Disclaimer: I own nothing of Tolkien's works, however all original characters and story concepts solely belong to me. The Grigori and all documented characters associated with them belong in the public domain. Any references to the original book, The Serpent and the Peacock are copyrighted to A Selby. Any references to the world created by Joss Whedon belong to him.

Author Note

My huge apologies to all readers of this story, but not only did I have to fly out to South Africa to see my father because he was becoming increasingly unwell, when I got there he was taken into hospital with an arterial embolism and eventually after two major operations they amputated his left leg just above the knee. This is a hideous thing no matter what age you are and my father is 88. We did nearly lose him and the month I was out there in Cape Town with the rest of the family was actually very fraught. He is now recovering at home and concentrating on becoming as mobile as he can be.

On the bright side, there was also very good news on the book front which happened at the very same time as the awful situation with my Dad. My book, The Serpent and the Peacock has been accepted for publication by an American publisher. The first release will be on eBook with Barnes and Noble and Amazon and the second release will be in real book form towards the end of April this year. If anyone reading this story who also read the previous one, Dark Power Arising in which I introduced my original book characters would like to be notified of both release dates of the book, please email me or PM me privately with their email address and I will ensure that they are on the notification email. Obviously I don't need to tell any of you how exciting this has been for me, but it's also been a very busy time in that I have had to read and approve edited versions of the book and also things like the front and back cover artwork.

However, as you can see, I do intend to keep my story going although updates will have to happen in-between continuing the sequel to the book and real life stuff but with my new awesome laptop given to me for my recent 60th birthday by my wonderful sons, daughter in law and grandson and my equally fantastic wireless router from my lovely friend Sue I can now travel with all of my files and keep working as I would at home no matter where I am in the world.

Again thank you for your patience and understanding.

For those who are not truly au fait with Buffy, The First Evil was a unique entity that predated man and demon, apparently the personification of the concept of evil itself, manifested from all evil in existence. The First was an incorporeal presence that could assume the form of any person who had died, including vampires and persons who had been resurrected. Because of this it appeared in various forms depending who it sought to manipulate. In my story the First Evil and Melkor are one and the same entity.

ooOoo

""You came pretty close to smacking me down. What more do you want?""

- The First Evil (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 7)

The Hellmouth

Chapter 5 – The Eyes Have It

There was an eerie silence around the slopes of one of the smaller mountains in the Scottish Highlands only punctuated occasionally by the mournful cries of the hawk and the even more mournful sobbing of the cold wind that blew from the east across the Russian Steppes from Siberia It was not a place that tourists travelled to and was only occasionally tested by a hardy climber or two who rapidly found that the higher they got, the more the mist grew heavier and shrouded them and the mountain itself to such good effect that a hand could literally not be seen in front of a face.

The few locals who lived in the area in the couple or three small villages knew better than to test the mountain's mettle. It might well be much smaller than Ben Nevis, but it had a bite that nobody forgot in a hurry. For the most part they avoided it...even the hardy forest service people whose job is was to look after the trees on the lower slopes looked a bit aghast if anyone came and asked for advice about good climbing or hiking in the area.

It stood to reason then that it was an ideal place for anyone who was up to no good; if they could withstand the gruelling climb up that is. If some hapless climber, forester or local had managed to reach only a few metres from the summit they would have found a natural rock-strewn path in between some sparse bushes which eventually led to the dark maw of a cavern entrance.

The huge rock formations on either side of the cavern entrance served to further put a sinister aspect on the place. They looked for all the world like broken, jagged rotten teeth beyond which there was only a Stygian blackness.

If they had found the courage to go further or right up to the entrance, the foetid smell billowing forth alone would have made them recoil in horror and ensured that anything they had eaten previously would make some rather unwanted returns. The descent down the mountain could be a lot faster and a lot more lethal than even the ascent upwards especially when undertaken as a panic-stricken run.

