"Stubborn Souls", BtVS/Dead Like Me, R, part 6
George managed to placate Lauren the next day by promising her that they'd go over to Slayer Central as soon as she got off work. Having Lauren around had at least lessened the weirdness between George and Daisy, or maybe added so much weirdness that the two cancelled each other out. Daisy, of course, kept trying to figure out ways they could make money off of Lauren being there, but George nixed every one. She did not want to get involved in any more schemes of Daisy's, and she was still freaked out by how normal Daisy was acting after everything that had happened recently.
"Georgia," Daisy said when she'd finally asked her about it, "if I fell apart every time a boyfriend died in front of me...well." And tossed her hair out of her face without saying anything else.
After that weirdness, Lauren was a nice break. At first all she wanted to do was go out and Slay vampires, and since she couldn't touch anything, that was easily handled. After that, she wanted to go see her parents, but both George and Daisy came up with so many horror stories about dead people going to see the people they'd loved that even someone as stubborn as Lauren gave up on that idea. Then she had a crying jag about how much life she was going to miss, which annoyed George and made her feel guilty at the same time. So, just your normal Reaper weirdness.
Rube did give George a post-it that morning, but the Reap was easily taken care of on her lunch hour. The poor guy had just been walking along, minding his own business, when a brush dropped from a window cleaning team on the forty-fifth floor, killing him instantly. The soul seemed more dazed than surprised or angry, and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. He'd headed off quite contentedly to his lights, which looked like a calm seashore, without a single look back to where George and Lauren stood.
"Not even the least bit tempted to go with him?" George asked Lauren.
"Go with him where?" Lauren said, looking in a completely wrong direction.
"You can't see them?" George said, then shrugged. "I suppose not. Shit."
Lauren grinned at her. "Guess you're stuck with me for awhile."
George felt herself growl, which annoyed her. "We've got to fix this problem," she said.
Which was why she was ringing the doorbell at Slayer Central at 5:20 pm instead of doing...well, almost anything else, probably involving a beer. She'd changed into more comfortable clothes in the bathroom at Happy Time, which she hated doing, because Dolores always wanted to know why. She wouldn't have bothered, but Lauren had told her that she really wanted to watch the experienced Slayers at work, and George supposed she owed her that much. She didn't think running after vampires would go well in a pencil skirt and heels. Lauren told her to say she was getting together with friends, and she did it, but she still hated telling Dolores anything about her personal life. It gave her too much leverage to pry the next time.
Liz answered the door and stood aside for them to enter. "You're just in time," she said, grinning, once George (and Lauren, but Liz couldn't see her) was inside and the door was shut.
"What for?" George said. "It's not the full moon anymore, and sunset's not for hours, so we can't go hunting vampires yet, right?"
"True," Liz said, leading the way into the living room, which was a scene of organized chaos. Willow sat on the sofa, huge books spread out on the coffee table in front of her, the sofa itself, and the floor. Xander was pacing along one side of the room, with Dawn, Bree, and Jen literally following along. Dawn even had her ever-present notebook and was scribbling while Xander talked. The other Slayer - George thought her name was Kristin - was doing what looked like Tai Chi off in another corner. Faith was the only one who seemed normal; she was sitting on the other side of the sofa from Willow, feet tucked under her, reading a magazine.
"What the fuck?" George said.
Liz laughed. "We're going to pay a visit on Judith this evening," she said, obviously trying to sound high society. In her normal voice, she added, "Willow's researching spells or something, and Xander's talking strategy. He likes to move when he's doing that."
"George!" Xander said, interrupting himself. Dawn and Bree looked annoyed, though Jen looked almost relieved. "Is everything okay?"
"I still have a Slayer trailing after me everywhere, totally fucking up my life, if that's what you mean," George said.
"Oh, good," Xander said, looking distracted. "Did Liz tell you what's going on?"
George nodded. "You're paying a visit on the witch who's causing all our problems."
"We're hoping to take her out now," Faith said, not looking up from her magazine.
"It's a reconnaissance mission," Willow said, also not looking up from her books. It sounded like they'd had this argument before.
"That clears things up," George said, and Liz snorted beside her.
"When will you be ready, Will?" Xander said.
Willow closed the book she'd been studying. "I'm ready now. She's such an innovator, I'm not sure how much of this will be useful, anyway."
"Let's hope some of it, at the very least," Xander said, and she smiled at him.
They all piled into the two SUVs that were parked in the garage and headed off. Dawn was driving the SUV George and Lauren were in, and when George saw the way Faith was driving ahead of them, she was glad. Eventually, they reached the section of town where her mother would kill to live. The houses were all huge, but they were also all different, made of good materials, and with a lot of tree-covered land. No McMansions in this neighborhood. The house they pulled up to was one of the nicest George had seen, but after a few moments of admiring it, she realized that no one was moving.
"Should we really be sitting out here like this?" she asked Dawn. "Won't Judith know we're here and have time to prepare herself?"
"We hope she does," Dawn said. "This is recon mission, whatever Faith likes to say to tease Willow. We want to know Judith's defenses so we can figure out how to counter them."
That made sense, but just sitting there was making George's skin crawl. Besides, Lauren kept chattering in her ear, about how much she wished she could touch Judith so she could get back at her for killing her and leaving her parents alone. George was glad when Faith, Willow, and Xander got out of the other SUV and everyone else followed. They formed up on Willow and Faith, with George hanging in the back, suddenly wondering why she was even there. True, Lauren had insisted that she wouldn't stay behind, and none of the others had indicated in any way that she wasn't welcome to come, but she was a Reaper, not a super-hero. What was she doing here?
Before she could answer that to her satisfaction, they reached the front door of Judith's house and Willow rang the doorbell. Everyone was quiet and tense, waiting for the response from within. And almost everyone jumped when the door opened and a butler - looking straight out of Jeeves and Wooster - asked if he could help them.
