There was silence around the room, at least among those directly concerned. Finally, Cordelia said, “That would be bad.”
“Then don’t fight it,” Oz said.
“It will keep coming for Slayers. It will pursue you relentlessly,” Bothwell told Buffy.
She threw back her hair and crossed her arms. “Then I’ll fight it relentlessly.”
“It will have Cecile, and whoever the Fourth Servant is. You won’t know whom to trust. Whom to kill.” He shook his head. “It’s on its way to Sunnydale as we speak. It’s here to challenge you.
“You—all four of you—must fight the Gatherer.”
Buffy looked over at Willow and murmured, “No. It’s too much to ask.”
“It’s okay. It’s a sacrifice I have to make,” Cordelia said importantly.
Christopher Bothwell took both of Buffy’s hands in his and walked her away from the others.
“You will see India.” He hesitated. “I-I love her,” he said. “Tell her that. She sacrificed herself for me, not because she was the Slayer, but because she loved me in return. I would do anything to be able to see her again, except risk your friend’s life.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “If we had another option, I would take it in a minute. But we need all four of you. Together, you are Four. Everything to do with the Gatherer is made up of the Four Elements of the Arcana Mystica: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.”
“Us,” Buffy said.
“You. You are air, Buffy. India, water. Faith, fire. And Kendra, earth.”
“Who’s the rainbow?” she asked, thinking of her dream.
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing.” She bowed her head.
“It was wrong of her to sacrifice herself for me,” he said. “A waste of her potential.”
“Well, she was a Slayer,” Buffy said. “We do stuff like that.”
“Not for your Watcher. Nor one good friend,” he said giving her the eye. “Nor for a lover. I certainly hope Rupert Giles trained you better than that.”
“I did,” Giles said sternly, coming up beside them.
Buffy remained silent.
“For that reason, in terrible remorse, I withdrew from Council matters. Since then, I’ve devoted my life entirely to the study of magick, to find her . . . .” He trailed off. Tears welled in his eyes.
“Because you wanted to bring her back,” Buffy guessed.
He lowered his head. “I wanted to bring her back.”
“That’s understandable,” Buffy said quietly. “Do you have a picture of her? So I’ll, like, recognize her?”
He slid his wallet out of the back pocket of his corduroy pants. Then he plucked a photo the size of a school picture out of the credit card section and handed it to her.
A beautiful AmerAsian girl smiled back at her. There was a startling intensity in her almond-shaped eyes. She had beautiful features and shiny hair. She looked smart. And brave.
“I’ve seen her,” Buffy told him simply. “I’ve been dreaming about her.”
Kit took the picture from her and studied it. “I think she contacted me once, in a dream. I think to tell me not to grieve so. I began casting spells practically day and night to strengthen the connection.”
He ran a hand through his hair, looking tired yet determined.
“I suppose my spells threw off magick residue, which might be why you were affected and had those dreams. Or maybe India needs to talk to you, and has been trying to find ways to do that.”
“And she walks the Ghost Roads?” Buffy asked.
Their gazes locked. She realized he had wanted very much for her to ask that question.
“I believe so, yes.”
“There were four shooting stars on Friday night,” Giles said. “They were spotted in England, and Jamaica, and all over the globe. It signifies something of enormous significance that has to do with the number four.”
“It’s time,” Buffy said.
“It’s time,” Christopher agreed.
Buffy said, “Okay, before I go, debrief. Each box contains—or used to contain—an axe. But somehow there’s two axes that got away from the bad guys.”
“One is the axe of the Air,” Bothwell said, “and one is Fire. You are Air, and Faith is Fire.”
“Yay,” Buffy said.
“Each axe will kill only a Slayer who corresponds with the Wanderer of her element. Otherwise, it can only seriously injure a Slayer of a different element.”
“Not following,” Cordelia said.
He turned to her. “Each Slayer is rooted in the fundamental magickal matter of the universe. India was a Slayer of Water. You can usually find evidence in their life histories which helps identify their element. For example, every place India ever lived was by the sea.”
