Gods And Monsters

Chapter Eighty:

A sound of disbelief escaped his parted lips, his incredulous gaze fixated on her. "Bloody hell."

She smiled crookedly, pleased with his reaction. "What do you think?"

"Holy crap." Willow uttered from the opening into the front foyer, eyes wide as she clutched her laptop.

Hel turned her head, regarding her calmly.

Willow strode further into the room and set her laptop carefully down on the table. "I had no idea you practiced magic. How did you learn such advanced spells?"

"My father taught me many illusions when I was a child." Hel replied smoothly. With a shimmering flash of green-tinged gold, three duplicated images of her appeared beside her.

Willow's eyes widened, looking each duplicate up and down. "They're so realistic." She extended a hand, and her eyebrows rose as her fingers passed straight through the convincing façade.

Hel smirked, eyeing Willow with interest as she took a step closer to her. "Like what you see, red? They can be made corporeal, if you want to see for yourself just how realistic they are," she flirted boldly.

Blushing, Willow took a half-step backward, flustered. She cleared her throat. "This spell in particular could be very useful." She remarked quickly, attempting to re-direct the conversation. 

All three apparitions vanished.

Tentatively, Willow met Hel's gaze. "You're very... skilled."

"It runs in the family." In the blink of an eye, her altered appearance reverted to normal.

Willow, Spike, and Hel were invited by Kennedy to join a meeting being held in the living room. Andrew sat on a chair, surrounded, while Buffy, Spike, Hel, Kennedy, Willow, and Principal Robin Wood stared him down.

"I don't want to do this anymore. Everyone's staring at me." Andrew simpered.

"Just focus on the charm." Willow demanded, holding a large, glowing orange crystal in front of his face. "You have to focus on the charm to pull the memories out."

"Tell us about the seal." Principal Wood pressed.

"But it tickles, and I'm all tense." Andrew complained. "Can't I have a cool, refreshing Zima?" 

"No Zima." Buffy said sternly, arms folded across her chest.

"Shut your face about the Zima." Spike ordered. "Just talk."

"You were the first one to uncover the seal and feed it blood. How did you know it was there? How did you know what to do?" Buffy questioned him, her stance interrogatory.

"I-I don't know, stuff happened." Andrew shrugged. "I forget."

"So remember." Kennedy interjected curtly. "Look at the charm."

"But I— I'm not part of this." Andrew evaded. "I document. I don't participate. I'm a detached journalist, recording with a neutral eye."

"Andrew!" Buffy snapped. "Stop it, or I'm going to smash this camera over your head. Actually, I'm gonna do that anyway, so you might as well talk."

"Stop going off topic." Willow added firmly.

"I wasn't off topic." Andrew said in his defence, "It's gonna get relevant in a second, because Jonathan's gonna go to the bathroom."

And so, Andrew resumed his rather melodramatic, most likely embellished story of how the First appeared to him in the image of his dead friend and killer Warren, convincing him to set his plan into motion and eventually murder Jonathan in cold blood.

"Wait a second." Willow interrupted. "Go back. What was that part again?"

"You mean this part?" Andrew backtracked to his fantasy of frolicking in a field of flowers, dancing and singing with Jonathan and Warren.

"Not that part." Willow cut him off. "We need to see that knife."

"Hel, search his stuff." Buffy instructed. "Find the knife."

Hel didn't so much as twitch a muscle, raising her eyebrows at the audacity of Buffy thinking she could order her around like some common mortal.

"It's not in my stuff." Andrew intervened, "It's in the kitchen, in the cutlery drawer. You didn't have any steak knives."

"You put your old murder weapon in with our utensils?" Willow blurted, incredulous, while Kennedy left the room in search of the knife.

"I washed it." Andrew assured her.

"What are you looking for?" Spike asked Willow.

"He said the First said something about words, 'Drive the words deep into him'." Willow explained.

"There was some carving on the blade." Andrew confirmed. "I just thought it was a pattern."

Kennedy returned, knife in hand. "Found it." She handed it to Andrew.

Willow set her crystal down carefully on the coffee table behind her. "Okay, you're Mr. Demon-Summoner. How are you with demon languages?"

"Whoa, you were right." Andrew said softly, in awe as he examined the curved, wicked-sharp blade. "It's in Tawarick. It's, uh, like proto-Tawarick. It's really, really old."

"But, what's the big?" Remarked Kennedy.

"We never knew anything about this seal. Now, we know this knife and this language are connected to it somehow." Principal Wood answered.

"Andrew, do you speak Tawarick?" Willow asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I'm okay with it. It says: 'The blood which I spill, I consecrate to the oldest evil'." Andrew translated with ease.

"Creepy." Kennedy commented.

"Will, what's your thinking? You think you can do something with that?" Buffy inquired, taking a step forward.

Retrieving the ancient knife from Andrew, Willow inspected the gleaming blade thoroughly. "I— let me work on it."