Buffy the vampire slayer: Sang Real Trilogy 3- Deals with devils

Sang Réal Trilogy

PART III: Deals With Devils

By Gabriel Hartnell


Disclaimer:


All the characters/ scenes, etc in this story are... well, actually they arn't mine at all, but hey? Actually, some of them are, and if Joss and the boys want to use them, they're welcome to- I mean, I used his characters without even asking so what can I say? (I would like an aknowledgement tho, J-man; um... and some money... or even better- a job!) I will try not to upset people with this story- I promise (fingers crossed)

OK, A LOT happens in this story- I mean A LOT. It's set over three episodes (which would be perfect for ep one on Buffy, ep two on Angel and finishing up on Buffy the week after- see, Joss; I've even got the TV schedule sorted out!!!) There's some humor, but it's atypical Buff style humor, so it's pretty dark and turns up where you least expect it. This is (kind-of) set in Season six. (Yeah, I know there isn't a season six yet, but Buffy's doing her finals, so that fits (if I've got the US college things worked out right) But obviously since I'm only writing this post season four, stuff might well happen which will mean my story doesn't 'fit' anmore, but hey- it's only a fanfic. I would tell you more about the story, but since there are so many twists and cliff hangers, if I did tell you, I'd have to kill you, which wouldn't be nice. Any thoughts, suggestions... complaints?!? would be greatly accepted and replied to- my E-mail addy is at the bottom of each part of the trilogy. This is my first fanfic- wish me luck!!!!!!
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A broad and boastful sunlight burst through a scantily canopy of sorrowful trees and drenched the assembly of mourners with a sweltering heat as if to punish them for siding with convention and wearing black on such a hellishly hot day.

Xander undid his top button as the sickening temperature reminded him why he seldom went anywhere near saunas... oh no, that was because in saunas he was prone to start sprouting gills.

The others hung their heads and wondered where it had all gone wrong; a contemplation which failed to distract Giles for long- he could pinpoint that moment to where Sang had completed his archaic ritual, although struggle desperately as he might, he couldn't quite understand why in destroying that chalice the process had not been reversed.

A hopelessly optimistic corner of his mind continually toyed with the idea that it was merely a matter of time; that it would take a while for the balance between good and evil to shift back to its normal state, and at that moment, Buffy, Angel and Reily would still be alive- or in Angel's case animate,, and the world would still have a hope.

But it had been a week now, and with every passing day that reassuring voice in the back of his head was growing fainter, and with it the burdens of both anguish and responsibility were steadily weighing him down.

It was difficult to believe that any of this was real. Willow had spent a string of sleepless nights thumbing through ancient spell books in the vein hope of uncovering something with which she could bring her best friend back from the grave- preferably in human rather than demon form- but to no avail. What was she going to do without her? What was the world going to do without her?

A new slayer would be on the way, but somehow that thought was far from comforting. It wasn't as if they had had the greatest luck with the last new girl. Others had come, saw and either had their throats slit or gone utterly insane; Buffy had always been slayer number one both in the eyes of her friends and colleagues and on the demonic hit list.

She had juggled a hectic college life and her sacred duty like a circus performer juggling burning sticks, and though the pressure got her down sometimes, she had always come through. At the very least she had fulfilled the first rule of slaying- survive. Until now...

Being the slayer was a god given appointment in life which Buffy lived by and died by. She wasn't orthodox, but she was effective. The world wasn't fair at the best of times. It most certainly wasn't fair to her, but Buffy had fought to save it so many times and always somehow pulled it off.

Willow had said all that in her address to the gathered crowd on this day she never in her darkest nightmares had imagined would actually come true- the funeral of best and most trusted friend.

She sobbed on Tara's shoulder and only prevented herself from giving up all hope with reference to Buffy's fighting spirit. She supposed as soon as the new slayer arrived, if that wasn't too late, and provided she brought a similar zest and professionalism to Buffy's to the job, things might not get better, but at least, if it was at all possible, they wouldn't get worse.

****

"This slaying's really getting me down, y'know." Faith booted an overturned crate across the room, thus spoiling one of Sang's imported treasures.

The disjointed vampire/slayer hybrid cringed at first as the ornately crafted artifact previously concealed in the shattered box burst out and smashed like a china plate dropped by a startled mother in the midst of a mountain of washing up.

He then raised an eyebrow and recalled an old Zen proverb about a great general who collected hand sculptured tea cups. Despite having waged many wars and overcome impossible odds, once when he fumbled his most precious tea cup and only barely managed to save it from striking the floor, he had become absolutely terrified like never before. Realizing that regardless of his military achievements he had been totally freaked by a tiny cup, he smashed it on the ground and moved never to distract himself with such mundane things again.

Sang nodded to himself, the deranged voices in his head playing out the entire philosophical debate in his mind as if there were a multitude of argumentative personalities shut up in there struggling to get out... which in truth, there were.

Perhaps he was just in the unique position of being able to look at everything in a half empty, half full kind of way simultaneously because he and his sister had always quibbled over such opposing viewpoints, and here they were both sharing the same brain.

Faith curled her legs up like a particularly vexed feline and displayed a far less digressive attitude- "It's always slay this, slat that- do this, do that. I had it with all that years ago. I do what I want."

Sang wasn't about to argue with that. First, he'd just gone and helped kill his own benefactor, and second, his attitude to authority was just as rebellious as hers, and he liked that; "You know, Faith- I learned a long time ago that you can't live your life in servitude."

Faith screwed her face up like a dirty rag; "What the hell's that? And when's 'a long time ago'- the dark ages? I mean, you're a vamp- been gettin' neck for centuries?"

Sang sat next to her on a crumpled coffin shaped crate which most likely contained the worn skeleton of an unearthed templar knight; "I'm what the authorities would call 'new blood'."

"Like, how new?"

"Forty years, give or take."

"That new, huh? You don't look it." A faint smirk crept across Faith's normally aggravated features; "I like older men..."

With the unlikely pair's faces, and more specifically lips growing worryingly closer to each other's, Elysia thought she had better interject with an inconspicuous cough.

Faith offered her an animalistic scowl which made her take an unsteady step back, thus allowing the twisted slayer to continue her dialogue with Sang; "I just had enough of being little miss saintly. Huntin' demons and savin ' people who couldn't care less. OK, so it's a rush..." She ran a long, black nailed finger down the far from resistant Sang's chest- "... but all that changes.."

"When you taste the blood?"

"Of the living..."

****

The repetitive tick of a cranky wall clock seemed to grow louder with every passing second like some kind of water torture.

Stiller than the atmosphere at a watcher's retreat studying marathon, the plush and gordy reception hall felt like the interior of an age old tomb; funny, in a quirky kind of way, since most of those gathered within were actually supposedly alive.

Xander wiped a tear from his eye and tried not to watch Buffy's parents sobbing all over each other's grim black outfits as he crunched a tasteless buffet cracker and contemplated why they hadn't got a discount on this whole event, after all, triple funeral, and besides, two or the corpses had come ready cremated.

