Chapter 1
The next morning, the gang met at the Magic Box, as had become their custom after any night of serious slaying. Xander particularly enjoyed these meetings; he called them "after-action debriefings", which made them sound cool and military. Plus, somebody usually brought doughnuts.
Most importantly, though, the meetings gave everyone an excuse to be together and have something to talk about. Apart from the obvious.
Xander and Anya walked through the Magic Shop's front door, which jingled to announce their presence. Willow and Tara were already there, conversing with Giles over a large, open cardboard box.
"This is precisely the sort of carelessness that infuriates me," Giles was saying, looking down into the box with disgust. "I ordered twenty vials of toad powder, and they sent me two hundred. And they forgot my desiccated beetles altogether. What am I to do with two hundred vials of toad powder?"
"Add water and make two hundred toads?" Xander suggested with a smile. "Maybe you can train 'em to catch beetles."
"Yes, very amusing," Giles responded dryly, turning his back on the box. "Well, much as I'd like to discuss the problems inherent in reconstituting a toad, we have the events of last night to discuss."
Everybody sat down around the circular table near the rear of the shop. Xander looked across at Willow and smiled a hello.
She smiled back, but only weakly. Willow looked like death on toast. In contrast to her shiny red hair, her face was the pasty white-gray of dull marble, save for the slightly darker circles under her eyes.
Before anybody could say anything, Xander blurted, "Will, are you OK? You look like Marilyn Manson with a Sterno hangover."
Tara turned her head and gave Willow a "See? I told you," look.
"I'm OK," Willow said feebly. "I think I ate a bad soy burger last night."
Anya spoke up. "Could someone explain to me again about 'health food'? Because I'm pretty sure I don't get it."
"You do look rather peaked," Giles said with concern. "You could lie down for a bit in the training room if you'd like."
"I'm fine," Willow said. "Let's just get all debriefed."
Not her usual wordy self, either, Xander noted to himself.
"All right." Giles turned to Xander and Anya. "How was Peter Lefrovich when you left him at the hospital?"
"Kind of fading in and out, but the docs said he'd be fine," Xander answered.
"They had all the equipment for a transfusion already set up," Anya added. "I guess they do a lot of that."
"Getting a transfusion in this town is like getting an oil change," Xander said. "And if you get ten of 'em, you get a free appendectomy."
Giles gave Xander a look. "And with regard to the vampires..."
"We did pretty well," Tara said.
"Totally," Xander agreed. "We must have dusted at least two dozen vamps. Mostly thanks to the Scarlet Witch over there." He nodded towards Willow, who produced another feeble smile in response.
"Yeah," a voice said from somewhere near the back wall. Everyone looked to see Spike standing in the doorway to the training room. "'Cause heaven knows, we wouldn't want to give the vampire any credit."
"Spike, what are you doing here?" Anya asked. "The sun's been up for hours."
Spike pulled an oversized black rain slicker out from behind the doorway. "Don't worry, luv, I'm using protection," he said with a lewd grin.
"It's ninety degrees and sunny," Xander said. "People don't notice a big black raincoat?" He paused. "Oh, right, this is Sunnydale. Denial is our biggest import."
"And yet," Anya said, "when I'm running late for work and have to change my underwear on the bus, people do nothing but stare."
Xander flushed, but Giles deftly changed the subject. "Ah, Spike, what brings you here today? You've never come to our morning meetings before."
"Yeah, I'm usually just in it for the fighty parts. But maybe I ought to start comin' regular, seein' as how you lot seem to leave all MY contributions out of your little re-hashes."
Looking as if it physically pained him to do so, Giles sucked in a breath and said, "We're all very grateful for your help, Spike."
Spike smiled slightly and looked at the ground, as if he were actually embarrassed by the praise he had been seeking. "Yeah, well, it's something to do, innit?" After a moment, he said, "Anyhow, after you all cleared out, I went looking for DeSalva. Didn't find him."
"Then he's still at large," Giles said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Spike went on. "I didn't find DeSalva, but I did find a big pile of dust behind the cinema that might have been an ex-vamp."
"Or, it might have been an ex-mess," Xander said skeptically.
"Yeah. Except most messes don't have-" Spike took a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pants pocket "this, scratched into the wall right above them. I copied it for you." He opened up the paper and held it up in front of Giles. It showed a sword with jagged edges, drawn diagonally with the point down, so that it looked a bit like a bolt of lightning. "They teach you this one in Watcher kindergarten?"
Giles' brow furrowed. "The Mark of Walpurgis," he said.
"Val-what-now?" said Xander.
"Walpurgis," Spike cut in. "Practically a legend in vampire circles."
"She effectively ruled a small part of central Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries," Giles said. "The area she claimed as her territory was often marked with this symbol."
"Faster than anything living or dead, so they say," Spike added with a sinister smile. "Carried a sword that could slice off your head, quick as a wink. I heard about this one bloke who had his hands in front of him, begging for mercy -- he actually caught his own noggin when it fell off."
"All very interesting," Giles said, "but not, in all probability, useful, given that Walpurgis was slain in 1513."
"Yeah," Spike said, his face falling a bit as he looked at the symbol again. "Probably just some rat-sucker, heard a few stories and drew this to start a rumor or two."
"So, just to be clear, here," Anya said, "the psychotic vampire bad guy we were after last night may or may not be dead, and we may or may not have a psychotic vampire girl in town, too."
"That about covers it," Xander said. "Hey Will, speaking of headless things, you having any luck rebooting ol' cyber-Buffy?"
"I can get it working again," Willow said, sounding tired, "but not soon. Glory cracked its BIOS chip when she knocked its head off, so I pretty much have to re-create the operating system from scratch. It's gonna take a few more weeks, at least."
Xander was disappointed. He had been hoping that the robot could take some of the slaying burden off of the gang. Especially Willow. He didn't buy her story about food poisoning; she was tired. Deep-down tired. That worried Xander, and it obviously worried Tara, too.
But there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He stood up. "OK, I have to get to the site; we're redoing the exterior moldings on the bank today. Having an apocalypse downtown has really shortened my commute." Anya gave him a quick kiss goodbye and sent him out the door with a slap on the butt. As he walked out, Xander made a mental note to talk to her about public butt-smacking.
Tara turned to Giles. "How's Dawn? Today's her last day of school, right?"
"She has her last examination this afternoon."
"I bet she's excited."
"I honestly don't know. She's been studying extremely hard, of late."
"Well, she did miss some school after her mom died," Tara said. "She must have had a lot of catching up to do."
"She was caught up two weeks ago," Giles replied. "Since then, she's been...it seems like she's just trying to keep her mind occupied."
Tara nodded. She'd used school work as a coping mechanism once or twice, herself. Lord knew, her high-strung girlfriend certainly had.
"It must be kind of weird, suddenly having a teenage girl living in your house."
"There are times when 'weird' does not begin to describe it," Giles said. "On the other hand, I've had enough years of experience with teenage girls to know that they're not all bad, despite their obsession with nail polish and their very loose notions about what constitutes music." Giles tried to smile as he said this, but Tara could see a bit of sadness leaking into his expression.
