When a key is not a key ((for Harry))

[slayers_desire]

It has started a few weeks ago, with the disturbing nightmares that forced April to wake up in the middle of the night. Nightmares that while connected to her voices, were so real and visual, that it was like she had been there in the moment.

In the moment of a death. It was not like most deaths that she saw through her voices... instead, it was like the person has disappeared. And April knew each time it happened it was like a little piece of the universe had been stolen.

Clark had advised her to go to the research library hidden in Lorne's bar. And that was where she was, when a commotion was raised from the meeting area of the Scoobies. Coming out of the library, she saw her father, Spike, placing Dawn onto a couch. The young girl was flickering... disappearing and reappearing... it was so shocking, she thought she was dreaming again.

"Someone help her! I am nothing without her!" Spike called out.

April frowned. Something was seriously wrong. And her intuition was telling her that whatever was going wrong, had to do with some serious magic. Returning into the library, April used her PINpoint to call up Harry Dresden. Hopefully he could provide some insight...

Comments

[slayers_desire]

"It could be... we have to find out more."

[thepizzalord]

Harry nods. "Right now we need to try to stabilize Dawn, then we should have some more time to figure it out. Anybody have a piece of chalk?"

[slayers_desire]

It is April who finds the material he requested, simply by going through her art supplies. She has a six-pack of chalk, in various different colors, including white. "Here you go."

[thepizzalord]

Harry goes for the white chalk, more out of habit than anything else, and he draws a freehand circle around the couch. "Nobody cross the line," he warns them, and imbues it with a touch of his will. The magic solidifies in an almost tangible snap as it closes around her, and Harry crosses his fingers in hopes that this will cut her off from any outside influence.

[slayers_desire]

"Damn..." Spike hates not being able to go sit by Dawn... but he would not be able to stay put, and he knows that. So it is just more of a grumble than a true protest.

The disappearing is not as frequent as it was when Dawn was brought in... so the magic seems to be helping.

[thepizzalord]

He frowns a bit as he watches to see if her flickering disappears. "That should isolate her completely, but it isn't." Still, at least it's better, he supposes...

[slayers_desire]

"Wot is our next step?" By saying that, Spike is basically saying that he is going to help. Even if Harry doesn't need him.

[thepizzalord]

Right now, Harry will take all the help he can get. "We've got a couple options. If this is some kinda outside influence, I can try to scry for where it's coming from, but given that she's still doing the fading thing in the circle, I'm not so sure that's the right thing. But the other theory is that whatever it is, it's coming from inside the house, so to speak. Maybe some kinda... magical parasite, or time bomb."

[slayers_desire]

"Wot worries me is... I am starting to forget her in my memories." Spike takes a seat at the bar. Wes pours him a drink.

"I phoned Angel and Buffy about her... and they asked... Dawn who?"

[thepizzalord]

That definitely sounds relevant to Harry. "How do you know you're forgetting if you've already forgotten?"

[slayers_desire]

"Pieces are there... pieces aren't... I know her, but others who should don't."

[thepizzalord]

This certainly is a puzzle. Harry paces a little as he thinks. "It's almost like someone's erasing them from reality. But if that was the case, April's drawings probably should've disappeared too, and the circle wouldn't help."

[slayers_desire]

"What is the erasing is not working on all aspects?"

[thepizzalord]

"Like someone is actively editing time and space, instead of just going and wiping out the person in the past and letting the universe finish it for them? I'm kinda dreading what might have the power to do that."

[slayers_desire]

"I am not really sure... and if it a great power... that is worth investigating."

[thepizzalord]

Harry looks a little nervous, and it takes a lot to get him rattled these days. "April... your world doesn't have anything like Outsiders, does it? Scary unfathomable eldritch horrors and stuff?" He only asks because they were mentioned to him recently, and they would have the power to do something like this. He sure hopes that isn't the case.

[slayers_desire]

"I have never heard of Outsiders..." April glances at Wes.

He shakes his head. "Nor have I, in my career as a Watcher."

[thepizzalord]

"Okay, good." That's a massive relief. He does not want to have to deal with Outsiders ever again, if he has a choice in the matter. Once was enough, and he barely survived his encounter with He Who Walks Behind, when he was a teenager.

[slayers_desire]

"So how do we figure out what might be responsible? And where to start looking?"

[thepizzalord]

"Good question. How much have you tried to look into it?" Harry asks April. "You've got that whole... seeing the future, reading minds sort of thing."

[slayers_desire]

"The nightmares sort of jolted me from looking further into it... but I could try." She can easily use the pictures and Dawn as a focus.

[thepizzalord]

"It could give us a place to start... at least a direction to go." Harry isn't very good at this sort of thing himself - mind magic is against the Laws of Magic, at least, and fortune-telling isn't his forte. But if you need something investigated or blown up, he's your guy.

[slayers_desire]

She sits down, placing the pictures around her, an empty spot in front of her, where Dawn slumbers on the couch. And closes her eyes.

April has never heard the Trio through her voices before. Lorne hears them. Victor hears them. But it only though concentrating on the Keys before her, that she can finally hear them.

They are so loud... that she covers her ears even though it is only in her head. They are so chaotic, that she can not see anything else in her mind, not even the normal chaos of the voices. And when she hears them... the Trio becomes aware of her right back.

And she jolts... scrambling away from their presence as best as she can, until her back is up against the wall.

[thepizzalord]

"Whoa, April! It's okay, you're safe." Harry isn't sure what made her leap up and try to merge with the wall, but she looks scared to bits.

[slayers_desire]

"I see them... The Trio..." April whispers. "Discord, Disharmony, and Cacophony."

She is still trying to shut them out of her mind. But there is a flash of darkness in her mind-sight. Almost like a wing. And she feels safer. Protected.

"They are not quite erasing the Keys... but sapping their identities. Absorbing them...."