Title: At Any Cost
Author: Paul aka Darth Pacula
Distribution: Knock yourself out, just ask first. ( That means yes if you're not sure )
Feedback: Go nuts. The more the merrier. Unless you're all wanting to roast me at the stake that is. Then, less is more. My email address is
darthpacula@hotmail.com if you prefer.
Disclaimers: I own nothing from Buffy, Angel or any such associated franchise. Is that disclaimered enough? Is disclaimered even a word?
Summary: A powerful, ruthless and unstable figure begins to meddle in Willow and Tara's lives, with unforeseen consequences.
Rating: I think this update is definately a hard R, ladies and gents.
Timeline: Well now, it starts off just before the end of Seeing Red, but will contain elements of an altered Season 7.
Spoilers: Err ... pretty much the entire show. If you haven't seen any of it yet, and actually want to, you just aren't trying hard enough.
Thoughts are in
italics.
Part 29.“Who?” Lickspittle repeated blankly, the demon ambling over until it could peek past its employer out the window. “Dem? Aren't dey da Slayer's flunkies?”
“They're not flunkies!” Timothy snapped defensively. “They're her friends! You're the one who's the flunky!”
“Aye,” responded Lickspittle sagely as the demon scratched at it's chin, the resulting shower of dead skin flakes falling like leaves in the Fall. “Don't you humans normally hav' jus' one female parent?”
“Not necessarily!” countered Timothy, even more defensive this time. “Well ... um, okay biologically, sure, but ... um ... it's a long and confusing story, remember?” It was only then that Timothy seemed to realize that Lickspittle wasn't so much hiding as standing in plain sight and openly gawking. “Why aren't you hiding?”
Lickspittle blinked in surprise as the mounting panic in Timothy's voice began to make an impression. “Aye, right! I wus supposed ta be doing dat, wasna I?
“Yes!” agreed Timothy emphatically. “So get on with it already! They're almost here!”
Head bobbing in agreement, Lickspittle scurried behind the couch, and dropped into a crouch. It might have made a more convincing hiding place, if Lickspittle's feet hadn't been sticking out at one end, in plain and conspicuous sight. Dragging one hand down his face, Timothy barely restrained a groan.
Storming over, Timothy grabbed Lickspittle by the collar and hauled the demon to its feet. “How about you try hiding somewhere that you
aren't clearly visible?” he hissed frantically.
“Where den?” grumbled Lickspittle, starting to feel decidedly unappreciated as he looked around Timothy's living room for another hiding place. Head darting from side to side, Timothy joined in the demon's hunt, albeit with greater vigor, until he spotted something that might fit the bill.
Hoisting Lickspittle into the air, Timothy hurried across the room, the demon squalling in protest all the way. Yanking open the door to a broom cupboard, Timothy shoved Lickspittle inside and slammed the door. Fidgeting nervously, Timothy looked out the window to check on Willow and Tara's progress, and found the two women had stopped on the sidewalk to talk.
A thought occurred to him, and Timothy yanked open the closet door again to find Lickspittle sifting through a cardboard box of miscellaneous items. The demon's head jerked up guiltily.
“Don't steal anything!” Timothy ordered before slamming the door in Lickspittle's face again. He paused, then jerked the door open yet again. “Or break anything!”
Lickspittle opened its mouth, the sullen look on the demon's face indicating that it was about to complain, but Timothy avoided that by the simple measure of kicking the door shut again. Just in time too, for it was at that very moment that the doorbell rang.
“Timothy?” called Tara's voice. “Are you home?”
At the sound of her voice, Timothy's eyes flared wide open, whites showing like those of a trapped animal. “I am so screwed,” he muttered anxiously.
A second knock sounding at the door made him twitch, and Timothy hurried forward before pausing just before the door. Opening his mouth, he called out in response, but his voice was somehow muted, sounding as if it came from further back in the house.
“Just a sec! I'm coming!”
This slight breathing room that he'd earned gave Timothy the chance to give the living room a final once over, making sure that there were no suspicious materials out in plain view. Thus satisfied, he opened the door.
**********
Tara adopted a shy smile as the door opened and revealed Timothy. The older man looked slightly flushed, as if he'd had to run to answer the door, and Tara felt a momentary flash of guilt. But as Timothy directed a wry grin at the two women, Tara sensed some kind of tension behind his otherwise jovial facade, and wondered what could be causing their neighbor such anxiety.
“Top of the morning, ladies,” Timothy greeted them expansively, adding an elaborate flourish that made Willow giggle. “What can I do for you?”
“We were hoping to talk to you, Timothy,” Tara announced. “May we come in for a short while?”
One of Timothy's sky-blue eyes twitched strangely as he ruffled his already unruly red-gold hair, and Tara again wondered what the root of his discomfiture was. “Umm .. yeah, sure. Why not? I mean, c'mon ... it's not like I've got anyone in here I'm trying to hide from you. Nope. No siree bob!”
Timothy laughed nervously as he stepped back from the door and gestured for the two women to enter. Willow shot a look of puzzlement at Tara as they entered, and Tara knew that her partner was likewise picking up on Timothy's apparent distress. The blonde could only subtly shrug in response; unless Timothy chose to confide in them, it wasn't really their business.
“So ... what's up?” he asked as he led them to the couch, and flopped down casually into another chair. “I'm guessing from the looks of things, you two have patched things up nicely?”
