“Then what has caused the disruption?” Giles asked. “What is responsible for letting this happen?”
“The Slayer,” replied the Eye.
* * *
Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Xander, and, unfortunately, Andrew, were holding a pow-wow with the Potentials were gathered around the dining room table. The girls were in not loving the lack of a countermove against their invasion by The First.
“We should run,” Vi insisted.
“And go where, Vi?” Kennedy asked pointedly.
“Annabelle ran,” Dawn observed. “Look what it got her.”
“It’s safer in than out,” Buffy insisted.
“How can you say that?” Molly demanded, staring at the Slayer. “It was here, Buffy. In the house. Living with us for days.”
“And you didn’t even know it,” Chloe added accusingly.
“None of us knew it,” Xander argued, which, perhaps not the right thing to say . . .
“It could still be here,” Vi said. “It could be any one of us.”
Willow spoke up. “No. The First can only take the form of dead people.”
“Yeah, well, there’ll be plenty more of those soon enough. We’re dropping like flies here.”
The girls started talking at once, arguing with each other, until Buffy called out, “Hey!”
They stopped, looked at her.
“Look, I know you’re all scared. You know what? I am, too, but Giles and Anya will be back soon, and hopefully the will have the information that we need to stop The First. In the meantime, we have to stick together, okay? We’re stronger that way. We can’t afford to fall apart now.”
Andrew stepped up to the table. “She’s right,” he proclaimed. “Where would the Justice League have been if they hadn’t put their differences aside to stop the Imperium and his shapeshifting alien horde?” He crossed his arms as if to say, Well?
Buffy gritted, “Don’t help me.”
Xander hesitated, then said, “Buffy, the sun goes down, and Ubervamp’s on its way. A plan would be good about now.”
Buffy turned to Willow with an uncertain expression and said, “Will, I’m sorry to ask but . . .”
Willow was tense, but she’d been expecting this for some time. “I know. We need a barrier.”
“A major one,” Buffy agreed. “Something tells me this vampire doesn’t need an invitation to get in the house.” She studied the Wicca carefully. “Can you do it?”
Willow said, “I’ll try.”
“Try?” Rona echoed.
“You heard her,” Kennedy shot back.
Xander didn’t want to speak in front of the girls, but he said, “You sure about Willow doing the hocus pocus again, Buffy? I mean, last time—”
“We don’t have a lot of choices, Xander,” Buffy reminded him.
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Chloe asked shrilly. “What if that monster gets through?”
There was a pause, and then Buffy said, “Then we’ll deal with it.”
The girls looked at each other in shock.
“Deal?” Rona asked. “Fight, you mean. How are we supposed to do that?”
Vi chimed in, “And with what?”
“With whatever it takes,” Kennedy insisted. She looked at Buffy. “Right?”
Molly was not convinced. “Buffy, you fought the Turok-han. And it almost killed you.”
“And you’re the real Slayer,” Chloe added.
“What chance do we have?” Rona asked.
They went on, sinking into defeat, drowning in it . . . and Buffy formulated Plan B. . . .
* * *
Night.
Finally.
Dressed in the guise of the dead Potential named Eve, The First looked over at the Turok-han, who had been eagerly awaiting the word.
“The time has come,” Eve said, as above them, darkness fell, “For all good children to say, ‘good night.’ Take them all,” she urged it. “Except for her. Have fun.”
Snarling, the Turok-han raced off to enjoy a bloodbath . . .
While Eve turned to Spike and said lustily, “Well. Alone again. I just love having you all to myself.”
* * *
Night.
Too soon. Way too soon.
The Harbingers of The First continued to congregate on the grounds of the Summers’ home. They seemed to be waiting for something, and their presence was terrifying the girls, who were receiving weapons from the Slayer.
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Molly asked. “Attacking?”
“They don’t want in,” Buffy told her. “They’re here to make sure we don’t get out.”
Swords, spears, a crossbow for Kennedy, who knew how to use it . . .
