To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers

Part 12: Visitations, Plural

People left the two of us and our pseudo dragons alone for a while, understanding that we needed to be with each other in light of the miracle that Angel and Faith had pulled off. Oddly enough, we didn't talk much, just sat together and cuddled. Oh, we talked some, sure— but mostly it was enough to know that Colin could talk.

At least, we sat quietly until Buffy, Xander, Willow, Lydia, Giles and Kelly came down to the guest house to join us for supper. Then… well, everyone there was sweet to us. Or to Colin, at least.

We didn't even realize that Buffy and her family had arrived until the six of them came walking over to us, and Buffy said, "Hi, guys. Rose said you all had a sort of a surprise for us— and maybe an explanation of why Angel and Faith look like they've been fighting. And… Colin, that's the leftovers of a shiner you're wearing, wow, you do heal fast.

"Okay, what happened?"

We stood up, and Colin looked at the six of them for a moment, even as Royal relayed a message to me from Colin (via Nightfall). I said, "Well, there was a little bit of a dust up, but no one was hurt bad— and there was one definite positive side effect."

"Okay, what positive side effect?" Buffy said, sounding a little impatient.

"Buffy," Colin said, his voice improved, but still a little raspy. "Xander. I wish— even being able to talk won't let me say how sorry I am about what happened to Alex."

The six of them stared for a long moment— then Buffy hugged Colin fiercely, and Xander hugged them both.

"My god, Angel and Faith did… this?" Giles said, actually smiling a little. "Ever the unexpected depths from those we love."

"Yes," Kelly said, hugging Colin as Buffy and Xander let him go. "You'd think, as often as that sort of unexpected hits us, that we'd stop unexpecting it."

"Dear lord, that's a bit unnerving," Giles said, looking aggrieved. "You mangle the English language… yet make sense while doing so."

"Okay, so Angel and Faith managed to break your block," Buffy said, as Willow and Lydia hugged Colin. "How'd they do it?"

"They showed me that… that the guilt I feel may be real, may be big… but that other people have more reason to feel guilty than I do, and they d-don't let it… don't let it make them s-stop them from going on as best they can," Colin said. He blushed some, and added, "They showed me that I w-was being a baby, and… well. I couldn't make Angel shut up even by hitting him— which made Faith come at me— he wouldn't stop talking, stop telling me what an ass I was being, about the things he did when he was a vampire, about how those things made him feel. I hit him, and he kept talking and hit back, and finally I just… I yelled at him to shut up. He did stop talking then— and I realized what they'd done."

"Go, Angel," Buffy said. "I can't wait to hear what Diane says about this particular treatment."

"Yeah, that should be interesting," Xander agreed. "Or possibly scary."

"It worked," I said. I smiled up at Colin and added, "It worked— so I don't much care whether she yells or not."

We had supper, and Diane did express an opinion of what Angel and Faith had done when Buffy asked her point blank about it.

"Wish I'd thought of it," Diane said. "I'm good at what I do, Buffy, and I'm arrogant because I know I'm good— but I'm not so arrogant that I'm going to argue with results. That way lay not having the world's cutest pseudo dragon attach himself to you as a friend."

"Anyone starting to argue about the relative cuteness of pseudo dragon companions will be given a week's worth of dishwashing duty," Daddy said, even as a dozen mouths opened— and shut immediately after he said that. "It's a purely subjective argument that can't be won, so we simply won't have it."

After dinner, some of the newbies volunteered to clean up, and I went to talk to Thomas Dunlap, Graham's lover and a sweet man in his own right. He was in his fifties, tall, slender, bald as a cue ball, and generally handsome in an academic way. He was the principal of Bloomington High School back home, had been the assistant principal back in Aunt Rose's and Brian Keller's days of attendance there. He'd been involved with Graham for most of my life, and they had one of those relationships that homophobes say homosexual people can't have— stable, faithful, steady, and all of these in enough quantity to withstand Graham having to be gone a lot, by virtue of his career. I think of them every time some 'phobe starts rattling on around me, and of the disappointed look each would give me for pounding the 'phobe into ground meat, and I manage to hold my temper. Usually.

