Chapter 18

The following takes place between 5 pm and 6 pm on the day of the Autumnal Equinox

Understandably Sahjhan spent a good minute stretching his arms and legs. Then he looked around and examined his surroundings-- a deserted movie set inhabited by six vampires, three people and a former goddess trapped in a young woman's body. He considered this for a while ad then spoke: "Not that I'm not grateful for being released from that glamorized Mason jar, but I think I'm entitled to a few details."

"We expected as much." Harmony took up a business-like tone. "We're just outside one of the old lots outside of MGM. And as far as we can tell, you've been stuck in that little vase for just over a year and a half."

Sahjhan pondered her words. "Felt more like two." He started walking. "Well if that's it I'll be on my way."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa." Harmony walked back in front of him. "Little respect for the people who got you out."

The demon fixed her with a stare that would have caused some demons to run away in fear. The old Harmony would have been one such vampire and it took a lot for her to remain cool.

"Yeah, well, thanks for rubbing the lamp and setting me free, but this genie don't grant no wishes. Step aside, lady."

Harmony dropped any pretense of being nice. "All right. How about some respect for the people who brought you back into the world and who can take your ass out if we choose too."

This time Sahjhan threw a punch that would have knocked her across the lot-- if the demon had been corporeal. Instead all Harmony felt was a mild breeze as his fist passed through her face.

"It's a good thing you're not solid," said Cordelia/Jasmine sweetly. "Take it from me, a punch in the face can absolutely ruin your make-up."

Now Sahjhan took a good look at her. "Wait a minute, aren't you Angel's chippie?" he asked, puzzled.

Cordelia/Jasmine's pleasant demeanor disappeared. "No, I'm the daughter of the boy you sent to Quor-Toth."

Now there was a longer pause as the demon tried to work it all out. "Wait a minute. You're the nameless one who was supposed to bring endless night to the planet?"

Cordelia/Jasmine took a bow. "In the flesh. Unlike you."

"Wait a minute. How is it…? You were… How can you both…?"

It was very rare to see a demon at a loss for words but Harmony and Cordelia/Jasmine were seeing one now.

"Here's the Reader's Digest version," said Harmony. "Connor escaped from Quor-Toth at age seventeen, Cordelia helped arrange events so that she and Connor could sleep together, thus giving birth to Jasmine. Jasmine tried to take over, Angel stopped her from doing so, Connor killed Jasmine's body."

Cordelia/Jasmine walked right up to Sahjhan and glared at him. "You can understand why I have somewhat mixed emotions about your involvement in all this. In a way, you brought me to life, but you also helped bring about my destruction."

"Look all of this is interesting in a supernatural soap-opera kind of way," Sahjhan said, getting snarky. "But I'm still waiting for the point."

The chill in Cordelia/Jasmine's voice dropped all the way down to zero. "The point, Sahjhan, is that me and my colleagues have gone to an enormous amount of trouble to bring you and everyone else here. Now I'm running low on patience and henchmen, so either sit down and shut up or I will put you back in the urn and put it under ten feet of concrete. GET IT?"

The last words were delivered with such ferocity that even Harmony recoiled. Sahjhan decided that it would be in his best interests to shut up.

"Now," Harmony began, trying to speak in a steady, non confrontational tone, "as I understand it, you have the power to make changes in the flow of time. Correct?"

"I have that power, yes."

"You have also demonstrated that you have the power to open other dimensions."

"So you picked up on that," Sahjhan said with a trace of sarcasm which Harmony chose to ignore. "What do you want me to use these special gifts?"

"We want you to break the barrier in the temporal fabric-- one that would open a portal to an alternative dimension. One where alternate versions of people such as Angel or Wesley may exist."

"You mean you want me to--"

Harmony nodded.

Sahjhan seemed uneasy for the first time. "You're crazy! Do you know how dangerous these temporal folds are? I do something like that, who knows what damage could be done? We could all be winked out of existence."

"Then you'd better not screw it up," said Cordelia/Jasmine sweetly.

"Oh no, I'm not getting mixed up with this kind of shit. I'm outta here." Sahjhan wavered , seemed to fade out-- and then faded back in again. "Well this is no good."

Cordelia/Jasmine's turned looked shark-like. "I'm using a dimensional hold spell I've known for five thousand years. You are staying in this dimension unless I do or say differently." She walked right up to him. "Is the picture now clear enough?"

