"You the seer?" a pale stranger questioned in a guttural English voice that easily cut over the quietly lyrical Italian floating around the periphery of the scrawny monk's attention. The jittery man raised his dark eyes from the screen of his overworked laptop. From the appearance of his workspace with its overabundance of paper scraps and empty cups, it was obvious that the gentlemen with the computer had been in the internet cafe for an extended period of time. He squinted at the interloper and wrinkled his nose and forehead as if the question required deep consideration.

Finally, a light seemed to register in his dark glaze.

"Hmm, not the wolf. Are you the leopard or the kid? Maybe the calf?" the Italian countered in heavily accented English instead of answering the question. The dark-haired man laughed at some personal amusement when the bleached blond foreigner looked offended at the seemingly bizarre response. A hint of hysteria crept into the sound.

The blond stiffened. After the years spent with his reality challenged love, he recognized the sound as an amusement at facts and figures unseen by the eyes of the predominately sane population. The blue-eyed Brit glared at the cackling crackpot. Just as sharply as it started, the laughter quelled. For a moment, the eyes of the Italian holy man seemed to glow as his forehead and jaw contracted in agony. A painful hiss escaped the dark-haired man's lips before the glow dissipated.

"Hmmm, you were the fatling, the sacrifice, but now... now the world tilts..." the suddenly tired gentleman whispered harshly before he shrugged. The tension left his body. He sighed as if he faced the inevitable. "Yes. I am Luca. You have someone you wish me to meet, correct?"

The foreigner nodded.

Luca took a final sip of his cooled coffee. He typed a simple message into a global email. Without a word, the monk hit send which transferred his message into a specially designed program that would release his message in three days. The Italian closed the program and stood. He offered his visitor a resigned smile while motioning that he would follow him.

The blond frowned. He hadn't expected the holy man to follow him without a scuffle of some sort. His dark eyebrows drew together as the passing frustration nipped in his thoughts. The Brit would have enjoyed a bit of a row before dragging Luca back to his dark princess. The lack of anticipated action made the demon in the man's guise antsy.

When the monk joined the pale blond in the moonlit street, Luca raised his eyebrow questioningly to encourage his inevitable companion's thought into words.

"You're just leaving your stuff?" the handsome foreigner inquired curiously.

Again, Luca offered his companion a resigned smile.

"I shan't need it once I meet your dark seer," he replied with no hint of fear despite his obvious realization of just what his companion was from the moment he raised his eyes from his computer. A slight nod of acknowledgment and a knowing smirk greeted the monk's calm statement. For a moment, the normally expressive blond remained silent. Although the largest part of him surged with the exciting thought of the holy man's impending death, a small part of the demon respected the strength in his impending victim's character and faith. For the briefest time, the blond vampire contemplated simply scaring Brother Luca and returning to his lover empty-handed.

One thought of his ailing goddess and the unexpected desire abandoned him. The vampire would do anything for his beloved dark princess. His fleeting respect for the man paled in comparison to his adoration of his Wicked Plum.

"Hurry along," the vampire barked as he grabbed the holy man and hustled the older appearing Italian through the dimly lit streets of Cortona. The pair slipped silently down stone-lined paths where only the darkened doors and windows of tightly packed townhouses marked their passage.

Without a pause, the British blond stopped by an arched doorway. Like its adjacent neighbors, the narrow home was at least three stories. The arched front doorway had a single stone step to reach the recessed threshold. The windows on the second floor were shuttered tightly although the steep building walls and narrow street would allow for little direct light to burn away the shadows. Above the windows, an architectural whimsy of an angel leaned out from the otherwise plain exterior. As his demonic companion opened the door, Lucas raised his eyes to the blank gaze of the weather-pitted stone angel.

"Under the eyes of angels," the monk murmured with a tired sigh.

His companion snorted as he too raised his eyes to the decorative statue.

"Your angels may watch," the predatory young man stated gruffly as his grip tightened painfully on Lucas' arm. The monk lowered his eyes from the holy figure and gasped as he saw for the first time the demonic face of his undead companion. He shuddered at the rough facial ridges, feral eyes and exposed fangs now visible by the light from the open door. He barely noticed as the vampire continued. "But demons? We do."

Almost faster than Lucas could register the words, he was pulled from the darkness and into his doom.

"There is still no one at the Summers' house," a beyond exhausted Xander expressed as he dropped unceremoniously into one of the sturdy library chairs. With a sigh, the teen lowered his weary head until it rested on the wooden table. After two separate trips to the unoccupied home of his friend, Harris found his body almost as numb as his mind.

"When no one answered this time, I tried the door," the teen explained into the table. His warm breath fogged on the tabletop as Xander mumbled into the wood that the front door had been unlocked and that he found no sign of anyone in the house. He added that he still had not seen Mrs. Summers vehicle in the driveway for either visit.

