LEGAL A/N: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belong to Joss Whedon, 20TH Century Fox Television, UPN, The WB and CW. 24 and all characters belong to Robert Cochran, Joel Surnow, 20TH Century Fox Television, Imagine Television, Real Time Productions and Fox Network. No profit is being made off of this and no copyright infringement is intended.

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN 2:00 A.M. AND 3:00 A.M.

2:00:00 A.M. PST

Anya sat in the corner of her padded cell with her back firmly pressed up against the wall. Fatigue was weighing heavily on her, but she stared defiantly at the grimy glass wall straight ahead of her. The two vampire guards on the outside remained in their positions, with their hands behind their backs and their backs facing Anya as they guarded a door to the room outside of the cell. The tall figure from before entered the room as the door slid open for him and two other vampires he was with.

The former Vengeance demon hopped up and rushed to the glass wall. "Hey!" she shouted, from within the cell. "Hey! Old guy!" Merrick paused in his steps, turning his attention away from the guards and to her. "Yeah!" she yelled. "I'm talking to you!"

"There's no need to shout, my dear," he declared in a round, British accent which came through clearly on a speaker over Anya's head.

"Then hear this," Anya demanded with a quieter, yet threateningly serious tone. "Let me go right now."

"What makes you think I would do such a thing?" Merrick asked with a grin.

"Get me out of here," Anya spat. "I'm warning you!"

He was silent for a few moments as he studied her face with a tilted head. "Tell you what," he began, his round cheeks stretching with another smile. "I won't let you go, but I'll open the door and remove the only thing standing between you and them." Merrick glanced back briefly to the small gang of vampires that stared at her in vampface, smirking with fanged jaws. "How does that sound, eh?"

"They'll come looking for me," Anya retorted, her nerves chipping away at her boldness.

"The Slayer? Yes, of this I am certain."

"Not just Buffy," she shook her head. "Let's just say I've got an extended family you don't want to meet."

"Of whom do you speak?" Merrick asked with curiosity.

"Ever heard of D'Hoffryn?"

Merrick nodded his head with a thoughtful expression. "Vengeance demons."

"You bet your wrinkly ass," she sneered, having the upper edge once more.

After a moment or two, she actually considered the idea of D'Hoffryn, her demon 'father' of sorts, or the demon that gave her the powers of the Vengeance demon over one thousand years ago, teleporting in and rescuing her. Although unlikely in reality, she added as much hope and optimism to her defensive words as she could muster.

"Things… haven't exactly been… right as rain between us," Anya explained; D'Hoffryn was the one that took away her powers and rendered her mortal after all. "But that doesn't change who I was!"

"Who you still are," Merrick replied calmly, taking her by surprise. Anya gazed at him through the glass in confusion. "Once a demon, always a demon, Anyanka. You were one of the most vicious of them all." Her shoulders slumped as he stared at her with a growing smile and declared with a somewhat omniscient view of her life. "The blood of thousands stains your hands. Do you think that any one being can wash that away? It was demon blood that once ran through your veins; it is the same blood that exists in you. No… you are not fully demon, but you will never be fully human." His smile faded as he declared cruelly with a flat tone, "And that is why he will reject you."

Anya stared at him blankly, taken aghast. "What?" she breathed.

"You may have his heart, demon," Merrick warned, "but you will never have his trust."

Her stunned expression slowly melted away into a disturbed one. She was motionless and humiliated, either for acting like she believed what he was saying or actually believing it. There was nothing that she could think of to reply. There was nothing at all but the sudden random image of her sitting alone in her wedding gown, sobbing in the aisle of her wedding; Xander was nowhere in sight.

"Your blood is forever tainted," Merrick declared finally, "and so are you." She glanced up at him as he turned to walk away from her with a slight sound of pity in his voice as he apologetically added, "We cannot change who we are."

With that, he walked out of the room with his vampires in tow, leaving her alone in the darkness of her cell.

2:07:30 A.M. PST

Xander leaned against a wall in the back of the store, his blank gaze far-off and his mind deep in worried contemplation. The ringing of the bell broke his thoughts as Tara and Dawn entered the Magic Box first. "Merciful Zeus!" Xander exclaimed as he saw them. "I was beginning to worry—"

Buffy and Jack came through the door next, both carrying a shoulder of the bound, unconscious vampire they dragged into the store behind them. "And you brought friends…" Xander declared in confusion.

Willow walked into the back from the basement downstairs and was excited and relieved to see them as well. Before she could greet them as such she saw the vampire hostage and paused with confusion. "Buffy… James… what's going on?"

"Well, for starters," Buffy began with a sigh as she and Jack dragged the vampire through the shop. "His name's not James."

