Chapter 4
The Magic Box - Sunnydale, California - February 10th, 2001
"Buffy, you're dropping your shoulder again." Giles chided as he stood across the room from the Slayer. Raising her shoulder back into position Buffy continued with her katas as her newly re-appointed Watcher looked on. Happy as she was that he had been re-instated by the Council after their impromptu visit, she wished that Giles would take his role a little less seriously at times. Buffy sighed. She knew that she was distracted and though she tried to clear her mind and focus on her exercises her thoughts wandered, inevitably, back to Xander.
He had been gone for a little over a year and a half now and she hadn't heard from him in six months; no one had. It was as if he had dropped off the face of the Earth. Buffy was worried about him. He was out there on his own, doing Heaven knows what, but being Xander, it probably meant he was putting himself in some kind of danger. Granted it would be so he could help someone else, or do the right thing, because that was just the sort of man Xander Harris was. Buffy could admit this to herself now, but it had taken time.
She had done a lot of thinking since Xander had left and most of it centred around her life and his role in it. Xander had always been there for her, even in her darkest times. He had come to save her from her death at the hands of the Master. Yes, she knew that he had been the only one, herself included, who thought that she could be saved at all. Angel had told her once about how Xander had come to his apartment and forced him to lead the way down to the Master's lair. How it had been Xander who had never given up on her even when it appeared that she was gone. He had breathed his own life into her and brought her back.
Then when Angel lost his soul, it was Xander who told her what needed to be done and at first she wouldn't listen. He was insistent to the last, telling her to "Kick his ass," as he arrived on the scene to be the one man, scarred guy with a rock, cavalry. She had found out about that as well. Willow had confided in her later about sending Xander to inform her about the spell. Buffy knew that he had lied to her… and she knew why. Once again he was there for her. He didn't care one way, or the other what happened to Angel, or Angelus - but he cared about what happened to her. She knew that he feared she wouldn't have fought half as hard if she had known that Angel might have been returned to her. He was right. This last piece of self introspection had taken a long time to come to, but in the end she saw that he had been right. She wouldn't have fought her hardest; her feelings for Angel would have clouded her judgment and she very well might have died and the world would have died along with her. She knew that Xander did what he did for her and the world, but foremost for her. She sighed and wondered if he did that sort of thing for others now. Of course he would, it was in his nature. But a part of her couldn't help but be a little sad that he wasn't doing it for her anymore.
As the Slayer progressed into her last set of movements she tried to shake off the melancholy that always seemed to accompany thoughts of her wayward friend. Unfortunately that only gave way to thoughts of what things had been like without him. College had been a trying experience, but she had risen to the challenge and after a rough start she had managed to balance her Slaying, her school and even a little bit of a personal life. There had been Riley and for a time things were good, not peaceful, but good. She had Riley, Willow had lost Oz, but found Tara and Giles, was being Giles. The Initiative and ADAM had been hurdles to climb, but they had persevered in the end and things were good.
Then Dracula had come and Riley's doubts began to surface. Their relationship strained and in the end he left, because she had nothing left to give. She had been too busy giving it all to her mother… and Dawn. A little sister she never had, but that she remembered having for almost her entire life. A false set of memories given to her and those around her by a mystical order of monks in order to safeguard an ancient power known only as, The Key. An ancient power they had managed to turn into a human form. A little girl. A sister. Something that the Slayer would protect with her very life. Buffy barely had enough time to react to the joy of her mother's recovery and the sorrow of Riley's departure when Glory arrived. A being of unknown power, and terrible fashion sense, whose only purpose seemed to be finding The Key. Then the truth about Dawn was discovered not only by Buffy and the others, but by Dawn herself. Then the final bombshell was dropped, by none other than the infamous Council of Watcher's themselves: Glory was a God. Unstoppable, unkillable and….. some other "un" word that she couldn't think of, but was sure existed, because things like that always came in threes.
Her actions began to speed up as she let her emotions take over. The slow, measured movements were being replaced with hard, sharp kicks and punches. Her teeth clenched as her memories came unbidden now.
Through everything that had happened to all of them, any of them, there had been Spike. William the Bloody, once of the Scourges of Europe, now nothing more than a neutered dog thanks to a government behaviour modification chip implanted in his head that stopped him from harming anything human. At first he was harmless, but annoying. Then when he found out he could hurt demons he was helpful, but still annoying. Then he tried to help ADAM and he became annoying, but still capable of evil. After that he went into hiding for a while, periodically emerging to scavenge in the town dump. Then he started coming around again, once he was sure no one was going to stake him, or set him on fire, but he seemed to have an ulterior motive. Then she found out. He was in love with her! Or so he claimed when she confronted him about his odd behaviour. It was sick and twisted and she couldn't believe that it was true. Of course it was too horrifying and utterly Hellmouthy (to use a term Xander had coined) to be anything but.
