Everything either belongs to Joss or it should, no infringement is intended and no profit is to be made. When you get right down to it I'm not really worth suing anyway unless you want a share of an underpaid civil servants wages and it just wouldn't be worth the hassle trust me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Hyperion Hotel – Los Angeles – September 2003

Buffy slumped down onto the lobby couch next to Faith who was already sprawled there drinking a can of coke. The two of them had just returned from a mission up the coast to deal with a particularly nasty band of warrior demons and they were tired, hungry and not happy to find the Hotel a hive of activity, let alone a hive in a slightly more literal sense. Finding out from Wesley that Eve was now a resident was bad enough. 'Let's cut to the chase' she said. 'Why exactly is there a gigantic cockroach lying on the ground with its legs tied together and a gag over its mouth in the basement?' she asked Connor who was standing in front of them with his arms behind his back. Wesley was listening in from the reception desk looking through the Wolfram and Hart files on the computer trying to learn more about their guest but so far he was drawing a blank.

'It's tied up because it kept trying to get away, and it's gagged because it kept repeating over and over again that the "devourer" was going to consume us, and after the first hour or so it started to get really annoying' Connor replied. 'We had to drag it for miles until we found an exit big enough to squeeze it through and get Gunn to meet us in his pickup truck. We drove it the rest of the way with a tarp slung over it hoping the cops weren't going to pull us over' he explained. 'Don't worry we hosed it down before we bought it in' he added.

Buffy sighed. 'You're missing the point' she said. 'Are you planning to keep it as a pet or something?'

'No we just thought we'd better see what it knew' Connor told her. 'That's why Dad has Knox analysing its blood to see if Wesley's Truth Drug will work on it. Illyria took a look and it's definitely the thing that came looking for Jasmine before, in the alternate universe I mean.'

'Isn't Jasmine out of the picture?' Faith asked. 'Didn't Willow go Pro-Choice on the bitch?'

'My understanding is that Willow prevented Jasmine being born into human form but she herself was not destroyed, she's still out there somewhere' Wesley noted. 'From what Illyria has told me, the world this creature came from was ruled by Jasmine millennia ago and she still has worshippers although many have apparently given up the faith.'

'So the big bug likes the Old Time Religion' Faith said. 'Hey it's like Knox' she realised. 'Only I bet it's not such a dweeb.'

'Why is it here though?' Buffy asked.

'It could just be looking for her and she was here in a manner of speaking so perhaps it's following a trail' Wesley replied.

'But we thought we'd better be sure hence the truth drug' Connor added. 'Willow tried a spell to make it talk but something interfered' he continued. 'Before we gagged it, the thing was talking about "Blood Magic" and how powerful it was compared to our "Word Magic" so we think it's got some skills in that area.'

'Where's Willow now?' Buffy asked.

'She's with Dawn, Fred and Illyria checking out the blue orb thing the creature had' Connor replied. 'It's a key between our world and theirs, opens a portal if you get blood on it.'

'If you want to hear something intriguing it glows when Dawn is nearby' Wesley told them. 'Fred has a modified Geiger-Counter that uses an Enchanted Cedrian Crystal to detect the Para-Plasmic Radioactivity resulting from inter-dimensional travel and apparently the Orb also puts out a lot of Rads when Dawn approaches it as well as visible light' he continued. 'Illyria thinks the mechanism it uses to unlock the portal between the two worlds must be similar to the key, our key I mean, as in your sister which is why it reacts so strongly to her' he said. 'That does of course open a very interesting avenue of portal research if they are so attuned.'

'Yeah?' Faith asked, she'd ignored all the stuff she didn't understand, it was easier to get through the day if she took that approach.

Buffy pursed her lips. 'If getting ordinary blood on the thing opens a portal to that world, what the hell would happen if we put Dawns blood on it? she asked rhetorically. 'Blood from someone actually made to open portals?'

Wesley nodded. 'Exactly' he affirmed, 'but it goes even further than that' he added. 'Someone once almost killed Fred by sending her a text-message of symbols that opened a portal to a hell dimension, which means that the navigation process can be made to work electronically, add in an artefact able to open portals without a spell in the form of the orb, an appropriate power source in the form of Dawn's blood and likely a lot of very expensive Research and Development to tie this all together, and we might be able to build a machine that can open portals to anywhere we want no chanting, mystical ritual, or spellcasting required' he told them. 'It would be a brute force approach, but there's no reason to believe it wouldn't work, it's just bringing together several known technologies or elements rather than trying to invent something from scratch. The Orb is a key to a specific world, we'd just be turning into a skeleton key and using a bit of high tech to select what door we want opened.'

Connor looked at Wesley. 'You're talking about mixing up magic and technology' he said. 'Isn't that risky?' he asked. Connor was wary of magic and he was fairly new to industrial society for that matter as well.

