Sidestep Part 172 - I hope I remembered the coding right.
Katharyn.
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle - Frustrated Girls (Part 172)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome.
katslady@hotmail.co.uk Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Nothing is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: Some frustrations boil over and Willow has another dream.
Disclaimer: I 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. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: It suddenly struck me, as I edited in the header, that we’re out on our own with this now. There’s no time for the beta process that made this so special before. I mourn it’s passing and not just because it made the story better. By the way, take a look at part 156 for the forerunner to this dream and what happened there. It was a while ago.
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW. To everyone who’s still with me.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
Frustrated Girls
By
Katharyn Rosser
Sometimes there was a downside to being an agent of chaos – and he wasn’t thinking about being caught.
Unbelievable as it might have seemed once, it was undeniably true.
He was usually delighted to make time with beautiful women, but unfortunately they weren’t really women.
He could have really done without this right now. Things were just starting to happen – this night should have been one of those where he was out there making observations. He had to be careful to ensure no one discovered or interfered with the project. There was, as Assala had written, always the possibility that there could be unusual effects associated with the ritual he’d triggered in order to fulfil his contract.
It was like throwing a stone in a giant pond, no matter how far away they were eventually someone might see the ripples. Ripples that might be dismissed anywhere else might be noticed here in Sunnydale. A town where he’d been forced to take unusual steps just to get even a low-impact project like this off the ground.
More worryingly these would be ripples the like of which he’d never run into before. And now there were the vampires to deal with. Besides Drusilla and Darla’s value in confusing the curious about the nature of the ripples, it might have been better to make sure that they had alerted no one at all.
Because here in Sunnydale ‘no one’ meant two very specific ‘someone’s.’ And an old friend. It was really the same thing. They were thick as thieves – or perhaps ‘like peas in a pod’ was a more apt description?
Now, with the reappearance of these two, it was quite possible that too many things were happening at once.
In the finest chaotic tradition not all of them were under his control. Or any of them when you came down to it – control wasn’t his thing, even if he did like to be on top. Chaos was the cause he had dedicated his life towards. To bringing it be the acknowledged dominant force over the entire world. To bring the end of systems and controls. But sometimes even Chaos could get a little overwhelming. The trick was to roll with it, rather like he imagined surfing would be, but drier.
Still, this was building to be a significant wave.
Especially when you wanted to get something done. Other things. More mundane things.
Like shopping.
Man cannot exist by Chaos alone. At least not yet. Sometimes he still had to shop.
A summons from the vampires, who seemed to think that they were the most important creatures in his calendar, was an unnecessary distraction from the very serious business of figuring out what he was going to eat for the rest of the week. He was trying to cut back on dining out. He’d even moved to a hotel room with a kitchenette.
It wasn’t a health fad, he invested far too much energy in magic to ever have any left which would go to fat. Avoiding dining out was more a question of avoiding the very few people in this town who knew what he looked like and would already probably be interested in talking to him after the small matter of the roses.
So really, he could have done without this ‘audience’ right now. If these dead creatures didn’t hurry up and just get to the point all the milk was going to have gone and he’d have to make do with that grey long-life and fat-free stuff. He was convinced it was the product of a demon, and just masqueraded as having come from a cow.
And if not, well if it had come from a cow then it certainly wasn’t via the udders.
He remembered proper, full fat, milk that the birds used to love to peck their way into from his youth. They wouldn’t bother to fly over the street to get at that fat-free muck that was all that was left in the store at the end of the day.
He
knew he was going to end up with the fat free swill. Still his cardiologist would be happy. If he’d had one that was. There had never been much need for doctors in the Rayne family. The regular use of magic had always kept them healthy – at least until it had consumed them utterly, sometimes without even a trace, and left him all alone in the world.
He’d never much minded being alone – but he firmly intended never to be consumed by what he did. Up to now he was doing just fine in that regard. Powerful magics were never really such a burden – at least not to him. The art to avoiding headaches, addiction and later destruction was to you lay that burden on something, or someone, else. Rituals were certainly the way to go, if a little time inefficient and requiring careful prior planning.
His slight frustration at the restrictions of rituals was why he was so interested in just what those two witches were actually doing when it came to magic.
Such power and available like turning on a tap without ending up as magic crazed junkies, in a lunatic asylum or dead… It was a shame he’d never be able to practice as they did.
Or would he?
Perhaps if they’d sit down and have a chat with him?
He did have time on his hands. Time for the vampires, time to shop. This phase was going ahead now, largely under its own steam. It wasn’t like he
had to tend to it twenty-four hours a day – and he certainly wasn’t – but he could have swung by the project after going to the store to see how things were cooking… if he hadn’t been summoned here instead
After their prolonged absence from the Sunnydale scene, he’d rather hoped that the vampires would have simply left town for a while or kept a low profile for a bit longer. Instead they seemed set on starting something off. Just when he was trying to keep a low profile himself.
Either that or killing him.
Now… they were likely to attract the Witches to him.
The thing with the roses… it had been fun but he was certain that the trail had led back to him – if Miss Maclay and Miss Rosenberg had actually figured out that anyone was responsible. Still, it would be interesting seeing what they did about it.
It wasn’t like he’d hadn’t actually hurt anyone, and it was always fun to see Ripper bluster when all he wanted to do was hit someone. His old friends moral centre usually forbade him from inflicting pain without eliminating reasonable doubt. Key word ‘usually.’
