Wearing Masks (Part 7)
Disclaimers
Legal:All characters are (c) Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy and probably a whole mess of other people. No infringement of copyright intended.
Archive:Go right ahead. Just let me know, please
Spoilers:All the way up to "Who Are You?"
Summary:Buffy is Faith, and Tara is . . .
Rating:R (MPAA) - violence, language, f/f concepts
Notes:Faith (in B's body) has been captured by the Scoobies, after seducing Willow and killing Tara (in whose body the Mayor was hiding). Now she faces death on two fronts: the Mayor and the Council.
Willow left the TV off when she went, and I don't bother calling for Giles to turn it back on. Instead, I try to doze in the chair. It doesn't really work: being tied up makes it kinda hard to get into a comfortable position. Still, it manages to kill the three hours that go by before the door opens again.
"Time for your medicine, Faith." It's Xander, and he's got a syringe full of that blue crap Giles has been pumping into me.
"They got you on baby-sitting detail now, Harris?" I smirk, "I guess it's a step up from getting your ass kicked every time you try to 'help'. They sent you out for doughnuts, yet?"
"Laugh it up, Faith." He answers my smirk with one of his own. "Buffy's gonna bury you for what you did, this time."
"I know." I shrug, "Do something for me?"
"Hmm . . ." he pretends to think about it. "No."
"Don't let her bury Willow, too." I ignore his reply.
"Nice try, but your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me." Xander brandishes the syringe like a lightsaber.
"I mean it."
He pauses in the middle of bending down to give me the injection, looks at me silently. After a few moments, I shrug uncomfortably.
"What?"
"Just wondering why you care." His voice is quiet.
I laugh, even though it isn't funny.
"Me too, Xander."
He finishes giving me the injection and leaves, flicking on the TV as he goes.
I hope he helps Willow. I don't know why I care . . . but I do.
----------
I'm still a bit light-headed from the drug when Xander and college boy carry me downstairs. It woulda been much easier to untie me and let me walk down, but seems like no-one is willing to trust me that far.
"I tell ya, stud." I quip at the college boy as he bangs an elbow on the wall, "A girl could get used to this kind of treatment."
That earns me a sour look from the Beefstick, but a short smirk from Xander. The quickly smothered grin gives me hope that he'll back Willow with Buffy. Someone needs to, and B ain't exactly in the mood to listen to me.
Eventually, they get me to the living room. Looks like the gang's all here: Giles is beside B, giving her the injection I've come to know and loathe. Xander's girl has already grabbed a chair, while Red's standing near the front door, talking to a chick I haven't seen before.
"Amy!" Xander yelps, nearly dropping the chair.
"Xander!" College boy and I yelp in unison, then glare at one another.
"Sorry." Harris sets me down carefully, then bounds over to hug Willow and the new girl. That earns him a glower from his girlfriend, but he's oblivious to it. "How's my favourite ex-rat?"
I blink at that, and I'm not the only one: college boy looks as out of the loop as me. I give the newcomer a once-over, remembering the rat Willow was cartin' around earlier today. She's quite pretty, with light brown hair. Her return hug to Xander is a little shy, but the laugh that accompanies it is genuine.
"Apart from a craving for cheese, I'm good." She does a double take when she sees me, then glances at B, but doesn't say anything. I guess if you've been a rat, body-swapping doesn't seem that big a deal.
"Are we ready to do this?" B's version of my voice sounds a little thin. Guess the drug is hitting her already.
"Nearly." To my surprise, it's the new girl that answers. She blushes when all eyes turn to her. "After my mom stole my body, I did a lot of research into this kind of magic."
She carries on, talking about the three different kinds of 'trans-possession', but my mind's not on her explanation. I'm watching Willow, who's doing her best to fade out of sight. I figured the witchy deal was her territory.
"So we know this case was the result of a Katra of some sort." New girl; Amy; says. "Probably a Draconian Katra." She glances at me, and I shrug.
"I wouldn't have a clue. It was silvery."
She nods,
"Almost certainly Draconian. Easy enough to reverse. Willow and I can do it here . . . should only take half an hour or so."
"Before we start . . ." Willow speaks up for the first time, sounding nervous. "There's something else. The Mayor may still be alive."
"The Mayor?" Xander raises an eyebrow, "Pretty sure he went boom, Will."
Red shakes her head,
"I asked Amy, and she said it was possible –"
"Possible doesn't mean 'is'." Buffy interjects, "If were alive, he would have tried something by now."
"That does seem likely." Giles nods in agreement.
"Not necessarily." Give her credit, Willow sticks to her guns. "It would take him time to build up his strength again. He's lost his power-base. Faith-"
"Faith?" Buffy cuts her off with a scornful laugh, "Faith told you this? And you believed her? She's playing you, Will. Again."
