The Knowing 9

It was morning. Serena had slept on and off throughout the night but it was anything but restful. She rolled out of bed and moved slowly to the bathroom where a pile of dirty clothes reminded her of the events of the night before. Though she had already taken a shower the night before, Serena could not start her day without a warm spray of water to wake her up. She turned up the steam and stepped inside.

She dressed casually, a pair of jeans with a plain black shirt and some boots. The case files were sprawled out around her living room, across the desk and the even the dining room table. All the victims, all their stories, all those pictures of their bloodless bodies. How was she going to solve this case? It was more macabre than most cases she'd ever worked on, mostly because the blood that was drained from the victims had to be used for something. And, unfortunately, Serena had an active imagination. One that came up with plenty of scenarios that could include that much human blood. Sometimes she even scared herself.

She packed up everything and headed for the front door where she noticed a package on the floor just beneath the mail slot. It was from Chursky. When she opened it up she found out it was her car keys. She had completely forgotten that he'd driven her home and she didn't have her car. But when she opened the door the car was in the driveway. It was an old two-seater Benz from the 80's-canary yellow. Serena dropped her things in the passenger side seat and then opened the roof of her convertible before she headed out for the day.



"How much longer," Dawn asked. Wesley had explained everything before Willow/Ethan had emerged from Giles' quarters and met with the gang late in the evening the night before. Though everyone was happy to see Willow, something about her being in Ethan's body was unsettling. Imagine that.

"Not sure," Buffy said, "Still waiting for Giles. He has to be the one who performs the ritual - he's the link between the coven and Willow. But I'm sure the sooner he gets Willow out of Ethan Rayne's body, the happier he'll be."

"The happier we'll all be," Xander added, "I, for one, have had all the wiggins I can stand for one lifetime."

"Ditto," Dawn said.

"It's gotta suck for him...seeing Willow and Ethan together," Faith said.

The whole room shot her a dirty look.

"I didn't mean 'together' like 'one human being' but, like...you know - together as in betrothed...man and wife...lovers....geez...." Faith flopped down onto a sofa next to Spike.

Speak of the devil and he walks in the room. "Has Ripper come down yet?" Ethan said and then slapped himself across the face, "Ouch!" Obviously Willow had taken over. She said, "Stop calling him Ripper."

"Oh, this is fun," Spike said as he leaned over to Faith. "Somebody call the Marx Brothers so they can make a movie out of this." Now it was Spike's turn to get the dirty looks from the room. "Sorry...that was last century. I'm a bit older 'n all of you don't forget."

Amy and Illyria had gone to rest. They were both going to be key factors in performing the spell. Their combined power would take some of the pressure off of Giles and help keep him anchored to this plane.

Xander walked over to Ethan and said, "Will, any chance you and I could talk privately? Can you block him out or something?"

"Sure I can," Ethan said and then pinched himself. "No, I can't, he was lying. We'll talk when I'm MYSELF again." There was so much she wanted to say to Xander, but now was not the time, not while she was sharing a body with her husband.

Truthfully, she loved Ethan in her own way. She did. He was a changed man, though Giles and the others would not be easily convinced of that. Once this was over she would tell Giles why she left and explain how she and Ethan had been fighting the dark forces on the east coast for years. She would also tell Giles that she still loved him, even after all these years...but that she wasn't sure what that meant for either of them...or for Ethan. But being around the gang again had felt good. It felt real, unlike her life with Ethan that felt like...a fairytale. Every kiss was magical and whimsical, every time he took her in his arms it was a grand waltz or a sensual slow dance, every present was a surprise with a flourish thrown in for good measure. He was the most charming man she'd ever met and he treated her like a princess.



Serena turned onto White Cliff Drive and stopped the car. She sat for a few moments looking down the road. It had changed so much since the summers she'd spent there as a child. The foliage had all filled in and grown up, turning what used to be a beautiful tree-lined scenic route into a dark, gloomy path. But she knew at the end of the road stood the Hightower Retreat's main building, a place that surely had the answers to the questions she had formed in her mind.

She was lost for a moment in her thoughts. Her parents were there and her sister, their voices distant on the breeze that passed her by. She had lost all three of them in a car accident. She was truly alone in the world. People tried to get close to her but she built walls. Good ones. Strong ones. And those walls kept out everyone, even those who had the best intentions.



Giles was back in the sensory deprivation chamber. This time he was decompressing from the shock of seeing Ethan and the pain of having been turned into a statue. He had throttled Ethan a little, spewed all sorts of epithets at him and then apologized to Willow who had to endure his blows since she was stuck in Ethan's body. He would do anything for Willow, though, even after she had left him and broke his heart. He would always love her. As much as he loved her he didn't know how to face her. He would perform the ritual to separate her from Ethan and put her back in her own body, but that was it for Giles. He knew that he was going to drop out of sight until Ethan and Willow left the premises.

He took a deep breath and felt his energy growing inside. Soon he would be ready.



The car seemed to lurch forward of it's own accord. Before Serena knew it she was driving through the darkness of the cover of the trees. It was eerie. She hadn't been to the crime scene, she wasn't even on the force at the time, but she'd seen pictures of the owner's bodies lying on the front lawn. The pictures flashed in her mind like a slide show as she made her way to the end of the road.

The estate was beautiful, amazingly. Rupert Giles must have put a lot of money and work into it. Though it looked like something from the vacation resort she'd seen in "Dirty Dancing" Serena knew that there were no happy families inside, no charades, no sexy dance guy out in the staff's quarters, no water polo, no horseback riding, and nothing else that was good and pure. Inside, she knew it was more like "The Shining" only without the snowstorm. She stopped the car just outside the front door and turned off the engine.



Giles made his way downstairs. He had called down to Buffy to tell her he was on his way and she headed right for the hologram mirror.

She stood in front of the mirror and when it was done scanning her she began to speak. "Illyria, Amy, everyone else...it's show time. Giles is on his way down. We need everyone for the ritual. We'll be in the dining hall."



Serena was halfway up the front steps when an image appeared in front of her out of thin air. She drew her gun and pointed it but when she looked up there was something floating in front of her...a blond girl...a ghost?

She heard the girl talking about a ritual and Rupert Giles. Serena stepped around the image and walked up to the porch. She pressed her back against the house just to the side of the door. She waited to see if the blond had seen her or would acknowledge her, but the image said what it needed to say and then faded. When it faded, it closed and condensed to a thin sliver and Serena saw a white light shooting out of a little black box built into the brick work. The light faded when the image disappeared. "Hologram..." she said. She knew they were becoming more and more popular as technology forged ahead at the speed of light, but she had never actually seen one. It more than freaked her out.

As the shock wore off the words of what the girl had said resonated. Serena quickly made her way around to the side of the house on the porch that wrapped the entire building's exterior. From her time spent there as a child, Serena remembered where the dining hall was and headed to one of the windows.

She pressed her nose to the glass and tried to peer inside through a tiny slit in the draperies. Her eyes scanned the room for something out of the ordinary, something 'occult-like' that would be used in a ritual or spell of some sort. When she saw the table in the center of the room, she squinted harder to get a better view of what was lying on the table. When she succeeded it took her breath away. It was the body of Willow Rayne.

~~~end part nine ~~~~



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