DAY 4
David arrived at LAX the next morning at 11:00 am and called the Hyperion.
"Mr. Rupert Giles, please?" he asked.
"Certainly," Lorne responded and put the call on hold while he tracked down the Watcher.
Giles couldn't imagine who might be calling, everyone he knew was there with him, but once the call had been switched to the private phone in his room, he picked up the receiver, "Yes? This is Rupert Giles."
"Giles?"
"Oh, yes! David. Did you find that book? When will it arrive?"
"One thing at a time, Rupert. Yeah, I foun' it. I have it with me."
"Why haven't you sent it? We need that to…"
"I have it with me and I'm here in LA."
"Here?" Giles could not believe his ears. "But I said…God, why didn't you just…" but he knew why. "You shouldn't have. It's not a good time."
"Face it, Giles, 's'never going to be the right time. Might as well get it over with so I can help with everythin', instead of sittin' on my ass back in London. I'm here and I'm getting a cab. See ya soon," and David hung up.
Giles sat without moving for seconds before he realized he was still hanging on to the phone. Returning the handset to the cradle, the Watcher rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. What else could go wrong? Realizing that he was unable to postpone this conversation any longer, he called for the one person who had to know, "Buffy?"
#####
"Why aren't we ready yet?" demanded Magus. His dog paced the small one room apartment of their confederate, sniffing and growling intermittently at his master's anxiety.
Doc made sure his hands were well away from the creature's large teeth and responded, "I've told you, we are almost there. The next step is the power source, the energy, and as I told you, that is now in Los Angeles. A delectable treat, waiting to be…reacquired."
"I have men ready to act when the time is right."
"Yes, yes. It will be soon now. Tomorrow, I think." Doc walked across the small room to a desk scattered with charts, graphs and books. He shuffled through some paper and came up with the one he was looking for. "Yes, tomorrow night will be good."
Magus' eyelids fell in rapture as he savored the nearness of his goal. Rouj dipped his head under his master's dangling hand. "Yes, Ovchi, soon. Soon I will have my full power again, I will reclaim the throne taken from me and my sister so long ago. I will avenge her death and the prey in both worlds will be ours." The beast seemed to understand and panted in anticipation of the kills to come.
"Your sister was a fool," Doc muttered.
"What?" Magus roared, his ecstasy interrupted.
"She allowed herself to be distracted by…material things."
Placated somewhat, Magus made one last effort to excuse his sibling. "Glorificus was beautiful and deserved beautiful things. It was the human she inhabited that was her undoing. I do not share this handicap. I will not fail."
Bowing deeply Doc appeared penitent. "As you say, Magistericos. You will not fail." Assured that the god had believed his apology, he continued, "And you and Ovchi there have found the answer to the final part of the puzzle."
"Blood of the Slayer."
"Yes, but it must be unrelated Slayer blood. There must be no one who can close the portal again. Fortunately they have made the supply of what we need so very available."
The two men sat through the night making plans to return Magus to his reign. But one of them was playing his own game.
#####
"Angel?" Buffy gasped. "What do you mean, 'sometimes they stay'?"
"Well," the somber vampire began, "it's just that since Cordy…"
He was interrupted by the Watcher's loud call, "Buffy?"
Looking towards the building, Angel echoed Buffy's thoughts. "He sounds worried. Maybe you'd better see what's up."
Buffy was relieved at the excuse to leave. She thought she knew what Angel was about to tell her, and she wasn't sure she was ready to hear it just yet. "Okay, but we finish this later, right?" she called over her shoulder as she walked deliberately away.
"Giles?" she called as she re-entered the hotel.
"Here," the Englishman called from the lobby.
"What's up?" Buffy tried to sound nonchalant but the familiar tension mounted as she saw Giles' face. "Geez, what is it Giles? You'd think you'd seen a ghost."
A worried look crossed his face as he gestured to Buffy to join him on the sofa. As they both sat he cleared his throat. "Uh…Buffy?"
"Yes?" the petite blonde responded expectantly.
"Do you remember when I first left Sunnydale for England? After you came back?"
Of courseBuffy recalled that day. She'd felt abandoned, confused and so alone. They had never talked again about his decision to leave and although she understood his motives, some resentment still remained. Controlling herself and the emotion in her voice, Buffy's reply was an understatement, "Haven't forgotten it."
