The Knowing Prequel 5 Four months had passed without incident. Jessie had returned home and the entire group had been searching for clues to the demons whereabouts. Nothing on the news seemed out of the ordinary. None of their underground contacts had heard anything recently about this new 'player' in town. "Why can't we find it," Quin asked. It was just after dinner. She and Willow were in the basement, where they kept all the magical supplies, going through all the evidence they'd collected over the months. They had given the other girls the night off. "I don't know," Willow said truthfully. "I've done every spell I can think of. The news hasn't helped. Usually they report things that are kinda odd and we can pinpoint where the evil is." "I know this guy in the village," Quin started, eager to help. "NO!" Willow knew who she meant. His name was Daegal and he was an old acquaintance of Rack's. "Quin, I know you want to help but that is not the answer. He won't help." "Yes, he will. He helped me before when I was..." she trailed off and never bothered to finish that thought. Quin had made everyone aware of her past, no need to bring it up again. "Why can't we just use him to find this thing?" "Because that's not how we do things," Willow said. "So you'd rather let more people die than go to someone who can help." "Listen to me, Quin," Willow tried to speak calmly and intelligently so she could get her point across, but her emotions overtook her. "You're right. This guy can help, or at least make it look like he's helping. But his magick is black and once you allow him inside of you...once you go to the other side you can't come back...not without losing part of yourself. He might even tell you he's helping but he could be working for this thing, this demon. I know from experience - bad things join forces with other bad things just to piss humans off. It's not an option, ok?" Willow looked Quin in the eye and waited for a response. "I'm not a child," she said. She was breathing heavy, nostrils flaring from the sheer energy she was exerting. Why was Willow treating her this way? "Ethan..." "Ethan what?" Willow asked, still angry. She knew she had treated Quin like a child and she felt bad about it, but there was no way Quin would ever understand. Willow knew she could never explain how the darkness had taken her over to any of them. The only way to learn was by experiencing it...and she wished that on no one. "Ethan knows Daegal. He's been there before...I've seen him." Quin was still angry, but she wasn't telling Willow this out of spite. She truly was confused. She respected and looked up to Ethan, so if he was seeking Daegal's help... "What?" Willow's heart sank. "No." "It's true. I was there last month with a friend. When I walked into Daegal's I saw Ethan leaving through another door." Quin really was trying to help. "Maybe he really can help. Maybe Ethan's already working on something with him." "No!" Willow turned away from Quin in anger. She didn't want the girl to see the look of disappointment on her face. Ethan's been lying to her? "It's true." "It wasn't him," Willow said with her back still to Quin. "Willow, I'm not lying. And I'm not telling you this to get Ethan in trouble. I just want you to see that it's not always about..." "NO!" Willow said and spun toward Quin. "Daegal is NOT the answer. If Ethan was there it wasn't because he was looking for help. And you should not be going there, either. It's dangerous. You have no idea what Daegal is, what he can do to you. He cannot help. Do you understand?" "Of course I understand," she said through clenched teeth. She left the room in a huff, the tension so thick that it crackled around them like lightening. "What was that all about," Ethan asked when he entered the room. He had passed Quin on the steps while he was heading to the basement. "Nothing," Willow said. "Where have you been?" It occurred to her that she hadn't seen him since early that morning. Was it true? Did Quin really see him with someone like Daegal? He answered quickly and nonchalantly. "Ran down to the city to pick up some supplies." The city? It was a three hour drive to the city. Willow knew instantly that something wasn't right. She could feel the change in Ethan, in the energy that flowed from him. All the years she'd been with him she had never allowed herself to doubt him. But now, after hearing Quin tell her that Ethan had been to see Daegal...she wondered if she'd made a big mistake. "What's wrong ," she asked him telepathically. She wasn't going to confront him there. Not without more proof. "Not here," he replied in-kind and nodded toward the steps, indicating he wanted her to go upstairs. She grabbed a few books and a small leather satchel filled with oils, candles and dried leaves. She