Chosen

by Nancy Holder

  They sailed into another bedroom, and she gasped.

  Chloe dangled from the ceiling. She had used a sheet to form a noose, and she had done it right. Her face was blue and slight puffy. She was dead.

  Kennedy, Rona, and Amanda came out of the bedroom across the hall and joined Buffy and Dawn.

  “What happened?” Kennedy asked. “We heard . . .” She gasped and covered her mouth.

  “Dawn,” Buffy said, staring at the corpse, “get a knife.”

  “Good thinking,” said Chloe . . . standing beside her dead body. Buffy stiffened, knowing that they were gazing at The First. “Good thinking,” she said. “But, on the other hand, why rush? Up or down, I’ll still be dead.”

  “You’re not Chloe,” Buffy said coldly.

  “Yeah, well, neither is she, anymore,” The First said, as if she really didn’t care. “Now she’s just . . . Chloe’s body.”

  “What did you do to her?” Kennedy demanded.

  “Nothing! We just talked all night.” She made a little face. “Well, I did most of the talking but Chloe is . . . I’m sorry, was . . . a good listener. Till she hung herself.” To Kennedy, she added, “Like when you called her a maggot. She really heard that.”

  “Don’t listen to it, any of you,” Buffy ordered. “It’s The First.”

  “Oh, let ’em,” The First drawled. “The only reason why Chloe offered herself is ’cause she knew what you’re not getting. I’m coming, you’re going. All this . . .” she gestured “. . . is almost over.”

  “We’ll be here,” Buffy said grimly.

  “All of you?” The First asked, with a raise of her brow. “But wait. I thought . . .” Her voice altered, becoming that of Buffy. “ ‘They’re not all going to make it. Some will die, and there’s nothing I can do that will stop it.’ ” She shifted back to Chloe’s voice. “Hey, I didn’t say it. But I’ll be seeing all of you, one by one.” She added cheerily, “TTFN!” Then she disappeared, like a flash of light on the horizon.

  “What’s TTFN?” Buffy asked stolidly.

  Rona swallowed hard. “It’s ‘ta ta for now.’ It’s what Tigger says when he leaves.”

  Amanda added anxiously, “Chloe loved Winnie the Pooh.”

  Buffy’s voice was choked with anger and sorrow. “Dawn,” she managed, “where’s that knife?”

  * * *

  Buffy dug the grave alone, placing Chloe next to Annabelle. Next to the Slayer’s failures.

  She went back into the house, where everyone had gathered; some were sitting in traumatic silence, others were sobbing quietly. Everyone was grieving.

  “Anyone want to say a few words about Chloe?” she asked, gazing around the group. No one spoke. “Let me.”

  She paced, and then she said harshly, “Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. And anyone in a rush to be the next dead body I bury, it’s easy. Just think of Chloe, and do what she did. I’ll find room for you next to her and Annabelle.”

  As they stared at her, she continued, “I’m the Slayer. The one with the power. And The First has me using that power to dig our graves.” She punctuated her point by throwing down her shovel. Willow flinched. Kennedy noticed.

  “I’ve been carrying you—all of you—too far, too long. Ride’s over.”

  Kennedy jumped to her feet and cried, “You’re out of line!”

  “No,” Willow said clearly, “she’s not.”

  Kennedy looked at Willow. “You’re going to let her talk to you like that? Willow, she’s not even the most powerful one in this room. With you here, she’s not even close.”

  Buffy turned her attention to the young Potential. Close. Calm. “You’re new here,” she said, “and you’re wrong. Because I use the power that I have. The rest of you are just waiting for me.”

  Xander ventured forth. “Well, yeah, but only because you kind of told us to. You’re our leader, Buffy, as in ‘follow the.’ ”

  “Well, from now on, I’m your leader as is ‘do what I say,’ ” she shot back.

  “Ja wohl,” Xander said, with an edge. “But let’s not try to forget, we’re also your friends.”

  “I’m not,” Anya piped up.

  Buffy whirled on her and said, “Then why are you here? Aside from getting rescued, what is it that you do?”

