From the journal of Ethan Rayne.

He appears as suddenly as inexplicably as he disappeared, only holding, of all things, a bottle of cinnamon-apple flavored hair conditioner. I must say, I’ve seen stranger things. I’ve even done stranger things, but not recently.

I must present quite the picture, jaw agape, candles and crystals and powders scattered about the table and a map of Sunnydale spread before me with tiny crystals highlighting all of the places we’ve already searched.

Before I can even formulate a greeting more portentous than ‘Xander, you’re back!?’ (so much for my hard-won reputation as an unflappable evil genius) Amy has leapt into his arms and is nearly dragging him to the ground as he staggers off balance.

Young love. How disgustingly sweet.

It takes half an hour to assemble everyone, which happens to be the amount of time to disentangle my young protégés, who attempt several ludicrous attempts to leave my sight, to ‘clean up.’ Children. As if I’ve forgotten my own youth, they will have plenty of time to ‘clean up’ later…

Finally, patience at a razors edge, Xander tells us where he has been for the last 12 hours, which he insists only lasted 12 minutes to his own perceptions (and his watch seems to verify his telling of events).

He speaks of a strange assemblage of ‘Xanders,’ many of them not-human, or otherwise changed by life on the Hellmouth, some for good, some for ill. The thought of the young man maimed, or with missing limbs replaced with mechanical contraptions, or as a vampire or demon or whatever sort of mystical creature a ‘Slayer’ is, fills me with doubts about my course here. I once again feel that I should pack up the lot of them and move to another place, far from this Hellmouth and it’s dangers, where they can live out their lives worrying about nothing more sinister than taxes and infants and congested traffic.

Xander spins a fantastic tale of a ‘hell-goddess’ named Glorificus, or ‘Glory’ for short, and her plan to rip open the La Boca del Infierno with her bare hands! He tells us that she exists in a dozen worlds beside ours, and that her demonic servants have helped her to assume a corporeal form in these worlds. That her actions will cause some sort of cascading reaction, destroying each of these worlds like our own, and bathing her in so much dark power that she will be able to rend the fabric of reality itself, pool her power and tear the universe into a new configuration, one that she can rule.

Or something like that. The boy is unclear on the specifics, as is usual for these American children with their three-second attention spans. In either case, it sounds bad, and we must put a stop to it. Tallyho, or some such rubbish.

I have feared this day, and my own divinations have forewarned me for weeks that something was happening. His story fits all too well the vague and apocalyptic portents with which the capricious spirit-guides have taunted my dreams. These children are fit to frighten fledgling vampires, and against the lower-classes of half-breed demon, they are indeed a force to be feared, but against a threat of this caliber, I fear for their safety, indeed I fear for all of us should they prove unequal to the task.

And yet, there is no other resource to which I can turn. If only Rupert could see me, an old hypocrite, training children as weapons and tossing them into battle. He who could never stand the patronizing of our own tutors, and the execrable way they used and discarded their star pupils at academy to further their own careers. Ah well, he had many other reasons to hate me, this latest betrayal of everything we stood for when we were young and wild and free would hardly shock him.

So I instruct these children to unlearn what I have taught them. A year and a half of tutelage in restraint, in not drinking too deeply of the dark draught that bubbles forth from the mouth of Hell, swept away. I show them the ways in which a sorcerer might join with another, a sweet ecstasy that has consumed some whole, and driven others into gibbering madness. This I show them is how they will channel the power of the Hellmouth without being drawn into it’s clutches, how the reinforcement of a friend can help to hold one above those black and hungry waters, to resist the temptation to sink into power, into ecstasy, into Hell itself.

They argue with me, fractious and young and insistent that surely there could be no danger in love. I explain carefully to them the risks, that love will blind them, make them unable to properly ground each other, that they must trust their friends to keep their loved ones safe, and I designate Xander, Amy and Willow as the ‘big guns,’ and Jonathan, Tara and Michael as their supports. Amy and Xander protest most loudly, and Willow also begins to speak out when Tara, bless her Wiccan heart, confirms my words and oh-so-lovingly explains to Willow why she cannot trust herself to anchor Willow, that the strength of their love for each other will hamper any attempt to mitigate the worst of the Hellmouths taint. Jonathan ends up serving as anchor to Willow, Tara to Xander and Michael to Amy. While I can see that they are not all in agreement, they will not argue that they cannot trust their ‘friends.’ Such precious innocence, one can’t be failed, or betrayed, by an enemy after all, only a friend can do that…

I have seen what can happen when two people in love attempt to second for each other in this fashion. Inevitably, they cannot oppose each other, cannot restrain each other, and the darkness ends up consuming one or both. Even in the best of cases, hurtful things are said and felt and the love may be dealt a fatal blow by the whispered cruelties in the dark places of a persons soul. The magics of Sunnydale are plentiful and powerful, and some might think them chaotic and uncontrollable. But the truth of it is that they are malicious, they touch upon and stir the darkest feelings within us, they speak to them and do their bidding, even if we intended no harm when we embraced the magic. When one plays with the fires of Hell, the truly lucky ones only get burned.

