A/N: In spite of it being played (beautifully, I might add) by Amy Acker, I
could never think of Illyria as being female in anything but form.
Therefore, I've chosen to refer to Illyria by the gender- (and species-)
neutral pronoun "it." I hope it doesn't disturb you too badly. Any
Knights Who Say "Ni!" should probably flee now.
Note II: I'm also self-indulgently borrowing my own OFC. If you want to know more about Rebecca, read "Ties That Bind."
---
Buffy was fairly certain an Awkwardness Demon would manifest any second now. She and Connor had run completely out of small-talk subjects, and Buffy felt it was only a matter of time before her foot-swallowing instincts kicked in and made her blurt out something about sex or cheese or Slayers or, God help her, all three at once.
So it was almost a relief when Andrew burst into the apartment, yelling, "A demon got Dawn!"
"What?" asked Buffy.
"What?" asked Connor.
"Some Mystique-looking demon came up to us and said she wanted the Key, and I tried to protect Dawn, but the demon just whacked me aside," gasped Andrew. His clothes were dirty, and he had scrapes and bruises along the right side of his face. Belatedly, he realized Connor was there. "Oops. Um, we're just, uh, practicing our Dungeons & Dragons roles, and Buffy, maybe you could come outside for a sec? Thanks."
"Where did it happen?" Buffy turned and looked at Connor, who'd asked the question right along with her. When his eyes met hers, Buffy realized something.
"You know about this stuff," she said.
Connor nodded once. "I might be able to track her scent if we can get to where she was taken."
"Andrew, move," commanded Buffy. Andrew did as he was told, and Buffy and Connor followed him. "You a werewolf?" she asked Connor.
"No. I'm . . . I've got some special abilities," he said. "Sharper senses, greater strength and speed, and it's hard to hurt me. What about you?"
"I'm a Slayer," said Buffy. "Know what those are?"
"Like Faith?" asked Connor.
"You know Faith?"
"I met her once. It was a few years ago. She wouldn't remember."
Buffy doubted that, but only said, "Yeah, like Faith."
It was only a couple of blocks to where Dawn had been taken. Groceries were scattered all over the street, making it evident where the fight had taken place. Connor's attention was drawn by something else, though.
"Blood," he said, staring fixedly at a spot on the wall. Andrew's flashlight found the spot he was looking at. "It's Dawn's."
"Can you tell what direction she was taken in?" asked Buffy tersely.
Connor closed his eyes and tested the air. His eyes opened after a few seconds. "This way."
Buffy followed Connor's lead. He set off at a brisk clip down the narrow, cobble-stoned streets, pausing occasionally to test the air. Andrew brought up the rear. Soon, their route took them downward, through ruins, and then into the catacombs under Rome.
It was by no means the first time Buffy had hunted through these catacombs. They made, as Andrew put it, "a small Khazad-dum" that was the perfect underground city for all manner of vampires and demons.
Which meant, naturally, that they couldn't get far without running into trouble. Connor halted suddenly. "Something's up there."
A small knot of vampires emerged from the darkness. "I don't have time for this," muttered Buffy, pulling out a stake.
"Guardate, ragazzi," said the lead vampire, a tall, curly-haired, young- looking male, "e pronto da cena!"
"Mangiatevi questo," snapped the Slayer, barely breaking her stride to stake him. Dawn had picked up Italian more quickly than Buffy had, but after a year, Buffy was more than able to pun and quip in the native language of Roman vampires.
Buffy engaged the second vampire, ducking a blow from his fist and snapping a quick kick to his gut. She staked him through the back and then instinctively tossed the stake to Connor, who'd downed the third vampire. He dusted it.
"You're good," Buffy observed.
"You, too," he said. He tossed the stake back to Buffy. "Dawn's scent is stronger here. We could be getting closer, or it could just be the still air."
Andrew wheezed up behind them. "I think I'm going to have to rest a bit."
Buffy deliberated a moment, then snatched his flashlight. "Go back to the apartment, Andrew. See if you can find out anything about the demon that took Dawn--by the way, what did it look like, just so I know what I'll be fighting?"
"It looked like . . . well, sort of a bluish human woman," Andrew said, scratching his head. "She was a little taller than Dawn, and she was wearing leather."