“Can I have something?” Andrew pleaded. “C’mon. The Turok-han’s coming for me, too, you know. I have a right to defend myself.” Buffy raised her brows and he added weakly, “If you say so.”
She handed him a bottle of holy water, who clutched his only defense possessively to his chest.
* * *
Kennedy watched Willow working herself up to do the magics as she murmured to herself, “Facing my fear, I’m facing my fear. . . . Hear that, Fear? I’m facing you. . . .”
She had been holding a votive candle in her palm. Now it levitated, hovering in the air.
“Wow,” Kennedy ventured, “you really can float stuff.”
The votive plummeted; Willow caught it in her hand.
“Just testing,” Willow said shortly.
“Oh, right.” Kennedy cocked her head. “Heard this voodoo once turned you into the big scary. Big, scary Willow . . . that’s something I’d almost like to see . . .”
Willow turned her head sharply and snapped at her, “No. You wouldn’t.”
Kennedy pulled back. “I said ‘almost.’ ”
“I needed to make sure,” Willow told her. “Last time I tried using magic . . . The First turned it around on me. Got inside. I felt it surging through me.” Anxiety coursed through her as she remembered. “In every fiber of my being. Pure, undiluted evil. I could taste it.”
After a moment, Kennedy asked, “How’s evil taste?”
“A little chalky,” Willow told her.
A moment, and then as they walked back into the living room, Dawn called, “Guys? Something’s happening.”
On the lawn, the Harbingers were parting to make way for the Turok-han, who strode toward the door.
“Here it comes,” Buffy said.
It began to beat on the door, growling
It was Willow’s cue. She closed her eyes in deep concentration, reaching down to find the power, to wield it . . .
“Caerimonia Minerva, saepio saepire saepsi . . .”
With equal concentration, Andrew murmured, “Um, deflector shields . . . deflector shields up!”
“Willow,” Buffy urged.
The door broke, and the Turok-han stood on the threshold.
“Saepio impedimentum!” Willow cried, as her eyes went black.
The Turok-han slammed up against an invisible force field. Enraged, it began to pound violently on the barrier, the impact causing the shield to ripple. With each strike, Willow grunted, her eyes flashing black.
“It’s working!” Chloe cried.
“For the moment,” Vi said.
Buffy checked in. “Will?”
“It’s . . . it’s strong,” Willow grunted. “It’s hurting her,” Kennedy said, as everyone moved back farther into the house.
“Hang on, Will,” Buffy said.
The Turok-han pounded at the barrier more feverishly. Willow was beginning to convulse.
Dawn cried, “She can’t hold it!”
“What do we do?” Rona shouted, panicking. “What do we do?”
Buffy looked at her, coming to a decision. “Run. Everybody run!”
Xander led the way outside, leading the Potentials, who were carrying their weapons. As Buffy herded everyone along, Kennedy launched into action with her crossbow. Armed wi
th a battle axe, Xander fought hand-to-hand, but he was overpowered. Just as his opponent was about to take him out, Buffy stabbed the Bringer.
The roar of the Turok-han carried over them as the barrier fell.
“Come on!” Buffy said to Xander, and everyone raced away as fast as they could move.
* * *
Anya and Giles stepped from the vortex where the Eye lived, windblown and, in Anya’s case, limping. They were all right, but Anya was confused.
“I don’t understand how Buffy’s death mucked up the whole Slayer mojo,” she said. “You know, it’s not like she hasn’t died before.”
Giles shook his head. “It’s not because she died. It’s because she lives. Again.” After a pause, he added, “Buffy’s not responsible for that.”
“Oh.” Anya frowned, dismayed. “Oh. Willow and me and Xander and Tara. We’re the ones who brought Buffy back. We’re . . . we’re the reason The First is here, the reason those girls were murdered.” She took the news like a hit to her solar plexus. “It’s our fault. The world would’ve been better off it Buffy had stayed dead.”
* * *
Buffy and everyone else were racing away from Revello Drive, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the Turok-han.
Xander looked over his shoulder and said, “Okay, no Harbringers following. I guess they’ll save us for old snaggletooth.”
