Thanks: To Melissa, my wonderful beta!!!

CHAPTER 19

“Oh, my God, Xander!” Cordelia grimaced with disgust pulling a blue sock from under her butt. “Can you just pick up around here? It looks like a pigsty!”

Xander hauled the sock from her fingers, throwing it in a far basket and missing it completely. “Can’t you just focus or is it too difficult for you?” He turned to Anya. “You were saying…”

“That you should be careful?” She replied still skulking in a drawer. She pulled out a blue pair of boxers with an image of Bugs Bunny eating a carrot.

He sighed repressing the urge to leap and yank it out of her fingers. And maybe gag Cordelia’s mouth with it and made her gulp her own laugh. He remained in his place, guzzling his Coke instead. “These things… doors you said, how can we close them?”

“You can’t.” Her eyes widened at the next piece of garment. A leopard print. Did it mean he was wild? Her gaze sought his pants. “Unless you’ve got the sceptre, which I doubt.”

“What sceptre?” Oz stopped tapping on the table. A teasing headache had his head in a whirl. Since Buffy had crossed that portal he had gone to that warehouse night after night just to check if there was a slight possibility of getting Willow out.

“It’s a legend, actually. The Siva’s sceptre. To mould new realms from those that already exist. To rule hellish gods and beings under one single King who would set order in chaos. Destroy to create.”

“Destroy beings to create new ones? Demon ones? Or destroy hell dimensions? I’m a little lost…” Xander shook his head and couldn’t but picture himself with fangs and ridges on his forehead. Phew!

“No. You can’t destroy hell dimensions without destroying good worlds. It’s how the universe balances itself.” Anya opened a third drawer. Socks. Not very interesting material… “So the sceptre reinforces the barriers and destroys chaos. It was created to bring peace among realms. Put everything in its place. A dangerous artefact…”

“If it fell into wrong hands. Got it. But how…?”

“Very simple. It’s like a sweater. When you’ve got it hooked in some nail you get a hole. If you poke in it, it grows wider. Imagine thousands of hooks tearing the fabric of the whole bunch of universes. Ouch!” She shrieked when Xander nearly snipped her fingers when he closed the drawer.

Cordelia put a mirror and a lipstick back in her purse. “So, we should find that… whatever it is and snap it in two. And don’t look around while we are at it. I saw this… I don’t know what toothy thing staring at me from a crack in my closet. And it was drooling!”

“Should we talk to Mr. Wyndham-Prissy?” Oz remembered how many times he’d heard Spike calling the Watcher by that name. He’d smiled every time in spite of knowing it by heart. It amazed him how he didn’t smile anymore. “See if he knows…”

“What for? To end in a jail or in a loony house? Like he wanted to do with Buffy?” Xander paced along the narrow space. He had completely forgotten he himself had considered the Watcher could be right about the mental health of his friend. Reality had its one ways to put you in the right track, though. A punch straight to your guts and you opened your eyes like a freaking dummy.

“Maybe we could find out if he knows something… Induce him in a… subtle way, that is.” Cordelia patted an invisible wrinkle of her short skirt. “While you spy on the Mayor.”

“Oh, Miss Man-Eater wants another trip to Rejection-Land!” Xander held her killing gaze without wavering an inch. “Do it. But make sure he doesn’t piss his pants this time. I know where we can start. The City Hall. Tonight.”

Oz didn’t move. Something was flying around his head. Something… “Anya. This King… he’s only one, isn’t it? I mean…”

Xander stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “You mean there are too many chiefs in that evil tribe? Seems so…”

“There’s this scroll, if I remember well… It explained how somebody could use the sceptre to divide realms and rule above all of them.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to summon the memories. Finally, she shook her head. “It’s been so long ago... Five hundred years, actually. Amazing how time flies…”

“When you’re having fun. Sure.” Xander barged in. Amazing was how much time they were wasting. It seemed they had spent those five hundred years talking in his basement.

Suddenly, some words came to her mind. “She shall be given the realm of Sorcery. To rule above lesser beings, to control the primal forges of witchcraft. Where everything starts and everything ends.” Anya rolled her eyes and smiled as if she had been caught in something naughty. “It’s the only thing I remember. And you can’t blame me, ‘cause if one of you’d be a female demon…”

“Unbelievable! Please, let’s go!” He yanked the door opened “We’ve got urgent things to do!”



