For the next three hours, they were busy with their research – and then Buffy finally found what they had been looking for, namely knowledge which ruled out two of the possible culprits and confirmed one of them as the one to blame.
"Listen to this", she spoke up, making both Willow and Pat glance up from their books, the witch briefly worried about her partner when she saw how reddened and watery her good eye had become by now, "the demon Andras is said to have the abilities to raise the dead and make them do his bidding, and send them to attack anyone in their sight, to make the victim part of his army. That makes sense with the undead attacking random people on the street and us in the office, Pat, doesn't it?"
"Yes", the demon agreed, "what does it say about the other two demons we found? What do they use the dead for after they made them come back?"
"Well, for one of them, it says he uses them to build his palace, which is not what those we've seen seemed to be doing", Buffy replied, "and the other one, it doesn't say. But I think for now, Andras is our best bet."
"Does it have any more information on him?" Willow wanted to know, gesturing at the book, "like, under which circumstances he pops up?"
"It's really vague", the blonde gave back after checking the book once more, "it says that he can't be summoned, but that he'll choose to whom he'll come, and offer the chosen one help in a time of great despair."
"Oh, so we just need to find someone in despair who made a deal with Andras, should be easy in such a peaceful town like Sunnydale", Pat said with a roll of her good eye, making Willow giggle again while Buffy rolled her eyes as well, then shrugged and snapped the book shut, declaring that she had enough of research now.
"I'll tell Giles to look into this Andras guy further, and the other one", she let her friends know afterwards, "I guess we can ditch the one who uses the undead to build his house."
"Yup", Pat agreed, "because none of the undead we saw was carrying building utensils. Unless they dropped them before they tried to attack."
"What a mental image", Willow smirked, making Buffy grin and nod as well – before she looked at the demon again, managing to sound both sheepish and pleading when she spoke up once more. "I know you probably want a bit of peace with Willow, but… would you mind coming along to patrol tonight? If there are more of those zombie things around now, maybe going alone isn't smart."
"Yeah, that makes sense", Pat nodded after a moment, "so, sure."
"I'll come along too", Willow added before the blonde could voice her gratitude, "some magic might be useful, in case there are more of them than you are prepared to face. They might be slow and dumb, but if there are too many…"
"Yeah, better to be safe than sorry", the demon repeated a statement she had made earlier that day, "even though my protectiveness wants to kick in and tell you that you'll do no such thing, I'll try to keep it down."
"Aw", the witch cooed in reply, making Buffy smile, "I appreciate that, Sweetie, really." The couple beamed at each other, then shared a tender kiss; and while they did that, Buffy called Giles and told him about her findings, also informing him about the visit of Dr Henderson and about the things the elder woman had told them. The Watcher promised her that he'd look into information about Andras and the second demon which still was a possibility, then told her to be careful during the nightly patrol; and after the call had been ended, the trio made themselves comfortable, eager to get some rest and quiet before it'd be time to leave for patrol.
To the slight surprise and dismay of the trio, the number of zombies apparently had exploded during the day; they already encountered two shortly after leaving the house, killing them by decapitation, and as they made their way through the nightly streets, they ran into three more, Buffy and Pat getting rid of them with ease, since they moved as slowly and uncoordinated as the ones they had ran into before.
"Okay", the blonde grumbled after she had hacked off the head of the third zombie and it had exploded into dust, "where did they all come from?"
"It's spreading, obviously", Pat gave back, shaking the sword she had borrowed from Buffy to rid it of zombie dust, "either Andras was a really busy beaver while we were researching, or it spreads through getting bitten."
"Let's hope it's the first option", Buffy sighed, looking around as she made sure that no more zombies were in the near vicinity, "because then, he raises people which already did die, and innocent citizens don't end up beheaded by us just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Good point", the demon had to agree while Willow nodded, "so should we check a cemetery? If he raises the dead, that'd make sense, right?"
"Yeah", Buffy nodded, "let's go, there's one not far from here, we should start there."
The other two women agreed to that, and let the blonde lead the way, the black haired woman lighting up a cigarette as they walked in silence, all of them glancing around to make sure they wouldn't miss any zombies and give them a chance to attack them from behind, not wanting to take any unnecessary risks, despite the slowness and obvious lack of intelligence of the zombies.