Giles looked at his Slayer, he knew she was holding her tongue about something, but he had to get through this. Nodding he continued, "Yes, well, of course. Well, at one point in the flight which is, by the way, rather long, I left my seat to…uh, you know. Anyway, as I was walking to the…WC, I passed a young man seated four rows behind me and he…," clearing his throat, Giles finished the sentence, "…caught my attention."
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Giles, what are you trying to tell me?"
Embarrassed as he realized what Buffy was thinking, Giles backpedaled, "Oh, dear, no. Dear me. Buffy, it wasn't that." He looked at Buffy and smiled shyly.
"Oh. Good, Giles. I don't think I could go through another 'coming out' just now."
His words rushed out, "It was just that this young man looked…well, I'll get to that. Anyway, after the flight, I asked him to join me for a drink. We got to talking and it seems that he had been, well, a student of vampires and vampirism for quite a while. He had been in Sunnydale doing some research and was just returning home to England. He impressed me with his sincerity and his story and what with the Watcher's Council gone now, I needed an assistant to help me pick up the pieces so I hired him. He's been working for me, staying in my spare room." Buffy nodded. "Well, he's a bit headstrong, David. That's his name. And it seems that my recent request for him to send us the book about the Crown to cure Cordelia caused him to not only send the book, but to bring it to us himself."
Sensing that Giles was irritated by this fact somehow, Buffy offered her usual solution, "So he's coming here." Giles nodded. "And that's not what you wanted him to do?" Another nod. "And you want me to go kick his butt for you? No prob."
Amused but pleased that Buffy was apparently on his side again, Giles put his hand on her shoulder and smiled, "No, that's not it." Then his face grew serious as he carefully considered his next words but before he could utter them, the Hyperion's doors squeaked open.
Buffy and Giles both stood and turned to greet whoever was entering. As Buffy fainted into his arms, Giles looked up into the face of the new occupant. "Hello, David."
#####
"Come Ovchi."
The large man was calling him again and something compelled him to follow. They left the too small shelter and walked out into the dawn. The dew felt good between his toes and the last remnants of night air filtered through his coat to cool him. Daylight bothered the wolf since he was nocturnal by nature, but he was developing a tolerance through strength of will. He was a powerful creature, with power over others and control of self.
As he walked, he savored the movement of his body, sleek, lithe, powerful. He looked down at his feet from which protruded sharp, dangerous claws. He'd killed recently, he knew because he wasn't hungry. He licked his lips. Blood. There'd been blood, yes. But this was different, there was something…familiar in the way it smelled.
The animal was becoming aware of itself, that it had been thinking, that it had had thoughts at all. This too seemed familiar, but by instinct he feared sentiency as he feared fire. It brought pain.
"Ovchi!" the man called again.
The wolf shook his head and padded after the man, willing for now to acknowledge whoever provided shelter and shared in the hunt.
#####
"Buffy? Buffy?" Wes was kneeling at her side, patting the blonde Slayer's face with a cool cloth when she came around. Not used to being out cold, Buffy flung herself at what she assumed must have been an opponent that had knocked her off her feet and threw Wes back onto the floor in her rush to be upright.
"Steady, there," Gunn spoke from across the room. "You're among friends."
Buffy scanned the room. He was right. But something didn't fit. The world had rocked and she… "Spike?"
Spike was standing there, solid and real. He stood nervously across the room from her, his head tilted, his posture achingly familiar. The room began to swim again and Buffy's breath became short. She took an unsteady step toward him but Giles stepped in the way. "Buffy, this is David, David Hennison."
"Giles, don't you see. It's him! The amulet must have saved him somehow, or he escaped, or the light…." As she tried to find an explanation, Buffy turned her gaze to Spike. His eyes lifted and looked into her own. There was recognition, but the intimacy that she had known, the love that had inhabited them, the understanding and welcome she had always found with Spike was not there. She realized that what Giles said was true. This was not Spike, but his double. She still couldn't breathe.
Willow stepped to her friend's side, and put her arm over her shoulders, sensing how it must have been to Buffy to have what she wanted most at your fingertips only to have it stolen away again. "Giles, this isn't fair. How could you have brought him here without telling her?"
"I was tel…and I did not bring him here. As far as I knew he was safely tucked away in England. I wouldn't have…."
"He's right. 'S'was my idea."