We talked for a bit, I introduced him to Mi Kyong while Daddy and Xander spent a few minutes asking Colin something about security, and to Colin when he finished and came over.

"Thomas Dunlap, high school principal and Graham's lover, meet Colin Goddard, man that I love," I said, carefully not saying much else. Thomas was a big fan of super hero comics, and I wanted to see if he'd recognize Colin's name. "Colin, Thomas is a family friend since about the time I was born."

"It's a pleasure, s-sir," Colin said, shaking Thomas's hand. "Though I really wish the circumstances were different."

"Yes, as do I," Thomas said, frowning just a little. "Still… to see Jocelyn settling down is good— stability is a damned good idea for people in dangerous jobs.

"Colin… are you aware that there's a comic book character out there who shares your name? In fact, you could have been the model for how he was drawn."

"I… I was the model, sir," Colin said. "I'm— I was— Starpulse." Colin held up his left hand, set off a low-intensity flash of light (the high-intensity ones could blind someone for quite a while), and said, "I guess… someone here must have had sort of v-visions of my world, my life."

"My god," Thomas said, staring. "That's… the implications are mind-boggling! Even scary! But when coupled with the things that happened during the Battle of Bloomington… well, I have to wonder how many works of fiction are truth in another universe."

"You mean— mean when the people from the Matrix showed up to fight demons?" Colin asked. "And the royal f-family of Amber? And the Jedi knights?"

"And the people from the Dungeons and Dragons style world who showed up at the mall, and let the pseudo dragons come through," Thomas said. "Without them, you'd be short a friend— as would most of us here."

"Yes, they d-definitely did your world— m-my world, now, too— a favor," Colin said. Nightfall, perched on his shoulder, head-bumped his cheek in thanks for the compliment. "I saw your friend with you earlier. Must have gone of to v-visit with his friends from the dragons?"

"Actually, I think he's begging for beef jerky," Thomas said, nodding towards where a group of dragon-less newbies were sitting and feeding beef jerky to as many pseudo dragons as came over. "The new Slayers seem to have discovered the pseudo dragon equivalent of catnip, and the dragons like the girls, so… friends are being made."

Even as Thomas spoke, Royal dropped off of my shoulder to go get a piece of jerky— all the pseudo dragons I've ever met or heard about love it— and a slightly bigger pseudo dragon than normal, colored a dusky green, came flapping over and landed on Thomas's shoulder. He had a piece of beef jerky in his paws, and, after landing on Thomas's shoulder, he looked at Nightfall and Fog and tore off a little piece for each of them. The babies accepted the treat, head-rubbed Thomas's friend in deep gratitude, and began gnawing the jerky with serious attention.

"That was nice of you," Mi Kyong said. "Thank you, on Fog's behalf."

"This," Thomas said as his dragon gave Mi Kyong the mouth-slightly-open expression that is a pseudo dragon grin, "is my friend Ellegon, named for my favorite fictional dragon ever— I think he chose the name because he was jealous of my affection for the character.

"Ellegon, this is Jocelyn's lover, Colin and his pseudo dragon companion, Satellite, and her friend Mi Kyong and pseudo dragon companion, Fog."

Ellegon nodded, grinned at all four— then looked hard at Colin, burbled a curious little sound, and made reading motions.

"Yes, this is Colin Goddard— that Colin Goddard," Thomas said. Colin blinked, and Thomas chuckled at his expression of surprise. "Oh, most pseudo dragons love being read to, Colin, and some have learned to read— awkward for them only because of the sizes of our books. But Ellegon has sat with me as I read a great many comic books, and I read— I have— all the issues of your comic. So it's not surprising that he recognized you— the artist was very good, and captured your face accurately."

Then Thomas proved that he was a nice, sweet man, and that he paid attention. He'd noticed the way Colin had said, "I was Starpulse," and seen the look on his face— and he dropped it there, changed the subject.