The children have seen, and experienced, enough of simple magics gone awry, read the accounts of the demons of vengeance drawn to this place to enact the spiteful wishes of those whose hearts call out to repay pain with more pain. Like soldiers, they accede to my wishes, grumbling, but obedient at the last.

I watch as Xander pulls on the shirt of mail he has crafted from industrial steel, my clever boy with his clever hands. A simple glamour and it shimmers and is gone, vanished beneath his thin jacket. He hefts a strong broadsword, and I quash a moment of envy at his youthful strength and wonder if I could ever have so easily swung it about. It goes over his back, and with another word, it appears as a backpack slung over his shoulder. He is not skilled enough to make it vanish completely, but he can make it look like something other than a double-edged meter of shining felony-waiting-to-happen.

Amy is distracted. Her concentration not what it should be, and until Xander has finished his preparations and left the room, she does not succeed in her attempts at channeling the fire of Hecate, her patron. He isn’t gone from the room for a minute when her face assumes the stern look of focus, and her eyes shine green as she begins to chant, pulling power into herself, preparing for what is to come. Free of distraction, I admire the purity of her focus. It was years before I learned to draw within myself so completely, surrender so quickly to the forces I wished to tap. She trusts the power, which may yet be her undoing, for not all power comes freely.

Willow fidgets and fusses, studying maps and preparing a location-spell on the bottle of conditioner she has appropriated. She never seems to need to prepare herself, but spends all of her waking life studying and second-guessing herself anyway, only to find out that in the end, she knew what was needed. Unlike Amy, who draws power into herself, or Xander, who externalizes it into the items he crafts, magic seems to come from her blood and breath, to fuel her movements and her enthusiasm. She is a natural. I ‘do’ magic, tricks really. Willow is magic. So much like Tara, and yet so different.

Willow pinpoints the location of this Glorificus, after eliminating two shopping centers that we assume to be suppliers for this sharp-smelling substance, and my children smile and joke and walk out the door to battle. Every time, I curse the metal cages that allow me to stand, but never to stand with them. I curse Eyghon for breaking my legs, so that I could not run from what I had called up. I curse Ripper for being his strong arm, and making me kill him, my only friend.

I sit carefully at my table, and I pull forth the crystals that will allow me to watch, impotent, in every way that matters. I am reduced to nothing but a voyeur in my own life.

They walk down the streets, and I see that Amy is concerned. Xander skips from the pools of light beneath the streetlights, attempting to cheer her up. I cannot hear their words, but I know from Tara’s blush that he is making some rude quip. As they pass the Bronze, I see a woman walk from the alley and speak to them. Right away I can see that she is underdressed, I see that her look is that of someone that wants something, someone who sees something that she can take, and behind her I can see the man she is holding in the shadows, hoping that the children do not see her prey. My proud children do not even break stride, and I watch Willow wave to her, cheerily and without care, as the vampire soars into the night sky. They continue walking, Willows hand gently raising as if she were listening to a classical composition, and then falling suddenly. Behind them I see the vampires fall into the street from a great height, her body exploding into dust. A car screeches to a halt, the driver wondering what she has just seen, if a woman has truly fallen from the night sky in front of her and exploded into dust.

She must be a tourist. Surely the locals have seen stranger things.

My children are so strong. I could never have done that. I fear the amount of power that lies within them, these children of the Hellmouth. It is decided. After this night, I shall take them away, enroll them in some private school to the north, far from this place. Their families do not deserve them, nor do I, frankly, but they deserve better than this life, better than to end up crippled and afraid of the dark…

They have reached the condominium and Willow raises her hand, but Xander simply kicks the door in before she completes whatever spell she was enacting. Some sort of robed demon stood on the other side and is knocked down by the door, he draws his sword, seemingly from thin air and smashes the creature on the side of the head. I cannot see clearly, as the others move into the next room in a jumble and they block my view, but when I move my sight I can see this Glorificus. She is watching television, an odd pastime for a goddess from hell, apparently an episode of Friends, which Amy watches religiously and talks about incessantly. I can see as they step over the body of the creature that it has not been slain, only knocked unconscious. I breath twin sighs of relief, imprimus that the creature was weak enough to fall so quickly, secondus that the darkness the children have embraced has not yet turned them into cold killers.

