Halloween's supposed to be a quiet night!
Angel dragged Cordelia into Buffy's house - under Xander's cover fire, and what demented soul had let Loserboy have a gun - and tried not to panic. He'd been looking forward to a peaceful night of making a casual sweep through the graveyards for stray vampires, then meeting Buffy post-kids for... coffee. Or something.
Nearly getting fried by an evil redhead in a long black coat and rescuing Cordelia from a Sasquatch had not been on his list of things to do tonight. Seriously, Sasquatch? Weren't they supposed to haunt the woods north of here? By at least a couple hundred miles?
"You can't shoot them, they're kids!" Willow was almost wringing her hands as Angel slammed the front door behind them.
"Miss, I can't shoot anything besides the ground. There are too many things behind my targets. But big noise scare monster. Kids or no kids." Xander was giving him a cool, assessing look, that made Angel's demon want to bare his teeth. "And who are you?"
"Not funny, Xander," Angel started.
Somehow Willow had gotten past him. "Okay, your name is Cordelia, you're not a cat-"
"Seriously? What is your damage, Willow?" Cordelia put on a convincing casual glare, if you couldn't hear her heart hammering in panic. "Where's Buffy? Isn't she supposed to handle craziness like this?" She glanced back at Angel again, and pulled off the black cat ears to ruffle her hair back into studied disarray. "Heck, where's Akira? The Japanese are supposed to be all about cosplay. I thought he'd be right in the middle of anything this weird."
Angel tried not to grimace. He still wasn't sure what to think about the Japanese Hunter. On the one hand, Akira had had enough sense to know a demon-summoning was more than any normal human could handle, and he'd stayed clear of the frat boys so someone could back Giles up while the Watcher cast any banishment spells they needed. On the other...
Angel couldn't forget the cold bite of arcane steel. His demon had snarled at it, angry and afraid in ways only sunlight had ever managed to make Angelus feel before. Akira had come closer to taking him down than any Hunter since the gypsies had cursed him, Buffy included. If he got much older, the kid was going to be dangerous.
And Hunters never trusted Slayers. Ever.
But for now, Akira was watching Buffy's back. As long as he did that, Angel intended to let him live.
So why isn't he here now?
And why was Willow staring at Cordelia's cat-eared headband, as if it held the answers to everything? "Your costume didn't change!" the redhead blurted out.
"Yours sure did." Cordelia rolled her eyes. "What were you going for, Early Sunset Boulevard streetwalker?"
"Hey." Xander's quiet word grabbed Angel's attention more quickly than any shout. "Ladies, let's not fight. The costume's important?"
"Everyone who changed into their costumes - the costumes turned real," Willow said in a rush.
And Xander had dog tags and a very realistic gun. Not good.
"If we can let Giles take a look at who was and wasn't hit by this," Willow hurtled on, "then he can figure out what did this-"
"What did Buffy go as?" Angel cut her off.
The redhead swallowed. "Um. Can you see... Giles called them mares, and moroi?"
"Yes," Angel said shortly. Most vampires could only sense the intangible monsters, not see them. Then again, most vampires couldn't be torn apart by the serpentine shadow-beasts, either. The gypsies had had a pretty good idea how vulnerable a demon cursed with a soul would be. "Don't ask. Buffy went as a living nightmare?"
"So no change there, then," Cordelia quipped.
Xander stifled a snicker.
Angel bit back a growl. Sometimes Angelus just wanted to eat both of them.
"Hey, don't get all grr snarl at me, cute fangs," Cordelia said archly. "If she's one of the monsters, she'll be safe, right?"
"I think so," Willow nodded. "Akira's keeping her busy but I don't know how long he can we should go!"
Right. Library, Watcher, dusty reference tomes-
Something screeched outside, with a heavy beat of wings. There was a crackling of fire.
Xander shouldered his rifle, eyes hard. "Let's try the back way."
Cemeteries are good, night, pretty much empty-
Akira crashed through the door of a dusty mausoleum, head ringing.
