Bewitched, Chapter 9
May. 30th, 2009 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thismazTitle: Bewitched, Chapter 9
Pairing: S/X
Rating: This chapter PG-13
Summary: When Valentine's Day arrives, Dru dips her finger in the brew and gives it a stir.
Word Count: 3,360
Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparrow2000 and DJ, for which, many thanks. Thanks also to Sparrow for her help with conflabbing on plot twists and forms.
Comments: Are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Disclaimer: here.
Prologue here, with a link to the other chapters, or you can find the whole thing, in reverse order, in tags, or in the correct order, in memories.
Chapter 9
Although he was doing his best to hide his anxiety, Xander was well aware that he was only partially successful. In spite of their difficulties, Willow knew him too well to be fooled.
It had taken her two days to decide that she'd forgiven him for his stupidity and he suspected that he had Oz to thank for the fact that it wasn't longer. At least she hadn't made him beg. One minute, he'd been sitting alone in the student lounge waiting for the day to start, the next, she was on the couch beside him, pulling an apple out of her school bag. She'd given him a timid half-smile and that was it - they were hanging out again.
They hadn't talked about her ambush in his bedroom. She was still too embarrassed and he was trying to blank the whole thing from his mind, but with Buffy to act as buffer, they'd made it through the morning. By the time afternoon classes separated them, Willow was pretty much back to her usual bouncy self. There was still awkwardness, but they were both doing their best to ignore it. That was where the bit about her knowing him too well came in; she'd noticed that he was avoiding the library. Xander knew that he was acting weird, but he couldn't help it. He had the strangest feeling that only a week before, he'd been a totally different person. He just couldn't figure out what had changed.
On the third day after his confession to Giles, Xander sat in class during last period, ignoring Mr Burke's attempts to educate his young mind. All his thinking capacity was fully occupied by the conversation he'd just had with Larry, in the locker room, when Larry caught him staring.
Xander couldn't remember what he'd been like 'before', but he was pretty certain that the old Xander would not have been caught staring at Larry's ass. It was also more than likely that old Xander hadn't felt queasy at the thought of kissing Cordy, even if he might still have been stupid enough to open his mouth and tell her so in front of all her minions, when she cornered him near his locker to make some cutting remark. Dimly, Xander could remember a time when it had been girls' chests that irresistibly drew his eyes, rather than boys' butts and the fact that 'busts' and 'butts' were only one letter different, didn't help at all.
He did remember that he'd never had a non-violent close encounter with Larry before; unless you counted the whole werewolf confusion, which Xander didn't. To have Larry not only notice him, but come on to him and suggest a date at the Bronze some night, in front of the entire football team, was not something that would have happened to old Xander. He was sure that if there had been the slightest hint of such a thing, old Xander would have done something to stop it, even if it was only to stutter and flail until Larry realised that not even his cool could survive a date with such a loser. New Xander blushed and mumbled, "Yeah, maybe." He didn't think they'd fixed an actual date, but it did mean that the Bronze had now joined his growing list of places to avoid.
On top of the weirdness of suddenly noticing what an attractive guy Larry was (and why had he never seen that before?) was the realisation that his feelings for Giles were just as confused.
Xander suspected that it was the memory of years of having the crap beaten out of him that was at the root of his ambivalent feelings for Larry. It didn't really matter that Larry was now rewriting history to fit his new, openly gay persona, Xander still remembered the black eye in sixth grade.
With Giles it was more complex. There was guilt over the whole teacher and father figure thing. It made Xander squirm.
But in the end, it was not Cordy, or Larry, or Giles, that was messing with Xander's head. The root problem and major source of his confusion, was Xander's feeling of being disconnected from his past self. That and the fact that it was getting worse. That and the fact that, in addition to it getting worse, he knew that he wasn't supposed to find vampires attractive. It was almost as if he remembered how he thought he should feel, but it was different from how he really felt. It was like he'd been split in two and was watching himself from a distance.
