Black Is Her Heart, Dark My Soul
By Sam James
TITLE: Black Is Her Heart, Dark My Soul
AUTHOR: Sam James
EMAIL: [email protected]
SPOILERS: AU splintering off the final episode of S6.
SUMMARY: Willow never stops being black eyed, black haired, evil Willow.
ARCHIVING: Yes, just email to let me know where.
DISCLAIMER: Willow, Buffy, Giles, Xander, Dawn and the general
background of Watchers, Slayers, and Vampires belong to Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century Fox.
It had been an epic battle. Buffy, although sympathizing with Willow over Tara's death, still fought against her best friend to protect the remaining members of the trio that had given her so much grief. Then, at exactly the right moment, when Buffy seemed completely defeated, Giles entered the shop, his aura crackling with power. "Up-oh, Daddy's home," Willow mocked, but Giles quickly captured her in a magical prison. Unfortunately, with Anya as her unwitting pawn, Willow escaped and soon turned the tables, nearly killing her former mentor. However, the fight was not yet over.
"One thing you forgot," Giles slowly raised himself up from the floor of the ruins of the Magic Shop. Willow, so swollen by Black Magic that her hair and eyes had become fully tainted, was just about in position.
"It's not how much power you have&ldots;" He concentrated on the dregs of the power that he still possessed, power borrowed from a coven with the combined might of a dozen witches. What he had left was barely sufficient to move a feather but it had to be enough. He focused as Willow moved closer to a shelf where certain rare items were stored well out of the reach of children.
The needle from the spine of a Pituviz demon slashed through the air and embedded itself in the vein of Willow's neck. The paralyzing venom took effect almost immediately.
"&ldots;It's the knowledge of how to use it." Giles finished. He pushed himself up, calling on all his bodily reserves. As he had feared, Willow remained black-haired and veiny. The black magic she had absorbed in her vengeance-seeking rage could only be expelled by her conscious choice away from evil. But that same magic had control of her emotions and actions, rendering it extremely unlikely she would make such a choice.
He poked through the remains of his shop and found two Ullaryron crystals and the appropriate spellbook. He recited the power-draining spell and put the crystals on Willow's forehead. It was only a temporary solution but it would last until he could get her to the coven to try to permanently remove Willow's power. It had to be done for Willow's and the world's sake.
Two hours later, after Andrew and Jonathan had been escorted to jail, the surviving Scoobies gathered at Buffy's house where Giles explained his plans.
"No way, Jose," Xander protested. "This is our Willow you're talking about. She needs our help to become better."
"Xander," Giles said patiently. "You saw her kill a man and try to kill two others."
"And me," Dawn whined. "She looked at me like I was just a power source for her to gobble up."
Buffy's face firmed. "She tried to kill someone. She crossed the line."
"So what!" Xander yelled. "Have you forgotten tying us all up and feeding us to a demon?"
"That was different," Buffy said softly. "I was being controlled. I wasn't in my right mind."
Xander pointed at the dark-haired Willow, still unconscious. "And does she look normal?"
"She certainly wasn't acting as smart as she usually does," Anya put in. "She was more powerful than a third-level demigodlet but all she did was increase her strength and throw raw magic bolts around with no strategy. She was in a whole store full of magic supplies yet her only solution to my shield was to try to overpower it."
"Thank you Anya," Xander said. "That's my point. She may have chosen to absorb all that power but how much of what she did afterwards was by her own choice and how much the black magic's controlling her?"
"Um, ah, I'm not certain but her choice of victims, Andrew and Jonathan, would indicate&ldots;"
"Well," Buffy said. "She also attacked us, her friends. The Willow we know certainly wouldn't do that."
"All she had to do was teleport you away like she and Tara did Glory last year. She has way more power now than she did then." Anya suddenly realized the import of what she was saying. "But she still shouldn't get away with it. She destroyed my shop. That makes her evil."
"So says the vengeance demon," Xander coughed. Anya glared.
"Hey, if Anya's a vengeance demon again," Dawn said. "Can't we just wish for Willow to be returned to normal?"
Anya and Giles locked eyes for a second. "Not a good idea, Dawnie," Buffy said. "Didn't you learn anything from your wish to Halfrek?"
"Vengeance demons' magic functions similar to what the writer O'Henry called 'The Monkey's Paw'", Giles informed the group. "It always takes the worst possible form to harm as many people as possible.
Buffy, Xander, and Dawn shuddered and glared at Anya. "Hey, we're called vengeance *demons*," Anya said. "Not vengeance angels."
"I think we're getting off the point." Giles said. "The simple fact is that right now Willow has become too dangerous and we lack the ability to cure her. If there is a way to drain the black magic out of her and restore her to normal, we will need the resources of the Council and the coven. And since they're in England, it follows that Willow needs to go to England if there is any hope of helping her."
"Yeah, but not alone," Xander protested.