However to date, nobody, at least not a mere mortal anybody, had managed to breach the cave entrance and it remained hidden, mysterious and filled with secrets that mere mortals were not meant to know.

ooOoo

The Loch Mairie Police Station in the North West of Scotland..

Inspector MacGillivray looked up as Eönwë, Finrod and Jim crowded into the small dingy compartment that served as his office in the station. His half glasses were perched on the end of his nose as he plodded through crime scene reports and occasionally checked HOLMES2 on his computer screen. So far the lab had come up with nothing that actually tied Mr Osse in with the crime scene at the cemetery. Interviews had also come up with nothing and the Inspector was currently fervently hoping for a miracle, perhaps a polygraph or a truth serum to convince the smiling, calm prisoner to confess.

He had just sighed deeply, sat back and was contemplating the unsavoury notion that they had the wrong man in custody when the Desk Sergeant had knocked on the door and told him that some high and mighty military mucky-muck was outside asking to see the Inspector with regard to the prisoner. The fact that the Desk Sergeant, normally a very hard individual to shake, was pale, wild-eyed and slightly trembling made the Inspector realise that whoever the visitor was he had enough about him to knock people off their safe ground. He dropped his head into his hands and groaned as the sergeant left to fetch the visitors. Their prisoner was not only the wrong man, but quite obviously he was a man with influential friends in high places as well. That was all he needed to make his day just utterly perfect!

ooOoo

Osse's eyes flew open. He didn't need to actually see Eönwë to know that he was here and he had one of the children of Arafinwe with him…how utterly delightful. It was always an immense pleasure to see one of King Olwë's grandchildren and it had been many a year since he had spoken with Findarato given that he was currently aiding Eönwë here in modern Middle Earth.

His heart warmed at the thought of his brother Maia being nearby. Perhaps now he would be spared the pointless questioning he had so far undergone with these police or whatever they called themselves. Too much time had been wasted since his Lord had caused his servant and two companions to be whisked away to this marred place. Osse felt a spasm of pain at the thought of Uinen still being there, even though he knew full well she would be safe. Ulmo would protect her as best he could and she could take care of herself anyway.

He pushed aside the momentary pang; Valinor was now closed to anyone who was not already there and he had a task to carry out for Lord Ulmo.

The door of the cell swung open and he looked up with a welcoming smile at the tall figure that filled the doorway.

"It's about bloody time you got here." He said in an acerbic tone.

Eönwë threw back his head and laughed. "It's very nice to see you too my brother! And may I ask... why are you here?""

ooOoo

A large manor house some five miles from the Scottish town of Loch Mairie...

A low lying mist crept slowly around the lower reaches of the house. It wound its way around the tendrils of ivy that clung to the walls and finally hovered around the mullioned windows of the library where Rupert Giles, top button of his shirt open and tie hanging madly askew, lay with his face on the keyboard of his laptop. He had been researching through the night, long after everyone else had gone to bed, although he had suspicions that neither of their guests actually went to sleep either, despite heading to the room they had been given.

Only the Watcher and Slayer on duty that evening remained awake. They saw the light under the library door and knew better than to disturb Dr Giles although the young Watcher had taken a tea tray into the former librarian just before midnight and received a warm smile and heartfelt thanks for his efforts.

It could have been a log falling in the grate and the ensuing hiss as a trickle of pine sap caught fire.

It could have been the fact that, despite the fire, a distinct chill had pervaded the atmosphere of the usually warm room and the fact that the shadows created by the tall library stacks had lengthened and deepened as the pools of normally comforting light from the Tiffany shaded electric lamps dimmed. Whatever was responsible for Giles waking up with a start and staring frantically around him in sleep-heavy confusion, there was nobody and nothing dangerous immediately obvious.

Giles located his glasses and started to clean them before propping them back on the bridge of his nose. He sighed and contemplated the pot of now cold tea. Hot tea would mean that he would have to tramp back through the corridors and down into the large cavernous kitchen. He sat back and thought about doing just that but found that his get up and go had actually got up and went. What they really needed was a kitchenette on each floor with the makings for a cuppa to save them from the route march.