“There are two living Slayers.” Bothwell’s eyes shone. “Think of it. It’s never, ever happened before. The combined essence of your two beings attracted the Gatherer to you. It’s an incredible amount of magickal energy.
“That’s what it wants, both Slayers. If it takes you and Faith both, it will rise from its pit and walk, like a man. It will terrorize the earth.”
He grew somber. “And there will be no more Slayers, ever, to stop it.”
“But why?” Cordelia asked. “Why won’t another Slayer be called?”
“Because there are always consequences to actions,” the Watcher replied. “The consumption of so much Slayer essence would deplete the source, to be sure. It would probably end the line.”
“Feeling too special,” Buffy muttered.
Kit put a hand on her shoulder. “One can argue that each Slayer leading up to this moment has been special. And yet, India sacrificed herself in part because she didn’t believe she was special.”
Buffy nodded. “I read some of her diary. Slayer easy come, Slayer easy go.” She grimaced. “Been there, thought that.”
“It’s not true.” Kit rose and pushed up his sleeves. “Who can dare to say which of the millions of acts undertaken each day, will lead to something that will benefit the entire human race for millennia?”
Buffy smiled wanly. “Has anyone suggested a career as a motivational speaker for you?”
He let that pass. “I want you to talk to India. Find out if she knows precisely how to defeat the Gatherer. I believe she contacted me because she knows.”
“Talk to India . . .” Buffy echoed.
She looked at Bothwell, and he looked at her.
“I can open the portal in Willow’s hospital room. So that Willow goes, too. And Cordelia,” Kit said urgently. “I’m an experienced sorcerer, Buffy. I’ll do everything in my power to set things right once we’re done.”
Buffy walked over to Willow’s bedside, closing her eyes against sudden tears.
“I have herbs,” Bothwell said. “In my pockets.”
Each person held herbs as Christopher chanted. Lights filled the room, then thinned out to a barely noticeable line, but as he retraced the space over and over, it thickened. Like a miniature aurora borealis, the colors changed from white light to blue to green, and glowing shapes and shadows began to move within the ellipse. It hung in the air, prisms of light refracting in formation like a kaleidoscope.
It was fully formed. Buffy took Willow’s hand, and then Cordelia’s, they entered the Ghost Roads together.
This time, there was no middle ground, no gray limbo while they oriented themselves to the land of death. As soon as they reached the other side, they were overrun with phantoms running in frenzied disarray, completely lost to panic. Buffy fought back, with jumpkicks and hard punches. Each time a specter was hit, it shattered. Before her first trip on the Roads, she had never thought of ghosts as brittle. Her assumption was that they would be misty and insubstantial, like dry ice.
Or memories.
“What are we supposed to do when we find them, whistle?” Cordelia said. “Hold up little signs with their names on them?”
“No,” said a figure ahead, on the roa
d.
Buffy recognized her from her picture.
It was India Cohen, as solid as if she were alive.
Chapter Two
On the Ghost Roads, Slayer regarded Slayer.
Then India said, “How is Kit?”
“Good.” Buffy nodded eagerly.
India’s eyes welled. “He’s mad at me for saving him.”
Buffy was taken aback. “No,” Buffy said. “India, he’s not angry. He . . . he loves you.”
India closed her eyes. “Oh, God, Kit,” she whispered. To Buffy she said, “He contacted me, you know. A couple of times. I shouldn’t have done it, but I would do it again. To save Kit, I’d . . . I’d give my soul.” She closed her eyes. “I think that’s what I did. I think that’s why the gatherer couldn’t absorb Lucy.”
“Listen, we’re in big trouble back on Earth, or whatever,” Cordelia said. “The Gatherer—”
India nodded, her features hardening; Buffy saw the Slayer resolve there and knew instinctively that she and India were part of the same line. At a very deep level, they were closer to each other than blood relatives.
