Chapter 7

The hissing was growing. Lashing at her ears like sheeting rain. The strange screams it carried within it flashed and drew sharply against her senses. The whole effect was like lightening within a bank of wild wind-borne storm clouds. Coming her way. She holstered her torch and hefted her sword.

Buffy had lingered behind as the group began to follow Ethan's hastily beaten retreat. The cool metal of the sword she held was vibrating slightly in her hands. It was a beautifully balanced weapon, all ready to slice and dice at her command. She wondered if it came in a set? See how it cuts through this tomato as easily as it cuts through this werewolf neck! A thousand necks and it just keeps on slicing… I so need to get out more.

Still it was a pleasure to handle - something that, given a spare moment in the Magic Box training room, she might have stolen from Giles' personal cache and tried out on her wooden training post. Just to check it out of course, expand her weapons experience and stuff. Not just 'cause, no, because like, that would be bad and so not worthy of her Slayerness… Hmmm… She wondered if Giles might fall, er, go for that? The thought of herself standing in the debris of the training room hacking stuff up with such a valuable weapon, as Giles' arrived for that day's session popped into her head and she winced. Ok, so not a good plan, but damn this weapon was made for battle and she felt that through and through. From the moment she had wielded it on that Mutt-thing she had tasted its possibilities and ached to try it out.

But against a snake? A giant snake and a pack of screaming meemies? She shivered. Yeah, against that. The idea was a delicious seductive thing that warmed her blood. She could do it. Rip into the whole lot of them like a hurricane through a cornfield. UC Sunnydale's own whirling dervish.

The hissing suddenly surged, the screaming swelling in perfect tandem.

From behind her.

Oh crap...

"BLOODY HELL!" Ethan's bellow boomed out from over her shoulder and she swivelled to see the dark mage sprinting back out of the tunnel he had just entered. The torch light thrashed back and forth with his pumping arms. In its strobing light she saw Giles and Anita reel backwards, out of the line of sight of the shaft entrance. Edward Frost fell over backwards on the opposite side of the opening to Giles. Then they were coming through.

Pouring through.

Maggot pale, soft spindly bodies, creeping and crawling through the narrow opening; spewing though in thick slow streams of writhing limbs and gaping maws. The stink was wretched: rotten and wet. And the noise! Screaming and screeching, inhumanly thin and agonized. And... My god it was them! They were hissing.

They worked their way through into the chamber, climbing over each other until the entry point was three bodies deep.

Buffy charged, sword raised, arcing above her head.

Edward fell backwards, knocked flying by Ethan Rayne's ballistic re-entry into the chamber. He hit the hard stone floor and rolled, coming up in time to see the first pale white arm slither around the corner; a thin arm that would have been bony but for the thick puffy skin that wrapped it - skin that was pocked and bunched around the elbow, wrist and finger joints. Smooth and full in the forearm: ripe and ready to burst. The hand attached to the arm snared the rock wall and pulled and suddenly there was a crowing head. Smooth and pale and foetal. Edward kicked out with his feet, caught the stone floor and pushed himself backward in a blind panic. His empty stomach lurched again.

This was too much. Too much.

Yon. Alexandra. Zina. Asako. Isabel...

More of the Muttune't emerged, many more. They writhed into the room, mouths like gaping black holes loosely stitched between the lips with strings of thick yellowed mucous. They screeched. Howled. Wailed. Hissed. Mindlessly. Hopelessly. Their wet fetid breath snatched Edward's own breath from his lungs and he retched again, despite himself. Nothing came up. Tears ran in thin cool lines down both cheeks.

This was too much. Bryant had been right to favour the trainee Watchers over the others.

Across the rapidly growing flood of hell spawn he watched, appalled and terrified, as Rupert Giles gamely punched a lunging Muttune't in the face, sending the thing flying backwards into its brethren. Anita took out another with a well-placed arrow. Even Ethan Rayne had stopped running and was clubbing the pawing mass at his feet. And the Slayer. The Slayer was magnificent, her sword catching the meagre light as she laid waste to the enemy. Whirling, slashing, leaping and parring. Taking limbs, heads, torsos with each gliding arc of her sword. It was beautiful, elegant and terrible to witness and Edward shrank inside. Bryant had been right, he realised, as he sat there horrified, he was no choice for this mission. He was useless.

