Chapter 24
“Bitter love, a violet with its crown/of thorns in a thicket of spiky passions,/spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come/to conquer my soul? What via dolorosa brought you?/Why did you pour your tender fire/so quickly, over my life’s cool leaves?/Who pointed the way to you? What flower,/what rock, what smoke showed you where I live?/Because the earth shook—it did—, that awful night;/then dawn filled all the goblets with its wine;/the heavenly sun declared itself;/while inside, a ferocious love wound around/and around me—till it pierced me with its thorns, its sword,/slashing a seared road through my heart.” ~Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet III”
It was weird to fight without being able to talk, without being able to communicate with Spike and make sure he was okay without a visual.
Not to mention the fact that she desperately wanted to know why Riley Finn had shown up in his military-type clothing and his heavy-duty weaponry.
Buffy had been more than a little bit surprised when she’d run into Riley while fighting off the demons. Spike hadn’t been surprised, although she’d been sure that he was going to change right there. He’d controlled himself with some difficulty, however, and they had returned their focus to keeping the Gentlemen from stealing any more hearts.
The clock tower was cluttered with wooden boxes and barrels, and with all the demons running around, it made for a tight fit. Riley and Spike had actually worked together long enough for Buffy to get upstairs, where she saw the jarred hearts and other implements of their grisly work.
She’d seen the box from her dream then, and had made a lunge for it, only to be stopped by several of the straight-jacketed demons. She had one on each arm and a third holding her shoulders, bending her over backwards against the big winch used for the bells.
One of the Gentlemen approached her with a scalpel ready, and Buffy struggled wildly, trying to free herself. The demon suddenly stopped in his tracks, rotating to look at Riley, who was holding some sort of gun. Spike burst into sight, grabbing the demon holding her shoulders down, tossing him to the other side of the room with a silent roar.
Buffy shook off the other two demons, making a desperate lunge for the box again, only to be stopped by another of the Igor-things. They seemed to come in an endless supply.
She gestured frantically to Riley, making an open-shut gesture with her hands, looking from his face to the table with the box and back again. There wasn’t more than a second or two to get her point across. Buffy was soon busy fighting off the creatures again, as she watched while Riley brought the butt of his rifle down on a different container.
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes, then watched as Spike picked up the wooden box with the black markings on its top and sides, dropped it on the floor, and deliberately stomped on it.
White mist floated up from the splinters, separating and flying out of the window—and into her throat.
She knew immediately when her voice had come back, and Buffy opened her mouth, letting loose a scream that would have put horror-flick actresses to shame.
The Gentlemen froze, their toothy smiles fixed, right before their heads exploded.
“Spike?” Buffy asked.
“I’m good.” He deliberately backed away from Riley.
Buffy looked at her former TA. “Riley?”
“Uh, hey, Buffy.” He glanced down at his clothing and weaponry, which was obviously military-issue. Riley looked over at Spike. “Is this your boyfriend?”
~~~~~
“Well, that was fun,” Willow said cheerfully, looking at Wesley and Tara. They both stared at her incredulously. “Kidding. Mostly.” She grimaced, looking at the soda machine that was now blocking their exit. “Can we move back the same way we moved it over?”
“I have no idea,” Wesley admitted. “I imagine we should at least be able to shift it away from the door, if nothing else.” He glanced over at the other girl. “Are you alright?”
“I-I-I’m f-f-fine,” she managed to stutter.
Willow seemed to recall her manners. “Oh! I’m sorry! Wesley, this is Tara. She’s from the Wicca group on campus. Tara, this is my boyfriend, Wesley.”
Tara gave them both a timid wave.
Wesley smiled, hoping that his expression was reassuring. “Well, I don’t know about the two of you, but I could certainly use a cup of tea once we get out of here.”
Willow nodded. “Right there with you. Tara?”
“I-I think w-w-w-we can m-move it back.”
Willow hadn’t removed her hand from Wesley’s, and so she took Tara’s hand with her free one, watching as the soda machine slid across the floor slowly, bumping into the wall with a dull thud. She heaved a sigh of relief. “I hope Buffy and Spike are okay.”
“I imagine they would be, since we’re speaking,” Wesley commented, pushing himself up off the floor, and pulling Willow with him. He offered Tara a hand up without thinking much of it, helping her to her feet.
“Who?” Tara asked, still sounding like she was ready to run away at any moment.
“My friend and her boyfriend,” Willow explained. “We figured out what was causing the whole silent thing, and they went to stop the demons.” She gave the other girl a curious look. “What brought you out?”
“I thought th-that m-maybe we c-could do something about it.” Then, in a voice so low Wesley and Willow almost missed it, she added, “A spell.”
Willow’s eyes widened. “You do magic?” she asked, lowering her voice as she realized that they were in the middle of the hallway, and that wasn’t necessarily something she wanted a lot of people to be overhearing. “Sorry. Maybe we should go to my room.” She threw an apologetic look at Wesley. “No tea, though.”
