A Very Ordinary Evil

Part 34 Barefoot Through the Head


Immediately following the previous part


The echoes of the last of Giles’ chants had scarcely ceased when Willow began to feel herself sliding down into a mind-place she had never entered before. As she looked around, some of her reading helped to orient her. She knew she would pass a test before she could enter Holly’s mind, and that the test would be drawn from her own fears and self-perceptions. As she remembered her reading, the test began to appear. A giant frog began forming from clouds of dense black smoke that appeared from nowhere.

“What do you seek woman of the two-legs? Do ye not know that what you do is forbidden?” As the creature spoke, Willow found her fear welling up violently. {Why frogs? I hate them!} Willow shuddered. {Of course, it’s the test, stupid, that’s why the frog.}

Taking her courage in her hands, she tried to answer. “I seek something known only in the memories of this mind. I have no other choice.”

“Why is that, child? Why is there no other way?” The voice was probing, teasing and testing; all all the softness of the speech.

“Holly spoke to the … man, and I must be sure that it’s really him. Otherwise I could harm the wrong person.” Willow could not control the trembling of her limbs as her phobia began to express itself.

“And you cannot take her word? You cannot find another who saw? You cannot accept? Are you always so callous?”

Willow drew a deep breath. {I have to remember, this is imagery. It’s an aspect of my own mind challenging me. I have to.} “I’m determined to,” she answered. “I place too much importance on this to do anything less than get complete verification.” As she spoke, she saw the frog begin to … flicker, shading in and out of her perception. {The question is,} she asked herself, {whether or not it can harm me when it’s not there. Damn it, Willow, think!}

Gathering herself together, she sprinted for the tunnel opening, visible when it wasn’t blocked by the frog. She rushed through the space occupied by the insubstantial frog and reached safety. {No Willow, this is just the appearance of safety. You’ve passed the first hurdle, that’s all.}

She began to walk through the tunnel, which appeared to slope gradually downwards, examining the walls, floor and roof with great curiosity. She could see, although she was unaware of precisely how. As she looked at the walls, she ran her fingers along them lightly, feeling the curious texture. As she did so, she became aware, at a very basic level, of some of Holly’s memories. They were trivial things, images from her childhood, a meal she had eaten years before, how she got the hem of her prom dress wet in the gutter when her date didn’t escort her out of the car properly.

As she perceived these images, without becoming disoriented by them (which Willow found to be a great relief), she realised that to get to the important memories, she still had a long way to travel.

She continued down the tunnel until she reached a branch. {Great, which way do I go? I don’t even have paper to make a map with!} Randomly, she decided to turn right, and after that always alternate so she could find her way back.

As she turned, she saw a figure in the distance. She walked curiously towards it. As she got closer, she shrieked, and immediately turned to run back the way she came. It was Principal Snyder. The late Principal Snyder. But he seemed seven feet tall and had both large fangs and vicious looking claws. He snarled as he began to pursue her. For some reason, he seemed to be carrying a large pad of hall detention slips, grasped between two of its claws. As she turned the corner, the Snyder creature let out a plaintive cry of “It’s not fair!” and dissipated into a cloud of steam.

The little redhead peered around the corner again. The coast seemed clear and she walked, a lot more cautiously, down the tunnel once more.

Once more she tentatively reached out and touched the wall. Most of the images she received this time were of Holly’s high school days. The memories were also slightly more intrusive than before. {I hope this is a good sign,} she thought. {If the memories are more intense, I’m probably on the right path.}

As Willow moved cautiously down the tunnel, she eventually noticed that the gradient of the slope had increased slightly, that she was walking down a slightly steeper slope. Looking ahead, she saw another junction. Remembering her decision, she decided to turn left on this occasion. Ahead, the view appeared to be somewhat obscured by threads of drifting smoke. A rr nar nauseating green, as she watched the smoke began to thicken and coalesce into an image of a horse. No, it was a Unicorn. A winged unicorn. In fact it was a jet black winged unicorn with frighteningly long razor sharp teeth while each hoof terminated in a savage claw. On each wing, at the junction point there was another long and savage claw, these ones being serrated.

