Ichnobate
Part Six"Buffy? BUFFY!"
Giles started shouting as soon as he reached the school grounds. He dashed from building to building before remembering the Principal’s office was located in the same place as the old library. He re-oriented and entered the main building of Sunnydale High.
“BUFFY?”
"In here," Dawn called out the door of the office.
Buffy glowered at Wood, saying, pointedly, "That is my Watcher."
The Principal mumbled something into his desk blotter. Lying face down across the office furniture, Wood was tied hand and foot. Buffy ignored his muffled comments as she put the finishing touches on his knots. Finally satisfied with her macramé, the Slayer dragged her boss from his desk and lowered him into his leather chair.
Giles continued to wander the halls, bawling like a lost calf. Giving up on directing him, Dawn went to help Spike with the debris on the floor. Andrew sat primly in a student chair on the opposite side of the desk from Wood. He tootled his instrument for a time and then quietly rearranged the contents of Jonathan’s gym bag.
"Not much of a liar are you?" the vampire remarked, addressing Wood, casually, as he rolled the man’s chair to one side. Reaching between the spokes of the wheeled base, he retrieved a few more photos. "Don’t know what the Evil network is coming to, trying to foist yourselves off as white hats instead of going for the knives. No wonder we’re kicking your nads out there."
"Oh, look who's an authority on evil," Wood sulked. He had been staring into the middle distance, but he dropped his gaze to sneer dismissively at Spike. "Last of the self-righteous sell-outs. Call yourself a vampire. Do you even drink blood?"
"I'll show you what I…"
"Boys," Buffy warned, one finger raised in rebuke. "No bickering." Eyes fixed warningly on the pair, the Slayer eased back until she was level with the inner office door and bellowed, “GILES,” directly into her former Watcher's face.
"Buffy!" Giles gasped as he bumbled into the room.
He was gripping a two-by-four like a cricket bat, ready for a fight. Blinking in bewilderment, he mentally processed the scene. He noted the scattered photos and office supplies on the floor. He took in the large black man bound hand and foot in a chair. And he observed with interest, Andrew’s relaxed state and Spike and Dawn working in seamless accord under the desk. He did a quick attitude adjustment.
"Oh, I see…you're…uhm…you’re all right."
"We’re peachy," Andrew chirped.
"Thank God," Giles said on a single breath. Smiling brightly, he tucked his blunt object behind a filing cabinet. "And you have people…tied up?"
"Giles tell him you're my Watcher," Buffy demanded, pointing at her boss. Or, more likely former boss, she mentally acknowledged.
"He quit, remember?" Wood reasoned. "Left town, went home to putter in ye' olde English garden?"
"Because I don't need watching."
"Oh, yeah…right!" Wood snorted, rolling his eyes. "Working at the Doublemeat and sleeping with the likes of that." He nodded at Spike and the vampire bristled. Wood didn’t seem to notice as he went on, his tone laced with sarcasm. "I imagine you're the Slayer role model. Someone should write a book about you."
"And the Council? Pretty much…dead," Buffy reminded him.
“See here, Buffy,” Giles reproached.
His hurt tone caused the Slayer a pang. She flinched and muttered a quick, “Sorry, Giles” before turning back to Wood. “You don't like my methods. Find another Slayer. Oh, yeah, not too many of those around either. Hey, I hear Faith’s out of prison. She can take over."
"Believe me, it was discussed."
"Buffy is the greatest Slayer ever," Andrew said, loyally.
Buffy blinked in surprise at the boy and then beamed. "Thank you, Andrew."
"Excuse me," Giles put in. "What is going on?"
"This git," Spike answered, bobbing up from under the desk and indicating Wood with a thumb, "Says he's Buffy's new Watcher. We are not inclined to believe him."
Nearly finished scraping up evidence from the floor, he punctuated his last remark by thwocking a stapler down on top of a pile of pens, photos and paperclips in the middle of the desk blotter and disappeared from view again.
"We think he's a spy for the First," Dawn added, also popping up from under the furniture. She dropped a folded leather wallet and two more pictures of Buffy onto the heap.
"Look, if you don't believe me," Wood began.
"We don't," Spike interrupted, whack-a-moling back into the conversation and flashing a tongue-to-teeth grin at the Slayer. “Didn’t I just cover that?”
"I have I.D." Wood finished.
"You have I.D.?" Buffy echoed, in surprise. Caught off guard by the concept, she shot a questioning glance at Giles. "There's I.D.?"
Giles looked rather shame-faced as he admitted, "Well, yes…actually! There is."
"The Council of Watchers is…was…an International Organization," Wood said, huffily. "We didn't just sit around sipping tea and translating obscure demonology texts."
"Well, some of us did," Giles put in. His honesty earned him a glare from the prisoner.
"And some of us worked in the field, transporting lethal weapons and under-aged girls across international borders. Often, at a moment's notice. Sometimes going into extremely xenophobic countries. How did you think we managed it?"
"I never really…" Buffy began. She looked to Spike for help.
The vampire shrugged. "Make's sense," he said. "Can't pull a girl out o' China with a winning personality." He fixed Wood with a steely-eye and added, "Assuming the rest of them had winning personalities."
Dawn pawed through the rubble on the desk. She found a small leather wallet among the debris and flipped it open. "Hmmm," she said, raising one eyebrow. "There's a picture and everything."
"Let me see," Buffy commanded.