So long as there was no pain involved it was all good – even failure represented the ebb and flow of the chaotic universe.
Some people said ‘no pain no gain.’ Ethan’s own version of that was a simpler ‘no pain at all please.’ It just suited him rather better that way. Gains could be made in other ways than the painful ones.
The trouble was he didn’t think these two vampires would be very interested in his desire to avoid a beating – they’d just attract attention and not even care that he might be the one who’d have to deal with it.
They clearly didn’t like him – but he was okay with that. He didn’t feel excluded or let down by their open hostility and resentment. He even understood it. They hated being dependent on him to have any chance against the witches.
Hostility and resentment was something he saw in rather a lot in the humans he worked with as well as vampires. Not many ‘people’ did actually like him. Perhaps it was just a personality thing. Perhaps he just wasn’t as much of a people person as he liked to think he was.
He went down a storm with demons though – now that was where he was popular.
But outside his professional dealing it was completely different. Socially he seemed to be a lot more popular. And he could see why.
He was a fun guy to be around – at least until he found it expedient to double-cross a person.
Fortunately what he had here, under Sunnydale, was neither a social relationship nor an opportunity for a double-cross. Being part of what might be considered a soiree wasn’t likely… no matter how good these creatures looked. Ah, if they’d just been human he’d have to have tested them against the famous Ethan Rayne charm offensive in a social situation.
And there were rituals that could produce interesting, and popular, effects in the ladies.
But being as they were vampires… he had to come to the conclusion that he didn’t like them either – though he’d never be so crass as to show it. Unlike Darla.
It was nothing personal – he didn’t like any vampires or other demons that might eat him. Humans weren’t supposed to like their predators, look at the reputation of the poor shark. It was what food chains were all about. That was why the so-called ‘Good Book’ referred to the Lion laying down with the lamb. It was strange, it was unusual and it wasn’t the right thing to do.
In the real world the lion was going to be picking his teeth with lamb bones within about two minutes.
But this
was the last place the witches would look for him – and he was seeing himself in more of the lion role than as the lamb in this relationship. These vampires had no real clue what they were dealing with – and that was why he was here in the first place. At least so far as they were concerned.
His priorities and those of Wolfram and Hart’s were somewhat odds with those of the vampires, much as they might seem to dovetail.
The vampires didn’t understand magic and until they understood it there was certainly no way they could hope to defeat it. Killing him would just be a short way to inviting the Witches to destroy them – or they’d have to give up what they’d claimed as their territory. Vampires liked to think they were above it, but in truth they were highly territorial. He’d seen vampires in other cities defend their food sources, even when they could move on with ease, against overwhelming odds and been destroyed for it.
The reality, of course, was that Sunnydale was the witches’ territory. Seeing the way these two creatures who’d stalked the earth for centuries skulked here, seemingly safe from detection just added to how impressed he was by the two young women who’d forced them down here.
He seemed to be thinking that a lot recently.
At their age he’d been getting drunk and summoning Eygon for a buzz. University had come a distant second, but it seemed that those two young ladies were set for graduation in good academic shape – as well as saving the town or the world on a nightly basis.
And they were helping look after some kid that the vampires knew something about. He hadn’t asked and he wouldn’t care unless it became apparent the girl would be of use in some way.
Maclay and Rosenberg. So much talent and energy. Now if they’d just bend their skills to serve the cause of blessed Chaos…
“Oooh, grandmamma, look! It’s the man with all the flowers,” Drusilla cooed as he walked into the chamber.
Now, Ethan thought, here was an interesting vampire. Much as he might disparage Darla, apart from her human guise, Drusilla was a different kettle of fish.
They both held their attractions – and as the Master’s heir he’d rarely met a vampire who exuded such obvious power as this Darla… they usually self-destructed long before they’d achieved what she had.
Or they didn’t let humans meet them at all – not more than once anyway.
But Drusilla… ahhh, they could have had some interesting evenings if she had just been human. He’d always been a sucker for the dark beauties. But she wasn’t human was she?
No matter how much her power and beauty intoxicated him, he was well aware he was more likely to become a snack with this vampire. He was drawn to her though, even as a vampire, in a way that Darla could never hope to match. Drusilla’s nature was… almost pure Chaos. Was insanity the only way to achieve such a feat of perfection?
He just smiled at her observations.
“Yes, Ethan. What
was that all about with the flowers?” Darla asked him.
What had it been about? What was it he intended to tell them? Oh yes, there had been an element of distraction – but the main part of it was the Chaos that ensued. He didn’t really want to explain the finer points of blessed Chaos to them though. Not now. There was still a chance he could find some decent milk if he got out of here pretty quickly and as such he was wary of attracting Drusilla’s interest – fleeting as it might be. “It’s just what I do,” he told them.
It wasn’t like he needed permission.
“You do what we tell you,” she replied in a hiss. It was a low warning and he knew she wasn’t likely to repeat it… whether she needed him or not.
Which was why he didn’t miss a beat. “Naturally, but I’m a big fan of Chaos. I like to bring it about whenever I can. All in your cause of course.” Lies rolled so easily off his tongue. They always had done… ever since he’d stolen all of his elder sister’s underwear and buried them in the garden. Just because he could and it was totally unexpected. To the best of his knowledge it was still out there.
