Not All Who Wander
Dark angels follow me
Over the godless sea
Mountains of endless falling
For all my days remaining
Why should I cry for you? by Sting
Thellian, dressed in a cream-colored suit and a shirt of aubergine, stood on the tarmac, a balmy Pacific breeze against his
face. The horizon slowly swallowed the last quarter of the ruby red sun. The broad expanse of the harbor burned from fire to
ash as the dwindling rays drew another day to a close.
He pressed his fingertips together, making a church of his hands. Behind him, he heard his girls disembarking from the plane,
grateful for the chance to stretch their long legs after so many hours in flight. With his sensitive vampire ears, he could
pick out the thread of their conversation. Willow still teased Faith about her lack of geographical knowledge. Faith had long
lost her sense of humor about it, but dammed her temper behind a wall of mulish resolve. Willow and Faith were endlessly
debating, the red-head and the brunette. It made him smile.
That lone characteristic set them apart from his other girls – the ones previous, the ones he knew he had to forget if he
would continue to survive.
The night before he had dined with Willow and Faith in the close confines of the plane, the two sleeping captives beneath
them in the cargo hold. Thellian had observed them with his intent watchfulness. He breathed in Willow’s conflicted
attraction to Faith, bittersweet, like dark chocolate or strong coffee leavened with sugar. He likewise sensed Faith’s wary
reserve.
So different they were. Thellian found Willow to be a ready adherent, almost eager to have someone to direct her actions.
Faith, however, needed no one to guide her. It was reason that persuaded her to his side of things, but she remained – thus
far – unattached.
As the sun sank, the scent of the air changed as it always did. Nearly a million nights he had seen come in this fashion, but
for Thellian it never lost its splendor. The wind carried with it the scent of green bananas and hibiscus leaves. He breathed
in, savoring the salt of the ocean beyond. Stretching further, he could smell the petrol of a shrimp boat anchored off shore,
the sweat-and-stale-saki of the sailors aboard. He could even know that the fishermen on that vessel had captured a
woman, had tortured and raped her, but that she carried a wasting disease which she had transmitted to all those who had
misused her. Even now the pestilence worked in their blood to undo them all.
That was the frailty and beauty of humankind. Death prowled in its wolfish malignancy at every door, but they seldom saw it.
Willow crossed the tarmac, the heat of the asphalt baking her bare calves. She bore him no fear, no reservation. She, like
Morna before her, was his. Willow came to stand behind him. She waited for him to acknowledge her before moving to his
side.
After a moment, she said, “The sun didn’t make you go poof.”
He gave a tight smile. “It did not,” he said, turning toward her. “Like your friend Angel, what I strive for most, I will
become.”
“Human?” she guessed, shrugging.
“Nearly,” he said. “The restraints. They are holding?”
Willow clasped her hands in front of her. He felt the hum of her agitation. “I had to zap Connor again after we landed. I’m
afraid it’s turning his brain to a mushy, cottage cheese-like substance.”
“He will recover,” Thellian said.
She shrugged again. “I’ve never had to use so much Magics on one person before. What if I…?”
Thellian placed a cool hand on her shoulder. He felt the warmth of her blood rise under his touch. “You are doing only what
you must. Once we land in London, we can release him and then perhaps Miss Summers and Mr. Giles can persuade him to join
our side against Luxe.”
Willow took a deep breath, trying to steady her thudding heart. She twirled the silver pendant star at her neck between her
fingers. “Maybe if I release him now? I could restrain him physically, and then we could, you know, talk some sense into him?
I’m sure once I explain who was behind The Looking Glass, he’ll…”
Thellian brushed the backs of his fingers over the curve of Willow’s cheek, silencing her. Then he smoothed her hair behind
her ear. Once again, the warmth bloomed in her, turning her skin the color of rosebuds.
“You are not invulnerable, Willow,” he whispered. “Should anything happen to you…”
Thellian heard Faith approaching, her boots tromping heavily against black paved tarmac. She halted several paces away.
“Hey,” Faith said roughly. “Pilot says the plane’s refueled. Let’s clear off this rock.”
