Developing: Through a Glass, Darkly

[raspberryhat]

This thread is for the development of the story Through a Glass, Darkly.

Chapter one is already in pens, developed prior to Beta Pens. This thread starts with chapter two. The first draft of chapter two is presented, followed by beta comment and then a detailed update to the chapter is posted after that.

Obviously there are spoilers here. It's hard to discuss development without revealing some spoilers.

[raspberryhat]

Through a Glass, Darkly
Temperance (Chapter 2 of ?)
By Raspberryhat


Disclaimer: BtVS does not belong to me.
Background: Everything up to the end of Season Six happened as per canon.
Timeframe: The story begins three weeks after the end of Season 6/Grave. From that point on it’s AU.
Spoliers: Season three through six.
Distribution: Please ask me first if you’d like to distribute this.
Classification: This part of the story is a NC-17.
Warnings: Horror, some angst.
Feedback: Feedback is appreciated, but please be gentle.
Draft: 0.2 / 31st March 2005.


***


Xander couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “We have to go to England?!”

“I have to go to England.” Corrected Buffy. She watched Xander across the carnage of the dinner table as he considered her news.

“But you’ve just been accepted back into College, and…”

Buffy drew in a deep breath and Xander suddenly realised how tired his friend looked.

“Xander, this is simple. Willow needs help. Giles says it’s urgent. Ergo, I am going.”

Xander saw the resolve in his friend’s face. “Ok,” he said quietly, “only...”

“What?”

“Well if you were going to be needed why didn’t Giles arrange for you both to go together?”

Buffy hesitated before answering. “I guess something unexpected came up.”

“Guess so.”

“Anyway, it probably won’t be for long.” She gave him an imploring look.

Xander nodded his understanding. He didn’t need to ask his own role in this.

“Can I come?” asked Dawn brightly. She looked at Buffy and then turned her attention to Xander. When he saw the hopeful expression on her face he managed a crooked smile and looked pointedly at Buffy. She threw him back a glare before smiling briskly back at her sister. “Dawn, what have I told you about talking with your mouth full?”

Dawn rolled her eyes and finished chewing her pizza before repeating, “Can-I-come?”

“No-it’s-dangerous,” came the unequivocal response.

Xander found himself de-tuning as he saw the lecture coming. He eyed the last slice of the extra large pizza they’d ordered. Crust stuffed with fatty, cheesy goodness, topped with spicy pepperoni . He could actually feel his mouth watering. He was sure he had room for a tiny bit more.

“But why not? I could help and stuff.”

Buffy looked at her sister, exasperated. “Because.”

“Oh! I didn’t realise that you were planning to major in philosophy.”

Buffy slowly raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.

Dawn smiled quickly and sat back in her seat. “All I meant was, I could help and stuff. You know. I can do magick—”

“You can do what?!” asked Buffy horrified.

Dawn realised implying to her sister she’d been practicing the dark arts in secret was probably not the wisest thing under the circumstances. “Just the basics…”

“Basics?”

“A couple of protection spells, and,” Dawn hesitated trying to think how to make it sound less bad, “Tara—” She broke off. After a moment, she cleared her throat and continued quietly; “Tara taught me. She wanted me to be safe. I’ve never actually tried any of them out for real.”

Buffy’s expression softened. “Dawn this is serious and is real. We’re going to retrieve an artefact from some god-forsaken place and we don’t know what we’ll be up against.”

When it came down to it, despite everything Dawn had seen and been through and despite having said she would try, Buffy found it difficult to be comfortable with Dawn participating in her dangerous life. She closed her eyes and sighed. A small part of her liked the fact that her sister wanted to be like her, but they were different and Dawn, despite what she had seen, it was still a romanticised fantasy.

Xander flicked his eyes up to Buffy and seeing her expression returned his attention to the pizza tray. Resolved, he reached for the last slice and lifted it carefully onto his plate, grinning as he set it down.

“You could get killed,” said Buffy in monotone.

Dawn stood up, hands on hips. “But I thought you were going to be teaching me stuff. That it was going to be different now.”

Buffy had meant what she’d said even if she’d not entirely thought through how she was going to do it. But what Giles had described didn’t sound like a suitable training mission. She put on her best benevolent-sister smile. “Dawn, we really have no idea what we’re up against. There’s too much to risk. And besides I barely scraped together the money for one plane ticket.” She looked at Xander with a kind smile as she saw him eyeing his plate hungrily.

“So you’re going?” said Dawn sulkily.

“Yes.”

Xander picked up his pizza, held it at face level and smiled happily, before opening his mouth and taking a bite. “Oh sweet mother that’s good.”

Dawn cast her eyes to her older friend, momentarily distracted. Then she smiled and looked back at Buffy, eyes bright. “Ah! Who’ll look after while you’re away then?”

Buffy looked at Xander meaningfully and then back to Dawn who caught the expression exactly. She opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of it. She sat back, deflated.

Suddenly Xander realised the discussion was over and both girls were looking at him.

“Buffy! He took the last slice of pizza.”

“Dawn, you’ll get fat if you eat too much. Xander’s…”

Xander looked at Buffy hopefully for a plausible defence of his honour.

“He’s working hard, what with the new job and everything.”

He smiled gratefully. The new building contract was bigger than anything he’d done before and working him harder.

“And,” she continued hurriedly, “that’s why he wouldn’t be able to come to England, so it makes sense he stays here and looks out for you.”

Dawn gave one last hopeful look at Xander, wondering if he might try to argue the gig himself. His face was smiling but resigned. Dawn brightened up. “I guess there’ll be no Anya though.”

“Doesn’t seem likely,” said Xander, then changing subject asked, “So Buffy, when’s the teaching freshmen how to kill class?”

She gave him a pointed look. “It is not, teaching freshmen how to kill. It’s just teaching them how to defend themselves if they get into say a sticky situation on campus or outside a club or wherever.”

Xander grinned and nodded quickly. “Right, right. No using campus defence lessons as a way to build an army of second generation Slayerettes.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

Xander grinned. “Maybe not. It would sure make our lives easier. So anyway, when does the class start?”

“Few weeks to go. Practice tonight though!” said Buffy proudly. “See,” she pointed at her sports bag, all stuffed full and sitting by the door ready to go. “I am all prepared. By the time school starts, I’ll have got my towny teaching practice in and be ready to start teaching those students how to defend themselves from the evils that walk the campus and er…streets of Sunnydale.”

“What time’s class?”

“Oh, I’ve got a couple of hours yet. Hence I would have enjoyed a little more pizza!”

She giggled at his guilty expression.

“Isn’t the trip going to interfere with your teaching?”

Buffy shook her head. “I should only be away for a week.”

“Cool.”

“Dawn, it’s just you and Xander for the next week. Be good.”

Dawn nodded, grinning.



***


Willow found the quiet crackling of the kitchen fire soothing. Since her ordeal at the standing stones, the voices in her mind had been quietened to a tolerable murmur. Focussing on the sound of the gently steaming apple logs made the voices almost imperceptible. The evening was falling and the flames leant the room a comforting ambience.

Elizabeth had gone out hours ago and told Willow to make herself at home. She’d spent much of the afternoon sleeping in her room. When she had come down, she’d found it most comfortable and least intrusive in the witches kitchen at the back of the house.

The sound of creaking hinges made Willow look up suddenly. Her heart beat faster as she realised the door leading out the back of the kitchen had been pushed open. Willow pushed her chair back in alarm and was mid way to standing when she felt something brush against her leg. The suddenness of the touch made her cry out in fear. She looked around trying work out what had touched her.

“Willow?” said a concerned voice. Elizabeth stood in the kitchen doorway training a concerned expression on her.

Breathing deeply, trying to regain her composure, Willow looked at her feet and as she did so, began to feel embarrassed at her sudden outburst. A large splodgy white and ginger cat stretched its body sinuously around her ankles, tail alert as it watched Elizabeth hopefully.

Elizabeth looked behind her and then stepped aside as a girl, perhaps in her late teens came through carrying a grocery bag in one hand and a small plastic sachet in the other hand.

At the sight of the woman, the cat jumped toward her and started to mew plaintively. She pushed back a wave of brunette hair from her eyes and smiled warmly. “Calico! You scared poor Willow.” The cat’s eyes were all innocence whilst eying the packet in the girl’s hands.

She smiled attentively as the cat trotted behind her and then chased around her feet as she emptied the food packet into a little china food bowl set by the kitchen door. She watched the cat eat for several seconds. When she looked up, Willow saw her demeanour was transformed. Suddenly nervous, a finger played absently at a much twirled lock of hair as her eyes flickered around the room.

Elizabeth looked at the girl then at Willow who was standing, at a loss waiting for somebody to explain what was going on. “Willow, I’d like to introduce you to Abigail. She’s my live in student.”

Willow didn’t know exactly what ‘live in student’ meant, but she smiled politely and cautiously offered a hand to the girl. When she saw the expression of fear she hesitated and then withdrew her hand. She looked at Elizabeth and then back to Abigail and with a shrug, offered a friendly grin.

Abigail watched Willow for a moment, before turning swiftly back to her grocery bag and beginning to methodically remove fresh vegetables and other healthy looking food stuffs and lay them out neatly on the kitchen counter.

As Willow watched the nervous young woman, a sudden memory surfaced of the first time Tara had cooked for her. It had been not long after she’d finally understood her feelings for Tara and been able to tell the sensitive young woman how she felt. Hazy summer days had passed where they’d each revelled in every small thing they learned of each other.

A long study session at the Summers house had been interrupted by an excitable Buffy who’d pointedly announced she was going on patrol and probably wouldn’t be back til morning so they’d have the place to themselves. They’d managed another ten minutes of distracted reading before Tara had sat up and made an impromptu offer to cook for them both. Willow had sat on a kitchen stool and watched in fascination as Tara with a confidence she didn’t often show had gathered from the pantry a medium sized squash, two artichokes, a handful of fresh basil leaves and proceeded to make one of the most delightful evening meals she could remember eating.

Of course she reflected, Tara could have made her pop-tarts and she probably still would have been enraptured. At that, the image darkened in her mind and the memory fractured leaving only a burning pain in her heart. She tried to clear her thoughts and refocus on the young Abigail.

Willow realised that the girl, Abigail had known her name. Elizabeth had obviously told Abigail about her…and must have told her about what Willow was which probably explained why she hadn’t wanted to touch her. She was probably afraid of her.

She had to consciously re-focus on Elizabeth. The woman had a way of settling into the background, just observing the world around her. Willow found it fairly unnerving. She smiled sheepishly looking for some way to break the silence. “I could make some tea,” she offered lamely.

“Willow, how do you feel?”

She hesitated, caught off balance by the sudden serious question. “It hurts,” as she spoke the words, she pointed to her head to better indicate. “The voices are much quieter, but after what happened at the standing stones, it’s like it scarred my brain.”

“Did you manage to rest today?”

Willow nodded, “Yeah.”

She didn’t look at Elizabeth as she spoke. She thought Elizabeth expected her to be all over her ordeal by now and she couldn’t even begin to describe the state of chaos in her head.

“Willow, sit,” she said gently.

Willow looked at the older woman curiously, but did as she was asked.

“Abi, join us please.”

The young woman turned uncertainly, holding a box of tomatoes in mid air. After a moment, she carefully placed the box back in the bag, turned around, pulled a chair out from the head of the table and sat. She looked between the two women, curiosity for a moment overcoming her nerves.

Elizabeth spoke first. “Willow, you’re wondering if it’s really worked.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think the standing stones actually did to you?”

Willow glanced up at Abi, uncomfortably before turning her embarrassed expression back to Elizabeth. “Do we have to talk about this now?” she asked.

“Willow, Abi has experienced some of the things you’ve experienced and some things you probably couldn’t even imagine.”

Willow looked at Abi quickly and then back to Elizabeth. “You mean she’s— ” She cut herself off and looked back at Abi, suddenly realising how rude it sounded talking about her as if she wasn’t there.

“She was forced to work dark magick,” said Elizabeth.

Willow tried to comprehend what she was being told. She looked at Abi again. Her expression was detached. Slowly Willow asked, “Forced? How? Why?”

“Willow, I know you know what it feels like to be given dark magick. A non consensual transfer works in the same basic way, it’s just…a lot more traumatic for the recipient.”

Willow shuddered when beyond the memory of her acceptance of darkness from Rack, she remembered having been given a tiny burst of magick when she hadn’t wanted it or expected it. Amy...Her expression darkened at the memory of someone she’d once thought of as a friend. Suddenly the girl’s behaviour made sense. She feared the effect of her own touch on others.

“I found her when she was nine. She’s lived with me for five years”

Willow looked at Abi, shocked, “You mean she’s only…”

“Abigail’s seen a lot,” said Elizabeth gently, “she’s learning how to live in the world again. You may travel some of Abi’s path.”

Willow watched Abi as Elizabeth calmly talked about her. The girl didn’t seem uncomfortable, her expression was just detached, her mind on other things.

“So tell me Willow, what do you think the ordeal at the stones did to you?”

Willow looked down as she spoke, long red hair shadowing her face. She remembered every second of the experience. She’s felt the power being drained out of her and the hollowness still ached. “It took away my magick. It made me s-safe.”

Elizabeth reached out, gently caught Willow’s chin and lifted her face until her big round eyes were looking into hers. “Have you tried to do magick since last night?”

Willow shook her head. “Of course not. But I can feel what it took away.”

“Willow, the stones did not take away your ability to do magick.”

Willow looked at Elizabeth doubtfully. “I know what I felt. I was connected to the stones. It was wrenched out of me. It hurt like I can’t even describe.”

Elizabeth’s expression was patient. “Willow, as well as wielding power, witches are vessels. The vessel draws from the world around and fills. A witch focuses her power through spells and other means to achieve an intent.”

Willow grimaced. She didn’t need Magick 101.

“Willow, you think you know everything, but you don’t. You’re a contradiction. You have so much ability, such capacity for power and so little understanding. You’re so young.”

Willow felt her temper rising a little. “I know how it works. I filled myself with…” She broke off as realisation dawned. “The stones drained my power, but it’ll come back. It’ll come back and it’ll happen again.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No.” She caught the red-head’s gaze. “No. It’s not quite that simple. Yes the power will build up again. You draw power from nature at an incredible rate, faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, and you can store more than I’ve ever seen. But—it’s intent that colors the magick. Power itself is neutral.”

Willow’s mind was spinning now. “You’re saying that it’s me. I am evil.” Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke the words that confirmed her worst fears that she was no better than those she’d helped fight over the years. That she’d never deserved to be with someone like Tara, that the whole thing had been an illusion.

“Willow no!” the raised tone of Elizabeth’s voice was a little frightening.

“Just listen. I want you to listen and think about this.”

Willow sniffed and looked at Elizabeth obediently. She just didn’t know what to think anymore.

The older witch continued more gently. “Your continued choice to use dark magick selfishly for quick results and for dark purpose destroyed your perspective. When crisis threatened, you turned to magick and even when magick was appropriate your instinct was not to work with light.”

Willow tried to keep the emotion from her voice, “But you’re saying when my power comes back it’ll happen all over again.”

“I am saying that it’s about keeping your equilibrium and understanding the nature of power. It’s about being human.”

Willow sat very quietly. Eventually she managed to look up at Elizabeth. When her voice came it was a whisper. “The things I’ve done. Those things can’t be undone can they? What can I do? What’s the point of trying?”

“Willow, you won’t believe it now, but time and perspective can heal more than you could possibly imagine. That’s why you’re here. I am going to begin teaching you to better understand magick so that you can better control the ability you have.”

Protesting slightly, Willow said, “But I do understand—”

“If you understood, we would not be having this conversation. None of this would have happened.”

“Okay…but look, what if the power builds up before you’ve finished teaching me and I can’t control it on my own?”

Elizabeth nodded again. “Giles said you didn’t miss much.”

Willow managed a grimace before Elizabeth continued. “You’re right about that. Which is why we’re going to have to do something to inhibit you until you’ve we’ve spent enough time working on your magick.”

“How do we do that? Obsidian sure didn’t work! Giles showed me his hand, and that was only a simple casting I did.”

“You’re right, but I am not talking about inhibiting your magick, I am talking about slowing the process of you actually absorbing power back from nature.”

This was beyond anything Willow knew so she waited.

“Willow, there’s an artefact. It will effectively prevent you from absorbing power.”

Pensive, Willow asked, “How does it work?”

Elizabeth hesitated again. “Well, I don’t know exactly how it works.”

Willow looked confused.

“The texts refer to it’s properties and where it’s been used in the past…”

“Texts?”

Elizabeth sighed. She wanted Willow’s trust but knew explaining this would be difficult and was going to take time. “It’s origins are uncertain. I’ve seen no clear account of exactly how it works, although I’ve read theories.”

“But it works?”

Elizabeth’s face clouded. To Willow’s surprise, Elizabeth averted her gaze and fell silent. For a moment, the only sound in the room was feline post-prandial washing and the crackling of the fire.

“Yes. I’ve seen it working.”

“And where is this artefact?” asked Willow curiously.

“A few hundred miles from here. In a forgotten place.”


***


“How much longer are we going to have to wait?”

“Patience Abraham.”

“I hate this place. It scares the hell out of me.”

“It’s just a hospital.”

“Raphael, I do know this place has not been used as a hospital for a very long time. And even then, it wasn’t a normal hospital.”

“Ok, so it was a mental hospital.”

“With nine underground floors and cell doors made from three inch thick steel?”

Raphael leaned over the balcony railing and peered into the gloom below. Floor upon floor, rows and rows of doors, on the upper levels many of which hung limp from tortured hinges. The smell of damp rust permeated everything. “It serves a purpose. You should be grateful to be allowed this duty.”

“Mr White said I showed potential and this assignment would help demonstrate my commitment.”

“There you are then.”

“I just couldn’t have imagined what this would be like.”

“They will come soon.”

“And they really want to find him?”

“They have no choice.”

“And they’d risk releasing him?”

Raphael nodded. “They need that which binds him.”

“Surely if they did manage to release him, he would kill them?”

“Yes that’s likely. But, if they retrieve the artefact, re-containing him would be ‘difficult’. You know what it took last time.”

Abraham shuddered at the thought. “Have you been told when it will happen?”

“It will be soon.”


***


Elizabeth watched Willow tread slowly up the stairs as she held the phone to her ear, waiting for an answer.

After Abi had excused herself, she and Willow had talked in more detail of what had to be done. The witch had seemed quietly happy that as soon as it had become known she was needed, her friend hadn’t hesitated in coming such a long way to help. Eventually there was no more to say and Elizabeth had suggested Willow get some rest.

After a long time, a foreign sounding voice; “Hello?”

“I need to speak to Mr Rupert Giles.”

Pause. “Just one moment please.”

After a long minute a familiar sounding, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“How are things? Have you told her about the next part of the plan?”

“Yes.”

“How did she take it?”

Elizabeth adjusted the phone in her right hand and rubbed tired eyes with her left. “For a woman who’s been through what she’s been through? Comparatively well I thought.”

“And you told her how we’re actually going to get the artefact?”

“More or less.”

Giles sighed. “Okay.” He’s agreed to leave the explaining to Elizabeth.

“It will be okay Rupert.”

“Of course you know I trust your judgement. I just wish I could be there.”

“You must finish your research.”

“Just take good care of them for me.”

“I’ll call again when it’s over.”

Elizabeth replaced the receiver of her ancient telephone and stood thinking. She hoped Willow would be able to rest this night. The risks were high, but there seemed no other way to help her. After another moment’s thought she headed decisively back through the kitchen, pulled on her long coat and headed out the kitchen door and into the night.


Abi opened her eyes suddenly and tried to focus on the sound that awakened her. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and see in the near darkness of her bedroom. Earlier she’d heard Willow climb the stairs and not long after she’d heard Elizabeth leave the house. She’d tried to stay awake, listening out for her guardian’s return, but she must have fallen asleep. She usually had a sense of if Elizabeth was within the house. Elizabeth would sometimes go out at night and it had never bothered her before, but something felt different about this night. She felt very alone and scared.

After a moment she got up, pulled her nightgown from the back of the door and wondered out her room and down the hall to the master bedroom. She stopped at the closed door and listened. The place seemed empty. Despite herself, she tapped gently on the door before pushing it open. “’Lizabeth?” She peered inside. Grey moonlight filtered through the small windows and illuminated a sleeping cat, curled comfortably on the large empty bed.


***


“Mr White, thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”

“You came here, to my house, to ask for help.”

“Yes,” came the calm response.

“You know, I cannot act outside the behest of my masters.”

“Mr White--”

“You’re going to remind me of something that you did for me, a long, long time ago.”

Elizabeth sat very still, watching the back of the gaunt, grey haired man before her. Known more often as Herr Weiss but always to her as Mr White, the old man stared through the vast arched window and out across his estate.

“It may have been a long time ago, but that does not diminish the significance of what I did for you.”

The man turned suddenly, his eyes blazing.

“There was precedent then. Reason! How dare you come to me like this and ask a favor?!”

Unshaken, Elizabeth replied smoothly, “I know fine well that your so called masters did not know of our collaboration then and still don’t.”

Mr White sat down behind his desk, eyes once again thoughtful.

Elizabeth pressed on. “I ask, because this is more than just a favour, all our fates are at stake here. I know you understand the situation. Please don’t make me spell it out.”

“Say I helped you…that would leave another problem.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes it would create a problem and I have a method of dealing with that problem.”

“Indeed? And why could you not have applied this method the first time?”

“Because I did not have this particular solution at the time.”

Mr White sat back again and pursed his lips.

“No. I am sorry, but this time, you ask too much. There is no force majeaure. I cannot help you.”

Elizabeth stood up briskly. The conversation was over. “Then I thank you for your time Mr White. I’ll see myself out.”

Mr White returned to staring across the darkened landscape. After many moments, he turned around to his desk and lifted the a slim grey telephone handset and dialled.

When the call connected, he simply said, “Tomorrow night.”

In the darkness Raphael replaced the receiver and smiled.


***


Abi crept into Elizabeth’s room and sat on the edge of the bed. She saw Calico open an eye and watch her as she looked down at her hands, mind in turmoil, eyes fearful. After a moment, she climbed slowly onto the bed and curled up. She watched the cat watching her. After a minute Calico stretched herself and padded over to the curled girl. Padding around to gain comfort the young cat settled herself against Abi’s stomach and closed both eyes. Her tail twitched occasionally as she settled.

The linen carried Elizabeth’s familiar scent which Abi found calmed her nerves. She closed her eyes and breathed, concentrating on the sense of Elizabeth. Whatever had awakened her was probably just a nocturnal animal outside somewhere. Abi hoped Elizabeth would be back soon though. She reasoned Elizabeth was obviously out doing something important and would surely be back before long. Calico lay curled against her, occasionally purring quietly to herself. Slowly, she felt her nervousness start to subside and sleep creep back towards her.

Some time in the early hours, Calico stirred and jumped off the bed, causing the sleeping girl to turn and slowly open tired eyes to see what had caused the disturbance. As her eyes gained focus she saw Elizabeth standing in the bedroom doorway, watching her proprietarily while Calico smoothed herself against Elizabeth’s ankles. As Elizabeth entered the bedroom, Abi felt peace descend in her thoughts and she closed her eyes again. She rolled over to the far side of the bed as she felt a blanket being pulled over her .

When the quiet words were whispered in her ear she listened without fear. “Abi, Willow and I need to go away. We’ll be leaving very early tomorrow and we’ll be back the following day. You’ll be on your own until the day after tomorrow. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

Abi smiled in her descending sleep and nodded her understanding.

Elizabeth reached out a hand to stroke a lock of hair from the girl’s face and smiled as for once Abi’s face looked peaceful and unworried.


***


Buffy started glumly out the taxi window. She was finding the constant grey sky and dully colored landscape was starting to blacken her mood. After a while she reached into her pocket for the page of instructions she’d written down before leaving Sunnydale. It had all sounded simple enough. Giles had made her read everything back to him to make sure she understood.

She was to find a taxi at the airport, show the driver the location on the piece of paper and ask him to take her there. Giles had advised her to offer to pay extra if the driver hadn’t been keen to drive the considerable distance.

When she got there, she was supposed to wait for Elizabeth and Willow to meet her. She’d been unclear on exactly why Giles himself couldn’t come. He’d been emphatic that she do everything Elizabeth asked and to trust her. She’d already pictured Elizabeth as an uptight Mrs Giles type and wasn’t at all sure she was going to like her.

It had all sounded simple enough. Only they’d been on the road for nearly three hours. City had turned to increasingly empty looking country. The driver had already asked her twice to repeat the location of where they were supposed to be going. She was reasonably sure they were lost.

Leaning forward in her seat and trying to keep the impatience from her voice as she asked, “Do you have a cell phone I could borrow?”

The driver flicked his eyes to her in the rearview before sighing and reluctantly reaching into the glovebox and retrieving a slim cell phone. He passed it back to her.

