Title: The Sacrifices
Author: mispel
E-mail:Rating: PG-13
Summary: Time is running out as the demon delivers the second child. Buffy forces Harmony to help her.
Spoilers: Early season 7
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing
Feedback: It's not easy to improve without feedback, so let's have some.
A/N: Takes place in early season 7, not long after Beneath You and Same Time, Same Place.
Previously: Xander and Dawn were on their way to return the child. Two demons fought over a baby. One was killed, the other wounded. The wounded demon was seen by Halfrek and Anya, entering a tunnel. Buffy found a use for Harmony.
Trying to squirrel her way out of helping Buffy, Harmony claimed that she only knew about the buyer, a demon that acted as the middle man, or a "middle demon" as Harmony called him. Buffy made her lead the way to where she was supposed to meet him.
Buffy had the familiar feeling of 'been there, patrolled that' as they went to the same cemetery she and Xander had crisscrossed earlier that night. Harmony led her through the graves and close to the edge of the cemetery. Harmony waved around vaguely into the overgrown area beyond the graves.
"Somewhere out here. But he was a no-show," Harmony said and then tried to leave.
Buffy sighed and took Harmony by the back of her shirt to where Buffy had hidden the body of the demon she and Xander had discovered.
"Is this your buyer?" Buffy asked her.
Harmony wrinkled her face and shook her head. She said the demon was supposed to be more lizardy, "less skinny chicken-looking." After covering up the body again, Buffy sighed and turned to Harmony. It looked like Harmony was a dead end, and dead was the operative word.
Harmony must have seen something in the look Buffy was giving her and the stake she was pulling out of her belt, because she decided to become extra helpful. Noticing the two kinds of blood drying on the ground, Harmony scampered around after the drops of dark green blood as they got smaller and smaller. From there Harmony followed the trail of blood Buffy couldn't see. She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose and complained.
"You would think a super-smelling vampire nose would be like a big bonus or something, but it's a big bummer. Sinking your teeth into someone with BO, that can almost kill your appetite. And when some lady's cheap perfume goes right up your nose as you go to bite down, it's the pits," Harmony said as she led the way through the trees and the brush.
Buffy poked her with the stake.
"Hey, I'm cooperating here," Harmony whined.
"Try shutting up," Buffy told her curtly. "And walk up wind. You stink." Even without a vampire nose, Buffy could tell that Harmony smelled like one of those things you find in the back of the refrigerator and can't identify.
"It's not my fault. The baby puked on me," Harmony said and showed Buffy a particularly nasty spot on her shirt.
"It was probably in self defense, you kidnapper." Buffy wasn't wasting her sympathy on Harmony's ruined wardrobe. She looked like a tacky sherbet someone dropped in the dirt, though the strappy shoes probably hadn't been bad at one time.
Xander was driving like he was eighty - dead slowly, sitting extra straight, his hands high on the wheel. Dawn was scrunched in the back seat with the baby. She had a limited view. She could see half of Xander between the front seats and the tops of buildings trough the car windows.
Dawn turned to the baby. Watching the child's placid face as she held him, Dawn concluded that baby life was the good life. You don't have to lift a finger, no chores, food delivered straight to your mouth. Dawn considered that she had never really been a baby. She got gypped.
Buffy and her Mom had remembered Dawn as a baby though. Now it was just Buffy. And her Dad, Dawn guessed. Her Mom had even remembered Dawn's birth. Now that was gone. That's why you need your Mom, she wanted to say to the baby. Moms remember all that stuff no one else does.
And if no one remembers it, it's like it never happened. Maybe if no one remembered Dawn, she would disappear. Dawn started to count in her head all the people who knew her. As she held the baby's hand, she ran her thumb over the chubby, wrinkled palm. This little piggy went to England, this little piggy...
"Why didn't Giles come back with Willow?" Dawn asked Xander suddenly.
"Maybe because he lives in England now," Xander answered after a pause, surprised by the question.
Dawn knew that. But Giles lived here too. Well, not in the sense that he had an apartment or a house here. Or a business. It had been turned to a pile of rubble. Then the rubble was cleared. Now the Magic Box was just a gap in the storefronts. With nothing to hold him here, Dawn thought Giles might turn into that guy you never see, who stops calling and only sends a postcard sometimes.
"So he's not coming back," Dawn said wanting to know where things stood - if she should start to write him off.
"I don't know," Xander told her keeping his eyes on the road.
"If he didn't come back with Willow..." Dawn pressed.
"Maybe it was a vote of confidence. 'You can hop on a transatlantic flight all by yourself, little trooper' kind of thing," Xander told her as he glanced in the rear view mirror.
"Or 'I'm not getting on a plane with you, you ticking time bomb of evil magic' kind of thing'." Dawn's words sounded bitchy even to her. Xander didn't say anything, but he looked like he was a little shocked that she had said that.
"You know she can crash a plane. If she can destroy the world, she can dump a measly Concord into the Atlantic," Dawn insisted knowing she was right and that Xander knew it, but feeling disloyal nevertheless.
