Author Notes - I'm sorry for such a long delay. I don't really have any excuses except for complete laziness. A shout out to DaSalvatore who left me a very kind review that helped me got off my ass and return to writing. I went through the last six chapters and 'tried' to touch them up. It took awhile, and I probably still have a lot of work to do. Nothing in the plot has changed, so if you remember everything about this story. . . then there really is no need to read the earlier chapters again. If anyone does need a refresh in memory. . . well, then hopefully the chapters read at least a little bit better. I will try to improve them even more in the coming weeks. I'm no longer going to even try to update weekly, but I will promise to try to update more regularly than the one chapter every two months that I am currently averaging.

Onward to. . .

Chapter Seven

The numbers appeared to match with what Giles had given him. He hurriedly created a perimeter ward outside of the apartment, just in case, and then made his way inside. The apartment opened to a small living room space with a kitchen off to the side. Harry took one glance at the couch and collapsed into it. He was asleep a moment later.

Brring! Brring!

Harry groaned and rolled over in his sleep.

Brring! Brring!

He sat up slowly as he wondered why there was a high pitched ring echoing through the house. It rang one more time before he realized that it was Giles's phone. He unsteadily got to his feet and felt a wave of drowsiness pass over him. He felt almost as tired then as he did when he first fell asleep. However, a clock hanging on a wall told him that he had been sleeping almost all day and it was now well past sundown.

Harry answered the phone on its sixth ring. "Rupert Giles residence," Harry said groggily after a moment of trying to remember the proper way to answer someone else's telephone.

"Harry," Giles's voice came through. His voices sounded urgent. Harry mumbled a reply.

"It's Faith, Harry," Giles said with sadness.

The leftover drowsiness from the nap disappeared in an instant as Harry realized what he must have meant. Giles seemed to have learned that it was Faith who was responsible for the two vampires that had come after him in the middle of the night. "You sure?"

"You sure?"

"Yes. She was spotted with who she believes is Angelus. I tried to call Buffy but her mother informed me that she left with Angel and Faith to go back to Angel's," Giles said quickly, in a rush to deliver the facts.

"What do you need me to do?" Harry asked, figuring that the phone call had a purpose other than informing him of the situation. Harry had agreed to follow Giles's lead, but he still wanted to help make Faith pay for what she had done.

"I need you to go and make sure Buffy is safe," Giles replied.

"You think Faith can take on Angel and Buffy?" Harry asked skeptically.

"No, Buffy alone is more than a match for Faith," Giles said proudly before admitting, "It would be best if you were there just in case Angel isn't on the side that we think he is."

Harry imagined the scenario in his head. Buffy, thinking she wasn't in any danger, but finding out quickly enough that Angelus was where Angel was supposed to be. Yes, Harry thought. That would be very bad indeed. "I'll leave right away," Harry promised. He heard a click as Giles closed the connection. Harry put the phone away before Apparating out of the apartment. He appeared just outside of Angel's house. He Disillusioned and Silenced himself before anyone could have possibly noticed his appearance. After a brief check to make sure both spells were performed perfectly, he stepped into the vampire's mansion. The sight that greeted Harry was worrisome at first. Faith stood in the middle of Angel and a tied up Buffy while holding a dagger threateningly. His worry faded when he saw Buffy break herself free from the seemingly fake bindings. She said something to Faith, but Harry was far too out of range to hear what it was. But whatever it was sent Faith into a frenzy.

"You played me!" She screamed at Buffy, snarling in rage.

The rest of the gang; Xander, Willow, Oz, Wesley and a fifth that Harry didn't recognize charged through the house doors on the opposite side of the room. Faith, reacting quickly, grabbed Angel and threw him into the group. Xander immediately went down as Angel rolled into him. The rest of the group seemed to be under the impression that Angel was Angelus. However, in the heat of the moment, they couldn't decide on whether to stake Angel or instead help Buffy. They quickly decided on a third option and they, like Harry, chose to watch the two Slayers instead.

