Author’s Note: Thanks again to Kar for the fast turnaround. Thanks to all my readers and reviewers for the encouragement. Fourteen is already drafted, so please stay tuned. Feedback is wonderful stuff.

In our thirteen installment the Hellmouth gets all focus and there are dreams, visions, and clues.


Chapter 13: Clues And Other Frustrations

Dawn ran down the hall, trying to get out of RJ’s way. He, in turn, was being chased by a pack of screaming girls. On her right another girl blinked in and out of sight. Other students were starting to develop horns and tails. There was a lot of screaming.

She tumbled into a row of lockers, which started flying open and spilling into the hall. She caught her breath for a minute while RJ and his horde raced by. She had called Buffy, but in the meantime she had to avoid peril herself. Why wasn't anyone on the PA, telling the students to leave? She nearly tripped down the stairs in her haste to get to Wood's office.

There was a trio of students scratching at his door and whining in a spooky, animal way. "Get out!" she screeched in full-on tantrum mode. "Get out, get out, get out!" They covered their ears and took off running.

Alone in the front office, she jammed the mike button. "Evacuate the school immediately!" she yelled slowly and clearly, trying to think of some reasonable excuse. "Chemical spill in the science lab. Evacuate immediately!"

Students started yelling, feet pounding on linoleum. From the window she could see them spilling out onto the front lawn. As they moved away from the school they seemed to calm, weird appendages disappearing, people looking confused and embarrassed, but less crazy.

She sighed heavily and leaned against Wood's door. Unfortunately it popped open and the reason for his distraction became obvious.

"Augh!" she yelled, trying to pull the door shut with her eyes squeezed shut.

"What? What's going on!?"

She spun around and flung herself into her sister's arms. "Don't look!" she shouted.

Too late. "Oh my god!" Buffy gasped. "Put your pants back on!"

Dawn let herself be dragged into the hallway, where she and Buffy waited. Eventually Faith and Principal Wood emerged with everything covered. He looked embarrassed; Faith mostly looked annoyed.

"Where did my students go?"

Dawn couldn't quite look him in the eye. "I made them evacuate. All kinds of weird stuff is happening. You know this place is built over a Hellmouth, right?"

"That's why I took the job," he replied.

"What kind of weird stuff?" Buffy asked.

Dawn explained. Her sister shrugged at the principal. "We've seen that kind of thing before, just... not all at once." She frowned. "Usually the Hellmouth doesn't get really perky until April or May."

"Well, something's moved up the time table," Dawn muttered.

Faith cleared her throat. "I guess we better call a meeting."

"Good idea," Buffy agreed. She looked the two of them over. "I'll give you an hour and a half."


------


Almost like she'd summoned him, he was there when Buffy closed her eyes. They were sitting in the Magic Box at the research table. “Shouldn’t we be walking down some dark corridor?”

Xander threw up his hands. “They’re dreams, Buff. Don’t expect continuity. Thanks for not replacing me," he offered with a smile.

"You're the best heart ever," she replied brightly. She couldn't help looking at the bleeding exit wound that showed how shattered her old heart really was.

"Things are going to move fast," he warned her. "You need to be ready."

"I have no idea where Jonathan is," she sighed. "And I can't hurt the First. I can only hurt his vessel or whatever."

"If you wait too long, you might not even be able to do that," he said sadly.

Buffy rubbed her eyes. "More girls are going to die, aren't they?"

Xander reached out to squeeze her hand, but didn't contradict her.

"I can't believe Jonathan has gone all Big Evil on us."

"He was trying to kill you last year."

"Not really. He helped me a couple of times, actually. I couldn't have stopped the bank robbery without him."

"This is the same guy who made a demon trying to reshape the world to make himself a celebrity genius super-spy, right?" Xander frowned. “I wonder why he didn’t make himself taller while he was at it.”

Buffy winced. "Yeah. There is that. I guess I can kinda see how he was drawn to the Big Evil. Big Evil tends to make with the Big Promises of power and renown."

“Renown? You’ve been spending time with Giles.” His smile faded. "Can you take a message for me? Tell Anya it's in the back of the big file cabinet. Third drawer."

