"So if I understand this right, Cordelia is all coma-free because Spike carries her visions?" Buffy was slumped against the refrigerator, eating a chocolate chip pancake rolled like a burrito.
"Well, Wolfram & Hart have incredible resources, when her visions were lifted it was only a few moments before our Mages could remove the mystic coma." Lilah was there too.
"Yeah, but there's gotta be a but, because this sort of thing always has a but." Buffy asked.
"Well, the consequences are that she has lost some time in her memory. She doesn't remember much of the last 2 years."
"Yeah, according to me you were still 6 feet under rotting worm food, until everybody explained, and kinda got me caught up."
"Wow, Cordelia the love is just radiating from you."
"Whatever dead girl."
"Girls! Stop it!" Angel was sick of the bickering. "Look, Cordy, Buffy's not dead. Buffy, Cordy's not in a coma, everyone clear on that?"
"God Angel, lighten up." Cordelia was smiling at him. "It's not like I gave birth to a people eating god from another dimension. Oh, wait, I guess I did didn't I?" Cordelia started laughing.
"How can she make fun of that? I mean we all were here for it, and she makes it sound like another day at the office!" Gunn was annoyed.
"Down boy, it's cool, someone has to be a breath of sunshine around here, look it's the doom and gloom squad, with the addition of Sunnydale's finest it's like one big vat of pain!" Cordelia rolled her eyes and sat on a stool.
"If it's any consolation, I like the highlights, they make you look, more appropriate." Buffy commented.
"Really? I wasn't sure about the blonde, but I think it's me"
"Yeah now you are the walking blonde joke!" Xander laughed.
"Enough! I have a hell to get back to people. Oh yeah, Spike, welcome back, Dru says hello, as does Miss Edith." Lilah said.
"Dru?"
"Don't ask, they have her on retainer or something, you know evil law firm stuff." Buffy patted his arm.
"Oh I almost forgot, Cyclops, yeah you Captain Jolly Roger." Lilah pointed at Xander, "I hear you're a real Viking in the sack." Lilah wnked at him, "Regardless if I saw you I was supposed to tell you she says 'it's not as unpleasant as she suspected, its more the humidity than the heat, hell is also lacking in the cheese department, but that may be due to freshness issues and not the lack of cows.'"
"Anya? You talked to Anya?"
"You would be the one-eyed-ex-fiance she talks about right?"
"She talks about me?"
"Incessantly, I wish they'd have sent her to a different hell dimension, she's nothing but a chatter box. You really screwed her over didn't you? She said she's glad there are no bunnies in hell."
"She's the perfect woman." Andrew said dreamily as he looked at Lilah. "You should be nicer to her."
"Well, I should be back, I'm supposed to play Mah-jong with Anya at 4."
"There's Mah-jong in hell?"
"What did you expect us to do all day? Play twister?"
"Hey, dead-lawyer chick?" Xander walked over to Lilah.
"It's Lilah, Pirate boy."
"It's Xander psycho-bitch. Tell Anya I miss her, and that I'm sorry about the humidity, and the dying."
"Right, fine, I'm like an interdimensional Western Union, anyone else have a message for hell?"
Lilah walked out of the room and disappeared.
"Anya? Anya the wierdo with the necklace? The wish-master? The take-Buffy-out-of-Sunnydale-watch-Willow-turn-dominatrix Anya? You were going to marry her?" Cordelia scoffed at Xander.
"At least I didn't give birth to a full grown people eating god!"
"I am doomed to be trapped with you people for all eternity. This is exactly how I imagine my personal hell." Giles shook his head, and cleaned his new glasses.
Willow filled them in on what Spike had told her about the Camille-Varian.
"It's the grudge! I, we, read about this!" Wesley looked at Giles.
"You really ought to see these books, see you pick them up and say what you want to read and..." Giles was so excited he was talking as fast as Andrew after too many Jaffa cakes. "Yes, there was some information on why they may be targeting you." He returned to his stern Watcher demeanor.
"So what did I do now? This is like the worst week of my life. Maybe we're all stuck in hell, maybe this is hell? Its not as rocky as I remember, but hey to each his own dimension." Angel was frustrated after the past few days, he had every right.
"It goes back to the Crusades; apparently the Master was one of the generals of sorts. He along with several other vampire clan leaders had put together the plan to destroy the 'unclean' ones. The Aurelian's, your clan, did a lot of damage. Perhaps because the Master is gone, they are going after who they must see as the current head Aurelian. That would be you, Angel, or as they must think, Angelus."
"That's probably why they came after me an' Dru in Amsterdam, the lineage."
"Or maybe its cos they have an idiot detector and were looking to wipe out the mentally challenged?" Angel asked, only getting dirty looks.. "Probably not, but it was worth a shot. Why aren't they going after him?" He pointed at Spike.
"They are." Buffy said in a small voice.
"What Buffy?" Giles looked concerned.
"I had a dream last night, not really a dream, maybe one of those slayer-prophecy thingies." Buffy looked sheepish at the thought. "The Master, Angelus, Spike and some pale icky guy were in it. The Master had killed Spike, killed human Spike, and turned him before my eyes. But then he morphed into Angelus."
"Spike morphed into Angel?"
"No, The Master morphed into Angelus, it wasn't Angel, he isn't like Angelus, I knew it was Angelus, he said things, bad things, and it was the way he said it. And then Angelus turned into what I guess must be Chameleon-Variety Hour guy and he said something about how I couldn't stop it. And then he dusted Spike."
"But Spike was dead."
"No, he was rising."
"Umm, I think I speak for all of us when I say Huh?" Xander asked.
"What do you need a freakin' diagram?"
"They have a big board!" Andrew piped up.
"The Master was talking his usual brand of crap, about how I can't control things, that some things are too big for me to understand, then Angelus said something about how it was going to be so easy to kill us, like fish in a convent?"
"Nuns in a convent." Angel quietly corrected her.
"Yeah, nuns! That was it. And then it was blue-pale guy telling me how he had a score to settle and he'd kill me if he had to, then he killed Spike, and right before I woke up he was snapping my neck."
"Oo one of those fun happy prophecy dreams. Wow, B, I'm glad you got the visions and not me. Don't you ever just have sex dreams like the rest of us?" Faith shook her head at the thought.
"So Angelus is going to kill all of us? Wow, where have I heard that one before? Oh wait, High School, that's it!" Xander gave Angel a look, he still didn't like the vamp, soul or no soul.
"Not all of us, exactly. More like Spike and me, he said 'you two' which kinda implied me and the dead body in front of him."
"Well, its lovely to see that the dreams have remained cryptic and virtually useless!" Wesley said in a fake cheerful voice.
"We will have to see what we can figure out about this, don't worry, we'll research it, and find out what's going on." Giles tried to sound reassuring.
Fred and a guy in a lab coat ran through the door into the kitchen. Both were out of breath.
"You know we have cars for that sweetheart, we are a high power law firm, you don't have to go running through the streets." Lorne quipped.
"Bad." breath "News." breath "Goo. Bad." Fred was near hyperventilating.
"Goo Bad? Wow, Fred's English has so improved since Pylea!" Cordy announced.
The guy with her started, "Goo is a transitional phase, its not good, its a crystal matrix, made up of human blood and some amino acids."
"Transitional Phase? Matrix? I don't like the sound of this." Willow looked upset.
"Who is this guy?" Gunn was getting defensive.
"This is Knox, he works for us, and is not evil. Willow left before we got back the analysis, and before it happened." Fred was finally catching her breath.
"Before what happened?"
"Before they came back." Knox finished for Fred as the blood drained from both of their faces.