Tara suddenly remembered to check the time. "Hey, we've got to get going," she said.
Willow looked at Giles and added, "Tara starts her job at the used bookstore today."
"And Willow's going to be teaching computer day camp," Tara said.
"Yeah," Willow said. Sitting down and resting for a few minutes had given her some of her color back, and she seemed a bit more animated now. "I used to love computer camp when I was a kid. The computer I always sat at was this cute little Compaq with a whole megabyte of RAM, which was like, the biggest deal back then. I called it 'Packy'".
Giles stared.
"Yes, I was a geek then, too," Willow said with a pouty look. Tara scritched Willow's head affectionately as she got up from the table.
After the two girls had gone, a few customers drifted in, and Anya made her way to the cash register. Reasonably confident that Anya could take care of the customers without overly offending them, Giles went to the phone in the back to call his wholesaler and deal with his toad powder problem. He disliked having to do business with them on the telephone; their phone system played dreadful New Age versions of once-popular songs whenever he was put on hold, which was frequently. The last time, he had heard nearly half of the score from GREASE, played on a vibraphone.
From her position behind the counter, Anya could hear at least some of what Giles was saying on the phone. She enjoyed listening to Giles' conversations with customers and suppliers; it helped her learn about the business, and sometimes, when they put him on hold, she would pick a few new words to add to her vocabulary. She didn't think there was anything wrong with it -- Xander had a bunch of magazines that at least implied that listening in was OK. Though, admittedly, most of the listening-in described in the magazines involved very loud people having sex in hotels with thin walls.
Giles soon brought his conversation to what sounded like a satisfactory conclusion, but before he could get up and return to the front half of the shop, the phone rang again. This time, it was much less clear from Giles' words what the conversation was about.
"Hello?...good Lord, where have you...well, I'm a bit surprised, of course...I see...yes, today, actually...what? tonight? don't you think that's a bit-...no, no, I'm not saying-...Yes. Yes, of course...I'll expect you then. Goodbye."
A minute passed. Then Giles walked slowly back into the front half of the shop, his face ashen.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Anya said. "Which I hope you didn't, because Willow told me she inspected the place for ghosts, and if she missed a spot-"
"Anya," Giles interrupted, "could you watch the shop for the rest of the day? I'm afraid I need to go home."
"Sure," Anya said as Giles walked away from the counter. "But how come-?"
Giles was already out the door.
----
At about three o'clock that afternoon, Dawn Summers bounded in the door of Giles' apartment. She was full of energy. Her last final exam was finished, and she knew she'd aced it. Now she had a whole summer ahead of her to have fun -- hang out with her friends, read mysteries, maybe hang out a little at the public pool where that cute boy from school was going to be lifeguarding, or go to the beach with Bu-
Oh. She'd actually forgotten, for a few seconds.
The energy went out of her. She dropped her backpack, now limp and empty of textbooks, and trudged up to her room.
When she got to the doorway, she saw several things that didn't compute. First, Giles was there, in her room. Why wasn't he at work? And second, why was he surrounded by open cardboard boxes?
"Oh. Dawn," he said awkwardly. "I, ah...I have some news."
"What's going on?" Dawn said. "Why are you packing my stuff?"
"I received a call this morning from your father. He's returned to Los Angeles and he... knows about your mother and, and Buffy."
Dawn went blank.
"Apparently," Giles went on, "he's been in Argentina, consulting on some sort of lumber business. He's only recently returned."
"I...I wasn't sure if...." Dawn didn't seem to be able to complete her thought.
"In any case, he's coming here tonight to take you back to Los Angeles."
Emotion began to creep into Dawn's blank expression. "What? He, he's coming? Tonight?"
"I told him I thought that was a bit soon, but he said he couldn't wait to see you."
Dawn was silent for several seconds, until she finally said, "And you're just going to...let him? Let him take me away?"
"Dawn, he's your father, your family. Surely, if there is anyone you belong with now, it's him."
"But I haven't seen him in more than two years!" Then she stopped as a realization came to her. "Oh God, I've NEVER seen him! He- he doesn't even know...that I'm not...What if he figures it out? What if he just looks at me and KNOWS?"
"I'm quite certain he'll remember you the same way the rest of us-"
"And what about my friends? If I go to L.A., I might never see them again! I don't know anybody in L.A; what am I supposed to do all summer? God, and then in the fall, I won't know anybody at school! And even if I do, it'll be kids I haven't seen since the third grade, and I probably won't even recognize them!"
"I know it will be a big adjustment, but-"
"Was it me?" Dawn cried, tears beginning to spill down her face. "Did I do something that made you not- not want me anymore?"
"Oh, Dawn..." Giles stepped close to the girl and embraced her. "It's not that at all. Your father...well, he's your father. I cannot stand in his way if he wants you back. Not legally, and not morally." He lifted Dawn's chin up and made her look at him. "He only found out about your mother and Buffy a few days ago; he must simply feel terrible. I think you need to give him a chance to make things right with you." Giles hoped that Dawn would see the reason in what he was saying.
Instead, Dawn pulled out of Giles' grasp and bolted downstairs and out the door.
The Watcher sighed heavily. With teenagers, reason was often too much to hope for.
He shuffled to his room to call the others. Hank Summers was coming at seven o'clock; they would want a chance to say goodbye before then.
----
When Giles called Xander, the young carpenter took the news with as much shock as any of the others. But once they were past the questions and explanations, Xander moved unexpectedly to another topic.
"Spike and I were talking about patrolling tonight to look for DeSalva."
"That seems wise. Perhaps after Dawn leaves."
"Yeah. Just don't say anything about it to Willow, OK?"
"You want to patrol without her?"
"Come on, you saw her this morning. She's wiped. She's been coming out with us every single night, doing all kinds of heavy mojo; that's gotta be draining her batteries."
"I imagine you're right. All right, we'll, um, linger here after Dawn leaves and then patrol once Willow and Tara go home. But make certain that Spike understands that he's not to give anything away to Willow."
"Don't worry," Xander replied. "I don't think Spike will do anything that would keep him from taking out DeSalva."
-----
"I'm leaving," Spike said.
The Scoobies were gathered in Giles' living room. Dawn had just left with her father, and Spike could recall few occasions when he'd had such mixed feelings about a single event. On the one hand, the whole thing had been a very entertaining emotional bloodbath -- everybody upset, crying, hugging in that pitiful way humans do when they literally don't want to let each other go. Hank Summers had been completely awkward around the others, no doubt sensing the resentment they all felt towards him for neglecting his daughters during some of their most trying times. Giles, in particular, looked like he was only barely holding himself back from beating the man to death.
But somehow, all of this emotional carnage was less amusing when Dawn was the most unhappy of all. Spike still couldn't explain to himself just why that was. He didn't think much of Hank Summers himself, but the others could have been a bit more subtle about their dislike for him. It had only made Dawn's awkward reunion with her father that much more awkward.
