That Old Black Magic
Mid-morning, Dawn stood at the bar in the kitchen, eating cold lentils from a plastic bowl and flipping idly through a
collection of New Age restorative potions Maya had printed from the Internet. There was nothing here; both girls knew it.
Still, Maya felt more productive if they exhausted every possible avenue, and every last drop of the printer’s ink.
Dawn was debating another session of poetry recitation – this time Percy Bysshe Shelley – when Andrew tottered into the
kitchen with an enormous black book in his arms. Literally, it was so big Andrew looked like a cartoon figure trying to carry
an anvil.
Dawn laughed.
“What is that?” she asked as he let it drop to the bar with a dull thud.
Andrew puffed to catch his breath, and then grinned like a feline. He swiped a layer of dust from the cover to reveal the bold
black letters branded into the leather cover.
“Black Magick,” she stated doubtfully. “Not exactly original, are they?”
Andrew, choking on the dust he’d unsettled from the cover, coughed into his hand. “It’s Voodoo,” he said, once he could
speak. “I nicked it from the Council Library.”
Dawn arched her brows. “Since it’s Voodoo, shouldn’t it say Le Black Magick?”
He joined her at the bar, turning the book to face them. “According to this book, there’s more to Voodoo than zombies and
karmic pincushions,” he said. “Turns out, there’s sex involved.”
“Is that right?” she said, oddly intrigued.
“And I thought, since we’re involved,” he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hush, “…sexually… We could try this. To
revive Spike.”
Andrew parted the book to a pre-marked page and pushed it toward Dawn. She studied the dense lettering that read much
like a recipe. Her eyes drifted to the woodcut engravings which depicted, in vivid detail, the various physical aspects of the
ritual.
“Illustrations,” she said, feeling her face burn. “How… considerate of them.”
Andrew rushed to explain. “It’s a ritual used to wake people under the Vodoun sleeping hex.”
Dawn traced her finger over the first illustration. “Spike’s not under a Vodoun sleeping hex,” she pointed out.
“Right you are. But the principle is the same. See, this ritual helps the caster channel mystical energies to wake the hexed,
thereby breaking the curse,” he said.
Dawn studied the series of images, which were X-rated at the very least. The woman in the illustrations – drawn in bold,
curvaceous lines – seemed to have beaucoup power and control. Dawn felt at once intrigued and repelled. She had done
things with Andrew she never imagined herself doing, not ever, but…
“Maybe,” Dawn muttered.
“I thought we could get a room, you know, in a hotel, so we could make all the noise we wanted,” he whispered. His eyes
sparkled, alight with mischief.
Dawn bit her lips. “This spell now sounds suspiciously like a date.”
“Could be both,” he said.
Dawn hesitated. “Worth a shot…” she began.
“Great!” Andrew said. He slipped two sheets of folded parchment from his pocket and passed one of them to her. “This is
our supply list. I divided it up for simplicity’s sake. We’ll meet back at The Stafford Hotel at 7 p.m. The room’s listed under
Wells.”
Dawn gaped at him. He responded with a look of grand satisfaction.
Secretly, Dawn was impressed. Andrew liked it when he was all take-charge-y. But she couldn’t let him see that. Outwardly,
she had to seem detached according to some learned, possibly instinctual, unspoken code among women.
“Seven o’clock,” she said.
Andrew was never quite hip to aloof. “Mia farfalla,” he said.
He kissed her, quick and deep, then hefted his book to his shoulder and was gone.
By 4:45, Dawn had everything on her list: a crystal goblet, a long-stemmed red rose, two black candles, two white candles, a
box of black pepper, a packet of pink coral sand, two raven’s feathers, a silver athame and a black dress with silver buttons
all the way down its front.
Dawn showered. She washed her hair, which now had mottled black streaks in it where the dye was rinsing free. As she
applied her make up in Buffy’s full length mirror, she felt a whir of excitement humming in her veins. This was a date. A real
date. Okay, so it was also a freaky sex ritual intended to wake her missing sister’s comatose boyfriend, but it was still a
date.
Dawn smiled at her reflection. She felt a pang of guilt for feeling so giddy with Spike still unconscious, Buffy still gone, and
the rest – Xander and Maya excluded – in grave peril.
Dawn decided she could dwell on such things later. She pulled on her red velvet wrap, She gathered her spell components and
a change of clothes into one of Buffy’s leather shoulder bags, and at 5:45, left the Flat bound for the 6:14 train to Green
Park Station.
Andrew had reserved one of The Stafford’s Master Suites – two capacious rooms with a behemoth bed draped in scarlet
sheets of Egyptian cotton, a massive claw-foot tub, and a bathroom bigger than his bedroom at the Flat. He studied the
wine bottle, trying to figure out how he might uncork it one-handed when Dawn burst into the room in a flash of dazzling
velvet. Sleet pattered down outside; the frozen raindrops dusted her hair like the sparkling of diamonds.
“You made it,” he said, sounding comically relieved.
