XI - Plan of Action

The two girls peeked nervously over the fallen tree. “What are they doing?” Dawn whispered to Willow.

 

“I’m not sure. It looks like they’re getting ready for some sort of ritual.”

 

“Vampires do rituals?”

 

Willow nodded. “The older ones. A lot of the fledglings Buffy dusts don’t know anything, but the ones who have been around for a long time can get pretty deep into the mumbo-jumbo. I remember back when Angel was trying to destroy the world…”

 

“What!?”

 

“Oh, Giles never told you about that? I suppose he wouldn’t, with all the torture and Drusilla snogging that went on.”

 

“That’s sick!”

 

“Tell me about it. I wasn’t even there! Spike told me.”

 

“At least they haven’t killed Buffy yet,” Dawn said, staring down at the girl lying unconscious in the midst of the demons. She sat back on her heels to consider that fact. “Why haven’t they killed Buffy yet?”

 

“They probably need her for their ritual. Didn’t she say she thought they were out looking for Slayers?”

 

“Who knows? We weren’t exactly paying attention.” Dawn pulled on Willow’s sweater. “We’ve got to go tell the others.”

 

Willow nodded agreement.  Quickly and soundlessly the girls found their way out of the woods.

 

*****

 

Giles rubbed the back of his neck. His head was already pounding and he’d only just heard the news.  Willow and Dawn were talking over each other, trying to explain what had happened. “Please stop!” Giles held up his hand to ward off the verbal barrage. The chattering subsided and he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“Willow, please, explain precisely what you saw.”

 

“It… it was a large group of vampires. Maybe twenty. They were painting a shape on the ground. It wasn’t familiar. I don’t remember it from any of the books I’ve read. It was sort of…”

 

“Tell him what happened to Buffy!” Dawn said.

 

“Buffy - she was unconscious and tied up.  She was breathing, but pretty bruised up. There were two vamps standing over her with swords.” Willow stopped abruptly, taking in a shaky breath. “I think they’re going to sacrifice her, Giles.”

 

Giles moved to his desk and picked up his notepad.  He handed it to Willow.  “Draw it, the symbol you saw.”  He sat and studied the movements of the pen in Willow’s hand.  Dawn stood behind her and pointed out some things she missed.  After a few tense moments Willow handed the pad back to Giles.

 

He studied the drawing, an hourglass with a black circle behind it, and his frown deepened.  “Anya,” he said, “would you come and look at this?”

 

Anya looked over his shoulder and gasped softly. “I know this,” she said. “I haven’t seen it since the first Crusade.”

 

He glanced at her, intrigued. “You were at the Crusades?”

 

She smacked him affectionately. “I helped cause the Crusades. It all started when Glynnis the Fair found out that Roderick had been cavorting with the stable boy’s sister who was visiting from Gloucester. She had a boyfriend who happened to be a Turk.”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“Can we get back to Buffy and the blade wielding vamps?” Dawn asked.

 

“Oh, yes,” Giles said, “So this is familiar to you?”

 

“Only from tapestries,” Anya confirmed. “The wealthy used to hang those dusty things on the walls and some were atrocious, often depicting fat women spilling out of their…”

 

“Ahem!”

 

Anya glared at Dawn, “If you need a lozenge there are some over on the dresser.”

 

“She has a point, dear. The symbol, please?”

 

“All right. I saw this in the castle of a warlock who practiced dark arts.” She frowned. “It had something to do with restoration.”

 

“Restored from what?”

 

“From the old times. You know, when the pure demons ruled the earth? Back then they were larger and stronger.”

 

“As evidenced by the Turok Han.”

 

“Uglier too,” Dawn muttered.

 

“Shhh!” Willow nudged her.

 

“So you’re telling us that this spell would serve to restore a demon back to its primal origins?” Giles asked.

 

“Something like that. It requires a sacrifice of power, which would be Buffy, and very strong magic. This guy I knew was a highly respected master of the dark arts, but he could never quite get it to work. We’re talking serious mojo here.”

 

Giles paced. “Apparently they feel they’ve summoned sufficient ‘mojo’ to succeed.” He picked up a thick book and began to leaf through its pages. “With the demise of the Turok Han, this would be the only way that vampires could hope to achieve more power – enough to take on an army of Slayers.”

 

Willow’s eyes widened, “And no magic amulet to make them go poof!”

 

“I don’t like this,” Dawn said.

 

“It’s bad,” Anya agreed, “everyone will most likely die horribly.”

 

“What are we going to do about it?” Willow asked. “Should we call some of the other Slayers in to stop this?”