His parents had known he must have taken it, who else could it have been? But they’d probably assumed it was some teenage sexual thing. They hadn’t been able to catch him in a lie they could prove. At least his mother had shown a grudging admiration for that.
It was easiest to lie when the other person wanted to hear the lie – and these vampires
wanted to believe he was here for them. They
needed to believe it because most of their power in this town had been torn away already. Only he, by destroying that trinket Miss Maclay used to detect vampires, had allowed them back into town at all.
This was a dominance thing. They just wanted to believe he was under their control.
And so they believed it his words.
“That’s all?” Darla asked, not even sounding very suspicious.
“Of course,” he gave her his most obediently hopeful smile. The poor, cowed, little human waiting on his mistress’s pleasure. And what a mistress she would have made – in a human. He had a thing for blondes too.
And redheads.
And there had been this bald girl back in Cambridge. When you came to it, hair wasn’t the most important thing.
Drusilla was tugging on Darla’s sleeve until eventually she was allowed to speak. “Its Chaos, all wriggly and black in the dark.” She was talking to Darla, wasn’t she? But she was looking at him.
“I
know, now hush.”
Drusilla pouted and started to whimper, but Ethan couldn’t get past what she’d just said. All wriggly and black in the dark? That was how he’d always imagined and characterised Chaos. Where had she seen that? Did she love Chaos as he did? Or had she seen it somewhere in his mind?
No. Not the latter. He had taken steps after all. Being around such a fascinatingly powerful and childish creature was dangerous. He knew too much that had to be kept a secret from them – and so he was prepared. Ritually prepared. She could no more read his mind than he could hers and if she had been able to he’d probably have been dead.
He’d loved to have studied Drusilla more – but being in her presence was doubly unnerving. Like being sent to the headmasters study and finding he was actually in a hungry lion’s den.
“I have to talk to the naughty man,” Darla continued to explain to her comrade.
Naughty now was he? Why would that be then?
“Then we can play?” Drusilla checked with a tinge of hope in her voice. More than hope and no longer so childish – despite the words. Was there something there…? There might be.
“Then we can play,” Darla promised and turned back to him.
He wasn't going to allow Darla to have this all her own way though – so he decided to break her stride a little, and so judging that the time was right he turned towards the darker vampire. “I saved you a rose my lady,” he announced and presented it to her with a flourish that couldn’t fail to impress such a childish killer.
She didn’t take it from him right away and he could feel Darla’s eyes boring into the side of his head – much as her fingers probably would one day. If he stayed around too long.
“Oooh, for me?” Drusilla exclaimed. “It’s all dead and withered,” she hissed excitedly.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Dead, withered and absolutely safe – even if the magic which it had once possessed had affected the undead anyway. They were incapable of love so how could it affect them?
“It’s so perfect. I shall wear it in my hair,” she announced with such passion Ethan wondered if she was going to kiss him – and what form that kiss might take. It was a passion that even Darla couldn’t argue with – and didn’t. Instead she focused on the rose.
“Dru, honey, It’s dead,” the blonde vampire pointed out.
“Yes! All dead!” Drusilla stroked the faded petals.
Darla tried another tack. “It’s not pretty enough for your lovely, long, hair,” she suggested.
Drusilla just stroked her rose… his rose, almost suggestively. So suggestively it made him wince as she kissed it.
“It’s from a
human, Dru!” Darla virtually shouted in frustration. “We kill them remember – we don’t accept whatever disposable, shitty gifts they bring along to insult us.”
Ethan knew better than to interrupt a vampire who was ranting, even with a smile.
But Drusilla seemed to like her rose – as he’d thought she might. Had he made a friend? Perhaps, for as long as she remembered where the rose had come from. Liked it and didn’t change her mind about him or forget who he was.
If she was a friend then she was certainly an exceptionally dangerous one. The vampire with the rose whimpered and he knew, at that moment, Darla would fold. She couldn’t stand Drusilla whimpering – for whatever reason it just got to her.
“Fine. Fine. Wear it. Now shut and let me deal with this ever so useful
human.”
He allowed his attention to be taken back to Darla but he was aware of Drusilla giggling happily as she was peeling the brown leaves of her rose back. Then she pricked her finger on a thorn and, smiling, dragged the thorn across her face to her ear – deliberately leaving a thin scratch which damaged the skin but didn’t leave any blood.
It struck him as strange, but then why would there be blood? Their blood was stolen – it didn’t pump around them in the same way it did the living.
Drusilla just seemed to enjoy the pain, mild as it must have been, he wasn’t sure she was even aware of him watching her. She was happy. Happily unpredictable.
“Ethan,” Darla said, “You’ll just have to accept this much order – you’re working for us now. Only for us. I assume that’s understood?”
He almost wanted to laugh but you needn’t be a student of vampire nature to realise that there would be a more than a good chance of sudden, violent, death if he did. All in all he was opposed to any form of death – sudden and violent no less than any of the other kinds. At least for himself. Other people could die such a death if they wanted to, but he was aiming to avoid it.
