Chapter 8 - Unexpected Contact

I found it. I was having a look through the files on the disc while I ate a sandwich at my desk, and I found it. It's a picture, a copy of an engraving of the amulet, and beside it is a picture of the controller. Of course, it doesn't say 'controller' next to it, it wouldn't be that easy. The language doesn't even use an alphabet I've seen before, but hey, pictures, the universal language!

I reckoned that Willow and Wes, being the types of people they are, they'd start at the beginning. So, I started at the end. Ok, it made sense to me.

The amulet is pretty much the way I remember it. Of course, when I picture it, it's around Spike's neck, while here, it's on its own. The controller, or at least what I think is the controller, looks like a bracelet. It's made of links of what's probably metal, and it's got a disc on it that looks like a miniature version of the amulet. It seems to be attached like a watch would be to its bracelet. There's a drawing of it on its own, and then there's another where it's on a human hand. The funny thing is, it's not around the wrist, but wrapped around the hand, kinda like those Goa'uld things on Stargate.

I'm still not sure about calling Wes at work, so I call home instead. Willow answers after more of a delay than I expected.

"Hey, Will, how's it going?"

"Good, I've been research-gal since you left this morning. I've got some good information, mainly on the history of the thing, but nothing directly usable yet."

"Have you checked the last file on the list?"

"Well, no, I've been getting through the files as fast as I can, but …"

"Do it," I demand, taking control in my enthusiasm to get her to see what I've seen.

Fortunately, Willow knows better than to ask why, and a moment later, she's back.

"That's it, isn't it? And the rest of it too."

We agreed we'd be careful on the phone, so not using the key words. Willow said she'd checked out my phone and it was ok, but we decided not to take any chances.

"Yeah, I thought it might be. I wondered if it might not be, you know, like an instruction manual? Maybe with detailed instructions?"

"It's possible," she admits. "It looks kinda complicated, in a familiar sort of way."

I take that to mean it's one of the languages Wes has been working on lately.

"Now, all we've got to do is find one," I murmur quietly.

"Yeah," she admits. As we talk, I continue scrolling down the page. There's another drawing further down, like a more detailed drawing of the back of the controller. I say the back, because I assume the copy of the amulet is at the front. This just shows the chain links, which are really quite ornate in their own right. Each strand seems to have been plaited from seven finer strands, and the whole thing is a work of art. A work of art that looks irritatingly familiar.

"Willow," I tell her, "I've seen it."

"What? The rest of it? Where?"

"Yeah. The rest. And I can't remember. I'm sure it was recently, but I don't know. Someone was wearing something just like it."

"Angel?"

"No, that I'd remember. He couldn't have had something like that without me noticing it. I just need to remember where I've seen it."

"Ok, Buffy, I'll see what I can do about the instructions, and you try and think about where you've seen it."

"Yeah, thanks, I will."

I put the phone down, and check the time. My next appointment's due very soon, so I don't have long. I give some thought to a logical way to remember, and then realise just how un-Buffy-like that sounds. But this is for Spike, and it's important - the most important thing I've done since Sunnydale.