Dawn flourished the photo and badge for the group and then read aloud from the inscription, "Robin S. Wood, I.C.W., Active Service Date 04/02/1998, Field Operative First Class."
When Buffy held out her hand for the wallet, Dawn surrendered it. The Slayer examined the image. After chewing on her bottom lip in consideration, Buffy spun the prisoner in his chair and dangled the photo next to him for comparison. Spike sidled closer to see. His left hand rested, naturally, on Buffy's shoulder as he bent to examine the photo.
Slayer and vampire had a brief, whispered, consultation. They stood very close together, touching, leaning in. Mouth at her ear, Spike said something which caused Buffy to cut her eyes back to Wood. The corners of her mouth quirked up. Giles crossed the room in a few strides. Stopping next to the couple, he cleared his throat, pointedly. Suddenly self-conscious, Buffy stepped away from Spike.
“Okay,” she drawled, snapping the leather I.D. case shut. "So? You have a badge. What does that prove?"
"That I'm not working for the First?"
"Or you're a forger," Dawn suggested.
"Or fogging our perceptions with your evil Jedi Mind Tricks," Andrew added.
Spike, Giles and Buffy swiveled around and raised skeptical eyebrows at the young man.
“Or he’s a forger,” Andrew said, sheepishly. He gave a half-hearted toot on the Kortlec.
“When I was at the Council Headquarters,” Giles said. “I did learn of another Watcher in Sunnydale.”
"Giles?" Buffy said, drawing out his name. "If Principal Wood isn't evil…and the odds are looking slim. Then, I am facing, at the very least, a written reprimand for workplace S&M. So, in consideration of my permanent record, tell me what you know about all of this. And while we are on the subject, why I have never heard of Watcher Carding?"
"Ooooh," Andrew said, aiming the mouthpiece of his instrument at Giles. "Is it because you're like a man without allegiance? A lone wolf?" He twisted up his face and quoted, "'Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges.'"
"Is that from the Magnificent Seven?" Dawn whispered.
"Mel Brooks," Spike said, automatically.
Andrew's face lit up. He favored the vampire with a shy but worshipful smile.
Buffy continued to stare expectantly at Giles. The older man took off his glasses. He gripped the hinge of the earpiece in two fingers and rubbed the back of the same hand along the bridge of his nose. Unfolding the frame with practiced ease, he settled the eyewear back on his face and looked up at the ceiling. Then, to Buffy's surprise, as his gaze dropped to meet hers, he giggled, self-consciously.
"Yes, well,” he muttered, tipping his head like a diffident puppy. “About my identification…it's comical…really…"
"Comical?"
"Essentially…yes."
Giles shot a nervous glance around the circle. The assembled fighters waited patiently. Finally, drawing on generations of British aplomb, he pulled himself together and replied, stiffly. "I hate the bloody photograph. All teeth and glasses. It's positively atrocious."
Before anyone could laugh he went on the attack, pointing an admonishing finger at the Slayer. "And…and you never asked me for I.D. You just popped into the library and started going on about how you weren't interested in your sacred duty and off we went…"
---
"Oh, come on," Willow snapped. "That's ridiculous."
She frowned at the map in front of her.
"Everyone is at the high school?" Anya surmised.
"In the same room even."
"Maybe it confused Giles with the new Watcher."
"No, I don't think so," Willow muttered. "There are two of them. But something may be affecting my signal. I'm going to look for alternative power sources." She swept a hand over the map and the points of golden light at Sunnydale High faded.
Willow lit another candle, poured another pentagram of arrowroot and crushed coltsfoot and pricked her finger. She scattered a few droplets of blood in the center of her five-pointed star. In response to her chanting, a haze of red formed near the middle of the map and spread along the streets and avenues of two-dimensional Sunnydale. A deeper crimson stain flared at the high school.
"Okay, that's the Hellmouth," Anya said.
Willow nodded, absently. There was a second sparkle at the Summers' house and a serious glitter of power over their current location.
"The Chosen," Willow whispered.
"And you," Anya muttered.
Despite her self-imposed abstinence, the red-haired witch was still the most powerful being in the warehouse. Psychic energy began to crackle along the exposed skin of Anya’s arms. She watched Willow warily. The witch’s eyes were closed but her hands drifted over the map as if she could see the lines and legends through her fingertips. She paused near a steady red pulse. Anya leaned closer to read the street names: Ridgewood and Orange.
"We have another player."
"A witch?"
"Yes," Willow hissed. "Her spell? It's…IT’S…" Her eyes flew opened. Staring sightlessly, they flickered from green to black then quickly returned to green. "It's like nothing I recognize…something very…big."
Anya scuttled back in alarm as the map of Sunnydale began to grow under Willow's splayed fingers. Newly created paper unfolded from the edges, mystically expanding the map size. The line drawings became animated, flowing like rivers. Streets fed into highways and then into Interstates as another layer of topography overlaid the original. It became a map of the surrounding five counties. And, Anya suspected, the surrounding dimensions as well.
"Willow, you’re using too much power." The ex-demon's desperate tone barely seemed to reach her companion.
Deep in a swaying trance, Willow responded. "Almost have her…almost…"
"Will—?" Anya started to repeat but broke off with a yelp. She backpedaled to the far side of the tiny room as the transformed map began to bleed scarlet fire. "What in the name of Hetraq's Balls?"
