The past hour's research had been fruitful and the Scoobies' spirits were lifted slightly, though the thought of their impending doom had not completely left their minds. Willow's discovery that the demon Malkhan was the Drumsalogh had been a great help in leading the gang to more helpful resources. Willow and Giles were engrossed in learning about the ritual to raise Malkhan and figuring out a way to stop it. Buffy and Xander were equally engrossed in a far more disturbing task—figuring how to kill the demon should they fail to stop the ritual in time. It was a possibility none of them particularly wanted to consider, but all knew they had to. There was only one more hour left to stop the ritual or the demon Malkhan would arise. Buffy's headache was starting to return. Everywhere she and Xander looked, the answer was the same. To kill Malkhan, you have to cut out the demon's still beating heart. Buffy shared an exasperated look with Xander.
"So, that's pretty much a 'no', right?" He asked, his cracking voice belying his calm. Buffy nodded to her friend and reached out her hand to him. He squeezed it. They both took deep breaths. Hopefully Willow and Mr. Giles were doing better.
"Oh, God." Willow's voice was filled with fear and sadness. Apparently, things were not going better with Willow and Mr. Giles. Buffy and Xander turned to look at them.
"What's wrong, Will?" Buffy asked. Willow turned to look at her friend, her faced was creased with worry.
"There are already dead people." She said, "Dead girls. They killed them. Days ago. For…for the ritual. They needed their blood." Buffy stood and walked over to her friend. She laid her hand on Willow's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Will." She said. Xander came and stood behind Willow placing his hand on her other shoulder.
"Does it say where they were killed?" Willow shook herself a little.
"Ummm…yeah…let me look here. In the woods near a cave, just south of town."
"At least that gives us an idea of where to look."
"Oh, God." This time the voice was Giles'. They turned to him.
"What is it?" Giles looked up at them and took off his glasses. He pushed his fingers against the bridge of his nose.
"I figured out how to stop the ritual."
"Umm…" Buffy, Willow, and Xander looked at each other and back to Giles in confusion.
"That's a good thing, right?" Xander asked. Giles replaced his glasses.
"Well, yes, but it's the way the ritual is stopped that's the problem."
"Does it in anyway involve ripping the still beating heart out of the chest of an enormous demon? 'Cause I'm all for avoiding that." Xander said. Buffy nodded her agreement.
"Um, no. It involves draining the blood of a willing sacrifice at the precise moment the demon is supposed to arise."
"Oh." Was all they could manage in response. Draining the blood of a willing sacrifice. Suddenly, ripping the heart out of a demon seemed like the preferable option. That option almost certainly meant death, but the first option made death a guarantee. It didn't seem like much of a choice.
"There has to be another option." Buffy said. She looked at the faces around her, hoping to find a glimmer of hope, but there was none. "There has to be." She repeated, but the words held no conviction.
"There isn't, Buffy." Giles said. "I've looked through all the books. That is the only way to stop the ritual. I'm sorry."
"We're gonna die. Aren't we?" Willow spoke with a small voice that shook, even as she fought to get it under control. Buffy looked at her friend, trying so hard to be brave. Her jaw tightened.
"No." She said. "We're not going to die." Buffy paused for a moment. "At least not all of us." She finished. It took a moment for the others to realize what it was Buffy was really saying. When the realization hit them, it hit them like a ton of bricks.
"No!"
"Buffy you can't!"
"That's completely insane!"
"You'll die." They all spoke at once. Buffy closed her eyes and tried not to listen to them. Her mouth was dry and her heart pounded in her chest. Stop, she thought. Please, stop. Just let me do this before I change my mind. Stop.
"Stop!" Buffy yelled. The others quieted. "Stop. Please." She begged them. For a moment they were all quiet. Then Giles spoke.
"Buffy," he said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder, "I appreciate what it is you are trying to do, but there's another problem." Of course there was, Buffy thought.
"What is it?" She asked.
"The sacrifice has to be made at the precise moment that Malkhan is to arise or it won't work." Giles paused as though this was supposed to explain everything. Seeing that Buffy had not yet caught up, he continued. "This is a huge moment for the demon world. They are going to want to witness it…" Giles trailed off, unable to bring the thought to its inevitable conclusion. When Buffy closed her eyes and sat down, Giles knew he didn't have to. Xander was a little slower on the uptake.
"Wait? What's going on?" He asked.
"We have to get Buffy through the other demons first." Willow explained. The group sat in silence as the choices played out in their minds: death or death.
Even without especially good choices, the Scoobies' progress in figuring out how to defeat Malkhan might have been enough to get Ethan to start rethinking his plan, if Ethan had still been watching them. A lover of chaos, Ethan Rayne was not the most patient of men. The image that now danced in the smoke before his eyes was no longer that of the Sunnydale High School library. It was now an image of dozens of demons rallying around a pentagram of blood-soaked stones, waiting for the moment when their savior would arise. The magicks that danced through Ethan's smoky window into their world crackled and surged as each moment brought mankind closer to its end. With each surge, Ethan's excitement grew until he could practically taste the chaos. He laughed in gleeful anticipation of witnessing an amazing act of chaos no other man would ever witness. In less than one hour's time, order would be torn from the world and chaos released upon it. And there would be no one able to stop it.
"Does everyone know what they are supposed to do?" Buffy asked. The others nodded. The gang was gathered around the library table trying to hash out the details of a plan that would almost certainly result in their demise. They had agreed to try and stop the ritual first. That way if they failed they would have another chance at stopping Malkhan by killing him. They knew the odds were slim at best and that in all likelihood that had no chance at all, but they were all keenly aware of the weight of the world that rested on their shoulders. To runaway and do nothing would result not only in their eventual deaths, but in the destruction of all mankind. Even if they somehow survived, that was something none of them would be able to live with.
"Good. We need weapons. Any ideas?" Giles nodded and hurried from the table. He returned from the book cage with an arm full of various weapons. The others looked on in disbelief at the array of swords, knives, bows, and axes.
"These were in there." Giles offered. "It looks like we may have done this before." Somehow the thought was not comforting. Carrying a sword into this battle seemed a little like carrying a paperclip into a fight with a bear. Personally, Buffy was hoping for something a little more like a rocket launcher. That, it seemed, was not to be.
"Alright, folks," Xander said, reaching for an axe. "Step right up and pick your very own medieval instrument of death." Willow grabbed a bow and Giles and Buffy each took a sword. Buffy lifted it up in her hand and swung it. The weapon felt oddly comfortable in her hand. At least that was a good sign, she supposed.
Buffy looked around her slowly at the faces of her friends and at Mr. Giles. It was surreal. The events of the past few days seemed to have swirled by in an instant, yet each moment seemed to continue for an eternity. A day ago she could not have imagined being here, considering this insanity. And yet she had seen the face of Hell and she could not turn away from it. She took a long, deep breath and spoke to the others, the strange familiarity of the steel in her hand giving her strength.
"There comes a point in everyone's life" she began, "when they have to choose who they are going to be. To stand up and say 'today I will push past the confines of the ordinary. Today I will be extraordinary.' If we go now, if we do this, we don't come back." Buffy paused a moment as that last sank in. "What do you say?" She asked, but she saw from their faces that they would not turn back either.
"Let's be heroes." Xander said.
"I'm in," said Willow. Giles simply nodded.
"Oh, God." A voice from the door startled them and they turned to see Cordelia standing there. "Is the world going to end again?"