Chapter 7: Five Little Indians...
[the next morning]
"Morning…" mumbled Willow, as she fumbled into the dining room. She then saw no one there and groggily sat at the table. She had slept badly and she was sure it showed. She kept dreaming that she was being chased by a huge sheet of ice…
Willow shook her thoughts away. Research… they need to research. After all, what else could they do? She reached over to grab the pitcher of water and saw…
Five Indians. Five… not six. Oh, no… She rushed upstairs and knocked on all the doors, frantically.
As the rest opened theirs door quickly, she counted as each walked into the small hallway. "Three… four… five… whose missing? Spike!"
Willow began to bang on Spike's door, before Buffy grabbed her arm and said, "Willow! What's got into you?"
"Five Indians!" she yelled. "On the table! Spike!"
She continued to try to pound on his door, when Buffy's eyes widened and said, as she ran into her room. "He's not there… He's in the sitting room," she said, showing them the key and running downstairs.
The five of them reached the sitting room as Buffy unlocked the door and looked at the corner Spike had been in.
He wasn't there.
Instead, they saw an almost empty bottle, a book and a broken Indian statue. The walls were blackened and charred.
"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Willow. She ran to the corner and examined it.
"What happened?" asked Cordy.
Willow ran her hand on the wall. "B-burnt. H-he's gone…"
"Yes, but how?" asked Anya, impatiently. "He was already dead!"
"What's that, Willow? By your foot?" asked Angel.
Willow saw what Angel was pointing at and picked it up. A syringe, with a bit of a colorless liquid in it. She allowed a drop to fall on her hand and sniffed it carefully.
"Water," she said, "No almonds."
"How does water…?" started Cordy, then saw as Angel carefully touched the drop on Willow's hand and took away quickly, his finger burnt.
"Holy water," answered Angel. "Someone injected him with a syringeful of holy water."
"Right into his bloodstream," said Willow. "He burned inside out," she said, touching the blackened wall, sick to her stomach.
"Come on," said Anya, unbelieving, "surely Spike would not have let someone do that?"
Willow looked around and picked up the bottle of whiskey. "Since when have you know Spike to get drunk on one bottle? He's drunk Giles under the table before…" She handed the bottle to Angel, who took a small sip.
"It's tainted," he agreed, recovering quickly from the small pain he felt. "But very diluted, almost didn't do a thing…"
"…unless you drink the whole bottle," Cordy added, understanding. "With everything that happened yesterday, he probably didn't notice until he was well into the bottle."
"And we thought he was drunk…" added Angel.
"He was defenseless against his attacker," Willow summed up.
"Six Indian boys playing with a hive; a bumble-bee stung one then there were five…" recited Buffy, sadly. They turned to see her standing behind them, tears streaming down her face,holding the body of a dead bumblebee in between her fingers.
"Buffy?" Angel asked, never thinking she would be so grief-stricken over his childe.
"I failed him, Angel," she moaned. "He was always there when I needed him and I was never there for him. I pushed him away, rejected him… it was never fair…" she sobbed, crumpling to the ground.
Willow went over and took Buffy into her arms as she cried, while the others looked at Buffy, surprised.
"It's not fair!" she told them. "He was a good man! Really good! It's. Just. Not. Fair!"
When Buffy had finally calmed down, the five went into the dining room to have breakfast. No one ate very much, just played with their food as they began to look at each other critically.
"Buffy's acting strange… is she overcompensating? She didn't care for Spike THAT much…"
"Anya's a demon… It has to be Anya…"
"Willow and her magic! She's gone too far!"
"Angelus is back… there's no other option…it can't be…
"Cordy and the demon inside her… no, not Cordy…"
And the killer mentally rolled up sleeves, ready to finally get down to business.
They sat in the sitting room, giving up all pretense of research. Somehow, the answer wasn't in the books. It was in the room. One of them did this. One of them was hurting them, killing them. But who?
Finally Cordy couldn't take it any longer. "I need some time alone. I'm going to my room," she announced.
"Not alone," said Angel, edge to his voice.
"Okay, that's twice now! What? You think I did this?!" she yelled at him.
"You said yourself you don't know about the demon inside you! How are we to know what you now capable of?!"
"What!?" she shrieked. "I can't believe after everything we've been through, you would suspect me!"
