Chapter 19

The Following Takes place between 6 PM and 7 PM on the day of the Autumnal Equinox.

"Hold it, hold it," said Buffy walking over to Kate at the phons. "What exactly did Harmony tell you?"

For a moment Angel thought Kate was going to keep being difficult. Then she spoke: "Harmony says the plan has changed somewhat. In order for it to work now, she needs someone with magical power. According to them Lindsey McDonald is one such person."

"And you're going to, what, meet a group of demons who work for her and together you're going to 'persuade' him to come with you?" asked Angel.

"Yes, and we have to do it in half an hour, so we have to get moving." Kate walked up the stairs.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Buffy started after her. "Harmony tells you to do something and you jump?"

Kate didn't stop. "Right now making sure Harmony Kendall doesn't know that anything's wrong is my main concern."

"So you're just going to follow her order," said Wesley.

Kate turned around. "Look, as much fun as this conversation has been, you haven't said anything to convince me I'm doing the wrong thing. Me and my people are going to stop Harmony's plans and then we're going to get back to doing whatever it takes to bring down Wolfram & Hart. And, as an added bonus, we're going to be able to take a major player in the world of darkness off the street." She started walking up the stairs with Buffy still on her tail.

"That's going to be awfully difficult considering he's in our hotel," Angel pointed out.

That got Kate's attention. "He's where?"

"He's at The Hyperion, under the guard of Gunn, two Slayers and a whole bunch of our security." Angel decided that Kate didn't need to know about Connor or Spike at the moment. "Plus there's the small fact that Lindsey McDonald has changed rather significantly since you two were last acquainted."

"You're not going to tell me that he's got a soul now too." Kate said with bitter sarcasm

"No, but he's become a rather powerful magician," Wesley informed her. "Even if he wasn't under guard, it wouldn't be easy for you to take him."

Buffy stood one stair below Kate. "Look Miss Lockley, I understand that you don't like us a hell of a lot. That's okay. Right know we don't like you much either. But, as much as you might want to deny it, you and your people are in over your heads. It takes a hell of a lot more than money and people and the desire to do good to stop an apocalypse. " Buffy had walked around Kate to stand on the step above her. "You have to have power. "

"Which you don't have," Angel added. "And while guts and prayers may get you through a lot, against this it will get you and all of your friends killed."

"And working with you will keep us alive?" Kate asked defiantly.

"Their deaths won't accomplish anything," said Wesley. "Maybe your life doesn't mean much to you but, trust me, theirs will."

The three of them-- Buffy one stair above Kate, Angel at the foot of the stairs and Wesley on the floor-- were staring angrily at her. It would have taken a brave person not to fold under their glares but Kate was holding her own. Finally, she focused her look at Angel. "We have fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to meet Harmony's team. If any of you have a plan-- a real one-- you're going to have to start talking about now." She walked past Buffy.

As she did Buffy spoke: "Well that was easy. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get Lindsey out of our custody and into Kate's without the bad guys knowing we're helping her do it." She looked at the others. "Any ideas?"

Angel started walking up . "I have the beginnings of one. But we're going to need help." He sighed. "Help I'm not sure these people can give."

6:06:59/6:07:00/6:07:01

Psychologically speaking things had been heading downhill for Faith for the last six hours. She was a Slayer, which meant she had a high tolerance for whatever pain the world could throw at her, but, as a lot of the Scoobies could testify, emotionally she didn't handle things nearly as well. Adding to her problem was that she was alone. She used to like working alone-- it had been part of her character-- but she knew it wasn't healthy. She needed back-up in more ways than one, so when she had given her unpleasant news to Fred, she had asked for them to send somebody out to Venice to give her a hand. Fred told her to go outside and someone would be there in fifteen minutes.

Which still gave her some time alone with her thoughts. Time enough to make a phone call. She didn't have to make the call-- Fred had assured her that she would make sure everybody got the news-- but she figured that, given what had happened and what he had done for her earlier, he deserved to hear it from her lips.

Xander picked up on the first ring. "Yeah?" He sounded extremely tired which wasn't surprising. It had been a long day and he had no special powers to get him through this.

"It's me," Faith said quietly.

