Dawn Summer's aim didn't waver as she said coolly, "'Big Sister'—as you choose to call her—is smaller than I am. And doesn't know I'm in this country. She thinks I left Rome to visit the new Watcher's Council offices in London. Which is true as far as it goes: I did report to the Council en route to the States."
A pretty piece of deception, Ethan thought. "Can't believe Ripper has the balls to go behind his Slayer's back. May I ask who you are working with, Miss Summers? Travers?"
"Quentin Travers is dead. As for the rest, you may ask. I might not answer."
It was then that Beth spoke up. "Roger Wyndam-Pryce."
Ethan turned, in shock. "How the hell do you know who Wyndam-Pryce is?" What would a blind American boy have to do with the British High Watcher?
Beth turned away from Ethan. "The man has fingers in a very many pies," he said softly. Ethan watched as Dawn gave a slight, knowing nod.
"Roger Wyndam-Pryce," Ethan repeated. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in years."
"Wish I could say the same," he heard Dawn mutter.
"The man always did have a bit of Machiavellian charm, even if his son is a bit of a prat. Playing you against Ripper and the Slayer is a stroke of genius, you know?"
"I am aware of the nature of the man," Dawn answered, extending her left hand with her palm up even as she held the gun straight with her right. Ethan placed the crystal in her hand; she slipped it into her blouse. "Don't think that I'll let his power games endanger the Council."
"And when he backs you into a corner?" When she didn't answer, he added, "So, are we going to just stand here in the desert with your gun trained on us while they figure out we are missing and then come to find us?"
"Get in the car," she ordered, slipping the gun into the waistband of her skirt.
Beth smiled and, after finding the car with his hands, deftly hopped into the backseat. Ethan walked around the car and got into the passenger seat. Once they were seated, Dawn shifted the car out of park and began to drive away.
"So where are we going?" Ethan asked.
"Las Vegas," Dawn answered, her attention clearly divided between watching them and watching the road. "Closest airport to here."
"And they're going to let two fugitives get on a plane?"
"Check the glove compartment."
Ethan opened it to find an American passport. He opened it to see his own picture. Ethan Summers, the name read.
"What am I supposed to be, your bloody father?"
"Or my uncle. Whatever our cover requires. We'll get a passport for your friend when we arrive in Vegas. The Council has some connections there. Why don't you introduce us, Ethan?"
"Miss Summers, this is Beth Daniels. Beth, this is Dawn Summers."
The car braked to a halt as Dawn twisted in her seat to look at Beth. "Your name is Beth?" she asked.
"Do you have a problem with that?"
Dawn shrugged. "Guess not," she said, turning back around and putting her foot on the accelerator.
Ethan smiled. "So once we're able to pass as a happy little family, then what? Where do we go from there?"
"That's always the question, isn't it?" asked Dawn as she reached 90 miles per hour on the Nevada road, a thin scar stretching through the empty desert.
An hour and a half later, Dawn, Ethan, and Beth had arrived in Vegas and checked into the Luxor using the credit card Roger Wyndam-Pryce had given her. She had hunted down her contact—an Ano-Movic demon named Steve who was day manager at the Pyramid Café—who took Beth's photograph and promised to produce a fake passport by the next day. While at it, he passed on the newest intelligence: at mystical hotspots throughout the world, undead activity was reaching record lows. "Even the Hellmouth in Cleveland isn't seeing any vamps," he said amiably as he munched on a carrot stick. "Something's up, and if I were a nice young lady like you, I'd stay out of it."
Dawn nodded, thoughtfully. Osiris, lord of death, was rallying his troops. "I'm going to need to see Abigor," she said.
"Abigor's a busy demon," Steve answered. "He's not going to be able to—"
"I've read the Tradescan Codex," Dawn answered, stepping closer and lowering her voice. "If the Rite of Isis is performed, or if it's not performed—if we can't figure out what it is or what we're supposed to do to keep the world from ending—then his schedule's going to be clear for the rest of eternity."
Steve nodded, picked up another carrot stick. "I'll see what I can do."
"Stupid U.S. drinking ages," Dawn muttered as she made her way out of the Luxor bar. In Italy she was allowed to drink. Well, according to Buffy she wasn't, but seeing how she had now left the European continent without her sister's consent and broken two detainees out of an American detention facility, she didn't feel so bad about having had a drink on the sly now and then.
And right now, she could really use a brandy on the rocks.