With all of the rest of them, the young witch had been caught off guard by the similarity between Spike and David, not only in appearance but in voice. She hesitated for a moment before replying, "But you couldn't have known how this would effect her. Giles understood. He should have made it clear to you th…."
"Thanks for the out, Red," the nickname rolling off his tongue, "but I knew. Still, best to get it over with. Didn't fancy all the sneakin' 'round anyway."
Buffy couldn't take it anymore, she closed her eyes and covered her ears, oblivious to the tears falling down her cheeks. She began to repeat, "No, no, no."
Xander stepped in front of David, "Listen, whoever had it, this wasn't a good idea. You'd better leave."
But David wasn't listening. Something in the shattered woman in front of him touched a part of him he'd been denying too long. He stepped around Xander and stood in front of Buffy. He waited quietly until her murmuring stopped, then he gently reached up and took her hands from the sides of her head. She stood before him now, her head lowered and eyes shut, willing away the memories, trying to cope with what appeared to be real but was not. The silence thrummed throughout the room as Alan gently placed his forefinger under Buffy's chin and raised her eyes to his own. She blinked and his visage swam into view.
"I know. But I'm not him. 'S just me, David"
"But why? How…," Buffy began, trapped in his gaze.
Fred interrupted, "Giles was starting to explain to us when you woke up." She turned toward him, "Please continue, Rupert?"
Glad for an excuse to talk, as teaching always calmed him, Giles began, "Right then, Buffy, as I was telling you, I met this young man on that first flight back to England and hired him to be my assistant. You see now what caught my attention." Buffy fought a mental battle and turned her attention to her Watcher. "Good. Well, it seems that David here is a distant relative of Spike's."
The spell between them broken, David supplied, "Great-great-great-grandnephew, best as I can tell."
"Yes, that's it," and Giles stepped back to give David the floor. The others gathered around.
David began nervously, unused to speaking to so many people, but he found the false bravado within himself to continue. Buffy saw this from where she stood and she embraced it as familiar. She smiled slightly.
"Well, growin' up in the East End, we didn't have much. My dad was long gone before I was born and my mum never married. She did her best to raise me though, workin' as an overnight cleanin' lady so's she could be 'roun' me durin' the day. She'd come home in time to see me off to school and she'd tell me bedtime stories before she left for work. Mostly they were frightening yarns from the history of the family that had disowned her cuz of me." He looked around the room, "I'm a bastard, you see. My mum, she held out that there was a book full of those stories secreted away somewhere on the family estate but we weren't allowed t' go there. She told me the stories from memory. The story was, her great-great-grandfather'd died in Russia in 1855…,"
"The Crimean War," Giles interjected. Alan agreed and gestured that Giles should continue. "Right, well, he died, leaving behind his wife, Eileen and two children, my great-great-grandmother, who was barely 3 and her baby brother only just on the way. Eileen, was devastated and never remarried, doting instead upon her children. Times were hard, but they lived simply and scraped by. Gwendolyn and her brother were very close and because money was tight, they spent time creating their own diversions with songs, stories and poems. As she grew older though and her mother more eccentric, Gwendolyn became more practical and set about to marry a fine young man of position, which she did. She lived well but her mother and brother grew deeper within their own fantasy world. Those she left behind had no other means of support, so Gwendolyn made her new husband promise to provide a home for her mother and little brother as well. Living quarters were established for them not far from their own London property so they could visit often."
"After they had been married for nearly a year, Gwendolyn was expecting their first child but she was still dutiful to her mother and brother. One night Gwendolyn visited to find her brother enthralled with some new woman he'd met. Of course she didn't take him seriously, he was always falling in love with someone or other and writing epic poetry about how it was never-ending or gloriously one-sided, but as she left this night she found herself feeling uneasy. Writing it off as the jitters of early pregnancy, she stayed away. Later that week her brother disappeared."
"Druscilla," Buffy uttered. The others looked at her. They hadn't heard Spike's story as Buffy had.
"Uh huh," David confirmed. "They carried on lookin' for William but after several days spent comforting her distraught and ailing mum, Aunt Gwen returned to her own house. Even though she was home now, she was unhappy, plagued by thoughts of what had happened to her brother and of how her mother, already weak, had grown erratic and frail since William's disappearance. At the end of the week, she came back to find 'em both gone. There were signs of a fight near the fireplace and neighbors had tales of an odd couple darkenin' her mother's doorstep but like it was in Sunnydale," David shrugged, "with vampires involved, Lilly…uh, the Constabulary were useless."
