MC - You see now you are just getting petty*S*
For reasons I hope will be obvious when we get there there will be NO smut in this fic. At least in the sense of "she did this to her there and she did that her there."
As I said at the start there will be an underlying current of sensuality, sexuality and other "ity's" from pretty soon onwards. But no out and out smut. I am all for smut and write it for fun... but not here. I shall explain why later if I have to... remind me later
And yeah MC I know you were kidding.
Zahir - Duh! Caritas... of course! Thick or ignorant... you decide. Of course I have not been paying as much attention to Angel recently as I used to... just not getting into S3 at all... but that is a matter for another thread.
Vamp Willow's evil... I did sort of try to mitigate it at times, even though I had to show it at others. I need the Kittens to be able to read it and not hate her... but not to like her much either - except in the twisted "she's so naughty" way that you all do!
I am
not saying that she does
anything to anyone on that list of characters Zahir but I guarantee you that three are of them are absolutely safe from everything in this fic. Including Vamp Willow.
Anyway
Part 22 Okay so Tara does not go to a Caritas though it does slip in later... in one form or another. Nope Tara's questions might get answers in... Room 214.
Enjoy Kittens.
Katharyn
----------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Room 214 (Part 22)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Given what has just happened Tara is spurred to ask questions again.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: Oh… not yet. Heck they just met!
Notes: Don’t sweat over the how Tara got here… just the fact that she did.
Thanks To: Funnily enough everyone at ME who gave us W/T… and the Kittens who ran with that ball.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Room 214
By
Katharyn Rosser
Tara had followed the trail to here. Knowing now who Willow was, having met her even and found out about her methods it hadn’t been too hard to pick out Willow’s kills in the police records. The unedited ones… before ‘Gang-related-PCP’ was stamped over the top of the report for the media to swallow in their comforting way. And once she had learnt to recognise the trail it was also a pretty simple matter to pick out the more recent ones.
She knocked on the door.
The first kills that it appeared Willow had made on her ‘return’ were the greatest single concentration in the records since this whole thing with the Master had started. If they were all Willow’s. The vampire was hardly subtle. Cruel yes, subtle no. To come back there would have to have been an intervention by some power… or a ritual. Essentially it would require some application of magic – so if Willow’s return was heralded by a massacre of Wiccans… She figured that whenever she had come back – from wherever it was she had been – it had been to that room that had been found filled with drained young women… Many of them had been… well Willow seemed to have been well known for… having her eccentricities. And then, just by checking the college records for the room booking, Tara found what she needed to know. Wicca Group, it had said. And a name. A name that was not on the police reports and being amongst the victims.
As for what they had been doing… Could it be so simple that they had just accidentally called the vampire from beyond? Or was it deliberate? That was just one of the things that she
had to know about Willow. Why she was back. But just one of them… there were a million questions.
But the power needed to recall a destroyed vampire? Tara didn’t know of a way – mainly because it was something she had never contemplated before perhaps – but it must require power and more than a little skill… it couldn’t be simple. An accident? Could it really have just been an accident? Only one person left to ask. The only remaining member of the UC Sunnydale Wicca Group. The one who had booked the room in the first place. A room with a lockable door… Was that significant too?
“Am-Amy Madison?” Tara asked as the dorm room, 214, opened to her.
“Yeah, hi!” Amy answered, looked at her then asked, “Do I know you?”
“N-not yet,” Tara told her. She’d tracked it all this far… and Amy was the last remaining link; and she could already feel the power in her. She gave Amy a hesitant smile and realised that Amy, in turn, could sense her too.
“Cool. Come in.” Amy stepped back, allowing Tara into her room and she took the opportunity to look around… her eyes immediately drawn to two things, the absolutely clear left hand half of the room, bed stripped back, and the urn on the dresser in what must be Amy’s half. It wasn’t just some decoration. Waves of… darkness… emanated from it. She might not have picked up on it anywhere else, but here on the Hellmouth… It was almost as if it was alive in some way.
Later for the urn though. “You’re lucky, having a room all to yourself,” she commented, gesturing at the other bed.
