way past secrets right about now …" Xander replied.
She glanced away as she spoke, "Do you ever think about back when we first hooked up, what things might have been like if I hadn't been so screwed up in the head, or if you'd maybe been around the block at least once or twice?"
"Honestly, Faith," he replied, "I fucked up everything back then, so I'm kind of just happy I made it out of my teen years alive." He considered his phrasing. "I guess I still do fuck everything up, come to think of it."
"I know what's that like," Faith said as she stepped into the hall. Before Xander could think of something to say that might stop her from leaving, she was gone.
. . . . . . . . .
Connor seldom paid much attention to fashion, but as perfectly coiffed attorneys and legal assistants in impeccably tailored outfits streamed through the lobby of Wolfram Hart's Los Angeles office, a glimmer of embarrassment over his faded jeans, simple button-down shirt, and scuffed hiking boots began to creep into the back of his mind. He shook off the sensation and settled back into the chair he'd been sitting in for nearly an hour.
Clearly, they were letting him cool his heels a bit.
At precisely the one-hour mark, two figures entered the lobby and fixed their gaze on him. Both their eyes, from where their pupils should have been to the outer edge of their no-longer-white-irises, were a dull blue-gray. Their movements within their fitted dark suits may have been precisely mannered parodies of humanity, but Connor recognized the two revenants for what they were: twisted, sad caricatures of the living men they once had been.
Angel had warned him that Illyria might try to introduce him to creatures that she pretended were Wesley Wyndam-Price and Charles Gunn, but seeing them in the flesh shocked him, nonetheless. The revenants hadn't aged, which shouldn't have surprised him, as they were nothing more than magical echoes of the originals. Few beings existed in this plane of reality with the magical power necessary to create a revenant … a being more than a zombie, yet in some ways far less … and for Illyria to expend so much of her strength on the task was a monument to the depth of the grief she refused to acknowledge or process.
The simulacra of Wesley and Gunn, animated entirely by her will and possessing nothing of their original personalities besides what Illyria could recall and infuse them with, had been one of several reasons that Angel had turned his back on the fusion of Old One and Winifred Burke that had fought at his side for nearly a year. His father might have some day come around and accept that Illyria's truce with Wolfram Hart was a necessary evil, but he'd have walked into a bright sunlit day before he would accept the mockery that Illyria had made of his friends' deaths.
It occurred to Connor that he still thought of his father as a vampire more often than not.
He rose from his chair and addressed the creatures wearing the flesh of his father's dead comrades, "I would have thought Illyria would have known better than to send either of you." He did not bother trying to spare their feelings; they had no emotions other than what Illyria wanted them to feel. "Didn't Angel make it abundantly clear to her how offensive your existence is to the people that loved you?"
Despite his antipathy towards the perversions of humanity that stood in front of him, Connor had to admit that their creator had done a good job with Wesley's accent; the revenant's response perfectly captured the clipped, accented delivery of the original. "Illyria the Merciless was of the opinion that if you interacted with us, you might find, despite your father's opinion, that we are not so different from the men you once knew."
"The men I once knew wouldn't have kept me waiting for an hour."
It was Charles Gunn who spoke next, and Illyria hadn't had nearly as much luck recreating his voice. The real Gunn's voice was definitely lower pitched. "The delay could not be helped. The elevator to New Vahla Ha'nesh required repairs."
"Yes, repairs," the Wesley revenant added.
"Whatever," Connor said as he gestured towards the doors that led into the building. "Take me to your leader."
While Connor's experiences within the Wolfram Hart building were not extensive, the maze of luxurious hardwood floors, gleaming doors, polished glass, and post-modern art. What he didn't see a lot of was people … eventually, Connor realized that it probably wasn't his imagination that the two revenants were guiding him through sparely populated areas of the building.
"We're taking the scenic route?" he eventually asked. He wondered if he should perhaps be nervous, but most of all he felt curious. As far as he knew, neither himself, Angel, nor any of their friends and family had seen Illyria in nearly twenty years. Would the budding, nascent glimpses of Fred have grown stronger, or would Illyria have embraced the identity of the monstrous Old One who had once been a terror of her age?
Eventually they turned a corner, and the hardwood floor gave way to roughly hewn dark granite blocks. Pillars of the same material stretched from floor to ceiling in the corners of the room and set in the far wall was an enormous set of bronze doors graven with bas relief figures engaged in a variety of activities unlawful within the state of California. The Gunn revenant pressed a small non-descript carving on the side of one of the doors and stepped back.
"She's really got quite a little set-up here, doesn't she?" Connor asked.
The Wesley revenant turned its soulless eyes towards him. "Illyria the Merciless …"
"How about just Illyria?" Connor interrupted. "I got it … she's without mercy."
"Illyria prefers New Vahla Ha'nesh to the decadent trappings of your world," the revenant declared. "Besides … she needs the space … she has a lot of devotees."
The doors swung open and to Connor's surprise, a rather modern looking elevator complete with mirrored walls and numbered buttons appeared within. The only decoration consistent with the brutal décor of the entry room was a glowing black granite brazier in the corner of the elevator. Connor leaned over to peek inside and saw that the light in the brazier was being generated by LEDs as opposed to a more traditional means. He stared at the two revenants.
"An actual fire would be a … well … a fire hazard," the Gunn revenant explained in response to Connor's evident curiosity.
