In the meeting room the slayers were either on couches, chairs or the floor. Willow and Tara arrived somewhat late to the meeting, still towelling off their hair. They found a free couch, sitting themselves down not too far from the pack of slayers.
Some busied themselves at staring at pieces of dust collecting on the wood floor, or tracing patterns in the rug with their fingers. Eye contact really wasn't being made.
A few slayers glanced up at them, but most continued to look at either Buffy or the floor. A few were crying slightly. Others were attempting to be tough Willow noted that this was difficult to look tough with bed head, noting it for future reference. Four of them were in pyjamas, the others looked like they'd been called back from patrol still toting weapons and sporting leather.
"Anyways- yes Ingrid is dead. Yes, Sophie is missing. And Dawn is still MIA, but you've known that for a month now." Buffy spoke frankly to the slayers.
She was met with silence. Five pairs of wondering eyes looked up at her from the couches. No one was really sure what to say.
Willow wondered if she should say something, or offer to help or track the missing slayers. Or even just babble to lighten the mood, her mind was slowed from its frantic pace by Tara's hand reaching out for her own. She squeezed her fingers lightly, offering this slight comfort.
Buffy paused for a moment, whether it was for emphasis or planning no one could be sure.
Xander glanced at Buffy, but before he could begin speaking Buffy interrupted him.
"Okay. This is what is going to happen. Rowena is going to take Jessica and Kate and finish the patrol in the area where Sophie went missing. If you find her I want you to check in immediately with Xander. She's our first priority now."
Rowena stood up, and went wordlessly upstairs to change into more appropriate clothes for patrolling.
"Wait. Wait a second why do I have to go after Sophie?" One of the slayers asked.
"We need to figure out what happened to Sophie. We had two slayers on two different patrols go missing- one is dead. You think it over Jessica and see if you can come up with a good reason not to go after her."
"It's okay Jess, we'll go now. You know Sophie, she's probably just gone off with some idiot guy. We'll be home in no time." The slayer who sat next to her answered, Willow remembered that her name was Kate. Or rather she deducted it. Either way, her name was Kate.
"If Sophie is alive, feel free to yell at her." Buffy suggested, as the three slayers left to patrol.
Buffy turned her attention to the witches, "Will and Tara, I want you to check books, look for a way to track Sophie magically."
"We'll start looking." Tara answered, glancing at Willow for confirmation.
"And we could microchip them all, then we could find them really easy. Press a few buttons on a keyboard, hack into a satellite and boom! No more losing slayers. I could find them all real easy. Actually I can find them all really easily now- with so many in one place we aren't exactly hard to find. But you already knew that. Obviously. " Willow realized how much she was talking, and stopped herself.
"Yeah but that would make us an even bigger target than we are now. It's going to be like painting a giant bull's eye on all our foreheads. We'd probably do better to all go into hiding. Or put buckets on our heads." Xander responded.
"Actually that's not a bad idea." Buffy looked over at Xander slowly.
"Should I go get a bucket?" Xander joked, happy for the distraction to the grim situation.
"No. We should break up into pairs, or something. Spread out over more space. Be harder to find. For a secret organization- we are way too easy to target." Buffy said this all with a growing sense of realization.
"We were attacked once, and we got through it." One of the slayers spoke up.
"I like living here." Another responded.
A few others nodded in agreement.
"Well lucky for us, I'm in charge. Not you." Buffy threw back at them.
"I'm going to head downstairs and wire in for the patrol." Xander gestured towards the door before escaping to the haven of the basement.
"Okay, the rest of you get back to bed. See if Sophie shows up somewhere in your dreams." Buffy paused, rubbing at her forehead.
The slayers got up, noisily and tromped up the stairs leaving the room.
Buffy looked at them briefly before a shadow cast over her face, "Giles, I have to call Giles- will you-"
"We'll be fine," Tara assured her, "Go on. We can take care of the tracking."
"Thanks." Buffy walked out of the room before pulling out her cell phone.
They heard the murmuring through the door, but largely ignored it as each witch grabbed for one of the large tomes, and began to skim through them searching for a spell that would do.
"There's a few, but it requires knowing who the missing person is. Did you know her well Willow?"
"Not really, we talked a bit. She was a nice enough kid. English. Dark hair. Obsessed with David Bowie."
"Kid?"
"She was 17."
"Oh." Tara paused, shifting through the heavy leather bound book she was browsing, "This might work."
Willow skimmed the passage, spell for finding a missing person, "That should do it, you'll help?" Willow hadn't asked for help with a spell in a long time, and she didn't really need it. But she hoped Tara would say yes anyways.
"Of course." Tara began to take magic supplies off the shelf, "Slayer-tracking; this should be different."
"Probably. Well not that different. I mean they are still human, they have to eat and all that."
Tara paused looking down, as she found the matchbook in the box, and lit several candles, "Are you?"
"Am I what?" Willow answered, still going over the incantation. Hoping desperately that Tara wouldn't ask her that. Not knowing the answer herself. A human who didn't have to eat, who could teleport and fly, and who could heal her own brain after a lobotomy. Even if she couldn't teleport or fly anymore- what was she?
"Ready to do the spell?" Tara finished with an oddly amused smile, "Where is your busy brain at?"
Before Willow could answer, Buffy came bounding back into the room with a smile, "Dawn showed up at Giles' earlier tonight. She's not missing anymore." The phone still clutched to her ear, she listened somewhat to the voice on the other side.
"Great." Willow smiled, "That's one less person for me to use this on."
"It's good that Dawnie is safe." Tara smiled back.
"I thought she was safe, maybe went back to California, or off to see a friend of hers. Didn't want to be bothered. You know, college student stuff." Buffy explained.
"Well we all thought that. She's okay?" Tara asked.
"Absolutely. Had a weird month, or so she said but she's fine."
A loud scream disturbed them all from their conversation. Buffy hung up the phone wordlessly, grabbing her crossbow from the table and walking quickly in the direction of the nearest door.
"Outside?" Willow asked as she and Tara jumped to their feet and followed Buffy outside.
It was dark, and they couldn't really see much. One of the girls from the group they'd sent out was standing her mouth gaping in the dark. Her flashlight pointed straight down.
"What was it Jessica?" Buffy asked the girl, walking up beside her before covering her own mouth with her hand.
Willow and Tara hung back slightly, but they jumped when the flashlight was once again pointed at the corpse.
She was on her back, eyes open and dark hair mussed and bloody. Her own stake was driven through her heart and blood soaking through her clothes and into the earth beneath her.
"Goddess." Willow breathed, the others stood silently for a moment. Still in shock at what they had found. And no one spoke for a long time.