The pent up frustration was too much and Buffy moved seamlessly and dangerously from her katas to a series of deadly martial arts combinations, culminating with a final vicious attack that left the training dummy decapitated and quadriplegic. Her breathing was heavy and ragged as her body shook with exertion; her eyes cold and hard as they looked down at the wreckage on the floor. Where Giles saw a pile of broken wood, straw and sawdust, Buffy saw the beaten and bloody corpse of a bleach blonde vampire. "Well I'd say that was quite enough training for today." Giles said uncrossing his arms and walking over to her. "Though it does look like we've gone through yet another dummy." Then without thinking he continued, "I do wish Xander were here. He always did seem good with his hands and I'd wager he could build a training apparatus that could survive even one of your unprovoked attacks." With that, Buffy burst into tears and fell to her knees. Giles immediately rushed over and took her in his arms, realizing his poor choice of sentiments. It seemed that no one had weathered the absence of Alexander Harris without their own traumas.
Buffy, it seemed, had taken his leaving hardest of all, although each of the Scoobies was affected in their own way. Willow had been crushed when he left, but with Oz by her side she managed to get by. When Oz left as well however, the young witch had sunk into a depression that no one had been able to get her out of. She spent hours alone and in her fragile state of mind Giles had been worried that she might do something very foolish and possibly dangerous to herself or someone else. That was when the group suggested that she join a local Wiccan group to try and hone her powers, rather than let them be governed by her erratic emotions. Although the group turned out to be nothing more than college girls who wanted to get in touch with Mother Nature and hold bake sales, there was an upside in the form of a shy, but powerful witch named Tara. Giles shook his head as he led Buffy back into the main room of the Magic Box, marveling at how one life could seemingly affect so many others.
Willow and Tara looked up as the pair walked behind the counter and into Giles' office. The redhead could see that Buffy had been crying again. She called out, "Is everything okay?" A moment later Giles stuck his head out the door.
"Everything is, is fine, Willow. I wasn't thinking and, uh, mentioned something about Xander." Willow nodded in understanding and turned back to her book as Giles retreated into the back.
For the next several minutes Willow tried to read the page in front of her, but her mind wandered and whenever she tried to continue she found herself reading the same sentence over and over again. With a sigh she gave up and put her head down on the table. Tara noticed the gesture, but did nothing; knowing that Willow needed to work whatever it was out on her own. Although the statuesque blonde had a pretty good idea what it was her girlfriend was dealing with and she would not have been surprised to find out she was, in fact, correct.
Willow closed her eyes and tried once more to clear her mind. It had been hard, very hard, when Xander had left. They had been practically inseparable since they were five years old and to suddenly not have him in her life had been a huge blow. Not just to her, she knew, but to all of them. At least she had Tara to help her. She'd been a real wreck after Oz left and meeting Tara had been like a lone ray of sunshine penetrating her otherwise pitch black world. Slowly, with her girlfriend's help, she was almost back to being the old Willow, with a few improvements. Giles and Buffy however didn't really have anyone to help them. They all had each other that was true and Buffy had her mom and Dawn, but the last two Scoobies were very personal people and always played their emotions very close to the vest. Especially Buffy in this particular instance; Giles was a little easier to read.
Although he would never say it out loud, Willow knew that he thought of them all as his surrogate children and when Xander left it was like Giles had lost his only real son. He never said anything about it, but the redheaded witch would sometimes catch him glancing at the phone, or compulsively checking the mail and she knew that he was waiting for some sign that Xander was alright. Also Giles tended to sing Xander's praises (generally when Buffy wasn't around) in a way he had never done when the young man was around. It was as if doing so was a way of keeping him alive in the older man's heart. The girls had tried to spend more time with the Watcher in the hopes that they could, in some small way, make up for Xander's absence. But as they all learned, that was not something that could be accomplished.
