Buffy waited till Xander was out of earshot before letting her attention completely go. Part of her hated him for wrecking her happy post-spa-weekend mood, but she knew it wasn't his fault. Blaming Travers, though, after what had happened . . .

Death was what she dealt in, but human death still rocked her. Especially the death of--would the Watchers be considered her colleagues? "What were you thinking?" kept going through her head, but she knew what they were thinking. They could not let Giles survive. The Slayer mind agreed. The Buffy mind was still torn.

She'd spent too much time with vampires to ever dismiss them again as merely soulless monsters. They were people with a broader definition. And the Giles who wore fangs was still very much the man who had trained her and protected her.

She slumped further on the bench and shook her head. A frontal assault on Spike and Giles' stronghold was stupid, even if Xander hadn't warned them. It reminded her of that poem she'd heard in some English class somewhere, Charge of the Light Brights or something.

Part of her mind paused, waiting for Giles' outraged correction of her horrible lack of knowledge etc., accompanied with accurate recitation of the poem in question. The rest of her ached with the once-again realization of how that Giles was dead and gone. Or not. She could see the current him taking the time to scold her ignorance.

She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked a bit. He was there and he wasn't there. She knew why Travers and the others had done what they did. This couldn't go on, Giles the vampire was a mockery of Giles the man, even if you could look at him and still see easily-distracted book guy. Because book guy didn't have any problem with becoming killer guy, and she knew he was out there killing.

"Looks like it's going to have to be me doing the dirty work again," she whispered, feeling a hot tear run down her cheek.

She wiped her face roughly. Not-so-stealthy footsteps in the nearby brush told her that something was about to try its luck. She waited a few more moments, then turned to look at the vampire who had just stepped through the hedge. He had his hands up in the classic "about to pounce" gesture, and the dumbfounded expression looked ridiculous with fangs.

"Hi, there," she said, not moving from her spot on the picnic bench.

"Uh . . . what?"

It was too much effort at the moment to pull the stake out of her inside jacket pocket. "So, are you part of Spike's group?"

"Huh?"

Buffy sighed. "Spike? Leather coat? Blond hair? Talks like a PBS movie?"

The vampire looked at his hands and pulled them down quickly. "Yeah, Spike, I know him. What about him?"

"You know what happened this weekend?"

"Uh, yeah. Big messy fight. Some chick got dusted, Spike and his buddy went nuts, did a massacre on some vampire hunters."

Which was pretty much what Xander had said. Buffy wondered briefly how he knew so much about what happened in the fight if Angel had gotten him out of there before the real bloodbath started.

"Who are you?" the vampire asked.

"I'm the Slayer." The vampire actually jumped back a step in horror. That never got old. She looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you know about that other bunch of vampires, up on Crawford Street?"

"Yeah. Stuck up, they think they're better than us." He frowned. "Aren't I supposed to be fighting you?"

Buffy smiled and pulled out her stake. "You can if you want."

The vampire put his hands up again and tensed. Buffy braced her feet on the ground and got ready to jump across the table in the opposite direction of his leap. He paused, then spun and jumped back through the hedge and ran away.

She thought about chasing him, but her heart wasn't in it tonight. She would patrol, just in case, but she was thinking that she ought to start pulling together information of her own, instead of depending on everyone else to find it for her. And scuzzy as the place was, there was no place like Willy's for demonic gossip.

The afternoon lull had fallen on the gallery, and Joyce took the opportunity to do some dusting. While her customer traffic wasn't high, it was surprisingly steady, with accompanying dirt trailing in with the people. She had a few locals who came in regularly, but she wondered how many of the apparent tourists were not actually human Was there a non-human California sightseeing trail, with Sunnydale and its Hellmouth in the guide book as one of the things one should stop to see? She straightened her display of art prints and postcards and imagined other stores in town with brochures to more esoteric points of interest. Maybe there was even a demonic Chamber of Commerce. Anya would know. She probably had those brochures in the Magic Box.

Joyce remembered the demons she'd met at the Convent of St. Eugene, and she imagined a carload of them on vacation, with little Baynar whistling "Are we there yet?" at his long-suffering parents from the backseat. Her chuckle made the man in the far corner of the shop glance up from his study of some Buddhist carvings from India, and Joyce went back to the counter to hide her blushes.

The bell on the door rang as Anya came in. "Hello, Joyce. You said you had an idea for us to make money together?"

Joyce laughed. She did enjoy Anya's simplicity. "Yes, I did. Could you come take a look at some things I just acquired?" She gestured to some boxes behind the counter. "Apparently some of the things I pick up have magical attributes, and I don't think I should have those sorts of things here. I was wondering if I could place them in the Magic Box as a consignment item."

"Why not keep them here? Lots of demons collect art, and some of them like human art as well."

"I wouldn't know what to do if anything started acting--oddly. And my assistant wouldn't really be able to cope with customers who are odder than most."

Anya shrugged and nodded. "That's true. Some of the most non-human demons really like human art. I guess it's exotic to them." She looked into the boxes. "I don't see anything overtly magical, but there are a couple of these Yoruban figurines that have some interesting symbols. We could set up a section in the Magic Box to put the more artsy things, call it an annex of your gallery, add a couple of zeros to the prices."

She looked confused when Joyce laughed. "Never mind, dear. So nothing in this shipment has the same kind of aura as the spirit bowls over there?"

"Let me make sure."

She turned partly away, then Joyce saw that her face had changed from her normal pretty one to the heavier, vein-laced demonic look. Joyce debated telling Anya that she didn't mind the other face, but if Anya didn't want to make a point of it, she wasn't going to force the issue.

Anya frowned. "There is something else here, other than those bowls." She stared at the new shipment box, then looked around the shop. The customer who was still in the shop had gone to the farthest corner and was staring intently into a coffee table book of the works of Calder. "Him. Something about him."

Joyce studied the man. He gave off an air of shabbiness despite his new clothes. His hands looked old, thin and gnarled, but his hair was still mostly brown. The more she looked, the more he seemed to be trying to hide from her. She looked at Anya, who was watching the man very carefully, and felt that she had sufficient otherworldly backup for a confrontation. "Excuse me, sir?"

He pretended to be startled and looked over his shoulder, but he didn't turn completely. "Yes?"

His voice was British, but a bit scratchy, the way a voice got when someone had a cold and had been coughing a great deal. But it sounded familiar, as well. Joyce moved out from behind the counter, watching him. He turned his face away, then sagged a bit before turning to face her. She stared at him, looking for similarities between the thin, lined face and anything in her memory. She wondered if her recent sickness was the cause for her confusion or something else. "Have we met?"

The man sighed, then smiled slightly. "Yes, Mrs. Summers, we have."

She remembered the smile. The night of the band candy was blurry, but there was a lot she remembered from that night. She gasped and stepped back.

Anya came around quickly. "Joyce, what's wrong?"

"You," she whispered.

He held up his hands. "Please, I'm not here to cause any problems."

Anya raised a hand and glared at the man. "Who is he, Joyce?"

She finally caught her breath. "Ethan Rayne."