Connor's head suddenly snapped around. "Did she have blue streaks in her hair? Bright blue eyes?"
"That's her!" said Andrew. "Wait--how'd you know?"
"I think I've seen her," said Connor. "My parents took me to Wolfram & Hart to try and figure out why I've got, you know, superpowers, and I think I saw her there. What did they call her?" He bit his lip, thinking. "Illyria, I think. They said she was some kind of ancient demon."
Buffy's mouth tightened. Word of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles office's destruction had reached her almost four months ago. Since then, she hadn't heard anything about Angel or his friends. She tried not to dwell upon it-- Angel, after all, had been a very small part of her life for the past five years--but it formed a quiet disturbance at the back of her mind nonetheless.
She made a decision. "Andrew, call Giles. You guys need to find out everything you possibly can about this Illyria, and see if the coven can track Dawn. If we can't find her, magic could be our only option." Andrew nodded and withdrew. Buffy and Connor pressed on, moving deeper into the catacombs.
Suddenly, Connor stopped again. "I hear something!" he hissed.
Buffy strained to listen over her own heartbeat. Then she heard it: a voice speaking in a rhythmic chant.
She and Connor moved forward as quietly as they could, following the voice as it grew louder. Ahead, there was light. They rounded another corner and found their quarry.
The demon had Dawn slung over its shoulder. It was facing a wall with strange runes carved into it, holding something that flashed in the light, and chanting. Then, as if something had alerted it to its hunters' presence, it whirled.
It was strangely beautiful, this demon. Alien though it was, its form wasn't without grace. It cocked its head as if sizing up its pursuers.
"Let her go," demanded Buffy. Her voice sounded loud in the confined space.
"No," said the demon quite calmly. It turned back to the wall, thrusting out the shiny thing in its hand as it did so, and the wall liquefied. The demon stepped through it with Dawn.
Buffy ran forward, as did Connor. Just before they reached the wall, it rippled and solidified again. Buffy skidded to a stop just before she hit it; Connor wasn't so lucky. He ran into it almost full-force and bounced off, landing hard.
"Ow," he groaned.
"Damn!" shouted Buffy, giving the wall a good pound with her fist.
Connor hauled himself to his feet. "What now?"
Buffy breathed out a sigh of pure frustration. "Now we head back to the apartment and put out an APB on Dawn and that thing. Is it what you saw at Wolfram & Hart?"
"Definitely."
"Good. We've at least got a name." Buffy looked the wall up and down. It was covered in writing etched deep into its surface. The centerpiece was a picture of a fearsome demon built like a twisted column. "Dawn's the real expert, but the markings on this wall don't look Latin or Greek to me. Wish there was some way to make a copy to send to the Watchers."
"There is," said Connor. He pulled a slim digital camera out of his back pocket. "My mom's been bugging me for pictures of Dawn." He snapped several close-ups of different parts of the wall as well as a couple from further away. "Think that'll do it?"
"It should. Let's get out of here."
Again, Connor proved that he could keep up with Buffy with no apparent difficulty. They ran the full distance back to the apartment at a pace that would've made an Olympic distance runner succumb to despair. Buffy filed it away in her brain to contemplate after the crisis was over.
Back at the apartment, Andrew was in full Watcher mode, with Buffy's computer open in front of him and the phone at his ear. ". . . and I understand that, but we're talking about a demon, not a landmass," he was saying. "Here's Buffy. I'm gonna put you on speaker phone, Beck." He hit a button on the phone and set the receiver down. "Did you see it?" he asked Buffy.
"We did. We've got some pictures for you to upload, too." Buffy handed over Connor's camera, and Andrew plugged it into the scanner. The computer equipment was normally Dawn's domain, but at the moment it was Buffy who was feeling a wave of gratitude to the Watchers for giving it to them. "Who's on the phone?"
"Rebecca. Giles is contacting Willow," answered Andrew.
"Hello, Buffy," said a very British young woman's voice from the phone. Rebecca Martin-Pryce had the strange distinction of being the world's very first Watcher-Slayer combination. She'd been a Potential who had gone into Watcher training when she felt she'd gotten too old to be Called. When Caleb had blown up the Watchers' Council building, Rebecca had been just outside. Though badly injured, she had survived and spent months in the hospital before Willow's spell had significantly hastened her recovery.