Wesley shrugged. 'The inherent problem with magic is that it's an art more than a science' he responded. 'If anything this is probably safer than our usual blundering around with the occult, it's certainly more predictable to use computer modelling and proper testing than rely on ancient texts. Math is math, the answer doesn't get lost in translation and it's less prone to assholes changing the scroll to get you to steal someone's child' he added randomly, and with more than a touch of melancholy.

'What does Blue think about this?' Faith asked. 'Wouldn't it make her redundant?' Faith asked.

'Opening portals is dangerous to Illyria if she does it too often, it destabilises her shell so if anything this increases her usefulness' he replied. 'She can afford to use her other esoteric powers more often because we won't need to rely on her if we need to go dimension jumping' he continued. 'It wouldn't have her finesse though, Illyria "feels" her way through portals, the machine will just punch holes between realms' he noted. 'To draw an analogy if she picks the lock, it would be more akin to throwing a brick through the window' he explained. 'We'd never be able to get it to work if we didn't have the mystical equivalent of a nuclear power-station driving it. A subtle, elegant solution it certainly is not' he admitted.

'Screw subtle, brute force is more reliable anyway' Faith opined finishing off her coke and crushing the empty can into a tiny mangled mess in her fist. 'So what are we going to do with Eve?'

'She seemed to think she could hang around here and freeload' Wesley replied. 'I've found her a suitable role instead, made her earn her keep' he said with a distinct smirk.

Buffy looked at him suspiciously. 'What did you do?'

'I gave Andrew a personal assistant and part time serving wench' Wesley replied with an evil grin.

'Jeez Wes' Faith responded in shock. 'I'd have just made her scrub the floors, or clean the toilets but that's just sadistic.'

Buffy's shook her head. 'I used to wonder what Lilah and Illyria saw in you' she told Wesley, 'but now its all clear' she continued. 'You're the Prince of Darkness' she stated seriously.

'I do enjoy my work more than I used to' Wesley admitted, 'there's something terribly satisfying about putting your more despicable brainwaves into action.'

Buffy took a deep breath. 'We're the good guys, we're the good guys' she started to chant to herself for reassurance.

Wolfram and Hart Building – Los Angeles – September 2003

Marcus Hamilton straightened his tie, he'd been able to change into a fresh suit and get washed up but he still looked a mess as he walked into Lilah's Office.

'What happened to you?' Lilah asked from behind her desk. His face was bruised and there was a large band-aid on his forehead.

Hamilton's left eye twitched. 'I made Illyria's epoch' he replied both cryptically and in a tone that spoke of much restrained anger before he sat down without asking. 'The opposition have granted Eve asylum' he announced. 'I got the impression that if we tried to retrieve her by force they would resist… forcefully.'

'I see the impression they left in your face' Lilah replied wryly, 'is that a bootprint?' she asked deadpan.

Hamilton growled under his breath. 'A large number of Slayers pinned me to the ground and the Old One kicked the crap out of me' he explained. 'For some reason it enjoyed it a great deal, revelled in every blow' he continued. 'They were trying to force me to donate blood and when I resisted…'

'They forced the issue' Lilah interrupted. 'I assume they did take blood from you?'

'Yes' Hamilton admitted, 'a full pint. They told me it could be used to increase the strength of their vampire allies.'

Lilah dropped her head into her hands. 'So not only did you not bring back Eve, she'll now be even more motivated to stay with them and answer their questions because she knows she needs their protection from you, and to cap it all you've given them another weapon they can roll out against us when things turn nasty?' she declared. 'Did I, or did I not advise you to keep clear of the Hyperion?' she asked.

Hamilton muttered something under his breath.

'I'll take that as a yes' Lilah told him. 'I hope that the Senior Partners also remember that I never wanted her here and that it was they that assigned her to the LA Office.'

'There was no way of knowing she was involved with Lindsey McDonald' Hamilton stated.

'And no way of tracking him apparently as the telepaths who scanned Eve's mind have informed me' Lilah responded. 'And yes we have tried anyway and our best Seers and Psychics are drawing a total blank' she added. 'So how do you rate the slayers having had first hand, or perhaps fist, experience?'

'They are stronger than average demons as would be expected, though weaker than myself as individuals, however given that the days of the lone slayer are now history, and that we know from observing them in the field they operate as teams, my view is that they are as large a threat as your reports indicated' Hamilton answered.

'We don't even know how many there are' Lilah noted. 'We have a definite count for slayers seen at the Hyperion of seventy-five plus but more are arriving all the time as they emerge from hiding and word reaches them they should head to LA' she told him. 'Our Rome Office informs us that the remnants of the Watchers Council has re-established itself and is rounding up large numbers of slayers throughout Europe who are also presumably going to be sent here for training before being unleashed on the underworld like a plague of interfering teenage locusts.'