"These crackers are completely tasteless..." which hadn't prevented him from munching through a square dozen; "... who prepared them; the dead?"

Giles breathed a sigh of total despair, his eyes blackened by restless nights and horrendous nightmares; his clothes not quite up to their pressed flat standard.

His mind had been working on overdrive since that fatal moment where he shattered that chalice and nothing happened. It kept replaying the thing in his head as he tried to discover what he had done wrong.

He had been rifling through his ample book collection and through the deepest, darkest recesses of his psyche to find some subtle hint of the faint possibility that...

He stood upright as if struck by a stray bolt of lightening, dropped his tea cup and opened his eyes wider than he'd open them in the horrible past seven days.

"Frankenstein lives??" Was Xander's predictable comic comment as he continued to munch crackers and grimace in quick succession.

Giles had had an idea; "Anya."

"Giles." The addressed party glanced back at the watcher in a mixture or surprise and distaste; a distaste doubled as she waved away Xander's feeble attempts to offer her a cracker.

A warm, fuzzy, highly irregular feeling was coming over Giles... this was... he wasn't sure because it had been a while, but it felt like a brainwave; "Anya- your mother..."

The reformed demon retaliated with a sulky frown. That had hit a raw nerve; "I don't have a mother."

Giles looked perplexed for a moment, then readjusted his glasses and everything seemed magically OK again; "Quite... but... your biological mother; she's a demon, yes?"

"You think?" Xander rubbed a still sore shoulder- "And there was me thinkin' she's a typical Russian female."

Both Giles and Anya ignored him as people were privy to doing. The watcher's revelation was leading somewhere, it was just that experience pointed to Giles taking a near eternity to ramble from point A to point B, and Anya wasn't about to hang around and get even older; "Yeah, she's a wish demon, like me."

"She takes vengeance for scorned women?" This was all falling into place for Giles.

Xander, however, was suddenly struck with the notion that this was the time to butt in, which probably had something to do with having just run out of crackers; "Look, G-man; genealogy, demonology, all the other ologies; I'm as interested in all that stuff as the next man, which might admittedly be not at all interested, but hey? There's gotta be something we can do about reversing that ritual, right? I mean, what if we collect the pieces of the chalice thing, glue it back together, tip it the other way and live forever in a world of chocolaty goodness?"

Giles rolled his eyes in disgust. Did this boy listen to nothing he said? "The balance must be maintained- the balance. Tilt the balance of good and evil either way and there will be catastrophe- the world will slowly destroy itself."

"But at least we could die of gluttony or... overexerting ourselves sexually or something- I mean, at least the world could destroy itself in a good way..." Xander was silenced by a gaggle of condemning stares.

"No." Giles was ever the optimist; "The process cannot be reversed. Things will just grow steadily worse."

Willow turned her bottom lip. It wasn't as if things could get worse than having the savior of humanity consecutively vamped and staked.

But Xander's disturbing cognition could visualize a darker place; "You don't mean... like... there'll be clowns?"

Thus raised all kinds of worrying scenarios for Willow- "And... frogs?"

"And nazis?" Xander's inane comments could as a rule be taken with a pinch of salt.

"Quite possibly." Giles' train of thought was rumbling on like a Japanese bullet train- "I could have stumbled upon... a solution."

Willow was startled- "A solution to frogs or a solution to dead Buffy?"

"Um... the Buffy part... primarily." Giles sat down next to the similarly black clad Anya in a manner which might have been considered by the untrusting ex demon to be motivated by him wanting to get something out of her.

"This idea of mine..." Giles looked a little guilty- "...it could involve a bit of... cheating."

Xander stood up, dusted down his crumb covered hired suit and objected to the objection wholeheartedly; "Hey, look, these are our friends... one of which I didn't like and another of which I didn't quite trust, but... these are our friends that just got killed, and our last hope turned to the other side and your last plan falling flat on its face. At this point I'm not too fussed by contravening the marquis of Queensbury's rules."

Giles thumbed his forehead and decided that he, too, had long passed the point where he deemed in necessary to play by the rules. "Anya, your mother, she still possesses her powers?"

"Yeah. Three thousand years and she's still dishing out wishes; still immortal, and here's me- stuck here with nothing because some wise-ass killjoy in some alternate dimension saw it fit to destroy my power source."

"Yes, quite..." Giles would never know it was his alternate self that was to blame for that; "... so we can reverse this whole thing..."

"By wishing none of it ever happened." The suddenly more animated Willow was catching on.

"All we need is a scorned woman." Giles was requesting something you don't often find in a local hardware store.

"Can't we just... scorn one?" Xander was conceptualizing- bad idea. "I mean, it's not that difficult to find readily scorned women these days, but we need someone we know. Maybe Willow could dump Tara." A swift elbow from his childhood soul mate brought an abrupt end to that proposition, but not for long- "She doesn't have to be scorned by a guy, right?"

"By all accounts..." Giles was pacing. He had his thinking cap on, again, after all, it was just about metaphorically stapled to his head. "...she doesn't need to be scorned by another person at all. She simply needs to be bitter- scorned by the world, perhaps."

Xander was beginning to think on parallel lines; "Um... is anyone else thinking 'trust nobody, world's a bitch, I deserve to die' mentality here?"

"Faith." Willow had stolen his answer before he had time to share it and thus bask in the glory.

Xander's expression fell in two gradual stages; one where he realized that his big, coming of age stint as the resolution guy faded away and the second where he appreciated the overwhelming stupidity of attempting to put such a plan into action. "So G-man, the plan is what? To break into Sang's place, convince Anya's mom and Faith to wish the Buffster back, even though- now convince me if I'm wrong, those guys are our mortal enemies?"

"Um... yes, there is that..." Giles was pondering again.

"And remember we don't have a slayer or an undead vigilante, or even a disenfranchised military man to help us out. What are we gonna threaten them with- garlic and bad language? Some of these crackers, perhaps?"

"Hmmm..." Giles was now past pondering- in fact, he was stumped.

"Well hell;" Xander turned to Willow, notably dejected; "that sounds like one of my plans."

"I think I can talk my mom round." Anya's newly assigned suicide mission made Xander shiver as he often did on those long, cold Christmas evenings on the front porch in nothing but a sleeping bag and a festive hat- "You think?"

"Well, more chance of that than of hell freezing over."

Xander shrugged his shoulders in disbelief- "I don't feel the hell mouth getting chilly..."

"I can talk her round... maybe."

"Maybes don't fill me with warm and fluffy confidence."

****

"Maybe I'll jack it all in- being the slayer."

Sang put a supportive arm around Faith then reminded himself that in all honestly, she had jacked it all in years ago- specifically when she started killing people. Perhaps he wasn't the only one with a selective memory.

Somehow being a vindictive murderer appealed as a vocation more to Faith than saving the world.