Buffy raised her eyebrows in appreciation. “Nice phone.”

“I hope you’re not planning to call home are you?”

Buffy smiled quickly, “Nope. Local call. Promise. It’ll only take a second.”

She looked down at the piece of paper and then keyed a number into the phone. After a moment she heard a woman’s voice, “Hello?”

“Is that Elizabeth?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Buffy Summers,” she said a little nervously.

“Are you lost?”

“How did you know?”

“We’ve been waiting here a while.”

“Ah. Stupid driver—” Buffy looked up guiltily as she spoke. “Tell me again where this place is…”


***

Elizabeth pressed the terminate call button on her cell phone and placed it back in her pocket. She stared thoughtfully out the window of her four by four for a moment before turning to address Willow who’d been peering out the windshield wondering what they were doing in the middle of nowhere.

“Willow, sorry about that.”

“That was Buffy?”

Elizabeth nodded. “She’ll be here soon”.

“So tell me again how this is going to work.”

“We need to retrieve the artefact.”

Willow sighed, again the familiar feeling of helplessness washing over her. “What I mean is, I don’t see how I can help.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Willow, once we have the artefact, transporting it is simply too dangerous. There will be those who would take it from us. Once it’s on you it will be very hard for anyone to take it from you. And besides, even though you can’t work magick, your knowledge of magick may still come in useful.”

Willow swallowed nervously. “Elizabeth, where exactly is the artefact? I mean is it like in a vault or something?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Then what?”

“The artefact is binding Antorwath.”

“What’s an Antorwath?”

“Not what. Who.”

“Who?” Willow looked at her hands and tried to restrain the frustrated annoyance she felt. She took a breath and looked up at Elizabeth. Calmly as she could asked, “What are we getting into?”

When she spoke, Elizabeth’s voice was level. Willow reflected that perhaps she’d been expecting the question.

“Willow I am not trying to hide things from you. I just felt it would be easier to explain once we were all here.”

“Let me have a go,” began Willow, “you’re saying that the artefact that’s capable of keep me drained of power is already working on someone else?”

“That’s basically it, yes.”

“Is it human?”

Elizabeth’s eyes clouded and she spoke quietly, sorrowfully. “He was once.”

Willow slumped back in her seat and blew out a frustrated breath. After a few seconds she realised she was going to have to ask. “So how do we avoid getting killed once we’ve taken it off him, assuming we can take it off him and by the way, is it a him?”

“Well, I have a plan…Ahh!”

Elizabeth looked up expectantly as a car approached on the desolate country highway. “That must be Buffy!”


<

>


Willow stood next to the four by four, with her hands shoved deep into her jeans pockets. Despite being summer, the sky was pale grey and the wind had a chill edge. She watched Buffy emerge from the taxi.

“Hey Will!”

Willow smiled in return and waited as her friend hauled a bag out the trunk of the taxi and then trotted back round to the driver’s side window. Money was exchanged and then the car was receding into the distance leaving a petite slayer standing by the side of the road next to her bag, hands on hips, inspecting the English countryside.

Willow started over to her friend. “Buffy? How was your flight?”

The Slayer nodded. Okay I guess. They only had two movies. Both not good.”

Despite everything, Willow managed a smile. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon.”

Buffy grinned and then shivered. “It’s so…like I imagined.”

Willow nodded. “You start to get used to it.” She offered Buffy a tight smile. “Elizabeth’s waiting in the car.”

“Take me to her!” said Buffy pointing towards the truck.

Willow grinned. As she turned to walk back to the four by four, she saw Elizabeth had emerged from the driver’s side and was waiting for them. As they drew closer, Elizabeth spoke up, “You must be Giles’ young protégé I’ve heard so much about.”

Buffy blushed. “I dunno about protégé…but well…I am Buffy. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out a hand which Elizabeth graciously shook.

‘Very ladylike,’ thought Buffy as she continued to smile.

“So look, we’re here on business yes?”

Elizabeth nodded. “This was the nearest place that’s easy to give directions for. The place itself is a few miles from here.”

Buffy laughed. “Easy?”

Elizabeth continued, “We’ll be going cross country from here.”

“Hence the four by four,” said Buffy matter of factly.

“Correct. You can put your things in the back with the supplies.”

After throwing her things in the back of the truck, Buffy pulled open the back door and climbed in.

Elizabeth turned again, “Everyone please make sure your strapped in, it’s going to be a little bit of a rough ride.”

Buffy sat up and asked plaintively, “Er, nobody’s actually told me exactly what I am here to do yet.”

“I’ll explain on the way,” said Elizabeth.

“Fine. Just tell me one thing?”

“What is it?”

“What is this place we’re going to?”

Elizabeth sighed and without turning back answered, “It’s where they made nightmares.”

Buffy open her eyes wide and Willow stared straight ahead and listened to Elizabeth explain. Though she already had some idea of what this place was used for.


***


“Buffy? Can you see it?”

“I see it. Who, the hell built this place?” whispered the Slayer.

“What?”

“Hang on… I am coming down.” Straddling the Oak bough, Buffy used a hand to steady herself as she peered forward, adjusting the focus of her binoculars as she did so.

“Careful,” whispered Willow.

Buffy stashed her binoculars and swung her leg up until she sat perched on the edge of the branch and then dropped lightly down onto the roof of Elizabeth’s truck. Willow winced at the thud as Buffy’s feet made contact with the roof, before she hopped the final distance to the ground. She brushed bark and moss from her front and looked at Willow with a curious expression. “Who the hell designed this place? It’s weird.”

“What did you see?”

“It’s a whole complex but everything’s one story. It’s all scary dark windows and poison ivy.”

Willow felt her heart quicken as gothic images scuttled through her inventive mind. “Elizabeth said it used to be a sanatorium back in the thirties but that it closed a couple of years after the government sold it to a private consortium. Didn’t work out I guess.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “It looks more life a prison than an asylum.”

“Well I guess it is. He’s in there,” said Willow.

“Yeah and here’s the part I am still not sure I get. We have to get into his cell so we can take this magick charm that binds his power and then I am a little hazy on the mayhem that comes after that.”

“As soon as we get the artefact, he’ll need to be held back while we get away.”

“Huh. Ok. Another day, another monster.”

“So anyway, did you see anyone or anything going on in there?”

“Nada.”

After a second, Buffy asked hesitantly, “Willow, er what do you feel? Can you like 'hear’ him?”

Willow looked away, embarrassed, “No really.” She wished she’d explained to Buffy what’d happened with the draining of her power, but there just hadn’t seemed a right time. It was all still too fresh in her mind and she wasn’t really sure she understood it herself yet. More than anything, her lack of power embarrassed her.

After a while Buffy asked, “How are we going to find our way round in there anyway?”

“Elizabeth, she’s been to this place before.”

“What? How does she know?”

“She didn’t say, she just said she’s been here before and she knows her way around.”

“Huh. So she’ll help us find this Antwerp?”

Despite herself, Willow grinned at her friend in the darkness. “An-tor-wath.”

“Right. That’s what I said.”

“Buffy?”

The Slayer turned at the sound of her name. Elizabeth was walking towards the two women. She’d gone off to reconnoitre the target from a different location.

“Did you get a good look at the place? Did you see any guards or a possible discrete way in?”

“I got a look,” she said slowly, “but it’s enormous. I couldn’t see a door or anything. But I was looking by moonlight, it’s really hard to see that much.”

“So, how do we get in?”

“I think we’ll just have to walk in through the front door.”

“Oh well as long as its nothing dangerous then.”

Elizabeth adjusted her small khaki backpack. “There are weapons and supplies on the truck.”

“Oh goodie,” said Buffy.


***


“Raphael?”

“Yes Abraham?”

“What will we do when they come?”

“We’ll open up the rest of the cells.”

“There aren’t so many left as there used to be,” said Abraham.

Raphael smiled. “It makes our life easier if there are less of them to deal with.”

“But where do they go?”

“Oh, all over. Quite a few turned up in London, living in the sewers, the underground.”

“What happened to them when they were found?”

Raphael raised an eyebrow at that. Abraham quickly changed the subject. “Will they even come out?”

“They’ll come out.”

After a while, Abraham asked. “What if they do get past them?”

“In the unlikely event they evade their welcoming committee, we will prevent them from reaching their goal.”


***


Willow peered through the wire meshed glass in one of the double doors that formed the entrance to the place Elizabeth called “Elysium”. Nervously, she tried the brass knob and to her surprise, the mechanism turned easily and the latch clicked. She turned to Buffy and raised her eyebrows. The others were keeping watch at the base of the three stone steps. Poised to enter the building Willow felt Buffy place an arm on hers in gentle restraint. “Let me.” Willow looked at her friend and felt her spirit wilt a little.

Buffy entered and when she’d satisfied herself the area was free from immediate threats, she beckoned Willow to follow. She pushed open the door and entered the foyer of the main building. She wrinkled her nose. The air was moist and smelled dirty.

Behind Willow came Elizabeth who was peering around the place thoughtfully.

Moonlight filtered through the patina of grime on the reception windows. The Elysium foyer and reception area was ruined. Years of damp had rotted through the broad couches that sat against the long side wall to the right of and parallel to the entrance. Ochre newspapers from decades past lay strewn across low wooden tables. Mildew stained the wood surface beneath.

“It’s been a long time since anybody cared for this place,” said Elizabeth.

The carpets had long since fallen victim to the same slow process of degradation as everything else and now lay rotten and squelched a little beneath the foot. Opposite the front door, a thick white wooden counter ran two thirds the length of the back wall. Glass fragments, large and small lay across the counter now.

Incongruously, hanging on the wall behind the counter were two glass framed pictures. One, an anatomical model of what looked like a human skull. The other showed what appeared to be a blue-print of the complex.

“That way, I think” said Elizabeth as she pointed to a heavy white door next to the counter. As with the reception doors, about two thirds of the way up was a small square, re-enforced glass window. Buffy walked over to the door and peered through the glass. “Can’t see much.” She wrapped her slim fingers around the steel handle. A gentle pull and the door opened. “Huh. Not locked.”

“Be careful Buffy,” warned Elizabeth.

Lips tight and eyes alert, she nodded. “I won’t be long.” Buffy reached to the scabbard at her waist and carefully extended a rather beautiful Katana she’d selected from what had turned out to be an exquisitely made set of Japanese weapons held in individual wooden cases mounted in the back of Elizabeth’s truck.

Slowly she stepped over the threshold, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom of a broad passageway. She turned once more and offered a reassuring smile to her companions before returning her full concentration to what was ahead.

Allowing the door to close quietly behind her, Buffy walked a few steps into the corridor. The surface of the floor felt uneven, like cracked or broken tiles. Soon the dim light that had filtered through from the reception faded. Praeternatural sense allowed Buffy to move through the darkness with reasonable confidence.

Pools of stagnant water suggested the place had been flooded. Everything was water damaged. She stopped suddenly, listening. Her imagination stirred her fears. Elizabeth had not gone into great detail but it was enough to conjure images of once human monstrosities disfigured and mutated by dark magicks. Turning, she drew in her strength and raised her sword. When she saw the creature approaching, her heart turned cold and she saw the true face of the horror that had been made here.



***


“Mr Giles?”

The quiet voicing of his name took several seconds to register before causing the tired Watcher to look up slowly from his study.

The patiently waiting curator smiled genially. “I have the papers you asked for.”

He managed to suppress his feeling of surprise. He cleared his throat. “Thank you. Could you just place them on the table over there?”

“Of course Sir.”

Giles replaced his glasses as the librarian placed the stack of files neatly down next to the pile of tattered looking texts on the ancient reading table. Casually he asked, “Any problem finding them?”

“No Sir, most of the files are of a reduced classification now.”

“Yes, of course.” Giles tried to affect an air of casual understanding.

“Would you like me to remove these books?” the librarian indicated the half filled trolley sitting next to the end of the reading table.

“Er, yes, yes please. Thank you.”

Giles watched thoughtfully as the librarian slowly pushed the trolley on creaking wheels out the reading room. As the door swung slowly closed behind the departing librarian, Giles closed the book he’d been studying and pulled the pile of papers in front of him.

Finding the books on the list Elizabeth had provided had not taken long. The Council’s collection of magick and occult texts were extensive. His request for intelligence files on advancements in thaumaturgy in the last fifty years had been something of a whim. The curator had nodded non-committaly when he’d made the request and Giles had been fully expecting to be told there was nothing available or that he did not have a suitable level of clearance. Therefore he was rather surprised at the size of the stack currently sitting before him and the ease with which it had been obtained.

He began to scan through the titles. He stopped suddenly at one particular file entitled “Survey of Thaumo-Eugenics Research.” He pulled the file out and opened it. Although a thick sheaf of papers were held inside, the text was quite heavily censored.

The top paper was dated February 1967 and seemed to be the main survey document. A number of addenda had been attached to the back of the file over the years. As he read, his stomach turned at what the research had entailed. Despite his revulsion to the implications of what was involved in the actual work, the supposed insights gained garnered his curiosity.

As he slowly turned the pages, among other things, the text mentioned advancement into the problems of ‘Magic Induced Dimensional Dissociation’ and into the associated possibilities of ‘Multiple Harmonic Dimensional Travel’.

With frequent references to thaumaturgy as well as physics and biochemistry he could only intuit some of the possibilities suggested by such research, yet even that seemed to bear powerful resonance with Willow’s situation.

Beyond the possibilities offered by what he’d read, it was the closing remarks that truly shocked him. The summing up made reference to an organisation which had at the time of the report been considered the foremost researcher in this area, working in the field since the nineteen thirties. There was a long list of names of researchers who’d worked for the organisation, along with research specialisms and dates. Near the end of the list was the name “Elizabeth R. Brown, PhD, Visiting Researcher - January 1966 to July 1967.” Listed as working at “Elysium Medical Research Hospital.”

Giles flicked to the end of the file and found a note dated December 1967, indicating that the organisation in question was now defunct, it’s researches considered failed. Whatever had gone on at Elysium had ended not long after Elizabeth’s had completed her tenure. He assumed this was the only reason the file was declassified, otherwise such information ought to be much more highly protected.

He reflected that declassified in Council of Watcher terms meant highly secret in any normal person’s vocabulary. For once he was glad of his re-instated membership of the Council.



***

[raspberryhat]

Chapter 2, Draft 2 Continued...

Willow jumped back from peering into the passageway as she heard rapid footsteps. “ Buffy?”

The door swung open and banged loudly on the side of the reception counter.

Willow watched the Slayer as she leaned for a moment on the doorway, breathing hard, eyes angry. Her shirt and jeans were stained and damp.

“What happened? Are you alright?” repeated Willow.

As she regained her breath, Buffy walked slowly round to the reception counter where Elizabeth stood studying the charts that hung on the back wall. She turned as Buffy approached.

“What the hell,” she demanded, “is this?” As she asked the question, Buffy held up a severed head.

Willow’s hand flexed involuntarily to her mouth.

The head was not human, it’s eyes were enormous and it’s mouth was dark and distended, no teeth, just a bloody hole.

“It, was a person,” said Elizabeth quietly.

Buffy looked at the older woman and then down at the thing she was holding. Her hand opened involuntarily. In a very small voice she said, “This used to be somebody?”

“Buffy, I am so sorry, I really hoped you wouldn’t have to deal with this. I’d hoped they’d all be gone or too old to be a threat.”

“But this was ‘done’ to somebody?!”

Elizabeth nodded. “I tried to explain. Any humanity will have been long since quashed.”

“He attacked me.”

“I know.”

Buffy’s face suddenly turned from remorse to fear, “You said ‘they’?”

Elizabeth knew she’d been too optimistic in assuming that not everything that could go wrong would go wrong. She closed her eyes for a moment as graphic memories awakened in her mind.

“This place was used for certain dangerous experiments. After the experiments stopped, its designation was changed to keeping experimental ‘left-overs’, that could not be destroyed.”

Buffy’s brow furrowed.. “Does that mean Antorwath—”

Elizabeth nodded. “He’s the product of years of experimentation. He was brought her in the late sixties for the final most dangerous stages. The work left him too dangerous to do anything with…”

Willow cut in, “But they found a way to bind all his power so they could keep him locked away in a place like this without worrying about him getting out. Secret research labs cost lots of money and have a way of being discovered.” She looked at Buffy meaningfully as she thought back to The Initiative labs that had been based right below UC Sunnydale. Of course even they weren’t into this kind of thing. They’d never really understood the magicks. Willow hated the analogy but their work seemed crude butchery in comparison to this.

Buffy straightened up. “Look, let’s cut to the chase here. There obviously other are things still running about in there. This place has obviously been left alone for so long half the prisoners could have escaped.”

“Or someone could have let them out,” added Elizabeth darkly.

“You think?”

“It’s possible,” said Elizabeth.

“Okay that doesn’t change what we’re here to do. We need to find our way to Antorwath, retrieve the artefact and get it onto Willow.”


***


The door to the guard’s control room opened tentatively.

“What is it Abraham?”

The younger man jumped at the sound of his name. Raphael had not turned. He just continued to lean on a section of the metal railing that delineated a broad circular aperture in the floor through which could be seen every floor from top to bottom of the facility.

Abraham walked into the room, approaching his superior cautiously.

The older man squinted as if trying to focus through the rusty wire mesh that covered the opening into the facility below. He repeated his question. “What happened?”

“She killed him?”

“The witch?”

“No the other. She’s strong.”

Raphael rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“How did she do it?”

“Sword. It was quick. She was skilful. Well trained.”

“As good as you are?”

“I would say not.”

Another nod.

“What should I do?”

“Go. Watch. Report back if they get beyond the fifth.”

“Okay.

Abraham didn’t understand why they couldn’t use magick. Raphael had simply said it would be dangerous in this environment. From the wall next to the door, he took down a long samurai sword and examined it closely. Light glinted off the minute facets in the shape of the blade. He weighed it in his hand, getting a feel for it. Comfortable, he placed the sword in it’s saya and headed out the door, leaving his companion to his contemplation.


***


“Buffy, how far in did you get? Were there any others that you could see or hear?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, from the chart, the reception is actually quite some way from the main complex. We need to head through the corridor that Buffy’s just swept and towards the main complex…”

Willow interrupted, “What about if there are more of those things running around?”

“Buffy and I will take point. You should follow when we’ve confirmed an area is clear. Here, I have some torches.”

Willow shut her eyes and breathed for a moment. She hated being so useless and worse being the cause of all this. Things could have been so different. She watched Elizabeth rummage in her backpack and pull out two military looking flashlights. She handed one to the red-head and kept one herself.

“So is it far to go?” asked Willow.

“The main building is mostly underground. It’s complicated. It’s meant to be easy to get lost. Stops inmates escaping.”

“So what are the odds of getting lost on the way out?”

Elizabeth gave a tight smile. “We won’t. Come on, we should go.”

Buffy followed Elizabeth towards the door. Willow watched the two of them pause momentarily and then walk over the threshold. She looked up at the ceiling wondering if anyone up there was watching over her or cared if she lived or died. She shook her head and headed towards the sound of Buffy chattering away as she walked down the corridor with Elizabeth.


<

>


‘How much further?’ wondered Buffy under her breadth. They seemed to be walking through a low security area. The corridor was punctuated with doors leading off to small wards. Each door had an iconograph painted on in black. Buffy didn’t recognise any of the symbols, but had opened one door and poked her head through. There’d been nothing but broken glass and rusting hospital paraphernalia.

“Just be glad we’ve come this far and not run into anyone,” answered Elizabeth as she peered forth into the gloom of the corridor.

“Yeah you’re right. That thing was fast. Although…”

“What?”

“Well,” Buffy suddenly found herself feeling rather awkward, “well, you’re a witch, you can do magick?”

Elizabeth smiled in the darkness. She understood the Slayer’s hesitance given her recent experiences with magick. She was still surprised it had taken Buffy so long to ask though. Looking behind to ensure she could still see Willow, Elizabeth said, “Just keep walking slowly and I’ll explain.”

Buffy wondered what this was about. A simple “yes” would have answered her question.

“One of the primary abilities I have is to harness and redirect power.”

“What does that mean?”

“Buffy, you’ve studied martial arts haven’t you? Rupert told me he’s developed a hybrid fighting system with you.”

“Yeah. I am not very good with the Japanese names of the moves though. I don’t see why it matters…”

Elizabeth continued earnestly, “Has he ever taught you about an art called Ai-ki-do?”

Buffy’s brow furrowed. “Oh! Yes actually. Giles used to love to talk about these kick-ass masters because they showed what was possible for normal humans,” she grimaced, “with enough hard work! It’s all about harness your opponent’s power…oh I see. You’re talking about a sort of magick version of that?”

Elizabeth smiled to herself. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” she hesitated but knew Buffy had to know, “it is my primary power though. Even if it was appropriate, I can’t attack with magick and I can do little to defend against a brute force attack.”

Buffy slowed her pace, about to stop but remembered they were trying to keep ahead of Willow, trying to keep her safe. Elizabeth had not wanted her to hear. “So…what happens if you’re attacked with powerful magick?”

Elizabeth folder her arms and kept looking straight ahead. “I can take that power and focus it, compress it, transform it and ultimately redirect it.”

“Like back onto an attacker?”

“Yes.”

“So basically any muscle bound monsters and I am on my own?”

Elizabeth nodded again. “Yes, only, well while they may be strong, developing physical strength was not the main thrust of the experimentation that went on here.”

Buffy shuddered but kept walking. After a moment she reached out a hand and gently lifted the flashlight from Elizabeth. She walked on a bit more briskly shining the light up ahead of them. “Hey, looks like we’ve got a choice.”

Buffy stopped and waited for Elizabeth and Willow to catch up.

“Okay. Which way? Left, right or straight up?”

“We need to go right.”

She pointed up ahead, as she talked, “That way leads straight to the security centre. And up there,” she pointed down the darkened left leading corridor, “is just more wards.”

Buffy looked up ahead. “So that’s where our friend could have come from?”

“It’s possible,” said Elizabeth quickly, “but we don’t know for sure.”

Willow looked down the right hand corridor, “So where does this go?” she asked gently?

“Staff sleeping quarters and that leads to the maintenance and storage facilities We need to go through there.”

“Why don’t Buffy and I carry on ahead as before?”

Willow nodded mutely.

Buffy and Elizabeth led the way down the dusty corridor.

Every fifty feet or so, a plane wooden door marked what must have been the entry to a bunk room. Buffy noticed each door had a solid looking lock. She looked up ahead and frowned. After the last bunk room door far up on the left, there was just a blank wall.

“Er…are we sure this is the right way?”

“It’s a dead end!” Buffy stared at the plane white wall in confusion. “What gives?”

Elizabeth took the flashlight and was shining it over the surface of the wall carefully. Buffy watched her for a moment and reached out her hand, made a fist and rapped on the wall. She watched in fascination as a plaster dust sparkled in the flashlight beam as it floated down towards her feet.

“It’s a mask,” said Elizabeth. She reached out her hand towards the wall and slowly ran her finger tips through the air over the surface of the wall. Suddenly she withdrew her hand. “It’s here.”

“What is it?” asked Buffy testily.

“It’s to disguise the way in. This place is mainly designed to keep people in, not out, but they do take some basic precautions. Here, let me show you.”

Elizabeth reached towards Buffy, lightly took her wrist and guided her hand toward the wall.

“But I just felt..”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Feel again.” As she spoke, she placed her own hand over the slayer’s and pushed on the surface of the wall. Buffy was shocked to see a contraction in the surface of the wall that sprang back as she lifted her palm. She hesitated and then replaced her hand on the surface and let it sink inwards until she felt a change in texture and then realised her hand was touching metal. “A door?”

“Which we may need some help opening.”

Buffy pulled back her hand and examined it critically.

Willow approached the wall and peered at it herself. As she drew close she felt her skin tingle and pulled back quickly. “Oh.” She turned to her friend, breathing deeply, calming herself. “Buffy, it’s powerful, but it’s only a mask”, she glanced at Elizabeth before continuing, “Just close your eyes.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow, but saw only concerned sincerity in her friend’s expression. She didn’t want to ask the how of Willow’s knowledge. She shut her eyes. This time when she reached out her hand she had no problem in immediately feeling the texture of the door. She reached downwards gingerly and grinned when she felt a metal doorknob. She gripped it and turned. It did not open. She smiled. “Okay, stand back.”

Buffy closed her eyes again, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Opening her eyes slowly she stared at the location where her hand had been, fixing it in her mind. Stepping back slightly, turning her hips away from the door, she took another deep centering breath. In one smooth flowing movement she released a spinning kick to the location of the door handle. The sound of crunching wood and sheering metal followed by a delayed crash confirmed successful contact.

Buffy held her final position and opened her eyes. She smiled at the image of her horizontal thigh disappearing into the faux wall. She casually stepped through and turned to invite the others, but then realised they wouldn’t be able to see her. “Come on through.”

Willow looked at Elizabeth. “She likes to lighten the mood sometimes.”

Weakening flashlight light pierced the darkness of the room beyond.

