Chapter 24
Before I leave The Magic Box I pay for some supplies to make the protection charms with. I can make them for everyone, except Giles, he wasn’t involved in the original spell. I stop by the craft store on the way so I have a bag of little tiny plastic bottles with corks, sealing wax, findings and cord to make necklaces with.
Giles is watching me lay everything out on the table, curiously, and I explain my plan.
“I-I’m sorry. You weren’t in the original spell I don’t know if I can—I could redo the spell and—”
“Were you in the original spell?” He asks.
“I cast it.”
“You deserve a protection charm too. Maybe you can redo the spell and be sure we both have a representation in it?” Giles suggests.
“And this doesn’t apply to your frivolous magic rule?” I ask him.
“Are you going to take balance into account, and request or demand?”
The idea that Willow is demanding for everything and not taking things into account properly does give me a sinking feeling. I remember the “solid” again, maybe something else is influencing her, but what would it be—ego? My brain suggests. Again, I don’t want to think it’s that. I don’t want to think she could be going that way.
“I would never demand.” I tell him.
“Then it should be fine.” He says, sitting down across from me after picking the map up off the nearby bookshelf.
I get candles and the jar of salt and brick dust, moving the charm making supplies back into their box and putting them to the side. I can’t fully remember the crystals I used given I was panic grabbing everything at the time, but it’s easy enough to work out crystals that would be appropriate and put them at the edges of the map. I put out a cat, for Bast, and then think of Athena as a good idea as well and go upstairs to get the small statue of her we have. They should be willing to work together on protection charms.
Giles helps light the candles and I open the lid of the jar that is full of salt and brick dust. I offer Giles my hands and we sit on either side of the table.
“Can mine have a stipulation I won’t get knocked out again?” Gile remarks.
I can’t help but giggle, “Unfortunately I don’t think making individual stipulations is a good idea.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” He says and reseats his hands in mine.
He lets me take the lead in reciting the spell which is similar to the one I did before. Less frantic “Please, please, please.” Though and more specific Goddesses to speak to rather than whoever was listening at the time.
“Bast, Athena we entreat allow us safe passage through our day to day, no matter what comes our way. Protect us, our friends, our family using these symbols of our faith.” We repeat the request three times, and then I add in, “Please show us with this salt and sand where our friends and family stand so we may use those symbols nigh to make the charms to protect…our guys.” I should have written it down beforehand and worked it out more cleanly, but the salt and red brick dust begin to swirl out of the jar and down to the map leaving small piles in various spots including the house we’re in. There’s one at the edge of the map towards campus. There’s one at The Magic Box. There’s one moving towards The Magic Box, which I imagine is Xander, and there’s two in the cemetery. Of course, Spike was included in the first spell. So, is that Buffy at the crypt? Perhaps she and Spike are going to go out patrolling together tonight?
“Thank you.” I tell the room in general, hopefully the two Goddesses we called upon will understand.
Giles gets the bottles and pulls the corks and hands them to me and I write initials on them with marker pen and set them down in a line next to the map by the candles. Giles and I link hands again, “Please allow us with this salt and sand to make the charms to protect our kin. Please allow us with this salt and sand—” the small piles stretch up into the air and go into their corresponding bottles. We unlink hands both saying thank you, and I go for the sealing wax.
We seal up the bottles and are taking turns screwing in findings and threading them with cord when the door opens, and Willow comes in.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“The protection charms.” I explain, holding one out to her, “This one’s yours.” I slip the one with my initials over my own head and adjust the length so that it just sits under my shirt. She takes the charm and slips it on leaving it the longest length on top of the low-neck flowy blouse she’s wearing.
“Nice.” She says, and leans over to kiss me on the cheek, “Thank you.” Then she turns to Giles, “Does that mean we’re doing the locator spell?”
I chew on my lip.
Giles tips his head. He still looks stern.
“I mean it’s for a good cause.” Willow remarks.
“I wasn’t saying no.” Giles says, “I just want to be sure we’re safe about it.”
Willow folds her arms, “You’re saying I don’t know how to be safe.” She says archly.
Giles folds his arms back at her, “I am not. I’m just saying we want to be sure to go everything before we do this spell.”
“Of course.” She says, coming back with the original salt jar opening it and setting it on the table where the empty one is, taking that and putting it back on the shelf, “You did save a bit of the demon, right?”
Giles goes into his bag and pulls out a piece of one of the fin things the Mm’Fashnik had. It’s dried up and easy for us to grind into its version of red brick dust. We sprinkle the salt around us as a layer of protection and then hold hands, the three of us, to chant a spell for tracking down those connected with the Mm’Fashnik. The dust blows across the map and then collects at a house on the other side of town in three distinct circles.
“Well, then.” Giles says, “I wonder who lives there.”
“They’re where?” Buffy asks, peering down at the grey blobs on the map, “What happened to people wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay in town after they robbed a bank?”
“It’s not necessarily that they’re still there—” Giles points out, “That’s just where their paths crossed with the Mm’Fashnik’s.”
Willow taps on the map murmuring something under her breath, and the dots start moving around the small house square sometimes merging with each other in the tiny space, “I’d say they were still there.” She remarks.
“Well, that’s—” Xander looks confused, “Did we say dumb? Because that’s dumb.”
Giles has his eyes narrowed at Willow. She whispers something else and the ground up demon dust goes still. She looks over at him and gives a slight shrug, “Now we know.” She says.
“We don’t know who they are though.” Anya says, “They could be anyone or anything.”
“So, recon.” Buffy says, “I’ll go check the place out.” she makes a motion, that’s either tip-toeing legs or mimicking bunny teeth, “Sneaky sneak.”
Anya shudders away from her.
Buffy’s studying the map, how to get there from here, and all the different ways around and about to and from. She’s spinning her protection charm around on the table when she does so.
“It’s dangerous to go by yourself.” Xander counters.
“I won’t.” She says, and I see she’s looking at the remaining bottle on the table, “I’ll take Spike.”
“Buff—” Xander starts, but she’s already out the door.