Willow's unseeing gaze went black again as she intoned, "ICH-NO-BATE!"
"WHAT?" Anya shrieked. A shiver raised the hair on her arms and her mouth went dry, for a second. Then, she had to swallow against the bitter gush of bile in her throat. She looked again at the blood-colored pulse of light, dominating the map less than two hundred miles from Sunnydale.
Desperate but determined Anya scrambled to her feet. Ignoring the angry hornet sting of the witch's spell, she stomped straight across the transformed map, drew back her fist and hit Willow hard in the jaw. The witch blinked in surprise. Her eyes returned to jade green as she staggered back. With a clap of thunder, her incantation failed and undirected energy whipped around the small room like a miniature tornado, hurling the two women into opposite walls.
---
There was a crackle of igniting plasma as Faith fell through the ceiling of the Hyperion Hotel. She landed with an oof in the middle of the lobby floor. Dazed, she sat up. The sound of breaking glass, a curse and a scuffle drew her attention to a room on her right. Angel’s office, Faith remembered. She shook off the temporal vertigo and tried to focus. Before her head was clear, Angel charged out the office clutching a book. He paused for a second, staring at the Slayer in disbelief. A frail, dark-haired woman emerged behind him.
The newcomer leveled a gun.
"ANGEL!" Faith yelped. Scrambling to her feet, she launched herself at the vampire in the vain hope of saving him from being shot in the back. A force shield bloomed between them. It bounced her half-way across the room.
All extraneous action seemed to pause for a moment as Faith rolled across the floor.
"Now…isn't that interesting?" Angelus purred.
"Faith?" the unknown woman squeaked, momentarily distracted. "Where did you—And why did—? Oh, never mind." She targeted her weapon, again.
"No time to Lambada right now, Sweetheart," Angelus grinned at the dazed Faith. He somersaulted to avoid another tranquilizer dart, found his feet and sighed regretfully. "But we need to chat real soon about your demonic origins."
Fred fired off another round. Angelus did a Matrix-style backbend of evasion just as Connor appeared at the top of the stairs. The teenager vaulted the second-story railing and landed cat-like in the center of the room. Angelus rolled his eyes heavenward. He looked back at the Slayer and made a small see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with hand gesture at the boy before bolting for the front door. Connor charged him and was hurled back by the Sanctuary Spell. Angelus paused.
“Well, well, well? A chip off the old block?” He chortled.
“I’m not a demon,” Connor growled, struggling to shake off the effects of the spell. “I’m not like you.”
“Spell only works on demons, Son,” Angelus purred. As if in confirmation, Fred’s empty gun ricocheted off the vampire’s shoulder. He turned to wink at the woman. “Feisty! I like girls with spirit. Takes them longer to die.”
In response to his toothy grin, Fred dashed to the weapon’s display. She pulled a crossbow from the case. But before she could bring it to bear, Angelus was through the door.
He ran straight into Faith and Wesley coming up the walk.
"Faith?" Angelus exclaimed, his tone very much like Fred's earlier one.
Momentarily confused, the vampire glanced over his shoulder at the hotel door and was nearly flattened by the Slayer's roundhouse kick to the head. He recovered with a back-handed blow that sent the girl flying into her erstwhile Watcher. Wes and Faith went down in a tangle of limbs.
Slipping into fangs, Angel eyed the fallen duo as he circled them. He looked at the hotel again and feigned an all over shiver. "Don't you just love these unexpected soap opera twists? I swear it's like Days of our Fucked-Up Lives around here. Star-crossed lovers and evil twins. Now, which one of you wants to come back from the dead?"
"Seems rather clichéd," Wes replied, casually. Rolling away from Faith, he fired his rifle from the hip.
The dart took the vampire in the leg but it didn't take him down. With a guttural growl, he charged the former Watcher, barreling over the recovering Faith. He grabbed Wes by the collar, dragging him upright before the man could even think about re-aiming the gun. Wesley’s rifle clattered to the sidewalk.
"You're so True Grit these days, Wes," Angelus muttered, nuzzling along the Brit's jugular. "It gets my blood flowing."
Light splashed into the courtyard as Gunn stormed out of the hotel. Spitting a curse, Angelus turned to face the new threat, negligently tossing the Watcher aside. Wes crashed down onto a decorative stone bench. Gunn fired. The vampire pivoted on one foot, avoiding the dart, and found he was facing the Slayer again. Faith launched a flurry of kicks and punches. Angelus blocked and parried for a moment as Gunn did a double take between the Slayer and the door he'd just come through.
Postponing questions until a more appropriate time, the man aimed and fired off another round. When a second dart stabbed into Angelus' torso, he broke away from the fight with Faith. He staggered to the garden wall. One gravity-defying leap later, he was perched on top of the barrier. He swayed drunkenly. Gunn sighted but before he could take his shot, Angelus was gone.
Faith started toward Wesley but the injured Watcher waved her off, "After him," he ordered, pointing sternly at the road. "He's hit. It will slow him down."
The Slayer nodded. Spinning around, she sprinted toward the wrought-iron gate, barely slowing to scoop up Wes' fallen rifle as she ran. Without even looking at Wesley, Gunn followed Faith into the street. Their hurrying footsteps faded away. Nursing his aching body, Wes stood carefully. He felt sure he’d broken a few ribs. Moving like an old man, he hobbled into the Hyperion lobby. The sight of a second Faith made the Watcher freeze just inside the double doors.