Willow exchanged a radiant smile with her lover, and nodded enthusiastically. “Everything's perfect!” she gushed, and Timothy grinned indulgently. “That's part of the reason we came over. Tara told me how you helped her, and by extension helped me, so we just wanted to thank you.”
“Nah,” Timothy scoffed, dismissive of the small part he'd played. “I just reminded her of what she already knew. You know, like a human post-it. Note to self: you love Willow.”
“Still, we appreciate it, Timothy,” Tara replied gratefully. “But that wasn't our only reason for coming.”
“Oh?”
“We wanted to check up on you after last night,” Willow continued. “After all the craziness last night, we just wanted to check that everything was okay over here.”
“Huh? What craziness?” Timothy asked, apparently confused, and Willow and Tara exchanged startled glances. “I was out until real late last night,” he explained. “Did something happen? What did I miss?”
“Oh ... um ... nothing much, just ... er ...” Tara's voice trailed off uncomfortably, hating the necessity of keeping the truth from Timothy.
Willow came to her rescue though, smoothly interjecting with the same cover story that they had fed to the police earlier. “It was just some overly rambunctious teenagers pulling pranks. Setting off fireworks and so on.”
“Ahh ... so you were worried that ... what? That I'd been TP'ed so thoroughly that I was trapped inside my own house?” Timothy asked with a chuckle. Both Tara and Willow blushed, and found themselves wearing identical self consciousness smiles.
Tara was feeling somewhat trapped now; their reason for checking that Timothy was safe was undermined by their own cover story. But the important thing was that he hadn't even noticed the vampire's attack, let alone been harmed. “Um ... well I suppose we were worried about nothing,” she allowed weakly.
“Ah, don't worry about it,” Timothy replied, by all appearances grateful for their concern. “Look, I appreciate you two worrying about me and all. After all, you don't know me that well.”
“We know enough,” Willow countered. “We know that you're a nice guy.”
“Pfft! That just shows how little you know me,” joked Timothy, and Willow grinned. But Tara could tell that something was bothering her partner, and she directed a quizzical glance at Willow. The redhead squirmed beneath her partner's curious gaze until she could bear it no longer.
“What's that smell?” Willow finally blurted, and Timothy blinked in sudden consternation. A slight frown sprung to life, unbidden, on Tara's lips as she sensed a sudden surge of anxiety in Timothy.
What's he so worried about?“Smell?” Timothy nervously coughed. “What smell?”
Thus freed from the confines of polite behavior, Willow raised her nose in the air and took a pointed sniff. “That smell I'm smelling right now,” she clarified. “The one that's kinda defying all my attempts to classify it. It seems sorta familiar too.”
Looking subtly shifty, Timothy's lips twisted in a nervous grin. “I ... um .... well, you see .... er ... ah nuts to this. I guess you ladies have stumbled upon my dark and terrible secret.”
“Secret?” Willow repeated, clearly torn between curiosity and suspicion.
“Dark and terrible?” was Tara's choice of comment, delivered with a crooked eyebrow.
“Yes,” Timothy confirmed solemnly. “My deep and dark secret, which is that I am ... an experimental cook.”
“A ... what?” Willow asked, as if unsure she'd heard, and Timothy's solemn expression was replaced by a form of self deprecating goofiness.
“An experimental cook. Basically it just means that I use some ... well, different ingredients than usual. Hence the ... ah, unusual smell.”
“That smell is supposed to be food?” asked Willow disbelievingly, and Timothy responded with a sharp bark of laughter.
“Therein lies the rub, Willow. When you experiment with food like I do, sometimes ... well, you end up with a car wreck. Like Gnocci that's gray and has the consistency of rubber cement, or Roast Beef with cinnamon.”
“Cinnamon?” Tara asked with a crooked grin as her raised eyebrow crept even higher.
Timothy shrugged, cheeks blooming with embarrassment. “Yeah, okay. So that one wasn't so much intentional as it was an accident. I grabbed the wrong spice.”
“So what's the source of the unique scent I'm smelling?” queried Willow. “Cuz it's really ... um ... distinctive?”
Timothy heard the uncertainty in Willow's voice, and the redhead's attempt to avoid offending her neighbor made him chuckle out loud. “Trust me when I say, you really don't want to know,” he told them with a secretive smile. “Anyway, unless there's anything else? I've kinda got stuff I have to take care of.”
Tara knew a dismissal when she heard one, and obligingly rose to her feet, drawing Willow with her. The two women exchanged idle chitchat as Timothy escorted them back to the front door, then made their farewells. But as Timothy closed the door behind them, Tara sensed an aura of palpable relief around him, and couldn't help but wonder why.
**********
“God damn it,” Timothy muttered beneath his breath as he slumped against a wall with the aspect of a man who'd just run a marathon. “Every time, it hurts. Every goddamn time.” Closing his eyes, he bowed his head, filled with a melancholy, unexplained, air of defeat.
When his eyes opened again though, there was nothing of hesitation or defeat in them. Marching back over to the cupboard, Timothy yanked the door open and found Lickspittle squatted cross-legged on the floor, the very image of a sulky five year old. If said five year old were a short and incredibly smelly demon dressed like a hobo.
Even as Lickspittle was scrabbling to its feet, the demon started complaining but Timothy simply stepped out of the way and tuned out the demon's voice. Lickspittle rambled on for a few minutes, unheard and ignored, before realizing that fact. Then the demon poked Timothy hard in the arm.
“Oi! Are ye even listenin' ta me?” Lickspittle whinged.
Timothy finally deigned to look down at his demonic companion and blinked like a man awaking from a deep sleep. “Um ... not really,” he finally admitted.
