Chapter Three

"Will you calm down?" Buffy sighed at her agitated alpha. "You're making me even more nervous than I already am."

"You're not the one who is going to see your ex-girlfriend, after trying to kill her girlfriend, might I add," Oz started sending another glare toward his pack master, "for the first time in three years."

"No, I'm just about to see the love of my life, whom I've sent to hell, nursed back to full health and strength after his return from hell, who has broken up with me in a sewer, and who has helped my evil counterpart in coming back to the side of good, and whom I tore his heart out, figuratively speaking, just because I was jealous of said counterpart, for the first time in three years. You and Willow will be a piece of cake compared to Angel and I."

"Or she could just filet me in a matter of seconds."

"Please, I'd have bound her powers before she could draw up the energy."

"She has a point," Joffery, Oz's beta in the werewolf pack, spoke up earning a glare from his alpha. "I mean, think about it, Oz. All of Buffy's powers, her Slayer abilities and her magick, come from her blood whereas this Willow chick's magicks come from the energy she has gathered within herself and the energy around her from the earth. Therefore it stands within reason to believe that our pack master's magick would work faster than Willow's."

"Tell that to the guy who she fileted last year because he almost killed Tara," Oz growled back. "Oh, wait, you can't, he's dead."

"That's enough," Buffy demanded, putting her authority as pack master into those two simple words. "This conversation is over. For all we know they could be coming in through the front door at any moment and the band is due on in two minutes. We cannot let them hear any arguments between our intertwined groups or amongst ourselves and we cannot perform when one or more of you are mad at another. Oz, I had no other choice but to allow for them to get a lead on me, our pack and my coven's survival depends on their assistance against the demon who, is for some reason, tied to me. That's the end of it. Now get on stage, I need to be up front so they can spot me."

Buffy turned to leave but Oz's hand caught her wrist, gently stopping her. "I'm sorry," he said to her back. "I'm not just worried about seeing Willow and Tara; I'm worried about you too. When I got here two and half years ago, you were barely holding it together; I won't let him take you back to that, I can't."

"He cannot take me back there, Oz," Buffy replied, gently removing her wrist from his grasp. "Not as long as I have my coven sisters, the pack, and you." And with that she went through the curtain separating the backstage from the main area of the bar.


Angel could sense her before they'd even entered the building; Buffy was defiantly inside this demon friendly bar.

"Well," Xander began looking at the run down establishment, "I can't believe I'm saying this but I think I prefer Willy's. What would Buffy even be doing here?"

"According to my sources she was spotted here looking for information on Amducious. She must have heard about him and that whatever it is he's supposed to do around here and went to the nearest demon bar. It makes perfect sense." Anya rolled her eyes at her ex's naivety.

"Anyanka," said a women with straight black hair with green and blue streaks on either side of her face wearing a tight, strapless black dress that went to about mid-thigh and had a black leather trench coat the went to the ground and a pair of knee high black leather boots that Angel and the others did not recognize who was making her way toward them from the doorway of the bar. "Anna said you'd be bringing some guests, though I doubt her alpha will like you bringing the crazy one there around here, after what she did the last time she passed through."

"According to Mr. Loves-to-lurk and Capitan Peroxide other there," Anya replied, "she wouldn't let them leave her behind. Has to make her amends for her wrong doings since you and your coven cursed her with her soul and all that, Amanda. Anna must have been really pissed to have given you lot that one, not that she didn't have the right to be."

"The whole pack is still pissed. She's lucky she extended her protection to her but with her being here and the fact that you have the strongest Earth Wicca of all history here as well; well let's just say even my coven is on edge." Amanda then decided to acknowledge Angel for the first time. "Is this all of you then? Anna is about to perform with the Hounds, then she'll meet with you at her personal table. You're lucky she usually doesn't allow anyone but her alpha at her table."

"We're here to find Buffy," Angel replied. "What does that have to do with this Anna girl?"

"No one gets to Buffy without first meeting with Anna," Amanda informed him in an even voice. "Apparently they go way back and she helped your missing slayer go into hiding. But whatever the case, you want to find Buffy you have to have a meeting with Anna. Any more questions, or can we go inside? I hate missing the Hounds set and Anna has a particularly exceptional voice."

"You called me an Earth Wicca," Willow asked as she and Tara moved forward, "what does that mean."

"It means you draw your power from books or the Earth. Most Earth Wiccas aren't skilled enough to have their magicks manifest. There are a few, like those in my coven who are that skilled, though no one has had your level of skill, Willow, in the recorded history of Wiccas."

"There are other types of Wiccas?" Tara asked.

"There is one other type, yes. Blood Wiccas, like Anna and yourself, get their power from their lineage. In other words, their magicks come from one or both sides of their family trees."

"According to Council records," said Wesley in a manner that spoke volumes about his personality, "Blood Wiccas have been extinct since the witch trails, isn't that correct, ?"

"No actually, it isn't," Amanda said before Giles had the chance to respond." "Practicing Blood Wiccas of the time either went into hiding or stopped practicing. Most families haven't practiced for so long, the power in their blood became just a myth to them. There was a faction in the Watchers' Council that believed that there were still Blood Wiccas alive and, as I'm sure your records have stated, split from the Council due to their differing views. These families believed Blood Wiccas got their powers because they were part demon and thought the only cure was to oppress those individuals."

"How do you know this?" Giles asked as he motioned Amanda to show them inside and, therefore, to where they would be waiting on Anna to join them.

"Anna's Grimmoir, or her family's spell book, has a complete history of all things related to her particular line of magicks. She considers my coven and I her sisters and allow us to look through it from time to time, though we could never perform any of the spells it holds, it does have a few potions that come in handy every once in a while."

As they entered the bar and Willow and Tara got their first look at the small stage they both gasped and Tara's grasp on Willow's hand tightened. "Is – is that Oz?" she asked turning white.

"Yes," Amanda answered. "He's Anna's alpha."

"But it's a full moon and the last time we saw him he didn't have control."

"No need to worry about that. If a pack master says her pack isn't allowed to turn unless under specific circumstances, they weren't turn, no matter the position of the moon. Anna can explain it when she joins you. I need to go calm down the rest of her pack. Enjoy the show."

Angel, Connor, Giles, Willow, Tara, Xander, Cordelia, Dawn, Anya, Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Spike, Drusilla, Faith, and Lorne all took their seats as Amanda walked away. Angel took a cautious look around them to find most demons, vampires and the whole pack and coven looking at his group. As the band began to play, however, the entire bars attention went to the young girl with shoulder length, copper colored hair. She wore a navy blue tank with a swoop neckline, black flare jeans, and black combat boots. But what caught Angel's attention the most was the necklace, or more specifically the cross necklace he gave to Buffy when he first met the young slayer, that hung around her neck and the black leather jacket she wore, too big for this girl, that was obviously just about the right size for himself.