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  “Neither, but I—I have been studying, working real hard, and I—I’m gonna be fine,” Willow assured her.

  “Oh. Good. ’Cause I remember the last time you said that.” Anya indicated the box in her arms. “I’ve spent a lot of time since then cleaning the debris out of my ex-livelihood. Stuff like that.

  Willow winced inwardly, but she worked hard to stay direct and honest. “Well, yeah, I wanna help any way I can with that. I—I feel really responsible.”

  Now she’d pissed Anya. She walked toward Willow, brows lifted, and said, “You feel really responsible? You are really responsible!”

  “I—I know I hurt you and . . . and everyone. I’m sorry,” Willow tried again.

  “Here’s something you should know about vengeance demons,” Anya informed her. “We don’t go with the ‘sorry.’ We prefer ‘Oh, God, please stop hitting me with my own rib bones.’ ”

  “Go on. Say whatever you want,” Willow replied. She knew she had to take the blows. “Rib bones and so forth. I—I deserve it.”

  “Then you won’t mind?” When Willow shook her head, Anya’s face fell. “Well, then, that’s no fun.”

  “Sorry.” And she truly was.

  Willow sat down on the curb. After a beat, Anya set down her box—it was filled with items she had salvaged from the store—and joined her. Willow toyed idly with a tri-horned demon skull—probably a Darthberg—grateful for some company.

  She said, “So, um, where is everyone these days?”

  Anya settled in for a long chat. “Well, I’m back in my own apartment. And, of course, vengeance takes me all over the world. I was in Brazil yesterday. They love their soccer.”

  “And the others? Dawn? And, um, Xander? Buffy?” As she spoke she accidentally broke off one of the horns—whoops—and quickly put it back in the box.

  Anya looked surprised. “You haven’t seen them?”

  “Not so much,” Willow admitted.

  “Huh. I guess they’re still mad at you,” Anya ventured. “They’ve been a little temperamental lately, just between you and me. We had this little mix-up a few days ago, and —”

  “That sounds great,” Willow interrupted her. “So, um, where do you think they’d be?”

  Anya waved her hand. “Oh, at the new high school, probably. Everyone’s all about the high school. Buffy’s got some kind of job there helping junior deviants, Spike’s insane in the basement, Xander’s there doing construction on the new gym—”

  That caught Willow’s attention. “Wait, Spike’s what in the whatment?”

  “Insane,” Anya filled in. “Base. Xander does construction. He likes to start early, so he’s probably there by now.”

  Oh, please, oh, please, Willow thought.

  * * *

  She took her leave of Anya and headed for the school. There was a large pit filled with the things of construction—machines, big piles of dirt, rebars—but as far as she could see, no Xander.

  There was, however, someone else there.

  Willow gasped, sickened. Lying on the ground was a dead guy. At least she thought it was . . . had been . . . a guy. The corpse was ghastly, all red muscle, eyes, and bone. He had been flayed . . . just as she had flayed Warren.

  I did not do this, she told herself. I did not.

  * * *

  There was a guy who had died horribly in the bottom of Xander’s construction pit.

  Buffy said, “No skin.”

  “Tough to look at,” Xander said.

  “And yet my eyes refuse to look away,” Buffy said grimly. “Stupid eyes.”

  “I found it first thing this morning. I gave my crew the day off, and I called you right away.”

  “I got to get a job where I don’t get called right away for this stuff.”

  Xander wiped his mouth as he turned around to check on a noise—seemed like the ladder—but there was nothing there.

  Buffy was churning inside.

  “Yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Xander said, sharing her wiggins. “Maybe Willow is back.”

  * * *

  After she scrambled up the ladder in terror, Willow made her way through the halls of the new high school. Finally she located the access to the basement and headed down.

  It was dark. There were spare bookshelves and other classroom equipment just like in her day.

  Then Spike jumped out of the shadows and shouted, “Out! This is my place. You need permission to be here. You need a special slip with a stamp.”

  “Spike!” she cried. “My God . . . I—”

  He paced, agitated. “You go off and try to wall up the bad parts and put your heart back in where it fell out. You call yourself finished, but you’re not. Worse than ever, you are . . .”

