To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers

Part 46: Ignition

In the Trap:

Joyce Harris stared, drop-jawed and completely flabbergasted, as first the head, then the whole body of her brother Alex poked through the door (literally through the door itself, without bothering to open it first) opposite the place where she'd been pulled into Warren's trap. Her brother, Alex, dead since June, completely fine-looking, solid-looking, despite walking through a door like it wasn't even there, and— and oh, god, there was Chief, her brother's pseudo dragon friend, who had died after trying to kill Warren, who had shown Joyce's friend Leia the face Warren was using most often these days.

"Don't say anything," Alex said quickly. "Warren can't see us, doesn't know that we came to help you— don't spoil it, sis. Me'n Chief, we'll be your secret weapons.

"You can talk to me through Chief, but don't say anything out loud, seriously."

Alex, Joyce thought in the direction of her brother's scaly best friend, her mind whirling, Alex, you can't be… you died!

"Can't let that stop me— Mom didn't." Alex grinned his biggest, cheesiest grin. "Come on, through this door— this is the easiest monster of the three. Move it, sis."

Joyce hesitated, but only long enough to remember what Belinda, in the grip of the Powers That Be, had said to her before they all left for Montana… less than a day ago, god.

"First, know that to the Guardians of Sh'rin's time, you, Daughter of the Prime, Daughter of the Heart, are named what you do not now believe you can be; those women call you 'the Complete.'

"Second… when you see what cannot be, it is— and you must trust in that which you see."

Alex and Chief couldn't be here— so this was true, it was really her brother and his best friend, they had really come to help her— and Joyce Harris, caught in a deathtrap that terrified her, about to face who-knew-how-many enemies in an effort to reach the thing that had killed her brother, went to the door Alex had indicated, smiled as she moved that way, and felt for the first time since his death, whole.

Whole… and Complete.

"Vampire on the other side," Alex said as she approached the door. "Not too big, but he's got his game face on— and he's hungry. He's by the door to your right, watching the room, so you won't surprise him. Now, go— almost gas time!"

Joyce flung the door open and dived through in a roll, came to her feet facing the vampire that had started to charge her, beheaded it after a brief battle, then looked around, carefully not letting her eyes fall directly on her brother's ghost.

"This way," Alex said, waving her to the door to the left of where she'd entered. "Were-rat on the other side, confused, hungry, in the corner ahead and right of where you're entering from."

Joyce took a single breath, looked around for show's sake, then headed to the door Alex had indicated, asking Chief mentally, How did you get permission for this, you guys? I'm glad you're here, so glad I can't say it, but… how?

After a second, her brother looked at her and grinned. "Sis. Seriously. You don't think the Powers owe our family some serious favors? I didn't figure Mom or Dad would mind me cashing in some of their credit, not for this.

"Besides— you know I can be a pain in the ass if I don't get what I want!"

Joyce had to stifle a laugh as she reached for the door to the next room, thinking, Good point! as she did so.

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Asimov Station:

Rose Killian braced herself, trying to prepare for being hit by a H'lkordak demon— a badger-ish thing the size of a rhino, with a five-foot-long tail that it could and did use like a whip, with a sort of flaring, leathery hood like a cobra, a muzzle that crossed the worst attributes of alligator and shark, and a blue-gray hide that made rhino and alligator hide look like rice paper— and suddenly the incoming demon slammed sideways and into the station bulkhead hard enough to stop it in its tracks.

Rose slammed her sword through the thing's braincase, killing it instantly, looked up— and grinned as Starpulse lowered his hand— still glowing from the concussion blast he'd used on the monster— and said in a scolding voice, "Bad demon! No squishing our Slayers!"

"Oh, Turing's ghost, you're making jokes!" complained the man behind him, who wore hi-tech armor and held something that looked suspiciously like a light saber in one hand. "Shadow Dragon will never, ever forgive me for not bringing him with us to hear you making jokes!"

A vampire leapt at the armored figure— Rose had read Ballard's copies of the comics about Starpulse, so she recognized Cyber Knight— and he laughed and said, "Dude, light-sword!" as he cut the thing's head off neatly.

