CHAPTER 6: LOST AND FOUND

Don't want to follow
Down roads been walked before
It's so hard to find unopened doors
Are you ready? Are you ready?
Hey, Mr. Hero Walking a thin, fine line
Under the microscope of life
Remember your roots, my friend
They're right down below
'Cause heroes come and heroes go
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one
Count down to the change in life that's soon to come
Your life has just begun

            ~ Are You Ready?, Creed
______________________________________________

The sun had risen, its newborn pink blossoming into full yellow by the time Faith arrived back at the house. She entered quietly, hoping to slip up the stairs and to bed before talking to Beatrice, but as she passed the kitchen doorway, she saw Beatrice there, waiting for her—at least, she assumed it was Beatrice. It was hard to tell with the open Sunnydale Press obscuring its reader. She was sitting at the table, seemingly engrossed in reading, and Faith thought there might still be a chance to slip by…

As if she sensed Faith's thought, the paper rustled, lowering to reveal Beatrice's eyes. "Good morning, Faith. How did it go?"

"The winner and still champion, all in one piece." Faith shrugged and stepped closer to the kitchen, leaning against the doorway. "Just like old times."

Beatrice waited a moment, and when Faith offered no further information, she set the paper down in front of her, rested her elbows on it, and leaned forward intently. "Yes, that's very informative… but did you have any actual encounters?"

She straightened her posture a little and smiled. "Three vamps," she confirmed with pride. "Dusted 'em all."

"Very good. Could you be a little more specific?" Beatrice asked wryly.

Faith sighed, impatient, and tilted her head toward her shoulder as if to say it was no big deal. "Not much to tell. I was patrolling by the old unnamed graveyard; I saw sneaky vampires crossing the road to the cemetery; I totally kicked their asses." She shrugged again.

Beatrice blinked. "You mean the graveyard on Mayer Street? Near the park?"

"That's the one."

"Really?" Beatrice seemed fascinated by the information, her gaze growing even more intent. "What were they doing?"

She shifted uncomfortably against the doorjamb, her voice taking on a defensive quality. "What do you mean?"

"You said they were sneaking… what were they doing?"

"Who knows?" Faith replied, glancing away. "You can never tell with those wacky vamps."

Beatrice pursed her lips, looked down at her paper, and then proceeded to fold it so that the article she was reading faced the outside.

"What happened to the books?" Beatrice asked.

"What?" Faith blurted, looking startled.

"The books," Beatrice said patiently. She turned the paper toward Faith so that she could see the headline of the article Beatrice had been reading; 'Rare Books Stolen' it said in bold black letters, and then underneath, in smaller print, 'Owner Says Antique Books Were Irreplaceable'. Next to it there was a picture of the storefront across the street from the graveyard.

Damn! The paper had the story already? It had happened early yesterday evening, sure, but still, she hadn't seen any police. Then again, they hadn't stuck around long after the fight, except to gather up all the books and the… robot.

"Surely the two events are related, considering how close the vampires were to the store," Beatrice remarked, studying Faith curiously.

"I—I didn't see any books."

"Faith…" Beatrice's voice betrayed just a touch of disappointment, the slightest hint of a warning.

"I said I didn't! What? You don't believe me?" she challenged angrily, pushing off the doorjamb.

She hated to lie, but she didn't know what else to do—she hadn't expected Beatrice to know about the books. Angel had taken them back to the mansion to try and translate them, but she could hardly tell Beatrice that. First of all she'd probably freak out over Angel hanging around, and second, then she'd know Faith had been lying. And, she hated to admit it, but there was part of her that was angry about being thought of as a liar, even if the description fit her right now. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time…

"Should I believe you?" Beatrice asked calmly, arching an eyebrow at Faith. She sounded as if she truly wanted to know.

"What do you think?" Faith fairly spat the words.

"I think I want to believe you… but I think your past and your extensive dossier make it difficult."

"And I think you're wasting my time," she shot back, giving her Watcher a last angry look before she turned on her heel and went up the stairs to her room.