started up the stairs. He followed her up and took her free hand in his when they reached the top of the steps. Carly and Quin were in the dining room, where the door to the basement was. When Ethan saw them he announced, "We're turning in for the night," and slid an arm around Willow's shoulder. "Kinda early, isn't it," Carly asked. "It's been a long day...I'm tired," Willow said with a yawn. "Geez, don't you two ever take a break?" Carly always made jokes about how affectionate they were. Truthfully, she thought it was romantic the way they would lock themselves in the bedroom for hours on end and how Ethan always had an arm around Willow. Quin just rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. She was still angry about the way Willow had treated her. "I'm going back to the city tonight to stay with a friend. I'll be home Tuesday," she informed them and left the room. Willow was about to say something but Ethan squeezed her hand and whispered into her mind that she should let the girl go. Willow agreed, though she didn't know why. She watched Quin leave, knowing she was going to go straight to Daegal's. Why did Ethan let her go? "Well, g'night," Carly said and picked up the books she had sprawled out on the dining room table. "Good night," Ethan said and then tugged on Willow's hand to pull her along with him. When they reached the bedroom Ethan locked the door behind them and held a finger to Willow's lips to silence her. He picked up a bough of sage, lit it with the use of magic, and smudged the entire room. Willow was a little worried...he was acting so odd and being so mysterious. He pointed to a group of candles signaling Willow to pick them up. She arranged them in a circle and lit each one. Ethan spread a blanket out on the floor and they both sat inside the circle, sage still burning, candles lit all around them in a protective border. Even though they were alone and protected, he still spoke telepathically. "It's here." "What's here," Willow asked. "Kek, the demon we've been searching for." He was holding her hands as they sat face to face. Willow's eyes grew but Ethan's gentle squeeze on her hands reassured her that he was taking care of things. Even though she doubted him because of what Quin said, she still believed his reassurance. "How," she asked, "What do you mean? Is it..." Even telepathically he cut her off. "I don't know how but one of the girls is infected. I went to see Evelyn, the seer, in the village today. She said Daegal and a lot of the other sorcerers are scared, afraid of the darkness that's coming. If Daegal is frightened then it has to be bad...worse than we originally thought. Evelyn opened a portal and called on the ancients to help her find Kek. She told me that he's here with us. He's in one of the girls. But that's not the worst part." "I hate to ask," she said, "but..." He knew what she was thinking. "It's been here all along. Ever since it attacked Jessie. It had to have already been here when we performed the protection spell. I know it's not in Jessie but I'm not sure about the others." He met her gaze. "We can't let on that we know anything." "I know. If it's been here this long then it must not be going anywhere for a while," Willow said. "We just have to pretend like we're still looking. But how are we going to..." One of the benefits of speaking telepathically was that most of the time you could read ahead of someone's thoughts and not actually have to wait for them to silently vocalize. "We have to work fast," Ethan answered before she finished. He could feel her body stiffen and, for the first time since they'd been together, he felt Willow's fear. She crawled into Ethan's lap and curled up in his embrace. "I can't let anything happen to them," she said out loud. "We swore we would protect them." He held her tight, his cheek pressed softly to hers. "I know. We'll figure this out," he said and then added silently, "I already have a plan. Tomorrow I'm taking Fiona and India away. They'll each go to a safe house. You will take Riva and Carly away. I've already spoken to Evelyn. She has places we can send them. We'll tell them we're separating everyone because we're afraid of losing them all at once. We'll tell them we have information that Kek is seeking a group of witches. It will throw him off...he'll think we're still looking. After everyone is someplace safe, you and I will go through the group one at a time, and take their souls and send them someplace safe. It will prevent Kek from destroying any of the others and it will lead us right to him. Once we get to an empty body, we'll have our demon." "It's too dangerous," Willow said,"There has to be another way." "There isn't, love. This will work, trust me." He kissed her softly. "Oh, no," Willow shrieked and pulled