 

“We don’t have the time,” Giles said, dropping the useless book. “The demons aren’t going to stand around waiting for us to counter their attack. They have Buffy and apparently that’s all they need. We have to do something now.”

 

“Why didn’t we just listen to Buffy when she told us?” Willow asked. “None of us listened. We didn’t care!”

 

“Gather the others,” Giles said. “we have to come up with a plan quickly.”

 

***

 

“I say we go in there with flame throwers and watch them all flambé like vampire sparklers,” Andrew said.

 

“Won’t work,” Xander said, “we’ll never kill enough of them in time to save Buffy. We need something bigger and faster.”

 

“Oh!” Andrew said, “Willow could make another one of those great big fireballs and hurl it over there.”

 

“And that would save Buffy, how?” Xander asked.

 

“Sorry, I guess she’d poof too.”

 

“Hey, I think I’ve got it!” Willow looked up form the book she held. “I found the spell they’re planning to use.”

 

“Let’s see.” Giles looked over her shoulder. “Yes, that looks like what Anya described.”

 

“We can counteract this,” Willow said. “We’ll need to gather some ingredients, but we can block the spell and maybe even weaken them long enough to save Buffy.”

 

“How much time do we have?” Giles asked.

 

Willow frowned. “It says here that the spell must occur in the eighth hour of darkness.”

 

“What time was sunset?” Dawn asked.

 

“8:12,” Andrew said, “but that isn’t exact because even with the sun down there are still glimmers of light that cascade over the horizon in darkening hues.”

 

“8:12 will be sufficient,” Giles said. “This means we have to be ready to go by 4:00.” He turned to Willow. “Can we gather what we need by then?”

 

“Oh yeah, it’s doable. We have most of this stuff on hand. But…” she paused uncertainly.

 

“I don’t like buts,” Anya said, “because they’re generally followed by a reason as to why everything will crumble into nothingness and fail spectacularly, leaving us all crying in the wreckage if we aren’t already dead.”

 

“Been there, done that – the crying in the wreckage part, I mean,” Xander said. “So what’s the big snag, Willow?”

 

“Me,” she said. “I’m the weak link on which all this other stuff hinges. I’ve looked over this spell a lot and it takes some major magical ampage, and I only seem to be generating a dull hum.”

 

“Since when?” Giles asked.

 

“I’m not sure. You know that I don’t do much magic anymore, and I haven’t even attempted anything major. Earlier today I tried to make a ball of light and I barely summoned a flicker, and that took all my concentration.”

 

“You did the spell a few weeks ago. The dream spell,” Dawn pointed out.

 

“That seemed to generate a lot of this mojo people keep discussing,” Anya said. “You completely altered reality, but in a good way.” She smiled at Giles, who blushed and smiled shyly back.

 

“And that takes big-time magic.” Andrew said.

 

“So what happened between then and now?” Dawn asked.

 

“I happened,” Willow sighed. “My dream was full of regrets and what-ifs. Over the years, it seems like so many bad things happened because of spells I did for my own interests. You all got caught in the fallout.”

 

“But this wasn’t bad!” Dawn told her. “This was all good. We’re all better off and happier.”

 

“Buffy might disagree with that,” Giles pointed out.

 

Willow looked miserable. “I dreamed that I wasn’t selfish and that I couldn’t do magic and mess up everyone’s life.”

 

“And as a result you now have virtually no power,” Giles said.

 

“Well I don’t like this at all,” Anya said.

 

“How do you mean, dear?”

 

“It’s obvious. For Willow to do this spell and save the world, she has to go back to how she was before she altered reality. For her to do that, we all have to go back.”

 

“No,” Giles stated.

 

Anya looked at him with stricken eyes. “Unless you can find someone else with the power to pull this off there is no other way.”

 

“I’ll try. It’s possible that I could do it,” Giles said.

 

“Honey, you were only able to fight on that level with Willow when you had the powers from that coven. We don’t have the time to work that out now. We only have a few hours.”

 

“There must be another way.”

 

Anya shook her head sadly, “I don’t think so. The vampires have a strong shaman on their side. The only one who can compete with that is Willow. I’ve been around for a long time. I know these things.”

 

“No.” He walked away and moved to the window, staring out into the blackness of the night.

 

“Willow, you and Dawn go get the supplies you need to do the spell.” Anya turned to Xander and Andrew, “And you go get the things we used for the dream spell. Everyone meet back here in an hour.”

 

“Anya,” Willow said, “if we reverse this spell you understand that…”

 

“It will all go back to what it was before.”

 

“Then you know that you won’t.”

 

“I’ll be dead. Yes, I understand.” Anya pointed to the door. “You’re wasting the last hour I have with Rupert. Go.”