“Don’t underestimate it, Buffy,” India said. “It wants you and Faith especially. Because you’re alive. Somehow, it couldn’t completely take my essence, and it missed Kendra altogether. But you two are fair game.”
“So, it like, spit you out,” Cordelia ventured.
“Slayer,” said a familiar voice behind Buffy.
Kendra was there. Approximately Buffy’s height, with her regal bearing, her hair in its customary pony tail. Dear Kendra, still with the slash on her neck where Drusilla had sliced her with her fingernails, and killed her.
“We are four,” she said to Cordelia. “If you’ll allow it, I will take over your body.”
“Yeah. Okay,” Cordy said unhappily.
India held out her hand. “I was proud to die for love, Buffy. But it was very wrong of me. Slayers must be braver than that.” India looked hard at her, and her expression was one of pleading.
“I died, Buffy, and you became the Slayer. Help me make better sense of my death. Let me become the Slayer I wasn’t.”
The air on the Ghost Roads filled with the scents of herbs—rosemary, for remembrance. Lavender, for hope. Buffy smelled candle wax. She thought she might be able to hear the soft, low chanting of male voices.
Giles, she thought. Kit Bothwell. And Oz.
Her mind filled; she knew the incantation, though India’s Watcher had not told her the words:
We are the Four. We are One, and we are the Four.
India joined her, then Cordelia, then Kendra. Buffy felt energy crackling around her, inside her. She smelled the herbs, and her body prickled with sensation.
We are the Four.
Then it happened, slowly, as the two dead Slayers grew faint. Willow caught her breath, then Cordy, and then they smiled at Buffy.
Willow was India, and Cordelia had become Kendra.
Chapter Three
On the Ghost Roads, the three Slayers embraced. Buffy was overwhelmed; India began to cry. Cordy/Kendra merely looked uncomfortable.
India said, “Hey, I was a tomboy. Never cried on the job.”
“Me, neither,” Buffy lied.
“It couldn’t take my soul,” Willow, as India, said. “It was really pissed about it, too. Starting with Lucy Hanover, it just couldn’t get it right. I think it was because Cameron Duvalier is so insane,” she concluded.
Buffy took a breath. “What was it like . . . you know . . . when the Gatherer tried to absorb you?”
Willow regarded her steadily. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Which is the Gatherer, I guess.” She laughed harshly. “Going in and coming out, it hurts like crazy. In between, there’s nothing. I just . . . wasn’t.”
Buffy swallowed. “No, um, afterward?”
“I’m thinking not, but only because I was with the Gatherer,” she told her honestly. “It timeshares you, sort of. If it’s using your life force, you can’t use it yourself.”
She touched Buffy’s shoulder. “It wants Slayers. It’s coming for us. If it gets what it wants, it will be worse than being nothing. For every single living being on this planet. Pain is its god. And it worships at the altar every chance it gets.
“Agony is what makes it feel alive.”
“Then we will give it agony,” Cordelia announced. “Come. We must find Faith.” She swept past Willow and Buffy. “No more tears. Are you Slayers or little babies?”
Willow raised her brows and looked at Buffy, who grinned.
“I had forgotten about her Spockian tendencies,” she said. “She goes by the book.”
“The Slayer’s Handbook?” Willow/India asked. “Or the Guide to Military Correctness?”
“See, you got the Handbook, too,” Buffy groused. “Giles never even bothered, because—”
“Come,” Cordelia said impatiently.
“Yikes,” Willow whispered.
Buffy smiled. It felt good to smile.
She hoped to be smiling for years and years and years.
Chapter Four
The Slayers announced that they needed time together, and added that they had to go in search of Faith. Giles was loathe to let them go out into the storm, particularly as Willow—temporarily India—looked so fragile. But things were not solely up to him, and what they were doing now extended beyond his realm of experience, Watcher training or no.
Very reluctantly, he let them go.
Bothwell told him they had things of their own to do to prepare, and Giles realized that the most accessible location for books and occult equipment was the school library, as his condo had been destroyed. Again.
