Shadows by Chris Cook

show up later depending on my mood at the time, belong to Joss Whedon and his Minionators. I have no idea who the other stuff belongs to (it'll be quite clear once you've read it which other stuff I mean), but whoever wants it, it's theirs. Whatever's left is mine.

Author's Notes: Based on characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and The Shadow, created by Walter B. Gibson. Song lyrics are from Perfectly Happy by Alisha's Attic, and It's Only Love and What a Feeling by Heather Nova. All original material, such as it is, is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.

Summary: Alternate universe adventure featuring Willow and Tara. Who knows what will happen? Only the Shadow knows.

Conversations stopped. Heads turned. All attention in the Hurricane Club was suddenly on the stage.

Only a single, dim light shone on the woman there, illuminating nothing save the golden hair that fell over her face, and her silhouette as she swayed gently to the music. Her voice flowed hypnotically around the room, as the movements of the diners ceased and the floor lights dimmed.

"-but they feel like they are wired to my jaw.
I'm a doll stuffed with life, sitting upon a shelf,
hailing a taxi, get me out of this freak show."

Her audience couldn't help but jump in their seats as the stage lights slammed on, revealing the singer in all her glory. Throwing her head back, her hair blazing like sunlight, clad in a simple, elegant white gown, she lacked only a pair of wings to be angelic. Her voice, once tentative and quiet, now filled the room like an orchestra in full flight.

"But oh! Where's this thing over the rainbow?
'Cos I'm just trying to get home.
Oh, everything's crowding in my face!
Even when I sit here alone-"

Ten minutes and three songs later she gave her cheering audience one last, warm smile as the curtains closed. She stayed still for a moment, toying with the small handful of roses from her appreciative fans, as her smile faded into something more private and temporary. From beyond the curtains a soft tune drifted in, as the musicians took up their regular repertoire and the buzz of conversation resumed over the tables. She sighed and ducked into the corridor leading to the dressing rooms, waving to the club's manager as he paced backstage.

Tara Maclay sat in her dressing room and gazed at her reflection. She was tempted to feel sorry for herself, and was not at all comfortable with the temptation. After all, there were plenty worse off than her. People who had come to the big city full of dreams, and found themselves waiting tables. And here she was, after only six months, with a steady if modest paycheck from a good, reputable club, doing something she loved for a living. There were even posters up, advertising to passers-by that Tara Maclay would be performing at the Hurricane. Reviews had been encouraging, and the Times had even found space for a small picture of her alongside its piece. The future looked bright. Under such circumstances, feeling down seemed self-indulgent.

Still, six months, and no-one she could really call a friend. Oh, she was on good terms with a couple of the other performers, but they lived in a different world. Parties, boys, fast cars—all that jazz. Her neighbor, across the hall from her apartment, was quite amiable, though Tara had spent her first couple of months worrying that he was going to make a move on her, and she would have to turn him down. It hadn't happened, but still they had never become real friends, and as often as not would simply smile and pass each other in the hall, rather than stop and talk.

'How about that,' she thought to herself, 'you get a job where guys throw roses on the stage for you, and still you wind up lonely.' She grinned humorlessly at herself in the mirror. 'That'd make a good song.'

Not too much later Tara Maclay, now wrapped in a raincoat, left the side entrance of the Hurricane Club and hailed a taxi. The car swooshed to a halt in front of her just as the rain started to pick up again, and she quickly ducked inside, keeping an eye on her coat to see that she didn't catch it in the door.

"Garden and 23rd," she said, leaning towards the driver's seat in front of her. The taxi accelerated and Tara leaned back into her seat—and only then realized that she wasn't alone. She jumped involuntarily as she saw the shape of a man on the seat beside her, hidden in the dark and a large trenchcoat.

"Oh, I'm s-sorry," she began, "I didn't-" And then she gasped in shock, as the streetlights flashing by outside reflected off the barrel of a pistol.

"Keep still," rumbled the man. The gun was held casually, facing across his lap, but it was clearly pointed at her, clearly menacing. Tara shrank back against her door.

"I-if it's money," she began, trying not to choke on a sudden impulse to cry, "I don't have much, you c-can have it, just-"

"We don't want your money," interrupted the man, "just stay quiet and calm, and no harm'll come to you."

Tara nodded, helpless. 'Oh Goddess,' she thought, 'why did I have to come to the city, why couldn't I have just stayed at home, it wasn't really that bad- well, okay, it was miserable, but this guy's pointing a gun at me! This is what I get for feeling sorry for myself without a good reason. Well, now I've got a good reason, am I happy now?' She sniffed back a sob as her thoughts retreated from the danger in front of her.

"What the hell?" the man growled, and Tara tore her eyes from the glinting gun barrel to see his face, suddenly—and she wouldn't have believed it—even more afraid. But he was facing forward, and the driver was leaning on the horn. Trying to keep her movements inconspicuous, Tara glanced ahead. The lights in front of the taxi had turned green, but the one other car on the road, in front of them, hadn't moved. The driver swore to himself and began to pull out, intending to overtake the stationary vehicle, but its engine suddenly gunned to life and it swerved around, coming to rest sideways across the street, blocking both lanes.

"Take care of it," said the man beside her to the driver. "You, stay quiet and don't move," he added to Tara. The driver smacked his steering wheel in frustration and got out of the taxi. Tara watched through the windshield as he approached the driver's side window of the other car, one hand in his pocket. 'Get away,' Tara silently wished the occupant of the other vehicle, 'he's got a gun, get out of here!' The driver came to a halt in front of window, leaned down to look into it—and then straightened up again, looking back at the taxi, a confused expression on his face. He turned back to the other car, reached out and yanked the door open, and as the streetlight shone inside, Tara could see that the seat was empty.

Something dark and indistinct passed in front of the driver, and he fell back as if he'd been hit. He staggered to his feet, drawing his gun, but the street around him was empty. The man beside Tara stirred, watching as his driver swung the pistol around, retreating back to the taxi. Again something blurred in front of him, and this time he was lifted up off his feet, landing with a crash on the taxi's hood. The man beside Tara growled and pushed his door open, leaving Tara alone in the car. She watched, too scared to move, as the man moved cautiously over to his comrade and failed to bring him back to consciousness.

An eerie, low chuckle drifted across the street, in through the open door of the taxi, chilling Tara. The man spun around, his pistol cracked, but the bullet sailed away harmlessly, striking sparks off a far away lamppost. The shot jerked Tara back to awareness of her own immediate situation and, seeing her captor with his back to her, and his attention elsewhere, she stealthily reached behind her and pulled the lever on the taxi door. There was a low click as the mechanism disengaged. She glanced over her shoulder—nondescript buildings, an alleyway—was it too far? If he chased her, could she elude him in the dark?

The taxi rocked as the man suddenly slammed into it, and Tara half jumped, half fell out of the door as it swung open behind her. She scrambled to her feet, but found herself facing the wrong way, towards the wide, open street. A yell from behind her spun her around, and she was suddenly looking down the barrel of the pistol, as her captor aimed at her across the taxi's roof.

"I told you to stay still," he growled. Tara saw his thumb move behind the pistol, heard the click as its hammer locked back. Something grabbed her by the arms and swung her down and away, there was a shot, and Tara was sprawled out, leaning against the side of the taxi, looking up at a dark figure above her. A gloved hand came up, holding a single finger to where its lips would have been, if she could see them in the darkness beneath its wide-brimmed hat—silence. She nodded. The figure nodded back, then before Tara's eyes it clouded, faded, vanished completely. She heard almost-silent footsteps to her right, and turned to see the faintest hint of something, like a heat-haze in the gloom.

Then much more solid footsteps from her other side drew her attention, and she saw her captor surge into view around the front of the taxi. His gun was pointed at the ground, away from her—where she would have fallen, she realized, if he'd shot her. He barely had time to see her crouched against the side of the car before the a cloud of darkness enveloped him. For a split second Tara could see the dark figure clearly, knocking the man's pistol out of his grip, then it was a cloud again, then solid, landing a punch on his jaw, then a phantom, shimmering beyond the clumsy blow he aimed at it in return. It clouded into being again behind him, holding him around the neck.

"You've been a bad boy," it said in a whisper, then the man was flung away, his head cracking into a lamppost, leaving an echoing ring in the air as he slumped to the ground. Tara stared at the figure that had saved her—and yet still, frankly, scared her. Its build was slight, beneath the black coat which had billowed behind it, and which now settled around its body. Half its face was hidden by a dark scarlet scarf, tight over its mouth so that only the nose and eyes were visible beneath the hat. He- no, Tara realized, as the figure strode towards her and offered her an arm, it didn't move like a man. She took the offered arm and let herself be pulled to her feet.

"You're safe now," the figure said—a woman's voice, quiet but quite at odds with the chilling whisper she had heard a moment ago. The stranger led her to the other, empty car, and held open the back door.

"Get in, I'll take you home." Tara hesitated, but only for a second. Whoever this was, she had almost certainly saved her life, and more importantly, Tara no longer felt afraid. Her instincts, which she had long ago learned to trust without question, told her than this frightening figure was no threat to her. The stranger closed her door and took the driver's seat, closing the door behind her. They left the empty taxi and the two unconscious thugs behind them.

"I saved your life tonight," the stranger said to Tara, never taking her eyes off the road.

"The occasion might arise," said the stranger. "For now, take this." She held the wheel with one hand, and with the other held out a small, silver ring. Tara reached forward and took it—there was an emerald set in it, glinting like it was alive.

"Never take it off," the stranger said. "Never tell anyone what happened tonight, unless they're wearing one of those too. People who wear those rings are," she paused, as if choosing a word carefully, "trusted."

"But," said Tara, "I'm very grateful, for you saving my life I mean, and I'll do whatever I can to help you, if there's anything I can do, but-"

"How do I know I can trust you?" asked the stranger. Tara nodded. "Instinct. You're home."

Tara looked out to see that the car had pulled up outside her apartment block. Her door swung open, and Tara was half-way out of the car before she stopped and summoned her courage to voice the question she had been thinking all along.

The figure in the driver's seat tilted her head slightly, which made Tara think she was smiling to herself. She nodded towards the door, and Tara obediently left the car. The door closed by itself. Tara turned back at the sound of the window sliding down. The stranger's green eyes shone for a moment in the darkness inside.

"Call me the Shadow," she said. The window slid up again, replacing her hidden face with reflections of the streetlights, and the car pulled away and was gone.

Tara was deep in thought as the elevator clanked up two floors. The Shadow—she had heard that name before, a rumor someone had been talking about. It had been in the papers, but she hadn't read it at the time, and had little memory of what the story had been. She vaguely recalled some suggestion among her acquaintances at the club that the papers were making it all up.

The elevator shuddered to a halt and Tara pulled the iron gate open. She didn't notice at first that all the hall lights were on, instead of the single lonely bulb that normally remained on during the night, but a movement from ahead of her drew her attention back to her surroundings, and she stopped having only taken a few steps from the elevator.

Two policemen were standing in the hall, between her door and that of her neighbor Robert. Both doors were open, and the lights in Tara's apartment were on. Robert and the policeman he was talking to both looked up and saw her, while the other disappeared through her door. Robert nodded and spoke to the policeman, who turned to meet her as she hurried to him.

