CHAPTER 7
Anya frowned to herself as she unlocked the front door of the Magic Box the next morning. The source of her displeasure was the wooden paneling covering the space left by the glass broken during yesterday's attack. Xander had promised to fix it last night, but couldn't get a piece of glass big enough until today, which meant that the window wouldn't be fixed until after he got off work that evening. A board instead of a window discouraged customers from coming in, as well as hindered attracting potential money spenders who came in after window-shopping. That was a phrase Anya had never understood. How could one shop through a window, since one had to come into the store to exchange money for goods or services? Nevertheless, no window was sure to equal a loss in the day's profits.
As the ex-demoness walked around the store, making sure that nothing had been disturbed during the night, she passed the open door leading to the training room. Glancing inside, she froze at the sight that greeted her. One of the giant spiders Buffy was looking for was in the training room – on top of something that looked person sized and shaped!
Anya quickly glanced around, searching for a weapon. Unfortunately, they were all in the training room. Whose dumb idea was that? she huffed to herself as she wracked her brain for an alternative. Nodding to herself, Anya grabbed the largest, thickest book off the research table, and, holding it in front of her, approached the training room.
I have to do this quick, she thought, remembering how rapidly normal spiders could move when spooked. Taking a deep breath, Anya stormed into the room, yelling a battle cry. She charged, the book raised above her head clearly intended to be brought down with some force and squish the spider flat, regardless of the fact that the book, despite its considerable size, was still significantly smaller than the spider.
As she crossed the room, a dark blur flew at her from the size, tackling her and preventing her from reaching her target. Assuming the blur to be another spider, Anya's war cry changed to screams of terror and she began to struggle furiously, hitting her attacker repeatedly with the book.
"Bloody hell, woman!" Spike hollered as he let go of Anya and rolled away from her and the heavy volume she had been pummeling him with, clutching his head both because of her blows and the zap he'd received from the chip for tackling her in the first place.
"Spike?" Anya paused, recognizing the distinctive accent and phrase. "What are you doing here?"
"I was sleeping," the vampire muttered and crossed the room to the green loveseat against one wall. His duster was lay over one arm. He reached into a pocket and retrieved his cigarettes, lighting one.
"Here?" Anya asked, also rising. She was about to protest Spike smoking inside when she remembered her reason for charging into the training room. She whirled to face the spider and pointed. "With that?"
Spike smirked. "Certainly not my first choice of bedmate, but… All your bloody screaming woke me up."
It slowly registered with Anya that the spider had not moved since she'd first seen it. As she cautiously approached it, she recognized that the human figure it lay upon was the straw dummy Xander had made. In fact, a sword still pierced the spider's body, pinning it to the human figure in a bizarre and disturbing parody of how insects are pinned for display.
"Why are you here?" Anya asked, finally turning her attention back to Spike.
"Yeah, Spike," Buffy's voice came from the door. Turning, Spike and Anya saw Buffy, Giles, and Dawn standing in the doorway. "Why are you here?"
"There was another attack while we were on patrol last night," the vampire replied, catching the others up. "Same kind as before. Spiders killed the guy before we could catch up with him. But he was human. When I went back to the crypt last night, there were humans there waiting. Thought they might be the same group. Decided not to stick around to find out." He shrugged. "Needed somewhere to go."
"Is that the one you caught?" Dawn asked, moving closer to examine it. "Cool."
"Don't touch it," Buffy warned her.
"It's dead, isn't it?" Anya asked in alarm.
"You guys!" Dawn said excitedly. "Do you know what kind of spider this is?"
"The nasty kind?" Buffy asked.
"No. Well, yeah," the younger Summers replied, taking a breath as she sorted out her thoughts. "It's a real kind of spider, not a demon kind."
"Are the demon kind not real?" Anya asked curiously. "Because I know I've seen demon spider-like creatures before."
"No," Dawn said, shaking her head. "What I mean is… In school we're doing a unit in biology on bugs. And we just talked about all kinds of different spiders and how to identify them. See that violin shaped design on the front part? That means this is a brown recluse. Or the i-max version anyway."
"Dear Lord," Giles said, removing his glasses. "Are you quite sure?" He paused, as if noticing for the first time that it was Dawn who was speaking. "And shouldn't you be in school right now?"
"No school. Parent/Teacher conferences," Dawn replied. "And yes, I'm quite sure of what they are. Only thing is, they don't live here."
"Are you sure, Dawnie?" Buffy asked. "I'm positive I heard something on the news at some point about brown recluse spiders in California."
"My teacher said those were all false reports. They don't live here," Dawn insisted.
"She's right," Willow said having entered the shop and overheard the tail-end of the conversation. "Brown recluses aren't native to California. They live more in the midwest and southern midwest. I suppose you could import them, though."
"Wait!" Anya said, turning to Dawn. "Are they poisonous?"
"Yeah," the teen nodded gravely, backing up a few steps from the dead spider. "They're really poisonous. And I bet with those big fangs, comes even more venom."
"Well, you know what they say," Willow said cheerfully. "The bigger the fangs, the…" The young witch trailed off, uncertain of how to finish her quip.
"Harder they bite?" Spike asked, smirking.