away to look Ethan in the eye. "Quin is going to Daegal for help. What if..." she started speaking to him silently again, "What if it's her, what if the demon is going to Daegal to kill him next...if Kek and Daegal merge into one uber-demon we're..." "Calm down, love, calm down," he said. "I don't think it's Quin. And Daegal is frightened of Kek. Someone as strong as him will have already taken precautions against infiltration." She took a deep breath and then exhaled, magically blowing out all the candles in the room. Willow calmed down. "Are you sure the seer told you about Daegal? Or did you hear it from him yourself?" Not exactly unassuming. "Willow," he began. The jig was up. "I would never hurt you." "That wasn't my question." "I can't answer you. All I can do is ask that you trust me." Though she had just given Quin a lecture on the uses of black magick, Willow knew that Ethan had proven himself to her more than enough. She did trust him. She had been to hell and back so she knew that Ethan was torn up inside. A voice inside of her would always doubt him from this moment on, but it was the same voice that kept luring her to the dark side. She was strong enough to fight it. She made up her mind at that moment to trust him. "I do." Was Ethan Rayne really the voice of reason in this relationship? Giles would have killed her for taking a backseat to Chaos' degenerate son. But Ethan wasn't that man anymore. He had changed. So why did Willow constantly wonder what Giles would think about everything they were doing? About everything they had done together? About the life they had built with each other? Why did she always wonder if Giles would have handled things differently? Better? "I know what you're thinking," Ethan said. Though they both knew that Giles and Buffy and their band of merry men-and-women had moved to New York, neither ever mentioned it. Willow pulled away from Ethan slowly and stood up. "I'm not thinking anything." She was such a bad liar. "Love..." Ethan raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Ripper is less than an hour away from here...you wonder if he can help...if he has better resources or better ideas...or purer magick." "Look, Ethan..." She sat back down, this time between his legs with her legs wrapped lazily around his waist. "Giles is part of me...part of my past...he taught me almost everything I know about magic and witchcraft and fighting evil. I've been through a lot with him. So if I think about him it's because he was my friend, my teacher, I went to him for guidance and support. But those days are gone. I left him, remember? And I married you." She kissed him softly on the lips. He returned the kiss with a bit more passion than she had expected. When he broke away from her he had a smirk on his lips. "What a bunch of crap," he said and laughed at her. "Hell, love, I'm even wondering if Ripper can help us. At the very least he's got a few Slayers in his employ, they must be good for something." "No. I might think it, but I'm not about to ask for their help. Ethan, we're strong...we can handle this." She had no idea what she was saying. But she knew that there were enough complications in her life without opening old wounds. Selfish, but true. And she didn't want to lead Kek to Buffy and the others. Willow had been keeping tabs on them all, from a distance, of course. She didn't leave them in Cleveland because she hated them. She left because she loved them all so much...and she was slipping again. There was no way she could put them all through veiny-black-hair-bad-ass Willow again. She had one brief moment of clarity in her madness...and she took that opportunity to remove herself from the group so that she'd never hurt them again. It was better to break their hearts than to put them through the hell she had before. Though she made Giles promise to take whatever measures were necessary to protect himself and the others from her, she knew he'd never do it, he'd never kill her. Not even if it meant his own life. So she had to leave. She was too far gone for him to help her. Willow had to seek help on her own, away from friends and lovers. But after she had gotten help, her pride kept her from going back. And then Ethan showed up. And then Vegas happened. And then Carly and India came into their lives. Before she knew it six years had passed. "As you wish," Ethan said and stood up. He pulled her close and wrapped her in his arms. "We'll get through this." "I know," she said, softly. In that moment she wanted to say the words I love you. But she never spoke them. In that moment, when everything she had built with Ethan was in jeopardy, she knew that if she didn't speak the words then...she never would. ~~the end, chapter five~~

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