Chapter Five

"You know where we're going?" Buffy prodded again to the shape of Spike, partially concealed by a blanket in the back seat of Xander's car.

"Yes, I bloody know," he snapped back. "And this is ridiculous. I feel like a sodding immigrant." He shifted under the thick blanket, protecting him from the setting sun as they drove towards Los Angeles.

"We should be there before morning," Giles interjected.

"Wonderful," Spike answered, flatly.

"Did you get a hold of Angel in L.A.?" Willow asked, crammed in the back seat between Giles and the window.

"All I got was his secretary. Apparently he's out," Buffy said, irritated. She then growled, "If she's fine when we find her, I'm going to kill her!" She paused, thoughtfully, "and if she's hurt, I'm going to kill her worse."

"The extremes we'll go to for the ones we love," Xander muttered as the car sped into the dwindling light.

Dawn came to in the utter blackness of the crypt basement. With a gasp for breath into her aching lungs and a whimper of distress feeling her new scorched sweater, she got to her feet.

Dizzy and disoriented, she made her way to a wall. Feeling her way along, she found the stairwell and started up. As the dim light of the evening filled her vision, she began to breathe normally again. Some of her questions were answered, but not the most important one. And now there was no oracle to answer it. Stupid lousy oracle, she thought, stepping out into the early night.

"Hey sweet stuff," crooned a voice from above her.

She started and looked up. The vampire from the club was crouching atop the crypt, one hand resting on the mourning statue.

"Feeling like another hit tonight?" He asked, still in human form, a smile on his face, a hungry look in his eyes. He glanced at her burned sweater. "Trouble with the oracle?"

"Leave me alone," she managed to say as she backed away from the entrance.

"Oh, I don't think I want to." His face took on the features of a vampire. "And I don't think you want me to either." He jumped down in front of her and she stumbled back, her heel catching on the root of the oak and causing her to tumble backwards.

He leaned down over her, his fangs punctuating his hungry grin. "Now why don't you and I stop playing this game. We both know you want more." He closed his eyes, inhaling her youthful, innocent scent.

Dawn felt a pang of desire for him. Her muscles quivered as she thought of the ecstacy of his teeth in her flesh, his tongue against her skin, her blood on his lips. She groaned, shaking the feeling away. She would not become a blood junkie. But in the presence of the vampire, the feeling soon returned.

"See? Now that we're on the same page..." he lifted her weak, trembling arm in his, slowly drawing back the sleeve of her sweater.

Again he closed his eyes, opening his mouth to taste her again, when Dawn's other hand flashed forward, driving her stake through the left side of his chest. His eyes shot open with a sound of surprise and he collapsed onto her, rolling away as she pushed him off in disgust. In a heartbeat, he disintegrated into dust, which served to further ruin her new sweater.

Dawn closed her eyes and laid back on the flagstones for a moment, breathing deeply, fighting off the nausea of having nearly gotten what her cold trembling flesh so wanted. She reached across with her right hand and closed her weary fingers around her still sore arm. She crushed the flesh in her tight fist until the nausea went away.

After a moment had passed, she was composed again and she stood. She needed to find another oracle. A better oracle. She needed a plane ticket. She trudged off into the darkening night.

A figure in a dark coat watched her go, stepping out from behind the oak tree. Cloaked in darkness, he followed her. He was keeping his eyes on the lighter grey of her sweater, her familiar scent strong in his vampire nostrils. He followed her until she reached her motel room. He rounded the corner of the building and stood, against the wall, waiting patiently.

A second man, wearing a white silk shirt approached, his breath a thin hiss of amusement. He stood next to the vampire for a moment, then spoke.

"I'm glad you see my side of things."

"It's not about sides," growled the vampire. "She has to figure it out for herself. She'll go crazy if she can't."

"She may die trying," silk shirt cautioned.

"Not if I can help it," vampire responded, angrily.

"You can't," was the answer. "But I can. She'll find her way to me eventually."

The vampire snarled and grabbed the man roughly by the collar. "If you so much as-" he began, threateningly.

"You'll what?" The man sounded amused. "Kill me?"

