Mea Culpa
Dawn awoke to bright, streaming, eye-stabbing light. She blinked against the glare, realizing she had gone to sleep on the
sofa with the television on. Tom and Jerry flitted across the screen in their maniacal cat-and-mouse games.
She sat up, stretching, searching for the remote, when she felt the breeze stir her hair. Dawn turned to find that the
windows in the living room were open.
Not open. Gone. No glass or frames, just empty. Brilliant radiance poured in from the hole that should be a window, so vivid
she could feel it, like it had weight.
Starting to feel afraid, Dawn leaned forward and saw that the front door was open, too. The doors and windows in the
kitchen as well. All were open and the light flooded in, compressing her lungs with its unwavering blaze. She slid from the sofa
and crawled into the hallway to shut the door, only to find that it was missing, too. The doorframe was simply a cutout from
the wall.
Dawn understood two things. One, the house was like a set piece, a flimsy façade. Two, this was not her house. It had been,
but it crumbled along with the rest of Sunnydale the day that they opened the Seal of Danzalthar and let all the bad guys out.
She shut her eyes. She was dreaming. If she thought hard enough, she could change it. Dawn was good at changing dreams.
Even as she pressed her fingers to her eyeballs, she felt a shadow fall across her. Usually, when she thought of shadows, it
was ominous and foreboding, but this shadow felt comforting, like a break from the burning rays of that terrible light.
Dawn opened her eyes to find a welcome face smiling at her.
“Oh my God,” Dawn sobbed. “Tara.”
Dawn stumbled fawn-like to her feet, and then into Tara’s arms. She buried her face in Tara’s hair and breathed in the
candy-store scent of her. Tara held Dawn for an eternal moment, before setting her upright to look her over from arm’s
length.
“Dawnie,” she said. “When you leave doors open, bad stuff gets in.”
Rubbing her eyes, Dawn said, “What?”
“The doors, Dawn,” Tara said. “You have to close all of them. The ones you’ve opened, too, sweetie. Even though you didn’t
mean to.”
Dawn thought for a while, and Tara waited, ever-patient, her soft hands resting at Dawn’s elbows.
“My drawings?” Dawn asked.
“Yes.”
Dawn’s heart clenched. “Brodie…”
Tara brushed a wisp of hair from Dawn’s temple. “He’s lost, Dawnie, and scared. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.”
“What do you mean?” Dawn asked.
“The demons, Dawnie. They broke through, destroyed his house, everything. He’s there, and he’s afraid…”
Dawn broke away from Tara, arms flailing uselessly, like she was trying to catch herself from falling. “What kind of monster
am I?” she cried.
“No. Dawnie, no. You’re not a monster.”
Dawn covered her face. “What did I do to him?”
Tara gathered Dawn into her arms again, cradling her to her chest. “Nothing that can’t be undone,” Tara whispered.
Dawn melted into her embrace, letting the sobs wrack her body. A long time later, when Dawn felt wrung out completely, she
struggled, feeling stupid and guilty and selfish, to finally voice the words that frightened her most.
Nuzzling into Tara’s neck, she mumbled, “I don’t want to die.”
Tara stroked Dawn’s hair. “There is still hope in one who shows mercy,” Tara said. “You’ll do what’s right, Dawnie.
Remember, in the end… the angels sing.”
Dawn awoke, calling Tara’s name once into the dark of Andrew’s room.
Maya applied the poultice directly to the ragged, swollen bitemark on Connor’s leg. The poultice smelled nice, like eucalyptus
and green tea with honey (because it contained those things); the wound smelled not as nice. It had gone green around the
perforations and had filled with yellow ooze. Maya was happy to wrap it with wide strips of warm gauze.
While she worked, humming to soothe her nerves, Faith watched in constant agitation from across the room. Every time
Connor groaned, Faith made a corresponding swear, which made Maya jumpy.
Making things worse, Xander leaned on the arm of the recliner, sulking over his disagreement with Willow.
In a few moments, Giles came into the room, holding a book in the crook of one arm.
“Faith,” he said, quiet-like. “The Looking Glass. What became of it?”
Faith stopped her pacing. “I dunno.” She raked a hand through her hair. “Ask Willow.”
“I’m asking you,” Giles said in a low growl.
Faith turned, putting herself between Giles and Connor. Maya figured it wasn’t her business, but couldn’t help overhearing
their muffled conversation.
Finally Giles howled, “You couldn’t find it?”
Connor winced, eyes half-masting in pain. Faith swore and returned to his bedside. Giles followed.
“Faith, we really must know,” Giles persisted. “Did either you or Willow see the Glass before leaving Tokyo?”
“No,” Faith said. “Yeah. Maybe Willow did. I tracked Connor, not the trinket. What’s the big?”
“The big?” Giles sputtered, incensed. “The big, Faith, is that the Glass seeks the source of greatest power and attempts to
control it. It means that if you left it in Tokyo in the midst of a demonic upheaval, it could have fallen into the hands of… of
heaven knows what! That’s the big.”
“I’d say that’s big,” Xander said.
Faith shot him a scathing glare. Xander grumbled.
Maya finished dressing Connor’s leg and pulled the velour blanket back over his body, tucking it snugly around him. Rachel
came into the room and lingered at the edge of the braided rug, reluctant to step over the sneakers of the ensorcelled
truck driver snoring on the floor.
Giles angled toward her, as if delighted to have someone in the room of his intellectual caliber. He asked, “Did you find
anything?”