  Anya was caught off balance. “I . . . provide much-needed sarcasm,” she said.

  Xander raised a hand. “Um, that would kind of be my job, actually.”

  “You’re here because you’re scared,” Buffy said to Anya.

  “Same goes for everyone in this room,” Xander argued.

  “Fine,” Buffy bit off. “Anya, all of you: Be as scared as you like. Just be useful while you’re at it.”

  “Come on, Buffy,” Willow said. “You know every-one’s here already doing everything they can.”

  “The First isn’t impressed. It already knows us. It knows what we can do, and it’s laughing. You want to surprise the enemy? Surprise yourselves,” Buffy said to the group. “Force yourself to do what can’t be done, or else we are not an army—we’re just a bunch of girls waiting to be picked off and buried.”

  Spike rose and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Buffy asked.

  “Out. Since I’m neither a girl, nor waiting, all of this speechifying doesn’t really apply to me, does it?”

  “Fine,” she called after him. “Take a cell phone. That way, if I need someone to get weepy or wailed on, I can call you.”

  Spike froze. Cold with fury, he turned and said, “If you’ve got something to say . . .”

  “Just said it. Keep holding back, Spike, and you might as well walk out that door.”

  He blinked. “Holding back? You’re blind. I’ve been here, right in it, fighting, scrapping . . .”

  “Since you got your soul back?” she asked, leading him.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t quite been relishing the kill the way I used to.”

  “You were a better fighter then,” Buffy observed.

  He was thrown. “I did this for you. The soul, the changes; it’s what you wanted.”

  “What I want is the Spike that’s dangerous,” she told him frankly. “The Spike that tried to kill me when we met.”

  He retorted angrily, “Oh, you don’t know how close you are to bringing him out.”

  “I’m nowhere near him,” Buffy said. Without taking her gaze off Spike, she said to Dawn, “Get the Potentials upstairs. I’m declaring an emergency.”

  * * *

  Buffy invited Robin for the opening of his mother’s Slayer’s bag. He showed, a bit bleary-eyed but ready for action. Buffy had cleared the room of Potentials—the core group was there—Robin, Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Xander, and Kennedy. Everyone except Spike.

  They had taken everything out of the satchel and laid it out on the table in the living room. Dawn said, “This emergency bag’s got some neat stuff in it—weapons, charms, advanced reading assignments.”

  She held up the big fancy book she had shown to Buffy.

  Xander examined a goblet and said, “Cool stuff, but we’ve seen it all before.”

  Anya pointed to an arcane-looking wooden box with a metal lock on it. “Not this, we haven’t. What’s inside it?” Anya asked Robin.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It hasn’t been opened since . . .” Buffy broke the lock off with her bare hands. “. . . well, since now.”

  Xander reached in and pulled out some metal figures. He held them for a moment, and then he said, “Puppets. That’s it! The First hates puppets. Now, if we can just airlift Kermit, Fozzi, and Miss Piggy into town, The First’ll be a-runnin’.”

  “Those are Muppets,” Willow corrected him.

  Dawn took the puppets from Xander. “And these things are shadow-casters,” Dawn said. “You put them in motion, and they tell you a story.” She looked down at the book. “It says you can’t just watch. You have to see.”

  “What the hell d
oes that mean?” Anya said.

  “It’s cryptic.” Xander made a face. “Every time instructions get cryptic, someone gets hurt. Usually me.”

  “That’s where all my fancy translating skills break down,” Dawn said, “but I think it’s an origin myth.” She looked freaked. “The story of the very First Slayer.”

  Buffy was shaken. “I saw her. The other night. In my dream.” She looked at the group. “That’s got to mean something, right?”

  They were about to find out, as they figured out how to put the device together—it was like a zoetrope, or a magic lantern from Victorian times. They took the paintings off the walls, leaving them blank. Then Xander stuck a match and lit the wick at the center of a five-sided turntable of what might have been copper. Light glowed, giving Dawn the means by which to read her book.

  “According to this,” she told the group, “you put on those puppet guys one by one. They cast shadows and the shadows tell the story. First there is the Earth.”

