thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2004-03-23 01:19 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2004-03-23 01:19 pm
Bad Trip, Chapter 6
This is a big one, folks. Xander's vision quest. Mythology. Please hold onto the safety bar. Let us take you for a ride....
ACT SIX: DIVERSIONS
Xander opened his eyes--both of them--to pale, pre-dawn light.
Blinking, he lifted his head from the gritty surface it was resting on. It had been just long enough since he'd had two eyes to see with that his new binocular vision gave him a dose of stomach-twisting disorientation. Images swam blurrily before him, as if he were watching a movie in badly adjusted 3D.
"Well, well. Rise and shine. Took you long enough."
Spike again. The vampire was back in human guise, leaning against a rock wall, one knee drawn up as if he were lounging against a streetlamp, in no hurry to be anywhere or do anything. He wore black jeans and nothing else.
"What's with the shirtless?" Xander asked, blearily.
Spike looked down at himself, shrugged and grinned. "Your dream, not mine."
"So not going there," Xander grumbled. In truth, he was actually faintly glad for the distraction. His mind was filled with the memory of that light coming toward his face, the searing heat... all of which now seemed to be centered in his no-longer empty eye socket. The makeshift eye burned, rolling like a ball spinning in water. When he focused on the feeling too hard, he felt really nauseous.
Swallowing hard, he tried standing. Sand sifted from him in showers as he pulled himself upright.
"What you came for. Over there," Spike told him, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
"What I--?" He stared in the indicated direction, then did a 360. Aside from a few rock formations, they were in the middle of a seemingly endless landscape. "Hey, we're in a desert." He looked over at Spike, who seemed not to have heard. "I said, we're in a--"
"You coming or not?"
Xander swung around. Somewhere between sentences, the vampire had already set off in the direction he'd pointed, moving easily across the sand in that loping stride of his. Xander jogged to catch up, somewhat less gracefully. There were all sorts of questions he wanted to ask, but he was having a hard enough time just holding himself together as he struggled across the shifting sands, his stomach lurching uncomfortably every time he tried to survey his surroundings.
Now Spike was bounding up a small hillside. Huffing, Xander plodded along in his wake, the sand crumbling and sliding beneath his feet with every step. He was annoyed to realize his dream-self was getting seriously winded. Man, you'd think a vision quest would spend less time on the physical journey part and jump straight to the all-knowing bit, he grumbled to himself. Puffing and blowing, he crested the hilltop and looked down.
Beneath where he stood, a large group of people was gathered at the entrance to a large cave, near the wellspring of a river. The yawning cave mouth seemed to be tucked underneath the roots of a large tree that grew directly above it, on a cliffside, its branches spreading dramatically like outstretched hands. Near the river, fires blazed in a rough circle around the group. And in the center of the circle, a captured creature--a vampire--howled and tugged at the chains that held it around the neck and limbs. A circle of dark-skinned men armed with spears stabbed at it, over and over, to the sound of roars and chants from the crowds.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
Xander swallowed hard. The scene was a gruesome one--thick, dark blood gouted from the creature with each new wound, spouted like a geyser. There was also a pool of dark liquid beneath the beast's feet. Apparently, they'd been at this for awhile. And what they were chanting--I understood it, but that wasn't English...
"What is this?" he asked.
"That's what you came here to see."
"I don't get it. It's one of those whatchamacallits... Uruk-Hai."
"Turok-Han." Spike corrected. "You know what the name means?"
Numb, Xander made a helpless gesture.
"It means 'Outside Man.' Or 'Outside Human,' if you want to be PC about it. 'Not Human.'" The vampire turned to look down at the proceedings, his face in profile nearly swallowed by the shadows.
"So one of them escaped from the Hellmouth?" Xander managed, mouth dry.
Spike shook his head. As if that said everything.
Another roar went up from the crowd below. Xander turned his face away, nauseous. A stiff wind swept the hilltop where they stood, and oh god, now he could smell the rising tide of blood. He forced down his gorge with a stomach clench that made his knees tremble. "Okay, so you've shown me a bunch of people killing a demon. And doing a pretty messy job of it, by the way. But, uh, I've seen this sort of thing before. Like, recently. Not really seeing the revelation here."
"Not even a guess what it means? Where you are? After all that field time you've clocked?" Blue eyes studied him, assessing, then flickered back to the gory spectacle below. "Don't even know a blood ritual when you see one?"
...........
"So that's it, huh?" Kennedy asked. "The secret origin of The First?"
"It's merely an allegory," Sirk replied, enunciating slowly as if addressing a rather slow six-year-old. "Most of the older mythologies include some kind of subterranean beast that consumes the bodies and souls of the dead--Nidhoggr the Corpse Sucker, Ammit the Devourer of Souls, the Greek Kerberos... Dante and his three-headed Satan. I wouldn't read too much into it."
Angel, who had been listening silently up until now, at last spoke up. "Do you have anything else, Sirk?"
Sirk harrumphed again and flipped more pages. "The same entity reappears later in the gatekeeper's story. From here on in, the narrative continues in a similar vein to the later Osiris myth..."
"Osiris?" Willow was suddenly alert. "That's Egyptian, right?"
They could almost visualize Sirk rolling his eyes. "Yes, it's Egyptian. I know the Comparative Mythology portion of the typical American school curriculum is a little less than comprehensive, but surely you must have heard of Osiris."
"A little bit," Willow admitted. "I, uh, invoked him in a spell once or twice."
There was an interval of withering silence. "My dear girl," Sirk eventually responded with evident difficulty, "it is not commonly considered good magical practice to call on strange gods without performing the appropriate background research first."
Willow made a sour face. "You know, you sound just like Giles."
Ignoring her, Sirk resumed his story. "The serpent of Chaos is defeated, in this version, by two brothers who go on to become the leaders of the High Ones. The senior one appears to be a river god of some description, identified with fertility and civilized order. 'When he walked, his feet were on the ground and his head was in the skies, and his eyes were the sun and the moon. His right eye was the sun and it held his power, and his left eye was the moon and it held his wisdom.' It continues in that vein for several pages..."
"What about the other one?" Kennedy prompted.
"The god of the desert wind, according to this story," Sirk replied. "A capricious storm spirit 'who raged in the wilderness, and whose domain gave forth no grain and yielded no fruit.' The division of labor appears similar to Osiris and Set, or the Sumerian Enki and Enlil."