Fred, Connor and Faith 2.0 blinked back at him from the center of the room. The Slayer was seated on the circular sofa. She was holding a hand to her head and looked stunned.
"Faith?" Wes exclaimed, staring in wide-eyed confusion at the brunette woman in prison-wear orange. He, too, did the required double-take before yelping. "What the hell is going on?"
Before anyone could answer, there was another spark of plasmic energy close to the ceiling. Purple and white fire burned in midair. The assembled group looked up into a tear in the fabric of space/time. A swirling blackness punctuated by bright bolts of light blocked out their view of the ceiling.
"It's found me," Faith yelled, over the inrushing whirlwind.
“What?” Wes screamed back.
But Faith wasn’t listening. “Move it or lose it,” she ordered.
Dragging Fred along like a rag-doll, the Slayer sprinted toward the stairs. She grabbed Wes by the elbow as she past and began hustling him up the steps as well. Connor trailed after them, his eyes fixed on the dimensional gateway.
“Something’s coming through,” he said, pointing to a substantial bubble swelling out of the void.
"HEY, KID?" Faith bellowed, like a drill Sergeant. "I SAID MOVE IT.”
The space/time bubble popped and Ichnobate burst into being. It twisted in the air as it fell the few feet to earth. When it landed, it reduced Angel Inc.’s circular sofa to a puddle of protoplasm.
Connor moved. He raced for the weapon’s case.
---
Attracted by Anya's scream, a sizzle of power and the crash of soft bodies into hard walls, Xander and four of the six girls in the training center rushed to the utility room where Willow was spell-casting. Kennedy and Amanda followed at a much slower pace, the injured girl leaning heavily on her fellow potential. Anya staggered out into the main chamber, she nearly ran over Harris in her panicky flight. Her hair was a tangled mess and her upper lip was cut.
“Xander, get the car," she pleaded, as he reached to steady her. "We have to leave, now."
"What? Why?"
“It’s coming,” Anya muttered. Eyes watchful and wild, she dragged at Xander's arm with clawed fingers.
"What is your obviously under-medicated problem?" Willow snarled from behind the former demon. The witch was bleeding from the nose and bracing herself up with a hand on either side of the doorframe. "Breaking a spell like that is insane. We could have been killed."
Anya spun around to confront the redhead. "Did you see it?"
Willow seemed taken aback. But she shook her head in response. "It was dark…confusing. But there was…something…"
"You better believe there was something," Anya reposted. "And I'm sorry," she continued, turning a genuinely sympathetic look on the gathered Slayers in Training. "I really am. But there's nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing anyone can do. You are all going to die. And unless we plan on joining them Xander, we need to leave this very minute."
Willow, Xander and Chloe spoke with one voice. "DIE?"
"Yes, die," Anya confirmed, tugging again at Xander's arm. "I would love to explain it all in mind numbing detail but we need to run away…NOW!"
"We are not running," Xander said, shaking off his girlfriend and going to stand with Willow. "Or," he amended, "at least, not until we know what we're running from. So spill, Ahn. What’s got you so spooked?"
For a moment, Anya looked like she might leave without him. She strained toward the door like a dog on a leash. But her unwilling feet held her in place. She looked down at her shoes in confusion. This, she thought bitterly, is what comes from hanging out with humans. Acting against her better judgment, Anya sighed and turned back to Xander and Willow.
She prompted the witch. "That word you said?"
"Ick-nobel…something?"
Anya shuddered and hugged herself. Once again, she glanced, longingly, toward the door.
"Ichnobate," she corrected. "It means something in the demon world. The name alone is enough to send any sensible being into hiding. It means death. Swift. Sure. Running you into the ground…unstoppable. There's no way to escape it. Once summoned, Ichnobate will hunt you 'til you drop, across dimensional barriers and through any counter spell you can devise. Giles and I saw the signs but I didn't know…didn't understand,” she tried to comprehend what her lapse may have cost them in time. “Someone, obviously, called it up to take out Faith." She looked at the assembled girls. "And now it's headed for Sunnydale."
"So, okay," Xander said, try to remain calm. "It's a killer demon. How do we stop it?"
"Weren't you listening, Harris?" Anya snapped. "You don't. You die."
"Nothing is invincible," Willow insisted.
Anya made an exasperated little noise. "Look, it exists trans-dimensionally," she explained. "It's not really here, so we can't hurt it."
"What if we killed the witch that cast the spell?" Kennedy asked, coming up behind the group. She was white faced under her bandages but seemed determined. As everyone turned to stare at her, she shrugged. "It always works in the fairytales."
Willow crossed to the girl. She wrapped a consoling arm around the injured girl's shoulders.
“Not with a power of this magnitude,” she said, gently. “Killing the witch would cause a backlash that would take out the entire town. It would level us like a nuclear bomb."
"Oh," Kennedy remarked in a small voice.
"But," Amanda encouraged her fellow potential, "finding the witch is a good idea, isn’t it?” She looked hopefully at Willow. “I mean, couldn’t you maybe do a counter-spell or something."
“Maybe,” Willow agreed.
"We should run," Chloe said. "My instincts are saying—run."
"Your instincts always say that," Kennedy sneered.
"And this time they are right," Anya said, forcefully. "We should all be running. In separate directions. If we leave now some of us might live to see the weekend."
"Right, let's go," Xander said, heading for the car.