When the class was interrupted by the delivery of a note from Giles, telling him to come to the library immediately after, Xander ignored Mr Burke's remark that if he'd known Xander could read, he'd have expected more from him. He was too busy feeling grateful. If Giles hadn't forced his hand, Xander knew he'd have had to go to the library soon. On top of everything else, he needed to tell Giles about his stalker.
And that was the last on his long list of worries.
The sight of a glowing cigarette end in the dark of his night-time back yard, could not be anything but threatening, especially when considered next to the black roses and dead fish that Buffy and Willow had received. Xander never thought it was Angelus who was doing the smoking, any more than he thought it was Spike who'd killed Willow's fish, but it was all part of the same creepy vampire behaviour.
When, with the sun shining brightly overhead, he found a small pile of cigarette butts lying next to the impressions of two narrow tires, it became faintly ridiculous, but it remained creepy. The spell had made him lose his mind for a night, but with the morning had come sanity. And fear. And the fear was mounting with each nightly reminder that any sanity Spike might have once had, it didn't seem to have returned with the breaking of the spell.
The fact that Xander had to keep reminding himself that Spike was a vampire, and therefore dangerous, simply made the whole thing worse. There was something so... strange about being the focus of such attention.
Traditions had to be respected, though, so he loitered on his way to see what Giles wanted. He went first to pick up Buffy and Willow from extra English and they stopped off at the vending machines, since a request for a library meeting could mean a late night.
The Larry incident would have taken less than twenty minutes to get from the locker room to the canteen and all points in between, but his girls were being tactful, for once, and Xander only saw Buffy elbow Willow into silence on a couple of occasions. As they fed their quarters into the vending machines, she talked resolutely about everyday stuff - vampires, training, the demon that had taken over the ladies' dress shop and speculation about what Giles wanted them for.
Eventually, however, they had to stop procrastinating, before it became real and present crastination, and Xander knew they had reached that point when he finally ran out of change for the machines and Buffy and Willow did a flanking manoeuvre on him. Stuffing his chocolate bars in his pockets and cracking open his soda, he grinned. "Into the breach?" he asked. Buffy smiled slightly and Willow nodded.
He walked to the library between them, feeling like a prisoner being marched to his cell by two prison guards, which was totally unfair to the girls, who didn't realise what they looked like. The image made him smile though and he was about to nudge Buffy in the ribs and share the joke, when they pushed through the library doors and the words died on his lips.
Giles was seated at the table with his back to them, his elbows resting on the top and his head in his hands. In one of those sudden shocks of recognition, Xander realised that he had never seen Giles already sitting down when they arrived (apart from that one time, when he was rehearsing how to ask Ms Calendar out on a date). Giles was always on the move, always shelving books, or cataloguing, or looking stuff up. When he wanted to sit down and hide, he retreated to his office. He never sat at the big table, out in the open.
He must have heard the swish of the doors, because he raised his head and twisted in his chair, standing up and visibly bracing himself when he saw who it was. "Buffy, Willow, Xander." He nodded, but his polite smile looked forced. "Thank you for coming."
Buffy walked forward cautiously, as if she were afraid Giles would crack if she moved too fast, and given the rigidity of his stance, he was close to that point. "Who's dead?" she asked.
Giles' eyes flashed to each of them in turn, and then his shoulders slumped. "Amy Madison," he said.
A gasp from Willow's direction was cut short when she clapped her hand over her mouth. Xander, himself, felt a jolt along his spine, as if he'd been hit by an electric shock, while Buffy did that sudden focussy thing, where she switched from light and cheerful to powerful and poised in the blink of an eye. "How?" she asked.
Taking off his glasses, Giles dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and began to clean them. That was a stalling tactic. It meant that Giles needed to gather his thoughts. Hoping that it would help, Xander asked a different question: "Was that why you wanted to see us?"
Giles took a moment longer to lift his glasses up and peer at the lenses from a distance, before he hooked them back over his ears. Shoving his handkerchief back into his pocket, he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "No," he said and his voice was firm and calm again. "Although it was on a related matter that I wished to speak to you, Xander. I only just learned about Amy. Principal Snyder called a brief teachers' meeting, to inform us all. Apparently it happened two days ago, but the police didn't notify the school and it was only when she was still missing from class..."
