Chapter 8: Discoveries
"Stole!"
"Xander, let me just explain----"
"Stole! As in stolen! As in not yours! As in acts of petty theft and misdemeanors! As in something . . ." Xander paused and stopped his long, rushed stride and pointed hatefully at Spike. "As in something HE would do!"
Anya sighed and stopped as well, the moonlit night casting tired shadows across her face. Spike faced an incensed Xander with a cocky expression, while Buffy resignedly stood next to him, her hands cradling her weary head. Dawn had stayed atypically quiet as she followed the group on their trek to the museum and was now worriedly standing behind Buffy in case a brawl between Xander and Spike occur.
"Well how else did you expect me to get you a gift?" Anya wailed. "I was broke! You didn't think I could just up and BUY you a magicky hammering hammer, did you?"
"I don't recall ever ASKING for a possessed tool that goes around smashing up my home furnishings!" Xander heatedly exclaimed. "I never asked you for anything!"
"My point exactly!" Anya responded irately. "You never asked me for anything because you weren't even talking to me! And somehow, I was stupid enough to think that me going out of my way to steal you a gift would change that!" Anya was clearly not as sorry for stealing a priceless artifact as she was that stealing it did nothing to fix her and Xander's relationship.
Xander stared at her disbelievingly. "So you thought engaging in highly illegal acts with my immortal enemy would help us resolve our issues?!"
"Well it's not as if I was one of those drippy girlfriends who gets herself pregnant in desperate attempts to cling on to an indifferent lover and revive a broken relationship by dumping biological blackmail in the boyfriend's unknowing lap. I merely stole an ancient relic from some place that hardly any person visits voluntarily. I mean, come on, a museum? Who's gonna even miss it?"
"Anya!" Xander gawked her with an expression of extreme dismay and chastisement on his face. "You can't justify an action like stealing! It's immoral, unethical, there's no excuse for it whatsoever------"
Dawn cleared her throat uncomfortably and Xander paused as he turned to her with apologetic eyes. "Oh, Dawnie, you know I didn't mean you-------"
Dawn waved a careless hand, feigning breeziness. "No, you're right. I was just so dumb and bratty last year. I'm not even going to try to make excuses for what I did----"
"Why is it okay for Dawn then?" Anya interrupted loudly with a frown flickering across her sulking face. "When she stole all that merchandise from the Magic Box, it was all 'Oh poor Dawn, she's allowed to act the part of a juvenile delinquent because her sister was brought back from the dead'."
"Hey!" Dawn exclaimed, offended.
"And Spike!" Anya continued. "Spike steals stuff all the time and you all don't bat an eye!"
Xander sighed. "Okay Anya, A. Dawn did what she did out of pain-----"
"So did I! I did it out of the pain of having such a jackass for an ex- boyfriend!"
"And B.," Xander went on, ignoring her comment, "Spike is evil. We expect nothing less than criminal actions from him."
Spike opened his mouth to argue this point, tell everyone that there was now sodding definite proof of how wrong this statement was, although it couldn't be seen physically. But he suddenly realized that this wasn't the way he wanted to tell it, especially with Buffy standing right next to him, fuming.
"Look guys, we can't spend all night arguing," Buffy sighed as she scratched where the necklace lay on her neck. "We've got to get the museum, talk to the curator, see what's going on with these gifts."
"And what'll we do?" Spike said, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag. "Just stroll in and say 'Umm, hey there Mister, we're the ones who smashed open your display cases and raided your exhibits, can you bloody well help us?"
"Well you should have THOUGHT of that before you thought visiting museums constituted as one-stop shopping!" Buffy hissed.
Dawn clutched her pounding head, extremely fatigued with all the arguing. "Buffy . . ."
Buffy turned and looked sympathetically towards her drained sister. "It's okay, Dawn, we don't need you to come with us. In fact, I think Willow's headed over to the house anyway, why don't you join her there so she's not completely alone?"
Dawn nodded and trudged off, leaving the group of four, extremely antagonistic ex-lovers to walk in edgy silence.
"Spike's right," Anya finally piped up. "How are we supposed to find the curator at this time of the night? I mean, it's not like school, where the faculty actually LIVE there."
Xander gave an almost-amused sideways glance at Anya, but frowned when he realized the truth in what she was saying. "That's true guys . . . we can't just barge into the museum and expect to find all our answers just waiting for us . . . maybe we should go back and research the hammer and necklace first, then come back in the morning and try and find the curator."
"In the morning?" Buffy screeched, still clinging to her neck. "I can't wait for the morning! This necklace is . . . giving me a rash or something!" Xander, Anya and Spike went over to her to investigate and sure enough, the skin around the necklace was turning bright red. Spike faintly touched her with concern.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
Buffy paused again at his touch, but quickly swatted his hand away. "Yes," she replied flatly. "It does. It feels like it's burning me and itching me and I . . . ugh! I can't stand it!" She had to force her hands not to ragingly scratch her already inflamed neck. Spike turned to Xander with apprehension.