Sang pressed a knuckle into his forehead and groaned in both agony and disappointment.

He had been having these periodical searing headaches since that day last week which should have been a night of crowning glory; since he caught a glimpse of his sister's reflection where there really should have been none.

Actually, he had also become beset by a debilitating fear of mirrors, if there was such a phobia. Every time he caught sight of a reflective surface he found himself turning away in terror. He just wished Giles hadn't done what he had done- resurrected those lost memories.

He had liked being lost; outlandish, an outsider. It had kind of given him an excuse for being the way he was. But now his sister booted away at his cranium from inside his own head as if she was a kicking baby. She tainted him- she disoriented him, she made him feel guilty, but most of all, she annoyed him; almost enough to drive him...

"God, I can't take this anymore." Sang began butting a cruel brick wall just to take his mind off the pain inside his head by applying extra pressure to the outside, until Faith and Elysia dissuaded him from such a self effacing practice- the latter quickly being warned off with a threatening stare from the former.

"Your sister, right? Is she really in your head- I mean literally?" Faith had developed a strange affection for Sang which made Elysia feel like a bit of a spare wheel. Of course, she could always go play with the sword waving skeletons guarding the entranceway, but for some reason that prospect didn't quite appeal...

"That bloody watcher..." Sang shook his head and ruined one of his own priceless boxed artifacts with a jittery foot; "... I worked hard for years to forget about my sister- at least, I think I did, I don't really remember."

"Can't you just, like, kill her?" Faith had a solution to every problem. Unfortunately it was always the same one.

"There's just always this thing in the back of my head- this voice. Telling me what I'm doing is wrong. Telling me everything I do is wrong. It's like a megaphone in my head, and it's just so bloody loud and incessant that it's almost got me believing it. Believing I'd be better off dead."

Faith cracked her knuckles loudly enough for Elysia to shirk further into the shadows; "Better of dead. Like you deserve to die. I can relate to that..."

"It's just so damned irritating. I can't even think without her voice interrogating me- preaching to me. It's like Jehovah's witnesses knocking on the door of your skull and somebody being stupid enough to let them in."

"Bummer. So it makes you wish you were dead." Faith was blunt, at least.

"Yeah." Sang was no stranger to taking the darker elements of existence lightly; "That and the fact that life has just got mind numbingly boring"

"There's a limit to how much you can destroy."

Faith and Sang sat, heads in hands, like OAPs reminiscing about old times, past regrets and missed opportunities.

"I've killed the slayer, I've wiped out her little posse. We could go and terrorize people or open the hell mouth or something, but where's the fun in that?" Sang was downhearted. The thing about dishing out suffering is that you can never be satisfied, no matter how many lives you wreak- no matter how many people you leave sprawling in the gutter. And pretty soon, you realize that, and suddenly destruction isn't so alluring anymore, especially when there's guilt to double the effect.

"That hell mouth thing sucks. And I'd kind of made it my life's work to make Buffy's life a misery..." Faith lowered her head and wished it had been her watching the last breath pass out of her body.

"Sorry."

"That's OK; as long as she's dead, right?" Faith had led a frenetic, freakish life, especially these last few years. It had changed her- that blood on her hands. It felt good, but at the same time, like Sang, there was a part of her that believed she should be punished for what she had done, and it was quiet, contemplative moments that brought that side out.

She had been in jail, she had been locked away in a padded cell... But she had escaped both eternal prisons thanks to a clever cocktail of violence and sweet talking, both of which she excelled at.

Sang bit his lip and found the pounding in his head somewhat relieved by the taste of his own blood- "Hey, Faith- I've had a crazy idea." This was nothing new.

"Crazy's good, eer... I think."

"Bottom line, at the end of the day, when all the dust has settled..." Faith pushed him to get to the point with a pointed glare; "... in the end you and me know our fates. We're gonna die young, right?"

"Hell, yeah."

"Well, we're better than the others- than all those people who go around fearing death; running away from the one thing that's inevitable in life."

"Your point?"

"Let's break the mould- let's choose death. Let's beat it. Let's prove we don't fear it. We've done all we can here. We've had our fun and now all that's left is putting in time- putting in time until death takes it upon itself to come along and give us our just deserts. Let's refuse death- let's rewrite the great plan. A human being who has control of life and death isn't a human being anymore, but a god. We both have voices. Voices that won't be silent until we do what they want. We both know we deserve to die- we accept that. We know we aren't good people- why the hell should we be? Let's silence the voices. Let's give them exactly what they want. Enemies out here, in this world; they aren't real enemies- they aren't worth it. You know, it's often said to become a true warrior you have to defeat yourself. Well, let's defeat ourselves; let's embrace the darkness. I know what you need- you need a rest from this; you need salvation from it. Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to kill my sister. Now... now I'm finally gonna do it."

"You're crazy..." Faith appreciated the paradox of all this. She had been haunted by this whole 'being evil' thing. She didn't like it- or at least, her soul didn't like it. She allowed herself a twisted smile; "but so am I."

****

A sluggish caterpillar green jeep sneaked across a rain drenched tarmac forecourt and chugged off into the distance as if bound for some faraway military conquest.

The rain pelted Faith's unkempt hair as if an obese God was slobbering all over her; making it appear as dark as her volatile soul as it stuck to her face and provoked her into sneering an irritable sneer.

The lone sentry paced methodically in a robotic fashion- camouflage green mac blending into the mismatched gaggle of stationary green clad lorries and miniature tanks behind him as he worried that if enough water wound its way down his vertically pointing gun barrel, he might find himself shooting no more than a glorified water pistol if any intruders were to breach the abysmal security of this place. Sang; contemplating just that; had, normal, done his homework.

This particular military instillation was well known in the underground world of saboteurs, spies and terrorists as a weak link- a soft touch. And now, with the majority of the already scant defensive force called off on pointless drilling exercises, notoriously poor security had just got noticeably worse.

"They won't be back for a while. They'll circuit the perimeter." Sang was looking pleased with himself. Faith was less impressed- "Bring 'em on. What are we sneaking around for? I prefer a straight fight." Sang hang his head. Faith had spirit- too much spirit.

Sang grimaced and held his head like a palm hanging monkey struggling to hold together a split coconut. Only the cold comfort of the rain leaking down his face as if his head was rimmed with a cracked gutter gave him a firm enough reminder of reality to keep him in his preferred persona.

Faith just about resisted showing any kind of concern for his well being- it wasn't her style, however genuine those feelings were; "So how does it feel?"

Sang felt as if his brain had just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson in a no holds barred contest; "You mean my sister? Constantly pushing me out of my own head?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, with her being so damned saintly 'an all? It would be like Buffy being in my head all the time..."

"Bet you've never imagined anything so terrible, huh?"

"Aw, no- it's not that, it's just that it kind of... happened, one time, kinda." She shivered partly with cold and partly with the mortifying notion of having her nemesis mucking around with her mind- preaching to her as if she was the great I-am; "It must be like a drill in your skull..."