“Why noot!” demanded the demon indignantly.
“Because I'm trying to think of ways to keep my parents alive without letting them find out who I really am.”
**********
The two women had crossed the street wrapped in a comfortable, companionable silence that wasn't broken until they had reached their own front door. “Willow, did Timothy seem ....”
“Nervous much?” finished Willow instantly. “Tell me about it! If he'd been any more twitchy he might have been able to vibrate into another dimension! But why? It's not like we're intimidating or anything are we.”
“I don't know, sweetie,” Tara joked. “When you get all big with the butch ...?”
Willow affectionately bumped shoulders with her lover. “Tease,” she accused with a fake scowl. “But seriously, Tara. Do you think he was hiding something?”
One hand on the doorknob, Tara paused to consider Willow's question. “Maybe,” she allowed cautiously. “He seems to know something of the true nature of Sunnydale, from what he said to me the other day, but we don't know how much he actually knows. So I suppose he could be hiding something of the Hellmouth type variety.”
“He doesn't seem the type though,” Willow noted thoughtfully. “Are we just jumping to conclusions, Tara? Are Nameless and everything else making us paranoid?”
Tara sighed, surrendering her grasp on the door knob and taking Willow in a gentle embrace, hands resting on the redhead's slender hips, foreheads leaning together. “So far, Timothy has been nothing but kind and helpful to us. I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but keep a cautious eye on him anyway.”
“I hate this, Tara,” Willow noted sadly. “I hate that we're suspecting everyone. I hate that people are meddling in our lives. I hate that we don't even really know who the bad guy is!”
“I know you do, sweetie,” Tara softly commiserated. “I hate it too. But things will get better. I promise.”
It was at that precise moment that the front door was enthusiastically wrenched open to reveal Giles, flushed and bright eyed. “Willow, Tara, excellent!” he said swiftly, waving them in briskly. Sharing a bemused glance, they did as the Watcher requested, and Willow plucked off the post-it note still adhering to the Englishman's face as she passed. Giles eyed the offending piece of stationary blankly, and swiftly disregarded it.
“I believe I may owe you an apology, Willow,” Giles began as he shut the door firmly.
“Didn't we do all of this last night, Giles?” Willow asked, biting her lip self-consciously. While she appreciated Giles' remorse, Willow would have preferred to simply move on and try to forget all of the internal problems the scoobies had been suffering of late.
But Giles forged on regardless. “My contact with the coven in Devon rang while you were out with information about this Nathaniel Haust, and I'm beginning to agree with your assessment that he and Nameless may well indeed be the one and the same.”
“What did you find out, Giles?” Tara queried, her voice quietly intent.
Giles obligingly laid it all out; the telephone call from Miss Hartness, the revelation that Nathaniel Haust did, in fact, exist, and finally, the full grim truth of his past.
“He murdered his own twin sister?” Tara repeated in a haunted whisper, aghast at the very idea. Her relationship with her own brother was shaky at best, but Tara couldn't even begin to imagine how she would react if she had Donnie's blood on her hands. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”
“From what I've read, the sudden onset of a precognitive ability can be a powerful shock to the system, and from what Miss Hartness told me, Nathaniel wasn't an especially stable individual to begin with.”
“I'm sorry about his sister, sure,” admitted Willow, “but I think I'm more concerned about this whole apocalypse thing. They never seem to work out too well for us.”
“We always stop them,” Tara pointed out with forced optimism.
But Willow just shook her head stubbornly. “So far. All it takes is for us to fail just once, just one teeny-tiny time, and bam! It's game over for the whole world.”
“We won't fail,” Giles faithfully insisted.
“I'm not suggesting that we're going to fail on purpose or anything,” Willow replied with a nervous grin. “Cuz, hey, not stupid here! It's just ... I don't think I've ever had as much to lose as I do now. And it's scary.”
Tara squeezed Willow's hand in her own, rubbing her thumb soothingly over the back of her partner's hand. “Nothing is going to happen, sweetie, not to you, not to me, not to anyone. We won't let it.”
“Quite right, Tara,” agreed Giles. “We have a record to maintain, Willow, a long tradition of achieving victory in the face of unlikely odds. I have no intention of letting anything whatsoever happen to any of you.”
A tremulous smile crept across Willow's lips, but Tara knew that the redhead's fears were a dragon that would require more than just a few words, heartfelt or not, to slay. But Tara knew the other signs on Willow's expressive face just as well; the furrowed brow, emerald eyes lost in thought, gnawing at her lower lip. Willow was thinking, following those seemingly random leaps of apparently disconnected logic in her own unique, brilliant way.
“Giles?” Willow finally asked. “We know that Nathaniel claimed to have seen an apocalypse, right?
Giles acknowledged that they did, in fact, know this.
“So ... do we know if he's trying to bring this apocalypse about? Or is he trying to stop it?”
**********
It was several hours later when the phone rang, jerking Tara out of the dark and twisted world that Nathaniel Haust had apparently occupied. Giles hadn't had an answer to Willow's query, and as always, the Watcher's response had been to dive back into research. And since everyone else was out of the house, it had been left to Willow and Tara to assist Giles on his crusade for knowledge.
Dawn and Katie both had gone to school, which was the first day back since she had lost her parents in the younger girl's case. Tara had been unsure if Katie was up to it yet, but Katie had been so insistent, and once Katie and Willow had bonded on what appeared to be a mutual love of learning, Tara had been left without a leg to stand on.