A half-dozen of the robed demons begin to move, two having been near their ‘goddess,’ and more pouring from adjacent rooms. Amy begins to pulse with power and I can see from the reactions and posturing that some sort of conversation is occurring. No doubt some sort of inane quips, the childrens’ special tactic for annoying their elders. It has worked on this Glorificus, as she scowls and hurls one of her robed figures at the group, only to have it bounce away from Willow without striking her. I see that she is floating above the ground and her hair is blowing about. Amy no longer simply pulses with power, a greenish swirl of forces all-but obscures her from my sight, and when a pair of the figures move forwards to grab her, they are thrown back, sleeves smoldering and hands deformed by some powerful transformative magics. I wonder absently if it is a permanent disfigurement, or will fade in time, but the battle draws my attention.

Already a demon has flown out the window, and only a sharp gesture from Willow tells me why. None dare approach Amy, and a thrown chair turns into butterflies and flutter about before dissolving to slime and falling to the ground. I shudder at the power she has unleashed. Others pound futily on the barrier that protects Willow from harm, and incidentally the seconds, huddled behind their friends and wearing looks of concentration. I am so proud of them. I, jaded elder statesman of the sorcerer set, summoner of demons and speaker to the dead, look on in awe, and they retain their calm and hold their friends very sanity in their hands.

Xander is the only one that the creatures can reach, and I flinch as one of them produces a wicked butcher knife and plunges it into his back while he smashes another to the ground with his blade. The mail holds, and is now clearly visible beneath his slashed wind-breaker. The knife has broken and the demon looks up in alarm as the hilt of the blade smashes it in the face. I am just beginning to thank an assortment of gods that Xander is still showing mercy when he unflinchingly plunges his blade into the fallen creature before him. The darkness is speaking to him now, and I see Tara recoil from what she feels in his mind. I pray that she is strong enough to hold him anchored, and regret my choice, as she suddenly seems the least likely to hold up in the face of a bloody battle.

I should have never allowed him to craft a broadsword. A magic baseball bat would have been far safer…

And then I can no longer worry about their souls, as their lives are endangered. Glorificus has finally taken the field, and she punches through Willows shield and backhands her hard into a wall. I feel my breath catch, and Jonathan, yards behind, sports an identical bruise on his temple. Glory moves in on them both, but Xander seems to be shouting something as he strikes her hard in the back of the head with his blade. She rocks forward, looking nonplussed and turns and snatches the blade from his hand so fast that I cannot even see her move. One second it is in his hand and Glory faces away, the next the blade is in her hand and he is looking at his empty hand.

And the next, it is in his gut and I feel my heart grow cold. She punches it through him, enchanted mail and all, as easily as he would open a soda, and she pushes the sword, and him forward so that he flies through the air and lands against the television, still impaled. It is at that point that everything goes to hell. Tara is clutching at her side, trapped in Xanders pain and confusion, Willow is staggering to her feet while Jonathan stands frozen in the action of helping her up and Amy wails like a banshee and throws herself on Glory. I cannot see what transpires, as the light is too intense, but the carpet beneath them ignites in green flames that slither about like serpents, consuming everything that they touch. I cannot see Glory or Amy in the light, only a whirling frenzy of fire that staggers around the room as they grapple, and in less time that it takes to describe, the fire dies and a pair of smoldering bodies lie locked in a last embrace. A third body lies in the corner, and Tara has fallen prone, overcome by the Michaels sudden death, consumed in the same fire that Amy unleashed upon Glory, upon herself.

I see Willow screaming, gentle Willow, throwing lightning from her fingertips as her eyes shine black with the power I spent so long shielding them from. Every demon left in the room is charred, when Willow is spent, I can no longer tell their bodies from Glory’s, from Amy’s, from Michael’s. Jonathan all-but carried her from the room, Tara staggering along behind them. I can see her reaching for Xander, who lies glassy-eyed across the room, beneath the cavorting figures on the ghastly television, but Tara pulls her away, and with a word, quiets her screaming. I see Tara and Jonathan carry her unconscious body out, stained with tears and smoke, as the apartment burns behind them.

Yes, tomorrow they will leave this place forever. I will make them forget this horror. I will make them leave to a brighter future. They shall have new friends, new families, far from here. They will not be tormented by nightmares of this night, I know spells for that as well.

I shall stay behind to tend the dead.