Episode 8, Part 6
"Party Time and a Plan"
Laughter filled the streets around you as you passed underneath a steaming HVAC system, huddled into your jacket and gloves. Your steps were a heady slap-slap-slap on the concrete as you tried to work your anger out on the uncaring stone.
Wouldn't do for me to kill the Slayer, now would it? … Latria might be pleased though? You shake your head at your musing.
Fuck no, she's already angry enough as it is. Don't fuck with her plans Annie.
Thinking about her plans helped tamp down your mental idling, that and that The Bronze wasn't that far away. You could already hear the high pitched notes of laughter and celebrations from the place. Even two blocks out like you were. Which was kinda to be expected, even if the band wasn't playing yet. There wasn't much else to do for the normals around here except blast music at obscene noise levels, scream, and dance.
With the sun just starting to drip past the horizon and the sky to fill and darken with the beginnings of night, you
also expect that the Slayer and her little posse will be arriving eventually. The cash bundle burning a hole in your right front pocket makes the solution easy as pie. You ignored the memory of your mother telling you how important saving money was as you ducked under a sign advertising a tattoo parlor. You turn the corner out of the back alley and see the golden glow of The Bronze's front door.
There is a small crowd of people hanging around the door, slowly filtering in as a seated bouncer cards and processes people.
Do I? Still have that? You pat around in your pockets as you wander towards the glowing door. Your gloved fingers brush against a full pocket, zipped closed in your jacket.
Huh?
Pausing at the corner of The Bronze you lean against the corrugated steel and dig into the pocket. With your fingers wrapped around rough leather you pull it out and
stare at the simple wallet in your hand
. How? How do I still
have this nearly three years since I last was in a position to care? How did I just… forget it?
Popping the button open you peer into it and right there is your card ID. "Huh."
Definitely real, it's a shit picture from when my hair was round my ears. Still good too. Scratching your head with your metal hand you give an internal shrug, glancing at the now slightly smaller crowd just a few dozen feet away.
You look down at it again. Then back up at the door, and squint suspiciously.
Fucking weirdly convenient. Fortuitous even. "Eh, whatever." You shrug to yourself and slide it into your front left pocket of your jeans. You sidle up to the crowd and slip in behind a lady in far too much denim, her jeans, jacket and hair tie all blue fabric. While you wait you ignore the blathering and watch the people as they filter in around you and try to ignore the fashion issue in front of you.
Maybe five minutes later and a significant darkening of the sky, you are in and through with no remarks from the bouncer. The room is smoky and full of gyrating bodies lit in roving cycles by lights which are trying to mimic their movements, or maybe the other way around, and surrounded by thumping music pumped through the speakers. It does not take you long to find a seat down at a table by the stairs where you can watch the door. Then you glance over to the menu hanging above the bar, and in moment of stabbing regret remember that you actually hate the drinks on offer in this club and have since you were in high school. After that you can't keep yourself from tapping on the linoleum table top because
god damn you are already bored.
There is no one here who is even slightly interesting. Just dudes and dames and dumbasses, like the guy to your far right who just got rejected and looks like his puppy got stabbed. You find it actually kinda cute for a moment, before you realize you're watching a blonde twenty something mope in a packed club. No one really attempts to approach you, not with the way you glare at anyone glancing in your direction for too long.
At least the canned music is okay. Not the band that's coming obviously but hey, it's something.
You huff, sprawling in your chair as you look up at one of the lights and contemplate what you're going to do after this is all over with. It comes as no surprise when you lose track of time and most of the club around you. None of it means a wit to you.
Which makes it a massive relief when you hear a familiar voice.
Look up...meeeh, don't wanna. Instead of bothering you glance over and see Mr. Librarian sticking up slightly over the crowd. You wave at him. His little jerk and 'ah' expression when he sees you makes you smirk and pulls you upright in your chair.
Behind him as he pushes through the crowd you can see the rest of them. Blondy, brunette-red and the brown. A moment later they get through the crowd and enter the little bubble of space around you.
"Miss Annie, it is good to see you." His voice is pitched to get over the volume of the crowd, which has been slowly rising as the time before the performance shrinks. You don't plan to take long enough to hear it. You smile and wave back, gesturing for him to take a seat.
As he slides in across from you with an off handed "Thank you," the boy nicks a chair from another table and Buffy slides in to your left. The other girl, Willow, slides in to your right. There's a twitch in the back of your head but you ignore it to clasp your hands on the table.