"Yeah, thanks for that." Sang didn't need any more painful metaphors. He sighed a tired sigh. At least Sarira was beginning to give up- for now.

"...It must be like fireworks going off in your brain..."

"Yeah..."

"A chainsaw wielding maniac going crazy on..."

"Yeah."

"That must hurt like..."

"Yeah."

"Well, you know- I mean, having such a prim, proper, selfless... It must make you cringe, right?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'makes me wanna puke'."

"Yeah, and that. Hey, look- the guards are back."

This fact seemed to delight Faith, but made Sang's blood boil; "DAMN." Faith, and to a greater extent, his sister, had distracted him into missing his opportunity.

The jam packed jeep span around and whisked its occupants back off in the opposite direction. "Aw yeah;" Sang's dastardly plan was saved; "Two circuits. We've still got time."

He pulled up the corner of a previously snipped wire fence and ducked underneath as if he was on a shoddily designed assault course.

"What are we looking for here anyway?" Faith had just tagged along for the prospect of mindless violence, that and this crazed notion of Sang killing his sister. How do you kill your own brain?

Denied an answer, she followed him into the instillation; the pair crouching under the canopy of the weeping tarpaulin roof of a stark corrugated iron garage; just spared from the downpour.

Faith tugged Sang's sleeve as her eyes lit up like a school kid promised a candy bar by a devious stranger; "Are we gonna steal a tank?"

"Better."

"Better than a tank?"

"Better. Now, we're gonna have to play this a bit by ear."

"Play what by ear?" Faith had not quite yet gauged the concept of sneaking. Sang gestured a finger towards the lone guard- still trudging his way through the continuous rainfall- facing the opposite direction.

"Him?" Faith had clearly deemed it unnecessary to keep her voice to a whisper; "Why don't we just go over there and hit him?"

She was spoiling Sang's fun- "Just... play along, OK?"

"Cool." Faith ducked down as the bumbling private turned and struggled to tie his shoe lace; "What have I gotta do?"

Sang pressed his palms together, kept an eye on the gawmless sentry and revealed an inkling of his plan, at least- "OK; I'm a soldier on leave, right?"

"Riiiigght..." Perhaps Sang was revealing yet another personality bumping around in his head. Faith had never been one for playing games, unless they were particularly dangerous; "And who am I?"

"You're just a girl, right?"

"Just a girl?"

"No, no- I mean the part you're playing."

"Part? Can't we kill this guy?"

"Look- just follow me, look all... simpering or something, and trust me."

Strangely, Faith felt she could trust him. That may well have been a first, but that didn't mean she was going to make playing the part of just a girl a second first.

Sang began tampering with a barely sufficient door handle on the munitions store wall, but was soon halted in his tracks by the frenetic sentry, who raised his weapon nervously and barked orders as if he was a rabid bulldog.

Sang rolled his eyes and bided his time as Faith, arms crossed, lingered in the background like the mistress of a deceased married man at his family funeral.

"Hey, look- buddy;" Sang motioned to place an arm around the sentry's trembling shoulder and feigned comradeship; "I'm on leave, you know- with my girl- wanted to show her the... Faith-" He muttered under his breath for his unwitting accomplice to show herself, which she did, unconvincingly looking the soldier up and down and failing comically to look like an everyday bimbo. Sang continued undeterred; "I wanted to show her the big guns; you know how they turn the chicks on." He pointed a finger towards the munitions store and offered a cheesy grin.

The sentry wasn't best impressed; "What unit are you from?"

"Eeer..." Sang was struggling; "... West Sunnydale fugiliers brigade... um... second infantry, fourth cavalry... um..."

Faith raised her eyebrows at him just to remind him how ridiculous this whole charade was getting; "Can I hit him now?"

"No, I mean..." Sang turned back to the sentry in a hap hazard attempt to save his less-than-Shakespearean-scripted act; "Soldier- eer; what the hell kind of boots are they?"

The sentry was growing more self assured with every passing moment; "Standard issue."

"Oh... OK- why did you leave your post unguarded?"

"I didn't." He raised the gun to Sang's face level.

"Eeer... you're holding your gun like a sissy."

The sentry cocked the trigger.

"Now?" Faith was getting impatient.

The sentry wore a proud smirk; "When I was a cadet, I would have fell for that show-the-girls-the-armory deal. I did fall for it, and next thing I knew some kid had stolen some pretty nifty weaponry."

"Yeah? Bummer." The ploy floundering like a beached whale, Sang was rapidly loosing interest in this whole exchange.

"Yeah. I spent a week in the dog house for that. And still, to this day, the boys make cracks every time I'm left guarding this place on my own. Ever since that day..."

Sang had reached the end of his tether. He waved a frustrated hand as if swatting an invisible fly and turned away from the whole thing in disgust- "Oh, hell, this is no fun. Let's just kill him."

With that, the miscreant psychopath rearranged the motor mouthed sentry's jaw with a deft side kick to the chin which dishearteningly laid him out cold.

Faith gave Sang a semi serious glare to point out the fact that he had just spoiled what would have been a satisfying homicide.

"Humans- they're no fun at all." He shrugged and made his way towards the munitions store.

Faith gazed over the fallen soldier with a pitying shake of the head- "Lightweight."

****

"So is it true guns make women wanna have sex?" Faith sat on a crate marked 'caution' and disobediently tapped away at it with her heels.

Sang screwed up his eyes and refused point blank to play devil's advocate- "I don't know?!?" Besides, he was looking for something...

"I mean, do they make you< wanna have sex? I dunno- the danger, the imagery; death and destruction?"

Sang overturned boxes and spilled clusters of grenades across the planked floor- a concept which somehow didn't bother him; "Death and destruction as a turn-on? Hell, I'm a vampire- a paper cut makes me wanna have sex. 'Bout you?"

"Guns; nah- too clinical; no passion. Gimmie something more brutal- swords, knives..."

"They make you wanna have sex?"

"Hell, yeah." Faith stopped and hopped down from the delicate crate as Sang pulled a lengthy box out from under a rack of lovingly polished assault rifles like a twelve year old scampering down the stairs early on Christmas day to drag the biggest present out from beneath the tree before his parents had officially awarded him it.

He snapped back the bolts on each end and tugged the creaking box open.

The crazed pair looked down into the casket as if gazing upon the lost treasure of El Dorado.

"So, you gonna join me in this pact?" The manic glint in Sang's eyes was becoming markedly more pronounced.

"Oh, yeah." This mystery 'present' had mesmerized Faith like a blowtorch in the hands of a pyromaniac; "Ain't it great the things you find lying around?"

****

Xander's lock picking was a little bit like Willow's singing- loud, garbled and painfully amateurish.