"Aiyeee!"
"Sorry... miss," Akira decided, eyeing the doubtful collection of horns, floppy ears, and other body parts mostly hidden under a tattered brown bathrobe. In the background he could smell hot chocolate, and something that might have been bubble bath. "It's going to get a little loud here tonight."
"It's Halloween! Nothing happens on Halloween!"The oni clutched what might have been curlers in her mane. "What the hell's going on?!"
Rolling to his feet, Akira snorted, already calculating the best angle to dodge out. "When you find out, tell me-"
Pink floated in. "Eww!" Buffy stamped her foot in midair as the startled oni shrieked louder. "Ugly, ugly, ugly!" The black void of a tear opened over her hand, full of red eyes. "Squish it!"
I can't believe I'm doing this. Grabbing a brown-clad arm, Akira bolted out the shattered door.
"Aiyeee!" A gnarled fist tried to thump his head. "Let me go, vampire!"
"Vampire? Do I look like one of those-" Swearing, Akira dropped the terrified demonic bystander behind one of the more solid memorial statues. "Just keep your head down!"
Good advice, Akira thought, as hissing swarmed him. Wish I could take it.
Knives in hand, he danced with shadows.
Dragons torching local shrubbery. A laughing redhead in black fighting ninjas alongside a white-dressed blonde flying on wings made of crystalline keys. A horde of something like sandy jellyfish, being chased by a white-haired wolf-tailed cowboy, a mini-yellow bear with a pirate patch, a blond with cooking knives, a redhead carting a glowing green marble, and a really ticked-off woman with purple claws, tail, and dragon wings.
I am never, ever, ever dressing up as a monster for Halloween again, Cordelia swore to herself as they ran. Ever.
She might not be a computer geek, but she wasn't an idiot. She'd been hit by spells before. Just because Buffy and Giles and the rest had broken Amy's curses then, didn't mean they'd be able to break these now. Especially if Buffy was currently stuck in this one without her memory.
Damn it, why did Snyder have to grab the library geeks for Halloween escorts?
Though maybe that wasn't completely fair. The principal had signed up anybody who hadn't moved fast enough. Akira wasn't the only one he'd cornered in detention.
That spoiled chocolate milk landing on the lunch lady? Totally not my fault.
Though probably Akira had been the only other person stuck in detention who'd believed it. Jocks and jock-girlfriends had snickered and whispered behind their hands; Akira had just rolled his eyes and nodded toward the door as Snyder left fuming.
It's the troll. What can you do?
Right. It wasn't like she could tell Snyder that it wasn't her, she had better aim. Even if she did. Partly thanks to Akira.
"Sunnydale is a Hellmouth," he'd told her, one morning not long after the whole Parent-Teacher mess when she'd been away from her clique a moment. "There will always be monsters. Do you want to depend on the rest of us getting lucky, or do you want to be able to stomp the small fry the way the queen of Sunnydale High should?"
She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't one of Sunnydale High's bad girls. She wasn't Buffy.
But damn it, Akira had had a point.
...Not to mention he had the simple good manners not to make it obvious Cordelia was taking tips from the loser crowd. Death was easy. The damage to her social status from being seen as one of Buffy's little hangers-on would never go away.
"I knew an idol back at Kiriba Private High School," Akira had stated when she raised that little sticking point. "He couldn't afford to let his image crack. Ever." He'd given her a sharp look. "And unlike him, you think about the future. Somewhere there aren't school obituaries every week."
Cordelia had crossed her arms, and given him her best haughty sniff. "And you don't?"
"There will always be monsters." Akira hadn't smiled. "And one day, I won't get lucky."
Which had completely thrown the rest of her day, to the point that even therapeutic shoes shopping hadn't helped. Akira - classy, cool, snarky Akira, one of the few bright spots in a Sunnydale school day of constantly keeping her perch on the top of the social heap - believed he wasn't going to live long enough to worry about being branded a loser.
