The Scoobies were not the only ones not getting any sleep that night. In the slime-covered cave just outside of town others were busy as well. The ceremony to raise the Drumsalogh had been ongoing since the full moon four days ago. Each night more rituals had been performed, more spells had been chanted, and the blood of more sacrifices had been spilt. Tonight all that would come to an end as the demon Malkhan, the Drumsalogh, the Savior of the Demon world, would break forth from the earth and cleanse it. No more would the interloper walk the earth. It would again belong to the rightful owners, to those who had been forced to live below. Tonight Malkhan would rid the world of the Slayer and the rest of mankind. Tonight the earth would again belong to the demons.

This was not a sight to be missed by any demon. They had come from far and wide to witness this historic night. Demons that ordinarily would have killed each other on sight stood next to one another, waiting with a common purpose. The air was heavy from the crowd and thick with anticipation. As time moved forward to the hour they were all waiting for the crowd grew larger and larger. The chanting grew more ominous. It was seven o'clock. In two hours time the demon Malkhan would arise.

The fact that it was seven o'clock meant nothing to Buffy or the others, except that it was time to send Xander for food and lots of caffeine. The night, it seemed, was to be a long one. Buffy sighed and rubbed her head. She had the type of headache that only came from staring too long at things that didn't make any sense. She supposed they were making some progress. They had managed to gather all the texts on Malkhan. That had been the better part of an hour ago. Since then, Buffy had been reading and re-reading pages and pages of text. The passages, she quickly discovered, tended toward the vague and cryptic. Buffy shoved the book in front of her. It slid off the edge of the table and hit the floor with a resounding thud. Buffy looked quickly to Giles, expecting a reproof from the librarian, but he gave her none. He simply walked over to the table, picked the book up off the floor, and returned it to the table.

"Sorry," Buffy apologized. "It's just frustrating. We're no further along than we were when we started. We know that Malkhan is a big bad demon that is supposed to be very old and very powerful and that he is supposed to kill a bunch of people. Yippee!"

"But we know it from a lot of different sources." Xander added with as much cheer as he could muster as he returned with pizza and soda. "And we have pizza." Buffy smiled at her friend, although she didn't feel happy at all. She grabbed a piece of cheese pizza. Willow and Giles joined them and they pushed the pile of books aside in order to eat. Xander looked at the pile with disgust.

"Stupid books," he said. "See, this is why I don't like books. They make everything all difficult. They just say the same stupid cryptic thing over and over again. No simple search words, you know type it in, BAM answer. No, you just gotta read all the pages, flip through…" Xander stopped as Willow jumped up from the table and hurried over to the computer.

"What's up, Will?" Buffy asked.

"I have an idea. Xander said 'search words' and it got me thinking." Xander walked over to them with interest.

"I said something good? Go me, solvin' the problem. Oh yeah." He smiled proudly. "So, what are you doing?"

"Well, I'm thinking that if there are all these books on demons and stuff in the library and in Mr. Giles' office, then maybe there would be stuff on the computer too. I'm looking to see if there are any sites bookmarked and what the latest searches on here were." Willow clicked on a couple of tabs.

"Hey! Hey, hey!" Willow grinned and looked at her friends. "Look at this." She said. The others leaned over her shoulder to take a better look. On the screen they saw information about some kind of ritual.

"What's it for, Will?" Buffy asked.

"Raising something called the Drumsalogh. It's supposed to be some kind of demon that is supposed to rid the world of humans. Nice."

"Do you think that is what this Malkhan is?" They looked to Giles. He took his glasses off and rubbed them on the hem of his jacket.

"Um, it's hard to say, but it would make sense." He peered closer to the computer screen. "Yes, I think that must be it." He said.

"Okay," Buffy said. "So what does it say about it."

"It says that it is supposed to take place on the fourth night after the full moon at 9pm. That's an odd time." Willow commented.

"The full moon was Monday. So…bugger." Giles finished. The reality of what that meant began to sink in.

"That's less than an hour and half from now." Buffy said, "We need a plan." The group exchanged worried glances.

"Xander's plan to run maybe the most sensible." Giles said. "We know what we are up against now and it doesn't make things any easier. We have no way to defeat this creature."

"But we can still try to stop it from rising, right?" Buffy asked. Giles looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Yes, that's true. Alright, we have to stop the ritual from taking place." Giles paced back and forth to help himself think. "Right. How do we do that?"

The Scoobies returned to their search for an answer with a fervor renewed by a distinct desire to avoid the imminent death that lurked before them and before the world should they fail to find one.