"She's right, I don't think we should wait till morning," he said. "We have to find out what this necklace is doing to her."
"It wouldn't be doing ANYTHING to her if it wasn't for you-----"
Spike clenched his fists and stalked near Xander. "Oh shut your GOB, Harris, before I permanently shut it for you!"
"Enough!" Buffy yelled, throwing her hands out towards the dueling males of the group. "Just enough! I say as long as we're headed towards the museum, we look there for information and clues. We might not find something, but at least we've got nothing to lose, right? But it would make this whole thing a HELL of a lot easier if you two stopped getting all testosterone- happy and kept your mouths shut!" With that, she stomped through the soft grass away from the rest, her arms crossed, trying to resist the temptation to scour the skin of her neck raw. Sighing, Anya looked to Spike and Xander with a vexed expression, rolled her eyes and trailed after Buffy. Spike and Xander shared an hostile glance before following her.
Soon they approached a large stone building, looking nearly black despite the night's illumination from the glowing moon. It gave off a cold air, as most museums did. But somehow, this building was different. Two snarling animals that looked something like malicious Cereberic-dragon dogs flanked the long stretch of stately stone steps up to the museum. Other hellish and scowling stone creatures and gargoyles decorated the front architecture. Funny how with all her knowledge of Sunnydale landmarks, Buffy had never seen or heard of this particular museum before. Gazing at the eerie structure with less Slayer-initiative than before, she chirped weakly, "Now what?"
"Now what?" Xander repeated, surprised at Buffy's hesitancy. "Now you go and kick in the museum door and we storm in with Scooby-stalwartness, that's what!"
Spike snorted. "Scooby-stupidity is more like it. You can't just bust in the door in, you gotta go about this business in a covert manner."
"Criminal manner, you mean."
Spike gritted his teeth and willed himself to ignore the urge to gut Xander with a nearby wooden pole. "Anya and I know how to get inside the museum without setting off the alarms."
Xander grimaced at Anya, who straightened, grinning with pride at having gained experience and knowledge in the thievery field. "What?" Anya chirped, off his look. "It's not like we're breaking into the Pentagon here . . . although now I'm kinda itching to try it . . ."
Spike was already trying to scale the museum walls, grabbing on the thick vines of ivy covering the gray stone. Buffy and the rest watched him as he swiftly made his way up, climbing finally onto the roof.
"Alright, I'll climb through the glass window on the top," he called. "Then when I get inside, I'll let you all in."
"I thought most museums nowadays installed alarms on their whole premises, laser beams that can judge if anybody is anywhere on the floor. Won't it go off if you touch the ground inside?" Xander called back up at Spike.
"The laser beams judge by body temperature. If the laser beams get the indication that there's anyone hotter that 90 degrees whooping it up in the place, then the alarm will go off." Spike was beginning to pry open the flat window on the roof. "That's where being a cold-bodied, walking corpse comes in handy." He grunted as he popped off the lock on one of the window panes. "When I let you in, I'll deactivate the alarms." Finally, succeeding in getting part of the window open, he slithered his legs through, preparing to jump down onto the museum floor.
Sweeping down onto it, he rejoiced as the only thing he heard was his Doc Martens pounding to the linoleum. He then edged near the front of the museum, past many dark looking exhibits, to a small black box next to the main entrance. Opening it, he remembered the code that his demon friend, who was a hacker, had given to him. He punched in 56-A-17568-BKU onto the keypad. It had worked the first time, so he wasn't worried that anything would go wrong. But suddenly, as he finished punching, a blaring siren screamed out into the dark air as a red light pulsed on and off frenetically. Panicked, Spike glanced around and soon the front doors threw open with some unseen force. Xander, Buffy and Anya flew into the entrance, looking like they were pushed by the same invisible power, yelping as they were thrown onto the floor. Spike was pushed down from where he was and thrown onto the floor, landing next to Buffy.
Alarmed and fearful, the foursome looked around until they detected a strange glow slowly emerging from the darkness. A man, grasping onto a candle and guarding the withering flame with one hand, approached them with a smile. His appearance was quite ordinary, not seemingly suspicious in the slightest; his gray hair was slicked stylishly back, and a clean and tidy beard covered his face. He wore a pair of glasses and a blue sports jacket with a coat of arms on it along a fancy French cravat. Overall, he looked like a rather suave man easing gracefully into a healthy old age. He must have been the curator. Still smiling mysteriously, he stopped, his shiny patent leather shoes ceasing to make a clack on the floor. He gazed down at the inopportune group in a sort of detached, knowing manner and murmured in a booming, rich voice, "Well look what we've got here . . . "
"Stole!"