"They're not very bright," said a figure in black pants, a gray tunic, and a white jacket open over the tunic. A long sword made of silver light filled his right hand, a mace of the same solid light his left, and Armsman grinned fiercely as he battled a trio of surprisingly quick-moving zombies, killed one even as he spoke. "But really—" A second zombie fell, its skull crushed. "—I don't mind so much." The third fell, its head flying down the hall a ways as the sword passed through its neck and the mace hit it right after. "It's kind of a pleasant change."

Rose laughed, heard Elaine giggling behind her, and Ballard muttering about wanting an autograph as he and Faith closed the gap behind them.

There were demon bodies everywhere around them, and a couple of robot bodies as well.

"You guys are efficient as hell," Rose commented. "Where were you while we were in Montana?

"No, never mind, strictly rhetorical.

"Willow? Any danger of another incursion?"

"Nope." Willow smirked and said, "Last time they tried, I shifted their warp about a thousand miles that way." She pointed up and behind them, away from the Earth below. "Then I made it bigger. Turns out, demons? Not so big on breathing vacuum."

"Oooo, I like!" Rose said. "Well… what next? Down to reinforce the others, or—"

"Excuse me," Cyber Knight said, raising his left hand with one finger up, even as he shut down his light-sword. "When we first arrived, I scanned the bodies of the robots that 'Pulse destroyed, and I was able to copy the stuff still in the short-term storage in a couple of their heads. My onboard computer has been deciphering it, it just finished.

"What's in Cleveland? 'Cause that Warren guy, the robotic one? He was thinking that it was 'up to his Cleveland selves' if someone named Catherine failed."

Everyone from Team Slayer fell silent and stared at Cyber Knight, who squirmed a little uncomfortably. "Uh, I guess I'm the bearer of bad news, but—"

"Screw that!" Rose said, shaking herself out of her shock. "You may have just saved our planet!

"Okay, we left the shelter at radius ninety. Let's move, people!"

Rose turned and charged down the curved hallway of the space station, rushing in hope of getting to the Hellmouth in Cleveland before Warren tried… whatever it was he intended to do should Catherine Madison fail in her attempt to perform the Ritual of the Gaping Way.

As they followed, Colin explained as briefly as possible to Cyber Knight and Armsman what they were going to be doing, and when he finished, Cyber Knight said quietly, "Okay, that's scary."

"Yeah." Colin shook his head and said, "Knight… thanks. You maybe just saved the world."

"Hey, thank me after we clean this asshole's clock, man." Cyber Knight didn't sound nervous, just determined. "Maybe I can help— I've got a piece of the coding he used to self-program, to copy his… consciousness, I guess, into the robot bodies. Maybe I can come up with a virus— I can deliver it via the frequency he uses to communicate with his selves, you know?"

"Work on that," Colin agreed. "I can only go down so fast— no heat shields on the transport, just the tensile strength to handle the pressure without blowing up, and I can only absorb so much heat myself— so once we hit atmosphere, we slow significantly until we're grounded."

"I'm on it," Cyber Knight said. "Armsman, once we're in this transport, ask everyone not to disturb me until we reach our destination— I'm gonna have to work fast."

"You got it," Armsman agreed.

Starpulse just grinned— and thanked the Powers That Be that he'd run out of power and been snapped home when he had.

Without Knight, we'd have no idea about Warren's plan C, or D, or whatever letter he's up to, now, Colin Goddard thought as he followed his new family towards the airlock where they'd left their pressurized shelter, his friends from his birth world right behind. So I guess there was a reason for scaring me silly.

The majority of the team boarded the transport shelter, and Colin got one of their security escort to let him out after it had disengaged from the lock, and started towing it towards Earth, flying as fast as he dared while they were still in the vacuum of space.

They had just reached forty thousand feet above the Earth, the point where Colin had to start diverting around air traffic corridors, when Rose, sitting between Elaine and Willow, happened to glance across at Chantelle— just as the other Slayer cocked her head and said, "Whatinhell?"— then stared off into space. Rose opened her mouth to ask what was wrong— and Chantelle shook herself, sighed, and grinned hugely.

"That," she said, just loud enough for the others to hear her, "was cooler than all hell. Thanks, Jocelyn!"

Rose opened her mouth to ask what Chantelle was talking about— and white light exploded behind her eyes.

