Warren glanced over his shoulder, checking one last time to make sure that the vampire was still out cold where he'd thrown him through the solid stone wall... Not that it made any difference, of course. Spike couldn't hurt him any more, and neither could the slayer, squirming on the ground like a helpless worm in front of him. He pulled his arm back for the final punch, the one that would smear her brains all over.
"Say good night, bitch," he told her, pausing with his arm pulled back as far as it would go, just like when he had practiced the line in front of the mirror.
In that split second before his fist powered forward, Buffy spotted the leather pouch attached to Warren's belt, two vaguely spherical bulges obvious through the thin animal skin. 'Smash his orbs,' Jonathan had told her. She reached up from her prone position and ripped the pouch from her adversary's belt, grinding it into the ground. The air around the nerd swirled with pinkish violet energy and a matching glow lit Warren's eyes, almost as if little elves had scooped out his brain and put in a couple of tinted light bulbs behind his eyeballs, and then, as the aura around him dissipated, those little elves turned off the power.
Buffy flipped to her feet, looking down on Warren, who now stood doubled over, propping himself up with a hand on his knee. "Good night, bitch," she quipped, as she threw her body into a spin kick that caught Warren in the chest, sending him flying backward. This time he landed hard, struggling to get back to his feet again and blinking back tears of frustrated humiliation as she strolled over to close the distance between them again.
"You're nothing but a sad little boy,
Warren," the slayer told him, making no attempt to disguise her contempt. "But it's time to grow up...
and pay for what you've done."
"Get away from me!" Warren gibbered in a mixture of panic and megalomania. He had planned everything so carefully and this wasn't how it was meant to end. He ripped off his jacket, revealing some sort of shoulder harness underneath it. "I swear to god I'm gonna take you
down. You piece of..." Warren panted, hitting a switch attached to the harness. Leaving behind nothing but a trail of vapour and enough light to burn after-images onto Buffy's retinas, the would-be armoured-car robber rose off into the night sky.
Buffy's lips twisted into a scowl of disbelief. "Oh come on."
"Well played, Slayer!" announced the blond one, reminding her that even if Warren had evaded capture she still had two more to catch. He ripped off his jacket to reveal a second rocket-pack, and Jonathan nearly exploded in his anger and frustration.
"Why didn't I get one of those?" he demanded.
Andrew carried on as if Jonathan wasn't even there. "This round to you. But the game is
far from over." He hit the ignition switch on his pack, and just like Warren's, the unit surged to flaming life, thrusting him upward. Unlike his role model, he flew straight into the overhanging roof of the amusement park's ticket office. As well as knocking him unconscious, the impact must have damaged something on the rocket-pack and he tumbled back to earth, landing with a tremendous clatter as the propulsion system sputtered its last breath and went out.
Too late for Warren, the first whoops of approaching police sirens carried on the evening breeze. Buffy rolled her eyes and waited for them to get here and take Andrew and Jonathan off her hands so that she could go and dig Spike out of the pile of rubble that had once been the park's outer wall.
Joyce was preparing the ingredients for her Italian chicken casserole when the phone rang. Picking it up, she gave the number and waited to see who was calling.
Her eyes flicked immediately to Spike, where he sat on the counter in the darkest corner of the kitchen. "Actually, you can speak to him yourself. He's right here," she said, passing the receiver to the vampire.
"'Lo?" Spike looked puzzled, but the look soon turned to one of amazement. "You what? That was what the fifty I gave you the other week was meant to be for!"
His lips thinned into a bitter line, his eyes hardening. "Alright, you'll get your three hundred," he grudgingly conceded. After another brief pause the vampire retorted, "You think it's urgent enough to be worth three hundred bucks you can bloody well tell me here and now. No pissin' about or there is no deal."
If anything the vampire's face got darker still before he put the phone down. "Forget dinner, pet," he told the slayer's mother.
Spike called the Doublemeat Palace while Joyce hurriedly packed for her and Dawn. He just hoped that Buffy wouldn't take the news too badly when her manageress informed her of her grandmother's imminent demise. Then, he called the numbers Joyce had written down for Tara and for The Magic Box. Seeing how Tara and The Red Witch were back together, Spike then regarded his duty as done. It was up to Tara to tell Red, who could then deal with the drunken pillock. Anya would tell Rupert, and after that it was every man for themselves.
Anya pulled down the shutters on The Magic Box, even turning away a customer in her urgency to get everything secured. She had only had her Rupert for a little over a month and she wasn't about to take any chances on losing him any time soon. Okay, so, in theory, Warren was meant to go back to Spike's pawn shop guy once the ten day waiting period was up and pick up the handgun, but Anya thought it more likely that he was already trying other pawn shops or dubious bars, and, knowing what she did about human nature, she was pretty certain he'd find someone else who'd be just as willing to forget about the waiting period as Spike's guy would have been if the vampire hadn't warned him to be on the look out for Warren and the others... and if Spike hadn't ended up owing the guy as much for the heads up as Warren would have paid him for the gun. Just as she turned the key in the final lock, Giles pulled up outside the shop.
Shooing Patches and Randy ahead of her, Anya climbed into the passenger side, and, even rushed as she was, she took the time to press a kiss to Giles' cheek.
"What did you tell your assistant?" she asked.
