46. The morning of the anatomy scan, Part 2
The screen before us was black as night, and then, there was an electronic beep from my right and the sound of static. Cold gel covered the bare hill of my belly, the skin pale in the glow of the low background luminance, but my eyes only flicked to these other distractions and remained mostly fixed on the large monitor hanging on the wall before us.
My heartbeat picked up, and in response, I felt strong fingers push between mine, cool flesh relieving the heat of my anxiety. I squeezed back in response, but still, my eyes were steadfast.
Then, the technician pressed the wand against the barrier of my skin, sweeping the gel over and around until I was coated. The screen flickered in and out with white, indecipherable lights that came and went until I was impatient for something concrete and definitive to fill my vision.
Then, without fanfare, there was a hand. The most beautiful hand I have ever seen. Fingers splayed and then curled up and then splayed again. Another hand bobbed close by. The source of the movement I’d been feeling inside of me, growing stronger and more frequent each day, was real. . . was human.
And I was breathless.
The wand moved some more, and there were an arm and a shoulder, and then, the beautiful round curve of a skull, the sweet incline of a nose, and the smallest hint of lips and the bone of the jaw. The neck was invisible, the space giving way to the swell of chest and plumpness of the belly.
The technician deftly avoided the genital area at our request, and the legs came into view next, long and bent, the feet each bearing five toes.
I sighed with happiness. There was the squeak of someone sitting on the stool to my left, and Spike’s arm pressed against mine, our hands still clasped together. He exhaled, too – a soft sound of awe – as he nuzzled his head against mine.
Time seemed of no matter as each tiny body part was measured and each organ examined. I was most enthralled with the chambers of the heart contracting and opening in a perfect rapid rhythm, the sound filling the room and letting us know that yes, he or she was real and very much alive.
The hour-and-a-half long procedure was much too short, and when the screen flickered off and the sound of the heartbeat ceased, I felt an unexpected sense of loss. My eyes filled with tears, which Spike stroked away as I pushed myself up and swung my legs around.
“The babe’s perfect, love,” he whispered before tenderly kissing my lips.
I didn’t even have to hear from the doctor to know that he was right.
47 The thirty-third day of lockdown
I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to scream in frustration and run out the front door. I just wanted to curl up in my most comfy maternity leggings and baggy T-shirt in Spike’s chair and shut out everything for a little while.
“Bit, you’ve been in the bathroom for over an hour!” Spike’s shout was muffled by the fact that he was two rooms away, but the razor’s edge of annoyance was sharp and clear even from where I sat in his recliner in the living room.
The recliner was the only space not covered in something Dawn- or baby-related. She was still living out of boxes, but said boxes were stacked in haphazard piles on one side of the living room, lids off some and tight on others, a blanket spilling out of the top of one and dangling toward the floor as if hanging on for dear life. Her textbooks were scattered across the sofa, interspersed with ancient volumes from George’s collection of old books, prophecies mingling with modern communication theories.
To have a break from the tedium of being in a small space for hours, Spike put together the bassinet that Giles purchased in England and had shipped to us. Piles of gifts from the people who knew about the pregnancy were clustered in and around the small bed. The gifts in plain sight included a stuffed alligator and nutria rat from Liz and Katie; a collection of matching, gender-neutral outfits from Xander (obviously helped by Carrie); a basket of herbs sewn in patterned pouches with various protective and soothing properties from Willow; and a vibrant black and red tummy time mat from Faith. More seemed to arrive daily, taking up more space. The gestures were generous and lovely, but if more boxes came, there’d be no room for us.
Spike pounded on the door when my sister didn’t respond, a swift, clipped beat. I knew why he was upset. He was going to be late to work. Though I had a forged doctor’s excuse to be on bedrest, Spike had to keep up appearances and at least some money coming in.
“I’m relaxing!” Dawn hollered. “Alone time! Ever hear of it?”
“Turn off the Netflix and get out of the tub! Some people have to go to work!”
As they yelled back and forth, I ran a hand over my burgeoning belly. Ever since the anatomy scan, Spike and I had been talking out loud to the baby every day, sometimes multiple times a day. None of my clothes were fitting, and I was living in loose dresses and soft low rise maternity leggings paired with flowy tops. People were starting to be able to tell that I was pregnant. Or rather, people could tell if I were allowed to leave the house. I was starting to tire more easily, and holy heartburn, I was taking Zantac on the daily.
I spoke to the baby, “Some people in this house are very grumpy.” The baby stirred in reply, and I smiled. “So much for our nap.”
The sound of water sloshing and the drain being unplugged followed by a loud thump clued me in on Dawn’s unspoken fit of temper. “I’m out! Give me half a second before you break down the door!”
“Two minutes, Dawn!” Spike’s accent when he said Dawn’s name made me grin. He was really pissed when he didn’t use a nickname.
There was more thumping accompanied by various grunts. Then, Dawn burst into the living room, a growl escaping her lips. She caught me staring at her and tried to appear casual, pulling her damp hair into a low bun and raising both eyebrows in a call back to her teenage years. Her nose in the air, she groused, “He’s driving me crazy!”
In response, Spike slammed the door behind her. Seconds later, water was running in the shower.
I gave my sister a rueful smile. “We’re all driving each other crazy. I mean, we’re trapped in the house 24-7.”
Her shoulders sagged a little. “It’s kinda like that time I made that wish. . . you know the one about – ”
“The one about how we could never leave, and I had the birthday party that almost never ended? Who could forget that?” I had been thinking about that party a time or two in our month-long. . . over a month-long self-imposed-by-necessity period of hunkering down.