"We are here to see Judith," Willow said.
The butler just slightly raised his eyebrows, but he might as well have asked out loud, "All of you?" George felt herself flush, but Willow didn't seem at all bothered and raised her eyebrows right back at him.
"Right this way," the butler said, opening the door wider and motioning them all inside.
The house was even more amazing inside than it was outside. Marble floors, two huge chandeliers, small tables with Chinese-looking vases, artwork that George suspected was all original...and that was just the hall. The butler led them into a large room that was floor-to-celing books and had an Oriental rug that covered almost the whole floor. Behind a huge mahogany desk sat a young woman, one of the most beautiful women George had ever seen. She had hair the color of autumn leaves, perfect skin, and bright green eyes, and she made Willow, who had similar coloring, look washed-out and tired. She didn't stand up.
"You have my people," she said, in a low, melodious voice.
"Your people?" Willow said, sounding high-pitched and breathy in comparison. "All but one of them begged me to remove your control of their minds. They want to wait until we've taken you out, of course, because they don't trust you not to have done something nasty as a trap."
"The one was Brian, of course," Judith said, folding her hands together in front of herself so her finger-tips touched. She looked both graceful and elegant, and like every evil mastermind George had ever seen in the movies. All at the same time.
"Yes, he seems quite devoted to you," Willow said. "Extra-strong dose of mind control?"
Judith shook her head. "That was all Brian. Well, and this." She gestured to herself.
"Yeah, nice glamour," Willow said, and George felt better when she saw Xander flinch. Even knowing the way Judith looked wasn't real, George was still bowled over by her beauty.
"Thank you," Judith said. "This one was for you."
"Hm," Willow said. "Competing with me, or do you think I'm narcissistic?"
Judith laughed, and it actually sounded like a brook running over wind chimes. George crossed her arms over her chest, truly annoyed now. She started looking around the room, at anything other than Judith.
"Competing," Judith said. "If I wanted to throw you the other way, I would have looked like this."
Dawn gasped, making George look back at Judith. She was still beautiful, but now she had honey-colored hair and big eyes, with a figure so roundly luscious even George was almost turned on.
"You're several years out of date," Willow said, though it sounded like it was an effort for her to keep her voice pleasant.
"Is that so?" Judith said. "Ah, well. I do like this form, though. It feels comfortable. Though, perhaps..."
And she changed form again. This time, she was much thinner, with sharper - though still beautiful - features. Her short hair was a rich brown, and her eyes lit up the room. Xander was the one who gasped this time, and a second later, Faith launched herself at Judith, hands reaching for her throat.
She bounced off thin air four feet from the desk.
"Do control your Slayer, Willow," Judith said as Faith got up off the floor and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Surely, we can all be civilized."
"Civilized?" Dawn said, making George want to clap her hands over her ears. "You call this civilized?"
"Dawn," Xander said, but Judith had already turned on her.
"If civilized people could do this, they would," she said. She tilted her head slightly to one side and smiled. "Would you like me to look like this?"
"No," Willow said, and Judith looked annoyed without changing her form into something else. George felt Dawn sag with relief beside her, though Xander was still stiff.
"You shouldn't be able to do that," Judith said.
"I've been told that before," Willow said. "Shall we get down to it? We have no objection to you playing house here, and making yourself look and sound beautiful seems harmless, if pointless, but deliberately creating werewolves and sending werewolves against Slayers is simply unacceptable."
"Pointless?" Judith said. "Spoken by someone who has always been pretty. Do you have any idea how much easier things are when you're beautiful? I don't have to use nearly as much magic now. Oh, and how will you stop me?"
Willow opened her mouth to reply, but just then, the door opened and Oz walked in.
Maybe there had been too many shocks, because this time, no one gasped or even flinched. While Oz was walking over towards Judith, he made a strange little hand movement that George saw only because she was in the right line of sight. She didn't think Judith saw it. Oz put an open folder on Judith's desk, which she glanced at and then signed.
"Sorry about that," she said as Oz left the room again, not even glancing at any of them. "Business, you know. So, Willow, I think you were going to tell me how you're planning to stop me from doing anything I want."
"Yeah, because I'm just that stupid," Willow said. But then George lost track of the conversation, because she saw a graveling peeking out from around the desk.
She quickly looked around for any sharp or heavy objects that the graveling could move just slightly to facilitate an accidental death. She didn't see any, though she suspected that Faith, at least, had one or more sharp objects somewhere on her person. But she'd barely had time to think how fucked-up it would be for Judith to die of an accident with all of them there before she realized how oddly the graveling was acting. Every other graveling she'd ever seen had been moving quickly and confidently, knowing exactly what to move and how to move it. They always looked like they were having fun, too, which creeped George out, and she knew she wasn't the only Reaper who felt that way. This graveling wasn't moving at all, and it looked almost timid, with just one hand and half of its face peering out around the corner of the desk.
It was looking right at her.
George kept her face towards Judith and looked at the graveling out of the corner of her eye. She knew that most Reapers saw gravelings best when they did that, though she'd always been able to see them just fine even looking straight at them. But somehow she didn't want Judith to know she'd seen it. The graveling was looking at her with the most beseeching eyes she'd ever seen on anything, but she had no idea what it wanted from her or how to do it if she figured it out.
"George?" Dawn said, tugging on her arm.
George blinked and realized that everyone was turning and heading for the door. She started to follow, and almost bumped into Willow, who turned back around, smiling slightly nastily back at Judith.
"Nice try," she said.
"You, too," Judith said. "Except that yours was just power, and you have no idea how I did it."
Willow turned back around, and George followed her out the door, really not feeling good about her chances of getting rid of Lauren any time soon.