Sahjhan had been around for a long time (though not as long as Cordelia/Jasmine). He knew when he was being held in check. "You know I can't just snap my fingers and boom! It takes a proper alignment of the time and the stars, as well as some powerful black magic on your part."

"All of which you'll have very soon." said Harmony. "Like I said, we've gone to a great deal of trouble to set this in motion. That means providing for most of the variables you need. But we don't have a great deal of time. So we'd better get moving."

Sahjhan heaved a great sigh. "Very well."

As the group started to walk off the set Cordelia/Jasmine turned to him. "Look on the bright side. You help us do this, we'll be able to ensure that Connor will never get a chance to kill you."

Sahjhan waved her off. "What I want is the head of the little tramp who had me swallowed whole."

"We've saved you the trouble. Justine Cooper's dead." Harmony felt no need to mention that she had helped arrange events in order to set Sahjhan free. It would just confuse things even more.

"And Angel? I owe him an ass-kicking too."

The vampire and former high Goddess shared a smile. "Trust me. Angel's ass is going to be soundly kicked before you catch up with him."

5:10:22/5:10:23/5:10:24/5:10:25

Buffy knew that she was probably most fortunate Slayer in history -- which the late Quentin Travers could have backed up with statistics from the council -- but she didn't know that she had set several records in her work. She had been Slayer for seven years, two years longer than any other. She had been the only Slayer to die and come back twice, which not only broke council records but also some biblical ones. And she had stopped more apocalypses than any Slayer. Even though the Council hadn't survived the last one. She also held an unofficial record: most Slayer related battles with humans-- three.

However, as any of her friends could testify, just because you're doing something that appears effortless and graceful in practice doesn't mean that it's actually easy. Certainly the three times she had fought against humans had not been. She had a lot of trouble gathering whatever it is necessary to face people in mortal combat. The first time she had done so-- against Faith-- she had been motivated by her love of Angel and her, then-hatred, of the dark-haired Slayer. The second time against the Knights of Byzantium, she would later admit to herself, she had been on the brink of a mental and psychological overload that had almost gotten everyone killed. The last time, against Willow, had been the hardest both physically and mentally. And Buffy was pretty sure that her hesitation had nearly gotten her and everyone else destroyed.

So when she realized that she and Wesley were involved in a fight with a battalion of humans, she had been very unclear as to how to deal with fighting them. Wesley clearly did not--as he demonstrated five minutes in to the fight when he had pulled a knife from his sleeve and stabbed one of his attackers in the chest. Despite everything that she had seen and heard about Wes in the past few months, she had been stunned to see him be so cold-blooded.

As for herself, Buffy was having somewhat mixed results. She had knocked three of the people who were fighting her out and two others she had knocked down but they kept coming. What was more they weren't following the standard movie cliché of attacking her one at a time-- they had been coming at her in twos and threes. Finally, they weren't attacking unarmed. Two of the men had held knives, the other three were holding two-by-fours. She had managed to disarm all of them, but that neither slowed them down nor changed targets. Either she'd have to change her tactics or she was going to be in serious trouble.

"All right, riddle me this," she said to the one man and two women now circling her. "Why on earth are three relatively normal people involved in something that could bring about the end of the world?"

None of them slowed down or even changed expressions. "You just don't get it do you?" the man said as he dodged left and went right. "We're not going to end the world. Just the part of it that you're in."

He swung an axe at Buffy. She dodged and managed to knock it out of his hands. "What bill of goods have they been trying to sell you?" she demanded, going on the offensive. "In case you haven't been paying attention, we're the good guys."

"Then why are you working for the center of evil itself?" said one of the women, coming at Buffy with a knife.

Buffy parried and managed to land a solid kick in the small of her back, knocking her to the floor.

"What planet are you guys from?" Buffy asked. "It's under new ownership. We've spent the last four months helping keep LA safer."

The otherwoman dodged Buffy's blows then lunged at her. "You really haven't been out on the street for a while, have you?" she said snidely.

"I'm out on these streets every night." But even as Buffy spoke she wondered. The fact was she had been semi-retired for a good three months, working mainly on training and monitoring Slayers. She had not been patrolling the city regularly. And even if she had, how would she know if things were normal? LA was not Sunnydale. The definition of typical in a small town was far different than the largest city in the country.