At that moment, another voice sounded in the room, "He didn't kill her." Robin raised his eyes to meet the stares as heads turned toward him. He was surprised to feel it necessary to defend Spike, but it was. "At the beginning, when we were fighting once, Spike told me about how he'd still had fond memories of his mother even after Dru had turned him. He'd returned to the house to share his newfound immortality. To restore Eileen, not to kill her." He looked at Buffy, unsure how she would take his next revelation, but thinking that Alan deserved to know the truth. "Well, he did it. He turned her, but in the confusion of her new strength, she told him that she'd hated him for who he had been and who he now was. He staked her accidentally as they fought, then he and Dru left again."
David acknowledged Robin with a grateful nod, as Giles continued, "With no bodies, the memorial services were held and the small house closed. Months later, after the birth of her son, and when at last Gwendolyn could face it again, she took several servants with her to clean out her mother's belongings and open the building for tenants. In cleaning out the house, she found a journal."
"To her the book was the product of her mother's vivid and demented imagination, driven to a frenzy at the end by the loss of her son. But, as the mystery of their disappearance was allowed to fade, the tales were kept, told as fanciful horror stories to amuse her family on dark nights. On special occasions Gwendolyn would pull out the diary and read parts of it to embellish the well-used parts of the story. At some point, one of her sons, or one of her grandsons, had the genius to construct a special hiding place for the book within the nursery, where each generation of children could discover and dream over the family mystery anew as they wandered the cold halls of Hennison Manor."
"Those were your bedtime stories too." Fred concluded.
David nodded, "A few years ago, when my own mum died I began to wonder about the family she had left behind and I made my way out to the family holdings. I introduced myself to my grandfather but he turned his back on me. I insisted that I had come merely to satisfy my curiosity and that I wanted nothing of him or his money and, after much cajoling, he instructed a servant to show me my mum's room, but admonished the girl not to leave me alone in there, or to allow me to take anything away. Then he walked away and I never saw him again.
"Took me to a wing o' the house reserved for the kids and their governess. We found my mum's room there, just like she always said it was, but now it was under 25 years of dust. It was beautiful, the room of a poncy girl growing up in the 50s." He looked at Giles, "I got emotional I guess and I s'pose the servant didn't care for my grandfather much, 'cuz when we left the room and I excused myself to the loo, she went downstairs and left me alone. I'm sure that she knew I was going to nick something. It was true. I had to, if only to get back a little from the family that had hurt my mum so. But I couldn't get that girl in trouble either. It had to be something inconspicuous. I walked back into the children's part of the house not knowing what I wanted, but as I stood there, suddenly I did know. I heard mum's words in my head sayin' 'beneath the third floorboard from the nursery door'. I pulled up the carpet and lifted a panel. There it was, the diary. I stashed it under my shirt and left there for good."
"Well, I read that book cover to cover more times that I could count for the next several weeks. The stories were all there, just as I remembered them being told, but it wasn't a bunch of stories, it was just one. It became clear that the stories were actually her diary and I began to seek out answers. Great-great-great-grandmum's description of William & Dru was clearly of a couple of very dangerous vamps so I asked 'round an' eventually ended up at the Council. I finagled myself a job there and spent all my extra time in the library. I found a thesis one of the council members had written on William the Bloody. From the description, I thought they might be the same man so I arranged to meet with her. She reacted much as you did, Buffy, faintin' and all, but after I explained who I was, she told me that William, now Spike, was still around, livin' in Sunnydale. As soon as I had the money put together I came here to see him for myself."
Dawn looked up suddenly, "You were here? I mean, in Sunnydale?"
"Yep, 'bout two years ago. Didn't meet Spike though. I chickened out. Watched him and learned about him but thought I'd come back later to shake hands."
"You dyed your hair then, so you wouldn't be mistaken for him, didn't you?" She pointed to David's curls, "That kind of blonde is hard to miss."
"Yeah, I did, but how did you…."
"And you played…dominos."
"Okay, now this is getting weird. How do you know about that?"
Everyone was looking at Dawn. "Did you see him?" Buffy asked.