Dawn glanced around the room: Marble tiled floors, elegant original furniture pieces, an armoire of carved walnut, curtains
of burgundy damask with pale green sheers. Andrew stood beside a low round table of polished wood laden with fruits,
flowers, a silver tray filled with sugary pastries – all of her favorites – and an ice bucket for the bottle of wine he held in the
crook of his arm.
Andrew looked handsomely disheveled, his unruly curls swept back, his four-in-hand tie loosened about his neck. Tonight he
looked nothing like the boy with whom she shared a twin bed no wider than a canoe. That was okay. She bore no
resemblance to the girl who cut off her hair and dyed it in a pathetic attempt to seek attention.
She crossed the room with measured steps; all Veronica Lake meets Jessica Rabbit, making sure that her gleaming high-
heeled shoes clicked deliberately on the tile floor. He watched her, his mouth ajar, as she sauntered toward him.
“My list called for a black gown,” she said in her smokiest voice. “Silver buttons.” She threaded her gloved fingers around
the hem of her crimson cloak. “I didn’t have one of my own, so I found… this.”
Dawn whipped the cloak open and let it fall theatrically to her feet, revealing the pillar of floor-length black satin flowing
over every curve of her lithe form. It was off-the-shoulder with tapered sleeves that accentuated the column of her throat,
her delicate collarbones, and her pale, smooth shoulders. Twenty-five silver buttons like glimmering stars fastened the dress
down its front.
She savored his reaction: a low, gargling sound, barely audible, emerged from his throat. Dawn pressed her lips together,
immensely pleased with herself.
Andrew shook his head as if to clear it. Once he regained his composure, he set the wine bottle aside and lifted a brown
paper sack from the table.
“My list called for a silver horn,” he said, his eyes narrowed in what she thought he thought was a sensual expression, but
looked merely like he had plaster dust in his eyes. “I didn’t have one either, so I found this…”
Andrew ripped the paper back with a flourish to reveal an old-fashioned bicycle horn with a ruddy rubber bulb on the end.
Dawn looked at it. She looked at him. His face was tres grave, but she stared at the thing in utter disbelief. He squeezed the
bulb and it wheezed a lamely forlorn honk like an asthmatic goose.
“I, uh,” Dawn licked her lips. “Andrew, I don’t think they meant this kind of… horn.”
“I know that,” he said, grinning. A smile rose in Andrew’s eyes.
Dawn shoved him. “What?”
“I’m only kidding.” He compressed the bulb again. It emitted a breathy, half-hearted groan.
Dawn dissolved into giggles. Andrew bent to kiss her neck, but she shoved him again, playfully, and they both began laughing.
“You… you…” Dawn managed between giggles.
“I actually have this,” Andrew said. He plucked another parcel from the tabletop. This time it was a small rectangular case,
like a portable backgammon board. He snapped open the locking clasps to reveal an intricately wrought silver hunting horn
on a bed of green velvet.
“It’s on loan from the Watcher’s Council,” Andrew said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Don’t tell Giles I borrowed his sacred
virility horn. I’m not sure how he’d feel about that.”
Dawn smirked. “Cross my heart,” she said.
Andrew nodded. “Wine?” Andrew asked.
Dawn laid her hand on the curve of the silver horn. She stroked it with her thumb. “I want to make some magic,” she said.
She didn’t have to ask him twice.
The ritual involved the inscription of a Circle in cornmeal under the space which they would consecrate as an altar. Sprawled
on their bellies on opposite sides of the bed, Dawn and Andrew met their first obstacle.
“The bed’s bolted to the wall?” Dawn asked, incredulous. “They have a lot of bed theft in these parts?”
Andrew shrugged, not an easy feat in the cramped space. “Maybe it’s to protect the wall from friction,” he suggested.
Dawn felt herself flush. “Right. Friction.”
“It’s okay,” Andrew said. “We’ll inscribe the Circle and then make sure we don’t move much while were having the ritual
sex.”
Dawn squinted. “Andrew, we’re talking us here. We are the sexy hokey pokey.”
“Discipline, Dawnie!” he said, pounding his fist on the floor in mock sternness.
“Whatever. Just keep your arms and legs in the Circle at all times.”
Andrew stuck out his tongue. Dawn poured the arc of coral sand under her side of the bed, and then passed the packet to
him. Once they each finished each side of the circle, they affixed one of the raven’s feathers to the headboard of the bed,
the other to the footboard, directly opposite of each other. They set the candles on the floor, each equidistant from each
other and the circle’s center. Andrew placed a straw broom at the foot of the Circle and one of Spike’s faded T-shirts on the
pillow behind their heads.
With the Circle drawn, and the four candles lighted, Dawn referred to the spell book, which they spread at the foot of the
bed, in case they needed it during the rite.
“Okay,” she said, tapping the illustration. “I undress you, and then you cut the silver buttons from my dress with the
athame.”