“Oh My God!” Willow immediately turned and fled back up the tunnel towards safety. As she ran, she noticed that the slope seemed far steeper than it had as she walked down, while ahead she could see more smoke concentrating into something.

The smoke ahead of her formed into a shape. It was Spike! “How did you get here?” Willow immediately asked.

“I’m not, kitten. You created me. I’m just a mental image of yours, projected into this consensual hallucination.”

“Well, that proves I created you. I couldn’t imagine Spike saying consensual hallucination if his unlife depended on it. How about we keep on running?”

“Works for me pet.” The artificial Spike began to run up the slope towards safety.

As Willow followed him, she could hear the unicorn thing getting closer. “Spike, faster! It’s gaining on us!”

They turned around the corner of the tunnel, Willow gasping for breath while Spike seemed completely calm and collected. Behind them, they could hear the creature whinnying with rage. It seemed unable to turn the corner for some reason that Willow did not understand.

“What the hell do I do now?”

“Well, pet, you could try and kill it. Or you could try and dodge it. Or you could go the other way. Or … if you can create me, surely you can create a weapon?”

“Now I begin to see why I created you. It’s a lot easier to interact with someone, even if that person’s not real, than to think things through alone. Interesting. Anyway, create a weapon, you said? What kind?”

“Well kitten,” the hallucinatory Spike said, “I’d want something that had some range. That brute looks vicious.”

“Okay, so a crossbow?”

“That’d work luv.”

“All right then.” Willow sank to her haunches, trying to block the ongoing whinnying shrieks from her perception as she focused on creating a lethal crossbow. {This is harder than I imagined,} she thought as she wrestled with the concept of creating an item from nothing. {Perhaps if I …} her thoughts trailed off as she suddenly realised that to create something here, she had to want it. Desperately. And she became aware of the fact that she did want a crossbow desperately.

As the realisation came to her, she felt the weapon beginning to form in her hands. The texture of the stock slowly became harder, and eventually woody. The weight of the bow and the tension of the string all slowly became apparent. She looked down and saw it, sitting in her hands. She smiled up at Spike and grinned wickedly. Then she focused back into her thoughts. Only moments later something else appeareda six-foot long pole with a mirror on the end. Using this, she was able to tell that the unicorn-thing was some distance away from the corner. “Good,” she muttered to herself, “I’ll have time to get a shot in.”

Willow drew a breath and then released it. {I’m missing something. What is it?} She mentally asked herself. {‘It’s something about unicorns. I know that much, at least. Goddess, who’d have ever thought Harmony might actually prove to be useful? Oh! Of course. Unicorn horns can sense poison. Unicorns are threatened by the taint of the impure. This however, is not a unicorn. It’s the opposite. So what do I have that’s pure? I wonder if my heart is pure? I think so.} As her thought processes brought her to the necessary conclusion, she removed the quarrel from the crossbow gingerly and pricked the end of her finger, making sure that she got a drop of blood onto the head of the bolt. Having done so, she reloaded, and once more used the mirror to spot her opponent. It was in much the same place, and still enraged.

Again, Willow drew breath and prepared to fire. She turned the corner, and aimed carefully. As she released the breath she gently caressed the trigger. The bolt flew from the crossbow, slamming into the unicorn-creature’s chest. As it buried itself, the animal let out a long, piercing, almost human scream and began to dissolve back into the green smoke it had formed from.

Willow let out a long sigh of relief. She looked over at Spike and said, “Let’s go. It can’t take much longer.” As she spoke she began to walk down the previously guarded tunnel. This time, as she walked, she immediately noticed the slope appeared steeper than previously. She once again placed her hand on the wall of the tunnel. This time the memories were far more intense, and far more recent than those Willow had previously experienced. She had to stop for a moment to re-orient herself before continuing down the tunnel.