  Xander placed The First metal figure into one of the sides. As the light threw the shadow of hills and the crescent moon against the wall, ghostly drumbeats echoed softly.

  “What’s the sound?” Kennedy asked anxiously.

  “Okay, so far, so creepy.” Xander drawled.

  “Then there came the Demons,” Dawn read.

  Xander inserted the next figure, and the image of hills was chased by the crude image of a monster. A roar rose above the drumbeats.

  “After Demons, there came Men.”

  The third shadowy tableau was of three men with staffs, appearing behind the demon and the hills.

  “The Men found a Girl,” Dawn read.

  Her sound was a scream, and a ripple of unease floated around the room. As if in response, the turntable started to spin faster.

  “The Men took the Girl. To fight the Demon. Um, all Demons. They . . .” She hesitated. “They chained her to the Earth.”

  Xander added the last image—of Chains—connecting the Girl image to the Earth. The rattling sound added to the growing cacophony.

  “And then . . . I can’t read this. Something about darkness,” Dawn said.

  The magic lantern spun, making the shadows on the wall dance and move, taking on a life of their own. They moved, and acted out the story.

  “It says you cannot be shown,” Dawn said over the noise. “You cannot just watch, but you must see. See for yourself, but only if you’re willing to make the . . . exchange.”

  Xander called, “When did you get so good at Sumerian?”

  But the words on the pages of the book were glowing and melting away into nothing, leaving each page completely blank.

  On the wall, Demon attacked Girl, who shrieked in her chains. The device whirled faster, out of control, then a bright blue light flashed into the center of the turntable, shooting in all directions until it was the size and shape of a regular door. The glare was intense, blinding . . . terrifying.

  “But what’s it mean?” Xander cried.

  “It means I have to go in there,” Buffy said.

  “No, it doesn’t!” Willow protested. “It doesn’t say that? Where does it say that?”

  “Buffy, you don’t even know what you’re exchanging,” Robin put in. “You don’t know if you’re ready yet.”

  “That’s the point,” she remarked, walking toward it.

  “No, Buffy,” Willow pleaded. “We don’t know where you’re going or how we’ll get you back!”

  “Find a way,” Buffy told her.

  Then she jumped through the doorway. The second she disappeared into it, the device snapped shut.

  The others were stunned into silence. Then Anya said, “What was that about an exchange?”

  As soon as the words were out of her, there was an afterflash of light and a blast of energy—and an enormous demon appeared where the portal had stood.

  “Ah. This must be the exchange student,” Xander quipped.

  As if in reply, the demon grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room.

  They moved into fight stance as Kennedy said, “Willow, use your magic! Send it back!”

  Willow said, “I’m trying . . . Redi!” Return!

  The demon responded by backhanding the Wicca. Then Robin dipped into his mother’s weapons bag and attacked the demon with throwing stars, moving in for fearless hand-to-hand. The demon dropped him to the floor.

  “Weapons!” Kennedy cried. Dawn handed her a sword and kept one for herself. The two charged the demon, but it was too strong and too fast for them. Dawn was thrown left; Kennedy, right.

  Then Spike rushed in, assessed the situation, and leaped onto the demon’s back.

  “Get out of here, all of you!” he shouted. “Unless you want to end up all dead and useless!”

  “What are you going to do?” Kennedy asked from the couch.

  “What I do best,” Spike replied.

  He grabbed the demon by the head and bashed it against the wall, and for a moment there was hope that he had actually slowed the monster down. Then it heaved Spike toward the ceiling. The vampire shot through so hard that he broke through it and landed on the floor upstairs.

  Triumphant, the demon broke through the French doors and left the house.

  “We need Buffy,” Willow said.

  Xander nodded. “You’ve got to get her back,” Xander told her. “Looks like it’s spell o’clock.”

  “Which spell?” Anya asked. “I mean, didn’t you see that thing? And you expect to reopen the portal without sending Willow off the deep end.”

  Frowning, Willow ducked her head. “Thanks for your support.”

