Cordelia frowned as she stared at the promotional picture for the episode. Seeing Jason, even if only a picture, hurt, but there was something else, a nagging feeling as if there was something important that she was forgetting. The Princess and her Handmaiden, both in their flowing white gowns… It was almost like they were ready to be married, or sacrificed.
Everything went cold for a moment. She could almost hear screams echoing in her ears, the thud of bodies falling against a floor. There was no sense of where, or when, only an impression of cold, of harsh, unnatural lighting, and death.
The picture fluttered to the floor, and Cordelia staggered backwards, looking frantically for something, anything to distract herself. There was a picture of the Scoobies, after Graduation. They were still in those horrible maroon robes… Danger was in Sunnydale. Evil was preparing to attack Buffy…
Cordelia frowned, touching her temple. When wasn't some sort of evil danger in Sunnydale, preparing to go after Buffy? Something in her stomach tensed, needing to send a warning, wanting to shout into the night that there was danger, to be careful. But she had nothing specific. Just a feeling of something evil, and cold, and stalking Buffy… no, not just Buffy. Other girls, ones that she didn't know, had never seen before.
Leaving the room, she shouted, "Wesley! I need to talk to you."
She found him near a computer, making a few notes on a printout. He looked up, his eyes shadowed. "What's wrong? Did you experience another vision?"
"Yes. Maybe." Cordelia shook her head, and took a breath. "I had a feeling, not as detailed or specific as I'm used to. Something evil and dangerous, focused on Sunnydale. It's got a big problem with Buffy, only there were these flickers of other girls, nobody that I've ever seen before."
"Were they also blond girls?" Wesley asked, pulling out another paper and jotting down a few things. "Perhaps they dressed similarly to Miss Summers?"
"No, most of them were a lot less fashionable. They looked like they were dressed for a karate lesson, or a fight. Different hair, both color and style, not all of them were white. Most of them were younger than Buffy, but… Some of the flickers had people with them. Adults, and one had this nasty scar down his face, shaped like a lightning bolt." Cordelia sighed, and grumbled, "I couldn't even get a feeling of where they were, no references, just a feeling like I was cold, and the big evil whats-it is after them all."
"Hmmm…" Wesley closed his eyes, tapping his pen against the paper.
"I know, that's not very helpful. I don't even know if it's real, there wasn't any headache, no specifics… What if it's just paranoia?" Cordelia wrapped her arms around herself, unhappy and still feeling distinctly cold.
"It's not paranoia if there really is some evil brewing in Sunnydale, which there always is," Wesley mused. "A lightning bolt… The left side of his face? Pale hair, brown eyes?"
"Yes. I'd offer to draw a picture, but I'm not that good of an artist," Cordelia paused, considering the troubled expression and the way that Wesley had known what color the man's eyes and hair were. "He's real? Someone that you know?"
"He's a Watcher, a few years older than me. His sister was a Slayer, and I think he was sent to Australia. I think if I sent him a message, he won't laugh, even if it is rather short on details," Wesley offered. "Is there anything else bothering you, any other visions or forebodings?"
"Evil in Sunnydale," Cordelia commented, "Not that anybody's surprised. And I'm still so angry about Jason. I can't even look at the promo shots for the episode without going cold."
"If he can't deal with the darkness in your life, then he's not worthy of you," Wesley offered. "I'll pass on those warnings, to Mr. Giles as well. There might not be enough to look up the specifics, but if he knows, then he can be more watchful in case of clues."
"I guess we can't do much more than that unless I get something more specific," Cordelia agreed, pausing to see if she'd be struck by a sudden, full-sense, agonizing vision. It had happened that way in the past, after all. No sparks of pain and visions of people suffering or dying, no images of dire threats. "I'm just going to try to move on from Jason. Maybe I can go to Lorne's place and do some karaoke."
It was impossible to miss the way that Wesley cringed. To give him credit, he didn't say anything to insult her admittedly non-stellar singing. Instead, he gave a small nod, murmuring, "It never helps to seclude yourself and cry."