She shoved a pile of books out of the way and sank on the sofa, slouching back and drawing up her legs. “Yeah. At least, he gets to leave every now and again.”
“Thank god. I think I might kill him if he didn’t.” A hover-y, cooped up Spike was no fun to be around, and we couldn’t even blow off steam in our usual way because my sister was camped out on the sofa. We were quiet but the efforts were not enough to exercise all my muscles. Thank goodness for online boot camp videos. Baby was oddly quiet and unmoving when I did a workout. “I just hope he’s careful.”
“Me, too. If Glory’s bumbling minions captured him. . .” Dawn’s remaining annoyance was gone from her expression.
“At least we have some sort of portable wards.” Willow had made us some, and George had helped connect them with our phones like the wards around the house. So far as we knew, none of the wards had been truly tested yet.
“Yeah. I thought you said Spike said we were on house arrest until we got these?” Dawn held up the shiny metal with the carved symbols that was strung on the leather cord around her neck.
“Guess he changed his mind. Well, we changed it.” The vamp-witch that Kathleen had captured had borne the combined force of Willow, Xander, and Carrie’s various forms of magical and non-magical attempts at “torture” with a little too much aplomb. All we got out of the captive before she managed to dust herself was that forces were gathering around each of the Hellmouths and mini-Hellmouths. Hence, the house arrest was extended. Xander and Oz had turned up a few missing Slayers in their call tree, but none were known to be pregnant, not that that little fact meant anything. Natalie, the pregnant Canadian Slayer, was also still AWOL.
Dawn sighed, and we sat glumly while Spike continued showering.
After a few minutes, my sister’s face brightened, and she sat up straight, tapping a finger on her bottom lip. “What should we have George bring us for dinner?” Dawn had developed a crush on the young Watcher, but she was also having daily text conversations with Shane. My sister was playing the field and seemingly enjoying every minute of her flirtations. At first, I hadn’t been too sure about either situation, but in a calm moment, Spike had convinced me that keeping my sister occupied in captivity was worth it.
I shrugged one shoulder, and as my stomach growled, the baby moved. “You choose. Anything related to food. Food is of the good.”
Dawn smirked at me. “So says baby?”
“So say both of us.”
“Okay.” Dawn’s face took on a dreamy expression. “How about a bowl of gumbo and some of that fresh from the oven crumbly French bread?”
“Mmmm. With pecan pie and ice cream for dessert?” I fidgeted in the chair; I was going to have to do some serious distraction if we were going to wait to eat.
“From Mr. B’s?”
“You read my mind.”
“George is going to kill us.” Mr. B’s was in the Quarter but was at least closer to George’s place than ours.
“He could bring enough for three and stay and eat,” I offered.
Dawn brandished her phone and began texting. “On it.”
Spike came out of the bathroom then, his hair freshly washed and styled with loose curls, cologne applied, portable ward on a leather cord slung around his neck, and his blue eyes bright with an apology. “Sorry for being a grump, Bit.”
Dawn smiled up at him. “Sorry for being a bathroom hog.”
Spike bent to kiss me and ran a protective hand over my belly, his fingers slightly splayed. “Be back soon. Love you.”
I lifted my lips for a second kiss, which I deepened just a little. “Love you, too. Be careful.”
He stroked my cheek, and then, he was out the door, locking it firmly behind him. I heard the car start and drive away as Dawn continued to text.
“Done and done,” Dawn said with flourish. “Food’s ordered, and George is on the way to pick it up.”
I smiled at the thought of George rushing around the French Quarter to please my sister. “Sounds perfect.”
Thirty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Dawn leaped up from the sofa and virtually lunged for the door, and I flicked off the show we’d been watching on the television – a show I’d been dozing through. Sleep had chased away my grumbling stomach. Blinking away the haze of sleep, I managed to bring the recliner back upright without too much trouble.
Dawn swung open the door without bothering with the peephole and gasped. She should have bothered.
I blinked for a moment and then realized that the woman on the other side of the threshold was the human form of Illyria. As we stared, the god-king slipped from the sweet-faced woman with kind brown eyes to the blue, eerily alien creature, her legs spread wide. In the space of a heartbeat, she cocked her head and reached across the threshold. Her hand clasping a fistful of Dawn’s shirt, the blue god jerked my sister forward. “Hello, little key.”
Dawn opened her mouth to scream, but Illyria clapped her free hand over her mouth.
Then, they were both gone, Illyria moving so fast that my mind didn’t even register the movement. All that was left behind was Dawn’s cell phone clattering to the hardwood floor, the sound echoing in my ear.
I rushed to the sofa and squatted awkwardly to retrieve the sword hidden underneath. A little dizzy with the movement, I hurried to the door, scooping up Dawn’s phone, wedging it in my pocket, and dashing after them. I halted on the edge of the street, looking left and right. In the dim glow of the streetlights, I thought I glimpsed a flash of blue to the left, and without thinking, I held the base of my belly with one hand and the sword with the other and ran. . . harder than I’d run in a while.
As I pursued the distant blue of Illyria’s form into the thick humidity of the spring night air, random thoughts tumbled through my mind. I silently thanked Spike for making Dawn and I wear our sneakers in the house “just in case.” I also realized that the wards hadn’t worked on the blue god. Anger welled in my chest because Angel hadn’t kept his word about keeping Illyria at bay. What the hell had happened? How did Illyria even know about Dawn?
After several minutes, I was panting despite the Slayer stamina, and I felt a sharp pain in my belly. Panicking, I stopped running and sagged against a nearby tree as a car rounded the corner and sped by, honking at me for barely getting out of the way. Almost immediately, Illyria’s form was undetectable, and I felt a despair that I hadn’t experienced in years nipping at my heels.