The man and the remainingwoman circled her, the man with a sword, the woman with a club. "Then sure you've noticed that crime is getting worse. The gangs are becoming more daring. Average people are committing more and more murders," said the woman.

"Like you?" said Buffy as they charged her.

"You may be doing fine against the supernatural killers but the everyday normal violence is getting a hell of a lot worse."

As Buffy twisted and turned. "That's not our responsibility," she said knocking the man to the floor. "We don't deal with those kinds of problems."

"You're right. That was my department." Suddenly Buffy realized that this wasn't any woman who was fighting her. Her voice sounded familiar somehow.

Wesley definitely recognized it. He spun around and pulled his gun. "Buffy! Over here!" Then he turned to the woman. "Call off your troops!"

"They aren't my troops!" the woman said. "Not all of the good guys can inspire armies. That's your department, not mine."

"Good Lord! Is that you, Detective?" Wesley seemed genuinely shocked.

Buffy looked at the woman. She was tall with dark blond hair, wearing ratty clothes. Yet there was something in her manner that screamed authority.

"I haven't been a detective in two years." said Kate Lockley. "You helped see to that."

5:19:25/5:19:26/5:19:27

Angel was beginning to wonder if the number of henchmen that Harmony and Ethan had working for them was truly infinite as he fought the last of the demons. Though he hadn't been keeping track he thought that he alone had fought thirty demons so far. He didn't know of any force that could get this much help, and he couldn't believe that Harmony and Ethan could inspire such kind of loyalty. It was an important question, but like so many today, he didn't think he would get an answer to it.

Still, he thought as he managed to kill the last demon, this isn't a small problem. If they've still got a big force after all this, we are truly screwed.

"Well, it's good to see that some things never change."

The voice behind him sounded bitterly amused.

"Still racking up a body count wherever you go."

Angel had thought that he was past the point of being surprised. Justine, Harmony, Lindsey McDonald-- their appearances he could deal with. But for some reason this voice hit him in a way the others hadn't. If she was working for them too--

He turned around. "Kate," he said in a low voice. "My God."

"There is no God." Kate spoke in a flat tone. "We've both known that for a long time."

Angel barely heard her. He scarcely recognized the woman who had been his contact in the LAPD for nearly two years. It wasn't just that her hair was trimmed short, her clothes were a lot dingier and her voice sounded raspier . Something fundamental had changed about her--something even deeper than the changes she had gone through in the years he had known her.

Then he noticed that Buffy and Wesley were standing a few feet behind her, along with five or six equally dingy looking people. "What are you doing here?" he managed to ask.

Kate gave a short bitter laugh. "I'm doing a layout for Cosmo. What the fuck does it look like?"

"What it looks like is that you're fighting against us," said Buffy.

"That assumes a lot of things, Summers." Kate sounded colder than she ever had. "It assumes that what you're doing is right. I'm not against you, I'm against your cause."

"I thought we were on the same side." For some reason it seemed very important to Angel that they clarify this. "We may have disagreed on tactics but we were fighting for the same things."

"We might have once. But then something horrible happened to me."

"You lost your job," Angel said.

Kate fixed him with a cold grin. "No. I lost my life." Her smile seemed awful somehow. "How about that? We have something in common now."

5:24:08/5:24:09/5:24:10/5:24:11

Faith knew that she was going to attract a lot of attention walking the floors of an ER. Which could lead to questions that might cause a lot of problems for her and, by extension, Angel-Slayer. But she couldn't help it. There was something in her make-up that made staying still impossible. Unless, of course, that stillness was coma-induced. Besides, if any situation deserved moving around, this did.

When the Angel-Slayer medics had reached Giles and Ethan Rayne, they had needed less than a minute to determine that the two men needed treatment only an emergency room could handled. Faith was less than wild about it, but realized there wasn't much that she could do. So they had gone to Venice General where they would have to cross their fingers and hope the staff didn't ask too many questions.

Half an hour had passed since both men had been wheeled into the emergency room. During that time Faith called Fred and told her about the situation. She'd also asked a hard question-- and had gotten an equally hard answer. If Ethan had been a person Faith cared about, she might have been disturbed by what she was thinking. As it was, she was more concerned as to how she was going to manage this rather than why.