"Huh." She tilted her head at him, no idea where that had come from.

Xander clutched her arm tight, suddenly, tight enough to hurt. Which probably wasn't really possible for Xander. "Look, they tell me not to be this direct, but I don't know if I'll see you again."

"Xander, you're scaring me," she protested.

"There's a clue at the school, looks like a bad tattoo. You have to find it." He stood and pulled her up too, then hugged her tight. "I love you, Buffy."

"Why wouldn't I see you again?" she demanded, but then she fell forward into empty air.

"Okay," she whispered to herself, "clues that look like bad tattoos."

She blinked a few times and shouted at the empty air. "That was direct?"

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His mother was there and Angel too. A few times Dru pranced through. Actually that was faintly reassuring. The First wasn’t very good at impersonating Drusilla. Yes, she was mad, but there was sense in her madness if you listened long enough. But it was also disconcerting because he wasn’t sure which others were the First and which his own personal ghosts.

Spike tried talking to them, apologizing, ignoring them. They stayed and stayed and stayed. Staring and silent, accusations frozen on their lips, and there was nothing he could say in his defense, nothing defensible in what he’d done. He couldn’t even tell what part of the apartment he was in. He was pressed in on all sides, left cowering on the ubiquitous grey carpet.

Then there was light all around, and warm arms lifting him. He felt his clothes falling away and then soft cotton under him. Warm blood smell and warm girl smell. He drank and fell back.

“I’ll get you some more.” But he was already fading. “And you’ve got to pull yourself together, Spike. I’m going to need you in this fight.”

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How were they ever going to find any information on this thing? The search results would be enormous. Every metal band ever had used these symbols on an album cover at some point. Narrowing it down would take forever. Willow almost laughed aloud.

The pair of drained bodies in the corner kinda killed the hysterical laughter impulse.

“This is where I poured the pig’s blood,” Andrew explained.

“Pour on a little blood, out pops an ubervamp?” Buffy asked. Willow saw her eyes linger on the bodies as well.

“Nothing popped out when I did it!” Andrew protested. “It just got… kinda glowy.”

Willow sighed. “So you activated it or something, and then Jonathan brought the girls to raise the Turok Han.”

“You don’t know Jonathan did it,” Andrew retorted before caving. “But he did take my boning knife when he drained me.”

Buffy made a face of extreme disgust. “You should have told us about this sooner.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

Willow grabbed the little weasel by the throat and pressed him against the wall. “Listen, you tiny worm of a man, you are protected from your buddy right now by my wards and Buffy’s good graces. I wouldn’t get too cute about it.”

Andrew coughed up an apology and Willow let him go. She took a few pictures with her digital camera and then motioned for Buffy and Andrew to back away. The thing was making her feel woozy and she didn’t really want to know what would happen if she stuck around. Some experiments weren’t worth performing. “Let’s get out of here,” she advised.

Buffy told Andrew to walk ahead, so hopefully he wouldn’t overhear them. They had well-founded trust issues with the guy. “I’ll call the police,” she volunteered quietly. “We should stake this place out at night, make sure he can’t bring any more victims back here.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Willow agreed. “Can I volunteer Faith for the first shift?”

Buffy gave a conspiratorial wince. “That bad?”

Willow sighed. “It’s just… it was all so crazy to begin with, and now? I just feel stupid.”

“Love makes you do the wacky,” Buffy quoted. “And hormones make you do the even wackier.” She frowned. “This is going to sound really weird, but can you stay with Spike when it’s my turn to watch the seal? He shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Willow said she would, because that was what friends did. Friends agreed to baby-sit their friend’s former serial killer boyfriends during potential panic attacks brought on by the haunting of his victims or a disembodied root of all evil. Or both.

“You’re a really good friend, Willow.”

She squeezed Buffy’s hand. “Hey, you helped me round up my boyfriend a lock him up in a cage for his own protection. I sorta owe you.”

Buffy laughed. “We better call an emergency meeting after I talk to the police. I’ll send Andrew out for cappuccinos.”

