Chapter Thirty Three: Under Pressure
"We need to find out more about what happened," said Tara. "I suppose that means making some sense of this Wolfram and Hart book and how it came to be ripped apart."
"Or going back to the Wolfram and Hart offices and asking a few tough questions," suggested Cordelia. And if I find Eve there she'll certainly have a few tough questions to answer she thought. I never trusted her. I bet she's got something to do with all this.
"Let's start with the book," said Tara circling around the scattered debris of the book lying on the floor. "It was like this when you entered the room?"
"Uh huh," agreed Cordelia. "Do you think it's safe to gather up the pieces?" Cordelia asked but she sounded very doubtful when she said it. "It might help if we could put as much of it back together as we possibly can."
"Better not touch any pieces." said Tara. "We shouldn't take any unnecessary chances. Anyway I think I know a better way to find out what was in the book."
"You know a way to put the book back together with magic?" asked Cordelia.
"No, but I think we can do something even better," said Tara smiling.
"One of those spells to review the past?" asked Cordelia. "We've got to find out what happened to Wesley and Eve as well as sorting out this demon change thing."
"Maybe later, when Willow's here to help," said Tara, "if we really need to. But it might be difficult without either Wesley or Eve around to be part of the spell. No, what I have in mind is a sort of magical snatch. As you know time travel's possible so this book still exists in the past before it was torn apart. What we can try to do is use magic to snatch the book from a slice of time in the past. It'll mean that for an instant in the past the book will cease to exist and we'll have a copy of it in the here and now."
"But won't we then only have it for an instant of time?" asked Cordelia. "As I understand it you don't get something for nothing, even with magic."
"That's the tricky bit," said Tara. "We need one spell to snatch it from the past and another spell to produce a copy of it before it disappears again." She smiled at Cordelia. "Good job we've got two witches." Tara broke off from what she was saying as she was struck by a sudden thought. "Wait a minute."
"What?" asked Cordelia.
"Something Willow told me about. Something that happened before I came to Sunnydale," said Tara. "It was about a demon that had been trapped in a book."
"Don't remember that one," said Cordelia. "Must have been before they roped me into the gang," she added.
"I wonder if that's what this was all about," said Tara. "Wolfram and Hart gave you a book with a demon trapped inside. They expected that when you read the book you'd let the demon out. And that's what happened. Once the demon was out it destroyed the book."
"That sounds like just the sort of thing Wolfram and Hart would do," said Cordelia. "Set loose some mega demon to attack everybody. That might explain the torn up book but it still doesn't explain the changing-into-a-demon infection," said Cordelia.
"No, it might," said Tara. "Some very powerful demons have that sort of power. You used your magic wand on the book. It might have been able to use the power you put into the wand to pass on its curse to you and it might have provided it with enough power to help it escape later when Wesley started reading the book."
"But we destroyed the demon right? So that's the end of that?" asked Cordelia.
"Oh no," said Tara. "We just destroyed the curse spirit. Getting rid of that sort of demon will be much more difficult than that."
So where is it now then?" asked Cordelia looking around. "And where's Wesley and Eve? You don't think Wesley might have been um, torn up or uh eaten by the demon?"
"We need Willow, Willow and Giles, before we do anything else," said Tara, deliberately avoiding answering Cordelia's last question since like Cordelia she feared the worst. "They know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do. I'll go and get them."
"Bring Phoebe along as well if you can. She knows a lot about demons," said Cordelia as Tara orbed away.
It wasn't long before Tara was back, but she didn't have Willow or Phoebe with her. She was however accompanied by Giles. Giles explained that Willow, Buffy, Phoebe and the rest were still busy with the fight against the Goa'uld, something that he couldn't much help with. They were helping SG-1 and the Kallistians to deal with Apophis and his newly arrived space fleet.
"But I do remember about the demon Moloch and the book he was trapped in," said Giles. "I agree with Tara. That's probably the sort of thing we're faced with here." As he spoke Giles had knelt down and examined the pieces of the book scattered on the floor, being careful not to touch any of them. "It certainly looks like it was that sort of book. If you look closely you'll see that there's no writing visible on any of the fragments."
"I think I can remember the spell that was used to trap him but we've got to get hold of another book first, the right sort of book," continued Giles. "We need a fresh book to trap him in again since this one has been destroyed. I expect that's why the demon destroyed it, to stop it being used again."
"Any idea where to find that sort of book?" asked Cordelia.
"Oh yes," said Giles. "Back in England at the Watchers Council. But there may be something suitable nearer to hand."
"The witch HQ?" suggested Cordelia.
"I hear they're under attack at the moment so they're probably too busy to help," said Giles. "A visit to them might be rather hazardous at the moment. I think a trip to the local offices of Wolfram and Hart is our best bet. And at the same time we might find out more about what's going on."
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Paige orbed back to the house near to the point where the explosion had taken place. She had orbed away as the explosion had gone off. It seemed to have been some sort of protective reflex because she couldn't recall any conscious decision to orb.