“Willow, take everyone and find a safe location,” Buffy ordered, as she yanked Andrew’s bottle of holy water from his grasp.
“I know a place,” Xander said.
“What are you going to do?” Dawn anxiously asked her sister.
“Gonna try to slow the Turok down,” Buffy told her. “Lead him away from you guys. Get him to chase me.”
Then they were gone, all of them, and she faced the Turok-han along. It growled as it stood at the end of the street like a nightmarish gunslinger waiting to draw.
Then Buffy launched herself at the Ubervamp, kicking it in the chest. It didn’t phase it, but the effort made her fall to the ground. She got out the holy water, smashing the bottle against its face. As its flesh burned, it yelled, and Buffy seized the moment to run.
It began to come after her, and then it stopped.
And then it went in the same direction the others had fled.
* * *
Xander had taken everyone to a construction site. A huge pit had been excavated. Scaffolding had been erected everywhere, and Xander exhorted everyone to climb down for their lives.
Andrew whined, “Climbing’s not my thing. I got an inner ear condition.”
“Is falling your thing? ’Cause if you don’t pick up the pace, I’m gonna come up there and drop your ass.”
“Way to keep up morale in a crisis,” Andrew sniped. He jumped down. “No wonder Buffy’s the leader.”
“Some leader,” Rona muttered.
Everyone followed Xander around the site to a big open area.
“Future site of the new public library, opening up May 2003. If I ever get back to work, that is.”
Rona was incredulous. “You call this a safe location?”
Willow said, “This’ll do. Okay, everyone. Spread out, take positions. And don’t make a sound.”
Rona’s voice was shrill. “That’s the plan? Spread out? That thing is going to kill Buffy and then it’s going to come after all of us. For all we know, it’s killing her right now.”
Kennedy stared in horror past Rona and said, “Or it could just skip that part and come here.”
The Turok-han strode toward them, death in its eyes, its fingers flexing and eager to rip apart little girls who tear like pink paper . . .
Kennedy loaded her crossbow. Molly began to panic.
Suddenly the flood lights surrounded the excavations pit illuminated the pit with an intense glare. And as they all looked up, Buffy stood beside the light, arms crossed, on a ledge.
The girls reacted, asking questions, while Kennedy aimed her crossbow at the Turok-han.
Willow gestured for her to cease and desist.
“It’s showtime,” the Wicca announced.
She led the group from the pit, and they all climbed the scaffolding. They hung onto the crossbars; Andrew looked as if he were in a state of ecstatic bliss.
Buffy said to the Turok-han. “Looks good, doesn’t it? They’re trapped in here. Terrified. Meat for the beast, and there’s nothing they can do but wait.”
She executed a perfect forward somersault into the open area. “That’s all they’ve been doing for days.”
She strode toward her enemy. “Having nightmares about monsters that can’t be killed. But I don’t believe in that. I always find a way. I’m the thing that monsters have nightmares about. And right now I’m going to show ’em why. It’s time. Welcome,” she said distinctly, “to Thunderdome.”
“Two men enter,” Andrew murmured reverently. “One man leaves.”
And they clashed, the Slayer and the great evil that The First had unleashed upon them. It was brutal, and punishing, the Ubervamp gaining the upper hand almost at once. It rammed her into the ground. She got back up.
He threw her across the pit.
She grabbed Kennedy’s crossbow and shot him.
The bolt to his heart gave him only a moment’s pause, and then he came for her again.
And again.
A pipe from the scaffolding became a staff for the Slayer, then a pole to vault away from him.
He followed.
She swung a pickaxe at him, but he ducked . . . and then he pushed her into the construction trailer wall.
And as she battled, Dawn realized that her sister had set this up, concocted a plan with Willow and Xander to bring all the Potentials here so they could watch her take out the Turok-han . . . or die trying. Because Slayers fought; they did not cower. They did not wait to be massacred. They did not spend their days and nights in terror of the end.
They ran out to meet the end, and to survive it.