He distractedly noticed with a sense of mild revulsion that he had drooled at some stage in his slumbers and cast around for something to wipe it from his waistcoat and, heaven forbid, the laptop. if he ruined that, his life wouldn't be worth living when Willow found out. Eventually he realised that the only thing he had for that purpose was the same handkerchief he had used for his glasses. He was intent on doing the clean up when he was interrupted in his labours.

"I must admit that out of all my lieutenants I never thought it would be you who would end up drooling, my guess would have been Gothmog, but considering your recent actions, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised."

The hairs rose up on the back of Giles's neck. Although he hadn't heard those drawling dulcet tones for a very, very long time he would have recognised them anywhere. He's found a way back. Frantic, terrified thoughts sped through his sleep dulled brain. He strained into the darkness which seemed closer and blacker than usual and cursed the short sight he had been given. Think Giles, think.

"Yoo hoo. Over here….unless you've truly turned into a drooling idiot."

There was a slight testiness in the voice now rather than the mockery. Giles stood up and turned until he saw that in amongst the shadows there was a deeper, albeit human-shaped blackness. Giles stood quietly for a moment and tried to still his hammering heart and rapid breathing.

"Show yourself." He tried to inject a note of confident command into his voice, but it sounded weak and quivery even to him. "Show yourself immediately!"

There was soft applause from somewhere behind and to the left of him causing him to spin around and at the same time grab a silver paper knife from the table.

"Oh puhlease… a paper knife? What on earth are you going to do with that? I am Melkor, the First, the one and only original evil… and incorporeal …still…thanks to those meddlesome Slayers of yours." A figure detached itself from the shadows and a face with sharp features, yet very beautiful framed with long shining black curtains of hair slowly revealed itself. The grey eyes were narrowed in an expression not too different from the last time Giles had seen this person alive in Valinor.

He swallowed back the retort that immediately sprang to his lips. Even Feanor in the worst of his psychopathic and autocratic moods would not have approved of his person being used by his most deadly enemy, yet Melkor would have found a perverse delight in doing so, knowing that the son of Finwe and maker of the Silmarils would be powerless to stop him.

Giles gaped open-mouthed at the tall figure in front of him. The First smiled mockingly at him and did a little twirl which looked completely incongruous under the circumstances. "Like it? I thought the choice of avatar was wholly inspired. After all we are in somewhat of a similar situation to that time when Ungoliante and I stole the light from the trees."

Giles stared at the apparition uncertainly. "What do you mean?" If he edged towards the door he could hit the panic button by the light switch. In seconds the room would be filled with Slayers.

Feanor/The First sat down in one of the chairs, long legs splayed out in front of him. "And then what?" He asked, giving Giles a winsome, almost flirtatious wink at the same time. He heaved an exasperated sigh. "The Slayers can't hurt me any more than they could before, Sauron...or should I say Giles? Hello... incorporeal remember? Even if you woke that henpecked husband of Artanis and that idiot who thinks he's a star, who are both sitting plotting upstairs, they couldn't help you either."

Giles sat down. "All right then, by the same degree, you can hardly do me any damage either, but if you think you can divert me from my current path then you had better think again. What do you want from me?"

Feanor/The First flung his hands up in the air and laughed. "Heaven forfend that I divert you from the path to self-righteous tedium and insignificance. What do I want? Believe it or not, I want nothing from you, this time... but I do have information you may find interesting."

"Information about what? And why should I trust anything you tell me?"

Feanor./The First stared at him for a few seconds and for one unnerving moment Giles could see Melkor looking out of those grey Elven eyes. He appeared to be weighing his words, but finally he answered.

"You have no reason to trust me and I do not ask for your trust. I ask you to hear me out... someone is stealing the light."

Whatever Giles had expected him to say, it wasn't that. "Stealing the light?" He asked cautiously.

His visitor raised a sculpted dark eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me you haven't noticed?"