Faith went at Buffy with the knife that she had been holding but the blonde slayer swiftly dodged the blow and countered with a kick to Faith's legs. The kick landed but not in the best position, and Faith was able to remain standing. She swiftly countered with two punches to Buffy's head. Buffy fell to the floor and rolled away while Faith followed after her. Before Harry could even blink, they were at a stalemate. Each holding a knife to the other's throat.

"What are you going to do B?" Faith said while eyeing Buffy's blade. "Kill me? You become me," she said with a smirk. She watched as Buffy hesitated. "You're not ready for that," Faith said in realization; she seemed disappointed. "Not yet," she muttered as she rose to her feet, breaking their stalemate. She leaned forward and kissed Buffy on the forehead before turning and taking off in a sprint. Buffy didn't even try to stop her; too shocked at hearing those words spoken so casually.

It was only a fraction of a second later that Harry realized that Faith was running straight at his location. To her, it was the only clear exit. The rest of the group was blocking the only other way out. Harry waited until she was far too close to dodge and fired a Stunner at her. Harry was shocked to see that she recognized the attack and even reacted quickly enough in order to attempt to dodge it. Fortunately, even with her extraordinary reflexes, it struck her in the shoulder. She immediately froze while in the middle of her dodge attempt and collapsed to the floor. It appeared that Slayers didn't have any of the same magical resistances that demons were well documented in having. Still, rather than risk it, Harry also hit her with an Incarcerous Spell and watched as a thick brown rope wrapped itself around her prone form. Even if she did awaken, it would take her more than a moment to get free from the bindings. Plenty of time for Harry to hit her with something else.

Buffy soon recovered from the surprise of Faith's words and walked up to the unconscious Slayer. "She's okay, isn't she?" Buffy said worriedly as she knelt down and put a hand on Faith's cheek. Faith didn't react to it; a good sign that the Stunning Spell remained strong. As Harry watched Buffy worry over Faith, he realized that even though Faith had betrayed all of them, Buffy had a connection to her that wasn't quite so easy for her to overlook.

"Just unconscious," Harry assured her. He looked over to the other side of the room. Angel had gotten to his feet and the others were still eyeing him suspiciously, but they all seemed have realized that he wasn't the Angelus that they had been expecting.

"What's going on here?" Wesley shouted in anger as he looked at the three of them for an explanation. Harry looked over to see that Buffy had decided to ignore the man completely and instead was still watching Faith with a frown on her lips.

Harry turned to Angel in order to get him to explain, but he was too busy worrying about Buffy to be of much use. Harry rolled his eyes before quickly explaining to the others the plan that Giles had arranged earlier and how they had found out that Faith was going behind their backs to the Mayor.

"And why wasn't I informed?" Wesley asked in confusion; he looked a little hurt at the slight in his leadership. Harry just shrugged. He could have gone into a lengthy explanation of how Giles didn't know who he could trust, but then he'd get the uncomfortable questions about why Giles had decided to trust the mysterious wizard that they had only known for days, rather than the people he'd known for years. Harry didn't need the others thinking that he had used magic to force Giles's trust. That would just complicate things. Harry was still surprised that Giles had risked everything in order to keep his word about their full honesty policy. He didn't think that there was much of a chance that the others would believe that same excuse.

Wesley turned to Angel "What did you discover?" Wesley asked as he attempted to continue his interrogation.

Before Angel could respond, Buffy stood up from where she had been kneeling and took charge. "We can discuss that later," she commanded, "We need to figure out what to do with her." She gave the downed slayer one more frowning glance before joining the others.

"She needs help," Angel said with a frown.

"I will inform the Council at once," Wesley responded with conviction.

"You and your Council got us into this mess," Angel rebuked.

Wesley looked offended, "The Council was only trying to help. She killed a man. She needed to be questioned."

"She was just a girl. A girl who accidentally did a terrible thing while doing 'your' job," Angel argued, "and you put her in chains and told her of her guilt."

"We did no such thing," Wesley denied. Angel took a step towards The Watcher in anger and Wesley stumbled back in fright.

"Angel," Buffy said quietly. Her voice had the immediate reaction of calming the angry vampire down. He appeared embarrassed over his actions and skulked back into the shadows before leaning against a wall and going silent.

