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Part Nine
Wesley Wyndham-Price had never had the displeasure of meeting the former goddess Anya, but he knew who she was. Goddesses, even ones bereft of their powers, had not been a large part of his training, as they were typically encountered in antagonistic form on the average of once a century.
Why hadn’t he been told how thoroughly Sunnydale defied the law of averages? He’d been here just over a month and already he had had to deal with a demon lord long thought dead, a Mayor busily attempting to elevate himself into the pantheon of eternal evil, a vampire from an alternate universe, not to mention such trifles as the first renegade Slayer in over a century.
So, in one sense, a powerless ex-goddess hiring a plethora of Slayer enemies to cause merry havoc shouldn’t have come as a shock at all. For that matter, what was a Slayer doing leaving live foes behind her? He would have to talk to Buffy about that, oh yes he would.
Pushing over the door, he peered inside the building. Inside it was a typical garden-variety empty warehouse, with dust on the floor, and footprints disturbing the dust. Luck. Anya did not notice his entry; little wonder, with but a single light source in the room, and that one portable and close to the ex-goddess.
Wesley pondered the best way to rescue Miss Rosenberg. Some may have seen his desire to save the young woman’s life as out of character, as he tried his utmost to live up to the Watchers’ standard of caring less about the persons he was dealing with than the result. Still, he was not a man to stand idly by and let someone get kidnapped underneath his nose …
… at least, not when she was as powerless as Anya apparently was. Even if she was carrying a gun …
A gun? Maybe a bit more caution was in order after all. Wesley stopped creeping forward and hid himself behind a passel of packing crates, listening carefully to the conversation. Apparently Anya wished Willow to perform again the spell that had summoned her vampiric duplicate, in order to obtain the necklace that would regain her powers for her. How she planned to force Willow to cast it was beyond him; Miss Rosenberg had always struck him as the kind of woman who would not readily buckle under to threats of physical force.
He looked around the room, hoping to find a path, a way that would give him easy access to the powerless goddess, one that would put him in as little danger as possible. But there was none. There was naught but open space all the way around the pair of young women.
So if physical force was out … what option was left?
Wesley thought and thought — then looked up abruptly and saw Anya becoming more and more agitated with Willow’s continued refusals.
Taking a deep breath, and more nervous than he’d ever been before in his life, Wesley said, “I don’t believe your plan will succeed.” Then he slowly walked out into view.
Willow’s and Anya’s heads shot in his direction. Miss Rosenberg’s jaw dropped; why, he didn’t know. “Why the hell not?” Anya asked antagonistically. “It almost worked before — and don’t come any closer.”
“And I’m not saying that it’s impossible,” the Watcher answered, stopping where he was. “Your problem is that Miss Rosenberg is not nearly the level of witch necessary to complete the spell. She has the power and the brains, but lacks the knowledge. Next time you could indeed pull in the necklace from that vanished dimension — but it is equally possible that you could pull in another vampire, or a random artifact.” Wesley was half-lying. It would not pull in random inhabitants or items unless the caster was an utter incompetent, and Willow Rosenberg, while a novice, was scarcely an incompetent. “And,” Wesley continued smoothly, “any more powerful witch, unless utterly devoid of ethics, would know exactly why you needed the necklace and would be quite likely to deny you, even at gunpoint. I’d actually say you’re quite lucky that Miss Rosenberg doesn’t yet have the knowledge to cause you to metamorphosize into a rat, gunpoint or no gunpoint.”
“I’m working on it!” the young witch protested.
“I wasn’t being critical,” Wesley said mildly.
Anya interrupted. “And why are YOU willing to make my life easier? In case you don’t remember, I hate men.”
Wesley considered his next words carefully. “Because you are a goddess with your own place in the world. You are not evil. So, in exchange for your release of Miss Rosenberg … and your guarantee not to disturb Miss Rosenberg or any of her allies ever again — I will find you the spell that will restore you your necklace. What do you say? Have we a deal?”
* * *
“Why, BUFFY,” Drusilla said with a tone of exaggerated sweetness. “And here I’d been thinking I’d miss you on my trip. And look! You brought friends for me to play with after you’re gone. How very, very thoughtful of you.”
“Miss Congeniality, that’s me.” Buffy said. Unfortunately, Drusilla was still between her and Cordy. This not only stopped the cheerleader from running for her life, but stopped Giles from getting a clear shot with the crossbow he was awkwardly carrying. “Hey, here’s a thought. Why don’t you let Cordelia go?”
Drusilla appeared to give the matter some thought. For a second Buffy held out hope — who’d have ever thought that negotiation was the way to deal with a woman who made Hannibal Lecter look like a paragon of sanity and restraint? — but then the vampire said, “No … I think not. Your Miss Chase has been a very bad girl. There’s a gentleman by the name of Gorch who would be perfect to punish her … and he wants to, so much, so very much.” She looked back at Cordy. “He’s not happy with you, you know, not at all.” Cordelia gulped, but said nothing.
Buffy realized that someone must have spilled the beans to Lyle Gorch about Cordy’s bluff back at Homecoming. Of course the cowboy would be embarrassed as hell by that. “You know I can’t let you do that, don’t you.” Behind her, Giles continued to maneuver. Props to the Watcher-man; she knew how much that long run had drained him. Buffy tried to make sure that Drusilla’s attention was focused on her and her alone.
