"It said it had to kill me to complete the ritual. Is there a lot of rituals who would need you to kill the person you have swapped bodies with to be permanent?"

"I'm not sure…" said Cordelia, pensively.

"Cordy, tell me you have something," pleaded Xander. "That thing almost killed us. It was scary powerful. Whoever sent it must have big means. We need the real Slayer back in the driver's seat if we want to survive this."

"I have some of Giles' books in my room, maybe we could find something, narrow it down to a couple of spells or find out which demon attacked you."

They followed Cordelia upstairs. Her parents were not very pleased when they were woken up at 2 in the morning by a couple of their daughter's friends. When Cordelia said that they urgently needed her help for a school project, they were too happy that she was showing interest in school to further object.

"Nothing. There's nothing," yawned Xander after two hours of useless reading.

"Don't give up just yet. Research takes time. You can't expect results if you don't…"

"I've got it!" shouted Buffy in a triumphant voice. "Remember the weird storm we had yesterday? It wasn't natural, it was linked to the spell. Except, it wasn't a transference spell. It was…

Buffy paused.

"What?"

"It was a counter-spell. To the one that gave slayers their powers in the first place."

The room fell silent.

"Let me take a look." Cordelia read for a bit. "You are right. Normally, you should have been killed by the lightning bolt. But something went wrong. That's why the demon attacked you. Whoever botched the ritual hoped that killing you would fix his mistake."

"So what went wrong?" asked Xander, half-sleeping.

"Good question. Maybe with one of the ingredients. Half the stuff written here is crazy hard to find. And assuming our mysterious spellcaster didn't already have everything when he came to Sunnydale, only the magic shop could sell him what he needed. But it's not going to be open until tomorrow morning, so we might as well get some sleep. Go home and rest."

"You sound so much like Giles, it's crazy."

"Is it a good or a bad thing?" asked Cordelia with a smile.

"I'm not sure yet," admitted Xander.