Even with the Scoobies on the case. Even with Buffy in town.
Xander used CPR on Buffy last year. Because she... died.
Even shoes and ice cream hadn't let Cordelia sleep well after that.
So she'd picked up the monster-notes Akira slipped into her locker, and studied them as fiercely as she studied cheerleading moves. She was not going to die because some idiot demon decided it wanted high-school munchies.
Which was why she was running with the losers and Angel now, as they dodged down streets and through alleys. Vampires could be kept out by thresholds. Dragons, demons, and who knew what else was loose tonight? Not so much.
Just hope Giles can open the doors for us.
Having Willow walk through his shelves was not the most unsettling experience of Giles' life to date. Quite. Eyghon still held one of the top rankings there, with Amy's witchcraft, the Master, and Shirogane close behind. It was still unnerving, enough to send shivers down his spine.
Living ghost. She's alive. Cling to that. "Willow? The others-"
"Xander - Harris, I guess - told me to get in here first so you could have the door open right when they get here," Willow said in a rush as they headed for the library door. "He said it was the best way - Giles, he had to ask us how to get into the school! I told him Akira would take the skylight 'cause he's kind of ninja, but we're kind of not, so... Angel said we could come in through the tunnels, but Harris got this really weird look, and he asked me where the sewers went, and I said Buffy takes them all over town to chase the vampires, you can get anywhere in Sunnydale underground, almost, and he started muttering something about coincidences and enemy action..."
Had he indeed? Interesting. "Do you know what Xander went as?"
"A soldier, I think... it's weird, Giles. They're not just stuck in the costumes, they changed. Xander's got... gun clips, and things I know he wasn't wearing, 'cause I would have seen... not that I was looking, you know, but... Buffy's hair went all pink, and Akira - his eyes are red. Not a scary monster-red," she almost fell over herself saying as they reached one of the outer doors. "More like rubies, or that guy from Final Fantasy, really pretty... I think he knew. What he looked like. But how would he-?"
Dangerous waters, that. "You might recall that he has far more experience with Shadowfolk than we do," Giles said dryly, listening for any suspicious noises outside before he went to work on the locks. "It's very likely he modeled his costume on an - ally." So to speak. Oh dear.
"Oh. Yeah. That makes sense." Willow brightened, then swallowed nervously. "You should have seen the way he winced when Buffy got that whip."
"...Whip." Oh blast.
"It was... kind of a joke?" Willow tried. "Xander - well, Buffy looked really frilly, and I guess he wanted her to have something in case something non-fangy didn't know she was the Slayer and tried for munchies. But Akira was just wincing, and he said she looked like Lulu, and... well, I guess being Lulu's better than a Victorian princess, with all the crazy monsters and heroes out there..."
Oh, dear.
"He told us to run." Willow's voice was very small. "Giles. Who's Lulu?"
"One of Homurabi's shin." Giles kept his tone matter-of-fact. Ending the spell had to be their first priority. And he had no doubt it was a spell, now; Willow's call had given him time to perform a low-powered magical detection ritual, and traces of it were scattered all over his map of Sunnydale. "Akira's survived her before, remember that."
"Wait!" Willow squirmed ahead of him, passing through his chest in a shivery chill. "Let me take a look first."
She stuck her head out the door. Literally. Giles winced, and sighed. "Must you?"
Willow popped back inside. "Here they come!"
The lady oni, no idiot, had ducked out of sight behind a nest of concrete angels. A few stray kokuchi hissed and circled; Akira kept an eye on them as he perched on a headstone and tried to catch his breath. Good thing he was a shin right now. Even Kengo would have had a hard time bouncing back from the hits he'd taken tonight.
The question is, how strong is this magic? And what happens when it's over?
Physically, Buffy ought to be okay. The Slayer could sleep off injuries that would send an ordinary human to the emergency room. Mystically... Lulu had summoned a lot of kokuchi.
