-
“I know where she is,” Charley said. He wished he could say that he was surprised, but he wasn’t. Jerry did come off as somewhat as traditionalist. His sister was certainly one. Charley did wander how many women were in Dandridge’s life and how many more modern women would resemble those he once loved. “He took her back to the old house, back to Wallace, Iowa.”
“Iowa?” Spike looked like he was in shock. “Why the hell would he want to take anyone there?”
“Hey,” Charley said and stared at him.
“Come on Brewster,” Ed told him. “The place we grew up sucked. Still sucks to this day.”
“But to insult the entire state?”
“It’s Iowa,” Spike. “Land of corn and plain flavored soldier boys.” He paused. “Not saying there is any corn flavored soldier boys, just the plain ones.”
“We get the point,” Xander said and turned to Charley. “You know exactly where she is?”
“Drusilla said the beginning. She means my beginning.” Charley turned to Drusilla. “Am I right?”
“She is there,” Drusilla said and nodded. “I tried to tell you.”
“Sorry about this lot, Poodle,” Spike said to her while he caressed her face. “They don’t know how to listen.”
“If you knew what she meant then why didn’t you say anything?” Xander asked him.
“Cause you didn’t ask.” Spike pointed at him.
“You just don’t want to admit that you didn’t know what she meant either.”
“Oh bollocks.”
“Not tonight,” Xander growled. “I don’t want to deal with your attitude, your stupidity, your Spikeness, Pratt.”
“Ixnay on the astnamelay if you know what’s good for you.”
Charley jumped in between the two the same time Lyra did to keep them from fighting. Ed and Drusilla held Spike back while Faith and Ace were holding onto Xander.
“This is not helping Buffy,” Lyra said.
“She’s right,” Charley said as he stared at everyone around the room. “We need to develop a plan on how to rescue her.”
“Good you do that,” Spike said as he slipped out of the grasp from Evil. “I’m going out for a smoke, care to join me, Vixen?”
“I’m not in a need of a fix,” Faith told him.
“Fine then,” Spike headed for the foyer.
“What if Buffy has already killed him?” Rissa asked.
“She would have called by now,” Faith said.
“We may have to face the inevitable,” Xander said. “There is a good chance that Buffy might have been turned.”
“Hello,” Spike said loudly and opened the door, revealing Tyler and Ronnie stepping back for each other. “Sorry if I interrupted your snog.”
“Excuse me?” Ronnie asked while Tyler just walked in clearly embarrassed.
“Not what you think it means,” Spike said before he stepped out.
“Sorry we’re late,” Ronnie said as she joined the group. “What did we miss?”
“Not as much as us,” Lyra said as she hugged her friend. “But that’s not important right now. How are you?”
“I’m good,” Ronnie said and hugged back.
“She identified Rayne as the one who ordered the kidnapping,” Tyler said. “He’s the law’s problem now.”
“Good,” Xander said and several of the Slayer’s echoed his sentiment.
“Buffy may be a vampire now,” Charley said. “She still has her soul since she is the kind I am. That does mean that she is under the control of Dandridge. We kill him and we free her.”
“I’ll still follow her,” Rowena said.
“So will I,” Traci said.
“Me too,” Fawha said. The other Slayers agreed.
“I’m with B,” Faith said.
“So am I,” Xander said. He closed his eyes and inhaled. “We will see it through. It’s what we’re always here to do. Some of us will be going to Wallace, Iowa. Charley and Ed know the area and will lead us through.”
“I’m coming,” Faith said.
“So am I,” Lyra volunteered.
“Uh Lyra?” Xander stared at her.
“Charley’s going and so am I,” Lyra said. “Buffy sacrificed her humanity for Ronnie.”
“You’re still in high school,” Charley reminded her. He wanted to have Lyra to come with him, but he couldn’t ignore the facts.
“We’ll figure something out,” Lyra said.
“We could leave after school on Friday,” Ace suggested. “We can get a flight.”
“What about your parents?” Xander asked.
“We’ll just tell them a weekend road trip,” Tyler said. “Ace and I are seniors and I turned eighteen back in December.”
“I’ll be eighteen in a couple of weeks,” Ace said. “Not to mention my parents really don’t care what I do.”