Her absence had only been brief, just long enough to avoid being caught up in the explosion itself. She was careful to orb back outside and a little away from the building. As she arrived back, the rubble on one side of the building was still settling and a large roof timber fell onto the ground nearby with a crash together with a pile of roof tiles.
"Piper! Prue!" shouted Paige as she rushed around to the other side of the building and inside via the undamaged front door. "Faith" Where are you all? Is everybody alright?"
"Over here!" called Prue. Paige went into the next room and found her eldest sister covered in dust but already using her power to move pieces of debris away and through the large gaping hole in the opposite wall.
"Piper?" asked Paige looking anxiously at Prue.
"She's through there with Lissie," said Prue pointing to the door to the next room. "They're both OK I think. But Faith's under this rubble somewhere. Ah...Piper! I need you, quick!"
Piper came through from the next room in response to Prue's call, Lissie followed behind.
"I think that's Faith over there," said Prue pointing to what could be Faith's shirt showing through a pile of rubble. I'm gonna carefully lift that rubble up off her. When I do you be ready to freeze it to stop any of it falling back down on her."
Paige was about to suggest that she go into the rubble and orb Faith away but she had no time because her sisters now used their powers. With a slow move of her arm Prue slowly lifted up the loose debris that was lying on top of Faith. As soon as she did so Piper froze the whole scene. Paige now rushed forward and took hold of Faith and orbed her outside onto the grass well away from the building. Meanwhile Piper released Lissie from the freeze.
Paige quickly examined Faith and found that she was still alive but unconscious. Prue, Piper and Lissie now hurried outside to join Paige and Faith.
"Orb us all away, quickly as you can!" ordered Prue. "We'll probably have company here soon. I expect the Goa'uld will make a move as soon as their devices stop working."
Even as Prue spoke figures appeared in the woods on the path leading into the clearing containing the chalet. All of the newcomers carried staff weapons and were starting to aim them as Paige orbed them all away.
Paige had decided to orb them all back to the basement of the castle. Except for the secret meetings between Glory and Ninurta it seemed to be unused and so it proved again. They found it to be completely deserted. Prue quickly called a witch light to dispel the total darkness of the area.
Paige had orbed Faith from her position lying in the grass outside the damaged chalet onto the floor of the basement. Now Piper helped her to carefully lift the slayer onto the table in the middle of the room.
"She's unconscious but I think she'll be OK," said Paige standing back after examining Faith. "She seems to be breathing properly. I can't see any major wounds."
"You're a Whitelighter Paige. You should be able to heal like Leo does," said Prue.
"I'm half Whitelighter," replied Paige. "I don't know if that makes a difference because the healing doesn't always work for me. But I'll give it a try."
Paige spent the next few minutes trying to use her healing power but without success. Finally she shook her head and stood back.
"Have you talked to Leo about this?" asked Prue. "Can't he help you get it to work properly?"
"According to Leo it might only work for me in cases of life or death," said Paige. "But not for anything less serious. Or I might just need a lot more practice. Half Whitelighters aren't very common apparently, and half witch, half Whitelighter is very rare. Leo's never met one before."
"Less serious!" said Lissie who had been following the conversation. "She was thrown across the room and buried in the rubble. It looks pretty serious to me. I can go into town and get a healer if you like. You people aren't from around here are you?"
"Faith's a slayer," said Piper who decided to ignore the final question. "They're hard to kill and they heal quickly. From what we were told they can generally recover from anything that doesn't kill them straight away. If Faith's still alive now she's likely to stay that way. She's been through a few tough knocks before and come back OK."
"A slayer!" said Lissie. "A vampire slayer? There really is a vampire slayer?"
"Yes, but please keep it a secret," said Prue with a disapproving glance at Piper. "Please keep everything we say secret. If you don't, only the Goa'uld will benefit. We've got to decide what to do next. Could you please keep an eye on Faith while I talk to my sisters. If she doesn't improve soon we'll take you up on your offer to get a healer."
The three sisters left Lissie and Faith in the room and went into the corridor nearby to talk. "What do you think?" Prue asked her sisters. "Any suggestions about what we do now?"
"I think we must have compromised the timeline big time with all the things we've done since we came back in time," said Piper.
"I agree," said Paige. "I don't see how things can possible be the same after everything that's happened."
"And I calculate the automatic return part of the time travel spell should have cut in by now, but nothing's happened," said Prue. "That means something's gone wrong. The spell not working might be because we've changed the future. That future might no longer exist for us to go back to."
"Or maybe we haven't returned because we haven't yet found out what we came here for," said Piper. "That's the way these things usually work."
"Either way we have to reset things somehow," said Prue. "Any suggestions?"
"Well there's one obvious thing we could try," said Piper.
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"The whole northern part of the city has gone," said Gwen to Kennedy as she entered the room. "This attack makes all the previous ones look like pinpricks. Looks like the Goa'uld have sent in the first team this time."
Gwen was informing Kennedy of the current state of the battle which had started with the Jaffa attack on the witch HQ. She had just spent some time talking to some of the witches handling communications with the various fighting formations. Of course she did not mean that the northern part of the city had literally gone anywhere, just that it had now been captured by the enemy forces.