In spite of being a Slayer, though, Rebecca had decided to stay with the Watchers, as the world was suddenly in the unique position of having more Slayers than Watchers. She'd simply felt she could do more good there-- though she wasn't averse to hunting through London's underground with her English Slayer sisters a few times a week. Buffy and Faith, who'd had more than their share of clueless Council antics, liked having a Slayer as their liaison, so when either of them called the Watchers, nine times out of ten they talked to Rebecca.
"What do we know, Beck?" asked Buffy
"Not much, I'm afraid," said Rebecca. "As I was just explaining to Andrew, Illyria or Illyricum was an ancient civilization on the Balkan peninsula that appeared sometime during the late Bronze Age."
"That's great, but I don't see how a geography lesson is gonna help us on this one," said Buffy.
"It may not, but it is a starting point. Chances are that this demon would have some kind of connection with an ancient civilization that shares its name. Furthermore, some Illyrians were known to have migrated into Italy. It's possible that some places in Italy might have been centers of power for this demon."
Buffy hesitated before asking her next question. Rebecca was Wesley Wyndam- Pryce's niece--or something like it; the Pryce family was a very complex one, and Buffy had tuned out long before Rebecca had finished explaining precisely how she and Wesley were related the first time the Slayers had met each other--and rather idol-worshiped her uncle. She'd proven to be sensitive about the fact that no one seemed to know whether he was alive or dead.
"Um, Beck, you should know that this demon, whatever it is, was seen at Wolfram & Hart," said Buffy slowly. "I don't suppose--did Wesley ever mention anything to you?"
There was a long pause on the phone. "The last communique I had from Uncle Wesley was in February. He didn't say anything about an ancient demon then- -I guess it's possible they found this Illyria later."
Andrew interrupted the silence following Rebecca's statement. "Beck, I'm sending you the pictures Connor took of the door now. Let me know when you get them."
"Thank you, Andrew. Buffy, you ought to know that Dawn put in a request for any information about the Key some time ago," said Rebecca.
"Did you--did you find anything?" asked Buffy.
"Precious little, I'm afraid. We looked into the Brotherhood of Dagon, however, and came up with some things of interest. Dagon was a god worshipped by the Philistines several thousand years ago--in point of fact, around the same time period in which the Illyrian civilization existed. Now, it's long been a theory among the Watchers that a number of ancient gods were actually powerful demons--perhaps even Old Ones."
"I thought the Old Ones were out of style by the time humans took over," said Buffy.
"Most of them did leave the dimension," Rebecca acknowledged. "However, even if they weren't physically present, the belief in them, the memory, could have been passed down through generations and led some ancient peoples to revere them--or at least fear their return." Rebecca paused. "Furthermore, it's entirely possible that Glorificus was an Old One. My cousin Courtland recently brought in some ancient demonic texts from Thailand--the Vargath Codex--and there are references to Glorificus as an Old One in them."
"I'm not following this at all," said Connor.
"Who's that?" asked Rebecca.
"Connor, Dawn's boyfriend," answered Buffy. Her mind was reeling. "So, okay, let's follow your theory: Glory was an Old One. Dagon was an Old One. One of them had the Key, one of them wanted it. Where does Illyria come in again?"
"I honestly can't say," said Rebecca. "However, if this Illyria is an ancient demon, she might have had contact with Old Ones and discovered the Key."
"Which doesn't explain what she wants it for or where she is," said Buffy.
Rebecca sighed audibly. "It doesn't, and it's all theory besides. I'm sorry. But I do have the pictures now, and the writing on the wall looks Indo-European to me, which would follow with the Illyrian hypothesis. I'll run it through our translation program and see what it comes up with."
"You guys finally get the Universal Translator working?" asked Andrew.
"Yes, finally, after a two-hour transatlantic conference call with Willow," said Rebecca.
"Yeah, it was a toughie," said Willow from right behind Buffy.