"Set?" Willow asked. "Sorry to keep butting in, but..."
"Trickster god along the lines of Loki. Jealous of his brother, pulls pranks that go too far, ultimately recast as a demonic adversary, identified with the color red... Look, do you want me to finish this or not?"
"Go ahead, Sirk," Angel replied. "Where does the First come into it again?"
The archivist's patience was clearly running low. "The First comes to the younger brother in his dreams and, playing on his jealousy, persuades him to rise up against his sibling. The river god is sealed in a subterranean tomb, and the wind god takes the throne, with predictable results. Famine, drought, fruit withering on the vine, war among the gods, and 'the people'--the human population, in other words--trembling in fear."
"So that's it?" Angel asked.
"No. There's a third reference to a serpent towards the end of the story." The binding creaked again as Sirk skipped ahead a few more pages. "Hoping to bring an end to their people's suffering, a couple of human women 'with great knowledge'--witches, if you will--seek out the tomb of the river god, which they find beneath the roots of a great tree. But when they find they're unable to revive him, they call on the serpent for help. 'The serpent came to them and said, Do as I tell you. The sisters drew forth the blood of the sleeping god...'"
"Hold it," Kennedy interjected. "The serpent's one of the good guys now?!"
"Remember, this is strictly metaphorical," Sirk reminded them. "Virtually every culture in the world considers the snake to be a symbol of renewal and restoration, given its ability to shed its..."
"No." Willow's face was pale, her eyes fixed intently on the phone. "I'm pretty sure the serpent is not one of the good guys."
...........
"Blood ritual?" Xander blurted. His eyes slid back to the scene below. The crowd was withdrawing, pulling back to form a circle around the chained beast in a scene that reminded him weirdly of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
The chanting died down. The crowd seemed to be waiting for something. The creature's howling grew louder, more frantic.
"Okay, enough. I give," Xander hiccuped. His nausea was rising again. This vision had already shaped up as both gorier and more frustrating than he'd expected. Let alone the part where he had to beg information from Spike. "Tell me what it means."
The vampire ignored him.
"Hey, c'mon--admitting defeat over here. I've said it--I'm dense boy. I don't get it. Please, just tell me what it means so we can get this over with?"
A slow shake of the head. "Not how this works. Show, not tell."
"Okay, you have got to be kidding. I mean, yeah, I don't really know the rules of this whole magic-summoning thing and hey, I probably wasn't even the best choice for this head trip, but--"
"You're just human," Spike said calmly. He nodded in the direction of the men below. "You're like them, down there. Can't see beyond this moment, your own part in it. Can't see past the ends of your own noses. You eat, and you breed, and you build, but you never think to wonder about the world you're fixed in. What made it. What forests stood on the land under your house. Or what fed the roots of the trees in that forest. Or what traveled across that ground. Even when it's you yourself what did the traveling."
There was a moment of silence as Xander stood there, open-mouthed.
"Was that supposed to help me?" he sputtered, finally. "'Cause I gotta say--the cryptic act? Not the best look on you. Or... on Spike, I mean. I really don't see how any of this--"
He stopped ranting then, because the sun was rising, and a beam of light flared brilliantly from a point just over the vampire's left shoulder, blinding Xander momentarily. When he opened his eyes again after a moment's blinking and wincing, Spike was gone.
A roar alerted him again to crowd below, and Xander spun just in time to catch a similar disappearing act from the Turok-Han--the beast was disintegrating into flaming cinders, the harsh morning sunlight having set it ablaze. It howled as it burned, then collapsed, the chains falling loosely where it had been. There was a sudden flurry of activity--robed men rushed forward waving their long staffs, the chanting of the crowd rose to a roar, men dropped their spears and began to scoop up cupped handfuls of the creature's blood.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy...
And now there was a girl. She stepped forward, singling herself out from the crowd, and walked into the center of the pool. Naked. The men who had previously been stabbing at the beast with spears now approached her and began painting her skin with the gathered blood. The dark fluid ran down her body in streams, streaking her face and arms and legs and breasts.
Don't even know a blood ritual when you see one?
Without a second thought, Xander threw himself forward, slipping and skidding down the hilltop on his butt and his heels, pushing himself fast. There wasn't a question in his mind about what he was seeing. Some kind of freaked-out human sacrifice looked to be the Round 2 Event--and no way was he just going to stand there and watch some girl get fed to a monster or whatever might be waiting in that cave. No way.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Don't do that! Wait!"
He reached the bottom of the hill and landed in an undignified heap, his feet having slid out from under him in a scree of rubble.
When he looked up, the entire group was staring at him, wearing identical frowns.
Including the girl. Her glower was something else. She was staring down at him with the queenlike disdain of a gore-streaked beauty contest winner. Uh-oh.
"Hey." He stood, brushing dirt and gravel from his formerly clean sweatpants. "I'm a--well, I was just passing through and couldn't help but notice the whole, uh, ritual sacrifice thing you had going there, and I thought I should--"
"You are the one who sees."
One of the robed figures was stepping forward now--tall, dark-skinned, gravely serious. He tipped his wooden staff in Xander's direction. "You carry the eye of god. You seek knowledge."
"Eye of god?" Xander repeated.
"We cannot give knowledge. That is lost to us. The Mothers, the wise ones--they are gone. Only a shadow of their strength remains." He lifted his staff, both arms outstretched like Charlton Heston preparing to part the Red Sea. "We do what we must to save all."
"Whoa, whoa--you don't know that. Whatever your problem is, it can't be bad enough to justify killing some innocent girl. What good will it do?"
"She is our daughter. She will be our protector." The shaman made a sharp gesture, and the girl nodded, immediately walking forward and into the cave. The shaman followed, two similarly robed companions trailing in his wake.
"Wait!" Xander pushed through the crowd to follow. He only faintly registered what was happening behind him--the former spear-bearers were making some fuss over a box, or a jar. The ground where the creature had burned now hissed and sparked as if repelled by its very blood. A dark vaprous cloud was seeping out of the earth and accumulating in the air above, swirling like mist. Xander ignored all of this--urgency about the girl pushed him through the circle of people, who rapidly closed ranks behind him.