“Where are we?” asked Buffy suspiciously.

“Power system,” answered Elizabeth matter of factly.

Willow shone her flashlight towards the rear of the room where she saw a large rusted looked generator, sitting within a wire mesh cage. The cage had a door which Willow noticed still seemed securely padlocked. “If this is the power room, why isn’t the engine running?

“This place hasn’t been active for years. Prisoners left here to die don’t need light.”

Willow swallowed nervously. “O-okay, so how do we get to where we’re going.”

Elizabeth pointed towards a small square hatch next to the base of the cage. “Every floor has its own generator.”

Willow peered into the gloom following Elizabeth’s gaze. She could see a square of metal delineated in the floor and as she looked more closely noticed two large deadbolts securing the door in place.

“The power rooms of each floor are all connected?”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t that a security flaw? Couldn’t inmates escape?”

Elizabeth felt her right eye twitch as she studied Willow in the gloom, wondering if the young witch had figured out how Elizabeth knew her way around here. It had not been necessary to share the details. It was just too long a story.

“Elizabeth?”

The sound of her name snapped the old Wiccan back from her reverie. “Yes?.” She re-appraised Willow’s expression. “Nobody in the main complex could escape this way because there’s no way into the power system other than from the outside on the top level, the way we came in.”

Buffy turned around at this. “So how do we get to Antorwath then?”

“The original building was eight levels, the ninth level was added later.”

“Especially for Antorwath?”

“For creatures of his ilk, yes.”

“And there’s a way to get from here into the ninth level?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“But if he’s the most dangerous thing in here, couldn’t he get out that way?”

“The mechanism of his internment on the ninth level means there is little risk of him getting beyond his cell.”

Buffy wondered what to make of that but assumed she’d soon know.

“We’d better get going then. I guess now we’re through into here we’re not likely to run into any more of those bizarre experiments from back there?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “That’s unlikely. Before we go down we need to prepare though.”

The Slayer raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Please sit Buffy,” she turned to face Willow, “you too my dear.”

Elizabeth lowered herself into a cross legged sitting position and waited for Buffy and Willow to do likewise. Positioned at the vertices of a rough triangle, flashlights on the metal floor pointing inwards, Elizabeth studied the aura of her two young charges. When Willow had re-surfaced from her dimensional journey, her aura had been faint, but after a day’s rest, while the colors had been mixed they had at least been vibrant and strong. Now though bright orange had given way to a muddy and altogether fainter umber. Streaks of indigo and blue still surfaced in the energy flow but overall the witch’s glow seemed weaker. Yet she did not seem physically diminished.

Buffy was entirely different. The Slayer was infused with a deep blood red energy flow that occasionally tinted towards blackness but then washed back into fluid red. The strength in the woman was impressive although Elizabeth doubted she fully understood her own capability. She mused that Buffy might well understand herself better after what she was going to have to do next.

“When we get to the ninth level, we’ll need to retrieve the artefact from Antorwath, but it won’t be easy.”

“But I thought he was basically harmless while he was bound by it,” said Buffy, confused.

Elizabeth nodded. “The thing is, while that’s true there are…complications.”

Buffy sighed.

“The artefact not only absorbs energy, it’s attracted to energy. With every breath he draws power from the environment and the artefact draws closer to him to better absorb that power. Even though he can’t use it, an incredible amount of power flows through him.”

Buffy hesitated before speaking the words that her increasingly fatalistic intuition were forming in her mind. “So we have to kill him?”

“There’s really no other way. If we tried to pacify him and take it from him, as soon as he came around he’d be an unprecedented danger to the world.”

Willow shook her head angrily. “Surely, if he was made like this, he can be unmade without being killed? It doesn’t seem right. This was done to him. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Willow’s you’re compassion is admirable, but the original boy…there’s nothing left.”

“This was done to him as a child?” asked Willow horrified.

Elizabeth nodded. “I am sorry, it’s a long and tragic story which we just don’t have time for now. For now we need to get ready to deal with this situation.”

Willow continued studying the metal flooring, not speaking.

“What do I have to do?” asked Buffy.

“With the magick that runs through him, physical strength alone won’t be enough to kill him. However, there is a spell which can be used to, well the best way to describe it is it’ll allow you to channel your innate power more directly. It adds a kind of magickal after-touch to your physical power.”

Buffy pondered the meaning of this. “So, you do this spell on me and then what?”

“Simple, you do what you do, but your physical assault will be, enhanced.”

Buffy looked nervously at Willow. “Should we be doing magick in front of Willow?”

She managed a small grin as Willow gave her a half-hearted withering look.

“This will be so focussed that it should not cause a problem. However,” she turned her attention to Willow, “it would be best if she keeps back from things.”

Willow got up awkwardly and backed into the shadows.

“Will this take long?”

“Not at all. Please just sit still and close your eyes. Slow your breathing as if in meditation.”

Buffy found it difficult initially to lower her guard in this place, but after a while the quiet closeness of the room and Elizabeth’s matched, quiet breathing allowed her own body to begin to relax.

Willow watched in fascination as the older witch easily brought Buffy into a state of meditation. She blinked her eyes rapidly trying to see better in the near darkness. Her lips parted in surprise as she realised the red specks she’d thought were stars from her own eyes, were actually tiny dancing coils of Buffy’s aura.

Elizabeth began a near sub-aural chant and as she did so Buffy’s aura began to glow brighter until her whole body was surrounded by deep flaming reds and negative delineations of deep black. Despite herself, Willow found the energy around the Slayer breath taking. She knew Buffy understood the principle that her power had a magickal quality but that the Slayer had chosen never to pursue an understanding of it, preferring to leave all things magick to her. Willow wanted to move closer, to reach out and put her hand in the flow, but she managed to check her instinct.

The old witch’s tone increased as her guttural chant grew louder. Willow didn’t recognise the dialect although it had cadences that reminded her of the very ancient demon tongues she’d partaken of. She had to trust Elizabeth knew what she was doing.

Elizabeth raised her chant and the energy flowing around and from within Buffy swelled until the light was so bright it was difficult to see the diminutive Slayer at the centre of the rushing flow. Suddenly Elizabeth raised her right hand and thrust it straight into the centre of the flow. Her hand became engulfed by color and organic tendrils began to crawl over her hand and up her wrist.

Elizabeth watched the energy snake its way across her skin and smiled. She looked straight into the centre of the flames and said one simple word; “Novo!” Immediately the words escaped her lips, she drew her hand into a fist and started to withdraw it from the energy flow. As she pulled, the weak tendrils of red that griped her wrist seemed to pull, trying to resist her egress. She did not react with force, but breathed, focussing her own energy and slowly removed her hand from the flames.

As soon as her hand was free, the red energy evaporated, popping and sparking in the darkness until there was quiet and the only light was flickering flashlight. Buffy opened her eyes and looked at Elizabeth, who smiled serenely back.

“I feel…different?”

Elizabeth nodded. “You should. What do you feel?”

“It’s hard to describe.”

“Try.”

“Well, it’s a bit like I’ve just had four espressos. I feel kinda tingly like, kinda fired up.”

Elizabeth nodded. “When the time comes, just trust your instincts. You’ll know what to do.”

“So nice and obvious then.”

Elizabeth ignored the sarcastic quip.

Willow stood up and approached Buffy. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah…you?”

Willow nodded, but Buffy saw the concern and fear in her friend’s eyes. “Will, I am good. I am ready for this thing. Whatever it is.”

Willow swallowed. “You may be. I am not sure I am.”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I am sorry, but we need to get going.”

“I’ll go first,” said Buffy.


<

>


By the fourth floor, Willow was breathing hard. A small part of her mind reflected she should have spent a bit more time at least thinking about going to the gym. However much running away they did from vampires or however vigorous the evil fighting, it just never seemed to get any easier.

Getting the rusted hatches open, even with Buffy’s preternatural Slayer strength had taken their combined effort. Below each hatchway, a ladder led into the darkness which had meant climbing very slowly and carefully. Everything was rusty and they’d agreed Buffy would go first to each floor down since she was probably the lightest and there was least chance of the ladder breaking under her weight. Each level had seemed a very long way down.

Hands on hips, breathing deeply, Willow watched Buffy disappear down the ladder towards the fifth level. Elizabeth followed. Willow didn’t really like being last as she wondered what might be lurking in the shadows. As if on cue, she heard a deep groaning sound from somewhere close by, followed by a kind of laboured, rasping breathing. She figured sound carried through this building quite well, but she didn’t want to hang around to see just how close or what exactly the source of the sound actually was. As she saw Elizabeth’s head disappear into the darkness, she called out “Wait for me!” and began to lower herself through the hatch.


***



Abraham closed his eyes and concentrated his mind in the darkness.

‘Raphael. They have passed the fifth level.’

Abraham waited, wondering if he’d been heard.

‘How?’

‘The old woman she knew a way.’

‘What way?’

‘There’s a series of rooms built into the fabric of the structure and a secret entrance on the top level.’

Raphael paused to consider this. He wondered why he hadn’t been warned of this possibility. Surely Mr White must have been aware of this eventuality. After a moment, he returned the thought; ‘You know what to do.’

‘I know, but I’ve project through. I will only be able to physically confront them on the ninth. The part of the structure they’re in does not reconnect with the main complex until the ninth.’

‘Just make sure they do not reach their goal.’

‘I understand.’

Raphael wondered if the young acolyte was up to the task. Best of a generation supposedly. Well it wasn’t his problem if it went wrong. He hadn’t been given all the facts. Let Mr White clean up the blood. He reached out with his mind and felt the crawling presence of the other inhabitants of the institution. Not that they’d help now. Putting them back in their cells was a waste of effort. If they didn’t kill the intruders, much easier to just let them kill each other.


***


By the time Willow landed her booted foot on the metal of the eighth level, she breathed a sigh and said, “Time out! I need to rest a minute.”

Elizabeth nodded, “We need to stop here anyway. The next level is Antorwath’s enclosure.”

Willow shone her flash light around the room. It was exactly the same as all the others. Caged power generator towards the back. Little tool cupboard on the left-hand wall, next to the cage. She approached one wall and leaned back and then slowly slid down until she was sitting comfortably on the floor. She breathed deeply and momentarily closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure and quell her nerves.

Her eyes snapped open at a sudden thud as if of a heavy door being thrown open. She looked around quickly to see if Buffy or Elizabeth had heard it. As she realised that she couldn’t see her friends, panic started to raise but was eclipsed by a painful ringing in her ears that became so penetrating, she clamped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes tight shut. Abruptly the noise ceased and after a few moments, Willow removed her hands from her ears and opened her eyes carefully. She immediately shut them again. Bright, wire covered fluorescent ceiling lights gave off a harsh glare that left shapes swimming across her vision. Willow carefully opened her eyes again and blinked rapidly. She stood up and looked around. She was on her own, standing in a what seemed to be a brightly lit corridor of a medical facility. A heavy door was swinging slowly back to its centre.

She could feel her heart beating quickly. Something was very wrong here. “Elizabeth?” Her voice echoed back to her. Her stomach filled with a liquid dread. Suddenly the cleansing at the stones seemed a long long time ago. Something was still wrong.

Forcing herself to take in her surroundings, she realised the structure seemed much like that which they’d come through to get to this point. Only now the place was different, more alive than dead. The light had an insipient green tinge to it which while her eyes were adjusting, still had rather unsettling quality. The floor beneath her feet was laid with neat tiles. No longer smashed. The walls were a clean, two tone; white and green.

Suddenly, she realised she could hear voices coming towards her. Looking left, Willow saw an orderly slowly pushing a wheelchair in which sat a young boy of perhaps seven or eight. His black hair lay lank across an anaemic face. Behind the boy a man and a woman. The white coats suggested they were doctors. They talked animatedly, occasionally gesturing towards the boy in the chair.

They were coming right towards her and instinctively, Willow stepped back to let them pass. There was simply nowhere to easily conceal herself and they surely must have seen her. Yet as they approached they paid her no mind at all. The boy stared off into space and the Doctor’s monotone continued.

“Let’s lock him down for tonight, then give him a shot of the new formulation. We can have him in the lab by 6am.”

And then they’d passed and were carrying on down the corridor.

Willow’s couldn’t understand what was going on around her. She didn’t know where she was.

She watched the group head off into the opposite wing and then stop before a door about half way down. The orderly pulled out a bunch of keys and leaned down to unlock the door. He pushed the door open and the manoeuvred the wheel chair around to face the door. As he did so, the boy turned to look down the corridor. Willow saw the tiniest smile pull at his lips.



“Willow?!”

Willow opened her eyes and became aware of a throbbing pain in the back of her head. She realised she was lying on the ground. Elizabeth was peering into her face, eyes concerned. ”W-what happened?” she asked.

“You collapsed.”

Willow blinked rapidly and sat up. Suddenly she remembered the little boy.

“Some kind of episode? A hallucination?” asked Elizabeth shrewdly.

Willow looked away. “I thought they’d stopped,” she said quietly.

“Willow, I am sorry.”

Still looking away; “The voices are quiet. I don’t hear them.”

“I had hoped…”

Willow looked into the older woman’s face and saw not the usual ellipsis but just sympathy.

“What did you hope?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t be this hard for you.”

Willow managed a small smile. “Tell me.”

“Some of the effects, some of the changes you went through are probably permanent.”

Willow didn’t seem surprised. “I need a way to remember my sin.”

“Willow, we will talk about this, but right now, you need to tell me what you saw.”

“I saw a little boy.”

Elizabeth stared at Willow, a little shocked. “You, saw…Willow tell me exactly did he look like?”

Willow didn’t like the tone of fear in Elizabeth’s voice. Until now the older woman had been all confidence but now something else entirely manifested in her voice.

“Willow, what did he look like?”

“A black haired boy in a wheelchair, I think he was being wheeled to some kind of surgery.”

“Surgery? What made you think that?”

“There were people with him, doctors.”

Elizabeth could hardly bring herself to ask, but managed to phrase the question; “Did you hear what they were saying?”

“They said something about trying out a new formulation.”

Elizabeth’s eyes clouded and Willow thought maybe she was about to cry.

Willow nodded. “Why, what is it? What does it mean?”

Elizabeth rubbed her eyes, and suddenly looked very tired. She breathed in and gathered herself. “Willow that means you saw Antorwath, as a boy. The new formulation would have been the last stage of his treatment.”

“But you said he was brought forty something years ago. I’ve seen…other dimensions, but never other times.”

“Willow, time doesn’t run at the same speed in every dimension and some moments, horrific moments, can, from some perspectives stretch out to near eternity.”

Buffy cleared her throat. “Look I am sorry to interrupt, but what does any of this have to do with what we’re here for?”

Elizabeth turned to the Slayer, “It just means my worst fears were confirmed for what they’ve done to him and how dangerous he is.”

“But it doesn’t change what we’ve got to do does it?” asked Buffy impatiently.

“No, no it doesn’t.” said Elizabeth tiredly.

“So it’s through there then?” asked Buffy pointing towards the last trap door.

“Yes.”

“Ok, I go through first. You come down when I say and Willow stays here until it’s definitely all clear and we need to get the artefact on her?”

“Yes, I think that’s most sensible, Willow do you agree?”

Willow had taken a step away from the trapdoor and sat down again. She’d felt a wave of sadness wash over her at the fate of the boy. It was in the past, but he’d looked innocent like he didn’t know what was being done to him. She thought about Abi and wondered if this was anything like what she’d had to go through. She hardly dared think about how this sort of thing could still be going on.

“Ready then?” asked Buffy?


***


“They’re coming for you.”

Antorwath managed a kind of pained rasping sound but his lips seemed to pull into a warped, mirthless still smile, as the words formed in Mr White’s mind.

“Let them come.”

Mr White appraised his prisoner critically. “How is it you look the way you do? You’ve been here a long time. You should be older than me, yet I’ve not seen you age a day since…”

“The last treatment.”

“Yes.”

“Consider it a side effect.”

Mr White smiled. “Interesting.” He reached out a hand and hesitated before pressing his finger against the cloth covering the man’s chest. Through the cloth, he felt the tingling sensation of residual energy emanating from the artefact. “They want that.”

Antorwath’s crooked smile remained. “Yes. They are of course very welcome to have it.”

“They may take it from you forcibly.”

“They may.”


***


Buffy pulled back the bolts on the trap door. Carefully, she pulled up the rusted metal handle that was recessed in the door itself and took a firm grip. Bracing herself, she leaned back and slowly pulled back on the handle, breathing out as she did so. The metal groaned but to her surprise released more easily than the previous doors had. Elizabeth had said this floor had been a new addition to the building. ‘Not had as long to rust closed,’ she reasoned.

She looked around and cautioned the others with her arm. She didn’t want them anywhere near whatever may be lurking below. One hand holding the trapdoor open, carefully she reached her other hand out for the flashlight that lay on the floor. Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal and she directed the beam into the hole. It was probably her imagination but the darkness seamed heavier having an almost liquid quality. The light barely penetrated, showing very little of what lay below.

“Er, Elizabeth? A little help here?”

The older woman peered into the darkness and frowned.

“I don’t really want to fight this thing in the dark, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Elizabeth distractedly.

Buffy watched Elizabeth reach into her pack. She watched as Elizabeth removed what looked like a good size lump of granite. “What’s that for?”

“For light.”

“You’re going to light the way with a rock?” asked the Slayer incredulously, “I think I’ll take my chances in the dark.”

Elizabeth looked up at her but didn’t respond. She held the rock out before her, both hands closed tightly over the rough surface. After a moment, Buffy saw a reddish light emanating from beneath Elizabeth’s hands and then start to spread out and emanate from within the rock itself. When Elizabeth opened her eyes, the rock was glowing a warm red all over its surface.

Buffy got the idea but wasn’t convinced it would be any better than flashlight. “Er…”

Elizabeth held up a hand. “Just watch.”

Elizabeth knelt by the opening to the ninth level and dropped the rock in. As Buffy watched the rock fall, she saw it began to glow brighter, illuminating the space around it. The rock hit bottom about thirty feet down, throwing up dust moats that hung in the air, obscuring the bottom few rungs of the ladder in a reddish haze.

“That’s a lot further down than the previous floors,” said Buffy.

“Buffy, remember your instincts. The magick will focus your power in ways that might, surprise you at first.”

The slayer raised an eyebrow. “If it helps keep him down, I am just going to keep on doing it.”

Elizabeth, managed a nervous smile. “Okay.”

Buffy looked at Willow, offering what she hoped was a re-assuring smile. Willow smiled back and whispered, “Go.”

Buffy lowered herself until she was sitting on the edge of the trapdoor, feet dangling below. Slowly, she lowered herself through, careful to avoid catching her sword on the perimeter of the hatchway. When her feet caught purchase on the ladder below, she adjusted her stance and started to climb down.


Peering into the red mist, Buffy gingerly lowered her foot, seeking the ground. Even though she knew bottom should only be a little way down, the mist made it impossible to see the ground and she wanted to land securely. She breathed a sigh of relief as she felt her boot make contact with the ground and in one fluid movement, allowed herself to drop the rest of her weight from the ladder, landing in a fighting stance and drawing her sword into a position of readiness.

The room was different to those above. No power generating equipment here. Just a roughly square room of stone walls, and a door. As she turned, Buffy noticed her movements sending more dust into the air, making the reddish mist swirl higher, until it almost came to her waist. She wondered what the stuff on the floor was.

The only option was the door. Buffy looked up and saw way above her, Elizabeth’s concerned face. She did not see Willow. She turned and approached the door, trying to walk gently so as not to throw up any more dust than necessary.

The heavy oak door had a simple wrought iron handle which to Buffy’s surprise turned easily. She pushed the door open with her left hand. Again darkness. She turned, about to retrieve the light-rock, but stopped as she heard a sound come from within the room beyond. Turning her attention back into the darkness, she listened and as she strained to hear, stepped slowly back through the doorway and into the red room.

Suddenly she saw a point of yellow light flare in the darkness. Without being certain of what she was seeing, instinctively, she stepped sideways so that whoever came in wouldn’t be able to see her. Moments later a blade slashed through the air where she’d been standing.

Buffy jumped further back and gasped when she saw her aggressor enter. Human, bald, swathed in multi-hued robes, tied tight at the waist. The thing that disturbed the Slayer was that around his bald skull was what she could only describe as an mauve colored halo of energy which swirled and flared as he moved.

His eyes tracked her movements minutely. He stood up straight. “Leave now and I won’t hurt you.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. Given the situation and his rather intimidating appearance, she hadn’t expected to be offered an escape clause. It didn’t make any difference. “What’s the matter, afraid you can’t stop a little girl like me?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated.

Buffy stood her ground and locked her expression with his.

“I understand, I am sorry.” As he spoke the, the halo around his head flared and split into a rainbow of color. He breathed in deeply and his body seemed to shimmer and swell. As he exhaled, six shadow forms, each a different color, a translucent projection of the original, detached themselves from his body and spread out around the room.

Aware of the movement around her, Buffy kept her eyes trained on the shadow progenitor. She watched him step closer, the tip of his sword oscillating through a gentle curve as he searched for an opening in her defence.

Buffy could see that the phantom swordsmen spread out around her mirrored his movement. Despite their insubstantial appearance she assumed these shadow-men could touch her, kill her just as well as their owner. The situation felt a great deal more dangerous. Suddenly she felt a smile pull at her lips. She had an advantage of her own too though. Although she wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, she’d get to find out just exactly what it was that Elizabeth’s magick had done for her. Addressing the swords men’s progenitor, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“My name is Abraham.”

“Okay Abraham. I am sorry too. You seem like a decent guy…guys…whatever.” As she spoke, Buffy drew her blade back in a wide sweeping motion and began to execute a swift leaping stride toward Abraham’s left flank, swinging the blade at his neckline as she moved. She was amazed at her own speed and further amazed that Abraham was still looking at the position where she’d been standing as she moved and her blade neared its target.

The air shimmered blue and as she seemed to move faster, his movement seemed to slow even more. She watched in fascination as his expression turned fearfully towards her and as realisation dawned he threw himself away from her in a protective manoeuvre that narrowly avoider her blade.

Suddenly she was still. Her blade had not connected, but she was now watching Abraham crouching several feet away from her, watching her. The swordsmen had widened their circle and were no longer moving towards her. They did seem able to move independently of their master, but they kept their distance.

Abraham stood up slowly, watching her all the time. “How did you…”

Buffy smiled as she realised that what she’d done was actually from her own innate power, just bought to the surface by Elizabeth’s ministration. “Do you still want to do this?” asked the Slayer casually.

Abraham’s expression hardened. “I must finish my task or die.”

How many times had she heard that? Somehow this felt wrong, but she was here for a purpose and his purpose was obviously in preventing her reach her goal.

He let out a piercing cry as he raised his own weapon and with definitely more than human speed moved towards and around her. As he moved his shadow selves closed inwards, swords raised now in varying positions of attack.

Buffy shut her eyes and felt the seconds stretch out and her perception sharpen even further. She saw the room in her mind’s eye and impressionistic ghost figures moving very slowly towards her. They moved so slowly, it was easy to evade their attacks and plot her own. She breathed in deeply and raised her sword to shoulder height. Black energy tinged with silver traced a complex locus through the air around her weapon. Her sword cut through the filmy ghost figures leaving just trails of shining gossamer hanging in the air. And then there was only him. His aura glowed a multitude of colors as he drew himself up. But she could see his intent so far ahead, a simple movement and she was before him and her final cut entered him, stopping him dead.

Buffy opened her eyes and looked sadly down at the still figure at her feet. Her skin tingled as the energy that had risen within her began to subside. She’d felt something like it before. At times when she’d fought for her life. In extreme moments, but this was stronger, much more primal than before. She felt no joy at her victory, she felt little besides her own power. Standing up, Buffy looked up the ladder and again saw Elizabeth’s concerned face. “You’d better get down here.”




After the commotion of the fight, the whole room, seemed a dusty red. “What is that on the floor?” asked Buffy.

Elizabeth looked up from surveying the body. “Just dust Buffy, nothing more. This place hasn’t been opened for a long time.” She turned back to her consideration of the body. “There’ll be another one here. Somewhere.”

“What some kind of demoney symbiosis?” asked Buffy half jokingly.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, just standard procedure. The other one’s probably in the guard control room. We should expect trouble.”

“When’s Willow going to come down?” asked Buffy nervously.

“When we’ve ascertained the situation.” Elizabeth looked ahead into the dark room that lay beyond the doorway. She walked to the base of the ladder and felt around for the light-rock. After a moment, she stood up, gripping the object in her hand. She started to open her pack to replace the item.

“Won’t we need that?” asked Buffy.

“Not now I am here. I just wanted a way for you to see while I stayed up there with Willow.”

“You knew something like this might happen? That there might be people trying to stop us?”

“I suspected, yes.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. And I didn’t know for sure. Whoever’s here can’t be any worse than the remaining inhabitants.”

