Chapter Ten
Buffy glared at Spike. "You let her get away?" Her words were cold and hard.
"I didn't let her get away," he explained, "she just disappeared, right in front of me. Pearly-lookin' light, then, no Dawn."
"And you checked out the crypt?" Buffy knelt down, examining the alcove wherein the body of Winnie Lyleton rested, in several fragmented pieces.
Giles pondered, rubbing his chin absently. "You said she vanished in a flash of light."
"ts right," Spike nodded. "No hollerin', no boomin' bloody voices, she just reached in and zap."
Giles sighed. "Well. As much as I hate to admit it, this trail seems to have gone cold." He shouldered his cargo bag. "Dawn could be anywhere by now, with the range of teleportation. I suggest we return to Sunnydale and try to narrow down all possible demons associated with this type of capture."
"I think we should stay here," Buffy argued. "Dawn could show up again at any minute, and she might not hang around long."
"Do you know something I don't?" Giles inquired. "There's no reason to believe she'll show here rather than back in Sunnydale."
"He's right, Buff," Xander said quietly. "At least back home we can do something, besides just wait."
"We have something else to do here," Buffy said, the cold anger returning to her eyes. She marched up the stone stairwell to where Angel was standing, just inside the crypt entrance, out of the morning sun.
"Where's Loki?" She demanded.
Angel looked a little taken aback by her aggression. "He said he had to leave, why?"
"And you just let him go?" She said amazed. "Are you some kind of stupid?"
Angel frowned, hurt. "Buffy, Loki had nothing to do with this. He's only trying to help Dawn." His words were filled with the most sincere reason. "He came to you, remember? He told you everything you wanted to know."
Buffy considered this. "You're right," she muttered. "That was pretty convenient, wasn't it?" She turned back to him. "I bet he was distracting me so that Dawn had time to find whatever she found." She glared angrily out the crypt door. "And now's he's got her, and he's gone."
"Buffy stop," Angel calmed. "There is no conspiracy. There's no big plan to take Dawn." He took her by the shoulders. "This is a simple soul quest. He's her guide. And you're getting in the way." He pulled her into a tender hug. "I know you want to protect her. So do I.. But you can't help her with this."
He waited a moment before continuing, feeling the warmth of the Slayer's body pressed against his. "There may be danger." He felt her flinch. "But it's a danger she has to face on her own to succeed." He explained. He pulled her out of the hug to look her sternly in the eyes. "You can't save her every time. Sometimes we all have to save ourselves."
The rest of the gang gathered around them, near the entrance to the crypt, waiting to hear Buffy's decision. She was still the Slayer.
"Let's go home," she said at last. The all started out.
"Um, excuse me," Spike piped up. "I hate to be a wet blanket, but we'll have to wait until sunset." He indicated the sunny day. "Some of us don't have our sun-block."
Angel reached into his coat and retrieved his balaclava, shoving it into the other vampire's chest. "Here. Now go."
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Thanks," Spike shrugged, pulling the head garment on. "And you'll just stay here, then? Until dusk?"
"Get out," Angel ordered as the gang waited for Spike outside.
"Right. Cheers."
Dawn awoke with a smile on her face for the first time since her mother had died. The caressing warmth of the vampire's kiss, the burning of the wound, the gentle pressure as he drank. All of it satisfying the horrible craving which had taken hold of her. Dawn moaned blissfully before opening her eyes, trying to shift onto one side.
Her eyes snapped open. She was no longer with Charlie. She was laying atop three broad, upright posts, one supporting her neck, the second under the small of her back, and the third beneath her knees. Her arms were chained out to either side, her wrists hanging from thin iron manacles chained to the ceiling. Her ankles were secured to the post under her knees. She thrashed once, trying to escape, succeeding only in chafing her wrists in the tight bonds. In response to the growing panic in her mind, she was ever thankful that she was still fully clothed. Her breath, nonetheless, quickened nervously; her earlier bliss forgotten.
"You failed the first test," a voice from out of sight informed her, "miserably," it added.
"Who are you?" Dawn asked, finding as she spoke that she was suddenly very lightheaded. She doubted if she could have successfully stood, even if she had not been chained.
"Loki," said the man, walking around her into view. The blond haired man with the white silk shirt pulled deftly at his collar, his expression grim. "I am very disappointed," he said. He sounded genuinely depressed at her failure.
"What test?" Dawn asked, closing her eyes to keep the room from spinning.
"The first test," he answered. "The test of character. Of strength of will. You managed to resist for a mere ninety four minutes before giving in." He turned away from her, shaking his head. "Most disappointing."
Dawn swallowed. It entered into her mind now that she might have forfeited her only chance to find her soul. "Do I get another chance?" She asked, sounding small and slightly desperate.