"Miss Tara Maclay?" he asked. She nodded. "I'm Officer Walters. Is this your apartment?" he went on, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the open door.

Tara gasped, and sidestepped Walters. He stepped in behind her as she crossed the threshold, looking around at the open drawers, the scattered books, papers and mementos that had been on the shelves and tables.

"I'm sorry Ma'am," Walters said quietly. The other policeman was dusting the sill of the main room's only window. Out of the corner of her eye, Tara noticed him nod to Walters.

"My partner's just about finished with the forensics," he said, "if you could just make a quick visual inspection, see if anything obvious is missing? We'll fill in the rest of the details later. Oh, let me know if there's anything heavy that needs lifting."

"Thank you," Tara murmured, stepping gingerly across the floor. She picked a diary out of a pile of books that had been swept off a shelf, and placed it gently on a side table. She checked her bedroom, finding the shelves and drawers there similarly emptied—except the dresser beside her bed. Only the top drawer was open, its contents dumped unceremoniously on the bed. The other drawers remained closed, and so far as Tara could tell when she checked them, had been completely undisturbed. A suspicion reared in her mind. She sifted through the collection of items on the bed.

"I had a book," she said to Walters, who remained respectfully outside the bedroom, "a-an antique, I suppose. Very old. It's gone."

"What did it look like? Would it look valuable to a thief?" Walters asked. Tara considered this.

"I guess so," she answered, "i-if they knew anything about books. It's about this big," she gestured, "leather-bound, with silver brackets. There's a picture of a gate on the cover. The text is in Latin."

"No kidding," said Walters, jotting notes on his pad. "Never even learned French, myself. Well, I'll wire the description in, if we pick up anyone carrying it we'll bring them in. We'll need to do a proper report, but that can wait a while. Can you come down to the precinct house tomorrow?" Tara nodded. "Okay, just go to the desk and ask for me, Officer Walters. It's real unlikely a thief like this would come back, but we'll leave a man outside on the street just in case. Try to get some rest."

Tara thanked the two policemen and saw them to the door. Robert offered to help repair the damage the thieves had done, but Tara declined, given the late hour and the fact that there was nothing really to do except put things back on shelves and in drawers. He wished her a good night and vanished across the hall, suppressing a yawn. Tara picked a few particular valuables out of the mess, then decided to leave it until the morning. With a final check of the door and the latch on the window, she retreated to the bedroom.

The Eleventh Precinct house was an old stone building buzzing with activity. Tara navigated through the main hallway, keeping out of the way of hurrying clerks and policemen, until she reached the main desk. After waiting for a harried-looking businessman to finish, she made herself know to the officer on duty and asked for Walters.

She was led beyond the reception area, between rows of cluttered desks where officers were interviewing people, or scrutinizing reports, until they came to an empty desk where she was given a seat and asked to wait. She glanced at the pages scattered across the desk, then caught sight of Officer Walters across the room. He greeted her, informed her regretfully that her missing book hadn't turned up, and spent a few moments taking details and asking routine questions.

Just as the interview seemed to be drawing to a close, another officer stopped beside Walters' desk and bent down to talk to him, in a low voice that didn't quite carry to Tara across the background buzz of the precinct. Walters nodded, excused himself to Tara, and left, leaving the new policeman to take his seat. He was quite young, and capable-looking.

"Morning Ma'am," he began, all professionalism, "I'm Officer Alexander Harris. Sorry about that," he nodded over his shoulder, "but there's a chance your case might be linked to a case I'm working on. If I could just take a few moments of your time?" Tara nodded. "Thank you," he went on. "Now, this antique book that was stolen, could you describe it in more detail please?"

Tara was about to answer when something caught her attention. Harris had produced a notepad as he talked, and rather than rest it on the desk he kept it in his hand right, with a pen in the other. It was arranged such that Tara could clearly see the hand holding the pad, and on the forefinger of that hand was a silver ring, with an emerald set in it. Tara stared at it for a moment, then fixed her gaze on the man's eyes. She raised her own hand to her mouth, and faked a cough. Harris glanced deliberately at her hand, with its emerald ring, and then nodded slightly.

"It's called the Codex Nocturnus," she said quietly. "It was a gift from my mother, a-and before that my grandmother had it..." she paused, not really wanting to go into detail about her family. "It's about mythology," she resumed, "the afterlife. The spirit world. That sort of thing."

"I see," said Harris. He leaned back in his chair. "We'll certainly keep a look out for it, Ma'am," he went on, returning the notebook to his pocket and standing up. "Thank you for your help, we'll take it from here. Oh," he said, just as he was about to leave, "if you're interested in antique books, the State Museum has a collection you might enjoy. I recommend it," he added, slipping the pen back into his pocket—the emerald on his finger glinted.

"I'll do that," said Tara, slightly bemused. Harris smiled and escorted her to the reception area, then disappeared back into the workings of the precinct.

Tara stopped for lunch at a café near Central Park, then crossed the parkland and arrived at the State Museum on the other side. The imposing Greek-style building looked more like a temple than a museum, aside from the banners advertising the exhibition of a collection of relics from the pyramids of Egypt. Tara made her way past the queue of excited children and chattering academics lined up to see the Pharaohs, and finally arrived on the second floor, which was relatively deserted. Only a snoring caretaker and a handful of quiet visitors moving from room to room disturbed the silence. Tara made her way to the rare books section, where the volumes were displayed in glass cabinets. She looked around, but the room was empty. On a hunch she scanned the books on display, wondering if the museum somehow had a copy of the Codex.

She jumped as a hand reached out from beside her, holding a book. She turned to see the Shadow, cloaked and masked, standing in the gloom between the shafts of afternoon sun shining in the tall windows.

"Y-you could just say hello," she said, recovering herself. The Shadow chuckled.

"Force of habit," she said. "Recognize this, Miss Maclay?" Tara turned her eyes back to the book held out to her.

"The Codex- wait, this isn't mine." And indeed it wasn't—the leather was darker, and the bracket at the right hand side of the top of the cover was as smooth as the others binding the cover, missing the tiny dent Tara's copy had picked up somewhere years ago.

A visitor had wandered into the room, and seeing Tara he nodded politely. He seemed oblivious to the black-clad figure at her side, and turned his attention instead to the cabinets in front of him. The Shadow moved silently behind Tara and turned back to her, catching her eye. She nodded towards the doorway, and Tara followed her out, down the stairs and out of a side door, into the shady grove behind the building.

"But he saw you," the Shadow replied, "and a woman talking to herself tends to draw some attention."

"How do you do that?" asked Tara, leaning this way and that to see her mysterious benefactor from other angles. She seemed quite solid.

"A long story," she answered, looking off across the treetops of the park. Her gaze turned back to Tara. "But perhaps you should know some of it. I am trusting you to keep an important secret." Tara nodded earnestly.

"Hypnotism," the Shadow explained, "the power to cloud men's minds. Your eyes see shapes, colors, contours and edges, and your mind assembles this information into the familiar world we see around us. If the mind can be convinced that some of that information is false, a person can look right at me and never know. Stage magicians use a soothing voice, and the focus of a pendulum. But if the power is strong, and concentrated enough, there doesn't need to be a focus, or even a voice. The suggestion is enough."

"You're talking about telepathy," said Tara, understanding. "You can do that? Put a suggestion like that in someone's mind without them even knowing?"

"Yes," said the Shadow. "You've seen me vanish, last night. I thought that was an isolated incident, but I may have been mistaken. According to the police report, and my agent at the precinct, your apartment was searched, with the specific aim of finding the Codex Nocturnus, at exactly the same time you were abducted. I don't believe in coincidence, Miss Maclay."

"No," said the Shadow, "he wanted you. But why? Something to do with the book. It was your mother's, and your grandmothers?"

"And now yours," the Shadow continued, "the Book of Night. Passages describing the afterlife, other realms, forms of ghosts, souls, spirits. Do you believe in magic, Miss Maclay? Not hypnotism and suggestion, but real magic?"

"I," started Tara, unsure of herself, "I suppose... yes. My mother... taught me, a little. I can do a few things, nothing much, not wizard-stuff! But, blessing, fortunes, auras... yes, I believe."

"And you know what the Book of Night could allow a person to do, if that person had the necessary skill?"

"Yes," breathed Tara, "they could see the spirit realms. Touch the afterlife. But, I've never..." she trailed off.

"That's powerful magic," the Shadow said softly, "dangerous, if misused. I don't like the conclusions I draw from this. Someone wanted your gifts, as well as your book. For what use, I'll have to find out."

"You'll be safe," she said, placing a hand on Tara's shoulder. "I'll make sure you're safe."

"I used to think that I knew what we needed,
just assumed it would always be fine.
Now I don’t think that we lost the feeling,
but we let everything build up inside-"

Tara let her voice continue the song alone, and turned her mind to her audience. Since coming on stage she had had a nagging feeling that she was being watched—which was obviously true, the club was nearly full, but despite her natural shyness Tara had never found herself uncomfortable singing in front of an audience. This was different, and disturbing—a pair of eyes were on her that she didn’t like the feel of. She scanned the faces turned to her around the room. The songs she had chosen tonight were quiet, introspective, and Harry, Tony's assistant manager on duty tonight, had decided to forego any dramatic spotlights. With the club lit normally, Tara had a fair view of the diners.

She saw Harry at the bar, his gaze alternating between her and the musicians as he talked quietly with the barman. One of the club's regulars, a sweet young businessman who had sent Tara a bouquet after her first night on stage, was at his usual table near the front, enjoying dinner with his wife. A party of men in sharp suits had turned their chairs around for a better view of the stage, and were nodding in time to the music. A beauty with red hair was sitting alone, just watching her and listening to the song—she blinked and looked away for a moment as Tara's gaze passed over her. A pair of wealthy-looking middle-aged men were deep in conversation at the table behind her, leaning close and whispering so as not to disturb their fellow diners' entertainment.

And there, at the bar—Tara looked away, but caught herself before her voice faltered on the song. A heavy-set man in a long coat was watching her steadily, but not with an ear for the music. Tara's instincts told her that this man was trouble. But the Shadow had said she would be safe—she probably had one of her anonymous agents keeping an eye on her right now. Perhaps- no, Tara told herself, this man wasn’t here to keep her safe, his level gaze wasn't that of a caretaker, and she didn't see a glint of metal or a green jewel on the large hand wrapped around his glass on the bar. Tara kept watching the man, out of the corner of her eye, as she went through her songs. He didn't speak to anyone, didn't move from the bar, rarely took a sip from his glass. He wasn’t here for entertainment.

"Harry-" Tara began, coming off stage and finding the assistant manager waiting for her, still with a drink in his hand from the bar.

"That's some voice you got," he interrupted, "hey, listen, message from Tony, he says can you handle a three o'clock instead of the matinee, only he's having some work done in the morning and they might not be cleared up in time for the regular matinee show?" Harry always talked fast and ceaseless, as if using separate sentences was a luxury.

"Sure, okay," answered Tara. "Harry," she called as he nodded and turned to leave, "do you know the large man who was at the bar tonight? Wide shoulders, long coat, a couple of seats up from you?"