Inside the cave the atmosphere was chilly, dank. The scent of water hung heavily in the air and, from his position at the mouth of the cave, Xander could see just far enough inside to make out the sight of the girl being chained, just as the Turok-Han outside had been.
"You can't do this!" he shouted to the three shaman standing on a ledge near where the girl was being bound. They didn't seem to hear. Instead, the leader lifted a carved box into the air--it was the box from outside, how had they managed to get it?--and the chanting began again.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death...
The dark cloud rose once more and hovered over the girl, swirling around her, pressing in close. She strained against her chains, screaming with pain as the cloud seeped into every part of her, and a glow emanated from the very ground beneath her, rising up like the bubble of a volcano straining to burst. And as Xander's vision began to dim, the girl herself seemed to take on an inner light, her limbs and torso glowing as the power lit her from within.
...........
"I think you've pushed your luck a little too far, kids."
"Huh?" Dawn looked up, bleary-eyed. "Are we there yet?"
"Not quite, Dawnie." Buffy shot a fast look over her shoulder and began sliding over toward the highway's exit lane. "Big sister's gotta stop for a minute and deal with something. Just go back to sleep for a minute, and I'll let you know when we get all the way into town."
"Okey-dokey." Dawn turned slightly in her seat, slumping into the sling of her seatbelt. "Sorry we got such a late start."
"Never you mind," Buffy smiled, giving her sister a gentle pat on the shoulder as the lane veered away into an off-ramp. "Better late than never."
...........
"'The sisters drew forth the blood of the sleeping god,'" Sirk continued, "'and where the blood was spilled a child grew, a warrior of great strength. And unto the child was given a spear forged in the dark heart of the earth, and the child was named Destroyer. The child went forth to do battle with the god of the desert wind, and wielding its great spear it dealt the adversary a grievous wound. A third of the wind god's followers were cast into the pit, and a third fled into the wasteland, and the age of the High Ones came to an end.'"
"Let me guess," Willow said. "And that would be an allegory for the demons being exiled from our world?"
"Very good," the archivist replied, with generous condescension. "This champion--the so-called Destroyer--slays its adversary with a magical weapon of some kind, the demons abandon our reality, and the age of man begins." And woman, Kennedy muttered under her breath.
"And then everyone lives happily ever after?" Willow asked.
"Well, not necessarily," Sirk admitted. "As the demons depart, they leave their evil behind by mixing their blood with that of humans, giving rise to the vampires. Thus necessitating the eventual creation of the Slayer line, and the institution of the Watchers to guide and train them. But I'm sure you're familiar with that story."
"And the serpent? The First?" Willow continued. "Does it... does it play some kind of role in the creation of the Slayers, too?"
"This a fairytale, young woman," Sirk chided her, "not an encyclopedia. The story in question makes no mention of vampires or Slayers." More pages flapped. "The dweller on the threshold then concludes his tale by identifying himself as the shade of the sleeping god, 'neither alive nor dead,' who is now condemned to wait at the threshold between the surface and the underworld, fielding annoying requests from any idle misfit who happens to turn up at the source of the river and pester him for favors. The end."
"That isn't the end." Willow leaned towards the phone, her hands clenched in her lap. "What about the king? Does the gatekeeper, the dweller, whatever--does he let the king's friend come back from the underworld? And what--what does he get in return?"
Suddenly, Kennedy dashed forward and grabbed the phone. With a swift yank she tore it free, ripping several feet of cable straight out of the wall, and then swung about and smashed it violently into the floor. A moment later, the lights flickered and went out, and the cabin was plunged into darkness.
"Kennedy?" Willow called out, quivering with alarm. From the pitch blackness in front of her came a low chuckle, moving closer in the dark.
"I think we've heard enough," said Kennedy, from what sounded like mere inches away. "No more bedtime stories, Red."
"Kennedy?" Willow shrank back, her voice little more than a squeak. "What--what's going on?"
"Just delivering a message, honey." Kennedy's voice was kindly, concerned. Willow felt warm, sweet breath on her cheek, silken hair brushing against her shoulder. "It says, you can keep playing this game if you like. But don't think we don't see you. Don't think we can't touch you."
Gentle arms wrapped around Willow's trembling body, and Kennedy held her tight. A minute later, the lights flickered once, twice, and revived.
"Willow? What just happened with the lights?" Kennedy loosened her embrace and raised her head from Willow's shoulder, looking about with apparent confusion. She glanced down at the floor beside the bed, taking in the shattered plastic fragments. "What happened to the phone?!"
Then she looked back at the woman in her arms, saw her quivering shoulders and wide, frightened eyes. "Willow? Are you okay? Willow, what's wrong?"
...........
Outside Willow's and Kennedy's cabin, two young Slayers--Lo and Neena--waited with their ears pressed to the door. After a couple of minutes, as the agitated discussion quieted down into soothing whispers, Lo stepped back. "I think it's gone," she whispered. "C'mon, it's kinda tacky listening in on this part."
Neena sighed and came away after her. "One more second and I would have been going right in through that door. That was entirely too close for comfort."
The two girls began ambling along the side of the empty swimming pool, conversing quietly. "So why didn't it do more than just threaten her?" Lo wondered. "If it didn't want Willow finding out any of this mythology crap..."
"I do not think it wants Willow dead," Neena said. "Or at least, not yet. It seems that it just wants to keep her scared, off balance."
"And now that she knows it can get into Kennedy, into any of us..."
"Distraction," confirmed Neena, with a nod of her sleek head. "A new problem to deal with, keeping us from focusing our attention on other things."
"But why not just kill her, kill all of us?" Lo hissed, flapping her arms in frustration. "Why all this cat-and-mouse shit?"
"Perhaps it is saving us for last," Neena suggested, thoughtfully. "Perhaps it simply enjoys tormenting us. Or perhaps it does not actually have the strength to kill Willow--or to make Kennedy kill her. Not yet, at least."
Lo considered this as they made a second circuit of the pool. She scuffed a bare foot through a drift of pollen flowers coating the cement; the yellow blossoms stuck to her knotted anklet bracelet. Neena seemed very focused on smoothing the towel wrapped around her waist, her ringed fingers constantly arranging, straightening...
