the cut, chapter 27, a tear and a smile – part IV

Tara was half asleep as she groped around in the bed, searching for Willow. She couldn't find her though, and rolled onto her side, moving toward the edge of the bed closer to her girlfriend’s body. But the mattress against her hip was as hard as a slab of concrete. She opened her eyes and bolted upright.

This wasn’t her bed in Sunnydale.

She was lying on the floor in Jacob’s living room curled up in front of a fireplace filled with the ashes of burnt photographs, herbs and dried flowers.

Tara grabbed the column of the fireplace and hugged it, as she pulled herself to her feet. As she stood, she stumbled forward and headed to the bottom of the staircase leading to the second floor. Maybe, there was a bedroom with a fireplace where she could rest and stay warm until Willow returned.

She climbed the stairs.

A long corridor stretched out in front of her, lined with gas lamps shaped like round vases etched with flower petals. Tara tried the doorknob to her right. It didn’t budge. She moved to the next door. It didn't open either. Then she turned and walked across the hall and tried again, and again, it wouldn't open. If Jacob lived alone, why did he lock all the doors, she wondered?

Tara turned the next knob and pushed the door hard and sighed with relief as it creaked open. She then stepped into the dark room.

The heady fragrance of jasmine overwhelmed her and she paused, relishing the sweetness of the scent filling her nostrils. Tara’s eyes widened in anticipation of seeing a room filled with white flowers in clear sculptured vases. She patted the wall and quickly found the light switch and flipped it on. As her vision adjusted to the bright light, she inhaled sharply, surprised by the bleak emptiness of the windowless room. There were no flowers. Just pink walls covered with strips of peeling paint, and no rugs on the dull wood floors. Her eyes shifted to the corners. No fireplace, or even a bed or sofa to lie on. It was barren, except for a mahogany desk with large carved panels sitting in the middle of the room, decorated with a single framed photo.

The strong scent of the flowers infused the air and even though there were no windows, she could feel a light breeze on her face. Then the door slammed shut and she gasped and spun around to see nothing. Way too scary to think about what had closed it, thought Tara. She turned away from the door toward the desk, curiosity pulling her feet forward.

Although Willow had told her to burn all the photos in the house, Tara sensed that this picture would be the exception. It wasn’t a part of what she’d done in the living room. This lonely framed photograph sitting on a desk in this large empty room had a purpose, she believed. And she had a feeling it had nothing to do with Willow.

She brushed her fingers over the craving of a man’s body, with boar-like haunches covering the sides of the wooden frame. Tara leaned forward and rested her hands on the desktop, studying the photo carefully.

A thin man of average height in a pinstriped suit with curly dark hair stood regally, leaning on a cane and wearing a high-brimmed hat. That had to be portal jumper. Even though the photo was black and white, she could see the iridescent sheen of the man’s blue eyes and the murderous scowl in his tightly clenched jaw. Standing next to him, her body blocked slightly by his, was a small blond woman with a floppy cloth hat. Tara could tell she was a vampire. Her wicked eyes peered over Luke’s shoulder, one corner of her mouth smiled while the other sneered at the camera sideways. Then Tara saw the black man squatting between them.

The photo was old, and as Tara touched it, moving her fingertips over the faces of the two men and the woman, she could feel the passing of time beneath her hand. Jacob was the man in the middle and he was just that, a man in the photograph, not yet a vampire.

Tara picked the frame up and turned it over in her hand.

Jacob had known Luke before—at least two centuries or more by the look of the clothes worn by the woman in the photo. The bustle arched over her bottom poked out from behind Luke’s side like a melon, and the headdress she wore was a frumpy stitched napkin with ruffles. If Tara remembered her costume design class correctly, it was called a démodé style dress from France and popular in London in the 1790s.

Her fingers traveled along the backside of the frame as she felt around for the latch. She lifted it and slid out the photograph and held it gently in her hand.

She had to tell Willow what she'd found.

Tara hurried to the door, grabbed the knob and pulled hard. Startling her, it gave way easily and she stumbled backward, but she recovered quickly and sped out of the room and down the hall to the top the stairs, and then practically leapt to the bottom of the steps. When she reached the archway to the living room, she stopped as her eyes darted around the room. Seeing nothing she needed, she turned and snatched her coat from the chair in the hall. Sweeping it over her shoulders, she slipped one hand through an arm hole and tucked the photograph in her pocket, before sliding the other arm in the sleeve. Then she took a deep breath.

The smell of jasmine was still strong as she ran out of Jacob's house.