"What?" Xander exclaimed. He stared up at Jack with sudden suspicion, but then turned towards the door as he heard the floor creak. The final member of their group walked in – Spike, covered in bruises with a torn shirt under his leather duster. The world around Xander ceased as he glared at the blank-faced and weakened demon. "Son of a bitch—!" He lunged for him as Buffy snatched him back. Tara jumped in his path.

"Xander, just hold on!" she pleaded as Xander calmed himself and did not struggle against Buffy, who was holding onto both the vampire and her friend. "He's injured—"

"Oh," he calmly and rationally replied. "Then let's kill him."

Dawn stepped in to his defense. "Xander, listen, he's not the bad guy here! He helped me escape; he was working for us the whole time... You've got to believe me!"

"I don't need anybody's sodding explanations," Spike spat in disgust as he leaned against the doorframe, needing it to remain upright. "I don't have to answer to anybody 'round… here…" His words became shorter as the Scoobies watched him be overtaken by sudden dizziness.

"Spike?" Buffy replied in confusion as the vampire swayed in the doorway. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head as he fell unconsciously to the floor, his airless chest beginning to heave erratically.

"What's happening to him?" Dawn asked in shock.

"Dawn, Xander, get to the basement, find any chains and ropes you can," Buffy ordered, "and bring them back to me. Willow, Tara, move Spike down to the cot in the basement and help him while Jack and I secure the vamp in the training room."

Willow gazed at him blankly. "How? We don't know what's wrong—"

"I don't know," Buffy witheringly exclaimed, "just do something to sedate him! We can't waste any more time – go now!"

2:13:05 A.M. PST

Buffy yanked on the thick chains wrapped tightly around the vampire as she and Jack circled their hostage in the darkness of the training room. Jack kneeled down and made sure the unconscious vampire's feet were tightly bound to the legs of the chair that he was chained to.

"All right," Buffy exhaled, standing up and brushing her hands off. "That should do it. He's not going anywhere."

Jack came to a stand and walked quickly to Giles' desk sitting in the corner near the door of the training room. Buffy crossed her arms and turned towards him curiously as he unzipped his black gym bag and shifted through the contents inside.

"I'm gonna need any tools… weapons – any sharp objects you can find," Jack began. "Anything extremely hot or cold. Holy water, I need that." An idea suddenly occurred to him and he glanced up at Buffy, "You wouldn't happen to have any towels, would you?"

"You're still planning to torture him," she said with a dark tone, shaking her head as if it were a childish act.

"I see you're good with context clues," Jack replied, looking down with a frustrated tone. She looked over at him with a slightly hurt expression, not expecting a response like that, but she quickly ignored it.

Buffy began to explain, "I was just saying that—"

"You were the one that told me all vampires were evil," Jack cut her off as he continued to sort through the bag.

"I never said that."

"And you sure seem to have a lot of sympathy for them."

"Nothing's black and white," she responded with a cold tone, offended. "There's a gray area to everything. I thought someone like you would understand that."

"I understand that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty," he snipped quickly. He lifted a hunting knife out of the bag and examined the sharp blade. He looked over at her, "You can't tell me that you've never used force on anyone to get vital information."

"Yeah, I have before," she sighed. "When I was young and in my Tarantino phase." She sighed and crossed her arms, rolling her eyes with frustration, "Things are different now."

"It's a necessary sacrifice," Jack explained matter-of-factly. "That never changes."

"But the sacrifice always does," Buffy exclaimed, "and my whole life was centered around it."

He stopped what he was doing and looked up at her as she turned away, explaining, "First, you sacrifice your future to be the Slayer. Then you sacrifice your life to save the world. Then you sacrifice your boyfriend, your friends, innocent children… and before you know it, you've sacrificed everything you've ever believed in and fought for." His eyes fell to the ground with a heavy weight resting upon them as he thoughtfully considered her dark position.

"Sacrifice - I don't believe in that word anymore," Buffy stated with a withering tone. "Once upon a time it was used by real heroes with a real purpose… but now any time I hear it it's only used by people who only want instant justification for what they do wrong."

Jack continued to stare intently at the shadows resting on the floor, the moonlight from outside cutting through them in soft shapes and curves. The coldness of dark memories drifted into his mind as a chill ran through him as he replied, "'Fair is foul, and foul is fair.'"

Buffy turned to him with a blank, confused expression. "Huh?"

"Macbeth," Jack answered, staring down into the darkness. It was one of the few books his father had left him. He finally pulled his eyes off of the floor and stared up at her with the coldness that occupied before fully removed. "You're right in saying that there's a gray line," he said, barely over a whisper. "Nothing is what it seems."

Buffy gazed at him with a strange sense of déjà vu as he gave her an unbridled sense of cold reality, untainted by the past six months of her 'second chance at life' which had been destroying her.