Buffy sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth when she asked again, "How did Amy die?" Xander looked over at her and saw that she was holding herself perfectly still.
Giles came towards them and reached out his hand, but aborted the move before he touched. "No, Buffy," he said gently. "She was stabbed."
"So it wasn't vampires?" Giles shook his head. She didn't look convinced. "What else could it be?"
"Any number of things, I imagine, but on this occasion it would appear to be human malice, not supernatural. Her father is missing." Detouring around them, he walked over to the check-out desk.
Buffy turned on the spot, following him with her eyes. Willow hadn't moved since Giles broke the news and Xander wanted to comfort her, but she was still shying away from him, every time he went to touch her, so he walked over to the table and propped himself against it, instead. Crossing his arms over his chest he asked, "Are you sure it wasn't vampires?"
Buffy turned slowly back to look at him. "Because she did your spell and Angelus got caught up in it, you mean?"
Xander shrugged.
Giles looked up. "On the whole, I doubt it," he said. "She was in her home."
Nodding, Buffy relaxed a little, and Willow seemed to pull herself out of her thoughts. She came over to take a seat at the table, a few places away from Xander.
Giles cleared his throat. "The reason I asked you to come," he said, addressing Xander directly, "is because I interviewed Amy again, after our last conversation, and I learnt more about her spell. She said she had a teacher, a woman, who showed her how to improve it." He raised an eyebrow and Xander was pleased to see that he seemed to be recovering his equanimity.
"A woman?" Xander asked. "Did she describe her?"
"No, she didn't." Giles' lips twisted in a faint smile. "She merely said that she wasn't a wrinkled old crone, but I've got the impression she was well versed in magic."
Buffy had been following this exchange, her gaze swinging from one to the other and back. "So you think that if we can find the teacher, we might find out what the spell was supposed to do?" Giles nodded. "And maybe," Buffy continued, "a motive for Amy's murder?"
Giles pursed his lips, thoughtfully. "I hadn't actually considered that," he admitted. "With her father missing..."
Willow looked up. "Her Dad was devoted to her," she said fiercely. "After her mom threw him out, he never saw Amy. She told me, he was so happy to be back in her life, they were always spending time together."
Buffy nodded in agreement. "It's true," she said.
"And yet she found the time to study magic?" Giles asked.
"Her dad works shifts at LSM, in the new industrial park, the one off the freeway," Buffy explained. "She would still have had time by herself."
Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had simply assumed," he said, "that because she was at home..." He trailed off, thoughtfully. After a moment, he turned to Willow. "Willow, can you look up the coroner's report and see if Amy's unfortunate murder was indeed -"
"Supernaturally related?" Willow interrupted. "On it." She stood up and went over to the computer at the opposite end of the table, sat down and immediately started clicking away at the keys.
Giles glanced around the check-out counter, looking for something. Apparently spotting the book he was after, he picked it up, but didn't open it. Instead, he turned around to face them. "Amy's spell was very advanced," he said. "Far beyond what I would expect, given what I've learnt of her other experiments. It had layers of enchantment, which built upon each other."
"Like an onion?" Xander asked.
"More like a house of cards. Taking out the lowest level first would have caused a catastrophic collapse, with serious consequences to your continued well being. Maybe to your life." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Xander. I could have killed you, as easily as Spike."
Xander gulped. The idea of his life and the word catastrophe, put together, was not appealing, no matter how many near apocalypses he'd already managed to survive.
"It has to be dismantled, layer by layer," Giles explained. "Thankfully, the pendant charm was linked to the uppermost layer - the love spell aimed at Cordelia." He paused and looked at each of them, before continuing. "I think I got everything I need to remove the deeper layers."