Suddenly something tugged at his boot with a hard, purposeful pull. He jerked backwards on pure instinct, wrenching his head around to stare at his foot. A Muttune't had a pale corpse like hand curled softly around it. Its finger's wrapped so gently that if it had not pulled then he would not have known it was there. Until it was too late. Large, black eyes stared blindly up at him, almost innocent in their placid directness. He stared. The thing suddenly hissed: cat like and feral. Edward screamed and kicked. His boot caught the thing in the chin and snapped its head backwards. It let go. He scrambled backwards again.

Anita squeezed the trigger once more and again made the shot count. For all that that mattered. There were so many of the things; so many of the colourless wretched beasts. They crawled around and over each other like limbed pupae, writhing, never pausing. Mindless. Devoid of even the faintest aura, they were a blank slate to her eyes and the sight filled her with cold fear.

She locked, loaded, waited whilst Rupert connected a heavy fist to a demonic face, and then let loose taking out another creature that had crawled too close. No sooner had it recoiled, arrow skewering its forehead, than Rupert once again lunged and struck. His aura flared. Its brilliant ruby glow suddenly, briefly, bursting with a supernova of gold glitter. He was loving this. Loving it on a level she had never been able to share with him - even on the rare instances she managed to land a touch when he was under its thrall. This was the Slay and it was his and his alone. At least that was what she had thought all those years ago (until she learned of the Slayer).

Where Ethan and the rest of their group had taken an earthly delight in stirring up trouble there were limits. She herself had limits. And Rupert? Well, he didn't seem to ever reach his. At least that was what she had believed when she had joined his clique and seen first hand why the others were a bit awed, and a little bit horrified, by their strange comrade. Who was he, this upper class, Oxford-educated, necromantic bovver boy? Where had he come from? Why was he here? And how could he do that, and with his bare hands too?

The truth was, when the others were done, Rupert Giles was only just getting going.

And where Ethan paraded his dark persona like a show dog, Rupert just was that dog. Where Ethan sought out the black arts and the worlds that lay within their depths, Rupert just inhabited them, on the fringes yes, but he was just there. No effort required. It was one of the more contentious issues that had flavoured the early relationship between the two men.

I think Ethan has a crush on you.

Really? Never picked him for an arse bandit. He he. Arse bandit. Derrière desperado. Brigand of the Buttock. He. Hey, you're glowing!

Put the pipe down Ru and listen to me. He was almost killed tonight because he followed you into that Nest. You know he can't match you, why do you let him keep on trying?

All glowing like golden fire. Oh look, my hand is on fire too! You set me on fire babe, but that's ok, it feels good when it burns - think I love you Anita Snow.

Oh Jesus you are totally fucked. Look, just lie down-

You too.

Yes me too. Lie down. Yes, lie - no stay! Stay! *Sigh* What is going on with you Rupert Giles?

... It's my heritage Annie, the glorious fucking Watcher's Calling.

It's the what?

I thought I could outrun it. You know, by coming here, the last place they'd look for me. It didn't work. Then I thought I could keep it tight inside where no one could see and I could get married, have a bunch of little Giles' and ... and open a ... a sodding florist shop or some such. Heh. I thought I could just walk away. Stupid I know, but there it is.

Rupert what are you talking about? What -

I-I'm not what you think Annie. There are things about me that you don't know, that Ethan, that none of the others know. Things that I can't ever tell if I'm going to be free of it. And I want to be free. I want to be free.

You're starting to scare me here love. What are you talking about? Are people, or.. other things after you. Ethan-

Oh, bloody hell: Ethan. Bloody Ethan. He wants what he can never have. Ha! It's ironic really: he wants what he can't ever hope to truly have and I want to be free of the very same thing, and never will. It's all arse over tit, this world. All inside out and round about.

You're letting him follow you around to scare him away from the darkness aren't you!

... In a way. Heh, you really do think such kind thoughts of me. ... Ethan does have a gift Annie. He knows he has it and it's fuelling his hunger for the unobtainable rest of it. Maybe one day he will eat his way right to the edge and it won't matter that he doesn't have the natural predilection for the dark arts: he'll be strong enough to do the same amount of damage.

