Part 10

"Giles, " Willow called. "We're back!"
She set her weapons bag down on the table."Giles?" she inquired again.
"Uh, in here!" his stuttered response came out of his office. "Come and have a look at this, will you?"
Willow, who had just settled comfortably into a chair, groaned and held her hands out for Angel to help her up. He pulled her gently to her feet, and took the opportunity to nibble on her neck a bit.
"You have the worst timing, you know that?" she scolded gently.
"Willow?" Giles called again.
"Uh, I'm coming!" she shouted.
Angel snickered and she realized what she had just said.
"Shut up," she said, mock disgusted.
***
Willow paused in the doorway, feeling dizzy for a moment.It passed swftly, though, so she wrote it off as being over-tired.
"What's up, Giles?"
"Look,"he said, pointing to his desk. "Just look at it."
"Oohh, runic tablets. Always a party. . .oh, dear."
"That's what I said. All four times."
"Excuse me, you cast this how many times?"
"Four."
"Oh, dear."
"We need to trace it."
"I've got some peridot in my bag," she said, rushing out of the office. As she rooted through various pouches on her back pack, the dizziness choked her again, this time bringing severe stomach cramps.
"Oh, God," she whispered, leaning into on of the tables. <Willow,> she thought. <Find the damn stone. Now.>
She felt the light silver chain and wrapped it tightly around her fingers. The cramps seized her again and she stumbled back to the office.
"Here," she strained, tossing the necklace to Giles. "It's not very big, but . . ."
"It'll do fine," he said, dangling it from his desk lamp. It began to swing frantically but rythmically.
"Christ," she said, doubling over. Suddenly, vision burst before her clear as quartz.
"Willow?" Angel was demanding, trying to get her to sit.
"Oh, God, get Giles out of here!" she said, seizing his forearms.
"I'm not leaving you," he said immeadiatly knowing something was wrong-- he had no doubt of Willow's judgement.
"Then come back," she said, shoving him off. "But not until he's far away and safe. It's coming, fast,. . . and anything mortal isn't going to survive."
***
Willow was alone when the lights went out.
She knew it was going to happen, but it still unerved her a bit-- mostly because she hadn't had time to cast a proper circle, or even wards. She shuddered as the entire school lost power and inched over to where the moonlight was shining in through the windows.
"C'mon," she whispered to herself, her abdomen still twisting. Her breath was coming in short, painful gasps, and she had the distinct impression
<no air, there's no air>
that she was suffocating.
A fine black mist swirled out of thin air and collected damply around her ankles. Automatically, she tried to high step out of it, then realized it was futile and distracting. In an attempt to calm herself, she closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. It wasn't oxygen that met her senses, though, but
<Xander?!>
Old Spice after shave. A memory flew into her mind, of the day in eighth grade when Xander had come to school drenched it it, convinced the ladies would go wild for him. She remembered eating lunch that day, all the tables vacant around them-- she was the only one who would stand it. Even Jesse had bailed. . .
Then just as clearly, she could smell the lavender of her own perfume and her mind skipped to the day of the binding. She clearly saw herself in the locker room, Buffy next to her, chatting. Then Buffy reaching into Willow's locker, taking the delicate purple bottle down. Uncorking it, sniffing it, smiling. . .
Then someone had bumped into them and the bottle had slipped from Buffy's thin hands. The two of them had reeked of it after cleaning up the glass shards. . .
She opened her eyes, still unable to draw a full breath.
The darkness had drawn up before her, roughly the size of a big man, and it was reaching for her. Willow swung a foot out, trying to do a roundhouse, but she met only light air. Her leg was frozen though, and it felt like all the blood vessels in it were exploding.
<My leg is dying>
She lost her balance and went down hard on her hip. She withdrew her leg sharply, and it was plunged into the sensastion that it was asleep-- painful needles shot through her bloodstream, and her muscles began to cramp.
<I can't breathe>
Switching to mental defense, since physical obviously wasn't going to help her, she plunged into the thing the same way she had Angel's. . .
. . .But she certainly didn't land in the gentle mind of her lover.
Daggers sliced into her skin as the darkness surrounded her, her mind paralized by ice and fire. Her lungs stopped filling and her pupils widened, searching for any bit of light in the abyss. . .
Then the cold misty touch was gone, replaced by something very solid and concrete in her arms. She gasped in a futile breath, red agony exploding in her air deprived brain.

Angel lifted her easily, racing for the library doors. Willow needed to be able to breathe, and even his dead lungs could tell all the oxygen in the room was gone.
He set her down in the hallway, where the power was slowly coming back. Under the flourescent lights, her lips looked harshly purble, her skin yellow.
"Willow," he whispered, terror shooting through him. "Willow!"
Her green eyes shot open and her lips turned rosy pink again as she drew in her first ragged lungful of life. . .
"Just how many girlfriends have you had who've suffocated?" she demanded before passing out into the safety of his arms.

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