"Well, she wasn't at the gallery all day either," Willow replied as she gently patted her best friend's back. The timid redhead had been unable to reach anyone at the art gallery where Buffy's mother worked. The answering machine only stated that the store remained closed for the day. She left two different messages asking Mrs. Summers to contact her at the library but there had been no reply. The feelings of loss and frustration made both teens feel ill and disjointed. As tears formed once again and streamed down her cheeks, Willow rested her head against Xander's bent shoulder. Silently the two childhood friends tried to find solace in each others physical presence. Little peace was to be found though since they could only seem to feel the obvious absence of the third member of their friendship hug.

Once more, the slamming of the phone echoed from Gile's office. The glowering librarian stomped from his private space. As he passed the circulation desk, the irate British man shoved the large globe from the edge of the high counter. The wooden sphere and its base shattered on impact. Pieces scattered across the floor and Rupert kicked the largest debris from his path on his way to join his two teen companions. The rumpled man who still wore the same suit that he had dressed in three days ago tried his best to contain his rage as he faced the remaining Scooby gang. His heart felt too distressed to do justice to the needs of the two teens depending on him to be their mature mentor.

Earlier in the day, Cordelia and Ms. Calender had finally left the library to return home but Willow, Xander and Giles were unable or unwilling to leave until they had discovered the answers regarding their missing slayer. Despite their efforts, Buffy's ultimate fate still remained shrouded in mystery.

"What do we do, Giles?" Willow pleaded with their mentor. Her obvious need for direction or encouragement dripped from her words and stabbed into the librarian's already tattered heart.

Unable to deny the facts any longer, Giles pulled his glasses from his face and set them on the table. His normally eloquent voice lowered to a gentle tone that better matched the softened edges of his now blurred vision.

"We go home. We shower. Change our clothes and rest. And when we are ready, we remember Buffy as the vibrant girl she was. We rejoice in the time we had to share with her. We are all better for having had it."

"Can't the council..." sobbed Willow as she once more tried to avoid accepting the horrible loss of her best female friend.

"No, Willow," Giles gently but firmly halted her thought. He once more placed his glasses on his face and the heart-broken expressions of the two students returned in fine detail. "There is nothing that the Watcher's Council can or will do. When one slayer falls, another is called. It is the way is has always been."

"Could the council have any way to tell us what happened?" Xander asked in a flat voice. "Or where to find... where to find her body? Oh God... her body..." the teen gasped in an almost panicked cry as tears began to finally run down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, but no," the librarian replied helplessly. "I mean, maybe the Coven could have... well... been able to do something to find out but... they aren't about to help us now."

"Why not?" Willow questioned and the adult grimaced.

"I somehow doubt anyone at the Council will be overly accommodating to any request I make after I told the director to go bugger himself."

Xander stared blankly at the librarian as he processed the Brit's statement. Out of habit, Willow leaned close to his ear and whispered what the British slang term meant.

"Sod-a-huh... oh!" Xander replied as his eyes opened wide as he moved his gaze from his helpful friend to the normally proper Watcher. "Yeah... I can see how that might cause some less than helpful results."

"Willow Rosenberg," called the cultured yet obviously annoyed voice of the timid teen's often absentee mother. The redhead stiffened with her hand still on the exterior door into her bedroom. Anxiously, she glanced at her mother who was sitting stiffly at her desk. The teen could not remember the last time her mother entered her bedroom let alone sat with the intention to speak with her. Willow softly closed the french door that led from her room to their sheltered porch and leaned against the white frame. The sorrow overwhelming her thoughts prevented her from really caring about why her mother felt the sudden urge to make her presence known.

"You were out all night," accused Shelia Rosenberg from her perch.

Willow raised her green eyes to meet her mother's gaze.

"I was at the school library," the sixteen year old explained softly.

Shelia's lips compressed before she stood.

"Somehow I doubt that, Willow. Adolescents show marked proclivity to demonstrate their independence of parental guidance by seemingly innocent undertakings such as sneaking out at night. I doubt it had anything to do with educational endeavors but that is to be expected of someone your age."

"But I was in the library. You can ask Mr. Giles," her daughter tried to stress but her lecturing mother never even acknowledged her words. Shelia just continued to talk over her daughter's explanation.

"I take it you attended a party? Wasn't there some sort of social function last evening being sponsored by the school?"

Shelia picked up the Sunnydale Press newspaper which she had folded open to the local news section. The disconnected mother tapped the article featuring information about the dance held at the Bronze on Friday night.

"You should have informed your father or myself that you were attending the dance and after-party. I expect better of you in the future. We need to know where you are so that when we receive calls from irate mothers that we know how to properly address the inquiries."

Shelia turned to leave her daughter's room without allowing her daughter to comment on her statements.

"Obviously, you were not at Bunny's home if her mother was calling here in the middle of the night looking for her daughter. The woman was unaware of where here daughter was and expected us to know where she was. Such irresponsible parenting," the arrogant woman muttered hypocritically as she exited her daughter's room. Not once during the conversation did she notice her daughter's distress. Immersed in her own clueless world, Shelia Rosenberg abandoned her child once more. She left behind the folded newspaper on Willow's bed. Beyond tired, the teen kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the bed without even changing her clothes. She swept the Sunnydale Press from her bedspread and pulled the edge over her body. The paper fell to the floor with the local police report facing towards the ceiling. Willow never noticed as she curled around her pillow and drifted into sleep.