If I've seen it on someone's wrist, it must be someone I've seen recently. So, I start to make a list of everyone I've seen in the past week, then go gradually further back. Of course, if it's someone I've only seen in passing, then I'm stuck. But something tells me it's someone I know, or at least someone I'd recognise immediately. I continue with my list until my appointment arrives.

~~~~~

Typically, I didn't have another idle moment until the end of the day. Instead of staying at my desk, I go home, stopping only to pick up some necessities. Once there, I quickly find Willow scribbling notes as she pores over her laptop.

"Find anything?" I ask.

"A bit, but I think the detail's going to have to wait until we can show Wes. He's the expert in all these ancient languages, I only get the obvious bits. How about you?"

I flop into a chair. "Nope. Not much. I started making a list of everyone I've seen recently, hoping that the name would mean something when I wrote it down, but so far, no good. I've been through my appointment books, and my calendar, but nothing seems right."

"It's pretty unusual," Willow muses. "I think it'd be the sort of thing I'd remember. Funny you only saw the back, though."

"Well, probably not. The disc's probably the heaviest part of the chain, so it'd tend to drop to the underside of the wrist. And that's not taking into account that if the person who's wearing it is involved in all this, then they wouldn't want me to see it. They wouldn't think I'd recognise the chain, but the disc is pretty obvious."

"Not necessarily," Willow disagrees. "Not if they thought the memory spell was intact. It seems like the fact that you were there at the end gave you some immunity to the spell, but that might not have been obvious." She pauses, then looks up from the screen.

"Did you ever tell Angel about Spike? I mean, anything in passing. I know the spell made it hard, so you had to concentrate to remember him, but did you ever talk about him?"

I laugh at the idea. Talking to Angel about Spike - not what I'd call fun. I do remember telling him what happened in Sunnydale right after we left the crater. He was just so dismissive of Spike and what he did that he made me angry. I didn't speak to him for a while after that, and when we did talk after that, neither of us mentioned Spike if we could help it.

"No, I didn't," I explain. "I thought it was just jealousy, but talking about Spike to Angel was the quickest way I knew of making Angel go all growly."

"And then, after you moved to LA, you weren't inclined to talk about him anyway," Willow remembers. "Ok, but let's get back to your list. Can I have a look?"

I go into my purse, and pull out the piece of paper.

"The first names, above the line, they're work-related - people I saw at my office. Below the line is everyone else."

"You don't have much of a social life, do you?"

I smile ruefully at her. "I didn't socialise much when I was setting up the business, and then, when Angel and I got together, I just mixed with his friends. Since we broke up, the only one of them I've seen is Wes."

Willow tries reading the list to me, hoping that hearing the name will spark some memory. When she reaches the end of the list I shrug. "Sorry, Will, none of them does anything."

"And that's everyone you've seen?"

"Short of trying to come up with names for anyone I've passed in the street, yeah, that's it. The only other person I've seen recently is Spike, and that's been in my dreams."

All it takes is the merest mention of his name, and he's there again, in my mind, large as life, smiling at me, that soft, gentle smile he tried to pretend he didn't have.

"He's been trying to help," I remember suddenly.

Willow looks up, waiting for an explanation.

"When you were gone last night, he told me you needed to do what you were doing, and that I'd get my chance. And I think I've been dreaming about him lately too. Can't remember anything when I waken, but, you know the sort of dream, where you just know that everything was perfect, but you can't remember it all?"

Willow nods.

"I think I've been dreaming about him, about us being together."

"Better than the other dreams, then," Willow comments.

"Yeah. The first ones I had, about Spike burning … Wait. That's it."

Now she looks confused. I pull the laptop round so I can see the screen better, almost knocking it off her lap. I scroll down to the picture, and look at it again. I don't know whether to be elated or depressed. I know exactly whose wrist the controller was on. The only problem is, she's dead.

"Lilah," I mutter.

"Lilah? But she's …"

"Dead, but still walking as far as we know."

"And you saw her in a dream."

My turn to nod. "And she was wearing the controller."

"Makes sense, I suppose," Willow says. "She was controlled by the senior partners, and her contract wasn't terminated by anything as mundane as her death."

"So, how do we find it?"

"I don't know. She could, quite literally, be anywhere, but my best guess would be the Wolfram and Hart building."

"And we do this without Wes."

Willow's about to argue, but I hold up my hand.

"Look, Gina's already scared half to death at what's going on after last night. If we get Wes involved in looking for Lilah on top of that, well, let's just say, Lilah's the one name that always makes Gina nervous. She knows about what went on between Wes and her, probably more than I do. I heard most of it from Angel, because Wes just doesn't talk too much about that time."

"So, if we don't get Wes involved, then how do we get access to the W&H building?"

"Well, he's not the only department head we know, there's Gunn, and …"

"Fred!" Willow interrupts. "I met her when I returned Angel's soul, and we kept in touch a bit, you know, emails and so on."

"I thought about her too, but she's loyal to Angel. If he's involved …"

"I think she'll be ok," Willow counters. "She was loyal to Angel, and she probably still is, up to a point, but she's her own person these days. And if you combine her science with my magic, you've got a pretty unbeatable combination."