Buffy sort of saw a logic in that but still didn’t feel totally comfortable with Elizabeth’s circumspection.

“Before we go in there,” said Buffy, “I want to know one more thing.”

“Just ask,” said Elizabeth.

“If things get bad in there and I can’t do what needs to be done, will you be able to use magick to help?”

Buffy, “Magick would be of little help. I could attack him with magickal energy, but the artefact would absorb most of the power before it could really effect him. Also I don’t want to be using magick around Willow”

“Okay then. So no pressure.”

“Are you ready Buffy?”

The Slayer nodded.

Elizabeth looked up the ladder where she saw the worried face of a young witch whom she very much wanted to help. She smiled. “Wait for my call, Willow.”

Willow nodded, she didn’t like sitting on her own in a nearly dark room of an ancient and creepy building, just waiting for something to happen. She played the flashlight down into the room and watched Elizabeth talking to Buffy. After a moment, Elizabeth stepped back and cast her hands wide. Willow felt the power, but it was somewhat diminished at this distance. She watched the room fill with a warm yellow light. She smiled sadly as she realised the witch could have done that from above but the power required was much greater than that which she’d used to release the light energy hidden within the rock she’d used.

“Shall we then?” asked the Slayer.


<

>


Buffy waved her hand through the air to try to get dust away from her eyes. The room a lot less claustrophobic with the warm illumination Elizabeth had created. Light flooded into the doorway, breaking a sliver of yellow into the blackness of the room beyond.

As they walked toward the door, the darkness of the next room seemed to recede and Buffy realised the light was flooding gently out where every Elizabeth moved. “How do you do that?”

Elizabeth smiled. “I just ask.” she said enigmatically.

On the threshold, Buffy hesitated. She looked at Elizabeth one last time then looking ahead, raised her sword and stepped through. Elizabeth followed quickly after, casting her warmth into the room.

That which Buffy had been thinking of as a room was, she could now see a large cavern. In such a large darkened space, Buffy saw that Elizabeth’s light effected a large but not indefinite space. She could see darkness tinge the surface of the warm sphere of light that surrounded them.

“What the hell kind of place is this?” asked Buffy.

“It’s where they’ve interned Antorwath since his treatment. This place was built for him.

“So where is he?”

“This way, towards the back of the chamber,” said Elizabeth as she started to walk ahead of Buffy.

The old witch’s footsteps echoed noisily on the hard stone floor. After a minute or so of walking, Elizabeth’s light revealed a large metallic structure. A cell. As they drew closer, she saw the metal was formed into a hexagonal latticework. Elizabeth stopped a few feet from the edge. Buffy stood with her shoulder to shoulder. Her light bathed the cell in warm yellow light.

The cage was big, perhaps fifty feet square and equally high, basically a large box. Something about the construction struck Buffy as odd. The cage was rusted but that was just like everything else here. Suddenly it struck her what was different about it. There was no door. It was literally a large iron cube.

Sitting in the centre of the cage on a wooden bench sat an old man. Dirtied grey cloth hung from his emaciated form. Lank strands of grey hair tumbled from the side of his pate. Buffy felt a little uncomfortable under his appraising gaze. Despite his dishevelled appearance his eyes were intense and his look penetrating. But then he shifted focus to Elizabeth and smiled. Buffy saw that his teeth were rotted and dirty.

“Elizabeth Brown. I knew you’d come back.”
Buffy looked from the old man to Elizabeth and realised that the words had formed in her own mind without the man actually speaking. She was not unfamiliar with telepathy. Willow had found it useful when they’d been fighting vampires together…before.

As if aware of her thoughts, the old man flicked his glance to Buffy and he inclined his head slightly, lips drawing upward into a small smile. He then turned his expression back to Elizabeth.

Buffy cleared her throat. “You know him?”

“We used to be friends.”

Before Buffy could ask Elizabeth what this meant, the older woman responded, speaking normally; “I don’t think anyone would describe our relationship as one of friendship.”

The man nodded, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “But you’ve done so much for me, made me the way I am, given me all I have..” He gestured expansively to his torn clothes and to his austere surroundings.

Elizabeth didn’t answer, she just watched the animus in his face and waited patiently.

He went on, “No, no perhaps you’re right. Perhaps, let’s see, perhaps doctor and patient would be a better way to describe our relationship?”

His smile widened as he saw the pain flicker across Elizabeth’s expression.

Buffy took half a step away from Elizabeth, realising there was much more to this than she knew. She wanted to ask but now was definitely not the time for a confessional. She watched Elizabeth and then allowed her glance to travel across to her interlocutor. Her sharp eyes picked up the small chest bulge under his shirt.

Elizabeth composed herself, effecting an air of moderate disdain for his words. “Anthony, I tried to help you. Some part of you knows that.”

The old man looked away at the sound of the name. After a moment, he answered, “Nobody’s called me that for a long time. I can’t even say it anymore. My voice doesn’t work so well now. I can only manage the name the rest of them all knew me as.”

Elizabeth’s expression was unrepentant. “I wasn’t responsible for what they did to you. I didn’t make you what you are.”

Again his gaze was on her, “But it was your work that made their work possible.”

Elizabeth averted her own gaze. “I know that…but Anthony, you still had free will. You did not have to do what they said. You took on the mantle of what they christened you Anthony.”

“No, you’re right, I did. Anthony is dead now.”

“Then do you know why I am here?”

Antorwath pulled his shirt open roughly with one hand. Buffy was sickened to see that at the centre of his chest seemed to be a small black rock buried deep in his flesh and surrounded by darkened veins that even now she could see throbbed unpleasantly as the artefact absorbed his power.

“I know what you want. You want this,” he indicated the artefact, “you need this for her. You should be careful, you may have found someone even more dangerous than me.”

Buffy realised that this seemed to have caught Elizabeth off guard. For once she didn’t seem to have a confident response. “How do you know about her?”

Antorwath smiled again and stood up. He approached the wall of the cage and threaded his rough hewn fingers through the metal. “This thing prevents me from exercising my power, but it does not retard my perception. I felt her when her power arose. It was…almost blinding.”

Elizabeth looked away. Then she turned to Buffy. “You know what you have to do.”

The Slayer nodded as she focussed her attention on the cage.

Antorwath smiled. “I’ve waited for this day. I’ve wanted this day.”

Buffy gritted her teach, raised her sword and swung with all her might towards the metal. Moments later, the crashing of metal announced a gaping hold in the side of the cage. Buffy was still, breathing hard, her sword by her side and broken, twisted metal before her.

Antorwath stood his ground in the centre of the his cage. Buffy stepped through then opening she’d made and moved slowly towards him. His gaze followed her, a slight smile playing at the corner of his lips. He seemed to make no move to defend himself.

As she raised her sword, he said slowly, “The witch is powerful. The world will change around her.”

“Is that so?” said Buffy as she lifted her sword again.

With one powerful movement she swung her blade. He did not flinch.

Then there was just the faint echo of a cry and dust. Still seeing everything with her enhanced perception, she saw the aretefact within the slowly falling motes. She reached out her hand and plucked it from the air. At that moment, her normal perception snapped back and she was left standing over the remains a crumbled body. “Just like a vamp,” she mused quietly.

“We can talk about that later,” said Elizabeth.

Buffy hesitated. “And that stuff he said in there. I think, we need to talk about that too.”

Elizabeth nodded. “We’ll talk later. Right now we need to get that on Willow and then get out of this place.”

Elizabeth was already running towards the door through which they’d come and Buffy followed quickly after her.


Willow heard the noise below her and her heart ran fast. She didn’t know if they’d been successful or not. She peered tentatively down below and was rewarded with the sight of Elizabeth. For someone of her years, the witch moved with surprising speed as she jogged into the room and jumped straight on the second rung of the ladder. As Elizabeth started to climb, Willow saw Buffy enter the room and follow quickly up the ladder.

Yellow light still emanated from the space around Elizabeth and shot upwards throwing a warm yellow shaft of light into the room where Willow sat. She felt her body respond to the residual power in the air left by the lux charm she was very familiar with. She stepped back from the edge of the hole as Elizabeth emerged.

The older witch stood in the centre of the room, waiting for Buffy to come through behind her.

Willow couldn’t stop the words from coming out; “Did it work?”

Elizabeth nodded. At that Willow felt her stomach tighten in fear and anticipation of what was about to happen. She somehow hadn’t quite believed it would get to this. There had been so much to overcome and suddenly they were here. When she saw Buffy’s head pop out from the trap door hatch she tried to smile, but found it rather difficult.

Without ceremony, Elizabeth turned to the Slayer and asked, “Buffy, the artefact please?” She held out her hand for the item which Buffy held tightly in her hand. Buffy took one look at the rock in her hand and passed it, chain and all to Elizabeth.

Willow saw the artefact and was surprised. It didn’t seem to give off any magickal energy that she could feel. She didn’t feel anything from it at all.

“Willow, please don’t be afraid. We must do this now and then get out of here, there may be others coming for us.”

Willow nodded. “Will it hurt?”

Elizabeth approached her, opening out the artefact’s thin, tarnished silver chain. “It shouldn’t hurt too much since we’ve emptied your system for now. It’s only if you continue to accumulate dark intent that the removal process will be painful to you. The artefact absorbs and is attracted to dark magick.”

Understanding, Willow nodded.

Elizabeth went on, “That’s why we must start your magickal re-training. If we begin to weaken your instinct to rely on darkness in times of crisis then your body will no longer respond and the artefact will not hurt you.”

Again a nod. “Okay.”

Elizabeth reached around Willow’s head and placed the chain around her neck, allowing the artefact to lay against the red-head’s chest. She stepped back watching Willow for any sign of reaction.

Willow paused, breathing. “I don’t really feel…”

“What? Willow, are you alright?” asked Elizabeth.

No answer.

Elizabeth stepped closer and peered into Willow’s eyes.

Sensing her concern, Buffy asked, “What is it? What’s happening? Is it not working?”

“I think it is working,” said Elizabeth.

“Willow?” asked Buffy questioningly.

When no response came, she turned to Elizabeth. “Why isn’t she answering?”

“I think her mind’s eye is distracted.”

Buffy looked edgily up at the way out. “Look, you said yourself, it’s dangerous here, we need to get out.”

“I know, but if we try to snap her out of this right this instant, it could hurt her. I think it’s the effect of the magick she’s accumulated since the stones flowing through her and out into the artefact.”

Buffy tightened her lips. “So okay, let’s give her a minute, but if she’s not out of it by then, I am carrying her out.”


***


Raphael turned to face his companion at the opposite side of the viewing portal in the guard chamber. “Mr White?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked, should I stop them? Once they get to the surface it will be more difficult to keep them contained.”

“No, Raphael, events will follow a new course now. Let them be for now.”

“What about him? Should we do something?”

Mr White studied Raphael, before answering. “Just make sure the old power system is sealed up so nobody else can get in there.”

“Yes Mr White.”


***


Sitting among the old apple trees created a feeling of peacefulness that she had not felt in a long time. The sun felt warm and comforting, the grass soft and inviting. The trees were overflowing with white and cream, sweet smelling blossom. She smiled as a vividly colored butterfly fluttered across her line of sight, homing in on an untouched flower.

Unlike the last time, some part of her consciousness knew she was not quite where she was supposed to be. This site where sanatorium had been built could have been left untouched. Could have been like this.

Another butterfly flapped its way down from a bough and hovered briefly in the air in front of her, before flying towards another flower. As she looked around she realised there were butterflies everywhere. Different shapes, sizes and colors, hovering in the grass, tending the flowers or parading their colors through the warm morning sun.

Willow sat very still. A distant sound sent a cloud of young butterflies up into the air and before she knew it there were hundreds of pairs of colored wings were flapping around the centre of the orchard clearing before her. More butterflies seemed to descend from the trees, joining the cloud, creating a swarm. The noise of beating wings became louder, chaotic and then all of a sudden changed, as if tuned by an unseen hand, the sound became a constant drone.

And as the sound changed, the chaotic swarm began to change. A mass of delicate wings began to resolve into a shape. Into a face. Willow swallowed hard as she realised what impressionistic image was forming before her. Though she didn’t understand how, as the droning faded still further, the beating of wings became more rhythmic and the image was thrown into sharp, organic focus.

Tears welled as she watched Tara’s kind face hanging in the air before her. Ten thousand wings gave her face and so near lifelike quality Willow wanted to reach out her hand, but she dared not do anything to effect what was happening. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak.

She watched in fascination. Tara smiled at her and as the corners of her lips lifted into the familiar half smile, her eyes seemed to sparkle as she seemed to gaze at Willow.

Then it was as if a shadow had been thrown across Tara’s face and she was no longer smiling, she was looked away and her face darkened. All of a sudden the drone became dissonant and much louder. Wings that had held perfect rhythm and movement suddenly changed. Color started to fade from the image as it slowly dissolved and darkened. As the visage lost cohesion, Willow could pick out individual butterflies and she realised that each one had color on one side of its wings and was completely black on the other side.

Moments later everything faded and Willow shut her eyes as the throbbing in her head grew deeper and more painful.


“Will?” Buffy looked for any kind of response.

Willow opened her eyes and found herself facing a concerned looking Slayer and a worried Elizabeth.

“Is it okay? Does it hurt?” asked Buffy.

Absently, Willow reached up to touch the chain around her neck. “N-no, it doesn’t hurt.” The memory of the vision persisted in her mind’s eye. She’d seen Tara, but didn’t know what it meant. Maybe the dissociation from reality didn’t only happen when she was full of power. Time, the need for time and peace to think this thing through was all Willow could focus on.

“Willow? Was it another episode?”

The red-head looked at the witch, still feeling disoriented and confused. “Er, yeah, I guess.”

“We need to get out of here,” urged Elizabeth.

At that Willow straightened up. “Yeah we do.”



End of Chapter Two

[raspberryhat]

Spoiler warnings…

Here are the initial questions I posed to my beta along with the responses. I took those responses and made a lot of changes...

1. Does it flow? Does it follow on from the previous chapter?

Aside from the opening scene, yes. I found the Buffy/Dawn/Xander scene to be clunky. I’m sure with some editing it could be smoothed out, but I’m not convinced it’s even necessary. Buffy could be introduced enroute or even sprung on the reader arriving in England or meeting up with Willow and Elizabeth. Either way, you opened with the three of them and then never came back to it. It just didn’t work for me. That scene didn’t advance the story in any way that couldn’t be done with just a few lines later in the chapter. I especially liked the cutaway to Giles doing research later on though. Introducing Elizabeth as something other than Glinda the Good Witch through Giles was sharp. You could have done it through Elizabeth herself, but that could have undermined Buffy and Willow’s confidence in her at a bad time.

2. Complexity management. Is it easy to understand? The back story and universe rules I have are all quite complex, but are (I think) consistent. Point is it should all boil out to a story that’s rich rather than complex. At least that’s what I am trying for. To bring Tara back I’ve thought my way through many levels of how magick and physics work and I am trying to bring that out.

Yes, it’s easy enough to understand. I had a few “Wait, what?” moments, but a simple reread cleared things up for me. The backstory and universe rules are fairly complex at this point, but a careful reader will follow easily enough. Not all your readers will be careful though. Don’t be discouraged by that and I would encourage you to try and not get caught up in lengthy explanations in your feedback. I read both chapters last night and everything the reader needs is within the story thus far. We Americans, especially, like to be spoon fed. Don’t do it!

3. Pacing. Consistent and accelerating at the sensible level?

Again, aside from the opening scene, I think it’s well paced. There are places that could be streamlined, but I knew this was a working draft and nothing else felt blatantly unnecessary or obtrusive.

4. Setting the scene for future? Can you tell this isn’t a pure post Tara story? Can you see where I am going without quite knowing how?

I think I just don’t know what you mean by “a pure post Tara story”. I’m fairly certain I know how you’re going to bring Tara back, but to be honest, I wasn’t giving it too much thought. I was too busy enjoying the ride. I think that’s one of the best compliments I can give a fiction writer. “I don’t care where we’re going, just take me by the hand and lead the way.” Bringing Tara back though… Am I right in guessing it’ll have something to do with Willow “falling” through other dimensions? Oh, that reminds me of Willow’s last episode on the eighth level. More so than falling through a dimension, this struck me as a psychic moment. I realize this is a moment for one of your universe rules, but an incident like that has been so often, so commonly, described in our world (places “holding” memories, if you will and being seen and experienced by people who are sensitive) that I think maybe Elizabeth should expound on it a little bit more and place the incident firmly in your world.

5. Intensity. Is it too intense? There’s a lot of action.

No, it’s not too intense. In my experience, it’s emotion that makes a moment intense, not action. Terra Firma is the best example I can give for that. There was very little action in the story, but the intensity of it sometimes took my breath away. Willow’s quiet agony was excruciating to read.

6.I am worried about too much exposition but haven’t quite got my head round what to do about it. I think I may be explaining too much in that the first post Sunnydale scene. However I’ll only know through another opinion or vast marinating time.

I don’t understand what you’re worried about. I thought the scene you mentioned specifically was crucial, to Willow, to set up the rest of the action-filled chapter, and for the reader’s sanity. Did the Earthing work? How did Willow feel? If you had just sat at your keyboard and yapped, let the narrator do all the explaining, then, yes, I would have said it was too much. A little of what Tulipp used to call HoN – Hand of the Narrator. Think Hand of God. But you explained everything through dialog and conversation. By allowing the reader to learn things as Willow learns them, you place the reader squarely in the middle of the scene. I’m finding out how hard dialog can be to use to tell the majority of the story, but it’s also very gripping for the reader. Relax. It’s fine. It’s great actually. See my comments in #8.

7.Do you want to know more? Above all do you like it?

As I said in #4, I’m ready and eager for the ride. The story is compelling.

8. Also a key question…am I managing to keep vaguely away from cliché? I obsess on that a lot. It’s hard. I do believe that story can be as old as the hills if it’s told well, but given the choice I’d rather have originality as well as good telling.

What cliché(s) are you worried about specifically? I think you’re obsessing over the wrong things. I’m not trying to tell you I think you’re afraid, I’m just trying to get you to let go of this a little bit. Breathe. Let the story breathe. Let it write itself to an extent. If not, you’ll strangle a good tale. Don’t get bent out of shape over things like clichés. Trust that your betas will call you on them if you fall into that trap. Let it rip!

9. Characterisation and build. How do you find Elizabeth? She’s the deepest new character. There’s also Raphael, Abraham etc.

I think you handled Abraham and Raphael well. Abraham was needed for Buffy to realize the full extent of her power. He was given enough detail to not just be some mindless lackey, but not so much that he wasted the reader’s time. Raphael was given shape wonderfully through his dialog. Cold and to the point. His lines could probably even be cut down further. Anthony’s final scene left me wanting. I expected more from him. Not a fight necessarily, but maybe more emotion. It felt anticlimactic. I’m wondering if that’s what you wanted though. I’m not sure what to make of Mr. White, especially at the end. Oh, that reminds me of something clarity-wise. Raphael talks to Abraham briefly about turning loose the rest of the inhabitants to stop Buffy et al. Did that not happen because Elizabeth knew the way through the 9 levels? That was the way I read it, but it may need a little clarification. Of course, I also reread chapter one and then read all of chapter two in one go last night, so I may have been fuzzy.  Elizabeth… As I said earlier, I was glad to see she wasn’t just Glinda the Good Witch. I like her overall and trust her for the most part. She’s rounded out enough that I can guess some of her reactions to some people and situations, but she’s enough of a mystery to surprise me as well. I look forward to learning more about her. Abi is my only question mark. I’m wondering if she’ll turn out to be something more than a benchmark for Willow to judge her recovery and progress by. I found the girl slightly unnerving, especially when she was roaming the house while Elizabeth was trying to cut a deal with Mr. White.


Dammit, stop worrying! LOL!! It’s a damn good read! Two things structure-wise jumped up at me. One is the use of descriptions like redhead, blonde, witch… things like that. Willow won’t think of Tara as “the blonde”. She’s Tara or everything or her love or soulmate or whatever other strong emotional word you can think of. Willow might be the redhead to Elizabeth for a little bit because they are visually new to one another. I think I saw most of wording like this surrounding Elizabeth though. The witch, the old witch, the old Wiccan. To Buffy, yes, these words would probably still apply to Elizabeth, but Willow has been through quite a bit already with her and I think would view her a little differently. There has to be a certain amount of trust happening at this point and I think those kinds of descriptions would fall away a bit in Willow’s mind. You don’t have a lot of it, but it’s something to keep in mind when you go back to edit.
The other thing is a tendency to put lines of dialog out on a line by itself. Without the speech tags, it’s not always clear who’s speaking. Some of the lines can be combined with the previous paragraph since they are being spoken by the same person, but there are a few instances where I couldn’t figure out who said what. Again, I realize this is a working draft, but the visuals of writing can’t be overlooked either. it’s always something, isn’t it? ;P

[raspberryhat]

And in response to all that is the following...

[raspberryhat]

Through a Glass, Darkly
Temperance (Chapter 2 of ?)
By Raspberryhat


Disclaimer: BtVS does not belong to me.
Background: Everything up to the end of Season Six happened as per canon.
Timeframe: The story begins three weeks after the end of Season 6/Grave. From that point on it’s AU.
Spoliers: Season three through six.
Distribution: Please ask me first if you’d like to distribute this.
Classification: This part of the story is a NC-17.
Warnings: Horror, some angst.
Feedback: Feedback is appreciated, but please be gentle.
Draft: 0.4b / 26th April 2005.


***


Xander couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “England? We have to go to England?!”

“I have to go to England,” corrected Buffy. She watched him across the carnage of the Summers’ dinner table as he considered her news.

“But you’ve just been accepted back into college, and…” Seeing her expression grow weary, he broke off.

Buffy managed a wan smile. “Xander, this is simple. Willow needs help. Giles says it’s urgent. I have to go.”

His tone grew serious. He knew when his friend needed unquestioning support. “Okay. How long will you be gone?” He saw the so recently acquired worry lines at the corners of her eyes soften and her gaze become distant as she thought.

“About a week I guess. Should be back in plenty of time to re-start college.”

Xander nodded his understanding.

Buffy looked at her sister and saw barely masked disappointment. Dawn had always shown a strong desire to fight alongside her older sibling. Yet Buffy had resisted, knowing she was naïve of the real dangers inherent to her violent calling. Infuriately her protectiveness had, over the last year, driven a deep rift between them. She relented when she’d realised she may otherwise never reclaim a place in her sister’s life. The agreement had been that Dawn would be trained and as her ability grew she would be able to reach that which she sought.

In gentle modulated tones she tried to explain. “Dawn, Giles told me about the place we’re going. It’s real and it’s scary. Into the belly of the beast stuff.” Buffy broke her eyes away as she voiced her deepest worry; “I wouldn’t be certain I could keep you safe.” With forced humour that she hoped might coax a smile, she offered, “And besides I barely scraped together the money for one plane ticket!”

She watched Dawn consider her words and after a moment was pleased to see a smile. “Just come back safe so you can re-start college and go get a decent paying job!”

Buffy smiled, relieved her sister was able to understand. With uncertain optimism, she promised, “I will.”

“Will Xander be coming over while you’re gone?” Dawn asked, hope in her eyes.

“You betcha,” he enthused, “complete with take-out and board games. We’ll leave the monster fighting to your big bad sister.”


***


Willow found the soft crackling of the kitchen fire soothing. Her ordeal at the standing stones had attenuated the voices in her mind. Focussing on the sound of the fire made them almost imperceptible.

Elizabeth had gone out hours ago and told Willow to make herself at home. She’d spent much of the afternoon sleeping in her room. When she had come down, she’d found it most comfortable and least intrusive in the old kitchen at the back of the house. The stone flagstones and roughly hewn walls lent an air of solidity, protectiveness.

The sound of creaking hinges caused Willow to jerk her head upwards in surprise. Her heart beat faster as she realised the door leading out the back of the kitchen had been opened. Willow pushed her chair back in alarm and was mid way to standing when she felt something brush against her leg. She cried out in fear. She looked around trying work out what had touched her.

“Willow?” Elizabeth stood in the kitchen doorway her face full of concern for the young woman in her care.

Breathing deeply, trying to regain her composure, Willow looked at her feet and as she did so, began to feel embarrassed at her sudden outburst. A large splodgy white and ginger cat stretched itself sinuously around her ankles, tail alert.

Still observing Willow from the kitchen door, Elizabeth suddenly looked behind her and then stepped aside as a girl, perhaps in her late teens came through carrying a grocery bag in her left hand. As she came into view, the cat shot across the room to meet her owner. The girl smiled and pushed a wave of brunette hair from her eyes, then reached into the grocery bag and removed a plastic sachet of scientific cat food. “Calico!”, she admonished, “You scared poor Willow.” She placed the bag on the kitchen counter and then looked down at the cat in mock seriousness, “I know what you want. You only love me for one thing.”

The cat chased around her feet as she opened the sachet and then trotted behind her as she went over to a little china food bowl set by the kitchen door, bent down and emptied the content of the sachet.