So why are you letting him tag along then?

... I don't know.

You're lying! You know I can see it-

Let's not talk about this anymore tonight babe.

Rupert-

I don't want to discuss it! Shit, the bloody pipe's dead. Where's the fucking matches?

She never had gotten him to talk about Ethan. Never once in over 25 years. He had told her, eventually, about the Council, the Watcher and his Slayer, and his part in it all, but never once would he talk about Ethan. It was a mystery that she would dearly love to have revealed for her before she-

Shit! She loosed another shot, taking a bold creature in the right eye. It fell away.

Rupert twisted the head off one of the monsters clawing at his legs. It came free with a wrenching bloodless tear and without hesitation he threw it hard into the face of yet another of the creatures. There were so many of them...

"RUPERT!" She screamed above the din. The Watcher did not respond, but thumped another Thing in the face and sent it sprawling. "RUPERT!"

"Annie!" He suddenly snapped around. His eyes were wild with the battle.

"There are too many of them. We have to find a way out."

Suddenly there was a commotion where Ethan was clubbing away at the slobbering mass at his feet. Several Muttune't went flying, catapulted from the Englishman's feet to land at least 20 metres back. They disappeared into the seething mass of their fellow creatures as surely as if they had been dropped into the sea. The things at Anita's feet, and Rupert's, turned abruptly to face the new threat and screamed with renewed, outraged, vigour. Then a deep rumbling snarling joined the screaming, screeching hissing melee and incredibly the Muttune't began to quieten. In no time at all the only sound in the room was the new sonorous thunder. Big cat in here somewhere? As she stood, stunned, every single one of the enemy dropped to the ground in a low crouch, quiet and watchful, as if suddenly awaiting command. Their collective gaze was locked on Ethan.

Or not Ethan...

What was this?

"SPIKE!" The Slayer suddenly screamed across the vast room. Her tone was not one of relief. Anita followed Buffy's line of sight and saw the shadowed form of a slim blond young man standing next to Ethan (the Englishman had made a hasty retreat, but was blocked in by an implacable bank of muttune't, so he stayed on his self made border, aura flaring). The new comer's aura pulsed strangely around him, black like absence. It was not that of a human being. It was too uniform, too dense, too deep and too pure. Human aura's, like their vessels, might be strongly inclined to one colour or sensation, but they were rarely this intensely, permanently, one or the other. Ever. She frowned, and took a new grip on her crossbow.

At the sound of what must have been his name the man looked up and Anita froze. Vampire. She should have known. Damn, she was so out of practise Winnie the Pooh would have been faster, and more astute. She cocked the crossbow at the demon and glanced at the Slayer. Her back was turned but that did not matter, her aura spoke more than adequately. Anita pursed her lips. This is going to complicate things, one way or another.

Spike looked, or glared, at the Slayer for a split second, before returning his gaze to the supplicants at his feet. Anita might have been mistaken, but she sensed that he was as confused by the Muttune't behaviour as she was. As they all must be from the stunned silence.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Buffy. Spike did not answer right away, but took a cautious step forward - as fluid and silent as the big cat Anita had imagined earlier. The muttune't moved back a step. She saw Spike's lip curl.

"Looks like I'm doing: 'saving the Slayer'." He looked at her. Then he suddenly lunged forward with an abrupt movement. The Muttune't scrambled backwards in a quick scatter, desperate to get out of range, bare feet and claws patting madly at the hard ground. Other than that they resettled around him in a new ring of adoration in complete silence. Eerie silence. Spike's face twisted in a shit-eating grin, showing a brief flash of pearly white fangs.

And showing the small girl that had been hiding behind him.

Tiny thing. Small, brunette and scared out of her wits. She had tried to follow Spike's lunge, but had not been fast enough. For a split second Anita thought she was another vampire, but no, the bright green jewel-like aura suddenly rippled as madly as the muttune't's feet had done.

"DAWN!" Buffy bawled this time and Anita jumped. Rupert's aura flared. This was Dawn! So she had been down here all along... The Slayer suddenly charged toward the new comers, hacking a path through the docile demon spawn like vengeance made flesh. Dismembered pieces of muttune't jumped through the air and bodies crumpled aside like felled trees. Anger, shock, betrayal and hysteria flickered and flared through her aura. Then Rupert charged and Anita was following close behind.

