Chapter 2

"Oh great, leave us to deal with an angry Giles." Cordelia commented loudly, throwing her arms up in frustration.

After numerous attempts to get the door open, Oz finally managed to get the door to open, only to reveal an empty room.

"It seems different." Oz remarked shining his lantern into the room, it looked like a kitchen; the other room looked like a sitting room.

"You mean other then the complete lack or our stupider halves." Cordelia remarked somewhat bitterly.

Ignoring the insult to his girlfriend, realising Cordelia was probably more worried then she was willing to admit, he calmly explained, "The room they entered looked like a sitting room, this is a kitchen."

Cordelia looked through the door for herself, scrunching her nose at the slightly mouldy odour that drifted from the room.

Giles was ascending the basement stairs with a sullen Buffy and somewhat agitated Angel in tow, when he heard Cordelia's raised voice from the foyer, catching something about an angry Giles. Worried what the damn fool children had done this time, he hastened his speed and quickly entered the foyer, instantly noting the lack of Willow and Xander's presence. On the other side of the room he could see Cordelia and Oz peering into an adjoining room and could hear Cordelia comment on the olfactory nature of said room.

"What do I have to be angry about?" His voice was not loud, but Giles' question was loud enough to make Cordelia jump screaming and Oz to turn quickly.

"Scary much, gees, was that totally necessary, heart attacks are so not good for my complexion." Cordelia snapped at Giles, though she moved closer to him, feeling more settled by his presence.

Before Giles could ask the next question, Buffy who had followed more slowly back to the foyer interceded before Cordelia could get started on a rant, " Um guys, where's Willow and Xander?"

All eyes went to Oz as he calmly replied, "That would be the anger issue."

Buffy looked at Cordelia questionably, to which Cordelia simply explained, "They went into a room and disappeared."

"They WHAT!" Giles' exclamation causing both Buffy and Cordelia to flinch.

"Oh yeah he's angry." Buffy looked at her Watcher worriedly, hoping he was not about to explode…literally.

Ignoring the comment he started to pace in thought, " Which part of do not move from the foyer was so hard for those two to understand…" Stopping the rhetorical question and the pacing before he started to ramble needlessly, Giles pointed to the room behind Oz. "Was it that room?"

Oz gave a single nod and moved out of the way to allow Giles access.

Buffy turned to look at Angel whom had yet to say a word and noticed he looked agitated, she was stopped from querying his behaviour by Giles' comment on the room being a kitchen. Buffy instead turned to Cordelia and jokingly queried, "Let me guess, Xander's stomach overrode his common sense again." Upon receiving a dark look from Cordelia, instead of the expected confirmation, Buffy looked to Oz instead.

"It wasn't a kitchen originally." Oz explained briefly, not giving any more information then necessary.

"Willow thought she saw the artefact we are looking for in there and went to get it. Xander tried to stop her." Cordelia remarked coolly, ensuring Buffy made a quick mental note to not insult Xander unnecessarily in front of Cordelia.

Cordelia then turned to Giles; "I thought you three went to go turn on the generator."

Giles was stood cleaning his glasses in frustration and anger, putting them back on he crisply informed her of the situation. "We did, it will take a few minutes to warm up and then hopefully we should have lights."

"You didn't stay with it to make sure?" Cordelia asked in disbelief.

"There seemed to be little point, if it did not work, non of us are capable of fixing it." Giles responded calmly before moving off to the pile of gear they had brought with them.

Nobody else commented as Giles proceeded to remove objects from the packs that he felt were necessary for them to have when they went looking for the two teenagers and hopefully at the same time the artefact they had come for. His task made slightly easier as someone had already started the process. As Giles started to hand out the packs the lights flickered on, the house coming alive with the buzz of the old light globes.

"Strange." Giles remarked looking up at the lit globe.

"What?" Buffy queried looking up at the ceiling expecting something weird and slayable, not seeing anything she looked back at Giles, "Huh?"

"All the lights are switched on." Oz filled in as Giles just nodded his head to the comment.

"It will draw more fuel, we had better get on our way. We will split into two groups, Buffy you are with Angel, Oz and Cordelia you are with me. Keep a hold onto your lanterns, we do not know how long the lights will last and I have included a map in all the packs. I do not know how useful they will be but they may be of some assistance. Let's concentrate on looking for Willow and Xander first and then deal with finding the artefact. We will meet back in the Games room in say 45 minutes."