As her sister fought like the true champion she was, Dawn choked back tears and thought, If only I could be like that. Be a Slayer like Buffy . . .
Then eventually, on one of Buffy’s assaults, the Turok-han grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet, crushing the air out of her. Buffy’s struggles were to no avail.
“It’s killing her,” Rona said, her Slayer’s heart kicking in.
“We . . . we have to do something!” Molly cried.
“Wait,” Willow told them.
Then Buffy reached down to the arrow protruding from the vampire’s heart, and twisted it. That hurt him; she snapped the bolt in half and plunged the broken shaft into his eyes.
He roared with pain and dropped her. Summoning every last ounce of her Slayer strength, she began to pummel the wounded Ubervamp, dealing it a severe, bone-crushing volley of punches and kicks.
Staggering, the Turok-han tried to fend off the blows, but his wound was distracting him. Buffy pressed her advantage, merciless, driving the super-vampire back where she could bang his head into the metal scaffolding.
Then she grabbed some barbed wire and wrapped it around the Turok-han’s neck and pulled with all her strength, garroting him.
Its head was severed from his body, and he exploded into dust.
The Potentials watched in silent awe as Buffy wiped her hands together.
“See? Dust. Just like the rest of them,” she said in clear, ringing tones.
They continued to stare.
“I don’t know what’s coming next,” she told them. “But I do know it’s gonna be just like this. Hard. Painful. But in the end it’s going to be us. If we all do our parts, believe it: We’ll be the ones left standing.”
She regarded them all.
“Here endeth the lesson.”
The Slayer walked away. And The First, as Eve, stood on the scaffolding and glared at her with hatred.
* * *
She will come for me, she will come, she will come.
&nb
sp; It was the mantra that kept Spike from going completely insane.
And then she was there again with one of those bloody curved knives, and he didn’t know what else she could to him, how else The First could torment him . . .
“You can’t hurt me. You’re just a bloody figment,” he murmured.
She moved in and stared to cut his bindings. In her eyes . . . pain, empathy.
It really was Buffy.
It really was.
He began to weep.
Then slowly, she let him lean on her, and they walked away together, out of the cave, out of the nest of vipers . . .
Out of hell.
She had come.
Chapter Twelve: “Potential”
It’s about Potential, Buffy thought, as she put the Slayers-in-training through their paces. And they’ve all got it. They’ve got to learn that, know it deep in their bones. Because if I die . . .
. . . oh, God, don’t let me die . . . because they’re not ready for that yet.
She watched as Vi and Ron walked through the graveyard, stakes awkward in their hands. A shadowy figure rustled through the bushes, pumping up the volume; the vampire swooped in and pushed Rona to the ground, grabbed Vi, came in the for the kill with his fangs brushing her neck . . . and stopped.
Spike allowed his vamp face to fade away
“Okay,” he said loudly, “these two are dead. Why?”
As she wiped the dirt off her overalls, Rona muttered, “ ’Cause the black chick always gets it first?”
“What’s that, Rona?” Buffy pushed, as Spike gave Vi a little pressure on her arm, making her cry out, “Ow, ow!”
Rona frowned. “I’m dead because . . . he’s a vampire. I don’t have Slayer strength, Slayer speed. It wasn’t a fair fight.”
Still with his hold on Vi, Spike asked the redheaded Potential, “Vi, do you think I care about a fair fight?”
“Um, no. No, sir. You don’t play by the rules. And I have learned a valuable lesson of some sort. Ow!”
“Okay, Spike,” Buffy said. He let go of Vi, who hurried over to Molly, who was taking notes, and Kennedy. “You don’t have Slayer strength. But that doesn’t mean you’re not strong. You have inherent abilities that others do not have.”
Molly wrote something on her notepad and said, “Not like you do.”
Buffy addressed them all. “No, not yet. But it’s there. You have the Potential. You have strength, speed, instinct. You just have to learn to trust yourself.” She turned her attention. “Rona, what did you instincts tell you to do just then?”