“I guess,” Amy replied. “Sometimes it gets a bit lonely, but I don’t have to put up with Kathy’s habits anymore…” Amy trailed off, perhaps not wanting to speak ill of her erstwhile roommate or perhaps just wondering what Tara was doing there at all. She gave the visitor a look, tipping her head.
“I-I’m Tara,” the visitor said.
“Amy, but you already knew that. Are you a student here? I don’t think that I’ve seen you around. Unless we don’t have any classes together… I am terrible with faces. I didn’t ask you to come round did I?” Amy pulled a face, a little worried. “Because that would be really embarrassing, inviting you around and then forgetting you.”
“N-no and no. No you didn’t and no I am not a student here,” Tara admitted. “I’m here to ask you something… about the W-Wicca Group.” Immediately that she mentioned the word Wicca, however hesitantly, Amy’s face changed. It became a harsh shadow of the welcoming one that it had been.
“Wicca Group is finished,” Amy said firmly as Tara
looked at her, digging beyond the obvious power. “Sorry but you’re too late.”
“I know…” Tara said. “And I know how. The real how.” There was something… something there as she tried to sense Amy’s aura. It was like having fingernails dragged over a blackboard whilst that was in your mouth. It jangled her teeth and nerves – shooting right through her. She forced herself to show nothing… There was something
wrong. That didn’t fit in. And it had power – and it was in Amy. But somehow it wasn’t Amy… or this wasn’t Amy.
Something…
“A wild animal got into the meeting room… no one could get out because the door lock jammed.” Amy even managed to sound sad as she said it, but Tara had read the police report too and that was it. Word for word. She didn’t believe it for a moment. The other evidence was way too clear. There had been a vampire in that room and no one chose to lock themselves in a room with a vampire. Nor had anything broken in – just out. At the end. After they were all dead. All but one.
“N-No,” Tara said.
“Yes,” Amy insisted. “I was there remember?”
“You were the only one
to get out,” Tara told her, not asking a question, but demanding an answer all the same. She really needed to know – not to assign blame, but she was here to find out about Willow, and Amy might be the only person who knew.
“I was lucky.” Amy was holding the door open now, inviting her to leave, and Tara could sense the rage building within the other young woman. Amy hid it pretty well, and there was the whole ‘grating’ thing getting in the way, but from someone with the sense there was no real way to keep that much anger and rage hidden. And every angry thought was accompanied by the feeling that it just didn’t fit within that body. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t like to talk about it.”
Tara knew that Amy, if that was who she was, had power… that was obvious, but it wasn’t from just
feeling it. As she looked around the room it was littered with nick-knacks. Every one of which might suit a practising Wiccan’s needs. No not quite a Wiccan. There were things here that weren’t found within that tradition. And that dark urn in pride of place. She stretched out, tore the door handle from Amy’s grasp and slammed it shut.
“Y-you weren’t lucky. You were in control, or at least you thought you were,” Tara told her as the other students yelled at them to keep the noise down. Maybe slamming the door hadn’t been necessary. People might be trying to study.
Amy just smiled, as if what she had suspected had been proved correct. She had been assessing Tara just as Tara had assessed her. “Who are you?” she asked.
“T-Tara. I tracked you here,” Tara told her.
“Well T-T-T-Tara… I think you should leave right away, before something bad happens to you too.” Amy’s eyes narrowed and Tara could now both see and feel the darkness boiling up within the witch.
“I just n-need to know some things. I don’t care that you got the Wicca Group killed.” Of course that was a lie, she always cared about death but she needed to mollify this witch before something happened. “I just want to know why you brought
her back,” Tara told her, hoping it would calm Amy down, and let them keep talking. She really didn’t want to get into a magical battle. Mainly because she had never, ever tried it. Of course they could just end up pulling each other’s hair. She hadn’t done that since she was about six either.
“Brought… back you say? What would you know about it little girl?”
Aah, Tara thought, now they were to it. There was something in that body that wasn’t supposed to be there. Something that would call Tara, as old as this Amy, a ‘little girl.’ Without doubt. That was what was grating on her senses. Something not quite right was in there. Not sharing or possessing… that would have shown as a conflict between two personalities – she guessed anyway – but instead entirely swapped over. Tara’s mind raced with possibilities. ‘Amy’ was a witch… so it was unlikely that she was using the mechanical methods… no Katra spell to swap consciousness… what did that leave?
