A/N: I got a good bit of inspiring support for the last chapter, and knowing the end of Crushed is coming has inspired me to write a little faster. Also, I have had several pleas for the Nerd Trio, and I'm not leaving them there. They will be back for the sequel, or at the very least Andrew will. Gotta love those little guys. Also, if anybody reads this fic and likes it, leave a review. It doesn't have to be deep or insightful, it just lets me know you like it.

Disclaimer: I've been thinking. I think William is actually mine. I mean, sure he's based off a character in the Buffyverse, but really, we didn't know anything about him except a few minor things that don't really matter. I created him. I am his GOD! It's pretty cool, really.

What the hell is going on?

Buffy followed William, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Spike would be okay. He would have to be okay. Nothing killed that vampire, or even stopped him long. Buffy hadn't managed to do it. Hell, a church organ dropped directly on him hadn't been enough to finish him completely. So he would be perfectly fine. He had to be. Buffy wasn't sure if she could take it if he wasn't..

As she, William and Dawn descended the stairs, their footsteps echoed loudly in the panicked silence. By the time she was in the basement, she had a feeling of trepidation she hadn't felt since the night the Master killed her. She kept saying everything would be fine, but deep down she didn't quite believe it

When she saw Spike's groaning, thrashing form she felt fear clutch her throat and her breath left her. Her worry became almost a physical thing, almost overwhelming in it's intensity. The backs of her eyes felt like they were burning, and Buffy was even further horrified when she heard what he was murmuring in his pained delusions.

"...Buffy..."

The choked despair the Slayer felt when she heard the muttered plea jolted her out of her malaise. Suppressing her urge to panic blindly, she turned and sprinted up the stairs again, all too aware that Spike probably didn't have too long to go, especially since he'd been getting worse as time went on over the last two days. Buffy entered the dining room, where her friends, her family, sat, waiting for direction.

"Okay, we don't have much time guys. Spike's getting worse." Buffy's eyes raked around the room, looking at the people she loved. "Giles, I want you to call the Council. They might not want to help. Make them" The Watcher nodded solemnly. "Xander, Anya. I want you guys, and Dawn and William as well, to start researching. Get Giles to tell you where, but find out what could be causing this."

"On it" Xander assured her, before he and his fiancé moved to speak to Giles.

"Willow, Tara. I want you two to see what you can do on the magic front. See if you can stop what's hurting him, or slow it down. Also, see if you can speak to some of your friends and check the 'net, see if you can get some idea as to what it is."

The lesbian Wicca nodded, Tara heading down to the basement and Willow going to get her laptop out of the car. Buffy began to walk out of the front door, before her mother called out.

"Buffy, what should I do?" Buffy hesitated, looking at her mom.

"Make him as comfortable as you can," she said, grabbing her jacket from the door and picking up an axe she kept near the stairs for an emergency.

"What are you going to do?" Joyce asked, watching her daughter with worried eyes. Buffy didn't even look back as she strode out the front door.

"I'm going to get some answers."

Willy, owner and proprietor of The Alibi Room, liked to think he was a smart man. Sadly, he was not, but he was a survivor. Any human who ran a demon bar for nine years and still had all his or her limbs attached had to be. However, there was one thing that Willy was not good at doing. Predicting the extremes some people will go to when they're desperate. If he had been better at it, he may not have mistaken the mood of the Slayer so grievously.

She burst the door the his bar open, splintering the wood on one side and dislodging the door from two of it's three hinges, warping the third. Willy winced. Those doors were not easy to replace, and he was beginning to wonder why he bothered. Whenever the Slayer wanted information, she just kicked it open. Hell, if he didn't make so much money from his clientele he wouldn't even be able to rebuild after the frequent brawls.

Still, as he had a reputation to uphold, Willy just kept wiping the dirty glass clean and took no notice of the Slayer, or anyone else. If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed how quickly the demons in his bar were clearing out, none of them wanting to be anywhere near the Slayer when the rage she was holding in came flooding out.

Before he realised what was going on, the Slayer had vaulted over the bar and was vigorously pressing his head into the grimy bar with almost all her preternatural strength.

"Ow! What's going on, Slayer?" Willy asked in a pathetic whine, spots already appearing in front of his eyes. The pressure holding him onto the bar lessened slightly, but the Slayer's fingers tightened on the back of his neck.

"There was a brawl here, the other night. I want to know who was in it that could seriously hurt a vampire" the Slayer said, her voice all fire and steel. As was said earlier, however, Willy was not a smart man.

"What's in it for me?" he asked insolently, before squealing when Buffy gripped his right wrist and twisted, hard, shattering all the bones in the joint. The remaining demons in the bar ran through the remains of the door, scrambling to get out. The Slayer was in a lethal mood.

"You get to live" Buffy said in a much too friendly tone. Yet still Willy persisted.