Buffy, Andrew, and Connor jumped and yelped in unison, whipping around to see Willow standing nonchalantly in the living room. The witch giggled. "Sorry. Couldn't resist pulling a funny."
"God, Will!" gasped Buffy. "You could get yourself hurt doing stuff like that."
"Where'd she come from?" asked Connor.
"Oh, I just teleported in from Sao Paolo," said Willow. "Giles called me, and this one sounds like an emergency." Suddenly, she stopped, looking hard at Connor. "Do I know you?"
Connor hesitated. "I--I don't think so."
"Willow, this is Connor, Dawn's boyfriend," said Buffy. "Connor, this is Willow, one of my best friends and quite possibly the most powerful witch in the world. Will, what did you find out?"
"Dawn's no longer in this dimension," said Willow in a businesslike tone. "The best chance of finding her is to find the demon's point of egress and see if we can follow it."
"We watched it go through a wall . . . door . . . thing," said Connor.
"Connor got pictures of it. Beck's working on translating the markings," added Buffy.
"Could I see?" asked Willow. Andrew brought up the scanned pictures of the door, and Willow scrutinized them. "Hm. I hope there's a password buried in there somewhere."
"Speak 'friend' and enter?" suggested Andrew.
Willow grinned. "Would be convenient."
"We've a partial translation now," said Rebecca's voice from the phone. "The writing at the top of the door says, 'Illyria, ancient and beloved, worshipped by the wise. Enter the temple of the god-king. Illyria, greatest of the ancients, shall return to this place. Worship Illyria, greatest of the Ones That Were.'"
"Great," sighed Buffy. "Another god."
"Guess I should've brought Olaf's hammer," said Willow.
"What do we do now?" asked Connor.
"I need to have a look at that portal," said Willow. "Depending on how she opened it, I might be able to pop it back open."
Buffy nodded. "Andrew, stay here and find out anything else you can."
"Aye-aye, captain," said Andrew.
The Slayer's eyes flicked to her sister's boyfriend. "Connor, want to come along?"
Connor nodded, looking determined. "I'm with you."
"Good." Buffy walked over to her weapons chest and opened it. "Take your pick," she said, pulling out her favorite short sword, "and let's get going."
---
Translation for the Italian dialogue: VAMP: Look, guys--dinner's ready! BUFFY: Eat this.
Note II: I'm also self-indulgently borrowing my own OFC. If you want to know more about Rebecca, read "Ties That Bind."
---
Buffy was fairly certain an Awkwardness Demon would manifest any second now. She and Connor had run completely out of small-talk subjects, and Buffy felt it was only a matter of time before her foot-swallowing instincts kicked in and made her blurt out something about sex or cheese or Slayers or, God help her, all three at once.
So it was almost a relief when Andrew burst into the apartment, yelling, "A demon got Dawn!"
"What?" asked Buffy.
"What?" asked Connor.
"Some Mystique-looking demon came up to us and said she wanted the Key, and I tried to protect Dawn, but the demon just whacked me aside," gasped Andrew. His clothes were dirty, and he had scrapes and bruises along the right side of his face. Belatedly, he realized Connor was there. "Oops. Um, we're just, uh, practicing our Dungeons & Dragons roles, and Buffy, maybe you could come outside for a sec? Thanks."
"Where did it happen?" Buffy turned and looked at Connor, who'd asked the question right along with her. When his eyes met hers, Buffy realized something.
"You know about this stuff," she said.
Connor nodded once. "I might be able to track her scent if we can get to where she was taken."
"Andrew, move," commanded Buffy. Andrew did as he was told, and Buffy and Connor followed him. "You a werewolf?" she asked Connor.
"No. I'm . . . I've got some special abilities," he said. "Sharper senses, greater strength and speed, and it's hard to hurt me. What about you?"
"I'm a Slayer," said Buffy. "Know what those are?"
"Like Faith?" asked Connor.
"You know Faith?"
"I met her once. It was a few years ago. She wouldn't remember."
Buffy doubted that, but only said, "Yeah, like Faith."
It was only a couple of blocks to where Dawn had been taken. Groceries were scattered all over the street, making it evident where the fight had taken place. Connor's attention was drawn by something else, though.