After changing out of her stage dress, Tara made her way back through the club, preferring the main entrance to the side door. She smiled courteously as a handful of patrons turned in their chairs to pay her compliments as she passed, and stepped out into a warm evening. The unsettling man at the bar had been absent, and she was relieved to think that she may just have been imagining things.

But as she looked around for a taxi, she caught sight of a shape in a long coat striding away down the pavement, clearly having just left the club himself. She was instantly sure it was the same man—his build, and the way he carried himself, matched her recollections exactly. Without really thinking Tara began to follow him at a distance.

"What on Earth are you doing," she muttered to herself. But the man wasn't looking back at all, and the street was well-lit and full of people on their way home, or enjoying the evening. A week ago Tara wouldn't have thought twice about walking home on a night like this—but then again, a week ago she hadn't been abducted by gunmen just last night. 'Still,' she thought to herself, 'it's not like if they wanted to kidnap me again, they'd expect me to follow this guy. And I can turn back whenever I want.' She paused in the shadow of a doorway as the man waited to cross the street.

"What on Earth are you doing?" said a voice in the darkness. It was calm and quiet, but still Tara jumped at hearing it. She peered into the gloom, to find the green eyes of the Shadow looking back at her.

"That man," she explained, "he was watching me. In the club, tonight. I got a bad feeling."

"Well," Tara went on, "I thought, maybe, if I saw where he was going to..." she trailed off. On reflection, it hadn't been the most well-thought-out plan.

"His car's parked across the street," said the Shadow. "I'll find out what he's up to. Go home, you'll be safe-"

"I'm coming with you," interrupted Tara. The Shadow's eyes widened and stared at her. "I'm hardly going to feel safe just sitting at home while you and these people chase each other around me. I-I'd rather know what's going on," she said, mustering as much authority as she could under the circumstances.

"Most people would rather not know," said the Shadow. Unexpectedly, she sighed behind her mask. "But I see you're not most people. Come on, then." The dark figure led the way to the street corner, where her car was parked. Tara noticed that, although no-one paid any attention to the Shadow's strange appearance, the pedestrians around them seemed to wander out of her way without realizing it.

"What do they see?" asked Tara, as soon as the car door had closed. "The people, I mean. No-one ever walks into you, as if you were invisible, but not."

"They see no-one of consequence," said the Shadow as she pulled out onto the street and slowly followed the black car Tara's watcher had got into. "A nondescript businessman. A newspaper boy. A homeless man. I don’t know. I just tell them that they don't need to pay any attention to me. Their minds do the rest. It's very easy to convince people not to pay attention. Most of them do it all the time anyway."

"I know what you mean," said Tara, half to herself. Since coming to the city she'd occasionally found herself starting to take things for granted—not looking at the faces around her, not seeing the light reflecting on the windows of the buildings, or the sunset turning the clouds golden. Whenever she noticed it happening she went to the park and spent a while just watching the trees swaying in the breeze, or birds playing on the lake. She snapped out of her quiet reverie when she noticed the Shadow's eyes watching her in the driver's mirror. She offered a quick smile, and the figure inclined its head and returned its eyes to the road.

The pursuit led the Shadow and her passenger to an old warehouse near the waterfront. The Shadow brought the car to a halt outside the dilapidated chain fence surrounding the warehouse's grounds, and turned in her seat. The black car they had followed was parked beyond, its occupant presumably inside the building. One of the big wooden doors was open, and light shone from within.

"Okay," said the Shadow, fixing Tara with a level stare, "now you stay here. I mean it. I won't be long. No matter what happens, do not leave this car. Yes?"

"I promise," said Tara, a little reluctantly. She was in no hurry to risk herself in a warehouse frequented by thugs and Goddess-knows-what—but that was exactly what the Shadow was doing, and Tara didn't like the thought of someone else risking their life for her sake. Still, she nodded and stayed put as the Shadow left the car. Her form clouded and vanished as she approached the chain fence.

The Shadow concentrated on maintaining her invisibility as she crept closer to the big freight-loading door of the warehouse, that was still slightly open. She had no idea how many people were inside, and if it was many—and if they were watching out for intruders—it could become a strain, clouding so many alert minds. She thought of Tara, waiting in the car, and half-regretted bringing her along.

'Well,' she thought to herself, 'what was I supposed to do? Leave her standing on the street corner? That's real nice.' Sure, she argued to herself, bring her to the docks and leave her in the car, alone, a few hundred meters from a potential gunfight. Very romantic. Why had she thought that? As if the girl was going to be interested in a vigilante with a scarf over her face. She's probably not even-

'Hello,' she chastised herself, 'you are in the middle of sneaking into a possible criminal hide-out. Can the relationship-type thoughts possibly wait a few moments?' Secretly, she wished her thoughts would be as ordered and precise as the persona she adopted. Focus, she told herself.

Inside, the warehouse was cluttered with machinery at its perimeter, but the majority of the floor in the center was open and empty, lit weakly from above. A pair of stairways at the far end of the building led up to a set of offices, one of which was in use. The silhouette of a man showed against the light in the office’s grimy window. Quickly and silently, the Shadow set off across the floor, towards the stairs.

"Welcome, Shadow," said a deep female voice that seemed to echo out of the air. The Shadow spun around, then looked down. She swore under her breath—the edge of her coat had caught the light of one of the spotlights, casting its shadow on the ground. She quickly stepped back, away from the light. She saw movement from the lit office window—a new silhouette was there, not the bulky man she had been following. This shape was slim, tall and feminine.

"Tell me, Shadow," the silhouette said, and again her voice seemed to come out of the very air, "How fast can you run? Not fast enough, I think." The silhouette moved its arm, as if turning a handle. To one side of the Shadow there was a mechanical clank as something moved in the gloom.

She thought quickly, which saved her life. Even as the silhouette was moving, the Shadow let herself become visible, and put all her concentration into a potent skill she rarely used, and had never truly mastered. Bolts of electricity leapt from generators hidden in the machinery by the walls, filling the warehouse with a web of crackling power. The electric tendrils lashed at the Shadow, but slithered off a shield she held around herself, her outstretched fingers mere inches from the deadly power. The effort was incredible. She looked ahead, and behind, but in both directions there was only a sea of lethal charged bolts. She knew she couldn't muster the energy or the concentration to move her shield that far, yet if she stayed still it was only a matter of minutes before she was exhausted. She tried to cry out above the noise of the sparking, crackling energy, but the drain of the magic she was using was too much, and she couldn’t make a sound.

"Goodbye, Shadow," said the silhouette’s voice. It chuckled to itself, then the shape vanished from the lit window. The Shadow dropped to one knee, holding her arms out desperately. She looked around, frantic, trying to find a way out, but there was nothing. Already she was feeling sick, from calling too much magic through herself in such a short space of time. Her vision started to blur.

A crash from behind her spun her around. The big wooden door shattered in a hail of splinters as her car came through it, knocking empty crates aside. It skidded to avoid the electricity and slammed sideways into the piles of machinery opposite the door, sending the rusting components cascading over each other. There was a deafening crack, a shower of sparks from somewhere within the gloom, and the electric web vanished. The Shadow pushed herself to her feet and scrambled towards the car. The passenger door swung open, and she staggered in. Tara was in the driver's seat.

"Go," the Shadow gasped to Tara as she pulled the door closed. She shifted into reverse and the car lurched back out of the shattered door. With some grinding from the gearbox, Tara put the car in gear and swerved around the fence onto the road, and sped away from the warehouse.

"Oh Goddess, are you hurt?" asked Tara as she drove. "W-where do I go, a hospital?" The Shadow shook her head.

"House," she gasped, "corner of West Avenue and 41st." She coughed and gathered her composure. She was still weak, and felt like hell, but her vision was clearing.

"I thought I told you," she said, her voice raspy, "to stay put." She was glad to see Tara grin sideways at her.

"I stayed in the car," she answered. The Shadow laughed weakly. "I heard you call me," Tara continued, her voice serious. She steered one-handed, while her other hand found the Shadow's and squeezed it tightly.

Tara steered the Shadow's car through the open gates of a sizeable house behind tall stone walls. She stopped directly outside the front door and helped the injured woman out of the car and up the steps. The Shadow reached into a pocket in the black outfit she wore beneath her long coat, producing a key which Tara took and used to gain entry to the house. The hall lights clicked on as the door opened, and with the Shadow's directions Tara helped her up the flight of stairs and into a bedroom.

She doubled over in pain as she tried to support her own weight, and Tara caught her before she could fall against the door frame.

"Somehow I don't believe you," said Tara grimly as she supported the woman to her bed. She felt a silent laugh shudder through her body.

"Funny... I thought I was pretty good at fooling people. I guess my heart's not in it."

"If you could make some tea... downstairs and on your right, the kitchen. I keep some herbs up here that will help me."

Tara worried as she watched the water boil. She had only had the barest glimpse of what had happened in the warehouse, but by the look of it the Shadow should have died. Whatever she had done to survive had taken its toll on her. Touching her, with only the thin barrier of her gloves and clothes, Tara could almost feel the imbalance within her, the loss of needed energy. Almost as if she were fighting a disease. Unbidden, the memory of sitting by her mother's bedside came to Tara, but at that moment the water boiled and she busied herself preparing the tea.

When she returned to the bedroom the Shadow was lying down, on top of the covers and still fully clothed. Her face was still hidden by her scarlet mask, but her wide-brimmed hat was resting on the table beside the bed, along with a pair of hairpins. Her masked face was framed by short red hair that had fanned out on the pillow. One drawer in the side table was open, and a handful of tiny leaves were resting on top of a wooden case, of a kind Tara had seen before, for keeping precious herbs and powders in. The Shadow nodded as Tara held the leaves up, so she put them in the tea. She propped a second pillow behind the Shadow's head, then helped her hold the cup and bring it to her mouth. Instinctively Tara reached out to remove the mask, but stopped herself.

"Sorry," she said quickly, "I-I..." There was a moment of silence, in which Tara dropped her gaze to her other hand, resting in her lap.

"It's alright," said the Shadow finally. Tara looked up at her. She nodded in reassurance.

Tentatively, Tara reached out and felt for the knot holding the cloth in place. She pulled on its end, and feeling it loosen she hooked a finger beneath the mask and pulled it gently away. Tara's eyes widened.

"You're-" Tara stopped herself from saying 'beautiful'. 'She'd just think it was hero worship,' her thoughts chided her, 'and are you sure it isn't?'

"Yep. Keeping an eye on you," the Shadow answered. Tara nodded and helped her take a sip of tea. "And," she continued, "to hear you sing." Tara paused.

"What did you think?" she asked after a moment. The Shadow's response was immediate.

"Oh, it was wonderful! I mean, I don't really get out much, for entertainment that is, stalking lowlifes doesn't really count as 'getting out' after all, so I'm not a connoisseur of music or anything, and besides a lot of the words were so poetic and I'm lousy at understanding poetry, but I really felt it, when I listened to you. As if all the words and images that I wasn't really understanding were building up inside me, like layers, until I understood it all without knowing how. Plus your singing was so beautiful, your voice is just so..." she paused. "And I'm babbling a bit, aren't I? I'll stop now." Tara joined her in a grin.