Turning to Xander he explained, "Amy used your blood, to bind you. The original spell was supposed to use the feminine principle to tie Cordelia through the love token you gave her." He opened the book at a place marked by a couple of sheets of paper inserted between the pages. Picking up one of the sheets, he turned it to display a large diagram of a circle with a cross attached to its lower curve. "This was the intended symbol. The interference created by introducing the masculine principle," he put the book down and, picking up the other piece of paper, showed them another symbol. This time the circle had an arrow pointing out from it, attached to the top right edge, and it was drawn on tracing paper, "caused the spell to invert." He held the second sheet in front of the first and Xander saw that the two drawings combined to make the symbol that Amy had used on the floor of the chem lab. "That's why Cordelia was unaffected, but every other woman," Giles' lips quirked and he shot Xander a sly glance, "was not so lucky." Slapping the papers down on the counter next to the book, he continued, "What I'm not certain about is why Amy introduced the masculine element in the first place. It makes no sense." His voice made clear his frustration, if his movements hadn't already done so. "Willow, are you...? Um, have you managed to...?"
Willow looked up, over the top of the monitor. "Nearly there, Giles. I just need to..." She looked down. "Yes, I think..." She trailed off with a frown of renewed concentration.
Buffy had wandered across to peer over Willow's shoulder and Xander saw that they were both deeply engrossed. He stayed where he was, there was something tickling at the back of his mind, something Giles had just said didn't make sense. Or it did, but there was something missing.
Under other circumstances he'd have been amused at the way Giles seemed to take it as a personal slight that he couldn't fathom Amy's motives. Unfortunately, these weren't other circumstances. At that moment Xander's Yoda brain proved its worth again, providing him with a sudden suspicion that he did know what Amy had been doing.
He walked across to Giles. "I don't know why she did it, but I think I know what she did," he whispered, herding Giles towards the doors.
Giles allowed himself to be herded, until they were in the corridor and out of earshot, then he stopped. "What?" he asked.
Now that the moment was upon him, Xander didn't know how to start. "Um, during the spell... er... I, I told you about how Angelus was his usual wacky, charming self, yeah?" Giles nodded. "And Drusilla seemed as affected as all the other women." Again Giles nodded and Xander took a deep breath to steady himself. "But that doesn't explain Spike, and me, and what happened to us," he said. "More importantly, why us? Why Spike? Amy didn't know anything about Spike."
Giles face froze in a mask of annoyed recognition. "How could I have been so stupid?" he asked. "Are you suggesting that Drusilla was mixed up in this, somehow?" He unhooked his glasses and pulled them off. "I must admit, the complexity of that spell..." He paused, tapping one arm of his glasses against his lower lip. Xander watched, fascinated by the way his lips curved. "I take it," Giles said, pulling Xander back to their conversation, "that is what you're suggesting, that Drusilla was Amy's mysterious teacher?"
"Er... no, I hadn't got that far." Xander cast a quick glance through the glass porthole in the door and saw Buffy looking around the room as if she'd just noticed that they'd disappeared. She wouldn't respect his need for privacy for long. "But she was there that night."
"I need to look at that book again." Giles said.
Another glance through the window showed that Buffy was indeed heading doorwards. "Please, don't say anything to the girls," he begged. "Buffy knows about Angelus. Well, you know that, because you've spoken to her. I told her that Spike took me from Drusilla, but I didn't tell her anything about what happened after that. Just that you broke the spell and I got away. She hasn't gotten around to asking more, so please don't say anything, okay?"
Xander reached for the door, pushing it open. With a nod of understanding, Giles allowed Xander to usher him back into the library. "I will probably need a few more details," he said, as he passed, "to counter the spell." Xander could hear the smile in his voice and he could have murdered Giles for teasing him at such a moment. Instead he simply dodged Buffy's questioning look and developed a sudden and overpowering interest in Willow's research.
Note 1: I take no responsibility for the butt/bust joke. That wassparrow_2000 *g* Just thought I should award the *cough* credit *cough* where it was due.
Note 2: I am aware that Xander didn't actually know that Larry was 'out' until the season 3 episode 'Earshot', but it was more fun to have him come out in season 2.