"I think she was telling the truth." Red insists, while I silently will her to stop. It's not gonna do her any good: B ain't listening.
"This spell." B directs her attention to Amy. "Does it need both of you?"
"Well, no." the girl looks surprised by the question. "I could do it alone . . ."
"I think that would be best." Buffy nods. "It being your speciality. Don't want anything to go wrong."
"That's out of line, Buffy." Xander shoots to his feet, as I watch Red's face crumble. "Willow would never intentionally do anything to hurt you."
"I never said she would." B's tone is hard. "I just thought that, if she is so worried about the Mayor, she should concentrate on researching a spell to locate him."
"Like hell -" Xander begins.
"It's okay." Willow cuts in, her voice miserable. "It's okay, Xander." She swings open the front door and runs out.
Xander calls after her, then glares at B,
"I hope you're happy." He snaps, then goes after Red.
----------
After a few moments of silence, Giles closes the front door, a grim expression on his face.
"Now that . . . unfortunate incident . . . is out of the way." He shoots a genuine glare at B, but she's digging in her pocket for something, and doesn't notice. "Perhaps we can get on with this?"
"Just a second." B leaps to her feet and unfolds a piece of paper. "I need to make a call."
She picks up Giles' phone without asking, and punches the numbers rapidly. After a few seconds of waiting, she speaks.
"Thirty minutes."
Without waiting for an answer, she hangs up, giving me a smug glance as she does so. I guess that means the Council are on their way.
"Let's get started." She nods to Amy, who jumps a little.
"Um. I'll need you and, uh, Faith to sit facing one another, clasping hands."
"Great." B mutters, then frowns as Xander's girl stands up. "Where are you going?"
"To find Xander." The girl tilts her head stubbornly.
"Sit. Down." B points at the chair, and the girl subsides reluctantly. Buffy gestures at me, "Get her untied, will you, Riley? Don't worry, she's harmless at the moment."
That makes me think about giving college boy a quick knee in the groin as he leans over me, but I don't bother. It's B who needs a good thrashing, not him.
Amy gets us sitting cross-legged on the floor, our hands 'clasped'. That amounts to B touching me as little as she can get away with, a situation I am happy to assist.
The ritual starts, and it's pretty much like the others I have seen: funky foreign words, lots of slow, dramatic gestures, and those smelly incense candles that always make my eyes water.
This goes on for ten minutes, as Amy prepares a bowl of some weird-lookin' green stuff. She's just about to smear some of it on Bs face when the front door bursts inward.
"Freeze! Everybody down!" Cops are pouring into the place, guns out, yelling and shouting. One grabs Beefstick and wrestles him to the ground, while B and I get two apiece. I try to fight back, yelling abuse as they flip me onto my face and snap some handcuffs on, but without my slayer strength I never have a prayer. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the same happening to B. She's just as helpless as me, and almost as foul-mouthed about it.
"What on Earth is going on?" I hear Giles protest, just before one of the cops forces him to his knees.
Within seconds, it's over. I always figured Sunnydale PD to be slow and useless, but the only one of us who even put up a struggle was Beefstick, and all that earned him was a nice bruise to the side of his face.
So far, all the cops have been uniformed. The guy who comes in now is a detective, and it's obvious from the way the others act that he's in charge. Walking straight up to me, he says quietly,
"Buffy Summers, I am hereby arresting you for the murder of Tara Maclay."
----------
"What?" Giles sputters, "That's ridiculous!" I guess he forgot that as far as the cops are concerned, I'm Buffy.
"Really, Mr Giles?" the detective flips open a notebook. For some reason, the action doesn't seem natural. "We found Ms Maclay's body within a hundred yards of Ms Summers' home. She'd been brutally murdered: stabbed dozens of times with a kitchen knife. We found the knife in her back yard, and blood-soaked rags in the bin. Forensics are going over the kitchen now, but we've already got prints from both Ms Maclay's body and the knife." He smiles in satisfaction, "and they're a perfect match for the ones we have on file for Ms Summers."
I flick a glance at B, wonderin' why the hell the cops have her prints. She's supposed to be the good girl, here.
"Now, I have no idea what you people were up to in here." the detective continues, picking up the syringe Giles used on B, "but I'm thinking drugs and the occult. We'll need to take you all in for questioning." He puts the syringe back down, and fussily wipes his fingers with a handkerchief.
I frown, looking at the guy's hands. Shouldn't he be wearing gloves? The cops are real big on not disturbing the evidence, aren't they?
And then suddenly, it's not his hands I'm worried about: it's the handkerchief he's tucking back into his pocket. And what it might mean.
He catches my glance, and smiles. A charming, goofball smile.
"Can't be too careful about germs." He says, with a slightly theatrical shudder. "Nasty, unsanitary little creatures."
Oh God.
It's the Mayor.