"Thanks," she said. "A-and," she added, defying the impulse to keep quiet, "I like your babbling. It's cute." She was rewarded with a wide, genuine smile, which warmed her more than she was really willing to admit.

"Well, thanks," murmured the Shadow, almost shyly. "I don't get to do it much, with the bad guys. 'Cause, you know, no-one ever heard of a cute crime-fighter." She took another sip of tea.

"About tonight," she went on, finding Tara's hand and holding it gently, "for saving me, and... all this. I can't thank you enough, I really can't. That was so brave, what you did."

Tara opened her mouth to say 'You're welcome,' but her voice refused to work. She smiled and ducked her head in acknowledgement, her eyes coming to rest on their two hands. The other woman had taken her gloves off, and Tara felt the heat in her grip. For a moment she was ready to look up and ask the question. Her mind was refusing to think of this woman, beautiful and strong and shy and awe-inspiring, as shadow, named for darkness instead of life. She wanted her name.

The Shadow suddenly coughed, and the spell was broken. Tara helped her take another sip of tea, then shifted on the bed.

"Y-you should rest," she said, her eyes making a coward of her, darting away whenever she tried to look at the other woman's face. She stood up slowly.

"Thanks," she answered, "I- yeah, you're right. Downstairs, the first door on the left, if you go through the sitting room there's the library. There's a bed made up in a little room off that, I kind of live down there a bit. It's not that big, but it's comfy."

Tara nodded, looked up at the Shadow long enough to offer a smile, then turned to leave. She was at the door, one hand on the light switch, when she heard a quiet voice behind her.

"Willow." Tara turned. The Shadow was looking at her, almost... hopeful? "My name's Willow," she said.

"Willow," repeated Tara, half to herself. She liked the sound of the name. When she sang she thought of words purely by their sounds, with rhythm and length and shape. 'Willow' was perfect. No sharp edges, no catches, just the feel of her voice flowing across it, bringing it to life. It was a song in itself.

Willow nodded, her hopeful expression settling into one of contentment. The two held each other's gazes for a moment, then Willow lay back, and Tara turned out the lights and quietly made her way down the stairs.

Tara woke late the next morning, nestled contentedly in the small bed, with her face pressed into a well-worn pillow that still had the scent of Willow's hair. She spent a few moments luxuriating in half-sleep, letting her mind wander where it would around the image of the woman upstairs, before finally getting up and wrapping herself in a warm dressing gown hanging on a hook behind the small room's door. Stretching the sleep out of her limbs, she ventured into the library to take a better look around, now that the previous night’s tiredness was gone.

She had been expecting- well, to be honest she didn't have much of an idea what a crime-fighting hypnotist would have in her library. Manuals on police work, guides to meditation, something like that. The library far surpassed her expectations. Seeing the stately room in full for the first time, with the morning light shining in through the tall east window, her attention was immediately drawn to the glass-fronted wooden case standing on a pedestal of its own in the middle of the room. She leaned down to inspect its contents, a single volume, aged but well cared for, open at the first page which showed a woodcut of a snake coiled around a tree, from which a fork of lightning had blasted a branch—the facing page was blank.

Tara turned to the shelves, and found further confirmation that, so far as she was any judge, the library was a rare collection of books associated with magic and power. Her gaze passed over the spines of leather-bound editions of the Malleus Maleficarum, Dante's Divine Comedy, Machiavelli's The Prince, volumes of history concerning the Delomelanicon and the supposedly-apocryphal Necronomicon, and a dozen different editions of the Bible. Interspersed with these were volumes of a more esoteric nature—a well-thumbed copy of The Labyrinth, a set comprising The Three Musketeers and its sequel, the complete works of Shakespeare, paperback editions of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes—that at least seemed to fit the image of the Shadow.

Tara's attention came at last to the desk that crouched between the bookshelves. It had a row of shelves itself, mounted on the back of the desk, and leaning down to peer at the titles there Tara saw that there were none on the slim volumes, only tiny years picked out in gold lettering. Diaries, she realized. For a moment she was tempted by them, but she refused the temptation. On the desk was the twin to her own Codex Nocturnus, sitting open with a weighted bookmark holding the pages, beside a collection of notes made from the text. Beneath the loose pages was a manila folder that caught Tara's eye. She shifted the papers slightly to reveal the name on its label: Tara Maclay. Hesitantly she picked it up and opened it, wondering what secrets it might have told. But all it seemed to contain was a series of clippings from newspapers, reviewing her appearances at the Hurricane Club. She recognized instantly the piece from the Times, with its small picture of her smiling nervously into the lens of the camera. Shuffling the newspaper articles aside she found only a single page beneath them in the bottom of the folder, a copy of the police report on her the robbery from her apartment. Nothing more, about her family, her childhood. Tara was on the one hand relieved not to have her whole life laid bare—but she had to admit she felt a twinge of disappointment. The file was one such as a policeman might keep of a case, nothing more. No personal interest. Tara's eyes flickered to the desk's single shelf, and the most recent book there, from which poked a tiny silk cloth marking the most recent entry. She mentally shook herself, put the file down and turned away from the desk.

She jumped a little to find Willow standing by the doorway, watching her. She was wrapped in a nightgown, dazzling white, and her hair fiery red, in the light from the window. She looked healthier than last night. Her skin was still pale, but she had a glow about her, and she moved steadily as she walked into the room, without any visible sign of weakness.

"I was just having a look," Tara said quickly, "you know..." she trailed off lamely, gesturing to the desk and the bookshelves. Willow smiled and waved her hand, dismissing Tara's concern.

"It's okay," she said, "there's not anything I'm trying to hide. Well, obviously from most people there is, hence the mask and the whole secret identity thing, not to mention all the invisibility, but... not from you, is what I mean." She smiled hopefully.

"Oh, no, it's okay," said Willow, "I got it. I thought you might be hungry when you woke up, so I took care of it." She disappeared out into the hall, and came back a moment later with a silver tray.

"It's just scrambled eggs and toast," she said apologetically, "I'm not really much of a chef."

"That's fine," said Tara, beaming, "thanks." They sat on a lounge chair beneath the window and balanced the plates on their laps.

"Did you really hear me last night?" asked Willow after a moment. "In the warehouse, I mean. You said you hear me call?"

"Mmm-hmm," said Tara, swallowing a bite of toast. "It sounded like you were right next to me. I thought... did you use telepathy?"

"I must have," mused Willow, "I was putting so much effort into my shield that I couldn't even speak. But I don't remember trying to call you. I guess I just did it without thinking."

"I can still do some real magic," she said, "if I really need to. Defensive kinds of spells. I used to be better at it, but... it didn't work out so well."

"What happened?" asked Tara immediately. She almost regretted it when she saw the hesitation in Willow’s expression.

"See," Willow said after a moment, "now I wish I could lie to you, almost. Just give you the sugar-coated version, and have everything be okay. The truth is... not so good." Tara set her plate down and took Willow’s hand.

"I know who you are, here and now," she said, looking into Willow's eyes, making sure the other woman could hear the sincerity she was directing at her. "I'm not asking you to pretend to be perfect. I'll deal."

"I always had the gift," she began, "even when I was little. I gradually found out about it on my own, from books mainly, and after a while from finding other people who knew, and could teach me. Five years ago I had learned pretty much everything I could. All the books here," she gestured around the library, "I'd found, and used. I didn't admit to anyone what I'd learned from them. They would have been afraid of me. They would have been right. I was changing myself, though what I was becoming... I don't know. I crossed a line I shouldn't have."

Willow paused, and gently took her hand from Tara's. She curled her hands together in her lap, and set her gaze on the floor.

"I killed a man," she said quietly. "He was a- He wasn't a good man. The way people talk, casually, they might say he deserved to die. But I had him beaten, defenseless. There was no way he could have hurt me, or... or anyone else, any more. There was no reason that forced me, I... chose. I decided that he should die.

"I realized how wrong I had been slowly. At first I tried to justify it to myself. Then I tried to ignore what I had done, pretend it had never happened. Finally I couldn't. I tried to find a solution, a way to live with what I'd done, and there wasn't one. I didn't have anyone to turn to, so I locked up the house I was living in then, and just went away. I figured if there was an answer anywhere, I would find it eventually. Or I'd just keep looking. Either way seemed to work.

"After a long time, I found someone who helped me. She understood magic better than I had, and I learned some of that from her. And she understood people better than I did. She- well, she didn't tell me what to do, but I think she knew all along what I'd eventually decide. When I'd made up my mind to come here, to New York, and try to use what I had learned to fight evil, she wished me good luck, and then she just left. I never saw her again."

Willow fell silent, but still didn't look up. Tara had seen, and felt, a change come over her, in the way she breathed, the way her hands clenched tightly in her lap. She dismissed her own hesitation and reached out to Willow, drawing her into an embrace that brought the tears out. For a long while Tara simply held her, letting her cry. For her part, she felt the woman's pain acutely, yet took some consolation in the ease with which Willow allowed herself to be held and comforted.

"Sorry," Willow eventually murmured as her breathing steadied, "I just... I do pretty well nowadays. I used to get nightmares, but now mostly I sleep well. Doing what I do, it helps. It's just that- talking about her reminded me of what I'm missing, I guess. She cared about me. No-one really had, before, and since then, well, the life of a solitary crime-fighter and all-"

"I care," said Tara abruptly. Willow froze in her embrace, then slowly looked up. Tara smiled, and nodded. Willow shifted closer to Tara on the lounge. Just as their faces came level, Willow's turned down again.

"I don't deserve your care," she said quietly. Tara opened her mouth to argue but Willow quickly sat upright and put a hand to Tara's lips, stilling them with the tips of her fingers. "No, please listen," she insisted. "What I once was, I haven't- I don't use those magics anymore, but I'm still the Shadow. Still close to the dark. I have to be, to do what I need to do, but it's my sacrifice. I spend my nights walking in shadow so that other people don't have to, so that they can be happy, and not have to know what evil there is in the world. People like you, you're too beautiful to touch the darkness. I can't ask you to come to my world."

Tara's mind whirled, looking for the right words, the way to keep herself at Willow's side. 'She thinks I'm beautiful?' a part of herself echoed, incredulous, threatening to derail her thoughts completely. Willow's fingers touching her lips were not helping. Gathering herself, Tara gently held Willow's hand and lowered it.

"Willow," she said quietly, "look at me. Please." At Tara's gentle insistence, Willow met her gaze. "I know you want to protect me, but this is my choice. You can't make it for me. And I choose you. I don't want to go back to my world, I feel empty there. I want to stay with you."

Tara fell silent, suddenly afraid at how much she had said. Her mind had been caught up in delight at Willow's trust in her, and so much of her concentration had been on making her feel better that Tara hadn't realized how much she was admitting until the words were out. She'd practically declared love for this woman who, truth be told, she hardly knew—'You know her,' her mind insisted, 'you know what you're feeling.' And besides, Tara worried, with her emotions running high she’d barely stopped to consider that, perhaps, Willow just wouldn't feel that way about another woman. Tara wasn't ashamed of how she felt, but she knew that a lot of people didn't even think it was natural.