Not much I can do about that. Akira searched the sky as well as the mausoleum wreckage, looking for a pink glow and the feel of another shin disturbing the boundary. Except run. I'm faster than she is. If I can draw this out long enough for Giles to find a solution...
Only if he did that - this was Lulu. She wouldn't get sweaty by actually running after him. She'd take a short cut.
She'll shadow-walk. Oh, hell.
A human could cross into the shadow world and survive, if a shin was protecting them, so their doppleganger didn't shatter. Nanaya had done it to kidnap Kengo and Aya; he and Shirogane had done it to bring their friends to fight Homurabi.
But Buffy thinks she's a shin. She won't protect herself. Whatever I do, I can't let her shadow-walk.
Which means I have to figure out how to keep Lulu entertained. Damn, I wish Aya were here.
Footsteps, not as quiet as Aya's, each tread coming down on the boundary with a ripple like raindrops on water.
Huh. So that's why vampire attacks can cause tears.
The muscled group tromping into the cemetery couldn't be anything else, even if Akira had somehow missed Spike's bleached-blond hair. Buffy was right; being a vampire killed most people's fashion sense.
"'Ello there." Spike's grin looked human, but it was all teeth. "Slayer's little knife-happy friend, is it? All dressed up and no place to go?"
Must be a dozen of them at least, Akira judged. Plus some little monsters he picked up along the way. Put those together with the kokuchi, I could be in serious trouble-
Akira blinked, recalculating the odds. And grinned.
Never a good thing when a Hunter smirks like that.
Spike slowed his advance on Akira's tombstone, senses alert for any sign of a trap. Dru had said Halloween would be different, and the Slayer wouldn't be herself at all. Which meant this was the time to pull off a vampire's most brag-worthy hat trick, and bag himself a third Slayer.
But nothing was ever as easy as it looked, and Akira's effortless stance perched on carved granite... bothered him.
Humans can have good balance, seen it before. But it's as if the bloke doesn't have to work at it. Like he doesn't weigh more than a shadow-monster...
Oh, bloody hell.
There they were, circling in the moonlight; knife-handed, reptile-centipede beasties. Shadow-monsters. Moroi, to use the name you found in dusty tomes with dustier owners. Creatures most vampires could only sense, not see. Only he'd been cursed enough to have a Seer as his sire; and sometimes he wanted to break every living neck, because when Dru saw things in the shadows, she wasn't crazy-
A girlish giggle tickled the air.
When did the Slayer dye her hair pink?
Not enough of a warning sign to get his minions to slow down. The floating in midair bit should have - but they were looking anywhere else, as if they couldn't see what was hissing at them...
Oh, bugger. They can't.
"New people to play with!" The Slayer actually squeaked, like Dru going after a sparrow. "Ooo, Akira's been so mean, making me run after him all night." She clasped her hands together over her bosom, eyes starry with glee. "But now you're here!"
Supernatural, invisible to most vampires, and looked like an attractive human. All hallmarks of the most dangerous critters that went snarl in the night.
Right, Spike thought, chilled. Out of here.
Carefully. Very carefully. A subtle retreat, to save face; his minions were already starting to glance at him as if they wondered what he was on, looking at thin air-
Buffy held up splayed fingers, and darkness roared into existence.
Some kind of portal? Dimensional hole? Spike wondered, trying to sneak faster. What's the Slayer playing at- oh, bollocks!
Moroi swept screeching through the tear, red eyes gleaming, three of them plunging inside some of his minions.
The Slayer tittered. "Now Akira's going to be running around all night, trying to save silly people..." She trailed off, casting a dark look at the Hunter still poised on his tombstone. "Why aren't you trying to save them?"
"Why should I?" The punk finally moved, leaping light as a bloody grasshopper.
Translucent blades sheared through a moroi's black flesh, and it exploded in a rain of red sparks.
Akira landed on one of the spikes surmounting the cemetery wall, not even bothering to nod at gravity as he smirked Spike's way. "After all, what's the point of saving a dead corpse that's already possessed?"