Spike looked around at the others. To a one, they were a wreck. Willow was obviously one step off from bursting into tears; Xander was doing his usual glum-but-ironic bit; Tara and Anya were being supportive of their lovers in an attempt to ignore their own sadness.
Most interesting was Giles. He was like a man who'd been stabbed through the gut at an elegant dinner party, but who was less interested in getting help than in keeping the blood from showing through his jacket.
"Leaving?" Anya cried. "What do you mean?"
"I made the Slayer a promise to mind Little Bit for her, and I'm keepin' it. I'm going to L.A."
"When?"
Spike snorted. "Now. I got no more reason to hang 'round here."
"Spike," Giles said, "we don't know whether or not DeSalva is dead, and even if he is, whoever killed him could be even more dangerous. This is a potential crisis."
"Hello?" Spike shouted. "You live in bleeding Sunnydale! There's always going to be a crisis, and if you stop one, there's gonna be another, and one after that, and after that. And yet, instead of leaving this cursed town and getting on with your lives, you stay and keep your fingers in the bloody dike. Well here's a bit o' news -- sooner or later, you're going to run out of fingers. Because you're all trying to do someone else's job, and you'll never be able to do it as well as she did, because she was born to do it, and you were born to...have jobs and babies and 401Ks, not hold back the forces of nastiness. But you just keep on, because to do otherwise would be to truly embrace the fact that your Slayer is dead."
Everyone was stunned silent. Then Xander, with a voice like ice, replied, "So is yours."
Spike slammed his fist down so hard on the table that it cracked halfway down the center. Before anyone could say anything else, the vampire got up and stormed out the door.
There were several seconds of silence. There might have been several more, save that everyone could hear Willow say "Damn" under her breath.
-----
Finally, Tara took Willow home, leaving Xander, Anya, and Giles free to patrol. They took crossbows in addition to the usual stakes and crosses. The bulky weapons would make the trio more conspicuous, but Giles knew they could make all the difference, should the three happen to find DeSalva. The man might have been pretentious and a liar, but his actions the previous night made it clear that he was unusually deadly in a fight.
They checked several graveyards, then went downtown, walking the alleys where vamps liked to prowl. But there were no vampires to be found. That fact seemed strange to Xander, who vividly remembered the hordes of vamps partying hardy inside the Bronze just the night before.
Xander, Anya, and Giles were just about ready to pack it in, when Giles suggested checking around the Sun theater, where Spike had found the mark of Walpurgis. It wasn't the most promising of leads, but they agreed that it couldn't hurt to look.
There was no one behind the theater, though Giles did indeed see the mark scratched on the wall, as Spike had said. Somehow, it was more unnerving to see it firsthand, even though it most likely meant nothing.
"Just to cap things off," Xander said, "I'm gonna go up on the roof. You guys want to come?"
Anya and Giles slung their crossbows and followed Xander up the fire escape to the emergency exit for the projection booth, then clambered the last few feet up onto the flat, tarred roof. They split up and looked down over the edges of the rooftop, watching for activity.
Soon, as Xander was staring northward over the many flat rooftops of downtown Sunnydale, he felt Anya poking him in the shoulder. He turned to see that she was pointing to the edge of the roof she had been watching from. She waved for Giles to come over, too.
The three crouched by the edge of the roof as Anya pointed out three figures who were walking down the back alley, towards the theater. It was two men and a woman. The men wore shorts and Hawaiian T-shirts -- odd dress, given that they were vampires in full game face.
The female had her undead visage on, as well. She wore jeans and a man's dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up to mid-forearm and the top two buttons undone. Her casual style of dress, in contrast with her vampiric features, made her appearance particularly macabre.
The three vampires stopped behind the theater and began to converse. Giles, Anya, and Xander crouched on the roof, trying to listen to what one of the male vampires was saying.
"So, like, do you want us to do anything when they get here?"
"No," the female said. "Speak, if you must, but do nothing." Giles could hear the hint of an accent, though he couldn't quite place it.
"Right," the first vamp said. "Hey, you know what? After this, we could head for the beach, see if the waves are up-"
The female put a finger to her lips, and the talkative vamp shut up.
Four more vampires came up the alley from the other direction. None of the humans on the rooftops recognized them; whoever they were, they had been either too smart or too unpopular to attend DeSalva's party the previous night.
The four new vamps came to a stop standing abreast across the alley, like a wall. One of the ones in the middle looked over at the woman's two male followers. "Jake," he said. "Bobby. Is this for real? Or have you guys been smoking your Sex Wax?"
"It's totally for real, dude," Bobby said.
The vampire in the middle stepped forward, right in front of the woman. "So you wanna be the master vampire?"
"Yes," she said simply.
"We weren't stupid enough to follow DeSalva. What makes you think we should follow you?"
"I am better than he was," she replied. She didn't say it boastfully, but as if it were simply a matter of fact. "I am Walpurgis."
"Hm," the other vamp said. And then, without warning, he threw a punch straight at her face.
Except her face wasn't there when his fist arrived. The woman had dropped into a crouch; before her attacker could react, she grabbed him around the waist and lifted him on her shoulder like a fireman. Then she dropped him on his head. When he fell forward onto his back, she placed her foot on his throat.
The fallen vamp's friends started to move in, but he raised his hand awkwardly, and they stopped.
"Why did you do that?" the woman asked. The man started to gargle a response, but she made it for him. "You wanted to know for yourself. Who I am."
The prone vampire nodded as best he could.
Walpurgis lifted her foot. The vampire sat up on the concrete, coughing a bit.
"I have studied this place," Walpurgis went on. "Most especially, I have studied the vampires who tried to rule it: the Master, William the Bloody, Angelus, Mr. Joke-"
One of her shorts-clad henchmen tiptoed up and whispered something to her.
"Ah," she said. "Mr. Trick. His time of control was so brief, it is easy to forget his name."
One or two of the vamps who were looking on chuckled.
"In any case," Walpurgis continued, "I have studied their mistakes, their individual flaws. And, for all of them, their downfall was fear. Fear of appearing weak.
"The Master, for example, killed the Three, because he thought that to do otherwise would make his followers believe that he would tolerate failure. And thus, he lost his best soldiers, who had come closer to killing his enemy, the Slayer, than any who preceded them. His fear made him wasteful, and his wastefulness destroyed him."
The other vampires were nodding.
"And had anyone questioned him, pointed out the error of his actions, he would not have listened. He would, instead, have killed any who dared to be smarter than he.
"But I will not make these mistakes. Because you know that I am not weak. I do not have to prove it to you. I am Walpurgis; I am the lightning in the Devil's hand. And those who follow me will-"
Suddenly, Xander leaned out over the top of the wall and fired his crossbow. The bolt zoomed straight at Walpurgis' back.
Without a sound, Walpurgis spun around and slapped it aside.
Xander's eyes went wide. Giles and Anya stood up, preparing for action.
"What did you do that for?" cried Giles in shock.
"I was seizing the moment!" Xander yelled back.
Walpurgis looked at her two henchmen, then pointed up at the three Scoobies. "Kill them, please," she said.