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Jocelyn:

I drew myself up to leap at the intruding whatsit— and Ian grabbed my arm, said, "Wait, Jocelyn!"

I hesitated— and the figure straightened up, said, in a clear, perfectly ordinary (if rather annoyed) voice, "Ow," and I realized that it was just a very tall man, wearing a big, unbelted duster in gray leather and carrying a staff.

"Seriously. Ow." The man shook himself and looked up at the ceiling. "And… this is not Chicago."

He looked around, and I got my first good look at him. Really tall, around six-nine or so, slender but not skinny, dark hair, a little too long and kind of messy, brown eyes sharp and alert. He wore black jeans, a red T-shirt with the words, "Master Smartass" printed in white on the front, and motorcycle boots. He was handsome, though not spectacularly so, and when he saw us three standing there, he immediately went still. Then his eyes fell on the Scythe and he said, in a shocked voice, "Where's Buffy!?"

I opened my mouth to ask how he knew Buffy, and Ian— so help me!— Ian squealed.

"Harry Dresden, holy crap!" Ian managed after a couple of false starts. "My god, I've read your entire series, and they're finally making a movie, and— holy crap!"

I swear, I saw the guy mentally shift gears as soon as Ian said that. He shook himself, leaned back against the wall in a deliberately non-threatening manner, then said, "Okay. When Ebenezar said that the Nevernever was in 'a real damned state,' he wasn't just whistling Dixie.

"Yes. I'm Harry Dresden. Young lady, may I ask who you are, and how you got your hands on that weapon?"

"Buffy sent it to me," I said, hefting the Scythe slightly for the comfort of the feel of it. "I mean— she probably had Aunt Dawn do the sending, but I know that Buffy wants me to have it, to use it. She maybe thought I was going to help Joyce with it, but Aunt Dawn said that Joyce has other help, and to just… do what the Powers That Be want, to be… to be what the Guardians called me." I shook my head, and said, "It's hard— I want to go after Joyce— but Aunt Dawn, I trust her."

"Oh, boy," this man— presumably Harry Dresden, whose name I knew, but I'd never got around to reading the books about him, Mom had read the first couple-three and not liked them, so I skipped them— suddenly leaned back against the wall more heavily, and I saw… something, something that looked like hard, fierce worry pass over his face. Then he visibly banished the worry and the look, and said, "Okay. Anything I can do to help? Any friends of Buffy are friends of mine."

"I don't know, are you any good at riddles?" I asked automatically.

"Pretty much very good." He took a deep breath. "This Joyce you're worried about… Buffy's daughter?"

"Uh-huh," Ian said. "Newly Chosen, not trained so well, and alone with a murderous robot and who-the-hell-knows what else after her. If Dawn hadn't said that Joyce has help, that she's got the help she needs… I'd be freaking, here." The out-of-his-world wizard looked at Ian and raised an eyebrow, and Ian said, his voice a peculiar mixture of fear, love and pride, "She's my girlfriend."

"Ah." Harry Dresden looked a little thrown-off-his-stride, then said, "Okay, guy— how about some introductions, since you seem to know who I am?"

"Sorry!" Ian said, and took a deep breath. "Harry Dresden, wizard, member of the Wardens of the White Council of Wizards, all-around serious-power-to-contend-with, I'm Ian Matthias, and before Jocelyn tells you, I'll tell you that I'm the Champion of the Power Hope.

"This is Jocelyn Penobscot, known to the Guardians who made (and kind of inhabit) the Scythe as 'the Blaze,' which title she's working on figuring out how to earn, still.

"And the girl muttering to herself over there…." Ian grinned, and I could see a little bit a mischief in his expression as he said, "That's Piper Benjamin— the spectacular Spider-woman."

"Nice to meet— Spider-woman!?" Harry Dresden seemed extremely excited by that last, but he took a deep breath, held up a hand, and said, "Sorry— it's nice to meet you, Mr. Matthias, Ms. Penobscot, Ms. Benjamin.

"But… Ms. Benjamin, I hope you won't think I'm out of line here, but, uh… say, you wouldn't happen to be a clone, would you?"