She let her gaze drop, fearful that if she watched Willow's face any longer she'd see confusion, dismay, disappointment. She gulped and steadied her breathing, very nearly lapsing into a meditative state, her thoughts turned entirely inwards. She noticed nothing until she felt Willow's other hand gently brushing away the veil of hair from her face, and tucking it behind her ear. Hope surged—she wanted to look up, to see, perhaps, happiness. Doubt regathered itself, and she wondered if Willow, in her kindness, was just trying to soften the rejection. She couldn't look up. She couldn’t move.

Willow leaned forward, and very gently, watching for the slightest sign that Tara was pulling away, kissed her cheek. Tara didn't move, her eyes were fixed on Willow's hand, held in her own, and her only reaction for a moment was to release the breath she was holding, which became almost a sigh. Willow stayed there a moment, her stillness belying the turmoil of desire and uncertainty she was feeling. She eventually summoned the courage to move, to find out what happened next. As she slowly leant back, Tara looked up, her free hand was suddenly in Willow's hair, and their lips met.

A sharp clattering noise from beneath the desk broke the silence and the kiss. Both Willow and Tara jumped, staring wide-eyed at each other. Willow relaxed first, while Tara frowned, curious.

"It's a message coming in," Willow explained. Tara exhaled and found herself grinning at Willow. Both of them giggled like teenagers at the element of farce. Willow gave Tara's hand a squeeze and stood up, crossing the library to the desk and opening a cabinet beneath it. Something like a typewriter was hammering away inside, slowly producing a page of printed text. Tara joined Willow and leaned down to watch the machine work. It rattled out a few lines, then fell silent. Willow tore off the page and read it.

'To Shadow, urgent,' it read, 'Macauley Westen departd London fr New York 1830hrs 3rd, w. Disq. Magic. Flight 80 PA. Possible connectn w. Codex Noct. theft. Have sent relevant files by air. Giles.' Tara looked at Willow, questioning.

"One of my agents," she explained, "a man I helped two years ago. He lives in England now, he’s got a lot of contacts among people who deal with magic and the occult. Macauley Westen is a nobleman, I think. He's untrustworthy, from what I hear, but I'll have to look him up to know more. The Disquisitionum Magicarum is a treatise on dark magic. It could be helpful to someone looking to use the Codex Nocturnus, if that someone were interested specifically in dark power."

An unseasonal fog had moved over the city with the nightfall, and now held the sky firmly in its grasp. Willow frowned. The airfield a hundred meters away was a sea of landing lights, each one creating a sphere of yellow light in the gloom. She raised a pair of binoculars and scanned the ground once more, then hurried back to her car. Tara leaned out of the window.

"It's pretty thick," she said quietly, looking at the hazy silhouettes of the buildings beyond the field, "do you think they got diverted?"

"They're coming," Willow answered, "there's a pair of cars parked beside the big hangar, waiting. I saw someone get out and go into the hangar, then come back out. He probably called the tower to check the flight's progress. They haven't moved since then."

On the tail of her words a soft drone echoed through the air. Willow raised her binoculars again and scanned the sky. There was a faint glow in the clouds to the east.

"Here it is," she whispered to herself. She bent down and leaned through the car window. "Okay now, like we decided. Stay in the car."

"Of course," Tara said. Willow nodded, caught herself, and gave a mock-exasperated sigh.

"See that you do," she said tenderly. "But if you do get in trouble-" she persisted.

"Alright," said Willow with a wink, "if I get in trouble, you have my permission to rescue me. Carefully!"

The moving glow in the sky resolved itself slowly into the landing lights of a passenger plane, steadily descending as it crossed the bay, nearing the strip of illuminated tarmac. The aircraft dipped lower as it crossed the shoreline, skimming the short stretch of grassland beyond the strip. Its twin engines droned louder as it tilted its nose into the air, all flaps down, and with a final lurch its wheels touched the ground, screeched, spun, and held as the plane taxied to the end of the field. The cars lurking in the shadow of the main hangar moved out to meet it as it turned slowly around and stopped level with the building. A pair of ground crew in dirty overalls pushed a set of steps up to the rear door of the plane as the cars drew to a halt.

The door was swung outwards by a flight attendant, who quickly vanished back inside. For a moment light from inside the plane spilled out, until a hulking silhouette blocked it. The man who descended the steps and walked slowly towards the two waiting cars was a giant, over two meters tall, broad across the shoulders, with a square face set in a permanent frown. The wash from the plane's idling engines rippled his short white hair and tugged at the edge of his suit jacket, but he seemed oblivious to it. A second man, dressed in a similarly expensive suit but of far less intimidating proportions, and with an air of subservience to him, descended from the plane carrying a briefcase, and fell in behind his master.

Two men, impeccable dressed but quite visibly chosen for their brute strength, got out of the lead car and stood waiting for their guest as he approached. They both took a step back to allow him to walk between them. A third suited muscleman got out of the back of the second car and held the door open for its other passenger.

She was tall, made taller by a pair of white high heels, and she held herself in the posture of a queen deigning to meet a commoner. She wore a long coat, lined with gray wolf fur, which flapped in the wind from the propellers, revealing glimpses of a skin-tight white dress beneath, covering her from neck to ankle. Her hair was blonde, so pale as to look silver, tied tightly behind her head. She stalked slowly towards the man waiting for her, and stood her ground proudly in front of him, almost matching his height.

"Lord Westen," she said in a clear, exact accent. She held out a white-gloved hand, palm down. The big man stirred, then slowly knelt and took her hand.

"You have the items I require?" she said as Westen got back to his feet. He nodded, and waved a hand to his servant, who stepped forward. One of the lady's men took a step closer to him, watching like a hawk. The servant held up the briefcase, facing Westen, and opened it. He reached inside.

"The Disquisitionum Magicarum," he said, producing a battered old leather-bound book, "and the Shard Wyrm blade," he went on, drawing from the case a dagger, its smooth silver blade mounted on a handle of flowing gold set with glittering jewels. He held the two items out, the dagger with its hilt facing the lady. She glanced at them, then nodded to the man who had held the car door for her. He took the book and the blade from Westen and handed them to a man in the car's front passenger seat.

"And your preparations, my Lady," said Westen, "are they complete?" The lady frowned, her icy blue eyes narrowing to slits.

"My preparations are well in hand," she snapped, "as if it is any of your business."

"It is my business," said Westen calmly, squaring his shoulders. "You have pledged a great many things in return for my services, and I am told you have failed to yet secure the crucial element for your ritual. If you should prove unable to fulfill your promises-"

"I will pay my debt to you in full," the lady said calmly, in a voice that chilled the air, "and as such I am under no obligation to endure your insolence. It may be some small amount of time before I can undertake the ritual, but be assured," she took a step closer, staring directly into Westen’s eyes, "even now I am beyond your reach. If, in spite of the services you have rendered me, I should feel that your conduct is unworthy, I would not hesitate to still the beating of your heart in a second."

The two remained still for a moment, their stares locked in mutual hostility. Then the lady turned, her attention suddenly elsewhere. Westen almost flinched, but caught himself when he saw the lady glare at her closest guard.

The guard nodded to his two companions, and all three drew flashlights and pistols from their jackets. They encircled the lady, and holding their lights and guns together they swept the ground around them. One spot of light flickered for a moment, but when the guard pulled his trigger the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the tarmac. The guards moved as one, keeping their perimeter around the lady as she returned to her car, leaving Westen and his servant standing alone. The lady stopped with one hand on her car door, and turned to the leading guard.

"Kill her," she hissed. Then she held a hand up above her, and fixed Westen with a determined stare.

"Let there be light," she said calmly. From her hand a spark of pure daylight shot into the air. It rose far above the group of people until it burst, thirty meters straight up, into a coruscating ball of silver light that lit the airfield like a miniature sun. The lady ducked into her car and closed the door behind her as her three guards spread out.

"There!" one barked. Near the plane's steps a shadow was being cast on the tarmac by the brilliant light, marking the invisible watcher. It flitted away as all three guards opened fire. Westen and his servant, who had turned to board their plane, both ducked under the wing, Westen glaring at the lady's guards, the servant’s gaze darting around in panic. The lady's car started and drove calmly away from the gunfire. Two of the guards kept up their fire on the fast-moving shadow as it darted away from the plane towards the hangars. The third holstered his pistol and reached inside the second car, emerging again with a machine gun. He turned and leveled the weapon at the retreating shadow.

The shape on the ground fell flat as a hail of bullets whizzed above it at chest level. Willow appeared, rolling sideways as a second burst of fire struck the ground where she had dropped. Coming to rest on her back, her hand emerged from her coat holding a slim weapon from which flicked the twin vanes of a pistol crossbow. She fired the dart at the guards, vanishing again as it exploded in a cloud of dense smoke. The man with the machine gun fired through the smoke, missing Willow by meters. The other two jumped back into the open doors of their car, slamming them closed as the vehicle lurched into gear. Willow made herself vanish again as the car burst through the smoke. Her shadow darted from side to side as the guards leaned out of the car windows with reloaded pistols and fired at her. The car sped up, chasing her down. Faster than the driver could react to, the shadow changed direction, coming directly for the car. The guard leaning from the left window fired once, the bullet clanging off something in the far distance, before the car was almost on top of the shade. Willow emerged from her invisibility again, rolling sideways and kicking upwards as the car missed her by inches. The guard screamed as her boot smashed into his wrist, aided by the speed his vehicle was moving at.

Willow rolled to her feet as the car screeched around behind her, her gaze darting around. The glowing orb in the sky was starting to lose its brilliance, and the edge of the night was creeping slowly closer. A hundred meters away were the hangars, swathed in darkness, but with the guards' car in between her and them. Willow mentally tossed a coin, between trying to reach the darkness in open ground, or dodge the car and make it to the hangar, as the guards righted their spinning vehicle and accelerated towards her. She was about to vanish again when the roar of a second engine came echoing across the airfield. Willow broke into a sprint as her own car crashed through the wire fence surrounding the field and sped towards her.

Tara shot a look of equal parts relief and desperation at Willow as she leapt through the open passenger door and yanked it closed behind her. Willow elbowed the lever to open the window, reaching her other arm into the folds of her coat to find another crossbow bolt.

"You call this a careful rescue?" she yelled above the engine noise as Tara swerved out of the way of the oncoming car. She snapped a new bolt home into the crossbow and balanced the weapon against the open window.

"You call that doing fine?" retorted Tara. Willow fired the crossbow, then lost her grip on her seat as Tara spun the wheel. As the enemy vehicle swerved to escape the cloud of smoke that threatened to envelop it, Willow found herself lying stunned in Tara's lap. Tara pulled the wheel hard, straightening the car's flight, then found a moment to glance down at Willow.

"Vixen," answered Willow, pulling herself upright. The other car was behind them again, and bullets were ricocheting off the rear window, which was beginning to crack alarmingly under the impacts.

"Hangar!" called Willow, twisting around to get at the back seat. Beneath it was a treasure trove of interesting weapons. Tara shrugged and steered the car towards the open front of the nearest hangar, with their pursuers right behind. As they were plunged into darkness beneath the hangar's roof, Willow looked up, startled.