The two shorts-clad vampires leaped up onto the fire escape and climbed towards the roof as fast as their superhuman strength would propel them. Anya fired her crossbow at one of them, but too soon; the bolt was deflected away by the grille-like upper landing of the fire escape. The vamps kept coming.
"Run!" yelled Giles as he slung his own crossbow. He ran to the front of the building, Xander and Anya at his heels, and looked down over the edge. The Sun's marquee was nearly four yards below his feet. Gritting his teeth, he dropped over the edge and landed awkwardly; there was a low metallic boom as his feet struck the flat surface of the marquee. Giles gripped the metal edge with his fingers and lowered himself most of the way to the ground, then fell the last three feet. Two more booming noises from above indicated that Xander and Anya were right behind him.
Xander hit the top of the marquee even more awkwardly than Giles had; his right foot turned sideways with a slight crunching sound. He yelled, and Anya, who had made a better landing, turned to him with a look of fright. "Go!" Xander shouted, waving her on.
Xander was just crawling to the edge when one of his pursuers -- Jake, he thought -- landed next to him, catlike. His yellow eyes regarded Xander with equal measures of amusement and hunger.
"Sorry, little dude. Hope you didn't have any plans for, you know, ever."
"Well," Xander said, still on his back and trying to keep fear from overwhelming him. "I was planning to get religion." He quickly pulled a small crucifix from his jacket and held it up; Jake yelled, "Aw, bogus!" and backed away.
The other vampire, Bobby, hit the roof behind Xander and made a grab for him, then yelled in pain as a bolt from Giles' crossbow hit him in the back. The bolt missed the heart, but the sudden shock of it was enough to make Bobby twist around awkwardly and fall off the marquee.
Xander threw his crucifix at Jake, making him duck and cower for a moment. Xander used those few seconds to scuttle backwards to the edge of the roof, grab it, and drop down. By the time Jake regained his wits enough to go after Xander, Anya had reloaded; she sent a bolt whizzing past the vampire's ear, making him drop down again.
Fortunately, Giles had parked his convertible just down the street; the three humans made a run for it. Xander thanked his lucky stars for the miracle of adrenaline, which enabled him to ignore his pain and run almost as fast as his uninjured friends. Which was a good thing; the two vampires were not far behind.
Giles turned the key in the ignition even as Xander and Anya climbed into the car. Bobby, with Jake right behind him, caught up to them just in time to smell the burning rubber as the car tore off.
Bobby watched them go, visibly pissed off. But something told him he'd see the three humans again.
"Eat you later, dudes," he murmured.
-----
Tara woke up at 2am to the feeling of something warm and wet against her front. She had fallen asleep spoon-style with Willow, but now it felt like she was holding a big towel that someone had accidentally dropped into a hot tub.
"Willow?" Tara said. Willow didn't respond.
Tara rolled over and turned on the light. Willow was shivering, and her nightgown was soaked with sweat. Tara put her hand to her lover's damp forehead and found it alarmingly hot. Even more frightening was how labored Willow's breathing sounded.
"Oh, God," Tara gasped.
She was dialing 911 before she even realized that she'd picked up the phone.
-----
It was almost like a ritual -- meeting in the hospital lobby at some ungodly hour, sipping bad vending-machine coffee, waiting for news from the doctor.
"They took her into an examining room first," Tara said, almost shaking with anxiety, "then they rushed her out of there with a mask over her face. I don't even know w-where they took her."
Xander put his arms around Tara, though it would have been hard for him to say whether he did it for Tara's sake or his own. Anya put on her supportive face, or her best facsimile of one, and Giles busied himself with trying to find out what was going on.
As Giles argued with the desk clerk, who seemed to know less than nothing, a doctor emerged from behind the ER's double doors. Giles recognized him from previous visits to the hospital, and it was clear that the doctor recognized the slender Englishman as well.
"Mister Giles, isn't it?" the man said.
"Yes, Doctor...Greenlea," Giles said; he hadn't quite remembered the man's name, and was grateful that he wore a hospital ID tag.
"Ms. Rosenberg has pneumonia," the doctor said. "We're giving her antibiotics, and we've managed to bring her fever down."
"Well, that's good news," Giles said, relieved.
"But we're keeping her in isolation."
"Why?"
The doctor responded to Giles' question with a question. "Mr. Giles, to your knowledge, does Ms. Rosenberg have any sort of chronic illness?"
"Ah- Not that I know of."
"Does she get sick a lot?"
"No. She's usually quite healthy. What are you getting at?"
"Mr. Giles, we perform a complete blood count on everyone who comes in here with an opportunistic infection like pneumonia; it's a measure of how well their immune system is working. In a healthy person, the white cell count is between six hundred and twelve hundred." The doctor took a breath. "Ms. Rosenberg's is two."
"Two hundred?"
"No," the doctor said flatly. "Two."
"Good Lord!" Giles couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why is this happening to her?"
"We don't know. We're going to do a lot more tests, of course, but right now, we don't know. In any case, we need to keep her in the ICU until the pneumonia clears up and her immune system begins to recover. Otherwise, she could catch something even more dangerous."
The doctor looked around. "Now, I need to get back to her. If you can get in touch with her family, we really should speak to them. Hell, I've told you more than I should, but I know you and she are close."
"Yes," Giles said, looking both upset and thoughtful. "Yes, we are."
When the doctor left, Giles went back to the others and told them what he'd learned from the doctor. Xander and Anya were shocked by the news, but Tara simply said, "I was afraid of something like this."
"Like what?" Xander said. "What are you talking about?"
"Willow's been using a lot of dark magic. A lot. And dark magic always has a price. I kept telling her that, but..." Her voice trailed off as her anxiety overwhelmed it.
"But this is terrible!" Anya cried. "We have a new master vampire who's, like, faster than a speeding bullet, and we have no Buffy, no Spike, and no Willow. Personally, I think it's time to move to Moscow." She looked at the date on her watch. "It's the middle of summer; there's sunlight more than twenty hours a day. And the other four hours, we'll just hang out in one of those big cathedrals with the pointy onion things on top, and put a big cross in front of the door."
"I've a solution even more desperate than that one," Giles said. "I'm calling Angel."
"I don't think it'll help," Xander responded. "I called down there earlier, after you told me Dawn was leaving. I figured it would be nice if Dawn could see a friendly face -- even if it's Cordy's. Anyway, she told me she's barely seen Angel lately. Darla and Drusilla are on another rampage. I don't think he's going to want to leave L.A. while they're loose."
Giles took a breath. "Then I'm calling Travers."
"What?" Xander said. "What's he going to do? Send a bunch of his Council cronies to bore Walpurgis to death?"
Giles looked Xander in the eye. "There is still one person who may have a chance of stopping Walpurgis," Giles said. "And Travers may be able to...make her available."
With that, Giles pulled a calling card from his wallet and headed for the pay phones.
Xander stared blankly after the Watcher for a moment. Then, as a look of realization spread over Xander's face, the young man turned to Anya and Tara. "So," he asked Anya, "How's the job market in Moscow? Do they need carpenters?"