Tara sat very quietly and watched everything that had just happened with a kind of awkward detachment. Even though she and Willow had been seeing each other for a year now and she had been involved with lots of the "Scooby-stuff" as it was called; she still felt very much like an outsider. Not with Willow of course, or more accurately not with Willow when they were alone together. Then they were just girlfriend and girlfriend and there was no one else. Whenever they got together with Buffy and Giles it felt to Tara like the specter of Xander was always there; not literally of course, he wasn't dead, but sometimes she felt like it might have been better for the group if he had died. Then at least they could have some kind of closure. Being the odd one out, the new one in the group she could see things that the others could not. They had all been around each other for so long that they had become trapped in the way they saw each other. She saw that Giles was having a hard time with Xander's absence and Willow told her that he saw them all as his children, but what Willow didn't see was the lengths that Giles had gone to, to try and find Xander. That spoke volumes more to Tara than his kind words ever had.
As for Willow herself, she admitted to missing her lifelong friend, but said that she was so busy now with her witchcraft and with Tara that it wasn't as terrible as it had been in the beginning. The blonde knew that Willow was lying to her and to herself as well. She had never met Willow when Xander was there, but even so she could tell that a part of Willow was missing. At first she thought that it had been a hole where the Xander part of her life had been, but over time she began to see the truth of it. The part that was missing was the part of Willow that Xander carried with him; when they were together they were whole, when they were apart they weren't. Every so often Tara even got a glimpse of the part of Xander that Willow carried and it made her smile to know that her baby had such a devoted and true friend. She smiled to herself as she looked towards the office and then she sighed.
Only she knew about Buffy. Tara wasn't even sure that Buffy herself knew the way that she felt, or why she was so miserable all the time and could cry at almost the drop of a hat. The Slayer just attributed it to stress, what with Spike's obsession, dealing with the constant threat of Glory and trying to keep Dawn safe at all costs and those certainly were legitimate causes of stress that might make anyone break down and cry, but Tara knew that Buffy was different. Not because she was the Slayer, but because of the kind of person she was. She had been up against challenges before and never reacted this way, but then again she had always had all of her friends beside her. She had always had Xander. And there, as Shakespeare would say, was the rub. Over time Tara had heard all the stories of Buffy's previous years in Sunnydale either from the Slayer herself, or Willow, or Giles and once, rather begrudgingly, from Spike. She knew all the things that Xander had done, first to impress Buffy and then later just to make sure that one of his friends was safe and unhurt. It was this young man's devotion to his friends that made her really wish that she had gotten the chance to know him. In that respect he seemed like a very singular individual and in a little bit of a selfish way she wished that she could have had a friend like him.
Tara felt that she could have identified with Xander more than anyone else in the group, from what little Willow had shared with her about Xander's childhood and more importantly what she had left out, the Wiccan felt that they had quite a lot in common. She knew what it felt like to constantly doubt yourself, to have to prove yourself time and time again and most importantly she knew what it was like to have strong feelings for someone and not have them returned at all. But she also knew what it was like realize that she had been suppressing not so friendly feelings for someone close to her; she hadn't always been a lesbian and her coming out was not terribly well received by the object of her affections. That was why she knew what Buffy was going through, even if she didn't realize it herself, yet. Tara was convinced that if Xander had stayed in Sunnydale eventually he and Buffy would have gotten together, and it would have been the best thing for both of them.
The door to the office shot open, nearly flying off its hinges and slammed into the wall so hard that the rafters rattled slightly causing a fine mist of dust to fall across the counter. "I'm fine Giles!" Buffy huffed as she stormed out. The Englishman followed at a safe distance with a concerned look on his face.
"Buffy, I just think that perhaps you should take the night off. Stay at home with Dawn and your mother-" there he was cut off.
"I'm the Slayer, Giles. You've told me enough times yourself, 'lives depend on me'. So I'm going on patrol and that's final." Had anyone been walking by the Magic Box at that moment they would have been a small blonde blur go racing out the front door in the direction of the nearest cemetery.
As the door closed and bell ceased jingling Giles leaned against the counter and began rubbing his forehead. "We're all worried about her, Giles." Willow said, startling him. He looked up at the girls and Tara nodded her agreement as well. They had all seen the way Buffy had been for the last few weeks as the tensions mounted. She had become more erratic, more unpredictable; her actions more rash and even dangerous at times.
"Yes, well she has been acting rather more emotional lately."
"That's kind of an understatement." Willow corrected.
"Indeed." murmured Giles as he drew up a chair at the table. The three of them sat in silence wondering what, if anything, they could do and what might happen in the meantime.