A doctor with short brown hair walked into the waiting room. "Excuse me, miss." Faith hesitated before walking forward. "I'm Doctor Devilbiss. You came in with the two British gentlemen?"

"How are they doing?" she asked without preamble.

"Mr. Giles. You say he was in a furnace explosion?"

That had been the best story that Faith could come up with on short notice. It had been pretty flimsy but the doctor seemed to be buying it.

"Well, he twisted his left elbow pretty badly and his left ankle is broken. He'll be off his feet for at least a couple of weeks. We're running some more tests but there don't seem to be any internal injuries." The doctor took a deep breath. "However, there is some concern about his hearing."

This was news to Faith. "What's wrong?"

"The explosion seems to have severely damaged both of his eardrums. It's probably going to be at least a day before we have any idea whether the deafness is temporary or not."

Faith needed a few seconds to get around this. "What are the chances that it's permanent?"

Dr. Devilbiss gave her a hairy eyeball. "How do you know Mr. Giles anyway?"

Here she could tell the truth--some of it, anyway. "He and I are private investigators at the same security firm," she said. "I'm as close to family as you're going to get."

The doctor seemed to accept this. "The audiologist said it looked pretty bad. He thinks there's a fifty percent chance that he may not recover. I'm sorry."

Faith was beginning to feel a lot of her hate for Giles melting away. Which in turn made her think of Robin. For a moment-- and that was a long time for her-- she thought she was going to start crying again. She took several deep breaths, gathered her courage and asked the next question: "What about Rayne?"

"Is he also a friend of yours?" the doctor asked suspiciously.

This she was prepared for. "Ethan Rayne is a dangerous criminal. He caused the explosion in the first place."

Again the doctor considered this. "Rayne was stabbed in the back. We managed to stop the bleeding but there could be internal damage. We're preparing to operate."

This was it. "Doctor, it is vitally important that I talk with this man. Can you hold off putting him under?"

The doctor seemed confused. "Miss, uh…"

"Faith."

"Faith, from where he was cut, his pulmonary artery might be damaged. He's already having some difficulty breathing. If we want to save his life…"

Suddenly Faith had had it. "Dr. Devilbiss, this man is a liar and a killer. Today he was involved in several kidnappings and murders. Besides that he's involved with a plan that, if its successful, will endanger the lives of everybody in Los Angeles. And right now he is the only man who can stop it. Now, for Christ's sake, take me to his room NOW!"

The doctor thought for a while, looked at Faith and considered the urgency and desperation that was coming off her in waves. Finally he spoke. "All right. Come with me. Quietly." He began walking.

Faith followed, hoping that he believed her and trying not to think about what she was going to do next.

5:31:22/5:31:23/5:31:24

Fred knew what Faith was going to do as well and it didn't make her happy. God knew she had made a lot of cold-blooded decisions today and, given what Ethan Rayne had already done, she wouldn't object to seeing him dead but asking Faith to do something that would bring about the end of his life still bothered her.

She dealt with the problem in the only way that she knew how-- throwing herself into making sure that the world didn't come to an end. And to do that she walked back to the control room where Willow, Andrew and Leonard were busy.

Andrew and Willow looked up from their computer screens the second she arrived. "Any news on Giles?" Andrew asked.

Fred gave the safest answer possible. "The injuries were pretty severe, but he's probably going to make it."

"Of course he is," said Willow. "Giles ends up in the hospital whenever we're facing a great evil. This is par for the course. He'll be all right."

Fred knew that Willow was putting up a brave front but she knew better that to push. "Where are we on finding Harmony and Jasmine?" she asked.

Andrew shook his head. "Nothing on the satellites or the traffic cameras." He sighed. "Of course, since the only vehicle that we knew they had has become a fire hazard, we have no idea what to look for. "

"Yeah, and they're smart enough not to carve out a path of destruction in their wake," Willow added. "I think that we should ease up off the surveillance and concentrate on stopping this temporal bend."

"I'm telling you that kind of thing is a myth," Andrew protested. "It's a Star Trek- Quantum Leap- Battlestar Galactica kind of thing. Maybe Q could pull this off but no demon we know of can."

"Sahjhan can travel through time, which means that he is capable of doing some kind of dimensional distortions." Fred countered. "If he can manage that then this kind of thing isn't outside the realm of possibility."

"Maybe." Andrew didn't sound convinced but persuading the nerd was low on Fred's to-do list. "Are we even sure that Harmony and Jasmine have this Sahjhan?"