After fiddling around with enough angered thumps and curses to wake the dead for a good few minutes, he finally realized that the door was unlocked anyway, corrected his frown and pushed the cast iron back door of the old railway service depot building open an inch with an uncertain foot.

"I knew that- you know, that it was open."

Somehow that didn't convince Willow, who sighed as she pushed past him into the darkened building, crucifix in hand. Oz passed next with a supportive hand to the shoulder, then Giles, who simply muttered under his breath- 'Pillock.' as he followed the others in.

Xander recognized that it was his turn next to enter the foreboding structure where he would almost certainly meet a gruesome death, for once at the hands of Giles' plan, nor one of his own. He quickly did the 'chivalrous' thing and allowed Anya to enter first, fumbling his stake as he did so. 'Men.' Anya wondered why she had ever bothered with them in the first place. Even wreaking vengeance against them was more trouble than it was worth.

Once inside, Xander was struck with a less than promising sight- one which had greeted his friends in turn already and was just about to throw the entire meticulously conceived although clumsily applied plan out of the water.

Faith leant up against a wall and slammed the hefty door shut with a cultured heel; "You're breaking in tactics haven't improved. Couldn't you have been more obvious?"

Xander was always quick with the comebacks; "Yeah. I could have worn my 'vampires suck' T-shirt."

Faith dusted her knuckles and contemplated which of these geeks she should hit first, then swiftly changed the subject as her mood took one of its habitual unannounced 360 degree switches, although this time in what was for her a rare direction; "Do you guys ever wonder about what'll happen to you after death? I mean, heaven hell; nothing?"

"We're not about to find out... are we?" After all these years Willow hadn't quite twigged on that when murderous lunatics have you in the palm of their hand, they are highly unlikely to be about to offer you cookies, cocoa and a ride home.

Faith granted the worrying Wiccan an answer which she wasn't sure was good or bad; "You might not be ready to find out..."

Oz scratched his head- "Wait. Let me get this straight; you are gonna kill us... or you're not? Just wanted to clear that up."

"Death is a gift- a release..." Faith rubbed her fist down the peeling plastered wall and revealed her dark if sinisterly reassuring intentions; "I've spent years looking back- feeling guilty..."

"Wait a minute-" Xander was still cruising down wily pun avenue; "You're Faith, right? Faith and guilt? Not common bed fellows..."

The banished slayer continued unabated; "...feeling responsible for what I'd done- what I'd become. Fearing what would happen to me and that whatever happened, I'd deserve it. Feeling dirty- tainted in this body- scared by life. Condemned to blame myself- to live in this prison. Then Sang reminded me of something I'd forgotten."

"What? That it's good to kill people once in a while? How to embrace evil and live with yourself?"

"No;" Faith, dead pan, gave Xander a look which rather than make his eye twitch, made them shy away from her altogether; "To escape it."

"Pardon me, Faith-" Giles still saw in appropriate to dispense with pleasantries even though this was the girl who had sided with the man who had killed a girl who had been like a daughter to him; "you aren't contemplating suicide?"

There was a cold hush. Well, actually, there was a cold hush from Xander- the others had cottoned on a few paragraphs of dialogue ago.

"Hey come on now;" But his silence didn't last for long; "Surely you could have thought of a better option than suicide. There are good things in life, like... like..."

"I'm not afraid of dying." Faith licked her lips at the prospect. Heaven, hell; it really didn't matter. Just to be free of this guilt- this responsibility. That part of her that hated herself; that scolded herself and branded herself evil- that told her she should suffer. That constant voice in her head. She didn't fit in here. At least if she lives in hell, she was supposed to be evil, and that voice would bother her no longer. Then again, maybe it was the voice that was convincing her she deserved to die...

"You're crazy." Xander obviously still harbored some strange kind of affection for Faith. They had had 'a connection', after all, though the sex had been kind of... stifling.

"Yeah, I'm crazy, but I'm in control." Faith began up the twisting stone stairway leading from the basement to the ground floor, where the winding wooden steps to Sang's gothic decorated hideaway began. The others followed suit in a mixture of vain hope that she would agree to help them wish Buffy back. That and the vein hope that she wouldn't kill them if they stayed put.

"Crazy and in control? Isn't that an oxymoron?" Xander stomped up the steps as if ascending the path to heaven. Oh, present situation considered, that was not a positive metaphor.

"Whatever." Faith took the steps three at a time; eager to show Sang her prize catch and forcing them to up the pace themselves to keep up.

"How did you get so... twisted- so.. I dunno..." Willow's struggle for words wouldn't last long-

"Evil." Faith filled in the blank herself; "I dunno- practice makes perfect."

Giles had seen this before- people being wrenched off the straight and narrow by the lure of forces they couldn't quite comprehend. He had been there himself, although for Faith perhaps hope really was entirely lost by now; "Faith, evil... evil is a complicated thing. A hungry thing- a consuming thing."

"Evil is cool." The slayer clearly begged to differ.

"I'm thinkin' gateway to Hades, blood and burning corpses; fire and brimstone..." Xander had a different picture, as did Oz;

"Cool's not quite the adjective you're looking for."

****

"You're crazy." Giles' observation was accurate, at least.

Faith and Sang shrugged in accordance, surrounded by a clutch of newly resurrected skeletal bodyguards and the increasingly skeptical Elysia. It wasn't as if either had actually denied the fact.

Xander was more interested in the contents of the open box placed on a pedestal of coffin shaped crates in the center of the room, and particularly in the repetitive beep and the shifting red light on its side; "Um... guys- you know what that is?" With Oz about to hasten a guess and thus steal his thunder, Xander followed up the question with his own worrisome answer; "That's a cruise missile, and on the side, that's... that's a countdown- that's a five minute countdown."

Sang smirked knowingly as if a future version of himself had just traveled back through time and handed him this week's winning lottery numbers; "If you're gonna go, you might as well take a few people with you, and congratulations- you're those people."

The newly elected sacrificial lambs were for some reason not quite elated by this news, though to Xander the big picture hadn't quite sunk in; "You guys know that missile's just set to detonate, right? I mean, unless you target the thing, if you're planning on taking out some important government building or something, it's gonna be a short lived offensive."

Faith watched the countdown clock and smiled to herself at the insanity of all this- at the impending sensation of salvation; "We're gonna blow up this building."

Anya was transfixed on her mother's glowing greed pendent. That was the key- the solution to all this. It was also the solution to her own woes. Often with a hidden agenda, bringing Buffy back was only of secondary importance to her- if she went home with that necklace...

All she had to do was convince Elysia of something that in fairness she had realized already; that this whole Faith/Sang thing was a death sentence.

Meanwhile, Giles had weighed up the tactical implications of this scenario. Four skeletal knights, a mad slayer and the eccentric Sang lording over the whole affair, and in their corner, just an amateur group of demon bashing vigilantes. To say it wasn't looking good was one hell of an understatement, but at least Giles still had the gift of the gab; "Sarira..."