Andrew ran his unsteady hand through his curls. “About that,” he said. “Do you think we can skip this one teensy part?”
“It won’t work unless we complete every step,” Dawn said. “We can sew the buttons back on, Andrew. No big.”
Andrew dropped his eyes, and Dawn understood. He was thinking about the last time he had a dagger in the proximity of a
friend. Funny, Dawn thought, that she had almost forgotten that this Andrew was the same Andrew who had stabbed
Jonathan to death.
“I just don’t fancy the notion of clumsily slicing into the tummy of my girlfriend,” Andrew said.
“You won’t,” she said. With careful movements, she loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and shoved them and his jacket
from his shoulders to the floor. She unhooked his belt and his pants, and then had to suppress another smile.
“Strong Bad boxers?” she asked.
“They’re hella tight!”
“More like hella loose,” Dawn said. Off they went, followed by shoes, then socks.
“This is so unfair,” Andrew said, standing utterly exposed before her. “And it does nothing to steady my already wobbly
hand.”
Dawn pressed the athame into his palm. She took the crystal goblet into her hands. “I have faith in you,” she said. “Start at
the top and work your way down. I’ll catch the buttons in the cup.”
And so he did. He cut the first two with trembling trepidation, but the satin thread rent with the gentle yield of a spider’s
web. In the end, he was on his knees, working deftly, dropping the remaining silver buttons into the crystal cup which he
had placed on the floor beside him.
He looked all the way up her body, pleasantly distracted by the way the dress parted, button-free, revealing a swath of her
incandescent skin. “All done,” he whispered. He lifted the cup to her.
Referring again to the book, Dawn said, “Now we cover the buttons with a cupful of red wine and the petals of the rose.
Then, sprinkle with black pepper and ignite. While it burns, we recite this incantation.”
“And for this course, the garcon recommends the veal,” Andrew said with a wry grin.
“Har har,” Dawn said. “Get the corkscrew.”
They followed to the letter of the spell, first with the wine, then the rose petals and the pepper. As Andrew touched the
match tip to the surface and they spoke the opening words of the ritual, Dawn felt the effect immediately. The fire flared
brilliant blue, then faded to the yellow-gold like of the setting sun in autumn as the alcohol burned away.
Dawn didn’t understand the words, only that Andrew spoke them in perfectly inflected French. Euphoria spread over her
and through her like a wave of flame. The colors of the room deepened and the light seemed to swell. The peppery scent
mingled with the wine and roses, leaving her tongue dizzy and her head numb.
He faced her.
“Now we bind our hands,” she said to him.
He gave a half-smile. His movements seemed slow now, lethargic, like those of a drunken man. “It’s a good thing I lopped off
lefty,” he said. “In retrospect, I mean. Otherwise…” He placed his palm against hers.
“Otherwise we couldn’t do this,” Dawn finished. She glanced at his eyes and wondered if hers were half as radiant as his.
Dawn looped the black silk ribbon around their wrists three times and tied it tight. It couldn’t slip off during the third part
of the ritual. Their hands had to remain bound. According to the illustrations, that part was essential.
“Ready?” he asked.
She looked down. Her dress, now buttonless, fell open revealing a tantalizing strip of bare flesh and her lacy black panties.
“Uh,” she said with a laugh. “I think I was supposed to take these off before binding our hands.”
“We can get ’em off,” Andrew slurred.
Dawn grinned. “That is the idea.” Then she smacked her forehead with her free hand. “Condom!”
Andrew nodded. “In my coat pocket. You’ll have to put it on…”
“Oh fine,” she said. It took some wriggling, but they managed to get the underpants off and the condom on. At last they
crawled into the bed, carefully positioning themselves in the center of the smooth, cool sheets.
“Now I’m ready,” she told him. “You remember your incantation? And then you blow the horn?”
“Of course!”
“Sometimes you get all nonverbal when we…”
Andrew’s eyes shuttered. “Only sometimes,” he said. And then he muttered, “And I still think the girl should blow the horn.”
“Andrew, focus,” Dawn said. She twisted her body around to get a look at the next illustration.
Dawn swallowed. She hadn’t realized how much she was hoping for this, not until just this moment. Dawn laced her fingers in
his. “Okay,” she repeated. “You kneel here, like this and I…”
The first half hour was like human origami, or, as Andrew put it, the World’s Most Erotic Game of Twister. They moved
through the positions and incantations with sophomoric awkwardness, which led more to outbursts of laughter than
anything else. They felt like silly, intoxicated children playing at a game whose rules they did not understand.
Then as they finished the final rites and incantations, it was normal sex: her body linked with his, moving with his, slow at
first and then in their splendid rhythm. She bent to kiss him, her hair spilling around his face. She felt herself opening like a
rosebud as the spell coursed through them.
On the bedside table, the flames consumed the rose, filling the room with a golden effusion. It spread through their skin,
down their throats as they drew in breath, into every cell and molecule of their joined bodies. Dawn pressed into him. She
felt pulled beyond her control, like she was slipping out of her skin and floating. The one thing that bound her was the tether
to his hand.