"That your mother had been injured in a road traffic accident and that we had to go to Indiana."
"South-eastern Indiana," Anya reminded him.
Giles flushed, looking mildly embarrassed. "I don't know. He asked me which town and the only thing I could think of was that damn song."
It took Anya a few seconds to realise which song Giles meant, but when she did she rolled her eyes heavenward. "Gary's in north-western Indiana. You could at least have stuck with the same story I told the council. Well, I suppose now we have to go to Gary..."
Giles gave his girlfriend a bemused look. "I was rather thinking we might have a weekend in San Francisco or something," he suggested.
"Don't be silly, dear. We have to go to Gary now, otherwise when it turns out that the museum's tea lady is originally from there and speaks to her mother every weekend and she asks you about where you stayed, and what the weather was like, everyone will know you lied so we could go away for a long weekend."
"The museum doesn't have a tea lady. It has one of those god-awful vending machines, and I didn't lie so we could go away for a long weekend. I lied because some stupid idiot with a gun is quite possibly out to kill us all and the police seem completely incapable of doing anything to stop him."
"Well, we know that, Giles, but you haven't even worked there a week and everyone at the museum is still going to think it's just an excuse for a dirty weekend."
Xander managed to grab a parking spot at the back of Tara's dorms. Instead of getting out he pressed down on the horn until a window a couple of floors up and ten yards to the left pushed open and Willow's head appeared. "Five minutes," she shouted.
The witch disappeared back into the room and closed the window, scanning the room for any last minute packing. She grabbed some pens and a notebook from Tara's desk, her laptop from the bedside table and a sweater from the armchair, sliding them all willy nilly into a backpack that looked so full that she might break if she tried to pick it up. After she'd topped this lot off with an armful of toiletries from the bathroom, she had another look around and frantically pulled out the drawer where Tara kept all her crystals and other magic stuff. She grabbed a bundle wrapped in white silk about the size of a thick but compact paperback, and scooped up as many of the different stones as she could, squashing these into the top of the bag and finally fastening it up tight.
Tara looked on all this with amusement, and picked up her normal college book bag and a small shoulder bag that held two clean blouses, a spare pair of jeans and multiple changes of underwear. "Ready now, honey?" she asked.
"Candles," Willow replied. "We should take candles... and the safety lighter, 'cause not safe lighting candles without the safety lighter."
"We can buy candles if we need them, sweetie," Tara assured her. "And I'm sure we can get by with matches for a day or two. Xander's waiting... Go on. I'll lock up."
"But what if we've forgotten something really important?" the redhead countered.
Tara closed the gap between them and cupped the side of Willow's face in her hand. She leaned in for a soft, tender kiss. "We have you. We have me. And, waiting downstairs, we have Xander. We haven't forgotten anything important."
Spike threw his half-smoked cigarette down onto the boards of the porch and used his foot to grind it into so many shreds of tobacco and paper before he headed back into the kitchen and through to the front hall via the living room. "You about ready to go when the slayer gets here, Joyce?" he shouted, leaning slightly on the bottom of the banister.
Joyce appeared at the top of the stairs. "Almost," she replied. "Dawn's picking some CDs for the journey, but we've got the essentials."
Spike bounded up the stairs. "Where's the bags, then? Might as well get them in the car."
Joyce reached out and placed a hand on his arm. "You won't change your mind?" she asked. "I don't know where we're going yet, but wherever it is you'd be welcome to join us."
Spike shook his head. "Someone has to play bait, otherwise the little git'll just sit tight wherever he's been hiding up until now and wait for you all to come back... in which case we've achieved precisely nothing. And I have to take Big Tony his cash, once I pry the watcher's wallet open, though I'll probably wait till after I don't get shot for that." He gave a grin, his eyes alight with mischief. "Besides, Demon Bint asked me to house-sit, look after the mutts... Have to admit I'm looking forward to a weekend alone with hot running water, a halfway decent record collection an' Rupert's single malt."
Joyce frowned, but then she gave his arm a gentle squeeze before letting it go. "Be careful, Spike. I know you're not as vulnerable as some of us, but from what I've heard about this boy, Warren, I wouldn't put it past him to keep shooting until you're unconscious and pull a stake when you can't defend yourself."
"Wouldn't surprise me either, Joyce, but I've managed to stay in one piece so far," Spike replied. His gaze travelled to the suitcases on the landing at the top of the stairs, and he made as if gathering them all up demanded his full attention before he continued. "Pretty certain it won't be a geek like Warren that finishes me off."
"Mo-o-om!" The slayer's cry was accompanied by the crash of the house's front door being thrown wide. "Mom?"
Dawn scurried downstairs, zipping up a padded CD case as she came, and Joyce came through from the kitchen with Spike at her shoulder.
"What the heck's going on?" the slayer demanded.
Joyce gave a sigh. She had a feeling that she already knew how this was going to end. "Why don't I explain while you pack some things?"
Buffy gave her mom an exasperated look. "Slayers don't run," she told Joyce, resting a fist on each hip. "Why don't you just tell me what's going on?"
"Well, slayers bloody should run," Spike interrupted. "Remember Big Tony?" he asked, carrying on in answer to Buffy's nod. "Seems like the head nerd turned up looking to buy a gun. Tony figured he'd make more from the information than he'd make on the sale, so he skipped his normal spiel about how honest the guy looked and how he'd waive the waiting period, but odds are he's already found somebody else as ain't so particular."