Willow saw nothing but loving attention in the girl’s eyes as for several seconds she watched her cat eat. When she looked up, Willow saw her demeanour was transformed. Nervous now, her eyes flickered around the room while a her left index finger twirled shakily through a lock of hair.

Elizabeth looked at the girl then at Willow, at a loss, waiting for somebody to explain what was going on. “Willow, I’d like to introduce you to Abigail. She’s my live in student.”

Willow didn’t know what ‘live in student’ meant, but she smiled politely and haltingly offered a hand to the strange girl. When she saw the expression of fear she hesitated and then withdrew her hand. She looked at Elizabeth and then back to Abigail and with a shrug, offered a grin.

Abigail watched Willow for a moment, before returning to her waiting grocery bag and beginning to methodically remove fresh vegetables and other healthy looking food stuffs and arrange them out neatly on the kitchen counter.

As Willow watched the nervous young woman, a sudden memory surfaced of the first time Tara had cooked for her. It had been not long after she’d managed to understand her true feelings for Tara and been able to tell her new love how she felt. Hazy summer days had passed where they’d each revelled in every small thing they learned of each other.

A long study session at the Summers house had been interrupted by an energized Buffy who’d pointedly announced she was going out on patrol and probably wouldn’t be back til morning. They’d have the place to themselves. They’d managed another ten minutes of distracted reading before Tara had sat up and made an impromptu offer to cook for them both. Willow had sat on a kitchen stool and watched, fascinated as Tara had confidently gathered ingredients from the pantry; a medium sized squash, two artichokes and some spices. From the plant growing by the window she’d removed a handful of fresh basil leaves and then proceeded to make one of the most delightful evening meals she could remember eating.

Of course she reflected, Tara could have made her pop-tarts and she still would have been enraptured. At that, the image darkened in her mind and the memory fractured leaving only a burning pain in her heart. She tried to clear her thoughts and refocus on the young Abigail.

Willow realised Abigail had known her name. Elizabeth had obviously told Abigail about her…and must have told her what Willow was and why she was there. And that probably explained why she hadn’t wanted to come too close. Abigail was afraid of her.

“Willow, how do you feel?”

Reverie interrupted, she hesitated, trying to bring herself back to the present and process the question. “It hurts,” as she spoke the words, she pointed to her head to better indicate. “The voices are much quieter, but after what happened at the standing stones, it’s like it scarred my brain.”

“Did you manage to rest today?”

Willow nodded, “Yeah.”

She didn’t look at Elizabeth as she spoke. She thought Elizabeth expected her to be all over her ordeal by now and she couldn’t even begin to describe the state of chaos in her head.

“Willow, sit,” she urged.

Willow looked at Elizabeth curiously, but did as she was asked.

“Abi, join us please.”

The nervous young woman turned uncertainly, holding a box of tomatoes in mid air. After a moment, she placed the box back in the bag, turned around, pulled a chair out from the head of the table and sat. She looked between the two women, curiosity for a moment overcoming her nerves.

Elizabeth spoke first. “Willow, you’re wondering if it’s really worked.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think the standing stones actually did to you?”

Willow glanced up at Abi, before turning her embarrassed expression back to Elizabeth. “Do we have to talk about this now?” she asked.

“Willow, Abi has experienced some of the things you’ve experienced and some things you probably couldn’t even imagine.”

Willow glanced at Abi before focussing her attention back on Elizabeth. “You mean she’s— ” She cut herself off realising how rude it sounded talking about Abi to Elizabeth as if she wasn’t there.

Without a hint of emotion, Elizabeth intoned, “She was forced to work dark magick.”

Willow tried to comprehend what she was being told. She looked at Abi again. Her expression was detached. Slowly Willow asked, “Forced? How? Why?”

“Willow, I know you know what it feels like to be given dark magick. A non consensual transfer works in the same basic way, it’s just…a lot more traumatic for the recipient.”

Willow shuddered when beyond the memory of her acceptance of darkness from Rack, she remembered having been given a tiny burst of magick when she hadn’t wanted it or expected it. Amy...Her expression darkened at the memory of someone she’d once thought of as a friend. Of course the girl’s behaviour made sense. She feared the effect of her own touch on others.

“I found her when she was nine. She’s lived with me for five years”

Willow looked at Abi, shocked, “You mean she’s only…”

“Abigail’s seen a lot,” explained Elizabeth, “she’s learning how to live in the world again. You may travel some of Abi’s path.”

Willow watched Abi as without emotion Elizabeth talked about her. The girl didn’t seem uncomfortable, her expression was just detached, her mind on other things.

“So tell me Willow, what do you think the ordeal at the stones did to you?”

Willow looked down as she spoke, long auburn hair shadowing her face. She remembered every second of the experience. She’s felt the power being drained out of her. The hollowness still ached. “It took away my magick. It made me s-safe.”

Elizabeth reached out her hand, finger extended and deftly captured Willow’s chin. She lifted her face until her big round eyes were looking into hers. “Have you tried to do magick since last night?”

Willow shook her head. “Of course not. But I can feel what it took away.”

“Willow, the stones did not take away your ability to do magick.”

Willow looked at Elizabeth doubtfully. “I know what I felt. I was connected to the stones. It was wrenched out of me. It hurt like I can’t even describe.”

Elizabeth’s expression was patient. “Willow, as well as wielding power, witches are vessels. The vessel draws from the world around and fills. A witch focuses her power through spells and other means to achieve an intent.”

Willow grimaced. She didn’t need Magick 101.

“Willow, you think you know everything, but you don’t. You’re a contradiction. You have so much ability, such capacity for power and so little understanding. You’re so young.”

Willow felt her temper rising. “I know how it works. I filled myself with…” She broke off as realisation dawned. “The stones drained my power, but it’ll come back. It’ll come back and it’ll happen again.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No.” She caught Willow’s truculent expression. “It’s not quite that simple,” she soothed, “Yes the power will build up again. You draw power from nature faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, and you have such capacity…But—it’s intent that colors the magick. The power itself is neutral.”

Willow’s mind was spinning now. “You’re saying that it’s me. I’m evil.” Her tear ducts overflowed as she spoke the words that confirmed her worst fears. She was no better than those she’d helped fight over the years. That she’d never deserved to be with someone like Tara, that the whole thing had been an illusion.

“Willow no!”

Willow found Elizabeth’s elevated tone unnerving. She averted her gaze and waited for the homily to continue.

“Just listen,” her tone softened as she added, “I want you to listen and think about this.”

Willow looked up, waiting.

“Your continued choice to use dark magick selfishly for quick results and for dark purpose destroyed your perspective. When crisis threatened, you turned to magick and even when magick was appropriate your instinct was not to work with light.”

Willow tried to keep the emotion from her voice, “But you’re saying when my power comes back it’ll happen all over again.”

“I am saying that it’s about keeping your equilibrium and understanding the nature of power. It’s about being human.”

Willow’s mind turned in silence. Eventually she managed to look up at Elizabeth. When her voice came it was a whisper. “The things I’ve done. Those things can’t be undone can they? What can I do? What’s the point of trying?”

“Willow, you won’t believe it now, but time and perspective can heal more than you could possibly imagine. That’s why you’re here. I am going to begin teaching you to better understand magick so that you can better control the ability you have.”

“But I do understand—” protested Willow.

“If you understood, we would not be having this conversation. None of this would have happened.”

“Okay…but look, what if the power builds up before you’ve finished teaching me and I can’t control it on my own?”

Elizabeth nodded again. “Giles said you didn’t miss much.”

Willow grimaced before Elizabeth continued. “You’re right about that. Which is why we’re going to have to do something to inhibit you until we’ve spent enough time working on your magick.”

“How do we do that? Obsidian sure didn’t work! Giles showed me his hand, and that was only a simple spell.”

“You’re right, but I am not talking about inhibiting your magick, I am talking about slowing the process of you actually absorbing power from nature.”

Willow waited. This was beyond anything she knew or thought she knew.

“Willow, there’s an artefact. It’s complicated, but effectively it will prevent you from absorbing power.”

Pensive, Willow asked, “How does it work?”

Elizabeth hesitated again. “Well, I don’t know exactly how it works.”

Willow looked confused.

“The texts refer to its properties and where it’s been used in the past…”

“Texts?”

Elizabeth sighed. She wanted Willow’s trust but knew explaining this would be time consuming. “Its origins are uncertain. I’ve seen no clear account of the process through which it operates. I’ve read theories however.”

“But it does work?”

Elizabeth’s face clouded. To Willow’s surprise, Elizabeth averted her gaze and fell silent. For a moment, the only sound in the room was feline post-prandial washing and the crackling of the fire.

“Yes. I’ve seen it working.”

“And where is this artefact?” enquired Willow.

“A few hundred miles from here. In a forgotten place.”


***


“How much longer are we going to have to wait?”

“Patience Abraham.”

“I hate this place. It scares the hell out of me.”

“It’s just a hospital.”

“Raphael, I do know this place has not been used as a hospital for a very long time. And even then, it wasn’t a normal hospital.”

“True. It was a mental hospital.”

“With nine underground floors and cell doors made from three inch thick steel?”

Raphael leaned over the balcony railing and peered into the gloom below. Floor upon floor, rows and rows of doors, on the upper levels many of which hung limp from tortured hinges. The smell of damp rust permeated. “It serves a purpose. You should be grateful for this duty.”

“Mr White said I showed potential and this assignment would help demonstrate my commitment.”

“There you are then.”

“I just couldn’t have imagined what this would be like.”

“They will come soon.”

“And they really want to find him?”

“They have no choice.”

“And they’d risk releasing him?”

“They need that which binds him.”

“Surely if they did manage to release him, he would kill them?”

“Most likely. But, if they retrieve the artefact, re-containing him would be ‘difficult’. You know what it took last time.”

Abraham shuddered at the thought. “Have you been told when it will happen?”

“Soon.”


***


As she held the phone to her ear, waiting for an answer, Elizabeth watched Willow trudge up the stairs. After Abi had excused herself, she and Willow had discussed what had to be done to help Willow contain her power. They’d talked a long time, but eventually there had seemed no more to say and Elizabeth had suggested Willow get some rest. Just as Elizabeth was considering trying again later, the call connected but there was no greeting, just a distant crackle of the long distance line. She cleared her throat. “I need to speak to Mr Rupert Giles please?”

Pause. “Just one moment please.”

A long minute later and finally a familiar sounding, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Elizabeth, I was beginning to worry, how are things? Have you told her about the next part of the plan?”

“I have spoken to Willow.”

“And how did she react?”

Elizabeth adjusted the phone in her right hand and rubbed tired eyes with her left. “For someone who’s been through what she has? Comparatively well I thought. She didn’t seem abnormally worried by the prospect of what we’re going to have to do, although I think knowing The Slayer would be alongside her probably helped.”

“Yes, yes of course. They’ve been through a lot together. When I spoke to her, I think Buffy was glad to be able to help.” Giles hesitated, before asking, “You told Willow how the artefact will actually be retrieved?”

“More or less.”

Giles sighed.

“It will be okay Rupert. We don’t have a choice in this and I don’t want her to have to sit up all night worrying. She needs rest.”

“Just take good care of them for me?”

Elizabeth smiled, warmed by her old friend’s concern. “Finish your research. I’ll look after things here and call you when it’s over.”

She replaced the receiver of her telephone onto its cradle and thought. The plan was high risk, but there seemed no other way. After another moment’s thought she marched back through the kitchen, pulled on her long coat and opened the kitchen door and set out into the night.





Abi snapped awake with a sudden intake of breath and heart thumping, tried to focus on the sound that awakened her. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and see in the near darkness of her bedroom. Earlier she’d heard Willow climb the stairs and not long after she’d heard Elizabeth leave the house. She’d tried to stay awake, listening for her guardian’s return, but sleep had overtaken her. She could usually sense if Elizabeth was within the house. Elizabeth would sometimes go out at night and it had never bothered her before, but something felt different about this night. She felt alone and scared.

After a moment she got up, pulled her nightgown from the back of the door and wondered out her room and down the hall to the master bedroom. She stopped at the closed door and listened. The place seemed empty. She tapped her nails on the wooden door before easing it open. “’Lizabeth?” She peered inside. Grey moonlight filtered through the small windows and illuminated a sleeping cat, curled on the large empty bed.


***


“Mr White, thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”

“You came here, to my house, to ask for help.”

“Yes,” came the calm response.

“You know, I cannot act outside the behest of my masters.”

“Mr White--”

“You’re going to remind me of something that you did for me, a long, long time ago.”

Elizabeth sat very still, watching the back of the gaunt, grey haired man before her. Known more often as Herr Weiss but always to her as Mr White, the old man stared through the vast arched window and out across his estate.

“It may have been a long time ago, but that does not diminish the significance of what I did for you.”

The gaunt figure whirled, all hint of cordiality gone, eyes blazing.

“There was precedent then. Reason! How dare you come to me like this and ask a favor?!”

Unshaken, Elizabeth responded; “I know fine well that your so called masters did not know of our collaboration then and still don’t.”

Mr White sat down behind his desk, eyes once again thoughtful.

Elizabeth pressed on. “I ask, because this is more than just a favour, all our fates are at stake here. I know you understand the situation. Please don’t make me spell it out.”

“Say I helped you…that would leave another problem.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes it would create a problem and I have a method of dealing with that problem.”

“Indeed? And why could you not have applied this method the first time?”

“Because I did not have this particular solution at the time.”

Mr White sat back again and pursed his lips.

“No. I am sorry, but this time, you ask too much. There is no force majeaure. I cannot help you.”

Elizabeth stood up briskly. “Then I thank you for your time Mr White. I’ll see myself out.”

Mr White returned to staring across the darkened landscape. After many moments, he turned around to his desk and lifted the a slim grey telephone handset and dialled. When the call connected, he confirmed; “Tomorrow night.”

In the darkness Raphael replaced the receiver and smiled.


***


Abi crept into Elizabeth’s room and sat on the edge of the bed. She saw Calico open an eye and watch her as she looked down at her hands, mind in turmoil, eyes fearful. After a moment, she crawled onto the bed and curled up. She watched the cat watching her. After a minute Calico stretched and padded over to her and finding comfort settled herself against Abi’s stomach. Her tail twitched occasionally as she settled.

The linen carried Elizabeth’s familiar scent. It calmed Abi’s nerves. She closed her eyes and breathed, concentrating on the sense of Elizabeth. Whatever had awakened her was probably just an animal outside. Abi hoped Elizabeth would be back soon though. She reasoned Elizabeth was obviously out doing something important and would surely be back before long. Calico lay curled against her, occasionally purring to herself. She felt her nervousness begin to ebb away, allowing sleep to wash over her.

Some time in the early hours, Calico stirred and jumped off the bed, causing the sleeping figure to stir and awaken, to see what had caused the disturbance. Her eyes gained focus and Abi saw Elizabeth standing in the bedroom doorway, watching her proprietarily while Calico smoothed herself against Elizabeth’s ankles. As Elizabeth entered the bedroom, Abi felt peace descend in her thoughts and she closed her eyes again. She rolled over to the far side of the bed as she felt a blanket being pulled over her .

She listened without fear as quiet words were whispered in her ear. “Abi, Willow and I need to go away. We’ll be leaving very early tomorrow and we’ll be back the following day. You’ll be on your own until the day after tomorrow. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

Abi smiled in her descending sleep and nodded her understanding.

Elizabeth reached out a hand to stroke a lock of hair from her adoptive daughter’s face and smiled. For once Abi looked peaceful and unworried.


***


Buffy brooded as she stared out the taxi window. She’d decided the English countryside, was disappointing. For a start, everything was overshadowed by darkening clouds. And instead of idyllic rolling fields and sumptuous forestry it was just miles and miles of farm land and sometimes the occasional house. It was all starting to blacken her mood. She reflected that maybe there were nice parts of Giles’ homeland and it was just her role in life to go to the bleakest places because evil rarely chooses to hang out in locations of outstanding natural beauty. After a while she reached into her pocket for the page of instructions she’d written down before leaving Sunnydale. It had all sounded simple enough. Giles had made her read everything back to him to make sure she understood.

She was to find a taxi at the airport, show the driver the location on the piece of paper and ask him to take her there. Giles had advised her to offer to pay extra if the driver hadn’t been keen to drive the considerable distance.

When she got there, she was supposed to wait for Elizabeth and Willow to meet her. She’d been unclear on exactly why Giles himself couldn’t come. He’d been emphatic that she do everything Elizabeth asked and to trust her. Buffy had already pictured Elizabeth as an uptight Mrs Giles type and wasn’t at all sure she was going to like her.

It had all sounded simple enough. Only they’d been on the road for nearly three hours. City had turned to increasingly empty looking country. The driver had already asked her twice to repeat the location of where they were supposed to be going. She was reasonably sure they were lost.

Leaning forward in her seat and trying to keep the impatience from her voice as she asked, “Do you have a cell phone I could borrow?”

The driver flicked his eyes to her in the rearview mirror before sighing and reluctantly reaching into the glovebox and retrieving a slim cell phone. He passed it back to her.

Buffy raised her eyebrows in appreciation. “Nice phone.”

“I hope you’re not planning to call home are you?”

Buffy smiled quickly, “Nope. Local call. Promise. It’ll only take a second.”

She looked down at the piece of paper and then keyed a number into the phone. After a moment she heard a woman’s voice, “Hello?”

“Is that Elizabeth?”

“Yes. Buffy? Are you lost?”

Though relieved at not having to introduce and explain herself, she asked, “How did you know I was lost?”

“We’ve been waiting here a while.”

“Ah. Stupid driver—” Buffy looked up apologetically as she spoke. “Tell me again where this place is…”


***


Elizabeth pressed the terminate call button on her cell phone and placed it back in her pocket. She stared thoughtfully out the window of her four by four for a moment before turning to address Willow who’d been peering out the windshield wondering what they were doing in the middle of nowhere.

“Willow, sorry about that.”

“That was Buffy?”

Elizabeth nodded. “She’ll be here soon”.

“So tell me again how this is going to work.”

“We need to retrieve the artefact.”

Willow sighed, again the familiar feeling of helplessness washed over her. “What I mean is, I don’t see how I can help.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Willow, once we have the artefact, transporting it is simply too dangerous. There will be those who would take it from us. Once it’s on you it will be very hard for anyone to take it from you. And besides, even though you can’t work magick, your knowledge of magick may still come in useful.”

Willow swallowed nervously. “Elizabeth, where exactly is the artefact? I mean is it like in a vault or something?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Then what?”

“The artefact is binding Antorwath.”

“What’s an Antorwath?”

“Not what. Who.”

“Who?” Willow looked at her hands and tried to restrain the frustrated annoyance she felt. She took a breath and looked up at Elizabeth. As calmly as she could she asked, “What are we getting into?”

When she replied, Elizabeth’s voice was level. “Willow I am not trying to hide things from you. I just felt it would be easier to explain once we were all here.”

Willow reflected that perhaps Elizabeth had been expecting the question. Her answer seemed too measured, too well prepared. She decided to test her own theory. “Okay then, let me see if I have this right,” began Willow, “you’re saying that the artefact that’s capable of keep me drained of power is already working on someone else?”

“That’s basically it, yes.”

“Is it human?”

Elizabeth’s expression clouded. “He was once.”

Willow slumped back in her seat and blew out a frustrated breath. After a few seconds she realised she was going to have to ask. “So how do we avoid getting killed once we’ve taken it off him, assuming we can take it off him and by the way, is it a him?”

“Well, I have a plan…Ahh!”

Elizabeth looked up as a car approached on the desolate country highway. “That must be Buffy!”


<

>


Willow stood next to the four-by-four, with her hands shoved deep into her jeans pockets. Despite being summer, the sky was pale grey and the wind had a chill edge. She watched Buffy emerge from the taxi.

“Hey Will!”

Willow smiled and waited as bags were hauled out the trunk of the taxi and unceremoniously dumped on the roadside. Money was exchanged and seconds later, the car was receding into the distance leaving a petite Slayer standing by the side of the road next to her bag, hands on hips, inspecting the English countryside.

Willow walked over to her friend. “Buffy? How was your flight?”

The Slayer nodded. “Okay I guess. They only had two movies. Both not good.”

Willow managed a smile. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon.”

Buffy grinned and then shivered. “It’s so…like I imagined.”

Willow nodded. “You start to get used to it.” She offered Buffy a tight smile. “Elizabeth’s waiting in the car.”

“Take me to her!” commanded Buffy pointing towards the truck.

Willow grinned. As she turned to walk back to the four by four, she saw Elizabeth had emerged from the driver’s side and was waiting for them. As they drew closer, Elizabeth spoke up, “You must be Giles’ young protégé I’ve heard so much about.”

Buffy blushed. “I dunno about protégé…but well…I am Buffy. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out a hand which Elizabeth clasped in formal greeting.

‘Very ladylike,’ thought Buffy as she continued to smile. “So look, we’re here on business yes?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Our destination is actually a few miles cross country from here. ” Elizabeth indicated a narrow, muddy track that lead off into the trees.

“You can put your things in the back with the supplies.”

Buffy threw her things in the back and then climbed in after Elizabeth and Willow.

Elizabeth turned again, “Everyone please make sure your strapped in, it’s going to be a little bit of a rough ride.”

Buffy sat up and looked from Elizabeth to Willow and back again before framing her concern; “Er, nobody’s actually told me exactly what I am here to do yet.”

“I’ll explain on the way,” reassured Elizabeth.

“Fine. Just tell me one thing?”

“What is it?”

“What is this place we’re going to?”

Elizabeth sighed and without turning back answered, “It’s where they made nightmares.”

Buffy opened her eyes wide. Willow stared straight ahead and listened to Elizabeth explain even though she already had some idea of what this place had once been.


***


Willow peered up into the branches. “Buffy? Can you see it?”

“I see it. Who, the hell built this place?” whispered the Slayer.

“What’s it like?”

“Hang on… I’m coming down.” Straddling the Oak bough, Buffy used a hand to steady herself as she peered forward, adjusting the focus of her binoculars as she did so.

“Careful,” whispered Willow.

Buffy stashed her binoculars and swung her leg up until she sat perched on the edge of the branch and then dropped lightly down onto the roof of Elizabeth’s truck. Willow winced at the thud as Buffy’s feet landed on the roof, before she hopped the final distance to the ground. She brushed bark and moss from her front and looked at Willow with a curious expression. “Who the hell designed this place? It’s weird.”

“What did you see?”

“It’s a whole complex but everything’s one story. It’s all scary dark windows and poison ivy.”

Willow felt her heart quicken as gothic images scuttled through her inventive mind. “Elizabeth said it used to be a sanatorium back in the thirties but that it closed a couple of years after the government sold it to a private consortium. Didn’t work out I guess.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “It looks more like a prison than an asylum.”

“Well I guess it is. He’s in there,” said Willow.

“Yeah and here’s the part I’m still not sure I get. We have to get into his cell so we can take this magick charm that binds his power and then I’m a little hazy on the mayhem that comes after that.”

“As soon as we get the artefact, he’ll need to be held back while we get away.”

“Huh. Okay. Another day, another monster.”

“So anyway, did you see anyone or anything going on in there?”

“Nada.”

After a second, Buffy asked cautiously, “Willow, er what do you feel? Can you like 'hear’ him?”

Willow looked away, embarrassed, “Not really.” She wished she’d explained to Buffy what’d happened with the draining of her power, but there just hadn’t seemed a good time. It was all still too fresh in her mind and she wasn’t sure she understood it herself yet. More than anything, her lack of power embarrassed her.

After a while Buffy asked, “How are we going to find our way around in there anyway?”

“Elizabeth, she’s been to this place before.”

“What? How does she know?”

“She didn’t say, she just said she’s been here before and she knows her way around.”

“Huh. So she’ll help us find this Antwerp?”

Despite herself, Willow in the darkness. “An-tor-wath.”

“Right. That’s what I said.”

“Buffy?”

The Slayer turned at the sound of her name. Elizabeth was walking towards the two women. She’d gone off to reconnoitre the target from a different location.

“Did you get a good look at the place? Did you see any guards or possibly a discrete way in?”

Buffy frowned. “I got a look…but it’s enormous. I couldn’t see a door or anything. But I was looking by moonlight, it’s really hard to see that much.”

“So, how do we get in?” worried Willow.

Elizabeth flashed a tight lipped smile. “I think we’ll just have to walk in through the front door.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Oh well as long as its nothing dangerous then.”

Elizabeth adjusted her small khaki backpack. “There are weapons and supplies on the truck.”

“Oh goodie,” said Buffy.


***


“Raphael?”

“Yes Abraham?”

“What will we do when they come?”

“We’ll open up the rest of the cells.”

“There aren’t so many left as there used to be,” said Abraham.

Raphael smiled. “It makes our life easier if there are fewer of them to deal with.”

“But where do they go?”

“All over. Quite a few turned up in London, living in the sewers, the underground.”