The remaining scoobies had gone to their respective jobs; as always, the fact that the world was in potential peril wasn't sufficient to spare them from the drudgeries of a working stiff's life. Though that really only applied to Buffy. Anya still loved every chance she got to perform her 'Dance of Capitalistic Superiority”, and Xander honestly seemed to have found a place in construction.
So it had fallen to the witches to assist Giles in trawling through the wealth of information that his acquaintances in Devon had provided them. There was a depressing amount of information there, page after page of transcripts. Nathaniel had apparently learnt the close mouthed tendencies he evidenced as Nameless later in life, for as a patient he had proved positively garrulous.
Such reading had been steadily depressing Tara. Rambling, disjointed, cynical and bleak; before long Tara was no longer surprised that Nathaniel had been driven to madness by what he had seen, if what she read was any indication.
The worst thing was when Tara thought she recognized aspects of their own lives, the life she shared with Willow. Every now and then, there were flashes, glimpses of Tara's own past. Pivotal events made their appearance, albeit skewed and twisted by Nathaniel's odd viewpoint.
Nathaniel had seen their meeting at the UCS Wicca group meeting, and the silent depredations of the Gentleman that had followed directly after. He had seen Oz's return, and subsequent repeat departure when Willow had chosen to follow her heart. Buffy's sacrifice upon Glory's lunatic crafted tower, her resurrection, and everything that followed ... all this and more Nathaniel had seen.
The depth of knowledge that was hinted at by Nathaniel's wild ramblings made the hairs on Tara's neck rise.
He said he knew us, Tara remembered,
and now we know how.
Worse still were the events that were yet to come, even glimpsed imperfectly through the lens of Nathaniel's fractured psyche. Death and destruction, murder and mayhem, a world ending in fire, pain and blood.
But worst of all, to Tara at least, was one single piece of information. A date, eight simple numbers that were forever engraved on Tara's heart. The date on which Nathaniel Haust suffered his first, catastrophic vision, the catalyst for his madness, for his crimes.
The fourteenth of December, 1999.
The day that Tara first met a young redhead named Willow Rosenberg.
And all Tara could think was:
Did we do this to him?As such, could it be any wonder that Tara welcomed the break that the telephone's clarion call provided. Tara leapt to her feet without pause, declaring her intent to answer the phone before either Giles or Willow had even seemed to notice the phone at all.
“Hello?” Tara spoke into the receiver, prepared to welcome even a telemarketer asking if she were happy with her long-distance service.
“Yes, hello? Is that you, Ms Maclay?”
Tara's heart sank, and her lips pulled downward in a instinctual scowl as she recognized the voice.
Mrs Creedy. That's all I need.The social worker apparently took Tara's silence as confirmation, for she didn't wait for a more actual acknowledgment but instead forged on regardless. “Oh, I'm glad to catch you, Ms Maclay. I have news for you.”
Tara sourly noted that Mrs Creedy seemed to have been practicing her acting skills, for her voice now lacked the patently fake courtesy it had possessed earlier.
Yeah, I can imagine the news you have for us, you ... Just get it over with, and then we can get on with suing you for discrimination.What Tara said, though, was “Oh?”
“Yes, wonderful news! You and your lovely girlfriend have been awarded temporary custody of Katie Davis. Only temporary for the moment, I'm afraid, but rest assured, I will recommend that it be made a permanent arrangement as soon as possible.”
Yes, I'm certain you did ... wait. Tara's thoughts stumbled to a halt as surely as a derailed train.
What? She repeated as much out loud in a stunned voice. “I thought ... I thought you were recommending that Katie be removed from our car?”
“Yes, well I ... I was ....” Mrs Creedy's voice trailed off uncertainly, but when her voice returned it was unnaturally wooden, like an automaton reading from a script. “I ... was mistaken. I don't know what came over me.”
“Mrs Creedy?” Tara asked, concerned in spite of her dislike of the other woman.
“I ... I was a bloody bigoted whore!” the social worker spat over the telephone, her voice harsh and rasping, and for a moment Tara feared that it was not Mrs Creedy she was speaking to. A sharp clutter arose over the line, and Tara called out again, asking if Mrs Creedy was okay.
After a brief exclamation of pain, Mrs Creedy responded that she was. “I seem to have hit myself in the head with the phone. I don't know what's come over me,” Mrs Creedy finished with a weak chuckle.
I think I might, Tara thought, her heart in her mouth. “Mrs Creedy, have you had, um, any unusual visitors recently?”
“What? Oh no, I don't think ...” Once again, Mrs Creedy's voice trailed off into silence, and when it returned it barely resembled her normal speech. “Worry not, Tara. This particular serpent has been milked of its venom, and will trouble you no more.”
“Nameless?” Tara breathed disbelievingly.
Tara received a sharp painful yelp in reply, and her hand tightened on the telephone receiver to the point where it creaked alarmingly.
“I'm sorry, my dear, but I seem to have spilled hot coffee on myself,” Mrs Creedy finally stated breathily. “I ... I just seem to have upended the entire cup in my lap for some reason. And my nose just started to bleed. I really need to go and clean myself up, so I will call you later if there is anything else. Goodbye, Ms Maclay.”
Tara could only sit there and listen to the buzz of the dial tone. Words escaped her throat in a silk smooth whisper. “Nathaniel ... what have you done?”
**********
“What are you saying, Tara?” Buffy asked as the scoobies sat gathered once more about the dining room table. “Nameless used his mojo to brainwashed Mrs Creepy or something?”