Piper actually chuckled, then said distractedly "Let me guess— I was a comic character where you're from? Vanished after the original-male-me and I beat the snot out of Doc Ock for making me and other clones of original-male-me?"

"Got it in one," the wizard answered, smiling a little. "Look, guys, call me Harry, okay?"

We asked him to use our first names, and he said, "Okay, look, I really am good with riddles, and I'll help, but can I ask…? Well, Joyce. Who's her dad?"

"Xander," Ian said immediately. Then he blinked. "Wait, you know about Buffy, what, are we… books, there?"

"No, no." Harry looked very distracted as he stroked his chin and added, under his breath, "Buffy… and Xander? Seriously?" Then he looked up and said, "Uh. Sorry. You guys… I have no idea who you two are. Sorry!

"Look, Buffy was a TV show where I'm from, then a comic series. The show went from her first day at Sunnydale High to Sunnydale collapsing into a pit when the Hellmouth there got closed. The comics… well, I only read as far as Buffy going a couple centuries into the future a bit over a year after that the Hellmouth got closed, and meeting the one Slayer of that time. Then… it got pretty bad, and I stopped reading, actually."

That last sentence had been a lie— I knew it, though I didn't know exactly how I knew it— but I didn't think it was a malicious lie, you know? It felt like he was… well, trying to protect us, though I've no idea from what.

Then I took a good look at Harry Dresden, and I noticed something that… well, given a couple of things he said, I thought I knew why he didn't want to talk about what had happened later in the Buffy comics (that thought was just… too weird).

Ian saved me by asking who'd played Buffy in the TV show.

"Sarah Michelle Gellar," Harry said immediately, "She—"

"That actually kind of makes sense," Ian agreed, and he looked at me. "You ever watch her first popular show, Jocelyn?"

"I loved it," I said, grinning. "My dad has all seven seasons of Harker on DVD. For a normal human, she was pretty damned good at hunting vampires, you know.

"I still think the truth about the supernatural coming out in 2003 is why that one got cancelled."

Harry Dresden looked back and forth between Ian and I for a moment, then said in a voice that sounded kind of stunned, "Sarah Michelle Gellar was in a show about a vampire hunter that was called 'Harker?' She was the lead?"

"Yeah," I said, grinning. "She played Elizabeth Harker, Jonathan and Mina's great-great granddaughter, who was out there hunting vampires like the last several generations of her family had been, since Dracula wasn't really dead— they based it more on some books by a guy named Fred Saberhagen than the actual Dracula novel, and—"

"I've read them," Harry said with a grin and a nod. "Sounds like a good show, really."

"It was," Ian agreed. He looked thoughtful, then said, "You know, Sarah Michelle could play Buffy, if she dyed her hair blond. Weird that I never thought about it before."

"Trust me, you get used to that sort of thing sooner or later," Harry said with a sigh. "Okay. Can I get a brief on the sitch before we start riddling?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "Ian, go for it."

Ian started talking, and I went to look over Piper's shoulder as she scrolled through the riddles again, looking for any that she might notice the answer to on a second look.

"Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy," I muttered. "That'd be weird. I mean, I approve of her playing Ripley in the Alien remake that they're doing, and I loved Sigourney Weaver in the first series, so that's saying something, but… Gellar as Buffy?

"No way."

After a few minutes, Harry Dresden muttered a few words, drew something on the back of his left hand in colored chalk, then came over and stood behind Piper's other shoulder, asked her to scroll back to the first riddle we hadn't been able to answer. He got that, and the next three, easily, then a fourth after some thought.

"You really are good at this," Ian said, grinning. "What's your secret?"

"Combination of having a mentor for a while who happened to grow up when these sort of riddles were popular," Harry said, smiling a little, "and loving role-playing games. The guy who's been running most of what I played since… oh, summer of 2010 is not just a geek, he's the geek, and he loves riddles like these. Between the two… I'm pretty good at them."

We went through the list, and Harry solved all but four of them, then suggested we all take a couple of minutes to unwind, think about other stuff, calm ourselves. Seemed like a good idea, even with the damned unknown deadline, because my brain? Pretty much doing nothing but spinning its wheels.

Ian walked off a little, to the wall where Joyce had been kidnapped, laid his hand on the crossing of the X that I'd made to mark it, and stood there, eyes closed, trying to feel… anything about Joyce. (I knew what he was doing because I wanted to do it myself.)