"So," you start, "we all have a bit of a computer problem, and possibly more. Latria is currently busy, so we'll have to figure out what to do on our own." You can't help a little bit of a dark tone slipping out there at the end, but you make light of it by smiling. Willow looks concerned, as does Giles, but the other two lean forward into a very typical "planning" posture. A corner of you sighs but the rest moves on.
So annoying...
"Ah yes, that's unfortunate." Giles graciously doesn't pry as he starts talking, though you expect one of the others to at some point. "Willow has told me about the issue and I must say I agree with Latria's conclusion. Unfortunately." He sighs here as he finishes speaking.
You shrug and nod. "When can you all sneak into the school after hours and get to the computer room? Tomorrow? Or later?" You ask them, blandly, one eyebrow cocked.
They glance at each other, Willow seeming to be apprehensive, before they look at Giles. He hums, then nods and says. "Tomorrow. I need to search through my references tonight." Then he grimaces. "Which is a problem in and of itself. Dealing with a demon on a
computer is… new to me."
Buffy cuts in here, frowning and with scrunched eyebrows. "I can't stake it that's for sure. Will Latria be able to come?" She asks you.
At least she's trying…
actually no, still hate her.
You sigh. "Yeah. She will come." You are watching the boy as you say this, so you see the moment he gets a dumb idea in his head and he opens his mouth.
"So um, what is she up to right now? Is it something else we have to worry about? It'd suck if ya kn…" Xander peters out as you stare at him like he was dogshit that just found itself on your shoe.
The group is silent as you tap your metal fingers on the table. Giles looks like he just bit into a lemon, Willow is looking at the table with her shoulders hunched. And Buffy's hard look passes right by the boy who looks entirely earnest.
That breaks the stalemate. The cool metal of your hand feels wonderful as you rub at the sudden headache pounding in your temple. "Xander, I would have mentioned it if there was another demon or something else. I'm not that dumb." He leans back and raises his hands in the ubiquitous oh shit maneuver of dumbass guys the world over. You just raise your flesh hand to forestall it. Clasping your hands on the table you decide to go all in on lying your ass off.
They should take it hook line and sinker.
"She's trying to deal with some family overseas. Coming here caused some...issues which are
not mine to share." You say quietly but with enough force to make everyone else lean back and straighten. "Regardless, there's another issue related to the demon itself. How did it get here?" You continue, looking at Giles.
"Ah. Quite. Willow why don't you share what we came up with?" He asks with a wondering note in his tone. Buffy looks interested, and Xander as well. Along with being rather contrite as he rubs an arm in discomfort. Willow also looks at Giles in mild surprise and at your encouraging nod leans in to speak.
"Um so, Latria mentioned it probably didn't come through from a portal or possession. It didn't cross anything right. Well," here she starts gesturing around the table with her hands, "what Giles and I figured out when we looked at the time frame, put together with her suggestion of it being bound to an object was that it came in something delivered to the school recently." Here she pauses, almost verbally stumbling as she gets uncomfortable before she rallies.
"Which means the library and a book, since Giles got a set from his collection overseas just a few days ago. Put
that together with the fake name Latria gave and her description of its abilities and well, we went looking and we think we found the book. Mr. Giles?" She finishes speaking and turns to the man at her side, who is reaching into his coat to pull out a small folder.
Placing it on the table he opens it and reveals several pictures of a large leather bound tome. You can't help your surprise as your eyes land directly on the picture on the front, of a lizard like head surmounted by curling rams horns. Just like what you saw back at the Manor when it tried to choke you in a vision.
"Huh." Is your response as your eyebrows climb towards the ceiling lights.
Giles takes that reaction in stride and begins to explain. "This was one of the tomes in my collection which I had forgotten I owned, and after further research now realize the true nature of." He flips to a picture of himself holding it open and revealing it to be
blank. What? He continues as you wonder at it. "This demon is Moloch the Corruptor, and he was bound into this book. Much like Latria determined he was famous amongst occultists, particularly the Italians, for a cult that 'loved him unequivocally like fair children' to quote one of my sources from the sixthteenth century." The librarian then sighs and his shoulders dip in a depressed slump.
His voice is much quieter when he wraps up his little lecture. "From what Willow tells me he likely got out when we scanned the books into the library database. Dreadful really."