Twilight faded into darkness as Buffy made her way into the cemetery. Her eyes had a vicious almost predatory look to them as she scanned the area. She wasn't just on patrol tonight. She was hunting. She need to hurt something; to kill something. It was all just too much for her and this was her only outlet. She could feel herself becoming more and more closed off to her friends and her family. She didn't want to shut them out, but she was afraid she might lash out at them and hurt them. Already she had exploded at Giles when the only thing he did was try and help her. They were all just trying to help her, each in their own way. But they couldn't help her, as always the burden was hers and hers alone to carry, only this time she was scared that she might be crushed by the weight of it. That thought stopped her in mid-stride and she crumpled to the ground next to a gravestone like lifeless wind-up doll. It was all just too much and she was so tired. She struggled to keep back the tears, but despite her best efforts a few stray droplets managed to escape and trickle down her cheeks.
She had to stop this. She was the Slayer. She was tough, she was strong and she could handle anything. But she was also Buffy. She was a young woman who had been under an enormous amount of strain for years now, even more so for the last few months. She had fears and emotions that could run wild at times. She had almost convinced herself that she couldn't afford to be both anymore; that she had to be the Slayer full time and being Buffy had to be put on the back burner. But she worried what would happen to her if she allowed that to happen. Would she lose her humanity? Would she become some battle-hardened General who barked orders and didn't care about what she did to others, or if she sent them to their deaths? She didn't want to be that person. She couldn't be. She didn't have it in her to be that way. But a part of her knew that she did and that frightened her.
She hugged her arms around her knees and sat there rocking gently back and forth. This is how it had been for her lately. One minute she was full of rage, an unstoppable anger that could only be sated by killing as many vampires and demons as possible. The next she could barely hold herself together and the despair and tears overwhelmed her to the point where she could hardly function. Then when she was at her lowest, no matter where she was, no matter what she was doing –
"Hello Slayer." Spike. The small blonde bolted to her feet at the sound of the vampire's voice. She really was becoming a wreck, she should have heard him coming a mile away. Spike was not exactly quiet these days. She swiped at her face with the sleeve of her sweater and then turned to face her stalker.
"What do you want, Spike?" she asked him, her voice cold. He gazed at her with a look of surprise on his face.
"I just wanted to make sure that you were alright." he said. "You looked like you might be having a spot of trouble and I wanted to see if I could help."
"You mean you wanted to see if you could exploit it, you mean." she shot back as the anger she had felt earlier returned.
"There you go again, shooting the messenger, so to speak. Been doing that a lot lately haven't you? Wonder how that Watcher of yours puts up with it all." With the mention of Giles, Buffy had had enough and with lightning speed she had her stake out and pressed up against the vampire's chest in a matter of seconds. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, "Let's not be hasty now."
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you into dust." she growled, her voice uncharacteristically low.
"Because," he stated matter-of-factly "that wouldn't solve your problem."
"Sure it would, you'd be dead and you wouldn't be here to piss me off." She increased her pressure on the stake as she spoke.
"See the problem with that is: I'm already dead, luv and even if you did dispatch me from the here and now you'd still be a right sodding, angry mess. Swinging at anything you can get your hands on until you can't even see straight anymore and that's when one of those things is gonna kill you." Spike finished and stared down at her defiantly. Buffy relaxed her grip on the stake and shoved him away from her.
"Go home, Spike." She turned and started to walk away, "You don't know what you're talking about." After a few yards his voice spoke from behind her.
"Actually, I'm uniquely qualified on the subject of suicidal Slayers." She whirled around to face him with fire in her eyes.
"I am NOT suicidal. I do not have a death wish. We've already had this conversation once before, Spike and you were full of it then too."
"Maybe not, but you're falling into the same trap they did." Buffy continued to glare at him. "Obviously you don't believe me so let's take a look at something a little more current. That Slayer that got called after the Master killed you."
"What does Kendra have to do with anything?" she all but screamed at him.
"Everything." Spike paused and leaned up against a tombstone. "She had one thing in common with all the other Slayers I've seen; one very strong thing. It was the one thing that I didn't see in you when we first met. I assumed you were like all the rest so I rushed in and it cost me, dearly." Buffy began to drum her fingers against her leg impatiently.
"Get to the point, Spike. Or I'll do it for you." She threatened, brandishing her stake towards him.
"They didn't care if they died." he stated simply. "They fought hard, with everything they had until it was all they had. Nothing left in the end but anger and pain and fighting and killing trying to make it stop. They were Slayers. Nothing else." Buffy opened her mouth to… to… contradict him, scream at him again, she didn't know, but before she could a memory flashed before her.
She and Kendra sitting in Giles office checking their weapons as they planned what to do next. The turmoil of Spike and Drusilla looming over them.
