Chosen

by Nancy Holder

  They pulled together, hoisting up a metal grate. Then they both jumped down into the exposed shaft.

  They had just reentered the Initiative complex, years after the government guys had said they had poured concrete into it and sealed it up.

  It reeked of death . . . they had left the dead behind, both human and demon. Buffy gritted, “I’m thinking brief stay.”

  Then they found the door to the med lab, and Buffy walked in first. The room was bathed in a dull red light. As they walked through slowly, they heard something shuffling around.

  But when they aimed their flashlights to investigate, there was nothing there.

  * * *

  Back at Buffy’s house, the phone rang and Andrew leaped to get it.

  “I’m supposed to get a call when the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comes in,” he said excitedly.

  “Ooh can you see if you can get two?” Xander enthused; then, realizing that he had once again crossed the line into nerdonia, gritted at Andrew, “Loser.”

  But Andrew was not getting news about the L.E.G.; he was speaking to a W.A.T.C.H.E.R.

  Named Robson.

  Xander took the phone from him, listened, and then debriefed the others. Giles had been to see Robson, and as he was trying to help him, a Bringer attacked . . .

  “Robson blacked out,” Xander went on. “But the last thing he remembers is Giles’s head about to get really familiar with a Bringer’s very sharp axe.”

  They stared at each other. They had been dealing with The First, who could take on the visage of any dead person it wished to . . .

  “Because if you want to infiltrate the inner circle of the Slayer,” Xander began.

  “. . . become the one person she trusts more than anybody else,” Anya finished.

  “But there’s no way we can know,” Dawn piped up.

  “Actually, that’s not true,” Andrew reminded them. “The First can’t take corporeal form, so it can’t touch anything.”

  “Oh, it’s not like Giles hasn’t touched anything, right?” Anya did a mental review and looked a bit uncertainly at everyone else. “Has anyone seen Giles touch anything since he got back? Hold anything? Has anyone hugged him?”

  She was very serious, very scared. “Think very hard!”

  They each ran through all their observations and interactions with Giles. Exchanged a look; faces paled; no one could remember a thing.

  He asked me to take Vi’s notebook to the car, Dawn remembered. Was it because he couldn’t?

  Pale and worried, Xander stood and walked toward the door. Anya and Dawn followed, and Andrew trailed after.

  “Wait!” he cried. “Where’re you . . . ?”

  “The desert,” Xander said grimly. “We’re going to find Giles.”

  “Oh, good,” Andrew enthuses. “Let me just get some tapes for the car. I’ve been working on this mix—”

  “You’re not coming,” Xander said.

  “What? Why?” Andrew demanded. “ ’Cause I used to be evil?”

  “No, actually, ’cause you’re annoying, but that’s a good reason, too,” Xander shot back as he turned toward the door.

  “Wait! Don’t leave me here. I keep getting attacked in this house.”

  “Actually, Xand,” Dawn said in a maybe-he-has-a-point voice.

  “If you leave me here alone, I’ll do something evil, like burning something or gluing things together.”

  “For crying out loud, Harris, let’s just take him,” Anya said. “At least we can keep an eye on him.”

  So Andrew got to go.

  * * *

  Deep within the Initiative complex, Spike and Buffy heard the rustling sound again, followed by a scraping sound. They stopped and moved into defensive posture, scanning for it.

  “Think something survived?” Buffy asked Spike.

  “Sounds like,” Spike replied.

  Something moved behind them. They turned to look, but saw nothing there. Walked on.

  Then something attacked Buffy. She dropped her flashlight as she fought with it. It was a demon, and Spike joined in . . . and then the chip misfired again.

  “Not now!” He grabbed his head and fell to the floor.

  The demon dropped the Slayer and went for the vampire, grabbing him by his heel and dragging him out of the room.

  As soon as she could pull herself together, Buffy followed after with her flashlight in hand.

  Then it pounced on her. She grabbed a shovel and swung hard. In retaliation, it threw her across the room. She kicked it away with her feet. Then she slammed the shovel into its chest and the monster collapsed to the floor.