"You won't call The Watchers Council," Buffy informed Wesley. "If you do, then I'm done. I won't be taking any more orders." Buffy threatened. Wesley didn't seem all that impressed with the threat. He probably didn't believe that The Council could simply be ignored.

"Plus," Xander said with false cheer, "how do you think they'll rate your job performance after they find out that your Slayer turned evil after only working with you for a few months?" Xander teased with a grin.

Wesley paled at the implication as he hasn't before thought of that. "Fine," Wesley relented, "what do you suppose we do? We can't risk her rejoining with the Mayor. He'll be hard enough to stop without a Slayer helping him."

For once, Harry agreed with Wesley. "And you can't throw her in a cell and forget about her either," Harry piped in, even though that was exactly what he thought she deserved for trying to get him killed. Buffy raised an eyebrow at him and he decided to explain, "She's technically 'The Slayer', isn't she? Her staying alive and healthy in prison would stop all other Slayers from being called."

"But we've got Buffy," Willow said loyally. Buffy gave her friend a small smile.

Harry nodded. "Yes, but if something happens to Buffy, then there is no one else," Harry reasoned. Realizing what he had implied, he added a quick 'no offense' to Buffy. She just shrugged as if it didn't matter. Harry grimaced as he thought that she had apparently long gotten used to the idea of dying. He too knew that feeling. Shaking his head, and recovering his thoughts, he proceeded to explain his reasoning, "if something does happen to her, and Faith's the only Slayer left, someone might decide to let an insane homicidal Slayer loose, one who is angry from years of imprisonment. That's beside the fact that Slayers exist for a reason, and the world might be without one for a lifetime if Faith stays safe in a prison cell."

"So we can't jail her, she refuses our help, and although we'd all like to, we can't kill her either," Xander quipped, summarizing the events.

"Are you sure she hasn't done anything that deserves that last one?" Harry asked cautiously. The Mayor clearly had no qualms about hunting down and killing people, but did Faith feel the same way? It was possible that she had committed unforgivable acts while in the service of the Mayor. How many people could they save in the future by making sure that the world always had a Vampire Slayer available? A Vampire Slayer that wasn't a raving lunatic.

"Faith came to me last night. Her whole body shaking," Angel said suddenly. His voice was quiet, yet it still carried throughout the room. "She had demon blood on her hands. I think it must have been the demon who had the Books of Ascension," he paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, "I imagine that it must have been her worst crime so far; killing a demon in cold blood. Otherwise, I doubt it would have affected her so much."

He paused once more to make sure they were all still listening. "I'm going to help her," he said, leaving no room for debate. That didn't stop either Buffy and Wesley from trying, they both opened their mouths to argue, but Angel wasn't done yet. "I was getting through to her before," he argued passionately, "I can get through to her again. It might be your only hope in getting her back in one piece." He gave Buffy a meaningful glance. Faith was on the brink of insanity, and Angel seemed to believe that with one wrong move, she could be lost forever.

Harry started to wonder if perhaps Angel just had a thing for Vampire Slayers. Could it be a manifestation of the vampire's self-loathing which caused him to be attracted to the two people whose's sole duty demanded that they kill him? On the other hand, it was also a possibility that Angel just hoped that if Faith could somehow find redemption for herself, then there was still hope for him too.

Harry just couldn't see how someone who had willfully joined the side of a mass murderer could be saved. He could admit that he was probably a little biased, what with Faith being the reason that he was now on the Mayor's hit list. . . but he also knew that the fate of the world and the line of Slayers was a much more important factor than just wanting revenge.

"Should we really trust the vampire with the well-being of a slayer? I mean. . . a crazy slayer, but still," Xander asked.

Buffy gave him a dirty look. "Not now Xander," she admonished. Xander grew quiet as a frown marred his face. Harry wondered just how much history Xander had with Angel, or perhaps it was Angelus that he held such a grudge against?

"You really think you can help her?" Willow asked quietly. "after everything that she's done?" Her question mirrored Harry's own thoughts.