Distressingly sober, she made her way up the elevator and into her hotel room, where she quickly stripped out of her clothing and stepped into the shower. Steve had said even Cleveland was quickly becoming vamp-free, Dawn considered as she let the hot water massage some of the tension out of her back and shoulders. That meant that either something exceptionally good was happening, or something exceptionally bad. She had learned enough from her short life experience to not even seriously consider the former as an option.
If the vamps were leaving Cleveland, Rome, New York City, Moscow, Los Angeles, Toronto, Warsaw, and everywhere else, they had to be going to somewhere. How much was she willing to bet that somewhere was in Brazil?
Think about something else, she told herself. Anything.
Think about the psychotic British chaos mage (as opposed to the happily adjusted, sane British chaos mage?) she had just broken out of prison. Did she really think she would be able to control him? No, of course not—any such hopes were futile. But as the only living person known to have performed the Rite of Isis, she could only hope his love of chaos would keep him close.
Turning, she slipped in the tub and had to grab the wall to catch herself, ripping her out of her thoughts and returning her attention to the shower itself. No, don't think about Ethan Rayne when you're naked, she chided herself. Of course, this thought was immediately followed by a whole list of other people she should never have thoughts about when naked. Giles. Xander. Faith. Andrew. Oh, God, no, not Andrew.
She finished her shower and wrapped her towel around herself as quickly as she could. Finally not naked and thus able to think of whomever she wanted without ew-ness. That settled, she made her way into her hotel room.
Where Beth was sitting on her bed, drawing in a notebook with some pastels he had acquired somehow somewhere in the hotel.
"How did you get inside here?" she asked, looking from the hallway door to the door which connected her room to Beth and Ethan's. Both were locked, just as she was sure both had been locked when she had entered the bathroom. Beth just sat there, an enigmatic smile on his lips.
"Well, get out," Dawn said. "I'm going to get changed."
"I'm blind," Beth pointed out. "It's not as if I'm going to see anything."
There was a sensibility to his logic, but that didn't mean Dawn particularly wanted to get changed with him in the room, whether he could see her or not. "How do I know you won't use your mystical psychic vision?"
"If I have mystical psychic vision, wouldn't I be able to use it through your clothes?"
Dawn had to stop and think about that one. "I don't know. Would you?"
Beth simply passed her the notebook in which he had been drawing. She gasped in shock when she saw it. There, drawn with near photorealistic accuracy, was a picture of her, completely nude—in a pose she had most certainly never struck in her actual life.
"Okay, now you're even more officially creepy stalker guy than you were two minutes ago—and that's saying a lot. Do I even need to ask what they put you away for?"
"I know how to sketch the lines, where to use which color. But to actually see the female form," Beth said, dragging his fingers over Dawn's picture and smearing the pastels, "to know what all this represents, actually looks like, to have even an idea what it is that I just put down on that piece of paper—well, that's denied me forever. It's not just that I can't see. I don't know what it means to see."
"Forgive me if I say that I'd feel sorrier for you if you didn't have a naked picture of me in your notebook," Dawn said, zipping open her travel bag. She dropped her towel on the ground and pulled out a brassiere and a pair of frilly white underwear. As she was putting the undergarments on, she casually flipped to the next page in Beth's notebook.
What she saw caused her to drop her underpants in disbelief.
"That's Cordelia Chase," she said, turning to Beth for explanation. "She's dead."
"She's a Higher Power," Beth answered, and Dawn wasn't sure if he meant it as an addition or a correction.
"She has something to do with all this?"
Beth nodded.
"Do you know what?"
"Do you think that they—whoever the hell they are, anyway—bother to provide me with context?" Beth asked with a scowl—the most sincere expression of emotion Dawn had seen on him since they had met several hours earlier. "No, that would make things much too easy. As if making me fucking blind wasn't enough."
Wow. When he put it that way, she actually did feel sort of bad for him. Just a bit, though; he was still majorly creepy. She grabbed her underwear from the floor and pulled it up her legs, then flipped to the next page in Beth's notebook. "Amy Madison? What is this, the Sunnydale High 1999 yearbook? Who's next, Harmony Kendall? Scott Hope?" She turned the page again, but, thankfully, the next page was blank.
"They'll be together," Beth said. "We'll need their help. That's all I know."
Dawn considered. "I can work with that. The Watcher's Council will have been keeping tabs on Amy. Just let me make some calls, and I'll be able to get her location."
Beth nodded, picked up his notebook, and began to walk towards the door.
"Eh, Beth?" Dawn called to him. He stopped and turned back towards her. "Could I get that picture of me?" Even smeared, it was a lot more revealing than she would have liked.
"I was thinking Ethan might like to see it," Beth answered, a mischievous glint in his unseeing eyes. "Maybe we could frame it, even."