Buffy & The Four Ch. 03

Through the essence of Hate, which she was deliberately keeping in check so that the girls did not go wild and destructive, she could sense the women's heartbeats, their feelings, their thoughts.

It was such a rush!

Power like this was unbelievable and it left her laughing with joy. Even so, she had to really focus to pull Buffy back from the brink of rebellion and slip her back into the submissive place she needed to be. It was proving far more difficult than she had hoped to subdue the wills of these three particular women.

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The group were all sat in a rough circle on the hastily cleared floor of the small room.

"Right. Any suggestions?" Faith seemed to have taken over Buffy's role of group leader. Giles did not appear to mind in the least, even showing signs of a little pride as she lost the reckless streak and selflessly assumed the burden.

"Buffy said something about a 'dark mistress'," Dawn remembered.

"That will help," Giles noted. "At least we can focus our efforts on female adversaries. It is looking more likely that the Daughters of Gaia are involved."

"I am sure that they are possessed by something tangible," Tara stated.

"Really?" the Watcher asked, very interested. "As opposed to something more magical? Why do you say that?"

When the entire group turned their attention to her, she lost her confidence, ducked her head and gave them a nervous half-smile. "I..I s..s..saw the way B..Buffy's hands changed and all that black stuff came out. Did anyone else?"

"I got a close up in fist-o-vision," Faith grumbled.

"Yes, of course!" Giles gasped, so loud that all the group except Faith ducked and cast a worried glance to the slumbering form of Ru. She was tangled in the sheets of the bed, restless even when asleep. "A metamorphic parasitic substance!"

"Nice example of your mega-brain vocabulary, G-man, but I think the rest of us are going to need you to say it in English."

"There are basically two types of possession. The most common is when a spirit or soul enters the victim and just usurps control of the body."

"Do you think Buffy is a Hyena, then?" Xander asked, looking worried. "'Cos I gotta say, not a good thing."

"No, this is different. When the Hyena souls took over you, Kyle, Tor, Rhonda and Heidi, you became primal spirits; possessed by animal. Veruca here," he gestured toward the sleeping woman on the bed, "is a variation of a primal spirit. Except in the werewolf, it is his or her animal nature coming to the fore rather than man being suppressed by an animal's will."

"You said there were two types of possession," Dawn reminded him. If Giles was not kept on track in his discussions he would often lecture for ages on a tangent to the topic he started with.

"Quite. The other is for the sorcerer, or witch, to use a tool to facilitate the possession."

Xander nudged Faith. "He's using the big words again. Make him stop."

"Most commonly," the Watcher continued, ignoring the young man, "it will be a device like an amulet, a crystal or a ring. However, there have been instances of meta..." Seeing the glassy look drop over their eyes, he simplified his explanation. "Sometimes a living liquid can be used to suffuse the host's body and take control."

"Ew!" Dawn voiced for the group. "Why?"

"Well that too is twofold. One, if it has a rudimentary sentience, it can sense the victim and also when to attack. Things like amulets and rings need the victim actually to put them on, whereas a living entity can choose its host, or even pursue him. Two, because it is alive, it can support emotion. This makes it quite potent. Emotions are at the core of our being and we access different ones for our behaviour. According to Mystical theologians, there is no question that the most powerful emotion of all is love. After that you have hate and then fear and so on."

"So love really does makes the world go round," Xander quipped.

Again, Giles ignored him. "If imbued with an emotive content the liquid becomes far stronger, but it does require vast magical skill to do something like that. Whatever emotion is used will influence the behaviour of the victim - love will lead to them becoming romantic, sexual and loving, hate to destructive, violent and rebellious, fear to..."

"You're talking about an essence, aren't you?" Tara said, suddenly catching on.

"It seems most likely to me," he confirmed.

"What's an essence?" Dawn said, glancing from the young witch to the Watcher.

"Usually it is made from the blood of the witch," Tara explained. "I have heard of it being things like water or tree sap or the tears of a virgin, though blood is definitely the most effective. Blood is life and in the mystical realms that is powerful."

"So would it help to know what emotion is its base?" Dawn asked.

"I'm guessing from the way Buffy went Norman Bates when she used me for a punchbag it's not something fluffy like love or happiness," Faith said, sourly.