"Well," Dawn hesitated, "No, I didn't see him, but someone…said something." She knew that she was never going to hear the end of it if she told Buffy the whole Ghora egg story, but maybe it was important. Everything seemed important now, a part of the whole. "After mom died, Spike and I went to see this guy…," she began.
#####
Doc was jerked awake from one of his catnaps by a sudden sense of foreboding. He was halfway to his feet when the door to his apartment flew not just open, but across the room, ending upside down having made a significant dent in one of his artifacts. Following the door into the room was one angry god. For only a moment the smaller man's eyes flickered coal black and as cold as space, but it passed. After inhaling deeply Doc intoned, "Good evening, Magistericos," as calmly as possible.
"Little man, you promised me a kingdom."
"Yes, Magistericos. Your kingdom."
"And more."
"Yes, Magistericos. Much more."
"You promised me a battle tonight."
Doc removed his glasses and smiled benignly at his 'guest'. "Yes, it begins tonight."
"I am a warrior. I crave battle, bloodshed. I dreamt last night of home, my robes of honor, my scepter and I will have them soon. But I feel uneasy." Pulling himself to full height, an easy eighteen inches taller than Doc, Magus drew in his power to intimidate this little minion, "If you have deceived me…. I warn you Doctor…."
Turning his back on the raving giant in his doorway, Doc calmly walked through his apartment and perched lightly on one of his wingback chairs. "Threats are unnecessary, Magistericos. I serve you absolutely, as I did your sister. You will have your victory and your craving for battle may be sated this very evening." He bowed his head in what he hoped was a gesture of deference.
With excitement now showering off of him, the god took one stride across the room and stood in front of his diminutive disciple. Though excited by the possibility, he had learned enough about this world to doubt the man before him. "Can it be true? Is the time upon us at last?"
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Doc raised his eyes and answered, "Yes, it is true. You may acquire the next element. If you complete that task tonight, what was yours will be restored within 48 hours."
"What was mine and what you promised me are two different things," Magus growled in an almost unearthly timbre.
"Quite right. What was yours and what I promised will both be yours, Magistericos, within 48 hours."
With one last squint at Doc, the god threw back his head and laughed. Victory would be his, he would be back on his throne and doubly rich in less than two days and this moment was to be savored. Ovchi, who had stood quietly at the threshold of the room until now, sensed the joy and padded toward his leader. When Magus felt the animal's head at his thigh, he ran his fingers through its rough fur. "Hear that boy? The hunt's on tonight! Let's go!"
After Magus and Ovchi had left, Doc took a moment of magic to lift the solid oak door from where it had landed, and settle it solidly across the open doorway. He then pulled out a journal of meticulous, hand-written notes and checked his own plan one last time. Finally, and with a smile, he crawled back into bed. He would need his rest.
#####
Buffy finished ranting and hugged her sister. They had both been so distraught at the loss of their mom that nothing surprised her, except of course the fact that Spike had, once again, shown his 'good' judgment in helping Dawn at all. "Oh, Dawnie," she sighed, "Sometimes that man tried so hard, he couldn't do anything right."
"No, Buffy, it was me. I knew he'd help if I just asked cuz he'd have done anything to make me happy…to make you happy."
"That's what I mean. He had no sense but his heart was…," Buffy suddenly realized she was talking about Spike in the past tense and she threw her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. She looked at David.
"…evil?" he suggested.
Buffy slowly lowered her hand and with a clear voice she corrected him, "I was going to say 'extraordinary'. You didn't know him at all, did you?"
"Like I said, stories. I never met the…him."
"And I don't suppose Giles had anything good to say about him either?" Buffy looked at her Watcher accusingly.
"Well, no," David answered honestly.
When she turned angry eyes on him, Giles stammered, "Buffy, it's…."
"How dare you? Giles, you're a hypocrite. You rely on…relied on Spike's help, offered freely…."
"Offered on condition of your love," the older man corrected.
"For whatever reason, and you never gave him so much as one scrap of respect did you? You handed him weapons, you stood and fought beside him, but it meant nothing to you except another body in the war. He had finally found something worth living for and he put that life on the line day after day after day. Why? Was he distracting me? Did my slaying ever suffer because of him? Why couldn't you see that he'd changed?"
Despite the tears that began to course down her cheeks, she continued. "You could never see his pain or feel sorry for him either. You never even tried. He was 126 years old and had never been respected, by anyone. Not you," she turned accusingly to the rest of the group, "Not any of you."
