Tribulations - Chapter 37

"So, what happens next?" Xander said, half to himself, half to Celeste, as he slumped behind the wheel of the parked Xandermobile. She, of course, had perfect posture, and looked ready for anything.

The others had been gone for nearly a quarter of an hour now. Nobody had been struck by lightning yet, and the earth didn't seem to have cracked open, so Xander still hadn't given up on trying to convince himself that their mission would be a really short-term thing. The problem was, it didn't feel that way. When he and Celeste had watched Buffy, Giles, Sebastian and Willow lug their bulging duffel bags of magic stuff across the dried-up lawn, heading for the big pile of broken concrete and twisted metal where the library had been only a few weeks before, it had felt final. Or, if not final, at least really, really dangerous.

Besides which, Xander had expected this return to their old stomping grounds to be no big deal--after all, he'd gotten a good long look at the place post-fertilizer bomb--but tonight the sight of it threw him totally off balance. Maybe Sunnydale High had only beena bunch of rooms where he'd spent four years of--sometimes literally--sheer hell, but to see his old school, especially Giles's library, the way it was now made him feel weirdly sad: already it looked like a corpse, or a mummy or something, all dried and hollowed out.

No, that wasn't exactly it. The more Xander thought about it, the more it looked like one of those places you saw on TV, buildings mangled by war, a landscape nothing at all like the pictures in a Sergeant Rock comic, or in a Bruce Willis movie--unless it was the movie where that sad little kid saw dead people. Xander was beyond glad not to have that particular ability: it was bad enough to live in a town chock full of vampires and demons, without getting visits from the deceased population.

If the school ruins resembled something in a war zone, well, war was exactly what had happened, wasn't it?

The other strange thing was that, by this time, the battle felt strangely dim, like something that had happened far away, to someone else. Xander could hardly make himself believe that he'd really, truly, led a bunch of barely-trained high school kids against an army of vampires and a giant demon snake and actually won the fight.

He'd also already begun to fear that Graduation Day might have be his own finest hour, that he'd never again manage to be a leader, a warrior, tough, cool and fearless.

Xander knew the guy he'd been that day would never have run away from the Wesley-vamp like a great big chicken--now there was a memory that stung. Graduation Day Guy would have had weapons handy, reflexes honed and courage pumped.

Yeah, and he'd probably have ended up as vampire chow. Right or wrong, he'd envied and mocked Wesley from the minute the replacement Watcher came on the scene, and given him pretty much zero respect. You had to respect old Wes as a vampire, though. As scary demons went, maybe only Evil Angel came close: Xander had felt the scariness from the minute he'd walked into Wesley's house. Hell, even Moira had run from that.

Not that thinking of Moira made Xander feel better. Really, all he could tell himself was that this time, just like on Graduation Day, he wasn't going to let his friends down.

From beside him in the car, Celeste gave Xander a "what are you thinking?" kind of look, with one eyebrow raised. He wondered if she felt nervous or scared at all--if Celeste ever got nervous or scared for that matter. Even back at the LeFaye Family House of Horrors, with Ethan Rayne's knife against her throat, she hadn't lost it the least little bit, not that he'd been able to see.

Not exactly sure how to answer her now, Xander pulled the keys out of the ignition. Yeah, he was a tough guy--the individual keys made little clinking sounds against each other, because he was so scared his hands were shaking. Still, he unlocked the trunk, lifting out his own duffel bag, with his own set of supplies. He brought it around to the hood of the car, where he could give the weapons a last check-over by the not-quite-bright enough illumination of the headlights.

"What's that you've brought, Xander?" Celeste asked, getting up onto her knees on the seat to peer over the convertible's windshield.

"I...um...I figured they wouldn't want to get interrupted. You know, while they're doing the abracadabras." He didn't exactly look at Celeste while he said it, partly because she added a layer of totally unrelated something to his nervousness (she'd worn track pants and a crop top that kept giving him distracting little peeks of her perfect abs and the little gold ring in her navel), partly because he was afraid Celeste would talk him out of doing what he intended to do, which was to try his best to keep the creepy-crawlies away from his friends until they'd finished their magic.

Celeste made a soft, humming sound that Xander guessed meant, "I see."

"I'm not a kid," he snapped, hating his voice because, really, he sounded exactly like a kid. "I've done this before."

Instead of trying to argue, she gave him one of those great Celeste-smiles, and one of those even greater deep-in-the-throat Celeste laughs as she slipped out of the car carrying her big, heavy-looking purse. "So have I," she told him.

Xander had to laugh with her as the purse produced two half-gallon jugs of what had to be holy water, a couple really big crosses, two dozen stakes and a mini-crossbow. Really, he was amazed; the purse hadn't looked that heavy. He opened his duffel to show Celeste his collection of almost identical supplies--except that he'd packed a giant Super-Soaker squirt gun in place of the crossbow.

"Very nice," Celeste told him, grinning again, even though her goldeny-brown eyes looked serious. "All for one and one for all, Xander?" She pulled a black leather jacket on over her top, then picked up the extra-heavy purse.