"What?" Willow blurted even as Anya breathed a sigh of relief.
The former demon's glow of satisfaction lasted all of two seconds. Then Xander glanced back over his shoulder and clarified. "We need to warn Buffy."
---
Connor darted away from the staircase, waving his arms and yelling. His sharp movements caught the newly materialized creature’s attention. It lunged at him. Teeth as long as man’s arm snapped down around Angel’s son, triggering the Sanctuary Spell. The creature was repelled. It roared and attacked again. Each time it threw its weight against the green barrier, the insubstantial beast was thrown back.
It seemed to twist through a variety of shapes, assuming a new one each time it was repulsed, first squat, then gaunt. Connor kept teasing it. And Lorne’s spell held. The hound’s plunging leaps set off the spell so often a glowing ball of light developed around the creature. Watching from the second story landing, Fred thought the display looked like a snow globe from Hell.
"What is that…thing?" She asked, in awe.
"Some kind of dimension hopping hound," Faith shrugged. She turned to Wes.
"Of course," he sighed. "You’re from another dimension. An alternative Faith?" The Slayer nodded. Wes looked troubled. “You can’t stay here.”
“Don’t plan to. But I could use your help. Have you ever heard of this thing? It's tracking me. I keep running; it keeps coming. My late demon tour guide said the only way to stop it was to," she air quoted, "'make it real.' Assuming he wasn't just talking the talk, any idea how we do that?"
Before Wesley could reply, Lorne wandered out of the hall to Faith's right.
“Metro-Goldwin-Mayer and Joseph!” The green demon exclaimed. “Who let the dogs out?"
"Wish I knew," the Slayer sighed. “You saying you’ve seen this sort of demon before?”
"Actually, Sugar-Plum, I've never had the pleasure," Lorne remarked, leaning over the railing to study the trapped hound. Connor was still dancing around it but it was no longer rushing at him. Instead, it was staring fixedly at the group on the second floor.
Lorne gave a delicate shiver and stepped back from the edge. "And maybe ‘pleasure’ is the wrong word. But if it weren't for my teensy little spell holding him in check, I’d say that was the original devil dog." He sidled closer to the group and confided, "Ichnobate."
"Good Lord," Wes started.
Faith snorted in exasperation. "Yeah, I got the name. And if we could just skip the part where you fellows speak in hushed tones and drool all over yourself with enthusiasm, I’d be real grateful. See? The late Kevin? Tour guide on my recent trip through hell? He took care of the jaw-dropping-awe part for me.
“Tour guide through hell?” Lorne said, in confusion.
“That’s right, Mr. Greenjeans. Like Wes said, I’m not from around here. And I get that Benji is a really amazing puppy, too. I am down with that. I know he can track you to the ends of the earth and then some. Apparently, next to Slayers this Ichno-whatever is the big noise in demon circles…but none of that is helping me with my little problem. I need to know just one thing: How do I kill it?"
Wes and Lorne exchanged a meaningful glance. The demon cut his eyes to the side and grimaced and the Slayer turned her glare on her former Watcher.
Making a small helpless gesture, Wes shook his head. His face was lined with genuine concern. "I am sorry, Faith. I would have to consult a few books to be certain but as far as I know, there is no way to stop it. Once invoked, Ichnobate can not be deterred from executing its objective."
"And that would be me?"
"It seems so."
Pulling a hand through her hair, Faith let out a whoosh of pent up breath. Her eyelids closed for a long beat as the past few days caught up with her in a rush. Exhaustion settled on her small frame, making her look ten years older. But, after a moment, she opened her eyes and shifted into a fighting stance. Squaring her body, she addressed her former Watcher.
“Come on, Wes. I know we’ve got history. Hell, you might even enjoy seeing me do the Eukanuba. But you can do better than that for an excuse. Nothing’s indestructible. There must be something I can….”
"How does it kill you exactly?" Fred interrupted.
“Can’t say I care,” Faith growled, her desperate gaze still focused on Wes. “Cause I’ll be just as dead.”
Fred’s question caught Wesley’s attention. He took the beautiful physicist by the elbow. Maneuvering her to face him, he spoke, gently. “Do you have a theory? Some way we might stop it?”
"Maybe," Fred admitted.
“Well, lay it on us, String-Particle Princess,” Lorne encouraged.
There was a click of long nails on the marble tile of the lobby floor. Distracted by the sound, the Slayer glanced toward her pursuer. She looked in time to see Connor charge at the Hound. The boy was brandishing a sword and handling it with evident skill. But as he sliced the blade toward the creature’s throat, a green wash of energy crackled through the air. Connor was thrown across the room.
‘Some people never learn,’ Faith thought.
It took the teenager a minute or more to recover. When he got up, he came at the unmoving beast again. A second, more tentative, thrust was also repulsed. Faith frowned and shot a fleeting look at Wes, a question in her eyes. But the man was deep in conversation. Gazing up at him, Fred’s face was glowing, as she explained her theory.
"'Make it real' would seem to indicate that it’s not real to begin with,” she was saying when Faith tuned back in. “That it is, in fact, incorporeal. But that doesn’t follow. If it’s not real, how can it kill a temporally grounded being? A specter or manifestation would pass through flesh. Or for that matter," she added, pointing to the lobby, "how is it triggering the Sanctuary Spell?"
"Well," Wes considered, frowning as he too worked out the ramifications. "I assume that parts of it must be real, or rather…must exist concurrently in the same dimension as the prey, for a short time."