"Xander, let me just explain----"
"Stole! As in stolen! As in not yours! As in acts of petty theft and misdemeanors! As in something . . ." Xander paused and stopped his long, rushed stride and pointed hatefully at Spike. "As in something HE would do!"
Anya sighed and stopped as well, the moonlit night casting tired shadows across her face. Spike faced an incensed Xander with a cocky expression, while Buffy resignedly stood next to him, her hands cradling her weary head. Dawn had stayed atypically quiet as she followed the group on their trek to the museum and was now worriedly standing behind Buffy in case a brawl between Xander and Spike occur.
"Well how else did you expect me to get you a gift?" Anya wailed. "I was broke! You didn't think I could just up and BUY you a magicky hammering hammer, did you?"
"I don't recall ever ASKING for a possessed tool that goes around smashing up my home furnishings!" Xander heatedly exclaimed. "I never asked you for anything!"
"My point exactly!" Anya responded irately. "You never asked me for anything because you weren't even talking to me! And somehow, I was stupid enough to think that me going out of my way to steal you a gift would change that!" Anya was clearly not as sorry for stealing a priceless artifact as she was that stealing it did nothing to fix her and Xander's relationship.
Xander stared at her disbelievingly. "So you thought engaging in highly illegal acts with my immortal enemy would help us resolve our issues?!"
"Well it's not as if I was one of those drippy girlfriends who gets herself pregnant in desperate attempts to cling on to an indifferent lover and revive a broken relationship by dumping biological blackmail in the boyfriend's unknowing lap. I merely stole an ancient relic from some place that hardly any person visits voluntarily. I mean, come on, a museum? Who's gonna even miss it?"
"Anya!" Xander gawked her with an expression of extreme dismay and chastisement on his face. "You can't justify an action like stealing! It's immoral, unethical, there's no excuse for it whatsoever------"
Dawn cleared her throat uncomfortably and Xander paused as he turned to her with apologetic eyes. "Oh, Dawnie, you know I didn't mean you-------"
Dawn waved a careless hand, feigning breeziness. "No, you're right. I was just so dumb and bratty last year. I'm not even going to try to make excuses for what I did----"
"Why is it okay for Dawn then?" Anya interrupted loudly with a frown flickering across her sulking face. "When she stole all that merchandise from the Magic Box, it was all 'Oh poor Dawn, she's allowed to act the part of a juvenile delinquent because her sister was brought back from the dead'."
"Hey!" Dawn exclaimed, offended.
"And Spike!" Anya continued. "Spike steals stuff all the time and you all don't bat an eye!"
Xander sighed. "Okay Anya, A. Dawn did what she did out of pain-----"
"So did I! I did it out of the pain of having such a jackass for an ex- boyfriend!"
"And B.," Xander went on, ignoring her comment, "Spike is evil. We expect nothing less than criminal actions from him."
Spike opened his mouth to argue this point, tell everyone that there was now sodding definite proof of how wrong this statement was, although it couldn't be seen physically. But he suddenly realized that this wasn't the way he wanted to tell it, especially with Buffy standing right next to him, fuming.
"Look guys, we can't spend all night arguing," Buffy sighed as she scratched where the necklace lay on her neck. "We've got to get the museum, talk to the curator, see what's going on with these gifts."
"And what'll we do?" Spike said, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag. "Just stroll in and say 'Umm, hey there Mister, we're the ones who smashed open your display cases and raided your exhibits, can you bloody well help us?"
"Well you should have THOUGHT of that before you thought visiting museums constituted as one-stop shopping!" Buffy hissed.
Dawn clutched her pounding head, extremely fatigued with all the arguing. "Buffy . . ."
Buffy turned and looked sympathetically towards her drained sister. "It's okay, Dawn, we don't need you to come with us. In fact, I think Willow's headed over to the house anyway, why don't you join her there so she's not completely alone?"
Dawn nodded and trudged off, leaving the group of four, extremely antagonistic ex-lovers to walk in edgy silence.
"Spike's right," Anya finally piped up. "How are we supposed to find the curator at this time of the night? I mean, it's not like school, where the faculty actually LIVE there."
Xander gave an almost-amused sideways glance at Anya, but frowned when he realized the truth in what she was saying. "That's true guys . . . we can't just barge into the museum and expect to find all our answers just waiting for us . . . maybe we should go back and research the hammer and necklace first, then come back in the morning and try and find the curator."
"In the morning?" Buffy screeched, still clinging to her neck. "I can't wait for the morning! This necklace is . . . giving me a rash or something!" Xander, Anya and Spike went over to her to investigate and sure enough, the skin around the necklace was turning bright red. Spike faintly touched her with concern.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
Buffy paused again at his touch, but quickly swatted his hand away. "Yes," she replied flatly. "It does. It feels like it's burning me and itching me and I . . . ugh! I can't stand it!" She had to force her hands not to ragingly scratch her already inflamed neck. Spike turned to Xander with apprehension.