The vampire released him, roughly. "No. I'll make sure you wish you were never born."

The man smiled a sinister smile. "I already do. Every minute of every day." He started to walk away. "And so will she."

The mistakes that I've made, they don't seem to bother me,

And I sure as hell don't feel like I've missed any kind of train

If I could only show you how I feel, then you wouldn't bother me...

Dawn's hand came down hard on the clock radio off switch. No unusual sensations this morning, just exhaustion.

She showered and dressed in her third outfit she had bought two days ago. She looked with chagrin at the filthy, burned sweater as it lay draped over a chair. There was a faint bruise on her chest where the whatever it was had done whatever it did, but she felt no worse for wear.

She packed up the things she would want to take with her, leaving her sweater where it lay, and left, paying the front desk before she started walking.

In the midmorning light, she knew she needed to find another oracle, one which wouldn't crap out on her, and wouldn't draw unjustified conclusions. But she had no idea where to start looking. As she walked up the nearly deserted street, she passed people who didn't give her a second glance. She wandered up and down the avenues of down town Los Angeles, passing tall apartment complexes and office buildings. With every step, she criticized the sanity of what she was doing. Wandering the streets of a big city, no chaperone, looking for her soul. She came to a stop in front of a great cathedral. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. It was not particularly Romanesque, from what Dawn had studied in school, but it was impressive.

For reasons she could not fully identify, she started up one of the two vast stairs to the entrance. Once inside, she was very unsure of what she wanted to do there. There were a few people sitting among the pews, an old couple, a woman in a black blouse and a man with a white shirt. Forgetting herself, momentarily, she made reverence to the alter as a man in black with a white collar approached her.

"Can I be of assistance," he said in a hushed voice, adding to the still reverence which pervaded the place.

"I- I need something," she said without thinking, in a similarly hushed tone.

"Of course," he nodded and led her to the confessional in the secluded corner.

Seated opposite her, an old man with a trimmed white beard waited behind a intricately carved and perforated wall. She said nothing for several moments, unsure of what to do. She had not been raised catholic.

"How long has it been since your last confession," began the priest at last.

Dawn was thrown for a moment. "Oh," she said at last. "I- I didn't come here to confess. I need to talk to you about..." she realized the volume of her voice and lowered it instantly, "I need to talk to you about the soul."

"Of course, my daughter," the priest said understandingly.

Dawn shivered despite herself at his last words.

"What is it you wish to know," he began again.

"I have been told I am a Specter," she said bluntly. There was silence on the other end. She cocked her head, waiting to hear his response. When none came, she drew closer to the divide. "Father?" she asked.

The sound of the old man getting up from his wooden seat and the door sliding open was all the response she received. After a few seconds of worry, she was about to make a hasty exit when the door slid open and another priest sat down opposite her.

"My apologies," the new voice said, he sounded younger and more alert. "I am father Wethrin. I am the resident occultist of this parish. Father Mannheim informed me of your concerns." There was a pause on his end. "You believe you are one of the soulless children of creation?"

The words echoed in Dawn's ears. "Yes. An oracle told me."

"This oracle. Did he look at you?" There was notable tension in the young priest's voice.

"Yes." She answered, deciding to leave out the part about having blown the oracle to smithereens. There was a notable sigh of relief on the other side of the divide as the priest concluded she was not a demon come to kill them all.

"You are aware, I take it, of the nature of the evil in this world." There was a pointed silence. "The true nature of the evil?" He prodded.

Dawn was silent for a long while. She felt the rapid, almost excited breathing of the priest on the other side of the grate-like wooden panel. "This conversation is confidential?" She asked at last.

"I assure you," he said, "it is between you, me and God."

Dawn considered this. "My sister is the Slayer," she finally said, hoping she would not regret this.

There was a silence on the other side which could only have been from father Wethrin holding his breath. "Come with me," he said at last.

She slid the door to the confessional open and followed Wethrin through a door to a lobby area. In one corner there was a flight of stairs. Once they were down, they found themselves in a storage basement area, filled with sheets of drywall and insulation left over from the new church's recent construction.