Ethan stayed well back as the Slayer approached in a fury. The sword swept and hacked so fast he was having trouble following its arcing movement. Body parts flew left and right, but the little demons did not move to defend, attack or even plain shift out of the way. Idiots. If he could have moved himself, Ethan would have stepped further back, but the damned mutty-things would not move. They stayed, pressed shoulder to shoulder, in a tight impenetrable wall of unbreathing, unliving, silent flesh and stink, staring at their new master. So he waited, very unhappily.

As for the vampire, Spike, he had taken a single step backwards, to turn his body so that he could face down the Slayer's approach. Spike. So this was Spike. Spike the tame vampire he had seen and overheard last week. The vampire who's mere name, he had discovered, made the local Council records keeper (a petite little thing, flattered by his attentions) frown and purse her pretty lips into a thin pale line.

Spike the killer of Slayers.

Spike the Slayer's ally.

It was an incongruence that would have drawn a curious chuckle (and it had done) under other circumstances. At the moment though, it was an anxiety provoking contradiction. What should he do? Flee now? Try to stake him? Relax and step away from the spine tingling creatures at his back? What? He had heard about the inhibitor chip sure, but Ethan was never one to hold with fancy technology if there was a good spell handy and he smelt none of those on the vampire.

"You!" The Slayer punched her palm into Spike's chest as she breached their clearing. The vampire rocked backwards. "You I'll deal with in a minute, but you -" she turned on the girl cowering by Spike's side. The sword waved threateningly in the air. "I took you home. I told you to stay there. I told you to butt out! This is Slayer business, you-"

"Buffy." Ripper reached the circle, panting wildly from clubbing, shoving and leaping his way through the bodies. Anita was barely a step behind. The Watcher snatched the sword from his charge's hand. "Buffy." Calming now. Reaching out with his free hand to touch her shoulder. The Chosen One pursed her lips until they were white and exhaled through her nose, nostrils flaring.

"I- I'm sorry." The girl, Dawn, suddenly spoke up, voice wavering, but with a thin strain of anger stirring. She shifted foot to foot, and stole furtive glances at the muttune't. "I- I'm sorry, ok, but you wouldn't tell me what you were doing!"

"So you went and found Spike? Again? After I took you home and told you to go to bed? After I have told you and told you and told you... VAMPIRE, Dawn! VAMPIRE! What the hell do I have to do to get it through to you? He is a vampire. He kills stupid little girls like you-"

"No, he doesn't. He's my friend. He respects me. He-"

"Thinks you're food! If he could, he'd eat you alive. "

"Jealous Slayer?"

"Shut up! You've brought my sister into the Hellmouth. The Hellmouth Spike! You are so close to dust right now-"

"Buffy, just calm down for a minute. This isn't the time-." Ripper spoke up. His voice strangely strengthened and calming. The Slayer subsided immediately, although if looks could kill...

"Yeah, you tell her Rupes. Bloody cheek."

"Shut up, Spike, you aren't helping." Ripper barked. The vampire hmphed.

"Fine." He sneered. Then he pointed one black nailed finger at the Watcher. "Fine, but, just you remember who's keeping our peeled puppies here at heel." Everyone looked around, suddenly. Funny how you can forget yourself when there's such entertainment at hand. "Yeah. Fella that's got that kind of touch deserves a little respect. Might just let the little buggers loose-" The Slayer's lunge was thwarted by her Watcher's restraining hand.

"I don't know how you're doing it, Spike," the Watcher said. "And to be honest, at the moment I don't much care. We have to get out of here, so please keep on doing it, but-"

"How much?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Money, Rupert. You know, good old American green back, though I'll take it in old money if you've got it." This time the Slayer stopped the Watcher from making a feint at the Undead creature. Ethan drew in a fed up breath and crooked his fingers, over arching them to create a cage effect. Time to move things along. He had enough in him to do it-

"Hey!" The vampire suddenly turned on Ethan though he could not possibly have seen what he was dong. The yellow eyes were deadly serious. "Keep that mumbo jumbo to yourself. You fuck me up and what's to say it won't be round two with the kiddies?"