“I did the search,” she said, darting her eyes around the room in an attempt to include everyone, which Maya found
endearing. “The Council’s database contains several references to crystal balls and other scrying devices as divinatory
keys. The Council documents King Ludwig’s long and illustrious life, but the mention of his association with the Looking Glass
is relatively brief. Also noteworthy, though, was a mention of Lewis Carroll’s connection with the same glass.”
Maya raised her head. “Alice,” she said.
“Your haunted bookshop? The one that tried to eat us?” Xander asked.
“Y-yes,” she said. “You had to use the Looking Glass to get to Wonderland. You had to go through it…”
Giles held up his hand. “It… opened a portal.”
“Hold up,” Faith said. “It was a key?”
“No,” Giles answered. “It is a key.”
Connor opened his eyes. His face lit up with relief as he said, “Dawn.”
“Great answer,” Xander said. “We played that game and stomped that hell-god, but you win this lovely door prize.”
“Xander,” Giles said, inclining his head in Dawn’s direction. They looked at her and froze. She stood beneath the archway,
eyes gaunt, her face waxy pale.
After a cursory glance, Dawn asked, “Where’s Spike?”
They looked around, realizing at the same moment that they hadn’t seen him since earlier.
Xander, looking ill and feeling it, said, “I saw him out back…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dawn said. “I need to get somewhere across town.”
“That’s a grand-scale bad idea,” Xander said. “Been out there already. Roadblocks abound. It’s very Outbreak…”
“Also it’s been snowing for hours,” Maya said.
Dawn hadn’t eaten, she’d barely slept, but the determination in her expression made it plain that she wouldn’t be deterred.
She squared with Xander. “I’m going,” she said. “I think you should go with me.”
“Me?” Xander was stunned first, then flattered, then suspicious, all in the span of five seconds or less.
“You can drive,” Dawn said.
Xander thought, after all they’d been through today, how could he not agree?
Xander kept his eye on the road, his hands firm on the wheel. There were a few cars about, a few frightened-looking
motorists who avoided eye contact when Xander maneuvered around them. The ice made things tricky, but Dawn had been
right in asking Xander to drive. He was, in the words of Rain Man, an excellent driver.
Inside the car felt electric with tension. Every odd minute, Xander would glance at Dawn to find her facing steadfastly
forward, expression impassive, hands knotted in her lap. Xander fed the address into the Volvo’s GPS, grateful as always for
the convenience of technology. It spared him having to rely on Dawn barking commands at him.
Then Xander thought he was being unfair. Dawn was entitled to some barking, being the young woman scorned. Not that
Xander felt unjustified. He didn’t. The travesty that was Dawn and Andrew had to be stopped. It was just… the timing was
unfortunate.
The GPS in a sterile voice announced, “Left turn onto Praed Road in two miles.”
Xander clicked on the blinker, observing passively the signs of destruction along the roadway – upended phone booths,
broken windows, busted cars. He swung the car through Edgware Road Circle onto Praed Road.
Finally he could bear it no longer.
He said, “Okay. You got me all to yourself.” He paused, overlong, while the GPS dictated that he should remain on Praed as it
turned into Craven Hill. “Got anything you wanna say?”
Dawn kept her eyes on the road. “Just drive, Xander,” she said.
Xander, ruffled, said nothing. From Craven Hill he turned left onto Leinster Terrace. A trio of shaggy teenage boys ran
alongside the car, bearing all manner of loot in shopping carts. They hit the crosswalk without looking, the third one
bumping the fender of the Volvo and yelling a curse that was punctuated by gunshots. Dawn shrieked, ducking into the
passenger floorboard. Xander floored the gas and sped down Leinster Terrace, where it dead-ended. The GPS droned in
insipid calm, “Turn right onto Bayswater and continue five miles.”
Xander turned right. Right into a police barricade. He twisted the wheel hard, plowed over the corner sidewalk and hit
Porchester Terrace, tires squealing.
They sped along the empty side-road. Dawn gripped the armrest with white fingers, her lips pressed into a grim line. The GPS
suggested taking Porchester to Queensway in one mile.
Xander spoke again, his voice trembling. “What do you want me to say, Dawn? I’m not sorry. Andrew may be a swell
Watcher and a superb game master. When it comes to the brutal stabbing of a best pal, he’s the first guy to call.”
Dawn cut her eyes at him, but refused to take the bait.
Xander went on. “He’s not good enough for you. Never will be.”
She turned away from him to stare at the brownstone buildings zipping by outside the window. When she had no reply,
Xander thought he might be getting through to her, so he went on.
“You’re maybe thinking Andrew’s changed and all that. I’m thinking leopards and spots. You’re young, Dawn. You’re smart
and beautiful and amazing. You’re gonna meet so many people and one of them will be Mr. Worthy of You. Of course, if you
go through with what you’re planning tonight, I suggest a night-owl type – perhaps an astronomer, or an American billionaire
with vigilante tendencies,” Xander said. He glanced at her, hoping for a smirk, getting none. He turned onto Queensway,
bound for Moscow Street.
Dawn persevered in the silent treatment. Xander, trying a different tack, approached from the sympathetic Older and More
Experienced POV. He said, “This hurts now. For that, I’m sorry. But it will pass.”
Barely audible over the hiss of the tires on packed snow, Dawn said, “I went to Andrew for comfort. And he was good at it.
He was sweet and understanding, and he would hold me, but he wouldn’t let me give up.”
“Ummmkay,” Xander said.