“Lyra, you and I are still sixteen,” Ronnie said.
“Well we can always say we are sleeping at each other’s houses,” Lyra said. “Yeah that doesn’t always work.”
“Can sleep at my place,” Rissa said. She had a small smile and Charley could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.
“First of all you are not coming,” Tyler told her. “Second of Ronnie’s folks don’t know you that well.”
“But Ronnie does,” Rissa said in an annoyed tone as she frowned at her cousin. “Ronnie stays back with me. I and one of the Slayer’s sleeps over at Ronnie’s.”
“How is that going to work?” Tyler asked. “You going to have one wear a wig and dress like Lyra?”
“Oh no,” Xander said. “You are not going to use a spell to magically disguise one of the Slayers to look and sound like Lyra.”
“Dude,” Ed said and grinned. “Polyjuice potion.” He noticed the way everyone was looking at him. “Read a book.”
“That would work,” Lyra said. “Rissa you are genius.”
“No,” Xander shook his head. “You are not going to do that.”
“Not by myself,” Rissa said. “I need to get in contact with my Wicca group and we can do it together.”
“I don’t like the idea,” Xander said.
“I think it could work,” Faith said and turned to the other Slayers. “Which one of you wants to volunteer?”
“No one.” Xander grabbed her by the shoulders. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Leading the Slayers,” Faith answered as she removed Xander’s hands from her shoulders. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“And I’m the leader of the whole operation here.”
“Really?” Faith blinked. “I think we should put it to a vote.”
“That’s a bad idea. Remember the last time people voted you in charge?”
“I didn’t have enough experience at the time.”
“And you do now?”
“Hey!” Tyler shouted. “Can you two not fight?” He shook his head. “I’m not in the mood to relive my parents divorce this evening.”
“How are we supposed to rescue Buffy if you two have to squabble over who is going to be leader?” Rowena asked.
“Xander said that Charley was going to lead this mission,” Rissa brought up.
“Yeah he did,” Ace added.
“Me in charge?” Charley asked as he pointed at himself. He looked at Ed who nodded. “I did defeat him before.”
“Show us the details when we get there,” Faith told him. “So what’s your position on the spell?”
“We do know what happens when magic goes wrong,” Charley said as he pointed at Ace’s wings. “Rissa has gotten better since then and is more careful and she will be having a lot of assistance.”
“Exactly,” the young witch said.
Charley turned to her. “Are you positive you can do the spell.”
“Absolutely one hundred percent completely positive.”
Charley nodded and turned to Lyra. “Are you certain you want to come?”
“There have only been a few sure things in my life,” Lyra said. “This is one.”
Charley closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Try not to pack too heavy and you might want to leave your costume here so that your decoy can wear it.”
“If I can wear the costume then I want to volunteer,” Inez said. She had a distinct Swedish accent and curly blond hair that toppled past her shoulders.
“You like the costume?” Lyra asked.
“Ja, it inspired me to get my own,” Inez said.
“Ronnie did most of the work making it,” Lyra said.
“When you spend the night we will work on the details,” Ronnie told her.
“We got our decoy,” Ed said as he ticked off details on his finger. “We got Brewster and me to show you around, we mostly know who is going and staying. What else do we need?”
“Tickets,” Rowena said. “I’ll purchase them.” She ran to the room she was sharing with another Slayer.
“Make sure it is as close to Wallace as possible,” Xander told her. “And make sure the flight will be after dark.”
“Also need to figure how many Slayers are going,” Faith said. “Rowena will be in charge until we return. Since we trashed their nest the local vamps have scattered so patrols need to be kept up.”
“What about sleeping arrangements?” Ed asked. “For Charley and me?”
“We’ll put some soil in some sleeping bags,” Charley told him. They were also going to need to bring an extra sleeping bag for Buffy, but he didn’t want to say that now.
“What about the rest of us?” Tyler asked. “Where are we going to sleep?”
“Call this a crazy notion,” Xander said. “But I was thinking we would sleep in hotel beds.”
“Spike has a better idea,” Drusilla said. Charley nearly forgot she was there.
The door opened and Spike came back. He had a cell phone in his hand. “Got everything all sorted out have we?”