"What's to say that while they are eating your dust we can't all get away?" Ethan retorted hotly, but called his own bluff by lowering his hand. Spike grinned - lips peeled back over goodly sized fangs. Then he abruptly lost interest and turned his back.

"Ethan has a point Spike." Ripper said, once again in control.

"Yeah? Wanna try it out for size? I'll just go and leave you to find out then."

"NO!" Everyone spoke at the same time, and Ethan, to his intense chagrin, found himself joining in. A fleeting smile touched Spike's lips. Smug bastard.

"Fine." The vampire suddenly sniffed, and looked around himself, rolling his shoulders. All business. He stared out at his adoring fans. "Fine, so we'll discuss the fee later then?"

"Spike." Ripper and Buffy together.

"Fine." The vampire said again with a small superior grin. He sniffed again, wiped the back of one hand over his mouth and surveyed the muttune't. Then he shrugged. "It worked before-" He stepped forward. And struck a wall of muttune't. Not one of them moved. Spike frowned, wrinkling his ridged brow. He retreated a step. "Right then." He set his shoulders, backed up further and tried again, this time with a lunge. And again he impacted on the front row.

The hell spawn did not budge.

"Ow, fuck!" Spike recoiled suddenly grabbing his left shin. Blood swelled between his clutching fingers. "Fuck! Little bastard bit me!" The Slayer rolled her eyes. Spike saw it and pursed his lips; chin thrust forward. Then he was jerking himself up straight and tall and blowing through his nose and Ethan recoiled as the tame vampire suddenly swivelled, inhumanly fast and charged, roaring, arms wide. This time he had the sense to pull up before he slammed home.

"So I can take him out now?" Ethan asked mildly. His fingers were itching with the pent up chaos charm.

"Get bent."

"Great." The Slayer said. "Just great." She pulled her torch free, flicked the switch and looked out across the still white sea of bodies that penned them in on all sides, whilst Spike shook out his ridges looking extremely annoyed. Even embarrassed? Anita would know.

Ethan looked across at his old friend and frowned. The aura reader did not look well. She was sweating heavily and had gone quite grey around the gills. Still it had been an exhausting battle he thought, and if he himself was anything to go by the older members of this expedition were feeling a bit knackered (his knees, for one, were never going to recover). He suddenly became aware of the sweat that was sliding down his own face and wiped irritably at it.

And the Watcher? Well, Ripper wasn't looking too bad, but then the bastard was well used to chasing his Slayer about and getting into scrapes on a daily basis. At the moment he was watching the path of his Slayer's torch beam as she played the light over the room. The flashlight lit up a considerable swath of the chamber they were in. It also illuminated the vastness of the pack that surrounded them...

"So what do we do?" Ethan asked, stepping closer to the Watcher. As he moved he passed the vampire. The creature did not move to let him by and did not even acknowledge the reattachment of the young girl to his side, being more intent on their predicament. He was staring out at the room with his own superior vision. Ethan touched Anita's arm as he came to a halt. She did not look back at him, but clamped a hand to his forearm, holding on. Leaning. Ethan frowned, turning a questioning look to the side of her face. If she saw him she did not acknowledge it.

"We could climb over them?" Ripper mused, turning Ethan's attention back to their communal problem.

"Yeah, great!" The vampire snapped, pointing accusingly to his injured leg. "Be my guest."

"We did it before." The Slayer.

"Yeah, you did it before when they were all obedient and respecting of yours truly." Spike retorted. "Probably bite both your pins off before you made it half way-" He suddenly paused, face flushing with something Ethan couldn't decipher. "-Which would actually be a bloody good laugh, so go right ahead. Could do with a chuckle-."

Suddenly a scream slashed the air. Dawn. Ethan pivoted so fast Anita was pushed away from her grip. His heart tripped in his chest. One of the muttune't had suddenly moved. It had shuffled forward, still on all fours, whilst they had been talking, and had wrapped soft hands around the girl's legs. In a flash both Slayer and vampire were moving, but the vampire was closer and so faster. He twisted around and tore the thing's hands free jerking it upward. One quick flip and wrench and he had the thing's head in his hands. The body slumped to the ground. Dawn continued screaming and sobbing. Even when the Slayer had pulled her away from the body and buried the girl's face in her shoulder the noise went on.