  “Spike, are you still with us?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he managed.

  “That, guys, was . . . just the beginning,” she said, as the lights blazed on the room . . . and half a dozen army guys trained their rifles on them.

  “Miss Summers,” said one of the soldiers. “Agent Finn reported that you tried to contact him today.”

  “I knew it!” she cried. Then she whispered to Spike, “Government conspiracy.”

  The soldier made a soldierly gesture and the other army guys lowered their weapons. “We’re to provide you anything you need to help assface here,” he continued. “Those were his exact words, ma’am.”

  They took him to an examination room. Buffy paced, waiting to find out what was wrong, when the solider finally came up to her with the diagnosis.

  “Med team tells me they took a look at the chip. You were right,” he told her. “It’s degraded. Leave it as it is much longer, it’ll be fatal to him.”

  No. No, not what I wanted to hear.

  “Agent Finn said it was your call, ma’am,” the soldier continued. “All decisions regarding Hostile 17 are to be left in your hands. The chip—we either repair it, or remove it.”

  Not what I even thought of hearing.

  What should I do?

  * * *

  With Kennedy in tow, Willow did another locator spell and found the campus Wicca group. They were sitting in a circle, candles lit before them, glowing crystal pendants dangling around their necks.

  The High Priestess was praying, but Willow blurted out, “Okay, wow, this is new.”

  The women looked at her. Willow shuffled and said, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry. Willow. We actually met when I was a freshman.” She made a face. “And also not a boy.” She gestured to Kennedy and said, “This is Kennedy.”

  “You’re Willow?” the High Priestess said in disbelief.

  “Yeah. Wow, look at you guys. Campus Wiccans. Guess you got past the whole bake sale phase.”

  “Um, no, we still do that, too. Second Tuesday of every month. I’m . . . I’m kind of having a hard time with the whole guy event thing.”

  Then a member of the circle spoke up. “It’s actually her. I can tell. I know her.”

  Willow was stunned. It was Amy. Formerly Amy the daughter of a witch whom Giles, had sent into a cheerleader trophy; later Amy, who accidentally had been turned into a rat. And later still, Amy, Willow’s enabler when she got hard into the black magics . . . and whom she had asked to stay away, forever, if possible.

  Amy began to make amends in a rush. “I wanted to come find you and tell you that I was here working on things with these guys. And that they’re good. And that I’m sorry. But you’re here, looking like, wow, how did this happen?”

  “I got hit with, like, this glamour thing, and I can’t seem to shake it myself. I was hoping someone here might be able to help.”

  Amy said, “We’ll try.”

  They made a circle, and as Willow held a crystal, Amy led with a spell: “Give back the form the soul requires. See that the balance is put right.”

  The crystal glowed and heated, and Willow dropped it as she screamed.

  Startled, Amy got to her feet, blurting out, “It didn’t work?”

  “No, it didn’t, you dumb bitch!” Willow yelled. Then she hauled off and slapped Amy across the face.
/>   “Willow!” Kennedy cried.

  “You slapped me!” Amy said, gasping.

  “No. I didn’t. It wasn’t me.” She felt sick, terrified. “It was Warren.”

  She raced out of the room, terrified, Kennedy on her heels.

  “It’s not a trick,” Willow despaired. “It’s not a glamour. I’m becoming him. A murderous, misogynist man. Do you understand what he did? What I could do? I killed him for a reason.”

  “Getting angry isn’t helping,” Kennedy pointed out. “We can still try to—”

  “You understand nothing about magic,” Willow flung at her. “In case you hadn’t noticed, our little date? It’s over.”

  She stalked off, creating a magical barrier to keep Kennedy from following.

  There is friction in the space between us. . . .

  * * *

  Much tension in Xander’s car as they barreled through the night. Andrew wanted to play Ghost, and everyone else wanted to kill him.

  “If this is The First, and I’m not saying it is,” Anya began, “what’re we expecting to find?”

  “He didn’t bring them out here to meditate,” Xander said tersely.