Next Chapter
Pairing: S/X
Rating: This chapter PG-13
Summary: When Valentine's Day arrives, Dru dips her finger in the brew and gives it a stir.
Word Count: 3,360
Betaed by
sparrow2000 and DJ, for which, many thanks. Thanks also to Sparrow for her help with conflabbing on plot twists and forms.Comments: Are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Disclaimer: here.
Prologue here, with a link to the other chapters, or you can find the whole thing, in reverse order, in tags, or in the correct order, in memories.
Chapter 9
Although he was doing his best to hide his anxiety, Xander was well aware that he was only partially successful. In spite of their difficulties, Willow knew him too well to be fooled.
It had taken her two days to decide that she'd forgiven him for his stupidity and he suspected that he had Oz to thank for the fact that it wasn't longer. At least she hadn't made him beg. One minute, he'd been sitting alone in the student lounge waiting for the day to start, the next, she was on the couch beside him, pulling an apple out of her school bag. She'd given him a timid half-smile and that was it - they were hanging out again.
They hadn't talked about her ambush in his bedroom. She was still too embarrassed and he was trying to blank the whole thing from his mind, but with Buffy to act as buffer, they'd made it through the morning. By the time afternoon classes separated them, Willow was pretty much back to her usual bouncy self. There was still awkwardness, but they were both doing their best to ignore it. That was where the bit about her knowing him too well came in; she'd noticed that he was avoiding the library. Xander knew that he was acting weird, but he couldn't help it. He had the strangest feeling that only a week before, he'd been a totally different person. He just couldn't figure out what had changed.
On the third day after his confession to Giles, Xander sat in class during last period, ignoring Mr Burke's attempts to educate his young mind. All his thinking capacity was fully occupied by the conversation he'd just had with Larry, in the locker room, when Larry caught him staring.
Xander couldn't remember what he'd been like 'before', but he was pretty certain that the old Xander would not have been caught staring at Larry's ass. It was also more than likely that old Xander hadn't felt queasy at the thought of kissing Cordy, even if he might still have been stupid enough to open his mouth and tell her so in front of all her minions, when she cornered him near his locker to make some cutting remark. Dimly, Xander could remember a time when it had been girls' chests that irresistibly drew his eyes, rather than boys' butts and the fact that 'busts' and 'butts' were only one letter different, didn't help at all.
He did remember that he'd never had a non-violent close encounter with Larry before; unless you counted the whole werewolf confusion, which Xander didn't. To have Larry not only notice him, but come on to him and suggest a date at the Bronze some night, in front of the entire football team, was not something that would have happened to old Xander. He was sure that if there had been the slightest hint of such a thing, old Xander would have done something to stop it, even if it was only to stutter and flail until Larry realised that not even his cool could survive a date with such a loser. New Xander blushed and mumbled, "Yeah, maybe." He didn't think they'd fixed an actual date, but it did mean that the Bronze had now joined his growing list of places to avoid.
On top of the weirdness of suddenly noticing what an attractive guy Larry was (and why had he never seen that before?) was the realisation that his feelings for Giles were just as confused.
Xander suspected that it was the memory of years of having the crap beaten out of him that was at the root of his ambivalent feelings for Larry. It didn't really matter that Larry was now rewriting history to fit his new, openly gay persona, Xander still remembered the black eye in sixth grade.
With Giles it was more complex. There was guilt over the whole teacher and father figure thing. It made Xander squirm.
But in the end, it was not Cordy, or Larry, or Giles, that was messing with Xander's head. The root problem and major source of his confusion, was Xander's feeling of being disconnected from his past self. That and the fact that it was getting worse. That and the fact that, in addition to it getting worse, he knew that he wasn't supposed to find vampires attractive. It was almost as if he remembered how he thought he should feel, but it was different from how he really felt. It was like he'd been split in two and was watching himself from a distance.