"I don't know enough about the lore for such possession to be able to tell you how we could end it," Giles admitted, filled with the feeling that he had let them all down by his lack of knowledge on the subject. After all, knowledge was a Watcher's primary function in his partnership with the Slayer.

When the group turned to look at Tara, she shook her head also. "It is an area that requires far more power than I have. I try to study such things to help Willow, but she would never wish to possess someone, so it was an something I didn't concentrate on."

"Then how are we going to find out what we need to know?" Dawn asked.

"Darn it!" Xander sighed. "I knew I shoulda listened to that door-to-door salesman when he said that encyclopaedia had everything in it I could possibly want to know."

"All the books that I would need are in the Magic Box," Giles answered her. "Without doubt, Buffy and the others will be keeping a close eye on there for us and so it is far too risky to try to gain entry."

"I'll do it," Faith said, standing up.

"No," Giles said firmly. "It is too dangerous, even for you. We need another way."

"Which is?"

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Gohnarth blinked as his vision altered back to just from his two eyes, instead of the eight belonging to the tiny spider in the corner of the ceiling in Ru's bedsit.

"It seems that the present Watcher is quite adept at his job," the Elder demon mused.

He was talking to Azaroth, but there were others nearby, also. A couple of Hagna demons were knelt at the edge of his slime pool, awaiting his grace to deliver their report on the running of the Machina Demonica; a small Samarlis fiend sat nearby, licking its own genitalia; three Freylaks dragged a screaming Hopnarth toward the feeding pits and, in the distant shadows of the great throne room, a huge Darkling tirelessly kept guard.

"Will the human interfere with our plans, master?" Azaroth asked.

"Perhaps. It seems likely, but is of no consequence, though. Even now, the Daughters are beginning to lose control over their puppets. The Slayer is slipping loose and the other two will follow soon; Ruth used far too much Hate in her spell."

"Maybe you should send the witch a message to tell her," the large demon suggested.

"What, and spoil the fun of watching her frustration? I think not. Ruth is a very determined young female and quite capable of sorting out this problem. Then again, if the Slayer's group does stop the Daughters, I win that way too because it just means I get the girl's soul so much quicker."

"May I use her too, this time, milord?"

Gohnarth grinned and revealed his needle-like teeth. "Oh, I think when she comes to settle her payment, every servant I have should take a turn." His hissing laughter filled the room and sent chills through the bodies of all who heard it.

++++++++++

"Are you really sure about this, Mr Giles?" Tara whispered, as they both knelt and drew the circles and triangles needed for the binding. The whole group of fugitives, minus Xander, had descended to the basement in the apartment building where Veruca lived before being given their own tasks to do by the Watcher.

"I am open to suggestion if you can think of another way," he answered as he chalked a sigil inside the north point. He had to blink to clear his eyes; he had been getting a headache and the throbbing in his neck seemed to be spreading. It did not worry him for some reason, it was just uncomfortable.

The young witch sat back on her heels for a moment. "Imps are the original liars and purveyors of deceit. How can we trust it?"

"That, we must never do. However, we still need to gain the information."

"Do you think we can find a way to convince it to tell the truth?"

"I have a couple of methods in mind. Have you committed the ceremony to memory?"

"Yes. It's a variant of a blessing ceremony we use for Gaia."

"It is? What blessing is... No, tell me later, best to concentrate on one thing at once."

"According to most of the texts I have read, imps usually require dreadful bargains to gain their compliance and help."

"Yes."

"What should I do if it requires one of me?"

"What you must. Remember, this is our only way to help Buffy, Anya and Willow."

"Then I will m..meet his b..bargain," she stuttered, her nervousness showing in her speech. For a woman who could wield such magic, Tara was unusually self-conscious and timid. In fact, only her love for Willow seemed to negate it. As she changed her red chalk for a white piece, the young witch readjusted the bandage wrapped around the back of her hand and her palm. "Where do you suppose Faith will find some parchment made from the dried skin of a Vahrall demon?"

"I have no idea. We have one sheet at the shop, but she cannot go there."

Tara frowned. "And why do you suppose she insisted on taking Veruca with her?"

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"I don't like this."

"You said."

"I'm better suited to hunting during a full moon."

"Yeah, you said that too."