Giles and Kit fought the elements as they made their way from the hospital to the parking structure, where Kit had a car.
Giles bellowed to Kit, “It’s remarkable, what you’ve managed to accomplish with your magick. I do hope you’ll consider rejoining the Council. Our numbers are sadly diminished these days.” He thought of Roger Zabuto.
“Perhaps.”
Then Giles said, “I’m glad you’ve a car. Mine was—”
He stopped, suddenly acutely aware of danger. He stared at Kit and said, “You’re . . . wrong. Something about you is terribly wrong.”
Kit smiled. “I’m a time bomb,” he said. “And I’ve just been detonated.”
A woman stepped from the stairwell facing them. She was beautiful, with black, curly hair and exotic features.
“Hello, Watcher,” she said. “I’m Cecile.” She smiled at Kit. “Bon soir, mon amour.”
Giles blinked. Cecile Lafitte! The Sorceress! To Kit he said, “She’s . . . Watcher, snap out of it! You’ve been enchanted. By the Powers of Light, I command you to be free—”
“I’m the Fourth Servant,” Kit announced triumphantly. “I will set the Gatherer free. And she and I will sit at his right hand.”
“This has all been a setup,” Giles said slowly. “Bothwell, you bastard.”
Cecile laughed. She moved her hands and a ball of blue energy formed between her palms. Giles knew it for a weapon and ran straight toward her, before she had a chance to hurl the sphere at him. He slammed into her, sending her onto her back, and raced for the stairwell.
Energy exploded where his head had been, just seconds after he threw himself down the stairs, tucking his head as best he could. He was no Slayer, but he had trained one.
Explosion after explosion slammed into the stairwell. Somehow, they all missed him. Giles ran from the structure into the storm, turned, and saw the entire thing go up in flames.
Chapter Five
“Is it my imagination or has the wind died down a little?” Faith asked, as an entire tree shot past her and Xander. They had just hightailed it away from their battle at the fire station, and were now sauntering—insert irony, Xander thought—through the hurricane that was Sunnydale. Faith had stashed the axe in her belt and he thought she looked quite jaunty.
“Har har,”
Xander said drolly. “You just slay me, Faith.”
“But we got the axe. Kicked major butt to get it, but hey, we got the sucker.” She held it up.
The Sunnydale Fire Station was nothing to write home about, unless one’s home was Sunnydale, in which case one might send a postcard that read, You so do not want your house to catch fire in this town. The engines were really old and didn’t hold half as much water as the new kind; plus the firefighters were all guys who had left other jobs around the Los Angeles basin, usually for dereliction of duty.
Some of this Xander and Faith knew going in, but the part about the smaller water capacity they had to listen to while they snuck up on the double-wide that served as the firefighters’ home away from home while they were on duty.
They spied on the occupants for about two minutes while they surveyed the scene, curious about why the Master’s vampire fan club had not shown. As soon as they high-fived each other that they’d made it to the fire station ahead of the other team in the Scavenger Hunt of the Apocalypse, the vampires had jumped off the top of the double wide and hijinks had ensued.
To his dying day—which could be any minute—Xander would be sorry that Buffy had not seen him kicking butt alongside Faith. He usually came off as kind of a handicap in the sweepstakes, or so Giles and Buffy claimed. Also, it would have been nice to show off for Cordy. So, dysfunctional.
But in the big fight, he was a helper, and when Faith whooped and said, “Man, I am so horny! You horny?” he actually staked a vampire by accident because the very stiff, ah, stake he was holding kind of jerked forward in his grip and slammed into the heart of a bad boy who was leaping at him.
Bam, slam, kicks, and counterkicks; Faith executed a totally mouth-dropping backflip over two vampires while Xander located and retrieved the axe, which had been put into a padded mailer addressed to the Sunnydale History Museum Curator.
Now, nursing a sore jaw from the battle, Xander grinned at Faith. “We are so cool.”
“Hey.” Faith stared across the street, which was the cross street for the hospital.