"This works too," said Tara, concentrating on seeing where she was going. A shape loomed out of the darkness at her, and she pulled the car around in a skidding turn, narrowly missing a parked biplane. She ignored the resounding crash as their pursuers took its wing off trying to follow her. Running parallel to the back wall, she looked for an opening between parked planes that would lead back out to the front. She spotted a gap and jerked hard on the wheel, scraping paint off both sides of the car as it clipped the wings of planes on one side and then the other.

"Who taught you to drive?" protested Willow, landing back in her seat with a thump, cradling a long steel crossbow loaded with a bulbous-tipped dart.

"Oh, you know," said Tara with forced nonchalance, "Keystone Kops movies." They shot back out into the night, followed by the other car, its bonnet battered by impacts.

"Go along the runway," Willow said, "give me five seconds without turning!" Tara nodded and steered the car onto the stretch of tarmac. She glanced over at Willow, who was leaning half out of her window, aiming at their pursuers.

"Come on," she muttered to herself, laying her head down against her shoulder, sighting along the barrel of the crossbow. Tara looked back at the other car, which was gaining on them, then ahead.

"Steady!" shouted back Willow. She lined up the other car, made a hasty guess at elevation, and eased her finger towards the trigger.

Willow fired. For a moment she remained perfectly calm, ignoring the wind whipping at her hair and the bullets smacking holes in the tarmac behind her. She watched the bolt fly straight and true through the air, land on the bonnet of the other car, and splatter thick black paint over their entire windshield.

"What?" Willow was about to turn when the tail of the DC3 flashed by her, going backwards. She bolted back into her seat to see the rest of the plane, taxiing along the runway, directly ahead of them.

"Turn!" she and Tara both yelled. Willow grabbed the wheel and hauled on it at the same time as Tara, their combined force jamming the car's steering as far as it would go. The car made a rapid right turn on two wheels directly behind the spinning propeller, scraped its roof on the underside of the fuselage, and shot out from underneath into clear space on the other side. Both of them looked back, between shock and amazement, to see their pursuers skid towards the plane, unable to see where they were going. The man leaning out of the side window sent one last burst of gunfire towards them before he turned and saw the plane's wing rushing towards him. He yelled at the driver, who veered away to the left, but too late. The propeller clipped the car's roof, its tip digging into the metal like a knife in butter, flipping the vehicle off its wheels. The man leaning out was thrown to the ground as the car rolled in the air above him, crashing down on his other side and coming to a slow, grinding halt a few meters further on.

"That was-" Tara began slowly, steering the car across the stretch of grass separating the airstrip from the far gate.

"Nah," she retorted, "happens to me all the time." She took off her hat and mask and let her hair down.

"What y-you... I... girlfriend?" she blurted out at last. Willow looked blank for a moment, then her eyes widened.

"Oh, no, I mean," she said quickly, starting to lean towards Tara but stopping herself, "I didn't mean it like that, I, no wait, I don't mean that I wouldn't, if you wanted, I mean that's what I thought a little after, you know, before, at the house. But I didn't mean it as if I'm just deciding it for you, or anything, it's up to you totally, I just- well you know, heat of the moment, and plus I was kind of worried that whole time about you, not that you were doing anything wrong, you were great! Real hero stuff. And I just sort of said it without thinking, cause you know, them being bad guys, and me being the crime-fighter and protecting you and all. 'Cause we protector-of-the-innocent people have to do that, you know, say something punchy after we save the day, I think it's a rule or something." She glanced at Tara with a hopeful smile.

"But," she went on, "I don't mean I was just saying it. 'Cause I wasn't, I meant it. Not in a claiming-you-as-my-own sense, y'know, just, if you wanted to, then... I do." Tara pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped the engine. Silence reigned for a moment.

"Y-you do?" she said at last. Willow nodded quickly. Tara turned to her and tried to speak, but couldn't find her voice.

"If you want to," Willow said, trying to fill the silence. "I mean, if not, it's okay, I promise not to be all broody night stalker or anything-" Tara gave up trying to find her voice, and just grabbed Willow's shoulders and pulled her into a full, passionate and very long kiss instead.

It was only several minutes later, when police sirens echoed down the empty streets from the direction of the airfield, that the car pulled slowly back onto the road and headed home.

Tara woke up slowly, and took a moment to figure out where she was. That wasn't her ceiling above her, and her bedroom had no window to let in the morning sun that was warming her. Not just the sun warming her, she realized with a pleasant start, but the body curled against her. Details flowed into place as the last vestiges of sleep melted away. The Shadow, the daring car chase, coming back to Willow's house... Willow, who was now asleep against her, one arm hugging her waist, one leg slightly bent, resting on top of Tara's, her head cradled on Tara's shoulder. Her girlfriend. Tara basked in the self-inflicted glow for a moment. Her girlfriend, her wonderful, beautiful, smart, crime-fighting sometimes-invisible girlfriend. She almost giggled at the last part, but contained herself, not wanting to wake Willow. A few more memories of the previous night surfaced, making Tara blush furiously at the same time as she grinned like a kitten who'd found the world's entire supply of saucers of milk. 'Did she... and I... really?' she wondered in some amazement. Willow shifted her head.

"Mmm, hey you..." she murmured, blinking slowly. Tara lifted her head from the pillow—not without effort—and returned her gaze.

"Hey you too," she said quietly. The two looked at each other for a long moment. Tara gazed adoringly at Willow, and saw nothing less in return in Willow's eyes. And, she realized, she hadn't even worried herself for a second. Not that she'd ever really been in such a situation, but Tara was well aware that her thoughts tended to be a little defensive, to the point of self-defeating at times. A few days ago, had she guessed what thoughts would run through her mind on waking up next to a beautiful woman, after a night of—another memory surfaced, concerning Tara being quite active and Willow being quite vocally appreciative, and she blushed again—well, Tara might have guessed that she'd worry about what might happen next, whether her affection might not be entirely requited, whether she had imagined more feeling than truly existed, whether, oh, any number of stray, disquieting thoughts. She hadn't. Not a single doubt had raised its head, and when Tara realized how content she felt, how certain she was of what she wanted, how right everything was—well, she just had to kiss the girl again.

"The situation is not good," summarized Willow. She and Tara had finally overcome their mutual tendency to just smooch some more, and were sitting next to each other in the dining room, with the table around them piled high with books, folders of notes, and the remains of breakfast. Having amassed all the information that could possibly be relevant, they set themselves to the task of figuring out exactly what they were dealing with, with only occasional hands on each other’s thighs.

"First, Macauley Westen," said Willow, leafing through a file. "He handed over some powerful magical goods, and took a fair bit of sass in return. According to this, he's among the highest and mightiest of the British nobility, so I don't think he'd be used to being talked to the way he was last night."

"So he's afraid of that woman," suggested Tara, "or maybe he thinks putting up with her is worth whatever he stands to gain?"

"Probably a bit of both," concluded Willow. "He's not a novice with magics, so he can't be unaware of the value of the book, and that knife of his... here it is." She pulled a file from the middle of a stack, causing a mini-landslide of papers.

"The Shard Wyrm blade," she read, "said to be carved from the crystallized heart of a dragon. This file says its existence as more than legend hasn't ever been confirmed. It's said to be a means of safely wielding magic in large quantities. Probably what the Ice Queen wants it for, if she's got a big ritual planned."

"Which is worrying in itself," said Tara. "That spell she cast, I've seen something like it before. Did you see anyone else around her who might have been part of a ritual to cast it?"

"Perhaps there was someone still in the car," Willow mused, "but I don't think so. She seemed to just think it up and do it. I didn't really recognize it, I was always more into forces than elemental stuff like that."

"Th-that's definitely not good," said Tara grimly. "If it's like the spell I know, it normally takes three people to cast just a small one. For something like that, with that duration and intensity, maybe six or even nine casters, and ritual preparations."

"And she just pulled it out of thin air," murmured Willow, "we have got to find out who she is. If she's got that sort of power to burn, and now she's looking for more... I had Harris down at the precinct check the plates of the cars she used, he told me they both belong to Nathaniel Pryce. He's a businessman, very rich, has a small collection of potentially magical books and artifacts, but I've seen him now and then and I don't think he has any talent. If he's involved in this, he's just being used. He could be a good lead, though, and perhaps he knows who the Ice Queen is. I'll pay him a visit today."

"I've been thinking about the ritual she mentioned," said Tara, "you said she'd promised this Westen a lot in return for his help?" Willow nodded. "Well, I was thinking, that means it must be something that'll give her a lot of power, directly. A-and that doesn't quite fit with what the Codex Nocturnus is supposed to be about. I mean, it's full of all sorts of incantations and descriptions of the ethereal planes, but basically it's about the afterlife. If a very powerful witch used it, you'd think it would be to talk to the dead, or something like that."

"Maybe she needs information," suggested Willow, "something only a dead person knows?"

"But from what you heard, it sounded like the ritual was, well, the big deal. If she were using it to get information, to find out, oh, I don't know, where a powerful magical volume was hidden, or an ancient artifact, well, it could go wrong. Even though no-one's really done it in decades, there's plenty of reliable records from earlier that suggest that communicating with a, a soul if you like, someone who's part of an ethereal plane, is kind of subjective. The thoughts you hear might get altered by your own thoughts, or subtle shifts in the spells, or- well, all sorts of things."

"And Westen seemed to imply that if the Ice Queen didn't live up to her end of the bargain he'd come after her," offered Willow.

"Exactly," went on Tara. "Now, even if I were as powerful as she seems to be, I wouldn't trust my life to being able to do a spell like that without anything getting distorted. Unless she's just really arrogant, and thinks she won't fail."

"She's arrogant as the day is long, would be my assessment," said Willow, "but I don't think she's stupid. I think if she's certain she'll succeed, we can't count on her fouling it up. It's up to us to stop her. Whatever she's doing. What about Westen's book, the Magicarum?"

"I read everything that looked relevant," said Tara, pushing away a stack of volumes, "but nothing conclusive. It's more a scholarly work on magic than a book of power in itself. She probably wants it to help her use the Codex properly. Or maybe..." Tara stopped for a moment, and tapped her fingers on the table as she thought.

"Maybe," she went on, "it's because she's going to do something new with the Codex. I mean, spells and rituals aren't set in stone, they're just ways of formalizing magic, to make it safer and easier. But no-one really knows what the basic elements of magic are, or how all the powers in the world are connected. Maybe she wanted the Disquisitionum Magicarum to help her sort of unravel the Codex, to get at the raw powers inside the rituals it describes... in which case, we haven't got a chance of figuring out what she's going to do."

"In that case," said Willow, "a practical approach would be best. Find her, get the books and mystic daggers and whatever else she's got away from her, and stop her doing whatever she's doing. I don't know of any way to bind a witch as powerful as she seems to be. Do you think it can be done?"

"Not easily," said Tara with a frown, "but I'll see what I can find. If there's a way, your library should have it. But it'll be dangerous, you'll have to get close. And I-I think she'll probably be able to resist your hypnosis."

"I'll take care of her," Willow said confidently, "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

"Willow," said Tara. Her voice was soft, but the seriousness of her tone got Willow's attention.

"Be careful," Tara said to her, staring into her eyes. "She's powerful, and there's too much we don't know about her. And I- Willow, I don't want to lose you. Not after I just found you... not ever," she finished with a determined stare. Willow leant across to Tara, taking both her hands, letting her forehead rest against Tara's as their eyes closed.