I couldn’t lose my sister. Not again.
Her phone wedged uncomfortably against my thigh, and I tugged the small device out, flicking it on. I hurriedly dashed out a text to Spike, “Come home. Illyria. Got Dawn.”
As I hit send, I blinked and looked around. Despite the stray car that’d almost hit me, the street was quiet and darker than the other roads had been, and the sound of the cicadas was deafening. The pain in my belly was no longer hot and jagged, but the ache in my heart was strong. The baby kicked me then, and I smiled in partial relief at my round bump.
Just as I was deciding to head home, the phone sang out with a snippet of Katy Perry’s “Roar,” Dawn’s chosen ringtone for text messages. I glanced down, but before I could read the new message, I saw that the ward around my neck glowed a brilliant green color, Willow’s favorite color for magical lights.
Fuck.
Tingles flew up the back of my neck, and strong arms grabbed me from behind. The blade of the sword clanged against the concrete of the road, and I vaguely heard the thump of Dawn’s phone in the grass. The leather cord was snapped off my neck, and I inanely thought that Spike was going to kill me for leaving the house.
Then, something hard collided with my skull, and the world went completely black.
48. Later that night
Pain was the first thing my mind registered as it rushed quickly back to consciousness. My first coherent thought was of the baby, Spike, and Dawn. A gasp of air escaped my lips before I could stop it.
So much for surprising my captors. Yes, captors. My Slayer senses detected several vampires all around me.
I did my best to push aside my fears and to sink back down into a semblance of unconsciousness by breathing deeply, relaxing all my muscles, and doing what Giles and Spike always bugged me to do. They never seemed to realize that I was a Slayer, and I didn’t have to really hone my senses. It just came. . . as naturally as breathing. Having my powers stripped on my 18th birthday drove that point home.
So, I breathed.
The source of my discomfort was not in my belly like before. Instead, the pain was in my back, and in more than one place as evenly placed hard poles dug into my flesh. My fingers twitched, and the fine grain of wood was rough against my fingertips. I couldn’t move my arms, so I was tied to something wooden. . . something that rocked back and forth just slightly. A rocking chair!
The musty scent of mold filled my nose – the smell of a place that had probably been flooded during Katrina and then left to decay instead of being repaired. Lots of places smelled like that in and around the city, so that didn’t give me too much of a clue. Just underneath the thick smell was the lightest trace of power and magic – a heady mixture that I only ever sensed around a Hellmouth. The blend was one of those things I got used to when I attended Sunnydale High. I had to shove it to the back of my mind, so I could focus on geometry proofs and grammar lessons, my friends’ latest dramas, or Giles’s expositional speeches that used to make me roll my eyes. The mixture was also one of those things that came back sharp and fresh when I hadn’t been close to a Hellmouth in a while. Combine that with my ultra-sensitive pregnancy nose, and my location was clear.
I was at the New Orleans mini-Hellmouth and tied to a rocking chair surrounded by vampires.
The crazy thing about New Orleans was that the city was built on a swamp, which made the Hellmouth – mini though it was – fluid and movable. The reason there were so many Slayers in such a small geographical region was that the mini-Hellmouth changed places. Calling in Liz, Katie, and Hana for back up was commonplace. Spike and I didn’t think too much about it because we were used to it, but getting kidnapped added a whole new layer to the dilemma of a slippery potential gateway to hell.
Now, I just had to wait for the witch-vampire to show up. That’s why I was here, right?
The baby kicked me then, a reassuring hard motion that filled me with so much relief that I almost laughed but didn’t. I telegraphed him or her a silent hello and a promise to get us out of here alive and well, Mommy instinct pushing its way forth stronger than I ever thought possible. Whoa. I hadn’t expected that at all.
I forced myself to continue breathing evenly and centered my mind, opening my eyes the tiniest of slits. Numerous candles illuminated the small space, casting a golden sheen over the cracked, pitted, and water-stained wooden floors, the dirt-crusted windows, and the high-pitched ceiling. A few stray metal chairs and tables and askew, broken decorations on the walls marked the place as an old bakery or candy store, perhaps a praline shop of some sort. Ten burly male vampires were clustered together. They wore some sort of odd costumes that looked like they came straight out of Game of Thrones. Their weapons were sharp and pointy and made of metal and chains. They reminded me of the Three that the Master sent after me. Peachy. I couldn’t take the Three by myself, let alone ten of their identical cousins.
I was situated with my back to a wall. On the open floor before me, an ancient circle with archaic symbols were painted in what appeared to be some sort of dark fluid. If the dead calf nearby was any indication, the fluid was blood. The blood of a cow. Huh.
The front door banged open, the metal thudding heavily against the wall. The vampire – Miney – from the St. Louis Cemetery stalked toward the male vampires. They silently hastened to attention.
“Idiots!” she hissed, her curly hair unruly and frizzy from the humid night air that trailed inside behind her. She gestured angrily at me. “Can’t you tell she’s awake? You’re supposed to be paying attention! You’re supposed to tell me if she makes a peep!”
One vamp summoned the courage the others didn’t seem to have despite their obvious strength. “But she hasn’t made a sound.”
Miney glared at me. “And yet, she’s awake. Don’t you notice anything? Pay attention! You’re worse than Harold and Ron.”
Ah, well. No use pretending. I opened my eyes. “You clearly don’t have a very good handle on your minions. Either that or they’re just all brawn and no brains.”
The male vampires grumbled in displeasure but didn’t make a move because their boss was clearly pissed.
I tested the restraints on my arms and ankles. Rope. Interesting choice. Maybe they were magically enhanced because they weren’t budging. “Can’t even form a coherent sentence. You shoulda chosen a brighter bunch. Maybe done round two of interviews.”