“Oh, Buffy, I know a lot of things. Sometimes they even agree with each other.” Then, almost shyly, the vampire said. “Would you like to know one of the things I know? It came to me in a dream. Well, I think it was a dream, only I was awake at the time. Is that a dream, do you know?”
Then, just to demonstrate that she was paying attention, Drusilla reached out behind her with her left hand and snagged Cordelia’s wrist. The cheerleader had been trying to sneak away. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You really are a naughty girl, aren’t you? Mother will be very cross with you.”
“Just leave my parents out of this, you psychotic looney. If you’re going to kill me, could you just get it over with?” The insults lacked Cordy’s usual panache. Come to think of it, she’d been acting odd all day. Oh, still Cordylike, only, well, not with as much imagination. Drusilla threw her to the ground and turned back to face Buffy. The Slayer had lost all track of Giles and hoped this meant the vampire had done likewise.
Buffy brought the discussion, such as it was, back on track. “What do you know, Drusilla?”
“I know all sorts of things. Sometimes they even agree with each other.” Then she paused. “Or have I said that already? I lose track sometimes, you know …” For half a second Buffy had a horrid thought that Dru was just trying to drive her insane by talking to her. It was a wonder Spike hadn’t gone bonkers. No wonder he was always looking for someone intelligent to talk to. “My Spike has been talking to you. He said you couldn’t hurt me or he would become very cross. So that means I can punish you —” She reached down and grabbed Cordelia by the hair and yanked upwards. “— or your friends, and you can’t do anything to me at all.” She smiled, not at all prettily. “I do so love having the advantage.”
Then Buffy saw Giles off to the side, ready to fire. “You dreamed wrong, Dru. I only agreed not to KILL you.” Then she suddenly kicked at Dru’s arm. The vampiress dropped Cordelia and put on her demon face. Buffy ignored this and continued, “I never agreed not to hurt you,” as she threw another punch.
Showing some brains, Cordy stood up and ran, stopping about twenty feet away. Drusilla said, “Oh, you’re a clever, clever, girl, aren’t you, Buffy? We’ll have to see what we can do about that while we’re punishing you for taking our Angel away.” She focused in on Buffy intently, and her eyes seemed to grow very large. “See my eyes …” the vampire began.
Buffy had been warned about this little power of Dru’s by Giles, though, and was having nothing of it. The second the vampire’s eyes started doing the freaky stuff, Buffy shut her own and lashed out with her foot.
Drusilla blocked the kick and struck back, twice. Buffy blocked one blow, but not the second. “A little help, Cordy?” Buffy said.
“Um … right! Right! Left … a bit up!” Buffy threw a punch that caught Drusilla squarely on the chin. Then she opened her eyes and saw the vampire staggering backwards.
Giles chose that moment to shoot. Cordy saw him and shouted “You’d better aim that accurately!” right as Giles’ finger hit the trigger. If he weren’t so exhausted, he wouldn’t have made the mistake; but he was tired, and his finger twitched, and the bolt that he’d aimed for Drusilla’s right shoulder …
… instead headed straight for her heart.
Spike would NOT be happy about this.
* * *
It took Xander, Angel, and Oz no more than ten minutes after they dropped Joyce Summers off to realize that they had no idea where Willow was, and even with Oz’s mysterious enhanced sense of smell they could drive the town literally all night. Oz’s detection of Willow back in November had been sheer luck.
Whether good or bad luck was still open to debate, Oz thought, though he supposed that he and Willow’s relationship was stronger for it …
He wondered two things. One, who was he trying to convince, and two, why was he dwelling on this now? And the answer was that it was a similar situation, and so maybe on some level he feared a similar result.
Even if Xander was right here next to him in the van.
Anyway. Enough on that. A secret to being cool at all times is to never let the disturbing stuff stick around in your mind too long. And it wasn’t like he planned on giving up looking anytime soon, like ever, at least not as long as she was out there.
“We need a plan,” Angel said anxiously. “We definitely need a plan. All of this randomness … isn’t helping Willow any.”
“I have one,” Xander said. “We go inside every building in town. We wake up everyone and see if it’s Willow. We move on.”
“We need a BETTER plan,” Angel said, though not insultingly.
Then Ethan said from behind them. “What time is it?” No one answered. “I have a good reason, I swear by Janus. What time is it?”
“11:15,” Angel answered, reluctantly.
“Then you have something more important to do than finding Ms Rosenberg,” the sorcerer hissed.
Xander slapped the bound man. Good for him. “There is NOTHING more important than finding Willow,” he hissed.
“I’m sure to your feeble mind there isn’t,” Ethan sneered. “But in the world of reality, there is. I cast a geas on Catherine the Great — to prevent her from going on a rampage, essentially. Otherwise, I would have never have been able to control her. I cast this geas at the time I freed her from her golden imprisonment — and it was the most powerful one I could cast. Even so, it ends at midnight. And then, Catherine Madison — a bitter, vengeful, insane woman — will be free to do what she wants to Sunnydale. A tad more important than rescuing your Ms Rosenberg, wouldn’t you say?”