"I'm not that bad!" Cordelia insisted, glaring at him.
Standing up from the computer, Wesley started towards the kitchen, probably seeking another cup of tea. "Whoever said that I meant you?"
"Right, name three ex-girlfriends that you've had," Cordelia insisted, even as part of her felt bad for taking out her pain on Wesley.
"You. Karen at the natural food market. Virginia Bryce, whom I'm sure you remember. A quiet young woman named Audrey who works as a dental assistant. Natasha at a small bookstore back in England. Shall I go on?" Wesley scowled at her, before turning away. "It isn't that I haven't tried dating, it just never works out."
Cordelia blinked, feeling stunned that Wesley had named so many women, stunned that he'd found time to try dating, even if his luck had been as miserable as her own. "Sorry. I guess that I should have known I'm not the only one's had dating problems."
"Well, I can't be certain about Gunn…" Wesley offered a hesitant smile, "but the rest of us have had our fair share of disasters."
Cordelia lingered in the kitchen, trying to tell herself that she was only looking for some chocolate. That she wasn't really so miserable about Jason dumping her. A tiny whisper that she didn't want to think about wondered why her reaction to the picture was so different – every other time she'd been confronted with a picture of an ex-boyfriend, the result was either pain, or hot anger. Never a feeling of cold foreboding. It had to be because this might affect her career, didn't it? Didn't it?
End part 64.
Willow tried to ignore the slight guilt about the fact that instead of looking through one of the stack of books on Egyptian embalmment and magic, she was on the computer. Some of her online contacts had been able to come up with useful things before. She'd even found someone who'd offered to try to give a better translation of the original curse than a computer decryption program, because a person who knew the language would have a better understanding of context and idiom than a computer could. Of course, she hadn't actually said what the 'bit of something written in Romany' actually was, she didn't know if this particular contact even believed in vampires.
She had an email from one of her South American contacts, who had mentioned a seer in the jungle. Apparently, the woman was a bit eccentric, but had true visions of the past and the future. The Mulher da Sombra had said something about the stars, and a woman in them talking to her. She'd also had what he'd called a vision fit, screaming something over and over, clawing at her eyes. She'd cried out, 'Abaixo de você ele consome', over and over. It was baffling, because the two fragments didn't fit together – the stars were above, and what she'd shouted mentioned something from below, and eating.
She also had an email from Faith. They weren't the best of friends, but Faith sent her the occasional email, claiming that she didn't have a lot to occupy herself with while in prison. Opening it up, she snickered to read that Faith had caught the Mirabanna episode of Galaxy Quest on the television the other day, and had said that it made her think of Sunnydale. She also was fairly certain that one of the prison guards was part Caudate demon, though so far the woman didn't seem to be evil enough to break out and Slay. Willow typed up a reply to Faith's email, mentioning the recently completed episode with Mirabanna, and a few other minor things, as well as reassuring her that everybody was okay. After a long hesitation, she ended with a single question – have you had any particularly disturbing dreams lately?
Of course, Faith's dreams were probably about her past, the things that she'd seen and done. Very earth-bound things, even if they were horrible and terrifying. Maybe she should call that 'Earth-bound', things that were from this world, not the worlds and territories of the Thermians… though she really did need to work some more on that instructional book for them. Willow was much more comfortable with vampire and demon problems than alien conquerors.
Pushing the thoughts of Thermians working magic, and if they'd come up with rituals involving the precise motions of several tentacles at once or stick to human-shape spell casting, Willow picked up her notes on the Egyptian rituals. What they needed to find was a way to independently bind Angel's soul, one that didn't depend on his happiness or lack thereof. Something that was only dependent on him not being a pile of ashes and dust.