"Also," the other revenant continued, "redecorating transdimensional elevators would be a difficult, if not impossible task."
Connor shrugged and stepped into the elevator. The two revenants remained where they were.
"Are you coming?" he finally asked.
The Wesley-revenant fielded the question, "Illyria the Merc … Illyria … has concluded that our presence is not having the desired effect, and that further conversation is likely to prove a distraction."
"Fair enough," Connor said. He surveyed the array of buttons. None of them appeared marked with 'pocket hell dimension.'
The revenant Gunn gestured towards the buttons with a sweep of his arm. "Any choice will bring you before her eminence."
Without bothering to respond, Connor chose a button at random. The doors slid closed, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he was spared the further sight of Illyria's creations. The elevator shuddered, and he felt a slight queasiness as though he'd shifted in time and space, then the sensation vanished. The trip was over in seconds.
With the whirring sound of electric motors, the doors slid open.
Connor had spent nearly half his life in Quor'toth, and much of the other half battling in places of a similar nature, yet the sight of Illyria's rebuilt temple, her new Vahla Ha'nesh, seat of her power and the gathering place of her gaudily named 'Army of Doom,' managed to take his breath away. A pitted stone floor stained with ochre and crimson, some of which appeared to be rather recent in origin, stretched as far as he could see. Black stone pillars reached from floor to ceiling, and on every side of each pillar enormous slow-burning torches leaned outwards from twisted iron sconces.
Demons lurched and scampered in the shadows. Some curiously gazed with faceted or strangely hued eyes at Connor's presence, others, perhaps the wiser ones, averted their gaze and sought refuge out of his line of sight. Despite the cavernous interior of the temple, there were no doors that he could see, nor any structures of any type whatsoever, with the exception of what appeared to be tents woven roughly from hides of some sort interspersed amongst the pillars. None of the tent entrances were tied open, and Connor felt disinclined to explore. Given that Vahla Ha'nesh was ostensibly dedicated to Illyria's glory, he found it rather odd that there were no images of her to be seen, nor any devotional edifices or tapestries attesting to her implacable might.
I wonder if, deep down, Illyria knows she's not quite what she's supposed to be. I know the feeling.
Maybe that's why his father had thought he'd be a good choice to treat with her.
No demons moved forward to guide him and there were, of course, no signs to lead the way, but he had a hunch about which direction he should take. He strode directly forward and ignored the scuttling whispers and murmured, grating sounds that chittered from either side of him. After walking for some time, he glanced back and was surprised to see that the elevator had entirely receded from view. For the first time, a tremor of uncertainty made itself known.
I don't think distances work the same way here as they do back home.
He saw Illyria's throne, which sat in the center of a wide, circular open space within the maze of pillars and stone, long before he saw Illyria herself. It was a monstrous, grandiose thing. Hewn from black rock, of course, but twisted with gold veins and flecked with red, it seemed heavy enough to smash through the floor. As he approached, the demons interspersed around the throne fell silent and moved aside to allow him to pass.
He stood in front of the throne and gazed up at Illyria. The seat was enormous, large enough that two dozen occupants could have made room, but her presence managed to somehow fill the space. When Connor had seen her last, in the darkest days of Angel's war with Wolfram Hart, when it appeared that defeat was imminent, she had begun to grow into her power … but now she clearly possessed its full measure.
The black and red leather armor draped on her slim body looked much the same, if perhaps it bore a few more pits and gouges. Her blue-purple eyes shone with a fiery intensity and her scowl had enough power behind it to bore through solid rock. A double-bladed axe nearly as tall as Connor rested across her knees, and a brace slung across one shoulder bristled with unpleasant looking weapons.
My father would look upon her and only see what is left of Fred.
Connor did see Fred, too. Glimmers of a smile at the edges of Illyria's mouth, the slightest hopeful raising of her eyebrows, the signs were there … if you were willing to look.
Illyria set her axe to the side and stood from her throne. The demons whispered amongst themselves in what sounded like surprised shock, and several fixed Connor with a questioning gaze. Evidently Illyria didn't stand for visitors very often … probably because Illyria didn't have to stand for anyone. Well, almost anyone. She had knelt and paid homage, at least symbolically by way of a partnership contract, to the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart … in part to save the life of an ensouled vampire who then despised her for making that choice.
"Illyria," Connor said.
"You will address her with the appropriate respect!" hissed a snake-faced, scaley demon wearing a monk's cowl over a chainmail hauberk.
Illyria didn't bother to shift her eyes as she extended a hand. A white-blue bolt of something Connor could only describe as power charred the demon into a pile of ash, and he blinked a few times and wiped away the flecks of dust.
"You will all be silent," Illyria commanded as she tread down the steps leading to her throne. The whispers of surprise increased, evidently this was yet more unusual behavior from Illyria, and when she stood perhaps half a dozen feet in front of Connor, she stopped and examined him with her flat, emotionless gaze. "I am surprised to discover that you still find this form attractive," Illyria said as she tilted her head. "Even after all this time." She shimmered, and then appeared as Fred.
If asked before his arrival, Connor would have said that he likely would prefer to see Illyria in the form of the woman he remembered, but when she stood in front of him wearing the face of the friend she'd killed, to his surprise, he found it deeply unpleasant.
Connor frowned.
I may be more like my father than I thought.