To their relief, they at least didn't encounter any more of the creatures until they reached the cemetery; once there though, they stopped dead in their tracks as they watched how the earth over an awful lot of graves was moving and shifting, showing them that a small army of zombies was trying to rise.
"So Andras is a busy beaver", Willow mumbled with numb lips, fighting against the first instinct she'd had when she had seen at how many graves the earth was moving, said instinct telling her to run away as fast as she could, "that must be dozens…"
"If we're fast, we can get rid of most of them before they manage to dig themselves out", Pat gave back, clearly trying to calm her down, "if they take as long to get out of the graves as it takes them to get up when they fall down, it shouldn't be too hard."
As if she had jinxed it with her words, the ground beneath their feet started to tremble, prompting them all to flinch – and then, with a horrendously loud wet sound, the graves let go of their former inhabitants, spewing the zombies out of the cold earth and onto the grass, their groans filling the night as they struggled to their feet.
"You jinxed it", Buffy accused Pat as she already raised her sword, "once we got rid of them, you'll have to make that up to us."
"I'll buy you dinner", the demon replied, bringing her weapon up as well; she exchanged a quick look with Willow, the witch silently telling her to be careful, then Buffy and she charged, the taller woman even letting out some sort of hoarse battle-cry as she swung her sword and decapitated the nearest zombie.
Not wanting to get into the midst of this battle, not without a proper weapon, Willow stayed where she was; thanks to the mass of zombies, she could fire spells at them without endangering her partner or her best friend, frying three of the creatures at once with her lightning spell and smirking to herself in confidence as she watched them crumble and twitch a bit before they laid still. Even though the situation was quite serious, with at least two dozen zombies still on their rotting feet, the redhead couldn't help herself, but just had to feel proud of her partner as she watched how she sliced through the undead the way a warm knife would slice through butter; unlike during the battle she'd had a few days ago with the servants of Malphas, she wasn't just fighting with sheer brutality and violence this time, but with the combination of speed and strength Willow had seen from her so often.
After just watching for a few moments, the redhead finally focused on her part of the fight again, frying yet another zombie; then, a few of them moved and blocked her line of sight on her partner, forcing her to send her magic towards those farther away from the black haired woman, not wanting to accidentally hit her with one of the spells.
A few feet away, Buffy was making short work of the walking dead as well, her sword slicing through necks left and right; the zombies fell one after the other, their slow movements and even slower brains making it impossible for them to fight back properly, their jaws opening and closing uselessly as they tried to grab the Slayer and bite her, none of them coming close enough to do so.
From the corner of her eye, she saw that Pat momentarily wasn't so lucky, one of the zombies managing to grab her from the left, her blind side; with a snarl, she drove her sword through his gut and sent him stumbling back, then kicked the feet of another one close to her and sent him down to his knees, using the time she gained with that by jerking the sword out of the zombie's gut again and beheading him with one swift move.
Once she could be sure that the demon was doing okay, Buffy focused on her own group of zombies again; before she could hack at them though, bright blue lightning crackled and they fell in perfect unison, the blonde looking surprised for a moment – before her gaze met Willow's and the witch smirked proudly, giving her a thumbs up and making her grin as well.
Turning away from the group Willow had felled with her spell, the blonde went to help Pat with getting rid of the few which were still standing, beheading the one she had brought to his knees moments earlier; and just a minute later, that was done, Buffy arming sweat off her brow after the last zombie had fallen and letting out a heavy breath, then looked at the demon with a proud grin, lowering her sword as she spoke up.
"Well, I bet we pissed Andras off now", she stated, "all that work and we took not even five minutes to kill… them… all…" She trailed off as she realized that blood was dripping to the ground, her eyes widening; she stared at the source of the blood for a few moments, then up at Pat's face, the demon looking back at her sheepishly, her voice meek when she finally said something. "That's what I get for saying they're slow and dumb… One of them got me."
And with those words, she pulled back her hand, just in time to let Willow see the damage as well as the redhead was catching up to the two; the bite had taken a chunk of flesh out of her arm right beneath the elbow, the wound bleeding quite heavily, the sight prompting the witch to let out a gasp before she looked at her partner in shock, remembering what the book had said about the dead Andras raised from their graves, fear cramping up her heart as she thought of the words detailing how the bite of the undead would turn the victim into part of the demon's army.