She heard herself speaking, as if from a distance, calling his name. She knotted her free hand in his hair. A stray breeze
tugged the curtains, ruffled the bed liner, rippled the surface of the wine in its burnished glass. Dawn sat back on her heels,
her head thrown back, her eyes shut against the force of the energy building inside of her – too much, too much! – it would
rend them apart. It would destroy them!
Everything blurred, was overbright. Dawn felt herself sliding. Her outlines lost definition. She was losing him. Her Andrew!
She was losing him. She locked her knees against his legs and bent forward again, still moving within the stride of his motion,
but it was like trying to keep her head above water in a raging storm. She could see nothing, hear nothing. The taste of
burning roses filled her throat, choking her, but she did not fight it. Andrew and Dawn were locked within each other,
oblivious to everything now but the endless circle of their joining.
Dawn’s eyes rolled back. She was burning. She was aflame. In the room around her objects began to fly about – books,
papers, the floral arrangements – all of it came crashing down. In the lamps and the chandeliers, the bulbs glared and
suddenly burst, showering them with powdered glass.
Dawn felt their energy burst through her, bright as sunrays, strong as the sea, and she let go. It filled her, every part of
her – her fingernails, her hair, her brain, heart, lungs, breasts, her sex – all of it burned with a sweet, consuming fire.
And then she heard Andrew’s voice again, distant but steady. The incantation, followed by the sound of the silver horn. He
remembered. Of course he remembered. She bowed her head and felt herself reeling toward him, returning home, gliding
back to the place where they lay, two normal humans joined in a simple act of love.
Dawn opened her eyes. He stared up at her, breathless, a goofy, lovesick smile on his face. She knew that look. It matched
her own.
“That was…”
“Freakin’ amazing!” he finished. “Timothy Dalton never had sex like that! Sean Connery never had sex like that. Captain
Kirk… well, probably he didn’t, but…”
Dawn convulsed in laughter. She bent to rest her forehead against his.
“Do you think it worked?” he asked.
“How could it not work? Did you feel that?”
“Oh, I felt it.”
Neither could wait to find out. They dressed in quick excitement like a pair of fugitives, leaving Dawn’s de-buttoned dress
and the wreckage of their spell behind in the suite.
Walter towered over Oz and Anjelica, his shadow, black and twisting as it stretched long over the endless grinding sands.
Oz was weary. He crouched with Helli in the Circle’s center, waiting and waiting and waiting for Walter and Anya to
complete the spell. Everything in Hell seemed to elongate, drawn into a protracted agony of nagging suspense.
Walter had conjured fire in the center of the circle, and Oz knelt beside it, with Helli leaning heavily against his shoulder and
Andrew’s severed hand balanced uncomfortably on his left thigh.
After Anya finished reading the spell from a parchment she held unrolled between her trim, steady hands, she raised her eyes
to meet Walter’s.
“You ready for some magic?” she asked him.
Walter nodded and spat on the ground. It withered, black and chitinous, and crawled away. “Ayuh,” he said.
Anjelica’s eyes flitted behind her eyelids. Oz pulled her close.
“You hear that, Helli?” Oz whispered, hoping to settle her, to penetrate the haze of her anguish. “We’re going home soon.”
Helli’s mouth twitched into a frown. “Soon…” she moaned.
In the far distance, Oz saw the horizon blur to the dull brown of smeared, dried blood. The sky was filling with sand.
Oz got his arm under Helli’s shoulder and waited.
Soon.
Dawn and Andrew stood at William’s bedside. She was not sure what they expected, except that they had expected
something, and received the opposite thereof.
They found the Flat shrouded in icy November quiet. Furthermore, and to their dismay, William remained unmoved. His pallid
form lay statue-like in Dawn’s bed, his white curls perfect on the lavender pillowcase. The dark holes in his arm looked like
black pools of water in the surface of a frozen lake.
Andrew linked his hand with Dawn’s. “Well,” he said with a sigh. “We could always try again…”
Dawn nudged him, trying for levity in light of their disappointment. “Except we will never again be welcome at the Stafford.”
Andrew waved it off. “I’ll expense the damages to the Council,” he said.
Dawn gawked at him.
“What?” he asked. “It was legitimate Council business…”
Dawn gave him a half-smile. “Definitely the funnest spell we’ve tried so far.”
“So far,” he agreed.
“Andrew,” she said, pressing her hand to his chest.
“Si, caramia?”
“Let’s go to bed.”
Mid-morning, Dawn stood at the bar in the kitchen, eating cold lentils from a plastic bowl and flipping idly through a
collection of New Age restorative potions Maya had printed from the Internet. There was nothing here; both girls knew it.
Still, Maya felt more productive if they exhausted every possible avenue, and every last drop of the printer’s ink.