Just because he really didn’t work for these two didn’t mean he could say so though. “Of course, I beg your pardon…” He wasn’t feeling like being a complete toady though. He knew he could be very good at it, but sometimes his pride gave him just the tiniest prick at inconvenient moments – even potentially fatal ones. “Did you happen to notice that
everyone was distracted though? They were either all affected or knew someone who was and spending their time involved in it.”
“Everyone?” Darla asked for clarification and showing some interest in the obvious potential of such distractions.
“Everyone who would have been out that night anyway,” he clarified. Everyone who mattered, he wanted to say.
“Even the little mice?” Drusilla asked, sounding as if she hoped it was true.
“Not the mice,” he admitted. “Though I hear they’re already very close to each other.” A smile spread over Drusilla’s strikingly evil features in response. The strangest things could ‘charm’ this vampire. And that was something he certainly intended to, very carefully, exploit.
Of course, she was still in part female and the effects of Rayne charm on the gender was known across three continents. The effect on their husbands was also rather well known – there had been a few beatings in the mix, but nothing bad enough to stop him shining like a beacon in a fog of mediocre men.
Cause and effect.
Besides it wasn’t an issue here. That certainly the kind of relationship he’d ever want with a vampire.
And he was quite certain that he didn’t want Drusilla
too charmed with him. That might result in just the kind of unfortunate, violent – if possibly not quite permanent – death he’d been worried about.
Nor did he have any real desire to get close to her, appealing as the idea might have been to some. He liked… warmth in his lady friends.
“Included in those who had their thoughts on other things were the people who brought you…” He gestured at the austere surrounding they found themselves in. “… Here.” `He knew better than to mention the two local witches, either by ‘title’ or by name. In that he was following the vampires lead. No one had explained the rule, but if he’d broken unspoken rules willy-nilly he’d have been dead long ago.
All the same there was still a dangerous look in Darla’s eyes, a
more dangerous look, as he mentioned her change of circumstances and implied it was down to her defeat. She was exactly the kind of woman he’d never really have bothered with – if she’d been a woman at all – high maintenance and bitchily sensitive with it. This place, this hole, had to be a form of torture for her. Everything she’d had, all the power she’d accumulated, was gone. There was no need to rub her nose in it though.
Once again he came upon a sneaking admiration in himself for the Witches that these vampires would never admit they feared. At this time his admiration
had to sneak because there was always that chance that Drusilla might have a way to find her way around the wards that kept his thoughts that way – his.
If she should see into his mind – the full extent of his instructions and intentions – well, he was certain they wouldn’t appreciate what was going to happen in the town they’d just returned to and the part they had to play in it.
“I noticed who was affected,” Darla admitted when he didn’t follow up with any comments about their lodgings. So she was keeping tabs on the witches? Now that was a dangerous game for her to play.
Or was she just bluffing, pretending to have more power and influence than she actually did? The latter option seemed more likely. Miss Maclay and Miss Rosenberg hadn’t gotten where they were today by letting themselves be stalked and watched by vampires.
“So did I,” Drusilla told him, seemingly not wanting to be left out. Darla just looked at her. “They were all upset at the way the flowers made all the people go,” the dark vampire continued and stroked her own dead rose once more.
Darla paused seeming surprised at the revelation. Drusilla clearly knew more than she did – so it had been a bluff. “You’re here to fight magic with magic for us,” the marginally saner vampire finally said.
“And,” he claimed, “I already made a start on that. They can’t find you just by walking nearby or overhead anymore.” It was all that had allowed the two vampires to come back to town. Wolfram and Hart had their uses for this pair. They wanted them to be around until the next phase was complete.
Actually, it positively required their presence. Or so he’d been told. Right now, in this phase, they were a distraction – or would be when they got out there, making trouble again.
“Hmm,” Darla paused again and Ethan didn’t really want to think what the options in her head right now must be. How many of them involved killing him? Most he was sure, some without even bothering with his blood. But Darla wouldn’t. At least not yet. He was certain they’d want to kill him one day, and Drusilla might at any moment, but Darla knew his value to them and could be relied on to restrain the dark Chaotic goddess.
He anticipated that they’d be out of the picture long before they ever got around to making the attempt to kill him – but if it ever did happen then he ‘chose’ Drusilla. Precisely because the vampire was a marvellous personification of just what Chaos could be. A chaotic mind. A thought process without formal constraints. Perfection in many ways.
He’d lived for Chaos and if it came to it then he’d prefer to die for it, by its hand.
Darla, in her self-destructive lust for power, was so boringly predictable it was difficult to conceive of her actually killing him unless he grossly insulted her.
Not that he was about to take any chances and tempt fate to test that assertion.
“All you have to do,” he told her, “is to keep the evidence of your return to town hidden and you should remain concealed.” He was being careful not to sound like he was giving her orders. Nor did he didn’t mention being safe – just ‘concealed.’ A need for safety would imply that they were relatively weak. It might be true – it was true – but he didn’t consider it desirable to remind them of their weakness in the face of the witches.
One might even call them helpless. At least one might call them that
once.
“I want them dead,” Darla said, “before…”
“Before what?” he asked, pretending he hadn’t noticed she’d made a slip in revealing there was a larger plan at work.
“Before…” Darla smiled, which was never a pleasant sight. She seemed to be deciding whether to tell him. If she did, then he knew it would be just to provoke a reaction or to test him. Though he had his uses, he was still human. As a vampire she’d still consider him food to be toyed with. “Before we open what should have been opened years ago.”