Once more, Willow and Spike reached a junction. In keeping with her previous decisions, she confidently turned right. The slope of this passage increased immediately and significantly. Willow was walking cautiously now, and holding herself back as if she were walking down a steep hill. She stopped and reached out. As she touched the wall of the tunnel, she was overwhelmed by Holly’s most recent experiences. She had not realised, until then, the extremity of terror to which Holly had been subjected during the abduction.

Shaking, she removed her hand from the tunnel wall and forced herself onwards, wondering what she would encounter next. When she saw what appeared a dead end ahead, she was somewhat surprised, and as she reached the blank wall reached out a hand. To her shock, her hand passed through the wall, and she immediately decided to walk through the illusory blockage.

Taking Spike by the hand, both walked through to the far side of the wall. As she emerged, Willow was surprised to see Spike had vanished.

A voice from behind her startled her even more. “You don’t need him. I know I’m the one you really want.”

Willow jumped from the unexpected shock of hearing Angel’s voice. She turned to see him leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a small smile playing across his lips. “The question you have to ask yourself, acushla, is whether I’m a projection of your mind, or the mind we’re in.” Angel smiled evilly as he spoke. It was not an Angelus smile, and somehow Willow found that even more frightening than if it had been.

“Let’s face it, witch. You aren’t up to this. You just don’t have the balls for it.”

“Well, that’s answered that. You’re a creation of my mind. Angel didn’t talk so crudely, even as Angelus. Go away, sprite.”

Angel snarled and vanished. Not even a puff of smoke marked his disappearance.

Willow moved to the far wall and reached out. As she did so, she saw the images for which she had been searching. Satchatched, horrified, as Angel--and there was no longer any doubt in her mind that it was he--spoke to Holly at length. He made it all very clear. “She deserves better than that bastard. She deserves me. No-one else.” It was jealousy that had motivated Angel to try and kill Spike, and also put the rest of the Scoobies in terrible danger.

As the realization hit her that she had completed her quest, her vision blurred for a moment and suddenly she was back in the basement with the rest of the Scoobies.

* * * *

“So, Dead-boy sicced the order of Taraka on us because he’s jealous?” Xander could not believe it.

“To be scrupulously fair, Xander,” Giles intervened, “from Willow’s account, the sole target was supposed to be Spike. That both of the attacks occurred while other people were close by isn’t, strictly speaking, his fault. As Willow has said though, it all comes down to jealousy. It’s really a very ordinary evil that we’re dealing with.”

Anya shrugged. “If I had my powers, Willow would be justified in invoking me. I say get rid of him now.”

“Um, thanks, I think. However, the point is,” Willow began forcefully. “I’m not going to passively sit back and accept what he’s doing. He’s tried to hurt my lover, my mate. He’s placed the rest of you in danger. He’s got to be dealt with. Permanently.”

“Isn’t dusting him a bit like overkill though?” Cordelia asked.

“Cordy,” Willow responded. “He’s stalkie. He. He’s getting Spike out of the way first. Then I can bet he’s planning to come hel help me ‘get over it.’ That’s stalking just as much as peeking through my windows is. He’s dangerous, Cordy. Think for a moment. If he gets bored with me, what’s to stop him obsessing over you next? And will he kill me like he’s tried to do with Spike if he succeeds this time?”

“He hasn't been the same since ... he went all dark. He's sane, don't get me wrong, but he's ... different.” Cordelia said. “He's like Angelus, only somehow he's worse, because he still has his soul, but doesn't seem to care. He’s been deciding what’s right and what’s not. And no-one else gets a say in it.”

“He’s a bloody menace. You saw what he did to the slayer? Well, that kind of obsession doesn’t go away easily. I ought to know, having had one for a century and now I’ve found a new obsession. One I won’t give up. Ever.” Spike smiled fatuously at Willow as he spoke.

“I’m going to leave at dawn and drive to LA. And don’t anyone try and stop me.” Willow’s resolve face was firmly in place.

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