The urn.
Tara’s eyes must have flickered towards it because instantly ‘Amy’ sidestepped into that eye line and blocked her view. “Very good,” she told Tara. “You like my detayat? Not how I first got this body and it was a real fixer-upper I can tell you… but I like it now. So much that I never want to leave.” Amy’s eyes fixed on Tara, clouded briefly and Tara could feel the witch in her mind… rummaging as if through a bin of old clothes in a charity shop. She tried to kick Amy out of there but she couldn’t… the witch was just too practiced at that sort of violation to be beaten back.
‘Amy’ was in her head, discovering every secret, every regret and everything that she wanted to know about Tara. How long it went on she had no idea. It might have been seconds. It might have been an hour. Tears were rolling down her cheeks though. It hadn’t hurt… but it was the single worst feeling she had suffered in her life since... Nothing was hers anymore, and that told her that this witch, whoever she, it, was couldn’t be allowed to continue. Up till then she would have been content just to leave with the information… but now. No one could be allowed to do stuff like that to other people…no one. She wiped the tears on her sleeve.
“Tell me, Tara Maclay, do you like it, this body? I think a gay woman’s opinion would round off my satisfaction with it.” ‘Amy’ struck an awkward pose, preening her hair in an exaggerated manner and laughing. “And one in such a distinguished position with the powers of this town. Perhaps I would do better with your body? You look to be in good shape… and I am getting sort of bored with my classes. Do you think I could make politics a career?”
“Y-you wouldn’t want my life,” Tara told her firmly.
“I think I’d change it. And you could watch me… if you don’t like your life do you want this one? We could even date – being as you never had one how would you know the difference? What do you say little girl?” ‘Amy’ laughed, the taunts being driven home.
But Tara had heard far, far worse than that in her time… maybe not backed by that actual threat though. It was usually more a fatal threat.
“Why don’t you go back to your own body then – if you’re so b-bored?” she asked the laughing witch.
“This is my body. I’ve been ‘Amy’ for so long that I don’t remember who I was before. I am Amy,” she stressed again.
“N-no you’re not. I don’t know who you are…but you are
not Amy.” There were things Tara wanted to ask but they fell away and self-preservation had to be her goal now. She concentrated, putting the awful sensation from her mind and trying to focus for the confrontation that was sure to come.
“I’m more powerful than you are little girl.” ‘Amy’ warned her.
“Y-your’re mistaken,” Tara told her.
“R-r-really?” ‘Amy’ taunted. Her eyes were black now.
Tara nodded, continuing the conversation as she applied herself. The eyes, only with the black arts did that happen. The darkness. Amy was accessing the darkness almost casually. It would lead to the other witch destroying herself – Tara was sure of that, but she had to worry more about what Amy was going to try to do to her first. Now. “Y-You mistake force for power and power for force. Power is nothing without focus.” Her mother had always told her that and Tara could feel power within herself. It was reacting to the presence of the darker magic, straining for release. Not so much whispering to her as screaming in her brain to be released. To destroy the other witch. It was telling her that it would just be self-preservation. Was this what it was like when two witches were together? A clash of their talents? This was the dangerous time… and she couldn’t fail the test, it was her life as well as her soul. “You might have the power… b-but I apply force with focus.” Tara stretched out.
The thing that called itself ‘Amy’ didn’t realise at first that she was actually doing so. That thing was expecting a strike against itself. Nothing so indirect and trivial as flipping ornaments around. Tara couldn’t see that urn, the detayat, from where she stood. ‘Amy’ was stood in the way, confirming its value to her. If it was a genuine detayat then the urn was an incredibly rare soul transfer device. Tara had only veer read of them in the oldest texts. How had this woman, whoever she really was, got hold of it? No matter… it was falling towards the floor.
The witch must have felt something as Tara flicked through the ornaments as she halted the plunge of the detayat towards the floor and with a laugh struck back at Tara, throwing her across the room without laying a hand upon her. “You’re nothing! Flicking little urns!” ‘Amy’ had arrested its fall and placed it back in its place. “But I will make you something little girl… I think the first thing I will do with your body is seduce some boy and we’ll have a little fun. Maybe that’s what it has been missing from your life.”