"How can we be sure we can trust her?"

"We can't, but our options are pretty limited. I don't know Gunn that well, but apart from getting us into the building, I'm not sure what else he could actually do for us. We're trying to find an animated dead person, and she's not a vampire, or a zombie, or anything else we know about. And do you really think he's more likely to be trustworthy than Fred?"

It's true. Of all of the old AI team, Gunn's the one with the biggest personal agenda. And I can't see saving Spike from Hell as being one of his priorities.

I consider the possibility that Willow might actually know Fred better than I do. I've met her, of course, but we didn't hit it off, exactly. Well, it wasn't even as clear as that. I got the impression that she thought I wasn't quite good enough for Angel, and I know from Wes that there was a bit of Angel-worship going on when he first rescued her from Pylea.

"Ok, how do we do this?" I ask.

"Well, unless you've got a better idea, I'll just email her, and tell her I'm in LA. I'll see if I can get her to meet me for coffee and a chat, and I'll sound her out."

She must see just how nervous I am about this.

"It's ok," she adds. "I won't say anything until I'm pretty sure she's not involved. I can probably rig up enough of a charged atmosphere around us that I can pretty much monitor whether she's lying. Like a magickal lie detector."

"Remember that time when Spike got shot with the tracer?" I remind her. "It took you days to get your hair back to normal after you ionised the atmosphere to kill the signal from that thing."

Still, it stopped the Initiative from getting Spike back, so it was a good thing. I just didn't realise how good then.

"I've got it under control now," she promises, a hint of irritation in her voice.

"Ok, Will," I concede. "Try it, but be careful."

Willow starts to write her email, while I go and start putting together something to eat. Salad, cold meat (ready cooked), and ice cream for after. Quick, nutritious, and even I can't get it wrong.

We're just finishing the last of the ice cream when Wes arrives. I offer to make coffee, but he declines, telling me it's a flying visit.

We spend a few moments comparing notes, and it's clear that Wes' information deals primarily with the history of the amulet. I show him what I've found, and he glances at the accompanying text.

"Yes, this would appear to be what amounts to an instruction manual, although, needless to say, it's not as simple as 'plug and play'. I'll have a look at home and try to do a full translation tonight. Of course, that doesn't help us with finding the controller. Any ideas?"

"No," I say, almost too quickly, before Willow can answer.

Wes looks at me suspiciously, sensing how abnormal my reaction is, so I quickly add, "It's just so frustrating. Without that, we can't do anything."

He seems to accept that.

"So, no repercussions at work from what happened last night?"

"Not that I'm aware of," he replies. "Of course, unless I'm personally implicated, there's no reason why I should be. There did seem to be some abnormal activity around Gunn's office, but then it's hard to say what's actually abnormal."

"I thought I'd try to meet up with Fred while I'm here," Willow says.

I'm surprised, but then, he could find out anyway so it's probably best to tell him up front.

"She'd like that, I think," he replies. "You're not going to involve her in this, are you?"

"Why, don't you trust her?" I ask. I can't help myself.

"Fred? She's a person of extremely high integrity. I would trust her to help righting any injustice, but I'm not sure she'd see the current situation as an injustice. More to the point, I'm not sure that she could add anything, and the fewer people who know about what we're doing, the safer we'll all be."

"Oh, ok," Willow answers.

I don't like lying to Wes, but I don't want him digging himself in deeper with Gina either.

Wes stands then, getting ready to go. I want to talk to him, but I don't know what to say, so I follow him out to the door.

"You ok?" I manage, as he pulls the door open.

"Yes, Buffy, I'm fine. And so is Gina. She'll probably call you later, or tomorrow if she's tired. Don't worry about us, and try not to worry about Spike. We'll find a way to bring him back, if only so I can experience for myself the person who irritates both Angel and Giles so much."

I can only smile at that. He sounds sure, and I'm grateful. I keep trying to reassure myself that we'll do what we have to do, but sometimes it feels like it has an edge of desperation - like if I think for one moment that we might fail, then Spike will be consigned to Hell for all eternity.

"Thanks," I murmur. He smiles back, before stooping to kiss my cheek. Not something he does often, I think it's an English thing, something he saves for when it's really needed.

When he's gone, I go back to the living room to find Willow busy googling. I go to make the coffee I didn't make earlier, and when I return, Willow's scribbling furiously. It seems to be a list of books - reference materials used on a site she's found. I perch on the arm of her chair, and look at the site. It certainly looks to be full of useful information about the various animated dead that share our world.

"Where're you going to get those?" I ask, pointing at the list.

"Don't know. I thought I'd try Giles, and there're a couple of rare bookshops I know - some of them even do online ordering."

She glances at her watch, then grimaces. "Too late, or early, to call Giles, depending on your point of view. So, I'll check out the bookstores. Some even sell on the basis they'll take them back providing they're still in saleable condition. I've done that before - it can be fairly cost-effective."

I'm just about to comment on the fact that she's not a student any more, and I'm no longer an impoverished minimum-wage burger dispenser, but I'm interrupted by the phone.

It must be Gina. I pick up the phone, but it's not Gina's voice that answers my 'hello'. It's Angel's.