The GPS told them Notting Hill Gate was closed ahead. They had to divert at Ossington Road, which they did. When Xander
looked at Dawn, he saw she had angled in her seat to face him, her penetrating eyes leveled on his. He had to drag his
attention forcibly back to the road.
She said, “After that, things got serious. And I was scared, Xander. I was so scared. I was afraid I’d hurt him. But he knew
more than I did. A lot more.”
Xander eyed her obliquely.
She said, “I really loved how when we wanted to try something new, Andrew would explain it to me, whispering in my ear
while he held me, so I would know what to expect. So I wouldn’t be afraid.”
Xander swallowed. “We’re moving now into the realm of overshare.”
“You wanted this,” Dawn said. “You asked if I had something to say. Well, I do. I want you to know what you tried to take
from me.”
“Right,” Xander snapped. “Blame Xander. Andrew knew what I said was true.”
“He didn’t believe you,” Dawn said.
“Then why did he leave?”
“Not because of you,” Dawn said, her voice quaking with rage. “I said you tried to take it away. Not that you did!”
Xander cranked the wheel of the Volvo hard left onto Pembridge Square, speeding directly into the center of so many
emergency vehicles, Xander thought they’d be blinded by flashing claxons. He slammed the brakes too hard, spinning them
into the intersection where they slid to a stop, panting and stunned but unharmed.
Dawn unsnapped her seatbelt and sprung from the car. Xander thought about following, but decided to park the car first.
He drew alongside an abandoned police cruiser, shut off the engine, locked the Volvo’s doors. A quick look around showed
him that most of the vehicles were empty, save for a pair of ambulances closer to the square, but the EMTs were occupied
and ignored them.
The radio in the police cruiser crackled, and Xander caught the gist of the conflict: police engaged in a live firefight with
unknown “humanoid” assailants. Yes, humanoid. Xander jogged to Dawn and told her the details he’d gleaned from the radio
call.
Dawn nodded, all business. She led him across an abandoned playground, the wind painting flags of red on their cheeks. The
snow fell in clumps that clogged the gutters and sidewalks. After several minutes of brisk walking, they arrived at an eight-
foot hedge glazed with ice where a red-bricked path wound to the gated entry of an upper-class neighborhood called
Ladbroke Grove.
She hid in the hedge, pulling Xander with her.
“Guards,” she whispered, pointing.
Sure enough. Four of them. With AK-47s. They were stationed in front of the gate, dressed like Ninja commandoes.
“Who lives here? Prince William?” he asked.
“Follow me,” Dawn said. She retraced their steps until they came to a cut in the hedge, wide enough to squeeze through.
Once they breached the hedge, Dawn started across the cul-de-sac toward the enormous mansions on the other side, but
now Xander drew her back.
“Soulja Boys are bound to look this way if we cross here,” he whispered. “Maybe there’s another way, one less suicidal?”
Dawn said, “The house we’re looking for is right through there.”
“Dawnie,” Xander said. “Clue me in, will ya? What’s worth all this Cloak-and-Daggering?”
She ignored him. She watched around the hedge until she saw the soldiers turn away. Then she said, “Now.”
Xander caught her again. “Dawn,” he said. “Don’t do this.”
“How you gonna stop me?” Dawn asked, deadpan. “Got chloroform?”
Xander’s hand went involuntarily to the place on his neck where she’d Taser’ed him. Dawn took advantage of that and
darted across the snowy cul-de-sac. Xander hesitated, then tore after her.
Dawn leapt the snowbank and kept running. Xander leapt the snowbank, didn’t quite clear it, slid five feet and collapsed in
the sideyard, scattering landscaping stones across the driveway.
He scrambled to his feet, but the guards spotted him. He ran; they gave chase. He joined Dawn at the back fence of the
third house on the left. He heard the guards shouting, heard their footfalls pounding the pavement.
“This is the place,” Dawn said calmly.
“Go in!”
She pointed. Xander peered over the fence at the charred husk of the house, the snow falling in through splintered roof
timbers. His mind refused to accept the sight of the burnt-out shell, but the approaching guards spurred him to action. He
gripped the top of the fence, hauled himself up, and then reached back for her. Dawn clasped his hand with both of hers and
by the time they’d scaled the wall, the guards were rounding the corner, guns raised.
Xander plummeted into the icy shrubbery, taking Dawn with him. They raced across the back patio, around the curve of the
family pool. Xander heard the staccato of gunfire. Shots ricocheted off the patio awning, spraying them with powered
stucco.
Dawn yelped and dodged aside. Xander bent, scooped up a concrete garden gnome, and heaved it through the glass patio
doors moments before he and Dawn crashed through them.
They dive-rolled away from the doors while more gunshots pelted down.
“Whatever you’re looking for, find it fast,” he said. “These guys are serious about their neighborhood watch.”
Dawn scanned the wreck of the house. It was gutted, utterly. He watched as Dawn’s eyes drifted toward the stairs…
“He’s in his room,” she said, clutching her heart. “I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Xander asked.
Dawn slipped with purposeful strides across the room, Xander plodding after. They climbed the creaking staircase with
caution, even though they heard the guards on the patio, seconds behind them.
Unbidden memories of her last journey up these stairs came to her. How he’d practically carried her upstairs, doing things
to her as he kissed her, until his bedroom…
The carpet had shrunk, peeling back from the walls like withered skin, revealing the wizened boards beneath. They inched
along until they reached the door. It was black and warped, and Xander knew he’d have to use force to open it, which would
betray their position to the guards below.