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“What do you think will happen when we stop playing and start killing?” said Shemhazi, balancing precariously on his wide, flat tail. It curved like a snake behind his muscular back, but quivered in spots like Jell-O. The sight of his loose flesh made Willow’s stomach churn. His misshapen body, half-man, half-beast—and clearly not in a sexy centaur way—bobbed up and down like a jack in the box. Peculiar and grotesque.

“Who do you think will die?” His lips were inches from her face.

For the first time since she’d teleported into the alley, Willow wanted to run.

“Who do you think will die?”

What was it with him and this question? It was like a chant, thought, as her legs wobbled and she struggled to keep her balance. He was smacking his tail against the ground, making the alley shake.

“Why do we have to choose?” Willow asked, mustering her best scary voice.

Casually raising his finger to his lips, he made a shushing motion as he raked his eyes over an invisible list apparently written in the sky above his head.

“You can kill the one in that small town in California.” He pointed to his left. “Or, you can kill the one who was lying over there bleeding to death until your vampire took her away.” He waved toward an empty patch of darkness.

“Who should it be?” His voice growled. “One of your little gang must die for your world to survive. You do know that, right? ”

Willow looked away, choking back her anger at his words. How dare he threaten her friends?

Then her vision fogged and she could swear that a string of hell beasts, demons, and vampires sauntered before her eyes, winking and blowing her kisses. It was an illusion, her subconscious attempting to make a point, she figured. Then the images walked by her again and she nodded at them slowly, their meaning becoming clearer.

The worst creatures in the world, in the universe—in every dimension—seemed happy that Willow had forgotten her fear and embraced all of her power.

“Who knows, maybe you will die?” She asked. “You’re not the strongest power here.”

“Such an arrogant fool,” Shemhazi chuckled.

“No. Not a fool.” She stepped close to him. “I am magic. And you're just a demon and if you kill one of my friends, I can bring them back to life.”

She had raised Buffy from the dead. If she could do it once, she could do it again, and that had been a good thing.

“Fools like you make my work easy,” said Shemhazi. “You think of me as a mythical character, a mystery from the world’s past. But I am more than that. I am the original.”

Willow gritted her teeth. How dare he puff up, so full of himself. She rolled her eyes.

Mythic my ass.

She was the smart one here. She'd played the First Witch ruse to perfection—pretending to channel her spirit and borrow her magic had fooled even Shemhazi. He thought she was motivated by his crimes against the First Witch, and she’d thought Willow was her avenger. Neither one of them had been right.

Willow’s task had always been clear to her: rid the universe of Shemhazi and then she’d be unstoppable. The Scoobies would never need to worry about demons, or devils, or ghosts or death again. There would be no more dying Buffys or hurt Dawns; there would be just Willow, making the world safe for humankind.

“You really think you can do it, witch?”

“Do what?”

“Rule the world.”

Willow looked into Shemhazi’s eyes. “Anything is possible.”

“That’s right,” he said, settling back on his hind legs.

“You keep asking me who will die and I believe that’s because you can’t kill."

The truth in her words stunned her. They’d been facing off for days, and no one had died yet. He’d nearly killed Buffy, but she'd escaped with Spike. The only real killer involved in this siege, besides the vampires, was Luke.

“You can’t kill,” said Willow, her tone filled with amazement. “For you, it’s passé. You're an ancient and you huff and puff and blow out hot air, but nothing more than that."

Her hand flew to her temple and she rubbed it stiffly. "You channel your hate through Luke. He’s the killer.”

“Well, dear, you've almost got it.”

She clasped her hands behind her back. “The game we’ve been playing is just that—a game. Something to fill your time.”

He laughed and bent forward at the waist, the infintely unfunny joke making him wheeze. “My George, you've got it, witch. You've been fighting a useless war. How's it feel?"

Tears were forming at the corners of his hard blue eyes as his mirth became even louder.

"It's always the powerful and the smart ones who are led easily astray. You and the Watcher have given more joy than I can say. It's been lovely fucking with your heads."

Willow had calm her mind. She felt like screaming and bashing the devil's head with her fists. What if there was nothing to gain by destroying him? She jerked her head to the side, tossing the hair nervously from her face.

“It doesn’t matter what you think you know,” he said. “You really don’t understand what has been happening at all. I am the Devil, and I give fools a choice.” He seemed to grow taller. “You had a choice. Cast a spell to save a little girl, or cast a spell and end the world.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You’ve always known,” He was floating again. “Understand me witch, this is your fault. Every death, every wrong, has been because of you.’

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what you must do.”

The black fog, suddenly appearing from everywhere, wrapped around his shoulders. “I can’t be destroyed and I won’t leave this plane until you make one more choice.”

Willow swallowed hard. She was reeling, falling off a cliff into a hole filled with mud. This wasn’t going to end well.