Screeching in rage, the moroi-held minions leapt after the Hunter, black claws sprouting from their hands and game faces on.
Buffy reeled back in midair, like a bint who'd inadvertently sampled prime spider. "Ewww!"
Forget saving face. Spike ran for it.
Please don't let them be dead, Willow chanted to herself, as Harris and Giles guided Cordelia's faltering feet around yet another fallen body of someone who'd gone with the knife-through-the-head trick for Halloween. Angel had gone on ahead with barely a grimace, scouting through the shadows for bigger monsters they'd have to detour around. Please...
"Willow." Harris' voice wasn't as comforting as Xander's, but it sounded like he was trying. "Don't look. There's nothing you can do for them. So don't look."
How can anyone not look? "How can somebody do something like this?" Willow stammered. "Ms. Calendar just uses magic to protect, Mr. Wagatsuma sent us healing stuff, a-and we only ever use spells to stop the demons-" The words stuck in her throat.
"Oh, well go you," Cordelia bit out. "Obviously the monsters didn't get the memo about your shiny little morals. Oh, wait - Amy's mom was human, wasn't she? And guess what? Sometimes people are just evil." She stumbled back up onto a sidewalk, and kept moving. "Like when they snatch the last pair of Jimmy Choos on sale. Or wear stripes with plaid. Seriously, people, that is a crime!"
Giles rolled his eyes. "Young lady..."
"Hate to say it, but Miss Chase has a point," Harris said. "You have to stop thinking of magic as mystical. It's a tool. Like a crowbar. You can pry a boulder off of somebody, or you can bash their brains out. Magic doesn't care."
"Not quite true," Giles stated. "In some spells, intent matters a great deal. But magic was first and foremost a weapon, Willow. Humanity's first weapon against the monsters, forged in fear and desperation. One does not make the wisest choices when in terror of one's life, and the lives of those one cares for..." Behind glass, the Watcher's eyes went hard.
Willow almost bit her fingernails, as Harris slowed them all to a deliberate walk. What was wrong now? There weren't any monsters in sight, just Angel blending into a pool of shadow, some shattered storefronts, and a bunch of people led by football-jock Larry in a pirate bandanna.
Um. Pirates weren't always the good guys, right?
"What 'ave we here? A pair of lovely ladies of the night, looking for a good time?" The pirate leered at them, a gust of strong drink wafting to Willow's nose. "Well, lads, I'd say they've found one-"
Harris raised his head, and stared at rum-soaked eyes.
"...Well." The pirate faded back a step, hand near his cutlass. "No 'arm in asking the ladies, is there?"
"Sometimes there can be a lot of harm," Harris said levelly. Gun not quite pointing at the pirate. "We've got somewhere to be. And so do you. Ladies, Mr. Giles..."
"Actually," Giles nudged up his glasses, glowering at the one undisturbed storefront in a way that should have set it on fire, "I believe we've arrived."
Willow swallowed, as streetlights picked out the sign she'd seen just hours before.
Ethan's.
Shirogane was right about one thing. Sweating, Akira held off fangs with one blade while he stabbed the other deep. It's a lot easier to beat kokuchi if you don't care if the victim survives.
With a howl, the last of the originally possessed vampires burst into ash.
Unfortunately, the kokuchi he hadn't been able to cut down had taken over every vampire who hadn't run, and there were at least a half-dozen more still trying to tear him to pieces.
Halloween sucks.
Akira backflipped away from a kokuchi's scything blades, twisting past two vampires so they tangled with each other and another snarl of shadow-creatures. Kou had taught him how to dodge in a hundred running street fights, and he'd needed all of that painful experience tonight. So far he'd been banged up, bashed, and bruised, but he hadn't been bitten.
Yet, Akira thought darkly, breathing hard as he slashed through yet another over-eager kokuchi. I'm... tired.
I wish Shirogane were here.