Surely they weren’t so far along?
They couldn’t. They didn’t have the power… But he did.
He knew now they’d never kill him – which was liberating – but the reason why!
Oh, he knew ways it might have been accomplished, theoretically speaking. If that was really what they meant. The Hellmouth? Was that really it? It couldn’t be they were asking him to… The Hellmouth was the whole point… And they were asking? He felt like laughing. Such a delicious irony.
“Kill them! Kill them!”
“Thanks Dru,” Darla was watching him even as Dru danced around them in a tight circle with her rose. The other vampire was watching for his reaction. He was aware of it and he was guarding against offending them as his mind turned over the implications of what they were asking.
Opening a Hellmouth was one thing – attempts were being made at the mystical convergences across the world every day, but kill the witches?
That would never do.
Besides he wasn’t really the killer type. At least not by his own hand. He might be the biggest mass murderer in history if the vampires got their way. The Hellmouth – a first order mystical convergence, not just a gateway between worlds but rather it would release all the denizens of a thousand different worlds and realities into this one.
He was willing to bet that not one of them was likely to want to share with humanity.
When he’d come to believe in Chaos it was a human form of Chaos. A lack of human systems – for humans. For the human Gods.
But this… An open Hellmouth was rather more alien a form of chaos than he’d had in mind. Besides – it was definitely fatal for all of them. These vampires might not realise it but they were little better equipped to cope with such surge of power than humans were. They were, if they really were suggesting it, asking to help them to self-destruction.
Perhaps they didn’t even realise that though.
Perhaps, just perhaps, a truly ancient vampire more in touch with its inner demon than either of this pair would stand a chance of surviving – but not these vampires. And no humans at all.
Not even the Witches, though they might survive longer than most.
No corner of the world, not the heart of a volcano’s crater, not the bottom of the oceans and not the coldest reaches of the arctic would be proof against the creatures from another world.
Those places might even be more appealing to some.
From the way she was watching him Darla wanted to know whether he’d guessed – and if he had what his reaction might be to bringing forth the apocalypse so many spoke of but very few knew how to trigger and, more importantly sustain.
But once started… once started the unknown factor was how to stop it – how to prevent the end of the world. No Slayer, no Watcher, no priest and no scientist would be able to do what was necessary because none of them had an answer.
And neither did he.
But someone thought they did… but the danger was what might happen in the mean time.
She was still watching him. He decided it was better to act totally ignorant and focus on what they’d admitted they wanted him to do than to speculate on the rest. They might let something else slip in their eagerness to impress him, to prove what big-shots they were.
Even if they’d need him to do it.
“I’m afraid most magic really isn’t the ‘zap you’re dead’ kind.” At least not when he was trying to keep certain people alive to assist in the completion of the project. “If it was then those who practiced it would rule the whole world – or have wiped themselves out a long time ago.”
“Zap! Zap!” Drusilla started to chime at the spiders in their webs, pointing her fingers like loaded guns.
“Then what use are you?” Darla asked, seeming to accept that he’d missed her reference to the opening of the Hellmouth. If that was even what she’d meant… But it had to be. There was nothing else that she could be referring to here.
She’d accepted he’d missed her reference, and she’d accepted that she couldn’t kill the Witches, which was why she was being so calm about his refusal. It was her realisation about the inability to get at the Witches that had probably helped her move onto destroying the whole human world. No matter what it would cost her.
And the truth was she was going the wrong way about removing the Witches as a force anyway. Not everything had to be about death and killing. Some things were about life and its value.
What use was he, she’d asked. “To you?” he checked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I herald their worst nightmare,” Ethan told her.
In more ways than you will probably guess.
“I know how they do what they do,” he told them when even Drusilla settled to listen to him. “And more importantly I know how to defeat that. There aren’t many tricks I haven’t pulled for myself over the years.” And he was looking forward to unravelling the source of their power – to seeing if he could make some use of it. Somehow... It seemed limited to them, but the nature of magic was that there was always a way.
Always a way. You just had to find it.
And of course there was still his old friend Ripper to visit – when everything was working in his favour.
Along with his lovely wife.
“I’m older than my boyish good looks would suggest,” he completed. “Surprising as that may seem.” But then so were they – much, much older.
“But what can you do if you can’t destroy them?” Darla asked him. She sounded both curious and impatient.
Stop you from destroying them for a start. “I can give them more to think about than they’ll know how to deal with,” he told them.
“We tried to do that,” Darla reminded him.
“No. You tried to kill them. And failed. Repeatedly.”
“It’s what we do,” Darla told him as he watched the anger rise from her impatience.
“It’s why you lost out,” he reminded her. And this was nothing less than the truth as he saw it. “Vampires try to kill them nearly every night. What are a few more or less?” He could see that made a kind of sense to them – she’d already accepted the fact, which was why she was turning to the nuclear option. “They’re better at killing your kind than you are at killing theirs.”
“We’ve been killing humans for centuries,” Darla announced, her voice dripping in venom, making sure he knew he could be next.
“I wasn’t talking about humans,” Ethan replied calmly.
“Witches?”
He smiled. “People using magic.” It didn’t hurt to plant some seeds of fear about his own capabilities in their heads. It might make them less inclined to lash out. “Give me some time and I guarantee you they won’t even be thinking you about anymore.”
