Lord John Marbury leapt to his feet when the doors to the situation room opened.
"Mr President," he cried.
He bowed. As he straightened he waved to the rest of the group dismissively. The four of them, the President included, stood around him in a rough semi-circle.
"John. This is Toby Ziegler, he has some questions he hopes you could answer."
"Ah, yes," Marbury said, whirling to face Toby. "The President needs to make sure that, during the campaign he makes a stand against military involvement in civil wars and conflicts as distinct from acts of war or genocide. He also needs to re-state his commitment to education. This country has great influence …"
"Your Lordship," Toby interrupted. "It's not a campaign speech, it's an announcement to run for re-election. And that's not what we're here for."
"No, why are we here?" Marbury asked. "It's very nice room, if you like technology and the ability to blow things up."
Donna tried hard not to giggle at the look on Toby's face.
"Four years ago, the Slayer, Buffy Summers died. Faith was Called, when Buffy died two days ago, Donna was Called. We want to know what's going on," Toby said.
"Who gave you my name?" Marbury asked, suddenly completely serious and lucid.
"Ms Summers's Watcher, Mr Rupert Giles. He said you knew enough about the Council and may be able to help us. I called Quentin Travers, he wouldn't give me any direction but to call Rupert."
"Is there anything happening in D.C?"
"C.J and I killed four vampires last night," Donna offered.
"Claudia?" Marbury asked.
"Yes, your Lordship."
Marbury stood still for a moment, but eventually thought better of saying whatever he had to say. He turned to the President.
"What else?"
"C.J's been looking into that," Toby said.
"We have had three suspicious deaths in the last week. The police have not ruled anything out, but reading between the lines they have nothing. I'd need access to the police files to learn anything more that what I know, but they were all hiding something."
"I had thought that it was the Fama demon," Toby began.
He looked at Lord Marbury to see if that was what he wanted to know. His lordship flopped into one of the chairs and waved Toby to continue.
"Fama means fame, or reputation, in Latin," the President said.
Donna wanted to laugh at the look on Toby's face again. She might have too, but for how still C.J was standing beside her.
"But Fama demons like to embarrass their victims, destroy their reputations. None of these stories are going to be stories. Vengeance demons would also want their victims alive. But I thought that we're in Washington to it had to have something to do with lies."
"Of course," Marbury said scornfully. "American politicians have no respect for convention."
"Not exactly," Toby said. "I looked up the MO in my copy of 'What Demon is That?'"
"You have one of those?" the President demanded, twelve years old again.
"I have a Watcher's library of six books, Mr President, they make up two thirds of my collection. The demon can sense when a reputation shattering lie is being maintained, and it likes to prevent them being revealed. I think we have a Paterfactio demon."
"Revelation demon," the President said, "Patefactio, to make open or exposed."
"Yes, sir. It doesn't like the feeling of betrayal or the stuff that happens after a big lie is unearthed. It does whatever it can to prevent that happening."
"This is Washington, Toby," the President said slowly. "Why is it here, now? There's no one who isn't going to be in some sort of trouble, given our disrespect for convention."
Toby was no prepared to make the next step. C.J knew what had happened between them in more detail than she ever wanted to. She also knew that even though the President had tried to stop being in charge, Donna wasn't going to say anything.
"It would have been here through the seventies, after Watergate," she began. "Then everyone was very well behaved and it went off elsewhere. In Washington people expect a certain amount of the people to be lying most of the time, so no one feels betrayed, or even very much surprised when something happens. Respect at the play, or straight out anger. Neither of which is good, by the way. It's not exactly betrayal the demon senses, someone has to have actually lied, and maintained a lie and built a reputation that a revelation could topple."
"Then why wasn't it here before?"
"Here was safe, sir. It didn't think to look until last week. The MS, sir. It brought the demon here."
"And it hasn't just wiped out all the liars in Washington? because that would be a good result," the President said.
There was faint sigh of relief that nothing had happened. Everyone was still tense with every mention of 'the Thing.' Except the Queen's ambassador, who seemed to be dozing.
"It likes to be sure of things," Toby said. "It's not going to risk a death that would blow the whole thing open."
"No. Who's in danger?"
"Josh," Donna said. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder wouldn't be a surprise, but it could do a lot of damage.
"Sam?" Toby asked.
C.J. laughed a bit, "No. He's fine. I think I am, too. Sir, you should talk to Leo and the First Lady. If there might be anything…"
"Yep," he said.
"Can we make a list?" C.J. asked.
"No, and what would we do with it?" Donna said.
"That's not the point," Marbury said, standing up quickly and startling them all.
"What is?" the President asked.
"You're a Slayer," Marbury said, jabbing a finger at Donna, who nodded. "And you used to be one," he accused C.J. She nodded too. "You were going to be a Watcher, but you dropped out." Toby nodded. "And you found out too much while you were in London." The President waited for Marbury to continue.
"It's too coincidental. We'd find more connections here if we wanted. But the point that Toby made at the start is that Donna, charming and pretty as she is, should not be the Slayer, for any reason. Which means she is the Slayer for a reason and we need to find the prophecy."
They all four looked at him slightly sceptically.
"You don't get this sort of a confluence of events by accident. The Slayer's death should not have caused another to be Called, but Called another was, maintaining two Slayers. And we had C.J, so that's three. One plus one equals three."
"Two, John," the President said. "I think I remember that much in my study of economics."
"Buffy, plus Donna, if we didn't have those two, we wouldn't have found C.J out. But there's more than that…"
He stopped to spend a moment staring into space.
"I know the prophecy. Do you know any witches?"
"Rupert will," Toby said.
"Yes, let's give old Ripper a call. This may take a few days to organise, Mr President. I suggest you go back to work."