Picking up the stack of pictures that one of the Watchers at the British Museum sent over, she started to look at the careful sequence of images taken from the tomb of a Priest of Osirus. They appeared to show the embalmment process… A ritual there, just before the removal of the internal organs, speaking of marking the body for the ka. Eagerly, she looked ahead, wincing slightly at the depictions of the bodily organs being removed. There, after the initial treatments of preserving herbs… another ritual, and the placement of what looked like a small, red scarab inside the chest cavity. Was that a symbolic image, or part of an actual ritual? Over there, another picture showed two priests chanting or praying over a red scarab, clearly it was something important.
Her hands were shaking as she searched for the pages with the x-rays and photographs of the actual mummies. If the bodies had something in the chest cavities, if the red things were left inside as part of the ritual, then maybe… Maybe she was leaping to an unsupported conclusion. She didn't know, but the writing on the wall said the red scaraby thing was important. An X-ray of a prince, the younger brother of some pharaoh or other. He'd been buried with rings on his fingers, golden chains around his neck, and something about the size of a man's palm stuck in his chest. The side-shot suggested that it was flattish.
Willow grinned, tasting glee. All they had to do now was translate the pages of hieroglyphics that described the chanting over the red scarab stone, and talk Angel into letting them stick a rock into his chest, and they'd be set No more Angelus.
As she considered that, she found herself smiling. Angel knew that she'd restored his soul, which meant that Angelus also knew, or would know – she was a bit fuzzy on how much their knowledge overlapped. But she was fairly certain that it meant that if Angelus returned, one of his top priorities would be killing her so that she couldn't return his hated soul again.
"You seem to be in a good mood, for someone surrounded by old books and a beeping computer," Angel's voice carried across the room.
Looking up, Willow gave a small smile, noting that he held a mug that most likely wasn't coffee. Feeling impish, she called, "Angel, would you be willing to let us stick a rock in your chest?"
"Would I what?" Angel blinked, moving closer. "Why would you want to do something like that?"
"I found a ritual, sort of. Pictures of paintings on tomb walls of a ritual done during the embalmment, and as near as I can tell without being able to read all the hieroglyphs, it seems to be part of a ritual to bind the ka to the body. Do some chanting over the fresh body, before the ka could leave, more chanting over a special stone, put the stone in the body, and leave it there under all the wrappings. I know that we still need to translate everything, but…" Willow let the words trail off, confident that Angel would understand.
"Much more than a clue about souls and bodies," Angel murmured, sipping at his blood. "If it would keep me from becoming Angelus again, I'd let you put a rock in my chest. Several rocks. All sorts of things."
"I thought as much," Willow admitted. "Of course, I still want more than 'oh, look at the pictures of them sticking rocks in the mummies chests' before we try anything with you, and especially before you try anything with Gwen, but it's good to know that you'd still be okay with something like that."
"Honestly, the idea is a bit uncomfortable," Angel admitted. "But I think it's the same reasoning that prompted Cordelia to let a bunch of aliens perform brain surgery on her. She needed a solution, and they could give her one where nobody else could. I need a solution, and if it means sticking a piece of rock in my chest, I can do that. Umm… how big of a rock are we talking about?"
Willow grabbed the X-rays of the mummified prince, and showed them to Angel. "He's got a rock. The pictures on the tomb make me think it's carved into a scarab, and I don't know what type of stone it is, but that size. I think someone else would have to actually do the sticking it in part."
"That's not too bad. Better than a diet of rats for a decade or so." Angel considered the X-rays, and shook his head. "Considering how long he's been dead, he's in pretty good shape. A bit on the thin side, but I've talked to people who looked worse."
"I don't think he'll be talking to us, apart from the fact that he wouldn't speak any language we know, they pulled out a lot of his organs. That's an extreme weight loss program, and then it was followed by intense dehydration…" Willow took the X-rays back.
After four years, it felt good to think that they might have a permanent solution to Angelus within reach. Riding that feeling, Willow put down the photos and started to work a bit more on the how-to manual for magic that she'd promised the Thermians. For now, she just hoped that things would keep going so well.
End part 65.