"Buffy," Giles shouted before Willow slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Now, now," Willow said, dragging him down the steps, away from his apartment and to the car, idling in wait with a minion at the wheel. "No need to break the Slayer's concentration. Can't you see she's busy?"
Buffy was busy. Out of the dozen minions Willow had brought with her, eight were left. The rest would be dead soon, but not quickly enough to save Giles.
Willow had been clever. Dru, watching from the shadows, had to give her that. The Slayer didn't need to die, she just had to be distracted long enough for Giles to be stowed away. As Willow shoved Giles into the trunk, Dru stepped into the fray, sword in hand, an ancient broadsword that looked too heavy for her delicate frame. Flickering the sword about as if it weighed no more than a feather, she'd beheaded two minions before Buffy realized she had help. It wouldn't be enough to allow Buffy to rescue Giles, which wasn't Dru's purpose, since the car was already pulling away, but it would allow Willow, who hadn't gotten into the car, to listen.
Dru carefully didn't look toward Willow's hiding place. It would defeat her purpose if Willow knew she was supposed to overhear. As Buffy killed the last minion, pulling the stake out before the vampire dusted, Dru held out the sword between them, in a defensive position, but didn't attack.
When Buffy glanced down the street, in the direction the car had vanished, Dru said, "You'll never find it now. If you want to save your Watcher, you'll have to work with me."
"If you think I'm going to trust you, then you're more off your rocker than I know you are."
"He'll be dead before you can find him," Dru said.
"Why would you help me? No, this is another trick." Buffy leaned toward the street, as if that would help her find Giles.
"Tit for tat. Scratching backs. You're the only one who can do it," Dru replied.
"Do what?" Buffy asked.
"Kill Willow. I've seen it again and again. You're the one who kills her – whether she goes as dark as the void between the stars, or is injured in Twilight's battlefield with death a mercy, or lives for thousands of years, ruling queen of a great empire vaster than the sky – you are always the one."
"And let me guess, you want her dead."
"She let loose the dogs of war, trying to close the cage in tight around me, turning Daddy against me. I'm merely responding in kind, but I can't kill her myself. It has to be you," Dru said.
"Let loose the dogs of war?" Buffy asked. "Wait, are you saying she started it? What are you, six?"
"Do my motivations matter that much to you? You need me as much as I need you. The Watcher is already in Daddy's hands. Soon the screaming will start."
"Fine, I'm in, but you're going to tell me where first," Buffy replied.
"There's a mansion on Crawford Street, a home abandoned for decades after a pair of Gnorash demons ritually murdered the family, although why that would bother anyone on the Hellmouth I don't know." Dru smiled as she heard Willow's footsteps racing down the street, heading after the car. Everything was going exactly as she'd planned.
"And that hell-sucky demon is there too?" Buffy asked.
Dru frowned. This wasn't supposed to have anything to do with Acathala. "I don't see," she started to say.
"Just tell me," Buffy ordered.
"Yes," Dru said, too confused by the turn of events to think of lying.
"I'll meet you there," Buffy shouted, dashing toward the stairs.
"But Daddy's already torturing him," Dru called out. "Once he finds out how to awaken Acathala, he'll kill your Watcher."
"That's why I have to destroy the demon."
"But it's not alive, not really. You can't kill a stone," Dru said.
"Stone shatters."
As Buffy sprinted up the stairs and kicked in a door, Dru wondered what she had meant. "Oh, Daddy's not going to like this, not at all." She ran off toward the mansion.