Willow bowed her head. Thellian felt the tension stretched taut as wire between his girls, and knew it would not be long
before the one could no longer resist the other. When they succumbed, he would have them both where he needed them to
be.
Thellian lowered his hand. Willow raised her fingers to the place where he’d touched her.
“Very good,” Thellian said, catching Faith’s eyes and deliberately holding her gaze.
Faith stared hard into his eyes, unrelenting. Her strength was magnificent, but he could feel her drawing toward him. Even
her. Curiosity would win out, every time. He had built empires upon that one simple truth.
Humans, Thellian thought. Gods, how he loved them.
Sometimes I see your face
The stars seem to lose their place
Why must I think of you?
Why must I?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Why would you want me to?
Why Should I Cry For You? by Sting
Darkness enfolded William once more, but after a time, the dim outlines of morning painted itself into the creases of the
speckled kitchen tile. He rolled to his side, conscious of a numbing ache in his left arm and an iciness in the back of his neck.
As he sat up, his head pounding, he noticed the red-brown stains on the floor between the breakfast bar and the kitchen
sink.
“This is where Buffy cut her hand,” he mumbled. He felt disoriented. “This is where it all began. Right here.”
William crawled to the edge of the pool of blood. It had crusted to black around its rim and looked more like horror movie
blood than the real thing. He found that oddly comforting. He peered down into the pool, at his own bloody reflection. His
hair, silver white in the morning dimness, made him seem old and drawn. He watched in the reflection as a set of fingers
sporting black-tipped fingernails roughly tousled his curls.
He leapt to his feet, his heart hammering in his ears.
She was in the hallway again, this time in a luminous chemise of white lace.
“Pretty Spoike,” she said, teasingly. “You have seen better days and noights.”
He sighed wearily. “Not you again.”
She pouted. “I’m the one what brought you life, delivered you, made you mine,” she said, swaying like a corpse on a gallows.
“They’ve taken my darling dolly away. Poor Spoike has been unmade.”
He stalked toward her. “You’re a ghost, you are. A shadow.”
Drusilla disappeared into the shadows of the dining room beyond the entry hall. The room elongated and deepened until she
seemed nothing but a small child in a vast emptiness. She danced with exaggerated grace, her movements like that of an
intricate marionette. William felt compelled to follow her.
She vanished momentarily, winking out of sight like a guttering candle flame. When she reappeared, she was right beside him.
William stumbled away from her, and she laughed.
“The Hanged Man you are now. Unwrought,” she whispered, rolling her head far to one side. “What’s a word means upside
down?”
“Reversed,” he muttered.
“The Sevens gave you seed, but never meant you to spend it,” Drusilla said. She spun in pirouette, arms stretched high
above her.
“The baby, you mean,” he said.
“Shhhhhh,” she hissed, whirling away from him. Shadows cloaked her, and she was distant again.
William crammed his knuckles against his eyes. He was tired of this. Tired of wandering, tired of feeling lost, when he wasn’t
lost, he was in his own house. It was Buffy. Buffy was the one who was lost!
He heard Drusilla’s laughter again, winding its way to his ears from a long way off. She sang, “You see hoops and think
they’re yours for jumping, but the Heirophant knows his hawks from hounds…”
William shouted. Only then did he get the true scope and depth of the cavernous room in which he stood. His voice rumbled
and echoed down numberless corridors. He pressed his fists to his temples.
“You know, I hate it when you talk this way,” he growled, picking a direction at random and tromping into it. “You’re dead
– it’s time you made some bloody sense!”
She materialized again before him, her eyes glinting scarlet, her black curls furled over her bare shoulders like dozens of
twisting asps.
“The child will one day lead to her death – and yours as well, my sweet prince, my lovely Spoike,” said Drusilla.
“Rubbish! All of it.”
She whimpered and twitched her skirt with her black-tipped nails. “All blind, all gone… ooooooh…”
William grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What do you want from me? Are you just a spook come to torture and haunt? ’
Cause if you are, I think I can manage well enough on my own…”
Drusilla’s grin spread across her face, revealing a pair of ice-gray fangs beneath her fierce red lips. He remembered
something and recoiled, but she snared his wrists. A black forked tongue flicked out of her mouth, tickling his chin.
