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FIC: What the Ohio Board of Toursim Will Never Tell You--pt 7
full header & chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four || chapter five || chapter six


Chapter Seven—Prophecies, Portents, Apocalypses, Spells and Book-Making


Blanche says Gerard's mobile is broken and his wife's a bit miffed he hasn't called yet. 10:41 August 06 2009

Irma's dancing around the house. A weevil ate Gwen 10:38 August 06 2009

Lucinda's worried about the egg. 10:31 PM August 06 2009

Irma's a bit disgusted. Suzie is apparently ressurrected again. 4:20 PM August 06, 2009

Clothilde has declared Charlie quite vulgar and wants him fixed. 1:22 PM August 06 2009

Irma's disappointed. Gwen's out of limbo. 1:20 pm August 06 2009


~

The Coven with about a half dozen children in tow arrived in fairly short order, a trickle of two and three with a kid or two as really not much more than a half hour to forty-five minutes between the first Coven members arrival and the last.

Ray was over the moon at more music students. Worm escaped his guitar lesson about an hour in saying his fingers were hurting too badly to do any more. He even claimed arthritis. Ray let him go in favor of “his new class” namely the kids that almost ended the world simply by playing pretend. Ray had comandeered a whiteboard and dry erase markers. In short order the whiteboard had scales drawn on it and Ray was just off in his own world teaching the kids scales and basic fingerings and lyrics.

Mikey was supplied with more paper and shuffled into a corner with one of the more scientific minded Slayers sitting with him. Gerard thought they said Bailey? Or maybe Hailey? Whichever. She was pointing out things she knew for a fact would never work because of her own experiment of waterproofing a hair-dryer that nearly burnt down the dorm's second floor bathroom and left a kind of nasty scar of melted skin on her palm and wrist. She'd gotten grounded for five months and extra patrol and put to work rebuilding the bathroom for that. Bailey-or-Hailey made a bid for getting a space heater just to look at and tear open for better mechanical schematics. In almost perfect unison Xander and Faith told her “Google.” She sighed and went to get a laptop not in use.

Frank managed to escape the were-pen twice before he was duct taped into a chair in the reading room with a ball gag and a Slayer—Lexie? Alexis?--on his lap to keep him parked and in view of everyone.

According to what the Coven managed to scry—Bob was indeed somewhere in the Caribbean. Wherever it was was magically hidden and judging by the rest it was unlikely they'd be able to find him or get him back before the spell had run it's course. He was alive and without major injuries. They'd managed to tell that much and at Brian's insistence repeated the scrying every hour on the hour.

Worm was sent with two of the Slayers for donuts. It looked like they had bought out an entire damned bakery when they came back. Gerard could only stare at the bag of blood that was heated in the small microwave in one corner then emptied into a coffee mug.

“That's just fucking gross,” Matt stared as Spike dunked his donut in blood.

“I'm a vampire, pet. What do you expect? Human food at least keeps hospital rejects and cow from getting boring.”

Frank was evidently still a Vegan even if he thought he was Bruce Wayne at the moment. At least judging by the squawking from behind the gag and renewed struggle on the duct-taped bonds taping him to the chair he was in.

“Oh stop it, or I'll make Spike come sit on your lap and he can tell you all about the hippie he ate at Woodstock that was so high on LSD he spent the entire day locked in a portapot hallucinating,” the slayer on Frank's lap threatened.

“Woodstock?” Gerard stared. “How old are you?”

“I was turned when I was twenty-six,” Spike grinned. “That was in eighteen eighty two.”

“Thought it was eighteen eighty seven,” one of the slayers frowned.

Xander rolled his eyes. “The story changes every time. I think one Watchers journal says eighteen-eighty, another says eighteen eighty eight. Half of them say Dru's his Sire the other half say Angelus is. Whatever. Victorian Era favored line of the Order of Aurelius.”

“Xander,”

“Just a minute, Angie,” Xander glanced over at Brian. “They have anywhere they need to be today that you have to cancel. There's no way in hells they're going anywhere.”


~


Xander sat back heavily on the sofa and accepted the paper plate of pizza shoved at him by Faith who sat next to him. They'd been going around in circles for most of the day with the prophecy research. And finding the witches responsible for this mess was going no where fast as well. Angie had finally suggested a summoning and Xander had given in. There really wasn't going to be any other way to get the witches and they needed them now. They really did. The prophecies were one on top of the other. Both of them for that night. Well if the first failed the second would kick off immediately and actually come to a head the next night but as usual they were pretty well screwed if the second prophecy even got a couple hours in because it was a rapid erosion of dimensional barriers type thing and they were going to be dealing with all kinds of nasty things slipping through the cracks as the thing progressed until the Hellmouth blasted wide open and the world ended.

The one had a very specific list of those who had to be there for it to be stopped. The Called Slayer. The Resurrected Vampire. The Slayers Knight. The Awakened Seer.

“We need B?” Faith frowned.

“No, you. Buffy drowned. Kendra was called. Dru killed Kendra, you were called. You.” Xander shook his head. “Spike. Me.”