"DON'T CALL me that!" This single word moved Sang a lot further than any of the watcher's physical blows would have. Perhaps there was still a chance, but the primary objective was not to turn Sang- even that wouldn't be enough. But Giles knew how badly Faith tended to take rejection, and rejection was exactly what a revitalized Sarira would give her, leaving her vulnerable to fall for her most influential emotion- vengeance. And what better way to reek vengeance on Sang than spoil his meticulous plans.

Faith, when pushed the right way, would change direction, and, more importantly, sides, like the wind, especially if that meant putting herself in a position to hurt whomever had let her down where it hurt most. He could tell from Elysia's sorrowful although entirely helpless look that, lie mother like daughter, her first interest was self preservation, so part one of the puzzle was complete. As long as he kept the contest one of persuasion- of brains against brains, Giles was the clear favorite, although the clock was ticking.

"Sarira- you don't want to do this. You have so much to give. You can amend what you've done- you can redress the balance. You can turn this around. You're still the slayer."

Sang cradles his head in his hands and winced in pain and frustration. His sister's name was like holy water to his heart.

Faith nudged him out of his impending trance, for the time being, at least; "Don't listen to him. We've planned all this. We're gonna run riot in hell- you and me."

As long as this didn't turn to blows, Giles held all the cards; "I know you're in there- struggling to keep hold of reality. I know there's a spell on you; binding you to his body- stopping you from beating out the demon inside, but I know you're stronger than that demon..."

"SHUT UP." Sang barely managed to get the words out through clenched teeth.

"Sang! Sang!" Faith's nudges were growing more like fully fledged punches; "Snap out of it; you've carried your sister around for years, and you've always won. You even forgot about her. Then this geek comes along and thinks he can chase you off?"

Sang was teetering on the edge- half way between Jacques and his sister. The thing was that both Faith and Giles' positions made sense, despite totally contradicting each other- a paradox which was frying his gray matter as if his skull was a makeshift panfull of cooking oil on a roaring stove; "Yeah. I fought her for years- decades. I thought she'd given up. She's tough- she always was, but she doesn't have backup- she doesn't have this." He pointed to the scrawled tattoo; "And that's why I'll always stay one step ahead. That's why I call the shots. That's why I choose when I live and when I die."

"Sarira..." Giles was far from giving up himself.

"No. I do what I want. I die if and when I want." Sang had begun pacing around the ticking missile pedestal and the downward click of numbers continued on its side; "This is America; land of the free, Rupe. I wanna die, I die." Faith smile, broad and twisted, was returning. She allowed Sang to continue his refusal of Giles' cunning ploy; "Maybe there's more of my sister in me than I thought, but there's not enough. Not enough to turn me around. Sarira's dead, or at least, in less than five minutes she will be. There's too much water under the bridge- too much blood shed. She's gone. Tainted, disgraced and left for dead- you left her for dead."

The rest of the gang were growing more and more disheartened, but Giles had swung this conversation exactly the way he had wanted it- onto emotional matters, and in emotional matters, Sarira was always going to beat her brother hands down.

"Sarira- it was a mistake. Me and Jacques made a mistake, a stupid mistake. A mistake we have had to pay for- both of us. A guilt we've both had to carry around."

"You left me to my death." Caught between personas, Sang had failed to realize he had just claimed Giles had left 'me' to die, which made the watcher smile, for a moment... "You made a mistake because you didn't bother. Because you had more important things to do. Because you'd rather go off and hang with your band and your buddies than even take the time to notice me." A tear was welling up in Sang's eye as he continued to pace, and all of Faith's nudging didn't seem to budge it.

"Sarira; I understand you're..."

"You don't understand anything. You didn't understand your role- your purpose; you didn't understand the importance of what we were doing- what I was doing. You didn't understand what you meant to me."

At this, Giles' features dropped. Sarira may well have been back, but she was right- he hadn't known how much he had hurt her.

Faith's expression, on the other hand, had swiftly become one of mixed shock and amazement. Here was Sang- the sadistic, twisted undead head case, sobbing... over Giles??

Xander rolled his eyes and proclaimed what he should have realized by now was the growing trend; "Woah. Things just got weirder."

"You never noticed me- you never respected me. You never appreciated me." Sang was still sobbing like a... like a girl. Faith drew a fist back. Harsh measures were required.

"I.. Sarira... I..." And Giles was unusually lost for words.

"I tried so hard. With my duties- with you. I always tried so hard. Every day- every night. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It's not easy. Struggling every day to stay alive, fighting- on your own because you're the only one you can depend on. The weight of the entire world on your shoulders. Wrestling with conflicting emotions- wanting to do good- to be a good person, but having to kill. Feeling such pity but having to kill. You can't relax for a moment- even when you sleep- the nightmares. There's no time for family, no time for any other interests other than hunting and killing and... No time for friends. I tried with you- I tried so hard, but you never noticed. All I needed was someone- someone to take a little of the pressure off me..."

Giles dropped his head in guilt. He should have appreciated what Sarira had been going through- the pressure. That was why he had always been so lenient with Buffy.

Sang; or his alter ego; wasn't finished. "... you rejected me. You ignored me. You left me alone- scorned."

Giles' eyes widened as a revelation came to him. Sarira had just given him a new, more workable plan, and flipped the entire enterprise around- supplied him with a handful of new implications to consider with that one word; "Scorned???" It was just a shame he only had three minutes.

Faith unceremoniously decked Sang with a whirlwind right hand which sent him sliding across the room and almost knocking the missile off it's perch as he barely stopped himself careering into the stack of boxes which held it up.

Willow grimaced, though there wasn't a whole lot of difference between dying now and in less time than it would take to cast a binding spell.

Sang shook his head as Faith looked down on him in a mixture of savage delight and desperation. She had become quite attached to him, and couldn't quite bear to kill him, although she realized she might just have to. It made her feel lost- hopeless. It was like he was a cancerous recess or an infected limb. She couldn't live without him, but she would just have to kill him.

Her heart beat double time as she fought to catch a glimpse of his face as he writhed on the floor- hoping against all rational hope that it would be the old Sang who turned around to face him, otherwise she just wouldn't be able to live with herself, for long at least.

Maybe this was something all slayers have to go through some tie in their lives...

Sang grinned a manic grin and wiped a sizable trickle of blood from his re-split lip. That was three times in the last week or so.

The pair exchanged knowing if not quite describable as loving glances and Faith's heart rate dutifully dropped. That wild swipe had done it's job, but Giles' task had become easier. Now he only had to win Sang back over- after all, he still had his sister's soul- a selfless soul- a woman's soul, which didn't make him, as it were, a woman scorned?

"Eeer... Giles?" Oz was just about to draw the important negative out of this scenario; "May I divert your attention to... the three minutes?"

"Oh, quite." Giles approached the rising Sang with a preparatory raise of the glasses; "Sarira..."