When they stepped into the Magic Box, Anya was heaped on the research table sobbing. Giles patted her shoulder and Tara stroked her hair, but it didn’t seem to be having any effect. There was an envelope and a few scattered pages near Anya’s head. Andrew rushed forward and started reading them. She raised her reddened eyes to Buffy and wiped at her wet face. “It was there, right where you said he told you.”

Willow watched Buffy start to sway and then lean against a display case. “I thought it was just a dream, you know. I didn’t think… it’s really been him all this time.” Two tears glided down Buffy’s face.

“Why you?” Anya wailed. “Why did he never come to me?”

“It’s so touching!” Andrew sniffed. “And also faintly erotic.”

“Give me that!” Anya yelled, pulling the papers carefully out of his hands.

Giles was looking increasingly perturbed. “I’ll just put some tea on,” he announced before making a hasty retreat to his office.

“The stupid Powers, probably,” Buffy ventured. “He was bringing me messages from them. And they’re assholes. I know Xander would be in your dreams every night if he could.”

“Xander visited you in your dreams?” Now Willow was getting jealous too. She’d been Xander’s best friend since kindergarten. But Buffy was the special one, so of course she got the visions.

Buffy and Anya hugged while Tara looked on, getting a little teary herself. Willow stepped outside. The night air was cool on her heated face.

“When my mother died, I thought she’d visit me too. She never did.”

Willow turned to face Tara. “Probably he was afraid to visit me. Afraid that if I knew he was out there in the ether somewhere I’d try to bring him back to earth.”

“Willow—”

“Look, Tara, it’s great of you to try to do the supportive ex thing where we’re still friends and you still care about me—”

“I do still care about you, Willow.”

“But when I needed you to be there, you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.” Willow felt like she’d uncapped something deep and dirty she’d been bottling up for months. It felt good, but also a little scary, to be letting those feelings out. “So if you could just leave me alone to grieve on my own, that would be swell. And we both know you can do that.”

Tara’s face cycled through shock and shame to anger before she turned on her heel and marched back into the store. Willow took a deep breath. A walk might do her some good. She’d give Andrew a break and go get the coffee herself.

----------


It might have been cool out, but she didn’t really feel the cold anymore. Chills instead indicated the presence of the enemy, and warmth the presence of family of friends. She crept along the school’s perimeter, but still there was nothing. Maybe he was taking the night off. Again. It irritated her; she wanted a hunt and a kill and instead she had to keep watch for some mere human. Although the way his body count was rising, he rivaled a vampire for kills.

Despite the lack of cold, she drew her jacket tighter around herself and nuzzled the collar. It still smelled like Willow. Not that she missed Willow. She just missed getting regular orgasms. That was all. The principal had been fun and everything, but after a few bouts the lack of stamina started to bug. The grateful couple of college kids she’d saved a few nights ago had been very drunk and very appreciative, but that hadn’t really scratched the itch either.

Maybe she’d get a pet like her sister. Vampires usually made lousy pets, some sort of ancestral memory insisted. So maybe a Lushokite or something, or stick with humans but find a witchy guy who was handy with endurance charms. Of course the guy they were hunting was a warlock, so that wasn’t sounding too good at the moment either.

Willow was witchy, and she hadn’t needed a charm.

Faith shook her head to clear her mind and took deep breaths of the night air. She took another walk around the perimeter. Still no signs of this Jonathan guy anywhere. At least depriving the thing of blood meant the students weren’t going crazy anymore. But a week with no signs of activity, it was making her tense. The sun would come up in just over an hour, she mused. She might as well hunt something.

Then it hit her square in the gut. The smell of blood. Lots of blood. Fresh blood. Coming from inside the school. She forced a window open and raced through the halls, down the stairs. The fucking tunnels! They were so fucking stupid! The mayor’s tunnels were still there, all paths leading to the Hellmouth. The smell of blood was thick, choking. It wasn’t just one body bleeding out down there. Either he was trying to raise a small army of super vamps, or he was opening the gate for something big.

Faith clutched the scythe and ran faster.

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Sorry to anyone who hoped Faith wasn’t going to go there. I realize a few of these scenes were short, but I think they worked better that way. The next chapter will have some action (various flavors) and will hopefully be posted soon. Please review!