Angel gave her a determined nod. "When Faith arrived in Sunnydale, she hated vampires and demons. Buffy told me that her last Watcher got killed and that the two seemed to be have been close. I imagine that what she once saw as a duty, similar to what Buffy herself sees, quickly turned into anger and hatred when her Watcher died. Just imagine what Buffy would become if she lost all of you," Angel said, growing somber at his own words. Harry watched as everyone grew pale and Buffy looked like she was going to be sick. Angel continued, "And that was working fine for her for awhile. Buffy told me that she was a tad reckless and that she made sure not to grow emotionally attached to anyone, but she was able to get her job done. That was until she killed a man and saw herself become something she hated."

Wesley scoffed at Angel's reasoning. "If she hated herself for what she did, then why didn't she just let The Watchers Council take her or just run? Why would she join up with the same creatures that you say she hates so much?" Wesley asked reasonably, unable to follow Angel's logic. Harry frowned as he too tried and failed to follow Angel's line of thinking. It appeared that Angel had put far more thought into it. Or perhaps he was simply speaking from experience.

Angel shrugged, "The Council's orders got her first Watcher killed. She then put her trust in her second Watcher, who turned out to be an evil power hungry impostor. Why would she trust them with her life? Besides, she needed to be back in Sunnydale. Sunnydale held the one person that she trusted, someone she hoped would stop her." Angel gave BUffy an all telling glance, "Someone who had the ability to stop her."

"She would have kept going," Buffy said in realization.

Angel agreed, "She would have kept escalating things until you felt like there was no other choice. She probably could have taken any one of you out, but she didn't. She didn't want to hurt any of you. Instead, she wanted Buffy to hurt her and was trying to force the issue. In her mind, she deserved nothing else."

"You really think you can get through to her?" Wesley said, showing the first signs of actual concern for Faith.

"It will take me some time," Angel began, "The hardest part will be trying to convince her of all of this. In her mind, I'm sure she's still trying to convince herself that she wants to help the Mayor kill people and destroy Sunnydale. I will first have to make her see the truth, and then hopefully she'll regret her actions enough to atone for them."

Buffy fidgeted, looking uncomfortable with the relationship that Angel and Faith seemed to share. Angel understood Faith in a way that she couldn't fathom, and that meant that Faith would understand Angel in a way that Buffy didn't, and that thought seemed to upset her greatly. Although obviously distraught with the idea of Angel spending time alone with Faith, Buffy didn't immediately object to the idea. She didn't seem to have any better solution on how to deal with Faith.

"You won't be able to stay in town," Harry said quietly as he tried to think things through after Angel's surprising decision. He still didn't agree that this was the right move, but it really wasn't his place to tell them how to handle someone who had once been their friend. He could eventually get over the fact that she had sold him out. Harry imagined she wasn't the one to send the vampires. It was possible she had simply grown attached to the wrong man. A man bent on wiping out a city and killing any who stood in his way.

Angel nodded, "I know."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked as she saw the crestfallen look on Buffy's face.

"The Mayor," Buffy said with a mournful sigh, "he'll come looking for her. Either because he actually cares about her." She made a noise of disgust in her throat. "Or to stop her from talking." It was clear which outcome she thought more likely.

"Perhaps Harry could hide Angel and Faith?" Willow propositioned hopefully.

Harry thought about it for a moment. He could perhaps set a perimeter ward around the mansion in order to notify Angel that someone was coming, but it would get triggered by anything crossing it. Harry imagined Angel didn't want to have to prepare to fight or run every time a wild animal got too close to the house. It would take some work and more understanding of the demons of this world before he could set up a ward that only detected those types of monsters. He could also set up a handful of wards that would require the Mayor to bring the wards down with force, but that was relying on a lot of unknowns and assumptions. Anya had mentioned that no 'human' could teleport, meaning things in this world could. Would Apparition wards prevent that? Would Harry's own protective wards be hard to penetrate, or was there magic in this world that could negate it? Did the Mayor have the means of summoning something that could get through any ward that Harry set up? Harry didn't know any of this, and not knowing made it far too risky.