Miney regarded me, her sharp nose pointing my direction. “Didn’t want them smart. Gets minions in too much trouble.”
“Huh. That’s not what I heard.” Spike once told me that he and Dru turned different types for different functions. Having too many of one type of minion often led to badness or at least heightened irritation.
Miney narrowed her eyes. “What have you heard?”
“Just that you and your little friends are planning to cast a spell to gain some sort of power from the Hellmouths so you can go all dark-vampire Willow on Earth. Well, I hate to break it to you, but someone else already tried that.” I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Actually, more than one bad guy’s tried it, and wanna know what happened. . . Every. Single. Time?” I met her furious gaze with a steely one of my own.
She crossed her arms and hitched one hip up. “You’re going to tell me, so spit it out.”
“They failed. Wanna know why?” In the open doorway, I caught a glimpse of a familiar form moving past. Hope sprang in my heart, but I carefully hid my reaction, banking on my poker face being better than it used to be.
“Okay. I’ll play.” She smirked. “Why?”
“Me.” Me with friends and enemies turned friends. . . and sometimes lovers. Well, one lover. I was also acutely aware that since I was trapped, my past response to Angelus felt weaker and more lackluster in this situation.
She snorted. “You? Hate to break it to you, missy, but you’re a bit tied up. And your time is up, too.” She held up an iPhone and shook it at me. “Technology’s been a big help. It’s making what’s about to happen possible.” She meant the spell. No doubt, she’d be calling up witch-vamps from six other parts of the world to chant some ancient language and open the Hellmouths using the blood of pregnant Slayers. Guess they found five others besides me and Natalie.
I shrugged, working to sound nonchalant. “You sound like a very bad phone commercial. And I’ve been tied up before. Hasn’t worked.”
Miney edged closer to me and pointed a finger at my vulnerable belly. “This time, you have an Achilles heel. Your baby.”
Without hesitation, I countered, “Actually, a Slayer with family, friends and loved ones survives better than without.” God, Spike and my sister better be okay.
Right on cue, the sound of a dog snuffling at the door interrupted our little battle of the wills, and Girlfriend, Liz’s standard poodle, burst into the room. Her light brown fur was matted and dirty like she’d been rolling in the mud, which was unusual for her, and her bling-y collar with her nametag was missing. I noticed that instead, she wore a brown collar that almost blended in with her fur. She didn’t bark or make any noise as she typically did when she greeted friends. Instead, she simply darted and weaved around the room as the vampire guards bellowed and swung their weapons.
Miney was furious and shouted, “What’s wrong with you morons! How hard is it to kill a dog?”
“We’re trying not to kill it, ma’am,” one vampire admitted. Southern vamps were sometimes so polite. “Figured you wouldn’t want dog blood messing with the spell you got set up here.”
Maybe they weren’t so dumb after all. Marking that observation in my mind, I didn’t react to Girlfriend and forced a dispassionate expression on my face. “Wow. Can’t even get rid of a stray dog.”
Ignoring me, the vampire-witch bellowed, “Just get it out of here!”
At that moment, Girlfriend’s wet nose sniffed around my ankles, not lingering before she moved on to the blood circle. Then, as the vampire warriors dashed around, running into one another in an effort not to disturb anything, the dog angled for the door, nudging a rickety table that held a cluster of candles. A tall candle wobbled and teetered before tumbling to the floor with a soft splat of melted wax. The flooded, rotted wood caught fire, and more chaos ensued, in which one of the male vamps’ sleeves went up in flames as he tried to stop the problem before it spread. With a cry of anguish, he burst into dust. The other vampires eyed one another and the growing death trap as it licked up more of the delicious wood.
Now calm in a way that worried me more than the rage, Miney muttered a few words under breath, raised a practiced hand, and cast a spell that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
The fire winked out in an instant.
Too dizzy and lightheaded to be relieved that I wasn’t going to burn up, I wheezed in desperate need of air, and as darkness regained a hold on my brain, I hoped that Girlfriend would let someone know where I was before it was too late.
49. An unknown amount of time later that night
I clawed my way awake again, and I discovered that the uncomfortable rocker had been swapped for a long wooden table that was equally uncomfortable. I winced as I opened my eyes. The stronger pounding in my head told me that someone had hit me again, likely to keep me out. I was supine this time, belly up, which left me feeling woozy and nauseous. The candles were still lit, and the ceiling was high above me, letting me know that I was in the middle of the blood circle. The calf carcass was gone and so were the minions, but the sharp tang of the blood and some sort of incense filled my nose.
Testing the bindings on my wrists and legs, I called, “I can’t lay like this. It cuts off blood flow.” The last words were fainter as sparkly stars flew across my vision, and I swallowed and whispered, “Probably not what you were aiming for. . . yet, anyway.”
The vampire-witch was noticeably calmer when she peered over at me. I squinted through the physical discomfort. She wasn’t wearing her game face, and her expression looked innocent and youthful. . . and worried? “Oh. Give me a minute.”
She started by my feet, which brought me a moment of hope that she was really that dumb, but she mumbled some sort of spell under her breath as she worked. My arms and legs felt like lead weights, and I couldn’t move them myself. She gently released me and helped me roll onto my side. Almost immediately, the symptoms abated, and she began replacing the physical restraints. She left the new spell in place. Damn it.
“T-thank you,” I said, following my instincts. Now that I could think, I was more curious by her change in demeanor.
As she worked, she said quietly, “I didn’t want to be. . . what do you call it? Turned, you know.”
“You didn’t?”