  Andrew said to Dawn, “Kinda makes you grateful you weren’t a Potential after all, doesn’t it? Safer.”

  “Not so fast with the big ‘phew,’ ” Anya said.

  Xander was hunched behind the wheel. “He might know we’re coming.”

  Anya took that in. “Which means we’re already too late, and we’re heading out to the middle of nowhere . . .”

  “With no Slayer,” Dawn said anxiously, “no powerful witch . . .”

  “Just a teenager, a powerful former demon, and two big geeks,” Anya finished.

  * * *

  As Willow struggled to keep herself intact she wept, sinking down on the ground and then . . . there was no friction in the space, and Warren stood up, disgusted, saying, “Look at me. Crying like a little girl.”

  He strode down the street.

  He had a gun to buy . . .

  * * *

  As Giles had dreaded, there were, indeed, s’mores and campfire songs. And now his charges were asleep, but he had decided to stay up and stand guard . . .

  And then he was attacked—tackled and thrown to the ground.

  “Touch him! Touch him!” one of his assailants shouted. It was Xander, of all people.

  And then Dawn, grabbing him by the shoulder and saying, “Oh, I feel him, I feel him.”

  “I feel him, too,” Xander said, feeling his chest.

  “Me, too. Good Lord, that was Andrew, touching his leg!

  Giles said, “We all feel each other. Including some of us who don’t know each other well enough to take such liberties, thank you.” He gave Andrew a look. “And I assume there’s a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation here.”

  Anya said helpfully, “We thought you might be non-corporeal evil.”

  “We got a call,” Dawn added in. “We couldn’t remember you touching anything.”

  “We had to make sure you were okay. We were worried,” Xander concluded.

  “Oh. That’s very sweet.” He pondered a moment, then added, “Now wait a minute. You think I’m evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and I don’t touch them?”

  * * *

  Kennedy went back to the Wicca room. Everyone had cleared out except Amy.

  “It was too creepy, even for us,” Amy explained. “You’re really worried about her. She’s going to be fine, really. She’s good at this. She’s strong. She’s dealt with a lot worse.” She smiled at Kennedy. “Long before she ever went out and found herself a big old Potential Slayer bodyguard, okay? Just have a little faith in her.”

  Kennedy stared at the witch. Then she said slowly, “I never said I was a Potential Slayer.”

  Amy was all innocence as she replied, “Oh, no, I think you did. When you first got here . . . you told us.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Kennedy advanced on Amy. “How did you know who I was?”

  Amy smirked at her and said, “Oops.”

  Kennedy was furious. “Tell me why you did this to her,” she demanded, getting into Amy’s face. But the witch performed a magic charm and sent Kennedy flying away.

  “Just your standard penance malediction.” Putting it more simply, she said, “I put a hex on her.”

  “But why Warren?” Kennedy pushed. “And why did it happen after we kissed?”

  Amy smiled broadly. “You? Oh, that’s rich. Must have been some kiss. You must be good.”

  “Answer me!”

  “The hex I cast lets the victim’s subconscious pick the form of their punishment. It’s always better than anything I come up with.”

  “Undo it. Let her out,” Kennedy ordered her.

  “Okay,” Amy said breezily. “Oh, wait, I forgot. No.”

  “Why would you do this to her?” Kennedy demanded. “You really hate her that much?”

  Amy drew herself up. “This isn’t about hate. It’s about power.”

  Kennedy blinked, and Amy continued.

  “Willow’s always had all the power. Even before she knew what to do with it. It came so easy for her. The rest of us, we had to work twice as hard to be half as good. But no one cares how hard you work.”

  She shook her head. “They just care about cute, sweet Willow. They don’t know how weak she is—she gave into evil, stuff worse than I could even imagine. She almost destroyed the world! But everyone just keeps on loving her.

  “So what’s wrong with having a little fun? Take her down a peg or two.”

  “Fun?”

  “Hey, I’m not the bad guy here,” Amy protested. “I wonder where he’d be right about now?”

