Chapter Four
Tara sat on the bed with her knees to her chest, pulling her jacket tighter closed over her bare torso. Miss Kitty Fantastico leapt up onto the bed next to her nuzzling her owner's hand gently. Tara slid her hand down scratching the soft fur behind her ear, the kitten let out a soft, sad mew. She knew her owner was troubled.
Buffy tilted her head at she looked at the cat, "I thought we weren't allowed to have pets."
"We're not."
"Oh."
Miss Kitty pushed her way onto Tara's lap and curled up there purring contently.
"What exactly happened?"
"I... I thought she was really Willow..."
"Don't worry...she fooled me and Xander and this guy Willow was tutoring last year too."
"I... we... she..." Tara looked at the floor.
"Syllables and sentences?"
Tara shook her head. Her mouth couldn't even form words anymore. Buffy sat watching her. Buffy couldn't do much to console her without knowing what happened; however, she had a few guesses from Tara's sloppy dressing. She could see the dismayed and distant look in Tara's eyes fighting back some kind of sorrow and pain, what kind of pain she could not truly identify.
"We will get Willow back. I promise." Buffy said, laying a hand on Tara's shoulder.
The timid girl flinched recalling the caresses of the girl she thought was the girl she crushed on, the girl she desired to touch her. But it was all lies, filthy lies. And she was filthy for being fooled.
Buffy drew her hand back.
"I-I-I'm gonna go sh-shower." Tara said, moving off the bed, Miss Kitty jumping and landing delicately on the floor.
"Alright. Will you be okay? I can stay here if you need."
Tara shook her head.
"Okay, well if you need me, beep me." She held up her beeper, yes, it was old but it was also reliable. "I'm gonna go see if Riley found our undead friend."
Tara nodded slowly and grabbed her shower stuff before walking down the hallway to the bathroom.
Buffy walked out of the building and flipped on her flashlight, heading off to find Riley. She found him rather winded at the edge of the woods. "Got away?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, but I can... send my men after her... with orders to bring her back alive." Riley said between pants. "Damn she's fast."
+
Anya let herself into Xander's basement room and paused in the doorway watching him stumble over his stuff in criss-cross patterns trying to find his coat and car keys and then in his distraction walked right into her.
"Oh An, didn't see you there." He said helping her back to her feet.
"Where are you going?"
"Scooby gang business." He said
"At this hour of the night? I wanted to boink."
"Straight to the point as ever." Xander nodded. "Well I really have to go. We have a Willow vamp on the loose and An, if I recall, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have the problem in the first place."
Anya folded her arms, "So you're saying it's all my fault."
"Not in so many words... actually yes.. yes it is. You conjured up this wishverse of Cordelia's and now we get this vamp version of my best friend who seems to keep waltzing in and out of this world."
"First of all, the world existed beforehand, I just happened to find it for Cordelia and put her there, second of all if you didn't break her heart, that wouldn't have happened."
"Yeah well you did that spell with Willow that accidentally brought her here and eternally messed up these two separate worlds."
"Well she couldn't have come here without a spell involved and I was home all day touching myself and thinking of you, so it couldn't have been me."
"Yeah well... you were really thinking of me?"
Anya nodded.
"I love it when you're blunt." Xander kissed her on the forehead. "But I gotta go. Just stay put. We can boink when I get back." He then dashed off closing the door.
Anya sighed and sat down on the bed. The door opened and Xander poked his head back in the room. "Oh and when the buzzer goes off can you put laundry detergent in the wash? Thanks." He ran out, hopped into his clunker of a car and drove off towards UCSD and Riley's dorm, from which he'd received the urgent phone call from Buffy. He parked the car and walked inside catching Buffy and Riley mid-french. Buffy pulled back wiping her mouth and gazing at Xander. "Um... hey, how'd you get here so soon?"
"Oh you know, speed limits are for losers. So what's the scoop?"
"Well we have an order out to bring the HST back alive... but we still have no idea how she got here." Riley said.