“It's Mrs Creedy, Buffy” Tara corrected. “And yes, thats what I think happened.”
There was little humor in Buffy's answering grin. “I prefer Creepy. It fits better. But more importantly, is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Buffy! How can you ask that?” Tara blurted, appalled. “What he did was horrible! He violated her mind! It's as bad as rape!”
“How can you not think that she deserved it?” Anya asked, not with her customary bluntness, but rather with a sense of genuine curiosity.
“No-one deserves that!” Tara stated, every facet of her being emphatic in her belief. It was only when Tara noticed Willow oh-so slightly wince at her words that she realized that her earlier words could also be applied to Willow herself.
Tara's eyes widened with regret and self-admonition at the thought of causing any pain to her everything, and her mouth was already opening to issue a retraction of her last comment, to deny any similarity between what the two events. But a simple squeeze of her hand in Willow's, and the redhead's sad little smile bade her hold her tongue.
No, she knew Willow was telling her without words. I
did it, and I know it was wrong. Any pain I feel at this is rightfully mine to suffer.But what she did ... it wasn't as bad as what Nameless did, Tara thought to herself.
Was it? And as much as she longed to deny it, Tara could not find an answer within.
“Fine, whatever,” Buffy drawled. “I'm lacking empathy or whatever, but I'm with Anya, even if that is a sign of an impending apocalypse. She deserves what she got, and it's worked in our favor.”
“Which immediately makes me suspicious,” Xander quipped. “Are we certain Katie's not a plant?”
Tara and Willow both unleashed simultaneous withering glares at him, and Xander shrunk back comically, holding up two crossed fingers to form a mock cross.
“Are we sure that Nameless is Nathaniel?” Dawn asked, frowning contemplatively.
“Not with any degree of certainty, I suppose,” Giles allowed, “but it does seem to fit. Why do you ask?”
“So ... am I the only person here who remembers basic math? You said Nathaniel was fifteen in '99? So wouldn't that make him ... what, seventeen, eighteen? Nameless is a fair bit older than that.”
“True, Dawn, but that's where Hyriault comes into things. Time often passes differently in demon dimensions, so what has been three years for us could have been much longer for him. Long enough for Nameless to reach his appears to be his current physical age.”
“Oh. So ... what's he trying to do?”
“This is the problem with trying to second-guess a precognitive foe,” Giles pointed out. “What might seem like the most inconsequential of moves on their part may in fact prove to be of earth shattering importance in the future.”
“Butterfly wings,” Buffy added sagely, before noting a variety of curious gazes from some of the other scoobies. “Ya know, that whole thing about a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane on the other side of the planet?”
“Does this mean that he's a good guy though?” Dawn questioned. “Because he helped Will and Tara?”
“It might explain why he hasn't killed us,” offered Xander. “Cuz I really get the impression he hasn't been trying to. Yet.”
“If he's a good guy, why did he kick Buffy's ass?” argued Anya. “Why did he rob a bank, break my wrist? Why did he kidnap Willow and Tara? And where the hell does Willow's baby fit into all of this?”
“As Anya has just pointed out so efficiently, while we remain unsure if Nameless' motives are pure or not, his methods are clearly anything but,” Giles pointed out wearily. “As such, I rather fear we are left with no other choice but to try and stop him, or, if indeed he is on the side of the angels, to temper his excesses.”
“Great plan, Giles,” Willow responded brightly. “Any idea how we go about doing that?”
His pained expression was all the answer Giles needed to give.
**********
The moon was on the wane now, one rounded edge shaved off, but still silver and magnificent in a star-strewn sky. But while I might appreciate the moon's beauty, I did not appreciate the light it shed on me as I once more infiltrated Tara's barrier. In my experience, it is usually so much easier to skulk in the shadows than in the light.
A low, painful hiss escaped my lips as the final scuttling insect burrowed into my flesh, still liquid from the transformation. A handful of seconds passed as I allowed my physical structure to fully reform, before lurching unsteadily to my feet. I halted after one faltering step, as a wet crack and squish sounded in the quiet night air.
Looking down, I raised one foot and gazed at the spattered remains of a large bug smeared on the sole of my shoe.
“Huh,” I muttered. “Hope that wasn't supposed to be part of me.”
I shrugged, and continued on my way. If I was missing anything important, I'd find out about it sooner or later. In the meantime, I had work to do. I sent my seekers on their merry way, and they soon returned to confirm that each of the resident scoobies was indeed wrapped in slumber.
As I limped towards the front door, I reached inside the coat I wore with my good hand, seeking the pouch that contained my supply of sleeping powder. I found the pouch, but I also discovered one other unexpected and unwanted thing. The pouch was empty.
Holding the offending pouch up before my face, I glowered at it, as if I could somehow cow an inanimate object into giving me what I wanted. When that tactic inevitably failed, I scrunched the pouch up inside my fist, and with considerable effort resisted the urge to swear out loud.
Fine! I silently snarled to myself.
I'll just have to do this the hard way.A gesture, and a surge of power, shifted the rods inside the front door's lock, and it clicked open. Cracking open the door, I squeezed through and eased the door shut behind me. The soft, steady breath sounds of a sound sleeper came from the lounge room, where Rupert Giles lay fast asleep with a book lay face open on his chest.
Looks like I tired poor little ol' Ripper out. I mimed slapping myself on the wrist.
