Fifty
21 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet
This would be tricky, thought the man in the white silk shirt. How do you get a vampire to want a soul? Really want it? How do you get anyone to know they want a soul; or even don’t have one?
Finally, as he looked down at the sprawled out body of the brit on the floor, Loki sighed. Simple minds were simple problems. Simple problems often required simple solutions. Almost... Pavlovian solutions...
“Charlie,” Loki said gently, nudging the sleeping form with his shoe. “Blood, Charlie... Charlie: Blood.” The vampire stiffened and murmured in his sleep. Loki smiled. “Mmm, delicious, warm blood.”
“Mmm,” Charlie moaned, his tongue running across his teeth.
“Mmm, soul,” the conjurer went on. “Soul, mmm....” he toned it to mimic the vampire’s hungry moan. “Soul and all the delicious blood there is. Mmm, warm, delicious soul.”
“Mmm, soul,” the vamp crooned. Then he awoke with a start. He blinked for a moment, looking up at the conjurer with a confused expression. Then the water hit his face and he screamed with agony.
Loki stood over him with the empty paper cup in his hand. He nodded, satisfied, as the vampire writhed and twisted in the glow of the light from his own eyes. Before the writhing and glowing had faded, Loki turned and left the cell, closing the heavy door to speak to the monk waiting on the other side. “And then there were three.”
“Three sir?” the monk asked uncertainly, but Loki waved him off.
“I’ll be in America until further notice. See that everything is prepared.” The monk bowed and Loki turned to leave but stopped short of rounding the corner. “One more thing,” he held up a finger, “if Mr. Osborne returns, looking for me–” the conjurer recalled the werewolf’s status as a ‘player,’ “–don’t, under any circumstances, tell him where I’ve gone or why.”
The monk raised a perplexed eyebrow. “As you wish.”
Loki nodded with satisfaction. He had no doubt whatsoever that Oz would be playing for the ‘good side’ in whatever game this was —if he were truly a player as Tory intimated— that wasn’t what bothered the conjurer. What bothered Loki was who’s view of ‘good’ defined the ‘side’ Oz would find himself on. It certainly wasn’t Loki’s game: he didn’t even know the rules. Thus, caution was warranted.
There was —as usual— much to be done, and little time to do it. Planes had recently lost their appeal. They took too much time and allowed him to think for too long about how things might go wrong. Teleportation was even hurting less. He was becoming immune to the headaches that used to plague him.
“Will you be leaving presently, sir?” the monk asked before the conjurer could turn away.
Loki paused. “There’s one thing I need first.”
The black globe sat unobtrusively on the cobbles at the extreme rear of the monastery’s gardens. It was the largest Dagon Sphere. It had been soaking up the sun now for a week, as explained by the late master Haargan. Its surface showed not even a sheen from the morning sun. Now it was ready.
Two hands took it’s smooth surface and set it in a duffle bag. Let the games begin.
21 June, 2002, Sunnydale
The sun wouldn’t rise yet for another few hours. Time zones were funny things. Loki found himself almost at home in the shadows here. He had been here almost as often as L.A. Only in the shadows, however, did he feel at home here.
With a breath of the unusually cool night air, he sank to a crouch behind a small tree. It was not the tree that provided cover, however, but the fabric of reality: the darkness itself. He set the tiny glass orb in the grass by the tree. Its size and color reminded him of the littlest sphere – left where it only needed be found once more – but the weight and feel were all wrong. This was not a sphere to bring peace. This sphere brought death on eight legs. He had only ever done this once before, but he knew —with a little insight from Wilson— that it would work.
Within seconds, the tiny egg-like thing cracked open and a baby spider wriggled out, scampering back and forth among the blades of grass.