"Now… I hear that you, young lady, have done something to earn that START hat you're wearing," Thomas said, and flipped the bill with a finger. "Also, every time either of your parents or Giles look at you, there flashes across their features a look of very smug pride.

"Give— what did you do right this time?"

Mi Kyong and Colin— mostly Mi Kyong, but Colin said enough to make it plain that he was proud of me— told him about the things I'd figured out and my chain of reasoning. When they were done, Thomas looked at me with a smile and said, "Now, I'm damned glad I got you started on Laurie King's novels of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell-Holmes, Jocelyn. Good work, young lady."

"Thanks, Thomas," I said, and hugged him. "I have to admit, reading those taught me a lot about thinking logically and deductively. So you get some credit, too."

"For sharing a good series of books?" Thomas said. He gave me another smile and said, "Jocelyn, the sharing of a good book is a joy in itself— so no credit will be accepted."

"You just like seeing me blush," I said, and poked him in the ribs. "Beast."

The rest of the evening went… quietly, but well enough. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Dawn, Giles and their various husbands, wives and lovers all went home pretty early… but no one blamed them.

I didn't see Buffy, Xander, Willow or Giles all the next morning and afternoon, though Aunt Dawn came down with the rest of her family for lunch, but they didn't stay long.

Alex's visitation started at six that night, and ran until nine. Daddy told everyone up front, so that there would be no surprises, that Willow had done a spell to restore Alex's body to a presentable state, so that Xander and Buffy could see him and say goodbye without having to see him… well, destroyed. (Alex's face had been ruined by Warren's shot, but the morgue people hadn't let Xander see that when he went to identify the body, bless them— Alex had a distinctive strawberry birthmark, shaped like a flattened artist's palette, on the inside of his right wrist, and they'd shown Xander that over closed circuit TV, and nothing else.)

But Daddy didn't know, or forgot to tell us, that Willow had done the same for Chief, Alex's pseudo dragon friend… and that Chief was being buried with Alex, in-the-coffin with, and was there, too.

We arrived just after six, and Colin, Mi Kyong and I went in first, Mom and Daddy behind us with Stephen, Belinda and Danielle between them. I was dimly aware of a lot of people milling around, and I remember signing the guest register, but only like you remember a dream. After Colin and Mi Kyong had signed, we went in and approached the coffin, waiting only for a few Slayers my age and a little older before we moved up to the coffin ourselves.

Alex lay in the coffin, dressed in his absolute favorite outfit; olive-drab fatigue pants, a black T-shirt with the words "Team Slayer" across the chest in big red letters, and the START cap that Graham had given him for his and Joyce's birthday almost a year before. Chief, looking more alive than Alex did (Willow had done her best [and a fantastic job], but a human body without a soul never looked truly alive), lay curled up on Alex's chest and stomach, and Alex's right hand rested on his best friend's back.

I was a sobbing disaster a half a second after looking into the coffin, clutching Royal against my chest as he, too, wept, his head pressed against the base of my throat, his little body heaving with grief. Colin got me past the coffin, half-carrying me into the arms of the first person in the line of family, Kelly Giles, who wrapped me in the kind of hug that only a grandma can give as Royal climbed up to my shoulder, held me and cried with me for a moment, then passed me to Giles, who folded me in a grandpa-hug, rocked me a little, then steadied me as I moved to Willow, who held me and wept with me for a longer time. Then Aunt Dawn had me in her arms, and I felt the two feathers in her hair near the left side of her jaw, the badges of a full Guardian, tickling my cheek.

Then came the hardest hug of all, the one that hurt the most; Alex's twin sister, Joyce. Small, delicate-looking like her mother, with the same fine features and high cheekbones, but topped by Xander's thick, heavy, dark hair and brown eyes. Joyce, who'd lost her twin, someone so close to her, someone part of a relationship I doubted any not-twin could ever understand, and who was not even thirteen yet.