Bad homicidal lunatic! Bad!Shaking my head, I forced myself away from my play; my work beckoned. This night should see the culmination of the spell I was binding into Willow's aura, and that was far more important than indulging my warped sense of humor.
I limped my way upstairs, following the path I had followed many times previously, avoiding those steps that would creak and squeal beneath my weight. Slowly, I walked down the hallway, my head turning as I passed the closed door of each bedroom. Each time, my consciousness ranged out to brush against that of each rooms slumbering occupant.
Finally I reached my destination, and stood at the foot of the witches bed, staring enviously at where they lay intertwined, limbs akimbo, a human sandwich. The thought brought a grin to my face.
No ... a Sand-witch.Pushing my sleeves back, I got to work.
**********
Buffy Summers' dream was an entirely pleasant affair to begin with. This dream consisted of a interweaving theme of shopping, and making out with Freddie Prinze Jr., who for some reason insisted on calling Buffy Sarah. The petite blonde didn't let that interfere with the pleasure she found within the dream though.
But the dream was also subtly changing, mostly in ways that Buffy would be hard pressed to explain. It was as if the entire dream had fallen under a cloud. It was just in small things at first. The kisses were no longer as sweet, the colors of the clothes dimmed and faded. Scents that had once been crisp and sharp, became dull and lifeless.
Then things started to get really weird.
Flashes of ... somewhere else ... began intruding on what had been a pleasant dreamscape, never lasting long, but while they lasted ... disconcerting to say the least. A shop window became a wall, weeping blood. An indoor palm tree became a gibbet, dangling with emaciated corpses like macabre fruit.
From the corner of her eye, a fleeting vision assailed Buffy. A slender, cadaverous figure, dark and grim, stalking down a familiar corridor. A head turned, and mismatched eyes peered at Buffy, stripping her soul bare, reading all of her secrets.
Buffy burst into flames, and sat bolt upright in her bed, breath running ragged.
“Whoa!” Buffy panted, sweat so thoroughly beaded on her face that she could have just left the shower. “That's the last time I have some of Dawn's leftover homemade pizza right before bed. The taste was bad enough, but the dreams ...”
Tossing back the covers, Buffy shifted so that she was sitting on the edge of her bed and ran her fingers through sweat slicked hair. Shaking her head to clear the last lingering vestiges of sleep from her mind, Buffy rose to her feet and moved towards her bedroom door, planning to visit the bathroom before returning to her bed. But when she opened the door, the enhanced senses gifted to Buffy along with her status as the Slayer picked up something strange.
A low, harsh, almost sibilant whisper drifted on the slumbering air, and Buffy frowned, turning her head towards Willow and Tara's bedroom. The door was marginally ajar, which was unusual in itself, but the whisper was more so. Neither woman had ever made such a noise, to Buffy's knowledge, and she knew more of the noises her friends made, even in the throes of passion, than she'd ever admit to.
Buffy crept the short distance down the hallway, her bare feet silent on the carpet. She paused beside the door, taking the chance to have a second listen. She didn't think that the whisper could be either Willow or Tara, but she didn't want to just charge in. If she interrupted some sort of kinky new sex game, all three of them might be prone to die of sheer mortification.
No way is that that them, Buffy decided, and leant forward to peer through the crack in the door. Her eyes widened in shock.
Son-of-a ...**********
I was so close now to completing my spell on Willow, so close to completing one more step towards my ultimate goal, that it wasn't surprising that I had developed a case of tunnel vision. As such, I wasn't aware of Buffy's presence until she kicked me square in the back of the head.
The magic skittered loose from my control, tendrils of magic cracking like whips as they lashed at the wall above the bed's headboard, burning scorch marks into the wallpaper. The force of Buffy's blow sent me staggering forwards, pitching over the end of the bed on top of the witches legs.
Needless to say, all hell broke loose.
The impact of my body wrenched Tara from her sleep with a startled yelp, as Buffy surged forward to press her advantage, landing a second kick hard in my ribs.
Well, she's definitely not pulling her punches. Yay for me.“What the hell are you doing to Willow!” shouted Buffy. Since she showed no sign of postponing the pummeling I was receiving, I figured it was a rhetorical question, and didn't bother answering. Not with my voice, anyway.
She was lunging at me for a third time when I rolled over, and I hammered a repulsion wave into Buffy's stomach. It sent her hurtling into the far corner halfway up the wall, hard enough to dent the plaster.
She's not the only one who can not pull their punches, I thought with a sneer as I clambered to my knees. Which was when something slammed into the back of my skull, and a supernova exploded inside my head.
**********
Tara exploded from a warm and comforting dream, the details of which were rapidly fading from her mind like mist, to find herself in chaos. A startled gasp was wrung from her lips by instinct alone. A shining, insubstantial tendril of ... something whipped and lashed at the air above her head like a streamer in a storm. As Tara watched in bewilderment, the tendril rolled sideways and flicked lazily at the wall, and the wallpaper charred and blistered under its caress.
At the sight of that, Tara rolled sideways out of bed and came up in a crouch, freezing in shock as her eyes fell upon the source of the tendril's that menaced her.
Willow ...Her everything lay sprawled on the bed that Tara had just fled, head back and mouth hanging slackly open. Willow's gorgeous green eyes, normally so bright and alive with emotion, were fixed wide open, staring blankly up at the ceiling. An ever changing number of those ... energy tendrils blossomed from her stomach, and Willow's pajama shirt had been burnt away where the tendril touched the redhead's supple skin.
No ... no, no, nononononoNoo!!A shuddering breath rippled through Willow's supine form like a full-body spasm, and Tara's mad rush to panic slowed it's headlong charge.
