Chapter 7
"Hello. Is this Angel's Investigations?" The woman was dressed in a plain, tailored three piece suit.
"Willow looked up from her place behind the desk, "Yes, it is. Can we help you?"
"Is Angel here?" She walked up to the desk resting her hands on it authoritatively.
"No, he's out right now, but if you tell us what the problem is we can tell him as soon as he gets back." Willow answered, trying to sound as secretarial as she could.
"No," The woman smiled apologetically, "Could I just wait for him?"
"I guess," Willow looked to Xander and Giles for help, "But we don't know how long he'll be out."
Xander snorted and under his breath added, "'Cause he didn't even tell us he was going."
Willow shot a glare at Xander.
The woman smiled at the friendship that these two obviously had and moved towards the couches in the center of the grand room. When she noticed the books all around the table, floor and chairs she glanced at them oddly than asked Giles, "Could I help you, maybe?"
"Probably not, the only books I haven't gone through yet are in Sumerian. So, unless you can read Sumerian…" He drifted off as the text drew his attention.
The woman smiled brightly and shook her blonde hair as she grabbed one of the books, "Funny you should say that," and began reading, than seeming to realize she had no idea what she was reading for, stopped and spoke again, "What am I supposed to be doing with it?"
Xander looked up from his own book, "we're not exactly sure, anything mentioning The End of Days or something similar. Apocalypses, Shanshu, vampires with soul, slayer. Something along those lines."
"Oh. Okay."
They all settled back into their books and the only sounds were the clicking of the Willow on the computer.
"Okay, so you died. Who cares? Get over it. I did."
"And I'm supposed to see you as my role model?" Buffy giggled at the thought of Angelus the Role Model.
"Yes!"
Buffy just laughed harder.
"Okay…okay…okay. So, yea, I'm a vampire. Not the best role model for a slayer, I guess. But really, it's been seven years. We're all tired of you moping. If I was alive I wouldn't bother to fight you, or torment you; you aren't worth it anymore. I'd just kill you."
Buffy took it as it was. an insult, "I am too worth torturing!"
"Sorry, Buf. You just don't got that certain oomph anymore."
"I do too!"
"If you did, these vampires who got you here would already be dead, and you'd already be with the quipping. And what's with that? You don't even quip anymore. You're just like wham-bam-thank-you-mam! Don't even stop to talk. Rude is what it is."
Buffy rolled her eyes, but Angelus could tell that he was finally getting to her.
"She gonna' wake up soon again?"
"Yea."
"You gonna' shoot her again?"
"Yea."
"Man, why ain't we just killin' her?"
"'Cause."
"Cause why?"
"'Cause the boss said not to!"
"But why?"
"I don't know. Ask him!"
"Never mind."
Buffy didn't open her eyes this time. She kept her breathing and heart slow and steady, not giving away that she was awake. She could sense the three vampires, they were in the same spots they had been the first time she had woken. The cage was her biggest problem; she knew that it was built to keep vampires in, so most likely it would be strong enough to keep her in as well. She wouldn't be able to bend the bars, or break the bars; she would have to get them to open it somehow. How though?
"She should be awake. Why isn't she awake?" The vampire began murmuring anxiously.
"Is she pretendin'?" The vampire with the comic book said.
"Ya' think? Could she do that?"
"She's a slayer man. She could do anything!"
"So should I just shoot her again? What if she isn't pretending? What if I shoot her and than the stuff doesn't work?"
Buffy murmured to the guard, "I'm awake."
"Oh." The vampire blinked before realizing that she was indeed, as she said, awake.
He shot her.
"Dammit! Angelus! How do I get out of the freakin' cage?"
"Use your brain. You do still have one, right?"
Buffy glared at him and he smirked.
"It's made for vampires, not slayers."
"But vampires are just as strong as me."
"Are they?"
"Aha!" Giles exclaimed jumping up and spilling several books onto the floor.
Xander smiled, "Aha?"
The woman in the nice suit smiled back at Xander, "I didn't know people still said Aha."
Giles looked at both of them with his best disapproving parent look.
"The Mouth of Hell shall once again be in the Valley of the Sun." Giles quoted from the book, "That appears at the end of the prophecy the beginning seems to be in another dialect, I don't know what it says."
The woman smiled sweetly and gently took the book away from him, "In hate. In love. In war. Between light and dark. There are two who are both. One fades in Death. Mourning comes. Onelightensin Ashes. The Mouth of Hell shall once again be in the Valley of the Sun."
Giles looked at the woman in awe, "You can read that?"
"Of course. I am Inanna." She blinked out of the building in a flash of blinding white light.
Xander shouted, "Aha! I knew she was a demon! I knew it!"
Willow looked at him doubtfully.
"She flirted with me. Only demons do that! I knew it….I knew it….I knew it!" He continued to dance around the room.
TBC