Illyria shimmered once more and resumed her normal form. The demons weren't whispering any more, they were staring in awestruck silence at the sight of Illyria attempting to find an appearance that pleased her visitor. For the first time, Illyria glanced around and seemed irritated by their presence.
"Leave us," she commanded imperiously. The demons began to scuttle away, but apparently not quickly enough for Illyria's liking, as she lashed a few of the slowest-movers with a few more of those blue-white bolts.
When the space had been cleared, Illyria stepped closer. "I was incorrect about the revenants pleasing you, and I was again incorrect that if I approximated the form of the human you knew as Winifred Burkle, it would please you." Her mouth moved the barest fraction of an inch into a smile, yet Connor knew that for Illyria it was the equivalent of a roaring bout of laughter. "I have not grown any better at guessing the desires of mortals."
"It is good to see you, Illyria," Connor said warmly. He wondered if he should try to embrace her in a hug, then he eyed the pile of charred demon-ash and thought better of it.
"I seldom hear from you, your father, or any of our mutual acquaintances," Illyria announced.
Is she hurt?
Illyria continued, "Your father, in particular, has not sought an audience for many years. This vexes me."
"Are you upset we never call?" Connor asked. "I don't know how great the cell phone reception is down here, but if you remember, Angel can't step foot in Los Angeles."
"Your father is resourceful," Illyria informed him. "If he wished it, he and I would speak. He clearly does not wish it."
She eyed him expectantly, and Connor realized he was now in the awkward position of making excuses for Angel.
"Uhhhh …" he began, as he scrambled for what to say.
I'm not good at this.
He decided that attempting to bandy words or use subterfuge with Illyria was pointless.
"Illyria, you broke his heart," he said without emotion, but without any attempt to wound, either. "You know that, right?"
Illyria blinked a few times, which Connor interpreted as the equivalent of her howling in surprise.
"The motivations of mortals confuse me," she announced in a regal, imperious manner. "I ask that you explain further."
Connor sighed, then decided to do his best. "You and he fought, side by side, against Wolfram Hart for a year … then you gave up and sold him out. He's told you this … several times, I believe. Have you forgotten?"
Do you want to forget?
Illyria pursed her lips. "Their resources dwarfed ours, and their proposal allowed Angel to keep his life. This was explained to him, yet after two decades, he remains ungrateful?"
"People are funny about betrayal," Connor said with a shrug. "You gave up on him, then you brokered an agreement that exiled him from Los Angeles, and finally, you insulted him by creating puppets that look like his dead friends."
"He agreed to the truce."
She doesn't want to discuss the revenants.
"Illyria, you left him no choice."
Illyria's purple tinged eyes bored into his own for a moment, then surprisingly, she glanced away. "I will not say that I understand, son of Angel, but I thank you for your candor."
"Connor is fine," he replied.
"As you wish, Connor, son of Angel."
Connor glanced about. The circular area that housed Illyria's throne was decorated with a number of grisly trophies. While Angel undoubtedly would not have approved of his interest, he found himself fascinated despite himself at the monstrous visages mounted upon the pillars. In particular, the preserved head of a green-gold dragon, which seemed to have hacked off mid neck, was rather awe-inspiring.
He pointed at the dragon head, then glanced at Illyria. "Is that …"
She interrupted him before he could finish. "Yes, that is the dragon that confronted me … along with Angel and others … the night that … that …"
When she didn't finish the sentence, Connor realized that speaking about Wesley's death was, in fact, painful for her. He let the subject drop and stepped closer to the dragon. It had been preserved magnificently, the gleaming ivory-white teeth, the scales, the eyes frozen in place … whatever magic fixed it to its display was doing its job well.
"Must have been tough to slay," he noted.
Illyria stepped next to him. "I have fought more difficult, and more motivated, opponents," she announced. "This creature's death was particularly pathetic," when she saw Connor didn't understand, she explained, " … it was defeated, attempting to flee, but I was in no mood to be merciful."
"Are you ever in the mood to be merciful?" Connor asked.
The corner of Illyria's mouth flexed in a near-smile. "I suppose not."
Okay then.
The rest of the conversation proceeded about as well as Connor had expected. Illyria did not know what was occurring in Moonridge or have any insights as to why Wolfram Hart were apparently teaming up with Richard Wilkins, but she promised … in her truculent way … to make inquiries. Connor had promised to have Angel reach out to her, with the details to be worked out later, and also reiterated that he remained uninterested in joining the Wolfram Hart team.
The walk to the elevator and then back through the building seemed to be far shorter than the walk to Illyria's throne.
The sunlight streaming through the lobby windows of the building beckoned to him as he strode through the lobby, and Connor found himself quite eager to be rid of the place. As he neared the exit, by happenstance, he glanced at the neat row of placards, photographs, and business card lining one wall that referenced a number of Wolfram Hart attorneys and partners.
I know that face.
Connor froze and slowly swiveled towards one of the photographs.
I saw him in the parking lot of the Spirit Square, the day that Oz and Willow sold the store.
He pulled out his cell phone and photographed not only the picture of the attorney, a man named Eric Aurum who was apparently a junior partner of some kind, but also the Wolfram Hart business card beneath. When he'd finished, he slid his phone into his pocket and stepped outside.
Angel is going to want to see this.