"This is the same old crap, isn't it?" Lo blurted, breaking the silence. "Making threats, talking a lot of smack." Her face contorted in sudden fury. "Killing us off, one by one. Just to mess with them--with Buffy, Willow, the big shots... this is just some kind of goddam game!"
"And if it is a game?" Neena's tone was calm, contemplative. "Then what is the objective? If we are to win, we must understand that." She looked over at Lo, her eyes glittering with the reflected glow of the underwater pool lights. "Perhaps the fact that we are drawing the enemy's attention... is evidence that we are getting closer to doing so."
"Let's hope so," Lo frowned. "But in the meantime, I'm starting to think that none of us Slayers really oughta be left unattended." They finished rounding the pool, and returned to the cabin where Bet and Graciela were waiting.
..........
Xander woke in his hotel room, his face pasted to the hardwood floor with a coating of drool. For an instant, he had a disorienting flashback to his high school math class, and the familiar sensation of falling asleep on his desk.
Lifting his throbbing head, he squinted at the window. Daylight. His drug trip had taken the whole night. Heavy, man.
Woozy and bone-tired, Xander prodded through his memories of his vision quest. The ritual, with its gallons of blood and bondage imagery, still disturbed him, but there was something else... something in the way the shaman had spoken to him. Something about...
We cannot give knowledge... the Mothers, the wise ones... we do what we must.
What had all that been about? And that girl...
She will be our protector.
The Slayer? The first Slayer? A long-suppressed memory of that feral warrior in blood and bandages came rushing back to him. Was that really it--the origin of all Slayers?
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
And why did the shaman call him the "one who sees"? Never mind that whole "eye of god" thing. His empty socket throbbed at the thought.
He rose, groaning, straightening out his stiff limbs. He wasn't sure when his body had gotten so creaky, but spending the night sprawled on a hard floor was definitely not as easy or fun as it used to be.
He was awkwardly cracking his back when he noticed that Spike was back, standing silently in the doorway, dressed once again in his familiar black clothes. The sunlight danced on the floor at a distance that would have been dangerously close for the vampire, once upon a time--but that was hardly a problem anymore, even if this weren't some freaky-deaky spirit guide version of Spike.
Xander sighed--he was really too tired to do much more vision questing, but hey, he'd done the spell, so he supposed he'd better humor the powerful being he'd dialed up. No interest in going over the whole "you're not the boss of me" fangs in his face lesson again.
"So. That was fun," he groaned, swiveling his neck to hear the joints pop. "And if you've got more to show me, I guess I'm up for it, but maybe something a little less Lair of the White Worm would be--"
"You know, I never felt the need to bother with you before."
Xander stopped with the neck-cracking. His fingers had gone suddenly numb, as if they'd been plunged in ice. Spike was smiling at him, and there was something very wrong with that smile. A shiver raced up his back, over his scalp.
"You're The First."
"Bingo. And here I always thought you were the stupid one."
The First. Ohgod. The First. Here.
Mouth suddenly dry, Xander could only croak weakly. "Get out."
The thing that looked like Spike laughed. "Oh, I don't think so. I mean, I've ignored you all this time because I didn't think you were worth my energy, but now that you've managed to draw my attention?" He began to walk closer, big boots thumping on the wooden planks just as if they were real, solid. "Well, I think you should get your money's worth... don't you?"
Xander stumbled backward, feet skidding on a patterned throw rug, and he fell gracelessly onto the bed. Spike walked up to the bedside and leaned forward over him, intimately close.
"Look at you," the vampire sneered. "Got it into your head that you can be a hero. Thinking you can save all the damsels in distress. Only these damsels are far beyond your saving." He lifted a hand, fingers curled like hooks in an all-too-familiar gesture, and held it, hovering, over Xander's face. "Or maybe you're just eager to lose the other one."
A new sensation boiled to the surface, as Xander's fear was eclipsed by a surge of anger. He opened his mouth and let the words rush out. Xander strikes back, he thought giddily.
"I'm eager for you to get outta my face!" Xander elbowed his way up into a sitting position, sweeping an arm through the visitor's intangible body, and the ersatz Spike dropped back as if to preserve the illusion of solidity. "So tell me, Johnny Wanna-Gouge," he spat, "you and what army? Last I heard, the Hordes of Mordor had all gone crispy critters. Oops, goodbye world domination. How'd you let that happen?"
A smirk appeared on Spike's face. "Didn't need 'em anymore. Traded up."
"Huh?" Xander blinked.
"You heard me. Let the ugly little bastards burn--they'd served their purpose, just like this one." The apparition made a sweeping gesture that took in the body it wore. "What, you really think I didn't see that coming? That your little lightshow caught me off guard?"
Clambering to his feet, Xander pressed his counterattack. "Yeah, kinda thinking it did. Kinda thinking that Spike--the real Spike--threw a nice little wrench into your master plan."
"I am the real Spike, you stupid git. Or near as makes no odds." The figure's features melted, ran, coalesced into a new form. "We're all in here, buddy. All of us who sleep in the earth. And you'll be joining us very soon."
Xander stared at the familiar face for a moment, and though the memories were years old, the pain was still fresh. Pull yourself together, man. It's just a trick. A dream, a hoax, an imaginary story. And from another part of him came the thought, Jesse. You're smaller than I remember you.
The visitor blurred again, its form flowing like water, and suddenly Xander knew what was coming next.
"This isn't a threat, Xander. It's not even a warning." The thing that looked like Anya regarded him sadly, pity in her eyes. "I'm closing up the store. Liquidating the stock. And this time, everything must go."
Xander reached for the anger, but it was gone. All he felt now was tired, all he wanted was for this to be over. He let his legs fold under him, and dropped into a sitting position on the bed. "Are you going somewhere with this?" he asked.
"Have you ever seen how these things get in the final days?" Anya shook her head in dismay. "It's going to be a madhouse. With the running to and fro, and too much of this and not enough of that, and the people shouting, and the children crying, and they can't find their mommies..." She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I'd like to spare you that, Xander. I really would. But the choice is up to you."
"The choice?" He looked up at her.
"Just look away, close your eyes--well, technically, eye singular--and you can dream sweet dreams until the end. But if you really have to see, I promise you, you're going to see everything."
Xander stared down at his clasped hands. "I'm sorry, Ahn. I have to try. I have to do what I can to help them."
He didn't see the blink of light when she disappeared, but he heard the gentle mockery in her voice.