After playing a leading part in the successful fight to defend the witch HQ the two earth women had decided to remain on the premises for the time being to help provide security against a further attack and see if they could come up with any ideas to really hurt the Goa'uld.
"By why don't the Kallistian witches do what they did before and blow up the Jaffa weapons?" asked Kennedy. "That worked so well last time."
"They're doing some of that," replied Gwen, "but the Kallistians had the Halliwells helping them then. This time the Halliwells aren't here and there are some witches working on the other side. It's not so easy."
"Well we won't be getting any help from the others up in space," said Kennedy. "At least not for a while. I heard they captured Marduk's big ship but they've now got their hands full with Apophis's fleet. He's turned up with a much bigger fleet than Marduk. That's probably where all these Jaffa are coming from."
"Well at least we managed to hold the witch HQ," said Gwen. "Once the witches started doing their magic it wasn't really a contest. Do you think the Goa'uld knew about the Wolfram and Hart business with the demons or was their attack just a coincidence?"
"I don't believe in coincidences," said Kennedy. "Or at least not those sorts of coincidences. I think Apophis is working with Wolfram and Hart."
"You might be right but don't forget about the witches working for Apophis," said Gwen. "He might have a seer who gave him the heads up about the Wolfram and Hart attack. Apophis might just have decided to take advantage and attack at a bad time for the witches."
"Well Wolfram and Hart certainly do have seers," said Kennedy. "Maybe that's why they pulled their stunt at this time, just when they knew Apophis was planning to attack."
"But why would Wolfram and Hart cooperate with the Goa'uld?" asked Gwen. "They're against the Goa'uld."
"And we know this because they said so?" replied Kennedy sarcastically. "Hey, you don't think they might have been lying do you? Anyway it's basic tactics. If you have two enemies, you want to get them fighting each other. Then you can just pick up the pieces afterwards."
"Yeah, from what I've heard about Wolfram and Hart that's just the sort of thing they'd do," agreed Gwen.
"Anyway we've got to leave Cordy to deal with Wolfram and Hart," said Kennedy. "We've got to do something about the witches who are working for Apophis. It's the witches who are protecting the Jaffa from the Kallistien magic. Without them the Kallistians should be able to throw out the Jaffa again."
"What do you suggest?" asked Gwen. "All of our witches are busy and we don't have any way to get aboard Apophis's ships. I bet that's where the big cheese himself is."
"There are some witches that aren't involved in the fighting," said Kennedy. "And there's a way they might be able to help us attack Apophis. Listen to this, see what you think."
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"Point one; they know we've got the Stargate here," said Fred. "They know we can use it to leave. So that might be just what they want to do, scare us off so they can come in and take the Gate."
"Point two; they've stopped us communicating with anybody outside of here. Even Amy and Anya can't get through so it seems they've got powerful equipment or powerful magic users working for them, or both. They've just left us the Stargate as a way of communication or escape."
"Point three; Assuming this is Wolfram and Hart plus possibly the NID they want to get their hands on Dawn and they probably know she's in here," continued Fred. "Or at least they want to get their hands on this Key and they think we've got it in here somewhere or Dawn can lead them to it."
"Point four; we shouldn't play into their hands by doing what they want. We've got to react in a way they don't expect. I don't think we should go through the Gate unless we really have to."
"Point five," continued Amy. "We can't take the Gate with us, or at least not without Willow's teleportation power. Anya and I can't move something that big ourselves although we can teleport one or two people if we really need to. Anyway we can't leave the Gate unguarded."
"Point six," said Connor, "we can't just sit here doing nothing while they make all the moves. I say we attack them now, clear them out of town. We can take them between us. They won't be expecting that. Amy and Anya can teleport a couple of us outside the perimeter and we can hit them from behind. What do you say Gunn?"
"I say if it comes to a fight you're always stronger on your home turf," said Gunn. "We've got a lot of advantages in here we won't have out there, including the protection spells. I think we'll be better off waiting to fight them in here if they try to come inside and take Dawn or the Gate. They don't know what we got set up in here. We might be able to take them by surprise."
"Well we could try a combination of both plans," said Anya. "We don't have to..."
Anya was interrupted by Dawn jumping up, screaming in pain and holding her head with both hands. As everybody directed their attention to her she suddenly shuddered and just for an instant turned a bright, shiny green colour before returning to normal. She then collapsed unconscious. Connor jumped forward and caught her as she fell. Of those watching, only Anya knew about Dawn's origins and had any idea of what might be happening.
"They're attacking Dawn with magic," said Anya. "Dial up Kallistien! Quick, we've got to get her out of here. We got to get her out of range of their magic." So far Fred's proposal that they maintain an open connection through the Gate had not been implemented since they had not been able to reach agreement as to the most suitable location.
"But isn't that line busy?" asked Gunn.
"That's the Gate up on the Space station," said Major Larkham. "We can try the main Kallistien Gate down on the planet."
"But why Kallistien?" asked Fred, looking at Anya.
"Where else do you think we're going to get magical help?" replied Anya.