She's still alive. Thank you, thank you, thank you!A loud crash wrested Tara's attention away from her lover, and her head shot to the side to catch Buffy falling to the ground, the new found crater in the wall testifying to the force with which Buffy had collided. But it was the other figure, dark and lean, that captured the large part of Tara's focus.
Nameless. Tara's head shot back to Willow, who remained unchanged.
You did this to her.It was as if a switch had been flicked in Tara's head, and for the briefest of seconds, she found herself back in that noisome alley after they had resurrect Buffy. Willow dangled off the ground, helpless, the Hellion's brutish fist clutching at the redhead's tender neck. And there was an axe in Tara's hands.
Tara grabbed the first thing to hand, a bedside lamp with a solid, heavy, metal base, and charged, smashing her makeshift weapon into the back of the warlock's head, with an obscenely satisfying thwack.
Nameless fell forwards, just catching himself with one hand. He turned his head to confront his attacker, just in time to catch Tara's uppercut under the jaw. A small splatter of blood flew from his lips as Nameless' mouth snapped shut with the sharp click of teeth on teeth, and he flopped backwards onto his back.
Tara kept coming, drawing back her weapon for another blow, but Nameless somehow flowed back to his feet in a single, fluid, unnatural movement, and met her full on with a ferocious snarl. One quicksilver swipe with a hand that was more of a bone claw than anything that belonged on the end of a human limb, and Tara's lamp was shattered beyond repair.
The warlock's other hand snapped shut about Tara's throat like a bear trap, and Nameless brought his bone hand around, taloned fingers all together like the tip of a spear, in a punch that would have ripped through the blonde's vulnerable stomach.
Goddess, baby, I am so sorry!But the blow never landed. Those deadly bone claws halted, twitching, a hairs breadth from piercing Tara's skin. The gaunt hand at her throat was trembling, and Nameless' jaw was twitching spasmodically like a man suffering from a fit, lips quivering about a fixed snarl. Breath rasping loudly in a heaving chest, he glared directly into Tara's eyes from a distance of less than a foot.
Tara could read the desire in those inhuman, mismatched eyes.
Part of him wants to kill me, but the rest of him ... Goddess knows. Whatever his wishes regarding her were, it was obvious to Tara that Nameless was riven by a conflict at a fundamental level.
He's fighting his own instincts, instincts that want me dead.“Buffy?” Dawn's voice called out cautiously from the hallway. “Willow? Tara? Are you guys okay?”
No, Dawn! Tara thought frantically, her eyes darting towards the still open door. She tried to call out a warning, but the merciless hand at her throat barely let her breath, let alone speak.
There was a flicker of movement behind him, and Nameless' conflict vanished instantly. Hurling Tara to the floor, Nameless spun on the spot, deflecting the snap kick Buffy aimed at his head with one forearm. Lunging forward with preternatural speed, Nameless grabbed Buffy by the front of her pajamas and hoisted her effortlessly off the ground. Whirling 360 degrees around to gain momentum, the warlock launched Buffy into the air.
“Help!” Tara finally managed to yell, as Buffy slammed into Dawn just as the teenager reached the doorway. Both siblings went down hard in a tangle of limbs, but Buffy bounced back to her feet almost instantly.
But even as she spun back to face her foe, Nameless' fingers were flickering, tracing runic symbols that hovered in the air like flaming clouds. A faint blue glimmer filled the doorway, and Buffy ran into it like a wall. The Slayer pounded furiously on the barrier, but Nameless apparently had no fear of Buffy breaching it, for he turned back to Tara, paying no more heed to Buffy's raging than he would the buzzing of a fly.
“Nathaniel, stop this!” Tara shouted desperately, and Nameless paused, glaring terribly at her. “That's right, we know who you are now,” Tara continued at a slower pace, trying to buy time for her to think of something, anything.
“You know a name, you little fool,” Nameless sneered contemptuously. “That's worth less than nothing. A name is just a label, meaningless, powerless. You don't know a damn thing!"
Tara shook her head in denial. “We know what happened to you. It doesn't have to be like this. We can help you.”
Nameless barked in mirthless humor. “You can't help the dammed, Tara Maclay. Nor should you
want to!”
Moving cautiously, Tara gathered her feet under her, and slowly rose to her feet. Nameless' talons twitched as she did so, like the claws of some restless beast, and Tara froze, heart thundering in her chest.
An agonized scream tore the air asunder, and both Nameless' and Tara's head snapped towards the bed. Willow was shuddering uncontrollably, limbs twitching, spine bowed such that only her head and heels were touching the mattress. As another ghastly scream ripped itself from out of Willow's throat, an incandescent light blazed forth from her mouth and eyes.
“Fuck!” Nameless violently swore. “Backlash!” He lunged forwards, moving towards Willow.
“No!” howled Tara, fury and fear overwhelming her like a tidal wave, and her magic reached out blindly. “You won't ever hurt my Willow again!”
Instantly, as if a typhoon had burst into existence in the bedroom, every single unsecured item in the room lifted into the air and hurled itself at Nameless. Nigh upon a hundred small items pelted the warlock, and a porcelain figurine shattered on his cheek, leaving it to weep blood.
Growling furiously, Nameless waded forwards, ignoring the localized hurricane assaulting him, and grabbed Tara by the jaw, yanking her right up next to him. The storm instantly subsided as soon as he did so, and Nameless forced Tara's head to one side so that she was staring at Willow.