"Blood," he said, staring fixedly at a spot on the wall. Andrew's flashlight found the spot he was looking at. "It's Dawn's."
"Can you tell what direction she was taken in?" asked Buffy tersely.
Connor closed his eyes and tested the air. His eyes opened after a few seconds. "This way."
Buffy followed Connor's lead. He set off at a brisk clip down the narrow, cobble-stoned streets, pausing occasionally to test the air. Andrew brought up the rear. Soon, their route took them downward, through ruins, and then into the catacombs under Rome.
It was by no means the first time Buffy had hunted through these catacombs. They made, as Andrew put it, "a small Khazad-dum" that was the perfect underground city for all manner of vampires and demons.
Which meant, naturally, that they couldn't get far without running into trouble. Connor halted suddenly. "Something's up there."
A small knot of vampires emerged from the darkness. "I don't have time for this," muttered Buffy, pulling out a stake.
"Guardate, ragazzi," said the lead vampire, a tall, curly-haired, young- looking male, "e pronto da cena!"
"Mangiatevi questo," snapped the Slayer, barely breaking her stride to stake him. Dawn had picked up Italian more quickly than Buffy had, but after a year, Buffy was more than able to pun and quip in the native language of Roman vampires.
Buffy engaged the second vampire, ducking a blow from his fist and snapping a quick kick to his gut. She staked him through the back and then instinctively tossed the stake to Connor, who'd downed the third vampire. He dusted it.
"You're good," Buffy observed.
"You, too," he said. He tossed the stake back to Buffy. "Dawn's scent is stronger here. We could be getting closer, or it could just be the still air."
Andrew wheezed up behind them. "I think I'm going to have to rest a bit."
Buffy deliberated a moment, then snatched his flashlight. "Go back to the apartment, Andrew. See if you can find out anything about the demon that took Dawn--by the way, what did it look like, just so I know what I'll be fighting?"
"It looked like . . . well, sort of a bluish human woman," Andrew said, scratching his head. "She was a little taller than Dawn, and she was wearing leather."
Connor's head suddenly snapped around. "Did she have blue streaks in her hair? Bright blue eyes?"
"That's her!" said Andrew. "Wait--how'd you know?"
"I think I've seen her," said Connor. "My parents took me to Wolfram & Hart to try and figure out why I've got, you know, superpowers, and I think I saw her there. What did they call her?" He bit his lip, thinking. "Illyria, I think. They said she was some kind of ancient demon."
Buffy's mouth tightened. Word of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles office's destruction had reached her almost four months ago. Since then, she hadn't heard anything about Angel or his friends. She tried not to dwell upon it-- Angel, after all, had been a very small part of her life for the past five years--but it formed a quiet disturbance at the back of her mind nonetheless.
She made a decision. "Andrew, call Giles. You guys need to find out everything you possibly can about this Illyria, and see if the coven can track Dawn. If we can't find her, magic could be our only option." Andrew nodded and withdrew. Buffy and Connor pressed on, moving deeper into the catacombs.
Suddenly, Connor stopped again. "I hear something!" he hissed.
Buffy strained to listen over her own heartbeat. Then she heard it: a voice speaking in a rhythmic chant.
She and Connor moved forward as quietly as they could, following the voice as it grew louder. Ahead, there was light. They rounded another corner and found their quarry.
The demon had Dawn slung over its shoulder. It was facing a wall with strange runes carved into it, holding something that flashed in the light, and chanting. Then, as if something had alerted it to its hunters' presence, it whirled.
It was strangely beautiful, this demon. Alien though it was, its form wasn't without grace. It cocked its head as if sizing up its pursuers.
"Let her go," demanded Buffy. Her voice sounded loud in the confined space.
"No," said the demon quite calmly. It turned back to the wall, thrusting out the shiny thing in its hand as it did so, and the wall liquefied. The demon stepped through it with Dawn.
Buffy ran forward, as did Connor. Just before they reached the wall, it rippled and solidified again. Buffy skidded to a stop just before she hit it; Connor wasn't so lucky. He ran into it almost full-force and bounced off, landing hard.
"Ow," he groaned.
"Damn!" shouted Buffy, giving the wall a good pound with her fist.