"You're the only one who can change that, Faith," Beatrice called after her, not certain if the Slayer heard her.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs, leaving Beatrice alone to contemplate what she was going to put in her first 'Slayer progress report'.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Willow paced the length of the checkout counter at the Magic Box, crossing and uncrossing her arms in agitation. It had been a long thirty-six hours and she was extremely cranky, having spent most of the night studying spell books and the entirety of her day searching Sunnydale for a trace of the Buffy-bot. She was tired, hungry and frustrated, and she was running low on patience with the off-hand dismissals she was getting from the rest of the group.

"Are you certain she was repaired properly?" Giles asked, looking up from the book he was perusing.

"Yes!" Willow snapped in annoyance, and then grimaced in realization of her tone. She glanced around, making sure there were no customers present in the shop, and then lowered her voice anyway. "Sorry. But yes! I'm sure she was. It took me forever to get the wiring on the head just right. And then the reprogramming—I'm still not even done with that! I'd barely even gotten started."

"Then she's out there trolling for sex with Spike right now," Anya concluded sensibly. "Have you checked his crypt?"

Willow made a face and shook her head. "No, she's not there. I wiped that part of her program. And besides, I checked!" she added when Anya gave her a disbelieving look.

"Then perhaps she ran into something she couldn't handle?" Giles asked.

Willow shrugged, seeming uncertain. "I don't know. Maybe. I know that we've got to find her!"

Xander spoke up from his seat at the table. "I don't know, Will… it's kind of weird, having her around."

Giles nodded thoughtfully in agreement and Willow shot him a wounded look of betrayal. "Well, it is," he said, sounding only faintly indignant as he defended himself.

"You all agreed that this is what we needed to do," she said quietly.

"Yeah…" Xander hedged, shifting in his seat. "But that was before…"

"Before what?" Willow asked, her voice challenging.

Xander looked away from her intense gaze and shrugged in answer.

"It—it just… doesn't seem right somehow," Giles said, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could. He didn't want to upset Willow, but having the Buffy-bot around was almost too much for him to bear. He could only imagine how it must be for the others, especially—

"I don't like it, either," Dawn said moodily, not bothering to look up from the table. She'd barely said a word since Buffy died, and as a result, they often forgot she was there at all. Everyone stopped, as if suddenly aware she existed, looking at her, and then, almost as one, they all looked away again, as if the guilt were too much to bear. "She thinks she is Buffy."

"And she's so… perky," Xander added uncertainly, as if it offended him but he wasn't sure why it should.

"It's just too painful, Willow," Giles concluded quietly.

"I don't know how you can stand it," Xander added.

"Plan B, remember? She's all we've got!" Willow countered desperately. "If the monsters figure out that Buffy is… then what will we do?"

For a long moment no one said anything, and at last, Anya raised her hand. "We could live underground like those mole-people we saw in that movie last night." Everyone turned to look at her, and she smiled, oblivious to the strange looks they were giving her. "It was so romantic. Especially the part when the man proposed to the—"

Xander forced a laugh and waved his hand through the air as if to make light of the comment. "We were watching The Time Machine," he explained uneasily.

Anya sighed and gave him a resigned look, glanced down at her unadorned ring finger, then went back to stocking the shelves.

Willow ignored the comment, looking at each of them imploringly. "So we just let her go because it's a little weird? The monsters will come, and… What if Dawn's dad finds out? You know he'll never let her stay with us. And we can't do patrol forever… we're not built to keep a Slayer's sleep schedule."

She knew she sounded a little more desperate than she should have been, but she hoped they would chalk it up to grief over Buffy. She was desperate—she needed them to want the Buffy-bot around, no matter how weird it seemed. The stress of trying to find the right resurrection spell was starting to wear heavily on her, and what she really needed was more time to do research; time she wouldn't have if she had to head up patrolling. And, there was the fact that everything she'd said was true, even if it wasn't her main focus. Besides… having the Buffy-bot around was like a prequel to having the real Buffy back. She'd hoped it would help pave the way in everyone's minds for the real Slayer's eventual return.