"But with all honesty and respect, in the end it's not really about protecting those people," he continued. "It's about you protecting your innocence." She was taken aback for a moment, stunned to say the least. "Do you really think remaining neutral is going to solve any problems?" Her astonishment gradually turned to anger. "Sometimes you have to do what's wrong to make things right."

Buffy's green eyes flashed, deeply offended, "Where do you get off—?"

"I understand what it means to you," Jack calmly added, diffusing her impending explosion. "I know why you want to hang onto the innocence so badly. But those lives that you care so much about – they're worth more than you, or me, or any one person. More than your innocence."

The realization came to her like a bolt of lighting through her body and stood her hair up on end. It felt as if she were having a conversation with her watcher once again.

It was same conversation, in fact, that she had with Giles the night she sacrificed her life and spared Dawn's. Giles had told her that if Glory began the spell to destroy the world, Dawn had to die. Buffy was firmly against it and had her fill of the 'sacrifice' crap. She would have let the world and everyone in it perish to protect her sister. So when the world began to unhinge – the apocalypse began – it was perhaps by fate, or a higher power, or pure fantastic luck that Buffy realized that she could take Dawn's place.

From the moment she was brought back, however, the Slayer wondered what life would be like if a situation so lucky had not occurred. If she had to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, would she? Could she?

She let out a long sigh, dourly pondering the possibility that what seemed like the wrong thing to do was the right thing after all.

"Macbeth was a tragedy," she tiredly replied.

Jack looked away from Buffy, his green and blue eyes falling to the shadows again. "Yes," he whispered, nodding his head grimly. "Yes, it was."

2:22:14 A.M. PST

Buffy and Jack, carrying his bag, walked out of the training room where Dawn and Xander were waiting in the front of the store. "Are you two all right so far?" Buffy asked, getting something almost like nods from them. Jack glanced over to the phone on the wall as Tara and Willow walked in from the basement.

"We gave him something that should calm him down," Tara explained. "He's out, though."

"It's like he's fallen into some sort of coma," Willow replied.

"Any idea what's causing it?" Buffy asked.

"It looks like a reaction to some sort of chemical agent," Willow answered.

"What makes you think that?" asked Buffy.

"By looking at the bullet wounds," Willow explained. "There's a lot more bruising than usual, and they don't seem to be healing. But it's still too early to tell."

"We've done all we can right now," Tara added. "I'll go back in a few minutes to check on him."

"Good," Xander said, taking a breath. "Now. Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" He looked over to see Jack unscrewing the cover of the telephone and opening it up, revealing a rope of wires. "And most importantly – who the hell are you?"

"I'm Jack Bauer," he explained while working away on the telephone. He pulled out a black electrical box from his bag as he diligently cut wires from the telephone. "I was a federal agent working with the Department of Defense and CTU-Los Angeles until one day six months ago."

Willow stepped over and curiously stared with wonder as Jack tied several wires together. "What's CTU?" she asked.

"Counter Terrorist Unit," Xander explained.

All of them glanced up at him with momentary confusion. Tara replied after a quick revelation, "Oh – more Halloween-night military training, right?"

"No," Xander replied with a slight blush. "I saw The Punisher."

"What happened six months ago?" Dawn asked.

"I was part of the operation to take down Habib Marwan," he answered, "the terrorist responsible for the nuclear reactor meltdown and the Air Force One crash that killed President Keeler." He swiftly began to attach wires from inside of his black box to the telephone without missing a beat of his story. "To get information, we had to go against procedure and detain someone on the Chinese embassy in Los Angeles, but we were unable to do so undetected. There was a shoot-out and the consul was killed accidentally. The Chinese government wanted somebody to prosecute, and the American government thought I was too much of a liability."

"You mean knowing secret spy stuff?" Dawn asked.

Jack glanced over at her as he taped the two devices together. "That's… one way of putting it…" He looked back down and continued his story, "So instead of handing me over to face trial, somebody ordered my execution."

"Who?" Tara breathed, gripped by the dramatic tale.

"Somebody high up," Jack shrugged, with only vague ideas of who was responsible. "Someone in the White House." The Scoobies gave each other amazed looks as they turned back to see Jack finishing up the device upgrade, putting the phone back together. "I faked my own death and changed my name. Now I'm here."

"Here?" Xander scoffed. "Hate to break it to you, but your decision-making skills - at least when it comes to property values - kinda suck."

"And apparently, so does your timing," Willow added. "No offense, but your just happening to be here on the day everything does wrong... brings some suspicion to mind."

"Yeah," Xander replied as he leaned back against a wall and eyed Jack carefully, "is that a common occurrence?"

"You'd be surprised," Jack scoffed.

"Doubt it," Xander quipped. "Not my birthday."

"I know what you're thinking," Jack tried to reason with him, but couldn't very well shield the growing agitation in his voice. "I'd be thinking it too if I were in your position."