"Everyone gets another chance," Loki answered. "You have three more tests. If you can't complete the remaining tests, then you don't really care to have a soul." He paced back and forth beside her, his hand to his chin. "It occurs to me that you might have misinterpreted your goal here." Dawn blinked. "You don't have to earn a soul," he explained. "Your soul is your imperishable right. It would be an act of unspeakable evil to withhold yours from you, once you have decided throughout your being that you deserve it. If I were to force the monks of this lamasery to give yours to you right now, it would be irreparably tainted by your failure just now, and you would be a miserable wretch the rest of your life and afterlife." He knelt beside her, delicately putting a hand to her brown hair, tied as it was in a ponytail.
Dawn shifted uncomfortably. His breath was overwhelming and unwelcome. "So what am I doing here?" She shifted her midsection so her tailbone rested on the post, instead of her spine.
"You're going to become clean," Loki answered, gently stroking her hair. He gazed at her hair in a loving, possessive way that Dawn wasn't able to see, without twisting her head. "You're going to remain here until your body has been cleansed of the chemical and psychological need to be fed upon."
"You mean I have to go through... that, again?" She asked, tilting her head to see him.
"You jumped, remember?" Loki said softly. "You were willing to die for your soul. Are you now not willing to live for it?"
Dawn stiffened. "How long?" She asked, stoically.
"As long as it takes," he answered, straightening up. "I'll be here, for someone to talk to, to yell at, to plead with." He took a seat by the door. The room she was in seemed identical to the one she and Charlie had been locked in.
"Where's Charlie?" She asked.
"Dismembered," came the reply. Dawn sagged.
"It was my fault," she said hoarsely. Guilt tore through her every fiber. "I told him to- begged him to. He didn't want to-" she was very nearly on the verge of tears as the remorse for having killed Charlie found her.
"And the pleading begins," Loki sighed and closed his eyes, resting his head against the stone of the wall.
Willow blinked at her computer screen. "Did Angel say he researched this Loki guy?" She rubbed her left eye, fighting off the fatigue. "Cause I just Googled him and all kinds of stuff's been coming up."
"Besides the Norse god of mischief?" Tara asked, laying down her thick volume and approaching Willow's shoulder.
"Yeah, obviously besides him..." Willow scoffed, then tilted her head. "Although..."
Tara smacked her playfully on the shoulder. "This is serious, what did you find?"
"Right," Willow nodded, looking to the report on her screen. "Loki, a.k.a. Logan Kilpatrick, suspect in the nineteen eighty eight murders of Rachel and Hanna Kilpatrick, Logan's wife and daughter." Willow's tone lowered. "He was also suspected of killing his parents, closest relatives, and friends..." Willow frowned, squinting at the text. "It says here that the gruesome and sacrificial nature of the killings indicated profound sadism and possibly devil worship." Willow scoffed. "Devil worship. What do they know?"
"Angel told me that Loki had said his family was killed by a Werlech demon," Buffy rounded the table from which she had risen.
Xander nodded. "And it would be unheard of for a psychopathic serial killer not to fess up for his crime." He received several annoyed glanced. "I'm just saying," he defended, "what would he say if he were guilty?"
"Immediately after the investigation was opened, however," Willow went on, "Logan disappeared and only reappeared in underground organizations of the occult during the last five years." Will scrolled the text up, to reveal a picture of Logan, his blond hair short and combed, his button up dress shirt prim and proper. "Several sightings were reported during the mid ninety's but none were ever confirmed, except to reveal his ties to a network of other disappearances and his acquired name Loki."
"Psychopathic serial killer, tied to a network of disappearances." Buffy repeated. "And I let him have my sister.. Why again?" She turned on Spike, who sat reading a newspaper in the corner of the Magic Box. "To find her soul?" She demanded, anger rising in her voice, effectively covering her guilt and worry.
"Hey, don't look at me," Spike held up his hands defensively. "I had a talk with her and did all I bloody well could to get her to come back with us."
"And yet you're here, and she isn't," Buffy retorted.
"Arguing is solving nothing," Giles announced, loud enough to make Willow jump.
"Hey, guys, l- look at this," Willow enlarged the photograph she had retrieved from the police file. "It's a picture of Logan's daughter, Hanna," she said, an odd mix of emotions in her inflection.
Buffy approached and leaned in close, the picture still only occupying a small part of the screen. Instantly, all color drained from her face.
Giles adjusted his glasses and frowned at the screen, his face similarly taking on a tint of white.
"What are we looking at?" Xander hopped to his feet and marched around the table to the group hunched over the screen.
"Dawn..." Buffy murmured, gazing at the smiling face. There was no question about it. Aside from being a few years younger, the face was identical in every way. All of them could remember a young Dawn at that age, even if those memories were false, they still provided a clear picture, clear enough for everyone to see what was in front of them.
"He created her..." Buffy muttered, slowly taking a seat at the table, staring at nothing as the group continued to examine the picture. "He created her from me, but in the form of his daughter."