The Wind Beyond the Walls of the
Mind
Chapter 14
The Tears of the Goddess
by Gaius Petronius
DISCLAIMER:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on
the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox
and Mutant Enemy, Inc. This story can be read on its own or as
a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark"
from which the Ancient Ones, the Shining Trapezohedron and the
character of Robert Blake are derived.
The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind is set
roughly in mid-season four shortly following the death of Doyle
but before the creation of Adam and the death of Maggie Walsh.
Content Note:
This part is rated PG-13 for some raunchy language.
* * * * * * * * *
The pace of afternoon activity in the Initiative
Headquarters was now even more feverish than it had been that
morning although Maggie Walsh was nowhere to be seen. Amidst the
Initiative soldiers and technicians scurrying to and fro, a group
of six soldiers, including Forrest, Riley's second in command
on the squad and Graham, the sub squad leader, all gathered around
Hunter and one large monitor set up in the middle of the former
operating arena of the Command Center. All their faces were bathed
in a look verging on fear as they gazed at the seemingly innocuous
numbers rolling across the screen. Every one of the Initiative
soldiers knew what those figures meant.
"Holy son of a bitch!" Forrest muttered
as he stared at the monitor readout.
Graham just scratched his head and whistled.
Riley slipped in from the overhead catwalk entrance
to the security checkpoint. Hunter, glancing over his shoulder,
instantly spotted him.
"Hey, Riley!" the Initiative technician
called out.
Riley turned and stared down onto beehive of
activity on the Command Center floor below him.
"You better get your lead ass down here!"
Forrest yelled.
Riley ran along the catwalk, clattered down
the metal staircase and hurried across the Initiative Headquarters
to join the group around the monitor.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Where the hell you been?" Forrest
complained, "Damn hard to run a tactical meeting without
the squad leader."
"These this morning's infra red readings?"
Riley answered ignoring Forrest's griping, "What the . .
.?"
Riley leaned forward and studied the monitor.
"Shit! This is for real?" he exclaimed
to Hunter, "These have gotta be wrong!"
"No way," Forrest answered for Hunter,
"Right off the scale, man . . . this is one big, blazing
muther!"
At first Riley couldn't come up with a reply.
Finally he spoke under his breath to Forrest.
"Buffy was right . . ."
"That's where the hell you've been?"
Graham glowered at Riley, "Hanging out with your girlfriend?"
"Listen to me," Riley answered with
a quiet urgency, "We gotta pull all the daylight reconnaissance
patrols. They're wasting their time looking for this thing. It's
from another dimension, some alternate universe we can't even
imagine. It's not even here during the day."
"And that Slayer chick is telling you
this?" Forrest sniffed with contempt.
"Buffy knows ten times more about this
thing than Maggie does!" Riley felt the anger welling up
inside him. Sparring with Maggie Walsh over Buffy was one thing,
but he bristled at having to defend her to his own men.
Graham gave Riley a skeptical stare that Riley
couldn't let pass.
"I want those reconnaissance patrols pulled
now," he said, this time speaking in a military tone none
of the other soldiers could possibly mistake for anything except
an order, "Every available Initiative soldier is to report
to me by eighteen hundred hours. This mission has just changed,
mister, from offensive . . . to defensive."
"What's our objective?" Forrest asked,
now becoming even more uneasy.
"To keep this thing . . . from wiping
us out."
"And you're doing this all on Buffy's
word?!" Graham still didn't understand.
"Look at those readings, man!" Riley
raised his voice and pointed at the monitor, "We can't go
up against that head to head! It's suicide and you know it!"
Graham didn't answer but Forrest nodded in
agreement.
"Get the word out quietly," Riley
continued in a lowered voice, "I want a tactical meeting
in two hours."
"What about Professor Walsh?" Hunter
asked nervously.
"You let me handle the Professor. I'll
take the heat there."
"You think she'll buy it?" Forrest
asked.
"She has to . . . " Riley said solemnly,
" . . . or we're all dead."