Ru gave the Slayer a black look and continued through the trees. "You haven't said why I'm doing this."

"Because I told you to," Faith replied, hardly paying attention. Her senses were almost fully occupied taking in her surroundings. Her eyes scanned the woods around them, noting every small movement of branch and leaf, while her ears listened to the sounds of a wary forest. It had been a couple of minutes since she had heard birdsong and so she knew something was close as they waded through the waist high bracken. "Still following the scent?"

"Yes." The surly blonde thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her ankle length black leather coat. "It went this way."

"Just 'cos it went that way, don't mean that that is the way it will come when we find it," the Slayer warned, narrowing her eyes on a squirrel that suddenly fled from a tree about thirty feet ahead of them and to the right. "It may know you're tracking it."

"Well, duh! Every beast for a mile knows we're coming; you stomp through the undergrowth like a bull elephant. The noise you make has surely given us away."

"And your whinging hasn't?"

"I didn't start making a sound until your clumsy blundering had alerted everything in the forest. Don't you know anything about hunting?"

"Sure. When I hunt it ends in violence and then the quarry's death."

The blonde got a wistful look upon her face, "Yeah. I miss that."

Faith stopped and hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her denim jeans. "Miss hunting humans?"

"Every day," the singer admitted, not getting the sarcasm. "The thrill of the chase; the screams as my claws shred flesh; the gurgles; the taste... Oh the taste! Oz doesn't know how hard it is."

Snorting her disgust, Faith restarted following the lycanthrope. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted some ferns around the base of the squirrel tree moving in a way not caused by a breeze. She acted nonchalant, not showing that she had seen.

"So, is Oz a good fuck? I noticed that he is rather blessed in a certain department when we fought Mobadon and Spike."

Veruca turned around so that she was walking backward as she grinned from ear to ear. "He's amazing! The guy can go all night! And he is pretty good when he is the wolf too."

"Urgh. Too much information, Ru." As she spoke, she saw the blonde motion with her eyes over to the twitching ferns. The Slayer winked to show that she had also noticed.

"Does Oz chain you up?"

"Sometimes, when I ask him to. I like a little S and M."

"I actually meant when you're the wolf, but tell me more anyway."

"Oh. When it's a full moon we lock ourselves in his cage. The chains are only used for sex games."

"Isn't the talisman that you keep fondling working?"

"Huh?" Veruca glanced down at her wrist and seemed to notice the little clay disk hanging from the cord wrapped there for the first time. "Oh, this? It helps. But chaining the wolf takes far more than just this little thing. There's meditation, chanting and herb drinks, all surrounding the desire not to change. I tend to struggle with that last bit and so the whole thing is not usually successful." She shrugged. "So for the three nights of the moon, I get put in the cage. Oz doesn't need to join me, but he usually does."

As they chatted, they walked with seemingly little destination, however, they did alter course to take them past the place where the ferns had moved. When they got close enough, the Vahrall demon leapt out to attack.

Like all its species, it did so in silence. For a Vahrall, it seemed pretty average; being about six and a half foot tall and powerfully muscled. Its skin was a dark green and covered in small but thick scales. Its hands had inch-long yellow fingernails and the yellow in them was matched by the colour of the fat porcupine quills that jutted from the back of its head instead of hair. Its mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth and above that it had two bright red eyes. Between those eyes, there was a small stub of horn that rose about an inch from its forehead. The creature was dressed in dark brown sackcloth pants and wore a sheepskin jerkin.

It was totally shocked that the two young women just slipped apart so that it landed between them. Ru calmly walked backward out of the way to give Faith room to manoeuvre as she exploded into action, spinning into a roundhouse kick while she danced away from the creature's attack. Her foot struck the Vahrall in the chest and it felt like she had slammed a brick wall.

"You know, it would help my ego if you could at least pretend that hurt," she bantered, as she ducked its vicious talons and hammered punch after punch into its padded chest. On instinct, she bent backward and felt the breeze of its return punch as it whistled past her chin. Going with the motion, she reached back over her head, placed her hands on the mossy ground and kicked the beast twice in the face as she cartwheeled away.

Silently, the demon followed and rushed right into an uppercut that knocked it off its feet as the Slayer reversed course and lunged forward. When it hit the ground, the beast drove a foot into Faith's gut to force her back and then flipped upright.