  He froze, looking rather sad, and turned away from her. He grew calmer, somehow . . . held in; he said, “You went away. You’ve been gone since . . .”

  “I needed to go,” she ventured, seeing that he really was pretty crazy in the basement . . . or the head. “But I’m back now. And I found . . .” She didn’t know how to put it. “There’s a body.”

  “Tragedy,” he offered. Then, facing her, asked more hopefully, “Is there blood?”

  Ewww. “Uh, I, yeah, and I can’t find Buffy or Xander or Dawn. And there’s this thing killing people. And the victim was . . . skinned. What could do that?”

  “You did it once. I heard about it.”

  She had to let that go for now. “Anything other . . . other than me?”

  Then he was off again, looking elsewhere, talking as if he were addressing someone else. Willow didn’t follow it all, but she wondered anxiously, Could Spike have done the killing?

  * * *

  “Everyone’s talking to me. No one’s talking to one another,” Spike told Buffy, as she and Xander arrived. As with the witch, they tried to talk to him about the tragedy. He was confused about why they were ignoring his guest, who remained in the room.

  And then he realized . . .

  They don’t see her!

  “Someone isn’t here,” he said aloud. “Button, button . . . who’s got the button? My money’s on . . .” He turned and looked straight at Willow “. . . the witch.”

  That got the Slayer’s attention. She and Xander turned around to face him.

  “Red’s a bad girl,” he explained.

  “He’s talking about Willow,” Buffy said.

  Xander murmured, “And that means something because he’s chock-full-o-sanity.”

  Spike said to Willow, “They think you did it. The Slayer and her boy. They think you took the skin.”

  And Buffy asked him, “Is there something here? Something that killed?”

  Xander said, “Her boy? I’m her boy?”

  Spike walked up to them and announced, “I have to go. There are things here without permission. I have to check their slips. Make sure they have authorization.”

  He took his leave, and went about his business.

  * * *

  Willow hurried to Anya’s.

  “Something horrible killed a boy,” she told the vengeance demon, sweeping in the front door. “Took his skin right off.”

  Simultaneously each asked the other, “Was it you?” And then, shocked, “No!”

  Willow managed to persuade Anya to help her find out who did. They prepared Anya’s apartment for the same demon-locating spell Willow had done long ago with Tara.

  As if she could read her mind, Anya asked her suspiciously, “This isn’t going to get all sexy, is it?”

  It didn’t. As they sat facing each other on the floor, they blew demon-finding power on the map of Sunnydale between them. Dots showed up, including one for Anya, who chirruped, “Hey, that’s me!”

  There was a very bright clump at the high school. “It’s all Hellmouthy underneath,” Willow observed.

  The high school clumped burned brighter, and brighter still, until smoke rose and the map burst into flames. Willow and Anya jumped up, Willow stomping out the fire.<
br />
  “This could be it,” she said, studying the lights that were left. “It’s strong, it’s near the body, and it’s all by itself, hiding in the woods or maybe a cave. There are a couple of good caves around there.”

  Willow assumed Anya would be able to teleport them on over to the cave area, but it turned out that Anya had lost her teleportation privileges for doing something that had pissed D’Hoffryn off.

  “Causing pain sounds really cool, I know, but it turns out, it’s really upsetting,” she confided in the nearest person who had tortured someone to death. “It didn’t used to be, but now it is.”

  Willow considered. “Is it like you’re scared of losing that feeling again, and having it be okay to hurt people, and then you’re not in charge of the power anymore because it’s in charge of you?”

  “Wow, that was really overdramatically stated, but yeah, that’s it,” Anya said, impressed by Willow’s insight.

  And Willow way got that . . . on her way out the door to catch herself an entirely different pain-causing demon altogether.

  * * *

  Dawn, Buffy, and Xander sat around the dining room table at the Summers house doing the research. Buffy was grazing books while Dawn surfed the net.