* * * * * * * *
Cordelia stood in the middle of the kitchen
at the Chase mansion. She held a portable phone pressed to her
ear. Absentmindedly she noticed the auction number tag dangling
from the phone's tiny antenna. She really hadn't wanted to call
Wesley, but Angel insisted, after Kate's report, that they make
sure the "rogue demon hunter" hadn't allowed the office
to slide into total chaos. The phone on the other end of the line
rang over and over with no answer.
"Come on, Wesley, I know you're there!
Pick it up!" she huffed impatiently.
Angel, throwing on his black trench coat as
he prepared to head out, entered the kitchen from the living room.
"Still no answer?" he asked.
Cordelia only shook her head.
Back at the office of Angel Investigations,
Wesley Windham Price, Rogue Demon Hunter, lay plopped across the
papers on the receptionist's desk. His head was nestled in his
folded arms, and he snored as the telephone rang at his side.
He twitched slightly and muttered in his sleep.
". . . . hmm . . . yes mummy . . . I'll
get the door . . ."
Cordelia slammed the receiver down in disgust.
"Angel, this is ridiculous!" she
snapped, "I told you an answering machine would be cheaper!"
Angel paid no attention to her remark but headed
straight for the outside door.
"Hey! Where are you going? You're not
sneaking out on me!" Kate sang out as she entered the kitchen
from the living room. Angel stopped.
"I gotta talk to this MacDuffie,"
he answered, "Giles said he's the only one that knows what's
going on here."
"He's that Guardian guy?" Cordelia
asked trying to get Angel to volunteer additional information.
She could sense he had more on his mind than just finding an old
mystic who hung out with Giles, but Angel wouldn't rise to the
bait.
"Yeah," he replied curtly.
" . . and . . . ?" Cordelia wasn't
going to let him get off that easy. Still
Angel didn't answer.
"All right!" she finally sighed,
"I'll help you look for Buffy!"
"I'm that obvious, huh?" Angel grinned
slightly.
"Angel, you're a vampire. Subtlety is
not a vampire thing."
Angel's grin broadened as he turned towards
the door again. As he was about to leave the kitchen, Kate zipped
up to his side.
"So, I get to finally meet your ex, this
Slayer person," she asked sarcastically as if she were going
to relish any discomfort she could cause during a reunion.
Angel pretended to ignore her and quickly stepped
outside but the LAPD detective was out the door in an instant
right behind him.
"Hey! Don't you try and ditch me now!"
Cordelia called out as she dropped the portable phone and ran
out the kitchen door after them both.
"He does that to you, too, huh!"
Kate laughed from outside in the early evening darkness.
* * * * * * * *
A single light still burned on MacDuffie's
desk but the rest of the New Age Curiosity Shop was dark except
for the strange radiance leaking from behind the closed door of
the shop storeroom. Giles, almost slumped over, sat behind the
desk. He held his head and shielded his eyes from the light of
the desk lamp.
MacDuffie, carrying two large mugs of black
coffee, walked unsteadily over to his side. The Guardian sat clumsily
on one of the old crates pulled out of the storage room and set
one mug of coffee in front of Giles. Giles barely moved as if
he didn't recognize who was seated beside him.
". . . ohh . . . what the bloody hell
did we do that for?" he groaned.
"Don't ask questions," MacDuffie
answered as he rubbed his forehead, "Just drink up."
Both men nursed the black coffee. Suddenly,
Giles' head popped up as he remembered more of the details of
the afternoon "research" session.
". . . oh Good Lord!" he cried out,
"Willow!"
"Relax, Rupert," MacDuffie replied,
still massaging his aching forehead, "She's all right. She's
with . . . a friend." The old Guardian smiled reassuringly.
"How do you know?" Giles snapped
and then caught himself, ". . . Oh . . . yes . . . I see.
I suppose that's one of the fringe benefits of being a Guardian?"
MacDuffie nodded and stared straight ahead.
"You know, we are despicable," Giles
said with regret, "Getting Willow drunk like that."
"She'll be fine," MacDuffie answered
calmly.
Giles, sensing there was more to his friend's
statement than was revealed in the simple three word sentence,
stared at MacDuffie.
"You see something else, don't you. .
. . about Willow."
MacDuffie stood slowly and turned to face Giles.
"Rupert, you and I, we cannot remain as
their protectors forever," he answered solemnly, "The
time is coming when all of this is passed on to the next generation."