END CHAPTER ONE
The next morning, the gang met at the Magic Box, as had become their custom after any night of serious slaying. Xander particularly enjoyed these meetings; he called them "after-action debriefings", which made them sound cool and military. Plus, somebody usually brought doughnuts.
Most importantly, though, the meetings gave everyone an excuse to be together and have something to talk about. Apart from the obvious.
Xander and Anya walked through the Magic Shop's front door, which jingled to announce their presence. Willow and Tara were already there, conversing with Giles over a large, open cardboard box.
"This is precisely the sort of carelessness that infuriates me," Giles was saying, looking down into the box with disgust. "I ordered twenty vials of toad powder, and they sent me two hundred. And they forgot my desiccated beetles altogether. What am I to do with two hundred vials of toad powder?"
"Add water and make two hundred toads?" Xander suggested with a smile. "Maybe you can train 'em to catch beetles."
"Yes, very amusing," Giles responded dryly, turning his back on the box. "Well, much as I'd like to discuss the problems inherent in reconstituting a toad, we have the events of last night to discuss."
Everybody sat down around the circular table near the rear of the shop. Xander looked across at Willow and smiled a hello.
She smiled back, but only weakly. Willow looked like death on toast. In contrast to her shiny red hair, her face was the pasty white-gray of dull marble, save for the slightly darker circles under her eyes.
Before anybody could say anything, Xander blurted, "Will, are you OK? You look like Marilyn Manson with a Sterno hangover."
Tara turned her head and gave Willow a "See? I told you," look.
"I'm OK," Willow said feebly. "I think I ate a bad soy burger last night."
Anya spoke up. "Could someone explain to me again about 'health food'? Because I'm pretty sure I don't get it."
"You do look rather peaked," Giles said with concern. "You could lie down for a bit in the training room if you'd like."
"I'm fine," Willow said. "Let's just get all debriefed."
Not her usual wordy self, either, Xander noted to himself.
"All right." Giles turned to Xander and Anya. "How was Peter Lefrovich when you left him at the hospital?"
"Kind of fading in and out, but the docs said he'd be fine," Xander answered.
"They had all the equipment for a transfusion already set up," Anya added. "I guess they do a lot of that."
"Getting a transfusion in this town is like getting an oil change," Xander said. "And if you get ten of 'em, you get a free appendectomy."
Giles gave Xander a look. "And with regard to the vampires..."
"We did pretty well," Tara said.
"Totally," Xander agreed. "We must have dusted at least two dozen vamps. Mostly thanks to the Scarlet Witch over there." He nodded towards Willow, who produced another feeble smile in response.
"Yeah," a voice said from somewhere near the back wall. Everyone looked to see Spike standing in the doorway to the training room. "'Cause heaven knows, we wouldn't want to give the vampire any credit."
"Spike, what are you doing here?" Anya asked. "The sun's been up for hours."
Spike pulled an oversized black rain slicker out from behind the doorway. "Don't worry, luv, I'm using protection," he said with a lewd grin.
"It's ninety degrees and sunny," Xander said. "People don't notice a big black raincoat?" He paused. "Oh, right, this is Sunnydale. Denial is our biggest import."
"And yet," Anya said, "when I'm running late for work and have to change my underwear on the bus, people do nothing but stare."
Xander flushed, but Giles deftly changed the subject. "Ah, Spike, what brings you here today? You've never come to our morning meetings before."
"Yeah, I'm usually just in it for the fighty parts. But maybe I ought to start comin' regular, seein' as how you lot seem to leave all MY contributions out of your little re-hashes."
Looking as if it physically pained him to do so, Giles sucked in a breath and said, "We're all very grateful for your help, Spike."
Spike smiled slightly and looked at the ground, as if he were actually embarrassed by the praise he had been seeking. "Yeah, well, it's something to do, innit?" After a moment, he said, "Anyhow, after you all cleared out, I went looking for DeSalva. Didn't find him."
"Then he's still at large," Giles said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Spike went on. "I didn't find DeSalva, but I did find a big pile of dust behind the cinema that might have been an ex-vamp."
"Or, it might have been an ex-mess," Xander said skeptically.
"Yeah. Except most messes don't have-" Spike took a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pants pocket "this, scratched into the wall right above them. I copied it for you." He opened up the paper and held it up in front of Giles. It showed a sword with jagged edges, drawn diagonally with the point down, so that it looked a bit like a bolt of lightning. "They teach you this one in Watcher kindergarten?"
Giles' brow furrowed. "The Mark of Walpurgis," he said.
"Val-what-now?" said Xander.
"Walpurgis," Spike cut in. "Practically a legend in vampire circles."
"She effectively ruled a small part of central Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries," Giles said. "The area she claimed as her territory was often marked with this symbol."
"Faster than anything living or dead, so they say," Spike added with a sinister smile. "Carried a sword that could slice off your head, quick as a wink. I heard about this one bloke who had his hands in front of him, begging for mercy -- he actually caught his own noggin when it fell off."
"All very interesting," Giles said, "but not, in all probability, useful, given that Walpurgis was slain in 1513."
"Yeah," Spike said, his face falling a bit as he looked at the symbol again. "Probably just some rat-sucker, heard a few stories and drew this to start a rumor or two."
"So, just to be clear, here," Anya said, "the psychotic vampire bad guy we were after last night may or may not be dead, and we may or may not have a psychotic vampire girl in town, too."
"That about covers it," Xander said. "Hey Will, speaking of headless things, you having any luck rebooting ol' cyber-Buffy?"
"I can get it working again," Willow said, sounding tired, "but not soon. Glory cracked its BIOS chip when she knocked its head off, so I pretty much have to re-create the operating system from scratch. It's gonna take a few more weeks, at least."
Xander was disappointed. He had been hoping that the robot could take some of the slaying burden off of the gang. Especially Willow. He didn't buy her story about food poisoning; she was tired. Deep-down tired. That worried Xander, and it obviously worried Tara, too.
But there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He stood up. "OK, I have to get to the site; we're redoing the exterior moldings on the bank today. Having an apocalypse downtown has really shortened my commute." Anya gave him a quick kiss goodbye and sent him out the door with a slap on the butt. As he walked out, Xander made a mental note to talk to her about public butt-smacking.
Tara turned to Giles. "How's Dawn? Today's her last day of school, right?"
"She has her last examination this afternoon."
"I bet she's excited."
"I honestly don't know. She's been studying extremely hard, of late."
"Well, she did miss some school after her mom died," Tara said. "She must have had a lot of catching up to do."
"She was caught up two weeks ago," Giles replied. "Since then, she's been...it seems like she's just trying to keep her mind occupied."
Tara nodded. She'd used school work as a coping mechanism once or twice, herself. Lord knew, her high-strung girlfriend certainly had.
"It must be kind of weird, suddenly having a teenage girl living in your house."
"There are times when 'weird' does not begin to describe it," Giles said. "On the other hand, I've had enough years of experience with teenage girls to know that they're not all bad, despite their obsession with nail polish and their very loose notions about what constitutes music." Giles tried to smile as he said this, but Tara could see a bit of sadness leaking into his expression.