"Are you really worried?" Xander asked her.
"I don't know. It's Willow, but... I don't know," Dawn said, fidgeting a little in the cramped space between the seats.
"No one can give you a guarantee, not me or Giles."
"Or Willow," Dawn added.
Dawn looked at the baby. He was turning his head like he wanted to see where they were going. He was safe now, and he was going home. As they went under streetlights, there was a slow strobe effect. It was alternately light then dark in the car and the baby blinked at the change.
Willow could have been at the hospital already - if she flew or maybe just popped over there. It used to be so exhilarating to feel the air rush around her, to look down on all the things held to the ground, to find yourself in a different place within seconds. The thrill of it... wasn't something she wanted to dwell on as she walked. Cars would pass her occasionally. Their headlights blinding her for a second then disappearing down the street. That's what she should be thinking of as the ultimate mode of transportation. But that was for pedestrians, people who didn't have the option of flight and instant magical transportation. And she had to remember that's who she was now too. She had to force herself to stay on the ground, to take steps and cross streets, and let cars speed past her.
Harmony and her nose had led Buffy into a sparsely wooded area. As they walked, Buffy held a stake to her back in case Harmony started telling her how being a vampire sucked and how the victims sometimes made things so difficult for a poor, single vampire in the big city.
Making them stop now and then, Buffy would listen. She was sure they were being followed. Once she had heard a shrill laugh. From that she guessed it was Spike.
Unfortunately, Harmony was getting more uncertain the further they went. Judging by the extra vacant and confused expression on her face, Buffy didn't think it was a ploy.
"Damn it, Harmony, why did you have to get the attack of the stupids now!"
"It's not me. It's not my fault the guy stopped bleeding. And it's windy."
There was a breeze. It cooled the air and skimmed over the dirt and bushes. Buffy looked around, but she didn't see any sign of the demon whose trail they were following or anything that would tell her which way to go next. She pictured the next baby on the demon menu, and she got anxious.
The area was blank. The wind passed over the dry dirt and the little trees without making much noise. Buffy walked around aimlessly for a bit dragging Harmony along and telling her to try to pick up the blood trail again.
Just then, Spike brushed past them and started to crawl in the dirt. At first Buffy thought it was more of his insanity, but then he stopped and reached his hand into an opening in the ground that Buffy hadn't seen. Buffy ran over and looked into a tunnel leading down.
Dawn gazed at the baby who gazed back, without any expression, but not in a bad way. More like a nice, clean notebook at the start of school. The child's eyes were big and open on his smooth face with its tiny nose and mouth. They were calm and clear, and Dawn thought that no matter how long she looked she would never see anything bad in them. It was weird to think that everyone started out like that - little, soft, helpless, bundles of baby innocence. Except those who started out as big, glowing, bundles of world endangering energy.
Dawn knew all about putting the world in danger. Hey, it could happen to anyone. Willow went off the deep end. Fine. The killing of Warren didn't phase Dawn either. People like him and like those who wanted to hurt the tiny baby she was holding deserved whatever pissed off witches could dish out. But she didn't know why Willow had turned on her friends. Maybe there was something in it she didn't get yet. Something about losing a lover. And not understanding Willow didn't make her feel safer around her.
Maybe Xander could tell her about the difference. But she didn't want to ask. Willow's pain was just different. Dawn couldn't touch it, not with her pain, not with anything. There was a gulf between her and Willow now. It made her miss Tara even more.
"Tara was solid," Dawn told Xander.
"Like a rock." Xander agreed automatically.
"Like you," Dawn said and Xander took his eyes off the road for a second to turn his head and look at her.
Everyone else had this weirdness, like they were not just one person. Willow and a super powerful, black eyed witch. Buffy the sister and Buffy the Slayer. Tara was just Tara and she wasn't going to turn into this other thing. Everyone needs people who are just one thing. Like Mom.
Dawn missed Anya too. Even if she had turned back into her other self. But she didn't say anything about that to Xander. She didn't want it to sound like blame. The two of them - another thing that wouldn't stay solid. Dawn didn't like the way her world was shrinking. It was because her world was so small that people were falling off. One day it would be just her, a sheep, a rose, and a tree.
Xander let her be thoughtful for a while before he turned on the radio and started singing along, making up the lyrics he didn't know. Dawn rolled her eyes and told the baby not to listen as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.
Finally, it had arrived carried by that filthy, damaged thing. The demons gathered around and examined the human child. It looked healthy and as ugly as all the others, nothing like their own offspring. It made the usual noise as they prodded it. So did the demon that brought it. He complained of his wounds and asked for more jewels. They could all smell the blood drying on him. His noise and his stench disrupted their sacred cave. They all drew closer around him.
The scaly demon became more agitated as he sensed the change around him. He clutched the few inferior stones that were his payment. They were the stones not good enough for the offering. He asked for more. But the human child he had obtained was already in their hands. His demands were ignored and he was surrounded. He tried to convince them of his value. It was no use. They could smell his blood, his pain and weakness. The scales that hadn't been ripped off his body trembled in warning.
to be continued