She looked pointedly at Angel, "You knew him all along and even you never cared about him, about who he really was. A century ago, he was nothing but a subordinate for you, an amusement, Dru's toy, and then, after you got souled, he was a worry, a problem, a responsibility, but you never considered him a friend or even an equal. You hated him and nagged at him, pushed and cajoled, tortured and taunted him to get him to do what you needed, good or bad."
"And you two," she turned to glare at Xander and Willow, "who are supposed to be my friends, never had any regard for him or for my feelings for him. To you he was…disposable. None of you trusted him and he knew it, felt it. I know you won't believe this, but it hurt him. I wasted a lot of time thinking like you did, that he was just another vampire, but thank God I got to know him, the real him…before…." A sob escaped her and she couldn't speak.
"Love is blind," Xander muttered under his breath.
Buffy rounded on her old friend. "Blind? It wasn't me, it was all of you who were blind. Sure, sometimes his judgment could be horribly off, but I would certainly have to answer to that too. Tell them Angel, about the importance of forgiveness."
Angel turned sad eyes downward. He knew.
Willow sputtered, "He never said anything to any of us. How could we have known?"
"He knew better than to open up to you. His whole life, real and undead, people laughed at him, snubbed him. He hid his true self. But he loved me and I was lucky because I found out that there was so much more to him behind what you saw. Spike was a good man. He could be tender and gentle. He quoted poetry and appreciated beauty. And when he fell in love…it was heart and soul…despite his lack of either.
"You think he was the only one pretending? No. He saw through each of us. Even if we didn't share it with him, he saw the good within each of us. Even if he didn't have our respect, we had his. He worried over each of you Potentials. He cared deeply for Dawn. He was blown away by Willow's skill and compassion. He longed for Giles' friendship, even a kind word. He envied Xander's humanity. He shared Anya's pain…
"Well, now he's died to save us all and no one has said anything. I hope you at least feel…something. Loss? Guilt? Gratitude?"
Silence reverberated throughout the room as Buffy's tears of anger and loss fell to the floor. David felt his heart drawn toward the diminutive woman in so much anguish. He stood up slowly and walked over to her. He thought of what she had said. He hadn't known his uncle. The things he had learned had all painted Spike as an evil creature, William the Bloody, incapable of feeling any of the things Buffy had just attributed to him. David had begun to look upon his search for Spike as etymologists thought of poisonous insects. Interesting and potentially dangerous, but the world would be better off without him. Now, too late, he discovered that the creature had a face, a mind, a heart, a soul. He could think of nothing to say to her. Instead he wrapped his arms protectively around her.
Buffy stiffened, startled at first. She hardly knew this man, but his strong embrace was familiar and inside of it she felt safe for the first time in days.
#####
Magus returned to his underground lair with renewed passion for the fight ahead. As he entered the main tunnel, he was greeted everywhere by servants in brown robes. Their base fear and overt reverence, although just, disgusted him but they served his needs and his purposes. Once they had revered him, now they were not just his worshipers, they were his army. He called to the one whom he had chosen from the rest to be his general.
"Jinx!"
From somewhere startlingly close, the berobed minion appeared at his master's elbow. His appearance was so abrupt that it raised the hackles on Ovchi's back and earned a sharp growl in response. "Dammit, Jinx, announce your presence!" Magus insisted.
"Yes, your magnificence. I humbly apologize. What evil chore may I be privileged to do for you, oh Honored One?"
"Call together your…men, Jinx. The hour has arrived."
The minion was too surprised to fawn, "Sir?"
"Now!" Magus watched as the minion scuttled away, calling out to others of his ilk and assembling a team he had designated for the task at hand. The plan was foolproof, but Magus felt sure he was surrounded by fools. Not everything, but nearly everything, was balanced on the success of tonight's mission. Their training had been expert, their weapons were superior and magically enhanced, he had even convinced the special group to shed their robes for more practical black fatigues, but doubt lingered.
When Jinx returned, breathing rapidly from his quick change, Magus announced, "I'm coming with you."
"Oh, your high rulerness," Jinx gasped, "We are indeed unworthy of such an honor. We are not fit to shine your glorious wingtips. Still…."
"What?" snapped the god.
