"It's funny, but in a castle filled with about three hundred teenage girls, I never had trouble finding an empty space to think in until you showed up." Buffy sighed, pulling a door shut behind her with an abrupt slam.
"Sorry love," Spike half-frowned from a low slung sofa. "Figured I'd pay you a visit, alone."
"I can't deal with you right now, Spike."
Still, Buffy slumped down on the couch beside him, her arms crossing instantly over her chest, head resting back against the cushions. Spike pressed a hand gently against her knee. Buffy stared at the gesture for a long time before she finally pushed it away.
"It was a minute in time and now it's over." She sighed. Spike shrugged beside her.
"I know, love. I exploded in a ball of fire, saved the world, brooded over you a bit, and then found another sweet, innocent girl to…"
"Obsess over." Buffy interrupted with a hint of mocking tenderness.
"Protect from the big bad." Spike corrected her smugly.
"Anyway, I have other stuff on my mind."
"Broody Man. Got himself a permanent soul. Always knew he was jealous."
"Never let anyone accuse you of acting your age, Spike." Buffy scowled, getting to her feet.
"Don't know what you ever saw in that limp wanker, but he does love you, Slayer. More than I ever could." Buffy stopped at the door and turned to face the peroxide blond vampire at the other end of the room. She blinked, opened the door, and closed it softly, slowly.
"So, the Cotswolds," Willow mused. She picked up a computer-printed map and a set of handwritten directions from a desk in the middle of the castle library. Buffy crouched next to her, throwing a couple of last minute weapons into a heavyweight shoulder bag.
"Do you think we'll need all of that on a fact-finding mission?" Angel asked, his brow furrowed with concern. Spike smirked next to him, looking at the collection of wooden stakes, arrows for a crossbow, and a small throwing axe.
"It helps to be prepared. We don't know anything about this place."
"Or how to get there, apparently. Giles, these directions conflict with the map."
"Well, there are four sets of directions in six separate demonic languages." Wes interjected as Giles removed and cleaned his glasses. "We narrowed it down to the two most likely sources."
"We're looking for a tree?" Angel asked, taking the directions from Willow. "No markings, no precise location, just a tree…"
"Yes…" Giles sighed.
"A tree in the Cotswolds. You have been to the Cotswolds, haven't you?" Spike frowned, tearing the sheet from Angel's hands. "Picture Sherwood Forest on overdrive. With fog machines."
"Sherwood Forest on overdrive with fog machines on the night of a new moon. Glad I came heavily armed." Buffy grumbled as she pulled an axe from her bag and held it firmly near her hip, ready to strike.
"So tell me what's going on with you and Angel," Willow smiled, poking Buffy in the ribs suggestively.
"Nothing. It's a routine apocalypse. In, out, and on with our lives."
"It's never a routine with you and Angel. You are the antithesis of routine."
"Did you just use the word 'antithesis' while walking through a forest in the middle of the night?"
"I'm a geek. It's what I do." Willow paused, wrinkling her nose. "Smooth change of subject by the way."
"It's a Slayer power."
"Right. So, Angel, back in your life, permanent soul, available for some hot makeup sex."
"I never thought a lesbian would think about sex so much."
"Well, they don't tell you in the man…quit that!"
"This look like something to you?" Spike motioned to an elderly tree curling up from the earth, spreading limbs toward the empty night sky. Though it was late spring, the branches were bare, and the long grass that swayed in the light breeze stopped growing three feet around its base.
"What?" Angel looked up from the spot he'd occupied for several minutes. "Oh, right."
"It's nothing good. Witch digging in for the dirt. Slayer avoiding the subject."
"You were listening. Why were you listening?"
"Habit?" Spike shrugged and walked closer to the tree. "Awfully quiet, you know? You'd think, I dunno, security alarm, weird demon bodyguards, somethin'."
"Yeah. Uh, Buffy?"
Buffy and Angel stood anxiously in front of the aging tree, staring at a hole in the trunk that gaped open, a toothless mouth. The withered bark added to the ancient face of the well, a creature extending into the depths of the earth.
"I guess I expected some kind of greeting party," Buffy frowned, pressing her hand lightly against the trunk, dipping her head to wiggle into the entrance.
"Small favors," Willow added, following the slayer into the darkness.
The hole in the trunk dropped down immediately into a steeply descending staircase. The walls closed in on either side, confining the space to barely enough room for a single file drop into the bowels of the Cotswolds. The darkness was impenetrable, suffocating. Yet, at the end of the tunnel, a shimmer of grayish light rose up like a brightening morning sky. Buffy touched down on the wooden floor of a bridge stretched for five hundred feet across a great chasm. Willow walked right up to the edge, wrapped her hands around the banister, and leaned over the side. Spike leaned back against the sloping dirt wall that arched over the well. Angel moved behind Buffy, but almost instantly lifted his nose skyward to catch a stale scent on the air.
"Do you smell that?"
"Cold blood," Spike muttered with disgust.
"Ugh." Buffy soured.
"You've dated two vampires and killed hundreds. Suck it up, Slayer."
"It's over here."
Blood dripped slowly over the edge of the bridge, pooling on the lid of an iridescent stone sarcophagus about thirty feet below them. Buffy stooped beside the body of a young-looking man with matted brown hair and a slightly scarred face. The silver hilt of a dagger protruded from his back, darkening the brown linen shirt he wore. The fingers of his right hand had been dipped in the wide pool of rusty blood that oozed from his body. His eyes were closed, his heart silent.
"So ends Drogyn, the battlebrand." Angel frowned, crouching down beside Buffy to touch his cold and lifeless skin. He'd been there for several hours, if not several days. The blood on the floor had begun to dry around the edges. In the midst of the sticky mess, just beneath the limp hand of the well's guardian, a word had been drawn.
"Shesha."