"I will, of course, accompany her," Giles said.
"That's not what I meant," Xander insisted. But in the end Buffy had to stay to guard the Hellmouth, Dawn was still a minor and had little interest in helping the girl who almost killed her, and Xander, although willing, lacked the funds for the trip and could not just leave work for an uncertain length of time. Anya promised to pop in from time to time but no one felt that a demon was the best choice for helping lead someone out of evil ways.
That left Willow and Giles. Alone. Together.
The Watchers' Council had extensive experience in shipping bodies - vampires for Slayers' 18th Birthday test, failed Slayers for judgment in England, and demons of various types for study and exploitation. So it was a simple matter to ship a bespelled Willow over to England in a coffin. From then on, Giles was on his own.
Giles delayed as long as he could. There was always another book to check, another spell to examine. But eventually Giles found himself in the room where he had placed the unconscious Willow to bed, reciting the words to release the spell that kept the black-haired witch asleep.
"You've stolen my magic," Willow said as she awoke. She lay on top of the bedspread, fully clothed in an old fashioned white dress the coven witches had put on her. Giles had applied the power-draining Ullaryron crystals once again and put a necklace of rowan beads tight against her neck. Her hands were handcuffed together with an enchanted silver chain. Yet her eyes were still unfathomable pools of black. "Andrew and Jonathan?" she asked.
"Alive. Safe from you."
"They will pay you know," Willow said casually. "Everyone who let my Tara die will suffer. I owe them pain." It was as if she was stating simple facts of life. "You can't keep me chained here forever."
Giles was stern. "Your powers are neutralized; your body is bound. And both will remain so until you're cured."
Willow looked at her hands. "Handcuffs, Giles?" She gave a flirtatious smile that looked oddly out of place on her veined face. "If I had known you were into that sort of thing back when I had a crush on you&ldots;." Her voice grew cold. "I'd have done nothing. I'd probably would have gone eep and hidden away, like a little mouse. Well, Rupert, I'm not that little mouse anymore."
"I know."
"So what will you do with me?"
The answer to that he did not know. He gave her books to read and a computer to play with, although he carefully made sure it was not connected to the Internet. And they talked. From time to time Giles would catch fleeting glimpses of the girl she used to be, of the red-headed, green-eyed Willow that he had come to see as his child. But this Willow, alien to him as she was, was no longer a child.
And yet, sometimes, he was forced to admit there was something about her that appealed to the darker parts of himself-his long-suppressed "Ripper" side. That sometimes, before he could stop himself, he laughed at her callous quips or found himself nodding when she threw down the newspaper and remarked that Tony Blair really did deserve to be flayed alive. Sometimes when, after days with nothing but each other's company, black-haired and black-eyed Willow began to look beautiful to him.
After a month of this strained relationship, Dame Harkness, the leader of the witches' coven, came to him. "This cannot go on!" she asserted.
"Indeed?"
She snorted. "Your plan seems to be working in reverse. She is but little brighter since you came whereas you, sir, have been much darkened."
Giles sighed. "Perhaps, but what can I do? She's not the Willow I was&ldots; was fond of, but she is still Willow and she needs me."
Dame Harkness looked on him with pity. "Your Willow has chosen the Dark Magic," she said. "Her choice was the result of grief, and anger, and pain, but it was still a choice."
"Yes," Giles breathed softly.
"Perhaps, if while under that first flurry of emotion, she had been led to unmake that choice, to choose life instead of death, than perhaps she could have been saved&ldots;" She dropped her pensive manner and stared at Giles, her eyes glinting steel. "But now it is too late. She has been lost to the darkness."
"Then there is nothing to be done? You cannot save her, drain her somehow?"
Dame Harkness sadly shook her head. "Her powers are too strong, too black. The temporary measures we are taking to hold her powerless are weakening; we can feel her probing and it's a matter of days before she breaks through. The coven cannot drain her with assuming her burden of evil and that's something I just cannot ask of them." She glared at the Watcher. "Nor can you. Apart from the risk to their very souls, a dozen dark witches would greatly strengthen the forces of evil."
"I understand," Giles said. "I owe all of you so much for what you have done. Still, is there nothing to be done to save her?"
The old coven witch looked at Giles, a look that went through his body and seemed to examine the soul underneath it. "I'm sorry, Rupert. There is only one way to save her from further evil, from continuing to twist everything she once stood for and did. If you truly love her, you'll see that there is only one thing that can be done."
The blood drained from Giles' face. He thought about Willow, curious and vibrant, of her love of learning and desire to help others. He thought of Willow now, dark and vengeful, evil and murderous. Yes, he himself had been on the dark path, but had turned away far before reaching the point on which Willow now trod. They had done everything they could but it was too late; there was now just one way to release the child he loved from the evil she had become. Just one.
As he made his way to the room where Willow lay, imprisoned, he stopped to pick up a pillow that was just the right size.
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