"Faith, I thought that you weren't going to call here anymore."

"This has nothing to do with Robin…It's about Giles."

There was a long pause on the other end. "What happened to him?" Xander said tiredly.

"Ethan Rayne arranged it so that the truck Giles and I were chasing blew up," she told him. "We both got hurt, but he couldn't handle it like me."

"Is he dead?"

"No, he's alive. He was badly hurt but they think he's out of the woods." Before Xander could breathe a sigh of relief, she told him the rest: "But the explosion did something to his hearing. And…they think there's a good chance that it'll be permanent."

Hearing the words aloud made part of her ache all over again.

It was nearly thirty seconds before Xander spoke again. "After that psycho Jerry Falwell attacked me they said that I'd never see again, but I can. Maybe there's something that can be done for him."

"Maybe," Faith said. "It's even possible the hearing loss is only temporary. But he may never be able to take an active part in keeping the world safe."

Xander thought that over too. "Right now I'm not entirely convinced that would be bad." He sighed. "Faith, Robin's not getting any better. They'll keep trying but they're saying at best he's only going to live another week."

Some part of Faith had been expecting this since she had heard of Robin's poisoning, but it still hurt like hell. Now she was the one who needed a moment to get a hold of herself.

"I'm sorry Faith." said Xander. Faith was about to say something-- she wasn't sure what, probably a meaningless cliché-- when she heard someone behind her. She whirled around -- just in time to see someone dart behind a wall. Without lowering the phone Faith began to walk back to where she had heard the noise.

She hadn't gone more than ten feet when the man began running. Shoving the phone in her pocket she started chasing after him. As tired and achy as she was, she still had a Slayer's speed. In seconds, she had caught up to him and shoved him to the ground

"Faith! Faith!" Xander's voice sounded far away. Faith ignored it and turned the man around.

"What the hell?"

Lying in front of her was the man who had brought the Stone of Meligan to Justine Cooper nearly fourteen hours earlier.

6:13:24/6:13:25/6:13:26/6:13:27

Andrew had expected that the closer Angel-Slayer got to the endgame of this particular apocalypse, things would start getting clearer. Instead it just seemed to get more and more complicated.

Buffy, Angel and Wesley were dealing with this Kate Lockley in an effort to try and protect Lindsey McDonald-- though how exactly she had gotten involved in this whole mess was somewhat beyond him. Spike, Gunn and Connor were over at the Hyperion trying to keep Lindsey safe-- though how they were going to do that and not mess with Kate's plan was something else that they were keeping close to the vest. Xander was in Wilshire trying to look after an ailing Robin. Faith was in Venice doing the same for an ailing Giles. There was a very good chance that neither was going to be a factor in the fight against evil any longer and nobody was talking about that either.

And the group at Angel-Slayer Inc. were trying to track down a vampire, a demon-human hybrid and a rather nasty large demon all of whom had patterns for mass destruction, and not having a great deal of luck at that either. For all of their surveillance capabilities and computer technology, the plain fact was that you can't find anything unless you know where to look. And they didn't know where to look.

But they had almost no other options. Roderick, the vampire that Angel and Wesley had managed to take prisoner earlier had reached the limits of his knowledge. Lorne had gone through almost all of his old demon contacts and had come up with nothing, as had the few sources that the other members of Angel-Slayer had.

So Andrew had been reduced to looking through some of the old traffic photos of Venice and Santa Monica-- the last known location of Harmony and Cordelia/Jasmine. It was a long shot, but some funny ones had been coming through today.

Suddenly his phone rang. "Andrew." he said answering it.

"It's Faith. Andrew, you know the guy who delivered the Stone holding Spike to Justine?"

Considering everything that had happened today it took a few seconds for her description to click. "Yeah. We lost track of him after we found out Justine was a Slayer."

"Well, I've just caught up with him again."

Andrew perked up. "He was at the hospital?"

"Right now he's under my knees." Pause. "I mean, I'm holding him prisoner." Another pause. "I mean…"

"I know what you mean Faith." Andrew said taking her off the hook. "Did you got a name out of him?"

"Yeah. He says his name is Samuel Hendricks. "

Andrew thought for a second. "How sure are you that that's his real name?"