"That's my boy. Always doing the stupid thing..."
ACT SIX: DIVERSIONS
Xander opened his eyes--both of them--to pale, pre-dawn light.
Blinking, he lifted his head from the gritty surface it was resting on. It had been just long enough since he'd had two eyes to see with that his new binocular vision gave him a dose of stomach-twisting disorientation. Images swam blurrily before him, as if he were watching a movie in badly adjusted 3D.
"Well, well. Rise and shine. Took you long enough."
Spike again. The vampire was back in human guise, leaning against a rock wall, one knee drawn up as if he were lounging against a streetlamp, in no hurry to be anywhere or do anything. He wore black jeans and nothing else.
"What's with the shirtless?" Xander asked, blearily.
Spike looked down at himself, shrugged and grinned. "Your dream, not mine."
"So not going there," Xander grumbled. In truth, he was actually faintly glad for the distraction. His mind was filled with the memory of that light coming toward his face, the searing heat... all of which now seemed to be centered in his no-longer empty eye socket. The makeshift eye burned, rolling like a ball spinning in water. When he focused on the feeling too hard, he felt really nauseous.
Swallowing hard, he tried standing. Sand sifted from him in showers as he pulled himself upright.
"What you came for. Over there," Spike told him, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
"What I--?" He stared in the indicated direction, then did a 360. Aside from a few rock formations, they were in the middle of a seemingly endless landscape. "Hey, we're in a desert." He looked over at Spike, who seemed not to have heard. "I said, we're in a--"
"You coming or not?"
Xander swung around. Somewhere between sentences, the vampire had already set off in the direction he'd pointed, moving easily across the sand in that loping stride of his. Xander jogged to catch up, somewhat less gracefully. There were all sorts of questions he wanted to ask, but he was having a hard enough time just holding himself together as he struggled across the shifting sands, his stomach lurching uncomfortably every time he tried to survey his surroundings.
Now Spike was bounding up a small hillside. Huffing, Xander plodded along in his wake, the sand crumbling and sliding beneath his feet with every step. He was annoyed to realize his dream-self was getting seriously winded. Man, you'd think a vision quest would spend less time on the physical journey part and jump straight to the all-knowing bit, he grumbled to himself. Puffing and blowing, he crested the hilltop and looked down.
Beneath where he stood, a large group of people was gathered at the entrance to a large cave, near the wellspring of a river. The yawning cave mouth seemed to be tucked underneath the roots of a large tree that grew directly above it, on a cliffside, its branches spreading dramatically like outstretched hands. Near the river, fires blazed in a rough circle around the group. And in the center of the circle, a captured creature--a vampire--howled and tugged at the chains that held it around the neck and limbs. A circle of dark-skinned men armed with spears stabbed at it, over and over, to the sound of roars and chants from the crowds.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
Xander swallowed hard. The scene was a gruesome one--thick, dark blood gouted from the creature with each new wound, spouted like a geyser. There was also a pool of dark liquid beneath the beast's feet. Apparently, they'd been at this for awhile. And what they were chanting--I understood it, but that wasn't English...
"What is this?" he asked.
"That's what you came here to see."
"I don't get it. It's one of those whatchamacallits... Uruk-Hai."
"Turok-Han." Spike corrected. "You know what the name means?"
Numb, Xander made a helpless gesture.
"It means 'Outside Man.' Or 'Outside Human,' if you want to be PC about it. 'Not Human.'" The vampire turned to look down at the proceedings, his face in profile nearly swallowed by the shadows.
"So one of them escaped from the Hellmouth?" Xander managed, mouth dry.
Spike shook his head. As if that said everything.
Another roar went up from the crowd below. Xander turned his face away, nauseous. A stiff wind swept the hilltop where they stood, and oh god, now he could smell the rising tide of blood. He forced down his gorge with a stomach clench that made his knees tremble. "Okay, so you've shown me a bunch of people killing a demon. And doing a pretty messy job of it, by the way. But, uh, I've seen this sort of thing before. Like, recently. Not really seeing the revelation here."
"Not even a guess what it means? Where you are? After all that field time you've clocked?" Blue eyes studied him, assessing, then flickered back to the gory spectacle below. "Don't even know a blood ritual when you see one?"
...........
"So that's it, huh?" Kennedy asked. "The secret origin of The First?"
"It's merely an allegory," Sirk replied, enunciating slowly as if addressing a rather slow six-year-old. "Most of the older mythologies include some kind of subterranean beast that consumes the bodies and souls of the dead--Nidhoggr the Corpse Sucker, Ammit the Devourer of Souls, the Greek Kerberos... Dante and his three-headed Satan. I wouldn't read too much into it."
Angel, who had been listening silently up until now, at last spoke up. "Do you have anything else, Sirk?"
Sirk harrumphed again and flipped more pages. "The same entity reappears later in the gatekeeper's story. From here on in, the narrative continues in a similar vein to the later Osiris myth..."
"Osiris?" Willow was suddenly alert. "That's Egyptian, right?"
They could almost visualize Sirk rolling his eyes. "Yes, it's Egyptian. I know the Comparative Mythology portion of the typical American school curriculum is a little less than comprehensive, but surely you must have heard of Osiris."
"A little bit," Willow admitted. "I, uh, invoked him in a spell once or twice."
There was an interval of withering silence. "My dear girl," Sirk eventually responded with evident difficulty, "it is not commonly considered good magical practice to call on strange gods without performing the appropriate background research first."
Willow made a sour face. "You know, you sound just like Giles."
Ignoring her, Sirk resumed his story. "The serpent of Chaos is defeated, in this version, by two brothers who go on to become the leaders of the High Ones. The senior one appears to be a river god of some description, identified with fertility and civilized order. 'When he walked, his feet were on the ground and his head was in the skies, and his eyes were the sun and the moon. His right eye was the sun and it held his power, and his left eye was the moon and it held his wisdom.' It continues in that vein for several pages..."
"What about the other one?" Kennedy prompted.
"The god of the desert wind, according to this story," Sirk replied. "A capricious storm spirit 'who raged in the wilderness, and whose domain gave forth no grain and yielded no fruit.' The division of labor appears similar to Osiris and Set, or the Sumerian Enki and Enlil."
"Set?" Willow asked. "Sorry to keep butting in, but..."