“I’m the Black Queen come to warn of the dawning storm,” she said, her voice doubling with Drusilla’s as her form shifted
and reshaped in his hands. “I’m the wriggling twisting fingers I your brain, making dirty gray streaks of your sanity. I’m the
one who put you here, and here you stay, pathetic and weak…”
William struggled to break free of her talons. Her face twisted, no longer Dru’s, no longer human. It was her, the Beastie…
He shoved clear of her.
“No,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not you. Not again.”
The Succubus sauntered toward him on prancing goat legs, moving with the same stilted grace that had dictated Drusilla’s
marionette movements, and William understood. It was never Dru.
And it was never the Succubus bitch, either.
It was him.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered to himself.
“You’ll never escape my clutches. You’re utterly useless, worthless… insignificant,” she said, weaving between patches of
light and dark.
William rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up!” he shouted.
He turned heel and left her. She continued to wail and scream, but soon she was nothing more than the fruitless echoes of a
dejected specter.
Soon he found his way to the entry hall once more. Like before, it was lit with the half light of morning, as if no time had
passed.
“Because it hasn’t,” William said, the realization dawning. “It’s a dream. Only a dream.”
He looked up the hall and down. To his right was the front door. On his left and further down the hall were the back door and
the garden beyond.
A flood of memories assailed him.
Her hand in his, she’d said, Whatever happens. Whatever is coming. We survive. We make it through, okay? We get to see
the end.
William closed his eyes. He swallowed. His throat felt like it was filled with sand.
“We make it through,” he said. He opened his eyes and strode to the back door. Flinging it open, he stepped outside into
the empty garden. The plants had grown wild and tall, making him and the Flat seem Lilliputian by comparison. But he was
lucid now in his dream and could cope with enormous flowers far better than spectral Succubi? Succubusses? Bitches with
goat legs…
Starlight picked out the stone path before him. William smiled. He had no choice but to follow.
Dark angels follow me
Over the godless sea
Mountains of endless falling
For all my days remaining
Why should I cry for you? by Sting
Thellian, dressed in a cream-colored suit and a shirt of aubergine, stood on the tarmac, a balmy Pacific breeze against his
face. The horizon slowly swallowed the last quarter of the ruby red sun. The broad expanse of the harbor burned from fire to
ash as the dwindling rays drew another day to a close.
He pressed his fingertips together, making a church of his hands. Behind him, he heard his girls disembarking from the plane,
grateful for the chance to stretch their long legs after so many hours in flight. With his sensitive vampire ears, he could
pick out the thread of their conversation. Willow still teased Faith about her lack of geographical knowledge. Faith had long
lost her sense of humor about it, but dammed her temper behind a wall of mulish resolve. Willow and Faith were endlessly
debating, the red-head and the brunette. It made him smile.
That lone characteristic set them apart from his other girls – the ones previous, the ones he knew he had to forget if he
would continue to survive.
The night before he had dined with Willow and Faith in the close confines of the plane, the two sleeping captives beneath
them in the cargo hold. Thellian had observed them with his intent watchfulness. He breathed in Willow’s conflicted
attraction to Faith, bittersweet, like dark chocolate or strong coffee leavened with sugar. He likewise sensed Faith’s wary
reserve.
So different they were. Thellian found Willow to be a ready adherent, almost eager to have someone to direct her actions.
Faith, however, needed no one to guide her. It was reason that persuaded her to his side of things, but she remained – thus
far – unattached.
As the sun sank, the scent of the air changed as it always did. Nearly a million nights he had seen come in this fashion, but
for Thellian it never lost its splendor. The wind carried with it the scent of green bananas and hibiscus leaves. He breathed
in, savoring the salt of the ocean beyond. Stretching further, he could smell the petrol of a shrimp boat anchored off shore,
the sweat-and-stale-saki of the sailors aboard. He could even know that the fishermen on that vessel had captured a
woman, had tortured and raped her, but that she carried a wasting disease which she had transmitted to all those who had
misused her. Even now the pestilence worked in their blood to undo them all.