He maneuvered through the streets of Los Angeles, the bustle of which appealed to him not at all, and then made his way to the abandoned hotel his father had once called home and used as a base of operations. The shuttering building had brought back memories, some pleasant, some unpleasant, but mostly it felt … dead. Connor had never found himself particularly inclined to nostalgia, so he grabbed his belongings, retrieved his car, and began the drive towards Moonridge.
After a few hours on the road, he remembered to text the two photographs to his father, along with a brief message about the circumstances surrounding his happenstance meeting with the attorney in question.
. . . . . . . . .
"We're all here," Buffy said as her teen version and Spike settled into the loveseat in her and Angel's townhouse. She, Angel, and Xander occupied the adjacent couch, and on the opposite side of the coffee table in front of them sat Giles and Willow in dining room chairs. Willow's laptop rested on the table between them. No one had inquired as to Oz's whereabouts, and when Buffy realized that Willow was likely keeping secrets from her husband, a certain degree of guilt settled over her.
The fact that Spike and Buffy had driven together, while Giles had driven separately in his rental sedan, was not lost on all assembled.
Buffy swiveled towards Willow. "What have you found out, Will?"
Giles cleared his throat. "Should we not wait for Faith, or perhaps the other slayers?"
"I don't think they're coming," Xander announced. "Faith was a bit upset this morning, and I haven't been able to reach her."
Something in his voice resulted in every eye in the room rotating slowly in his direction.
"What?" he squeaked.
Spike folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. "And what, precisely, was dear ol' Faith upset about?"
"That's not important," Xander replied.
"We can bring Faith and her slayers up to speed later," Angel interrupted. "Willow, what we do know about the Valknut Wilkins stole …" he reconsidered his phrasing … "purchased, I mean?"
Willow maneuvered her laptop, taking care not to jostle her extremely pregnant stomach, towards them, and a carving of three interlocked triangles appeared on the display.
"That's the Valknut carving," she explained, "and this …" she tapped at a button, "is the church where the carving came from."
A black and white photograph digitally rendered on the screen depicted a shingled, tall building made of dark grey wood featuring a congregation wearing suits was visible milling about the entrance. The church seemed to be perhaps four stories tall, and the structure was all sharp angles and jagged lines.
"That was in Sunnydale?" Buffy asked.
Willow nodded, then tapped the laptop again. The interior of a church, presumably the same one, appeared. The ceiling was peaked, and thick wooden beams lined the walls. Seemingly the entire interior of the church was made of carved wood, and as Willow scrolled through the photographs, images of dark wooden pews, animals and symbols carved upon the walls and lintels, and a nave carved from the trunk of an enormous oak, all flashed across the screen.
"Well, golly," Spike said when the montage was over. "That was a church alright."
Teen Buffy squeezed his knee and, surprisingly, he shut up.
"You guys all know this-church-was-burned-down-by-an-angry mob story," Willow began, "and the Valknut was salvaged from the wreckage. Maybe the only thing salvaged from the wreckage, as I can't find anything else besides photographs. What's odd is that triskele, which the Valknut is onlye one of type of, are associated with Odin, not Christianity." Willow glanced about. "It's very possible this church was Christian in name only and may have actually been used in the worship of one or more of the old gods, the not so nice ones that predate Christianity. It would explain why the building is so creepy looking, for one, and why Wilkins is interested in it, for another."
"I'm sorry, but that church was in Sunnydale?" Xander interjected "Seems awfully, I don't know, European?"
"It was European," Giles interjected. The church, of a rare type called a stave church, or Stavkirke, was built about eight hundred years ago in Norway, and in the early 20th century, a group of Norwegian immigrants led by a man named Schiertz Bruckenberg brought the church to Sunnydale, piece by piece, and reassembled it. The undertaking, for its time, was rather pioneering. Each section was logged, its position in the construction carefully logged, then it was packed and shipped to California, where it was eventually reassembled.
"Why would you bother?" Buffy asked. "Just … build a new church?"
Giles and Willow shared a glance. "That's where the research starts to get fuzzy," Willow admitted. "We know that the always-ready-to-light-their-torches residents of Sunnydale thought that the Stavkirke was being used to create monsters and having that kind of power would definitely explain why some evildoer went through the trouble of shipping it here piece by piece, but with the church gone and there being so few records, your guess is as good as mine as to how it was happening."
Teen Buffy raised a hand, "The church is gone … so … what good is this Valleyknot?"
Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them.
"Whatever power was in the church," Willow explained, "Giles and I suspect that Wilkins believes he can use a piece of the original wood to tap into it."
Angel leaned back in the couch. "Is that even possible?"
Giles rubbed his nose for a second before he replied, "It may be, and Willow and I have a theory as to how."
Buffy's face was etched with grim determination as she said, "What is it?"
"Okay," Willow began, "Wilkins bought our store, and I'm sorry about that by the way …"
"We understand, Will," Xander interrupted.
"I don't," Spike interjected.
"Anyway," Willow continued, "he bought our store, he didn't steal the Valknut, even though he easily could have."
Buffy shot them a perplexed look, "Maybe he's turning over a new leaf."
"I doubt it," Giles said. "Also, if you will recall, when he confronted us in Angel and Xander's office, he mentioned that he intended on winning the election fairly, I believe that was the phrase he used."
"I think he actually said he had to win it fairly," Angel added.