She didn’t reply for a few seconds. “No. The boys decided to turn me. We were part of this Wiccan group in Gulfport. Well, me and Ron were. He was my boyfriend. We joked around with each other. I was Hermione to his Ron. Those aren’t our real names, and contrary to what you might think, doing magic was only a side gig. It was a hobby. . . a lark that I could do. Something I inherited from my Aunt Megan. She used to tell me I was special. Like her.”
“Oh.” I was keeping it simple, giving her just enough, so she’d continue.
“I had an internship at the Institute in Gulfport.” She’d moved from my legs to my hands now, and she read my confusion. “I wanted to work with marine life. But then Harold turned Ron who turned me. Harold was a real piece of work. Honestly, I think he was a bit of a sadist. Always skinning people’s pets and leaving them on the porch for them to find.” She shuddered. “I think he thought it was funny. . . seeing their expressions, watching them cry and scream.”
“Know someone a little like that,” I whispered, shivering, too, despite my efforts to not reveal much. Killing pets and eating humans were apparently very different in Miney’s mind.
“Well, then, you know that he caused a lot of fights between me and Ron. He was good at driving a wedge. Harold frightened me and pissed me off. That night in the cemetery?” She paused for effect, and I filled in the blanks.
“When I ran across the three of you?” I tried desperately to remember exactly how our interaction had played out. I thought she was the one being all snarky with Harold and Ron.
“He was from Falls Church. . . a coven there. He and some others got themselves kicked out when they started researching and practicing darker magic several months ago. They ended up moving away from that Podunk, country place and ended up in Memphis. That’s where they were all turned.”
“That’s where they came up with this plan?” This horrible plan to simultaneously open several Hellmouths and potentially cause Armageddon? Did Willow know about this subset of her beloved Falls Church coven?
“Yes. Fanned out away from Memphis. Followed some leads. Ended up in Canada and Norfolk, of all places. And I’d lost everything else in my life, so why not?” Miney’s line of thinking had taken an abrupt turn that I didn’t quite get, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears that she quickly blinked away.
Then, the truth hit me over the head like a two by four at one of Xander’s old construction sites. It seemed too much of a stretch to think that Miney and her vampire-witch pals knew about the journey that had taken Spike and me to Norfolk. Occam’s Razor and all that. Harold had probably killed her family and her dreams, and Spike and I had killed her Ron. I had killed her Spike. They’d been on the hunt for a pregnant Slayer, and they’d found one. For all those pieces to come together. . . well, that was a bit mindboggling, but just my luck.
“Why not?” I said gently. “I’ve been there.” Losing heaven came to mind.
She placed a hand on my belly, palm flat and fingers splayed. I resisted the urge to draw away, especially when the baby shifted in response to her touch. “It’s hard.” It took me a second to realize she was referring to the baby bump and not her life. “What’s it like?”
Miney had skipped again, but I followed her lead, hoping that I’d get some clue about how to stop the spell. . . stop her from killing me and the baby. “Honestly? A bit strange but not. It’s hard to explain.”
“Like an alien growing inside you?” I couldn’t quite read her face in the shadows.
The baby pressed toward her hand. My senses were on high alert despite her calm, and I forced myself to keep breathing slowly and evenly. “It happens so gradually that it doesn’t feel alien. It just feels. . . right.”
She spoke to my belly, running the tip of her fingernail over the thin cotton of my t-shirt. “Hello, little one.” She smiled when the baby nudged her direction again, and then, she sighed. “I’ll never get to do this.”
I almost retorted, “Well, yeah, because you’re dead.” But, I didn’t. Instead, I said, “I never thought I would either.”
“Oh, really?” Her eyes brightened in surprise. “I heard there were more Slayers now than you can shake a stick at. Makes it easier to have a family. Y’all get to have it all.”
Anger flared inside me again, but I tried hard to douse the flames to keep a cool head. Still, my emotions led me to say, “Not exactly. I used to be the only Slayer. Monsters and sacred duty and all that jazz aren’t – weren’t conducive to family life.”
“And yet, clearly,” she gestured at my body, “here you are.”
She was right. Here I was. Here I was bringing a baby into this world: a world full of vampire-witches and prophecies and danger.
Before I could reply, she asked without any trace of emotion, “If the baby came out now, would it survive?”
My blood ran cold at that. She wanted my baby. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I saw it in the renewed gleam in her eyes and the set of her jaw in the candlelight.
“I-I don’t know,” I managed.
I did know. I knew because Spike was always spouting off the latest facts he’d read about my stage of the pregnancy. He even had a copy of that book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” and he’d dog-eared and highlighted the pages. The baby had an over 90 percent chance of survival at this stage of the pregnancy, but I didn’t want Miney to know that. “I don’t think so,” I said, infusing my words with confidence.
Her eyes hardening again, she gave me an almost-rueful smile as she stepped away from me. “If something happens to you, I won’t let your baby die. I promise.”
“If you destroy the world, I doubt you’ll be able to keep that promise.” I still wasn’t sure why she was participating in this ritual. When so much of her own choices had been taken from her, why was she taking the same choice from potentially millions of others? Oh, wait. She was a vampire now without anyone to remind her of her humanity.
“If it comes to that, I’ll have the power to guarantee it.” She sounded so sure of herself that I almost believed her.
Before I could reply, her phone rang, the ringtone Pink’s “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” echoing through the abandoned, dilapidated store. As Miney answered the call and paced out of the blood circle, her magic hold dissipated from my arms and legs. Summoning all my Slayer strength, I pulled with all my might against the remaining physical restraints, the metal digging into my skin. I kept quiet at first but then, my voice rang out in frustration and fear.