The Fidelius Charm would be the best solution. It would be virtually impossible to break his wards or any barriers to get to someone if no one could see or remember where they were. Unfortunately, Harry had not bothered to learn how to cast it. An action he was already regretting.

"I have a spell that could work but I have no idea how to cast it," Harry admitted to them. There was one other option. "The Disillusionment Charm could work," Harry realized, "I would have to cast it on the area every day to keep it active, and you'll have to head to another building; The Mayor already knows about this place. The Charm would turn your place invisible, which could pose a problem if someone comes along expecting a house and instead sees nothing. More so if they start walking into things that they can't see. Magic can prevent most of that, but it could take just one person to talk about an invisible house before the Mayor comes calling."

After Harry informed Angel of his options, the vampire took a minute to think about it. He seemed to be trying to weigh the pros and cons of such an arrangement. Harry already knew that they didn't add up in Buffy's favor. There were too many cons to list, yet his close proximity to Buffy would be the only pro. The risk was too great and Harry could tell that Angel realized that himself when he frowned.

"Thank you, but I think it would be better if the Mayor was just completely out of Faith's reach. It might be hard for her to let go if she has something to hold on to, and I don't know how close she got to him or how much he means to her," Angel reasoned.

Harry watched as Buffy remained silent without objection. Harry realized then that she was merely waiting to get Angel alone to discuss the matter in private. "We should go and let Giles know everything is okay," Harry said, figuring it was about time that Buffy and Angel were left to themselves. Angel's plan wasn't going to be final until they talked it over among themselves. "He'll probably want to know everything you learned from Faith today, Angel," Harry added as a reminder.

Angel nodded. "He'll know everything I do before I leave," Angel reassured him. He glanced at Faith before looking back, "How long will she remain like that?"

Harry shrugged. "The ropes will last a couple day or so before disappearing. As for the Stunning spell I used? A wizard would be unconscious for a few hours, but I'm not sure about a Slayer. Let me know, would you?" Harry asked with a mischievous grin, a grin that Buffy's noticed. She reacted with a daring stare. Harry just smiled in response.

He turned back to the others, "Let's go, mustn't keep Giles waiting." Many of the others seemed to know why they were being rushed out. They too could see the warning signs of a fight between Buffy and Angel.

Wesley wasn't so sure. "I can't just . . ." he said, trailing off, "she's my Slayer . . . I'm responsible . . ." He seemed to be waging an internal debate. A dark haired girl that Harry hadn't seen before walked up and grabbed his arm and began to tug him out of the door.

"C'mon Wesley," she said quietly, "you said you were going to help me with that English homework."

This seemed to bring him out of his personal struggle. "I did?" he asked confusedly before his eyes opened in surprise and delight, "yes . . . I did. Very well."

They walked outside and Harry could see a couple of vehicles waiting for them, one being Oz's van. Harry held back. "I'll meet you all there," he said. He'd much rather just Apparate there than spend an unnecessary amount of time traveling by vehicle. Willow seemed to understand what he was about to do and she turned around excitedly.

"Wait! You're going to teleport, aren't you? Can I come? Buffy said you could teleport others," Willow asked quickly in excitement. Harry looked up at Oz who was smiling back in amusement. He met Harry's gaze and nodded in the unasked question; Harry didn't want to step on anyone's toes.

"Very well," Harry said with a sigh as he tried to hide his amusement. It was very rare to see someone so enthusiastic about magic. The last person Harry saw so excited about it was an eleven-year-old Hermione. It had taken her only a few months before the excitement wore off and it had simply turned into another branch of learning.

"You ready?" Harry asked her.

"Let's do it," she said, nodding quickly. Harry grabbed her shoulder and quickly did as he was told.

They appeared back in the library. Willow fell harshly against him as she turned green. Her legs collapsed underneath her and Harry held her up. It took her much longer to recover than it had taken Buffy. Finally, she found her footing and stepped away from him. Her greenish tint from nausea disappeared as her face turned red.

"Sorry," she muttered.

Harry just shrugged. "Everyone reacts differently for their first time."