"She's right, I don't think we should wait till morning," he said. "We have to find out what this necklace is doing to her."
"It wouldn't be doing ANYTHING to her if it wasn't for you-----"
Spike clenched his fists and stalked near Xander. "Oh shut your GOB, Harris, before I permanently shut it for you!"
"Enough!" Buffy yelled, throwing her hands out towards the dueling males of the group. "Just enough! I say as long as we're headed towards the museum, we look there for information and clues. We might not find something, but at least we've got nothing to lose, right? But it would make this whole thing a HELL of a lot easier if you two stopped getting all testosterone- happy and kept your mouths shut!" With that, she stomped through the soft grass away from the rest, her arms crossed, trying to resist the temptation to scour the skin of her neck raw. Sighing, Anya looked to Spike and Xander with a vexed expression, rolled her eyes and trailed after Buffy. Spike and Xander shared an hostile glance before following her.
Soon they approached a large stone building, looking nearly black despite the night's illumination from the glowing moon. It gave off a cold air, as most museums did. But somehow, this building was different. Two snarling animals that looked something like malicious Cereberic-dragon dogs flanked the long stretch of stately stone steps up to the museum. Other hellish and scowling stone creatures and gargoyles decorated the front architecture. Funny how with all her knowledge of Sunnydale landmarks, Buffy had never seen or heard of this particular museum before. Gazing at the eerie structure with less Slayer-initiative than before, she chirped weakly, "Now what?"
"Now what?" Xander repeated, surprised at Buffy's hesitancy. "Now you go and kick in the museum door and we storm in with Scooby-stalwartness, that's what!"
Spike snorted. "Scooby-stupidity is more like it. You can't just bust in the door in, you gotta go about this business in a covert manner."
"Criminal manner, you mean."
Spike gritted his teeth and willed himself to ignore the urge to gut Xander with a nearby wooden pole. "Anya and I know how to get inside the museum without setting off the alarms."
Xander grimaced at Anya, who straightened, grinning with pride at having gained experience and knowledge in the thievery field. "What?" Anya chirped, off his look. "It's not like we're breaking into the Pentagon here . . . although now I'm kinda itching to try it . . ."
Spike was already trying to scale the museum walls, grabbing on the thick vines of ivy covering the gray stone. Buffy and the rest watched him as he swiftly made his way up, climbing finally onto the roof.
"Alright, I'll climb through the glass window on the top," he called. "Then when I get inside, I'll let you all in."
"I thought most museums nowadays installed alarms on their whole premises, laser beams that can judge if anybody is anywhere on the floor. Won't it go off if you touch the ground inside?" Xander called back up at Spike.
"The laser beams judge by body temperature. If the laser beams get the indication that there's anyone hotter that 90 degrees whooping it up in the place, then the alarm will go off." Spike was beginning to pry open the flat window on the roof. "That's where being a cold-bodied, walking corpse comes in handy." He grunted as he popped off the lock on one of the window panes. "When I let you in, I'll deactivate the alarms." Finally, succeeding in getting part of the window open, he slithered his legs through, preparing to jump down onto the museum floor.
Sweeping down onto it, he rejoiced as the only thing he heard was his Doc Martens pounding to the linoleum. He then edged near the front of the museum, past many dark looking exhibits, to a small black box next to the main entrance. Opening it, he remembered the code that his demon friend, who was a hacker, had given to him. He punched in 56-A-17568-BKU onto the keypad. It had worked the first time, so he wasn't worried that anything would go wrong. But suddenly, as he finished punching, a blaring siren screamed out into the dark air as a red light pulsed on and off frenetically. Panicked, Spike glanced around and soon the front doors threw open with some unseen force. Xander, Buffy and Anya flew into the entrance, looking like they were pushed by the same invisible power, yelping as they were thrown onto the floor. Spike was pushed down from where he was and thrown onto the floor, landing next to Buffy.
Alarmed and fearful, the foursome looked around until they detected a strange glow slowly emerging from the darkness. A man, grasping onto a candle and guarding the withering flame with one hand, approached them with a smile. His appearance was quite ordinary, not seemingly suspicious in the slightest; his gray hair was slicked stylishly back, and a clean and tidy beard covered his face. He wore a pair of glasses and a blue sports jacket with a coat of arms on it along a fancy French cravat. Overall, he looked like a rather suave man easing gracefully into a healthy old age. He must have been the curator. Still smiling mysteriously, he stopped, his shiny patent leather shoes ceasing to make a clack on the floor. He gazed down at the inopportune group in a sort of detached, knowing manner and murmured in a booming, rich voice, "Well look what we've got here . . . "