"Not very. He's not giving me a hell of a lot of information and--" There was another hesitation. "Finally."

"What's happening?"

"My ride just got here." She left the line.

"It's about time you guys showed up!" he heard her yell. "I was getting worried I'd have to find ways to amuse myself!" She came back on the line. "The guy isn't telling me a heck of a lot, so do some kind of background check on him. Find out if he works for the wolf, ram and the hart."

"Got it." He put the phone down and began running Samuel Hendricks's name through the Wolfram & Hart database. It took fifteen seconds for the name to pop up.

In an unexpected place.

"Um, Faith according to this, Hendricks did work for Wolfram & Hart."

"Where?"

"Mergers and Acquisitions. That is, until one month ago."

"Where does he work now?"

"That's just it. According to this, Wolfram & Hart let him go."

Faith considered this. "Um, Wolfram & Hart terminates its employees. It doesn't let them go."

"Says here that they gave him one month's severance pay."

"They don't do that either."

Andrew thought it over. "Which could mean either of two things. Either this Hendricks is lying about who he is or maybe he's still working for them in one of those subterranean, Smoking Man-like plots."

"That's a hell of a choice." Faith said.

"Where are you now?" Andrew asked.

"In one of the company cars."

Andrew gave a small smile. "Then maybe you should take this time to interrogate him a little."

6:20:30/6 20:31/6:20:32

"You know, if I keep this up, people are going start typecasting me," Faith said. "I'll the bad Slayer again, the one who has no trouble torturing people to get what she needs."

"Well Fred hasn't been thrilled about doing it either," Andrew said into her ear. "When the day is over you and her can compare war stories."

"Yeah. That'll be fun." Faith glanced at Hendricks, whom she had buckled into the back seat and handcuffed to the door. He was currently proving that a man can look daggers at a Slayer as well as a vampire. "But I guess I don't have much of a choice." Suddenly an idea struck her. "Unless--"

"Unless what?"

"That's absolutely right. I'll talk to you in a few minutes," Faith said cheerfully.

"Faith, what are you--" She hung up, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Faith leaned in. "Mr. Hendricks, I just got off the phone with my people, as we say around here. And they just told me that you worked for our old friends, Wolfram & Hart."

Hendricks remained silent.

"Still got nothing to say?" she asked jovially. "Good, then listen. It's pretty clear that you have a--" she made the air quotes sign "--'special' relationship with the good people at W and H. And I would hate to spoil it. So, here's what I'm going to do." Speaking to the driver in the front seat she said, "Take us to Southern Boulevard."

As the car pulled out, she began unlocking the handcuffs she'd put on Hendricks. "I'm going to let you go."

The look on Hendricks face became puzzled. "What?"

"Well, you don't want me to torture you, and I don't want to torture you, so I'm going to save us both the trouble. I know that your people are following us so I'm going to take a lot of pressure off everybody and let you walk away free and clear."

The smug look on Hendricks' face faded away. "No, you can't. They see that I'm all right, th-th-they're going to…"

"Kiss-kiss-bang-bang," Faith said. "I know how bad this looks but I'm sure once you explain things exactly as I did they'll be the typically calm, warm, and friendly people we know them to be." With a shark's grin she said, "I hope that you have as good a day as I'm having."

"Wait, wait!" Hendricks looked genuinely panicked. "I can help you."

"And have you betray your former employers? I couldn't make you do that," Faith said sweetly.

"All right, all right! What do you want from me?" he asked

"For starters, what were you doing at the hospital?"

"They wanted me to find out if Ethan Rayne told you anything."

"What does that matter to you? You don't work for Wolfram & Hart anymore. "

"I'm not really working for them. I'm working a special assignment with our government office."

That was new. "What does that have to do with what's going on today?" Faith asked.

"Thompson-- the guy who helped put this operation together-- thinks that we have a leak in the project. Somebody who's working both sides of the game."

"Nice try, but this is Wolfram & Hart. Everybody's working at least one angle on everything."

"This is different." said Hendricks frantically. "It's someone in Angel-Slayer."

Suddenly Faith went cold. She grabbed Hendricks by the lapels. "You're lying." she said as she pulled him in.