"Your life is very different dan mine."
"You mean the part where I occasionally have one? Yeah, I guess it is."
"De tings you do and have, I was taught, distract from my calling. Friends, school... even family."
In that one moment everything became clear for her. The anger in her died away and she became very still and quiet. She turned and walked away not looking back even when Spike called out to her. She was lost in her own thoughts. She was pushing everyone away, trying to handle it all on her own. Her friends, her family how long would they be able to cope with her like that before they couldn't anymore? What if she focused herself so intently, fought so hard, so viciously that she forgot why she was fighting? Forgot about Giles and Willow? Forgot about her mother and even her absentee father? Forgot about Dawn?
In that moment as she walked out of the cemetery she vowed never to forget, but even then she felt as if she might have lost her Heart. One last lone tear dropped from her lashes and fell to the grass below and her thoughts once more, unbidden, drifted to her absent friend Xander.
Chapter 5
Cheyenne Mountain Complex - Colorado - February 15th, 2001
"No, that's what you're not getting, Major. I bet science can go a long way to helping us understand just about anything in the world, but unless you can get your head around magic no amount of science is going to explain any of this stuff." Xander tried hopelessly to clarify. He stopped suddenly as Carter sidestepped and turned to face him effectively blocking his route down the corridor. Xander sighed in frustration and braced himself for the oncoming barrage. This is what he got for setting foot outside his office.
It had all been very simple. Several months ago on a standard reconnaissance mission SG-2 had turned up ruins of a temple that once belonged to the worshipers of Ra. SG-1 was sent to investigate since Colonel O'Neill and Daniel were the only members of the SGC who had any previous dealings with Ra at all. Upon arrival it was clear that the planet, like the temple, had been abandoned long ago and after finding nothing else of interest the mission focused solely on the ruins. They brought back at least a dozen stone tablets as well as video of all the writings on the temple walls and even a few ancient scrolls that were sealed in a tomb along with some trinkets. Since then, whenever they weren't offworld, Daniel and Xander spent their time studying and translating whatever they could. As of yet nothing overly significant had turned up. When Carter had caught up with him Xander had been on his way to see Daniel for some help with a translation he was doing on one of the tablets. His Goa'uld was still a little rusty. First though he had to try and explain everything to Carter for the umpteenth time. For an astrophysicist she was a little slow on the uptake.
"Okay let's start off easy," Xander said as they continued walking. "Nirrti didn't breed the vampires. A vampire cannot give birth to a child, for all intents and purposes they become sterile, or infertile once they're turned and their body dies. What she was doing was breeding humans to try and strengthen certain genetic traits and then having them turned by vampires she kept for just that purpose. With me so far?" Carter nodded and Xander went on. "So on to Vampires 101, again. The only way to be turned is for a vampire to drink someone's blood and then get them to drink some of their blood." Sensing Carter was about to ask a question he held up his hand in protest. "I don't know what it is about that particular sequence of events that causes a person to become a vampire so stop asking. If I come across an explanation I'll let you know.
"What I do know is that once the person is turned, or sired whichever term you prefer, their body dies and their soul is released. During the day or so in-between when the body dies and the vampire rises a demon takes up residence, or that is what I've been led to believe. It may be the case that the demon is just a personality without a soul, or conscience, I don't have enough information to make a call on that one yet." Xander sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Now he was about to get into the almost wholly theoretical part of the explanation and this was just about where he lost Sam every time.
"We don't know why a vampire comes back to life. It could be the power of the demon, which makes it purely mystical, or it could be something in the blood of the vampire that sired it that makes its way through the bloodstream and affects the body on a biological level. In that case it would be strictly scientific. In my opinion the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. A little of both." Carter couldn't remain silent any longer and spoke up.
"But a Goa'uld symbiote requires a living host in order to survive. We've seen proof that once the host dies the symbiote dies with it and vice-versa. So therefore the reality of the Goa'uld vampire is impossible." Xander grinned and his eyes twinkled for a moment.
"What's the golden rule?" he asked.
"Where magic's involved, nothing is impossible." Carter answered dutifully if not a bit annoyed.
"Exactly. But you are partially right. A symbiote can't be placed inside a vampire, because the body is already dead and it won't support it. However if a host with a Goa'uld already inside it is turned by a vampire, whatever it is that brings a vampire back in the first place and continues to keep it alive, for lack of a better word, also does the same for the symbiote." He could see that Carter was having a hard time accepting that explanation again so he took the opportunity of her momentary confusion to slip into Daniel's office.