Piper shook herself, stretched languidly, hugged me for a long moment, then said, "I need to stretch my legs," and ran up the wall to the ceiling, where she started pacing rapidly.

Harry Dresden watched this in delight, stayed leaning against the wall and just watched Piper be spidery, a little grin playing around his lips, but never quite solidifying.

"You know Buffy, don't you, Harry?" I asked after a minute or so.

He didn't reply right away, just closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them slowly, looked at me— and suddenly smiled, a wide, delighted smile, looked down the hall at Piper, smiled more, then looked at Ian— and his eyes went wide with amazement.

Finally, he looked back at me— and at the Scythe. His smile came back, a softer, less childlike thing, and he said, "I know Buffy, yes." He nodded in the direction of the Scythe, bowed solemnly and said, his tone low and respectful, "Hello, ladies."

So help me, the Scythe made it's little ringing sound of greeting to him— to a male, for the first time in my experience.

Harry again did that long, slow blink, then looked up at me and said, "I may never get tired of looking at Slayers with the Sight." I cocked my head in puzzlement, and he said, "Wizard's Sight. Lets a wizard see… magic, life, energy, all of that. And looking at Slayers with it on? Always a good thing. You're all… in different ways, each and every one of you is amazing."

I blushed beet red, stammered a thank you, and Harry chuckled.

"Anyway… you're really a Slayer, that's really the scythe… so I'm just going to have to trust you." Harry smiled a little and said, very quietly, "Yes. I know Buffy. A Buffy, at least. In my world, I met her, Dawn and Xander on my way back from being dead— long story, that, but I really was dead and I really did come back— and they ended up coming to my world. The end of magic on the world they were from had forced Buffy out of the world, into the Nevernever— 'the land of all imagination,' I've heard some wizards from my world call it— and Xander and Dawn wouldn't let go of her, wouldn't stop trying to hold her there, so they got pulled with her.

"They came home with me, we all got to be friends, Buffy went to work as a PI for me, Xander became a Knight of the Cross— seriously big deal where I'm from, and damn, but he deserved it, and he's damned good at it!— and Dawn… well, after I sort of jump-started the Scythe and caused there to be Slayers on my world, Dawn rebuilt and became the head of the Watchers' Council, and she's amazing."

I gaped at Harry Dresden for a long moment, and he tried not to laugh at my flabbergasted expression— and failed.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled, still trying to quit. "It's just that… you look like a cartoon kid who just realized that she's standing on air!"

That made me giggle myself, and I said, "No, it's okay, Harry— it's just… finding out that there's more than one Buffy? Then that Aunt Dawn— that has to be confusing, sorry, I'm not related to her, that's an honorary thing, all emotion, no blood— is the head of the Watcher's Council… wow."

"Ian said Dawn's a serious witch, here, and in charge of the Guardians of this time," Harry said, nodding at the Scythe. "That one of them came forward to your time to restart them, and that Dawn's in charge now. I think that's… well, my version of Dawn will like that— if I ever tell anyone back home about this, anyway."

I thought about that, about the expressions on his face when I'd talked about Joyce, about the things I'd noticed, and I bit the bullet. "Um, so… you're really close to your Buffy, aren't you?"

"You… could say that," Harry said very slowly, not looking anywhere near my face.

"Yeah. Kind of figured." I took a deep breath and said, very quietly, "That's a wedding ring on your left hand, Harry. Is Buffy wearing the other one?"

For a long moment, Harry Dresden just stared at me— then he said, very slowly, "Kid, I'm supposed to be the detective, here, okay?

"Yes. She is."

"Oh, hell," I sighed, and looked up at him, fighting hard not to grin. "Now I'm gonna have to read those books about you. Anyone Buffy would marry? I want to know more about them!"

That startled him into a laugh, and then he shook his head and asked, "Joyce… what's her middle name, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Samantha," I said softly. "Joyce Samantha Harris. For Samantha Finn, Riley's wife. They… the Finns both died in the Battle of Bloomington.

"Your Joyce? What's her middle name?"

"Elaine," Harry said, and his voice was rough. "Joyce Elaine Dresden, for… similar reasons.