You are attentive enough to see Xander wilt in your peripheral vision and his hidden distress lingering in his eyes as he stares at the book cover.
His fault? Wouldn't surprise me.
But this new selection of information makes you consider something.
If he was bound once we might be able to do it again. And then Latria can eat him, which should solve the problem rather more permanently. Then again… do they know how? You look at them arrayed around you and the doubt is not even slightly dampened by what you see there.
Meh. Best to just go with the other plan. You lean forward.
"Well
that's a bucket of news. Latria should be quite pleased by it though, it has been weighing on her mind but this should help us deal with it from what she's explained to me about magic." You shrug. "Regardless, I think it best for us to go forward with the original plan. Trap it in a computer and kill it if we can. Latria and I will be there after five o'clock, does that work Giles?" You ask as you look at him with your head tilted.
He nods. "Yes, yes that will work quite well. It should give us enough time to plan everything and devise an exorcism with Latria."
You hear an announcement on the speakers above you. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PLEASE WELCOME OUR GUESTS OF THE EVENING!" The sudden cacophonous roar of the crowd buffets you, and completely overwhelms the apparently rather piddly speaker system.
Cheapskates. You hop off your stool and scootch past Willow to stand next to Giles, and yell in his ear over the sheer
noise.
"Do you still have the book!?" You can barely hear yourself, holy cow this is loud, and already Buffy and the boy have been distracted. Giles looks down at you, hands near his ears.
"What? The book?!" He strains to ask you, to which you nod. He yells back, "Yes, I still have it! I'll bring it with me while we plan tomorrow!"
You smile, a genuine one. "
Good! Stay away from any computers!" You clap him on the shoulders and work your way into the crowd behind him as you struggle to get the fuck
out.
Pushing past body after body after leaping freaking body is a task and a half, with nary an 'Excuse me' getting wrung out of you from these people. You don't give enough of a shit to care for politeness. One elbow to the kidneys in one blonde rocker college moron, a knee shoved forward into the meat of an ass and a hand jabbed into someone's solar plexus to a slew of curses and groans. And you are out
finally.
With an almost audible
pop you emerge from the crush and into the night outside.
Jeez. Don't wanna do that again, bunch a morons. You slide around the corner and start heading for the car. You have
waaaaay more important things to be doing with that little errand out of the way now.
Which reminds you your Lady has been, worrying. In new and horrible ways.
That thought makes it feel like your shadow is crawling up your spine and dragging at your stomach, all the bad feelings tied up in the, the
thing hanging around your Lady. Coming to the car where you hid it in an alley, you slump into the seat and clumsily fiddle with the wires to start it. Eventually even with your artless fumbling it starts and you slowly pull out.
Resting your arm on the door you prop up your cheek on your hand. All this gross sadness is so sudden, if you lie to yourself. Truthfully you know it was driving your annoyance and whimsy in the club. It hasn't left you since you had to clean
fucking sewage off of her.
You're just good at distracting yourself.
And now here you are driving aimlessly like your dad sometimes did, or your grandma. They said when you asked that it helped them think. But for
you it just lets the little fat demon in your head cackle at you in glee at your own futility.
And you can't do jack against it, because it is
you and it is
right. Your presence is futile. You're a good shot with the Glove and can kill a bunch of shit, but that has little actual
bearing on your Lady's problems. Which you know are fundamentally because she is mentally freaking unstable and it scares you how much she hurts.
You don't think of the story she told you. At all.
She has problems
with this world, so its no wonder she wants to conquer it, as is her right. You know it just from watching her in the past. This place, this world's, filth shouldn't bother her because it can't touch her.
But you know it does anyway, because it isn't her home and you've literally seen it tear at her sanity.
It is meaningless that it can't touch her.
She's lost far too much at this point. And that thought grabs you by the lungs and
squeezes, forcing you to pull over. Jamming a hand against the door and swinging it open your breath is strangled before you see a perfect target and
kick. Your scream is liberating as your foot sends the metal trash can
flying into the alley behind it, spilling its contents like entrails. When it eventually rolls to a stop against a dumpster or something you shut up and jerk yourself back into the car with a slam.
Resting your head against the wheel you just try to breathe, not caring about the shops around you and the barking dogs in the distance.
Look, okay. The world is fucking with her. Maybe, maybe,
I can do something about that. You sigh.
Alright then me, how? What do I get? You breathe in deeply and flop back into your seat and look around at the shops and quiet road.