“I ask you again,” He was towering above her. Nearly level with the roof tops. “Tell me, who will die to save the world?”

Then suddenly Shemhazi was gone, vanished in a blanket of black fog.


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Buffy yawned, mouth stretched unattractively wide, as she pressed her palms against her forehead, attempting to rub the sleep from her mind.

Spike was sitting up in the bed next to her, leaning against the headboard. His eyes were open and she couldn’t help but stare at him, his eyes a brilliant blue sparkled even in the dimly lit bedroom. All evidence of the glowing yellow eyes flecked with red was gone as he stared past her at the wall behind her head. Most likely, he was feeling guilt about biting her, she imagined.

She draped her leg over his, which stiffened as she touched him but she ignored his reaction, as she pulled the sheet up over their bodies, covering her shoulders and his lap.

“Spike?” She turned so she could look at his face as she pushed up onto her elbows. But he turned his head. He really was avoiding her, and she knew it had to be because of the biting. Buffy wet her lips. She wanted to talk, to explain why she’d let him do it. He probably thought she’d lost her mind with the letting him bite her and touch her.

She swallowed, the memory of his fingers on her body made her squirm in a good way. So, she might as well dive right into the crust of the matter. But as she opened her mouth, the only sound that came out was a sigh. Maybe she should wait until after they saved the world to talk. “We should get back to New York and Dawn.”

“Sure, Pet.” He pulled the sheet away, and moving his legs stiffly stood up without even a glance in her direction.

“I’m okay with what happened last night, Spike.” She blurted, going back on her own decision as she sat up in the bed. She held the sheet to her naked breasts with one hand and reached out for Spike’s arm with her other hand.

As soon as her fingers touched his arm, he flinched and stepped away from her.

“I wanted more than your blood last night.” He whispered, still facing the window. “You wouldn’t damn okay with any of this if it weren’t for the thought spell.”

“You can’t know that.” She reached out and touched his arm.

“Did you care about me in Sunnydale?” He turned around.

“Yes.”

“Enough to let me bite you?” He leaned forward, looming over the bed. He was bare-chested, wearing his black jeans, but Buffy’s eyes kept slipping to the undone top button of his pants. They’d come close to going very far. She didn’t want to believe that her feelings for him had to do with the spell. That hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“Yes, enough to let you bite me, and even more, Spike.”

“You’d never let me touch you back in the real Sunnydale.” His eyes drifted from her face to the sheet wrapped around her chest.

“We can’t do this now, Spike.” She suddenly wanted to leave this subject alone. What if he was right and her feelings for him had to do with a spell. It wasn't possible that magic was the reason she had allowed Spike to bite her, and had opened herself up to even more. “Let’s talk about it after we check on Dawn and find out what’s going on in New York City.”

Spike walked over to her closet and pulled out a black tee shirt. She hadn’t even known she owned any black t-shirts.

Buffy got out of the bed and pulled opened a drawer and dressed.

After pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt, she turned around. Spike was standing in the middle of the room, dressed in his black jeans and shirt with his hand reaching out to her.

“If we’re going, we’d better go now.” His voice was tense. “I’m beginning to feel the pull of Shemhazi’s blood.”

Buffy grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”


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Buffy ran up the stairs and kicked the door down. She guessed Spike’s portal jumping skills weren’t as sharp when it came to transporting back in time, through three dimensions and two major cities and a small town. They’d landed in front of her Bronx apartment building and she’d fled up the broken steps, instantly noticing that the main door had been ripped from its hinges.

“Spike!” She called over her shoulder. “Dawn’s not here.”

She ran from the living room to the bedroom and saw that, not only were Dawn and Carlo missing, but they'd been in a hurry when they'd left. The bed was crumbled and some clothes had been tossed in a corner. A can of juice was on the nightstand next to the bed and Dawn’s favorite pearl necklace was on the dresser.

“Oh, god! Where are they?” Buffy’s mind was screaming. She’d thought they’d be able to come back before anything could happen to Dawn. That’s how these worlds had been working. Drop into one, and then the next time you were in another.

“Where did she go?” She turned frantically to Spike.

He was in the doorway, his hands on his hips, his eyes darting around the room. She also saw him take a breath, slow and deep. He was tracking Dawn.

“Sunnydale.” He looked at her.

“We were just there. She wasn’t there.”

“We were in some other Sunnydale, Buffy,” he explained. “You know that.”

“Then Dawn has to be back in the real Sunnydale,” she ran to his side and grabbed his hand. “We’ve got to go there, now!”

Spike nodded and closed his eyes as a cloud quickly appeared and swirled around them.

To be continued…