  She waved her hand . . . and Kennedy was in the back yard of the Summers residence, just as the sun began to rise . . .

  And Willow stood before her, very shaky, and holding a gun.

  “You think you can just do that to me?” she shouted. “That I’d let you get away with it?”

  Her gaze on the gun, Kennedy said calmly, “Okay, let’s not get excited.”

  “It’s too late!” Willow cried. “This is what I am. I made it happen, and I’ll make it stop!”

  “Willow,” Kennedy pressed, ever so gently, “what did you make happen?”

  Willow waved the gun, losing control. “You were there, bitch! You saw it! I killed her!”

  She means Warren, Kennedy realized. “You mean ‘him,’ ” she corrected.

  “Him! Her! You know what I mean!”

  “But you said ‘her.’ ”

  “No,” Willow said, for a moment herself, though still on the verge of completely breaking down. “That was Warren . . .”

  “No. No, it wasn’t,” Kennedy insisted. “You said I was there. Who did you kill, Willow?”

  “It was your fault. Slut! You tricked me! Got me to forget!”

  Kennedy understood. “Tara . . .”

  “Shut up!” Willow raged. “Shut! Up! You do not get to say her name! Offering it up to whoever’s there. Tricking me into kissing you . . .”

  She stopped, confused. “I . . . I can’t hold on . . . He’s winning.”

  Willow lowered the gun, scared. “I’m being punished. I kissed you, just for a second, but it was just enough.

  “I let her go,” she grieved, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Kennedy shook her head. “Kissing me didn’t mean . . .”

  “No, she was never gone, she was with me. We should have been together forever . . . and I . . . I let her be dead. She’s really dead. And I killed her.”

  Shattered, she sank to her knees, sobbing, “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry, don’t leave me again; come back. I’m sorry. Come back . . .”

  Kennedy came to her, terrified.

  “Willow,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think you did anything wrong. This is just magic. And I think I’m figuring the whole magic thing out.”

  She clos
ed the space between them, saying, “It’s just like fairy tales.”

  “What are you doing?” Willow asked.

  Kennedy’s gaze was filled with sympathy, empathy, and all the love in the world . . .

  “Bringing you back to life,” she said.

  And her kiss was for Willow, for all her pain and her grief and her loveliness and her splendor; and it was for Tara, who was not gone and never would be. In that kiss, she was restored forever, to her Willow, her dear, darling Willow . . .

  Kennedy broke the kiss, and gazed at Willow.

  “Hmm, I am good,” she murmured.

  Warren’s face was gone. Willow was Willow again.

  “It’s me? I’m back?” Willow asked hopefully.

  Kennedy nodded, and Willow swayed with relief.

  “Oh, God.”

  “You all right?” Kennedy asked.

  Willow glanced up at the bedroom window . . . at the smile there, at her girl . . .

  “I have no idea,” Willow confessed.

  She laid her head on Kennedy’s strong shoulder. Together they walked back to the house.

  “I’m so tired,” Willow murmured.

  And Kennedy replied, “I’ll make you some tea.”

  Chapter Fourteen: “First Date”

  Giles had brought the Potentials back from the desert, including the newest one Chao-Ahn, and as they patrolled through one of Sunnydale’s cemeteries he was explaining to them all how he had managed to survive the Bringers’ attack back in London—the same attack that had felled his colleague, Robson.

  “It was extraordinary good luck, of course,” he said with typical British modesty. “And training. Years of training.” To the new girl, he said, “Chao-Ahn, keep up. You’re new here, Chao-Ahn, so take note. Remember about the training. But I honestly feel the largest part of it was instinct. Instinct and reflexes. There’s a sort of watchfulness I’ve developed over the years. It’s like another sense—”

  And from out of nowhere, completely catching the watchful Watcher by surprise, Spike tackled him and threw him to the ground.

  “Spike!” Buffy cried, as both Watcher and vampire shouted, “Hey!”

  “You’re not in pain,” Giles said with astonishment.

  “You’re not The First,” Spike said in like fashion.