No, he mused as they considered their own timetable and seemed to decide that fit with their plans,
they’ll have forgotten you because you’ll probably be long since dust by then. Things are about to change around here.
A lot.
An open Hellmouth? If that was what they wanted then there were certain precautions to be made.
Darla’s acceptance came only with a nod. And when they turned to each other he took it as a dismissal and left to try and get some drinkable milk. Nowhere in his contract did it say he had to have undrinkable milk in his tea.
--------------------
Willow started from her sleep, sitting bolt upright before she even knew what she was doing.
It was dark, so dark, but she knew where she was – sometimes she didn’t but this time she did. She was in bed, here at home. Beside her Tara murmured in deep in sleep but disturbed by Willow’s movements. Tara’s hand that had been draped over her had been moved by her sitting up. Even in her sleep Tara tightened her embrace around her belly, murmuring again as she did.
Absently Willow quieted the woman she loved, murmuring herself – but consciously – and automatically stroking that long, beautiful, hair. Tara shifted, a smile spread over her sleeping face. It always worked, Willow mused, always. Watching Tara sleep was one of her favourite things in the world – but staying up to do it wasn’t all that practical and this wasn’t the time.
Tara was more comfortable now, sleeping on the satin nightdress shimmering in the dim light as she breathed. Willow wasn’t as comfortable as her oblivious love.
She knew where she was. She knew she was safe. She knew she was in love – but that wasn’t going away, ever, so no big feat there. But she also remembered what had woken her – another damned dream. What was she? Haunted or something? Better at night than when she was awake though. Better she wasn’t disturbing Tara or Toni too.
This time… this time it felt like it was another part of one she’d almost forgotten. Yes, that was why she was thinking about how bad having dreams when you were awake was. Sure, there had been the one last night which had made her scream and brought Tara and Toni running. But she’d forgotten the earlier one that had first worried Tara.
Almost forgotten.
A dream, a waking dream, of wide-open spaces – vast open spaces. More space than she’d ever seen except... And a rider. Horses. She remembered it clearly now, as well as Tara’s concern. And how it had felt at the time. Unique back then, outside City Hall when she’d walked through the gardens in a waking dream.
It felt just like the dream she’d just had now… It wasn’t quite the same, but similar. It was like another chapter of the same story? Was that a good way of thinking about it?
Was there anything good about it?
Dreams
did link together sometimes didn’t they? There was the whole thing about the frogs and the penguins… Sometimes they just recurred, and sometimes they changed… continued. Or at least her mind, struggling to rationalise the irrational, told her they did.
Did a dream have to mean anything? This one felt like it did.
And through the dream she’d just had she
knew the voice she’d heard, the one that had made her scream yesterday without even knowing what it was.
She was dreaming about
him. Her oldest enemy – her first enemy. She hadn’t really had an enemy since she’d been better… She and Tara didn’t have enemies except in the general sense. But him… he’d been from
before the worst of the bad old days.
But why?
Why him?
Why now?
Why at all?
Her heart was beating quickly, racing, as was her mind as she mulled possibilities. She’d dreamed dreams he’d featured in before, of killing him. In the early months of being human once again she’d suffered dreams of everyone she’d killed. The days before Tara had managed to heal her; but whilst that wonderful woman had been selflessly helping her without any clue as to whether there would be the slightest thanks, let alone affection, shown in return.
Back when all she’d had was guilt and regret and couldn’t see a moment, let alone a life, away from the despair in her past.
The time after the vampire… He’d been one dream amongst all the rest then, nothing special – just one of the most recent ones. Someone killed for her human pet – she felt worse for
why she’d killed him than for doing it. This dream wasn’t the same. This was very different and yet… the difference felt to be because it was so real.
Dreams weren’t real.
Dreams weren’t real.
Tara was here, Tara was real. Their love was real. Dreams weren’t real – no matter how real they felt.
Dreams weren’t real.
She kept telling herself that.
Eventually there was light around the drapes. She’d lain there for hours stroking Tara’s hair and feeling better when her lover had cuddled up to her in response. She’d lain there listening to the woman who made everything better, everything all right, breathe and dream her own dreams. A little while after the first inkling of dawn’s light was Toni’s stirring in the next room – getting up to go out and run no doubt.
Willow had tried to distract herself with thoughts of Tara, their planned trip with the kids and their future after the imminent graduation. But she kept coming back to the dream and the man, the creature, the Master had told her was her enemy.
And she couldn’t doubt that, as he always had, the Master had been telling her the truth.
-----------------
He rode up to the house and he greatly approved. From a speck on the horizon to the fulfilment of his vision in under an hour. It had taken longer because he’d been luxuriating in the sun. There would come a time, he knew now, that people would worship the sun as they’d done before – as the bringer of colour and vitamin D. Whatever a vitamin was.
And something that would be called cancer that he’d never suffer from. Knowing that he didn’t have to worry released him to take his time and enjoy the sun, the breeze kept him cool and view was certainly pleasant.
The house demonstrated exactly the sort of frontier spirit that he’d expected from these people and he already knew that within a century he was going to have to lament the passing of just that spirit. There wouldn’t always be frontiers. Eventually they’d all be pushed back and they’d meet frontiers coming back at them in the opposite direction.