"Y-you're the Slayer," he wheezed through the pain. "You don't kill humans" Buffy wrenched on his shattered wrist sharply, leaning in to his head.

"Right now, I'm willing to make an exception" she hissed dangerously, letting go of his broken wrist and pulling the small axe from the waistband of her pants, and laying it next to the small man's face. Willy gulped, finally beginning to grasp the levity of the situation.

"There were... a lot of... demons... here the... other night" Willy gasped, his vision blurring slightly from the pain of his decimated wrist. Buffy conceded this point with a tight nod, the bedlam had been insane, but tightened her grip on his neck perceptibly. Beads of sweat broke out on the bartender's forehead.

"New demons in town that were in the brawl, things that haven't been here before" Buffy clarified, lessening the death grip on Willy's neck to make sure he could tell her what she needed to know.

"There were two customers who fit your wants, Slayer. A Nelmecht and a Kungai. They were both in the brawl, and they were both dead at the end"

"You'd better be telling me the truth," Buffy said in a low voice.

"I am! I am!" Willy sought to assure her desperately. He let out a sigh of relief when the Slayer let go of his neck completely, before she gripped his head and slammed it hard against the bar, knocking him out.

"It's either a Kungai or a Nelmecht" Buffy called out as she re-entered her home. All of her friends and her sister came running, having heard Buffy return.

"What was that?" Giles asked, reaching for a book, ready to begin searching.

"A Kungai, or a Nelmecht" Buffy restated. Anya's eyes narrowed.

"Look up a Nelmecht and hope for the best," Anya stated grimly. "Kungai use their horn to absorb their enemy, and gain their power" The ex-vengeance demon looked at each of the Scoobies. "It's always fatal."

Buffy felt the panic begin to rise again as the Scoobies began to rapidly scan through the books for any trace of a Nelmecht demon. She hadn't been back five minutes and already the possibilities of finding a cure for Spike had been halved. To make her problem worse, she felt a wave of hopelessness wash over her. She'd never been good at the book stuff, preferring to get her information with her fists.

After a time had passed, Buffy wasn't sure whether it was a long time or if it only seemed to take forever, she decided to head down stairs. She plodded down the stairs with lead feet, fearing irrationally that he wouldn't be there.

She saw her mom sitting on the cot next to a Spike now too weak to spasm, a look of intense pain on his face. Joyce looked up at Buffy compassionately, pityingly.

"I think he's getting worse, sweety."

Buffy nodded weakly, her eyes prickling and the back of her throat burning. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to die. He was a vampire, they're supposed to be immortal unless the Slayer gets them.

"I think I've found something!" Xander's voice drifted down from the dining room. Buffy and Joyce shared a look, before they both made their way rapidly up the stairs. They arrived to see Xander handing the book to Giles.

"Well, what did you find?" Dawn asked impatiently. Giles rearranged his glasses.

" 'The Nelmecht, a demon of South American origin, it was worshipped by several early tribes for it's mystical properties. While inherently a herbivore, the Nelmecht is very territorial and prone to violence to any other demon that encroaches on it's territory.' " Giles paused, reading ahead.

"Hurry up, Giles. Is it helpful?" Buffy asked, exasperated.

"Oh dear Lord." Giles murmured, wiping his glasses clean. Everyone felt the trickle of dread travel down there spine at that usual harbinger on apocalypse. "'While not nearly as strong as even a common vampire, the Nelmecht's greatest asset lies in it's highly toxic venom, fatal to almost all things. It is the main base ingredient in the poison, Killer Of The Dead.' "

Everyone shared a shocked look. The poison that Faith had shot Angel with in their Senior year, the poison that killed the dead, killed vampires. Worse still, the only cure for the Killer Of The Dead was the blood of a Slayer. Buffy felt numb terror, as bad as she had when she had found out it had happened to Angel.

The Scoobies sat stunned, tension filling the room. This was bad. Very bad.

A/N: I really am a sadist. There haven't been too many chapters of this where someone isn't dying or injured or hurt. Ah well, no-one else has noticed... Only one more chapter to go, methinks. Maybe two, if I can't get it done, but we're nearing the end here people. I know that this chapter was pretty short, considering my usual, but I can't help myself. I love leaving you guys and gals in suspense.

On the plus side, I've got a lot of good (I think) ideas for the sequel, which is still yet to be named, and I've got two betas for it to keep me on track. So who knows, maybe next time it'll be finished even faster, even if I do say that this is a fairly impressive turn out. I mean, in 2 - 3 months I've managed to post up over 100,000 words on FFnet. I'm a veritable writing machine.

But I do it all for reviews, so review already. REVIEW! I don't care if you don't say anything more than 'hi, I've been reading your fiction'. Consider reviews my payment. If you read this, and don't review, that's stealing.