"Trickster god along the lines of Loki. Jealous of his brother, pulls pranks that go too far, ultimately recast as a demonic adversary, identified with the color red... Look, do you want me to finish this or not?"
"Go ahead, Sirk," Angel replied. "Where does the First come into it again?"
The archivist's patience was clearly running low. "The First comes to the younger brother in his dreams and, playing on his jealousy, persuades him to rise up against his sibling. The river god is sealed in a subterranean tomb, and the wind god takes the throne, with predictable results. Famine, drought, fruit withering on the vine, war among the gods, and 'the people'--the human population, in other words--trembling in fear."
"So that's it?" Angel asked.
"No. There's a third reference to a serpent towards the end of the story." The binding creaked again as Sirk skipped ahead a few more pages. "Hoping to bring an end to their people's suffering, a couple of human women 'with great knowledge'--witches, if you will--seek out the tomb of the river god, which they find beneath the roots of a great tree. But when they find they're unable to revive him, they call on the serpent for help. 'The serpent came to them and said, Do as I tell you. The sisters drew forth the blood of the sleeping god...'"
"Hold it," Kennedy interjected. "The serpent's one of the good guys now?!"
"Remember, this is strictly metaphorical," Sirk reminded them. "Virtually every culture in the world considers the snake to be a symbol of renewal and restoration, given its ability to shed its..."
"No." Willow's face was pale, her eyes fixed intently on the phone. "I'm pretty sure the serpent is not one of the good guys."
...........
"Blood ritual?" Xander blurted. His eyes slid back to the scene below. The crowd was withdrawing, pulling back to form a circle around the chained beast in a scene that reminded him weirdly of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
The chanting died down. The crowd seemed to be waiting for something. The creature's howling grew louder, more frantic.
"Okay, enough. I give," Xander hiccuped. His nausea was rising again. This vision had already shaped up as both gorier and more frustrating than he'd expected. Let alone the part where he had to beg information from Spike. "Tell me what it means."
The vampire ignored him.
"Hey, c'mon--admitting defeat over here. I've said it--I'm dense boy. I don't get it. Please, just tell me what it means so we can get this over with?"
A slow shake of the head. "Not how this works. Show, not tell."
"Okay, you have got to be kidding. I mean, yeah, I don't really know the rules of this whole magic-summoning thing and hey, I probably wasn't even the best choice for this head trip, but--"
"You're just human," Spike said calmly. He nodded in the direction of the men below. "You're like them, down there. Can't see beyond this moment, your own part in it. Can't see past the ends of your own noses. You eat, and you breed, and you build, but you never think to wonder about the world you're fixed in. What made it. What forests stood on the land under your house. Or what fed the roots of the trees in that forest. Or what traveled across that ground. Even when it's you yourself what did the traveling."
There was a moment of silence as Xander stood there, open-mouthed.
"Was that supposed to help me?" he sputtered, finally. "'Cause I gotta say--the cryptic act? Not the best look on you. Or... on Spike, I mean. I really don't see how any of this--"
He stopped ranting then, because the sun was rising, and a beam of light flared brilliantly from a point just over the vampire's left shoulder, blinding Xander momentarily. When he opened his eyes again after a moment's blinking and wincing, Spike was gone.
A roar alerted him again to crowd below, and Xander spun just in time to catch a similar disappearing act from the Turok-Han--the beast was disintegrating into flaming cinders, the harsh morning sunlight having set it ablaze. It howled as it burned, then collapsed, the chains falling loosely where it had been. There was a sudden flurry of activity--robed men rushed forward waving their long staffs, the chanting of the crowd rose to a roar, men dropped their spears and began to scoop up cupped handfuls of the creature's blood.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy...
And now there was a girl. She stepped forward, singling herself out from the crowd, and walked into the center of the pool. Naked. The men who had previously been stabbing at the beast with spears now approached her and began painting her skin with the gathered blood. The dark fluid ran down her body in streams, streaking her face and arms and legs and breasts.
Don't even know a blood ritual when you see one?
Without a second thought, Xander threw himself forward, slipping and skidding down the hilltop on his butt and his heels, pushing himself fast. There wasn't a question in his mind about what he was seeing. Some kind of freaked-out human sacrifice looked to be the Round 2 Event--and no way was he just going to stand there and watch some girl get fed to a monster or whatever might be waiting in that cave. No way.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Don't do that! Wait!"
He reached the bottom of the hill and landed in an undignified heap, his feet having slid out from under him in a scree of rubble.
When he looked up, the entire group was staring at him, wearing identical frowns.
Including the girl. Her glower was something else. She was staring down at him with the queenlike disdain of a gore-streaked beauty contest winner. Uh-oh.
"Hey." He stood, brushing dirt and gravel from his formerly clean sweatpants. "I'm a--well, I was just passing through and couldn't help but notice the whole, uh, ritual sacrifice thing you had going there, and I thought I should--"
"You are the one who sees."
One of the robed figures was stepping forward now--tall, dark-skinned, gravely serious. He tipped his wooden staff in Xander's direction. "You carry the eye of god. You seek knowledge."
"Eye of god?" Xander repeated.
"We cannot give knowledge. That is lost to us. The Mothers, the wise ones--they are gone. Only a shadow of their strength remains." He lifted his staff, both arms outstretched like Charlton Heston preparing to part the Red Sea. "We do what we must to save all."
"Whoa, whoa--you don't know that. Whatever your problem is, it can't be bad enough to justify killing some innocent girl. What good will it do?"
"She is our daughter. She will be our protector." The shaman made a sharp gesture, and the girl nodded, immediately walking forward and into the cave. The shaman followed, two similarly robed companions trailing in his wake.
"Wait!" Xander pushed through the crowd to follow. He only faintly registered what was happening behind him--the former spear-bearers were making some fuss over a box, or a jar. The ground where the creature had burned now hissed and sparked as if repelled by its very blood. A dark vaprous cloud was seeping out of the earth and accumulating in the air above, swirling like mist. Xander ignored all of this--urgency about the girl pushed him through the circle of people, who rapidly closed ranks behind him.
Inside the cave the atmosphere was chilly, dank. The scent of water hung heavily in the air and, from his position at the mouth of the cave, Xander could see just far enough inside to make out the sight of the girl being chained, just as the Turok-Han outside had been.