He could be away from here in moments. In Japan, with help and friends to destroy anything that followed him. If he only dared.
It might kill me. And if I walked through the shadows, Buffy would follow, and she would die. I can't.
Yet he could feel his arms tremble as he raised his knives for the next attack. If this went on much longer...
I am not going to die here!
"Ooo!" Buffy stomped a foot in midair, a kitten-growl in her throat. "I wanted to play some more, but not if more of these things are going to crawl out!" She folded her fist around shadow, reached toward her heart-
And pulled out a long, black whip.
...This is going to hurt.
There was nothing quite like the fanged bug-on-windshield expression of a vampire who'd run straight into his threshold wards, Ethan mused, grinning.
...Ripper's fist in his face did add a bit of sting to the glee, he had to admit.
Damn, that tweed blends into shadows too well... p'rhaps I should've made the cobwebs on the ceiling just a bit thinner, they dim the lights... good old Ripper. Snuck in first, let the vampire be a distraction. Well, two can play that dirty-
Cha-click.
Erk. Ethan arrested his attempt to counter by grabbing the Watcher's danglies, and instead stood very slowly, shifting his head just enough to miss one of the luminescent toy spiders hanging from a gray thread. When dawn broke that piece of steel and lead would likely be a toy again, but for now the gun looked quite lethal. And the expression behind it, even more so.
"Is this the guy?" the soldier for the night said coldly.
"Hello, Rupert," Ethan drawled through a split lip. "It's been a while."
"I could have stood for it to be far longer." Rupert's eyes were hot with a rage Ethan hadn't seen in far too long, as two girls skirted the angry vamp and more dangling cobwebs to follow the soldier in. "I should have known it was you. This horror stinks of Ethan Rayne."
"Horror?" Ethan arched a brow as he backed up, doing his best to keep gun and incensed Watcher in view. If he could sidestep that way, toward the statue, the boy wouldn't be able to shoot without endangering the ladies-
The soldier moved to match him, casual and cold. Dash it all.
"I'd say I sold hopes and dreams," Ethan smirked, gauging his opponents. Two dangerous men, the redheaded adept-potential who'd gone for a ghost, and a teenage high school queen whose most lethal weapon would be cutting remarks. This wasn't over, not by a long shot. Even if they managed to shatter the statue... or perhaps, especially if they managed that. He hadn't lasted this long as a chaos mage without knowing when to keep tricks up his sleeve.
Or a bit higher up. Heh, heh, heh...
That, and knowing how to find weak spots. "Proper, prim, tweed Watcher, guardian of all that's right and just, eh?" Ethan grinned, shifting in place just to make the soldier-boy twitch. That, and get him standing under one of the thicker fake cobwebs. This could be interesting. "How's your Slayer, Ripper? Enjoying her night as a frail, frilly female, helpless as a fly in amber?"
The Watcher... smiled.
May have lathered it on a tad too much...
"You," Ripper said, very quietly, "have no idea. Right now, Ethan, your only chance for survival is to tell us how to break the spell... before she finds you."
Despite himself, Ethan swallowed dryly. When in doubt, stall.
Blades cut shadow. Muscles burned. Sweat stung nicks from flying debris; not claws, thankfully, if it were claws he'd be down, he knew how bad kokuchi venom was-
Don't think. Just move.
A pivot on a stone wingtip, and the black whip seared past him to snap a kokuchi into sparks. Akira pushed off into a shadow-fast flicker, slicing through another, rolling into a forward somersault that took him into position to stab a third through what passed for a spine-
And then he had to spin fast, as a tangle of not-quite-dead bodies hurtled through where he'd been, black claws gouging and tearing. "My blood-bag! My blood-bag!"
Fangs stabbed back, as the last two possessed vampires tried to shred each other and any stray kokuchi to pieces to get to the living blood of the shin. "You're too ugly for her!"
"Aaarrrgh!"