"Hey… Battle of Bloomington… Bloomington, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan… other?"

"Illinois," I said, and he grinned. "Why?"

"I've been there." He looked around, then said, "I'm guessing here, maybe?" I nodded, and he said, "Two of my best Wardens— I'm the regional commander for the Eastern half of the United States— are from Bloomington, live in Normal. And they're both huge Buffy fans. Killian may kill me if she ever finds out I was h—"

My brain caught up with what Harry was saying, and I interrupted with a shocked, "Rose Killian!?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Harry said, startled.

"Is she, uh, gay?" I asked. "Or maybe bi and prefers girls? Tiny? Redheaded? Goddess with a sword?"

"Gay, I think," Harry said slowly, his own expression as stunned as I imagine mine was. "Married to Elaine Marshall-Killian, who—"

"Who's got black hair, and is a dancer, an amazing dancer," I said in a small voice. "Uh, I don't suppose them and your Dawn ever… uh, see, they're in a five-way relationship here, my aunts Rose, Elaine, Dawn, Sh'rin— the Guardian who came here to reboot them— and my Uncle Ballard, still not by blood."

"No, Dawn's married— to a girl you wouldn't know about, if you haven't read the series, and maybe if you had, because some stuff Ian said made it plain that things went differently in those books than they did for me, starting with when I died." Harry shook his head rapidly, as though to clear it, then said, "However, Dawn did say something, once, about how if she hadn't met her wife, she'd probably have to see if Rose and Elaine were open to being a trio."

"That," I said, a smile spreading across my face, "is actually kinda cool."

Harry blinked, looked at me, and said, "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

"Oh, hell!" Piper said from the ceiling thirty feet or so down the hallway. She slapped her forehead (really odd to see, upside down) and said "I have it— the answer to that really long riddle!"

Ian came back up to us as Piper dropped from the ceiling and went to the keyboard. She scrolled down to the longest riddle of the bunch and read it aloud.

" 'There is one word that stands the test of time and holds fast to the center of everything. Though everyone will try at least once in their life to move around this word, but in fact, unknowingly, they use it every moment of the day. Young or old, awake or in sleep, human or animal, this word stands fast. It belongs to everyone, to all living things, but no one can master it. The word is?' " She looked around at us and said, "It's really, really ironic that I got this one while walking on the ceiling— 'gravity!' "

"Oh, that's just not right!" Harry burst out, chuckling around his words as Piper typed in the answer and the riddle vanished, leaving three on the screen. "Okay, maybe that will trigger something else… what's next?"

We looked the next one over, and suddenly Harry said, "Hang on… there's not a single 'E' anywhere in that paragraph, and E's dirt common."

"Holy crap." Piper typed in 'No E,' and that riddle vanished. "Nice one."

"Yeah, but I still got nothing on those last two," Harry grumbled.

" 'What question can you never honestly answer yes to?' " Piper said, sighing. "I can't even begin to—"

"Oh, hell." Ian's turn to slap his forehead. " 'Are you asleep!?' Because if you are, you can't answer!"

That left us with one— and it was a skull-buster.

Two in a whole and four in a pair

And six in a trio you see

And eight's a quartet but what you must get

Is the name that fits just one of me?

We all stared, and suddenly Piper groaned and said, "It's a stupid math problem! The answer is 'a half!' "

She reached for the keyboard, then stopped and said, "Are we ready for this? Really ready?"

"I guess we have to be," I said, taking a long, deep breath. "Ian?"

"Ready," he said, and the blue light of the Power Hope appeared from him again.

"Uh, one sec," Harry said, and backed down the hall ten paces or so, then muttered something and smeared the chalk marking he'd made on his left hand. "There— sorry, I have to do that to get close to technology stuff without shorting it out, and it interferes with my own magic, so… figured I'd better get rid of it.

"I'm ready— and before you say it, any of you, yes. I'm fighting with you, for you. That's all.

"Now, let's get it done."

I grinned as Harry used one of Buffy's favorite phrases, and moved to a spot about three feet in front of where the vault door should pass when it swung open.

Piper typed in the answer to that last (really annoying) riddle, and that big, vault-like door made not one but several mighty "clunks," then started to swing outward with a low whine of servomotors.