  “Well, it’s true,” Anya said. “We’re going to have to find another way.”

  Willow shook her head. “There isn’t, and Buffy knew it. I’ve got to get her back.”

  “We don’t even know where she went,” Kennedy said.

  * * *

  Guess that worked, Buffy thought.

  She was in the desert where she had once before gone with Giles, and met The First Slayer. She walked, orienting herself, aware that this was no ordinary desert; magic swirled everywhere.

  Magic, and death.

  Then she came upon three men in tribal robes and turbans, each holding a tall staff

  “Hello?” she said. “I’m Buffy. I’m the Slayer.”

  Though they spoke in another tongue, she understood what they were saying:

  We know who you are.

  And we know why you’re here.

  We’ve been waiting.

  The three began circling her.

  We have been here since the beginning.

  Now, we are almost at the end.

  “The end of what?” she asked.

  You are the Hellmouth’s last guardian.

  “Latest. You mean latest guardian,” she said.

  No.

  Ignoring that, she said, “Okay, I have The First to fight. So just tell me what I need to know. I came to learn.”

  We cannot give you knowledge. Only power.

  “You know what I think?” Buffy asked sharply. “I’m not really here at all. None of this is actually happening. This is a like a play . . . like some shadow-play,” she added, thinking of the magic lantern. “Some nonreality reenactment hologramy—”

  One of the men clubbed her with his staff, and she collapsed to the ground.

  * * *

  As soon as Buffy disappeared, Dawn’s book went all Sumerian. Willow tried to work the magics. She was lost, panicked. She went into the kitchen to get the first-aid kit for Kennedy, with everyone following her, giving her advice.

  “Why not try all thirty-two flavors?” Kennedy suggested. “Worst thing that happens is you go brunette.”

  “That’s not the worst thing than can happen,” Willow said shortly.

  “We have a choice,” Anya pointed out. “We can risk Willow’s life and the rest of our lives to get Buffy back or we can leave her out there.”

  Robin spoke up
. “If we play it safe back here, Buffy could stay lost.”

  Anya looked at him. “You missed her ‘everyone sucks but me’ speech. If she’s so superior, let her find her own way back.”

  “Anya,” Xander said, “The First is up and running. Every second that Buffy’s not here, is an opportunity for it to show up and rip us to pieces.”

  Then Dawn helped Willow focus by asking her how another witch would bring Buffy back, and that got Willow talking to Anya about the laws of conservation of magical energies, and . . . again, the need for an exchange.

  The demon that had run off would do just fine.

  “Get cracking on that portal,” Spike said. “Don’t be stingy with the mojo. The demon’s mine.” He walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Robin asked.

  “Thing I need,” Spike replied.

  * * *

  Ultimately, Willow went with creating a barrier of protective sand on the floor of the living room.

  “The sand forms a circle,” Dawn said, understanding. “The circle acts as a barrier. And the barrier contains the portal.”

  “Now what?” Kennedy asked. “We hold hands and chant kumbaya or something?”

  Willow handed her the bag of sand. “Maybe, till we get the magics up and running. I’m kind of working on my best guess here.”

  “Will, maybe we should wait,” Xander suggested. “See if Spike can bring back that demon.”

  The Wicca so wished they could. “Opening a portal this size could take days,” she told Xander.

  “Better get started,” Kennedy said.

  She began, breathing deeply, then taking her place on the floor in the middle of the circle. She concentrated her energy, found her power, and began to chant.

  “Via temporis, iam clamo ad te, via spatii, te jubeo aperire!”

  Nothing.

  Willow gathered her authority. “Aperi.”

  Still nothing. Willow turned to Dawn.

  “Dawnie,” she said, “you better put on some coffee. This could take all . . .”

  Energy coursed through the room, exploding in a flash of light. Everyone was blown away from the circle, in which the Wicca sat, her eyes black and her voice raised in a roaring, demonic shriek.

  * * *

  Buffy came to. She was in a cave; the three men were looking at her . . . and she was chained to the walls, one manacle on either wrist, connected to . . .