"What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"If you have to ask you'll never know."

Buffy vaulted the five foot stone wall that separated the rest of the world from the church's private graveyard where the special people were buried, priests and other high ranking member of the church. Their mission was simple, but not really clean or quick. Why she was stuck with Spike she'd never fathom. The Slayer couldn't think of a worse companion for a job like this but like it or not he was the only one that could help her.

"So what are we looking for again? The Gem of Hammertoes?"

"Gem of Hemaetos." Spike corrected, "stuff of legend, that is."

Giles sent them after it, surprise surprise. Apparently it was kept by the members of the church and buried in some secret place in the cemetery at the turn of the century before it was dropped out of history, lost everyone assumed, until now. Apparently the mojo it worked was pretty bad. The sooner they had it the better off they'd be, before it fell into the wrong hands.

Only problem was only evil people could handle it, or, as with the guys that kept it, someone who performed a certain ritual that was lost in the records, too. That was why Spike was along. Like it or not he was still evil, even with a chip in his head.

"Right. That. What does the Gem of Hamandtoast,"

"Hemaetos."

"Whatever. What does it do?"

"Rumor has it it makes baddies get badder."

"I could have guessed that. Be more specific."

"Think of it as steroids for evil."

"Oh." That didn't sound good, or promising.

She moved toward the mausoleum ahead and paused by the door. It looked plain enough, no wonder no one thought to look there. Sunnydale wasn't a very old town, as far as old went, and it was so very boring, drab. The door was bolted, though, and covered in crosses. Clever, in a church, to disguise the extra precautions that way.

"That Cardinal guy was entombed in here, according to Giles. He was the one that babysat the thing. It's probably in here."

She tried the handle and it didn't budge. She ran her hand over the door and looked for anything, any clue, that could help her unlock a door with no visible lock. Spike hung back and waited, unable to touch the door to help. He was looking, though. Vampire sight was better than human sight in the dark.

"There." He pointed.

She followed his gaze and found the hidden catch woven into a metal scroll work with gems inlaid. The button was almost impossible to distinguish from the other gems. She pressed it and sure enough, the door popped and slowly swung open. A puff of dust came wafting out to coat them both. Apparently whatever was inside hadn't been disturbed in a very long time. That was good news for them. It meant the gem might still be inside. They had a chance to uncover it.

The tomb was sparse, not a lot of hiding places presented themselves. She'd honestly expected more security for a badass gem of this supposed magnitude.

"Don't move!"

Spike came hurtling into her, sending her to the floor in time for a metal spike to come crashing down from the ceiling where she'd been standing. The trigger she'd tripped activated the trap. They activated more as they tumbled to the ground, rolling together until they came to a stop. More traps went off, varying affect. The one that came closest to them was the spike that came down right next to Spike's head. Buffy tensed on top of him, waiting for any indication that there were more.

"I always knew you liked it on top."

Buffy groaned in disgust as she looked at Spike's wolfish grin and tried to get up very carefully.

"This makes things a lot more interesting."

They split up and Buffy tried to search very carefully, avoiding the triggers when she could help it and getting out of the way when she could not. It made the search take a lot longer than it should. Finally, they had no where else to look at but the tomb itself and she really didn't want to dig around in old bones.

That's when she felt it, a flare from behind her that made her entire body go rigid and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She turned around slowly and faced a truly terrifying sight, Spike but not Spike. Worse.

"Found it."