He looked to Dawn. She nodded. He shouldered it with all his might. The door buckled inward with a loud crack, dumping
Xander onto the floor.
But it was only a floor in the loosest sense. The fire had eaten gaping holes from it; some still smoked and glowed around the
edges. Xander had been fortunate enough to land on a strip of relatively solid wood. The bed, its duvet turned to cinders
and filling the room with the acrid scent of burned feathers, balanced precariously on a smoldering stud.
The fire had also burned a skylight in the ceiling through which a steady dusting of snow and ash drifted through the
wavering light.
Dawn stepped out onto the charred floorboard.
“Dawn,” Xander said, too petrified to sit up. “Stay back.”
She stepped over his arm, planting her foot solidly, then took another step. Then another. Then the next…
Xander heard something scrabbling in the dark corner, hiding behind the upended bed. Something big, like an animal. A dog?
Dawn took another step forward, pivoting toward the sound as she did.
The guards were making an attempt at the stairs. Xander felt the foundation shudder. He knew the whole place could go any
second.
Dawn reached the opposite wall, where there had been a desk and a series of glass shelves. The thing – whatever it was –
saw Dawn and freaked. It skittered back; Xander glimpsed black fingernails at the ends of tapered but filthy fingers.
The floor shifted with a jolt. Xander plowed forward, fingers digging into the blackened boards, until he caught himself with
a sickening lurch on a crosstie. Dawn clambered onto the desk as the chunk of floor she’d been standing on dropped with a
crash to the floor below.
Xander heard the guards calling to each other. They’d halted their climb, which was smart. Wouldn’t be long, though, until
they realized they could go into the kitchen and shoot them like treed monkeys.
Xander watched Dawn. Aside from the charcoal smeared on her face and sleeves, she looked… fiercely determined. She
edged to the corner of the desk, then put the toe of her boot onto a bacon-thin strip of floor.
“Dawn, don’t,” Xander warned.
She shimmied forward, testing the wood with half her weight, then all of it. The creature in the corner flurried again, this
time catching the bed with its long arms. It went down like the ass-end of the Titanic, and Xander got a good long look at…
him.
He’d met him once, back in July, was it? Tall kid, orange hair, piercings. The one about whom Xander had made an
Information Society reference that nobody got.
Brodie.
He huddled against the wall, orange hair crisped to the scalp in back, his face lean, his eyes savage. He wore filthy gray
sweatpants and a rumpled trench coat five sizes too big.
Worse than that, though, the coat was moving. Writhing. Wriggling. The kid had the coat wrapped tightly about his torso,
his arms clenched around his chest, like he was embarrassed. When he stepped in Dawn’s direction, Xander saw something
the size of a rat scurry around on the inside of the coat.
Dawn no longer paid heed to the ruined floor. She walked out to meet him, tears streaking through the soot on her face.
“You came back,” Brodie said. “After what I did…?”
Dawn blinked. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Lookit what I’ve done, Dawn: my house, my fam’ly. The monsters came…so many,” The ghost of a smile traced his lips. “But
they wouldn’t touch me.”
Dawn shook her head, but Brodie went on. “It’s punishment, for what I done to you,” he said, holding out his hands to her.
The trench coat parted, and Xander saw where the boy’s chest should have been was a vortex of fetid gray mist, and deep,
deep within the churning abyss, though Xander prayed it was his imagination, there was a horrid tentacle-y beast. And it
wanted to get out.
Meanwhile, Brodie was reaching for her, plaintively crying, “Please, Dawn. Help. Please, it hurts…”
“I’m so sorry, Brodie. I didn’t know,” Dawn said, tears spilling from her eyes. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Xander looked from Dawn to Brodie. He said, “What did you do?”
Dawn bowed her head, remembering Tara’s words. There was hope in one who shows mercy.
“Nothing that can’t be undone,” Dawn said. She ripped a shard of glass from the wall where the shelves had been and sliced
a diagonal slash across her palm.
“Close your eyes,” Dawn said.
He did, and as Dawn placed her hand over his chest, the boy’s expression changed from anguish to one of such peace that
Xander didn’t understand until a moment too late what was happening.
Brodie had turned to ash. As did the floor on which they stood, the walls around them, the ceiling, everything disintegrated
to powder before exploding in a wave of obliterating light.
Dawn pulled Xander from the ashes. His ears were ringing; the fillings in his teeth were hot. He felt like he’d been struck by
lightning, then run over by a diesel truck. The snow fell in earnest from the open sky above them. The balance of daylight
had waned.
When Xander was on his feet, Dawn struck off across the yard.
“Hey!” he called after her. “Hey, Dawn. Mind telling me what happened back there? My whole life flashed before my eye.
Then, house go boom? Boy go… where? And those guards. They couldn’t just disappear.”
“I put them someplace safe,” Dawn said as she continued walking. “And the frog demons… they won’t bother us. That door
is shut.”
“That door?” Xander said, puzzled. “Brodie was the door?”
“One of them,” Dawn said. She tightened her fist so that drops of her blood spilled bright as holly berries onto the snow.
“C’mon, Xander. We have work to do.”
Dawn awoke to bright, streaming, eye-stabbing light. She blinked against the glare, realizing she had gone to sleep on the
sofa with the television on. Tom and Jerry flitted across the screen in their maniacal cat-and-mouse games.
She sat up, stretching, searching for the remote, when she felt the breeze stir her hair. Dawn turned to find that the
windows in the living room were open.