  “Okay, so I looked up demons that skin their victims and demons that flay their victims ’cause, you know, same thing. There’s a ton of prospects. Anything else gone? Uh, eyeballs, toenails or viscera? That’s guts,” she added, puffing up a little.

  “She knows about viscera. Makes you proud,” Buffy drawled.

  But privately, she wasn’t proud. She had a terrible feeling in her gut—my viscera—that Willow was the one who had—

  “Oh, guys!” Dawn cried, gesturing. “Here’s a good one. A demon called Gnarl. He’s a parasite with these nasty long fingernails. He secretes something through them and uses that to paralyze his victims. He then cuts strips of their skin while they’re still alive. It takes hours.”

  Xander made shuddering noises and Buffy asked more questions . . . and it turned out that Gnarl accompanied his skin meals with blood, which was “like his natural beverage.”

  Blood lapping leaving blood specks, making . . . Spike a natural candidate to track Gnarl down.

  “Should have put a leash on him,” Xander muttered, as the three of them listened to Spike’s bizarre ramblings while they wandered through the woods.

  Buffy said, “Yes, let’s tie ourselves to the crazy vampire.”

  Then Spike stopped. He stood still and stared through the bushes at a rock cliff as the others joined him.

  “That’s it,” he announced. “End of the line. Everyone off.”

  “That’s a rock cliff,” Buffy said disappointed with Spike.

  “Well, give him a break, Buffy,” Xander offered. “Maybe it’s a vicious skin-eating rock cliff.”

  “There’s a cave in it,” Spike ground out. “Look.” He moved the foliage out of the way to reveal a narrow cave opening. “I’m insane. What’s Xander’s excuse?”

  * * *

  I’m scared, Willow thought, as she stood near the cave entrance.

  Nevertheless she squeezed through to discover that the passage opened into a cavern. There was a bit of light from a fire. And some noises.

  And a voice.

  “All alone. Look at the shorn lamb. See how he trembles. Is it the cold wind? Or is it that the flock is nowhere to be seen?

  “Poor little lamb, all alone.”

  * * *

  “You guys hear that, right?” Dawn asked, as she stood with Xander and Buffy inside the cavern. They had just squeezed through the passage.

  Then something jumped from the shadows and slashed Dawn. She cried out in terrible pain. She immediately began to stiffen up.

  “Dawn! Are you okay?” her sister cried.

  But it was obvious that Dawn was not so much.

  “Okay we need to get her out of here,” Buffy told Xander. “We’ll deal with him later. Seal him in.”

  * * *

  Someone is sealing me in here! Willow thought, panicking as she watched rocks covering up the entrance.

  “What’s going on?” she shouted, racing toward the passage entrance. “Who’s there? No! Stop!”

  “No way out now. No way out,” came a voice from the shadows. “Your friends left you here.” He sang with evil delight. “No one comes to save you.” Then he added, “They wanted me to have you.”

  “Were they here? Were my friends really here? I heard something,” she said, looking around.

  The creature swooped at her like a great bat. A sharp pain slashed her stomach. As she writhed in agony, the monster’s shadow rose on the wall. And then it came for her.

  It was a frog-colored monster with protruding ribs and leathery skin. It looked almost elfin with pointy ears, a long hooked nose, and yellow eyes. As it admired its quarry, it clicked its long black nails together, making a ticking noise that marked out a high counterrhythm to Willow’s pounding heart beat.

  Then he moved her blouse away from her wound to enjoy his feast.

  * * *

  Dawn was lying horizontal, like a rolled-up carpet, by the time they got her into the house. The Gnarl-induced paralysis had set in to the extent that she could no longer move any part of her body, including her mouth.

  They put her down on the sofa, and she rolled over onto her face. Without moving her mouth, she protested, “Face up! Face up!” like the Tin Woodsman asking for the oil can in The Wizard of Oz.

  Buffy went to use the laptop in the dining room to see if she could find the same listing Dawn had found for the Gnarl, and figure out an antidote for the paralysis.

  “Oh, got it,” she announced. “It says the paralysis is permanent.”

  Dawn squeaked.