Dawn was debating another session of poetry recitation – this time Percy Bysshe Shelley – when Andrew tottered into the
kitchen with an enormous black book in his arms. Literally, it was so big Andrew looked like a cartoon figure trying to carry
an anvil.
Dawn laughed.
“What is that?” she asked as he let it drop to the bar with a dull thud.
Andrew puffed to catch his breath, and then grinned like a feline. He swiped a layer of dust from the cover to reveal the bold
black letters branded into the leather cover.
“Black Magick,” she stated doubtfully. “Not exactly original, are they?”
Andrew, choking on the dust he’d unsettled from the cover, coughed into his hand. “It’s Voodoo,” he said, once he could
speak. “I nicked it from the Council Library.”
Dawn arched her brows. “Since it’s Voodoo, shouldn’t it say Le Black Magick?”
He joined her at the bar, turning the book to face them. “According to this book, there’s more to Voodoo than zombies and
karmic pincushions,” he said. “Turns out, there’s sex involved.”
“Is that right?” she said, oddly intrigued.
“And I thought, since we’re involved,” he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hush, “…sexually… We could try this. To
revive Spike.”
Andrew parted the book to a pre-marked page and pushed it toward Dawn. She studied the dense lettering that read much
like a recipe. Her eyes drifted to the woodcut engravings which depicted, in vivid detail, the various physical aspects of the
ritual.
“Illustrations,” she said, feeling her face burn. “How… considerate of them.”
Andrew rushed to explain. “It’s a ritual used to wake people under the Vodoun sleeping hex.”
Dawn traced her finger over the first illustration. “Spike’s not under a Vodoun sleeping hex,” she pointed out.
“Right you are. But the principle is the same. See, this ritual helps the caster channel mystical energies to wake the hexed,
thereby breaking the curse,” he said.
Dawn studied the series of images, which were X-rated at the very least. The woman in the illustrations – drawn in bold,
curvaceous lines – seemed to have beaucoup power and control. Dawn felt at once intrigued and repelled. She had done
things with Andrew she never imagined herself doing, not ever, but…
“Maybe,” Dawn muttered.
“I thought we could get a room, you know, in a hotel, so we could make all the noise we wanted,” he whispered. His eyes
sparkled, alight with mischief.
Dawn bit her lips. “This spell now sounds suspiciously like a date.”
“Could be both,” he said.
Dawn hesitated. “Worth a shot…” she began.
“Great!” Andrew said. He slipped two sheets of folded parchment from his pocket and passed one of them to her. “This is
our supply list. I divided it up for simplicity’s sake. We’ll meet back at The Stafford Hotel at 7 p.m. The room’s listed under
Wells.”
Dawn gaped at him. He responded with a look of grand satisfaction.
Secretly, Dawn was impressed. Andrew liked it when he was all take-charge-y. But she couldn’t let him see that. Outwardly,
she had to seem detached according to some learned, possibly instinctual, unspoken code among women.
“Seven o’clock,” she said.
Andrew was never quite hip to aloof. “Mia farfalla,” he said.
He kissed her, quick and deep, then hefted his book to his shoulder and was gone.
By 4:45, Dawn had everything on her list: a crystal goblet, a long-stemmed red rose, two black candles, two white candles, a
box of black pepper, a packet of pink coral sand, two raven’s feathers, a silver athame and a black dress with silver buttons
all the way down its front.
Dawn showered. She washed her hair, which now had mottled black streaks in it where the dye was rinsing free. As she
applied her make up in Buffy’s full length mirror, she felt a whir of excitement humming in her veins. This was a date. A real
date. Okay, so it was also a freaky sex ritual intended to wake her missing sister’s comatose boyfriend, but it was still a
date.
Dawn smiled at her reflection. She felt a pang of guilt for feeling so giddy with Spike still unconscious, Buffy still gone, and
the rest – Xander and Maya excluded – in grave peril.
Dawn decided she could dwell on such things later. She pulled on her red velvet wrap, She gathered her spell components and
a change of clothes into one of Buffy’s leather shoulder bags, and at 5:45, left the Flat bound for the 6:14 train to Green
Park Station.
Andrew had reserved one of The Stafford’s Master Suites – two capacious rooms with a behemoth bed draped in scarlet
sheets of Egyptian cotton, a massive claw-foot tub, and a bathroom bigger than his bedroom at the Flat. He studied the
wine bottle, trying to figure out how he might uncork it one-handed when Dawn burst into the room in a flash of dazzling
velvet. Sleet pattered down outside; the frozen raindrops dusted her hair like the sparkling of diamonds.
“You made it,” he said, sounding comically relieved.
Dawn glanced around the room: Marble tiled floors, elegant original furniture pieces, an armoire of carved walnut, curtains
of burgundy damask with pale green sheers. Andrew stood beside a low round table of polished wood laden with fruits,
flowers, a silver tray filled with sugary pastries – all of her favorites – and an ice bucket for the bottle of wine he held in the
crook of his arm.
