To Conquer Death
by Rainne
Part Six
[reviews]
Willow hung the phone up and turned to grin at her audience. "Dispello," she said in Travers' voice, and then she coughed. "Ugh," she continued in her own voice. "That spell makes you feel like you've got a cotton wad in your throat." She then turned to Travers and, with the same word, broke the spell that had held him silent while she used his voice to contact his compatriots.
"So they're going to be there at sundown?" Buffy asked. At Willow's nod, she glanced at Giles and Dakota. "All right, then. We'd better get moving."
They piled into the car once more, Buffy having to bodily force Travers in, and headed down to the magic shop to plan their attack. Xander stood lookout at the front door, keeping an eye out for the Watchers when they arrived. Buffy and Dakota tied Travers up in the workout room in back. After he was bound, but before Buffy gagged him, Dakota looked down at the man with something like disgusted sympathy. "You poor fool, Travers. Do you realize what you've done? You've jeopardized yourself for something you could never have stopped in the first place. Your Slayer has already conquered death. So have I."
"Impossible," he replied. "She's very mortal - it's been proved - and you're just a walking corpse."
"She shall conquer death, Travers, and live forever. Do you know what it means to conquer death?" He shook his head around the gag Buffy was tying to his face and Dakota knelt in front of him. "To quote the immortal words of Jesus Christ Superstar, 'To conquer death you only have to die.' Well, that's been done. Think about it."
They left him then and walked back to the front of the store. Janna had just called Tara in, then sat on the counter, watching the proceedings. Willow and Giles were busy setting up a circle when the other witch arrived. "Hey!" she exclaimed, taking in the mystic symbols drawn on the floor in chalk. "Um... wh-what's going on?"
Willow grinned. "It's a whole big Scooby thing. We figured you ought to be here. Let Janna fill you in while we finish up here."
Janna brightened considerably and began to tell the story to Tara; her odd accent, half-British, half south Georgia, provided a soothing counterpoint to the slowly increasing tension in the small shop. She began with her Watcher receiving the call from Giles, and Tara paid rapt attention to her, bursting into giggles as the girl aped the Creole drawl of Alexandre Boudreaux with comic results.
By the time Janna was through the story, Tara was reeling in amazement, both at the unfeeling cruelty of the Watchers' Council and by the tenacity of the young girl before her, who had crossed the Atlantic in a cargo hold and then hitchhiked all the way across America in order to save the lives of people she didn't even know. She couldn't, however, think of a way to express herself without stammering and embarrassing both herself and Janna, so she simply settled for a couple of awed "wows" and a "holy crap" at the end of the story.
"So... so... what c-c-can I d-do to h-h-help?" Tara inquired.
"For right now, just be here," Buffy stated bluntly. "Like Willow said, it's a Scooby thing. I felt like we should all be here and, since you're one of us, we called you in. Now, you should know, there's a chance that this could get ugly. If any of these guys are smarter than they were before, we could have trouble."
"Not to worry, B," said a familiar and entirely unexpected voice from the front door, one which caused everyone in the room to gasp and spin around to see the young brunette woman who stood in the doorway, a broad grin on her face. "Cuz, you know," she continued, stepping into the shop, "Trouble kinda tends to follow me around."
---
The minions of Quentin Travers took a leaf from the book they'd studied the last time they were in Sunnydale and approached the magic shop with a great deal of stealth and caution. Miss Dobson, the most senior among the Watchers, found the boy who was supposed to be playing watchdog. He was looking down the street to his left, and Dobson, fortunately for herself, was coming up on the boy's right. Dobson reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of small copper American coins — pence? No, she didn't think Americans called them pence — and tossed a couple of them at the boy. One of them caught him in the small of the back, the other went down the back of the boy's shirt. He turned, a look of confusion crossing his face, and felt at his back. Dobson heard him mutter something about bees and go on looking back toward his left again.
Dobson reached around the corner again and threw three more coins, this time with a bit more force. The boy rubbed at the back of his head, where he now had a stinging spot, and decided to go investigate. Dobson ducked back behind a Dumpster and watched as the boy reached the head of the alley he was in. She threw another coin, this time at the boy's face. She missed and it only grazed the dark hair, but it got the boy's attention anyway and he started into the alley, fists clenched. Dobson crouched behind the Dumpster, clutching a piece of broken chair leg, until the boy was just in the right spot, then she jumped out and clouted the boy soundly on the back of the head. The boy went down like a stone. She then let go a piercing whistle which summoned the other watchers to her.