Xander slung his own bag over one shoulder. "We'd better keep out of sight. You know, until they're too busy to notice we're here. And then, I guess, we see what happens."

"There's nothing like a detailed plan, love," Celeste laughed. Xander shrugged, and tried not to shiver as her hand curled around his arm. Together, they skulked over to a little clump of bushes that would hopefully be thick enough to hide them from the sight of both their friends and any potential enemies.

"My plan basically boils down to this," Xander whispered. "Don't let anything through."

"I couldn't have come up with a better plan myself," Celeste answered, and gave his arm a little reassuring squeeze. "You think the vampires will come, then?" "From what I've seen..." Xander squinted between the branches, hoping against hope that the shadows he kept seeing everywhere weren't really anything to be scared of. "In Sunnydale, anything that can get weird, will."

Magic always made her feel dumb, and there was nothing Buffy could do about that. Of course, she would have felt dumb anyway because, outside the spell-induced protection of the apartment, she'd already started to get all exhausted, hot and achy. God help her if this didn't work.

Feeling like it was just too much effort to stand, Buffy sank down on one of the bigger pieces of broken concrete--she still couldn't quite wrap her brain around the fact that it had once been a piece of the library where they'd spent so many hours--but struggled up again when its hardness made her back and legs hurt even worse than before.

Back home at the apartment, Giles and Seb had already worked what they called a Transference Spell on Willow. It hadn't looked so much different from the usual kind of spell she ran into--lots of candles, chanting and squiggly lines, not to mention a pendant and a little pile of dirt that had turned a weird orangy color and smelled bad once they got going with the magic. Supposedly, the spell would fool the Hellmouth into seeing Will as Moira, or at least Moiraish enough that they could work the fix and set everything right again. Not that she wanted to doubt either Giles, or Giles Junior, but as far as Buffy could see, the Transference had mostly made Will look kind of green and glowy, plus a little bit as if she'd just run into a brick wall. Dazed, that was. Not bloody or anything.

Buffy shifted from foot to foot, wishing, with all her heart, that they could just go home and go to bed now. Or better yet, on a vacation to Tahiti. She'd always wanted to visit Tahiti, though Hawaii would do in a pinch.

Seeing her old school the way it was now made her strangely sad, and the sadness just made her feel more tired. All around the spot where they'd set up shop, the formerly lush, green lawn outside Sunnydale High appeared dry and prickly, but maybe if she lay down on it, just for a minute, it wouldn't feel too bad.

If she couldn't go to bed or have a tropical vacation, she wouldn't object to an hour or so just lying in a nice, cool bath, floating there until all this went away.

Only it wouldn't, would it, unless she--all of them, really-- kept things together.

Buffy sighed. Did life always have to suck?

"Buffy. Buffy, love."

She realized that Giles's hand was on her shoulder, shaking her gently. Buffy blinked as he touched her forehead next, feeling her fever.

"It's okay," she muttered at him, a wave of guilt washing over her. Here she was zoning out, and her sweetie looked at least as bad as she felt, with his eyes all bloodshot, and his skin as pale as she'd ever seen it, gray-green pale. "I'm okay," she told him. "Keep going with what you need to do."

"You're positive, Buffy? You can bear this?"

"Hey, I'm the Slayer," she answered, trying to sound positive. Sebastian was moving around pretty fast outside the pile that was mostly library rubble, putting down lines of charcoal, chalk and some kind of powdered herbs that smelled like a weird cross between old lady perfume, Pine-Sol and wet dog. Watching him made her dizzy, and the smell definitely didn't do much for the well-being of her stomach.

"Nice smell, Seb," she told him, hating how shaky her voice sounded. "When all this is through, I think you should market it."

Seb only grunted, the sound coming out as a squeak through his poor, cranky vocal chords.

Willow snapped out of her altered state enough to giggle, which Buffy found reassuring. She liked it even more when Will got into the act, sticking a whole shopping-bag's worth of candles into the ground in a big circle around the ruins, then walking the circle counterclockwise to light them one by one. Giles had brought the shiniest of his swords--in fact, the special one Moira had given him. He used the point now to draw a deep groove all around the outside of the circle of candles, then waited next to the space where Willow had left the last two missing, until Sebastian had come inside. Seb reached out a hand to Buffy, and she took it: his skin felt good against hers, cool. She was glad to have his support as she picked her way over the concrete; she would have fallen for sure, otherwise.

Willow came inside next, then Giles. They stood opposite each other while Giles closed the circle with his sword and Willow planted and lit the final candles. They said words to each other in a weird-sounding language, which made Willow get even glowier. Next to Buffy, Seb had started to shine too, only he looked more fiery, and the colors were sometimes green, sometimes red. Giles took Buffy's hand with his right hand and Willow's with his left while Sebastian moved into position across from him.

"Hold on to me tightly," Giles whispered. "You mustn't let go, whatever happens."

Buffy nodded, which made another wave of dizziness wash over her. She clung to Giles's hand for dear life, wondering what would happen if she did let go. Actually, what would happen, period.