"I trust him, Xander," Buffy sighed.

He rolled his eyes. "That comforts me."

Willow flashed her eyes over at him. "Xander!"

"Everything we thought we knew about today is turning out to be a bunch of lies!" Xander declared as he rose to a stand, pent-up anger releasing. He pointed to Jack, "How can we trust him?" He pointed to the telephone, "Or what Giles is saying…" With a calmer, but equally serious tone he gestured to the corpse resting in the basement, "I've still got no idea how we ever trusted him…"

Tara put her hand to her head with exhaustion. "You guys, can we just calm down—?"

"We haven't got the time for this!" Jack shouted in agreement, his annoyance erupting.

"Spike was trying to help!" Dawn hissed at Xander. "He was being covert."

"He was trying to impress Buffy!" Xander shouted back.

"I get it!" Buffy replied angrily. "You've got problems. You're not the only one. But you are the only one who's been acting like an ass! So why don't you get—"

Xander defended, "I'm trying to find Anya—"

"Shut up!" Willow barked, silencing everyone. "You guys like how that sounds?" The Scoobies and Jack turned to her with confusion. "We've been screaming orders at each other all night. I just thought hearing ourselves yell would make everything okay." Willow's dark eyes batted from face to face. "So does it? Are our problems solved now?" She saw nothing but silence and shame from all around. "Didn't think so."

After taking a deep breath, she continued with a calmer, quieter tone, "Before tonight we were all going through a lot of problems. They don't matter right now. Our friend is out there. We don't know where, but more importantly, we don't know why. For whatever reason, we've… we've all been so aggressive with each other, we haven't been thinking straight. We have to start now…"

Several seconds passed as they let her wise words sink in. Tara looked over at Willow with a sense of pride. It appeared as if Magick didn't destroy her after all.

"We need to figure out who's behind this," Xander declared with a much calmer tone than before. "We know that whoever it was had to have gotten to Sophie and the town vampires, but… that doesn't necessarily mean that it's isolated to the Hellmouth this time. Giles told us about Quinton Travers or… Roger Stanton – whatever his name is—"

"Wait, what did you say?" Jack asked, staring at Xander in confusion. He was stricken with a sudden irony – something too deep to be coincidental.

"Which part?" Xander replied, befuddled and disoriented.

"Roger Stanton."

"Former head of the National Security Agency, apparently," Buffy answered. "Meanwhile, his alter-ego Quinton Travers is current head of the Watcher's Council." She considered it momentarily. "Technically, he's not a head... more of an ass, really—"

"Oh, my god," Jack breathed, staring down at the space before him as his mind raced.

"What is it?" Dawn asked.

Jack responded, "I assumed Roger Stanton was prosecuted for treason."

"You know Travers?" Xander replied, stunned.

"I know Stanton," Jack answered. "What's the Watcher's Council?"

"A watcher:" Buffy defined, "a stuck-up, mostly British, total book-nerd type wearing tweed with no sense of humor and both fish-and-chips and a yen for destiny stuck up their ass." After a deep breath, Buffy added, "And rumor has it that this particular one has a talent for acting, too."

"Roger Stanton was an alias?" Jack declared with shock, shaking his head. "He even fooled President Palmer." He looked up at Buffy with a grave expression, "You don't just do that without help from the inside and some seriously deep ties."

"Like a government agency cover-up?" Willow asked.

"Exactly," Jack nodded.

Xander looked over to Jack. "I guess this is where you come in to help. Time to answer the eternal question:" He gestured to all the Scoobies, standing around, "Who are the Ghostbusters gonna call?"

Bauer looked over at the phone with a quick decision and picked up the receiver. He began to dial and heard at least three rings on the line before a weak, tired, grumpy female voice, the owner of which unknowing of the caller, answered in annoyance, "What do you want?"

"Don't hang up the phone, Chloe," Jack stated.

Chloe O'Brian's eyes widened sharply as she held the phone receiver to her ear. She was now wide awake.

2:35:04 A.M. PST

Anya stood in her cell completely alone and unwatched, her mind in deep contemplation for several minutes. The vampires that had been guarding her were sent away. They didn't even pay her enough worry to keep watch.
Merrick's words kept replaying over and over again in her mind. "I'm not a demon," Anya whispered to herself. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her and her face was crumpled in a frown.

"I was…" she mumbled. "A pretty damn good one, but… D'Hoffryn took it away. There's no way that…" Was it possible that all this time she wasn't quite as human as she suspected?

She glanced up at the ceiling of her cell to see a small ventilation cover that gently blew cold air into the cell. Vengeance demons, like most demon species, had the gift of sensitive hearing. Inside of her heart, the belief and pride of being a Vengeance demon sparked once again. She stood taller and breathed deeper, with a sense of confidence in her eyes.