  “No. Oh, wait, my bad,” she said, reading further. “Permanent until the creature dies. Sorry.”

  “Guess we have to go back,” she said to Xander as she walked into the living room.

  Xander frowned. “We can’t just leave her here like this. What if she vomits?”

  Dawn mumbled, “Ew. I won’t vomt.”

  Buffy was concerned. “Do you think she’ll vomit?

  “Stp tking abt vomt!” Dawn said.

  “I’ll call Anya,” Buffy told Xander. “She can watch her.”

  Xander was doubtful. “Right, she’ll love being called for vomit watch.”

  Buffy picked up the phone as Dawn ground out, “Plees, stp tking abt vmt!”

  * * *

  Anya did show. She also showed Buffy and Xander that Dawn was “poseable,” and sat her upright on the couch. Then, as she popped open a can of Brazil nuts, she said airily, “No need to thank me, by the way, for sitting with her. I’m feeling very benevolent today. Helping Willow. Helping you. You might even call it even for that whole worm thing last week.”

  Buffy was mildly incensed. “Yeah, I don’t think we could call—” Then she processed what Anya had just said. “Wait. You saw Willow?”

  “Umhmm.” She chomped away. “Oh, she’s looking for you, by the way. Decided you might be out in some cave.”

  Buffy looked at Xander. “Xander, she could be there right now. Willow could be trapped with the Gnarl.”

  “It’s not ‘the’ Gnarl,” Anya corrected. “Just ‘Gnarl.’ ”

  And once Buffy realized that Anya knew about ‘just Gnarl,’ she drafted her into this Slayer’s army and armed her with a battle axe. Then she put the remote in Dawn’s hand and she, Anya, and Xander left for the cave.

  And when they got there, Gnarl screeched and ran for cover.

  “Where’s Willow?” Buffy demanded.

  “She’s right here,” Anya said, perplexed. “Can’t you see her? She’s hurt!”

  “What? Where?” Xander felt around with his hand. “There’s nothing here.”

  But the revelation that Anya could see her and Buffy and Xander couldn’t, would have to wait.

  Gnarl was attacking.

  Buffy had a dagg
er, Gnarl had a sword. They fought hard, lunging at each other, while Anya called out, “Get him in the eyes!”

  * * *

  Then the vengeance demon said to Willow, “Buffy’s fighting the demon over there. See?”

  But Willow didn’t see. She didn’t see Xander or Buffy.

  “They came? They didn’t leave me?”

  “No, they didn’t leave you,” Anya explained. “They can’t see you.”

  Buffy battled Gnarl. The creature leaped over her head and landed behind her. She whirled around and slammed her dagger into his foot, pinning him to the earth. The pain made him shriek. While he was distracted, she grabbed his hand and plunged both her hands into his eyes.

  It was extremely gross, but it did the job.

  Then Buffy ran to where Anya was, and Willow slowly came into focus. They finally saw each other.

  Finally connected.

  She was very, very badly hurt.

  Buffy tried to be reassuring. “It’s going to be okay, Willow. You’re going to be okay.”

  “I know,” Willow said gratefully. “You’re here.”

  They took Willow home, where she belonged.

  * * *

  A few days later, Buffy hovered in the doorway, watching her meditate. She started to turn away when Willow opened her eyes and urged her to stay.

  “I’m healing,” she explained. “Growing new skin.”

  “Wow,” Buffy said. “That’s magic, right? I mean, when most people meditate, they don’t get extra skin. Right. ’Cause Clem should, like, cut back.”

  They both smiled, and talked about magic for a while, Willow confessing that she had accidentally cast the spell that had made them invisible to each other. And Buffy confessed in turn that she had been afraid that Willow had flayed the dead boy in the construction pit.

  Willow knew that. She tried to meditate some more, even though she was very tired.

  “I got so much strength, I’m giving it away,” Buffy offered.

  The Slayer sat cross-legged across from the Wicca and took her hands. They mediated together, Buffy murmuring, “Good.”

  And it was.

  Chapter Four: “Help”

  Sunnydale

  Willow was back, and it was time to say hello to her darling.