The seven of them stood around the unconscious boy, looking at him as they would a particularly noxious bit of foulness. "What do we do with him now, Miss Dobson?" a junior Watcher by the name of Birdwell asked.
Dobson thought for a moment. "Birdwell, I want you and Smythe and Charles to take the boy and secure him somewhere that he can't make any trouble. I don't particularly care where. Telephone the shop in about twenty minutes and I'll give you further instructions. You are not, absolutely not to disclose the location of the boy to anyone but me, and only if I give you the following code phrase: Her Majesty's Secret Service."
Birdwell looked at Dobson for a long moment as though he suspected the senior Watcher had lost her mind. Dobson finally exhaled sharply in frustration. "They've a witch thrown in with them, man! Think on it! With her magick, she can impersonate anyone she wants! Do you really think that was Mr. Travers on the phone, working in joyous harmony with a rogue Slayer, a rogue Watcher, a rogue Potential and a daywalking vampire potential? Think, man! It was the witch! They're holding Mr. Travers hostage for something — no telling what. So we go in prepared. We hold this boy. You three take him, as I said, and keep him somewhere that he can't get away. Keep him alive. He's no good to us dead. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that his death knell will be all of ours as well. The Slayer values her people, useless though they may appear at first glance." She paused to shoot another withering glance at the boy's unmoving form, then looked back up at Birdwell. "You three move, now. Frasier, Campbell, Beecham, you're with me."
Birdwell and his two compatriots lifted the unconscious body of the boy and scampered away with him as quickly as they could go. Dobson turned back toward the mouth of the alley. "Campbell, go look out there. See if there's anyone else out front."
The blonde woman crept silently streetward, edged around the corner of the building and peeked. She paused for a moment, then crept silently back. "I saw a woman enter the shop," she reported. "Young, probably late teens or early twenties, dark hair, fairly muscular. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn... but that's impossible." She shook her head. "It must just be a customer."
Dobson eyed Campbell. "Miss Campbell. Your precognitive skills may be legendarily lacking, but I do trust what you may have seen with your eyes. Please tell me what you saw or think you saw."
She bit her bottom lip, wringing her hands momentarily. "Well, Miss Dobson, I... I just... well, if I hadn't known better, I could have sworn it was Faith."
"Faith, Miss Campbell?"
"Faith, Miss Dobson. The rogue Slayer. The... other rogue Slayer."
Dobson examined Campbell's face. "Faith is in prison, Miss Campbell. In Los Angeles."
She nodded. "I know. That's why I was so unsure of myself. But it must be simply a customer. It must be."
"Miss Dobson?"
"Yes, Beecham?"
"It's sundown."
Sundown in Sunnydale. All four of the Watchers in the alley whipped out large crosses. "Let's go," Dobson ordered. They began to move toward the mouth of the alley.
---
"Faith?" Buffy's, Willow's and Giles's voices rang out together.
The rogue Slayer smiled around the room at them. "Yo, guys, how ya been?"
"Where's Xander?" Buffy asked.
"Xander?" Faith looked around, confusion crossing her features. "How'm I supposed to know?"
"He was outside. How did you get in here without him warning us?" Buffy snarled.
"Back up, B, he wasn't out there. I dunno where he's at. Honest."
Power crackled around Willow's hands. "If you've done anything to hurt him, I swear -"
Faith began to back towards the door. "Jesus Christ, could you people chill the hell out? I never saw him."
Dakota stepped forward and laid a hand on Willow's shoulder. "Honey. Calm down. She says she hasn't seen him. Ever think maybe she's telling the truth?"
Willow spun around to glare at Dakota, her eyes flashing black and then back to their normal greenish color again, but the expression that flitted onto and then stayed on Willow's face was a mask of pure fury. "Dakota, how can you say that? This is Faith! She worked for the Mayor! She freaking tried to kill us all!"