“Rowena is purchasing our plane tickets,” Faith told him. “You want to come?”
“I’d be going if you hadn’t asked me,” Spike said. “I was on the phone with someone who has a place in the Wallace area.”
“We’ll be crashing at their place?” Faith asked.
“Gave me the go ahead.”
“Anyone we might know?” Xander asked.
“You certainly know him,” Spike said.
“Riley?”
“No. Someone who actually annoys me more than him,” Spike answered. “And another friend you haven’t met.”
“I’ll let Rowena know not to purchase any hotel rooms,” Faith said as she walked off to the room.
“So we know who is going and how to get there,” Charley said as he brushed his fingers on Lyra’s shoulder. “And when we do we will work on a plan on fighting Dandridge.”
-
Lyra didn’t have too much trouble trying to convince her parents to let her spend a few nights at Ronnie’s. She mentioned it was her friend’s idea and that Ronnie had trouble sleeping and having a friend over would be good considering what she went through. Her parent’s called the Porter’s and agreed that Lyra can attend the small slumber party.
As soon as Lyra got home from school she packed everything that she needed for the few days she would be out. She packed her clothes, toiletries her MP3 player, a few school books and a few of the latest issues of the Avengers, along with some Hellsing graphic novels.
Not long after she had everything packed Tyler dropped by to pick her up.
“Ready?” She asked him as soon as she got into the car.
“As ready as I will be,” Tyler said. “Do you think we will be enough?”
“Five Slayers, three vampires, a martial artist, a guy with wings, and another guy with a buttload of fighting experience? We’ll be enough. Spike’s friend might be a fighter as well.”
“Should we trust Spike’s friend?” Tyler asked.
“We should at least give him a chance,” Lyra said. “Have you ever been to Iowa?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither,” Lyra said. “Never really been up North when it’s technically still winter.”
“Hoping to see a little snow?”
“Yeah,” Lyra said. She pictured herself throwing a snow ball at both Tyler and Ace and maybe get into a snowball fight involving all of team Slayer Avengers. They could do it at night so Charley would be involved. “I read about the weather said it will be overcast and snowy.”
“Remember why we are going.”
“I don’t think I will ever forget.”
After they pulled into a parking spot in front of the bookstore they went inside. Tyler greeted his relatives and they went into the back room.
“You’re late,” Rissa said. She was seated at the table. Several other people were sitting along with her. Three of them were guys. A few members of the group were dressed in either a goth or emo fashion, a couple of them punk style, some were bohemian hippies, a few looked nerdy and geeky and one looked like a prep.
Inez sat away from them. She was dressed in a similar outfit as Lyra, dark blue jeans, a white shirt and a plain black vest. She had sneakers instead of ankle boots though. That didn’t really matter. Rissa’s parents were not going to notice the shoes.
“There was no specific time,” Tyler told her as he set down Lyra’s luggage.
“Well everyone is here,” Rissa said. “And we are on a specific time table.”
“Not exactly,” Lyra told her. “The flight doesn’t leave to Iowa until Midnight. Don’t have to be at the airport until eleven.” She looked at her watch and read the time as 4: 19. “We got about six hours before we have to leave.”
“She needs something to be bossy about,” Tyler said.
Rissa chose to ignore him. “Lyra do you have some dead hair on a brush?”
“Yeah.” It was an odd request but Lyra figured it had to do with the spell. She pulled her brush out of the purse and removed a few hairs. “Here.”
“Thanks,” Rissa said after she grabbed it. She put a few into a small bowl and balled up one hair and placed it in a locket. “Tyler help Inez with this.” She held out the locket.
Tyler took the jewelry from her and placed the necklace around the Swedish Slayer.
“Now for the potion,” Rissa said. She and few of the others gathered at the table put different things into the mortar and Rissa mixed and ground it together with a pestle while everyone was chanting.
Lyra felt a hand grab her arm and looked up at Tyler. She knew he was uncertain about the spell while she was hoping it worked. She wrapped an arm around him and hugged him.
Rissa set the pestle down and grabbed the hands of the two people closest to her. The rest of the table also linked their hands together and chanted. Their eyes were closed and their voices almost sounded as one.