Not open. Gone. No glass or frames, just empty. Brilliant radiance poured in from the hole that should be a window, so vivid
she could feel it, like it had weight.
Starting to feel afraid, Dawn leaned forward and saw that the front door was open, too. The doors and windows in the
kitchen as well. All were open and the light flooded in, compressing her lungs with its unwavering blaze. She slid from the sofa
and crawled into the hallway to shut the door, only to find that it was missing, too. The doorframe was simply a cutout from
the wall.
Dawn understood two things. One, the house was like a set piece, a flimsy façade. Two, this was not her house. It had been,
but it crumbled along with the rest of Sunnydale the day that they opened the Seal of Danzalthar and let all the bad guys out.
She shut her eyes. She was dreaming. If she thought hard enough, she could change it. Dawn was good at changing dreams.
Even as she pressed her fingers to her eyeballs, she felt a shadow fall across her. Usually, when she thought of shadows, it
was ominous and foreboding, but this shadow felt comforting, like a break from the burning rays of that terrible light.
Dawn opened her eyes to find a welcome face smiling at her.
“Oh my God,” Dawn sobbed. “Tara.”
Dawn stumbled fawn-like to her feet, and then into Tara’s arms. She buried her face in Tara’s hair and breathed in the
candy-store scent of her. Tara held Dawn for an eternal moment, before setting her upright to look her over from arm’s
length.
“Dawnie,” she said. “When you leave doors open, bad stuff gets in.”
Rubbing her eyes, Dawn said, “What?”
“The doors, Dawn,” Tara said. “You have to close all of them. The ones you’ve opened, too, sweetie. Even though you didn’t
mean to.”
Dawn thought for a while, and Tara waited, ever-patient, her soft hands resting at Dawn’s elbows.
“My drawings?” Dawn asked.
“Yes.”
Dawn’s heart clenched. “Brodie…”
Tara brushed a wisp of hair from Dawn’s temple. “He’s lost, Dawnie, and scared. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.”
“What do you mean?” Dawn asked.
“The demons, Dawnie. They broke through, destroyed his house, everything. He’s there, and he’s afraid…”
Dawn broke away from Tara, arms flailing uselessly, like she was trying to catch herself from falling. “What kind of monster
am I?” she cried.
“No. Dawnie, no. You’re not a monster.”
Dawn covered her face. “What did I do to him?”
Tara gathered Dawn into her arms again, cradling her to her chest. “Nothing that can’t be undone,” Tara whispered.
Dawn melted into her embrace, letting the sobs wrack her body. A long time later, when Dawn felt wrung out completely, she
struggled, feeling stupid and guilty and selfish, to finally voice the words that frightened her most.
Nuzzling into Tara’s neck, she mumbled, “I don’t want to die.”
Tara stroked Dawn’s hair. “There is still hope in one who shows mercy,” Tara said. “You’ll do what’s right, Dawnie.
Remember, in the end… the angels sing.”
Dawn awoke, calling Tara’s name once into the dark of Andrew’s room.
Maya applied the poultice directly to the ragged, swollen bitemark on Connor’s leg. The poultice smelled nice, like eucalyptus
and green tea with honey (because it contained those things); the wound smelled not as nice. It had gone green around the
perforations and had filled with yellow ooze. Maya was happy to wrap it with wide strips of warm gauze.
While she worked, humming to soothe her nerves, Faith watched in constant agitation from across the room. Every time
Connor groaned, Faith made a corresponding swear, which made Maya jumpy.
Making things worse, Xander leaned on the arm of the recliner, sulking over his disagreement with Willow.
In a few moments, Giles came into the room, holding a book in the crook of one arm.
“Faith,” he said, quiet-like. “The Looking Glass. What became of it?”
Faith stopped her pacing. “I dunno.” She raked a hand through her hair. “Ask Willow.”
“I’m asking you,” Giles said in a low growl.
Faith turned, putting herself between Giles and Connor. Maya figured it wasn’t her business, but couldn’t help overhearing
their muffled conversation.
Finally Giles howled, “You couldn’t find it?”
Connor winced, eyes half-masting in pain. Faith swore and returned to his bedside. Giles followed.
“Faith, we really must know,” Giles persisted. “Did either you or Willow see the Glass before leaving Tokyo?”
“No,” Faith said. “Yeah. Maybe Willow did. I tracked Connor, not the trinket. What’s the big?”
“The big?” Giles sputtered, incensed. “The big, Faith, is that the Glass seeks the source of greatest power and attempts to
control it. It means that if you left it in Tokyo in the midst of a demonic upheaval, it could have fallen into the hands of… of
heaven knows what! That’s the big.”
“I’d say that’s big,” Xander said.
Faith shot him a scathing glare. Xander grumbled.
Maya finished dressing Connor’s leg and pulled the velour blanket back over his body, tucking it snugly around him. Rachel
came into the room and lingered at the edge of the braided rug, reluctant to step over the sneakers of the ensorcelled
truck driver snoring on the floor.
Giles angled toward her, as if delighted to have someone in the room of his intellectual caliber. He asked, “Did you find
anything?”
“I did the search,” she said, darting her eyes around the room in an attempt to include everyone, which Maya found
endearing. “The Council’s database contains several references to crystal balls and other scrying devices as divinatory
keys. The Council documents King Ludwig’s long and illustrious life, but the mention of his association with the Looking Glass
is relatively brief. Also noteworthy, though, was a mention of Lewis Carroll’s connection with the same glass.”
Maya raised her head. “Alice,” she said.