And was thrown halfway across the room into a stern pillar from the recoil of a thunderous midsection kick from Sang, who spat a dislodged tooth out like a tasteless piece of gum and displayed his sudden change of heart; "You're not getting to her again, Ripper. She's dead, and in, what; a few minutes, you can apologize to her all you want, 'cos you'll be joining her."

Meanwhile, Anya nodded to her mother. It may have been hundreds of years, but family have certain connections. Words aren't always necessary, and though these shared a kindred hatred for once another and would rather avoid each other like the bubonic plague, neither had quite had enough of life yet to want to die here, now, and in all honesty, Elysia wanted the old Sang back- unstable, yes- morally suspect, maybe, but not this warped.

The eagle eyed Sang caught the non-verbal communication between the two and suddenly it all dawned on him. Four decades or so wasn't ancient in demonic terms, but in his time he had learnt the value of both intelligence and thinking on one's feet. "That's it." He displayed a conceited smile- "I know what you're doing. What you want from me." Giles would have kicked himself if he wasn't sprawled on the floor, as Xander and Oz dragged him towards the stair well, realizing that perhaps another strategic retreat was on the cards.

"Clever;" Sang approached his eternal colleague Elysia, Faith staring down the cursing Anya. "You want to change all this. You want to wish it all away, and you want me to be your laboratory monkey. You want to turn it around- use your little spells; bring your precious Buffy back."

"It's not like that..." Elysia had never been scared of Sang before, but he was different now, since Faith.

"No?" Sang restrained her with a vice like grip to her shoulder as that pulsating green crystal around her neck glowed in accordance to the beating of her heart; "You couldn't handle this. After all we've been through- all the time headed towards this, and you can't take the final step. You can't face it. You can't face your destiny. You can't face death..."

Sang half turned away in disgust, retaining his hold on Elysia's shoulder. Then a particularly callous thought came to him. He had mucked around too long before he had come to Sunnydale. He had played games; devised plans. Once here, once he had been plunged into that battle with Buffy, he had understood something- that to be successful in this world, you have to be direct. You have to be cruel. "You can't face death, huh? Guess what- you're gonna have to." Spinning around to face Elyisia with a crazed, blood thirsty glint in his eyes, Sang applied a crushing hand to the hapless wish demon's throat, another to the top of her head and snapped her neck in two with a sadistic grin.

He stretched his own neck from side to side as the crumpled, age old body dropped to the floor and the resonating crystal bounced twice and ended up by the missile pedestal. "I never tire of doing that."

Even the gawmless skeletons in the background seemed to be taken aback by Sang's unbridled violence- Giles and the gang, in contrast, rooted to the spot in disbelief. Their last hope had just plunged out of the proverbial window like a piano in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Xander immediately dropped the staggering Giles and went to comfort Anya, who appeared remarkably unfazed by her only remaining parent's brutal death.

"Anya- I'm... I'm sorry." Xander had forgotten for the moment that Elysia had only gone a precious one minute before the rest of them.

"Aw, forget it." In over a thousand years, Anya clearly hadn't yet got to grip with the concept of grief; "I never liked my mother. She was just so... scornful."

Sang wasn't taking any chances. He knew how plans could fall apart at the drop of a hat with such meddling characters around, and besides, that bout of homicide had got the adrenalin pumping. Just Giles and his four little helpers remained to snatch this strange kind of victory from him.

He did the math- four into four. Four trouble making foes; four skeletal bodyguards...

"Will you lot restrain these geeks- leave the prof."

The reanimated knights dutifully followed orders as if they possessed no minds of their own, which, in fairness, they didn't, and ensured Xander, Oz, Willow and Anya didn't escape their own funerals with a series of arm and neck locks.

Faith placed a cool palm on Sang's chest and watched the countdown with gleeful anticipation; "Just sixty seconds in this prison- sixty seconds carrying around this duty; this responsibility. Sixty seconds and we'll be free."

"Free, huh?" Xander struggled fruitlessly with his bony aggressor; "Is that a new, light way of saying 'blasted to oblivion in loads of tiny, bloody pieces?'"

Something had just caught Giles' eye- a glint of light coming from Elysia's lost pendent; sitting discarded by the pedestal of crates. Not surprisingly for Giles, it reminded him of a book he had read...

"Anya."

The reformed demon hung her head. Giles obviously hadn't noticed she was otherwise engaged being prevented from leaving by a gruesome looking fleshless corpse; "What?"

"The crystal- on the talisman of Anyanka..."

"What about it?"

"It's glinting; I remember reading something... about it only glinting like that..."

"When someone's made a wish."

If this further revelation was leading somewhere, Oz was hoping it was leading there quick- "Guys; can I avert your attention to the counter again?"

"That's it!" Giles stood up in a moment of triumph. It would just be nice if he shared that triumph- quickly.

"What's what?" Thirty seconds left. Xander cursed the fact that he had just asked that question. When did Giles ever complete a sentence in thirty seconds?

"Sang. Sang has to be the key." He threw his glasses to the floor as if he didn't need them anymore- as if he was a blind man with his sight miraculously restored. As if he was Lazarus brought back from the dead; "His ritual didn't work, and we all thought this was how the world was supposed to be. I knew our luck couldn't have change that quickly..."

"Giles- if you're gonna do something- sword being mightier than the pen and all... Twenty seconds..." Xander could only wish he could summon up the energy to pull free and do... whatever Giles was thinking had to be done himself.

"The world isn't supposed to be this way." Sang was growing tired of Giles' ongoing monologue, but let him prattle on- after all, he was sure being allowed to give a speech on something mind numbingly boring would have been his last request; "This is an alternate world- wished into existence. Wished into existence by a scorned woman- or at least, someone with a scorned woman's soul. This has all been a spell- the whole thing. To cancel the thing, all we need do is smash the..."

"GILES- SHUT UP!" Willow had decided she had to be vocal once in her life.

"Ah. Right you are." Giles nodded and started towards the fallen pendent only to be struck back down with a nonchalant heel by the ever observant Sang.

"Hey, Rupe- can't you see we're trying to blow ourselves up?" He and Faith giggled a manic giggle in unison as their eventful lives flashed before their eyes.

Ten seconds, and Giles was back up- making a second dash for the antique necklace, this time evading Sang but being swatted back into a forlorn stoop by a firm back fist from Faith.

Five seconds.

Sang wrapped his arms around Faith's waist and the kooky pair pressed foreheads together- determined to be reborn together in the next world where they could wreak havoc utterly unfettered by the unbearable curse of guilt which tortured them so in this pitiful existence.

Faith cradled Sang's head in her arms and kissed him so hard his troublesome gashed lip began to trickle again; "This is how I always wanted it- going out with a bang."

Giles lurched forward one last time into a lash ditch sprint. Three seconds. He could make it- just.

3,2...

Giles felt his footing yanked away from him as if the carpet had been pulled up by a malevolent deity. He crashed face first onto the floor, looking back to realize he had slipped on his own glasses which he had thoughtlessly cast away at the moment that his latest brainwave had come to him.