Loki looked up from his cloak of invisibility to see a form strutting arrogantly towards the shop across the way. The conjurer shook his head. It would be so easy, his mind told him. Kill him now. But no. The timing was not yet right. If he acted rashly, everything might be ruined. Instead, Loki drew the picture of Hanna from his pocket and held it out of the impenetrable shadow for the spider to see. The spider gave a small hiss and scampered off, growing larger by the minute.
Spike paused a few meters from the door to the Magic Box to have a smoke. He watched impassively, as the minutes passed, as the cat-sized spider darting from shadow to shadow grew to the size of a small car. Only when he was done with his cigarette, though, did he turn his attention back to the Magic Box. After all: there was no smoking in there.
“Evening,” the vampire said, “just thought you blokes might want to know, there’s a large spider-like thing roamin’ n’ ransackin’, the whole deal.” With a satisfied sigh he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck to one side. “Well,” he nodded, “I’ll be off then, just given’ you lot fair warning.” He turned and the small bell above the door rang again as he left. With a snap, he raised the collar on his duster. “Ooh, chilly in’it?”
Spike left the scrambling bunch and meandered over to the nearest tree to lean back and watch. As he pulled another smoke from his pack and flicked his lighter open, a voice came from nowhere, making his jump. “You like to watch, do you?”
Spike whirled on the source of the voice but could see nothing. “Who’s that, then?” he demanded, tossing out the freshly lit cigarette.
“You’re a useless coward and you’re disgraceful,” the voice answered.
The vampire scoffed. “Look, pal, nothin’ much more useless and cowardly than a bloody disembodied voice. I’m trying to watch the show, sod off.”
The voice, now very close to the blond haired vamp’s ear, was filled with almost giddy anticipation. “I think nothing in this world will bring me more joy than killing you–”
Spike turned around again, his hands up, ready for a fight, but the voice and its source were gone. After several uneasy minutes, during which the newly ensoulled vampire questioned his regained sanity, he resigned himself to spending the rest of the night in the relative sanity and safety of his crypt. He never heard the scream.
22 June, 2002, Sunnydale
Dawn was quiet on the way home from school. The highschool year was almost over. Since Willow and Tara’s semester ended in April, they were usually available to pick her up after class. Normally, the three of them chatted away the car ride, but today the two witches seemed to pick up on the teen’s quiet mood and were silent. It was Tara who finally broke the silence.
“You didn’t have to go to school today,” Tara said gently. “We would have understood.”
Dawn was slow to respond. “It’s okay,” she said at last. “School’s fine. I– I’m feeling better today... really.” She spoke to the motherly worry in the older girl’s eyes.
“Gotta love that Osiris,” Willow said, trying to make a joke, ignorant of the hand Tara placed on her leg. “Always there to make you feel better... n’ alive.” She made a weak laugh but Dawn was silent.
“Did you have that dream again last night?” Tara asked, trying to change the subject. “The ‘pedestrian crossing’ dream?”
“I don’t remember,” Dawn lied. After several long moments, the teen leaned in between the two front seats. “What... what would a wicca-wise person say, you know, theoretically, if I were to ask why the dreams were getting worse?”
Tara turned around almost completely in the passenger seat, her look of concern increasing. “Sh- she might say that the unconscious split inside you was growing and that some part of you was afraid that eventually it would swallow you up.”
“What dreams?” asked Willow, trying to turn around and keep her eyes on the road at the same time.
“A- and how would she recommend I resolve it, assuming I didn’t ever want to have another dream that scary again?”
Tara was quiet for some time, almost to the point where Dawn thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she did. “She’d tell you to find someone with experience in these kinds of things—” Tara switched immediately into mother-mode, “—Dawn, sometimes a dream is just a dream, no matter how scary. I can give you some herbs that will let you get some dreamless sleep if you’d like.”
Dawn was impassive. She had listened only to what the wicca-wise person had said. With the question that now plagued her, since yesterday’s discovery and confirmation that she was in fact a Specter, there was only one person to see. But it wasn’t dark yet; he’d be sleeping in the basement.
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