"No, no, I swear I'm not." Hendricks looked scared but firm.

"You're telling me that one of our own people is working for you?" Hendricks nodded frenetically. "Who? WHO?"

"I swear on my life that I don't know."

Faith pulled back. As if they didn't have enough problems. Now someone she knew-- someone she had trusted-- was working with the bad guys. The question was who? And how to find out?

Faith needed help. So, even though the person in question might be working the phones now, she did what she had to.

She called Fred.

6:27:16/6:27:17/6:27:18/6:27:19

Kate didn't like what they were asking her to do but Angel knew her well enough to know that no suggestion coming from him would be met with enthusiasm. Buffy, however, had been just as uneasy about the idea as Kate had been. There were too many variables that could end up with people on either side dead. Angel admitted that the plan had flaws, but that they had no time to hammer out anything better. A point that Buffy ultimately conceded.

So Kate was at the place she had agreed to meet Harmony and Ethan's contact-- a spot less than two blocks away from the Hyperion. The three of them were there as well: Angel in an alley a block away, Buffy and Wesley in their car a block further than that. There had been disagreement on this course of action, too, but Angel had insisted that he wanted to be closer to Kate if something went wrong.

"Besides," he'd argued, "I'm the one with the great hearing. If they try to pull a fast one I'll know for sure."

So there they all were-- Kate in her place, Angel in his, Buffy and Wesley in theirs. The only ones not there were Harmony's people, which was surprising. Angel had thought that it was likely that some of them might be scouting around looking for, well, him, so he had hidden in a dumpster. But no one had come by yet. Angel was beginning to think that it might have just been nerves.

He felt a small vibration in his pocket. It took him a bit to remember that he had turned off the ringer on his cell phone, remove it and answer it.

"This isn't going to work," said the voice on the other end without any preliminaries.

"Buffy, we've been over this already." said Angel. "If we get any closer than this they're going to find us. These henchmen are smarter than usual. They're going to be looking for us."

"That'll be difficult but that's not the problem I had in mind," said Buffy doggedly. "We really should—"

"No."

"We should warn them," Buffy continued as if he hadn't said anything.

"We have been over this. If Gunn and Spike look too ready when Harmony comes with her they'll back off. We won't be able to snatch them up and we'll be done."

"That's bullshit. How many minions can Harmony and her crew get together? We have to have gone through at least a hundred or so. Unless she's got a Hellmouth to pull them out off, her ranks have got to be getting pretty thin."

It was a perfectly sound point. Angel wasn't sure he could refute it when he turned his attention back to Kate and found that she was no longer alone. "We're going to have to table this discussion," he said. "It looks like—"

He stopped mid-sentence because he had just seen something that made their lives a whole lot more complicated. There were seven people in the street: Kate and two of her seconds on one side, and three vampires on the other. It was the seventh person his eyes kept coming back too.

Because even at a distance he recognized Cordelia.

6:32:21/6:32:22/6:32:23

Kate had only been party to some of the details of the day's plan, so she was as surprised as Angel when she saw that the leader of the vamps was the woman she had known as Cordelia Chase. She tried to cover it up, but Cordelia/Jasmine noticed: "Let me guess, you're shocked and appalled to see me working against Angel," she said with a cold smile.

Kate knew that she had to play it very carefully. "It doesn't surprise me to see you on the wrong side of things. What does surprise me is that Kendall and Rayne would risk someone of your level to do grunt work."

The smile on Cordelia/Jasmine's face receded a bit. "Our numbers have been greatly reduced by today's events. A lot of our soldiers fell to those pin-headed do-gooders." The smile came back. "We will restore the balance but, right now, I have to step up."

"They must be pretty sure of themselves. Weren't you in a coma six hours ago?" Kate asked casually.

The smile had completely disappeared. "Modern medicine can do wondrous things. Can we get down to business? Time is something of a factor here?"

"So I understand." Kate put her hands together. "We're less than two blocks away from the Hyperion where people from Angel-Slayer are guarding Lindsey McDonald." She raised an eyebrow. "Do I even want to know why they're doing that?"