That Fred was sure of: "Justine was the last person to know where he is. If this temporal bend is really possible, she would have given them possession of him."

"But this Sahjhan was a pretty powerful demon, according to you." said Willow. "You really think Harmony and Jasmine could have handled him?"

"If they had the Recitian urn, they have all the power they need." Fred looked at them. "But Sahjhan is a pretty big demon. The two of them might be able to stay hidden but he's a parade all by himself." She moved to a free screen. "Start checking some of the cameras on the ground. I'm pretty sure we'll find them."

"Umm, that's all well good but I've a small question."

Everyone looked towards Leonard who spoke in a quiet voice. "This demon was world-famous for being nearly invincible, right?"

"Yeah." Fred answered. She knew what was coming and she had no answer for it. But she knew the question had to be asked.

"Once we find him, how the hell do we stop him?"

5:36:40/5:36:41/5:36:42/5:36:43

Angel had been hoping that, after calling off the attack, Kate would explain where the hell she had been for the last two years. Why she was now fighting against him.

Kate, however, was not being very forthcoming. She spent five minutes making sure that the people she had with her were okay, paying particular attention to a man named Royce whom Wesley had stabbed in the chest. Wesley had at least had the grace to look a little ashamed about it. She then spent the next five minutes making sure that there were no, as she put it, extra sets of eyes and ears watching them before finally taking all of them down to the basement of the mansion on her own. One of her troops, a dark-haired man named Hank, had asked: "What makes you so sure that they won't hurt you?"

Kate responded in a tone that was equal parts sarcasm and pain. "Don't you remember? They're the good guys. They have a reputation to maintain."

Hank gave a bitter smile of his own and left them alone. Two of her people stayed at the top of the stairs, though.

"This is all nice and cozy," said Buffy, "but how do we know that we can trust you?"

Kate gave a small bitter smile. "What's the matter, Summers? No trust in your fellow woman?"

"What, just because you and your friends tried to kill me?" Buffy said sarcastically.

"Enough," from Wesley. "She knows damn well that the three of us could take you if we tried. Let's stop wasting time and get down to it."

"Yeah. Starting with what the hell you mean when you said that you died."

Now Kate fixed Angel with one of those deep probing looks she had perfected while working for the LAPD. "You know damn well what I meant by it. You were there when it happened."

Suddenly a horrible and very plausible thought came to Angel. "No. You're not talking about…"

"What, my little Xanax and Smirnoff cocktail two years ago? Come on Angel, don't tell me you never asked yourself how it was you got into my apartment without an invitation."

In point of fact Angel never had given it much consideration, coming fresh from his little epiphany. "But I thought that…"

"… that whoever-it-was in charge decided to give you a break? Come on, we all know that the world doesn't work that way?" Kate gave another harsh laugh. "I guess it was just another case of 'like father, like daughter?'"

Buffy seemed to be struggling with everything. "All right, you died. Big whoop. I've died a couple of times and I didn't go running to the dark side."

Angel didn't let that last remark go. "You began screwing Spike and tried to kill your friends."

Buffy shot him a harsh look. "That was different."

"Yes, but it shows how a person can find their principles changing." Wesley said, looking at Kate with a sign of understanding. "What happened after that?" he asked the former detective.

"I spent the next two months trying to figure out what the hell I could do now that I was out of work and hip to the darkness. I ended up going to that karaoke bar your pal Lorne hung out at." Her tone softened a little. "I took three drinks, sang 'New York Minute' and got him to do a reading. He said that I was in a very dark place but if I managed to pull myself together I could use that darkness against itself." Kate looked at them bemusedly. "Long story short, I checked up on some of the people I knew from my time in the department and decided to go into…I guess you'd call it, security. Only, unlike you, I decided to keep my work strictly related to people."

"So the men and women who we were fighting…" from Buffy.

"My co-workers. I also gave them a crash course in the world of the supernatural just in case we had to deal with it. Turns out we've had to deal with this quite a bit." She fixed another nasty look on Angel. "Particularly considering what happened last year."

"How did you end up working with the bad guys?" asked Wesley.

"Like I said, what makes you so sure you're not the bad guys?" Kate held up her hand to preempt further comments. "Four months ago a guy named Kilner came over to my office and informed me that you and your friends had taken over Wolfram & Hart."