We'd been friends for years, she and Alex and I, and never mind me being eighteen months older, a Slayer, and living more than eight hundred miles away. Our families always got together on holidays, they'd spend long weekends and part of their summers with Giles and Kelly, and we always hung together, then. They were as much family as friends, and now Joyce was more alone than I knew how to imagine.

She hugged me hard, sobbed harder— and we both dissolved into puddles of tears, each kept upright only by the other, and I didn't move until she let go and grabbed Colin, as much to stay upright as to hug him.

Then Buffy pulled me into her arms, and we cried, and she whispered in my ear, "Jocelyn, no matter what else, remember that you showed us who did this. You made it possible to stop him, Jocelyn, before he manages to hurt someone else, you gave us something to defend against— and for that, I know that Alex would say 'you rule, Slayer!' Only… well, I'm pretty sure he'd sh-shout it."

We both cried a little more, and then I moved to Xander… and got amazed.

This man had lost his son. The son he'd loved, and doted on, and fought not to spoil, and he had to be in terrible, awful pain… and Xander comforted me as best he could, put my pain— awful, horrid, and surely not more than one percent of his own— in front of his.

Is it any wonder that the Guardians of Sh'rin's time, some five thousand years before our own, called Xander Harris "the Heart?" No. No, I can't believe that it is. Nor could I believe that it was any accident that Buffy woke up to the wonder that is Xander not too long after hearing that from Sh'rin's lips.

Xander Harris, in a better world, would be given the happiness he tries to insure for everyone around him.

He held me, and rocked me, and cried with me— and thanked me, as Buffy had, for identifying Alex's killer. Then I was past the line of family, and Natalie Moore, a Slayer born with the power like I had been (and a former lover) was there waiting for me, sobbing and reaching for me, and we wrapped each other in hugs as her father, an ex-SAS sergeant in his fifties and a Watcher, guided us gently to seats along the wall. He then moved to stand nearby with Natalie's mother (a devastatingly gorgeous Caucasian woman who looked like a Nordic ice-queen until she smiled, at which point you saw that she was actually friendly by nature) as Colin and Mi Kyong sat next to us, holding each other's hands.

Once we calmed down, I introduced Natalie to Colin and Mi Kyong, and I was honest all around, introduced her as a former lover, Colin as my current lover, Mi Kyong as my "newest adopted sister."

"It's a pleasure, then," Natalie said. "And… well, a bit of a relief, I think. See, I've been seeing a girl all regular— she couldn't come, her parents weren't keen on her coming to the US for the funeral of a boy she didn't even know and she's not a Slayer, just an incredible singer— and we're a bit on the monogamous side. Since you're being a bit of the same, no one's got to be knackered, then."

We four sat and talked for a while— then all hell broke loose.

I was looking at the line when it happened, saw a middle-aged blond woman moving through the first four of the six family members quickly. She wore a black pantsuit, and a hat with a veil— odd combination, I thought, usually you'd wear a hat-and-veil with a dress, but I didn't think it so odd as to be worth freaking over.

She stopped in front of Buffy, but didn't offer her hand. Instead, she pulled a small stick of some dark wood out of her pocket and broke it. As she broke the stick, some big light poured out of the broken ends and into her… and she glowed for a moment, a weird, unpleasant shade of blue that hurt the eyes.

"Now you begin to understand," the woman said in a voice that dripped with hate, "Now you know what it's like to lose a child, you bitch!"

Before anyone could do anything, she punched Buffy in the stomach, sent her flying backwards and into the wall. Buffy didn't go unconscious, but she was obviously hurt, and didn't seem able to get up. Even as the woman backhanded Willow into unconsciousness, I got up and charged her, not thinking, just moving, seeing something to hit, to make hurt at a time when I really needed it, and going.

Xander hit the woman, and she ignored him, didn't even seem to feel it. I leaped, I kicked her— and I hurt my foot (I'd kicked off my shoes before charging her— you do not fight in heels, even low heels, if you can help it).