The silence in the room was almost palpable, everyone glancing at everyone else, trying to gauge their answer.

"I don't like it," Dawn said again, her voice quavering.

"Dawnie…" Willow frowned sadly, regarding the younger girl. Of them all, Dawn was the one she worried most about. She had suffered more than any of them had at her age, and Willow often wondered how much permanent damage had been done to the girl. From finding out she wasn't even human up until a year ago, to discovering she was the key to the destruction of the universe, to losing first her mother and then her sister to sudden death, Dawn had had a pretty rough life for someone who was technically only one year old.

Still… this was important, as important to Dawn as any of them, even if she wasn't aware of it yet, and she couldn't let Dawn's sentimentality get in the way of reality. She didn't want to hurt her, but, if things worked out the way she hoped they were going to, it wouldn't be long until Buffy was back—and then Dawn would be so much happier that the Buffy-bot would be a distant memory.

"Do you have any better ideas?" she asked the younger girl, her voice soft. When Dawn didn't answer, she continued, "The Buffy-bot is the only way we can take care of the world and you."

Dawn looked away, silence her only answer.

"Dawn?" she pressed.

"Okay," Dawn muttered unhappily, still not looking at her.

"It's for the best," Willow said softly, still speaking to Dawn. Then, raising her voice, "That's one. What about the rest of you?"

There were more exchanged glances and much shuffling of feet, until at last everyone nodded their silent agreement.

"Of course you're right, Willow," Giles said in that quiet, reasonable way he had that set her heart at ease. "We'll find her."

Satisfied, Willow nodded. She felt bad about pressuring everyone into agreement, but it was only out of necessity. A few more weeks, and hopefully there would be no more need for these types of arguments.

"So how do we find her?" Xander asked after a moment.

And now they were back to the crux of the problem. "I don't know…" Willow said sullenly as she sat down on the edge of the table.

"What about a spell?" Anya asked as she slid a book into place on a shelf.

"Oh, locator spells don't work on anything without a human essence," Tara said, almost apologetically.

"Well, we can do it the gumshoe way," Xander said, warming to the subject. "Who can we beat up on today?" he asked, rubbing his hands together in mock-anticipation.

Willow brightened, looking at Xander with a wicked gleam in her eye. "I think I know just the guy."

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Willy the Snitch wiped down the bar top and did a quick mental inventory of his liquor stock. He still had a few more things to take care of before he opened for the evening, but with an hour to spare until then, he figured there was no need to rush.

When the door bell clanged, announcing the arrival of a new customer, he tucked the bar rag into his belt apron and stood straight, yelling, "We're not open ye—"

That was all he got out before he was pinned to the wall behind the bar, his rear end pinching uncomfortably against the deep sink.

He couldn't move, but he could speak, and he groaned in misery as he caught sight of his assailant. "You again."

"Again?" Xander mouthed quietly, looking at Willow.

"Spell component," Willow whispered nervously as an aside to Xander and Spike. Then, trying to push her features into an expression of intimidating anger, she intoned, "Don't incur my wrath, little man. Tell us what we want to know and we won't hurt you."

"Much," Spike added.

"Hah! You guys don't scare me. Hell, even Spike can't touch me since he had the operation. And the human boy there—gah!" Willy choked as Willow tightened her spell-grip around him. Her expression was still only a parody of anger, but suddenly he didn't feel like risking the reality. He'd nearly ticked her off last week, and he still had the bruises to prove it.

"Huhh," he breathed, feeling her grip loosen a bit. "Okay, maybe you scare me a little, Witchy. But I like that in a woman. If you ever need a real man to escort you around town and do your dirty work, my number's on the matchbooks."

"Don't flatter yourself, Willy," Spike said, moving toward him. "I hear they call you Wee-Willy-Winkie 'hind your back 'round here, and I'm sure the lady here'd just love a firsthand look at why."