Willow pointed at Angel excitedly. "Exactly. Kind of an odd thing for him to say, given he's not at all about the fairness." She turned her laptop around, tapped on the keyboard for a while, and faced it towards them again. Richard Wilkins's campaign website blazoned from the screen. "All his election material, all the voting, buying the store, doing everything by the book … I mean, he gave me and Oz a choice to sell," her face tightened into anger. "He didn't force us. Same thing with the election, he's trying to get people to willingly vote for him."
"It's the key to the whole thing, we believe," Giles said as he removed his glasses and set them on the coffee table.
"You've lost me," Xander announced.
"Whatever people are giving him, they're doing it willingly," Angel said in a grim, ominous tone. "There's only one kind of magic that works that way. It's arguably the most powerful kind, actually."
Buffy glanced about. "And that would be …?"
"Sacrificial magic," Willow announced.
"That doesn't sound good," the younger Buffy offered. "I'm thinking sacrificial magic means something, or someone, is going to get sacrificed."
"It isn't good, and that's precisely what it means," Giles confirmed.
"And how is that bloody helpful?" Spike asked. "Whatever type of magic it is, it's bad, so as fascinating as this history lesson has been, we just keep circling back to the same question: how do we stop him?"
Angel's phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the incoming text from Connor.
And then he checked it again.
When he had checked it a third time, and the contents of the missive had not changed, he slowly stood from the couch. The room swam around him, and the sounds of everyone asking him what was wrong grew muted.
"Angel, what is it?" Buffy asked.
Angel slowly turned his phone so that everyone could see the photo that Connor had sent him.
The room fell silent, and Buffy was sure that for just a few seconds, her heart stopped beating before it lurched back to life.
"Angel," Buffy began, "how did Connor get a photograph of a Wolfram Hart business card with the name of Dawn's husband on it?"
"Maybe it's someone with the same name?" teen Buffy offered.
Angel flicked the screen, then turned it around to show them a photograph with the name 'Eric Aurum' beneath it, and below that, a notation that he was a junior partner of Wolfram Hart.
It was several moments before anyone spoke.
"Oh my god," Buffy said as she held a hand to her mouth. "Oh my god, it's been right in front of us the entire time. From the beginning."
"Eric's firm handled the contract for the purchase of the store," Willow said, her eyes wide and her face white with shock. "And he dropped off the check."
Giles looked at her in surprise. "I didn't see him."
Everyone else in the room confirmed that they had not seen him that day, either.
"Eric was there," Willow said. "He was kind of rude, too. Dropped off the envelope, then said he had to go, all brusque, like."
"How'd he get past us without being seen?" Angel asked. "There's only one door into the store."
"Oh my god," Buffy said again. She looked at her hands and realized they were shaking.
Spike glanced over at her, and he actually seemed legitimately concerned. "Somebody might want to get Buffy a glass of wine, or something."
Buffy inhaled deeply. "We need to go to Dawn's, and we need to take her, Logan, and Alex out of there. The image of her nephews, who to her embarrassment she realized she hadn't seen in months, rose unbidden in her mind, and a sharp, lancing pain of regret over her ruined relationship with her sister pierced her chest. She looked over at Angel. "Send Connor Dawn's address and tell him to head straight over. If he gets there first, wait for us.
"Connor's still driving back from L.A., Buffy," Angel said.
"We might be talking a while," she replied. "Just send him the address, tell him we'll explain when he gets there."
Angel nodded, and sent the text."
"Does anyone else feel like the ground is spinning out from under their feet?" Xander asked. "We've known Eric, what, eight years? Nine? Holy shit, has he been with Wolfram Hart the entire time?"
"Maybe it's like a satellite office?" the teen Buffy asked. "Or he's a subcontractor?"
"You saw the business card," Angel replied.
"Oh my god," Buffy said yet again as she sunk her face into her hands. "He's probably at work now, but he's going to be home tonight, and we need to get Dawn and the kids out before then."
"We will, Buffy," Angel said as he rubbed her shoulder.
"How could we not have noticed?" Buffy asked. "His firm must have a connection with Wolfram Hart? He was part of the purchase of the Spirit Square? We all know him? How could we not have noticed anything? Did all our brains stop working, or something? Our memories go haywire?"
Angel and Xander shared a long glance.
"Guys …" Willow said as she noticed what had passed between Angel and Xander. "What was that all about?"
Xander cleared his throat. "There's something Dr. Hu found during an eye examination earlier this year that I've maybe kept to myself."
"And what might that be?" Buffy asked, with more than a hint of frosty irritation.
"A memory spell," Xander replied. "A big chunk of my memories had been rewritten … he thought it happened in the last year or two, I thought it was probably Dawn, and then I kind of let it go."
"Without telling us?" Giles said. His voice was thick with anger and disappointment. "Memory spells are a serious matter, as everyone at this table should know."
Willow cast her eyes downward.
"I told Angel!" Xander protested.
Angel immediately found himself confronted by Buffy's accusatory glare.
Giles pursed his lips thoughtfully. "A memory spell would explain a great deal, especially our lack of inquisitiveness as to the possibility Wolfram Hart might be operating in Moonridge right under our noses. I suspect it's not only Xander affected. Maybe the spell is preventing us from questioning anything we've learned about Eric."
"All of us?" the teen Buffy asked in a voice thick with skepticism. "Wouldn't a spell that big make a noise, or something, that you guys would have noticed?"