"Parts like the teeth," Lorne supplied, nodding.
"They’re real enough," Faith muttered, rejoining the conversation. "It took a bite out of our jeep. Flipped steel and rubber inside out. Looked like it pulled the back end into the vortex or portal or whatever you call the dimensional doorway. It crumbled the frame like it was balling up paper."
“Could you still see it?” Fred asked.
Faith nodded. She could feel the Hound watching her, even with her back to it. It made the short hairs stand up on her neck.
"Oh, Trans-Temporal Morphology," Fred commented, a delighted grin slicing across her face.
“It exists in different times at the same time?” Wes translated.
Fred nodded, excitedly. "It might. Different times or different dimensions. And if it had some innate way of controlling the vortex, it could drag its prey into a parallel dimension. And well, that would be fatal all right. It could put your insides on your outside or stretch your spine out over light years. Most of us aren’t designed to exist on more than one plane at a time.”
Noticing Faith’s scowl, Fred finished in a very small voice. "But, of course, you might not find this nearly as fascinating from a subjective point of view.”
"No, it is," Faith conceded. "If I wasn’t down as Cujo’s intergalactic chew toy, I’d be all over this theory. But since I am…let’s talk practical application. What does this do for me?”
"Well," Fred drawled, her mind clicking over in double time. "I think it goes to the heart of the problem. What you need to do is keep this Ich.no…”
“Ichnobate.”
“…Ichnobate in the real world long enough to make it take solid form. Force the trans-temporal mutation. Then you should be able to kill it."
"How exactly do I make it stay in the real world?"
"Yeah, Kitten," Lorne remarked. "If she stands around too long it will eviscerate her."
"She could stay here,” Fred began but caught herself immediately. “Or…no, she can’t can she?”
“No,” Wes agreed. “Our Faith will be back soon and the dimensional warping would be too much of a strain on our localized reality.”
"We could trap it with a spell maybe? But surely someone has thought of that already?”
“Legend has it, Ichnobate’s been called down on some major Charm Slingers,” Lorne confirmed. “Never heard of an enchantment that could stop it, yet. I can’t believe my little Sanctuary Spell has it stymied.”
“If you can’t stand still…and you can’t out run it…” Fred mused. “I think maybe what you need to do is keep moving but don’t go too fast or too far. Stay just out of reach. Like Connor is doing."
"Was doing," Connor said, from behind them. "It stopped trying to get me. Now, it’s just sitting there, watching."
He pointed and everyone turned to look. The Hound was crouched in the middle of the lobby. It seemed solid enough.
"Connor," Wes said, in a quiet aside. "Get my automatic and the pump-action."
The teenager didn’t question the order. He edged around the group and disappeared down the hallway toward Wes’ room.
"Or better yet," Lorne called after him. "Get the Slayer a crossbow."
"She can't hurt it," Fred said. "No demon violence, remember? It will just set off the Sanctuary Spell, again."
Lorne and Wes both gaped at the girl. They spoke at the same time.
"How did you—?"
"What do you mean demon?"
“Oh,” Fred gasped. “I thought everyone…knew.”
"That's right, boys," Faith drawled. "The big secret is out. I'm part demon.” She raised a saucy brow at her former Watcher. “Explains a lot don’t you think, Wes?”
“Faith, I…” Wes began.
“See,” Faith said, speaking over him. “I never knew my Daddy. He and mom passing like ships in the night and all. But still…I'm thinking is this isn’t genetic. It's the Slayer part, right? And you Watchers…you knew all along. This is what being ‘chosen’ is about, right? Becoming a demon?"
Wes had the decency to squirm. “Y-y-yes, we-well,” he stuttered.
Lorne wasn’t so easily mollified. “You’re THE SLAYER! What do you mean you’re a demon? Can’t be…nope…no way, Jose! Tell her she’s mistaken, Wesley.”
“I am afraid she’s partially correct,” Wes acknowledged. “The source of the Slayer’s Power is, as you can well imagine, a closely guarded secret. Even the Watchers aren’t told until their potential girl is chosen. A few, like poor Mrs. Post go quite mad when they learn the truth.”
Feeling sick inside, Faith nodded, “Everything they thought they stood for is a lie.”
“Not a lie,” Wes corrected. “The Slayer still fights evil. She acts as a force of good. The Slayer bond is more like symbiosis than possession. It empowers. It heals. The demonic force occupies the human host, always a young girl. It is very similar to vampiric possession, even passing from one host to another. But, of course, the girls retain their souls. And their essential humanity. True, the source of the Slayer Power is born in darkness. But the Slayer is not…you, Faith, are NOT…a demon.”
Faith opened her mouth to respond but a guttural growl attracted everyone’s attention to the staircase. The hound was moving, slinking up the stairs toward their position. Each marble step buckled under its obviously substantial weight.
“Time to test your theory,” Faith told Fred.
“CONNOR,” Wes bellowed.
There was a scrambling sound from the hallway. A second later, the boy arrived with two guns. He handed one to Wes. Bringing the other one to his shoulder, he took careful aim.
“We will fire in turns,” Wes said, “aiming for opposite sides, you on the right and me to the left.”
Connor narrowed his eyes but hesitated before pulling the trigger. “I can’t,” he said, suddenly offering his weapon to Fred. “The Spell won’t let me.”