“I think I’ll survive,” he said dryly, following Willow through the door. “You thought you could do a spell?”
Tara ducked her head, unwilling to look at either of them. “I-I-I—”
Willow glanced over at Wesley, then sat down next to Tara. “It’s okay,” she assured her. “We both get the whole magic thing. It was really great of you to want to help.”
“Of course, it was,” Wesley added. He wasn’t quite sure how to handle this girl, who seemed so skittish. “You were very brave to come out tonight.”
The flush that crept up her cheeks was unmistakable, and Wesley realized that she wasn’t going to be comfortable talking to both of them. Perhaps if it was just Willow, whom she was at least a little familiar with, and who was her own age. “It’s late,” he said, meeting Willow’s eyes. “We should probably walk you home.”
Willow caught Wesley’s intentions immediately. “We should get together tomorrow,” she suggested. “Maybe after class? It is pretty late.”
Tara nodded slowly, her dark blonde hair hanging in her face, hiding her expression from the two of them. “O-Okay.”
~~~~~
Buffy could be sensitive when she wanted to be, and it was fairly obvious that Spike didn’t want to stick around and chat with Riley. Buffy, on the other hand, wondered if she couldn’t use this to their advantage. Neither she nor Spike wanted the soldiers to come after him again; if she could just explain to Riley that Spike wasn’t to be harmed, maybe they would listen to her. She thought it might be a good idea to at least feel Riley out a bit.
Buffy thought that she might be able to fix it, and maybe she could make sure Spike was safe.
Of course, now didn’t seem like the time to argue with her boyfriend about it, given that things were pretty good between them.
They stopped by her mom’s house on the way back to Spike’s, since Giles had asked them to check in. They gave him a quick report of what had happened, including the run-in with Riley, and then it was pretty much straight to bed.
Although, not quite straight to sleep. Faith had been right about that much; slaying did tend to make her hungry and horny.
Buffy hadn’t talked to Spike about what they might say to Riley, or what they might want to find out. She didn’t particularly want to know what Spike thought, because she had the feeling that he was going to be stubborn about it. Not that she could blame him, but they needed information, and they hadn’t been able to get it any other way.
That was why, when Riley showed up at her dorm room, she silently let him inside.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Buffy didn’t want to be the first one to break the ice.
“You seemed to know what you were doing last night.”
She took a seat on her bed, watching as Riley sat down across from her. “I could say the same for you.”
Riley shook his head. “You knew more than I did, Buffy. You knew how to stop those things.”
She hesitated. Telling anybody that she was the Slayer wasn’t something she took lightly. Back when Wesley had first come to Sunnydale, he’d accused her of being loose with the information, which wasn’t the case. In truth, it wasn’t a big school, and people tended to see more than they let on. Besides, they lived on top of a Hellmouth; that got a little hard to hide.
At college, however, she’d had the option of being anonymous, of having a secret identity again, but now she was blowing her cover. Deliberately. Buffy knew that she could lie; she could make something up about living in Sunnydale and learning to take care of herself.
But she didn’t want to. She wanted to put her cards on the table so that Riley, and everyone he was working with, knew exactly who they would be messing with if he came after the people she cared about again.
“I’m the Slayer,” she stated flatly. “Stopping things like that is my job.”
Riley just stared at her. “You’re the what?”
“Slayer comma the. You haven’t heard of me? I assumed that with all those demons and vampires you guys were rounding up you must have heard something.”
It probably came out a lot sharper than she’d meant it to, but she wasn’t sure she cared. Riley was clearly taken aback by how much she already knew. “What are you talking about?”
“Demons and vampires disappearing from campus, underground laboratory.” Buffy listed off the facts as she knew them. “Ringing any bells?”
Riley shook his head. “You know a lot more about me than I know about you. I’d kind of assumed we were a little more stealthy than that.”
“You were, but some of your friends weren’t,” Buffy replied. “Who are you working for, Riley?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. In fact, I shouldn’t even be here right now.”
“Why can’t you tell me?” Buffy demanded. “I already know the important things.” She decided it was time to start guessing, hoping that she’d hit the mark. “You work for the government, right? For the military? You guys go out and capture demons so you can do experiments to find out how they work? You probably even have a technical name for them, like non-sapiens or something. How am I doing?”
“Hostile sub-terrestrials, and a little too well.” Riley stood. “I can’t tell you more than you already know, Buffy, not before I clear it with my superiors.” He stared at her. “I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“You. I saw you fight, saw you move,” he said. “Your boyfriend, too. You’re both stronger, faster, than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Buffy felt a jolt of fear. They couldn’t find out about Spike, who he was, not until she was certain that they would listen. She was human—mostly—and he wasn’t. “Spike’s just a regular guy,” she lied. “I’m the one with the destiny.”
Riley stared at her, and then walked over to the door. “I have to talk to my superiors. I don’t have to tell you not to say anything. It wouldn’t be good if you did.”
Buffy watched him leave, wondering what he’d do with the information she’d given him, and hoping that she hadn’t just made a huge mistake.