"Not a noise, no," Willow replied, "but a memory spell operating for a period of time, affecting multiple people, would require a noticeable focal point, absolutely. For all of us, for the past two years, it would be a really big one."
"How big?" Angel asked. "And what kind of focal point?"
Giles considered the question. "For it to affect all of us for years, including a witch as strong as Willow? You'd be looking at a pentacle, or variation, thereof, as large as a building … at least."
"What if it was more than just us?" Buffy asked. "What if it was, say, all of Moonridge, or all of California? Something like what the monks did for Dawn?"
"It'd be as large as a city," Willow said. "We'd have noticed."
Xander stood up. "This pentacle you're talking about, you mean the star with the circle around it thingy you're always drawing on the ground when you do something scary?"
Willow nodded.
"I'll be right back," Xander announced as he walked towards the front door of the townhouse.
"Xander, where are you …" Buffy started to ask, but he'd already left.
Within a few minutes Xander had returned, rolled maps held in his hands.
"My maps!" Angel exclaimed. "You've had them in your truck this entire time?"
Xander ignored the question and began frantically pinning the maps to the wall of the townhouse.
"What are you doing," Angel asked as Xander ripped away the thumb tacks, stickies, and various other notes. "Those took me forever."
When Xander was finished, the maps had been assembled and affixed to the wall to form a contiguous whole which depicted all of Moonridge.
"Buffy," Xander said, and his voice was hoarse and strained. "Do you have sharpie … a magic marker?"
She scrambled to the kitchen, retrieved one, and handed it to him without a word.
Xander uncapped the marker, and his eyes were feverish. "William, Rogers, and Harris Construction built most of this town," he announced. "And there are fiber optic pipes, water mains, all sorts of underground conduits that we built." He stepped forward and began to mark a series of dots on the map, and then, as the dots increased in number, drew connecting lines between them. "We had a major project about two years ago to put in natural gas lines, supposedly for redundancy."
When he was finished, Xander stepped back.
A near perfect circle with a five-pointed star had been drawn upon the maps.
"That was one project," he announced as he turned around to face them. His eyes, one red, one brown, glanced about the room. "There's your pentacle." He paused a moment, then continued. "I think … I think I noticed this before, too, when we originally built it, but then I forgot." He looked at Willow. "I forgot until you mentioned it."
"The memory spell," Willow confirmed.
"But who hired you?" Buffy asked.
Xander pulled his phone out of his pocket and began flipping through it. The minutes stretched, but eventually, ashen faced, he looked up. "The company is some business developer I've never heard of, but I recognize the name of the law firm that drew up the contract … it's Eric's firm, the name he uses here in Moonridge."
"Eric isn't a subcontractor for Wolfram Hart," Angel announced. "He's part of them."
Teen Buffy stood, walked to the maps, and tapped at a legend printed in one of the corners.
"What's the name of your old construction company, again?" she asked Xander.
Xander blinked a few times, then replied. "William, Harris, and Rogers Construction."
She plucked the sharpie from his hand and began writing large letters in the center of the collection of maps. When she was finished, she stepped back.
W. R. H.
She turned around to find everyone staring, jaws agape. "Hell of a coincidence, isn't it? I mean, what are the chances?"
Xander put his hand on the wall, and his eye began to emit a dull light that cast a ruddy glow over the room.
"Xander," Angel said worriedly, "please don't set anything on fire."
Xander breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the glow was gone. "This entire time …" he said in a hoarse whisper. "My own company. How could I not have known?"
"That's how memory spells work," Willow said. "You don't ask questions, you just believe everything is normal."
Upon hearing the old hurt in Willow's voice, Buffy reached out and rubbed her shoulder. Willow gratefully held Buffy's hand for a moment.
Buffy stood, "So we head to Dawn's, we get her and her kids, and we … we do what?" she glanced about. "Suggestions?"
"We need to destroy the pentacle," Willow said.
Giles nodded. "Willow is right. The spell, it likely kicks in at regular intervals, or when something triggers it. For all we know, at five o'clock every day, it wipes out any memories we have that pertain to Eric's activities here in Moonridge. We need to destroy it or we risk letting it continue doing whatever it's doing to our minds."
"This is Dawn's husband!" Buffy screamed.
The room fell into a hushed silence.
"It's her husband!" Buffy drew in a deep, ragged breath, and Angel cautiously approached and put an arm around her. "It's too much, it's just too fucking much."
She lowered her head, and the room swum about her.
"Buffy," Spike said gently. "We're all worried about the little bit, but this is going to get worse before it gets better. Probably a lot worse."
"Thanks a lot, Spike," Buffy snapped.
Spike glanced about. "Someone tell me I'm wrong?"
"HE'S THE FATHER OF DAWN'S CHILDREN!" Buffy raged. "AND HE'S AN ATTORNEY FOR WOLFRAM HART!"
Her face was red and flushed, and her eyes bulged with unshed tears.
"Whatever is happening," Giles said delicately, "it's been happening for a long time. We'll take it one step at a time, Buffy."
"We need to be smart about this," Angel said. A strange tremor had crept into his voice, and Buffy was shocked to realize that it was fear.
Angel is afraid.
The notion irritated her. Fear wasn't going to help anything. She raised her head and fixed Angel with a baleful look. "Smart about this? We're going to destroy the pentacle, and we're going to go get my sister and her kids out there, and we're going to do it today."