Connor hauled himself to his feet. "What now?"
Buffy breathed out a sigh of pure frustration. "Now we head back to the apartment and put out an APB on Dawn and that thing. Is it what you saw at Wolfram & Hart?"
"Definitely."
"Good. We've at least got a name." Buffy looked the wall up and down. It was covered in writing etched deep into its surface. The centerpiece was a picture of a fearsome demon built like a twisted column. "Dawn's the real expert, but the markings on this wall don't look Latin or Greek to me. Wish there was some way to make a copy to send to the Watchers."
"There is," said Connor. He pulled a slim digital camera out of his back pocket. "My mom's been bugging me for pictures of Dawn." He snapped several close-ups of different parts of the wall as well as a couple from further away. "Think that'll do it?"
"It should. Let's get out of here."
Again, Connor proved that he could keep up with Buffy with no apparent difficulty. They ran the full distance back to the apartment at a pace that would've made an Olympic distance runner succumb to despair. Buffy filed it away in her brain to contemplate after the crisis was over.
Back at the apartment, Andrew was in full Watcher mode, with Buffy's computer open in front of him and the phone at his ear. ". . . and I understand that, but we're talking about a demon, not a landmass," he was saying. "Here's Buffy. I'm gonna put you on speaker phone, Beck." He hit a button on the phone and set the receiver down. "Did you see it?" he asked Buffy.
"We did. We've got some pictures for you to upload, too." Buffy handed over Connor's camera, and Andrew plugged it into the scanner. The computer equipment was normally Dawn's domain, but at the moment it was Buffy who was feeling a wave of gratitude to the Watchers for giving it to them. "Who's on the phone?"
"Rebecca. Giles is contacting Willow," answered Andrew.
"Hello, Buffy," said a very British young woman's voice from the phone. Rebecca Martin-Pryce had the strange distinction of being the world's very first Watcher-Slayer combination. She'd been a Potential who had gone into Watcher training when she felt she'd gotten too old to be Called. When Caleb had blown up the Watchers' Council building, Rebecca had been just outside. Though badly injured, she had survived and spent months in the hospital before Willow's spell had significantly hastened her recovery.
In spite of being a Slayer, though, Rebecca had decided to stay with the Watchers, as the world was suddenly in the unique position of having more Slayers than Watchers. She'd simply felt she could do more good there-- though she wasn't averse to hunting through London's underground with her English Slayer sisters a few times a week. Buffy and Faith, who'd had more than their share of clueless Council antics, liked having a Slayer as their liaison, so when either of them called the Watchers, nine times out of ten they talked to Rebecca.
"What do we know, Beck?" asked Buffy
"Not much, I'm afraid," said Rebecca. "As I was just explaining to Andrew, Illyria or Illyricum was an ancient civilization on the Balkan peninsula that appeared sometime during the late Bronze Age."
"That's great, but I don't see how a geography lesson is gonna help us on this one," said Buffy.
"It may not, but it is a starting point. Chances are that this demon would have some kind of connection with an ancient civilization that shares its name. Furthermore, some Illyrians were known to have migrated into Italy. It's possible that some places in Italy might have been centers of power for this demon."
Buffy hesitated before asking her next question. Rebecca was Wesley Wyndam- Pryce's niece--or something like it; the Pryce family was a very complex one, and Buffy had tuned out long before Rebecca had finished explaining precisely how she and Wesley were related the first time the Slayers had met each other--and rather idol-worshiped her uncle. She'd proven to be sensitive about the fact that no one seemed to know whether he was alive or dead.
"Um, Beck, you should know that this demon, whatever it is, was seen at Wolfram & Hart," said Buffy slowly. "I don't suppose--did Wesley ever mention anything to you?"
There was a long pause on the phone. "The last communique I had from Uncle Wesley was in February. He didn't say anything about an ancient demon then- -I guess it's possible they found this Illyria later."
Andrew interrupted the silence following Rebecca's statement. "Beck, I'm sending you the pictures Connor took of the door now. Let me know when you get them."
"Thank you, Andrew. Buffy, you ought to know that Dawn put in a request for any information about the Key some time ago," said Rebecca.
"Did you--did you find anything?" asked Buffy.