She stood up tall and cleared her senses, then closed her eyes and listened to the soft hum of the air. Soon enough, a small, low-pitched voice began to register. The sounds of Merrick's voice traveled with the air in the ventilation system to her ears, barely intelligible. She listened harder, trying to distinguish syllables and words.

2:37:58 A.M. PST

Dust thickly covered a conference room table that was surrounded by a plethora of different types of vampires. Both male and female, they were characterized by many differences – all of them unique from different backgrounds. Each of them had been a vampire for at least fifty years, while a handful of them had been demons for over 500.

The oldest of the vampires was a Russian female with long, dark red hair that wore a long, dark red overcoat. She was over 700 years old, but no one was absolutely sure just how old. Beneath her long suede jacket said to be stained red with the blood of her thousands of victims, she wore tight, revealing clothing – dark pants and a plunging neckline on her top with leather boots.

Her face was exquisite and near-perfect, with deep crimson lips that were permanently colored and piercing dark eyes. The face's one flaw was a long scar that ran from her right ear to the right corner of her mouth – earned from Janet Hayner, one of the six Slayers she had murdered. Although her face was beautiful, no one dared to look her in the eye.

The only true name that they knew had belonged to her was Vourdulak, while the name Larissa which she went by was said to have been adopted by her in the past century. She had a peculiar way of adopting the name of the last Slayer she defeated.

She was more dangerous and mesmerizing than anything most of them had ever seen. And Merrick thought she would want to be there personally for that night.

"My friends," Merrick declared with a smile, "for years we have planned this night. We have successfully put in motion our grand plan." His tone became a bit somber. "But we cannot deny that we have met certain obstacles."

He gazed down at the dirty, tiled floor. "Sophie and Eljiah were passionate, if nothing else. They tried to accomplish the more difficult parts of the plan. We have learned that they have both failed." A sound of hope filled his voice as he turned back to the eclectic gang of vampires. "That was what Sunnydale had to offer. But none of you are from here."

The volume of his words rose with passion and excitement. "You've been summoned from all over the world." He faced a young-looking, bald-headed Asian man in leather who stood in the corner with a twisted smile on his face. "Kwan Paik from Korea," he introduced. He was the head of a fierce gang in South Korea and in the three hundred years he had been a demon, he and his gang rivaled half of the death toll of all the wars fought on his homeland combined.

Merrick moved over and introduced a man covered in a black Jalabeyah robe with a V-neck that was embroidered with the symbols of the gods of the underworld which he still worshipped. "Ahmed Khalifa," Merrick grinned, "from Egypt."

"Valencia Cortez from Argentina," Merrick continued, pointing at a beautiful young Hispanic girl with blue eyes, brown skin and light brown hair. She, too, had another infamous name – "La niña del muerto." She appeared to be no more than fourteen, but had been a vicious vampire for roughly 450 years.

"And of course," Merrick said with a smile, turning towards Vourdulak, "Larissa."

After several moments of awe and pride, he addressed all of the fifty or so vampires. "You are all infamous in your lands. Tonight we will raise an army, and you will be it. You will have more power than you've ever dreamed. An unstoppable force. Invincible. Immortal."

"And who shall lead us?" Vourdulak asked with a smooth, soft voice with a thick Russian accent. "You?"

"It takes more than a man to lead such an army," Merrick responded. "It takes a legend." He grinned in deep contemplation beneath the brim of his hat. "It takes a Champion."

2:42:39 A.M. PST

The telephone blared inside a dark bedroom as a frustrated and groggy groan sounded out. A hand reached out of the thick blanket and fumbled across a nightstand until it reached the receiver of the ringing telephone. A handsome man in his thirties with short and thick, black, curly hair and dark stubble on his face pushed himself away from the bed with a sigh. He put the receiver to his ear and painfully sighed, "Yes?"

"Tony," a female voice nervously declared on the other end. "It's Chloe."

"Chloe?" former CTU-operative Tony Almeida exclaimed in frustration and confusion. "It's almost three in the morning!"

"I know what time it is!" Chloe snapped grumpily, not appreciating his tone.

"What is it?" Tony asked, rolling his dark and blurry eyes. His tone of voice stirred his wife, Michelle Dessler-Almeida, out of her sleep.

"I need your help," Chloe sighed.

Tony sat up in his place in their queen-sized bed, rubbing his forehead. "I'm not with CTU anymore."

Michelle, the lovely young woman in her thirties with rings of dark curls hanging around her alabaster face, stared at her husband with concern. "Tony, what's wrong?" she whispered with a tired voice. Both of them had worked at CTU through some of its darkest days, but since they had quit six months ago after the death of their dear friend Jack Bauer, they had the luxury of living a peaceful, unemployed, and normal life.

"I know that, too," Chloe responded to Tony's answer. "That's why I'm calling."