Faith walked hastily along the silent city streets wrapped in a seething cloud. All she had in mind was Buffy and that tricky, infuriating smile of hers. Why in hell didn’t she stay in LA working for some TV studio, making toothpaste commercials? Nope, she had to be the chosen one. Had to screw her life over and over again. What was there in her that everybody fell for? She wasn’t even attractive. And least of all, a good fighter. If she could have put her hands on that little, good-for-nothing body of hers Faith was absolutely sure that dull blonde wouldn’t have lasted one round. But she was going to find her. She was going to rip her skin off just to make a dress and flaunt herself with it in front of that fucking cage.

The school had been closed till further notice. A flu epidemic, a board said. She snorted loudly. Who was going to believe that when everybody was hiding under their beds or locked inside a closet? Too many fainting girls. That was it. And some boys as well. But she knew that Watcher was there. In his private library with his private books. He couldn’t be so stupid and not figure out what was going on. And she knew how to make him spit out the truth. Had Buffy been delivered already? Or kept in some cell till the “welcoming committee” came for her? If that were the case, she wasn’t going to let them steal the fun from her. She was going to snap that neck with her own bare hands.

Security locks weren’t meant to deal with angry Slayers, it seemed. It gave way so ridiculously. Silent, soft-lit corridors welcomed her. There was something sinister in an empty school. Buildings that had been built to be forever crowded should never be left empty. Shrieking young voices, laugh and noise, teen gibberish made them. Those were things that brought them to life. Without them, the structure was nothing but a drain, dead carcass.

Faith reached the library doors. Only a crack and her chirping eye. There was a tall, dark-haired woman with her back to the door with the shortest and slinky black dress she had ever seen. Faith tried to look further her but it was impossible. A British accent suddenly filled the silent room.

“I’m pretty aware of that fact, Groves. No, the book is missing.” There was a pause and a tapping that sounded like a pen on a desk. “I’ve told you…” A nervous fidgeting. Squealing shoes shuffling on the floor. “I’m absolutely sure about that. Yes, I’ll let you know.” A phone being replaced on its cradle. So, the Council was nervous. Well, they should be.

“Cordelia…” Faith grimaced with disgust. And yet… Wasn’t she one of Buffy’s friends? Maybe she knew… “I can’t deal with you right now. Important matters have…”

“You are always so tense…” Cordelia swung her hips as if she was about to hypnotize a cobra. “Books won’t go anywhere, you know. At least, no while we have some tea…” She cornered him between a chair and the table jam-packed with books of all sorts.

Faith clutched the doorknobs. Wasn’t going to waste her time in some bitch in heat. They would have time… after she talked to that useless moron.

“Are you researching about what happened yesterday?” Cordelia bent over the table, doing her best to show as much of her panties as she could. Her voice could have won the “I’m the clueless and most stupid girl in the world” contest. Bet her “friend” Harmony wouldn’t have done it better. And she was natural… “I was so scared! I bet you are too, now that Buffy is…”

Now they were getting to the point. Faith couldn’t restrain herself anymore. Doors slammed against the walls when she kicked them opened. Two stunned faces stared at her in awe. She should give the brunette some credit, though. She wasn’t as pale as the Watcher was. He looked like a drowned man. Even his eyes were bulging out as some dreadful fish. “Yes, you should be scared… And talking about Buffy… where is she?”

If looks could have spoken, Cordelia’s would have been screaming at Wesley. Don’t fucking say it! Thanks God, he stuttered enough to choke with his own saliva. “Wha…what a… are… you...?”

“Doing here? Well, what can I say? I was just in the neighbourhood… Wanted to see what a pathetic Watcher Buffy had now…” She shoved Wesley against the table.

“So… it was true! You’re… evil!” Wesley couldn’t believe his eyes. She was there; nearly strangling him with powerful fingers and all he could think about was how stupid he had been. If he had believed Buffy, if he had given her the chance to speak… “And the Mayor… How could you?”

“Why does everybody ask that? How could you?” She scorned his tone. “Maybe ‘cause I’m one step from glory. I’ll be given my own armies. I’m going to be the one to bitch others around. Like you do. With a little more of technique, of course.” She slapped his face. His head made a funny rocking movement.

So, that would be a very good moment to hit the road… Cordelia didn’t think it twice. She started to move around the table to reach some clear path from where she could run to the door. She was near the stairs when Faith lifted up her head. The cruel glint in her gaze froze her in the spot.

