Are you getting bored with reading these yet? theyr'e not mine, they're Joss's, except Hypnos and the ploy.
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Part Ten
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Hypnos was in trouble now, and he knew it. While the symbol was done -- and thus, supposedly, everyone asleep now under his spell -- that anti-siren up in the play-by-play booth was disrupting the waves, the luscious wave, of somnolence!
How in Hades had she known?
And, more importantly HOW could he have had such bad luck to come to the town, to the one town, that had the one woman with JUST the right caliber of bad voice to interfere?
Worse luck yet! -- someone had survived who knew spells at least well enough to weaken his own. So if, by some twist from that hideously unprincipled bitch called fate, the horrible singer in the booth completed her song, his earlier spell would also be over.
There was no way to get up there that didn't involve tearing down the stadium -- but there would be other ways of stopping her, oh yes there would. So he searched the mayor's office while at the same time he scouted around and looked for the school's main electrical box.
Thank the Gods that City Hall wasn't that far from the school.
The electrical box was to shut off the power; the mayor's office was for the powder used in the spell.
The power was for prevention; the powder was for revenge.
* * *
Xander finished chanting the spell -- miracle of miracles, near as he could tell he'd done it right -- and then allowed Cordy to shove him out of the way and start singing again with a vengeance. There was an aura, an electricity, to the song this time that hadn't been there before.
"Nice going," Xander said.
"You were too close to the situation," Angel said. "Was there any reaction when you finished chanting the spell?"
"Well, this one girl threw me her underwear --" he began, but this time he didn't even wait for the inevitable glare to begin before he got serious. "No, not really."
"I was hoping everyone would wake up and this would all be over. The symbol must be too strong. Still, if you chanted it right, it should have some effect." Another person smashed against the door, and Angel grunted but held firm.
"How long can you keep holding that door?"
"As long as it takes Cordelia to finish singing . . . or sunrise, whichever comes first." One more blow, one more grunt, one more time the door held. "Tell me, do you know the number of a good chiropractor?"
Xander blinked. That couldn't have been . . . "Did you just make a joke?"
"Chalk it up to your bad influence," the vampire answered.
Then further conversation became impossible as the aura and power of Cordelia's song began to fill the booth and go beyond. Xander staggered over to one side of the small room, holding his stomach, and looked outside. The symbol was shaking like it was the center of a very tiny earthquake. All over, people were dropping to the ground, returning to their feet, and being knocked back down by the power of the song. It was working!
And then the power went out.
* * *
The number of people Hypnos could keep control of with his powers as they normally were was still fairly impressive -- but it wasn't nearly an entire town, though over the past couple of weeks he had taken control of almost everyone at some time or other, to test his limitations.
With the sound disrupting his glorious symbol, Hypnos relinquished his hold on all but fifty of them, concentrating first on getting the electricity shut off and second on getting the white powder into the face of one specific person.
The powder got there first; it was a lot easier to find. The person in question inhaled the powder; now, no matter what spell was cast, she'd be under his control long enough to exact his revenge.
And then, success! The power was shut off . . .
and so the singing would end, and victory, though delayed, was his!
* * *
Cordelia had been just about to start the third verse when all of a sudden the lights and the microphone cut out.
Angel and Xander both began to swear . . . and then realized something:
HER VOICE WAS STILL CARRYING.
* * *
In point of fact, Cordelia, caught up in the magic of her own voice, hadn't even noticed that the microphone had cut out as she began the third verse of the song.
She wasn't the only one caught in the magic, either. Dimly, below, those whom Hypnos had relinquished control over -- and most of those he did -- were slowly becoming aware of a sound. A beautiful, radiant, compelling sound, drawing them out of their states of unconsciousness, slowly but surely. To many -- to most -- it was the most wonderful thing they had ever heard.
Yes, the voice of Cordelia Chase, the most wonderful thing they'd ever heard. Hard to believe, isn't it?
Cordelia was oblivious to this. She was oblivious to everything except the song she was singing:
"You left open the window till the morning and the winter walked in . . . reality fired her wooden bullet, splintered under our skin they say I'm walking on freedom, this is freedom, now I know, now I know, now I know, now I know . . .
Cordelia came to the part she'd had problems with and sailed through it effortlessly.
"I still don't blame you for leaving, baby, it's cold living with ghosts . . . I spit, I spit in the eye, I tear, I tear out the heart and I scatter the bits I stay unseen by the light, I stay untold by the truth, I am sold by a lie . . . by this I am able in all of my travels to make these memories quit, but tonight I clearly recall every little bit . . ."
By the end, the exact words themselves were unimportant, but the meaning and the passion shone through clearly . . . and on the final word, all chaos broke loose. Everyone under the spell, no matter where they were . . . collapsed to the ground, where many of them began waking up.
The symbol shook itself apart and ended up as several different piles of dirt in the middle of the football field.
And Cordelia, suddenly bereft of the throes of her own sonically induced ecstasy, sank to the ground with a huge smile on her face.
Finally, FINALLY -- she had the audience she deserved.
* * *
Angel -- free for the first time in a long while from the necessity to hold a door closed -- stood up stiffly and moved over to look at the field. Fresh from yet another bout of the dry heaves in the corner, Xander stood up, stepped around Cordelia, and in a very weird-sounding voice said "Thhhissss iiiss aaaa dreeeaaamm. Goooo hooomme annnddd gggett in bbedd." Angel gave him a very odd look, and the boy answered with a shrug. "Best I could do."
"I've seen them believe sillier stories." From the look on Xander's face he wasn't sure whether he'd been insulted or complimented, which was exactly the way the vampire had intended it. "We should probably get downstairs and check on everyone."
"Good idea."
Angel gingerly picked the unprotesting Cordelia -- still dazed and confused from her success -- and the three of them slowly walked down to the field, picking their way past several groggy and happy people. That little fib of Xander's might have been better than Angel had thought, if the looks on these people's faces were any indication.
Willow, Oz, and Giles had congregated close to the entrance, and they seemed a bit less dazed than everyone else. "Oz! Giles! Willow! Man, I've never been happier to see any of you wake up before in my life! Um, not that I've seen Willow wake up anytime recently."
Fortunately for Xander's somewhat fragile ego, none of the three was paying attention. Giles said, rubbing his neck, "I assume one of you is going to tell us what happened?"
Angel said, "The long version would take a while -- let's just wait until we're all safe -- and we've found Buffy." Then he heard something charge up behind him and he spun in place --
Just in time to receive a kick to the chest that sent him sprawling. All around him he heard gasps of shock. He put Cordelia down and stood up to face the attacker and suddenly understood the gasps.
Buffy stood there, murder in her face. "You ruined it, vampire!" she said in a voice not her own, then drew a stake and charged.
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