Andrew looked handsomely disheveled, his unruly curls swept back, his four-in-hand tie loosened about his neck. Tonight he
looked nothing like the boy with whom she shared a twin bed no wider than a canoe. That was okay. She bore no
resemblance to the girl who cut off her hair and dyed it in a pathetic attempt to seek attention.
She crossed the room with measured steps; all Veronica Lake meets Jessica Rabbit, making sure that her gleaming high-
heeled shoes clicked deliberately on the tile floor. He watched her, his mouth ajar, as she sauntered toward him.
“My list called for a black gown,” she said in her smokiest voice. “Silver buttons.” She threaded her gloved fingers around
the hem of her crimson cloak. “I didn’t have one of my own, so I found… this.”
Dawn whipped the cloak open and let it fall theatrically to her feet, revealing the pillar of floor-length black satin flowing
over every curve of her lithe form. It was off-the-shoulder with tapered sleeves that accentuated the column of her throat,
her delicate collarbones, and her pale, smooth shoulders. Twenty-five silver buttons like glimmering stars fastened the dress
down its front.
She savored his reaction: a low, gargling sound, barely audible, emerged from his throat. Dawn pressed her lips together,
immensely pleased with herself.
Andrew shook his head as if to clear it. Once he regained his composure, he set the wine bottle aside and lifted a brown
paper sack from the table.
“My list called for a silver horn,” he said, his eyes narrowed in what she thought he thought was a sensual expression, but
looked merely like he had plaster dust in his eyes. “I didn’t have one either, so I found this…”
Andrew ripped the paper back with a flourish to reveal an old-fashioned bicycle horn with a ruddy rubber bulb on the end.
Dawn looked at it. She looked at him. His face was tres grave, but she stared at the thing in utter disbelief. He squeezed the
bulb and it wheezed a lamely forlorn honk like an asthmatic goose.
“I, uh,” Dawn licked her lips. “Andrew, I don’t think they meant this kind of… horn.”
“I know that,” he said, grinning. A smile rose in Andrew’s eyes.
Dawn shoved him. “What?”
“I’m only kidding.” He compressed the bulb again. It emitted a breathy, half-hearted groan.
Dawn dissolved into giggles. Andrew bent to kiss her neck, but she shoved him again, playfully, and they both began laughing.
“You… you…” Dawn managed between giggles.
“I actually have this,” Andrew said. He plucked another parcel from the tabletop. This time it was a small rectangular case,
like a portable backgammon board. He snapped open the locking clasps to reveal an intricately wrought silver hunting horn
on a bed of green velvet.
“It’s on loan from the Watcher’s Council,” Andrew said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Don’t tell Giles I borrowed his sacred
virility horn. I’m not sure how he’d feel about that.”
Dawn smirked. “Cross my heart,” she said.
Andrew nodded. “Wine?” Andrew asked.
Dawn laid her hand on the curve of the silver horn. She stroked it with her thumb. “I want to make some magic,” she said.
She didn’t have to ask him twice.
The ritual involved the inscription of a Circle in cornmeal under the space which they would consecrate as an altar. Sprawled
on their bellies on opposite sides of the bed, Dawn and Andrew met their first obstacle.
“The bed’s bolted to the wall?” Dawn asked, incredulous. “They have a lot of bed theft in these parts?”
Andrew shrugged, not an easy feat in the cramped space. “Maybe it’s to protect the wall from friction,” he suggested.
Dawn felt herself flush. “Right. Friction.”
“It’s okay,” Andrew said. “We’ll inscribe the Circle and then make sure we don’t move much while were having the ritual
sex.”
Dawn squinted. “Andrew, we’re talking us here. We are the sexy hokey pokey.”
“Discipline, Dawnie!” he said, pounding his fist on the floor in mock sternness.
“Whatever. Just keep your arms and legs in the Circle at all times.”
Andrew stuck out his tongue. Dawn poured the arc of coral sand under her side of the bed, and then passed the packet to
him. Once they each finished each side of the circle, they affixed one of the raven’s feathers to the headboard of the bed,
the other to the footboard, directly opposite of each other. They set the candles on the floor, each equidistant from each
other and the circle’s center. Andrew placed a straw broom at the foot of the Circle and one of Spike’s faded T-shirts on the
pillow behind their heads.
With the Circle drawn, and the four candles lighted, Dawn referred to the spell book, which they spread at the foot of the
bed, in case they needed it during the rite.
“Okay,” she said, tapping the illustration. “I undress you, and then you cut the silver buttons from my dress with the
athame.”
Andrew ran his unsteady hand through his curls. “About that,” he said. “Do you think we can skip this one teensy part?”
“It won’t work unless we complete every step,” Dawn said. “We can sew the buttons back on, Andrew. No big.”
Andrew dropped his eyes, and Dawn understood. He was thinking about the last time he had a dagger in the proximity of a
friend. Funny, Dawn thought, that she had almost forgotten that this Andrew was the same Andrew who had stabbed
Jonathan to death.