Tara had hit the wall by the bed hard… grateful at least for the small mercy of landing on the bare mattress. The taunts washed over her, they were just a sign that the witch was not focused, but by the goddess she was strong.
Is she too strong for me, she wondered.
“I’ve been practicing for decades…” the witch continued.
“S-So this is just an eternal youth thing for you?” Tara asked, coughing and straightening up, trying to keep the other off balance. ‘Amy’ was floating above the ground now… fingertips virtually crackling with power. Flashy, showy stuff. Unnecessary. Tara pulled out a stake from the bag that she had dropped beside her on impact.
“What are you going to do with that? I’m not a vampire little girl… and I
know that you will not kill a human – especially an innocent like this body is… or at least it was innocent before I got to it. Not so much now. Neither will yours pretty soon.”
Tara flung the stake with her mind, aware that the witch could probably deflect it if she had chance, but gambling that the fact she was going to make it look as if it would miss anyway, then ‘Amy’ would let it through.
“Ha-” the witch started triumphantly, realising far too late that the stake was not actually aimed at her. It struck the detayat and shattered it, burying itself in the plasterboard wall behind it.
Tara looked at ‘Amy.’ ‘Amy looked at her. Tara had expected some reaction other than the one she got. She expected some weird soul transference light show. Or ‘Amy’ to collapse and wake up as the real person she had been once before this thing got to her. What she got was the thick end of the floating witch’s anger. Having recovered from the first blow just enough to get herself up off the bed she was forced back, and invisible hand thumping her head back against the wall. The only light show was in her own sore head as an exclamation was forced out of her.
When she was released from that she thought that her head must have made a dint in the wall. Or the wall in her head. Something definitely did not feel right. Saved by shoddy workmanship. Thank the goddess for the lowest bid construction practices.
“You stupid little girl!” the witch screamed at her. “You think that was it… that was a tool. That was my reward for bringing back your dream girl – oh I know all about her, little girl. The detayat - that just allowed me to move between bodies at will. The magic itself… that was all me! Me and Heptaru, lately anyway. I sort of switched allegiance a while back from Hecate who just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”
Heptaru… whoever said that information was power was right. It was all Tara needed to be able to do something. This witch, so convinced that she had the beating of her, had given away the tool that – should – allow Tara to resolve this in her own favour. If she could remember the damn incantation. It wasn’t the sort of thing that she needed to recall everyday. What was the blooming spell?
Focus Tara. Yes sir.
‘Amy’ had brought back Willow… she had been rewarded for it.
What was the spell?
Someone had hired her… to do that. Or ‘Amy’ worked for someone anyway…
Tara knew that she was in trouble now. Without the detayat ‘Amy’ was locked into the spell she had already cast. There would be no body swapping going on here, at least not quickly… ‘Amy’ would
just try to kill her… and she could probably succeed if she kept using the darkness. Tara needed to get the ‘real’ Amy back. It had to be better than this one.
“G-Guess what?” Tara said, feeling sure that she had the reversal locked in her mind. If she didn’t it would just be pretty words.
“G-g-go ahead,” ‘Amy’ mocked her again, twisting her hands into claws and preparing a killing incantation.
The dark witch was overconfident. With good reason. But like Tara… it seemed she hadn’t faced another witch before - she wasn’t thinking of the dangers that she would present to herself. “Heptaru, I licence you to depart,” Tara intoned. She shouldn’t have warned the witch. The words weren’t even important. ‘Amy’ screamed at her to stop, drowning out the rest of the words, but hearing the words wasn’t what made them work. Intent was more than enough. It was all that mattered. Along with focus and concentration. Time seemed to slow as Tara carefully picked apart the witch’s spell, taking the connections between the spirit and the body it occupied and severing them, moving through ‘Amy’s’ mind as ‘Amy’ had violated hers. But with a purpose. Not to be cruel. That made it all right. Didn’t it?
She thought it did… it didn’t feel evil and she had to do this. She had to do it to survive. And give the real Amy her body back – wherever that Amy was now.