Everyone nodded in response before Buffy and Angel headed for the staircase in the foyer that led upstairs, leaving Giles and his group to go through the kitchen.

Xander and Willow were searching the room by the lantern light and finally found another door when the lights flickered on.

"Weird." Xander mumbled opening the door to a hallway, jumping slightly when Willow grabbed one of his hands.

"I guess the generator is working." Willow remarked nervously.

"Yeah, and all the lights are on." Xander responded leading them through the door, pulling the light cord to turn off the light as they walked out the room.

As they stepped into the hallway the door swung shut behind them, the click making both of them jump.

"Great cheap parlour tricks from the slayer eating house." Xander joked nervously looking back around at the closed door.

Willow gripped his hand tighter before frowning at the door, "That whole changing room thing was not cheap."

"No that was creepy." Xander replied, then turned to her smiling and light-heartedly remarked, " What do you say Wills, do we find the others or blow them off and look for the atrium and have a picnic?"

Regaining composure in the situation Willow glared at her friend before dragging him down the hall in the direction of what she hoped was where they could find something that led to the foyer. "Giles is going to be angry, Oz is going to be quiet and I'm never going to hear the end of it from Cordelia."

"So picnic it is then." Xander declared grinning, happy his friend was getting beyond her fear, but the grin fell quickly at Willow's stern look.

"Focus, we need to find the foyer." Willow remarked, hoping they would find it by shear force of will and determination alone, however as they turned the corner they were faced with another corridor, one that seemed to go on forever, only to stop with a wall of darkness.

"Okay its Alice in Wonderland, my mistake, should have picked it sooner, maybe we'll come across a rabbit, a rabid rabbit…Maybe its like A Nightmare on Elm street, use our fears against us." Stopping his pondering, Xander looked back the way they had come, that corridor too seemed to stretch on for infinity only to end in darkness. "Okay yay for the house with the creepy not so cheap parlour tricks, perhaps we should try shouting."

Willow looked back at him with a thoughtful look, "We could just try a door."

Xander seemed to ponder the idea for a second before striding forward to the closest door, "Let's try both." Pushing the door open he shouted loudly, "Lucy, I'm home."

Despite the situation Willow could not help but giggle, "The house is pre-TV, I don't think it will understand."

"Pity I could disarm it with pithy remarks and cult TV trivia otherwise."

"Or just bore it to death with your comparative of Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine." Willow rejoined, grinning all the way as she walked to another door.

Xander looked mock offended, "Hey and hey, little miss Pythagoras' theorem has so many practical applications, and besides…" He sniffed, "I only used it once over the summer to assist in the vampire slaying."

"You mean the vampire that asked to be staked after having to listen to you as he was trying to raise from the ground…I don't remember it working correctly though."

"Only cos Oz fell asleep and missed the chance. But otherwise it was a roaring success, in that it was totally not useful and Oz now thinks I'm a huge sci-fi geek and he doesn't talk to me anymore."

"Oz barely talks to anyone, even me."

"Ah ha, must have been all that talk about triangles, that'll learn you."

Willow looked at her friend quizzically, realising she may have actually lost that round she turned and opened the next door, which led to another corridor. Xander looked over her shoulder and snorted in annoyance, then mumbled, "Great."

"Least it has an end." Willow commented quietly.

Shrugging Xander shouted down the corridor, "BUFFY, GILES…COOEE."

Getting no reply, Willow went to shut the door, when she heard a gruff growling sound coming from the end of the corridor they were in. Turning around she could see a shadow moving towards them which was being accompanied by the popping sound of the light globes exploding as the thing moved past them. Her heart rate shot up immediately and her breathing started to come in short gasps, her feet felt glued to the floor and it was not until Xander pushed her through the door with a sharp command of 'move' and then proceeded to drag her down the new corridor did she start moving again and run as fast as she could.

The shadow moved through the door into the new corridor, blowing light globes as it went, slowly but surely catching up to the two running teenagers.

Xander realising they could not outrun the thing, stopped abruptly and tested a door, when it swung open, he half swung, half pushed Willow into the room by the hand he was holding and closed the door, leaving her in the room and him in the corridor. Hoping against hope that whatever it was following them would leave Willow alone and just deal with him. Turning around he could see the wall of darkness approaching and the last thing he heard before the darkness engulfed him was the sound of Willow banging on the door and screaming his name.

To be continued…I really have to stop ending chapters with semi cliff hangers