A soft white glow surrounded the group and illuminated the bowl. Lyra took notice of it for a few seconds but her focus was immediately grabbed by Inez. The other Slayer’s hair changed length color and the curls softened. She shrank a few inches and her face changed shape until she looked exactly like Lyra.
“Wow,” Lyra gasped when the spell was complete. “You look exactly like me.”
“Do I sound like you?” Inez asked. She did sound like Lyra. “Even my accent is the same as yours.”
“Full transformation,” Tyler said. “Holy cow, Rissa.”
“Not really a transformation,” Rissa said. “It’s still an illusion of the eyes and ears as long as she wears the locket.”
“I will not take it off,” Inez said in a determined tone.
“Ace should be here soon,” Tyler said. “Once he gets here he will take Lyra to Xander’s place and I will take Rissa and Inez, I mean ‘Lyra’ to Ronnie’s.”
“Sounds good,” Lyra said as she removed her vest and put it in her suitcase. She put on a bright red sweater. She tied back her hair and put on a hat and a pair of sunglasses. Now she won’t have to worry about confusing Tyler’s uncle and Aunt.
-
Charley felt his skin tighten as Spike drove the Sienna towards Wallace. If he had a pulse it would be racing. The only thing that seemed to be keeping him calm was the fact that Lyra was right next to him, sleeping while leaning against him. The only sounds were the loud snores from Ace in the back and Ed humming along to the music.
“Keep to the right up here,” Ed said as he stared at the directions the he got from Google. “Our exit is coming up.”
“I’m on it,” Spike said as changed lanes.
“What’s going on back there, Brewster?” Ed asked and turned to look at them.
“Not too loud,” Charley said softly. “Everyone is sleeping back here.”
“Mortals are so lame,” Ed said before he turned back to face the front.
“How about you stay focused and watch where we are going?” Spike asked. “And they are not nearly as lame as your brain. “Just read the directions.”
“We keep at this for thirty miles and we will be in Wallace,” Ed said.
“So this friend of yours,” Charley decided to change the subject.
“Oh he isn’t a friend of mine,” Spike said. “Unless you mean the real owner. Yeah that one is all right in my book.”
“I’m confused,” Charley said. He was sure Spike said they were going to see was the owner of the place they were staying at. “I thought your friend owned the place.”
“My friend does. He’s just going to be out of town for a few weeks and this other guy is house sitting for him.”
“And the other guy is the one you talked too?”
“That would be him. He’s not exactly liking the idea of me being in town but he understands the situation.”
“What is he like?” Charley asked as Lyra stirred.
“If you want my honest opinion. He’s a tosser, quite arrogant, has no sense of fun and constantly has a stick up his arse.”
“Great,” Charley said as he sat back.
“Sounds like you, Brewster,” Ed said before he laughed.
“Uh?” Lyra opened her eyes.
“Good job, Evil,” Charley told him.
“If I weren’t driving I’d reach over and slap you,” Spike said. “Only open your mouth to tell me were are we going, Idiot Ed.”
“We turn a right at Colombia,” Ed said. “Then a we go through two traffic lights and on the third we make a left.”
“Almost there?” Lyra asked.
“Almost,” Charley said as he ran his fingers through her hair. “Go back to sleep.”
The rest of the drive was in silence except when Ed told Spike to turn. The highways turned to streets and into a neighborhood. They pulled up onto the driveway next to another car and the SUV that Xander drove behind them pulled up the curb.
“Wake up everyone,” Ed shouted. “We are here.”
“Gah,” Ace jolted up and nearly smacked Fahwa in the face with his left wing.
“I better let him know we have arrived,” Spike said as he jumped out of the vehicle.
“Better get the stuff out,” Charley said and opened the side door. He helped Lyra out and the two of them walked around to the back and opened the doors. They were joined by Ace, Ed and Fahwa as they gathered their luggage.
“Come on in,” Spike shouted.
“Think we’ll win this one?” Ed asked as he grabbed the sleeping bags.
“For Buffy’s sake we have to,” Charley said as he watched Lyra walk into the house. He grabbed a few things and stood up, just as he heard Lyra scream.
-