"Miss Summers... Miss Summers," a soft voice called into the darkness. Into the nothingness that embraced her completely, Buffy opened her eyes. She found herself perched on one of the hard, high stools from her biology classroom. The seat was positioned behind the dark topped table like in the science lab but the rest of the room seemed to fade into the surrounding glow of nothingness.

"Miss Summers, are you with us?" the voice prodded once more.

"Um, yeah," she replied automatically as her gaze skittered from the expanding glow of nothing to the small of stature, grey-haired man who stood on the opposite side of the table.

"Mr. Gregory?" Buffy whispered in confusion as she recognized the strangely alive appearing biology teacher who had been the first non-librarian faculty member at Sunnydale High to offer her any type of real interest. The teen worried her lip nervously between her teeth as she recalled the last time she had seen this specific teacher. He had been quite dead and quite headless. Neither distressing point seemed to have carried through to the nothingness realm in which the slayer found herself.

Her lip quivered slightly.

"Am I dead?" she whispered to Mr. Gregory.

The kind-hearted gentleman removed his glasses and polished them with his dark tie.

"No, my dear. Simply dreaming."

"Oh..." the blond replied with a confusing mixture of disappointment and relief. "If I am dreaming, wouldn't it be better for you to be, I don't know, Brad Pitt?"

The teen grinned mischievously.

"And there could be ice cream. Brat Pitt and chocolate ice cream. That would be a nice dream."

In the blink of an eye, the kindly biologist became a handsome actor dressed in a white lab coat and a mammoth chocolate sundae complete with whipped cream, nuts and two cherries appeared on the dark table.

"Eep!" Buffy exclaimed as she jumped at the sudden transformation. The girl slipped from the stool and fell gracelessly to the floor. Masculine laughter chased her decent to the ground and her face flamed in embarrassment. From her position on the floor of seeming nothingness, the slayer stared up at the actor who was almost maliciously enjoying her bout of clumsiness.

"I think I liked Mr. Gregory better," the teen muttered as her hands moved to rub her sore bottom.

"Of course you do, Miss Summers," the kind teacher replied as he appeared by her side and offered her a hand.

"You're not Mr. Gregory," Buffy stated with conviction as she allowed the unknown entity to assist her to her feet.

"You would be correct," the entity replied with a kind smile as Buffy settled once more onto her seat.

"So what's the what?" the slayer prompted curiously as she picked up the long silver spoon beside the opulent dessert. Absently, she twirled the piece of silverware in her hand much like she would a wooden stake. She frowned. "Couldn't you have picked someone else to be? And don't I have some place to be?"

Her spoon sounded against the crystal bowl.

"And is this safe to eat?"

The fake Mr. Gregory removed his glasses once more and breathed on them before rubbing them against his now light colored tie. "I could have been others. There are many emotional ties to people that you could trust but I did not want you to have too much memory rush to return at one time."

The frown on the blond slayer's face intensified as she tried to probe her memory for anyone else she might trust. She gasped as she realized that all her thoughts seemed to have melted into the same blank nothingness that surrounded the limited scene. Buffy realized that there was obviously knowledge in her mind and natural reactions that flowed into her consciousness as needed. If not, she would not be able to even speak let alone remember she liked to dream about handsome movie stars and that she liked her previous biology teacher. That she liked chocolate never came into question. Like the smooth movement of her hand with the spoon, she figured it was instinct. Chocolate was that good.

Straying from the innocent image of her favorite sweet treat, Buffy's heart began to pound and her breath quickened as panic invaded her consciousness. Beyond her limited sense of self identity and the small glimmer of her former biology teacher, the teen could remember nothing solid about her life. The lack of anything was beyond frightening.

"Where am I!" she demanded as she jumped to her feet. "Why have you brought me here? Why can't I remember anything?"

"Please, Miss Summers," the concerned entity coaxed as it moved around the table towards her.

As if it were natural although she did not know why she did so, the teen brandished her spoon like a weapon as she backed away from the faux Mr. Gregory. Clenching her fists and concentrating with all her might, Buffy tried to remember something about herself. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she fought mentally to find a memory on which to latch her attentiveness. She began to shake as the limited physical scene around her flickered. Like someone turning on and off a light switch in rapid succession, the nothingness shifted between the simple biology room to a room lined with books around a large heavy table. The entity likewise flickered between the fake teacher and other man who Buffy could not remember but knew at the core of her essence that he was important.

Mentally, the slayer scrambled for the identity of her Watcher as she fought against the iron-like clasp the entity held on her memories. Outmatched but unwilling to surrender, Buffy's eyes rolled back and her body collapsed as her mind rebelled. Her body began to seize as the nothingness seemed to grow to engulf the fallen slayer.

"What a fighter you are, my dear," the entity whispered to the teen as the seizure ended and even the smallest portions of the slayers awareness faded once more.