"You won't," she whispered, "I promise." Tara nodded, and they drew apart just enough to see each other clearly. Tara's eyes were moist, but she smiled the most radiant smile Willow had ever seen.

Without warning the room was plunged into darkness. Willow and Tara both jumped at the suddenness of it, and stared at the window which a moment ago had let in the sunlight from the garden. Now it was dark as night. Slowly, Willow got up and walked to the window, with Tara behind her, still gripping her hand firmly. The garden, the house's driveway, and the shapes of the buildings beyond the wall were all shrouded in blackness, lit no more brightly than at midnight on a new moon.

The sky, though, was not dark. Dark, angry clouds were swirling overhead, driven by fierce winds that pushed them towards the center of the city, where they crashed together and rose in a mighty tower of storms, miles high. Forks of lightning flashed between the banks of storm clouds, their sudden, violent discharges tinged an unearthly purple.

Willow drove as fast as she dared through the streets of New York. People were swarming out of the buildings, but few were taking to their cars—most simply stood and stared at the chaos in the skies above them. Tara held on to the side of the car door to keep herself upright as they veered around parked and abandoned vehicles. Her gaze never left the book she was studying.

"Three blocks," reported Willow. Up ahead, outlined against the violent sky, she could see the shape of the Imperium Hotel. Nathaniel Pryce owned the top floor of the modern sky-scraper, and Willow was not at all surprised to see that the gathering thunderhead at the center of the storm was positioned directly above the tower.

"I think so," said Willow, "every spell component I've got is in the case in the trunk. It's a sort of emergency supply. You know, 'open in case of end of the world'." Willow took a quick glance at the woman beside her, and was relieved to see a smile break through her grimness.

"Okay, good," Tara continued, "I think I've got it figured out. This is going to be the most powerful binding spell I've ever cast. Actually the most powerful anything I've ever cast. Find the Ice Queen, and when I'm ready down here throw the powder on her. I'll be concentrating on you, so when I cast the spell will go to you, conduct through the powder, and bind her."

"How long do you need?" asked Willow, bringing the car to a screeching halt, half-parked in front of the Imperium. Tara clambered into the back seat and started laying out the beginnings of a ritual on a slim oak board they had taken from Willow's library.

"Probably about three weeks," Tara muttered to herself. She crushed a dry leaf in her fist and let the fragments fall on the board. A circle briefly glowed on its varnished surface.

"Okay, it's started,” she went on, "if I can't do it in ten minutes, I can't do it at all. Take this." She thrust a small pouch, full of gray powder, into Willow's hands. "That's the stuff. As soon as the spell begins this will start vibrating like crazy, that's when you throw it."

"Gotcha," said Willow, wrapping her mask around her face and reaching for her hat. Tara grabbed her arm and stopped her. She leaned over to Willow, pulled the mask down, and kissed her.

"Take care of yourself," Tara whispered. Willow nodded, breathless for a moment. Then Tara returned to her preparations, Willow replaced her mask, took her hat, and left the car.

The Imperium Hotel towered over her as she looked up, and beyond it a tower of bristling lightning and thunder reaching up into the heavens. Willow took a deep breath, concentrated on clouding the sight of the people around her, and strode through the open doors of the hotel. Inside, businessmen and other influential citizens were in a panic, haranguing their aides and each other with demands to know what was going on. Willow ignored them all and went straight to the elevators. One was waiting at the ground floor, but as Willow neared it a man darted out of the crowd and entered it. Willow let her shroud drop just enough to concentrate for a second on enhancing her strength, tossing the man out of the elevator before he could push any buttons. By the time he rolled over to look back, she was invisible again, and the doors were closing.

The elevator took her to the highest public floor of the building, but refused to go any higher. Willow glared at a slot, intended for a key, next to the button for the top floor. Glancing about for other options, she noticed a trap door in the ceiling of the elevator, and leapt at it. One hand punched the door open, allowing the other to grip the edge of the hole. Willow got a good grip with both hands and hauled herself up.

The top of the elevator shaft wasn't far away, and there was only one closed set of doors above her. Willow tested her grip on the thick steel cables supporting the elevator, and clambered up to it. She swung across and balanced on the thin ledge, jamming the heels of her boots into the corners to keep herself steady. She wedged her fingers into the rubber seal between the doors and pried them open a few inches. Beyond were several men, armed with machine guns, staring right at her.

"Aw nuts," she said as they saw the doors move and raised their weapons. She let the doors slam closed again and spun to one side of the ledge, as a hail of bullets punched holes in the center of the doors. She let herself fall backwards, stretching out to catch the elevator cables, as the gunfire widened to perforate the entire width of the doors. The firing stopped, and there was a moment of silence as Willow swung wildly across the elevator shaft. She caught hold of an electrical cable welded to the far side of the shaft and steadied herself.

The first of the armed men opened the elevator doors and swung his machine gun around to cover the space beyond. He barely had time to look down before Willow, gripping the bottom of the ledge, swung up and kicked him in the face. She vanished as she landed, and was gone in the instant it took the other men to aim at her. Two of them fired anyway, killing the unconscious guard before he had even collapsed. The force of the bullets pushed him back towards the open elevator shaft. He began to fall, snagged on his weapon which was wrenched out of his hand by an unseen force, then toppled over the edge.

"There!" yelled one of the men, aiming at a shadow on the opposite wall of the corridor. Willow, holding the machine gun, faded into view just long enough to smash its butt into his forehead. The other guards opened fire, but the corridor was empty again, and their bullets only tore up the far wall. A hail of gunfire answered them, and they ducked to the ground, taking what cover they could behind doorframes and side tables. In the time it took them to realize the invisible gun wasn't aiming for them, three of the electric lights had been smashed by bullets. The remaining pair quickly followed, plunging the corridor into total darkness. There was a muffled sound, and the thump of a body hitting the carpeted floor. One of the remaining guards fired briefly, illuminating the scene with the strobe-light from his gun's muzzle flashes. Another man was on the ground, unconscious. A dark shape was next to the firing man, just for a second, then it vanished and the firing stopped. All that remained was the terrified gasping of the last guard. With a sharp smack and a thump, it became the slow breathing of unconsciousness.

Willow took a moment to concentrate, then kicked in the door at the far end of the hall. There was a man inside, sitting at a large antique desk. Willow recognized him as Pryce. He was alone and unarmed, so she allowed herself to become visible. He leapt to his feet at the sight of her.

"Shut up," said Willow, grabbing him by the neck and slamming him back into his chair. "Where is she?"

"Where is she?!" Willow yelled right into his face. Pryce's eyes darted one of the other doors leading from his office. Willow released him and headed for it.

"You'll regret this!" Pryce yelled after her, his voice shrill. "When she rewards me for my help, I'll be-" Willow yanked open the door and slammed it behind her, cutting Pryce off.

She was waiting there. Her coat was draped over a chair that had, along with all the other furniture in the room, been pushed up against the walls. She was kneeling within a small circle drawn in red powder on the polished floor. She wore only the tight white dress—her hands and feet were bare, and her silver hair fell around her shoulders. She looked up at Willow with infinite, cold calm.

"I expected you sooner," she said. Willow leveled a pistol crossbow at her, with her other hand concealed within her coat, feeling the weight of the satchel of powder on her belt.

"Bravado," said the woman icily, "quite unnecessary. I am quite aware of your abilities, so you need not put on a show of heroics to impress me. And I must assume, given the display I have caused outside, that you are not unaware of the extent of my powers. Surely you cannot hope to match me."

"Who says I have to?" said Willow, keeping her weapon level. "I heard you last night. You don't have everything you need for your ritual. You can put on a show for the people outside, but we both know you're going to fail." It was a calculated risk—Willow had no way of knowing whether the woman had acquired whatever it was she needed since then, but she had to keep her talking.

"I presume you heard all that was said last night," the woman went on airily, "so no doubt you have drawn some shallow conclusions from that, and now believe you can stop me from attaining any power over you. You are quite mistaken."

"Don't bet on it," retorted Willow, pacing around the perimeter of the circle. The woman remained kneeling at the center, tilting her head to keep Willow in view.

"You refer to your brief dalliance with dark magic," she replied, quite unfazed, "I imagine you felt quite powerful. Particularly when you killed that man. I know very much about you, you see. What you were, and what you have become. An interesting power you have developed, passive yet effective. I imagine your experiences have left you with quite a distaste for more… forceful magics."

"Oh, I am sure there are circumstances in which you might feel justified in taking a life. Once you have tasted that power, the temptation always remains." She dropped her gaze back to the floor, as Willow passed behind her.

"I know all about killing," she went on, "I have made quite a study of it. But unlike you I never let petty notions of revenge or justice taint my judgment. I have killed eighteen people with magic, every one of them carefully chosen, meticulously studied. They were all powerful, some as powerful as you. Their powers are now mine."

"You're lying," said Willow instantly. 'Come on,' she thought. The satchel on her belt remained steadfastly inert.

"You say that merely to reassure yourself. You know nothing. Their deaths were slow, carefully prepared and, aha, executed." She allowed herself a cold smile. "And when they died, their souls and all the powers within them were not allowed to merely vanish into the ether. They were contained. Within me."

The woman stood up slowly, brushing her hands down her sides to straighten invisible wrinkles in her dress.

"You may go now," she said, turning to Willow, "I have no need of you. And the spell you are waiting for will not eventuate." Willow's blood ran cold.

"Of course you do," the woman replied, "your friend outside, the witch. She is gone now."

Willow fired. The crossbow bolt whipped through the woman as if she were mist, and thudded into the opposite wall. She turned to look at it, then back to Willow.

"How decisive," she commented without feeling. Willow stared at her, then swore and kicked at the dust on the floor. As the circle broke, the image of the woman vanished. Willow hurled her empty crossbow at the vacant space where she had been, then spun around and ran to a window. Yanking it open she leaned out, peering down at the street below. The car was gone. Tara was gone.

Willow burst through the doors of the Imperium Hotel onto the street, visible and uncaring of who saw her. All around her was panic anyway, people running for cover. She looked up—the turmoil above the city was increasing, and no longer centered above the hotel.

'Of course not,' thought Willow bitterly, 'she's not here anymore. It's following her.' But try as she might, Willow couldn't see where the storms were coalescing now. The thunderhead above was collapsing violently, tearing itself apart with cyclonic winds now that its core was gone. Pressure waves were lashing out across the sky, tearing through the ranks of black clouds lining up across the city, lightning stabbed the tallest towers again and again. Amid the chaos, there was no way to see where the nexus of the storm was re-forming.

She stopped dead in her tracks, staring around wildly. But Tara wasn't there. The voice had been as soft as snow falling, would have been inaudible above the havoc on the streets, except that it came to Willow’s mind, not her ears. She held on to the memory of the voice like a drowning sailor clinging to a piece of wood. It was there—ever since that night Tara had saved her, and taken care of her, she had felt a sense of, of... she didn't have the words for it. Her world had been more alive. And now she felt it still. Willow closed her eyes and concentrated on nothing but the memory of that angel's voice in her mind. Those few observers watching this strange masked figure gasped as the very air around her rippled. Leaves and sheets of newspaper, blown by the gale, dropped to the pavement as they neared her, and everything around her became still and silent.