The door finished opening— and I stared at what it revealed in deep, awful dismay.

That massive door opened on a room that… well, it had to be at least the size of a football field, maybe a bit bigger. More than a hundred yards long, more than fifty yards wide, set slightly lower than the hall we stood in, the first twenty feet inside the door angled down sharply enough that the floor of the actual room was probably ten feet below that of the hall.

At the other end, a hundred and twenty yards or so away, I could see that the floor sloped back up to a massive wooden door, a single guard in front of it— something that I couldn't identify, save that it was the size of a really big human, had skin that looked to be dark gray, and black hair. Oh— and it wore something shiny, like armor.

That wasn't what left me feeling dismayed. No, the dismay came from the multitudes— maybe more than a thousand— of demons that filled the room between us and that door. They weren't shoulder to shoulder, but they were close to each other, close enough so that at no point could I hope to pass between any two of them without being grabbed.

I could see vampires in the dozens, all with their "game faces" on, were-creatures in five different varieties (wolf, lion, bear, rat and, actually worse than were-rat, several were-gators) wendigos, mummies, Glevens, Hurkulpos, Chiswinths, Miquots, Fyarls, Danzatans, P'korkins, Praxligs, Y'roraks, Groblods, Disfen, Welmacres, Farfelens, Gotlaks, Ba'ans, Chintors, H'lkordaks, Musravs, zombies— and many, many more monsters that I didn't recognize.

There was no way that we could take all of those things, even with the help of Harry Dresden, not unless he was the equivalent of Albus Dumbledore, Gandalf, Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate, the wizard Shazam, those three chicks from Charmed, and Zatanna, all rolled up into one— and really pissed off.

I didn't even think I could fight a running battle— cripple and move, no stopping to kill, you know?— through that mess.

"Aunt Elaine couldn't dance her way through that, not even if she was as good as Aunt Rose with a sword," I said softly, to myself. "Not even if she could throw like Mom and had my discs. Maybe Buffy could get through them, if she could do all of those things, too, but— but I'm the one who's got the burning desire to learn it all, not Buffy, she's happy with being the best there is as she is, and she's not even here, so—"

I froze. Burning desire…! The Guardians, when they had empowered me, when they told me they'd Chosen Mom and I both, they'd said….

~We rejoiced, and we chose your mother then, rather than wait a year, that we might have a hand in making you what you are: The Blaze. You burn with a need to become all that a Slayer can become—

—and you will fulfill your need.~

I understood! I knew what the Guardians wanted me to do— and I thought I knew how to do it, too. All I needed was to be kick-started, given a nudge, and if Ian's Power of Hope or the magic of a wizard who'd "sort of jump-started the Scythe and caused there to be Slayers" on his world couldn't do that, what the heck could!?

"I think they've noticed us…." Piper said from beside me, her voice worried. "I could close the door, pretty sure, but I doubt I could open—"

"No," I said slowly. I looked over at her, and I smiled. "No, Piper. I know what… I know what I need to do." I leaned over and kissed her briefly, then said, much louder, "Guys, I need the three of you to cover me, to keep me safe— right here, I'm not going anywhere— for… I don't know how long, but if I'm right, and I have to be right, and I am! I can… I can get to the other end, I can beat that whatever-it-is, and I can get to Catherine Madison.

"But I need you three to keep everything off of me for a… a couple of minutes, first."

Harry Dresden answered by stepping up to the doorway, looking down at the demons in front of us who were starting to move our way, leveling his staff at the front rank and bellowing "FULMINOS DIRUPTUM!" at the top of his lungs.

A ball of lightning leapt from his staff, and when it hit the Chiswinth demon at the front, it exploded through the vaguely centaur-like thing, then branched out, hitting every demon within twenty yards or so.

"Cool!" Ian cried, and started to step up beside the wizard, even as Piper moved that way.

"Ian, wait," I said. "Come here and… look, just grab my arms, and hope like hell that I'm right, okay?"

Ian ran to stand in front of me, propped his staff against his own chest, and grabbed my wrists in his hands. The blue light of Hope's power was already shining from him, and it pulsed—

—and white light went off behind my eyes as I began to burn, to burn the way the Guardians had foreseen.