"Bloody hell, it's not dead!" Spike had the head raised so he could look in its eyes.

"Okay." The Slayer spoke hard and precise, ignoring the vampire and the now quietening snuffling on her shoulder. "We're going. If we have to fly we're going - now - before the rest of them get over -" her gaze flicked to the vampire, paused - "whatever the hell it is, and get hungry again." Ripper nodded, still looking over the room.

"Alright then, we can try to hack a path through." The Watcher snatched his torch back from Ethan and made a pointer of its light beam, running it from their feet to the tunnel entrance. "If we're fast enough we might make it back into the tunnel before they snap out of their trance." He looked around at the group. "Buffy and Spike will take the lead. Annie, you follow with Dawn. I will protect our backs. Ethan any magic tricks to help us?"

"Sorry, no can do. It's both you and Buffy still sane or it's a path. Can't manage both."

"What's that then?" Spike stared at Ethan, eyes like ice. "The Slayer and Watcher gone mad?" He cast a critical, if not alarmed eye, over the two in question. "I'm not going on any mad dash for freedom through that nasty lot with anything 'barking'. Hard enough managing Dru- "

"Not, 'insane' Spike." Buffy said.

"Just crazy, is that it?" Spike squinted in her face.

"There is something down here Spike." Ripper butted in, looking irritated with the side bar. "It's affecting our judgement, but it is under control now – well Ethan's control. Nothing to be concerned about if we can just get out of here." He suddenly paused. "Actually, that's curious."

"What is?" Spike, still not convinced and leaning back on his heels, trying not to look like he was seeking some distance. "You seeing things?"

"No, but you should be." Ripper's face crumpled in a familiar: "just about to give birth to the Encyclopaedia Britannica of totally inappropriately timed research" look.

"Look, Ripper, hate to be a killjoy, but couldn't this wait until we are not in imminent danger of being killed?"

"Oh, right. Yes. Right." He paused. "Alright, then Ethan you will join me at the rear. And Frost-" He looked around. "Frost?" No answer. Oh dear. They all looked at each other like idiots for a moment, both Ripper and Buffy flashing their torches around. No Edward Frost. Well, that was mildly alarming-

"EDWARD!" Anita had rallied her strength, but it was for nothing when only silence answered her sudden call. "EDWARD!"

"Where was he?" Ripper asked. "When the muttune't came through, where was he standing?"

"By the tunnel entrance. Opposite to you." Buffy replied. Her torch was already fixed on a spot, not too far to the left of the tunnel in question. No Edward Frost.

"Dammit." Ripper breathed. Ethan frowned. Oh no, he wasn't going to...? Stepping up close, deliberately invading the man's personal space, Ethan grabbed Ripper's upper arm and spoke an inch from his face.

"Have you truly gone insane? The kid's probably spread through a hundred bellies by now." No reply, but a muscle bunched in his old friend's jaw. "He knew the risks-"

"No he bloody well did not!" Ripper shook his arm from Ethan's grasp and was suddenly spitting into his face. Now there was a sight for sore eyes. Anita had been wrong, she had been wrong! Ripper was still Ripper and nothing had destroyed that, not even her wishful thinking... Ethan looked across the room and then back at his old friend. Ripper's gaze had shifted back to the left of the far tunnel.

"You wouldn't make it half way." Deliberately goading. "And for what? A few scraps of tweed?"

"That's the difference between you and I." Ripper pinned a black stare on Ethan's face. This was familiar... "I'm not going to abandon anyone on the basis of a guess, a wishful thought. If Frost is alive then I won't leave him behind."

"How do you propose to get across the room then? For all we know this lot are just waiting for us to split up before they finish us off."

"So we should just leave the boy-?"

"Assuming that he's not already dead."

"- on the off chance that you're right?" Ripper ignored his interruption.

"We leave him." The vampire spoke. The demon's head was still in his hand and Dawn once again only partially visible against his long black coat. "Can't be having the Bit snacked on and we can't risk splitting up to go get this Frost git." Buffy's eyebrows climbed her forehead as she listened to Spike. "If he came down here with you then he knew the risks and your mate is right: he made his sodding bed so now he's got to lie in it."

