It had started to pour rain, which he supposed was good. Harder for a moron with his cell phone to luck into a picture of what was about to go down that thing he needed was to try to deal with that sort of thing with everything else he had going on. Not every town could be as determinedly willing to explain away the weird as the former residents of Sunnydale had been. Right?

From where he stood, Xander could see the gathering demons. They seemed to come from no where, quiet dimensional doorways likely being te cause. Wolfram and Hart wasn't holding back-there seemed to be millions of monsters gathering. The city didn't stand a chance. Or it wouldn't have if Willow's coven hadn't seen this coming.

In the alley below he could see the shadowy forms of Angel's group meet up. They seemed worse for wear, which he expected. Captain hair gel apparently decided to take out some big powerful secret evil organization. This whole thing was basically a suicide mission for he LA group. Which was lucky for Angel. The majority of Scooby leaders have talked about what they would have to do to the new Wolfram and Hart CEO. This stunt showed them that he hadn't gone so far in the dark side like they'd been afraid he had.

"Let's go to work!"

He hear Angel yell a battle cry and rolled his eye. He was still so dramatic. Still, maybe it was justified this time from his point of view. Angel didn't know how lucky he was, the rain hid Xander's slayer army from sight and the water even his the smell of the girls he brought with him.

"You heard the vampire, let's get to it!" He called out to his girls who immediately sprung to action.

The group looked up in surprise in time to see the girl's move across rooftops, ready to join the fight.

That's when he saw the platinum hair on of of Angel's guys.

"Spike?! What the hell?" He was alive. How the hell was The Bleached Wonder alive after burning up in the hellmouth?

"Explanations will have to wait till later Harris." The blonde vampire turned to hit a big nasty demon. Xander forgot what that one was called. A Heriaro-something demon. Guess he's right. He'd have to see if they both survived this battle to get the answers to his questions. The questions Buffy would have.


The battle lasted most of the night. It would have been longer, but the blue lady had opened up a portal that sucked tons of the demons out of the streets. Pretty nice trick. It was just too bad it took her so long to get the thing open, three of his girls died fighting.

Elizabeth. Sandra. Katie. Three great slayers. Three wonderful girls. But he knew it could have been worse-he had expected worse. Didn't mean the loss didn't hurt.

When things settled down Angel offered up the rooms at his old hotel to Xander and his girls so they could rest before heading back. Xander agreed. Mostly because even through only three girls had been hurt enough to be gone, plenty of other girls had bad injuries and needed some time for their slayer healing to kick in. That and Xander had a talk coming with Captain Peroxide.

Xander stood with two of his slayers with him in the hotel lobby as he stared down Spike. "So how long have you been back Spike?"

Spike looked at Angel. "What, about nine ten months since you got the amulet in the mail?"

"Just about." Angel confirmed.

"Nine months? You've been back for nine months. And you never tried to call Buffy to let her know?"

"Don't worry mate. I didn't mean to bother the slayer."

"I see. Madeline," Xander looked to the layer on his left, "Do me a favor and hit Spike. Hard."

Before the vampire could react, Maddie punched him right in the nose, even making him stumble back a few feet, and promptly returned to her spot by Xander. Damn he loved having his girls with him.

"What in the bloody hell what that for!" Spike grabbed his nose, and some blood even ran down his face.

"I would have done it myself, but Madeline could make it hurt so much more." Xander shrugged a little.

"That's not what I meant-"

He was cut off by the sound of Xander's cell phone ringing. Xander looked at it. Great. It was Andrew. "Hold on. Hello?"

"Xander, um... There's a little bit of a gigantic problem. My Buffy, she... "

"Spit it out Andrew, what happened to her?" He wasn't sure why, but he saw both vampires stiffen and really start to watch him now.

"She was bit. And drained. I only barely escaped the encounter! There were so many Vampyres!"

"Did she drink Andrew, could she have been turned?"

"I don't know. I didn't see."

"Then you need to find her body and stake her, fast Andrew. Very very fast."

"But I'm no good at stabbing..."

"Get Faith to help you, she's in Rome, she can get to you fast. Take care of it Andrew." He hung up, and looked at the vampires who-had they gone paler?

"Did something happen to Buffy?" Angel asked softly, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"No-not really. Why do you think Buffy was hurt?"

"We were in Rome," Spike answered, "We know she's been working with Andrew."

"No she hasn't. She's a decoy Buffy. But now that she might have been turned she and she knows where Buffy is I need to move Buffy."

"What are you talkin' about Harris?" Spike's eyes narrowed.

"Buffy is sorta in hiding. We have-HAD-three decoy Buffys. One was in Rome with Andrew. We wanted rumors about her being all over so no one could have too easy a time finding her."

"Buffy has never needed to hide." Angel looked at him, waiting for more explanation.

"Well she does right now and I need to help her to the next safe house. And I can't tell you why. But, and it really pains me to say this, I will take Spike with me to move her. She should see him.

They both looked surprised.

"Angel, I have to ask you to take care of my girls until they can go on their own."

Angel hesitated. He obviously wanted to go to Buffy to find out what was wrong but he seemed to know this wasn't a fight he would win.

Spike was harder to read. There was way too much going on with his face to figure him out, but after a moment all he said was "Let's be on our way then."