Tara suddenly remembered to check the time. "Hey, we've got to get going," she said.
Willow looked at Giles and added, "Tara starts her job at the used bookstore today."
"And Willow's going to be teaching computer day camp," Tara said.
"Yeah," Willow said. Sitting down and resting for a few minutes had given her some of her color back, and she seemed a bit more animated now. "I used to love computer camp when I was a kid. The computer I always sat at was this cute little Compaq with a whole megabyte of RAM, which was like, the biggest deal back then. I called it 'Packy'".
Giles stared.
"Yes, I was a geek then, too," Willow said with a pouty look. Tara scritched Willow's head affectionately as she got up from the table.
After the two girls had gone, a few customers drifted in, and Anya made her way to the cash register. Reasonably confident that Anya could take care of the customers without overly offending them, Giles went to the phone in the back to call his wholesaler and deal with his toad powder problem. He disliked having to do business with them on the telephone; their phone system played dreadful New Age versions of once-popular songs whenever he was put on hold, which was frequently. The last time, he had heard nearly half of the score from GREASE, played on a vibraphone.
From her position behind the counter, Anya could hear at least some of what Giles was saying on the phone. She enjoyed listening to Giles' conversations with customers and suppliers; it helped her learn about the business, and sometimes, when they put him on hold, she would pick a few new words to add to her vocabulary. She didn't think there was anything wrong with it -- Xander had a bunch of magazines that at least implied that listening in was OK. Though, admittedly, most of the listening-in described in the magazines involved very loud people having sex in hotels with thin walls.
Giles soon brought his conversation to what sounded like a satisfactory conclusion, but before he could get up and return to the front half of the shop, the phone rang again. This time, it was much less clear from Giles' words what the conversation was about.
"Hello?...good Lord, where have you...well, I'm a bit surprised, of course...I see...yes, today, actually...what? tonight? don't you think that's a bit-...no, no, I'm not saying-...Yes. Yes, of course...I'll expect you then. Goodbye."
A minute passed. Then Giles walked slowly back into the front half of the shop, his face ashen.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Anya said. "Which I hope you didn't, because Willow told me she inspected the place for ghosts, and if she missed a spot-"
"Anya," Giles interrupted, "could you watch the shop for the rest of the day? I'm afraid I need to go home."
"Sure," Anya said as Giles walked away from the counter. "But how come-?"
Giles was already out the door.
----
At about three o'clock that afternoon, Dawn Summers bounded in the door of Giles' apartment. She was full of energy. Her last final exam was finished, and she knew she'd aced it. Now she had a whole summer ahead of her to have fun -- hang out with her friends, read mysteries, maybe hang out a little at the public pool where that cute boy from school was going to be lifeguarding, or go to the beach with Bu-
Oh. She'd actually forgotten, for a few seconds.
The energy went out of her. She dropped her backpack, now limp and empty of textbooks, and trudged up to her room.
When she got to the doorway, she saw several things that didn't compute. First, Giles was there, in her room. Why wasn't he at work? And second, why was he surrounded by open cardboard boxes?
"Oh. Dawn," he said awkwardly. "I, ah...I have some news."
"What's going on?" Dawn said. "Why are you packing my stuff?"
"I received a call this morning from your father. He's returned to Los Angeles and he... knows about your mother and, and Buffy."
Dawn went blank.
"Apparently," Giles went on, "he's been in Argentina, consulting on some sort of lumber business. He's only recently returned."
"I...I wasn't sure if...." Dawn didn't seem to be able to complete her thought.
"In any case, he's coming here tonight to take you back to Los Angeles."
Emotion began to creep into Dawn's blank expression. "What? He, he's coming? Tonight?"
"I told him I thought that was a bit soon, but he said he couldn't wait to see you."
Dawn was silent for several seconds, until she finally said, "And you're just going to...let him? Let him take me away?"
"Dawn, he's your father, your family. Surely, if there is anyone you belong with now, it's him."
"But I haven't seen him in more than two years!" Then she stopped as a realization came to her. "Oh God, I've NEVER seen him! He- he doesn't even know...that I'm not...What if he figures it out? What if he just looks at me and KNOWS?"
"I'm quite certain he'll remember you the same way the rest of us-"
"And what about my friends? If I go to L.A., I might never see them again! I don't know anybody in L.A; what am I supposed to do all summer? God, and then in the fall, I won't know anybody at school! And even if I do, it'll be kids I haven't seen since the third grade, and I probably won't even recognize them!"
"I know it will be a big adjustment, but-"
"Was it me?" Dawn cried, tears beginning to spill down her face. "Did I do something that made you not- not want me anymore?"
"Oh, Dawn..." Giles stepped close to the girl and embraced her. "It's not that at all. Your father...well, he's your father. I cannot stand in his way if he wants you back. Not legally, and not morally." He lifted Dawn's chin up and made her look at him. "He only found out about your mother and Buffy a few days ago; he must simply feel terrible. I think you need to give him a chance to make things right with you." Giles hoped that Dawn would see the reason in what he was saying.
Instead, Dawn pulled out of Giles' grasp and bolted downstairs and out the door.
The Watcher sighed heavily. With teenagers, reason was often too much to hope for.
He shuffled to his room to call the others. Hank Summers was coming at seven o'clock; they would want a chance to say goodbye before then.
----
When Giles called Xander, the young carpenter took the news with as much shock as any of the others. But once they were past the questions and explanations, Xander moved unexpectedly to another topic.
"Spike and I were talking about patrolling tonight to look for DeSalva."
"That seems wise. Perhaps after Dawn leaves."
"Yeah. Just don't say anything about it to Willow, OK?"
"You want to patrol without her?"
"Come on, you saw her this morning. She's wiped. She's been coming out with us every single night, doing all kinds of heavy mojo; that's gotta be draining her batteries."
"I imagine you're right. All right, we'll, um, linger here after Dawn leaves and then patrol once Willow and Tara go home. But make certain that Spike understands that he's not to give anything away to Willow."
"Don't worry," Xander replied. "I don't think Spike will do anything that would keep him from taking out DeSalva."
-----
"I'm leaving," Spike said.
The Scoobies were gathered in Giles' living room. Dawn had just left with her father, and Spike could recall few occasions when he'd had such mixed feelings about a single event. On the one hand, the whole thing had been a very entertaining emotional bloodbath -- everybody upset, crying, hugging in that pitiful way humans do when they literally don't want to let each other go. Hank Summers had been completely awkward around the others, no doubt sensing the resentment they all felt towards him for neglecting his daughters during some of their most trying times. Giles, in particular, looked like he was only barely holding himself back from beating the man to death.
But somehow, all of this emotional carnage was less amusing when Dawn was the most unhappy of all. Spike still couldn't explain to himself just why that was. He didn't think much of Hank Summers himself, but the others could have been a bit more subtle about their dislike for him. It had only made Dawn's awkward reunion with her father that much more awkward.