When the class was interrupted by the delivery of a note from Giles, telling him to come to the library immediately after, Xander ignored Mr Burke's remark that if he'd known Xander could read, he'd have expected more from him. He was too busy feeling grateful. If Giles hadn't forced his hand, Xander knew he'd have had to go to the library soon. On top of everything else, he needed to tell Giles about his stalker.
And that was the last on his long list of worries.
The sight of a glowing cigarette end in the dark of his night-time back yard, could not be anything but threatening, especially when considered next to the black roses and dead fish that Buffy and Willow had received. Xander never thought it was Angelus who was doing the smoking, any more than he thought it was Spike who'd killed Willow's fish, but it was all part of the same creepy vampire behaviour.
When, with the sun shining brightly overhead, he found a small pile of cigarette butts lying next to the impressions of two narrow tires, it became faintly ridiculous, but it remained creepy. The spell had made him lose his mind for a night, but with the morning had come sanity. And fear. And the fear was mounting with each nightly reminder that any sanity Spike might have once had, it didn't seem to have returned with the breaking of the spell.
The fact that Xander had to keep reminding himself that Spike was a vampire, and therefore dangerous, simply made the whole thing worse. There was something so... strange about being the focus of such attention.
Traditions had to be respected, though, so he loitered on his way to see what Giles wanted. He went first to pick up Buffy and Willow from extra English and they stopped off at the vending machines, since a request for a library meeting could mean a late night.
The Larry incident would have taken less than twenty minutes to get from the locker room to the canteen and all points in between, but his girls were being tactful, for once, and Xander only saw Buffy elbow Willow into silence on a couple of occasions. As they fed their quarters into the vending machines, she talked resolutely about everyday stuff - vampires, training, the demon that had taken over the ladies' dress shop and speculation about what Giles wanted them for.
Eventually, however, they had to stop procrastinating, before it became real and present crastination, and Xander knew they had reached that point when he finally ran out of change for the machines and Buffy and Willow did a flanking manoeuvre on him. Stuffing his chocolate bars in his pockets and cracking open his soda, he grinned. "Into the breach?" he asked. Buffy smiled slightly and Willow nodded.
He walked to the library between them, feeling like a prisoner being marched to his cell by two prison guards, which was totally unfair to the girls, who didn't realise what they looked like. The image made him smile though and he was about to nudge Buffy in the ribs and share the joke, when they pushed through the library doors and the words died on his lips.
Giles was seated at the table with his back to them, his elbows resting on the top and his head in his hands. In one of those sudden shocks of recognition, Xander realised that he had never seen Giles already sitting down when they arrived (apart from that one time, when he was rehearsing how to ask Ms Calendar out on a date). Giles was always on the move, always shelving books, or cataloguing, or looking stuff up. When he wanted to sit down and hide, he retreated to his office. He never sat at the big table, out in the open.
He must have heard the swish of the doors, because he raised his head and twisted in his chair, standing up and visibly bracing himself when he saw who it was. "Buffy, Willow, Xander." He nodded, but his polite smile looked forced. "Thank you for coming."
Buffy walked forward cautiously, as if she were afraid Giles would crack if she moved too fast, and given the rigidity of his stance, he was close to that point. "Who's dead?" she asked.
Giles' eyes flashed to each of them in turn, and then his shoulders slumped. "Amy Madison," he said.
A gasp from Willow's direction was cut short when she clapped her hand over her mouth. Xander, himself, felt a jolt along his spine, as if he'd been hit by an electric shock, while Buffy did that sudden focussy thing, where she switched from light and cheerful to powerful and poised in the blink of an eye. "How?" she asked.
Taking off his glasses, Giles dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and began to clean them. That was a stalling tactic. It meant that Giles needed to gather his thoughts. Hoping that it would help, Xander asked a different question: "Was that why you wanted to see us?"
Giles took a moment longer to lift his glasses up and peer at the lenses from a distance, before he hooked them back over his ears. Shoving his handkerchief back into his pocket, he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "No," he said and his voice was firm and calm again. "Although it was on a related matter that I wished to speak to you, Xander. I only just learned about Amy. Principal Snyder called a brief teachers' meeting, to inform us all. Apparently it happened two days ago, but the police didn't notify the school and it was only when she was still missing from class..."