'So we are definitely looking at hundreds of slayers' Hamilton noted.

'And it's not just the numbers it's the attitude' Lilah told him. 'We know from our contacts in the arms trade that they have been stockpiling weaponry, including the sort of armament you would normally expect to see on a major battlefield' she said. 'We have confirmed reports of slayers using military hardware in the field, and doing so proficiently, so it seems the days when we just had to worry about them toting pointy sticks are long gone' she continued. 'I've had one memo across my desk that says they've got a pair of Mortars and a crate of shoulder-launched Surface-to-Air Missiles squirreled away somewhere. Not only are they faster and stronger do you realise that they actually have our Black Ops teams totally outgunned?' she asked incredulously.

'The world turned upside down' Hamilton responded. 'It's chaos.'

'No it's not' Lilah disagreed. 'It's a new order of things' she told him. 'They've were complete wimps for so long we went soft too and now the revolution's come we're the wimps' she stated. 'We've got demon clans, major clients, thinking about heading to a safer dimension because we can't protect them. We always operated behind the scenes, influence over brute force, but now we're facing a war and we don't have an army to fight it with.'

Hamilton crossed his arms and winced, he was sure he had a few cracked ribs in there. 'We do have access to an army through the Circle' he pointed out.

Lilah nodded. 'Archduke Sebassis has Forty Legions at his command, tens of thousands of warrior demons, albeit in other worlds, but unfortunately he is already loathe to commit his forces for fear of losing a great number of them' she told Hamilton, 'in fact he even reduced the number of troops he already did have here' she continued. 'He was warned off' she told him. 'In a manner that was so puerile I never gave the full details to the Senior Partners.'

Hamilton looked confused. 'Puerile?'

Lilah sighed. 'This is a copy of an audio recording that was sent to him' she said and reaching into her desk she pulled out a tiny tape-recorder pressing rewind then play.

A tune began, which Hamilton recognised as being "This Land is Our Land". After a few seconds singing started.

"This world is our world

it is not your world

We've got the H-Bomb

and you've not got one

If you invade us

we'll nuke your ass off

This world is human prop-er-ty"

Lilah couldn't help but laugh. 'The Pylean Demon Lorne put together a choir from some of the girls I hope this wasn't their best effort' she said. 'I imagine it was intended to be insulting to the Archdukes dignity, mocking his status as someone he thinks they should take seriously' she theorised.

'H-Bomb?' Hamilton repeated.

Lilah shrugged. 'Buffy previously threatened me with the possibility of letting Illyria steal and deploy Thermonuclear weapons if we pushed her too hard' she told him. 'They could easily do so and have her portal them to worlds under Sebassis control and it's not like they'd suffer many moral qualms about it. Basically they're saying that the situation is that if a large number of demons ever portal into this realm, the weather forecast wherever they came from is going to be "Ten Million Degrees, very cloudy" and that looks lousy on any kind of cost/benefit analysis. Remember that they did steal and portal fuel-air-explosive bombs against the First Evil, the difference here is only scale.'

'Even so that's got to be a bluff' Hamilton stated. 'This time last year they were using crossbows and now they're threatening nuclear holocaust.'

'Sebassis may have thought so too if the recording hadn't arrived on a tape that was stuffed in the mouth of the decapitated head of one of his followers' Lilah replied evenly. 'The demon in question was involved in the abduction of human females into slavery offworld, one of the Archdukes more profitable enterprises as it happens. It seems the slayers took exception to that trade and decided on a package deal caution on two separate issues. It wasn't a completely puerile warning' she noted.

'I'm surprised that one of the Black Thorne didn't retaliate for the loss, it is not their reputation to take such an affront' Hamilton remarked.

'After what they did to Vale the Circle prefers to give the slayers and their allies a wide berth' Lilah replied. 'As an aside to that I'm told that Senator Bruckner is getting out of politics after her vampire staff went missing and was returned to her one at a time… as powder in little packages through the mail.'

'Makes a change from politicians getting sent anthrax' Hamilton remarked. 'So where do we go from here?'

'Plans are underway, the wheels are turning' Lilah told him, 'but you'll forgive me for not telling you about them, the only reason they're still secret is because I didn't let the last Child of the Senior Partners in on them either. Between that, and your own failures today when you've only just arrived, I think I'll be recommending that we only use real humans from now on' she said. 'I'm not impressed by you imitations.'

Hamilton glared at her.

Hyperion Hotel – Los Angeles – September 2003

'We had to add a little something to the mix but as you can see, well hear' Knox corrected himself, 'the drug has worked very well' he told them as they looked down at the still restrained but docile and suggestible insect demon.

'What did you add?' Wesley asked out of interest.

