Author's Note – For the course of this chapter I've decided to change my name to Edith Sidebottom in honour of the Widow Twanky. Why? It may be because of the painkillers…

…Sorry about the long wait on this one, hopefully the next chapters should come more regularly.

Chapter 7

"Oh, for the love of…" Giles muttered, looking into the room in front of him.

"What is it?" Willow asked, not able to see through the door from her position.

Cordelia looked past Giles and turned to Oz and Willow, "It has a billiard table." Her tone mirthful, almost happy the house was screwing with the Watcher. Her theory being, it served him right for taking Buffy's side.

"Ooh, Games room." Willow remarked, equally cheery, wishing Xander was there to share in the glorious fun that was tormenting Giles, though the thought instantly sobered her into a frown as she remembered what the house had done to Xander.

"I think it's personal Giles." Oz remarked with a straight face that belied his mirth.

"Right, fine, you take the map." Giles crankily responded closing the door and handing the map to Oz.

"So which way?" Cordelia queried Oz cheerily.

"Well according to the map, that should have been the library…" A string of barely legible curses from Giles stopped Oz mid sentence, but quickly stopped when Giles realised they could hear him. "…But the landmarks are changing…we should move away and reorientate, look for the artefact for a while."

They started to move off down the corridor, when Willow stopped abruptly, "Wait a second, I want to check something." She moved back to the door they had just come from and swung the door open, looking inside she quickly turned to the group a grin on her face.

"What?" Giles asked, annoyed at having to go back to the door, when he looked in he was faced with a different room, one with full bookcases lining the walls. "Oh that's just bloody perfect."

Cordelia gave a questioning look to Willow, who answered mirthfully, "It was personal."

"Perhaps you should try and be nicer to people Giles." Cordelia remarked as they entered the room.

Giles glared at the young cheerleader before heading for the large wooden desk in the corner of the room, hoping the manor diary had been left in the customary position for such literature. As he approached he could see a large brown leather book on the desk with Barnstead Manor inscribed in gold on the cover. An old quill pen sat next to the book along with a dried up inkpot.

"Well thank god for small favours." Giles mumbled to himself as he sat down on an antique wooden chair and opened the book, ignoring the dust and flicking through the pages looking for the final entry.

Cordelia looked around the room after she had entered but soon moved to one of the two leather lounges situated almost in the middle the room with a large wooden coffee table in between them. Sitting down, she immediately preceded to take off her shoes. Turning one over to look at the sole, she frowned at what she saw and sighed. "Well another perfectly good pair of shoes destroyed thanks to your dorky Scooby Gang adventures…I bet Daphne never got reimbursed either."   

Willow sat down next to Cordelia on the lounge, looking at the shoe in question and saw what looked like crushed glass imbedded into the sole, "It could be a clue."

Cordelia looked at Willow smirking slightly before remarking, "It was the grumpy janitor…this proves it."

Willow smiled in response, "It was actually the old mean Watcher, he used flashing lights as a distraction as he carried out his dastardly plan."

Giles approached the two holding his book open at the last entry, looking also at the shoe as he moved to sit at the lounge across from the two. "Where did you get that?"

"I think it was in the foyer when I found that plaque… cheap tacky glass ruined my shoes."

In trying to appear sympathetic for her loss, Giles failed miserably and quickly sat down and started to relay the most important parts of the entry to those in the room.  "The last person to enter the house before it was considered off limits was a Watcher called Rutherford, he specialised in ancient languages and he was studying some ancient texts on the artefact before he disappeared…"

"Do you have a picture of it?" Willow queried.

Giles flipped back through some of the pages before stopping, "Ahh…Yes here is one, it merely looks like a cut gem, the only difference is the glowing of the object."

Putting the book down on the table, the other two could see a hand drawn picture of an exquisitely cut blue gem; under it in small writing was written Hell's Gate Key.     

"Hell's Gate Key." Willow read out, "Is that its name?"

"Ah yes, but…"

"Well why not call it that then, rather then the lame ass title of 'artefact'?" Cordelia interrupted.

Giles looked slightly embarrassed at the question, "It is something of a superstition in the Council, rather like that of the use of Scottish play in lieu of MacBeth."

"Oops." Willow remarked quietly, realising she had said it out loud.

Cordelia only rolled her eyes in response.

Oz had stayed near one of the walls lined with bookcases, looking over the titles of books while he listened in on Giles in the background. "You said Rutherford disappeared." Oz queried, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Yes, he was only here for a couple of weeks. His initial report to the Council noted some minor disturbances, his second report however noted some adverse reactions from the house and after that he was not heard from again. The Council is unsure what happened to him. They sent a group to investigate but they barely made it through the front door before calling the mission off because of the danger. The only other people to enter the house after that were the two slayers who were sent here in following years. Both however as you know never returned."            

"So no one knows what happened to them… how horrible." Willow remarked sadly.