“And the Awakened Seer has to be Gerard if you're seeing in his body,” Andrew pointed out.

Xander groaned. “You—you had visions or anything before?” he looked at Gerard who honestly was the only real candidate for that.

Gerard shook his head. “Just—weird feeling something's gonna happen. I had it last night before the show. Mikey did too.”

“Great. Just great. There's no way to get this body battle-ready or my head readjusted to sight with two eyes by tonight. There's no way to get him trained in weapons by tonight. We're fucked as usual.”

Xander stifled the whimper as Andrew started babbling about some kind of spell. It would probably work and they really wouldn't be any worse off. They had to try something. He did whimper when Angie and Rebecca both agreed whole heartedly that Andrew was right and started more about what they were going to need for their summoning the two witches in the prophecy Willow was wigged about. Of course they could be different Witches than the two that had managed this current bit of mayhem. It wasn't guaranteed the Witches in the prophecy and the pair in Xander's vision were the same. Then again the Cat in Cardiff said that they were. That was definitely in favor for them being the right witches since the cats of Emma Davies seemed to be right on the money.

The Coven was set to work on the summoning spell and the—whatever the hells spell Andrew had come up with. Xander shuddered slightly when he caught the words theoretically and probably drift back from where Rebecca and Andrew were jabbering. Great. Just great. Andrew was spell-writing in the middle of all this. Wonderful. Not.


~



“You so need glasses,” Xander muttered about six that evening.

Gerard frowned at Xander who was rubbing his eyes and forehead. “Headache?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I didn't notice really 'til...” Gerard said sheepishly. Okay Mikey gave him crap about squinting a lot more and more often but he honestly hadn't noticed not really. Not until he'd landed in Xander's body and the man had really sharp vision. Even if it was flat and Gerard was having a hell of a time with spatial distances and had bumped into things constantly trying to walk through the room that day, Xander's vision was sharp and clear and a hell of a lot better than Gerard's own.

“This shit's fucking nuts,” Brian muttered from the chair next to Gerard and dropped the book he was trying to go through onto the table. Illustrated with how some sort of big slimy thing with horns tended to dissolve and eat it's human victims—in gory anatomically correct detail. Gerard thought the picture was pretty cool actually, other than the fact the drawing was a realistic depiction rather than just a really cool monster drawing.

Xander's hand snaked out and grabbed a book from the stack one of the younger slayers was taking to the table three or four of them were working at. “Pretty sure this has nothing to do with what we're researching no matter how close to your eyes permanently crossed you are. And you don't get to look at his one til you're sixteen anyway.”

“What is that?” Brian frowned at the heavy book Gerard figured was at least six inches thick that thudded onto the table where Xander dropped it.

“Amounts to a demonic Kama Sutra,” Xander shrugged.

Brian twisted and gaped as Teenagers began to be belted out in off-key, mostly shouted rather than sung, preschool-ish voices. The little kids around Ray back from their “recess” up in the schools gym. Gerard choked at the half dozen little-kid voices sing-shouting out the slightly edited lyric of “Teenagers Scare the living poop outta me,”

“He taught them that?” Brian stared, the look on his face clearly said he was a bit worried about trying to keep Ray from being killed by a pack of Witches when they realized what their kids were singing.

“Catchy, bouncy, simple enough lyrics. It's the kinda thing a little kid would like.” Xander shrugged.

“The next time you assholes get asked what would you do if you weren't doing this you're going to say you wanna be fucking accountants or data entry at some boring nothing ever happens place. All of you. Is that fucking understood?” Brian growled.

“I will fucking help him kill you all,” Matt agreed from across the table next to Xander.

“KNOCK IT OFF, BRUCIE! YOUR ASS IS GETTING BACK IN THAT CHAIR AND STAYING THERE OR NEXT TIME YOU WON'T GET A POTTY BREAK, YOU'LL GET A GODDAMNED CATHETER!” Faith bellowed shoving Frank back into the chair and straddling his lap, holding him in place as two of the other slayers taped him back into the chair.

Gerard nodded. Yeah. They were definitely all answering accountants next time.

“Janice! It's six!” Xander shouted.

“Bob's still alive and unmaimed but nothing more than somewhere in the Caribbean,” the witch who had been doing the hourly scrying called back from across the room.

“Xander, we're pretty sure we have the fighting spell worked out but there could be side effects. We're not sure if we're going to be ble to reverse it.”

“Can you qualify it? Narrow it down to able to fight even when in someone elses body?”

“Well yes, but that's still –possibly permanently effecting both your body and Gerard's because Faith thought working the spell into some kind of rune would work better, if it's in a piece of jewelry or clothing it's possible to get lost or broken during the night and that wouldn't be good at all.”

Gerard watched warily as Xander whimpered “Rebecca” and thunked his head on the table.