'Just some chlorine compounds' Knox replied. 'The atmosphere back on its home world seems to have a lot of chlorine in it, enough to burn out your lungs if you went there, but it meant that the locals biochemistry is a bit different than ours in a few areas' he noted. 'I encountered a couple of demons from other worlds with chlorine atmospheres before in my Wolfram and Hart days, so I had an idea where to start.'

'Learned anything?' Buffy asked Angel who was squatting beside the demon asking it questions, the insect-like creature sounded almost drunk but although some of its replies were random and almost nonsensical at times it was spilling its guts.

Angel shook his head. 'Nothing special' he answered. 'It's here looking for Jasmine like we thought and it won't accept she's not here.'

'The Devourer will come' the creature mumbled, 'you cannot defeat only delay. Prophecy says will come here, rule.'

'She's not here and she ain't coming' Faith told the demon insect. 'Even if she does come somehow we'll stick a scythe up her ass.'

The demon seemed to laugh. 'If comes you will all love.'

Illyria forced herself to ignore the fact she was in the basement and stopped staring at the walls. 'Even if her power was great enough to override my will the shell I wear was exposed to her blood' she stated. 'she would have no influence on my mind for that reason alone and I would only need to make her bleed a little to restore the others.'

'Can you take Jazzy?' Faith asked.

'Although very strong, Jasmine could be made to bleed far more easily than I' Illyria replied. 'If I could not overwhelm her I would injure her and use her blood to restore your free-will. One of the scythes should be able to deal with her.'

'Still getting used to the plural scythes thing' Buffy remarked.

Illyria cocked her head. 'You're not the one they make uneasy when you're near them' she replied. 'The prospect of there eventually being hundreds of them is unsettling in the extreme.'

'Wasn't that your idea though Blue?' Faith asked in amusement.

'The sacrifice of my peace of mind is worth the end result of a drastically improved slayer arsenal, but that does not mean I have to do the dance of joy about it' Illyria responded curtly.

'It's a Pylean thing' Angel explained to Buffy and Faith who looked confused by the reference. 'Fred would have known it so she does' he continued. 'Don't ask Lorne to show it to you' he counselled.

'While the subjects raised, try holding both scythes at once' Faith suggested to Buffy.

'Why? What does it feel like?' Buffy asked intrigued.

Faith shrugged. 'I've got no idea, I just wanted to know if you'd OD doing that shit before I tried it myself' she replied, earning a glare for her trouble.

'Devourer will come, I will call to her with blood magic' the demon mumbled. 'Call her to her people.'

'It's always about the blood' Buffy said. 'Dawn's blood to open portals, Hamilton's blood to make vampires stronger, blood magic, blood on Orbs... it's been a "bloody" kinda day.'

'Blood is life' Angel replied simply.

'Spike said that once' Buffy told him.

'Even a broken clock is right twice a day' Angel replied wryly.

'What we going to do with this guy?' Faith asked.

'Oh hell can we just send the poor bastard home?' Buffy asked. 'Let's not finish the day with more blood.'

Illyria frowned. 'If we give it the orb it will return with him and it is valuable.'

'Well could you open a portal there?' Buffy asked.

'For the benefit of that?' Illyria asked pointing at the creature. 'I am not as soft-hearted as you.'

Buffy sighed. 'Illyria as a personal favour to me would you please take the big cockroach home?' she asked.

'I despair of your species' Illyria told her. 'You have so much greatness in you, atomic weaponry, napalm, nerve gas' she listed, 'but you also have this ludicrous empathy even for things that could not care less if you lived or died' she said. 'This being would likely think of you as nothing more than a source of blood for its magicks or likely even its next meal.'

'So are you going to do it or not?' Buffy asked expectantly.

Illyria narrowed her eyes. 'When Giles gets back I want Wesley to have a weeks leave' she said. 'He has been overworked and needs a vacation.'

Buffy looked surprised but nodded her agreement. 'Deal' she said.

Illyria turned to Wesley who looked pretty surprised himself. 'I thought we could go backpacking in Yosemite National Park' she said. 'If you would like that?' she asked hopefully.

Wesley smiled. 'Sounds good' he told her.

'I guess it's your lucky day' Faith told the insect-demon, 'but turn up in these parts again and we'll find a really big lizard to feed you to.'

'You know there's a lot of bears in Yosemite' Buffy told Illyria. 'You could run into them if you go backpacking' she said.

'So?' the God-King queried.

Faith looked from Buffy to Illyria. 'I think she's asking you not to beat up on the bears' she told her.

'Yeah that's pretty much where I was going with that' Buffy agreed.

'If they do not mess with me I will not mess with them' Illyria replied reasonably.

Note From the Author:

The technobabble about using an "Enchanted Cedrian Crystal" in a modified Geiger Counter to detect "Para-Plasmic Radioactivity" is Angel canon even if it does sound more like I took it from Star Trek :-p