“What happened to them when they were found?”

Raphael raised an eyebrow at that. Abraham quickly changed the subject. “Will they even come out?”

“Yes.”

After a while, Abraham asked. “What if they do get past them?”

“In the unlikely event they evade their welcoming committee, we will prevent them from reaching their goal.”


***


Willow peered through the wire meshed glass in one of the double doors that formed the entrance to the place Elizabeth called “Elysium”. Tentative, she tried the brass knob and to her surprise, the mechanism turned easily and the latch clicked. She turned to Buffy and raised her eyebrows. The others were keeping watch at the base of the three stone steps. Poised to enter the building Willow felt Buffy place an arm on hers in gentle restraint. “Let me.” Willow felt her spirit wilt a little but forced a smile. “Okay.”

Buffy entered and when she’d satisfied herself the area was free from immediate threats, she beckoned Willow to follow. She pushed open the door and entered the foyer of the main building. She wrinkled her nose. The air was moist and smelled dirty.

Behind Willow came Elizabeth who was peering around the place examining everything in detail.

Moonlight filtered through the patina of grime on the reception windows. The Elysium foyer and reception area was ruined. Years of damp had rotted through the broad couches that sat against the long side wall to the right of and parallel to the entrance. Ochre newspapers from decades past lay strewn across low wooden tables. Mildew stained the wood surface beneath.

“It’s been a long time since anybody cared for this place,” said Elizabeth.

The carpets had long since fallen victim to the same slow process of degradation as everything and now lay rotten and squelching under foot. Opposite the front door, a thick white wooden counter ran two thirds the length of the back wall. Glass fragments, large and small lay across the counter.

Incongruously, hanging on the wall behind the counter were two glass framed pictures. One, an anatomical model of what looked like a human skull. The other showed what appeared to be a blue-print of the complex.

Elizabeth pointed to a heavy white door next to the counter. “That way, I think.” As with the reception doors, about two thirds of the way up was a small square, re-enforced glass window. Buffy walked over to the door and peered through the glass. “Can’t see much.” She wrapped her slim fingers around the steel handle. A gentle pull and the door opened. “Huh. Not locked.”

“Be careful Buffy,” warned Elizabeth.

Lips tight and eyes alert, she nodded. “I won’t be long.” Buffy reached to the scabbard at her waist and carefully extended a beautiful Katana she’d selected from a set of exquisitely made Japanese weapons held in individual wooden cases mounted in the back of Elizabeth’s truck.

Slowly she stepped over the threshold, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom of a broad passageway. She turned once more and offered a reassuring smile to her companions before returning her full concentration to what was ahead.

Allowing the door to click shut behind her, Buffy walked a few steps into the corridor. The surface of the floor felt uneven, like cracked or broken tiles. Soon the dim light that had filtered through from the reception area faded. Praeternatural sense allowed Buffy to move through the darkness with reasonable confidence.

Pools of stagnant water suggested the place had been flooded. Everything was water damaged. Abruptly, she stopped , listening. Her imagination stirred her fears. Elizabeth had not gone into great detail but it was enough to conjure images of once human monstrosities disfigured and mutated by dark magicks. Turning, she drew in her strength and raised her sword. When she saw the creature approaching, her heart turned cold and she saw the true face of the horror that had been made here.


***


“Mr Giles?”

The quiet calling of his name took several seconds to rouse the tired Watcher from his studies.

The patiently waiting curator smiled genially. “I have the papers you asked for.”

Giles managed to suppress his surprise. He cleared his throat. “Er, thank you. Could you just place them on the table over there?”

“Of course Sir.”

Giles replaced his glasses as the curator laid the stack of files next to the pile of tattered looking texts on the ancient reading table. Casually he asked, “Any problem finding them?”

“No Sir, most of the files are of a reduced classification now.”

“Yes, of course.” Giles tried to affect an air of casual understanding.

“Would you like me to remove these books?” the curator indicated the half filled trolley sitting next to the end of the reading table.

“Er, yes, yes please. Thank you.”

Curious, Giles patiently waited as the curator slowly pushed the trolley out on creaking wheels. As the door eased shut behind the departing curator, Giles closed the book he’d been studying and pulled the pile of papers to him.

Finding the books on the list Elizabeth had provided had not taken long. The Council’s collection of magick and occult texts were extensive. His request for intelligence files on advancements in thaumaturgy in the last fifty years had been something of a whim. The curator had nodded non-committaly when he’d made the request and Giles had been fully expecting to be told there was nothing available or that he did not have a suitable level of clearance. Therefore he was rather surprised at the size of the stack currently sitting before him and the ease with which it had been obtained.

He began to scan through the titles. He stopped suddenly at one particular file entitled “Survey of Thaumo-Eugenics Research.” He pulled the file out and opened it. Although a thick sheaf of papers were held inside, the text was heavily censored.

The top paper was dated February 1967 and seemed to be the main survey document. A number of addenda had been attached to the back of the file over the years. As he read, his stomach turned at what the research had entailed. Despite his revulsion to the implications of what was involved in the actual work, the supposed insights gained garnered his curiosity.

As he slowly turned the pages, among other things, the text mentioned advancement into the problems of ‘Magick Induced Dimensional Dissociation’ and into the associated possibilities of ‘Multiple Harmonic Dimensional Travel’.

With frequent references to thaumaturgy as well as physics and biochemistry he could only intuit some of the possibilities suggested by such research, yet even that seemed to bear powerful resonance with Willow’s situation.

Beyond the possibilities offered by what he’d read, it was the closing remarks that shocked him. The summing up made reference to an organisation which had at the time of the report been considered the foremost researcher in this area, working in the field since the nineteen thirties. There was a long list of names of researchers who’d worked for the organisation, along with research specialisms and dates. Near the end of the list was the name “Elizabeth R. Brown, PhD, Visiting Researcher - January 1966 to July 1967.” Listed as working at “Elysium Medical Research Hospital.”

Giles flicked to the end of the file and found a note dated December 1967, indicating that the organisation in question was now defunct, its researches considered failed. Whatever had gone on at Elysium had ended not long after Elizabeth’s had completed her tenure. He began to flick slowly back through the pages, reflecting that being re-instated to the Council of Watchers did bring certain advantages when it came to research.


***


Willow jumped back from peering into the passageway when she heard rapid footsteps. “ Buffy?”

The door swung open making a dull thud as it hit the side of the reception counter.

Willow watched Buffy as she leaned for a moment on the doorway, breathing hard, eyes angry. Her shirt and jeans were stained and damp. “What happened? Are you alright?”

As she regained her breath, Buffy stalked over to the reception counter where Elizabeth stood studying the charts that hung on the back wall. She turned as Buffy approached.

“What the hell,” she demanded, “is this?” As she asked the question, Buffy held up a severed head.

Willow’s hand flexed involuntarily to her mouth.

The head was not human, its eyes were enormous and it’s mouth was dark and distended, no teeth, just a bloody hole.

“It, was a person,” murmured Elizabeth.

Buffy eyed Elizabeth uncertainly and then looked down at the thing she was holding. Her hand opened involuntarily and the head fell to the floor. “This used to be somebody?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Buffy, I am so sorry, I really hoped you wouldn’t have to deal with this. I’d hoped they’d all be gone or too old to be a threat.”

“But this was ‘done’ to somebody?!”

Elizabeth nodded. “I tried to explain. Any humanity will have been long since pacified.”

“He attacked me.”

“I know.”

Buffy’s expression became remorseful to fear, “You said ‘they’?”

Elizabeth knew she’d been too optimistic in assuming that not everything that could go wrong would go wrong. She closed her eyes for a moment as graphic memories awakened in her mind.

“This place was used for certain dangerous experiments. After the experiments stopped, its designation was changed to keeping experimental ‘left-overs’, that could not be destroyed.”

Buffy’s brow furrowed.. “Does that mean Antorwath—”

Elizabeth nodded. “He’s the product of years of experimentation. He was brought her in the late sixties for the final most dangerous stages. The work left him too dangerous to do anything with…”

Willow cut in, “But they found a way to bind all his power so they could keep him locked away in a place like this without worrying about him getting out. Secret research labs cost lots of money and have a way of being discovered.” She looked at Buffy meaningfully as she thought back to The Initiative labs that had been based right below UC Sunnydale. Of course even they weren’t into this kind of thing. They’d never really understood the magicks. Willow hated the analogy but their work seemed crude butchery in comparison to this.

Buffy straightened up. “Look, let’s cut to the chase here. There are obviously other things still running about in there. This place has obviously been left alone for so long half the prisoners could have escaped.”

“Or someone could have let them out,” added Elizabeth darkly.


***


The door to the guard’s control room opened tentatively.

“What is it Abraham?”

The younger man jumped at the sound of his name. Raphael had not turned. He just continued to lean on a section of the metal railing that delineated a broad circular aperture in the floor through which one could see every floor from top to bottom of the facility.

Abraham entered the guard room and approached his superior cautiously.

Raphael continued to stare down into the complex. After a moment he asked; “She killed one?”

Abraham halted his approach. “Yes.”

“The witch?”

“No the other. She’s strong.”

Raphael rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“How?”

“Sword. It was quick. She was skilful. Well trained.”

“As good as you?”

“I would say not.”

Another nod.

“What should I do?”

“Go. Watch. Report back if they get beyond the fifth.”

“Okay.

Abraham didn’t understand why they couldn’t use magick. Raphael had simply said it would be dangerous in this environment. From the wall next to the door, he took down a long samurai sword and examined it closely. Light glinted off the minute facets in the shape of the blade. He weighed it in his hand, getting a feel for it. Comfortable, he placed the sword in its saya and headed out the door, leaving his companion to his contemplation.


***


Elizabeth looked seriously at the young Slayer. “Buffy, how far in did you get? Were there any others that you could see or hear?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, We need to find our way to Antorwath, retrieve the artefact and get it onto Willow. From the chart, the reception is quite some way from the main complex. We need to head through the corridor that Buffy’s just swept and towards the main complex…”

Willow interrupted, “What about if there are more of those things running around?”

“Buffy and I will take point. You should follow when we’ve confirmed an area is clear. Here, I have some torches.”

Willow shut her eyes and breathed for a moment. She hated being so useless and worse being the cause of all this. Things could have been so different. She watched Elizabeth rummage in her backpack and pull out two long handled flashlights. She handed one to each her companions and kept one herself.

“So is it far to go?” asked Willow.

“The main building is mostly underground. It’s complicated. It’s meant to be that way. Easy to get lost. Stops inmates escaping.”

Frowning, Willow wondered what the odds of finding their way out were.

Elizabeth gave a tight smile. “Come on, we should get moving.”

Buffy followed Elizabeth towards the door. Willow watched the two of them pause momentarily and then walk over the threshold. She looked up at the ceiling wondering if anyone up there was watching over her or cared if she lived or died. She shook her head and headed towards the sound of Buffy chattering away as she walked down the corridor with Elizabeth.


<

>

[raspberryhat]

Chapter 2, Draft 4b Continued...
(Interim drafts were small changes)



‘How much further?’ wondered Buffy under her breadth. They seemed to be walking through a low security area. The corridor was punctuated with doors leading off to small wards. Black iconography adorned the dirtied white doors. Buffy didn’t recognise any of the symbols, but had opened one door and poked her head through. There was nothing but broken glass and rusting hospital paraphernalia.

“Not far now,” responded Elizabeth as she peered into the gloom of the corridor.

Buffy cleared her throat. “If we run into one of those, er, things again…”

Elizabeth did not look back. “Yes?”

“Well,” Buffy suddenly felt rather awkward, “well, you’re a witch, you can do magick can’t you? Surely you’d be able to…”

Elizabeth smiled in the darkness. She understood the Slayer’s hesitance given her recent experiences with magick. She was still surprised it had taken Buffy so long to ask though. Looking behind to ensure she could still see Willow, Elizabeth said, “Just keep walking slowly and I’ll explain.”

Buffy wondered what this was about. A simple “yes” would have answered her question.

“One of the primary abilities I have is to harness and redirect power.”

“What does that mean?”

“Buffy, you’ve studied the martial arts haven’t you? Rupert told me he’s developed a hybrid fighting system with you.”

“Yeah. I am not very good with the Japanese names of the moves though. I don’t see why it matters…”

Elizabeth continued earnestly, “Has he ever taught you about an art called Ai-ki-do?”

Buffy’s brow furrowed. “Oh! Yes actually. Giles used to love to talk about these kick-ass masters because they showed what was possible for normal humans,” she grimaced, “with enough hard work! It’s all about harness your opponent’s power…oh I see. You’re talking about a sort of magick version of that?”

Elizabeth smiled to herself. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” she hesitated but knew Buffy had to know, “it is my primary power though. Even if it was appropriate, I can’t attack with magick and I can do little to defend against a brute force attack.”

Buffy slowed her pace, about to stop but remembered they were trying to keep ahead of Willow, trying to keep her safe. Elizabeth had not wanted her to hear. “So…what happens if you’re attacked with powerful magick?”

Elizabeth folder her arms and kept looking straight ahead. “I can take that power and focus it, compress it, transform it and ultimately redirect it.”

“Like back onto an attacker?”

“Yes.”

“So basically any muscle bound monsters and I’m on my own?”

Elizabeth nodded again. “Yes, only, while they may be strong, developing physical strength was not the main thrust of the experimentation that went on here.”

Buffy shuddered and strolled briskly on, ahead shining the light up ahead of them. “Hey, looks like we’ve got a choice.” She stopped. “Okay. Which way? Left, right or straight up?” She waited for Elizabeth and Willow to catch up.

Elizabeth seemed to be thinking. After a moment she announced, “We need to go right.”

She pointed up ahead, as she talked, “That way leads straight to the security centre. And up there,” she pointed down the darkened left leading corridor, “is just more wards.”

Buffy looked up ahead. “So that’s where our friend could have come from?”

“It’s possible,” confirmed Elizabeth, “but we don’t know for sure.”

Willow looked down the right hand corridor, “Where does this go?” she breathed.

“Staff sleeping quarters and that leads to the maintenance and storage facilities We need to go through there. Why don’t Buffy and I carry on ahead as before?”

Willow nodded mutely.

Buffy and Elizabeth led the way down the dusty corridor.

Every fifty feet or so, a plain wooden door marked what must have been the entry to a bunk room. Buffy noticed each door had a solid looking lock. She looked up ahead and frowned. After the last bunk room door far up on the left, there was just a blank wall. “Er…are we sure this is the right way?”

“It’s a dead end!” Buffy stared at the plane white wall in confusion. “What gives?”

Elizabeth shone her flashlight over the surface of the wall carefully. Buffy watched her for a moment and then reached out her hand, made a fist and rapped on the wall. She watched in fascination as a plaster dust sparkled in the flashlight beam as it floated down towards her feet.

“It’s a mask,” said Elizabeth. She reached out her own hand towards the wall and inched her finger tips through the air over the surface of the wall. Suddenly she withdrew her hand. “It’s here.”

“What is it?” demanded Buffy.

“It’s a disguise. This place is mainly designed to keep people in, not out, but they do take some basic precautions. Here, let me show you.”

Elizabeth reached towards Buffy, lightly took her wrist and guided her hand toward the wall.

“But I just felt..”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Feel again.” As she spoke, she placed her own hand over the Slayer’s and pushed on the surface of the wall.

Buffy was shocked to see a contraction in the surface of the wall contract and then spring back as she lifted her palm away. She hesitated and then replaced her hand on the surface and let it sink inwards until she felt a change in texture and then realised her hand was touching metal. “A door?”

“Which we may need some help opening.”

Buffy pulled back her hand and examined it critically.

Willow approached the wall and peered at it herself. As she drew close she felt her skin tingle and pulled back quickly. “Oh.” She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. “Buffy, it’s powerful, but it’s only a mask,” she glanced at Elizabeth before continuing, “Just close your eyes.”

Buffy thought she was joking at first, but Willow’s sincere expression did not waver. She shrugged her shoulders. “Okay then,” she muttered as she shut her eyes. This time when she reached out her hand she had no problem in immediately feeling the texture of the door. She groped downwards and grinned when she felt a metal doorknob. She gripped it and turned. It did not open. She smiled. “Okay, stand back.”

Buffy closed her eyes again, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Opening her eyes slowly she stared at the location where her hand had been, fixing it in her mind. Stepping back slightly, turning her hips away from the door, she took another deep centering breath. In a smooth flowing movement she released a spinning kick to the location of the door handle. The sound of crunching wood and sheering metal followed by a delayed crash confirmed successful contact.

Buffy held her final position and opened her eyes. She smiled at the image of her horizontal thigh disappearing into the faux wall. She casually stepped through and turned to invite the others, but then realised they wouldn’t be able to see her. “Come on through.”

Willow looked at Elizabeth. “She likes to lighten the mood sometimes.”

Weakening flashlight light pierced the darkness of the room beyond.

“Where are we?” asked Buffy suspiciously.

“Power system,” answered Elizabeth.

Willow shone her flashlight towards the rear of the room where she saw a large ceased generator, sitting within a wire mesh cage. The cage had a door which appeared securely padlocked. “If this is the power room, why isn’t the engine running?

“This place hasn’t been active for years. Prisoners left here to die don’t need light.”

Willow swallowed nervously. “O-okay, so how do we get to where we’re going?”

Elizabeth reached out and guided Willow’s arm down until her flashlight was pointed towards a space in front of the cage, illuminating a small square hatch, fastened closed with two large deadbolts. “Every floor has its own generator.”

“The power rooms of each floor are all connected?”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t that a security flaw? Couldn’t inmates escape?”

Elizabeth felt her right eye twitch as she studied Willow in the gloom, wondering if her young charge had figured out how she knew her way around here. It had not been necessary to share the details. It was just too long a story.

She offered Willow a re-assuring smile. “Nobody in the main complex could escape this way because there’s no way into the power system other than from the outside on the top level, the way we came in.”

Buffy turned around at this. “So how do we get to Antorwath then?”

Nod. “Yes. The original building was eight levels, the ninth level was added later.”

Buffy was starting to feel serious concern. “They built a whole extra level? Just for Antorwath?”

“For creatures of his ilk, yes.”

Buffy decided she wasn’t liking the sound of this one bit. While other parts of her mind weighed the possible dangers they might be walking into she asked, “And there’s a way to get from here into the ninth level?”

“Yes that’s right.”

Willow looked up sharply at this. “So there’s a way to get in to the ninth level what’s to stop him coming after us the same way?”

“The mechanism of his internment on the ninth level means there is little risk of him getting beyond his cell.”

Willow wondered what to make of that but assumed she’d soon know.

Buffy’s face was resolved. “I want to get this done. Elizabeth, I guess now we’re through into here we’re unlikely to run into any more of those bizarre experiments?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Before we go down we need to prepare though.”

The Slayer raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Please sit Buffy,” she turned to face Willow, “you too my dear.”

Elizabeth lowered herself into a cross legged position and waited for Buffy and Willow to do likewise. Positioned at the vertices of a rough triangle, flashlights on the metal floor pointing inwards, Elizabeth studied the aura of her two companions.

When Willow had re-surfaced from her dimensional journey, her aura had been faint, but after a day’s rest, though mixed the colors had been vibrant and strong. Now though bright orange had given way to a muddy and altogether fainter umber. Streaks of indigo and blue still surfaced in the energy flow but overall the gray witch’s glow seemed weaker. Yet she did not seem physically diminished.

Buffy was different. The Slayer was infused with a fluid vermillion energy flow that just occasionally would tint towards blackness before washing back to vibrant red hues. The strength in Giles’ protégé was impressive although Elizabeth doubted she fully understood her own capability. She mused that Buffy might well understand herself better after what she was going to have to do next.

“When we get to the ninth level, we’ll need to retrieve the artefact from Antorwath, but it won’t be easy.”

“But I thought he was basically harmless while he was bound by it,” said Buffy, confused.

Elizabeth nodded. “The thing is, while that’s true there are…complications.”

Buffy sighed.

“The artefact not only absorbs energy, it’s attracted to energy. With every breath he draws power from the environment and the artefact draws closer to him to better absorb that power. Even though he can’t use it, an incredible amount of power flows through him.”

Buffy hesitated before speaking the words that her increasingly fatalistic intuition were forming in her mind. “So we have to kill him?”

“There’s really no other way. If we tried to pacify him and take it from him, as soon as he came around he’d be an unprecedented danger to the world.”

Willow shook her head angrily. “Surely, if he was made like this, he can be unmade without being killed? It doesn’t seem right. This was done to him. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Willow’s you’re compassion is admirable, but the original boy…there’s nothing left.”

“This was done to him as a child?” asked Willow horrified.

Elizabeth nodded. “I am sorry, it’s a long and tragic story which we just don’t have time for now. For now we need to get ready to deal with this situation.”

Willow continued studying the metal flooring.

“What do I have to do?” asked Buffy.

“With the magick that runs through him, physical strength alone won’t be enough to kill him. However, there is a spell which can be used to, well the best way to describe it is it’ll allow you to channel your innate power more directly. It adds a kind of magickal after-touch to your physical power.”

Buffy pondered the meaning of this. “So, you do this spell on me and then what?”

“Simple, you do what you do, but your physical assault will be, enhanced.”

Buffy glanced nervously at Willow before asking Elizabeth, “Should we be doing magick in front of Willow?”

She managed a small grin as she saw Willow give her a half-hearted withering look.

“This will be so focussed that it should not cause a problem. However,” she turned her attention to Willow, “it would be best if she keeps back from things.”

Willow got up awkwardly and backed into the shadows.

Buffy tensed though she wasn’t sure why. “Will this take long?”

“Not at all. Please just sit still and close your eyes. Slow your breathing as if in meditation.”

At first, Buffy found it difficult to lower her guard. Yet after a while the quiet closeness of the room and Elizabeth’s matched, quiet breathing allowed her own body to begin to relax.

Willow watched in fascination as Elizabeth eased Buffy into a state of meditation. She blinked her eyes trying to see better in the near darkness. Her lips parted in surprise as she realised the red specks she’d thought were stars from her own eyes, were actually tiny dancing whorls of Buffy’s aura.

Elizabeth began a near sub-aural chant and as she did so Buffy’s aura began to glow brighter until her whole body was surrounded by deep flaming reds and negative delineations of deep black. Despite herself, Willow was astonished at the deep well of power flowing from the Slayer. She knew Buffy understood the principle that her power had a magickal quality but that the she’d had chosen never to pursue an understanding of it, preferring to leave all things magick to her. Willow wanted to move closer, to reach out and put her hand in the flow, but she managed to check her instinct.

The guttural chant grew louder. Willow didn’t recognise the dialect although it had cadences that reminded her of the ancient demon tongues she’d imbibed. She had to trust Elizabeth knew what she was doing.

Elizabeth raised her chant further and the energy flowing around and within Buffy swelled until the light was so bright it was difficult to see the diminutive figure at the centre of the rushing flow. Suddenly Elizabeth thrust her right hand straight into the centre of the flow. Her hand became engulfed by color and organic tendrils began to crawl over her hand and up her wrist.

Elizabeth watched the energy snake its way across her skin and smiled. She looked straight into the centre of the flames and uttered one word; “Novo!” As the words escaped her lips, she formed her hand into a fist and started to withdraw it from the energy flow. As she withdrew, the weak tendrils of red that griped her wrist seemed to pull, trying to resist her egress. She did not react with force, but breathed, focussing her own energy and withdrew her hand from the flames.

As soon as her hand was free, the cadmium energy evaporated, popping and sparking in the darkness until the only remaining illumination was from the flickering flashlight. Buffy opened her eyes and looked at Elizabeth, who smiled serenely back.

“I feel…different?”

Elizabeth nodded. “You should. What do you feel?”

“It’s hard to describe.”

“Try.”

“Well, it’s a bit like I’ve just had four espressos. I feel kinda tingly like, kinda fired up.”

Elizabeth nodded. “When the time comes, just trust your instincts. You’ll know what to do.”

“So nice and obvious then.”

Elizabeth ignored the sarcastic quip.

Willow stood up and approached Buffy. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah…you?”

Willow nodded, but Buffy saw the concern and fear in her eyes. “Will, I’m good. I am ready for this thing. Whatever it is.”

Willow swallowed. “You may be. I’m not sure I am.”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I am sorry, but we need to get going.”

“I’ll go first,” volunteered Buffy.


<

>


By the fourth floor, Willow was breathing hard. A small part of her mind reflected she should have spent a bit more time at least thinking about going to the gym. However much running away they did from vampires or however vigorous the evil fighting, it just never seemed to get any easier.

Getting the rusted hatches open, even with Buffy’s Slayer strength had taken their combined effort. Below each hatchway, a ladder led into the darkness which had meant climbing very slowly and carefully. Everything was rusty and they’d agreed Buffy would go down first to each floor since she was the lightest and there was less chance of the ladder breaking under her weight. Each level had seemed a very long way down.