She didn't have long to wait. First, she noticed a different smell, one she thought at first was coming to her from the melting wax. Then, after a little time passed, the odor started to remind her of the greasy gray clay she'd played with in kindergarten, a kind of oily, earthy, plasticy smell that always grew stronger the warmer it got. Next, the air itself felt different: heavier, soggier, as if they were due for a burst of rain of the kind that never actually fell on Sunnydale. Sharp, chilly rain. London rain.

Seb and Giles nodded to each another. Suddenly, Sebastian's voice joined with the other two voices, only it wasn't just his voice, any more than Giles's and Willow's were theirs alone. The voices sounded as if someone else was speaking over them, with them. All at once Buffy found herself chanting too, with another voice covering her voice. The sensation creeped her out.

Shadow faces, like masks but not exactly, covered her companions' faces, reminding Buffy of Snow White--that is, not the princess herself, but the weird ghost-face in the Wicked Queen's mirror. The one that made her scream and hide behind the couch when she was little, because it was just so...not right.

The masks seemed to be made of light, or maybe of that glow-in-the-dark stuff, but she could clearly see Sebastian, Giles and Willow's expressions below. She only hoped they could see hers too, and that she didn't look too freaked by it all. Snakes and monsters were one thing; spooky magic was another. In the past few years, and especially in the last couple months, she'd had more than enough of that to last a lifetime.

Willow gave her little trademark "eep!" sound. Her eyes started to roll with panic, and Buffy noticed that her feet had begun to sink into the pile of rubble, as if the hard chunks were changing from concrete to a thin, warm clay. The next instant, Buffy realized that she was also going down, the earth sucking around her ankles. Giles and Seb, being heavier, were already up to their knees.

Buffy desperately wanted to struggle as she went in deeper and deeper. Her jaw tensed, lifting upward, as if that could somehow raise her out of the muck. Her hands clenched into fists: Dammit, she wanted out! NOW.

Both men shook their heads at her. They looked calm, or maybe just British. Anyway, the chanting never stopped.

Below her--but not nearly as far below as Buffy would have liked--she could feel the beat of the Hellmouth. She'd always just thought of it as a place before. An uber-creepy place, but still, not so completely different than any other window or door, except that it didn't exactly open up onto any prime real estate. Now, for the first time in her life, she realized the Hellmouth was really, truly alive, an aware, brooding, hating thing, consciously evil in a way so far beyond anything else they'd encountered it made most of the demons she fought seem like fluffy puppies.

Buffy's stomach twisted and she went all cold inside. This thing, this evil thing hated her especially, hated her Slayerness more than anything in the world. And they were going down there. Down to It. The London Hellmouth had been horrible, but it wasn't anything more than an echo, a scar. This was huge.

Panicked, Buffy's eyes rolled toward Giles. He was concentrating hard, but still looked calm, and that in itself settled her down a little. The Hellmouth hated her, but she wasn't alone. They were together. They'd always be together. Giles must have seen that in her eyes, because he gave her one of those small, flickering smiles.

All at once, the chanting paused. All four of them sank into the underworld where, suddenly, rough, shaky walls and pillars rose around them. Weirdly enough, the place still looked a little bit like the library. It had the library's floorplan, at least--if the architect and builders had all been deranged cavemen.

Giles still held Buffy's hand tightly, but his fingers felt like stone, cold and rigid. Across from Buffy, Willow had started shivering violently--or maybe it was that the weird mask of light over her face was moving in a way that wasn't like anything Buffy had ever seen. It looked like the kind special effect, in fact, that could only be done with computers--and not in any movie Buffy would want to go see.

While she stared at Willow, thorougly freaked out, Seb's hand tore away from hers. A second after it was gone Buffy realized that the hand hadn't actually felt like Seb's nice, smooth, British-intellectual hand at all: too big, too knotted, too hot, too...

At first, the word wouldn't come to her. In fact, Buffy's brain didn't seem to want to work at all.

Beside her, Giles said, "Sebastian," in a quiet but shaken-sounding voice.

Inhuman, that was the word she wanted. Inhuman.

Seb turned, looking down on Buffy with fiery crimson eyes. The normally tidy auburn waves of his hair had gotten long, snarled, hanging down over his shoulders and back in ultra-curly tangles. And, he had horns. Not big ones, but horns nonetheless. That, and he appeared to be somewhere in the neighborhood of seven-and-a-half feet tall.

Buffy's jaw dropped. She couldn't have spoken a word to save her life.

"Well met, brother," said a woman's deep voice from behind him. The woman was tall too--not in Sebastian's league, but Giles's height, at least. Her red hair, in about a thousand thin braids, reached to down below her waist, and her eyes were black clear across. Wide ribbons of green light streamed from her head, from her hands, from every part of her body.

"Willow?" Buffy quavered. She couldn't believe her eyes. She just couldn't. She backed up a step, running into Giles and stepping fairly hard on his foot, but he didn't make a sound.

"Now," Giles said, after a long pause. "This is quite interesting."