While I was working to get to my feet, the woman took a little ceramic disk out of her pocket and broke it— and suddenly, she, Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Joyce, Willow (unconscious, still), Giles, Kelly and I were trapped in a force field dome with her, and I could see other Slayers pounding on the force field with everything from bare fists to heavy chairs, all to no avail. I could see Colin firing blast after blast of his own power at the force field, though they had no more effect than did anything else.

"Do you remember my daughter, Buffy?" the woman asked. "Do you remember my Helena? The girl you took into battle and got KILLED? You might remember her, she was missing her left hand?"

"I remember," Buffy said, forcing herself erect. "I remember a girl who wanted to do the right thing. Who wanted to fight, to defend people— to help people!

"What would she think about you doing this, Mrs. Parris? Do you think it would make her happy? Make her proud?

"She'd hate this. This isn't how she'd want you to remember her, how she'd want you to hold onto her memory!"

"You really think I care what you think?" Mrs. Parris snarled. "You really think that?"

"No, but I think you should," she said. She finished getting to her feet— and I took that as my cue. I started to ginga, wishing I had my sword, and Buffy shouted, "Jocelyn, no!"

I didn't listen to her— Buffy would be way cautious right then, I figured, worrying too much, being too cautious.

No. No, I was way, way overconfident.

I hit my rhythm, hopped in spinning, fired off a series of kicks to Mrs. Parris's jaw that would have floored any vampire ever sired. She laughed at me. Buffy tried to hit her, to give me an opening— and she reached back without even looking and slapped Buffy down. I kept going, kept kicking, tried foot-sweeping her— nothing. I might as well have tried to sweep the Statue of Liberty.

She punched me in the chest, a short little jab— and I felt a rib let go, then spots of light burst behind my eyes as I slammed backwards into the force field dome, knocked my head a good one.

"Jocelyn, stay down!" Xander shouted as I tried to get up. "Stay down, dammit!"

I kept trying to push to my feet, angry past all reason, wanting nothing but to knock this bitch for a serious loop.

"Yes, stay down," Mrs. Parris said— and she blurred across the space between us and stomped on my left shin. It broke— and I drew blood as I bit my lip to keep from screaming. "Good girl."

"Now, missy," Mrs. Parris said, turning back to Buffy, "I've knocked out the witch, I've broken a leg on your little ingénue Slayer, here… and I'm going to offer you a choice.

"Either you come over here and you put your neck in my hands for me to snap… or I kill everyone in this little fortress I've created, ending with you— and your little girl will go first!

"What's it going to be?"

"None of the above, you bitch!"

The voice was cold and furious, it throbbed with power— and it came from Aunt Dawn.

Mrs. Parris turned to look at Aunt Dawn— and stared in shock.

Aunt Dawn floated four or five inches off of the ground, arms down and angled away from her sides. She crackled with tiny bolts of lightning, her long brown hair streamed in an unfelt wind, and she looked scary, intimidating and blindly furious.

"You knocked down a witch, lady," Aunt Dawn said. "Not the witch!"

Mrs. Parris started for Aunt Dawn, but Aunt Dawn threw a bolt of lightning at the woman. It didn't seem to hurt her much, but it did knock her backwards— and it gave Aunt Dawn time for another, more important spell.

Aunt Dawn raised both hands up in front of her, shouted words in a language that I recognized as the one Aunt Sh'rin used and thought in— and suddenly, the Guardian's blade dropped into her hands with a flash of light.

The Guardian's blade, made by Sh'rin's father and imbued with magic by the Guardians, just like the Scythe had been, though the magics were different. Only a Guardian could access all of the magics in the blade— but Aunt Dawn was second only to Aunt Sh'rin in the Guardians, and she knew how to access that power, could, by virtue of thinking like a modern witch, do things that even Aunt Sh'rin couldn't do.

Mrs. Parris started for her again, and Aunt Dawn drew the blade, tossing the wooden sheath aside, raised it— and stared at Mrs. Parris as she advanced.

Aunt Dawn suddenly shifted her stance, went from "ready to kill something" to "ready to defend against something," and most of the anger drained out of her face.

"Oh, shit," Aunt Dawn muttered, "change in plans, here!"