"That was horrible," she admitted. She looked around in awe at their surroundings. "But it saves so much time. Definitely worth it."

Harry laughed, "You tend to get used to it. If you do it again, it won't be so bad."

She smiled, taking reassurance in that fact. "How many people can you bring at once?" Willow asked academically as they walked out from behind the bookcases and sat at the table.

"Only two," Harry answered, "I need to be able to grab them or have them grab my arm."

Harry watched as her excited grin from the apparating adventure turned into a frown. "I'm a little jealous," she admitted, "I'll never be able to do some of that stuff."

Harry joined her in frowning at her abrupt change in mood. "You want to know something?" Harry said secretively, "I think the magic in this world has a lot of potential."

"You think?" she asked hopefully.

Harry nodded and watched as she perked up once again. Giles came out of his office a moment later and joined them. Harry quickly explained that everything was alright and that they even managed to capture Faith. He then told Giles that Buffy or Angel would be by later to explain more since they hadn't been able to inform anyone what they had learned from their ruse.

Harry took out his stick and began another session of carving his wand. There was nothing better to do while waiting for everyone else to show up.


Hours later Buffy returned without Angel, but she was there for only one reason, and that was to explain what they had learned during Angel's charade.

Faith seemed to have been in on the plan to bring Angelus back from the very beginning. It even seemed to have been her idea. Her goal was to both take Angel away from Buffy as well as have him for herself. Angel reasoned that her true goal was to get Buffy so upset that she wouldn't think twice about fighting her to the death.

The Mayor however just wanted another servant. Angel seemed convinced that even if they did manage to bring the Angelus out of him, that Angelus was not the type of vampire that would have happily served a master, and he probably would have killed Faith the first chance he got. Which led Angel to believe that The Mayor was either completely insane, or he didn't care at all about Faith or her well-being.

Angel pretended to be interested in joining up with them and was even able to discover a few interesting things. The first thing was that Faith had indeed taken The Books of Ascension from the demon and had killed him in the process. The books, unfortunately, were now in the possession of the Mayor.

Angel hadn't been able to confirm that the Mayor was the one who had sent the vampires to kill Harry, but it was now a much safer bet that Faith had indeed told the Mayor, who had decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to have a powerful wizard around while he was preparing for a magical ritual. This made the others think that it was likely that he would try to kill Harry. They even had Harry promise them that he would remain careful.

Another interesting tidbit was the fact that the Mayor seemed to be immortal. Oz and the others found evidence that the Mayor has been around since the 1800's, perhaps even longer and hadn't aged a day. Along with his apparent immortality, he also appeared to be invulnerable. Angel had impaled the man's palm with a letter opener, and Angel watched in shock as the Mayor was completely healed in only seconds. No demon or vampire could boast at having such powers. Harry knew that that level of healing was well within his own abilities, but Angel had said that the Mayor uttered no words nor performed any spell to make it happen. The healing had been instantaneous.

If you added everything up, the outcome didn't look very good. The Mayor was immortal, invulnerable, and seemed hell bent on performing this Ascension Ritual that no one knew how to stop or even seemed to even know what it would do. The only thing that they were sure of was that it would more than likely cause the destruction of Sunnydale, and possibly even destruction on a much grander scale.

Harry started brainstorming ideas of his own in ways to stop the man, but it was hard to come up with a solution when he knew next to nothing. Was the man truly invulnerable, or did he just have excellent healing abilities? Did the man have a soul? Could a Killing Curse work in ripping the soul from his body while killing him in the process? There were just too many questions and not enough answers. Harry knew that if it looked like this 'Ascension' was about to happen, then he would proceed to go through with each and every option available to him, but until then, it would be best to gather more information in order to work out a proper plan.

If they knew where the Mayor was hiding the books, then it would be a simple matter to steal them back. Many potential plans began to formulate in his mind, but they all required more time to be planned properly.

After Buffy explained all that she knew of the group, she left again. She and Angel apparently had a lot left to discuss.

The group broke up soon after, each heading home, except for Harry who headed back to Giles's Apartment. He had a lot of work to do.