~~~~~
Willow sat down across from Tara at one of the lunch tables outside. “So how’s it going?”
“G-good,” she replied. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“I’m happy to,” Willow replied. “I mean, I thought that Wicca group was just a bunch of wanna-bes, instead of real witches. It was okay, because there’s Wesley, and he knows what he’s doing, but it was kinda disappointing to find out that none of them actually knew about real magic, you know?” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m babbling. I just haven’t ever met anyone who knows about this stuff before. For real.”
Tara appeared intrigued. “What about Wesley?”
“Oh, I mean outside my friends,” Willow explained. “We all know about the weird stuff that goes on in this town. We’ve been fighting evil since high school.”
Now the other girl appeared equal parts interested and alarmed. “Oh, well, you don’t need me, then. I don’t—I mean, I can’t help much. I’m not very powerful or anything.”
“No!” Willow said quickly. “We can use all the help we can get! Xander can’t do magic or anything, and he still helps.” At Tara’s blank look, she clarified, “My best friend. We’ve known each other since kindergarten.”
Tara didn’t seem to be reassured, although Willow wasn’t sure she could blame her. She was talking about a lot of people that Tara would have no way of knowing. “It—it sounds like you have a lot of friends.”
Willow smiled. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use another.” When Tara flushed with pleasure, she leaned forward. “So how long have you been practicing?”
“As long as I can remember,” Tara replied hesitantly. “My mom—she knew. She saw things. I didn’t know that anyone else did. I’ve never met…”
Willow touched her hand. “I know. It helps, when you know people who understand, who can see the same things that you do.”
“When did you know?”
“Pretty much after I started hanging out with Buffy,” Willow admitted. “I wanted to help, and we needed magic done, and it sounded interesting, so…” She shrugged. “I’ve been working hard at it lately with Wesley.”
“You guys seem close,” Tara ventured.
Willow could feel herself flushing. “It’s pretty new,” she admitted. “My boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, left, and Wesley was just there, and it was good.” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you—I mean, we could kind of have our own coven. It’s just two, well, three with Wesley, but—I think it would be good. We could really help.”
Tara looked away, her eyes seeing beyond the students going about their days, beyond the ordinary world that everyone else saw. She saw what Willow was offering her, and though it scared her to death, she wanted to take it.
She’d always wanted to make a difference.
“Okay.”
~~~~~
Professor Walsh leaned back in her chair, fixing Riley with a hard stare. “I don’t think I need to remind you that secrecy is our top priority, Agent Finn. The fact that you allowed a civilian to see you—”
“With all due respect, Professor Walsh, she’s not a civilian,” Riley quickly inserted. “She called herself the Slayer, and she’s strong. Maybe stronger than I am. I know we both took a beating, and she didn’t have a scratch on her when I saw her later the next day.”
Maggie Walsh’s eyes narrowed. Among her other projects was the goal of making soldiers stronger, faster, and more resilient. If there was a girl out there who happened to be all of those things, she wanted to know why.
And how she could replicate it.
The Initiative was her project, her darling, although it was merely the umbrella under which all her other side jobs were located. The computer chip was working, and with time she’d have it perfected. Not only would it prevent hostiles from harming humans, but it would also completely control their behavior. It would be a true modification chip.
It was unfortunate that they hadn’t been able to locate the chip used on Hostile 17 before he escaped. She’d gone over the scans and tests they’d run again and again, and she’d come up with only one answer. Someone had been able to perfect their control on a vampire, rendering it completely harmless to humans, without any obvious alterations.
She hadn’t given up hope on finding the creature again, and finding out who had technology that sophisticated. The fact that someone was already able to use vampires—and possibly demons—as weapons was deeply troubling. The idea that someone else might have discovered how to create a super-soldier was even worse.
Her job was to keep ahead of what the opposition was doing, to create new weapons, new soldiers, new ways of waging war. They had been authorized to use whatever means necessary, and if Buffy Summers was going to be a threat, it would be easy enough to take her out of the picture.
And if she could be used, it would be easy enough to do that as well.
College girls, unless you were very lucky, typically came with friends and family, however, which meant that she would need to be very careful indeed. It would be better if she could learn this Slayer’s secrets without alarming her.
“Tell her what she wants to know,” Maggie instructed him, not bothering to explain why she wanted this girl brought in. She had a feeling that Finn might object to her motives; he was still idealistic enough to believe that they were in the business of saving the world. “At least the basics. And I’d like to meet her.”
Riley’s expression was dubious. “She was in your psych class,” he pointed out.
“I’d like to meet her as the head of the Initiative,” Maggie replied. “Be careful. I don’t want her to be alarmed. I want her to trust us.”
Riley replied in the affirmative and left, knowing a dismissal when he heard one. Maggie knew she’d chosen the right man for the job. Riley Finn not only had an honest face, but he believed in what they were doing here, in their mission. Or what he thought was their mission.
The Slayer would come, and Maggie Walsh would have one more weapon to use.