That was the frailty and beauty of humankind. Death prowled in its wolfish malignancy at every door, but they seldom saw it.
Willow crossed the tarmac, the heat of the asphalt baking her bare calves. She bore him no fear, no reservation. She, like
Morna before her, was his. Willow came to stand behind him. She waited for him to acknowledge her before moving to his
side.
After a moment, she said, “The sun didn’t make you go poof.”
He gave a tight smile. “It did not,” he said, turning toward her. “Like your friend Angel, what I strive for most, I will
become.”
“Human?” she guessed, shrugging.
“Nearly,” he said. “The restraints. They are holding?”
Willow clasped her hands in front of her. He felt the hum of her agitation. “I had to zap Connor again after we landed. I’m
afraid it’s turning his brain to a mushy, cottage cheese-like substance.”
“He will recover,” Thellian said.
She shrugged again. “I’ve never had to use so much Magics on one person before. What if I…?”
Thellian placed a cool hand on her shoulder. He felt the warmth of her blood rise under his touch. “You are doing only what
you must. Once we land in London, we can release him and then perhaps Miss Summers and Mr. Giles can persuade him to join
our side against Luxe.”
Willow took a deep breath, trying to steady her thudding heart. She twirled the silver pendant star at her neck between her
fingers. “Maybe if I release him now? I could restrain him physically, and then we could, you know, talk some sense into him?
I’m sure once I explain who was behind The Looking Glass, he’ll…”
Thellian brushed the backs of his fingers over the curve of Willow’s cheek, silencing her. Then he smoothed her hair behind
her ear. Once again, the warmth bloomed in her, turning her skin the color of rosebuds.
“You are not invulnerable, Willow,” he whispered. “Should anything happen to you…”
Thellian heard Faith approaching, her boots tromping heavily against black paved tarmac. She halted several paces away.
“Hey,” Faith said roughly. “Pilot says the plane’s refueled. Let’s clear off this rock.”
Willow bowed her head. Thellian felt the tension stretched taut as wire between his girls, and knew it would not be long
before the one could no longer resist the other. When they succumbed, he would have them both where he needed them to
be.
Thellian lowered his hand. Willow raised her fingers to the place where he’d touched her.
“Very good,” Thellian said, catching Faith’s eyes and deliberately holding her gaze.
Faith stared hard into his eyes, unrelenting. Her strength was magnificent, but he could feel her drawing toward him. Even
her. Curiosity would win out, every time. He had built empires upon that one simple truth.
Humans, Thellian thought. Gods, how he loved them.
Sometimes I see your face
The stars seem to lose their place
Why must I think of you?
Why must I?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Why would you want me to?
Why Should I Cry For You? by Sting
Darkness enfolded William once more, but after a time, the dim outlines of morning painted itself into the creases of the
speckled kitchen tile. He rolled to his side, conscious of a numbing ache in his left arm and an iciness in the back of his neck.
As he sat up, his head pounding, he noticed the red-brown stains on the floor between the breakfast bar and the kitchen
sink.
“This is where Buffy cut her hand,” he mumbled. He felt disoriented. “This is where it all began. Right here.”
William crawled to the edge of the pool of blood. It had crusted to black around its rim and looked more like horror movie
blood than the real thing. He found that oddly comforting. He peered down into the pool, at his own bloody reflection. His
hair, silver white in the morning dimness, made him seem old and drawn. He watched in the reflection as a set of fingers
sporting black-tipped fingernails roughly tousled his curls.
He leapt to his feet, his heart hammering in his ears.
She was in the hallway again, this time in a luminous chemise of white lace.
“Pretty Spoike,” she said, teasingly. “You have seen better days and noights.”
He sighed wearily. “Not you again.”
She pouted. “I’m the one what brought you life, delivered you, made you mine,” she said, swaying like a corpse on a gallows.
“They’ve taken my darling dolly away. Poor Spoike has been unmade.”
He stalked toward her. “You’re a ghost, you are. A shadow.”