There's a convenience store with a dinky little donut sign, a barber's and a warehouse on your left. On your right is a small hardware store, a florists.
Would…. No she'd hate those? So would I. They're not… it. Something to take her mind off everything. Then beyond the florists is an alley. But you've lived here all your life, so you know this part of town. And seeing that florists reminds you of another place around here.
An antiques store.
Which might have what just popped into your head.
Driving into the alley you get out and start jogging down the street, away from the florists. Down a block and you turn the corner to find the old antique store with its faded green siding and sign proudly proclaiming
Green Vale Antiques. It's closed, which is just as well. You don't recall what sort of security system this place had, but you also don't care because you have options and are in a right sorry mood. Plus, you've had an idea.
Maybe, much like us mortals, what she needs is some freaking vices to cover up the fact the world is horrible.
Thus, you jamming your metal hand into the window besides the backdoor and clearing out the shards to the screaming
bleep-bleep-bleep of the alarm so you can hop inside into a back room. A quick punch as you pass ruins the alarm box with a ragged fist sized hole and shuts that off. Pushing through the door separating the back rooms from the shop you look over the crowded wire shelves full of antiques and knick knacks. Down one aisle you find lots of wood carving, down the next a bunch of glass wine flutes and glasses.
Nooope. Come on where are you.
Down two more aisles of
stuff and then you find it. A gramophone all nice and pretty on a little display stand.
Ahah! Mine. You snatch it off the shelf, stumble for a second under the weight, then grab a few records at ran-
No, bad Annie. Think about the music. Hefting the player with your metal arm you use your other hand to page through the collections of records sitting near its little stand. You find a selection of choir music, French opera and some Russian Classical. From what you remember from her dreams her language is similar to Russian so on top of the player all those records go.
Just past it the glitter of sequins and dresses grabs you as you prepare to leave.
Ahah! Yes music isn't quiiite enough so come here clothes. Rushing about the place with the gramophone under your arm, you sling several dresses over a shoulder. Always some version of yellow, some with sparkles, some with floofy shoulders or hems and one with a magnificent train. They all got stacked and hefted with your metal arm.
Theft successful you walk out with your haul and disappear into the alleyways.
Returning to the car unmolested is easy and a moment after you're finished offloading you're off again. This time your searching for liquor.
Sunnydale has, fortunately, a absolute shitton of liquor stores.
Prooobably because of all the weird shit. That doesn't stop you from walking in through this particular store's sliding doors, grabbing a basket and roving down the aisles like a raider band ravaging the fields. Ale, rum, whiskey, wine. All of it incredibly strong, and with a focus on fruity flavors where possible. You can feel the eyes of the clerk on you. The dude is maaaybe five years younger than you and seems to have a permanent expression of 'this is not my problem' welded to his face. It doesn't change a wink as walk up to the counter and stuff several varieties of cigarettes towards him and he rings everything up. Then you pause as your eye lights on the extremely trashy covers of the romance novels on the spinner next to the register.
Err. Hmm.
The dude is gracious enough to just wait for you, and goes to staring at the muted cartoon on the stand next to him. Something about a boat and girls from the eighties you think. There's a brief moment where you wonder if he might be stoned, but then you give another of your common mental shrugs and select three different novels. Pirates, vampires and a banker.
"250$ is your charge." His voice reminds you of a dead fish. So does his face for that matter, pockmarked as it is with acne scars and stubble. You heft it over and then take your gains in their bags out.
You give him no further thought after that and just drive home, gramophone in the passenger seat.
Driving up to the gate it is simple to open it and pull the car into the yard, locking everything up behind you. The wards feel limp and feeble though, there's barely a current going through your hand on the bars as you maneuver it around. Then comes the hard part of taking things up to the landing in front of the Sanctum and the roiling wall of almost pus like Fog.
When everything is neatly stacked you stand up and try to steel yourself.
One breath, two breath and go!
The transition is seamless, the whispers passing over you. When the Fog clears you are immediately presented with her and even with your preparations it hits you in the gut like a hammer.
Latria is just sitting there in the middle of her circle, limbs in a tangle as she flicks her eyes everywhere. Bouncing off one thing, then another, then her book where it lies in a heap against the far wall where it was probably thrown and then every other thing. She doesn't look at you. Her skin has a grey, almost stone like color to it which you can
see is not right. Her dress is dusty and more tattered than when you left. Her hair is still right, thankfully. You don't move, cautious about startling her as you look about the room.