Jinx was afraid. He knew his team and felt fairly sure they could meet their goals, but with Magus present, they would be distracted and feel it necessary to show off. Bowing repeatedly he tried again, "Your Superlative Radiance was not included in our humble plan. Our munificent lord may find his overshadowing omnipotence bored with our meager undertaking."
Unwilling to hear any more, Magus made his intentions clear, "I will come to make sure of your success!"
The minion general fell fearfully to his knees and bent forward to touch his forehead to the floor, "Thank you, Magistericos, for this unbearable kindness. We are undeserving of such blessed attention."
"You may be, but your prey is not," the god answered as he walked back toward the tunnel entrance to meet with his special team.
Jinx rose to follow his lord, secretly praying for help from some more benevolent deity, one that required fewer adjectives.
#####
"Giles, this is goofy. He's not going to come." Willow had been calling now for hours since Buffy had dressed them down about Spike. After her tirade, Buffy had returned exhausted to her room but it had taken a while for Willow to refocus on this, her next duty. Now it was very late, her voice was raw from her repeated invocations and her joints sore from kneeling the whole time. "Please, let's stop."
Angel turned to Giles, "Listen, let's just go to the Powers. They'll tell us…."
"They'll tell us nothing. You have told me yourself how deceitful they are, serving their own purposes. We will not be asking them." Looking through the window to the sunrise that ended another sleepless night, Giles agreed, "Alright then, just one last try?"
Heaving a great sigh, Willow dispensed with all ceremony and called out, "D'Hoffryan! Where the hell are you?"
In the empty seconds that followed, Willow began to stand, convinced that this too, had been a failure. As she stooped to brush off the knees of her slacks, a spot on the floor in front of her began to smolder with a thick, gray smoke.
"Giles?" Willow's voice warbled. She had only met the demon a few times before, once during a 'job interview' and the last at Xander and Anya's wedding, now simply called the 'fiasco', and lastly at the scene of the Abercrombie and Fitch massacre. He had treated her kindly each time, but Willow knew that beneath the surface, D'Hoffryan held great power, a power that he used only for his own benefit. It was going to be up to them to convince him that helping them was in his best interest.
As the smoke began to take form, a voice emerged from within the cloud. "Ah, Willow. My favorite young witch. It was you calling? I'd have come sooner, had I realized."
Assuming a deferential stance, Willow answered, "Thank you for answering me D'Hoffryan." Beaming a smile in his direction, she added, "It's nice to see you again too."
"You've gotten stronger," the demon observed, looking her over. "I approve." Willow accepted his praise. "How is your human friend Anyanka coming along, then?"
Haltingly Willow told the story of her death to Anya's former employer who seemed interested, if not moved by this turn of events. "I'm sorry, D'Hoffryan," she finished.
"This world was never her home. Things always ended up unhappily for her here. She is best out of it one way or another. But that is a shame." He spent no more than a moment contemplating Anya's demise, then looked around the room. "Such an audience. To what do I owe such ceremony? Tell me, Willow, are you ready to join me? Is that why you called? Are you seeking revenge for something…someone?"
"No, sir. That's not it."
"Because," he encouraged her, "you know I get girls from all places, for all reasons. Some have talents like yours, some have commitment, others a cause. Anyanka was out to avenge all women. Do you remember Halfrek, Anyanka's friend? She was always out to change people's fortunes for the better." Chuckling softly to himself he mused, "You people would like this story. She once deliberately drew a young man into the arms of a vampiress. No, it's true. He was a miserable example of literary mediocrity, enraptured by the gothic dramas that were popular in his time and scathingly untalented. He was doomed, as Halfrek saw it, to a life of misery and rejection…."
David and Buffy turned their heads toward D'Hoffryan in unison.
Willow saw their heads turn, but had enough focus to understand that Spike's history was secondary to the current quest. "D'Hoffryan," she interrupted gently, "We were hoping you could help us."
"Help? You?" D'Hoffryan straightened himself and bowed a little too reverently in Willow's direction. "I'd be honored."
Sensing the sarcasm in his voice and noting the body language, Willow continued carefully, "It's really a very little thing we need, just some information on an old weapon and what will happen if it is destroyed."
"It must be powerful indeed to make you…and you…hesitate." He turned from Willow to Buffy and back. "I'm intrigued. Tell me more."
Buffy showed her newest acquisition to the demon lord, being careful to keep it out of his reach. She reminded herself that he was an acquaintance, not a friend. "Ah," D'Hoffryan released a sigh, "Beautiful."