Giles was stung. "Of course not, but we assumed..." His voice trailed off and he shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

"You know what they say about assuming things don't you? You assumed it was me, up to my old tricks again." Feanor/The First put a hurt note in his voice. "You wound me."

"Not nearly enough." Giles snapped back. "After all, who knows more about stealing light than you do?"

A gleam appeared in Feanor/The First's grey eyes. "Oh touché, first hit to the librarian. Well hit sir and he comes out of his corner swinging. There's my boy. I thought you had been buried underneath all of that tiresome virtue!" He leaned forward and Feanor's smooth baritone became deeper and more menacing. "Let me tell you something...boy... I might be down in the depths of the Void bouncing from hell dimension to hell dimension...and I assure you there are more than a few in there, but I still hear things. Things that no one thinks I hear. 'Oh that's just that idiot that the Powers That Be shoved in here, he's nobody. He has no power, they took it away from him. Even the Slayer isn't scared of him. No one cares what he thinks or what he does."

Giles raised his own eyebrow. "So you're hurt that nobody takes any notice of you and treats you like a has-been? Well please...do let me take the opportunity of telling you how much I don't care."

Even as he said it he knew that he was courting trouble. In his years as a Watcher he had come to realise that while Melkor might have been the First Evil in Arda, he certainly wasn't alone in being totally evil or the last evil by any means. The Valar had clipped their brother's wings, but if he was actually taking the time to come out using yet another dead person's form to warn people who he normally wouldn't have even thought were sentient life in the old days about an impending apocalypse, then it behoved Giles to pay attention.

Besides which, there was a gleam of anger in the grey eyes now and while Giles felt gratified that he had managed to evoke it, the fact was that if Melkor felt there was someone out there who was bigger and nastier than he was, what chance would the world and humankind have?

Melkor sat back in the chair, satisfied that he had actually got Giles's full attention. He could see from the reasoning that was going on behind the Senior Watcher's eyes as he considered the situation that Giles already knew that he needed to listen. He didn't trust his old master, that much was true, but Melkor could live with that. I wasn't necessary for Giles to trust him, just to believe him. So without further preamble he launched into his explanation for being there.

The fact was that there was very little in reality that the former Vala feared, but the noises being made now among the movers and shakers in the Void had stopped him dead in his tracks and what was even more disturbing was that his usual visit from that cretin Namo hadn't happened.

Along with the regular visit every few yeni from the Lord of Mandos who never missed a visit, Melkor had been allowed one conduit to his fellow Valar, a means of connecting with only one of them if he needed to speak with them urgently. When Namo failed to show, he had used it for the first time in aeons and the only one to answer his call had been Ulmo, Lord of the Waters. That in itself was very telling. Ulmo had no time for Melkor and held him ultimately responsible for the massacre of the Teleri at Alqualonde. However, much to Melkor's surprise, this time Ulmo didn't show his dislike and for once he had not looked down on his fallen brother, instead he had explained that his fellow Valar had been given the knowledge that the Dagor Dagorath was about to begin.

Ulmo, however, had voiced his doubts, among which was the fact that quite a few of those who were supposed to play a major role in this final battle were actually not currently in Valinor, the Herald of Manwe being one of them. Manwe and the others had overridden those concerns. Manwe had received instructions from Eru himself via Gabriel and that was good enough for him. Ulmo had then withdrawn deep under the oceans where he could formulate a plan of his own. The fact was that he did not believe that the final battle was about to begin, but strongly felt that whatever the Valar started, someone with a more evil intent would be more than happy to finish.

Those doubts had finally reached a climax when he received the surprising call from Melkor, since Melkor himself was meant to have the starring role in the whole thing and apparently hadn't been copied in on the memo announcing that the end had come. Ulmo had tried to reach someone in the Timeless Halls for some clarification and found them in disarray there. He had asked for Raguel only to be told that he was not available and was somewhere on earth.

He then recalled his own Maiar, only leaving two or three to watch over the events unfolding on the land. It was through them that he heard that the Lady Artanis and her husband Celeborn along with Earendil and his people were also not convinced that the time had come for the remaking of Arda.