“Do you want her to die?” he snarled in Tara's ear. “Do you want to see her burnt up from the inside? Do you want to watch that perfect skin split, that supple flesh cook? Then by all means, stop me from doing what has to be done!”
“Don't you dare touch her!” Tara wheezed.
“That's what happens if I
don't touch her, you blind little idiot!” Nameless' reply was ground out from between gritted teeth. “That's what happens if you don't let me fix what your pet slayer fucked up! Weeks worth of exhausting, meticulous work, flushed down the drain, all because little Miss Buffy has to think with her fists!”
“Tara, don't trust him!” Buffy bellowed as she hammered fruitlessly on the energy field.
Nameless ignored Buffy's interruption, and just kept talking as if it had never happened. “You have two choices, Tara. You can get out of my way, and let me save her ... or I knock you out, and do it anyway.”
Tara shuddered in his iron grip, every cry born of the excruciating pain Willow was suffering cutting her to the bone. She was vaguely aware of other voices in the background now, shouting something, but at this moment Tara had only eyes and ears for Willow alone.
“Tick tock,” Nameless whispered in Tara's ear. “Make a choice, little witch.”
Goddess help me ... I don't have a choice.“Do it,” she gasped, and Nameless was moving even before the final syllable had finished escaping her lips.
Leaping up on the bed, Nameless pushed Willow's body flat on the bed and straddled her waist. Several of the tendrils brushed up against him as he did so, and Tara felt physically ill as she smelt burning flesh. Somehow, despite what appeared to be their insubstantial nature, the warlock grabbed the tendrils, wrapping them around each arm, heedless of the sizzle as his own body burned.
Holding each hand open, palm down, above Willow's chest, Nameless rolled his shoulders and pushed down, as if against a great weight. A brilliant glow blossomed from the palm of each hand, and quickly spread to cover Willow's body like a blanket of pure light. What was revealed in that selfsame glow made Tara gasp anew.
A vast, intricate network of lines criss-crossed the redhead's body like an enormous spiderweb, pulsing like a living thing. Tara struggled to make sense of what she was seeing; it was a spell she was seeing, Tara knew that much at least. But as to what it did? Tara had no idea. She had never seen anything quite as complex as what Nameless had apparently been doing to her lover for weeks at least.
But she could see the problem. The pattern was broken, incomplete and unraveling at an ever increasing rate even as she watched. Tara moved closer, drawn like the tides to the moon. She heard Nameless mutter a savage obscenity under his breath, and as Tara moved helplessly beside the bed, she saw his eyes darting to and fro as he studied the unraveling design of his spell.
Finally, his eyes narrowed and the warlock struck, both hands plunging downwards. The strands of his spell parted beneath Nameless' touch, tearing as easily as wet paper, and began to wind around his hands like candy floss. But whatever it was that Nameless was doing, it wasn't as easy as it appeared to the naked eye.
Nameless was sweating heavily, his ravaged face contorted into a pain-filled rictus. A low, agonized hiss was escaping his lips like steam from a kettle, and even as Tara watched in horror, a series of jagged gashes opened on his face, blood sheeting down his cheeks. Nameless began slowly dragging his arms back, and the magic followed him at an equally slowly, as if it weighed a terrible amount.
Willow's screams were gradually tapering off, and were more of a painful wheeze now. Tara took that as a good sign, and hope blossomed in her heart. Willow's hand flailed outwards, seeking something, and without hesitation, Tara caught it with her own, irregardless of any consequences to herself.
Nameless lurched upright with an atavistic bellow, the last stubborn threads of his spell pulling away from Willow like gum on the sole of a shoe. And as soon as the spell was free of Willow, it turned upon its caster. The magic smashed into Nameless like a battering ram, sending him hurtling backwards to land painfully on his back.
Now it was Nameless' turn to scream in agony, his turn to light up from mouth and eyes like a human lighthouse, his spine that bowed fit to snap. Now, it was his flesh that bubbled and ran like melting wax, his flesh that burst into furious flame.
Nameless howled like a man possessed, and every last piece of glass in the immediate vicinity shattered at his call. The warlock was a human torch now, writhing in pain upon the floor, but he would not die. Somehow, Nameless clawed his way to his knees, and locked eyes with Tara.
His mismatched eyes burned even in a mask of flames, but for the first time Tara sensed very little rage in him. Instead ... it was almost as if Nameless was trying to say sorry. But then the moment was gone, and so was Nameless, vanishing into thin air, leaving only scorch marks on the carpet, and the scent of his own burning flesh.
To be continued ...
That’s right: In order to make this event LESS popular, the female activists take off their tops and jog in front of onlookers. - Scott Adams, regarding the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
oh my god I cant understand who is nameless and who,s baby is willow going to have please help me somebody great update though!! 
Kidding!
And, yeah, I don't trust a single shred of information you give us in this story, because there's just too many double bottoms, red herrings and people (and events) who don't turn out to be what you expected them to be... The sign of a good writer is if you can't trust your own eyes. 
Let me think .... er, no. He's too damn stubborn.
If you didn't think the last update was that long, bad news! I've bucked the trend, and this update is actually smaller for a change than the one that proceeded it.
I see you are learning well, my young padawan. 
Oh, that's just brilliant, mate! 
Ok now. I have to go. Bussy weekend.Sorry
perfik! No, no, of course not, Ahn. They're all about orgasms, money AND Anya. Just check out the website of the magic box. Big picture of Anya. 
Welcome!