"But what about Willow? You know something!"
Giles asked, his voice quivering with concern, "What do you
see for her?"
"Put your heart to rest, good friend,"
he answered as he patted Giles gently on the shoulder, "All
will be well."
The shop was silent for a moment, and then
MacDuffie spoke once more but this time in a whisper.
". . . all . . . will be well . . ."
* * * * * * *
Willow and Buffy's dorm room was empty, its
curtains tightly drawn leaving the entire room in darkness. Somewhere
down the corridor on the main floor, a toilet flushed for the
third time. That was followed a moment later by the noisy sound
of running water in one of the community bathroom's sinks. Somebody
gargled, spat out a mouthful of water and groaned. The door to
the third floor bathroom squeaked and then snapped shut.
Suddenly the door to Willow and Buffy's room
swung open. Tara entered with a clearly unstable Willow draped
over Tara's shoulder. Tara steadied her on her feet and steered
Willow towards her bed.
"Oh, am I glad you came back," Willow
whimpered.
Tara lowered Willow into a sitting position
on the bed.
"It's all right," she said reassuringly,
"Now you've barfed, you'll be okay."
"You gonna stay?" Willow looked up
at her hopefully.
"Yeah," Tara said quietly as she
ran her fingers across Willow's hair, pushing the disheveled strands
back into place. How could she leave now, she thought. After her
friend's earlier emotional confession as well as the recent round
of commode hugging in the dorm bathroom down the hall, she knew
Willow needed her.
"Oohhh!" Willow groaned.
Tara sat beside her in the bed and continued
to stroke her hair.
"Just lie down . . . slowly!" she
encouraged as Willow settled back into the pillows.
"Oohh! I'm gonna kill Giles . . . "
Willow complained as she rubbed her face with her hands, "And
that stinkin' MacDuffie, too! Oh, man!"
"Relax, I've got some herb tea here that'll
make you feel better, but we have to wait until your body recovers
a little more from the Goddess' tears." Tara's voice was
so soothing, Willow almost missed the reference. Puzzled, she looked up at Tara.
"That's what Mr. MacDuffie called it."
"I know. You told me." Tara paused
and looked down at the floor. "He's a Guardian, isn't he?"
she asked hesitantly.
The question caught Willow entirely by surprise.
At the same time she winced as the splitting hangover headache
raced across her forehead.
"Oh man! . . . " she whimpered then
stared up at Tara again, "How'd you know that?"
Tara only shrugged.
"He trusts you," she answered softly,
"He has a lot of faith in you . . . just like me."
"That's why he got me drunk?"
"He offered you the tears of the
Goddess," Tara said earnestly. She suddenly realized that
Willow didn't fully understand what the "research" session
was really all about.
"We were drinking scotch! Ohhh! Which
I will never do again!" Willow moaned and winced again with
the hangover headache.
"I'm so lucky," Tara said, the sweet
sincerity of her voice caught Willow's attention immediately,
in spite of the ravages of the hangover.
"What?" Willow asked, now totally
confused, "Because you have a barfing bunny for a friend?"
"No. You know what I mean," Tara
smiled self consciously as she stroked Willow's hair again, "Something
special happened today. And I don't mean just between us."
"Tara, what's going on?" Willow asked
as she winced, "You're saying something happened this afternoon
at the shop?"
Tara nodded to her.
"Willow, Guardians, although they're real
powerful, actually they're just like you and me. They don't live
forever, and at the end they pass on their duties and powers."
Willow, with concern on her face, looked up
at Tara.
"When they know the time is near,"
Tara continued slowly, "They find someone with the Gift,
share the Tears of the Goddess and then . . . when it actually
happens . . . when they . . . die . . . that's when they pass
their powers on."
"What are you saying?" Willow asked
fearfully.
"It sounds like," Tara answered very
slowly and gently, "Your friend, Mr. MacDuffie . . . well,
I think he's getting ready to leave."
"NO!" Willow shouted as she sat up
quickly.
The headache kicked in again. Willow grabbed
her forehead and flopped back down on the bed.
"Ahhh! Owww!"
* * * * * * * *
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