She gestured with one hand, and lightning hit Mrs. Parris again, sent her staggering back against the wall of the force-dome and held her there, as Aunt Dawn looked her over, eyes visibly searching for something. Then she seemed to find it— and she advanced, slowly and carefully, holding the Guardian's Blade in her right hand, her left keeping up the barrage of lightning that held Helena Parris's mother pinned in place.

"Buffy!" Dawn cried. "I need help— this isn't her fault, and I can't do three things at once!"

"Tell me what to do!" Buffy called, moving up to stand beside Aunt Dawn.

"I've got to hold her here and break the spell that's on her," Aunt Dawn said. "It'll rebuild itself fast as long as she's wearing the necklace she has on. I can keep it down for a second, maybe— you'll have to be quick! And you can't hold the necklace, you tear it off of her and you drop it, right away!"

"Say when!" Buffy said shouting to be heard over the crackling of electricity.

"Right… NOW!" Aunt Dawn shouted, and made a complicated, swirling cut with the Guardian's blade, tracing the outline of Mrs. Parris's face but not actually touching her.

As soon as the blade finished its circle, Buffy's hand darted in and snatched the small, ornate necklace that the woman wore off of her and flung it to the ground. Aunt Dawn let the lightning drop, Mrs. Parris dropped to the floor sobbing, and Aunt Dawn dropped to her knees in front of the necklace, chanting rapidly and loudly, tracing a circle around the necklace with the blade, a circle that lit up with brilliant white light and penned in the swirling red… smoky-ooze that poured out of the necklace.

"Okay, ass-hat," Aunt Dawn said to the red stuff, "time to go home— right after we talk about how you got here!"

She muttered another spell while Buffy wrapped Helena Parris's mom in a tight hug, both of them crying hard, and the oozing smoke… well, shrieked.

"THE WITCH!" the stuff screamed, in a voice like the buzzing of angry wasps and nails on a chalkboard all at once. "THE WITCH, THE WITCH, SHE SUMMONED ME, SHE HATES YOU ALL, SHE TRIED TO SUMMON BALAGOR AND THE CHILD STOPPED IT, SO SHE SUMMONED ME, NOT MY FAULT, LET ME LIVE, LET ME STAY!"

"Live, maybe," Aunt Dawn muttered. "Stay here? Not happening!"

Aunt Dawn did a third spell, drawing a second circle around the first as she chanted— and suddenly, the red-oozing-smoke-stuff screamed— and vanished into a tiny black spot that appeared above it.

"Oh, crap, that was work!" Aunt Dawn said, suddenly pouring sweat and breathing hard. "Okay… force field. Let me see…." She held up the Guardian's blade and looked over it at the force field. "Oh. Okay. Easy."

Aunt Dawn got up, moving gracefully despite her obvious exhaustion, and went to where Giles and Kelly were examining Willow, who was sitting up slowly.

"Willow, are you hurt bad?" Aunt Dawn asked.

"Headache," Willow said. "And… split lip. Other than that… just embarrassed."

"Well, I hate to cause you any pain, but . . ." Aunt Dawn reached out and wiped a little bit of blood from Willow's split lip onto her finger, making Willow wince. "Sorry— but your blood— yours specifically, Willow, which worries me— is the key to taking down this force field."

"That's worrying, all right," Willow said ruefully. "I hope there won't have to be any swords involved in getting enough blood…."

"No, this will do," Aunt Dawn said, and went to the closest part of the force field. She drew a single symbol on it with Willow's blood, said something in a language I didn't know— and the force field dropped.

Daddy and Colin were kneeling on either side of me a microsecond later, then Mom and Mi Kyong were beside them.

"Young lady," Daddy said, his voice a weird mix of relieved and pissed off, "what, exactly, did you think you were doing going after an unknown enemy with unknown abilities like that?"

Mom jumped in before I could even begin to answer, said, "And what the high flyin' hell were you thinkin', attackin' her after Buffy said not to!? Then tryin' to do it again after Xander tole you to stay down!?"