"Shut up Spike." Buffy snapped, but the impact lost any fire it might have had considering that she continued to stare at the vampire like he had just grown a second head. "We… We won't be leaving anyone behind, whether they knew the risks or not. Not on my watch." She finished in a rush, tearing her gaze away and frowning.

"Yes shut up." Ripper seconded. "If I wanted the opinion of a serial killing, sociopathic, mass murdering, child killing, pathological liar then I would ask for it. You've caused enough trouble already." Despite his precipitous tone Ripper did not launch himself across the room, but paused and looked for Anita. "What do you say Annie?"

The woman, looking like porcelain in the weak light, took a moment to answer, to drag her eyes from where they had glazed over looking at Frost's last known location. She looked at Ripper and for a split second Ethan thought he was looking at a ghost. Normally exquisitely pale, in the faint light the rest of her looked just as drained of colour. It was an alarming sight and Ethan found himself deferring instinctively to Ripper, but the man was not reacting in anyway to the strange scene. That in itself was odd. Ripper's sight was as gifted as Annie's, and never strayed for long from his lover when they were in sight of one another. Now, though it was as if he had gone blind, such was his disinterest. Ethan suddenly frowned. Blind. Ripper had muttered something about being blind earlier? Blind to Chaos magicks? Or more? Was that it? No, couldn't be. Could it? He stared at the Watcher, but the man was once again, urgently scanning the room. No, he was just distracted by their dire situation that was all. Dire situations had a habit of doing that …

Then the impression was evaporating and he was left wondering if there had been anything in it at all. He was getting skittish. It was those damned hell spawn still staring and creeping him out. Ethan shook his head. He had to keep it together, this was not the time to crack up and lose his one real chance to get down here and gather some valuable data.

"We can't leave until we know for sure if he is dead." Anita spoke. "I can't sense him from here, but the muttune't are blocking my line of sight so..." She took a breath. "We can't leave him. It could be any one of us over there. It could be you Ethan." She looked across at Spike. "It could be you Spike, it could be Dawn.

"Don't let us turn away from doing the right thing because of an accident of fate that put Edward in our places. That would be to give in to irrational fears and prejudices and diminish us all.

"We can't know what these muttune't are thinking or waiting for and so to assume they mean us no harm or are awaiting some fortuitous turn of fate to kill us are equally presumptuous. Remember what Edward himself told us: these creatures are not intelligent. They are opportunistic hunters that only gather in packs when they sense that there is more food than one of them can eat. We saw that here.

"And remember they had us separated before Spike and Dawn arrived, and were starting to overwhelm us, but they stopped attacking us before we regrouped. We cannot pretend to know what is going on in what minds they have, but to let our gut-based speculations be the death of one of us? How could we do this and still be worthy of carrying on- of fighting the good fight?" A thoughtful silence drifted across the little group.

"Well, I could for one." Ethan heard himself pipe up. "Sorry Annie love, but pretty speech or no, I'm not one much inclined for suicide."

"Me neither." The vampire. "Can't say I'm worried about the whole righteous fighting thing either, what with me being evil and all."

"I'll go." Giles hefted his sword. "Annie, you can give me cover. It may not kill them, but they don't seem to like your arrows much." He smiled slightly his lover, and Ethan did not need to be able read auras to read the utter love he was broadcasting. Oh please. Ethan rolled his eyes. Going to get us all killed-

"I'll go with you." The Slayer suddenly spoke.

"Buffy-" Dawn's small voice piped up in protest. The Slayer looked at her.

"Hush. We are not going to leave anyone behind. Just stay here." Her eyes flickered from Anita to Ethan and finally settled reluctantly on the vampire. "Spike," she said, with a strange look on her face, "will look after you." The vampire returned her look, frowned slightly and then released his demon face with an abrupt shake of his head.

"No problem." He looked down at the girl between himself and Buffy. "Didn't I tell you not to worry with the Big Bad here to protect you?"

"Giles," The Slayer spoke. "Got your back." The Watcher nodded and tossed his torch to Ethan.

"Keep the beam on us. Think you can manage that?" Ethan nodded, reluctantly.

"Sure, until the little beggars get their groove back and then-"

"Fine. Buffy? Let's go."