"I don't know, Cordy! You hated Xander and Spike! You never thought highly of Giles…"
"I liked Giles! And as much hell as Xander and Spike put me through, I wouldn't kill them!" Cordy crossed her arms. "You know, maybe you did it… You hated Spike, too. And Xander… Maybe you got a happy and Angelus…"
"I'm not Angelus!" he raged.
"Really?! How do we know, you've tricked us before! You've been so calm and collected through this all… maybe you killed them!"
"I… I didn't!" he argued.
"Hmm… we'll see… I got my eye on you… all of you…" said Cordy. Then she poked Anya. "Come with me upstairs," she told her.
Anya rose but then Willow rose, too. "Shouldn't we be three?" she asked them.
Cordy shrugged and said, "Come if you want, but we're five now, odd. So you come with us, Buffy's down here alone with him…" she jerked her thumb at Angel.
Willow hesitated then sat down.
"What, you don't trust me, either?" Angel said, bitterly.
"I don't trust anyone," she countered as Anya and Cordy went upstairs.
Angel sat thoughtfully, then said, "Maybe you should reconsider your alliances, Willow. As I recall, only one of us had access to Spike last night."
"What?" asked Willow, as Buffy's eyes narrowed at Angel.
"You think I killed Spike?" she said.
"You were the only one with a key to the sitting room," he said, nonchalantly. "Stands to reason that…"
"I DID NOT KILL SPIKE!" she yelled at him.
"Really? Then who did? Who could get in here without the key?" he demanded.
"I don't know! I don't know!" she cried out.
"Besides, you never liked Spike anyway, he was your enemy, right?" reasoned Angel.
"That's not true! I loved him!" she screamed. "I loved Spike!"
A silence invaded the room as Angel sat back down, heavily. He looked at her, with anguish in his eyes as she averted her face.
"You what?" he whispered, watching her hiccup sobs.
"I – I – I loved him," she whispered back, watching Willow's look of surprise. "God, I can't believe I couldn't see until now! I… I never told him… I loved him," she said, again, testing the words on her lips, amazed at how light she felt now that she had said them.
But it was all too late.
"God, it's not fair," she moaned, cradling her head in her arms. "It's so not fair…"
They didn't speak for a while, each silently stewing in their own juices. No one knew quite what to say.
After what seemed like hours, they heard a small boom from the cellar and rushed to the small staircase to see what happened. When they saw nothing out of the ordinary, Angel said, "I'm going to go check it out."
"You can't go alone!" cried Willow.
"Why not? It's like either of you will come, I'm the killer, right?" he mocked, reaching for the flashlight.
"But…"
"And if either of you two stays here alone, the killer could get you," he reasoned.
"Yes, but what if the killer is down there and kills you?" she asked.
Angel looked at Willow then at Buffy, intently. "Right now, I'm past caring if I live or die…" he said bitterly, then descended the steps.
Willow looked at Buffy and said, "I don't like this…"
"Me, neither."
"We need to do something…"
Buffy nodded. She went into the kitchen and got a knife. Willow followed her, saw that and said, "I have a stake in my bag upstairs. I snuck it past Giles."
Buffy nodded again. "Go get it."
"But…"
"Go!"
Willow ran upstairs as Buffy walked back to the front hall, towards the cellar door. She had no idea what she was going to do, but the knife in her hand helped her feel better.
She put her hand on the stairway railing and heard Cordy scream. She ran upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. She came to find Cordy crying at Anya's door and Willow breathing hard, stake in hand.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Anya…" hiccupped Cordy. "She's dead…"
"What? How?" asked Buffy.
"Hit… in the head… with a gavel…" she managed to get out, opening the door to show them.
Willow and Buffy saw Anya lying in her bed, covered in a black robe and head covered in a white wig. There was a gavel in her hand and a huge, red mark on her forehead.
Buffy hung her head. "Gavel… Justice… I should have known," she said, closing the door.
"Huh?" asked Willow.
"The poem. Five Indian boys going in for law; one got in Chancery then there were four. Justice… Vengeance… if that doesn't spell Anya, I don't know what does."
Cordy looked around. "Where's Angel?"
"Cellar. We heard a noise…" explained Willow, as Angel came up.
"What? What happened?" he asked.
"Anya," Buffy said, as if that explained everything. "You find something?"
"Busted pipe," he said, looking into the room, then closing it as if her death was somewhat expected. "So, another acquitted too late…" he mused.
"Yeah, seems like," Buffy said, dully, as she led them all downstairs.