Spike looked around at the others. To a one, they were a wreck. Willow was obviously one step off from bursting into tears; Xander was doing his usual glum-but-ironic bit; Tara and Anya were being supportive of their lovers in an attempt to ignore their own sadness.
Most interesting was Giles. He was like a man who'd been stabbed through the gut at an elegant dinner party, but who was less interested in getting help than in keeping the blood from showing through his jacket.
"Leaving?" Anya cried. "What do you mean?"
"I made the Slayer a promise to mind Little Bit for her, and I'm keepin' it. I'm going to L.A."
"When?"
Spike snorted. "Now. I got no more reason to hang 'round here."
"Spike," Giles said, "we don't know whether or not DeSalva is dead, and even if he is, whoever killed him could be even more dangerous. This is a potential crisis."
"Hello?" Spike shouted. "You live in bleeding Sunnydale! There's always going to be a crisis, and if you stop one, there's gonna be another, and one after that, and after that. And yet, instead of leaving this cursed town and getting on with your lives, you stay and keep your fingers in the bloody dike. Well here's a bit o' news -- sooner or later, you're going to run out of fingers. Because you're all trying to do someone else's job, and you'll never be able to do it as well as she did, because she was born to do it, and you were born to...have jobs and babies and 401Ks, not hold back the forces of nastiness. But you just keep on, because to do otherwise would be to truly embrace the fact that your Slayer is dead."
Everyone was stunned silent. Then Xander, with a voice like ice, replied, "So is yours."
Spike slammed his fist down so hard on the table that it cracked halfway down the center. Before anyone could say anything else, the vampire got up and stormed out the door.
There were several seconds of silence. There might have been several more, save that everyone could hear Willow say "Damn" under her breath.
-----
Finally, Tara took Willow home, leaving Xander, Anya, and Giles free to patrol. They took crossbows in addition to the usual stakes and crosses. The bulky weapons would make the trio more conspicuous, but Giles knew they could make all the difference, should the three happen to find DeSalva. The man might have been pretentious and a liar, but his actions the previous night made it clear that he was unusually deadly in a fight.
They checked several graveyards, then went downtown, walking the alleys where vamps liked to prowl. But there were no vampires to be found. That fact seemed strange to Xander, who vividly remembered the hordes of vamps partying hardy inside the Bronze just the night before.
Xander, Anya, and Giles were just about ready to pack it in, when Giles suggested checking around the Sun theater, where Spike had found the mark of Walpurgis. It wasn't the most promising of leads, but they agreed that it couldn't hurt to look.
There was no one behind the theater, though Giles did indeed see the mark scratched on the wall, as Spike had said. Somehow, it was more unnerving to see it firsthand, even though it most likely meant nothing.
"Just to cap things off," Xander said, "I'm gonna go up on the roof. You guys want to come?"
Anya and Giles slung their crossbows and followed Xander up the fire escape to the emergency exit for the projection booth, then clambered the last few feet up onto the flat, tarred roof. They split up and looked down over the edges of the rooftop, watching for activity.
Soon, as Xander was staring northward over the many flat rooftops of downtown Sunnydale, he felt Anya poking him in the shoulder. He turned to see that she was pointing to the edge of the roof she had been watching from. She waved for Giles to come over, too.
The three crouched by the edge of the roof as Anya pointed out three figures who were walking down the back alley, towards the theater. It was two men and a woman. The men wore shorts and Hawaiian T-shirts -- odd dress, given that they were vampires in full game face.
The female had her undead visage on, as well. She wore jeans and a man's dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up to mid-forearm and the top two buttons undone. Her casual style of dress, in contrast with her vampiric features, made her appearance particularly macabre.
The three vampires stopped behind the theater and began to converse. Giles, Anya, and Xander crouched on the roof, trying to listen to what one of the male vampires was saying.
"So, like, do you want us to do anything when they get here?"
"No," the female said. "Speak, if you must, but do nothing." Giles could hear the hint of an accent, though he couldn't quite place it.
"Right," the first vamp said. "Hey, you know what? After this, we could head for the beach, see if the waves are up-"
The female put a finger to her lips, and the talkative vamp shut up.
Four more vampires came up the alley from the other direction. None of the humans on the rooftops recognized them; whoever they were, they had been either too smart or too unpopular to attend DeSalva's party the previous night.
The four new vamps came to a stop standing abreast across the alley, like a wall. One of the ones in the middle looked over at the woman's two male followers. "Jake," he said. "Bobby. Is this for real? Or have you guys been smoking your Sex Wax?"
"It's totally for real, dude," Bobby said.
The vampire in the middle stepped forward, right in front of the woman. "So you wanna be the master vampire?"
"Yes," she said simply.
"We weren't stupid enough to follow DeSalva. What makes you think we should follow you?"
"I am better than he was," she replied. She didn't say it boastfully, but as if it were simply a matter of fact. "I am Walpurgis."
"Hm," the other vamp said. And then, without warning, he threw a punch straight at her face.
Except her face wasn't there when his fist arrived. The woman had dropped into a crouch; before her attacker could react, she grabbed him around the waist and lifted him on her shoulder like a fireman. Then she dropped him on his head. When he fell forward onto his back, she placed her foot on his throat.
The fallen vamp's friends started to move in, but he raised his hand awkwardly, and they stopped.
"Why did you do that?" the woman asked. The man started to gargle a response, but she made it for him. "You wanted to know for yourself. Who I am."
The prone vampire nodded as best he could.
Walpurgis lifted her foot. The vampire sat up on the concrete, coughing a bit.
"I have studied this place," Walpurgis went on. "Most especially, I have studied the vampires who tried to rule it: the Master, William the Bloody, Angelus, Mr. Joke-"
One of her shorts-clad henchmen tiptoed up and whispered something to her.
"Ah," she said. "Mr. Trick. His time of control was so brief, it is easy to forget his name."
One or two of the vamps who were looking on chuckled.
"In any case," Walpurgis continued, "I have studied their mistakes, their individual flaws. And, for all of them, their downfall was fear. Fear of appearing weak.
"The Master, for example, killed the Three, because he thought that to do otherwise would make his followers believe that he would tolerate failure. And thus, he lost his best soldiers, who had come closer to killing his enemy, the Slayer, than any who preceded them. His fear made him wasteful, and his wastefulness destroyed him."
The other vampires were nodding.
"And had anyone questioned him, pointed out the error of his actions, he would not have listened. He would, instead, have killed any who dared to be smarter than he.
"But I will not make these mistakes. Because you know that I am not weak. I do not have to prove it to you. I am Walpurgis; I am the lightning in the Devil's hand. And those who follow me will-"
Suddenly, Xander leaned out over the top of the wall and fired his crossbow. The bolt zoomed straight at Walpurgis' back.
Without a sound, Walpurgis spun around and slapped it aside.
Xander's eyes went wide. Giles and Anya stood up, preparing for action.
"What did you do that for?" cried Giles in shock.
"I was seizing the moment!" Xander yelled back.
Walpurgis looked at her two henchmen, then pointed up at the three Scoobies. "Kill them, please," she said.