"They recognize that Lindsey can be a very valuable prize to whichever side he ends up fighting for," Cordelia /Jasmine said, walking around her. "We want him for the exact same reason."

Kate knew that there was more to the story but knew better than to press. "In any case our people tell us that that while the Hyperion is big, the security detail is not: Six or seven guards, including at least one Slayer, Charles Gunn and this vampire Spike." Kate looked straight at her. "Am I leaving anything else out?

"That pretty much covers it." Cordelia/Jasmine had just told her first flat-out lie. Angel had told her that one of the guards was a strong fighter named Connor. She knew that he meant more to Angel than had been implied, but she decided to let this pass-- now was not the time to bring up family matters.

"How are we going to get in?" Kate asked.

"Two or three of your people and four of mine are going to make a charge through the entrance." Cordelia/Jasmine paused. "While they're doing that, me, you and the rest of our people are going to use the building's fire escapes to climb up to the floor where we think that they're keeping Lindsey."

"I take it that you have some idea where that is?" Kate asked.

"The man that we have inside says that Lindsey's on the fourth floor," Cordelia/Jasmine replied. "We don't know which room he's in but it shouldn't be that difficult to find out."

"How hard a fight do you expect it to be?"

"Problematic, but we figure once they see that they're fighting people they'll ease up a little. Particularly Spike." Cordelia/Jasmine smiled. "That soul always makes them hold back."

How would you know? Kate thought but didn't say. Instead, she stated another concern: "We do this, my people could get killed."

"Considering how many of our people have been dusted today, you're not going to get much sympathy from me on that end." Cordelia/Jasmine said, sounding a little pissed. "Anyway, you know how these white hats are. They see humans, they'll back off."

Kate shook her head. "You're counting on their humanity to work for you. I never realized how dark you really were."

Cordelia/Jasmine walked around to her other side. "You knew what we were when you signed on," she said with a smile. "Now we need to get moving. We need to get this done fast and now."

"Wait a minute." Kate said. She wanted to stall for several reasons, so she chose the easiest one. "How exactly are we going to deal with Lindsey's powers?"

Cordelia/Jasmine had started already moving. "Oh we've got something special in mindfor him."

Hoping Angel and the others had heard everything, Kate followed after her.

6:39:44/6:39:45/6:39:46/6:39:47

As much as Kate disliked them, she had been a woman of her word: she had kept her cell phone on and open during her conversation with Cordelia/Jasmine. Since she had dialed Wesley's phone five minutes before, Buffy and Wesley had managed to get almost everything that had said.

Unfortunately Cordelia/Jasmine and Kate had started moving before they could get some vitally important details. And while the cell phones they had were ultra state of the art, they still couldn't get past the problems of being carried in the pocket of a moving body. Which was clearly what was happening now.

"-- two--ep--round--forward--alco--" It sounded like Cordelia's voice but it could have been Sharon Stone for all Buffy could tell.

"Great, we're trying to save the world and the phone sounds like the drive-thru at Doublemeat," said Buffy sighing.

"It doesn't matter," said Wesley. "We have the basic outline of the plan. The details aren't as important."

"Isn't the devil in the details?"

He looked at Buffy who shrugged.

"I'm sorry. I heard it in a movie and it sounded cool. I don't have the foggiest idea what it means."

Wesley just looked at her. Fortunately, at that moment, Buffy's cell phone rang. "Yeah?"

"You getting anything else from Kate?" Angel asked.

"You can't get anything on your end?" returned Buffy.

"They're walking away from me and they've got a small entourage behind them. I'm as close as I'm going to get."

Buffy listened as Wesley's cell phone continued to sing the chorus from 'Witch Doctor'. "We've gotten all we're going to, but according to Wesley that's enough. Do you think it is?"

"It'll have to be. They intend to make their move on the hotel now. I think that we've got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they strike. We need to get ready to start countering them."

"And we're still not going to warn Gunn and Spike." Buffy had been about to start on that when Wesley interrupted her.

"I don't want to go over this again but we actually have a more pressing issue than warning the others." he said, somewhat agitated.

"Such as…?" Buffy was getting agitated herself.

"That Harmony and her squad have a man inside Angel/Slayer."

