Chapter 9
In London, Giles was dreaming. It was a dream he'd had from time to time over many years. It involved a set of scrolls known to have been found three hundred years ago at Tintagel in Cornwall. These scrolls had never been translated. They were in no known language, and even modern decryption software had found no pattern in them. In his youth, Giles had dreamed of being the one to finally solve the mystery of the Tintagel Scrolls. This dream was different from those he had before. This time, he was able to translate the words, not as a result of hard work, but simply by reading them. It was as if they had been translated into English for him. Next morning Giles smiled at the absurdity of the dream.
Spike was closing up the shop. Anya had already gone home and Spike wanted nothing other that to get home to Buffy. Anya was still working short hours and Spike was coming to the conclusion that he needed to get someone else to work for him so he could spend more time with Buffy. Still, he was pleased with one piece of work for today. He had phoned Anya's landlord and discovered that the rent on her apartment was overdue. He had arranged that he would pay it until Xander got himself sorted out. Anya really didn't need anything else to worry about just now. He was so busy with his thoughts, he didn't see Xander in an alleyway across the street.
When he was sure the coast was clear, Xander slipped over to the Magic Box. He had Anya's spare shop key in his hand and slipped inside unseen. Once there he made for the training room at the back. One of the first things Spike did after he bought out half of the business from Giles, was to have a shower fitted out there. When he and Buffy trained, they could now shower before going home. The thing was, Buffy always took longer to cool down after her work out, so Spike showered first. So all he had to do was fix the shower so that the next person to use it had a tragic 'accident'. It was simple. The only disadvantage was that he wouldn't get to see Spike die. Still, the effect would be the same, and with Spike out of the way, he could go back to being important to Buffy. He might even forgive Anya.
The following evening, Dawn and Anya were minding the store while Buffy and Spike had their work out. Anya was arranging some new merchandise on the shelves. She had a box of obsidian orbs and another of jade dragons. "Silly people," she thought, "the obsidian orbs are far more powerful, but people prefer to look at the jade dragons, so they sell better."
Just then, Spike came out. He had obviously just finished an energetic training session. "Buffy's going to shower first," he said, "because I wanted to check everything's ok here." He walked over to Anya as she arranged an orb next to a dragon. Suddenly, there was a small explosion and all the lights went out. Buffy came out of the training room complaining that the electricity had gone. Anya was surprised. "There must be more to those jade dragons than I thought," she mused to herself.
"Never mind, pet," Spike consoled Buffy, "You can shower at home. We might as well close up now anyway. I'll get an electrician in first thing to find out what happened."
Next morning, the electrician found the problem quickly. "I'm not sure how it happened, but I'd say you were very lucky. The main fuse has gone. don't know why that happened before the shower killed somebody, but I'm glad it did. Either this thing was fitted by a complete incompetent, or someone wants you dead!" he told a worried Spike.
Spike felt sick to think how close Buffy had been to death last night. After Willow's description of her visit from Xander, he had no doubt who was responsible.
The following evening, Willow and Tara came round to talk about how to stop Xander. The witches reported that they had been trying to track him magically, but that he was shielded. "When did Xander learn to shield himself from one of our spells?" Willow asked.
"He didn't. The only explanation is what I said the other night. He's possessed by some sort of spirit and that's what's shielding him," Tara replied.
In a dark room in a broken down building on the other side of town, Xander sat in a chair muttering. He was surrounded by vampires, but he didn't seem to see them. They made no attempt to attack; in fact, they seemed to be treating him with some sort of respect.
In London, Giles had the same dream. Again he could read the Tintagel scrolls. The next morning, he went to the council library and found a copy of the scrolls. To his amazement, he understood the words perfectly. He immediately phoned Wesley Wyndham-Price in Los Angeles. He was at his desk, reading the Tintagel Scrolls. He could understand them too.