"What about?" Tony declared, urging her to tell him what kind of business she would have with them in the middle of an idle Tuesday night.

Chloe whispered as inconspicuously as possible, "It's the one thing we have in common that CTU doesn't know about."

Tony paused suddenly, his mind freezing and he instantly knew what the panic was over. He covered the mouthpiece of the receiver and turned to his anxiously curious wife and whispered simply, "It's Jack." Michelle's dark eyes went wide with shock. They had agreed to not make contact unless it was a genuine emergency when they brought him back to life and sent him away to life a new one.

"He needs help," Chloe explained as Tony and Michelle leaned in, both of them listening on the receiver. The computer analyst began to blurt out the pieces of the story rapidfire. "There was a big hostage situation and he grabbed a gun from one of the shooters. We linked the ID numbers to this abandoned military base called the Initiative, and I'm trying to get into the files but it's taking longer than I expected. Plus, he thinks he's uncovered some sort of conspiracy dealing with Roger Stanton and—"

"Whoa, Chloe!" Tony cut her off, bewildered with all of the information. "Slow down…"

"I don't have time!" Chloe snapped. "Now are you gonna help me or not?" Tony stared at the walls of his bedroom for several seconds as he put the phone down in his lap, contemplating the consequences of getting involved. There was always a chance their plot to save Jack Bauer could be discovered which would lead to their arrests, or even worse, their deaths.

"Tony," Michelle implored as she grasped his shoulder. He turned to her and saw her face of stern resolve and knew instantly from the seriousness in her eyes what had to be done. He stared deeply into her eyes, his fear for her safety and his fear for his best friend weighing down on his heart.

Nevertheless, Tony lifted the receiver to his ear and declared, "All right. Meet us here right away."

2:48:11 A.M. PST

Anya paced around the cell nervously, staring up at the ventilation cover overhead. She knew something was wrong – by demon instinct or by the fact that all talking in the other room had ceased. Her heart began to race and she knew that whatever they were planning for her was very nearly about to go down.

Behind her, the doors of her cell opened wide, the pressure releasing in the locks of the sliding doors. Anya jumped as she spun around and saw four beefy male vampires marching towards her in vampface. Merrick stood at the door of the room, watching intently.

"Stay away from me!" she shouted at them. They walked right into the cell and reached for her as she cowered back against the wall like a cornered animal. The demons harshly grabbed her and yanked her across the cell by her arms as she screamed and pulled away. They ended up dragging her out of the cell towards Merrick who was waiting pleasantly as he watched the scene.

"Only a fool would fight her destiny," he grinned. They pulled Anya out of the room as Merrick followed them, shouting, "Gather, all. It's time."

2:51:59 A.M. PST

Buffy, Willow and Xander stood in the back of the darkened training room, near Giles desk, Buffy leaning against the gymnastics horse in the middle of the room. The seiged vampire was chained and sitting in the chair at the other end of the room. He was now awake and unhappy to be there. Willow watched nervously with a stake in her hand while Xander kept a crossbow bolt firmly aimed at him.

Pacing between them was Jack as he rummaged through the gym bag on Giles' desk, glanced over at the vampire, then paced some more repeatedly for several minutes.

Buffy carefully watched the coldness of Agent Bauer through the interrogation. He never made eye-contact with the vampire; so much so that it was evident that he would only make eye-contact when he needed an answer. He treated the hostage as if he was expendable, but necessary only because he didn't want to go through the trouble of killing him. That would come later. The body language of Jack Bauer assured that to anyone being interrogated by him with striking volume.

Jack stopped finally at Giles' desk and glanced over at the vampire, making eye-contact. It was more than that, however. Jack stared at him in silence for several seconds – a cold, angry, chilling glare. The silence was only broken by a flat, calm and quiet demand. "What's your name?"

The vampire paused and glared up at Jack from beneath his brow with an incredulous expression. A smirk formed on his demonic face. "Tom," he answered simply.

The vampire wore a brown denim jacket over a black AC-DC shirt and destroyed jeans. He had blonde spiky hair and blue eyes and looked to be still in high school. He could've passed as one of Dawn's friends, which disturbed Buffy more than she cared to think about. The teenage vamp had a cocky look on his face and even though his leg had been dislocated about an hour before and was chained to a chair, he still found a way to be annoyingly bored and unimpressed with his situation.

"Do you have a last name, Tom?" Jack asked.

The vamp glanced up at him with a smile. "Sure. Cruise." The vamp grinned with satisfaction as Jack cracked a quarter of a smile as he nodded. "Is this the Interview?" asked the grinning vamp.

"That's funny," he blankly replied.

Tom Cruise shrugged humbly, "I'm a funny man."

"Oh, see, that's just the thing," Jack answered as he slowly strolled towards the chair. "You're not a man. You're a vampire." Jack stopped about seven feet from the vampire and stared at him closely. "How long you been around, Tom Cruise?"