"Willow!" Dakota's forceful tone caught the attention of everyone in the room, including a certain rogue Slayer who was attempting to edge her way back out the door. They all stared at her, even as the power on Willow's hands dimmed somewhat. Dakota held eye contact for a few seconds, making sure she had Willow's undivided attention. "All right, that's better. Now listen to me, and listen carefully. I don't care what your previous grievances with her are. But I know exactly who she is. She's Faith, the Vampire Slayer. She's the Chosen One. As in 'shall initiate the destruction of the Watchers.' Look around you, woman! You have two Slayers and two Slayer potentials, in the place of the sun, in the latter days, none of whom have any reason to love the Council of Watchers. There's a reason why she's here, and there's a reason why it's now!"
"Yeah," Willow spat back. "Because NOW is the time she decided to come HERE to become a pain in our collective ass AGAIN."
Dakota rubbed her temple with her fingers. "Look... Will..." she sighed heavily, but was interrupted by the rise of power crackling between Willow's hands again.
"No. No looking. I don't care what her excuse is, she -"
"Willow! Shut UP!" Dakota's face suddenly showed anger — the first time any of them had seen any emotion on her face at all besides fondness and a gentle tolerance. "Jesus H. bloody fucking Christ, DO YOU LISTEN AT ALL?"
Willow flinched back as though she'd been struck, but the black flashes in her eyes stopped and the electric crackles up and down her arms dissipated completely. "Huh?" she whimpered, barely audible. The hurt in her eyes was obvious.
Dakota made a few false starts and then snarled wordlessly. She turned and pinned Faith with a glare. "You stay here. I don't care what anybody says to you — stay here." She gave Buffy and Giles the benefit of her stare next. "Don't say anything to her." She took Willow by the wrist and pulled her back into the training room. Once there, she pushed Willow into a sitting position on a bench and walked over to the punching bag. She spent a few moments relieving her mental turmoil on the bag, stopping when she hit the bag hard enough to split the skin on her knuckles. Then, sucking on said knuckles, she walked back over to stand in front of Willow.
"Look," she began, "I'm sorry I lost my temper. I shouldn't have said those things to you. I was outta line." She took a deep breath, glancing over at the glowering Travers, who was bound as comfortably as possible in a chair in the corner and lowered her voice. "Look, you heard that... whatever it was... talking. You heard the prophecy. Hell, I freakin' practically puked the thing up, much against my will I might add. And it said the Chosen One. Did it say Buffy? No. It said the Chosen One. Buffy's Chosen. Faith is Chosen. Janna's going to be Chosen someday. I was supposed to have been Chosen. That's four contestants, sweetie, and it significantly ups our odds of having the right one. We need Faith. And we need her without a lot of anger and antagonism. So what I need you to do is put aside everything that you're angry at her about until this is over. Okay? I need you a hundred percent here, sweetie. We've got Watchers coming any second. And we've gotta figure out what happened to Xander. Those things are more important than an old grudge."
Willow sighed, looking at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but at Dakota. Finally, she swallowed and looked Dakota in the eyes. The daywalker was hit by an intense wave of love, fear, confusion and desolation. She nodded then, unsurprised by what she saw. She took Willow into her arms, holding her close when the redhead began to cry. "I know" she whispered into Willow's ear. "I knew it from the beginning. But I was willing to take what you were willing to give. But I understand. Don't worry about a thing. Okay?"
Willow nodded, regathering her self-control and wiping away the tears. "O-o-okay. Okay. I can do this."
"You're sure?"
Willow nodded. "I'm sure."
"All right then, come on. You've got a glamour to cast, and I've got a Slayer to talk to."
They re-entered the store front to find everyone in nearly the same places as when they left, the exception being Faith, who had taken a seat on the floor, leaning against a shelf. Dakota glanced at Buffy, a clear question on her face. Buffy shook her head and inclined it towards Dakota, gracefully giving over control of the moment to the vampire. Dakota stepped forward. "All right. It's almost sundown, so we don't have a lot of time. Tara, would you be willing to undergo a little glamour for us? Buffy, Giles and I have been talking and we've got an idea about how we can go about dealing with our friendly Watchers without the use of the actual Mr. Travers in there." At Tara's shy nod, Dakota turned to the brunette near the door. "Faith, would you be willing to come outside with me and have a little chat while we go on a Xander hunt?"
"You got it, lady," Faith replied, standing. Then, suddenly flirtatious, she asked, "So, what's your deal?"
Dakota morphed into her game face and grinned at the Slayer. "I'm Dakota Walsh. And you and I have a lot to talk about."