Wethrin lifted back a wide piece of drywall, revealing a rough trapdoor beneath. The brass hinges were the only indication it was not a part of the flooring. He lifted this up and started down what was obviously another staircase.

Dawn started after him, discovering that it was in fact a roughly fashioned wooden ladder, probably built by the priest himself. Dawn's shoes touched the living stone floor by torchlight. Immediately, there was an air about the place she had only ever felt back in Sunnydale. She was almost certain they were going to encounter vampires in this cavern-like lair. She slipped her hand into her purse to retrieve the wooden stake she had retained from last night.

Wethrin, noticing this, smiled. "You won't need that. I make sure none of the demons get through. Dawn did not lessen her grip on the stake for one moment, on the chance that Wethrin himself was a demon, or vampire, leading her down here to kill her.

They walked down the tunnel by the light of the torches which were burning every few meters, until they came to the tunnel's edge. The torch light was now overpowered by some sort of demonic light, red and stinging to the eyes. The tunnel entrance overlooked a vast underground canyon, teeming with demons, vampires and goblins of all sorts. They hissed and clawed at each other, coming and going from networks of other tunnels leading to and from the pit. The churning masses jeered and spat as Wethrin and Dawn appeared at the entrance to the church tunnel.

"I made sure they built the cathedral over the entrance to this place. Consecrating the ground beneath its foundations set up a kind of protection spell, preventing them from getting in," he explained. Dawn noticed that there were no demons even trying to get to their tunnel, even though they clambered up the walls of the canyon, moving in and out of the tunnels there.

"Do you fight the demons that do get out?" Dawn asked in awe. "Out of the other tunnels, I mean?"

"I am just a human," he said. "I fight them with my faith, and my training," he said at last. He turned to the jeering demons, his feet on the edge of the tunnel floor. "Kyrie eleison," he chanted into the midst of them. They screamed and covered their ears. "Christe eleison," he continued, as they hissed and wailed under his blessing. Dawn watched, rapt. "Kyrie eleison," he finished, making a sign of the cross over them. Among them, demons erupted into flames and scattered into dust under the sign of his hand. "See you next week," he shouted down to them. He was answered by howls and curses. He turned to go, leading Dawn away from the pit. "Et spiritu sanctu," he added over his shoulder, eliciting shrieks and hisses.

"I fight how I can," he explained as the two walked back to the basement ladder.

Once they were back in the confines of the church, and seated in father Wethrin's office, he folded his hands and examined her. "So the oracle of Mornsae said you were a Specter, eh?" he nodded. "That's just like him," he waved off the comment. "I wouldn't put too much faith in anything an oracle says."

"Why not?" Dawn spoke for the first time since the tunnel.

"Oracles are just reflections of ourselves that we could not otherwise see, or were too afraid to confront. The cheap oracles, anyway. Everything they say we pretty much already knew ourselves, we just didn't want to accept it."

"So it only said I was a Specter because I already thought that?" Dawn saw a glimmer of hope in this conversation.

"Why do you think you are a Specter?" Wethrin pondered, standing from behind his desk to pace the office, which was lined with books on the occult and christio-demonic texts.

"I did some research," she said. It sounded like a very weak excuse now that she thought about it. "And I..." she paused for a very long moment. "I died for a few minutes, and I didn't go anywhere."

"You mean to heaven?" Wethrin looked very interested, but not particularly concerned for her as he sat down again.

"Yes," she answered. She sounded very small and uncertain in her own ears.

"You know, many people have near death experiences and claim to go to all sorts of weird places."

"Many people weren't conjured by an ancient order of monks to hide a lost artifact," Dawn countered, gaining strength in her voice.

"Conjured, you say," Wethrin thought this over. "Which order of monks did you say?" he asked, standing again to look through his shelves of books.

"Dagon," she added, standing as well. She stood over him as he knelt to look at the most bottom row of books. He selected one and pulled it from between its neighbors.

"Dagon, Dagon," he muttered, opening the book, his finger skimming down the page. "Ah, here we are. Tarnis, twelfth century?" She nodded. As he read, she slowly backed away, heading for the door.