“It wouldn't be anything bad at least not that it should have too drastic of side effects. We thought about just making it defensive but that could be dangerous. Basically you'd get—about half slayer strength and weapons skill. Maybe a touch of Slayer healing. Nothing too far out there, and not fully Slayer level. Enough that you'll both survive tonight most likely though. You just might be stuck with the extras, but it wouldn't be like the slayers breaking things when they're trying to get a handle on their new abilities or anything and it really shouldn't even be noticeable unless you break a leg or something and it heals a week or so faster than it would have otherwise.” Rebecca sighed. “It's the best we can come up with and your reactions to magic Faith's rune idea seems to be the best bet. And it shouldn't really make one whit of difference to Gerard because if it's at least combat specific for the fighting abilities, he wouldn't notice anything different in his day to day life at all, except getting over a cold a bit faster or healing from a major injury a bit faster.”

“Demonic, no evil intent to do harm to others...something just in case of body hijacking or possession. And some baddie is running around making use of whatever extras are left over.”

Rebecca nodded consideringly. “That can be done Andrew was playing with something to that effect before.”

“We need to do this before or after the summoning? And what time do we need to be at the Q?”

“Ten for you two and Faith at the Q. That sweet boy, Worm, he's took Danielle, Hallie, Cammi and Amber for a sweep through the park and to pick up Chinese. We should be ready for the summoning in about fifteen minutes and the spell by seven.”

“Cool” Xander smiled. Gerard thought it was a fair approximation of the smile he forced for endless photo taking by the end of a signing event or something. At least he thought it looked like how that smile felt. When he was tired and his head hurt from nervously shrill voices that kinda melded together and endless flashes from cameras.

“My queen,”

Gerard's eyes went wide at the purple dude. He'd almost forgotten about the purple dudes. They seemed to blend back into the woodwork as much as possible like they really didn't want noticed anymore than necessary. This one Gerard was pretty sure was the head-honcho of the purple dudes from the night before. There were differences, they didn't look anymore alike than normal people, it had just been hard to get past the fact they were all purple and, no mostly that they were purple the night before especially when he'd been in the wrong body.

Head Honcho Purple Dude was looking kinda constipated and scared and holding out a basket with two blanket bundled eggs in it. One egg was the dark purple of the scales down the Purple Dudes arms. The other egg was...weird, wrong. Glittering reflective-gemstone white like...fire opal? Something like that.

“SPIKE QUIT PLAYING WITH BATMAN AND HELP!”

Gerard blinked he hadn't even noticed the vampire leaning over the back of the chair Frank was taped into and whispering in Frank's ear. Frank was looking kind of gray and bug eyed. “What were you saying to him?”

“Telling him in detail how I earned m'name,” Spike grinned.

“Which one? The Bloody or Spike?” Xander snorted.

“Spike.” the blonde said affronted.

“Uh?”

“Buggin' hell the witch y' offed did something to your breeder, whelp,” Spike stared down at the basket. “This lot only lay one egg at a time and that one's not right.”

“IS it living?” Xander asked.

Mikey was so right. He really did wrinkle his face into stupid faces sometimes. At least Xander was wrinkling up his face into stupid expressions. Gerard had to admit he probably did too.

Spike leaned and sniffed and tilted his ear toward first one egg then the other. “Strong little nibblets both of them.”

“So?” Xander demanded.

“So accept 'em. That 'un's going to have to be watched and figure out how it's buggered up once it's hatched but...” Spike shrugged.

“Uhm, so is saying I accept them good enough or anything special?”

Gerard thought Head Honcho Purple Dude looked relieved as could be. “Thank you, My Queen, that is enough.”

“Cool, go—tuck them in or whatever you need to do with them that they're taken care of right.”

“Note to self—get Andrew on researching prophecies about white Kumquat eggs when we get done saving the world this time.” Xander groaned and thunked his head on the table.

“Bet you fifty there's at least one prophecy.” Spike smirked once the Purple Dudes left with the eggs.

“I'll double that and say there's at least six.” Xander snorted.

Gerard blinked as the vampire went around annoying everyone for taking bets on the prophecies involving white kumquat eggs.

“Is—is all this really that normal for you?” Brian asked staring at the bet making that had been picked up in earnest.

“Yep,” Xander nodded.

“We're ready for the summoning.” one of the Coven members called out. “And I want thirty on an attempt for use in an apocalyptic prophecy before the sweet little egg's hatched. You're going to have to keep that baby safe Xander.”

“Coming, Julie!” Xander called. “And I intend to.”

“Sure thing, luv,” Spike agreed and switched into game face to start writing who was putting money one what.


~

Gerard shivered at the electricity building in the air. No electricity wasn't quite the right word as the seven women stood around the chalked out pair of circles one inside the other with assorted symbols drawn in the space between the two circles. Power. Something raw and elemental, and really electricity was the only thing he could compare it too but that didn't come close. There was some kind of—ripple--when the boy and girl appeared in the center of the circle. Not a flash or smoke or some ridiculous movie/cheesy magician effect but very real and not really any more explainable than the feeling that crackled to culmination of something not-electric. More a bending of reality, of time and space that the eye just couldn't focus on as the boy and girl were shifted from where ever they had been to in the center of the circle. And who knew there were practical applications for reading comic books....like not totally freaking out when witches summoned other witches right in front of him.

“Oh yeah, winner. Those are the two I saw,” Xander sighed.


chapter eight