Hands on hips, breathing in lungfuls of life restoring air, Willow watched Buffy disappear confidently down the ladder towards the fifth level. Elizabeth followed, stepping onto the ladder and carefully descending each rung. Willow didn’t want to be alone in this place. She wondered what might be lurking in the shadows. As if on cue, she heard a deep groaning sound from somewhere close by, followed by a kind of laboured, rasping breathing.

In the face of panic, logic sometimes came to Willow’s rescue. She found that analytical part of her mind offering the likelihood that sound carried through this building quite well and what she’d heard was probably another one of the things Buffy had run into earlier. This power system they were in was segregated from the main complex where those things were wondering around, so logically they were safe in here…Although she liked her own reasoning, she didn’t want to hang around any longer than necessary. The logician in her head also told her that some monsters might be able to break through walls. As she saw Elizabeth’s head disappear into the darkness, she called out “Wait for me!” and began to lower herself through the hatch.


***


Abraham closed his eyes and concentrated his mind in the darkness.

“Raphael. They have passed the fifth level.”

Abraham waited, wondering if he’d been heard.

“How?”

“The old Teacher, she knew a way.”

“What way?”

“There’s a series of rooms built into the fabric of the structure and a secret entrance on the top level.”

Raphael paused to consider this. He wondered why he hadn’t been warned of this possibility. Surely Mr White must have been aware this could happen. After a moment, he returned the thought; “You know what to do.”

“I know, but I’ve projected through. I will only be able to physically confront them on the ninth. The part of the structure they’re in does not reconnect with the main complex until the ninth.”

“Do not reach their goal.”

“I understand.”

Raphael wondered if the young acolyte was up to the task. Best of a generation supposedly. Well it wasn’t his problem if it went wrong. He hadn’t been given all the facts. Let Mr White clean up the blood. He reached out with his mind and felt the crawling presence of the other inhabitants of the institution. Not that they’d help now. Putting them back in their cells was a waste of effort. If they didn’t kill the intruders, much easier to just let them kill each other.


***


When Willow landed her booted left foot on the rusty metal floor of the eighth level, she was breathing heavily. She held up her hands. “Time out! I need to rest a minute.”

Elizabeth looked over to her and nodded. “We need to stop here anyway. Buffy, we need to talk about how we deal with the next level.”

“Uh-huh,” replied the distracted Slayer. Elizabeth watched her inspecting the room.

Willow mustered her courage and asked, “What about me? Does ‘we’ not include me?”

“Willow I am sorry, we don’t know what we’re going to find. It would not be prudent for you to come down until we’ve ascertained it’s safe.”

Feeling inadequate and a bane on those around her, Willow managed to nod her agreement. “Okay, I guess.” She shone her flashlight around the room trying to distract herself. It really was just like others. Caged power generator towards the opposite end. Small wooden tool cupboard on the left-hand wall, next to the cage. She leaned against the wall behind the ladder and stared at the quiet bulk of caged metal that used to help provide power to this place.

Breathing out, she slid down until she was seated comfortably on the floor, knees hugged close to her chest. Closing her eyes she tried to regain some composure and quell her nerves. A sudden thud and her eyes snapped wide open. A heavy door being closed? Except there weren’t any doors in the compact power room. She looked around quickly to see if Buffy or Elizabeth had heard it. Yet she found herself alone.

Standing, mind unwilling to accept she could actually be alone, she turned around, shining her flashlight into the darkness. Her eyes had been closed for only a moment, if they’d gone anywhere she would have heard. Shivering, she began to realise the quality of the space she was in had changed. The clammy and dust filled claustrophobia of the power system had given way to a cooler air and a somehow thicker darkness. Shining the beam of her flashlight straight ahead, she could no longer see the opposite wall of the room or the ladder. All she could see was she was alone in the darkness.

Her heart palpitated. “Elizabeth?” She was answered only by distant, timorous echoes. A prescient acidic dread rose in her chest. She had not performed any magick, yet to move through a moment and suddenly be lost, it felt just like the dimensional transition that had taken her to that hell place underneath the streets of London. Something was still very wrong with her. The cleansing at the stones seemed long ago.

She heard the muffled stutter of a generator, followed by a metallic rattle as far above, a cluster of wire covered lights began to glare. Their glow was weak, sufficient only to light the space around her in a washed out green.

Then, rapidly approaching voices. Looking left, Willow saw an orderly emerging from the darkness, pushing a wheelchair in which sat a boy of perhaps seven, maybe eight years. His black hair lay lank across an anaemic forehead. Behind the orderly came two figures, both dressed in grey robes, faces occluded by deep, layered cowling. They were conversing, gesturing occasionally towards the boy.

As they approached, Willow looked desperately for some way to conceal herself. Surely they would see her. Yet as they drew near, the boy continued to stare off into space and the doctors did not break the flow of their conversation. “Let’s lock him down for tonight. We’ll give him a shot of the new formulation in the morning.”

And then the voices were receding as they carried on deeper into the darkness. The figures seemed to recede too quickly. Something was wrong with the space here. Her heart beat faster again as she found herself alone and frightened.

“Willow?!”

Willow opened her eyes. There was a throbbing pain in the back of her head. She realised she was lying on the ground. Elizabeth was peering into her face, eyes concerned. ”W-what happened?” she asked.

“You collapsed.”

Willow blinked rapidly and sat up. Suddenly she remembered the little boy.

“Some kind of episode? A hallucination?” asked Elizabeth shrewdly.

Sullen, Willow looked away. “I thought they’d stopped.”

“Willow, I am sorry.”

“The voices are quiet. I don’t hear them.”

“I know dear. I’d hoped…”

Willow looked into her would-be mentor’s face and saw the usual ellipsis replaced with undisguised sympathy. “What did you hope?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t be this hard for you.”

Willow managed a small smile. “Elizabeth, please tell me.”

Elizabeth gathered herself for Willow’s reaction, “Some of the effects, some of the changes you went through are probably permanent. The amount of magick you’ve worked has weakened your connection to this world. It may no longer take the actual working of a spell to trigger an episode or a transition.” To her surprise, Willow didn’t seem at all surprised, just contemplative.

“I need a way to remember my sin.”

“Willow, we will talk about this, but right now, you need to tell me what you saw.”

Willow looked up at her would-be mentor and tried to trust. “I saw a little boy.”

Shocked Elizabeth stared at Willow, and tried to keep her voice calm as she re-iterated; “You, saw…Willow tell me exactly did he look like?”

Willow didn’t like the tone of fear in Elizabeth’s voice. Until now she had been all confidence but now something else entirely manifested in her voice.

“Willow, what did he look like?”

“He had black hair. And…”, she closed her eyes, “a wheelchair, I think he was going to have some kind of procedure. They were talking about a drug or something.”

“What made you think that?”

“There were people with him, doctors.”

Elizabeth could hardly bring herself to ask, but managed to phrase the question; “Did you hear what they were saying?”

“They said something about trying out a new ‘formulation’.”

Elizabeth’s eyes clouded and Willow thought she was about to cry. “What is it? What does it mean?”

Elizabeth rubbed her eyes, and suddenly felt very tired. She breathed in and gathered herself. “Willow that means you saw Antorwath, as a boy. The new formulation would have been the last stage of his treatment.”

“But you told us he was brought here forty something years ago. I’ve seen…other dimensions, but never other times.”

“Willow, time doesn’t run at the same speed in every dimension.”

Buffy cleared her throat. “Look I am sorry to interrupt this, but what does any of this have to do with what we’re here for?”

Elizabeth turned to her temporary Slayer. “It just means my worst fears were confirmed for what they’ve done to him and how dangerous he is.”

“But it doesn’t change what we’ve got to do does it?” urged Buffy.

Elizabeth’s lip’s tightened. “No…no it doesn’t.”

“So it’s down there then?” asked Buffy pointing towards the last trap door.

“Down there,” came the unequivocal response.

“Okay, I go through first. You come down when I say and Willow stays here til it’s definitely all clear and we need to get the artefact on her.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Willow?”

“Huh?”

Willow had taken a step away from the trapdoor and sat down again. She’d felt a wave of sadness wash over her at the fate of the boy. It was in the past, but he’d looked innocent like he didn’t know what was being done to him. She thought about Abi and wondered if this was anything like what she’d gone through. She hardly dared think about how this sort of thing could still be happening.

Buffy repeated slowly with forced gentleness, “Willow, do you agree?”

Willow tried to make her answer business like, not betraying the fear she felt. “Let’s get it over with.”


***


“Last time I was here, things were…busier.” Mr White pulled a white cloth from his pocket and dabbed at a bead of sweat on his forehead.

Antorwath managed a kind of pained rasping sound in response. Despite the apparent difficulty of communication, Mr White saw scabbed, dry lips pull into a warped, mirthless smile. As though clearly spoken, the words formed and echoed within Mr White’s mind. “Your masters seemed to lose their appetite for what they did here.”

Mr White smiled, unperturbed. “We have to move with the times. Different politics create different ethics.”

“Why are you here?”

“They’re coming for you.”

Antorwath showed no fear in this remark. “You came here personally to tell me that?”

“No, I came to observe our greatest achievement one last time.”

“You’re proud of me? So proud you keep me hidden in here?” Although the genteel smile remained, the tone of the sound was bitter, betrayed. “You promised me so much.”

“You know why you are here.” Mr White thought he saw the gentle smile tick up into a smirk. “And like I said, times change. We have to be more subtle now, more circumspect. You were the key. The trailblazer. With you, we learned what was possible. We’re still working with the basic principles we proved with you.”

The old man appraised his prisoner without fear. “Tell me though, how is it you look the way you do? You’ve been here a long time. You should be older than me, yet I’ve not seen you age a day since…”

“Since the last treatment. Since before it all stopped.”

“Yes that’s right.” Mr White stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“I think you might consider my appearance a side effect.”

Mr White smiled. “Interesting.” He reached out a hand and, surprised at himself, hesitated before pressing his index finger against the cloth covering the man’s chest. Through the material, he felt a tingling sensation as residual energy emanated from the artefact. “They want that.”

Antorwath’s crooked smile remained. “Yes. They are of course very welcome to have it.”

“They may take it from you forcibly.”

“They may.”


***


Buffy pulled back the bolts on the trap door, then lifted the rusted metal handle that was recessed in the door itself. She took a firm grip, braced herself and slowly pulled back on the handle. The metal groaned but to her surprise released more easily than the previous doors had. Elizabeth had said this floor had been a new addition to the building. ‘Not had as long to rust closed,’ she reasoned.

She looked around and cautioned the others with her arm. She didn’t want them anywhere near whatever may be lurking below. One hand holding the trapdoor open, she carefully reached her other hand out for the flashlight that lay on the floor. Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal and she directed the beam into the hole. It was probably her imagination but the darkness seamed heavier having an almost liquid quality. The light barely penetrated, showing very little of what lay below.

“Er, Elizabeth? A little help here? I don’t really want to fight by flashlight. It kinda makes it difficult to hold a weapon!”

“No, no, of course not,” said Elizabeth as she began to rummage through the contents of her pack.

Buffy watched Elizabeth removed what looked like a good size lump of granite. “What’s that for?”

“For light.”

“You’re going to light the way with a rock?” asked the Slayer incredulously, “I think I’ll take my chances in the dark.”

Elizabeth looked up at her but didn’t respond. She held the rock out before her, both hands clasped over the rough surface. After a moment, Buffy saw a reddish light emanating from beneath Elizabeth’s hands and then start to spread out and radiate from within the rock itself. When Elizabeth opened her eyes, the rock was emitting a warm reddish flow from all over.

Buffy got the idea but wasn’t convinced it would be any better than flashlight. “Er…”

Elizabeth held up a hand. “Just watch.”

Elizabeth knelt by the opening to the ninth level and dropped the rock. As Buffy watched the stone fall, she saw it began to glow brighter, illuminating the space around it. The magick-lantern hit bottom about thirty feet down, throwing up dust moats that hung in the air, obscuring the bottom few rungs of the ladder in a reddish haze.

“That’s a lot further down than the previous floors,” cautioned Buffy.

“Buffy, remember your instincts. The magick will focus your power in ways that might, surprise you at first.”

The Slayer raised an eyebrow. “If it helps keep him down, I’m just going to keep on doing it.”

Elizabeth, managed a nervous smile. “Okay.”

Buffy looked at Willow, offering what she hoped was a re-assuring smile. Willow smiled back and whispered, “Go.”

Buffy lowered herself until she was sitting on the edge of the trapdoor, feet dangling below. Slowly, she lowered herself through, careful to avoid catching her sword on the perimeter of the hatchway. When her feet caught purchase on the ladder below, she adjusted her stance and started to climb down.


Peering into the red mist, Buffy gingerly lowered her foot, seeking the ground. Even though she knew bottom should only be a little way down, the mist made it impossible to see the ground and she wanted to land securely. She breathed a sigh of relief as she felt her boot make contact with the ground and in one fluid movement, allowed herself to drop the rest of her weight from the ladder, landing in a fighting stance and drawing her sword.

The room was different to those above. No power generating equipment here. Just a roughly square room of stone walls, and a door. As she turned, Buffy noticed her movements sending more dust into the air, making the reddish mist swirl higher, until it almost came to her waist. She wondered about the stuff on the floor.

The only option was the door. Buffy looked up and saw way above, Elizabeth’s concerned face. She did not see Willow. She turned and approached the door, trying as she went not to throw up any more dust.

The heavy oak door had a simple wrought iron handle which to Buffy’s surprise turned easily. She pushed the door open with her left hand. Again darkness. She turned, about to retrieve the light-rock, but stopped as she heard a sound come from within the room beyond. Turning her attention back into the darkness, she listened and as she strained to hear, stepped slowly back through the doorway and into the red ante room.

A point of yellow light flared in the darkness beyond. Without being certain of what she was seeing, instinctively, she stepped sideways so that whoever came in wouldn’t be able to see her. Moments later a blade slashed through the air where she’d been standing.

Buffy jumped further back and gasped when she saw her aggressor enter. Human, bald, swathed in multi-hued robes, tied tight at the waist. The thing that disturbed the Slayer was that around his bald skull was what she could only describe as an mauve colored halo of energy which swirled and flared as he moved.

His eyes tracked her movements minutely. He stood up straight. “Leave now and I won’t hurt you.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. Given the situation and his rather intimidating appearance, she hadn’t expected to be offered an escape clause. It didn’t make any difference. “What’s the matter, afraid you can’t stop a little girl like me?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated.

Buffy stood her ground and locked her expression with his.

“I understand, I am sorry.” As he spoke the, the halo around his head flared and split into a rainbow of color. He breathed in deeply and his body seemed to shimmer and swell. As he exhaled, six shadow forms, each a different color, a translucent projection of the original, detached themselves from his body and spread out around the room.

Aware of the movement around her, Buffy kept her eyes trained on the shadow progenitor. She watched him step closer, the tip of his sword oscillating through a gentle curve as he searched for an opening in her defence.

Buffy could see that the phantom swordsmen spread out around her mirrored his movement. Despite their insubstantial appearance she assumed these shadow-men could touch her, kill her just as well as their owner. The situation felt a great deal more dangerous. Then a smile pulled at her lips. She had an advantage of her own. Although she wasn’t quite sure how it worked, she’d get to find out just exactly what it was that Elizabeth’s magick had done for her. Addressing the swords men’s progenitor, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“My name is Abraham.”

“Okay Abraham. I’m sorry too. You seem like a decent guy…guys…whatever.” As she spoke, Buffy drew her blade back in a wide sweeping motion and began to execute a swift leaping stride toward Abraham’s left flank, swinging the blade at his neckline as she moved. She was amazed at her own speed and further amazed that Abraham was still looking at the position where she’d been standing as she moved and her blade neared its target.

The air shimmered azure. As she seemed to move faster, his movement seemed to slow even more. She watched in fascination as he turned fearfully towards her and as realisation of what was to come dawned, he threw himself away from her in a protective manoeuvre that narrowly avoider her blade.

Then she was still. Her blade had not connected, but she was now watching Abraham crouching several feet away from her, watching her. The swordsmen had widened their circle and were no longer moving towards her. They did seem able to move independently of their master, but they kept their distance.

Abraham got up slowly, watching her all the time. “How did you…”

Buffy smiled as she realised that what she’d done was actually from her own innate power, just bought to the surface by Elizabeth’s ministration. “Do you still want to do this?” she asked.

Abraham’s expression hardened. “I must finish my task or die.”

How many times had she heard that? Somehow this felt wrong, but she was here for a purpose and his purpose was obviously to prevent her reaching her goal.

He let out a piercing cry as he raised his own weapon and with more than human speed moved towards and around her. As he moved his shadow selves closed in, swords raised in varying positions of attack.

Buffy shut her eyes and felt the seconds stretch out and her perception sharpen even further. She saw the room in her mind’s eye and impressionistic ghost figures gliding very slowly towards her. They moved so gradually, it was easy to evade their attacks and plot her own. She inhaled deeply and raised her sword to shoulder height. Black energy tinged with silver traced a complex locus through the air around her weapon. Her sword cut through the filmy ghost figures leaving just trails of shining gossamer hanging in the air. And then there was only him. His aura glowed a multitude of colors as he drew himself up. But she could see his intent so far ahead, a simple movement and she was before him and her final cut entered, stopping him dead.

Buffy opened her and observed the still figure at her feet. Her skin tingled as the energy that had risen within her began to subside. She’d felt something like it before. At times when she’d fought for her life. In extreme moments. This was stronger, much more primal. She felt no joy at her victory. She felt little besides her own power. Standing, Buffy looked up the ladder and again saw Elizabeth’s concerned face. “You’d better get down here.”





After the commotion of the fight, the whole room, seemed a dusty chemical red. “What is that on the floor?” asked Buffy.

Elizabeth looked up from surveying the body. “Just dust Buffy, nothing more. This place hasn’t been opened for a long time.” She turned back to her consideration of the body. “There’ll be another one here. Somewhere.”

“What some kind of demoney symbiosis?” joked Buffy.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, just standard procedure. The other one’s probably in the guard control room. We should expect trouble.”

“When’s Willow going to come down?” enquired Buffy.

“When we’ve ascertained the situation.” Elizabeth looked ahead into the dark room that lay beyond the doorway. She walked to the base of the ladder and felt around for the light-rock. After a moment, she stood up, gripping the object in her hand. She started to open her pack to replace the item.

“Won’t we need that?” asked Buffy.

“Not now that I’m here. I just wanted a way for you to see while I stayed up there with Willow.”

“You knew something like this might happen? That there might be people trying to stop us?”

“I suspected, yes.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. And I didn’t know for sure. Whoever’s here can’t be any worse than the remaining inhabitants.”

Buffy sort of saw a logic in that but still didn’t feel totally comfortable with Elizabeth’s circumspection.

“Before we go in there,” said Buffy, “I want to know one more thing.”

“Just ask,” said Elizabeth.

“If things get bad in there and I can’t do what needs to be done, will you be able to use magick to help?”

Buffy, “Magick would be of little help. I could attack him with magickal energy, but the artefact would absorb most of the power before it could really effect him. Also I don’t want to be using magick around Willow any more than necessary.”

“Okay then. So no pressure.”

“Are you ready Buffy?”

The Slayer nodded.

Elizabeth looked up the ladder where she saw the worried face of a young woman who seemed so lost and whom she very much wanted to help. She smiled. “Wait for my call, Willow.”

Willow nodded, she didn’t like sitting on her own in a nearly dark room of an ancient and creepy building, just waiting for something to happen. She played the flashlight down into the room and watched Elizabeth talking to Buffy. After a moment, Elizabeth stepped back and cast her hands wide. Willow felt the power, but it was somewhat diminished at this distance. She watched the room below fill with a warm yellow light, emanating from Elizabeth herself.

“Shall we then?” asked the Slayer.


<

>


Buffy waved her hand through the air to try to get dust away from her eyes. The room felt a lot less claustrophobic with the warm illumination Elizabeth had created. Light flooded into the doorway, breaking a sliver of yellow into the blackness of the room beyond.

As they walked toward the door, the darkness of the next room seemed to recede and Buffy realised the light was flooding gently out where ever Elizabeth moved. “How do you do that?”

Elizabeth smiled. “I just ask,” came the enigmatic response.

On the threshold, Buffy hesitated. She looked at Elizabeth one last time then looking ahead, raised her sword and stepped through. Elizabeth followed quickly after, casting her warmth into the room.

What Buffy had thought was as a room was, she could now see a large chamber. In such a large darkened space, Buffy saw that Elizabeth’s light effected a large but not indefinite space. She could see darkness tinge the surface of the warm sphere of light that surrounded them.

“What the hell kind of place is this?” asked Buffy.

“It’s where they’ve interned Antorwath since his treatment. This place was built for him.

“So where is he?”

“This way, towards the back of the chamber,” said Elizabeth as she started to walk ahead of Buffy, foot steps echoing noisily on the hard stone floor. After a minute or so of walking, Elizabeth’s light revealed a large metallic structure. A cell. As they drew closer, she saw the metal was formed into a hexagonal latticework. Elizabeth stopped a few feet from the edge. Buffy stood with her shoulder to shoulder. Her light bathed the cell in yellow warmth, revealing an unpleasant squalor.

The cage was big, perhaps fifty feet square and equally high. Something about the construction struck Buffy as odd. The cage was rusted but that was just like everything else here. Abruptly it struck her. There was no door. It was literally a large iron cube.

Sitting in the centre of the cage on a wooden bench was an old man. Dirtied grey cloth hung from his emaciated form. Lank strands of gray hair tumbled from the side of his pate. “So you’re him.” Buffy jumped as, like he’d heard the thought, he turned to look at her. She felt uncomfortable under his appraising gaze. Despite his dishevelled appearance his eyes were intense and his look penetrating. But then he shifted focus to Elizabeth and smiled. Buffy saw that his teeth were rotted and dirty.

“Elizabeth Brown. I knew you’d come back.”

Buffy looked from Antorwath to Elizabeth and realised that the words had formed in her own mind without the man actually speaking. She was not unfamiliar with telepathy. Sometimes when all the scoobies went into battle, Willow would take up an elevated position and use telepathic communication to help coordinate the fight.

Again, the old man flicked his glance to Buffy and inclined his head slightly, lips drawing upward into a small smile of mock deference. She found she could not keep the disdain from her expression. Yet he didn’t react, he simply turned back to Elizabeth.

Buffy also turned to her companion and cleared her throat. “You know him? You never said you knew him.”

“Elizabeth and I used to be friends.”

Before Buffy could ask the meaning of that particular statement, Elizabeth countered; “I don’t think friendship is the way most people would describe our relationship.”

Antorwath nodded, smiling genially. “But you’ve done so much for me, made me the way I am, given me all I have.” He gestured expansively to his torn clothes and austere surroundings.

Elizabeth didn’t answer, she just watched the animus in his face and waited.

He went on, “No, no perhaps you’re right. Perhaps, let’s see…perhaps doctor and patient would be a better way to describe our relationship?” His smile widened as he saw the pain flicker across Elizabeth’s expression.

Buffy took half a step away from Elizabeth, realising there was much more to this than she knew. She wanted to ask but now was not the time for a confessional. She watched Elizabeth and then allowed her glance to travel across to her interlocutor. Her sharp eyes picked up the small bulge under his shirt.

Elizabeth composed herself, effecting an air of moderate disdain for his words. “Anthony, I tried to help you. Some part of you knows that.”

Antorwath looked away at the sound of the name. “Nobody’s called me that for a long time. I can’t even say it anymore. My voice doesn’t work well. I can only manage the name they call me now.”

Elizabeth’s expression was unrepentant. “I wasn’t responsible for what they did to you. I didn’t make you what you are.”

Again his gaze was on her, “But what they wrought…me, all the pathetic creatures in this place! It was your research that showed them the way. To get what they wanted, it was just a case of doing enough experiments. Except enough was never enough.”

Elizabeth averted her own gaze. “I know that…but Anthony, you still had free will. You did not have to follow their orders so…willingly or with such vigour. You took on the mantle of what they christened you Anthony.”

“No…you’re right, I did do what they said. I enjoyed the power.”

Elizabeth could barely restrain her emotions at the knowledge of what she’d helped create.

“Anthony is dead now. He is past.”

“Then do you know why I am here?”

Antorwath ripped his shirt open with one hand. Buffy was sickened to see that the protrusion she’d spotted earlier was the tip of a small black rock buried deep in his flesh and surrounded by darkened veins that even now she could see throbbed grotesquely as the artefact absorbed his power.

“I know what you want. You want this,” he indicated the artefact, “you need this for her.”

Elizabeth felt wheels turning in her mind and didn’t like the thoughts they were forming. “I see you are not completely devoid of power,” she intoned.

“I’ve had years to understand the nature of my imprisonment. Little things like foresight come easily enough.” As he spoke, he looked down at his chest and caressed the artefact buried in his flesh. Elizabeth saw the tip of his finger begin to blacken as he ran it over the surface of the rock. “This thing prevents me from exercising my power, but it does not retard my perception. I felt her when her power arose. It was…almost blinding.”