The vampire glared at him in silence as the two of them remained in a motionless stalemate for several seconds. The Scoobies glanced back and forth between them, waiting for an explosion of violence and anger from either side. However, second after second passed, and they remained still as statues.

"Oh, come on!" Xander blurted under pressure. "We're not here to have a staring contest! Hit him with something!"

"Xander!" Willow snapped. "Shh!"

"I've been alive for eighteen years," Tom Cruise replied. "I've been dead for twenty-six."

"Wow," Jack said with a slightly impressed tone. "That would make you older than me."

"Well, that surprises me," said Tom Cruise as he stared up at Jack with a smirk. "But you're still not too old to put over my knee."

Jack glared down at him with an impassive face that would break the toughest of criminals. "How about I introduce myself? My name is Jack Bauer," he stated. He turned away and began to walk towards Giles' desk. "Part of me thinks you know already who I used to work for. About five years ago, I was working to find a microchip with information on it that would have averted a war with three Middle-Eastern countries caused by the attempted bombing of Los Angeles." He opened the gym bag and began to rummage through it again, carefully choosing an unseen item as the Scoobies and the hostage were curious of his actions, even though the vampire wouldn't show it . "I was captured by terrorists in the process. They stripped me, drained my stomach, hung me up and tortured me until my heart finally gave out."

Buffy glanced down at the ground with a grim expression, having pity and being grateful that at least she never experienced a trauma like that.

"You know the difference between you and me, Tom?" Jack declared as he stared down into the darkness of his bag.

"I look better naked?" he answered.

"You're already dead," Jack responded as he turned around and faced the vampire. He began to slowly walk towards him with a half-smile. "I'll never have to worry about going to hard on you. Which makes my job… so much easier." He lifted his closed fist and with a click, a long, sharp blade popped out. Jack stepped up to the vampire and leaned down, his face within a foot away from the demon's. "What are they planning at the Initiative?" Jack asked calmly, staring deeply into the vampire's yellow eyes. The vampire was motionless and quiet as he stared back in defiance. Xander and Willow glanced at each other nervously. Buffy watched intently with her arms crossed tightly.

Jack peered into the demon's stubborn face, and then replied with a hint of remorseful acceptance, "Okay." Jack took hilt of the switchblade and grabbed the closed fist of the vampire, touching the blade right below the knuckle of the smallest finger on the vampire's right hand. Before anyone knew it, Jack sliced the blade through the finger of the vampire with the ease of cutting a stalk of celery.

The vampire roared in horror and pain as the unattached finger fell to the ground, small amounts of blood falling down with it. Xander and Willow's stomachs heaved as they watched the vampire shout in terror and hatred. Jack stared at the nub on the hand of the vampire, then down at the finger on the floor. "You don't bleed as much as humans do," he observed, paying no attention to the pain of the vampire.

"I'll never tell you anything!" the vampire hissed through gritted teeth. "It's nothing."

"What's in the Initiative?" Jack asked calmly.

"I don't know!" the vampire shouted.

"You'd better figure it out, Tom Cruise," Jack declared, "or else you're gonna need some help opening your ketchup packages from now on."

"Go to hell!" Tom Cruise screamed.

Jack took the ring finger of his right hand and slowly sawed it off with the knife, slicing skin, muscle, tendon and bone one at a time. The Scoobies watched in horror as the vampire struggled against his restraints and howled in agony. Buffy swallowed hard as the vamp broke out into a fierce sweat and repeated with a heaving, airless chest, "I'm gonna kill you… I'm gonna kill you…"

"What are they planning in the Initiative?" Jack calmly asked. "Who's behind it?" he said with a bit more force as he reached for the vamp's middle finger.

"I've never seen him!" he screamed frantically. His torturer let his finger go and peered intensely into his face as the vampire struggled to explain, "I-I-I don't… don't know his name…"

"Is he human?" Willow asked fretfully, standing at a guarded distance away from the vampire. "Or a-a demon?"

"I don't know," Tom Cruise said with more anger. He spat, "I don't know! I don't know what he is!" Jack jabbed the knife swiftly into the left side of his torso between his ribs. "Ahhh!" the vamp groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut, beads of sweat dripping down his face.

"Think carefully," Jack calmly warned as he slowly twisted the knife to the right, shredding the flesh. The pain was so horrible that the vamp's face contorted and switched back to its human guise. Both Willow and Xander glanced at each other with worried, sickened expressions, deciding whether or not and when they should try to intervene. Buffy said nothing. She stood still and quiet, watching with wide eyes.

"I just…" the vamp heaved, as Jack ceased the twisting to let him speak, "I just know that nobody's… messin' around with him. Everybody in this town's afraid!"