This was all about the future – the future as he understood it. Even though it was dark to him personally he was also enlightened by his own experiences.
It would be good to make the best of this whilst he could. Before the new cities which were coming, cities the world had never seen the like of. Before it all became too civilised. Before even these
good people lost the spirit.
The house. He’d heard so much about it from himself. He felt like he already knew it as he was going to remember it later. He’d described it to himself in some detail over the last little while – if only so he could find it, newly important as it’s builders and children would be this time around.
There, he knew, was the kitchen. It was going to have a big wooden table in there. Maybe not now, but one day it would. He knew he’d remember it that way.
The house was a lovely bright white where it had been protected from the elements and that was something that was going to stand the test of time. A bright white house. It was still going to be here in over a century – still with the same family living there. They’d have to stay here. Perhaps, like all things, that brightness would lose its lustre. But the house would stand.
Even though he didn’t remember ever visiting it in the farther future, at least not that he’d told himself about, he’d know about it all the same. He knew he’d be told about it, even though he’d never tell the young woman who’d left this place that he’d ever been here.
But she’ll find out anyway.
Ah yes… the watcher.
She’ll be important one day, be nice.
Manners cost nothing.
A century before the watcher, and a century – at least – that the house would last. Now that was craftsmanship – and done by real people, not the so-called professionals who’d have an interest in it needing repairing or rebuilding entirely. Always build your own home. How could you trust anyone else to do it? He fully intended to always build his own home when he settled down – and he knew it was a promise he’d be keeping to himself.
The design of this house wouldn’t have been his choice, but with the resources they had available to them… It was the sort of home that you could raise families in. In fact it was a shame that he couldn’t start his own little project around here.
The people it would attract would be just wonderful to build, live and work with. But the land was just totally unsuitable and, of course, missing one key element which was a limiting factor on his decision. But when people built houses like this – with their own two hands, well that was just impressed the heck out of him. It was spirited and determined – and for what? They did it for the family – and that was always the most important thing.
And look, the log cabin was still there too. How charming.
He hadn’t known about the cabin before, but then there had to have been somewhere for this family to stay whilst they built the house of their dreams. Now that was dedication. While a real house would be ideally located here – a cabin wasn’t as solid or as weather proof, and this place was likely to be prone to the weather in the winter.
These were the sort of people he’d want in his town – and one day in the future there would be one of them there. One day that young woman would become, perhaps, the most important thing to him and the ultimate success of the project.
How could he have missed that before? The last time round – which he didn’t remember because he hadn’t been him – he’d just swung by and barely stopped… but now… This was important. Something had changed in his future, and now this was important. The most important thing he’d have done in a long time. More important that starting the building work. Every building needed solid foundations.
And now he could see why these were going to be the most solid of foundations. These were good, strong, people and it only made sense they’d have good, strong, children.
Building a home while living in tough conditions, because it was the chance of something better. He loved these people already, without even meeting them, and knew he'd remember loving them even more. He’d told himself so and who was more trustworthy than he was?
They were working the land too. Good to see – he’d known once he’d told himself but it was still a thrill to see what they were doing. He looked around and there were animal pens and fields as far as the eye could see on this side of the valley. Was it all theirs? Surely it must be, how many other people could be out here? Perhaps other members of the same family? He thought he remembered being told about that – or was that the future for them all?
They’d seen to their livelihood and survival before they tried to get all cosy. He liked that too. Making do while in pursuit of your aims took character and he was all in favour of character.
These were his kind of people through and through – but it seemed that was the whole point now didn’t it? He wasn't quite sure how he’d missed them and their potential the first time around – how he could have trivialised the part that they had to play and simply triggered something without looking into the deeper ramifications? People like this? This was the first time he’d been here – and yet he'd missed their qualities when his future self remembered being here before.
Of course… he was told something had changed. Something that was a long way from happening, and that had affected everything that followed. Ruined all his plans, plans he was only now making.
Ruined the chance he’d earned.
These people shouldn’t have mattered so much, and now they did.
So here he was, and if this didn’t work then one day he’s tell himself where he’d gone wrong and make it work. It would
work.
He brought his horse, Sally, to a halt and patted her neck firmly, looking up from the fence around the yard and up at the incomplete roof of the barn. Then he waited to be noticed. Out here a man didn’t go to the door without making himself known – there were still Indians, it was better practice to already be calling them native Americans, around who weren’t so friendly, probably because they were facing a life of running casino’s on reservations that hadn’t all been set up for them to be forced onto yet.
So he waited to be noticed and to ask permission to come through that gate and up to the house. It didn’t take long – they wouldn’t see that many people out here, he’d be an event.
A life-changing event.
This was a large territory, years off being a state, and even with all the people it held in total, you could still ride for days without coming across a town. That would change as the railroad pushed ever onwards. Once such things were introduced to the territory. He doubted many people who lived here had ever seen a train.
He even knew the route the railroad would take – though he couldn’t recall ever seeing a single reference to it yet. He’d advised himself to invest in certain key properties and that was going to help increase the fortune he’d need to build and sustain a town until it became self-perpetuating.
He knew he still had a part to play – he hadn’t even been to the end of the would-be line or played his part in dictating just where that would be.
He’d need that railroad. But first there was some forward planning to do here. He couldn’t think about the near future until he’d re-considered his original estimation of the far future – or he’d be back here doing it again. It was always best to aim to be right first time.