Miney was speaking in hushed whispers, bits of gibberish I couldn’t make out, and she whirled mid-conversation to catch me fighting for my life and the baby’s. She held the phone away from her ear, pointed a finger at me, shook her head like I was a disobedient child, and cast a spell, which slammed me back against the table. Already vulnerable from earlier injuries, my head hit the hard surface with a sharp crack, and I battled tooth and nail against the resulting sparklies to stay awake and alert. When I opened my mouth to shout at her, no sound came out. Apparently, she took my voice with that last spell.
The vampire-witch strode across the room to a position where I couldn’t see her. There was some scuffling and a click or two, and then, a speaker came to life. The sound of chanting in some foreign, ancient-sounding language bounced and wove its way around and up through the air. Multiple female voices were weaving together, sounding like a warped female version of a Gregorian chant with a decidedly evil bent, and I felt the tug of magic through my chest and abdomen as the spell took hold in and filled the room.
Like she was being fueled by the magic and chanting, Miney began to dance, pointing her toes and sweeping around the outside edge of the blood circle the way my sister used to do when she took ballet lessons after we moved to Sunnydale. The swell of the chanting dipped low like an invitation for the vampire-witch, who plunged low in an elegant bow, her fingertips trailing over the blood like they had my abdomen. The magic surged then, and Miney’s voice joined the others until they were all a chorus together. The blood began glowing a muted red color that brightened with each repetitive note, and I felt it. . . felt the Hellmouth opening beneath me, and unlike when I was in Sunnydale, there was nothing I could do.
The scarlet light began slipping through the outlines of the archaic symbols painted inside the circle, a new thin stream of illumination appearing and then brightening and changing colors with each shift in the rhythm of the chanting. Miney flitted in between the symbols with an elegance I hadn’t expected. With a flick of her wrist, a knife appeared in her hand, the blade glinting in the now orange and golden lights.
To avoid panic taking hold of my mind, I centered myself the way I learned with Angel so long ago, finding that quiet space amidst the chaos around me. If I couldn’t find an opening here, I had to hope that my friends and family were out there, searching for me and for my sister.
A scream of agony swept over the other voices. The incantation continued incessantly, not changing tempo or speed, and as the scream ended, the entire ground around me and Miney seemed to faintly glow around the already bright symbols. Great. This was followed by another scream from a different woman this time, and I wondered which Slayer at which Hellmouth was being bled for the spell.
My eyes remained fixated on Miney, who appeared heedless of me. She was caught up in the magic of everything now – her eyes closed as she got lost in the spell and the dance. Recognizing this, I remembered that she forgot about me not so long ago, and I tested my arms and legs. I could move! Yahtzee. As the ear-piercing cries continued and the room glowed with more brilliance, I realized that the metal of the bindings was much flimsier than I initially thought. The vampire-witch’s magic was what made them so tight, and now that magic was being siphoned elsewhere.
As the next young woman’s blood was spilled onto another Hellmouth, the whole room began to vibrate and almost pulsate with the energy of what was about to happen. I tugged on my right leg, snapping the chains. Miney was hardly phased.
Crap. I hadn’t kept track of the number of different Slayers who’d been harmed.
Miney lunged then, eyes flying open, curls streaming behind her. I kicked out at her in the exact moment that she plunged the knife, and I felt the blade slide into my flesh like butter.
Now, it was my turn to scream, the sound of my voice ringing out with Miney’s as my foot connected with her torso and flung her away from me. She slammed hard into the shop window, cracking but not shattering the glass. In my fury, I snapped free of the other chains and landed on my feet. Too late, my mind registered that blood was pouring fast and hot out of my thigh and onto the circle.
Miney struggled to her feet, somehow continuing her chant with the other vampire-witches despite the disruption to her pattern. She advanced on me, and I fell into a ready stance despite the pain.
“You can’t have my baby!” I half-snarled at her.
Feeling suddenly unsteady, I collapsed to my knees, and as I fell into my own pool of blood, the lights in the Hellmouth dimmed.
I only vaguely heard Miney screaming in anguish and rage as someone kicked down the door. A dog barked, and I was out again.
50. The next night in the hospital
The first sound I heard was a steady heartbeat – much faster than a normal heartbeat. My eyes flew open, and I discovered that I was in a dimly lit hospital room. Running my hand over the bare skin of my baby bump, my fingers encountered a strap across my belly. My bump was still round and firm, and I sighed in relief. My leg throbbed in pain, and my right hand had an IV in a vein.
“You’re awake,” a familiar voice said to my left. His tone was gentle, and for a moment, I was brought back to a time when he was the center of my universe. I loved him so much, and then, it all fell apart. My heart was shattered.
I closed my eyes. The memories were so long ago and so faded. “Angel,” I tried to say in my unused voice, the sound coming out hoarse. I glanced at his large form sprawled almost comically in the low chair. “What – ?” I tried to sit up, my left arm pushing against the thin mattress. Pain asserted itself more forcefully, and the baby’s heartbeat increased in tempo.
Angel sat forward in the chair, and he made to stand, his arms reaching for me. “Buffy, try not to move.”
“My baby.” I ignored his suggestion and tried to decipher the machine that was monitoring the baby.
“The baby is fine. I promise. The doctor repaired the torn artery in your leg. George did a good job of putting a tourniquet on it while we were busy with the fight.”
“But why am I hooked up to this contraption?” I didn’t remove my eyes from the inexplicable numbers and buttons and the little piece of paper that was trailing out of it in a long stream.
“They’re monitoring the baby’s heart rate and movements just to make sure all is okay while you heal. The doc said something about possible contractions, but so far, you haven’t had any.”