Buffy looked at Willow. "How do we destroy the pentacle?"
"Any way, really," she said in a subdued voice. "Just break the circle, preferably at any of the cardinal points where it meets the star in the middle, and that'll do it. The spell should stop working, at least partially."
"And our memories will come back?" Angel asked.
"Most likely."
"Isn't this thing buried underground?" the younger Buffy asked Xander.
Xander nodded. "It is … sunk about six feet deep within pressurized pipes."
"Anyone got a shovel?" the younger Buffy asked.
"I can do you one better," Xander said coldly. "I've got a bomb in the truck strong enough to pulverize six feet of dirt and blow the pipe apart. The pipe contains pressurized natural gas, so when it goes, it'll rupture the pentacle for half a mile in every direction."
Everyone's eyes swiveled towards him.
"Xander," Giles asked, "why do you have a bomb in your truck?"
"I used to put in a few extra demolition orders now and then," Xander explained. "You've seen my place, you know I like to be prepared. I thought we might need one. Some day."
"That doesn't explain why it's in your truck now," Buffy pointed out.
"It's been there since January," Xander replied. "I thought we might have needed it for that Ethan business."
Angel stared at Xander in horror. "You've driven me around in your truck all summer! You had a bomb in the back?"
"Well, it didn't go off," Xander pointed out.
"I'd like to blow something up," Spike announced as he stood. "How's it work?"
"Pretty easy," Xander informed him. "Connect the power leads, hit the button, get out of there before the timer hits zero."
Spike rubbed his hands together. "This is gonna be fun."
"I'll go with Spike," the younger Buffy said. "I'm thinking we're all going to want backup for everything moving forward."
"That's the plan, then," Buffy announced. "We've got two people blowing up the pentacle, everyone else will go get Dawn and my nephews." She pointed at Spike. "After you two are finished playing demolition man, get over to my sister's."
Spike nodded in agreement as he walked over to the maps, glanced about, then ripped one of them off the wall. "No houses around this section," he indicated. "I'll set it off here."
"Let's go get my sister," Buffy said. "A thought occurred to her, and she pointed at Willow. "Except you. You're still sans magic."
Willow gritted her teeth, but eventually nodded. "I'll head home, use the computer in the WillowCave to see if I can't hack up some more details about the connection between Eric and Wolfram Hart."
"Buffy, we should talk about this more," Angel said. His voice was as strained and nervous as she had ever heard it, and him sounding that way undoubtedly on account of being worried for her safety inordinately irritated her. Angel continued, "I think you should stay with Willow."
"NO!" Buffy yelled. "We go right now, and that includes me. We'll text Faith and the other slayers, and if they get there, fine, otherwise, we grab Dawn with the people we have. I'm not leaving my sister and my nephews in that house one more second."
"Buffy," Angel said in a voice that had grown ragged with worry, "we need more people. We can't just barge in there. Eric and Wolfram Hart have been a step ahead of us the entire time … we need more people, we need to maybe find out where Eric is, maybe get Dawn and her kids when we're sure he isn't at or near his house."
Buffy's eyes narrowed as she stared at him in anger. "Angel, it's my sister. I don't care if it's by the hair, we are dragging her out of there today and getting her someplace that's warded and safe."
Angel glanced around wildly. "Somebody else, say something!"
Giles stood up. "Angel, Buffy is right. We need to get Dawn."
Xander's left eye glimmered as he spoke, "I'm with Buffy on this one."
"Everybody, start driving," Buffy announced.
. . . . . . . . .
"Angel, what the hell are you doing?" Buffy fumed as she followed him into their bedroom. "Spike's already left with the bomb and everyone else is turning their keys in the ignition. We need to leave. Now!"
Angel ignored her and began rummaging through one of the drawers in a dresser near the bed.
"Hey, I'm talking to you," she said as she reached out to grab his arm.
Angel spun away from the dresser so quickly that Buffy for a moment thought he was going to strike her. She raised her hand in surprise, and then he grasped her wrist, yanked her off balance, and proceeded to drag her towards the head of the bed. Instinctively, she fought against the pull of his hand, and was briefly surprised that she couldn't twist free. Then she remembered.
I'm not a slayer anymore.
She felt clumsy and helpless, and anger surged within her that Angel was making her feel this way.
"Angel, stop!" she yelled as he continued to pull her by the wrist across the bed, towards the thick, slatted wood of the headboard. He felt strong … so strong … and for the first time she could ever recall, it frightened her.
Angel raised his other hand, then reached towards her wrist still held captive within his grip and something silvery traced an arc in the air. Buffy heard several sharp clicks first near her hand, then near the headboard, and a few moments later Angel released her and stepped away.
Oh, Angel … how could you?
She held up her wrist and stared in numb horror at the cuff locked around it, and then at the two-foot chain connecting the cuff around her wrist to the matching cuff encircling one of the thick slats of the headboard.
Don't scream. If you scream, he'll just leave.
Buffy tried to control her temper as she turned to stare at the love of her life, the man in whom she'd entrusted her safety on so many occasions, and who had extended to her that same trust in return, who knew every secret of her heart, who had been there for her at the beginning.
The man who had just handcuffed her to their bed.
And not in the way she liked, on occasion.