“I just don’t fancy the notion of clumsily slicing into the tummy of my girlfriend,” Andrew said.
“You won’t,” she said. With careful movements, she loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and shoved them and his jacket
from his shoulders to the floor. She unhooked his belt and his pants, and then had to suppress another smile.
“Strong Bad boxers?” she asked.
“They’re hella tight!”
“More like hella loose,” Dawn said. Off they went, followed by shoes, then socks.
“This is so unfair,” Andrew said, standing utterly exposed before her. “And it does nothing to steady my already wobbly
hand.”
Dawn pressed the athame into his palm. She took the crystal goblet into her hands. “I have faith in you,” she said. “Start at
the top and work your way down. I’ll catch the buttons in the cup.”
And so he did. He cut the first two with trembling trepidation, but the satin thread rent with the gentle yield of a spider’s
web. In the end, he was on his knees, working deftly, dropping the remaining silver buttons into the crystal cup which he
had placed on the floor beside him.
He looked all the way up her body, pleasantly distracted by the way the dress parted, button-free, revealing a swath of her
incandescent skin. “All done,” he whispered. He lifted the cup to her.
Referring again to the book, Dawn said, “Now we cover the buttons with a cupful of red wine and the petals of the rose.
Then, sprinkle with black pepper and ignite. While it burns, we recite this incantation.”
“And for this course, the garcon recommends the veal,” Andrew said with a wry grin.
“Har har,” Dawn said. “Get the corkscrew.”
They followed to the letter of the spell, first with the wine, then the rose petals and the pepper. As Andrew touched the
match tip to the surface and they spoke the opening words of the ritual, Dawn felt the effect immediately. The fire flared
brilliant blue, then faded to the yellow-gold like of the setting sun in autumn as the alcohol burned away.
Dawn didn’t understand the words, only that Andrew spoke them in perfectly inflected French. Euphoria spread over her
and through her like a wave of flame. The colors of the room deepened and the light seemed to swell. The peppery scent
mingled with the wine and roses, leaving her tongue dizzy and her head numb.
He faced her.
“Now we bind our hands,” she said to him.
He gave a half-smile. His movements seemed slow now, lethargic, like those of a drunken man. “It’s a good thing I lopped off
lefty,” he said. “In retrospect, I mean. Otherwise…” He placed his palm against hers.
“Otherwise we couldn’t do this,” Dawn finished. She glanced at his eyes and wondered if hers were half as radiant as his.
Dawn looped the black silk ribbon around their wrists three times and tied it tight. It couldn’t slip off during the third part
of the ritual. Their hands had to remain bound. According to the illustrations, that part was essential.
“Ready?” he asked.
She looked down. Her dress, now buttonless, fell open revealing a tantalizing strip of bare flesh and her lacy black panties.
“Uh,” she said with a laugh. “I think I was supposed to take these off before binding our hands.”
“We can get ’em off,” Andrew slurred.
Dawn grinned. “That is the idea.” Then she smacked her forehead with her free hand. “Condom!”
Andrew nodded. “In my coat pocket. You’ll have to put it on…”
“Oh fine,” she said. It took some wriggling, but they managed to get the underpants off and the condom on. At last they
crawled into the bed, carefully positioning themselves in the center of the smooth, cool sheets.
“Now I’m ready,” she told him. “You remember your incantation? And then you blow the horn?”
“Of course!”
“Sometimes you get all nonverbal when we…”
Andrew’s eyes shuttered. “Only sometimes,” he said. And then he muttered, “And I still think the girl should blow the horn.”
“Andrew, focus,” Dawn said. She twisted her body around to get a look at the next illustration.
Dawn swallowed. She hadn’t realized how much she was hoping for this, not until just this moment. Dawn laced her fingers in
his. “Okay,” she repeated. “You kneel here, like this and I…”
The first half hour was like human origami, or, as Andrew put it, the World’s Most Erotic Game of Twister. They moved
through the positions and incantations with sophomoric awkwardness, which led more to outbursts of laughter than
anything else. They felt like silly, intoxicated children playing at a game whose rules they did not understand.
Then as they finished the final rites and incantations, it was normal sex: her body linked with his, moving with his, slow at
first and then in their splendid rhythm. She bent to kiss him, her hair spilling around his face. She felt herself opening like a
rosebud as the spell coursed through them.
On the bedside table, the flames consumed the rose, filling the room with a golden effusion. It spread through their skin,
down their throats as they drew in breath, into every cell and molecule of their joined bodies. Dawn pressed into him. She
felt pulled beyond her control, like she was slipping out of her skin and floating. The one thing that bound her was the tether
to his hand.
She heard herself speaking, as if from a distance, calling his name. She knotted her free hand in his hair. A stray breeze
tugged the curtains, ruffled the bed liner, rippled the surface of the wine in its burnished glass. Dawn sat back on her heels,
her head thrown back, her eyes shut against the force of the energy building inside of her – too much, too much! – it would
rend them apart. It would destroy them!