"Dangerous," David added.
Without turning his gaze from the scythe, the demon answered, "My dear boy, they are, more often than not, the same thing."
Giles stepped in. "Yes, well, we seem to understand pretty well what it does. But we feel that all in all, things should go back as they were."
The effect of this simple statement was to fill D'Hoffryan's eyes with excitement. Suddenly no one was sure that this was such a good idea, asking a demon lord to help them. Willow was the one who realized they had no choice. "D'Hoffryan? Sir? We know what you are and what you do. This scythe and what it does or doesn't do, is of no concern to Vengeance Demons. All we seek is knowledge."
"Oh, but you're wrong. It has much to do with us. Girls with inner strength do not need us; do not need us to seek revenge on their behalf. Girls with power can exact their own punishments. The last few days have been as though this world suddenly vanished for us, our version of a stock market crash. Now you offer me the opportunity to assist you in reversing that spell? My answer is, 'of course'. Let me see the instrument."
Buffy hesitated. "Come on, I cannot wield it's power. It's for a Slayer to use. I must examine it to help." Slowly Buffy handed over the weapon. The demon took it reverently and turned it around to inspect it from every angle, "Lovely, just lovely. Yes, well. An axe. Seventh century. But it's not just an axe. It is a vessel, one well suited for what it holds. Along with its other, more fatal, attributes, it contains what you seek; the code, or the blueprint, if you will, for a Slayer. Willow, you must have discovered this. You had to have gotten past the weapon's magical defenses in order to effectively clone those characteristics across the world. Very impressive." Willow smiled in spite of herself. "Now, to reverse this spell could be tricky. You'll need to seek out the world's supply of these Slayer plans and reconsolidate them here, within the scythe without affecting the girls by taking something else from them inadvertently. Difficult, but not impossible for someone with your superior talents." D'Hoffryan took a step toward Willow, obviously trying to sway her earlier decision not to join him.
"Then what?" Buffy interrupted.
"Well," the demon continued, "I suspect that it will seek out all Slayer occurrences, not just the clones'."
"So I wouldn't be a Slayer either?"
"Neither of us?" Faith asked.
"Sorry, no," the demon affirmed. "In fact, because you two are of pure Slayer lineage, I cannot say for sure if you will survive the spell at all." The demon's expression acknowledged this new paradox with amusement as he handed the scythe back to Buffy.
There was an outbreak of animated conversation among the group before Giles restored order. "Yes, that is a new wrinkle we hadn't anticipated, however we must all keep our heads and think this through. We can finish the discussion after we have said goodbye to our guest, however." Giles indicated D'Hoffryan who was taking in the whole of the event and whom Giles had begun to suspect would deliver the news of the impending lack of Slayers to the demon world with a great amount of gusto. There was no need to keep him within their circle so that he might also be able to supply the date and time as well. "Thank you, D'Hoffryan, for your assistance. You have been most kind and informative."
The demon lord was disappointed at having been dismissed before getting all the information he could, but he bowed slowly in a gesture of farewell to each of them, "Watcher. Slayers. Comrades. Uh…Others." At last he turned to Willow. "I cannot persuade you then?"
Willow looked embarrassed, lowered her eyes and shook her head. "No thank you, D'Hoffryan."
With finality D'Hoffryan said, "Well, glad to have been of help."
"D'Hoffryan, before you go, do you mind if I ask you one other question?" Angel had waited patiently, but saw no need to let any opportunity to help Cordy evaporate.
"Ah, and you might be…?"
"Angel. Of Angel Investigations."
"We help the helpless," Fred interjected automatically before blushing.
Angel continued, "This is my hotel."
"Nice place," D'Hoffryan replied and with a smirk he folded his hands together. "I suppose I have time for one last question, vampire."
Angel's eyes narrowed, obviously the demon knew more than he was saying. "I, I mean we were, um, are, looking for Naillig's Crown. Ever hear of it? Do you know where it is?"
The ancient demon thought for a moment and then laughed. "Foolish immortal. I am not a Lost and Found department. Besides, only the most inept ever ask me to look for things they already have." Then, with one last, longing glance at Willow, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"What did he mean by that?" Angel wondered aloud as the smoke cleared. "I already have the…?" And then he was running.
The others took little notice as their debate began in earnest about the relative good of all slayers versus none.