"Another lawyer,." Angel said resignedly.

Kate shook her head. "This guy worked for the FBI. He told me that there was a small offset of the bureau that had been monitoring this company's activities within the human and demon world. They believed that this shift in ownership would give them a chance to find out what was going on in LA. "

The picture was beginning to come into focus for Buffy. "They didn't have any military connections did they?"

"I don't know. What I do know is that they offered me the manpower and the equipment to keep an eye on you and your people."

Buffy did the math. "Four months ago--that's when me and my friends came to LA."

Kate nodded. "Apparently they didn't trust you either. That was one of the things that raised my suspicions. So I had some of my people do a background check. And we're pretty sure that Kilner worked at Wolfram & Hart's D.C. office."

"But you still took their money," said Angel.

"To guarantee that we could get a closer look at the belly of the beast? Of course I did." Kate raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that why you went to work for them, too?"

Angel realized he was in no position to take the moral high ground. "All right. So after you took their money--"

"We started to keep a closer look around your operation."

"And how did you manage that?" Wesley voice had gone cold

"We didn't have to do a great deal." Kate said, speaking very coldly. "According to Kilner, when Wolfram & Hart became Angel-Slayer, the FBI managed to get one of their guys on the inside."

It took ten seconds for the bombshell to register. Buffy was the first to recover. "How-- Who-- How the hell did they do that?" she finally spat. "Do you know how many background checks we did?"

"Yes, because it's impossible to develop a background that wouldn't stand up to that kind of scrutiny," Kate said calmly.

At this they all had the grace to look uncomfortable because Willow and Fred had done some tweaking to make sure no one thought oddly of people like Faith and Andrew being able to work at Angel-Slayer.

"All right, who is this person?" Angel asked.

"You know better than that. The second we tell you, his life is worth less than nothing," Kate said. "Besides we're going to keep working with him even if we all make it through today."

"Never mind that. How is it that you're working with Harmony and Ethan Rayne?" asked Wesley.

"One month ago our guy told us that someone working with Wolfram & Hart was involved in an apocalypse scenario. He told us that they were working with some outside contractors and that they would be needing some help." Kate paused. "We'd figured that the best way to stop them would be to be some of the help. So they arranged a meeting with Ethan and Harmony and we managed to convince them that it would be a good match."

"What was your price?" Angel asked coldly.

Kate gave another sharp laugh. "No one brings about an apocalypse in order to get rich. They put it on a matter of having positions of power and privilege in the world to come."

"And knowing who you are and what you did, Ethan and Harmony both believed that you were on their side. "said Buffy doubtfully.

"Have those two ever been known for their brainpower?" asked Kate.

"Fair point." conceded Buffy. "But now that we're here what are we supposed to do now?"

At this Kate lost some of her cool certainty. "We're not sure. All that we know is that in ten minutes we're supposed to talk with our guy and tell him one thing."

"Which is?" asked Angel.

"If you've been here… And if any of you are still alive."

5:50:08/5:50:09/5:50:10/5:50:11

Faith had known that it was going to take more than her say so to radically change their methods of treating Ethan Rayne. Which was why she had made arrangements with Fred to have her call someone on the California medical board about it. And, sure enough, three minutes into his protest Ethan Rayne's physician received a phone call. He had been away long enough to make Faith think that he was going to be one of those doctors you see on 'ER' or 'Chicago Hope'-- one who stood up to outside pressure.

Fortunately, the doctor didn't have the rocks for that kind of behavior and returned from his phone call angry but defeated. Perhaps, under different circumstances, Faith might have been upset by what she and her friends were doing to basically good people. But right now she didn't care. Couldn't let herself care. And, sadly, she was good at that.

The angry doctor-- Macintyre, she thought his name was-- left Rayne's bed and walked over to Faith. "All right. We've got him in a condition so that he'll be able to talk to you. However, I should tell you that he's just come from being under sedation so I don't know how coherent he'll be." He shook his head. "Even with all of our medical capabilities I don't think we'll be able to keep him conscious very long so ask your questions fast."

Faith knew that thanking the doctor would be hypocritical so she just nodded and started walking towards the door. "You do know that this will probably kill him." Dr. Macintyre said as she reached it.

"I'm aware of that," Faith said grimly.

"It's that important?" The doctor asked as if he didn't expect an answer. Faith gave him one anyway.