"I can't go!" Buffy protested.
"Tell me something, slayer. That guy turn into a demon some time when no one was looking?"
"No," Buffy conceded, "but the cops can't handle him."
"He's not a demon," Spike insisted. "He's not your problem. And he's not about to stand there with a loaded gun and wait for you to get close enough to kick him. Stop worryin' your mom, get your stuff and let her an' Dawn get out of here."
"And what are you going to do?" she demanded.
Spike looked vaguely uncomfortable. "I, well— What difference does that make?"
Joyce interrupted. "Once all the others are safely out of town, Spike plans to lure him out."
"The others?" Buffy asked.
Spike shrugged. "Figured with all the cameras they had everywhere he's got a pretty good handle on everyone's normal routine, an' if he's not too pissed off to think straight he's cagey enough to come at you through them. Seemed like under the circumstances it was best to play safe."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Mom, you and Dawn better get moving. Einstein's made a bit of a miscalculation. So far as we know they never bothered watching Spike." She gave an apologetic grimace, knowing even The Trio had failed to regard Spike as part of the team. "You can't lure them out of hiding because you're not a target, Spike. You're the back up. I'm the bait."
The arguments and then the goodbyes lasted for fifteen minutes but once Buffy made her point there was only one possible outcome.
Anya reluctantly closed the front door despite the sound of paws scrabbling against it. Giles carried their bags to the car while Anya knocked on the door of the nearest apartment, leaving her spare keys with the woman who lived there for 'Giles' nephew' to pick up.
She took a moment to memorise how the courtyard looked in the late afternoon sun. She expected to be back here within a few days, but she wanted to have everything neatly organised and labelled in her memory under the heading 'My First Home With Giles' in case anything went wrong. She wanted those memories of this as a happy place, not as the place of mourning that it might become.
"So, where do we start looking?" Buffy asked as she and Spike quit Revello as soon as dusk fell.
"We don't," Spike replied, his blunt tone making it clear that he still hadn't forgiven Buffy for staying. "We just feed the mutts, take 'em out for half an hour and then we do exactly what we'd normally do and let him find us."
Buffy gave a huge sigh. "I'm here. I'm staying. Will you get over it? Or should I just start calling you Angel?"
"Hoi!" the platinum blond spat out, but then he hunched his shoulders, dug his hands even deeper into his pockets and lengthened his stride.
Buffy could have sworn that one would have snapped him out of his funk but it seemed he was more pissed at her than she'd imagined.
"Well, I guess I could swing by The Magic Box while you go play with the puppies," Buffy suggested, keen to escape the tense atmosphere.
At this Spike spun on his heel, grabbed a handful of Buffy's fluffy Angora sweater sleeve and proceeded to drag her behind him. "I'm the back up. Remember?"
"I still think this is excessive," Giles insisted as he boarded the evening flight from LAX to Chicago.
"Well, it's not my fault you didn't tell them the truth," Anya said.
"Oh yes," Giles replied sarcastically. "Please excuse me. I'm sorry but I have to get out of town in case I'm attacked by a psychotic gunman. That would go down well."
"It sounds perfectly sensible to me... and then we could have gone to San Francisco."
"Whoa!" Willow exclaimed as she climbed out of the car and rested one elbow on top of the car door and one on its roof to take in the structure in front of her. "When you said your boss had some cabin that he built himself in the woods by Lake Tahoe, I was thinking more Grizzly Adams."
Tara got out the back and came to stand behind her lover, wrapping her arms around Willow's waist.
Xander grinned. "Pretty spiffy, huh? You've got to remember that before he got stuck in an office he used to be a carpenter. In fact, I think half the reason for doing this was that he got stuck in an office."
"Okayyy," Willow conceded, still looking shocked at the two storey building with its porch-sized upper balcony that she bet would have quite a view of the lake, albeit from a distance of maybe quarter of a mile.
Tara smiled. "I think what Willow means is more 'How come he's prepared to loan you and your student friends his swanky cabin?' than 'How come it's so nice?' What did you tell him?"
Xander shrugged. "The truth..."
Willow's eyes bulged slightly.
"Well, I kinda skipped the invisibility rays and stuff. That's the big difference about having a bunch of geeks as our arch-nemeses as opposed to a hell-god or a monster snake. The geeks get all over the local news."
Willow tilted her head slightly and gave a 'Guess so' sort of frown.
"I just told him that when I was at The Bronze I had a run in with the guys who tried to rob the armoured car but they got away, so I tipped Buffy off about their plans and she caught two of them and now we'd heard that the one who escaped was armed and after us both, so I wanted to take the vacation time I was owed and me and some friends were going to get out of town for a few days and give the police a chance to track him down.
He asked me if we had anywhere in mind to go and when I said we'd probably just hit the road and stick to cheap motels he offered me this place. I just have to leave it neat and tidy and make sure there's plenty of fuel for the generator when we go." The carpenter gave both girls a smug grin and opened up the Ford's trunk. "Besides, you may be home-wrecking students but I'm his right-hand man."
"Well," said Tara. "I guess it's a version of the truth."