“Are you going so soon? Thought you wanted some tea…” Faith pushed Wesley aside and booted the chair that stood in her way. Cordelia didn’t wait. She spun on her heels and rushed upstairs. For one single minute, watching the approaching back door, she thought she was going to make it. Her hand would clutch the doorknob and she would fly free as a bird from a cage full of cats. Away of that thundering, ominous noise that crunched the air at her back. A rain of books fell on her head, on her shoulders, sending her to the floor. The heavy wooden bookcase plumped down after them. Cordelia screamed in horror, her eyes tightly shut at the looming piece of furniture, waiting for the terrible pain of her shattered bones. The damned thing seemed to be falling in slow motion. Like a plume ripped from a hat by a powerful wind. One of the shelves broke her arm before the whole damned thing stopped inches from her head. Her watery, horrified eyes dared to look above her head. The bookcase in front of her had stopped it as a merciful hand from Heaven. It wasn’t going to last very long, though. And she certainly needed to crawl out of that wooden prison before that crazy bitch had the chance to finish her work.

“Why don’t you make yourself a favour, Cordelia? Before you die crushed like a nasty cockroach…” Faith kicked the wavering bookcase getting another weak scream. “I can get this off of your skinny body, you know. All you have to do is tell me where Buffy is.”

Shots of painful lightening bolts ran along Cordelia’s nerves while she tried to roll under the books weight. One thing in mind she had. Crawl out of this killing trap. The door is near. Come on. The bookcase fell from the fourth shelf that was holding it to the third one. She didn’t scream this time. When it fell to the second shelf, giving her the narrow escaping slit of a worm, Cordelia called for all the air she had left in her lungs. “SHE’S IN ENGLAND!” Gasping deeply, she couldn’t but feel a little proud of herself. A lie and a truth to buy some more time. “FUCKING BITCH!” And she had had enough air left to add a well-deserved insult! Her head had reached the vast empty space of one corner and soon she’d have her whole body lying on the dirty but welcomed empty carpet.


Wesley had finally opened the weapon cage after fumbling with the padlock for what it seemed an eternity. His fingers were made of rubber. Of warm butter from which the damned key had slipped to the floor over and over again. Buffy’s words danced to a flabbergasted speed inside his head. Faith was there. Faith had to be stopped. Faith was going to kill that beautiful, sexy little woman he had despised against all the nerves in his body. That woman yelling lies for no purpose at all. A dagger sliced the air aiming to Faith’s body while he went for the bigger axe that hung from the furthest hook. He caught it halfway from the floor when his shaking fingers failed to grip it. Inhaling deeply he turned round, raising the weapon on one shoulder. A laugh like knelling bells hit his face.

“Playing rough I see.” Faith pulled the dagger out of her shoulder and stabbed Wesley’s chest. He stumbled backwards in complete shock while she pulled off the axe from his hand. As easy as stealing a big Popsicle from a little kid. As easy as cutting bread for breakfast toasts. “My sort of game…” She blinked at the red spray that painted her face as a native warrior ready for war. “Guess we are not having that tea after all?” Shrugging, she spun on her heels and was about to leave when she looked at the cage again. Might be a good idea… Full of new hopes she was. England was as far as the moon. Even more if they had that B. bitch chained and drugged to a drooling monkey. Wish she could have seen that show. And clapped. Road clear, girl. Poor old Spike would know how to behave from now on. Would know how to beg and kneel. Or vice versa. She didn’t particularly care about the order. He was going to understand one thing now. Slayers weren’t a thing to deliver unselfishly around like hot bread. They weren’t meant to be a kicking-asses bunch. One and only. That was what the game was about. One and only Faith for him to believe in. To pray to. The Queen of future armies.



Pinkish orange rays touched the top of the hills, the roofs, the tall trees wrapping them in a bucolic and peaceful atmosphere. From above a hill, the sudden streaks that flashed on the walls were unseen. The Mayor walked towards the small shape standing at the very edge. His hand stopped on the slim shoulder.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Fresh air, an incredible sunset… Of course, if you don’t like it, you’ll be able to change it. Don’t know… the colours… or maybe three suns or two moons…” He blinked his eye to the serious gaze near him. “You’ll be able to change everything. To set things in motion and to make them stop. To make stars shine only at your command. And to turn them off. So much power in one single pair of hands…”

So much power… Willow drew a small smile.

tbc...