"Willow," Giles began, trying to keep the group on-track. "Did you have any luck tracing Dr. Gage's grant money?"
"Oh, yeah!" the redhead exclaimed. She began digging in her bag as she spoke. "I traced the account the money originated in. I've got the name here somewhere. And there was only one other transaction from that account. Let's see…" She pulled a paper from her bag before continuing. "Here it is. The account belongs to a Nikki Wood. Ring any bells?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Giles said. "I recognize that name." He paused, thinking. "But I can't place it."
"She's dead," Spike said.
The others turned to look at him quizzically. When no one commented, he continued. "She's dead. It's not her."
"Who is she, Spike? And how do you know she's dead?" Buffy asked.
Before the vampire could respond, Giles snapped his fingers, his memory finding the information he was seeking.
"She was a slayer," the watcher said.
Spike nodded. "She was my second."
"I guess," Buffy said, breaking an awkward pause following Spike's confession. "We can safely assume the attacks were targeted at Spike. I mean, the name's got to be symbolic, right?"
"Most likely," Giles agreed. "Willow, you said there was another transaction on that account?"
"Yes," Willow said, nodding her head. "There was the grant and a large transaction to another account. The name on the second account was T. Araka."
"Oh, balls," Spike groaned. "Bloody karma. Slayer, show the watcher the ring you found."
Buffy glared at Spike, partly for ordering her around, partly because she'd forgotten about the ring and he'd remembered. Nevertheless, she pulled it from her pocket.
"I know I've seen this somewhere, I just can't remember where," she said, handing the ring to Giles.
The older man took one look at the large gold ring before exclaiming, "Bloody hell!"
"What?" Willow said, taking the ring from Giles. It had a large, round face. The design on the ring's surface was an intricate design or crisscrossed, slightly curved lines creating a complex fleur design. A memory surfaced and Willow practically breathed the conclusion that Giles and Spike had already reached. "The Order of Taraka."
"The order of what?" Dawn asked, concerned by the other's obvious discomfort with the discovery.
"A centuries-old order of assassins," Anya responded. "Very well respected and very deadly."
"Don't worry, Dawn," Buffy reassured her sister. "No matter how tough they are, we've beat them before."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Buffy looked pointedly at Spike. "Back in high school, a certain bleached blonde vampire sicced them on me."
"Wait," Willow said. "Something doesn't add up. What self-respecting assassin group has payments transferred to an account with such an obvious name?" She turned to Spike. "Do you remember when you hired them? How did you pay them?"
"Actually," Giles said, "that brings up a rather interesting point? How did you pay them?"
"I didn't," Spike replied, thoughtful, purposely ignoring the watcher's underlying question about how he could have afforded the well-known, and undoubtedly costly, assassin organization's services. "They take payment upon completion of the job. Since I was presumed dead after that debacle in the church the contract was cancelled. I never paid them."
"You don't have to pay ahead of time?" Buffy asked curiously.
"It's not like you can skip out on paying them," Spike said. "They do the job, they'll hunt you down if you don't."
"So why the transaction?" Buffy asked. "Another contract?"
"Maybe," Giles said. "However, I must agree with Willow that it seems highly unlikely that such an organization would have money transferred into an account with such a glaringly obvious name. Willow, can you find out how much is in the Taraka account and anything further on the Nikki Wood account?"
"But the ring," Anya began.
"Could easily be a fake," Giles replied. "The Tarakan symbol is well known throughout the world."
"Whether it's the bounty hunters from hell or not," Buffy said, "someone's gunning for Spike. He can't stay at his crypt. If he wasn't staying with us, I'd make him stay with Giles."
"What?" the watcher looked up, surprised.
"Oh, come now, Rupert," Spike said. "You know you liked it."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Since that only leaves Anya and Xander, and I can imagine how well that would be received, I guess you'll have to stay at our house with the rest of us."
Seeing Spike's eyes light up, she quickly added, "But only until we deal with this."
Willow went back into the main shop area and set up her laptop. Dawn sighed, almost wistfully.
"It's too bad things always have to be evil," she said.
"No, Dawn," Anya said. "The world requires a balance. There has to be evil for there to be good."
Dawn, Giles, Buffy and Spike looked at the shopkeeper, surprised at the sudden moment of philosophy from the normally practical woman.
"I know," Dawn said. "It's just that once, I'd like it to be something nice. Like, why can't the big spiders be like Charlotte?"
"Charlotte?" the ex-demoness asked.
"From 'Charlotte's Web,'" Dawn explained. "It's a children's book. Charlotte's this nice spider who writes messages in her web. Only it's sad at the end, because she dies. But all her baby spiders go off to live happy lives and…oh my god. What if they have baby spiders?"
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A/N: Now there's a scary thought! Not to mention the kinds of things the spiders would write in their webs if they were really closely connected to the Nerds. Hmm…I'll just leave that to your imaginations. Again, sorry for the delay. I thought I was ready for full speed ahead, but all my ducks suddenly abandoned their rows. I think I've got them lined back up now, so cross your fingers that they don't decide to scramble again. Thanks for continuing to read and for the encouraging feedback. I really, really appreciate it! ht