"Where did he come from?" Buffy asked, as unruffled as Jack.

The vampire explained slowly, swallowing in between his words, "They say… that… he-he's been here… Wa-waiting…"

Buffy kept her soft eyes on his tearful, agonized face. "For what?"

"How should I know!" Tom Cruise screamed as tears rolled down his human cheeks. Jack quickly twisted the knife again, setting him back in his place. "Okay!" the vampire howled, as Jack pulled the knife out of his body. "Okay! Look!" The vamp regained his composure as best he could, and answered with a trembling voice, "This guy… he's – he's not like anything I've ever heard of. Nobody can figure him out… be-because he's not… he's not demon and he's not human. He's… some-something else… Something else…"

Jack glanced back at Buffy, Willow and Xander momentarily, catching their confused looks. He turned back to the prisoner. "The woman," he continued with a cold, demanding, yet calm voice. "Anya – where is she?"

Tom Cruise shook his head, staring down at the floor with wet eyes. "I don't know anything about that." Jack gripped the vampire's jaw strongly, the force of which nearly crushed the demon's bones. The vamp saw Jack's sharp knife headed towards his right eye and he could swear he felt his unbeating heart jolt. "No! No! No!" the vamp pleaded in terror. "It's the truth! I don't work there! I can't tell you where she is or what they want with her! I don't know!"

Xander stared closely at the vamp from his considerable distance. "Is he lying?"

"No," Jack answered flatly, glaring into the young, defenseless teenager's eyes. "He's too concerned with his looks to risk it." Bauer tilted his head slightly, while keeping his eyes firmly on the vampire's as he lowered the knife and released the demon's jaw. There was an almost kind softness in Jack's eyes which frightened the demon to the core. "What were you assigned to do?"

Tom Cruise's eyes fell to the floor, then he picked them up as he glared at Buffy over Jack's shoulder. "Kill the Slayer." The vampire stared fiercely at Buffy, intending to terrify her. Instead, Buffy remained motionless with a stone face of resolve and her arms tightly crossed. Jack watched the prisoner with a clenched jaw as he squeezed his fists together on the arms of the chair.

"Why were you at my place?" Jack asked.

"That's where the device led us."

"What device?" he declared, agitated.

"There's a tracking device in the vampire's heart," Tom Cruise replied.

Willow turned to Buffy, then back to the vamp, "You mean Spike?"

"Elijah shot it into him," said Tom Cruise with a sniff as he attempted to regain his control on the situation. "Dumb blonde didn't even realize he had it in him." He glared at Jack firmly, "That's all I know. I'm not tellin' you another thing. Got nothing more to say."

Jack nodded peacefully. "Is that a fact?" he smoothly declared. He tightly gripped the hilt of the knife and stabbed it up behind the chin of the vamp, piercing Tom Cruise's mouth. Willow and Xander both jolted from the gruesome, sudden attack and couldn't believe their eyes or ears at the reaction of the crazed vamp. Buffy watched Jack with wide eyes as he suddenly erupted into a monster. "You know what made him sick! Don't you?" With a booming voice, Jack shouted into the vampire's face as he ripped out the blade of the knife viciously, "Answer the question! Now!"

"It's a virus!" the vampire sobbed, blood pouring from his mouth and chin. "It's-it's made by the government! Some… some guy at the National Security Agency… gave it to the Initiative years ago!" He screamed with panic as sweat poured from his head, "X-815! It-it melts the organs of muscles of… of vampires. Turns them into jelly…"

"How do you know so much about it?" Jack asked with an angry tone.

"It's… it's the one thing they told us all about," Tom Cruise replied with bloody words. "If… if we screwed up… we were gonna a get a dose in-in the heart." His voice broke into a thousand pieces. "And they've… they have the only cure."

"Inside the Initiative," Buffy declared firmly.

"That's all I know, I swear…" the vamp cried. "I swear… that's everything…"

Jack stood up and stepped back away from his victim as he stared at him with almost glazed-over eyes. Blood dripped from both of his hands at his sides as he breathed slowly in silence. The young teenager was chained into the chair, covered and dripping in blood. A normal human being wouldn't be able to stand the sight of him – wouldn't be able to watch the blood or the sobs. Jack found himself not being able to turn away. Two storms were raging inside of him. One full of rage and fury for the demon-boy sitting in front of him and one full of the same kind of hatred for himself.

The dead silence was interrupted by the shrill ring of a telephone sitting on Giles' desk. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Jack all turned towards the phone, then glanced back at each other as Jack moved quickly, keeping his eyes on the hostage. He picked up the phone and answered with a demanding tone, "Hello." He stopped moving and listened curiously. "Who is this?" he demanded.

Buffy turned to Jack with confusion as he pulled the phone from his ear and handed it to Buffy with a baffled expression. "It's Anya."


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