"You can't do this!" he shouted to the three shaman standing on a ledge near where the girl was being bound. They didn't seem to hear. Instead, the leader lifted a carved box into the air--it was the box from outside, how had they managed to get it?--and the chanting began again.
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death. Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death...
The dark cloud rose once more and hovered over the girl, swirling around her, pressing in close. She strained against her chains, screaming with pain as the cloud seeped into every part of her, and a glow emanated from the very ground beneath her, rising up like the bubble of a volcano straining to burst. And as Xander's vision began to dim, the girl herself seemed to take on an inner light, her limbs and torso glowing as the power lit her from within.
...........
"I think you've pushed your luck a little too far, kids."
"Huh?" Dawn looked up, bleary-eyed. "Are we there yet?"
"Not quite, Dawnie." Buffy shot a fast look over her shoulder and began sliding over toward the highway's exit lane. "Big sister's gotta stop for a minute and deal with something. Just go back to sleep for a minute, and I'll let you know when we get all the way into town."
"Okey-dokey." Dawn turned slightly in her seat, slumping into the sling of her seatbelt. "Sorry we got such a late start."
"Never you mind," Buffy smiled, giving her sister a gentle pat on the shoulder as the lane veered away into an off-ramp. "Better late than never."
...........
"'The sisters drew forth the blood of the sleeping god,'" Sirk continued, "'and where the blood was spilled a child grew, a warrior of great strength. And unto the child was given a spear forged in the dark heart of the earth, and the child was named Destroyer. The child went forth to do battle with the god of the desert wind, and wielding its great spear it dealt the adversary a grievous wound. A third of the wind god's followers were cast into the pit, and a third fled into the wasteland, and the age of the High Ones came to an end.'"
"Let me guess," Willow said. "And that would be an allegory for the demons being exiled from our world?"
"Very good," the archivist replied, with generous condescension. "This champion--the so-called Destroyer--slays its adversary with a magical weapon of some kind, the demons abandon our reality, and the age of man begins." And woman, Kennedy muttered under her breath.
"And then everyone lives happily ever after?" Willow asked.
"Well, not necessarily," Sirk admitted. "As the demons depart, they leave their evil behind by mixing their blood with that of humans, giving rise to the vampires. Thus necessitating the eventual creation of the Slayer line, and the institution of the Watchers to guide and train them. But I'm sure you're familiar with that story."
"And the serpent? The First?" Willow continued. "Does it... does it play some kind of role in the creation of the Slayers, too?"
"This a fairytale, young woman," Sirk chided her, "not an encyclopedia. The story in question makes no mention of vampires or Slayers." More pages flapped. "The dweller on the threshold then concludes his tale by identifying himself as the shade of the sleeping god, 'neither alive nor dead,' who is now condemned to wait at the threshold between the surface and the underworld, fielding annoying requests from any idle misfit who happens to turn up at the source of the river and pester him for favors. The end."
"That isn't the end." Willow leaned towards the phone, her hands clenched in her lap. "What about the king? Does the gatekeeper, the dweller, whatever--does he let the king's friend come back from the underworld? And what--what does he get in return?"
Suddenly, Kennedy dashed forward and grabbed the phone. With a swift yank she tore it free, ripping several feet of cable straight out of the wall, and then swung about and smashed it violently into the floor. A moment later, the lights flickered and went out, and the cabin was plunged into darkness.
"Kennedy?" Willow called out, quivering with alarm. From the pitch blackness in front of her came a low chuckle, moving closer in the dark.
"I think we've heard enough," said Kennedy, from what sounded like mere inches away. "No more bedtime stories, Red."
"Kennedy?" Willow shrank back, her voice little more than a squeak. "What--what's going on?"
"Just delivering a message, honey." Kennedy's voice was kindly, concerned. Willow felt warm, sweet breath on her cheek, silken hair brushing against her shoulder. "It says, you can keep playing this game if you like. But don't think we don't see you. Don't think we can't touch you."
Gentle arms wrapped around Willow's trembling body, and Kennedy held her tight. A minute later, the lights flickered once, twice, and revived.
"Willow? What just happened with the lights?" Kennedy loosened her embrace and raised her head from Willow's shoulder, looking about with apparent confusion. She glanced down at the floor beside the bed, taking in the shattered plastic fragments. "What happened to the phone?!"
Then she looked back at the woman in her arms, saw her quivering shoulders and wide, frightened eyes. "Willow? Are you okay? Willow, what's wrong?"
...........
Outside Willow's and Kennedy's cabin, two young Slayers--Lo and Neena--waited with their ears pressed to the door. After a couple of minutes, as the agitated discussion quieted down into soothing whispers, Lo stepped back. "I think it's gone," she whispered. "C'mon, it's kinda tacky listening in on this part."
Neena sighed and came away after her. "One more second and I would have been going right in through that door. That was entirely too close for comfort."
The two girls began ambling along the side of the empty swimming pool, conversing quietly. "So why didn't it do more than just threaten her?" Lo wondered. "If it didn't want Willow finding out any of this mythology crap..."
"I do not think it wants Willow dead," Neena said. "Or at least, not yet. It seems that it just wants to keep her scared, off balance."
"And now that she knows it can get into Kennedy, into any of us..."
"Distraction," confirmed Neena, with a nod of her sleek head. "A new problem to deal with, keeping us from focusing our attention on other things."
"But why not just kill her, kill all of us?" Lo hissed, flapping her arms in frustration. "Why all this cat-and-mouse shit?"
"Perhaps it is saving us for last," Neena suggested, thoughtfully. "Perhaps it simply enjoys tormenting us. Or perhaps it does not actually have the strength to kill Willow--or to make Kennedy kill her. Not yet, at least."
Lo considered this as they made a second circuit of the pool. She scuffed a bare foot through a drift of pollen flowers coating the cement; the yellow blossoms stuck to her knotted anklet bracelet. Neena seemed very focused on smoothing the towel wrapped around her waist, her ringed fingers constantly arranging, straightening...
"This is the same old crap, isn't it?" Lo blurted, breaking the silence. "Making threats, talking a lot of smack." Her face contorted in sudden fury. "Killing us off, one by one. Just to mess with them--with Buffy, Willow, the big shots... this is just some kind of goddam game!"