And it looks
wrong. Everything is in
a order, but not the one you were familiar with. The shelves are empty. They're
missing, placed about the room like standing stones on their edges after being ripped off the walls. And the things on them placed about the room in little piles and islands of neatness along the walls. Books from that magic shop and the witches to your right in the corner, but the other ingredients and items are in the opposite corner beyond her. The chair is turned to face one of the walls and pushed right up to it. The mantis egg is just visible sitting in the chair, wrapped in what was the Glove's cloth.
Before you can finish your scan of the suddenly more claustrophobic room you hear a
clatter. Looking up at Latria you see her pulling the gold ornaments out of her hair and dropping them aimlessly around her and then
jerking her hands through her hair again and again and again as more and more gets released. Her eyes still roving over the walls.
"My Lady?" Her eyes bounce off you once to your quiet, trembling voice. You take that as permission to come closer. Very slowly you slide forward, stepping around the shelf and the wine bottle hiding behind it, out of her sight. Kneeling, you pick that up very carefully, always keeping your eyes on her and watching her ruin her hair.
Winding your way through it takes minutes, though your thudding heartbeat insists it was a small eternity. Eventually though you get to the edge of the circle, and note that it is turned off.
Is? Is everything off? You're disturbed to see when you
look that everything is indeed turned off aside from the Fog Gate.
"My Lady?" You ask again, a little stronger this time, a little louder. She doesn't react, one side of her complex hairstyle having been torn into straightness and in the grip of three of her hands. You step over the boundary and see her react immediately, her eyes, the burning burning orbs slicing into your own as you set down your foot.
"Annie?" Her voice is like metal windchimes banging against each other. You nod and then metaphorically grab your spine and straighten it. Kneeling you look her in the eyes from her level.
"My Lady, this is not how you should be acting." Your voice is strange in your own ears. You meant to say that, but the tone taken stuns you. It isn't angry or sad or frightened. It is like you are stating fact. 'The sun rises', 'this is not how you should be acting'. She blinks, the burning feeling shuttered briefly before rising again on your face. Her hands fall into her lap, laying atop each other.
Raising the wine bottle, which is only about a third full now and emptier than last time you saw it, you press on. "This world is awful, take it from your vassal who has lived here her whole life." Your voice is calm. "What you are feeling is something we forgot about ages ago." You raise the bottle and give it a good slosh.
"Stuff like this, this is how we forget that fact for long enough to function. Vices." You're watching her as you say that last word and her head cants to the left. Slightly. Then over the course of a blink her skin returns to its more porcelain color and she shifts closer to you with a hiss of cloth. Much like a very large snake.
"Vices?" She asks, her tone like the hiss of said serpent. But she doesn't stop when you expect. "I am unsure what you are trying. Do you not see it?" She tilts her head the other way and moves even closer, pulling herself forward with her arms. That same hissing, with a rising tea kettle whistle in the background rising with it, surrounds you as you stare into her eyes and see
Them. The
things.
You know she isn't angry. She isn't anything you actually have a word for beyond insane. But those
things, with their little grubby three fingered hands are rushing all about the place and taking up all the space in her skull. Eating that equilibrium you were familiar with, and shitting out
this.
"I see Them. They will have no power against proper vices." You say confidently.
"Mm oh?" She responds. She obviously doesn't understand, but part of her buried under
Them is interested. Her upper left hand sneaks out and snatches the wine from you, and you let her take it. It hangs almost unsupported in her fingers, and you can tell she did that on a whim.
You nod and say. "Vices are also good at dealing with whims, either by entertaining them, like you just did, or forgetting about them." At your words she flicks a glance to the bottle, but then she's looking at you again. The intensity has ratcheted even further, so much so that they are almost all you can see now. As if she was nose to nose with you instead of at arm's length.
A
crash and
splatter heralds her throwing the bottle over her shoulder without a single care or speck of interest in the world.
Okay, come on, you can do it. And then she does.
"Alright Annie, show me what
gifts you brought me." Her voice is almost her normal inhuman and the
things you can see through her eyes are confused.
Annie has taken Latria down the next step. What vice does the Idol pick to start with?
[] Music and dresses.
[] Booze and smokes.
[] Trashy novels.
I learned a bit about what it feels like to be a QM like torroar with this update
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