Buffy considered this for a second. "First of all, we don't know that it's a man. For all we know it could be a girl. Second" she continued before Wesley could make a more direct comment, "and more importantly: old news. We've known that they've had a man inside since this morning. There's at least one high level Wolfram & Hart personnel working for Thompson and against us."

Angel interrupted: "Unfortunately, the problem is now larger than that. They knew where we were keeping Lindsey. They have a layout of the Hyperion. They know what floor he's on. "

The seriousness of the situation struck Buffy. "The only ones who know that are our people.""It's possible someone let it slip," Wesley admitted. "There are a lot of people working for us and it's a very big building."

"Well, before we start doing a Joe McCarthy let's be damn sure." Buffy was starting to get angry and concerned all at once. "Call Willow or Fred."

Wesley dialed Angel-Slayer. When Fred answered she barely had time to say two words before he said: "Fred, we may have a security problem."

"I'll see you your security problem and raise you," Fred responded.

"How did you know?"

"A little worm told us."

"What?"

6:44:27/6:44:28/6:44:29

Fred took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "I didn't think that anything else could happen to make today any worse," she said, "then half an hour ago Faith calls and tells me that she ran into another spy from Wolfram & Hart."

"Where?"

Fred hesitated. After a fair amount of internalizing she had decided that she wouldn't tell Buffy about Giles's condition. They knew he was in the hospital. Telling Buffy would only bring her closer to overload than she already was. She wasn't happy about it but, like the others in similar situations, she realized how big the crisis was. Everybody needed to be close to their peak. "At the hospital where Giles and Ethan Rayne are being treated. A guy named Samuel Hendricks was watching in the wings."

"What exactly did he tell you?"

"That one of…" she swallowed "our people is working with Wolfram & Hart against us."

There was a long pause as Wesley considered. "How sure are you that he isn't talking out his arse?"

"We've considered that," Fred said. "Under different circumstances I might write it off as more Wolfram & Hart posturing. But this whole day…" she sighed. "It just feels like somebody's been matching us move for move."

"Maybe they have a psychic working for them. Don't laugh, it's not outside the realm of possibility."

"I didn't and it isn't. Frankly I'd be a lot happier if it were," Fred said. I mean being spied on from afar is easier to take than the idea of…" She trailed off and sighed. "But you obviously think that they have someone on the inside."

"According to Jasmine there definitely is."

Fred frowned. "Jasmine's there?" She had gotten the Cliff Notes version of their encounter with Kate and their plan, but she hadn't expected Jasmine to be there.

"Yes, and we have to get moving on our end," Wesley said abruptly. "If Angel's right we don't have much time. Look, if there is a person he or she would have to have joined us after we all arrived in Los Angeles, right?"

"Odds are that's right."

"Then here's what we should do: Keep information limited strictly to board members. Anyone who isn't from Sunnydale or our group, we keep as far out of the loop as possible."

"I've already talked with Willow and Andrew about doing something like that." Fred said in agreement. "Fortunately there's enough to do so that we can probably keep non-essentials busy on less than vital things." Fred rolled her eyes. "Now I'm starting to sound like I'm in a war movie."

"That's a good way to keep thinking about this. Like it or not we're right in the middle of combat against a scurrilous enemy. We are at war. We should sound like it."

"I guess so."

"All right, we're going to go over what we're going to do now."

Fred shifted her attention on what was going to happen next. But a small part of her mind kept thinking about the possibility of a double agent working at Angel-Slayer.

And what happened when traitors were exposed during a war.

6:51:06/6:51:07/6:51:08/6:51:09

For Gunn, it was déjà vu all over again. Yes, he was protecting one person in a hotel but essentially he was protecting one person from a rather large enemy. He knew very well how badly things had done eleven hours ago; he was going to be damn sure that history didn't repeat itself.

In many ways, it was an easier job than guarding the Wolfram & Hart building. For one thing, the Hyperion was barely a quarter the size of that building, for another it already had a pretty advanced security system. But he was faced with much the same problem that had occurred earlier in the day: a shortage of manpower. It was partly his own doing as he had thought that the chance of a similar invasion was much less likely. After all, few people knew that they had Lindsey McDonald and an even smaller number knew that they were using this building as a safehouse.