Buffy sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth when she asked again, "How did Amy die?" Xander looked over at her and saw that she was holding herself perfectly still.
Giles came towards them and reached out his hand, but aborted the move before he touched. "No, Buffy," he said gently. "She was stabbed."
"So it wasn't vampires?" Giles shook his head. She didn't look convinced. "What else could it be?"
"Any number of things, I imagine, but on this occasion it would appear to be human malice, not supernatural. Her father is missing." Detouring around them, he walked over to the check-out desk.
Buffy turned on the spot, following him with her eyes. Willow hadn't moved since Giles broke the news and Xander wanted to comfort her, but she was still shying away from him, every time he went to touch her, so he walked over to the table and propped himself against it, instead. Crossing his arms over his chest he asked, "Are you sure it wasn't vampires?"
Buffy turned slowly back to look at him. "Because she did your spell and Angelus got caught up in it, you mean?"
Xander shrugged.
Giles looked up. "On the whole, I doubt it," he said. "She was in her home."
Nodding, Buffy relaxed a little, and Willow seemed to pull herself out of her thoughts. She came over to take a seat at the table, a few places away from Xander.
Giles cleared his throat. "The reason I asked you to come," he said, addressing Xander directly, "is because I interviewed Amy again, after our last conversation, and I learnt more about her spell. She said she had a teacher, a woman, who showed her how to improve it." He raised an eyebrow and Xander was pleased to see that he seemed to be recovering his equanimity.
"A woman?" Xander asked. "Did she describe her?"
"No, she didn't." Giles' lips twisted in a faint smile. "She merely said that she wasn't a wrinkled old crone, but I've got the impression she was well versed in magic."
Buffy had been following this exchange, her gaze swinging from one to the other and back. "So you think that if we can find the teacher, we might find out what the spell was supposed to do?" Giles nodded. "And maybe," Buffy continued, "a motive for Amy's murder?"
Giles pursed his lips, thoughtfully. "I hadn't actually considered that," he admitted. "With her father missing..."
Willow looked up. "Her Dad was devoted to her," she said fiercely. "After her mom threw him out, he never saw Amy. She told me, he was so happy to be back in her life, they were always spending time together."
Buffy nodded in agreement. "It's true," she said.
"And yet she found the time to study magic?" Giles asked.
"Her dad works shifts at LSM, in the new industrial park, the one off the freeway," Buffy explained. "She would still have had time by herself."
Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had simply assumed," he said, "that because she was at home..." He trailed off, thoughtfully. After a moment, he turned to Willow. "Willow, can you look up the coroner's report and see if Amy's unfortunate murder was indeed -"
"Supernaturally related?" Willow interrupted. "On it." She stood up and went over to the computer at the opposite end of the table, sat down and immediately started clicking away at the keys.
Giles glanced around the check-out counter, looking for something. Apparently spotting the book he was after, he picked it up, but didn't open it. Instead, he turned around to face them. "Amy's spell was very advanced," he said. "Far beyond what I would expect, given what I've learnt of her other experiments. It had layers of enchantment, which built upon each other."
"Like an onion?" Xander asked.
"More like a house of cards. Taking out the lowest level first would have caused a catastrophic collapse, with serious consequences to your continued well being. Maybe to your life." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Xander. I could have killed you, as easily as Spike."
Xander gulped. The idea of his life and the word catastrophe, put together, was not appealing, no matter how many near apocalypses he'd already managed to survive.
"It has to be dismantled, layer by layer," Giles explained. "Thankfully, the pendant charm was linked to the uppermost layer - the love spell aimed at Cordelia." He paused and looked at each of them, before continuing. "I think I got everything I need to remove the deeper layers."