He frowned as he took in the information. She tensed to bolt out of there if he didn't like what he saw.

"You're the thing they were hiding," he muttered. "The Key."

Her hands tightened to fists. "I want to know if there's a soul for me," she said anxiously.

This brought him out of his reverie. He looked up from his book, to the ornate stained glass window behind his desk chair. "A soul for you," he said very quietly. He turned, his expression unreadable. He looked into her face for a long moment then tilted his head very slightly. "Yes, I think I can help you," he took a deep breath. "Have a seat over there, would you?" he closed the book on his desk and dropped to his knees to return it to its place on the shelf, picking up another, smaller book on the way.

Dawn sat down, a small amount of relief infiltrating her cloak of worry.

"You'd want to find the oracle of D'Orsine, it's in New Orleans," he was saying as he sat opposite her on the edge of his desk. His eyes roamed over the text of the small book that was open in his hand. It was dark blue, with no text or title on the cover or spine.

"I thought oracles were useless," Dawn frowned.

"Cheap ones," he answered, distractedly, "D'Orsine is more powerful. She has been known to help people on quests to find their souls." He finished reading what he sought and closed the book, carefully putting it to one side of his desk.

"Thank you," Dawn tried a weak, unconvincing smile, as Wethrin stood from his desk, towering over her as she sat before him. There was an uncomfortable pause and Dawn decided it was time to leave. She tried to stand, but Wethrin's hand came down on her shoulder and shoved her back into the chair. "Hey!" She said, confused and scared, "what are you doing?"

"Saving you," he said confidently. He leaned in close to her, his breath on her face. She felt something cold and wet on her forehead and realized he was marking a cross on her forehead with holy water.

"Stop it," she said, annoyed, trying to wrestle her way out from under him.

"Device of darkness," boomed Wethrin, his hand gripping her shoulder tightly. "Leave this child of God!" He commanded, pressing his other hand to her chest, above the bruise she had acquired last night. She realized with almost pure astonishment that he was trying to exorcize her. She struggled under him for a moment, then realized she was completely pinned. There was something almost comical about the situation.

"In this place of God," continued the priest, relentlessly, "I command whatever darkness lies within thee to come out!" he sprinkled her with holy water. She blinked as some ran into her eyes. "By all the Saints, I command thee," he retrieved the small blue book, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, unclean object of darkness, come out!" he commanded, opening the book to the page displaying some ancient symbol. It was a Maltese cross with some sort of writing around its circular borders.

When Dawn merely crossed her arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, he pulled the book out of her face and flipped a few pages, undaunted. "En nomne Patris, et Filie," he chanted, flipping a page, "et spiritu sanctu!" Dawn sighed, annoyed as he tried everything he could think of, never letting her stand or even speak.

Finally, he took a small vial of sand from his desk and showered her with it. Ruining yet another outfit. Dawn frowned as he grasped her forehead with his hand. His ring dug into her skin. "Ow," she protested.

"Aabrun morthii," he chanted, now in another language. His eyes fluttered closed and his fingers gripped her head tighter. "Aabrun desocrii," this was no Christian exorcism. He chanted in a demonic tongue, appealing to whatever it was he thought was inside her to come out into the world. "Archolludai rhet moru desocrii," his hand flinched as she tensed.

Dawn felt a gut wrenching nausea take over her. She closed her eyes as the touch of his hand on her head began to burn. Her muscles clenched as the familiar tightness in her chest found its way through another sweater.

"Desocrii artum!" Wethrin cried as the green tongues of energy lashed out and threw him across his office. Dawn shivered in terror as the energy crackled and sizzled over her skin, crackling at each grain of demonic sand he had showered her with. Then it returned to her aching chest.

Panting for several seconds, Dawn stood and dashed out of the room, not stopping for more than a moment to tell the older priest, who was near the exit, that father Wethrin was hurt.

She ran out into the sunlight and dashed down the street.

Minutes later, in no particular hurry, the man in the white silk shirt left the church, wiping his hands on his dark pants. He clapped them together, as if he was ridding them of dust. With a deep breath of the morning air, he set off down the street, in the direction of the airport.