Then Willow had called and told him, in very plain terms, that somebody on the inside might be working against them. Gunn had been particularly cut to the quick because he had put most of the new hires onto the security detail.

"After nearly eight years doing this I thought that I could trust the people I work with," he told Willow. "I mean, we did background checks back through grade school. We had Lorne read them. Everything." He shook his head. "How the hell did they do this to us?"

"I don't know," Willow admitted. "These people work with evil. They must have ways to work around even the most extreme tests." She sighed. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We have to prepare to defend ourselves."

"Which means that we have to get ready for an all out assault."

"I don't think that'll happen," Willow said thoughtfully. "I mean, they have to have lost a lot of vamps and demons today. Unless their ranks are truly bottomless, they gotta be down to the dregs."

Gunn considered. "I suppose you're right," he conceded. "They probably can't do another assault like they did earlier. It will have to be a lot lower caliber."

"How many people do you have?"

"Me, Patrice, Beryl and four heavily armed guards," Gunn answered. "Plus I hear this Spike guy can handle himself in a fight."

"You could say that," Willow replied wryly. "What about Connor? I hear he's a pretty good fighter himself."

"Well according to Angel and Buffy he can handle himself," said Gunn thoughtfully. "Whether he can do it in close quarters is another story. I just don't know if—"

At that moment one of the guards ran up to him. "Gunn, something may be happening."

"Willow, I'd better go." He hung up, walking with the guard. "What is it, Hanlon?"

"I just got a call from Lasky on the top floor." said Hanlon briskly. "He says that he saw some kind of movement in the alley behind the hotel."

"Human or non-human?"

"Couldn't tell from that high up," Hanlon said. "If it's human, they're incredibly swift and sure."

By now Gunn and Hanlon were walking towards the back door. "Get Beryl and Nunez down here now. They're probably getting ready to strike now. We should cut them off at the--"

Both men stopped moving as they heard glass shatter.

They whirled around.

And suddenly Gunn was back in the rebuilt Caritas as a large flaming trash can came hurtling through the glass doors of the balcony.

"GET DOWN!" Gunn shouted, pushing Hanlon as he hit the ground himself.

The barrel just missed both of them. Neither of them saw it strike the stairway. But they both saw the flames hit the banister and set it ablaze.

"Jesus Christ!" said Gunn. He yanked out the walkie-talkie that he was carrying. "They've broken into the lobby! I repeat they've broken into the lobby! Patrice! Nunez! Beryl! Get down here now!Andsomebody get the goddamn fire extinguisher before this fire hazard burns to the ground!"

Even as Gunn shouted, he saw figures running into the building. As they did, he noticed two things that didn't make him happy.

Some of the figures were real people.

And all of them were carrying guns.

6:57:40/6:57:41/6:57:42

As they climbed the fire escape, Kate couldn't help but stare at the smoke that was starting to come out of the window.

Cordelia/Jasmine noticed. "What's the matter? Don't tell me that your feeling sorry for those…people?" she said dryly.

A lot of things were bothering Kate, so she chose the one that she thought would raise the least objection. "Was the firebomb really necessary? My people could have just pinned them down with gunfire."

"You still don't get it, do you?" said Cordelia/Jasmine as she resumed climbing. "We're not playing paintball. This is for real, Kate. They are a threat to us which we will remove. Get it?"

Kate restrained herself only by concentrating on the fact that Angel and Buffy needed her to be compliant. They hadn't, however, said she had to be nice.

"I get it," she said coldly. "And don't ever call me Kate again."

Cordelia/Jasmine knew better than to bait the woman further so they and the rest of their people climbed the last level in silence. An emergency door and a bay window were waiting for them. "Now watch carefully, Lockley. You might learn something," said Cordelia/Jasmine. Very carefully she eased the window open. She turned around. "All right boys, let's get ready to--"

Before she could finish, a pair of very strong hands grabbed her and yanked her inside.

"Who the fuck--" Cordelia/Jasmine slammed against the wall, more surprised than overpowered. Then the owner of the hands pulled her to her feet.

"Fancy meeting you here," said Spike.

6:59:57/6:59:58/6:59:59/7:00:00