"I was thinking that they're hurt and probably being over-cautious," I said. "And Daddy, she hit Buffy, and I… I…."

"You lost your temper, and you did the stupid," Daddy said. He looked at me, saw that I knew it had been stupid, and shook his head. "Honey-girl, if you ever do that again, you'll not go on a solo mission again until you're eighteen. That was damned dumb, Jocelyn, and if it weren't that I know you're hurting and that hurting makes people stupid, you'd be in trouble so deep you'd need a backhoe to get out of it."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," I said, trying not to cry as he checked over my leg. "I… I've wanted to hit something since… since Alex got k-killed and— and that woman, Helena's mom, she— I'm sorry!"

"Well," said a voice from my other side, "I'm going to make you feel a little more sorry, Jossie."

Xander knelt on my other side, looked me in the eye and said, "You heard what Dawn said about it not being Mrs. Parris's fault, right?"

"Yes, sir," I said, looking down.

"So… what would you feel like if she'd just been super-strong and super-fast, Jossie?" Xander asked. "What if she hadn't been super-tough— and you'd killed her, and then found out it wasn't her fault?"

I tried to answer, and couldn't. All that came out was a sob.

"You have to think, Jocelyn," Xander said much more gently. He took my hand in his and said, "You're too powerful to go off half-cocked like that, kiddo. You have to think— and you have to think even when you're hurt. You don't get the excuse of being in pain but the one time, Jocelyn."

I nodded, squeezed his hand— then sat and wept with shame and clung to Mom while Daddy splinted my leg, using first aid materials he had Colin get from the trunk of the rental car we'd come in.

"Rib?" Daddy asked once my leg was splinted.

"Broken," I said, sniffling. "Needs taped."

"I will do this," Aunt Sh'rin said, dropping next to Daddy. "I have the knowledge, and I can do it."

"Okay, and thank you," Daddy said. He stood, helped me up, and I got an arm across Aunt Sh'rin's shoulders. "Jocelyn… we should send you home after this… but if you want to stay, you can."

"I think I… I think I need to, Daddy," I said. "Please."

"Okay," Daddy said. He gave me a hard grin, one that said he was over being mad at me, but that I wasn't out of trouble all the way yet. "When we get home, Jocelyn, you go back into training— and I'm going to work you to the bone. Then I'm going to stuff your head with everything I can find about when to fight and when not to, until you think your head will pop— and then I'll add ten percent more.

"This is never happening again, and you're training until I'm satisfied of that."

"Yes, sir," I said in a small voice, knowing he was right, knowing I'd been a dumbass.

Aunt Sh'rin taped up my ribs, didn't scold me at all, gave me an herbal concoction that would reduce my pain without making my brain fuzzy, and took me back out to the main room, where order had been restored, and Giles's checkbook had soothed the funeral director's freakout over the damage done to the place.

I got seated between Colin and Mi Kyong and hugged by my folks, Xander and his family and— well, practically everyone— and then Mrs. Parris came over stand in front of me.

"Young lady… Jocelyn, isn't it?" she said. "I'm Stacy Parris."

"Jocelyn Penobscot," I said and shook her hand. "Mrs. Parris, I'm so sorry— I could have really hurt you, but… but I miss Alex, a-and I'm sc-scared and I got stupid! I'm sorry!"

"Hush, no harm done," Stacy Parris said. "Except the harm that I came over here to apologize for."

"Not your fault," I said. "I know, Aunt Dawn said already."

"Well… even, then?" she said.

"Okay," I said. I hesitated, but my desire to know overcame any shyness left in me. "Mrs. Parris, where did you get the stuff that let you… do all this?"

"I don't know," she said in frustration. "I don't have any idea. Willow already went into my memory, but it's been… 'magically excised,' she said. So I don't know how I got those things, or who— who aimed me at you folks like a gun."

"Joy," I said with a sigh. "One more enemy— couldn't have been the one we know about, he doesn't do this sort of thing. Just what we need… another enemy, and one we don't know anything about.

"This sucks."