Willow opened her eyes. The wind suddenly whipped at her coat again, and the noise of the gale howled in her ears, but she didn’t notice. She glanced quickly around the street—a policeman on a motorcycle was trying to direct traffic, as people took to their cars in blind panic. She sprinted across the street, ignoring the cars that screeched to a halt, horns blaring, and touched his shoulder. He closed his eyes and slumped into her arms, and she carefully let him down to the pavement. She swung her leg over the bike and roared down the street.

Willow followed her instinct, never questioning or doubting it. The thought of Tara led her across the city towards the sprawling mansions of the wealthy and powerful. She steered the bike between cars jammed in traffic, down sidewalks when the cars were too crowded, across the park, keeping to a constant line. Tara was alive. She knew it, and now she just had to find her.

She came at last to a huge, stately mansion surrounded by high stone walls topped with iron spikes. Glancing up, she saw the first hints of the storm clouds beginning to center overhead. The main gate was closed, but unguarded. Willow took a few steps back, ran, jumped, grabbed the bars and flipped herself up and over the rows of spikes, landing on her feet in the driveway and causing a shower of gravel as she shifted her momentum into the air around her. Her feet crunched in the gravel as she stalked up towards the house's main doors, so she ignored her visibility and concentrated instead of preparing herself for the challenge ahead. The clouds were actually reaching down, towards the roof of the mansion, like a tornado spinning in slow motion. Already the tiles on the roof were beginning to rattle, and every few seconds one would break loose and crash to the ground below.

Willow kicked the doors in, her anger amplifying the blow enough to break the hinges. She stalked through the entrance hall, through another set of doors into a narrow corridor, and came at last to a set of thick double doors, the old wood blackened with age, bound at the edges with iron and brass. She put her hands on the doors—she could feel the magical power seeping through from beyond—and pushed them open.

The room was huge, fifty meters across, reaching up through the mansion's second story to a great glass dome. The walls were polished marble, white and deep crimson, with recesses containing statues of hooded, robed figures. The floor was a mosaic, composed of miniscule tiles, swirling in geometric patterns to the center of the chamber. There was a circle of candles, at least a hundred, their flames flickering in the disturbed air. From the perimeter of the circle, sheets of pure magic were rising, rushing into the air from below, stretching skyward. At the very center stood the woman in white. Her composure was perfectly serene, as always. Her arms were bare, the sleeves cut away, and her dress had been slit by jagged cuts running up both sides to her hips, revealing her legs. On her legs, arms, even her face, were long, flowing markings in blood, cut with delicate care. Instead of running from the wounds, her blood glowed in the cuts, like magma beneath a crust of rock. Her hair was streaming out above her, as if the winds of magic rising around her were a physical force, and when she moved she left a wake in the air, clinging to her, a glittering curtain of light like liquid diamonds. In front of her, kneeling, eyes closed, was Tara.

"Hey, Ice Bitch!" yelled Willow. The woman looked at her for a moment, then smiled without warmth.

"My name is Miranda," she said softly, her voice echoing through the chamber on the wave of the magic she was feeding on, "though perhaps you might think Prospero more appropriate, under the circumstances. Do you still wish to challenge me, now that you know what I am?"

Willow drew both pistol crossbows from her coat and aimed them directly at the woman's head.

"Lady," she said, "I've known what you are since I first laid eyes on you. Let. Her. Go." In response, the woman drew a knife—the Shard Wyrm—from behind herself and gazed at the unearthly light reflecting from its silver blade. Ripples of energy began to rise from the ground, passing through Tara and the woman as if they were ghosts.

"If you hurt her," yelled Willow, "I'll see you burn in every hell there is!" The woman looked at her with an expression of contempt.

"You have no idea what I am doing. Be silent." She flipped the knife over in her hand, aiming it at her neck. The pulses of energy were becoming more rapid, and every time one passed through her, the knife in her hand flickered, and for an instant seemed to be made of blood-red crystal. She slowly brought the point to her, and began to slice through the material of her dress, until she had opened it from her neck to the center of her chest. Willow watched in horrified fascination as she gripped the blade with both hands, aiming at her own heart. The pulses of energy were almost continuous now, and the blade was pure crystal, casting a savage red light that throbbed as if it were alive.

The woman thrust the blade into her body. It cut with no blood, only a line of pure red light around the blade. When she reached the hilt she released her nearest hand and continued to push with the other. When that touched her skin she moved it, bracing her palm against the end of the knife. With a final shove the blade vanished completely. Her alabaster skin sealed behind it, with no trace of a wound. The diamond light rippling around her blazed suddenly, unfurling like a cape in the hurricane of magic, turning dark red and glittering like a sea of rubies. From her legs, arms, back and head it flowed up into the air as she walked around Tara, watching Willow’s stunned expression.

"Now," she said, "I shall begin. You may watch, if you wish. There is no way for you to alter what will now happen. Watch as the dead rise."

Willow staggered as faces began to appear in the sheets of magic bursting like a volcano from the floor, wretched, twisted faces, souls in pain. The magic began to bend inwards, and Willow swore she could hear the screaming of the souls increase in pitch as an invisible force drew them towards the woman. Lightning crackled in the storm clouds above, twisting and lashing continuously in the sky. Slowly the column of souls bent, ever lower, until at last they touched the woman.

The chamber exploded. The glass dome ruptured outwards, letting in the fury of the storm. The marble blocks lining the walls cracked and shattered, spraying dust and debris over the mosaic floor. Huge chunks of stone and brick swirled up into the sky, leaving the remnants of the chamber at the center of the gaping crater in the mansion. The river of souls was flowing quickly now, too fast for Willow to even see the faces within it. It stretched from the ground, through Tara, into the woman. She grinned icily.

"Now do you understand?" she said. "The souls I have taken were merely a tool, a device to fuel this ritual, my ascension. Every one of the billions of souls, from every ethereal plane, is being drawn into me. Their power is becoming my power. Billions upon billions, stretching back to the dawn of time. All mine. And it will not end there. I am becoming all heavens and all hells. Every destiny will end in me. Every human being on the face of the earth will be mine, for the rest of time. For who can resist death? And beyond death, there will no longer be judgment, punishment, reward or peace. Only me."

She stalked around Tara, standing directly in front of Willow. The river of souls curved around Tara's still, kneeling form, passing through her back now and emerging through her chest, to remain centered on the woman. Willow aimed both crossbows at the V-shaped split in her dress and fired at her heart. The bolts burned out of the air inches from her skin. She paid no attention to them.

"Even you will be mine," the woman hissed at Willow. "I could kill you now, but there is no need. You cannot cheat death, and I will be patient. Eventually age and time will hunt you down, and you will lay your weary, wrinkled head down and die. And I will have you. Consider that, when you think back on your arrogance in challenging me."

She turned her back on Willow and walked away from her. The souls continued to curve through Tara and into the woman’s body.

"Your friend here," she said, looking at Willow over her shoulder, "will be spared, if you can call it that. Communion with the afterlife requires a certain degree of innocence, and I am sure you would be quick to point out I have little of that. The union I have created between myself and the ethereal planes is ultimate, so it requires perfect purity. Hers. When the ritual is complete her soul will simply cease to exist. Perhaps you will take some comfort in that. I care not."

Willow ran two steps, leapt over the souls streaming through the air, and lashed out with all her force in a kick aimed straight at the woman's head. The woman raised a hand, almost lazily, freezing Willow in mid-air. For a moment she hung there, unable to move, then the woman flicked her hand. Willow shot away from her, crashing into the remains of the marble wall twenty meters away. It took all her concentration to shift away the massive force of the impact, to avoid shattering her bones. She fell to the floor, dazed, only to be caught by an invisible force and dragged towards the circle, towards Tara and the woman. She slid to a halt in front of them.

"Do you still not understand?" said the woman, looking almost incredulous. "I have planned this ritual my entire life. Do you think I would permit you to disrupt it like some rogue piece on a chess board? You are a pawn, nothing more. You have moved as I wished, when I wished. I arranged for you to be distracted by this girl, to waste time protecting her from me, while I went about my business sure in the knowledge that you would bring her to me when I required her. Whatever preparations you might have made to face me now, you left undone. Your part in this is over. The pawn cannot attack the queen. There is no power in you, in her, in this world that can rival me."

Willow gazed at Tara. She was perfectly still, her expression serene, at peace. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, as if she was in a deep, restful sleep. She had never looked to beautiful to Willow. The woman came to a halt directly behind her, and gently placed her hands on either side of Tara’s head, her fingers brushing against the sides of her face.

"Tara," gasped Willow. The souls were flowing through her like an inverted waterfall, so fast as to be a mere river of light, any details indistinguishable.

"It nears completion," said the woman. She smiled thinly at Willow. "If you have any last words for her, speak them now."

She blinked once, as if clearing away the remnants of sleep, then looked straight at Willow. Seeing her fallen on the ground before her, she leant forward, reaching out to hold her. Tara moved to kneel beside Willow, gathering her into her arms. Willow simply stared at her.

The river of souls did not move with her. When Tara moved the souls suddenly struck the woman behind her with their full force. She screamed abruptly, the curtains of blood light streaming behind her shattering into a million tiny filaments that thrashed around like reeds in a storm. Tara jumped at her scream, clutching Willow tight. Her fright brought Willow out of her near-trance, and she pulled Tara away from the circle. Together they scrambled to the edge of the room, only then stopping to look back.

The woman was floating above the ground, at the center of a cloud of souls that whipped around her like a swarm of wasps. The strands of magic flowing from her body were stretched tight, pulled out around her like an aura, slipping out of her as the light seeped out from beneath her skin. In an instant the ruby-red was gone from them, revealing again the cold diamond light shining from her. She threw her head back and howled as more and more souls escaped her, swarming around, tearing at the power flowing from her. Light streamed out of her mouth, flying up into the thunderous sky like a beacon.

Lightning flashed down the connection, blinding Willow and Tara. There was a deafening crack, then silence. When the two women finally blinked away the ghostly images in their eyes, they saw the center of the mosaic floor burned black by the discharge. There was nothing else left. Willow let out a shuddering breath, and began crying softly in Tara's arms.

"Shh," Tara whispered automatically, "it's alright. It's over." Willow wrapped her arms around Tara and kissed her hard on the lips. When she drew back Tara moved with her, keeping their lips together. Finally they ended the kiss.

The patrons of the Hurricane Club fell silent, abandoning even their lively discussion of the lightning storm two days ago. Tonight, no-one was talking during the songs.

Tara was wearing her simple, elegant white gown, not the cold white of ice, but the glow of pure light. Her voice was strong and sure, giving the melody a life of its own.

Her audience, which included several regulars, all felt that she was on rare form tonight. Those of a musical persuasion compared her to the conductor of a symphony, so immersed in the music that it became part of her. Those of less cultured experience simply concluded that they hadn't heard anything like it.

But she sang only for one person, who sat near the stage, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on her folded palms, gazing at her endlessly with deep emerald eyes.

"But now I know I shouldn't care,
there's a song already there,
waiting inside."

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By Chris Cook

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