"That's an acceptable risk."

She entered the room and got her first real look at Ethan. The former servant of Chaos looked very bad indeed. He was hooked up to a huge number of tubes and machines. Only his head was visible and it looked incredibly pale. He looked-- there was no other phrase-- like he was on his deathbed. Despite everything, it still took her several seconds to speak to him.

"Ethan Rayne." She spoke as firmly as possible. He managed to look towards her. "Listen carefully. You are on the brink of death. The only thing stopping it is my say-so. So, if you want to live, you will answer my questions fast and honestly. Got it?"

"Y-yes." he managed to whisper.

"Where are Harmony and Jasmine going to be?' she asked.

"Going…to…the beach," he managed to say.

Stay calm, girl. "Which beach?"

"V-Venice."

"What are they going to do there?"

"Open…a hole…in time." He seemed to be growing grayer if that was possible. "Make…people…disappear."

Faith suddenly realized that Dr. Macintyre hadn't been exaggerating, and that if she didn't learn the whole plan expressed in vague terms she would get bogged down on the details. She hurried on. "How are they going to do this?"

"Blood…black magic…and Sahjhan," he managed to get out.

"Sahjhan?" Suddenly a lot of things that had happened today made more sense-- Justine's involvement, the plot to abduct Connor. "Were you the one who was going to use the magic?"

"Who… else…?" he said faintly.

"Then they can't do this without you." Suddenly Faith was relieved. Harmony and Jasmine couldn't pull this off. They were safe.

But Ethan was not finished. "Have… back-up… wizard."

"What? Who?" Faith leaned in.

"Thompson…got…bad."

"Why? Who is it?"

Suddenly Ethan's expression changed. Despite the agony he had to be feeling, he had a trace of his old smugness present. "Got.. a… secret…" It was clearly taking a tremendous effort for him to speak now.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm… the…one…"

By now Faith was leaning in deeply.

"…who …got…your…boyfriend."

Suddenly the earth stopped spinning. "Wait a minute." Faith said. "You--you rigged the box with the Band in it. Did you…"

But before she could finish her question, sirens and bells began sounding. Dr. Macintyre came running in. "Damn it! Nurse get the epinephrine ready stat!"

He pushed Faith out of the way. Because she was shocked by what she had heard, she fell to the side. It helped bring her back to earth and suddenly she realized what Ethan Rayne had done. One last 'fuck you' to the forces of good.

She left the room and pulled out her cell. Not knowing that only a few feet away someone was doing the same thing.

5:57:22/5:57:23/5:57:24

Harmony was beginning to get worried. Not that she gave a damn for Ethan Rayne, of course. Like Willow and Spike, he was just the means to an end. Someone you had to deal with if you wanted to bring about the changes she wanted to know.

No, she was worried because the time was drawing closer and a vital part of the plan was missing. They'd be in deep shit--

Her phone rang. "Yeah." she snapped.

"Ethan Rayne is dead," said the voice at the other end.

"Nothing can change that?" asked Harmony, knowing of Ethan's tricks.

"Even if he survives he'll be in no condition to help us. As far as today goes, he's out of the picture." There was a pause. "We will have to go to Plan B."

"Uh-uh," Harmony replied quickly. "There's no way that they are just going to let us grab her again. She won't let us grab her again."

"How are we supposed to proceed then?" asked the voice at the other end.

"Simple. We go to Plan C."

"We have a Plan C?" the voice asked sarcastically.

"Yes, we do." Harmony said calmly. "And as soon as I hang up, I'm going to put it into action."

Suddenly a phone rang. Not chirping, not blaring, it rang.

Angel and Buffy looked at Kate who shrugged. "Sometimes you can't improve on the original."

Kate picked up the phone in the wall. "This is Lockley." She listened for a second. "Not yet, but--" Kate hesitated. "Really?" Pause. "You're sure?" Pause. "I'll have people there in thirty minutes." She hung up.

"Harmony?" asked Angel.

"Yeah, but she didn't ask about you guys. She says to send some of my people to meet hers for a retrieval mission." Kate sounded bewildered.

So was Buffy. "When did Harmony learn military talk?"

Wesley spoke up. "Who are you supposed to retrieve?"

Kate turned around. "Lindsey McDonald."

5:59:57/5:59:58/5:59:59/6:00:00