He looked back up at her and smiled. “You should be careful, you may have found someone even more dangerous than me.” Antorwath smiled again and stood up. He approached the wall of the cage and threaded his rough hewn fingers through the metal, staring at her intently.

Elizabeth looked away. Then she turned to Buffy. “You know what you have to do.”

The Slayer nodded as she focussed her attention on the cage.

Antorwath smiled. “I’ve waited for this day.”

Buffy gritted her teeth, raised her sword and swung with all her might towards the cage. Moments later, a crash and a large curved slab of rusted iron lay on the floor in front of the cage. Where the metal had been, a large hole gaped back at them. Buffy was still, breathing hard, her sword by her side.

Antorwath had stepped back swiftly and stood his ground in the centre of the cage. Buffy stepped through the opening and moved slowly towards him. His gaze followed her, a slight smile playing at the corner of his lips. He seemed to make no move to defend himself.

As she raised her sword, he intoned, “The witch is powerful. The world will change around her.”

“Is that so?” said Buffy as she lifted her sword again. Just as before, she felt the world around her slow. With detached precision and total confidence of victory her weapon swept through the air in a movement that could only result in separating her enemy’s body from its head.

Yet the blade did not connect. Instead a howling whirlwind blew up from nowhere causing her to stagger backwards, struggling to maintain her balance. Centred on Antorwath, the wind whipped at his impassive features as he looked up to the top of the growing twister. Dark particulates began to form in the wind, quickly thickening the twisting funnel of air into a smoky pall through which the skinny figure of Antorwath could only just be seen.

The blackening air stung her eyes and Buffy dropped her sword and raised her arm to her face, trying to protect her eyes. She couldn’t tell where Elizabeth was, all she could do was back up to where she thought the edge of the cage lay, feeling for the hole through which she’d entered. As she felt the metal against her, everything changed. The wind was gone as was the bleak ninth level of the place that used to be a so called hospital. Buffy knew what she was seeing wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

She was in Sunnydale, under a clear blue morning sky. Up ahead she could see the Magic Box. Standing in the doorway, Giles gave her a welcoming smile as he turned the shop sign from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’. Warmth bloomed in her as he smiled back happily. The training session this morning promised hard work, but would she knew be rewarding. The recent weeks had been testing, but as Giles had worked her through his newest training program, she’d seen tangible improvements in her skills and focus. And word had clearly spread. Vampires were starting to run away rather than engage her. The world felt in balance and it was partly due to her.

She strolled up to the shop door and entered. Panic and confusion flooded her mind at the sight that greeted her. The well kempt store front gave way to burnt destruction on the interior. Part of the first floor ceiling had caved in, rubble and splintered wood lay strewn across the once well cared for shop floor. The place reeked of smoke. Then she saw Giles, bloodied body lying within the rubble. The panic within her rose like bile but something deeper inside, a core consciousness folded the emotion, twisted and formed it into something more calculated, more aware. She looked slowly around the shop again and then back out the door. Realisation dawned. What she was seeing was what Willow had wrought in her desperate confused search for revenge. Seeing her mentor near death burned her heart like nothing else she’d experienced, yet she knew that he had survived.

Stepping back, lifting her feet over fallen masonry, Buffy exited the shop. The pleasant morning sunshine was gone, replaced by night and an oppressive humidity. The streets were deserted. Buffy tried to remember what she was doing here and as she concentrated her mind gained further clarity.

The world inside the shop hadn’t been real. Buffy closed her eyes and concentrated. The destruction of the Magic Box had been weeks before. Anya was already planning how to rebuild the shop with the money she’d extorted from the recalcitrant insurance company. Giles had survived. She’d spoken to him just hours ago. On the way to help Willow. To help retrieve an artefact from a monster…

Buffy opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a Antorwath, standing where she now remembered he had been, in the centre of his cell. The wind had gone, it just felt unpleasantly warm. She could see perspiration running down his cheeks. His eyes snapped open and he looked at her in surprise.

“You’re different,” he stuttered.

“Different? Hmm. Maybe,” mused Buffy feigning companionable curiosity. “Perhaps it had something to do with a little magick my friend Elizabeth used earlier to help me understand my own gifts better?”

“What exactly are you?”

“Oh, just your regular, every day Vampire Slayer, sister, friend…and all round good-guy, girl, whatever.”

“You’re too powerful to be of the Slayer line…”

“Is that so?”

“You have such darkness in you.”

Buffy laughed dismissively. “That? Yeah well I know about that. It doesn’t make me evil.”

The tone of his voice dropped. “No, but it means you can be…bad.”

Buffy did not respond so readily this time.

“It means you can do things you wouldn’t want to tell people about. Keep secrets, use others, let people die, kill without mercy…”

Buffy felt shame. She’d done so many things on instinct or in selfish need. She’d not been sensitive to the needs of those around her. Willow had gone completely off the rails and she’d not stopped it. But that was because…of what Willow had done to her, pulling her out of heaven or where ever had hurt like nothing else she could describe. Anyone would have reacted the same way, except, she wasn’t supposed to be just anyone, she was supposed to be strong, to understand, yet at the bottom of it all she knew she understood so little. She hadn’t understood when her father had left and when her mother had been taken from her by cancer, leaving her to cope on her own. She hadn’t understood. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she thought about her complete and utter inadequacy. She had no right holding the mantle of Slayer. A true warrior of the people shouldn’t be like this. She knew what needed to be done.

With a look of grim determination she reached for her sword. It was hard to see here, the light was so weak and her eyes were so tired. Falling to her knees, she searched for the steel weapon that could end her pain and give the world a true saviour. As her fingers grazed the sword’s grip, she felt a jolt run through her. White energy, shocking her, shaking darkness from her mind and clearing her vision. Her hand looked pristine white as she examined it for burns. She eyed the weapon, almost expecting it to react under her gaze. Elizabeth’s sword clearly possessed qualities other than just the metallic.

Buffy grasped the weapon and stood up, locking eyes with Antorwath. “No more games. This is over. Now.” With one powerful movement she swung her blade. He did not flinch.

Then there was just the faint echo of a cry and dust. With the enhanced perception she now had access to, Buffy saw the aretefact within the slowly falling motes. She reached out her hand and plucked it from the air. At that moment, the world speeded up again and she was left standing over the remains a crumbled body. “Just like a vamp,” she mused.

“We can talk about that later. Right now we need to get that on Willow and then get out of this place.” Elizabeth was already running towards the door through which they’d come. Buffy hesitated, before swiftly following. Questions could come later.





Willow heard the noise below her and her heart raced. She didn’t know if they’d been successful or not. She peered tentatively down below and was rewarded with the sight of Elizabeth. For someone of her seemingly advanced years, she moved with surprising speed as she jogged into the room and jumped straight on the second rung of the ladder. As Elizabeth started to climb, Willow saw Buffy enter the room and follow quickly up the ladder.

Yellow light still emanated from the space around Elizabeth and shot upwards throwing a warm yellow shaft of light into the eighth level room where Willow sat. She felt her body respond to the residual power in the magickally induced light. Stepping back from the edge of the hole, she waited for Elizabeth to emerge. As their guide came up through the trap door, she threw Willow a quick smile and then proceeded to climb out and wait pensively for the Slayer who appeared moments later.

Willow couldn’t stop the words from coming out; “Did it work?”

Elizabeth nodded. At that Willow felt her stomach tighten in fear and anticipation of what was about to happen. She somehow hadn’t quite believed it would get to this. There had been so much to overcome and suddenly they were here. When she saw Buffy’s head pop out from the trap door hatch she tried to smile.

Without ceremony, Elizabeth turned to the Slayer and asked, “Buffy, the artefact please?” She held out her hand for the item which Buffy gripped protectively in her hand. Buffy took one look at the rock in her hand and passed it, chain and all to Elizabeth.

Willow saw the artefact and was surprised. It didn’t seem to give off any magickal energy that she could feel. She didn’t feel anything from it at all.

“Willow, please don’t be afraid. We must do this now and then get out of here, there may be others coming for us.”

Willow nodded. “Will it hurt?”

Elizabeth approached her, opening the artefact’s thin, tarnished silver chain. “It shouldn’t hurt too much since we’ve emptied your system for now. It’s only if you continue to accumulate dark intent that the removal process will be painful to you. The artefact absorbs and is attracted to dark magick.”

Understanding, Willow nodded.

Elizabeth went on, “That’s why we must start your magickal re-training. If we begin to weaken your instinct to rely on darkness in times of crisis then your body will no longer respond and the artefact will not hurt you.”

Again a nod. “Okay.”

Elizabeth reached around Willow’s head and placed the chain around her neck. She hesitated before allowing the artefact to rest against the innocent freckled white skin of its new prisoner’s chest. She stepped back watching Willow for any sign of reaction.

Willow paused, breathing. “I don’t really feel…”

“What? Willow, are you alright?” asked Elizabeth.

No answer.

Elizabeth stepped closer and peered into Willow’s eyes.

Sensing her concern, Buffy asked, “What is it? What’s happening? Is it not working?”

“No, I think it is working,” said Elizabeth.

“Willow?” asked Buffy, looking for any kind of response. When no response came, she turned to Elizabeth. “Why isn’t she answering?”

“I think her mind’s eye is distracted.”

Buffy looked edgily up at the way out. “Look, you said yourself, it’s dangerous here, we need to get out.”

“I know, but if we try to snap her out of this right this instant, it could hurt her. I think it’s the effect of the magick she’s accumulated since the stones flowing through her and out into the artefact.”

Buffy tightened her lips. “So okay, let’s give her a minute, but if she’s not out of it by then, I’m carrying her out.”


***


Raphael turned to face his companion at the opposite side of the viewing portal in the guard chamber. “Mr White?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked, should I stop them? Once they get to the surface it will be more difficult to keep them contained.”

“No, Raphael, events will follow a new course. Let them be for now.”

“What about him? Should we do something?”

Mr White studied Raphael, before answering. “Just make sure the old power system is sealed up so nobody else can get in there.”

“Yes Mr White.”


***


Sitting among the old apple trees created a feeling of peacefulness that she had not felt in a long time. The sun felt warm and comforting, the grass soft and inviting. The trees were overflowing with white and cream, sweet smelling blossom. She smiled as a vividly colored butterfly fluttered across her line of sight, homing in on an untouched flower.

Unlike the last time, some part of her consciousness knew she was not quite where she was supposed to be. This site where sanatorium had been built could have been left untouched. Could have been like this.

Another butterfly tumbled lazily down from a bough and hovered briefly in the air in front of her, before flying towards another flower. As she looked around she realised there were butterflies everywhere. Different shapes, sizes and colors, hovering in the grass, tending the flowers or parading their colors through the warm morning sun.

Willow sat very still. A distant sound sent a cloud of young butterflies up into the air and before she knew it there were hundreds of pairs of colored wings were flapping around the centre of the orchard clearing before her. More butterflies seemed to descend from the trees, joining the cloud, creating a swarm. The noise of beating wings became louder, chaotic and then all of a sudden changed, as if tuned by an unseen hand, the sound became a constant drone.

And as the sound changed, the chaotic swarm began to change. A mass of delicate wings began to resolve into a shape. Into a face. Willow swallowed hard as she realised what impressionistic image was forming before her. Though she didn’t understand how, as the droning faded still further, the beating of wings became more rhythmic and the image was thrown into sharp, organic focus.

Tears welled as she watched Tara’s kind face hanging in the air before her. Ten thousand wings gave her face and so near lifelike quality Willow wanted to reach out her hand, but she dared not do anything to perturb the air. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak.

She watched in fascination. Tara smiled at her and as the corners of her lips lifted into the familiar half smile, her eyes seemed to sparkle as she gazed at Willow.

Then it was as if a shadow had been thrown across Tara’s face and she was no longer smiling, she was looking away and her face darkened. The drone became dissonant and much louder. Wings that had held perfect rhythm and movement suddenly changed. Color started to fade from the image as it slowly dissolved and darkened. As the visage lost cohesion, Willow could pick out individual butterflies and she realised that each one had color on one side of its wings and was completely black on the other side.

Moments later everything faded and Willow shut her eyes as the throbbing in her head grew deeper and more painful.





“Will?” Buffy looked for any kind of response.

Willow opened her eyes and found herself facing a concerned looking Slayer and a worried Elizabeth.

“Is it okay? Does it hurt?” asked Buffy.

Absently, Willow reached up to touch the chain around her neck. “N-no, it doesn’t hurt.” The memory of the vision persisted in her mind’s eye. She’d seen Tara, but didn’t know what it meant. Maybe the dissociation from reality didn’t only happen when she was full of power. Time, the need for time and peace to think this thing through was all Willow could focus on.

“Willow? Was it another episode?”

Disoriented and confused, Willow looked into concerned eyes. “Er, yeah, I guess.”

“We need to get out of here,” urged Elizabeth.

At that Willow straightened up. “Yeah we do.”



End of Chapter Two

[raspberryhat]

I am working on a few more changes, but constructive comments welcome.

[raspberryhat]

After working through final comments, Chapter 2 draft six is now in Pens. Posted in three parts.

Chapter three beckons now. I wrote draft one of it ages ago, so it'll need some dusting off before I can get it here.

[raspberryhat]

I am so bad. After all my evangelism of this medium, I wrote a whole chapter outside and then posted it. However...it was a very unusual processs that got me there and I wasn't sure if I was going to do it for ages. I wrote the piece to see if it fitted and then found it did. So into Pens it went. However, I have a thirty page leviathon of a chapter four that I'll be putting up here next.....Watch this space.

[raspberryhat]

[center]Through a Glass, Darkly[/center]
[center] Occam’s Razor (Chapter 4 of ? Part 2) [/center]
[center]By Raspberryhat[/center]

Disclaimer: BtVS does not belong to me. I respectfully borrow from Buffyverse in order to construct this story. This work is entirely non-commercial. No person, organisation, web-master or otherwise receives any kind of compensation for this work.

Background: Everything up to the end of Season Six happened as per canon.

Timeframe: The story begins three weeks after the end of Season 6/Grave. From that point on it’s AU.

Spoilers: Seasons three through six.

Pairing: W/T

Distribution: Please ask me first if you’d like to distribute this.

Rating: This part of the story is classified PG-13.

Warnings: Angst, some violence.

Feedback: Feedback is appreciated, but please be gentle.

Draft: 0.6/ July 10th 2006.

[center]***[/center]

Willow stood in the doorway to the empty kitchen. The early morning sunlight lent the room a warming lustre. But the air was stale. The only tangible evidence of the evening she’d spent with her mother were the two half empty coffee cups left on the kitchen table. To her mother, she’d hoped to have been a woman getting on with her life, the scars of her excesses healed enough. To her regret, it hadn’t been so. Yet, stripped of all pretension, Willow found a cold comfort.

Looking around the deserted room, she remembered it hadn’t always felt so lifeless. Once it had been the vibrant centre of the house. When her mother and father were still on the lower rungs of their academic careers. When she was still in school. Ghost images cavorted and tumbled from distant memory and danced in her mind’s eye. Her father flared bright but faded so quickly. She felt a tincture of sadness at how insubstantial his mark on her world had become. She watched herself. Ten years sped her from care free child who loved to spend time with her mother to adult before her time. Infrequent visits were encumbered with silent cares, and unspoken loss. And then there was only imagination. For she hadn’t been there. She saw her mother. Solitary routine. And then, when everyone was gone, life had somehow stalled. Willow had thought her mother was defined by everything but her family. She knew she’d been completely wrong.

She approached the kitchen table and pulled out one of the chairs. Sitting down, Willow rested her chin in cupped hands and wondered what to say to her mother. Explaining the nature of her peripatetic existence to her very secular mother was not going to be easy. She was still trying to understand it herself. And talking about Tara still threatened to overwhelm her. Yet, as her mind wondered, little by little, thoughts coalesced into words that might help her mother understand.




Watching her mother seat herself and carefully place a fresh cup of coffee on the table, Willow exhaled slowly, in readiness for calm speech. She thought her mother would be unlikely to resume the conversation of last night. Not after what she’d seen. It would be up to Willow to set the pace now. Keeping her tone casual, Willow asked, “So, Mom, did Giles say anything else about me?”

Willow watched her mother’s expression cloud with uncertainty. She wasn’t surprised by her hesitation.

When she did speak, the words were voiced with measured care. “He said you became...self destructive.”

Willow’s gaze dropped. She studied her hands and noticed tiny black filaments still scored her cuticles. Bringing herself back to the moment, she nodded. “It’s complicated,” she whispered, “I...” suddenly her carefully considered words deserted her. “After Tara, I knew...” She broke off.

Came the timorous response; “What did you know?”

Only the bald truth was possible now. She sighed deeply. “That nothing mattered. That a soul like Tara’s should have to live in this world is a tragedy.”
“Willow, I do understand. We love beyond death and it hurts.”

“How can you know?” came the quiet retort.

“Willow, we really don’t know each other very well.”

A complex sadness lined her mother’s face and for a moment Willow felt curiosity eclipse her own travails. She managed a wan smile and waited patiently for her mother to continue.

Preceded by a hopeful smile, Sheila Rosenberg voiced her concern. “Mr Giles told me he’d arranged for you to spend some time with a counsellor, in England. He said she was very experienced with these things.”

It was almost funny. ‘Experienced’ was the way Giles had described Elizabeth to her and she’d not understood even a hint of what that meant. “She was experienced with all kinds of things,” she conceded.

“Willow, all I want to know is; did it help?”

She examined her nails again and considered the question for a long time. “It helped, in a way.” She looked up at her mother and managed a wan smile. “Mom, I am so sorry.”

Sheila faltered before asking the question that had been bothering her most, “Willow, I-I don’t even know her name. She obviously meant a lot to you.”

The memory arose unbidden; “I embarrass you.” The quietness of Tara’s statement had done nothing to diminish its effect. She winced. She hadn’t meant to hide what she and Tara had. She’d been home so rarely. Yet a lunch had been arranged. Tara had been there. Willow had been ready to tell her mother. But somehow it didn’t happen. Small-talk had turned into another intellectual discussion. Willow, wanting to keep her mother in a good frame of mind, had performed the role of the dutiful foil. Tara had sat quietly through the whole discourse. And, somehow, it ended before it started. The moment she’d hoped for never came. As they’d left, walking down the street, Tara had taken her hand and Willow immediately sensed her discomfort.

Willow pulled her eyes away and absently glanced at the clock on the wall. Thoughts of the past forgotten, she looked back at her mother. “I am going to be late. I have to go.”

Her mother looked surprised. “Go where?”

“I have a job interview to get to. Giles arranged it. I need to be there.”

“Oh.”

“We can carry this on later,” she offered. Seeing her mother’s expression relax, Willow got up to leave, grateful for the break in conversation, at the same time nervous of the meeting she was heading out to.

“Willow?”

She turned in the doorway. “Yeah?

“Have a good day.”

Willow hesitated, surprised by the small pleasantry. “Thanks.”


[center]***[/center]


Approaching the old greenhouse, Willow wondered if she had the right place. Paint flaked from the window frames and the inside of the glass was coated with green moss. Above the door, a faded square plaque had a ‘4’ painted on it. Before trying the brass handle, Willow put her head against the window and peered through. Roses, everywhere, against a background of dark green foliage. From the door, a narrow gravel path led through the glass house.

Taking a deep breath, Willow opened the door and gasped at the change of atmosphere. She couldn’t help but smile appreciatively as she inhaled. The air was warm, abundant with the scent of exotic plants. Closing the door behind her, Willow sauntered along the path, still uncertain she was in the right place. The gardener she’d asked on her way through the park had said Mrs Meyer was in Greenhouse Four.

Roses, seemingly of every type sat in neat rows upon waist high benches. Climbing roses decorated the walls and curled around the ancient looking irrigation system that dangled precariously above. Looking down, Willow saw additional clay pots, pushed into every available space. Even with her exhaustive study of all things Wicca, she saw plants and flowers that she did not recognise.

“Miss Rosenberg?”

Startled, Willow looked up and saw a silver haired lady approaching her. The woman wore jeans, an old green cardigan and looked exactly as Willow had imagined; a genial grandmother. As she drew near, she proffered a hand. “Maria Meyer.”

She extended her own hand. “Willow, er Rosenberg” she affirmed.

Mrs Meyer gave her an appraising look. “I see that.” She strolled past Willow, back towards the door. “Come on. It’s this way.”

Bemused, Willow followed Mrs Meyer out.




Willow looked around at the perfectly kempt lawns surrounding lush beds, home to a myriad of well nurtured looking plants and shrubs.

“We’re standing in Garden One of seven separate gardens. You’ll be helping care for the roses here and in three and six. There’s always plenty to do.”

The ‘garden’ had to be several acres. At the far end she saw a high, brick wall covered in verdant green, suffused with late summer blooms. A wide gravel path led to the far end, with narrow spurs leading off at regular intervals, invitations to the curious.

“Come on, there’s lots to show you.”




Willow followed as Mrs Meyer picked a well practiced path through each garden, all the while continuing a narrative on their content, history and purpose. Set along one side of each garden was a thick wall, perhaps twelve feet high. As they rambled, Willow realised the gardens were arranged geometrically, with each high wall marking out the side of some central space they hadn’t seen yet. Another garden maybe?

Mrs Meyer stopped in front of a stone sculpture, a figure holding a sun-dial above its head. Willow noticed the figure seemed to be an emaciated human form, with mischievous children with hollow eyes dangling from its limbs.

“So what do you think?”

Willow looked up and tried to shake the rather visceral statuette from her mind. She realised they’d be walking for almost an hour and was beginning to wonder how much more there was to see. “It’s big.”

Mrs Meyer smiled. “That’s why we need so many helpers here.”

“Er, Mrs Meyer?”

“Yes my dear?”

“I, er, I thought, well I thought I’d have to pass an interview or something?”

“Oh no dear, you’ll do just fine.”

Willow didn’t know what to say.

“Be back here tomorrow at 8am and Laurence will show you what to do. You met him on the way in?”

Willow frowned. “Oh, the gardener?”

Mrs Meyer nodded. “If you have any problems or you can’t find Laurence, you’ll usually find me in the greenhouse.”

“Okay.”

Mrs Meyer turned to head back the way they’d come. “We’d better get back now. There’s something I want to give you before you leave.”


[center]***[/center]


Morning light from the antimony horizon danced over the dune, at the top of which two figures stood in civilised conversation. The distant crystalline mountains gave gentle iridescence to the lower horizon.

“You see those mountain ranges?”

Mr White followed Antorwath’s gaze.

“Yes.”

“They sublimate energy.”

“The edge of the crystal microcosm?”

“That’s right Doctor. The tips of those mountains reach into her world. They touch her skin. They burrow into her flesh.”

Mr White asked, “How does it work?”

“Herr Doctor, you surprise me. You mean you don’t know?” Antorwath turned to face his companion.

Evenly, Mr White responded, “We never need to know how. We just knew it worked.”

“When she feels pain, if she remembers too much, then the power flows.” His eyes became melancholy. “The air sparkles. It tastes...” Antorwath turned back to the horizon, breathing deep of the fresh morning air.

Oblivious to Antorwath’s pleasurable reverie, Mr White asked, “Can it be seen?”

Antorwath smiled again. “It’s wonderful. It dances and shines through the air. It’s wonderful. The crystals draw it from her. It hurts her.”

Antorwath’s smile faded, “Though the mountains have not grown for some time.”

Mr White raised an eyebrow. “Is there time here?”

“After a fashion. Time has passed in her world. She’s more controlled now.”

Mr White considered for a moment. “She’s no longer a threat to us?”

“No. She’s a victim. Even if she understands her condition, she’ll never be able to do anything about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“You doubt me Doctor?”

“Of course not. We just have to be cautious. We’ve waited too long to leave anything to chance.”

Antorwath drew his expression back from the horizon. Grey eyes intense, he spoke slowly. “You’re right of course. I must tell you, I...anticipate my re-birth into the world. If the other was still alive then maybe we would have something to fear.”

Dr White smiled. “That matter was taken care of as predicted. The world is entirely ready. It needs us.”

“That’s good to hear.” Antorwath’s expression became opaque as a wondered casually, “And they’ll be ready for me?”

A smile pulled at Mr White’s lips. “They’ll be ready,” he answered evenly.

“I wish to know my children.”

“And you will.”

“In which case Doctor, our business for now is over. I must return.”

The old scientist watched Antorwath stroll away across dunes.




Dr White opened his eyes and allowed the familiarity of his study to return to him. His chair turned towards the hearth, his eyes re-focussed on the crackling flames. He looked upward onto the mantle and smiled at familiar symbols of his past, arrayed in military neatness.

“Sir?”

He turned his chair toward the speaker.

“Sir, do you require anything?”

“Yes Raphael. It’s time for us leave. Arrange flights.”

“What about Braun?”

“We’re finished with her.”

Raphael’s face hardened. “Of course.”

[center]***[/center]


TBC...