Turning to Xander he explained, "Amy used your blood, to bind you. The original spell was supposed to use the feminine principle to tie Cordelia through the love token you gave her." He opened the book at a place marked by a couple of sheets of paper inserted between the pages. Picking up one of the sheets, he turned it to display a large diagram of a circle with a cross attached to its lower curve. "This was the intended symbol. The interference created by introducing the masculine principle," he put the book down and, picking up the other piece of paper, showed them another symbol. This time the circle had an arrow pointing out from it, attached to the top right edge, and it was drawn on tracing paper, "caused the spell to invert." He held the second sheet in front of the first and Xander saw that the two drawings combined to make the symbol that Amy had used on the floor of the chem lab. "That's why Cordelia was unaffected, but every other woman," Giles' lips quirked and he shot Xander a sly glance, "was not so lucky." Slapping the papers down on the counter next to the book, he continued, "What I'm not certain about is why Amy introduced the masculine element in the first place. It makes no sense." His voice made clear his frustration, if his movements hadn't already done so. "Willow, are you...? Um, have you managed to...?"
Willow looked up, over the top of the monitor. "Nearly there, Giles. I just need to..." She looked down. "Yes, I think..." She trailed off with a frown of renewed concentration.
Buffy had wandered across to peer over Willow's shoulder and Xander saw that they were both deeply engrossed. He stayed where he was, there was something tickling at the back of his mind, something Giles had just said didn't make sense. Or it did, but there was something missing.
Under other circumstances he'd have been amused at the way Giles seemed to take it as a personal slight that he couldn't fathom Amy's motives. Unfortunately, these weren't other circumstances. At that moment Xander's Yoda brain proved its worth again, providing him with a sudden suspicion that he did know what Amy had been doing.
He walked across to Giles. "I don't know why she did it, but I think I know what she did," he whispered, herding Giles towards the doors.
Giles allowed himself to be herded, until they were in the corridor and out of earshot, then he stopped. "What?" he asked.
Now that the moment was upon him, Xander didn't know how to start. "Um, during the spell... er... I, I told you about how Angelus was his usual wacky, charming self, yeah?" Giles nodded. "And Drusilla seemed as affected as all the other women." Again Giles nodded and Xander took a deep breath to steady himself. "But that doesn't explain Spike, and me, and what happened to us," he said. "More importantly, why us? Why Spike? Amy didn't know anything about Spike."
Giles face froze in a mask of annoyed recognition. "How could I have been so stupid?" he asked. "Are you suggesting that Drusilla was mixed up in this, somehow?" He unhooked his glasses and pulled them off. "I must admit, the complexity of that spell..." He paused, tapping one arm of his glasses against his lower lip. Xander watched, fascinated by the way his lips curved. "I take it," Giles said, pulling Xander back to their conversation, "that is what you're suggesting, that Drusilla was Amy's mysterious teacher?"
"Er... no, I hadn't got that far." Xander cast a quick glance through the glass porthole in the door and saw Buffy looking around the room as if she'd just noticed that they'd disappeared. She wouldn't respect his need for privacy for long. "But she was there that night."
"I need to look at that book again." Giles said.
Another glance through the window showed that Buffy was indeed heading doorwards. "Please, don't say anything to the girls," he begged. "Buffy knows about Angelus. Well, you know that, because you've spoken to her. I told her that Spike took me from Drusilla, but I didn't tell her anything about what happened after that. Just that you broke the spell and I got away. She hasn't gotten around to asking more, so please don't say anything, okay?"
Xander reached for the door, pushing it open. With a nod of understanding, Giles allowed Xander to usher him back into the library. "I will probably need a few more details," he said, as he passed, "to counter the spell." Xander could hear the smile in his voice and he could have murdered Giles for teasing him at such a moment. Instead he simply dodged Buffy's questioning look and developed a sudden and overpowering interest in Willow's research.
Note 1: I take no responsibility for the butt/bust joke. That was
sparrow_2000 *g* Just thought I should award the *cough* credit *cough* where it was due.Note 2: I am aware that Xander didn't actually know that Larry was 'out' until the season 3 episode 'Earshot', but it was more fun to have him come out in season 2.
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