Drusilla disappeared into the shadows of the dining room beyond the entry hall. The room elongated and deepened until she
seemed nothing but a small child in a vast emptiness. She danced with exaggerated grace, her movements like that of an
intricate marionette. William felt compelled to follow her.
She vanished momentarily, winking out of sight like a guttering candle flame. When she reappeared, she was right beside him.
William stumbled away from her, and she laughed.
“The Hanged Man you are now. Unwrought,” she whispered, rolling her head far to one side. “What’s a word means upside
down?”
“Reversed,” he muttered.
“The Sevens gave you seed, but never meant you to spend it,” Drusilla said. She spun in pirouette, arms stretched high
above her.
“The baby, you mean,” he said.
“Shhhhhh,” she hissed, whirling away from him. Shadows cloaked her, and she was distant again.
William crammed his knuckles against his eyes. He was tired of this. Tired of wandering, tired of feeling lost, when he wasn’t
lost, he was in his own house. It was Buffy. Buffy was the one who was lost!
He heard Drusilla’s laughter again, winding its way to his ears from a long way off. She sang, “You see hoops and think
they’re yours for jumping, but the Heirophant knows his hawks from hounds…”
William shouted. Only then did he get the true scope and depth of the cavernous room in which he stood. His voice rumbled
and echoed down numberless corridors. He pressed his fists to his temples.
“You know, I hate it when you talk this way,” he growled, picking a direction at random and tromping into it. “You’re dead
– it’s time you made some bloody sense!”
She materialized again before him, her eyes glinting scarlet, her black curls furled over her bare shoulders like dozens of
twisting asps.
“The child will one day lead to her death – and yours as well, my sweet prince, my lovely Spoike,” said Drusilla.
“Rubbish! All of it.”
She whimpered and twitched her skirt with her black-tipped nails. “All blind, all gone… ooooooh…”
William grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What do you want from me? Are you just a spook come to torture and haunt? ’
Cause if you are, I think I can manage well enough on my own…”
Drusilla’s grin spread across her face, revealing a pair of ice-gray fangs beneath her fierce red lips. He remembered
something and recoiled, but she snared his wrists. A black forked tongue flicked out of her mouth, tickling his chin.
“I’m the Black Queen come to warn of the dawning storm,” she said, her voice doubling with Drusilla’s as her form shifted
and reshaped in his hands. “I’m the wriggling twisting fingers I your brain, making dirty gray streaks of your sanity. I’m the
one who put you here, and here you stay, pathetic and weak…”
William struggled to break free of her talons. Her face twisted, no longer Dru’s, no longer human. It was her, the Beastie…
He shoved clear of her.
“No,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not you. Not again.”
The Succubus sauntered toward him on prancing goat legs, moving with the same stilted grace that had dictated Drusilla’s
marionette movements, and William understood. It was never Dru.
And it was never the Succubus bitch, either.
It was him.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered to himself.
“You’ll never escape my clutches. You’re utterly useless, worthless… insignificant,” she said, weaving between patches of
light and dark.
William rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up!” he shouted.
He turned heel and left her. She continued to wail and scream, but soon she was nothing more than the fruitless echoes of a
dejected specter.
Soon he found his way to the entry hall once more. Like before, it was lit with the half light of morning, as if no time had
passed.
“Because it hasn’t,” William said, the realization dawning. “It’s a dream. Only a dream.”
He looked up the hall and down. To his right was the front door. On his left and further down the hall were the back door and
the garden beyond.
A flood of memories assailed him.
Her hand in his, she’d said, Whatever happens. Whatever is coming. We survive. We make it through, okay? We get to see
the end.
William closed his eyes. He swallowed. His throat felt like it was filled with sand.
“We make it through,” he said. He opened his eyes and strode to the back door. Flinging it open, he stepped outside into
the empty garden. The plants had grown wild and tall, making him and the Flat seem Lilliputian by comparison. But he was
lucid now in his dream and could cope with enormous flowers far better than spectral Succubi? Succubusses? Bitches with
goat legs…
Starlight picked out the stone path before him. William smiled. He had no choice but to follow.
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.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Warning: This chapter is PG-13 due to suggested graphic content.