Even so he, himself, would return. Every few years or so would seem to be enough – more often than last time round. Close enough together to be remembered and far enough apart that they’d not notice certain things that would be very difficult to explain. Like why he wouldn’t age. He’d always intended to apparently be his own son one day… and these people might need to be the first to make that assumption.
It would be easier for them than the truth.
“That’s a mighty fine barn your building here,” he called out to the man who was crossing the yard towards him. Noticed at last then. It had been pleasant standing there, at the border of nature and human endeavour, appreciating their hard work.
“Well thank you, we’re putting a lot of work into it, but it’s looking like we might have to cut a few corners to get it done before winter sets in,” the man replied when he reached the fence, he didn’t seem happy about making such savings.
Oh, this was a man who was just like he was going to remember him. He recognised the description he’d been given.
He frowned in sympathy. “Now that would just be a crying shame – to rush it now and just have to make repairs every spring from now till kingdom come,” he agreed.
“We know, we know. It was never our intention to rush anything. ‘Do it right and do it once.’ That’s what my Daddy always said,” the man stroked the solid wooden fence. Quality craftsmanship.
“And your Daddy was certainly a wise man,” the rider affirmed. “Is that him up there now?” He looked up and gestured at the older man up the ladder on the side of the barn. An elder gentleman with his sleeves rolled up. He looked a little young to be this man’s father though – more like an elder brother.
Of course the question wasn’t necessary. He just had to query the memories he was going to form. He could just have asked himself the question, he knew he’d have been considerate enough to answer himself, but that was a trap for people like him. To be motivated to live was to find these things out for yourself, the natural way – besides there was always the possibility of never finding out what he was telling himself and the paradox that might cause.
He’d only been told the critical facts and a few opinions, he was an opinionated man after all.
“No sir, that’s my wife’s father. I don’t think I caught your name?”
Sir? He liked that. Some places he’d stopped had been less friendly. ‘Stranger’ had been the norm. “I’d forget my own head if it hadn’t been screwed on so tightly. Richard Wilkins at your service. The first Richard Wilkins.”
“Oh, you have a boy?” the man looked around as if he was expecting Richard Wilkins the Second to come riding up at any moment. Out here his arrival already constituted a busy day people-wise. What would they do with a second stranger?
“No.” Richard Wilkins didn’t have a son and knew he never would. It just wasn't possible… physically. No matter the desires of the woman who would become his wife. There was just no way that it could happen. There would be a Richard Wilkins the Second though. And the Third…
It would be necessary one day to avoid too much of the wrong kind of attention which living so long without aging would cause. One day photographs and even moving pictures would be common – tricky for a man like him to avoid comparisons with the past then.
“There will be,” he said.
“Ah,” the man agreed. “It’s sometimes best not to give your wife a choice.”
He smiled, that was precisely the kind of attitude he needed, much as he lamented it the necessity. He knew he’d never deny Edna May anything, nothing but what she wanted most. His future self had called himself the worlds first feminist – he couldn’t quite see it, but perhaps it was true.
Dear Edna May, she was barely toddling as yet. He was forcing himself to stay far away until she was a respectable age, the right age to fall in love with him, and he with her. But it was hard, after what he’d told himself. Their time would be lengthy, but never long enough.
“Not at all. My family has a history of taking the fathers name, I want to get back that,” he told his new acquaintance. He already knew it was an explanation they’d accept for years to come. He’d told himself hadn’t he, based on experience? Though, last time it hadn’t been necessary there was already a future to this adjustment. He knew already…
Ah, for his mother’s skills in keeping all the alternate dimensions and time lines in order. But he was, only half-human.
It was the first time he’d had to tell the lie. He’d have to keep this face and until now no one had been paying much attention to him or caring that the stranger who passed through every ten years never got a day older.
That was going to change when he had a town of his own; it had changed with his visit here.
He looked at the barn again. It might do him good to learn some of the tricks of the building trade too. This barn could prove instructive as well as doubly rewarding in other ways. He wouldn’t want any shoddy workmanship in the places he was going to be calling home for a very long time to come. He already knew he wasn’t going to stand for it – it wasn’t in the character of who he was going to be any more than it was in his character now.
“Excuse my manners sir,” the man said, “I demanded your name but didn’t introduce myself did I?” He held out his hand to offer a shake.
“You are most certainly excused sir – it is I who is the interloper here,” he said in reply. “Interfering in your day.” He hadn’t noticed the lack of manners. He already knew their name… or at least the name that they would one day have. He supposed he should check that he was in the right place though – he was already proving things could change. What if something had changed who these people were?
“Robert Maclay at your service,” the man said as he came right up to the fence.
He tied Sally up to the sturdy wooden beam and stuck out his hand which was taken and firmly shaken by the younger man. “It is most certainly a pleasure Mr Maclay, most certainly a pleasure.”
You’re just who I told myself I needed to look for.
Now, how do we take things to your dear great-great granddaughter Tara?
Of course, he knew the answer to that too.
**************
) no matter how many external problems you throw at w/t, i don't worry, but internal? much more vulnerable. i'm sure the more obvious parallel would be angel/angelus, but really made me think of flowers for algernon, and that was not a happy ending at all. ~ mary