Cordelia nodded her head in agreement, her tone contemplative as she commented, "Yeah they could still be somewhere in this house, nothing but decaying corpses."

Before anyone could remark on her comment the fireplace roared into life, distracting their line of thought and causing all of them to turn to the display. In the fireplace the flames jumped from log to log and then stretched into the space above them in a macabre dance, all the while crackling loudly. The display was enough to distract everybody in the room from noticing one of the bookcases swing open silently to reveal a black space behind it. Nor did they notice black tendrils spread out from the space and approach Oz who was stood nearby.

 The young werewolf stood watching the beautiful display in the fireplace, an almost silent "whoa" escaping his lips at the display before he was grabbed by the tendrils and yanked quickly and silently into the dark space, the bookcase swinging shut just as quickly.

Nobody noticed the disappearance until Willow turned to ask her boyfriend a question and realised he was missing, frantically she turned to Giles, "Giles! Oz."

When consciousness finally came to one Xander Harris it was not exactly slow, but it did take him a full two minutes to realise he was actually awake, though he felt so weak that he decided to keep his eyes shut in the hope he would simply fall asleep and not wake for at least a week. The strange sensation of being carried while some one was walking however made that endeavour hard and the fact that the chill from wet through clothes was making him shiver, he decided to open his eyes and find out exactly what was going on and why he his clothes were wet. Cracking his eyes open he was greeted with the totally unexpected face of Angel looking down at him, obviously alert to the fact Xander was awake.

Realising he was indeed being carried, in Angel's arms, Xander said the first thing that came to his mind, "Was it a church wedding?"

"I could always drop you." Angel replied sounding somewhat serious.

Xander hoped that was a joke. He was starting to feel ill and was so tired if he fell to the floor he was quite sure he would never get up again. "Please don't."

Xander's request was spoken quietly, causing Angel to look back down at him. It was obvious the boy was still pale and weak, but with wanting his arms free in case of an emergency, Angel posed the question. "Do you think you can walk?"

Xander shook at his head, even that seemed too taxing for him. "Really, no."

"I can help you walk, I would just prefer to have my arms free." Angel commented softly, he may not like the boy much, but he had promised the others to look after him in their absence.

"Besides your probably getting heavy, we've been walking around for like half an hour." Buffy admonished half-heartedly, moving to stand next to Angel.

Xander would have wondered where she had come from but was too tired to compose the thought, instead he looked across at her, noticing a sad but relieved smile on her face. Something must really be wrong; he suddenly became worried when he remembered everyone else and their obvious lack of presence, nodding slowly at Angel to indicate that he was ready to at least give it a try.

Angel lowered him to his feet, keeping a supporting arm around his back, which was a good thing as Xander's legs gave out almost immediately. Buffy quickly moved to the other side to help keep Xander standing but her height disadvantage hampered her.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Angel? If anything turns up I'm sure I can deal with it."

Before Angel could comment Xander interrupted, "I'm fine Buff, just need a little…help and if you could find my legs and replace these jelly substitutes that would be great."

"Sorry Xander, we sold your legs on the black market, we made quite a profit though." Buffy replied, trying to lighten the mood.

"Will I see any of that profit or did Cordelia get my cut."

Not knowing what to say to that Buffy and Angel remained silent, unfortunately not realising the effect that might have until Xander frowned and then worriedly asked, "She is okay isn't she and Willow, please tell me they're okay."

"Eh yeah they are, well at least they were when we split up, I, er…Xander do you remember what happened?"

"Um you mean how I managed to get all wet and how I came to be in your acquaintance." He was momentarily distracted by Angel's shirt, noticing for the first time that it too was wet and started to pat at it in some weird parody of someone using a napkin to dry the shirt. Ignoring Angel's surprised look and Buffy's concerned one he continued, "Not a damn thing, I just remember…Are you sure Willow is okay?"

Buffy gave a silent thank god that Xander did not remember being put in the pool and grabbed his hand and held it tightly, "They're all fine Xander, we just had to split up so we could find the artefact quicker, we'll be meeting up with them again soon. I'll do the looking you just concentrate on walking okay?"

Xander nodded slightly then leaned more into Angel for support so Buffy could move away from him. Buffy squeezed his hand before moving in front of them and continuing down the corridor.

Xander looked to Angel wearily, "So how did I get all wet and how did you find me?"

"We found you in the pool."

"I was sleep-swimming?" Xander asked hopefully, already knowing the answer would be something far less funny.

Angel saw the look on the Xander's face knowing he now knew the truth, he merely shook his head confirming the boy's fear, "Willow was the one that brought you back."

Xander nodded morosely, it all made some sense now and a flash of memory of an unknown voice and water caused him to slump slightly in Angel's hold. In response he felt Angel tighten the hold on his waist. Not wanting to miss the chance of annoying the vampire he remarked quietly as they started to follow Buffy, "Just watch where you're putting those hands buddy."

TBC…