"I do. Anya kinda dropped a hint. The only way that Vamp Willow could have gotten here was a spell. And since she doesn't like this world, chances our Wil botched some spell but good."
"What kind of spell?" Buffy asked. "Wait. There was a spell book on her bed. We should see if it was bookmarked."
"Lead the way," Xander said, as Buffy got up and led the other two back to her dorm room, and looked around for the spell book that had gone missing from the bed. They were not hard to find, Willow was neat and organized, this book was shoved in a corner. Buffy pulled it out and found a dog-eared page. "To summon the strengthening of courage." She read.
"Well it looks like she summoned something, Wil's batting 0 for 1 today." Xander said.
"This really isn't time to be making jokes." Riley said.
"Well how do we get her back, there has to be a spell." Buffy flipped through the book, "Ugh this is all gibberish to me."
"Well then we need a witch who can read this." Xander said.
"Tara? No...she's really out of it."
"What other choice do we have?" Riley asked.
"We have lots of other choices!" Buffy protested. "I just... can't think of one at the moment." She folded her arms and sighed. "But we can't ask her for help, I mean we barely know her and she's been through a lot."
"They're really close, Tara cares about Willow, I'm sure she'll want to help." Riley said.
"You guys haven't seen her, she's a wreck. I'm not sure what happened to her exactly but she was not in a happy place. We should give her some time."
"If you give her some time, Willow might DIE in that world." Xander said, "I'm not going to sit back and lose my best friend to some blood happy vamps." He turned to Riley, "Let's go find Tara."
The two boys headed for the door before Buffy finally got to her feet and followed.
Tara lay upon her bed, sheets askew, bathrobe tied tightly around her. She sat dangling a string that frayed from the robe in front of Miss Kitty who lay on her back, batting at it. A sad smile lingered on the witch's lips as she focused on the actions of the kitten hoping it would make her forget the sinister caresses, which her body absorbed earlier that night. She could still feel each touch, afraid that each would show as a deep bruise on her skin. None of them had been hard enough to create a mark, but the shame was getting to her.
She'd forgotten to close the door completely upon returning from the shower and jumped slightly when the door swung open and in traipsed Riley, Xander, and Buffy. She curled her knees closer and Miss Kitty's tail fluffed up sensing her owner's change in mood. She relaxed slightly when Buffy stepped forward.
"Tara, I know this has been a nightmare, but we really need your help to get Willow back."
"H… how can I help?" Tara said sitting up, "I could do a locator spell."
"Well we know where she is. She's in another dimension. Somehow, she and creepy vampire Willow got switched. We think Willow was doing a spell and something backfired."
"C-could we switch them back… using the spell Willow was doing?" Talk of magic made Tara less stutter-y than usual.
"I don't think so, since the switch was caused by a spell blooper or something," Xander said. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Anyways, vamp Willow took off, we haven't been able to find her and we don't even know if the real Willow is still alive in that vampire world." Riley said
Tara shuddered visibly. Buffy rolled her eyes at Riley then looked at Tara "Willow's fine, she can take care of herself, but the sooner we get her home the better."
"I…I think I can contact her in that world… and pull her back."
"Good," Xander clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "What's the plan?"
Tara got up out of bed and walked over to her desk. Willow had left her sweater the last time she was over and Tara was holding it to give it back to her. She picked up the blue garment and searched for any stray hairs. She was able to pick off a few red strands, smiling sadly. She loved Willow's hair, it was so soft. She walked back to the bed and reached over to the nightstand where she had three candles and lit all three, she took out a beautiful turquoise stone.
"If this works, the turquoise and Willow's hair should allow me to connect to her…that way we can communicate… all I need then is to.. set up a portal.." She gulped softly, I hope this works she thought. She burned three of the hairs, one with each candle and set the rest within the triangle formed by them and set the stone on top of the hairs. She closed her eyes and focused deeply. "Willow…" she sent the thought out, "Can you hear me?"