The two shorts-clad vampires leaped up onto the fire escape and climbed towards the roof as fast as their superhuman strength would propel them. Anya fired her crossbow at one of them, but too soon; the bolt was deflected away by the grille-like upper landing of the fire escape. The vamps kept coming.
"Run!" yelled Giles as he slung his own crossbow. He ran to the front of the building, Xander and Anya at his heels, and looked down over the edge. The Sun's marquee was nearly four yards below his feet. Gritting his teeth, he dropped over the edge and landed awkwardly; there was a low metallic boom as his feet struck the flat surface of the marquee. Giles gripped the metal edge with his fingers and lowered himself most of the way to the ground, then fell the last three feet. Two more booming noises from above indicated that Xander and Anya were right behind him.
Xander hit the top of the marquee even more awkwardly than Giles had; his right foot turned sideways with a slight crunching sound. He yelled, and Anya, who had made a better landing, turned to him with a look of fright. "Go!" Xander shouted, waving her on.
Xander was just crawling to the edge when one of his pursuers -- Jake, he thought -- landed next to him, catlike. His yellow eyes regarded Xander with equal measures of amusement and hunger.
"Sorry, little dude. Hope you didn't have any plans for, you know, ever."
"Well," Xander said, still on his back and trying to keep fear from overwhelming him. "I was planning to get religion." He quickly pulled a small crucifix from his jacket and held it up; Jake yelled, "Aw, bogus!" and backed away.
The other vampire, Bobby, hit the roof behind Xander and made a grab for him, then yelled in pain as a bolt from Giles' crossbow hit him in the back. The bolt missed the heart, but the sudden shock of it was enough to make Bobby twist around awkwardly and fall off the marquee.
Xander threw his crucifix at Jake, making him duck and cower for a moment. Xander used those few seconds to scuttle backwards to the edge of the roof, grab it, and drop down. By the time Jake regained his wits enough to go after Xander, Anya had reloaded; she sent a bolt whizzing past the vampire's ear, making him drop down again.
Fortunately, Giles had parked his convertible just down the street; the three humans made a run for it. Xander thanked his lucky stars for the miracle of adrenaline, which enabled him to ignore his pain and run almost as fast as his uninjured friends. Which was a good thing; the two vampires were not far behind.
Giles turned the key in the ignition even as Xander and Anya climbed into the car. Bobby, with Jake right behind him, caught up to them just in time to smell the burning rubber as the car tore off.
Bobby watched them go, visibly pissed off. But something told him he'd see the three humans again.
"Eat you later, dudes," he murmured.
-----
Tara woke up at 2am to the feeling of something warm and wet against her front. She had fallen asleep spoon-style with Willow, but now it felt like she was holding a big towel that someone had accidentally dropped into a hot tub.
"Willow?" Tara said. Willow didn't respond.
Tara rolled over and turned on the light. Willow was shivering, and her nightgown was soaked with sweat. Tara put her hand to her lover's damp forehead and found it alarmingly hot. Even more frightening was how labored Willow's breathing sounded.
"Oh, God," Tara gasped.
She was dialing 911 before she even realized that she'd picked up the phone.
-----
It was almost like a ritual -- meeting in the hospital lobby at some ungodly hour, sipping bad vending-machine coffee, waiting for news from the doctor.
"They took her into an examining room first," Tara said, almost shaking with anxiety, "then they rushed her out of there with a mask over her face. I don't even know w-where they took her."
Xander put his arms around Tara, though it would have been hard for him to say whether he did it for Tara's sake or his own. Anya put on her supportive face, or her best facsimile of one, and Giles busied himself with trying to find out what was going on.
As Giles argued with the desk clerk, who seemed to know less than nothing, a doctor emerged from behind the ER's double doors. Giles recognized him from previous visits to the hospital, and it was clear that the doctor recognized the slender Englishman as well.
"Mister Giles, isn't it?" the man said.
"Yes, Doctor...Greenlea," Giles said; he hadn't quite remembered the man's name, and was grateful that he wore a hospital ID tag.
"Ms. Rosenberg has pneumonia," the doctor said. "We're giving her antibiotics, and we've managed to bring her fever down."
"Well, that's good news," Giles said, relieved.
"But we're keeping her in isolation."
"Why?"
The doctor responded to Giles' question with a question. "Mr. Giles, to your knowledge, does Ms. Rosenberg have any sort of chronic illness?"
"Ah- Not that I know of."
"Does she get sick a lot?"
"No. She's usually quite healthy. What are you getting at?"
"Mr. Giles, we perform a complete blood count on everyone who comes in here with an opportunistic infection like pneumonia; it's a measure of how well their immune system is working. In a healthy person, the white cell count is between six hundred and twelve hundred." The doctor took a breath. "Ms. Rosenberg's is two."
"Two hundred?"
"No," the doctor said flatly. "Two."
"Good Lord!" Giles couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why is this happening to her?"
"We don't know. We're going to do a lot more tests, of course, but right now, we don't know. In any case, we need to keep her in the ICU until the pneumonia clears up and her immune system begins to recover. Otherwise, she could catch something even more dangerous."
The doctor looked around. "Now, I need to get back to her. If you can get in touch with her family, we really should speak to them. Hell, I've told you more than I should, but I know you and she are close."
"Yes," Giles said, looking both upset and thoughtful. "Yes, we are."
When the doctor left, Giles went back to the others and told them what he'd learned from the doctor. Xander and Anya were shocked by the news, but Tara simply said, "I was afraid of something like this."
"Like what?" Xander said. "What are you talking about?"
"Willow's been using a lot of dark magic. A lot. And dark magic always has a price. I kept telling her that, but..." Her voice trailed off as her anxiety overwhelmed it.
"But this is terrible!" Anya cried. "We have a new master vampire who's, like, faster than a speeding bullet, and we have no Buffy, no Spike, and no Willow. Personally, I think it's time to move to Moscow." She looked at the date on her watch. "It's the middle of summer; there's sunlight more than twenty hours a day. And the other four hours, we'll just hang out in one of those big cathedrals with the pointy onion things on top, and put a big cross in front of the door."
"I've a solution even more desperate than that one," Giles said. "I'm calling Angel."
"I don't think it'll help," Xander responded. "I called down there earlier, after you told me Dawn was leaving. I figured it would be nice if Dawn could see a friendly face -- even if it's Cordy's. Anyway, she told me she's barely seen Angel lately. Darla and Drusilla are on another rampage. I don't think he's going to want to leave L.A. while they're loose."
Giles took a breath. "Then I'm calling Travers."
"What?" Xander said. "What's he going to do? Send a bunch of his Council cronies to bore Walpurgis to death?"
Giles looked Xander in the eye. "There is still one person who may have a chance of stopping Walpurgis," Giles said. "And Travers may be able to...make her available."
With that, Giles pulled a calling card from his wallet and headed for the pay phones.
Xander stared blankly after the Watcher for a moment. Then, as a look of realization spread over Xander's face, the young man turned to Anya and Tara. "So," he asked Anya, "How's the job market in Moscow? Do they need carpenters?"
END CHAPTER ONE