Giles listened with growing horror. Valinor was closed and preparing itself for a final battle that would end everything so it could be remade anew...and, if what Melkor was saying was correct, there was trouble in the Timeless Halls.

"Someone wants the battle to happen." He whispered. "They're planning a takeover!"

Melkor nodded. "Indeed and it is obviously someone whose ascension to power will destroy everything for everyone."

"But who?"

Melkor sat back in the chair and shrugged. "All I know is that it isn't someone from the Void, not even one of the baddest baddies in there. The Senior Partners are as much in the dark as we are and since the Timeless Halls seem to be falling apart, I can only assume..."

The breath left Giles in a rush. "That it's one of them, one of the Ainur from the Halls, but Eru..."

"From what Ulmo told me, Eru is currently not available. It must be one of those times..." Melkor left the sentence unfinished.

There were periods in the Timeless Hall when Eru withdrew from contact with his Ainur and left them to mind the store. Mostly it was thought of as a period of contemplation and recharging. After all, he did run the Universe by himself. The periods were not long by the standards of the Ainur...mere centuries in fact, but to the Secondborn children whose lifespan was finite it was a few generations and much could happen in that time, good and bad. Nobody other than the Ainur knew of this 'holiday', including those in the Void, so whoever was doing this had to be either from Valinor or the Timeless Halls...the only people who knew that God was out to lunch and his mobile phone was switched off.

Someone wanted the battle to begin but was ensuring that he or she was not the one to begin it. The blame would fall on the Valar and whoever among the Ainur still held true to their tasks serving Eru Iluvatar. The battle would rage, the Void would open, the portals between dimensions would be destroyed and everyone and everything held within would come flooding out... more than willing troops against the forces of good, one and all.

Giles felt like the very air had been sucked out of his lungs. His head swam; this would be the Apocalypse to end all Apocalypses.

"It's unthinkable..." He finally managed to gasp out.

"Ya think?" Melkor cocked one Feanor's eyebrows at him and smiled manically.

"The Herald of Manwe..."

"Is as much in the dark as the rest of us, although given that Celeborn and Earendil are here, Osse can't be far behind and I imagine that he's trying to locate the Herald as we speak." Melkor glanced around the darkened library as though he was expecting Osse to pop out of the wallpaper. "Which reminds me...why are Celeborn and Earendil here and not with Osse? I was given to understand that Ulmo despatched them to Middle Earth in order to contact the Herald."

Giles looked embarrassed. "Ah...well... they sort of fell foul of the Slayers, but they're fine now and as you say upstairs..."

Melkor interrupted by breaking into peals of laughter. "Fell foul of the Slayers? You mean the Slayers beat them up? Oh how utterly delicious. Well, as much as I would love to continue pointing and laughing, we need to find Osse, now if not sooner."

"He's in jail." As much as he wanted to punch Melkor in the face for being a snide asshole, Giles actually had to bite back a small grin as he dropped that bombshell.

Melkor stared at him in unabashed astonishment and not a little glee. "In jail? Oh this just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?" He unfolded himself from the chair and swiped a hand at Giles which of course just went straight through him. "Come on then, we need to break him out of jail, chop chop..."

Giles sighed and also stood up. "I'll need to wake Buffy and the others up. We may need their help and where on earth do you get these sayings from? Chop chop indeed. Buffy is not going to be pleased; she thought she'd kicked your arse back to the Void."

Melkor grinned at him. "Well she did or would have if I had an arse to kick, which I don't, but she did smack me down for a while. She's quite a force to reckon with and I respect power of any sort. Don't worry though, I forgive her. After all if we're going to stand shoulder to shoulder in this battle to save the earth and the universe, we need to hide our enmity and be best buddies."

Giles shook his head as he followed the form taken by Melkor down the passageway. "I cannot believe I am doing this. The earth is absolutely and completely doomed!"

ooOoo