"Him, too?" Lorne yelped. He threw up his hands in dismay. “I haven’t seen this many people out-ed at once since Liza and David’s wedding.”
“Indeed,” Wes sighed. “This one is even a surprise to me.” Sighting along the barrel of his weapon, he didn’t look across at the frail woman with the other rifle. “Fred, you’ll have to take the shot.”
“But…I…”
“NOW!”
They fired in unison as the beast bound up the stairs.
---
“So?” Buffy pressed as Principal Wood saw her group off school grounds. “I’m not fired?”
“No, you aren’t. Luckily, I am your Watcher AND this didn’t happen during the school day. It’s gratifying to know you’re so skilled in hand-to-hand.”
“Yeah,” Buffy mumbled, uncertainly. “I’ve got skills.”
“You should see her throw an ax,” Spike put in, acting out the hurling motions as he spoke. “Overhand and deadly accurate. Even at distance!”
Wood turned a cold stare on the vampire. Behind his back, Buffy gave a small warning shake of her head. Spike shifted slightly but held his tongue as the Principal took the Slayer’s elbow in a firm grip. He led her to a point a few yards away from her former lover and the rest of her group.
“What?” Spike said, in a soft aside to Giles. “You’d think kids today could use a bit of that.” Seeing the Slayer was listening, he shot a twinkling glance at her. “Self-defense, career training and so on.”
Pretending interest in Wood’s lecture, Buffy tried to hide her smile. A tingle of warmth washed over her skin. She noticed the vampire continuing to watch her. ‘God, he’s so hot,’ she thought, ‘if only we could have an hour or two to ourselves.’ Spike’s teasing and the intensity of his stare, made Buffy jittery with desire. Nibbling on her lower lip, she tilted her chin down and gazed up at him, fetchingly, through the veil of her lashes. Spike released an involuntary sigh and swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.
“I would be interested in seeing your operation,” Wood was saying. “Shall I come by tomorrow and inspect the premises?”
“Hmmm?”
“Miss Summers?”
“Oh, yeah…yes…inspections,” Buffy said, focusing. “Well, like I said…I don’t need a Watcher. I mean, happy to have you onboard. Sorry about the Council and tying you up and all. But what exactly are you going to do for me?”
“Well,” Wood snapped. “For one thing, keep you gainfully employed.”
Giles took immediate umbrage. He started forward but Spike shot an arm out, blocking his way. Rupert tried to push by but Spike caught his attention. The vampire bobbed his chin at his girl, a small knowing grin lifting the corners of his mouth. Giles followed Spike’s gaze. Buffy’s eyes were hard as diamonds. She locked onto Wood’s face and stepped in threateningly.
“Not good enough,” she growled, intimidating as a lioness at bay. The big man stumbled back in dismay. Gathering up her followers with a glance, Buffy turned to leave.
Wood gave a short nervous laugh as he hurried after her. “Of course, not. My apologies. Your job is secure. And as for my services as Watcher, I don’t want to interfere. I’m only interested in offering whatever assistance I can in your upcoming battle.”
Buffy stopped in her tracks, pivoting to challenge him. “So? What do you know about the First Evil?”
Before Wood could answer there was a squeal of tires from the far side of the parking lot. Glancing up, Buffy’s party saw the Xandermobile take the turn on two wheels. The Slayer’s group scattered as the car smoked rubber and fishtailed to a halt a few yards away from where Buffy stood waiting.
---
“Is it dead?”
“I believe so.”
“Volunteers to check?”
“I volunteer, Junior.”
Keeping their distance, Fred, Wes, Lorne, Connor and Faith, surrounded the fallen Hound. It had taken 10 rounds from each rifle to bring it down. But finally, it lay still in a pool of black and silver ichors.
“Seems a little anti-climactic,” Fred sighed.
“Yeah," Faith agreed. "Didn’t even need a silver bullet.”
“It is rather odd, don’t you think?” Wes mused, looking at Lorne. “All of the legends go on about how unstoppable Ichnobate is and yet…we use a simple Sanctuary Spell and a couple of automatic weapons?”
“Too good to be true?”
“Technology is a wonderful thing, Wes.”
Connor edged cautiously closer. Poised to leap away at any moment, he prodded the Hound’s open jaw with the toe of his boot. The creature emitted a rattling gasp and shifted. Connor jumped and each of the circle of onlookers took a giant step back . Rifles rattled into readiness. But the Hound didn’t rise. Instead, it seemed to collapse. It deflated, folding in on itself, until it was almost two-dimensional.
“What did you do?” Fred asked Connor in a semi-accusing manner.
“Nothing!”
He braced his feet further apart as a sudden gust of wind whipped around the room. A jagged hole opened in the floor just beyond Connor’s right foot. He stumbled backward. Swirling like a cyclone, the fissure in space/time passed straight though the center of Ichnobate’s remains. There was another purplish white aurora of inter-dimensional light and the flattened carcass bubbled up. Ever so slowly, it began to fill out again.
“Something else is coming through.”
“Brisnoski’s Grimorie,” Wes muttered.
“Or another hound.” Lorne said.
“That’s what I meant,” Wes explained, impatiently. “According to the Brisnoski’s Grimorie, the Hound itself isn’t trans-dimensional. Rather, Brisnoski proposed, there were a number of Hounds…in various dimensions. All interlinked by the casting of the spell. When one Hound dies another takes its place.”