"Okay, okay!" Willy spoke up quickly. "What is it you wanna know?"

"The Slayer," Spike said as if that explained everything, his tone commanding. "What have you heard?"

"What?" Willy laughed nervously with what little air he had in his lungs. "I thought you guys were her buds?"

Willow tightened her grip and Spike took another step toward him.

"Okay! Ow!" he said, looking pointedly at Willow, who looked mildly chagrined and loosened her spell.

"I don't know nothin' about Buffy. I heard she died in that weird electrical storm a few weeks back, but just rumors, you know. Wishful monster thinkin'. I heard someone saw her a coupla nights ago, but mostly the buzz has been about the new Slayer in town."

Willy fell into the deep sink as Willow let go of him in shock. He tried to push himself up and out, but found that he was wedged deep inside, folded in half, his nose pressed against his knees. He had a few seconds to wonder if they were just going to leave him there, and then he felt the metal faucet scrape his back as he was hauled out of the sink and to his feet by his collar.

Spike's face was dangerous as he eyed Willy, irises hard as stone and flecked with fire. "What did you say?"

"There's a new Slayer in town, according to one of the vamps that was in here last night." Willy's eyes flickered back and forth between them all. "Said he almost got nailed by her."

The vampire had, in fact, said he'd gotten caught between two Slayers, if you could believe that. Willy chalked that up to big talk; he'd heard the 'I got caught between two Slayers' story more times than he could count ever since that foreign girl had shown up with Buffy a few years back. Besides, this guy was new in town, and new vamps always had something to prove. The second Slayer though, he believed that part. He'd heard rumors from other sources about her arrival. The part that was hard to figure was who she was, exactly.

"Where?" Spike asked, his voice hard and cold.

"I don't know," Willy answered truthfully. "Nobody even knows who she is, yet. All this guy saw was that she was about yay tall," he held his hand out, palm down at about his nose level, "with long, dark hair. Said she was kind of a looker, from what little bit of a glance he got."

Spike eyed Willy for a moment more, and then shoved the barkeep away, wincing slightly as the chip flared to painful life in his head. He clenched one hand into a fist, as if he longed for something, or perhaps someone, to hit, and then he spun and stalked out the door without another word.

After a moment, Xander and Willow followed him.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Spike stormed down the street, leather trench coat flaring behind him like an extension of his anger. He didn't even know why he was so upset… it was par for course: the way of the world. One Slayer dies and another is called. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Hell, he'd even perpetuated the cycle two times in his past. He knew exactly how it worked. Why the hell was it bothering him so much now?

He could hear the others trailing behind him, shuffling nervously, uncertain. With a snort of bitter laughter, he realized that they knew as well as he did why this was such a big deal. Another Slayer had been called… and that meant that Buffy was really and truly dead.

Somehow, that simple fact, that cycle of the supernatural, brought her death home to him in a way nothing else had. He had wept over her broken body, helped to dig the grave her body lay in, watched as the others had set the headstone in place that marked her passing… and through it all, somehow, she had lived on in his heart. He hadn't really said goodbye, hadn't been ready to let her go, and now the world threatened to pull from him even the thin comfort of his heart, the hazy hope of his dreams. He'd had nights when he wondered if the mourning would ever end… now he wondered if it had even truly begun.

He stopped in front of a narrow alley, thrusting his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, and threw back his head, closing his eyes as he took a deep breath, steadying himself.

A new Slayer. Right, then.

He turned and made his way down the alley without so much as a backward glance.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

"Wow, a new Slayer," Xander said, his voice devoid of any emotion save shock.

Beside him Willow nodded, too shocked, herself, to think of anything to say.

Xander watched Spike turn the corner and considered going after him, then decided to let him have his James Dean moment. He'd only say something to piss Spike off, anyway. Restlessly, he kicked at a can in the gutter, and it skittered down the curb with an ugly grating sound. He reflected that the sound pretty much summed up how he felt right now, and kicked it again as he caught up with it.

