"I've called this Scooby meeting to talk about our favorite blood-sucking pain in the ass, Spike," Buffy addressed the group in the Magic Box.

She, Tara, Willow, Xander, Anya and Giles were all gathered around the reading table in the shop. The recent events had convinced her that something was up with Spike. With her mom so sick, and the threat of Glory looming over them, she couldn't take any more strain.

While she would have liked to believe that Spike's seeming change of heart was genuine, she knew better. Spike was a soulless demon, unable to love and incapable of doing good. His recent behavior opened old wounds earned during her time with Angel, wounds caused by her ill-fated love affair with a demon. She could not repeat her previous mistakes. Joyce and Dawn adored Spike, and he was making progress in winning over her friends, but she couldn't afford the luxury of forgetting what he was; to do so could mean the death of them all.

So if she could not bring herself to see him as anything other than a serial killer in prison, then she had no choice but to conclude that he had some hidden agenda for being so helpful. With so much a stake: her mom, her sister, her friends, she had no patience for unexpected variables. If the bleached wonder knew something, he was going to give over, even if she had to drag it out of him by his insides.

"I think he knows something that he isn't telling us. He's been around an awful lot lately and it seems like he's been in all the right places at the right times. I don't think it's a coincidence," she continued.

Giles cleaned his glasses, his face pensive. "I will admit that his presence has been rather fortuitous as of late."

"Exactly. He knew about the space demon, and I'm pretty sure he knew about the snake. We know he knew about the spell of un-seeing Tara cast. He's been patrolling, hanging around my mom and Dawn, and behaving like a guard dog for the past four weeks, and it's giving me the creeps. He's up to something and that can't be of the good."

Tara, concerned by the look in Buffy's eyes and the general looks of wariness on the others, felt compelled to speak up in Spike's defense. She knew that something had profoundly changed the vampire. His aura was completely different, and she strongly suspected that he had a soul, but she wasn't sure. She would need Willow's help to ascertain that, and she knew from Spike's reaction to her questioning looks that he didn't want anyone to know. Still, she was certain that his motivations were noble.

"I… I d--don't think he means us any h--harm," she stuttered. "I mean, ev--everything he's done so far has been to help us."

Buffy and Willow gave her sympathetic looks, and Buffy had to harden her heart at the sight of Tara's earnest face. She hadn't known Spike during the time of Angelus, or lived through the terror of those months. Tara couldn't know Spike's true evil nature because she'd never seen it.

"Tara, baby, I know you haven't been with us all that long, but Spike's plotted against us before," Willow said gently.

"I know about…about what he d--did with Adam," she argued, slightly miffed. "What I'm… I'm saying is that I… I don-- don't think his motivations are evil here."

"He's a demon, Tara, his motivations are always evil," Xander countered.

"B… but he's helped us before," she pressed.

"While Spike has been useful in the past, he is still a demon, Tara," Giles explained. "As a demon, he is not capable of unselfish acts. Every time he has helped us, ultimately it has been revealed that his reasons were self-serving in some manner."

Tara was convinced they were wrong, but afraid to tell them why. She had seen the look on Spike's face the night he stood with them against her family. He knew that she could see through his façade and had been afraid. Whatever his secrets, they weren't hers to reveal and she wasn't about to break the confidence.

"But… but how can his helping us now be self-serving?"

"His ultimate agenda may yet be revealed," Giles answered.

"Unless he's working with Glory," Buffy said. It was a stretch, but it was possible.

"No!" Tara denied. "I can't believe that. Everything he's done has been to help us fight Glory. Even when he was working with Adam and pretending to be working with us, it was obvious that he had ulterior motives."

Willow, surprised and concerned by her lover's vehemence, and inclined to trust Tara's intuition, tried to find a reasonable explanation.

"Maybe he isn't working with her, but I don't think we can deny that he knows what's going on. Maybe he has some kind of inside information."

Giles nodded. "He does seem to have quite a few contacts in the demon world. Perhaps one of them is feeding him information."

"Which he is using to help us," Tara pointed out.

"How ever he knows what he knows, I'm convinced he knows about Dawn, and about Glory," Buffy interrupted. "I also think he knew about Mom."

"You did say that he was awfully vehement about taking your mother back to the hospital for a CAT scan," Giles noted.

Buffy nodded, a lump forming in her throat. "I think he knew about the tumor."

"And kept trying to get her back to the doctor," Tara insisted.

The others gave her impatient looks and she wilted in upon herself, feeling rejected and outcast.

"I think he may know what is going to happen, and we need to find out what he knows," Buffy declared, an angry glint in her eye. She'd had enough. There was no room in her heart for doubts or sympathy for the undead. Too much was on the line. Her mom and sister's lives were at stake, and she wasn't going to let them down.

"And how he knows it," Anya piped in.

"Exactly," Buffy agreed.

Willow, seeing Tara's hurt look, tried to placate her. "We… we could do a spell. A… a truth spell, to see what he knows. That way he can't lie to us."

Buffy nodded. "I've asked him to come here tonight. He should be arriving any time now."

Willow moved to stand. "D… do you want us to get the spell ready?"

Buffy shook her head. "Not yet. I want to see what I can get out of him without the spell. Then we can compare the two stories we get and try to figure out the truth."

"How do you intend to get him to talk to you?" Giles questioned.

A knowing smirk came to Buffy's face and she clenched one of her fists. "How else? Demons respond very well to pain."

"But Buffy, Spike can't fight back," Tara said, concerned. She had seen Buffy use violence to vent her frustration and feared for Spike if he fell into the grieving Slayer's sights.

"Don't worry. I won't hurt him too much. He still has to be able to talk."

She had no qualms about beating information out of Spike. She'd done it many times before. But lately he'd looked so… wounded when she hurt him. Her heart twinged, but she pushed it aside. Soulless demons couldn't feel, so it didn't matter if what she did to him caused him pain. The very fact that she was having such thoughts made her angry; angry at herself and angry at Spike for making her doubt everything she'd ever been taught.

It looked like Tara was going to protest, but the door opened and the subject of their conversation entered. He walked briskly over to them, all business and concern, and her heart ached for him.

"All right. I'm here," Spike said. "What's the news?"

"In the training room. I need to talk to you," Buffy answered.

Without hesitation, Spike nodded and headed for the back room. Tara didn't like the look in Buffy's eyes as she watched him go. Then the Slayer turned to her and Willow and gave them a knowing nod. Tara swallowed the lump in her throat as she and Willow rose to prepare for the truth spell.

She flinched when she heard the closing of the training room door.