“Oh.” I eased back down, and Angel followed suit. “Where’s Spike? Dawn?”
He hesitated as if he didn’t want to tell me or was afraid to. “That’s a long story.”
I motioned at my body, wires coming off from different directions. “Apparently not going anywhere. Why don’t you start at the beginning.” It was a statement. Not a question.
“Do you want anything? Water? Jello? We should call for a nurse to check your vital signs.” Angel was as reasonably concerned as anyone would be, but to me at that moment, it felt like he was being evasive. Again.
“Story first. I don’t need an army of medical professionals in here yet. I seem to be reasonably stable. Where is Spike? Where is my sister? All I know is that Illyria showed up on our doorstep. I guess hell gods can get past magical wards. She took Dawn, and I went after them but ended up with the vampire-witch at the Hellmouth.” I lifted my hand palm up to him in invitation. “And go.”
He sighed and sank awkwardly against the seat, studying his clasped hands. “Illyria’s instability got worse, and she got desperate. She wasn’t listening to me anymore. We were following some leads to find a solution, but each one was a dead end.”
“How does that have anything to do with her coming after Dawn? How did she even know Dawn was a dimensional key?” As my irritation increased, the baby’s heart rate picked up again, and I forced myself to breathe in and out slowly.
“I didn’t tell her if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said gingerly, meeting my gaze.
I felt my anger easing just a smidge. “I know you wouldn’t. But how?”
“She sensed something about your sister when she went to her apartment in Denver. That shouldn’t have surprised me given what I know about Illyria, but it did. If I’d have known she knew anything, I would have warned you.” His words were sincere.
“Sensing something and knowing something about my sister are two different things,” I pushed. Spike and I should have known. We should have known that the hell god was as dangerous as she was.
“She didn’t exactly explain it to me. She just took off. We were in Albania. She has a cell phone, but doesn’t understand how to use it very well. I, well, I have a parental control on her phone just since she came to me. It lets me track her when the phone is on. She had it off for a number of days. We’d originally planned to return to the States, so I flew back. Tried to find her in our usual haunts. Nothing. And then, she turned her phone back on. That’s when I knew she was close to New Orleans. Funny thing about Illyria, she prefers to drive.” He smiled ruefully. “She said it gives her power to ‘drive such a machine’ since she can’t teleport or travel across dimensions now. That, and she likes to stop at Waffle House. She’s keeping track of the ones she’s been to in her phone. Likes the pecan waffle and bacon.”
“You should have told us she took off.” I wasn’t letting my anger show too strongly yet. I had to keep him talking, so I forced myself to momentarily soften. “And let me guess. She takes selfies at each Waffle House?”
He laughed. “She does. She even has an Instagram page. She’s very proud every time wafflehouseofficial likes her posts.”
I sobered as anxiety pushed to the forefront. “So, let’s get back to Dawn. Why Dawn and why now? And where is Spike?”
“My best guess is that she was going to try to access Dawn’s key-ness to cross dimensions to try and get to Fred. Force Fred to give up herself.” Brow furrowing, Angel appeared stricken by this idea.
The questions poured out of me. “Wouldn’t she have to be made human to do so? And how could she possibly know how to use Dawn? Does Dawn even have powers anymore?” The thought of this made me more worried. Did my sister still have the latent ability to open gateways between dimensions?
“I don’t know the answers to those things. Illyria kept many things from me.”
“Apparently. And I repeat: where is Spike?” God, where was he? He better not be hurt or worse – dust, but I knew because he wasn’t here, one of the two must be true.
Angel drew a deep breath and looked down at the ground. “He went after Illyria.”
“What?!” This was worse.
“He got your text, and he chose to go after Dawn.” There had to be more to the story than what Angel was telling me, but I didn’t interrupt. “He took Willow with him.”
“She’s the only one who could help him follow Illyria across dimensions.”
“Yes. I think that Willow teleported herself.”
“Teleported? Teleported like Anya could do as a vengeance demon?” My friend didn’t tell me she could do that.
“Yeah.”
“And that’s where they are now. Traipsing across dimensions, chasing after Illyria and Dawn?”
“I think so.”
“Oh god.” I could potentially lose a lot of people that I loved very much. Spike and Willow better come back in one piece and with my sister. Then, I thought of something else, which helped me push back the tears that were threatening to come. “The ritual. Was it stopped? I mean, the vampire-witches. What happened?”
The tension not leaving his eyes, Angel smiled again. “You successfully thwarted another prophecy.”
“H-how? I mean, I knew that someone arrived to help me, but I also have this vague memory of the lights from the Hellmouth going out.”
He nodded. “More than one someone arrived to help you, and the New Orleans Hellmouth was shut down, successfully ending the ritual across all the Hellmouths.”
“Girlfriend showed up first.” I had to remember to give Liz’s dog a big bag of treats later. “She was disguised as a stray.”
“After Spike chose to follow Illyria, I joined George. Is that his name? He was delivering food to you and Dawn.”
“Yes.” Was Angel trying to make me pissed at Spike? If so, it wasn’t working the way Angel hoped. I was holding off on pissed-with-Spike until I spoke with him again, but first, I planned to kiss him until he couldn’t see straight.
Angel continued, oblivious to my thoughts, “I joined George and the three area Slayers. The other two Watchers stayed in their respective cities to hold down the fort there. George filled me in on the nature of the Hellmouth here. I’ve never heard of a moving Hellmouth.”
“Me either. George says it’s mercurial. Spike just says it’s slippery. Sometimes it stays in one place for weeks at a time, and other times, it might move more than once in a night.” I couldn’t help but slide Spike in there. My heart ached without him. “We’re used to it.” So used to it that I rarely thought of it as an anomaly.