Everything blurred, was overbright. Dawn felt herself sliding. Her outlines lost definition. She was losing him. Her Andrew!
She was losing him. She locked her knees against his legs and bent forward again, still moving within the stride of his motion,
but it was like trying to keep her head above water in a raging storm. She could see nothing, hear nothing. The taste of
burning roses filled her throat, choking her, but she did not fight it. Andrew and Dawn were locked within each other,
oblivious to everything now but the endless circle of their joining.
Dawn’s eyes rolled back. She was burning. She was aflame. In the room around her objects began to fly about – books,
papers, the floral arrangements – all of it came crashing down. In the lamps and the chandeliers, the bulbs glared and
suddenly burst, showering them with powdered glass.
Dawn felt their energy burst through her, bright as sunrays, strong as the sea, and she let go. It filled her, every part of
her – her fingernails, her hair, her brain, heart, lungs, breasts, her sex – all of it burned with a sweet, consuming fire.
And then she heard Andrew’s voice again, distant but steady. The incantation, followed by the sound of the silver horn. He
remembered. Of course he remembered. She bowed her head and felt herself reeling toward him, returning home, gliding
back to the place where they lay, two normal humans joined in a simple act of love.
Dawn opened her eyes. He stared up at her, breathless, a goofy, lovesick smile on his face. She knew that look. It matched
her own.
“That was…”
“Freakin’ amazing!” he finished. “Timothy Dalton never had sex like that! Sean Connery never had sex like that. Captain
Kirk… well, probably he didn’t, but…”
Dawn convulsed in laughter. She bent to rest her forehead against his.
“Do you think it worked?” he asked.
“How could it not work? Did you feel that?”
“Oh, I felt it.”
Neither could wait to find out. They dressed in quick excitement like a pair of fugitives, leaving Dawn’s de-buttoned dress
and the wreckage of their spell behind in the suite.
Walter towered over Oz and Anjelica, his shadow, black and twisting as it stretched long over the endless grinding sands.
Oz was weary. He crouched with Helli in the Circle’s center, waiting and waiting and waiting for Walter and Anya to
complete the spell. Everything in Hell seemed to elongate, drawn into a protracted agony of nagging suspense.
Walter had conjured fire in the center of the circle, and Oz knelt beside it, with Helli leaning heavily against his shoulder and
Andrew’s severed hand balanced uncomfortably on his left thigh.
After Anya finished reading the spell from a parchment she held unrolled between her trim, steady hands, she raised her eyes
to meet Walter’s.
“You ready for some magic?” she asked him.
Walter nodded and spat on the ground. It withered, black and chitinous, and crawled away. “Ayuh,” he said.
Anjelica’s eyes flitted behind her eyelids. Oz pulled her close.
“You hear that, Helli?” Oz whispered, hoping to settle her, to penetrate the haze of her anguish. “We’re going home soon.”
Helli’s mouth twitched into a frown. “Soon…” she moaned.
In the far distance, Oz saw the horizon blur to the dull brown of smeared, dried blood. The sky was filling with sand.
Oz got his arm under Helli’s shoulder and waited.
Soon.
Dawn and Andrew stood at William’s bedside. She was not sure what they expected, except that they had expected
something, and received the opposite thereof.
They found the Flat shrouded in icy November quiet. Furthermore, and to their dismay, William remained unmoved. His pallid
form lay statue-like in Dawn’s bed, his white curls perfect on the lavender pillowcase. The dark holes in his arm looked like
black pools of water in the surface of a frozen lake.
Andrew linked his hand with Dawn’s. “Well,” he said with a sigh. “We could always try again…”
Dawn nudged him, trying for levity in light of their disappointment. “Except we will never again be welcome at the Stafford.”
Andrew waved it off. “I’ll expense the damages to the Council,” he said.
Dawn gawked at him.
“What?” he asked. “It was legitimate Council business…”
Dawn gave him a half-smile. “Definitely the funnest spell we’ve tried so far.”
“So far,” he agreed.
“Andrew,” she said, pressing her hand to his chest.
“Si, caramia?”
“Let’s go to bed.”
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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
Sometimes I know I become
All that's weak in a man,
and weak in a boy.
But I keep trying and I won't quit,
And that must be worth
something more
Than a strong man who believes
That there's nothing left to try for.
We need to feel the sum of all our parts
Are more than what's laid out in lines
upon our palms.
Although our hands aren't tied,
we move as though they are,
Until we're bound by branching out.
Lines on Palms, Josh Pyke
All that's weak in a man,
and weak in a boy.
But I keep trying and I won't quit,
And that must be worth
something more
Than a strong man who believes
That there's nothing left to try for.
We need to feel the sum of all our parts
Are more than what's laid out in lines
upon our palms.
Although our hands aren't tied,
we move as though they are,
Until we're bound by branching out.
Lines on Palms, Josh Pyke
Warning: This chapter is NC-17 due to sexual content.