"Are you going to make it show us where it keeps the parchment, or play with it?" Ru jibbed as she folded her arms over her breasts and leant against a tree.

The demon unleashed a punch that was destined to powder bone when it hit. This time, instead of dodging away, Faith stepped forward inside the arc of its reach. One forearm stopped the demon's swing dead and her other hand closed like a vice on its other wrist. Grappled like that, the fiend could not retreat when she blasted her knee into its groin and the Vahrall doubled up. Which, although not strictly a choice, was a bad move because Faith's headbutt crashed into its nose with a loud crunch. The Vahrall staggered backward as the Slayer reached around her back and withdrew a deadly combat knife from the waistband of her jeans.

It was her pride and joy; a thing of beauty, with gleaming steel and a double blade. Before the demon could stop tottering, she was upon it and plunged the weapon straight into its heart. The creature lifelessly crashed to the ground, making the waist high bracken ripple outward, looking like a pond with a stone thrown in.

"Great!" Ru groaned. "We track the only thing that could show us where we can find some of that parchment and you kill it! Way to go, Slayer."

Faith ignored her, bent over the carcass and yanked it over onto its face. After slicing off its jerkin, she cut a large rectangular piece of skin from its back. Standing, she used the edge of the knife to scrape the gore and flesh from the underside of the skin, then flashed a devilish grin at the perplexed werewolf.

"Got a hair dryer at your place?"

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"The thing is, I kinda like Summers, you know?"

Jody nodded.

"She's still nice to me, even after what we did to her guy pal. What's-his-name... Xander," Mary told her.

They were walking through the crowded pathways at Sunnydale University, books clasped to their breasts. Although they were heading against the main flow of people, somehow the throng seemed to part around them; nobody wanted to attract the attention of these two Goths. There was just something about them that set them apart and made the other students unconsciously wary.

It was nothing to do with the fact that they were dressed identical with black silk blouses; black miniskirts; knee high black lace-up boots; their wrists almost hidden by a mass of bangles, from the plain leather straps to fancy silver loops; their eyes heavily shrouded in dark purple eyeshadow, their lips with black lipstick and their fingernails with black nail polish. What set these two girls apart was something more ethereal; they just seemed to give off an air of 'mess with me and you'll be sorry'.

"He was a good fuck too, wasn't he?"

"Ahuh," Jody grinned. "Even though he did think we were Summers and friends."

Mary paused hugging her books tighter as she frowned. "I think Ruth has lost it, Jodes. She can't see anything else other than her revenge for Megan."

Jody stopped and turned to stare at her friend. "You trying to say you wanna quit? Cause, hello? Ruth would be seriously P O'd about it."

Mary looked into Jody's eyes, searching for a moment, then sighed and shook her head. "No, that's not what I want. I just hate it that that Willow chick gave us a second chance and it looks like we're gonna blow it."

Jody laughed as they started to walk again. "Kinda think we did that when we used the essence of Hate to possess Summers' sister, the witch and the shop girl."

Mary nodded. "Do you think that once the whole group are under the influence of the Hate, and therefore us, Ruth will be satisfied?"

"No way. She wants blood for what happened to Meg. I think she is gonna do something really bad to Summers' sister Buffy and that Willow gal."

They strolled through the grounds, heading for their class. Neither noticed that they were being followed or that Xander had gotten close enough to hear what they had said.

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Dawn was sitting impatiently at the back of the room, watching Giles help Tara rehearse the invocation to summon an imp when Faith and Ru returned.

"This do ya?" the Slayer asked, handing Giles a large piece of skin.

The Watcher made a disgusted face as he examined it. "This is hardly parchment. In fact, it hasn't been cured at all. Where did you get it?"

"Wal-Mart. Next dumb question?"

The Watcher blinked patiently through his spectacles until Faith sighed. "Ru tracked a Vahrall, I slayed. Will it do?"

"Well, in theory, yes. It is Vahrall skin and it is dry enough for Tara to write the compact upon it, but it is not quite what I had in mind."

"Good. Over to you, Blondie." The Chosen and Ru walked across to Dawn and sat down with their backs to the wall and their elbows resting on their knees.