He reverted his gaze to the pendent, stretched out his hand.

One second.

He reached with every muscle and sinew in his body...

Just out of reach.

The entire scene, in this last, longest moment, appeared comically unreal to him now. All his dreams- the contents of his unconscious mind, however, seemed to hark to a colorful reality beckoning to him for real, now for the first time.

Slowly, the final number on the blazing red digital dial in front of him began to change- almost slowly enough for him to see the tiny row of LEDs that made it up flicker as a one became a zero.

He let out his last breath and felt that with it he was also letting out everything else that had ever meant anything in his life, and a good lot more besides; "Oh.. hell..."

After a sublime moment of utter, eerie quiet, a momentous smash comparable to the big bang that started the universe in motion; only in this case entirely less creative, boomed like a sudden volcanic eruption and send flame and debris spewing in all direction as if the old railway depot was a giant firecracker.

A fluttering tinkle of shattered glass showered the dead surrounding landscape first as the narrow top floor windows exploded outward like satanic wedding confetti, followed by a horrendous bang which would have ruined the eardrums of anybody who had not perished in the heart of the blast.

A bubbling mushroom cloud of fire and guttural black smoke shot out of the crumpled building and billowed violently in the scorched night sky as if hundreds of devilish sprites dancing the destructive dance of Shiva in the light California breeze.

A string of unrecognizable debris fragments burst out of the distorted top floor window frames like sparks from a metal slicing power saw; pieces of smashed templar bone, mis matched splinters of blackened crates, hunks of charred metal and tiny little fragments of glowing, emerald green crystal...

****

A shifty figure in a dusty black tunic of quasi contemporary oriental design leant on the guardrail of the museum hall's gangway like a flopping corpse and fidgeted as if a frustrated nut house inmate as he watched the babbling sea of humanity below prod and point at his archeological discoveries like a horde of festering maggots under the fur of a formerly sweet and cuddly bunny rabbit struck down in its prime by a brutal bout of mixamatosis.

Sang had been digging for ancient treasures in the icy mountains of Tibet for some years, and had at last struck gold... not to mention silver, jade, bronze... All that work; all those years, and where does it all go? A museum. Well, most of it.

He nudged his confidant Elysia's arm when he recalled the true purpose of the excavation. "You know, I wish this world would slowly degenerate into an unspeakable hell. Perhaps then people would appreciate me more; my... idiosyncrasies...... "

Elysia mumbled something under her breath then looked all puzzled for a moment.

She went to rub her leaf green necklace, only to find it wasn't there.

Sang watched the never ending procession of art enthusiasts and billionaire collectors below; "Elysia- what's up?"

"Done." repeated Elysia- this time audibly.

"What's done?" Sang shook his head. And he thought he was the wacky one.

Faust said nothing, but then, that was no surprise.

"You know..." Sang gazed down into the auditorium below and sighed. Something deep inside him- something he hadn't even thought about for more years than he could remember, was telling him something- making him realize that though he didn't especially like all these greedy, carefree, disrespectful human beings down there, he didn't quite want to kill them all either; "I think I've had one of my trademark sudden changes of heart..."

Elysia's eyes lit up. She didn't much appreciate all this plotting and killing and tipping the balance of good and evil in the latter's favor. After all, she had always had fun in this world how it was. Which got her worrying again about where she had put that pendent. She was sure she had been wearing it just a moment ago- maybe she was going crazy in her old age.

Faust, however, let his expression drop, and also cried out in defiance- almost. He liked the violence- the devastation. It was all he was good for. Without it, he might as well kill himself...

Sang put a friendly arm around Elysia and weighed up the whys and wherefores of chucking the whole archeological thing in and starting again from scratch- like starting a whole new life. There was just something in the air tonight. "Faust- tell Baphomet I'm out. Tell him... Oh, damn, you're not likely to tell him much, hey? Well, just... just don't tell him anything. You know..." He looked over his assembled collection of ancient treasures one last time as if to wave this long and incredibly boring phase in his life goodbye; "...I've had it with all this research, all these ceremonies and dark arts. Sod the ritual. I'm gonna turn over a new leaf. I'm gonna be good..,. Well, OK; not apocalyptically evil, anyway..."

****

Buffy grit her teeth and entered the grand museum hall, frantically rehearsing in her mind how to describe each of her mother's prize exhibits as she passed them should there be a test at the end, which inevitable, knowing mom, there would be.

'Eeeer... nasty, um... surreal, eer... what the hell is it?...' Art; it confused her as much as... all the other subjects.

"Buffy- you made it;" Joyce welcomed her as if this was a long lost family reunion of the Jenny Jones show; "a little late, though."

"Yeah, well, places to go, demons to slay."

"What do you think?"

"Eeer... nice; it's really... nice." She smiled and nodded unconvincingly.

Willow gave Buffy a wave from across the packed hall- she had been praying that Buffy would appear and save her life... again; only this time from her mother's artistic rants.

"That piece over there is a South African ceremonial hunting mask, used mainly to ward off tourists in this day and age.." Joyce was beginning to point inanely, much to her daughter's displeasure; "... and those are Tibetan ritual spears; used for..."

"Um... mom?" Buffy had just had a revelation. It had something to do with college- the three years she had spent away from all this... mom stuff; and how nice it had been.

"Yes honey?"

"I've... um; decided to change my ways- do more school work; pass these exams and get a decent job because... well..." She couldn't quite say 'because I have to make sure I don't end up living at home again', but that would have been nasty, even if true, and anyway, who ever told their mothers the truth?; "...because I owe it to you to make something of myself." She cringed.

"That's great, Buffy- now, if you'll excuse me, I have guests to see." And with that, she was gone.

Buffy guessed perhaps just as daughters don't have to be honest to parents, parents don't have to be attentive to kids.

Willow approached and hugged Buffy as if she had just saved her from a four headed hell beast; "Hey, Buffy- that's great; you're gonna study."

"Yeah.. great."

"We can be study buddies. I mean- we already are study buddies, but..." This was looking better already. With Willow in her corner, how could Buffy fail?

The pair began wandering through the thronging crowds as far away fro Joyce and her guided tour-ture as possible until they were thankfully not literally swallowed up by the bulging sea of humanity. "Will, I guess I've just decided that I've got my whole future ahead of me, and moping isn't gonna get me anywhere."

"Except perhaps into the local news as another suicide statistic."

"Eeer... yeah. I mean, I don't wanna dwell on the past, you know- I wanna seize the future with both hands- grasp the moment. I'm too afraid of failure, that's the problem- it always plays on y mind, and that's why I fail."

"And even if you do, it's not like its the end of the world."

Buffy; a firm believer in the power of the jinx, waved a knowing finger and hoped there was such a thing as unjinxing a jinx- "Remember we live in Sunnydale; you never know..."

LE FIN

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