"Precious little, I'm afraid. We looked into the Brotherhood of Dagon, however, and came up with some things of interest. Dagon was a god worshipped by the Philistines several thousand years ago--in point of fact, around the same time period in which the Illyrian civilization existed. Now, it's long been a theory among the Watchers that a number of ancient gods were actually powerful demons--perhaps even Old Ones."
"I thought the Old Ones were out of style by the time humans took over," said Buffy.
"Most of them did leave the dimension," Rebecca acknowledged. "However, even if they weren't physically present, the belief in them, the memory, could have been passed down through generations and led some ancient peoples to revere them--or at least fear their return." Rebecca paused. "Furthermore, it's entirely possible that Glorificus was an Old One. My cousin Courtland recently brought in some ancient demonic texts from Thailand--the Vargath Codex--and there are references to Glorificus as an Old One in them."
"I'm not following this at all," said Connor.
"Who's that?" asked Rebecca.
"Connor, Dawn's boyfriend," answered Buffy. Her mind was reeling. "So, okay, let's follow your theory: Glory was an Old One. Dagon was an Old One. One of them had the Key, one of them wanted it. Where does Illyria come in again?"
"I honestly can't say," said Rebecca. "However, if this Illyria is an ancient demon, she might have had contact with Old Ones and discovered the Key."
"Which doesn't explain what she wants it for or where she is," said Buffy.
Rebecca sighed audibly. "It doesn't, and it's all theory besides. I'm sorry. But I do have the pictures now, and the writing on the wall looks Indo-European to me, which would follow with the Illyrian hypothesis. I'll run it through our translation program and see what it comes up with."
"You guys finally get the Universal Translator working?" asked Andrew.
"Yes, finally, after a two-hour transatlantic conference call with Willow," said Rebecca.
"Yeah, it was a toughie," said Willow from right behind Buffy.
Buffy, Andrew, and Connor jumped and yelped in unison, whipping around to see Willow standing nonchalantly in the living room. The witch giggled. "Sorry. Couldn't resist pulling a funny."
"God, Will!" gasped Buffy. "You could get yourself hurt doing stuff like that."
"Where'd she come from?" asked Connor.
"Oh, I just teleported in from Sao Paolo," said Willow. "Giles called me, and this one sounds like an emergency." Suddenly, she stopped, looking hard at Connor. "Do I know you?"
Connor hesitated. "I--I don't think so."
"Willow, this is Connor, Dawn's boyfriend," said Buffy. "Connor, this is Willow, one of my best friends and quite possibly the most powerful witch in the world. Will, what did you find out?"
"Dawn's no longer in this dimension," said Willow in a businesslike tone. "The best chance of finding her is to find the demon's point of egress and see if we can follow it."
"We watched it go through a wall . . . door . . . thing," said Connor.
"Connor got pictures of it. Beck's working on translating the markings," added Buffy.
"Could I see?" asked Willow. Andrew brought up the scanned pictures of the door, and Willow scrutinized them. "Hm. I hope there's a password buried in there somewhere."
"Speak 'friend' and enter?" suggested Andrew.
Willow grinned. "Would be convenient."
"We've a partial translation now," said Rebecca's voice from the phone. "The writing at the top of the door says, 'Illyria, ancient and beloved, worshipped by the wise. Enter the temple of the god-king. Illyria, greatest of the ancients, shall return to this place. Worship Illyria, greatest of the Ones That Were.'"
"Great," sighed Buffy. "Another god."
"Guess I should've brought Olaf's hammer," said Willow.
"What do we do now?" asked Connor.
"I need to have a look at that portal," said Willow. "Depending on how she opened it, I might be able to pop it back open."
Buffy nodded. "Andrew, stay here and find out anything else you can."
"Aye-aye, captain," said Andrew.
The Slayer's eyes flicked to her sister's boyfriend. "Connor, want to come along?"
Connor nodded, looking determined. "I'm with you."
"Good." Buffy walked over to her weapons chest and opened it. "Take your pick," she said, pulling out her favorite short sword, "and let's get going."
---
Translation for the Italian dialogue: VAMP: Look, guys--dinner's ready! BUFFY: Eat this.