"Via inertial bonding," Fred said, as if thrilled by the concept. The others looked at her blankly.
“How high a number?” Faith asked.
“Possibly infinite.”
“No,” Fred disagreed. “Eventually the permutation would break down. There are an infinite number of universes but the points of accessibility are finite.” Off more blank looks, she tried to explain. “Say there was a world without catfish….”
"Or shrimp."
"Or those little paper umbrella's for your tropical drinks."
"Okay, or those things." Fred's brow puckered. She seemed momentarily flustered. But, after tilting her head curiously at Faith and Lorne, she plunged on. "Say there was a difference between this dimension and another one. Catfish, shrimp, little paper umbrellas…whatever? But you know…probably not the umbrellas. Because temporal inertia would realign the schism if no permanent ramifications developed. And really, how important are those little umbrellas?”
“Temporal Inertia?”
“Theoretically, every time a butterfly flaps its wings it creates a new universe,” Fred said, impatiently. “But really, it doesn’t because one flap is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Little changes are meaningless. Where you put your drink on a table, for example. When you leave for work, give or take a minute or two. Those kind of minute changes are absorbed by temporal inertia. A newly created universe would fall back into the original pattern when nothing else changed over time. No harm done.”
“So it has to be a big difference to create an alternative reality?”
“Exactly! No shrimp means no shrimp boats and no shrimp larvae and no shrimp industry. Entire ecosystems collapse, economies shift.”
“And a new universe is created.”
“Yes, but fundamentally all that changes is the shrimp. Everything else is the same. There’s a Faith and a Wes and a Me. So the alternate dimension could intersect with our dimension at any of the identical points of reference."
“Which is what Brisnoski asserted as well,” Wes nodded. “He hypothesized fifty hounds from his study of intersecting temporal axis.”
“Fifty?!?”
Fred frowned. “That seems a little conservative."
“Or 5000,” Wes said, with a little apologetic shrug. “The Brisnoski translation is a little iffy”
Everyone looked at Lorne.
“Hey, don’t look at me boys and girls. I mostly read Danielle Steel.”
The Hound roared.
“Fire!” Wes ordered again.
“But I will tell you this,” Lorne remarked, some moments later, as he looked down on another deflating corpse, “whoever cast this spell is using a lot of juice. Mojo of this magnitude doesn’t come cheap. It drains the Spell Caster. So it can’t go on forever. And the more of these puppies you kill, the more of a hurting you put on whoever is behind all of this.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Faith nodded.
“But how can there be more than one of them?” Connor shouted over an almost gale force wind as another echo of gunshots died away.
“Just like there can be two Faiths,” Fred yelled back.
“But,” Connor insisted. “Which one of them is real?”
“They’re all real, all the same. As long as the universes are similar enough, have enough things in common, the same hound can re-manifest. But this is very dangerous, forcing the manifestation to remain localized. I think we may be creating a trans-temporal instability. We can’t keep killing them here.”
“Right,” Faith bellowed. “Wes, give me your gun. Connor, get me some ammo.”
“What are you—?”
“I don’t belong here, Wes. You said it yourself. So…I’m going to go.”
“Go where?”
Faith nodded at the whirlpool of black in the middle of the lobby. “If Fred and Brisnoski are right…then not very far at all.”
“And if we’re wrong?” Fred asked.
Taking the belt of ammo from Connor, Faith winked at the other woman but didn’t answer. She crouched low, staring into the maelstrom of plasma energy.
Before she could make her leap, Wes stepped in front of the Slayer. “Here,” he said, holding out his hand. “In case Fred is right. Dark green. Just outside the front gate and to your left.”
Faith didn’t look down. She opened her hand and he dropped something bulky and metallic into her palm. She didn’t hesitate. Another Hound was coming through the portal. The Slayer ran to confront it and was swallowed whole.
---
There was a crackle of igniting plasma as Faith fell through the ceiling of the Hyperion Hotel. She landed with an oof in the middle of the lobby floor. Dazed, she sat up. In a room to her right she heard the sound of breaking glass, a curse and a scuffle. The office, Faith remembered. She shook off the temporal vertigo and tried to focus. Lightning bolts flashed overhead and the Slayer looked up. Disorientation fell away, she glanced again at the office. Angelus would be coming out any second with Fred in hot pursuit.
The Slayer scrambled to her feet as the air in the vortex above thickened and swelled. Ichnobate bayed in the cosmic void. Faith’s fist tightened convulsively around Wes’ last minute gift. The hard, uneven edges cut into her skin.
Opening her hand, Faith looked down and smiled. A set of car keys rested in her palm. Make and model were emblazoned on the key ring. With a renewed sense of purpose, the Slayer bolted out the front door of the hotel and raced down the sidewalk. She could hear Wesley Wyndam-Price’s distinct accent in the distance.
Looking to the left, Faith saw the dark green shape of what she hoped was her Watcher’s car. She ran to the vehicle, reaching it just as Ichnobate flowed insubstantially through the wall behind her. With no time to waste on locks, the Slayer sprang into the air. Jack-knifing her body, she kicked out with both feet, shattering the driver’s side window. Momentum carried her through to the front seat. She ducked her head and slithered into position like an Indy car driver mounting up.
Flickering in and out of existence the Hound charged.
Without sparing her pursuer a glance, Faith slid her trans-dimensional key into the car’s ignition. It was a perfect fit.