“Your haunted bookshop? The one that tried to eat us?” Xander asked.
“Y-yes,” she said. “You had to use the Looking Glass to get to Wonderland. You had to go through it…”
Giles held up his hand. “It… opened a portal.”
“Hold up,” Faith said. “It was a key?”
“No,” Giles answered. “It is a key.”
Connor opened his eyes. His face lit up with relief as he said, “Dawn.”
“Great answer,” Xander said. “We played that game and stomped that hell-god, but you win this lovely door prize.”
“Xander,” Giles said, inclining his head in Dawn’s direction. They looked at her and froze. She stood beneath the archway,
eyes gaunt, her face waxy pale.
After a cursory glance, Dawn asked, “Where’s Spike?”
They looked around, realizing at the same moment that they hadn’t seen him since earlier.
Xander, looking ill and feeling it, said, “I saw him out back…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dawn said. “I need to get somewhere across town.”
“That’s a grand-scale bad idea,” Xander said. “Been out there already. Roadblocks abound. It’s very Outbreak…”
“Also it’s been snowing for hours,” Maya said.
Dawn hadn’t eaten, she’d barely slept, but the determination in her expression made it plain that she wouldn’t be deterred.
She squared with Xander. “I’m going,” she said. “I think you should go with me.”
“Me?” Xander was stunned first, then flattered, then suspicious, all in the span of five seconds or less.
“You can drive,” Dawn said.
Xander thought, after all they’d been through today, how could he not agree?
Xander kept his eye on the road, his hands firm on the wheel. There were a few cars about, a few frightened-looking
motorists who avoided eye contact when Xander maneuvered around them. The ice made things tricky, but Dawn had been
right in asking Xander to drive. He was, in the words of Rain Man, an excellent driver.
Inside the car felt electric with tension. Every odd minute, Xander would glance at Dawn to find her facing steadfastly
forward, expression impassive, hands knotted in her lap. Xander fed the address into the Volvo’s GPS, grateful as always for
the convenience of technology. It spared him having to rely on Dawn barking commands at him.
Then Xander thought he was being unfair. Dawn was entitled to some barking, being the young woman scorned. Not that
Xander felt unjustified. He didn’t. The travesty that was Dawn and Andrew had to be stopped. It was just… the timing was
unfortunate.
The GPS in a sterile voice announced, “Left turn onto Praed Road in two miles.”
Xander clicked on the blinker, observing passively the signs of destruction along the roadway – upended phone booths,
broken windows, busted cars. He swung the car through Edgware Road Circle onto Praed Road.
Finally he could bear it no longer.
He said, “Okay. You got me all to yourself.” He paused, overlong, while the GPS dictated that he should remain on Praed as it
turned into Craven Hill. “Got anything you wanna say?”
Dawn kept her eyes on the road. “Just drive, Xander,” she said.
Xander, ruffled, said nothing. From Craven Hill he turned left onto Leinster Terrace. A trio of shaggy teenage boys ran
alongside the car, bearing all manner of loot in shopping carts. They hit the crosswalk without looking, the third one
bumping the fender of the Volvo and yelling a curse that was punctuated by gunshots. Dawn shrieked, ducking into the
passenger floorboard. Xander floored the gas and sped down Leinster Terrace, where it dead-ended. The GPS droned in
insipid calm, “Turn right onto Bayswater and continue five miles.”
Xander turned right. Right into a police barricade. He twisted the wheel hard, plowed over the corner sidewalk and hit
Porchester Terrace, tires squealing.
They sped along the empty side-road. Dawn gripped the armrest with white fingers, her lips pressed into a grim line. The GPS
suggested taking Porchester to Queensway in one mile.
Xander spoke again, his voice trembling. “What do you want me to say, Dawn? I’m not sorry. Andrew may be a swell
Watcher and a superb game master. When it comes to the brutal stabbing of a best pal, he’s the first guy to call.”
Dawn cut her eyes at him, but refused to take the bait.
Xander went on. “He’s not good enough for you. Never will be.”
She turned away from him to stare at the brownstone buildings zipping by outside the window. When she had no reply,
Xander thought he might be getting through to her, so he went on.
“You’re maybe thinking Andrew’s changed and all that. I’m thinking leopards and spots. You’re young, Dawn. You’re smart
and beautiful and amazing. You’re gonna meet so many people and one of them will be Mr. Worthy of You. Of course, if you
go through with what you’re planning tonight, I suggest a night-owl type – perhaps an astronomer, or an American billionaire
with vigilante tendencies,” Xander said. He glanced at her, hoping for a smirk, getting none. He turned onto Queensway,
bound for Moscow Street.
Dawn persevered in the silent treatment. Xander, trying a different tack, approached from the sympathetic Older and More
Experienced POV. He said, “This hurts now. For that, I’m sorry. But it will pass.”
Barely audible over the hiss of the tires on packed snow, Dawn said, “I went to Andrew for comfort. And he was good at it.
He was sweet and understanding, and he would hold me, but he wouldn’t let me give up.”
“Ummmkay,” Xander said.
The GPS told them Notting Hill Gate was closed ahead. They had to divert at Ossington Road, which they did. When Xander
looked at Dawn, he saw she had angled in her seat to face him, her penetrating eyes leveled on his. He had to drag his
attention forcibly back to the road.
She said, “After that, things got serious. And I was scared, Xander. I was so scared. I was afraid I’d hurt him. But he knew
more than I did. A lot more.”
Xander eyed her obliquely.