"You two should hit Vegas," Akira gasped, unsteady on the torn-up soil of the graveyard. "Wonder if the UV in spotlights is enough to do vampires in-"
Ice. And acid.
Reverse-grip, backhand strike-!
The screech clawed down Akira's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. Hearing was pain, his shoulder was pain-
The kokuchi imploded.
Venom was still eating into his left shoulder, like someone dripping iced vinegar into his veins. Yet the centers of the ice were hot, two fangs like branding irons caught in muscle and bone.
Move! They're going to swarm you, Lulu's not stupid-
Hissing, the kokuchi backed away, one kicking the still-struggling ball of possessed vampires behind a nearby crypt.
What's going on?
Buffy floated through the shadowy throng, pouting at him like he'd bought her the wrong flavor of ice cream. "Where is Shirogane-sama?" Against all reason, her stomp on air had an audible thump. "He should be here by now!"
If I were still under his contract, he would be, Akira thought, darkly amused. A King could sense when his Childe was wounded.
But I'm not Shirogane's. And Buffy's not really Homurabi's. Buddha be thanked.
Being bitten changed everything. Kokuchi venom could kill a real shin, much less a magic-crafted fake. He had to find a way out of this. Fast.
Buffy huffed, pale cheeks pink with irritation. "Well, if the kokuchi aren't enough to send a message, this will be!"
Not fast en-
The world went gray as a thunderstorm-torrent, sound and sight vanishing in cold, pain, can't breathe...
The black whip was tight around his chest as Akira fought back up to one knee, swaying against the feeling of emptiness. Keep... moving. Cut the whip...
The chill... eased. Sleet instead of howling winter. Akira blinked, trying to focus.
Buffy was blinking at coils of darkness, fingers caressing the whip's handle like a startled cat. Gray eyes met ruby, curious, as she drifted closer.
Wait for it, wait, you'll only get one clear shot... have to take her down without killing her...
Gray eyes went wide. "Ooo."
Now!
He might as well have tried to slice a sunbeam. Buffy wafted out of range, giggling with glee. "Ooo, Shirogane-sama's so careless."
Gasping for breath, Akira tried to shake his head clear. Huh?
Whip still coiled about him, she was waving a scolding finger almost in his face. "Homurabi-sama would never have left you alone like this. Someone might... take you."
Behind her a rift opened, pale sky full of the ebony-black stars of home-
The shadow world. Not home. She's going to use me as bait to get Shirogane-!
This is taking too long, Cordelia fumed, trying to edge around the sounds of Giles... questioning Ethan, and ooo boy, she so did not need to know their librarian had a scary right hook...
Eek. The backroom looked like one of the Scoobies' study sessions gone horribly wrong. Dusty books open with red silk bookmarks and bags of chips holding them down. A pattern drawn on leather in candy-corn, that made her eyes hurt if she looked at it too long. A bowl of what she knew was blood - and she knew just who to blame for why she knew that, thanks.
And in the middle, a glowing statue with two faces.
"A-and then, you plunge the affected person into a hawthorn-laced ritual bath..."
Stalling, Cordelia knew. Just like Dad with the IRS.
Only this was a mage stalling, and between the movies and what she'd overheard from the library crowd, usually pounding the stuffing out of a mage broke their concentration. No concentration, no spell. Simple. Easy.
And so not working, Cordelia decided. Okay, glowing statue, probably magic, and all this stuff scattered around... not a spell. A ritual.
I got this.
Wishing she believed in luck, Cordelia held out a hand. "Harris? Knife."
Startled, Xander handed over the heavy blade.
Gripping the handle, she swiped it across the pedestal, the flat of steel striking marble in a blaze of green-blue sparks.
Crash.
A/N: Stray costumed characters include Axel from Kingdom Hearts, Kairi/Naminé from the Dead Fantasy vids (Monty Oum!), and the whole gang from Sands of Destruction.
And yes, Ethan reads Pet Shop of Horrors. He would find the Count inspiring.