Daniel looked up as Xander crept in and then peeked around the door before turning fully into the room. "Sam waylay you in the hall again?" he asked.
"Yep." Xander confirmed as he strolled over and set a stack of papers down in front of the archeologist. "I came by 'cause I need some help with a translation." Daniel adjusted his glasses and settled in to read the portion of the top page Xander was indicating. "The last tablet we brought back from P2X-909 talks about Ra and his time here on Earth, but before he came to Abydos. Then it deals with his arrival on 909 and another lesser god who had been watching over the planet in his absence. I assume that means a lesser Goa'uld who served Ra. Apparently there was some kind of dispute and… what's this word here?"
"Banished." Daniel supplied. Xander snapped his fingers.
"Of course. Ra banished the other Goa'uld for their insolence. What I can't seem to figure out is where they were banished to, or what the name of the Goa'uld was." Daniel studied the writings for several minutes then got up and went over to his bookcase.
"This sounds familiar. There might have been reference to it in one of the tablets I translated earlier…" he trailed off as he pulled a notebook from the shelf and began to flip through it quickly. He sat back down and bent down so close to the page that Xander was sure his nose must have been touching it. He read quickly, turning pages as he went and finally just as Xander was ready to leave to get something to eat from the mess Daniel's head shot up. "I've got it!" he exclaimed. "The Goa'uld's name was Sekhmet. Now in Egyptian mythology Sekhmet was the daughter of Ra and the goddess of war and vengeance. It seems that in Ra's absence she tried to poison the minds of his followers on 909 against him. When he returned he was furious and he had her banished to…. uh…. the closest translation is 'the world where the veils are parted' and then…. something about 'infernus'?" Xander shot to his feet and grabbed his papers from the desk.
"Call the Colonel and General Hammond. We need to have a briefing now."
"What? Why?"
"I'll explain when I get there. I have to pick up some things from my office." Xander said as he dashed out the door leaving a stunned Daniel in his wake.
Everyone was seated around the conference table as Xander entered the briefing room, his arms laden with books and papers. "What exactly is the meaning of all this, Lieutenant Harris?" General Hammond asked.
"I'm sure the kid has a good reason, General, or else he wouldn't have got Daniel to call us all down here." O'Neill said.
"I do." said Xander, out of breath. "There's a Goa'uld here on Earth." The entire room went silent.
"Are you certain, Xander Harris?" Teal'c asked.
"Positive."
"Well how did this happen? We haven't seen any signs of any Goa'uld ships and it couldn't have come through the Stargate." Hammond exclaimed.
"We wouldn't have, Sir. This Goa'uld has been here for centuries. She was banished here and has had no way of getting off the planet."
"Sekhmet?" asked Daniel.
"Yes. I found references in my books to a place where the veil between this world and the next is allowed to open. That was what Daniel translated from the tablet about where this Goa'uld was sent and when he translated one word as infernus it all clicked. The tablet was talking about the planet that had a doorway to another dimension. Infernus – inferno – Hell. The Hellmouth. The planet was Earth."
"Wait," interrupted Carter, "why would Ra send anyone here? Especially another Goa'uld?"
"Well the Stargate would have been buried by then." Daniel surmised. "And since Sekhmet was the daughter of Ra he knew they would not worship her after revolting against him. So there was no way off the planet and no way for her to turn the population to her favour."
"Okay, so we know that it was sent here. What makes you think it's not dead?" O'Neill posed.
"Because around the time that Sekhmet was banished a minor cult here on Earth began to grow in membership. It was an aberrant group that worshipped a demon-goddess named Glorificus. The cult still exists today, although many of its followers were wiped out in a massive demonic war about a thousand years ago."
"And you believe that this Glorificus they worship is the Goa'uld Sekhmet?"
"I'm certain of it, General." The room was quiet again and Xander took a seat next to Daniel. Finally Jack broke the silence.
"We have to do something, General."
"I agree, Colonel, but what? We can't exactly just start randomly searching the planet for this thing." The General turned to Xander, "Do you have any more materials that would be of any help, Lieutenant?" All eyes in the room turned to Xander and for a moment he was lost in thought.
"I don't have anything more here that could help us narrow the search, Sir. But I know someone who can help and who probably has the relevant volumes I'd need to check." Hammond stood up, Jack, Sam and Xander followed suit.
"Very well. SG-1 you have a go. Consider this a recon mission. A plane will be prepped and ready to depart from Andrews in one hour." Hammond turned to Xander. "Where exactly will you be going?"
"Home."