"And if it is a game?" Neena's tone was calm, contemplative. "Then what is the objective? If we are to win, we must understand that." She looked over at Lo, her eyes glittering with the reflected glow of the underwater pool lights. "Perhaps the fact that we are drawing the enemy's attention... is evidence that we are getting closer to doing so."
"Let's hope so," Lo frowned. "But in the meantime, I'm starting to think that none of us Slayers really oughta be left unattended." They finished rounding the pool, and returned to the cabin where Bet and Graciela were waiting.
..........
Xander woke in his hotel room, his face pasted to the hardwood floor with a coating of drool. For an instant, he had a disorienting flashback to his high school math class, and the familiar sensation of falling asleep on his desk.
Lifting his throbbing head, he squinted at the window. Daylight. His drug trip had taken the whole night. Heavy, man.
Woozy and bone-tired, Xander prodded through his memories of his vision quest. The ritual, with its gallons of blood and bondage imagery, still disturbed him, but there was something else... something in the way the shaman had spoken to him. Something about...
We cannot give knowledge... the Mothers, the wise ones... we do what we must.
What had all that been about? And that girl...
She will be our protector.
The Slayer? The first Slayer? A long-suppressed memory of that feral warrior in blood and bandages came rushing back to him. Was that really it--the origin of all Slayers?
Blood of the enemy, blood to the earth. Death gives to life. Life will give death.
And why did the shaman call him the "one who sees"? Never mind that whole "eye of god" thing. His empty socket throbbed at the thought.
He rose, groaning, straightening out his stiff limbs. He wasn't sure when his body had gotten so creaky, but spending the night sprawled on a hard floor was definitely not as easy or fun as it used to be.
He was awkwardly cracking his back when he noticed that Spike was back, standing silently in the doorway, dressed once again in his familiar black clothes. The sunlight danced on the floor at a distance that would have been dangerously close for the vampire, once upon a time--but that was hardly a problem anymore, even if this weren't some freaky-deaky spirit guide version of Spike.
Xander sighed--he was really too tired to do much more vision questing, but hey, he'd done the spell, so he supposed he'd better humor the powerful being he'd dialed up. No interest in going over the whole "you're not the boss of me" fangs in his face lesson again.
"So. That was fun," he groaned, swiveling his neck to hear the joints pop. "And if you've got more to show me, I guess I'm up for it, but maybe something a little less Lair of the White Worm would be--"
"You know, I never felt the need to bother with you before."
Xander stopped with the neck-cracking. His fingers had gone suddenly numb, as if they'd been plunged in ice. Spike was smiling at him, and there was something very wrong with that smile. A shiver raced up his back, over his scalp.
"You're The First."
"Bingo. And here I always thought you were the stupid one."
The First. Ohgod. The First. Here.
Mouth suddenly dry, Xander could only croak weakly. "Get out."
The thing that looked like Spike laughed. "Oh, I don't think so. I mean, I've ignored you all this time because I didn't think you were worth my energy, but now that you've managed to draw my attention?" He began to walk closer, big boots thumping on the wooden planks just as if they were real, solid. "Well, I think you should get your money's worth... don't you?"
Xander stumbled backward, feet skidding on a patterned throw rug, and he fell gracelessly onto the bed. Spike walked up to the bedside and leaned forward over him, intimately close.
"Look at you," the vampire sneered. "Got it into your head that you can be a hero. Thinking you can save all the damsels in distress. Only these damsels are far beyond your saving." He lifted a hand, fingers curled like hooks in an all-too-familiar gesture, and held it, hovering, over Xander's face. "Or maybe you're just eager to lose the other one."
A new sensation boiled to the surface, as Xander's fear was eclipsed by a surge of anger. He opened his mouth and let the words rush out. Xander strikes back, he thought giddily.
"I'm eager for you to get outta my face!" Xander elbowed his way up into a sitting position, sweeping an arm through the visitor's intangible body, and the ersatz Spike dropped back as if to preserve the illusion of solidity. "So tell me, Johnny Wanna-Gouge," he spat, "you and what army? Last I heard, the Hordes of Mordor had all gone crispy critters. Oops, goodbye world domination. How'd you let that happen?"
A smirk appeared on Spike's face. "Didn't need 'em anymore. Traded up."
"Huh?" Xander blinked.
"You heard me. Let the ugly little bastards burn--they'd served their purpose, just like this one." The apparition made a sweeping gesture that took in the body it wore. "What, you really think I didn't see that coming? That your little lightshow caught me off guard?"
Clambering to his feet, Xander pressed his counterattack. "Yeah, kinda thinking it did. Kinda thinking that Spike--the real Spike--threw a nice little wrench into your master plan."
"I am the real Spike, you stupid git. Or near as makes no odds." The figure's features melted, ran, coalesced into a new form. "We're all in here, buddy. All of us who sleep in the earth. And you'll be joining us very soon."
Xander stared at the familiar face for a moment, and though the memories were years old, the pain was still fresh. Pull yourself together, man. It's just a trick. A dream, a hoax, an imaginary story. And from another part of him came the thought, Jesse. You're smaller than I remember you.
The visitor blurred again, its form flowing like water, and suddenly Xander knew what was coming next.
"This isn't a threat, Xander. It's not even a warning." The thing that looked like Anya regarded him sadly, pity in her eyes. "I'm closing up the store. Liquidating the stock. And this time, everything must go."
Xander reached for the anger, but it was gone. All he felt now was tired, all he wanted was for this to be over. He let his legs fold under him, and dropped into a sitting position on the bed. "Are you going somewhere with this?" he asked.
"Have you ever seen how these things get in the final days?" Anya shook her head in dismay. "It's going to be a madhouse. With the running to and fro, and too much of this and not enough of that, and the people shouting, and the children crying, and they can't find their mommies..." She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I'd like to spare you that, Xander. I really would. But the choice is up to you."
"The choice?" He looked up at her.
"Just look away, close your eyes--well, technically, eye singular--and you can dream sweet dreams until the end. But if you really have to see, I promise you, you're going to see everything."
Xander stared down at his clasped hands. "I'm sorry, Ahn. I have to try. I have to do what I can to help them."
He didn't see the blink of light when she disappeared, but he heard the gentle mockery in her voice.
"That's my boy. Always doing the stupid thing..."