Angel danced around my attempt to incorporate Spike into the conversation. “Mercurial is a good description. Anyway, we had no idea where you could be. George tried a tracking spell, but you were hidden and so was the Hellmouth. Our guess was because of the witch-vamp. No one had any idea that she was so powerful. But we did find your trail out of the house because of Liz’s dog.” I had forgotten that Angel couldn’t use his sense of smell anymore – not the same way. “I think her name is Gershwin. Or maybe something else?”
“Her Watcher nicknamed her Girlfriend.”
“That’s it.” Angel pointed at me like we were connecting on something – connecting buddies. Yeah, right. “Interesting choice.”
I threw him a bone. “Right? Liz and Katie think that Kishan and Michael are secret lovers, but I think that really Liz has a crush on Kishan, and he has kept his boundaries since he’s her Watcher.”
The corner of Angel’s mouth lifted. “Interesting times in general with all the Slayers and Watchers.”
“Agreed.” I found myself lowering my guard a little. “Continue.”
“So. . . Girlfriend tracked you to this abandoned shop by the lake. There were lights in the windows but all the buildings around it were dark.”
“Abandoned after Katrina.” While a lot had been rebuilt, there were some places that were left untouched either because the owners were forced to relocate from New Orleans or they didn’t have the finances to rebuild, especially in some of the poorer areas.
Angel nodded. “Yes. Emily explained that. Liz came up with the idea of having Girlfriend roll around in the dirt to look like a stray and then sending her into the building to check out the situation, so we knew what we were getting into.”
“Smart.”
“That’s what I thought. I noticed a couple of stray cats and at least one other dog in the vicinity.”
I tried to make sense out of how this would work. “Did you use magic to see what she saw?”
“Actually, no. We discussed that, but Katie thought that the witch would know, so George pulled this small camera out of his bag.”
I was amazed by how Angel threw out names of the people I knew and worked with daily as if he knew them now. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It was maybe a little disconcerting, and I felt my loyalty to Spike pushing forward again. “He calls it his Watcher’s kit. . . like a doctor’s kit but for a Watcher.”
Angel skipped over my correction. “He managed to conceal the camera in the dog’s fur, and we were able to see what she saw in real time. After Girlfriend came out, we came up with a plan of attack. Liz and Katie wanted to charge in, but George and I knew that those vamps were likely very powerful.”
“Like the Three.” My mouth suddenly felt very dry, and I reached for the pitcher of water on the small rolling table nearby, which was just beyond my grasp.
Angel rose and poured me a glass. “Exactly.”
“Thanks.” I accepted the cup, my fingers brushing his, the ghost of a relationship trying to assert itself and failing, at least on my end. “So, what did you decide to do? Because there were no vampire-warrior types when I woke up again.” At Angel’s confused expression, I clarified, “Miney. . . the witch knocked me out. She was pissed off at them because they didn’t catch Girlfriend, especially when she almost set the place on fire.”
“The witch. She took it out on you.”
“Yep.” My head throbbed in response.
Angel dragged the chair closer to the side of the bed, perhaps because we’d just touched. He was continuing to get the signals crossed despite the clarity of my earlier message that I wasn’t interested, but I wanted him to keep telling me the story, so I continued to say nothing. . . not yet. “Once Girlfriend rejoined us, George cast a small spell – something just enough to attract the witch’s attention. She sent them all out. They were strong – as expected, and it took a while, but the Slayers dusted them all with a little help from George and me. They worked well together. Only had minor injuries after all was said and done.” He sounded impressed.
I sipped my water. “They train together a lot. The Watchers, Spike, and I designed a training space here in New Orleans. The Slayer from Beaumont drives in sometimes, too. And New Orleans has many of its own field opportunities.”
“You and Spike have taught them well,” Angel said, acknowledging Spike for the first time without the undercurrent of jealousy. “I could see it.”
“Thanks.”
“By the time, we made it back to the house, the spell was well underway, but you stopped it. Girlfriend tackled the witch, and Emily staked her while George tied off your leg. I brought you to the car, and we raced to the closest hospital. You were unconscious. I thought – well, I haven’t been that terrified in a long time. I never thought that I’d be in that position again.” Angel’s eyes were misting over, and I felt a wave of compassion for him.
“What position?” I asked with gentleness in my tone.
“Carrying you into an ER and not knowing if you’d wake up.” A tear slipped over his cheek.
“Well, I’m here. You know it takes more than that to keep me down,” I teased. “Miney was no Glory.”
“Yeah. I know that.” Angel glanced away, clearing the tear away with the back of his hand.
I frowned at the cup in my hands. “I still don’t know how I stopped the ritual.”
“The witches – for all their power and research – didn’t take into account one particular detail.” Now, he sounded amused.
I glared. “It’s not funny. What detail?”
“The fact that the prophecy called for powerful females.”
“I don’t understand. I already knew that.”
His dark eyes were clear. “Powerful women – Slayers pregnant with girls.”
“Ohhhh.” The baby’s heartbeat thrummed, declaring itself throughout the small room. I pressed my hand onto my belly where I felt a gentle motion. Exhaustion exerted its hold on my body. Not moving my gaze from the swell of my abdomen, I quietly said, tightness in my voice, “Please go find out where Spike, my sister, and Willow are. Don’t come back unless you can tell me that they’re okay.”
Angel stood for a long moment as if waiting for something, but when I turned my head further away, he exited the room without another word.
Once he was gone, I curled up on my side, drawing my legs and arms around my belly as best I could with all the wires and straps. The healing wound in my leg throbbed. As the tears slipped over my cheeks in hot streams, I whispered, “Hello, my son.”