The witch was paralysed by Tara’s actions as bodily control and the power dropped away, severed, like a creeping death until, finally, Tara reached the core of her. By now ‘Amy’ was silent, unable even to speak, but Tara could see that she was still there. In eyes that burned with pure hatred if not absolutely pure evil.
“Depart,” was all it took at the end and that soul was ripped from the body, replaced briefly by softer, searching eyes – no longer black with the power. Desperate and in pain as what was supposed to be, was again. Nature abhorred a vacuum and with the witch expelled… that left a hole only the true occupant could fulfil.
In theory at least. Unless there was some passing demon, searching for a body that got there first.
Nah… I couldn’t be that unlucky,Tara thought, then looked back on her life. Of course she could. She maintained her guard as those eyes fluttered shut and Amy crashed towards the floor, caught by Tara who crouched beside her and held her there on the floor until she finally came around some minutes later.
Obviously confused the young woman reacted to what had happened to her. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Who are you?’ All were understandable questions that Tara tried to answer as best as she could. But she didn’t know all the answers.
She didn’t know where the witch, who turned to be Amy’s mother Catherine, was. The same place Amy had come from… a car she had been driving?
Sounded bad for Catherine if she fell unconscious as Amy had, but Tara was having a hard time feeling sorry for that witch. If she had killed her then she was tempted to say… good.
“Who are you?” Amy asked again, as she looked at herself in the mirror not recognising the reflection.
“I’m Tara,” she told the other for the fourth time.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what she’s done… with this body. I don’t recognise this place. I was…” Amy faded out, still looking with wonder at her body, discovering that the years had both rolled back and passed her by. Then she smiled.
Tara caught the smile in the mirror. It reminded her of Catherine’s smile. It wasn't nice. Not at all.
“So I know you?” Amy asked her and Tara felt her, just like Catherine, crawling through her mind, searching for a clue. Searching for something. Not as vicious though.
She ignored the intrusion that time, knowing how confused Amy must be and taken aback somewhat by the fact that she had the power as well as her mother. It wasn’t remarkable. It was in the Maclay line too, though that was different. That was a demon. But Amy had the power and she was willing to use it like that. “No you don’t know me.”
Amy came up to her and almost whispered… “Would you like to?” Gave Tara a little smile. “It’s been so long since I had a friend. Anyone.” She hugged Tara in thanks.
Tara let her do that. It had been a long time since she’d been hugged too, but she separated them, holding Amy’s shoulders. “Amy, you can’t use magic like your mother does. I mean you can, but you shouldn’t.”
“I won’t,” Amy nodded as if she was taking in every word.
“I-I mean it Amy. You can’t. What you did… in my head. You shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. It’s a line that you shouldn’t cross just because you can,” Tara told her, suddenly afraid that she might have replaced one mature and yet evil witch with one who was maybe less evil but less mature too. Who’d had years stolen from her and wanted to get them back. What would that do to a person? “Y-You can’t be doing that.”
“Of course not,” Amy replied, sounding reassuring. “I was just disorientated. I needed to find myself. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
She sounded so damn sincere but Tara left a few minutes later unconvinced. She knew that she had done something good. She had restored Amy, whoever she was, to her true body. From wherever it had been. Even if there were consequences she had done good there. She had restored the natural order of things. But actually she had failed. She had no idea why Willow had been called back. Someone or something had paid to have her here… maybe the Master? No… his reputation was one of vampires for vampires. She couldn’t imagine him hiring a human – even a witch – to do his business. Besides there were probably vampire rituals to do something similar.
No this was something different. And she had lost the trail, though somehow she knew that one day she would pick it up again. For now she just had to live with the fact that the woman from her dreams was in Sunnydale once more.
Willow.
Maybe Willow was the only person – or thing – that knew what was going on.
The woman from her dreams? Or the woman of them?
************
by Cicca » Fri Apr 19, 2002 2:55 pm 
at: 4/19/02 2:21:03 pm
Wow. I loved how Tara alternated between "it" and "she" when referring to Willow. I'm very interested to see how their individual agendas will change now that they have actually met.
Great part! So loving this story.
So, I guess I'll just comment on the recent update, the meeting, which was what I've been waiting for a long time now. 