"Angel," she said quietly. "I really need you to take a moment and think about this." She held her wrist up and jostled the cuff. "This … this is not okay, Angel. There are gigantic neon letters on a huge sign floating right above us, right now, that are warning you that this is not okay. Get a grip and talk to me."
Stay calm.
Angel at least had the decency to look ashamed. His face was drawn as he backed away, and he refused to meet her gaze.
Start with a joke.
Buffy held out an imploring hand. "Angel, stop right there … please … talk to me." She forced a wry grin to her lips. "First of all, if I remember correctly, I think it's your turn for this sort of thing, secondly, couldn't you at least leave me a bucket?"
The attempt at humor didn't register as Angel continued to step away from her, his eyes fixed on the carpet.
She continued, "Anyone can have a moment of panic," she said reassuringly. "I understand you love me, and you don't want me to get hurt, but Angel, please, I need you to think about what you're doing."
"I have," he said quietly, his eyes still fixed on the floor. "I … I can't let you go with us." He looked up at her. "You're the one that said, a few months ago, that we need to stop letting people we care about put themselves in danger."
"What you're doing right now isn't what I meant, and you know it," she replied as she struggled to keep her voice calm. She wanted to howl, and curse, and find something to throw at him. He continued to back away, and she held up an imploring hand. "Angel, stop. You need to stop right now, come over here and unlock me."
"Can't you feel it …" he said. "There is some … thing … waiting for us. Eric, or whoever he works for, or whatever force is at play here, they haven't been a step ahead of us, Buffy, they've been a dozen steps ahead."
A heavy pressure was descending on her chest and making it difficult to breathe. The cuff seemed to be dragging her downwards, its weight an intolerable burden. "Angel, stop, I'm begging you."
Don't do this.
He shook his head. "You wouldn't even listen when I tried to reason with you. Even Willow knows to stay home on this one."
"This isn't about Willow," Buffy snapped, her voice reaching a high-pitched, razored edge. "This is about you and me."
Oh, Angel, how could you?
"I'm sorry, Buffy," he said. "I can't let you do this. You said it yourself, your slaying days are over. This isn't your fight … at least, not the way it once was."
Buffy rattled the chain of the handcuff. "She's my sister, and it's my call, not yours."
Angel had reached the threshold of the door, and his dark eyes, that she could usually read, that had been part of her life for so many years, that she had stared into with love so many times in this very room when they had made each other vulnerable to each other in so many ways, seemed hooded and frightening. He felt a stranger to her.
Don't scream.
"Please, think about what you're doing," she tried one final time. "You have handcuffed me to our bed … our bed … this is our bedroom … and you have chained me to a piece of furniture to force me to do what you want." She took a deep breath. "Angel, anyone can have a moment where they lose it, I get that, and it's not too late. Get the key, unlock me, and we'll talk about this tonight. We'll talk about it, and sure, I'll be pissed, but I'll understand you made a terrible mistake for maybe sixty seconds … we'll call it a one-minute onset of temporary insanity … and we'll get through it." His dark eyes glittered in the hallway outside the bedroom, and the sadness tore at her heart as she forced herself to continue. "But Angel, if you walk out that door and leave me here like this, don't assume that you'll apologize later and I'll understand, or that you'll ever be able to walk back through that door again, because I don't know if you'll be able to, Angel … in fact, I'm pretty sure you won't."
She blinked back tears, and when her vision was clear once more, Angel was gone.
Buffy gave herself perhaps half a minute to seethe with anger and grieve for the decades Angel had just destroyed in a few minutes time, and also to bemoan the fact that she'd left her phone on the coffee table in the living room, then she got to work.
The mattress was difficult to move one-handed, but she managed to thrust it aside to reveal the metal braces lining the frame beneath. They were screwed in, of course, and she didn't happen to have a leatherman in her pocket, but on the end table next to the bed was a framed metal photograph of her and Angel. She smashed the frame, tearing the photo inside, and managed to bend loose a shard of metal that could approximate a flathead screwdriver. After a few more minutes of work, she had one of the iron rods free.
Now she had a pry bar, but there was no way she'd be able to smash the thick wood of the bed apart, not as a normal forty-year old woman … at least, not without it taking far too long.
Thankfully, she had a different idea, but now came the part of her plan she wasn't sure she could pull off. The bed was made of solid wood, heavy, and she had an awkward angle with which to pull. When the feet scraped the first inches, however, Buffy knew her idea would work. Inch by inch she scraped the bed along the floor, further from the wall, until at last the headboard was far enough away that she could fit the pry bar between the slats and have room to work. With grim determination, she looped the handcuff chain around two of the slats and then inserted the pry bar in the middle so that the chain was taut and secure.
Here goes nothing.
As she spun the metal bar around, the force drew the chains tight until, eventually, the wood began to creak and bend from the strain. Unfortunately, the cuff pulled fearsomely on her wrist as she tightened the makeshift vise. The metal bit deep into her skin, and when she saw blood, she knew if she kept going, she'd likely end up with scars.
The thought didn't concern her.
When she'd tightened the bar as much as she could, she loosened it and slipped it free. As she'd hoped, the slats had bent from the strain and were now warped. Not much, but a little. A half dozen more such efforts, she reasoned, and the headboard slat would either slip free of the support struts or break entirely.
I'm coming Dawn.
She tried not to think of Angel as she moved the chain to a new position and started the process again.