BUFFY 2029 A.D.: Locators
by Miles
“Because I’m still not Buffy’s hapless sidekick,” Willow says testily. “That’s why. The message we left Buffy will be sufficient.”

“But you said yourself that whoever we’re up against is more powerful than you are,” Dawn reasons.

“We won’t confront anyone,” explains Willow. “Just doing a little recon.”

“OK, then,” Dawn relents. She eyes the pentagram that Willow had painted on her hand in their hotel room and waved over the locator map and then over a candle as she chanted a formula. “How does this work?”

They were climbing the hill on the old Right Bank. To their left they could see the stonework of the city’s oldest church: big, but long since supplanted as Geneva’s tallest structure. Nearby, Dawn knew there were many historic places: The first headquarters of the International Red Cross, the house where George Elliot stayed when she visited Geneva in 1850, the meeting center where the 2119 European Constitution was signed, making the Union less centralized and replacing Brussels with Geneva as its capital—although the presidential residence is now on the Left Bank.

“Basically, we’re using this to locate the source of the psychic signal that’s been jamming our locator spell,” says Willow. “Jamming us was a nifty trick, but the jamming spell itself leaves its own trace.”

“That signal is has no physical dimensions, though,” says Dawn. “How are we going to narrow down its point of origin?”

“Well, you see how the pentagram glows on my palm? It’s been glowing more and more since we left the hotel. It’s getting stronger the closer we get to the origin of the jamming spell.”

“So it must be coming from this part of town.”

“Absolutely,” says Willow. “In fact, it must be coming from somewhere within a block of where we are now.”

***

Pinault knocks on the door of the Ravana brothers’ hotel room. Ravi opens the door and scowls at the visitor.

“Come in before someone sees you,” he says. “Were you followed?”

“Certainly not,” says Pinault.

“You took an enormous risk coming here,” says Karna.

“It doesn’t really matter anymore. In an hour the Bourse will open and the plan will be engaged. No one will be able to do anything about it.”

“There is the matter of the Slayer and her friends, one of whom concerns us particularly.”

“Oh, the one that is supposed to be a witch? I mean no offense, but you fellows are far too superstitious. I have slept with this Slayer who so worried you, and she is smart, but not that smart. And….”

“What?”

“Well, I would not, last night, have said that she poses any physical threat, but this morning…. No, it must have been that I was just off balance.”

“You saw her this morning?” asks Karna.

“She came into the bank.”

“She’s on to you, of course.” Ravi says.

“But too late,” insists Pinault.

“I thought you had her barred from the building,” says Karna. “How did she get in?”

“I do not know. Perhaps she is clever and resourceful as you say,” says Pinault thoughtfully, “but a superhero? No way.”

Someone knocks on the door. From the lowness of the impact, it is more correct to say that someone is kicking the door.

“What is this?” asks Ravi to no one in particular. “Mumbai Central?”

He opens the door to find the hulking vampire with Willow and Dawn in each of his fists, held tightly by the scruffs of their collars.

“Just going to do a little recon, huh?” says Dawn.

“Not the time to discuss this,” observes Willow.

“Well, well, well. Bring them in,” says Ravi. “Monsieur Pinault, I do not believe you have met our associate, Mr. Varney.” Pinault’s jaw drops as he sees the hideous green hulk, but Ravi ignores this and continues, “It would seem that you were followed after all, Pinault. This is Ms. Rosenberg, the witch you weren’t worried about, and this is Dawn Summers, Buffy’s sister. Be a good fellow, Mr. Varney, and deposit those two over there.”

As Ravi watches the monster usher the women into the living room, he notices Willow rubbing the palm of her hand against her thigh. “Wait!” He steps forward and grabs Willow’s wrist, drawing her toward his brother and Pinault. Willow’s attempt to hide her hand is futile as Ravi twists it until both he and his brother are inspecting the fading pentagram still glowing slightly on the palm.

“We owe you an apology, Monsieur Pinault,” says Ravi. “Ms. Rosenberg was not following you but—in a manner of speaking—she has followed us.”

“So you were jamming our locator spell,” concludes Willow. “And you are THE Ravana brother’s.”

“Not all. We have other brothers,” says Ravi.

“But we are the smartest,” says Karna.

“And the handsomest,” Ravi adds.

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