"It's funny," he said, after a moment. "Even though it kills me, I almost feel like we should… you know… go to her. I mean—she could probably use some help, and who knows the terrain better than us?" He risked a sidelong glance at Willow, wondering what she thought.

She stopped walking and turned to look at him, her face a turmoil of warring emotions. "I know," she said quietly. "But no."

"I know it seems… blasphemous, but think—"

"No," she said again, and even though her voice was quiet, he felt the force of the command behind it.

"Well, what else do we have to do?" he asked defensively, taking on an edge of sarcasm.

She looked down at the ground, opened her mouth to speak, closed it again. Wrapping her arms around her body as if she were cold, she seemed to look everywhere but directly at him.

He had turned to begin walking again when she finally spoke.

"There's something we need to talk about…"

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

In the late hours before dawn, far beneath Sunnydale, the woman known to her followers only as "mistress" sat sprawled in a throne-like chair, turning the pages of an ancient text.

It was written in Sumerian, as she had requested, but it was exceedingly difficult to read, and she wondered if perhaps it was written in some sort of local ancient dialect. At any rate, it didn't seem to have any of the information she required, and after a moment she slammed the tome shut and placed it on the table beside her.

Perhaps if she'd had the other books her followers had gathered for her…

But the Slayer had seen to that, ensuring that all the books, save this one, never reached their destination. She had worried that the new Slayer might interfere with her plans, but she'd been confident, based on the intelligence she'd been able to gather, that she could handle this Chosen One. What she hadn't counted on was the Slayer having help.

Angelus…

She couldn't afford to go up against him yet… but soon, very soon, there would come a reckoning between them… and then, scores old and new would be settled.

Her face twisted in disgust as she thought of the souled vampire. Of all the supporters the Slayer could have, Angelus was by far the most dangerous. He above all had the most chance of figuring out her intent… and according to her followers, he had possession of the texts she needed right now.

She clenched one hand in a fist, nails digging deep into her flesh, and blood welled from the shallow crescents, the sharp, coppery scent attracting the attention of her nearest minion.

"Mistress?" he asked hesitantly, his form shadowy in the flickering candlelight, becoming more visible as he stepped toward her.

She rose from her seat and folded her arms over her chest, regarding the vampire thoughtfully for a moment before she turned and began pacing the length of the dais.

"Angelus has my texts…"

"Yes, mistress," the vampire replied, almost apologetic, lowering his eyes from her burning gaze respectfully.

"They must be regained," she said, her voice quivering with the rage of her command.

"Yes, mistress," the vampire answered again. Without daring to look up at her, he spoke up nervously. "But mistress, several of us have tried already this night to enter Angelus' home… it is protected by a spell that keeps us out."

She stopped pacing and the vampire cringed in anticipation of her rage, but she only stood there, staring at him, and then she turned back to her pacing.

"Then we will find another way," she said quietly, resolutely. From the edge of his vision, he saw her step from the dais, moving toward the silver coffin that lay at the center of the room.

"The day draws near," she said, running a hand over the coffin almost reverently, her flesh not quite daring to touch the metal itself for fear of its protective spells. Her eyes caressed it like a lover, and for a moment, she seemed overwhelmed by its very presence, forgetting that she'd been speaking. After a long silence, she moved again, circling the coffin like a shark until she stopped on the opposite side. "There is much to be done in the time we have, and I cannot afford the interference of this would-be Angel."

"He seems resolved to stay, mistress. He renovates his dwelling."

"Yes," she said absently. "He would." Her gaze fell upon the intricately carved coffin again, eyes tracing the delicate designs of power. "Very well then. Let him keep the books."

"Mistress?" the vampire asked, confused.

"'Better is a handful of quietness than both the hands full of labor and striving after wind.'" Her eyes lost and far away, she didn't appear to hear her minion at all. After a moment, she nodded, as if in agreement with herself.

"Bring me my spell components," she commanded the vampire, walking back to her throne chair.

If Angelus thought he was safe just because he had a protective spell, he was wrong.

Dead wrong.