She said, “I really loved how when we wanted to try something new, Andrew would explain it to me, whispering in my ear
while he held me, so I would know what to expect. So I wouldn’t be afraid.”
Xander swallowed. “We’re moving now into the realm of overshare.”
“You wanted this,” Dawn said. “You asked if I had something to say. Well, I do. I want you to know what you tried to take
from me.”
“Right,” Xander snapped. “Blame Xander. Andrew knew what I said was true.”
“He didn’t believe you,” Dawn said.
“Then why did he leave?”
“Not because of you,” Dawn said, her voice quaking with rage. “I said you tried to take it away. Not that you did!”
Xander cranked the wheel of the Volvo hard left onto Pembridge Square, speeding directly into the center of so many
emergency vehicles, Xander thought they’d be blinded by flashing claxons. He slammed the brakes too hard, spinning them
into the intersection where they slid to a stop, panting and stunned but unharmed.
Dawn unsnapped her seatbelt and sprung from the car. Xander thought about following, but decided to park the car first.
He drew alongside an abandoned police cruiser, shut off the engine, locked the Volvo’s doors. A quick look around showed
him that most of the vehicles were empty, save for a pair of ambulances closer to the square, but the EMTs were occupied
and ignored them.
The radio in the police cruiser crackled, and Xander caught the gist of the conflict: police engaged in a live firefight with
unknown “humanoid” assailants. Yes, humanoid. Xander jogged to Dawn and told her the details he’d gleaned from the radio
call.
Dawn nodded, all business. She led him across an abandoned playground, the wind painting flags of red on their cheeks. The
snow fell in clumps that clogged the gutters and sidewalks. After several minutes of brisk walking, they arrived at an eight-
foot hedge glazed with ice where a red-bricked path wound to the gated entry of an upper-class neighborhood called
Ladbroke Grove.
She hid in the hedge, pulling Xander with her.
“Guards,” she whispered, pointing.
Sure enough. Four of them. With AK-47s. They were stationed in front of the gate, dressed like Ninja commandoes.
“Who lives here? Prince William?” he asked.
“Follow me,” Dawn said. She retraced their steps until they came to a cut in the hedge, wide enough to squeeze through.
Once they breached the hedge, Dawn started across the cul-de-sac toward the enormous mansions on the other side, but
now Xander drew her back.
“Soulja Boys are bound to look this way if we cross here,” he whispered. “Maybe there’s another way, one less suicidal?”
Dawn said, “The house we’re looking for is right through there.”
“Dawnie,” Xander said. “Clue me in, will ya? What’s worth all this Cloak-and-Daggering?”
She ignored him. She watched around the hedge until she saw the soldiers turn away. Then she said, “Now.”
Xander caught her again. “Dawn,” he said. “Don’t do this.”
“How you gonna stop me?” Dawn asked, deadpan. “Got chloroform?”
Xander’s hand went involuntarily to the place on his neck where she’d Taser’ed him. Dawn took advantage of that and
darted across the snowy cul-de-sac. Xander hesitated, then tore after her.
Dawn leapt the snowbank and kept running. Xander leapt the snowbank, didn’t quite clear it, slid five feet and collapsed in
the sideyard, scattering landscaping stones across the driveway.
He scrambled to his feet, but the guards spotted him. He ran; they gave chase. He joined Dawn at the back fence of the
third house on the left. He heard the guards shouting, heard their footfalls pounding the pavement.
“This is the place,” Dawn said calmly.
“Go in!”
She pointed. Xander peered over the fence at the charred husk of the house, the snow falling in through splintered roof
timbers. His mind refused to accept the sight of the burnt-out shell, but the approaching guards spurred him to action. He
gripped the top of the fence, hauled himself up, and then reached back for her. Dawn clasped his hand with both of hers and
by the time they’d scaled the wall, the guards were rounding the corner, guns raised.
Xander plummeted into the icy shrubbery, taking Dawn with him. They raced across the back patio, around the curve of the
family pool. Xander heard the staccato of gunfire. Shots ricocheted off the patio awning, spraying them with powered
stucco.
Dawn yelped and dodged aside. Xander bent, scooped up a concrete garden gnome, and heaved it through the glass patio
doors moments before he and Dawn crashed through them.
They dive-rolled away from the doors while more gunshots pelted down.
“Whatever you’re looking for, find it fast,” he said. “These guys are serious about their neighborhood watch.”
Dawn scanned the wreck of the house. It was gutted, utterly. He watched as Dawn’s eyes drifted toward the stairs…
“He’s in his room,” she said, clutching her heart. “I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Xander asked.
Dawn slipped with purposeful strides across the room, Xander plodding after. They climbed the creaking staircase with
caution, even though they heard the guards on the patio, seconds behind them.
Unbidden memories of her last journey up these stairs came to her. How he’d practically carried her upstairs, doing things
to her as he kissed her, until his bedroom…
The carpet had shrunk, peeling back from the walls like withered skin, revealing the wizened boards beneath. They inched
along until they reached the door. It was black and warped, and Xander knew he’d have to use force to open it, which would
betray their position to the guards below.
He looked to Dawn. She nodded. He shouldered it with all his might. The door buckled inward with a loud crack, dumping
Xander onto the floor.
But it was only a floor in the loosest sense. The fire had eaten gaping holes from it; some still smoked and glowed around the
edges. Xander had been fortunate enough to land on a strip of relatively solid wood. The bed, its duvet turned to cinders
and filling the room with the acrid scent of burned feathers, balanced precariously on a smoldering stud.