Xander tried to quell his slight feeling of excitement as he dried the last of the dinner dishes, reminding himself that even if this wasn't something he was normally part of, for the girls it was no big deal and if he didn't want to look like a total dork he should play it cool. He pulled out a chair at the head of the candlelit table and sat down.
The white silk scarf that Tara's tarot deck had been wrapped in lay at the table's far end and the two witches faced each other across the table's centre. Willow shuffled the cards with an awkwardness that was due to both the fact that the deck seemed too big for her hands, around twice the size of a deck of playing cards, or so Xander thought, and the way the cards seemed worn at the edges. Underneath her breath, she repeated the phrase, "What would have happened if we had stayed in Sunnydale?" over and over. Finally, she set the deck down on the table, cut it abut a quarter of the way down, moved these cards to the bottom and then slid the deck over toward Tara.
Tara gave a smile and placed her hand over Willow's for a second before she pulled the cards over to sit by her left elbow. The blonde turned her attention to him. "Normally, if it was just Willow and me, because she knows what most of the cards and their positions could mean, I'd lay all the cards out first and then see what called to me, but I think it'll be easier for you to follow if I explain each one as I lay them out, but try to remember that the whole is more than the sum of its parts... and remember there are always different ways to interpret any one reading."
Xander was beginning to get the feeling that this was the mystic's equivalent of the small print and Tara looked very earnest as she explained what he had thought of as a bit of fun.
"Cards can mean different things depending on how they interact with others and I tend to work more from the intuitive feelings that I get from the cards than the text book definitions, but with this deck there's not normally a huge difference." She ran her fingertips over the back of the deck with its tawny-shaded Celtic designs. "The positions of the cards can also mean more than one thing. Nothing is set in stone. Okay?"
Xander nodded and Tara turned over the first card, placing it at the centre of the table.
"A card in this position represents the heart of the matter, the present situation or the primary factor affecting the question." She drew his attention to the fair-haired figure at the left edge of the card. "The woman here is reaching out to her lover who is going off to war. It might mean something as simple as a temporary parting, but..." Tara shrugged. "We'll see what the other cards say."
She turned over the next card in the deck, placing it over the first one at right angles. "This card can either indicate a factor that opposes the first card, or it can be one that reinforces its significance. It could indicate a secondary factor or it could be a factor that may indicate a change."
Xander reached out toward the card. "Those are The Fates. Daughter, mother, crone. One of them spins the thread, one measures and one cuts. One length of thread for each human life."
Willow raised an eyebrow in surprise at Xander's outburst.
"Hey! I read stuff that isn't comic books," he protested, but Willow continued to look unconvinced. "Okay, they were in Sandman," Xander finally admitted, "but I'm right, yeah?"
Tara nodded. "It's the way the artist chose to represent the wheel of fortune. It can mean seeing destiny at work, being at a turning point, being swept up by an atmosphere of change, but putting it together with the last card, I can't help thinking that maybe the parting that it indicated would have been a permanent one."
Xander shivered despite the log fire that they'd built more to look pretty than because they needed the warmth.
Tara lifted the next card from the deck, looking at it before she set it down under the first two. The card showed a dragon sleeping atop a huge rock. The rock's base was surrounded by a sea of gold coins, into which a pair of swords had been pushed. In the foreground was a young man who seemed to be trying to sneak away with a bundle of stolen swords under his arm. "The position indicates an unknown factor, an unconscious influence, or I'd say more likely in this case the root cause."
"Warren," Xander answered flatly. The figure was blonde rather than dark-haired, but his furtive stance and the fact that he was up to no good were enough to convince Xander that there was only one interpretation... and more than that he couldn't help thinking that a millisecond after the drawing had been finished, the dragon had woken up.
Tara didn't bother to contradict him. She simply pointed at the blank space to the left of the first cards she set down. "The past, a factor whose influence is waning, or maybe a trait that we should try to give up." She lifted the next card and set it down. Another fair-haired woman sat on a deserted beach. In her hand she held a chalice of gold, but around her were scattered another three cups. The woman's companions had abandoned her, and her whole posture seemed to scream of loneliness.
Tara gave Willow a smile, her eyes agleam with wicked thoughts that made Xander wish that tarot readings weren't the only thing he could talk the two women into sharing. "I think we're working on that one already," the blonde said, her gaze never leaving Willow's face.
Xander gave a gentle cough to cover his embarrassment and Tara pointed to the gap at the top of the wheel she had created.
"This one's kind of funny," she said. "It could refer to the questioner's attitude, or to a conscious influence. It could mean a goal or purpose, or it might indicate an alternate future... and since we're asking about what would have happened, I think that might be the most likely but maybe I should see what it is before I make a definite commitment."
She reached over and picked up the next card. To Xander she seemed as calm as ever, but Willow caught the widening of her eyes, and the brief look of concern her lover sent her way as she turned the card far enough over to see the image depicted on it.
Xander didn't need to be told that the card didn't augur well. On top of a hill sat something that looked pretty much like the halls of the Rohirrim. The sky above it was black, not the indigo of night, but the sort of black that made you think the sun would never shine again. In the distance there was the silhouette of another structure, and smoke rose from this in dense grey clouds, but most of all Xander's attention was drawn to the bright colours of a rainbow that had once arced over the scene, until some unidentifiable force had shattered it into a multitude of pieces that were in the process of tumbling to the ground.
"Ragnarok," Tara supplied. "The moment where the bridge between the humans and the gods was broken for good. It can be a good thing. It can signify a revelation."
"Ya think?" Xander asked. "'Cause I look at that and I think stinky big apocalypse."
Tara drew the next card, placing it to the right of centre.
Willow grinned. "The lovers, that's good, right? And it's in the future..." Something about Tara's expression must have made her think twice though and the smile faded from her lips.
"The future, or an approaching influence," Tara confirmed, "but look at Freya, she's walking with Odin, but see how she keeps looking back at the dwarf. She has her lover, but still she's thinking of sleeping with the dwarf to get the necklace he has made for her. She has love but she can't help being drawn to other things."
Despite her promise to Xander, Tara drew the next four cards in rapid succession, placing them in a vertical line to the right of the ones she had already laid down, working upward. A black-haired woman, alone but resplendent in what Xander first thought was a dark hall until he spotted a small area of grass, a red draped throne behind her. There was a coldness to her expression as if, if she had ever known what it was to be human, she had ascended above such things, the high priestess according to the description at the bottom. After that came the princess of wands, a young girl dressed in red, lost in the darkness, whose flaming torch might unwittingly fire the world. The High Priest, a mature figure, seated in some sort of chariot that was pulled by two warriors. The last card made Xander's gaze fly to Willow's face, and he found a horror there to match his own. In the forefront of the card nine swords stood where they had been thrust into the grassy earth, one of them had snapped in two, its hilt lying on the ground. On a boulder just behind them a naked woman sat in a depiction that could only mean complete despair, a naked woman with red-brown hair.
Tara swallowed deeply before she continued. This time she didn't bother to offer alternatives but gave only the meaning her intuition told her to be correct. Placing her index finger on the high priestess card she announced, "The questioner as she sees herself." She moved up one. "The questioner as others see her." Her implication was clear. Willow thought her power put her in a league of her own, that she was in control, that it was her lot to determine the fate of lesser mortals, but others saw her as a lost little girl, a danger to herself and others. Moving onto the third card, her voice softened slightly. "Guidance, a factor which has been overlooked or a key factor. Probably Giles..."
Moments ticked by before Xander dared break the tense silence. "And the last one?"
Tara looked at Willow across the table and Xander suddenly wished that maybe he'd taken a walk down by the lake instead of joining in the mystic fun. "The final outcome. Despair, hopelessness, guilt, regrets over past actions."
Only the fact that there was a very clear and fairly close set of headlights visible in the hire car's rear view mirror stopped Giles from slamming on the brakes when he saw the sign at the side of the freeway.
"Anya, tell me something..." he suggested as he looked for a suitable turning. "Is this the first time you've been to Gary?"
Anya lowered her magazine and gave him a beaming smile, glad she could help Giles with her local knowledge. "Oh, no, I've been here lots of times back in the day. It's a very productive place for a vengeance demon. What do you want to know?"
Giles bit down on his lip for a count of two before he replied, but even he would have admitted that it probably did little to curb the acidity in his tone. "Why don't we start with why the 'Welcome to Gary' sign also had 'Murder Capital of the World' spray painted on the bottom?"
"Well, it did have the highest rate of murders per capita for several years in a row... for any city with a population over one hundred thousand that is, otherwise those small town spree killings just completely mess things up. I think it was about nine times the national average at one point. I'm not sure if the title is current or not. I haven't kept up on those sort of statistics for a while."
The car took a sudden swerve to the right as Giles noticed the exit he'd been waiting for.
"Giles, where are you going? Our hotel's much nearer the centre of town."
"Right, right, right and then left."
Anya frowned for a second and drew a squared off 'p' shape in the air with one finger. "But that would take us back the way we came," she protested.
"Your mother just suffered from complications and was transferred to a hospital in Chicago." He cast an irritated glance left and right, trying to make the turn before the car was stationary for long enough to attract unwanted attention. "I can't believe that in order to get away from a deranged gunman, your idea of a plan is to book a trip to a city where anyone other than us who happens to be out after dark seems to have a gun."
Anya rolled her eyes. "Don't be melodramatic, Giles. None of those three scantily clad females appear to be armed... and it was you who told everyone we were coming to Gary."
"No, dear," Giles replied as he made the final turn. "They have to be more subtle than that and keep them in their handbags to avoid scaring their customers. 'My home sweet home', indeed. Whoever made that film ought to be sued for misrepresentation."
"Well, the character did say that he was in Gary in 1905, whereas the town wasn't actually founded by the owners of the steel mill until 1906, but I always took that as a sort of in joke... You did realise that the film is actually set in River City, Iowa, didn't you? Not here? You weren't expecting parks with lakes and leafy suburbia, were you?"
As the car left the city limits and accelerated to well over the speed limit, a stony silence was her only reply. Anya rightly chose to interpret this as reluctance on Giles' part to admit his ignorance.
Xander poured the last of the bottle of wine into his glass. "You don't really mean that, do you?" he asked. "I mean you don't really believe that you would have died if we'd stayed? And..." He cast a guilty look at Willow as if it were a betrayal to even consider the possibility that the witch might have even momentarily turned to the dark side.
"Does it matter what would have happened?" Tara responded but her gentle words were aimed at Willow.
The redhead cradled her wine glass in both hands and sipped at it every few seconds.
"We'll never know," Tara tried to reassure her lover. "Some readings, if we wait we can see the truth of it unfold. Others we may never know. The cards are a tool of intuition, and that's all. A reading is as good as the intuition of the person making it and I don't claim to be infallible... but, honey, please when we get back will you talk to Giles? It looks as if maybe there's some way he can help you with your magic that I can't."
Willow nodded. So far as she was concerned, it didn't matter that Tara chose to downplay her abilities. It might comfort Xander to believe that what the blonde had read was just some huge mystical glitch, but she had seen Tara do this time and time again, and, even if things didn't always work out exactly as Tara saw them, there was almost always a core of truth to her readings.
Tara was right when she said that Willow was attracted to magic and to the power it offered her. Willow had to fight that lure every day and the only thing that made the struggle worthwhile was that it had brought Tara back to her. She found it all too easy to believe that if Tara was taken from her that her first instinct would be to lash out, not only at the person responsible, but at the world in general for letting it happen.
Maybe, by coming here they had cheated fate. Maybe... Willow barely dared hope that she might get to keep Tara if The Fates had her in their sights. One thing she knew was that, even if Tara lived, unless they could see eye to eye about her magic, she would eventually lose her again. Magic was good. Power and influence were even better but she had found out the hard way that neither of them was a substitute for love. If talking with Giles was what had to be done, then she would just have to swallow her pride and do it.
"You really do believe it, don't you?" Xander asked, looking from one solemn face to the other.
Willow managed a strained smile and another nod, before she sipped again at the large glass of wine that was already half-empty.
A chilling thought passed through Xander's brain and fell off his tongue in the same instant. "What if leaving hasn't made things better? What if somehow we've made it worse? Buffy was going to leave, right? She was going with Joyce and Dawn? Right? Right?"
"That was the plan," Tara confirmed, but even she sounded doubtful.
Xander pushed to his feet, looking back and forward from one girl to the other, obviously torn between the desire to rush back in case his friend needed help, even if realistically there was very little he could do against an opponent with a gun, and the possibility that doing so might cause the very disaster he was trying to avert. Finally, his eyes alighted on the deck of cards that were once more wrapped in their silk scarf.
"Do it again," he commanded, pushing the deck back toward Tara. "Find out what the deal is with Buffy. You've got to do it again."
This time Xander shuffled and Tara laid out the full spread without comment. His first impression as he looked at all the cards was that this time they were much lighter. Sure, there were a couple of black backgrounds in there but somehow just looking at them, he began to think that they might have done the right thing, at least until Tara began to explain.
Tara temporarily slid the second card she had laid down a few inches to allow Xander and Willow to clearly see the five of swords underneath. "The first card shows a group of men, armed and ready for battle. In the distance behind them we can see the smoke from burning towns or villages. Normally, this might mean conflict or petty hassles. It can also indicate self-interest, the lives destroyed by their actions mean nothing to them if they make a profit, but I think it's safe to assume in this case we can take it as a literal warning. I don't think Buffy left town or, if she has, Warren has managed to track her down."
She slid the second card back up, her fingers hovering over it as if she might somehow absorb a clue to its import. "The hanged man can mean many things. It's hard to tell through the beard, but traditionally he's drawn to look content, as if he's come to terms with his fate. It can be about acceptance, about being willing to accept whatever might happen. It can signify the end of a struggle. It could indicate a total change of perspective, or new priorities, everything being turned upside down. It can be about sacrifice, about putting the needs of others before your own, giving over your life to a higher cause. Odin sacrificed himself for knowledge. He allowed himself to be hung so that he could obtain the secret of the runes." She gently stroked the card's surface. "Sacrifice... A willing sacrifice," she whispered.
"What sort of sacrifice are we talking here?" Xander asked. "Hasn't she sacrificed enough already?"
In answer, Tara pointed to the rightmost card in the circle, and then to the last two cards she had lain out. "The sacrifice might not be hers to make."
Buffy walked through Shady Hill Cemetery, doing her best to look as if she didn't have a care in the world other than looking for vampires.
Spike rather reluctantly paralleled her path, keeping to the shadow cast by the graveyard's outer wall. He understood the logic of her insistence that she should appear to be alone. The more vulnerable the bait looks, the more effective it is. That didn't mean that he wasn't so keyed up that he'd likely throw himself on top of the slayer if a cat so much stepped on a stray twig near them, or that he wasn't going to have serious words with her about walking with her back to the prevailing wind. Even a damn fledge knows that if you're expecting trouble you try to make sure you walk into the wind. That way you've at least got a chance of catching the scent of the git who's waiting to ambush you.
When the first shot came he heard it before he saw it. He was too late, just like on the tower, too late, too slow. Too worthless all over again... He saw the hole in her sweater, right between her breasts as he pulled her into his arms, offering up his back to protect her from further damage. Shot after shot, each one climbing higher as Warren failed to control the recoil. The first was in the centre of his back. The second broke a collar bone before it came to rest. The third entered at the base of the skull. The fourth nicked his ear. The fifth went completely wild, but by that point it didn't really matter as his knees gave way and they both crumpled to the ground.
"Well, if it's not hers, then who is it? There isn't anyone else. At least there shouldn't be. I mean—"
Surprisingly, it was Willow who reached out and placed a hand on Xander's forearm. "Let her tell it in her own time," she gently insisted.
Tara gave an appreciative smile. "There was one other person who never intended to leave. Spike always intended to find Warren." She gestured to the card below the central pair. In the forefront was a man leaning on a spear, as if waiting, several others arrayed behind him in supporting positions. "This card could refer to him as much as to Buffy, when it comes to dealing with Warren, as well as with each other. It indicates a willingness to defend what's yours. Buffy regards Sunnydale as her territory, she won't step back and allow Warren to claim what she regards as hers or let Spike persuade her to leave. By the same token, Spike wouldn't let Warren harm Buffy, not if there was anything at all that he could do to prevent it. They're both too stubborn to give ground and that's at the heart of whatever is happening."
Tara took the first tentative sip at her wine glass, not because she wanted the alcohol - she didn't think readings and insobriety mixed, which was why she'd inisisted Xander shuffle the deck rather than Willow - but because her mouth was getting dry from talking.
"This one represents the past," she continued, indicating the leftmost card. "A trait that needs to be relinquished maybe." The card, the princess of swords, was predominately sky blue, a young woman, right arm extended upward, the sword in that hand and her left arm parallel to each other and at right angles to her body. She was alone on a hilltop with an empty plain extending to the horizon behind her. "She stands strong, but isolated. It's a court card which makes it especially significant and it's an air element. Buffy's birthday places her on the cusp between earth and air and, in the time I've known her, air has nearly always been the element to win out." The young witch shrugged when Xander opened his mouth as if to protest. "I'm guessing before Angel she was different, but she's always seemed closed off emotionally. Riley claimed that was what drove him to look elsewhere for the connection he wasn't getting with her. She's different with you two and Giles because you all got through before the highest walls went up, but she doesn't let new people in easily, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. She's been hurt and she's afraid to let her heart take over from her head, but maybe the time has come for her to move on."
Xander's expression was guarded. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Buffy happy. He did. He really did and now that things with Anya had gone so far south he felt like his next door neighbours were penguins, it... Well, would it really have been so wrong to hope that maybe... Somehow, he didn't think that that was where Tara was going with this, though. It sounded as if she was heading for a huge 'Buffy 'n' Spike 4eva' and that was a mystic fantasy world he did not want to visit.
Willow, on the other hand, looked pensive, though whether it was the current reading that was the cause for deep thought or the previous one was anyone's guess.
Tara turned her attention to the topmost card in the cross. Justice was depicted as a young man sitting in a pose that might have been reminiscent of Rodin's the thinker if not for the double-headed axe that he held, almost like a staff, in his left hand.
Tara gave an amused smirk. "Well, let's ignore the white hair and the fact he's an axe-carrying left-hander for now and concentrate on the position. Again we're talking about attitudes and beliefs, a conscious influence or a goal. As for the card itself, there's the obvious meaning... Fairness, impartiality, wanting to do what is right. That's only part of it, though. There's a willingness to accept responsibility for old harms, to acknowledge the truth of things and do whatever needs to be done. It can be about understanding cause and effect, acknowledging how your actions have led to your current position. It can also be about weighing your choices, about taking measure of your situation and choosing your course accordingly."
Xander rubbed at his cheeks with both hands, while inside his head a Buffy so perky she reminded him of wannabe-cheerleader-Buffy bounced up to him with a toothpaste commercial grin and a huge lapel badge emblazoned with the words 'Choose Spike'. With a groan, he gave up on the rubbing and let his head drop until it hit the table.
Warren swaggered toward the heap of dead and dying flesh. He flicked the safety on the automatic pistol and tried to tuck it back into his waistband, struggling slightly until, in exasperation, he paused to pull off the laser sight, putting it into a coat pocket. Then, he managed to push the barrel of the gun down the front of his pants.
"You know, I thought it'd be harder?" he mused aloud just in case either of his victims might still be conscious enough to hear, reaching into an inside pocket and pulling out a stake. "But when it comes right down to it, the slayer's just a girl. A bullet through the heart makes her just as dead as anyone else, and I lined up that little red dot just right. I did plan to go for two shots to the body and a third to the head." He switched briefly to an accent that might have been meant to sound vaguely Antipodean. "'A head shot's the only true stopper', you know... Maybe I still will, once I get rid of your vampire bodyguard."
Another few steps and he was standing alongside Spike's torso. He bent over, drawing a bead on the vampire's back... Finally, he raised his arm for the strike and in that instant, an arm reached out from the tangle of limbs and jerked his ankles out from under him, sending him tumbling backwards.
Spike's body went flying off to the other side, and the slayer flipped to her feet.
Still on the ground, Warren dropped the stake and tried to tug the pistol free, even as he protested. "B-but you can't! I shot you!" His eyes fixed on the hole in Buffy's sweater, the frayed, but bloodless hole.
Buffy planted a cuban heel on hand and gun alike and ground down until the geek pulled his hand away in pain. Grabbing the pistol grip she wrenched it free and threw it in the direction of a mausoleum about twenty yards away. It landed on the roof with a scrape of metal on stone and she turned her attention back to Warren, who was now curled on his side in a foetal position with both hands clutching the area between his legs that had apparently suffered when Buffy had tugged the weapon away from him. "I shot you," he moaned.
Buffy kicked him in the back, rolling him over onto his front and pulled his right arm up behind his back, high enough that if he struggled too hard there was a risk of dislocating his shoulder until, with her other hand, she pulled a set of handcuffs from the back pocket of her jeans. Once she had secured his right wrist, she used the armlock to march him over to where a grave was marked with a six-foot tall Celtic cross, positioned him with his back against it and pulled both his arms around the bottom leg of the cross until she could snap the second cuff into place.
"Word to the wise," she threw over her shoulder as she strode off to tend to Spike. "If you're going to kill someone, then kill them. Don't telegraph your blows and don't stand around and boast about something you haven't done yet."
"But I shot you!" the nerd protested, yet again, as if his mind could not let go of this supposedly irrefutable fact.
Sirens sounded as Buffy sank to her knees and lifted Spike's head into her lap, examining the lump that was forming where it had struck one of the headstones when she kicked him away. She gave a grimace at the sight of it and ran soothing fingers over the area around it, even though the vampire showed no sign of consciousness.
"Next time pick on someone whose boyfriends say it with flowers rather than Kevlar," she shouted just loud enough to make herself heard over the screech of tyres as two police cars and an ambulance slewed to a halt.
"Xan-der," Tara reprimanded him, her teasing smile taking the edge off of her exasperation. "It's good. Honestly." She nudged gently at his arms until he sat back up. "The star in her future..." She pointed at the last card in the circle. "Well, it's about regaining hope and having faith in the future. It's about inner strength, getting an answer to something that's been of concern. It's about generosity of spirit and being willing to open your heart, about holding nothing back, and being happy with that. It's about peace of mind and knowing you've done the right thing."
She pointed to the next image in the sequence, in which Odin restrained one of his wolves, tying him up with a rope. "Buffy as she has the potential to become. Strong but patient, accepting the people around her for who they are and understanding when they aren't perfect. It's about emotional strength more than physical strength, about finding it inside herself to be more tolerant and temper force with kindness."
The next image up showed an array of cups set out on the table in what appeared to be an otherwise empty room. Through the open doorway we can see a cloaked figure stepping out into the world beyond. "Another's expectations, maybe what Spike is hoping for, or maybe how Buffy is seen by the world in general. I know that I'd be happy to see her really move on. She deserves to be happy and I don't think she will be until she learns to be more open in her relationships."
"The Prince of Wands could act as a guide, or be a key factor or an unresolved factor or given the way things stand between those two all three at once."
"And this is Spike again?" Xander asked though what intuition he had said he didn't need to. Darkness as a background, fire in the foreground and another blonde, this time with a spear, relaxed but ready to fight if he had to.
Tara gave a mini-sigh and a slight shake of her head. "Creative, enthusiastic, confident, courageous. Sound like anyone you know?" she asked and raised an eyebrow. "How about a young-at-heart adult whose interactions with the reading's subject involve shared enthusiasms, high risk behaviour, independent action, high energy, a spirit of excitement and adventure?"
"How come when he patrols with her it's spirit of adventure and shared enthusiasms and when we used to help out it was pretty much long walks around the same old boring cemeteries and watching Buffy kill stuff?" Xander asked.
"Maybe we weren't all that enthusiastic," Willow suggested, with just a hint of her normal mischievous smile.
Xander nodded toward the only remaining card, where a young blonde couple each raised a goblet in what looked to be a toast. "That one's for the overall outcome, right?" he asked.
Tara managed to grin and look contented at the same time. "The two of cups, making a connection, healing a severed relationship, acknowledging an attraction... Any or all of the above. Take your pick." Tara wisely decided to leave out any references to a potential physical relationship.
Xander let his head slump back down onto the table, only to shoot back up a couple of seconds later. "Healing a severed relationship? What relationship? Spike and Buffy had a relationship? She never told me that they had a relationship."
Willow's eyes met Tara's and read the truth there. She moved to perch on the armrest of Xander's chair and put her arms around his shoulders. "Me neither," she confided, "but then I think if we wanted her to tell us stuff then we should probably have been a bit less with the whole guilty avoidy thing."
Buffy looked again at the Swatch she had 'borrowed' from Dawn's room. "You're so-o-o lucky that you might have kinda saved my life earlier," she told the sheet-draped figure on the gurney beside her. She pulled the sheet back far enough to expose Spike's head and neck and then she wiped an arm along one of the wide shelves sending towels spraying over the floor. Double checking that the broom she had used to jam the door handle was doing its job, she swung herself onto the shelf as if it were a bunk bed. "I wouldn't dress up in a lab coat and spend three hours locked in a closet with a corpse, waiting for sundown, for just anyone, you know. Any other vamp and it'd be 'Hello, Mr Y-section'." She rolled onto her side, and stretched out a hand to brush away a stray curl from Spike's forehead. "And if you want that leather coat back, then that is your problem. I'm a one B & E a day girl, and the morgue is my one for today... The police evidence locker would be two and that is one too many for me."
Spike's jaw twitched and his eyelashes fluttered. "Admit it, slayer," he croaked. "You just like keeping me naked."
Buffy tidied one more curl before she drew her arm back. "In your dreams, Dead Boy!"