The fire had also burned a skylight in the ceiling through which a steady dusting of snow and ash drifted through the
wavering light.
Dawn stepped out onto the charred floorboard.
“Dawn,” Xander said, too petrified to sit up. “Stay back.”
She stepped over his arm, planting her foot solidly, then took another step. Then another. Then the next…
Xander heard something scrabbling in the dark corner, hiding behind the upended bed. Something big, like an animal. A dog?
Dawn took another step forward, pivoting toward the sound as she did.
The guards were making an attempt at the stairs. Xander felt the foundation shudder. He knew the whole place could go any
second.
Dawn reached the opposite wall, where there had been a desk and a series of glass shelves. The thing – whatever it was –
saw Dawn and freaked. It skittered back; Xander glimpsed black fingernails at the ends of tapered but filthy fingers.
The floor shifted with a jolt. Xander plowed forward, fingers digging into the blackened boards, until he caught himself with
a sickening lurch on a crosstie. Dawn clambered onto the desk as the chunk of floor she’d been standing on dropped with a
crash to the floor below.
Xander heard the guards calling to each other. They’d halted their climb, which was smart. Wouldn’t be long, though, until
they realized they could go into the kitchen and shoot them like treed monkeys.
Xander watched Dawn. Aside from the charcoal smeared on her face and sleeves, she looked… fiercely determined. She
edged to the corner of the desk, then put the toe of her boot onto a bacon-thin strip of floor.
“Dawn, don’t,” Xander warned.
She shimmied forward, testing the wood with half her weight, then all of it. The creature in the corner flurried again, this
time catching the bed with its long arms. It went down like the ass-end of the Titanic, and Xander got a good long look at…
him.
He’d met him once, back in July, was it? Tall kid, orange hair, piercings. The one about whom Xander had made an
Information Society reference that nobody got.
Brodie.
He huddled against the wall, orange hair crisped to the scalp in back, his face lean, his eyes savage. He wore filthy gray
sweatpants and a rumpled trench coat five sizes too big.
Worse than that, though, the coat was moving. Writhing. Wriggling. The kid had the coat wrapped tightly about his torso,
his arms clenched around his chest, like he was embarrassed. When he stepped in Dawn’s direction, Xander saw something
the size of a rat scurry around on the inside of the coat.
Dawn no longer paid heed to the ruined floor. She walked out to meet him, tears streaking through the soot on her face.
“You came back,” Brodie said. “After what I did…?”
Dawn blinked. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Lookit what I’ve done, Dawn: my house, my fam’ly. The monsters came…so many,” The ghost of a smile traced his lips. “But
they wouldn’t touch me.”
Dawn shook her head, but Brodie went on. “It’s punishment, for what I done to you,” he said, holding out his hands to her.
The trench coat parted, and Xander saw where the boy’s chest should have been was a vortex of fetid gray mist, and deep,
deep within the churning abyss, though Xander prayed it was his imagination, there was a horrid tentacle-y beast. And it
wanted to get out.
Meanwhile, Brodie was reaching for her, plaintively crying, “Please, Dawn. Help. Please, it hurts…”
“I’m so sorry, Brodie. I didn’t know,” Dawn said, tears spilling from her eyes. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Xander looked from Dawn to Brodie. He said, “What did you do?”
Dawn bowed her head, remembering Tara’s words. There was hope in one who shows mercy.
“Nothing that can’t be undone,” Dawn said. She ripped a shard of glass from the wall where the shelves had been and sliced
a diagonal slash across her palm.
“Close your eyes,” Dawn said.
He did, and as Dawn placed her hand over his chest, the boy’s expression changed from anguish to one of such peace that
Xander didn’t understand until a moment too late what was happening.
Brodie had turned to ash. As did the floor on which they stood, the walls around them, the ceiling, everything disintegrated
to powder before exploding in a wave of obliterating light.
Dawn pulled Xander from the ashes. His ears were ringing; the fillings in his teeth were hot. He felt like he’d been struck by
lightning, then run over by a diesel truck. The snow fell in earnest from the open sky above them. The balance of daylight
had waned.
When Xander was on his feet, Dawn struck off across the yard.
“Hey!” he called after her. “Hey, Dawn. Mind telling me what happened back there? My whole life flashed before my eye.
Then, house go boom? Boy go… where? And those guards. They couldn’t just disappear.”
“I put them someplace safe,” Dawn said as she continued walking. “And the frog demons… they won’t bother us. That door
is shut.”
“That door?” Xander said, puzzled. “Brodie was the door?”
“One of them,” Dawn said. She tightened her fist so that drops of her blood spilled bright as holly berries onto the snow.
“C’mon, Xander. We have work to do.”
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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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Author's Note:
My apologies if I've gotten some of
the geography wrong in London. I
studied the maps and websites as
best I could, but having only been to
the fair city once, I know I lack the
background knowledge to paint an
accurate picture.
Therefore, this is my fantasy London.
I very much want to visit London for
a longer duration someday, which is
in part the reason I chose it as the
setting for this story. Please forgive
my ignorance and just know that it's
all motivated by love.
My apologies if I've gotten some of
the geography wrong in London. I
studied the maps and websites as
best I could, but having only been to
the fair city once, I know I lack the
background knowledge to paint an
accurate picture.
Therefore, this is my fantasy London.
I very much want to visit London for
a longer duration someday, which is
in part the reason I chose it as the
setting for this story. Please forgive
my ignorance and just know that it's
all motivated by love.
.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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal
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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal