12:03, FRIDAY AUGUST 27, LIMA (20:03/27-08-99 ZULU)
SUMMERS RESIDENCE

They'd been back from the funeral for about half an hour, and how much they'd achieved in that time was up for debate. Cerian had turned her attention to the hunt for their attackers, tracking through several thick books in search of the exact symbols used in their tattoos but without any success. Oz was on-line again, scouring the 'Net for other incidents like this, hoping for anything even resembling a clue. Knowing she was of little value to their quest for information, Joyce had gotten out of their way and gone back to trying to straighten out the tangle of red tape left by the fiasco at the gallery.

Buffy, on the other hand, had taken onboard the others' cautions about how wound-up she was getting and decided to do something to vent her frustrations. With Willy's closed at this hour, she couldn't go out to beat up 'live' vampires, so she'd changed into a tank-top and jeans - close enough to her normal fighting wear for more realistic training conditions - and headed out into the garage, where she'd set up the 'spare' punching-bag Giles had obtained for her a few months ago. She'd been tearing into the thing for twenty minutes solid, throwing every punch, kick and combination at it that both Merrick and Giles had taught her and a few more of her own, trying to imagine that each blow was landing on the bastards who'd taken her friends. It was helping, some... but the fact that she couldn't actually put a face on the mental images she was pummeling meant it wasn't helping much. She wasn't even aware of the sweat running down her face or soaking through her top; her concentration was bent solely on her 'opponent'.

But when a vehicle pulled up to the curb out front, she was halfway to the house before the sound registered on her conscious mind. Wanting to keep out of sight of the newcomer(s), she slipped through the back door and came through the house itself, thumbing open the retaining snap on the OSS fighting-knife hanging from her belt at her right hip. Xander had given the thing to her to be used, after all, and she'd be damned if she'd go unarmed under these circumstances. After a split-second's thought, she shifted the sheath backwards to hang over her back pocket, more-or-less out of sight. No point giving the bad guys freebies, right?

She got into the living room to there just as Oz reached the front door; he was unarmed, but Cerian was a couple of paces to his right-rear, with her pistol held behind her thigh. Oz glanced back at her, and got a nod of readiness in response; with that, he eased the door open -

- To reveal a FedEx courier, with a full-sized envelope in one hand and his computerised 'clipboard' in the other. "Hey there," he chirped. "Is there an Elizabeth Summers here?"

Noting how Cerian absently thumb-cocked her pistol, the Slayer stepped across the anthropologist's front, putting herself in the courier's sightlines - and beyond Cerian's line of fire - but kept her hand loose at her side, within easy reach of her own weapon. "Why - do you have something for me?"

"If you're Ms Summers, yeah," he nodded. "Y'wanna sign for it?"

Trading glances with her companions, Buffy took his clipboard and stylus from him and scrawled her name beside the appropriate entry.

"Thank y', ma'am," the despicably cheerful courier nodded, handing over the package. "Y'all have a nice day."

When he was gone, Buffy shook the package gently, feeling something compact and fairly light sliding about inside. Trading a baffled glance with Cerian - Oz was as expressionless as ever - she tore open the pull-strip and tipped out the contents: a second envelope, the kind with a cushioned interior for shipping delicate items. Within that was... a microcassette recorder? "What the -?"

"I'd say this is 'Their' charming way of renewing contact," Cerian murmured. "Play it and see what's on it."

"Don't."

Buffy turned a bewildered look on Oz. "Why not?"

"Could go 'Boom!'," he pointed out.

Even as the Slayer's eyes widened, Cerian turned a derisive look on the young werewolf. "I rather doubt that 'They', whoever 'They' are, would do that under the circumstances. Kidnapping is usually an attempt to gain leverage over another, and there's no point seeking leverage on someone you're planning to blow up, now is there?"

Oz said nothing, but stepped back a fraction and shrugged at Buffy.

Wincing in anticipation, Buffy sucked in a breath and thumbed the 'PLAY' key.

No 'boom'. A split-second of relief....

The voice which emerged from the speakers was electronically modulated and heavily distorted; it could have been male or female, or neither. {"Sunnydale High School gym. Eleven-thirty p.m. Sunday. You; the werewolf; McKellar. If you don't show - they die. If you're late - they die. Bring anyone else - they die. Contact the police - they die."}

And then only the whir of the reels.

Buffy punched the 'STOP' button and gave Oz a grim look. "Okay, that made sense...."

"The High School gymnasium? I was under the impression it wasn't there any more," Cerian frowned. "Didn't you blow up the entire campus during the Major's abortive Ascension?"

"Sort'a - when we got out of there, Xander said that Willow and Oz must've goofed when they were mixing the explosives, 'cause if they'd been done right, with that much of it rigged up there would've been nothing left of the entire block but a smoking crater," Buffy said ruefully. "Which, actually kind'a thankful for - Giles and I were just a little close to the place when he pushed the plunger. The main building got pretty thoroughly wrecked when we blew the library, and the fire finished it off, but most of the out-buildings only caught some blast damage. The gym was on the far side of the campus in the first place, and the science block kind'a shielded it. They're doing surveys on the entire school to see if they can repair any of it, instead of going in with bulldozers and starting over from the ground up, but right now, the gym's the only place still more or less intact."

"And I thought we got away from high school at Graduation," Oz noted.

"So did I," Buffy sighed. "But just when I thought I was out, the Hellmouth pulls me back in...."

Cerian was... thoughtful. "In an odd way, it's actually quite fitting."

"Hmm?"

"Whoever-it-is may well have a sense for dramatic irony - or perverse humour. After all, your first conspicuous act as the Slayer was to burn down the gymnasium at Hemery High, so if they're planning to end your career, why not bring you full circle and make it end where it began?"

"Huh. Well, there's nothing like the 'screw you!' touch to make a girl feel popular," Buffy drawled, clenching her fists as she fantasised about returning the 'compliment'. There was a dull crunch, and she looked down to see that she'd forgotten to put down the dictaphone; her little flex had crushed it into jagged fragments. Cerian carefully didn't notice the Slayer's sheepish blush and went back to her books.

Oz touched Buffy's arm, drawing her aside a couple of steps. "Buffy...."

"Yeah?"

"Are we gonna do what they say?"

"To get Xander and Willow back? D'you think we've got a choice?"

Anyone who didn't know Oz so well would have missed the sardonic twist to his non-expression. "Not wanting to sound like Wesley, but we don't know if they're still alive. Even if they are, we don't know what these people want for them."

Buffy rubbed a hand across the back of her head, reliving the sense-memory of that bullet tearing away most of her hair. "From what happened Tuesday? Survey says, 'me in a casket'."

"Okay... so what are we gonna do? Just walk in there to be killed and hope they let them go? As plans go, not loving it."

"What else can we do? Go in like John Wayne? It still boils down to the 'get ourselves killed' thing, and it'll guarantee they do kill Xander and Willow." The Slayer scrubbed both hands over her face, letting out a snarl of frustration. "Dammit, we're missing something here! If only this stuff hadn't all started happening at once, we -" Hey, wait a minute!

After she'd been silent for a few seconds, Oz frowned. "What?"

"This is all happening at once," she repeated slowly, feeling her way through the idea. "The guys with the guns showed up on Monday, right? At the gallery?" And I knew something was bugging me about that! 'You'll see your little friend's legendary brain first-hand'? He knew about Willow before he grabbed her - God, I had the clue then! Why didn't I put it together earlier!?

"Uh-huh."

"Monday was the night the first of those kids was murdered, remember? I stopped believing in 'coincidence' during the whole Faith/Kakistos thing," she noted ruefully. "Maybe if we can figure out what this blood-mage is up to, we might be able to break the whole thing up and get the others back okay before this meeting they want us for."

"Sounds kind of iffy."

"I'm not hearing any better ideas," the Slayer countered sourly. "And y'know what? We're not really getting anywhere looking at the symbols and stuff - maybe we should try something different. Have you got a map of the town somewhere? Maybe there's something about where they were killed that might help."

Oz raised a skeptical eyebrow, but nodded. "Map's in my van. I'll get it."

"Good." As he moved past her, a thought? intuition? struck her and she caught his arm. "Oz?"

"Yeah?"

Buffy lowered her voice to little more than a breath. "Maybe it's nothing... but remember, Cerian turned up on Monday, too."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything. If I had anything to say, I don't think this is the time or place to say it," the Slayer noted, repeating Xander's words of Tuesday morning. "Just remember what happened with the last lady Watcher we met."

Oz nodded a little. He'd only heard of the 'encounter' with Gwendolyn Post second-hand, but it wasn't a lesson that lost much in the telling. "So... what now?"

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Cerian didn't glance up from skimming her tome as Oz retook his seat opposite her, even when he left the laptop alone and reached for one of her discarded books instead; she was simply concentrating too deeply to notice. It would obviously take drastic measures to get her attention.

Buffy clamping one hand over her mouth, yanking her head back, and laying the blade of her OSS across the woman's windpipe seemed to do the trick.

Her yelp of surprise was muffled into the Slayer's palm, and she was gathering herself to struggle against the grip when the blonde set a knee against her spine and breathed into her ear, "Hands on the table, palms flat, fingers spread. Try to do anything but, and you get an extra smile. Don't think I'll do it? Ask Faith."

Stifling her impulse to resist, the relic hunter obeyed her captor's commands with the exaggerated deliberation of someone trying very much not to upset the crazy person.

Looking over the table, Buffy nodded to Oz. "Check her."

Oz nodded, reaching across the table to pull Cerian's lapels aside and bare her upper chest, focusing his attention on her left collarbone, where all of their attackers had borne their tattoos.

After a moment or two, he met Buffy's gaze again and shook his head. "She's clean."

The blonde let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding and released the Welshwoman. "Sorry about that - had to be sure."

Cerian raised a hand to her throat, then contemplated the smear of red on her fingertips; the factory-fresh edge of Buffy's new blade had parted her skin with only the slightest pressure, and droplets of fresh blood were already welling up from the two-inch slice it had left behind and trickling towards her collar. "Getting a touch paranoid, are we?"

"Look, it's not that I don't trust you - well, actually, it is that I didn't trust you," the Slayer amended wryly, wiping the blood from the OSS' edge with a tissue. "But you've gotta admit, you showing up on Monday just in time to save us from the bad guys? Kind'a too convenient, y'know?"

"If I'd had any idea that little disaster was about to take place, I'd've never come within five miles of you," the ex-professor said candidly.

"Yeah, I guess. Sorry, and all that," Buffy winced, offering her another tissue for her neck.

"Perfectly understandable, dear," Cerian chuckled. "In this business, it's often not a matter of whether or not you're paranoid... but whether or not you're paranoid enough."

"One down," Oz noted.

"Okay, if we're eliminating suspects, what about those two wierdoes from the hospital? When did they show up? What do you know about them?"

"Maybe six weeks ago," was the shrugged response. "What you know is all I know."

"I'm sorry: 'weirdoes'?" Cerian asked.

"They said they were a couple of civilian contractors testing out some drone-thingie at the Marine base." Buffy frowned; on reflection, that sounded just a little too pat.... "'Bout our age, kind'a flakey? The guy had blond hair and an eyepatch; his wife had long black hair, wore these tinted sunglasses - I think she might have had some kind of condition with her eyes," she hazarded. "They told us their names were Phelan Travis and Natalya Kerensky."

"I... can't say those descriptions ring any bells," the older woman shrugged helplessly. "I could circulate some enquiries...."

"If that's Brit-speak for 'check 'em out', go right ahead. At least finding out if they're involved might actually get us somewhere!"

Cerian looked at the Slayer over her glasses.

Buffy had the good grace to blush a little. "Have I mentioned I don't handle frustration very well?"

"No... and I would never have guessed," was the bland response.

Uh-huh. Whatever. "I'm gonna go beat up my exercise dummy some more, okay?" the blonde sighed.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Another forty-five minutes had passed in a haze of sweat and the thud of fists, feet, elbows and knees against canvas, and Buffy was just... hollow. Her Slayer gifts being what they were, she still had all the physical energy she could ever need to keep punching and kicking and making with the stab-y; emotionally, she'd just... she couldn't take another swing.

All this violence, and where am I? Exactly where I was when I came in, she sighed, crossing her arms against the bag and leaning her forehead on them. None of us seem to be getting anywhere. I mean, Giles would have given us these guys' hat-sizes by now! He -

That thought went unfinished as it sparked two more, and Buffy almost groaned aloud. God, I am so mentally challenged! she cursed, head-butting the canvas for not thinking of this sooner. Who was that girl who got 1430 on her SATs? 'Cause right now I'm thinking somebody mixed up the results!

Lowering her arms, she shook off her self-frustration and turned to head inside. Okay: shower, clean clothes... then a little side-trip....

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

13:12, AUGUST 27, LIMA (21:12/27-08-99 ZULU)
GILES RESIDENCE

When Buffy had declared her intention to talk a walk around town and 'work some contacts', Cerian had vehemently opposed her leaving the house, but the Slayer had methodically shot down every one of her arguments. The kidnappers had already delivered their ultimatum, along with the chosen time and place for the meeting, so there was no need for her to sit and wait for further contact; they were also massively unlikely to jump the gun and snatch her up on her own without trying for Oz and Cerian too, which was why she'd insisted they both stay at her place and keep an eye open for trouble. Which was true.... as far as it went.

Now, Buffy ducked under the yellow {CRIME SCENE} tape strung across the open door to Giles' apartment and glanced about at the utter devastation wrought by two hundred bullets in less than three minutes.

Jeepers. And people think I can do some damage when I'm pissed!

Shaking off the thought, she carefully stepped over and around the worst of the debris as she made her way over to the shelves that had held Giles' primary book-collection. Most of them were wrecked, of course; they might not have been the shooter's target in all this, but his bullets hadn't known that - or cared. Wincing at the mess, Buffy set her teeth and started pulling down tome after tome, methodically sorting them according to the severity of the damage they'd suffered. It took her some ten or twenty minutes, but by the time she was done, she had a good ten or twelve books that were still intact enough to be useful. Setting them to one side, she went through the rest of the room looking for more. A stack of three or four sat next to the shredded couch Cerian had been sitting on, including Kane's Twilight Compendium, and the Slayer remembered that the erstwhile professor had been reading from that stack when the 'fun' started; these were all intact, and joined her own pile for retrieval on the counter that divided Giles' kitchen and living room.

Okay; now, where did I see it.... Buffy might not have been the Scooby Gang's best or most enthusiastic researcher, but she'd combed through a fair few of these texts in the last three years, and some of it had stuck. Now reaching for the Compendium on a memory almost too hazy to call a hunch, the Slayer flicked it open to the 'contents' page and scanned down the list of chapters, trying to translate each heading from Shakespeare-speak to English as she went. No... no... no.... Then her finger paused at one line and stabbed it in triumph. I knew I saw it in here somewhere! Flicking the pages over to open up the chapter she wanted, Buffy started skimming the text... her stomach sinking at what she found.

Oh no, my life's not too complicated or anything! "Great. This is just peachy keen!" she muttered aloud, crossing her arms on the counter and resting her forehead on them.

Now she felt tired.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

All told, she was at Giles' place for better than an hour, reading through various books and taking notes on a note-pad she'd brought with her. When she was done, she'd filled almost a dozen pages with points of interest. Looking them over critically, she then produced a second pad and started copying chosen tidbits from the first pad onto the second... but not all of them. She wound up with only three pages' worth in the second pad, and most of that reduction wasn't due to mere summarisation.

'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you', she noted sourly, tapping the pen against her cheek as she considered what she'd written/copied. What was that joke that guy made about the Cold War? 'Do they know that we know that they know...?'

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

14:55, AUGUST 27, LIMA (22:55/27-08-99 ZULU)
SUMMERS RESIDENCE

When Buffy walked back through her front door, she almost didn't notice the pistol that all but leapt into Cerian's hand. The anthropologist winced at her overly-quick reflexes, once again holstering the Gyurza even as she arched a brow at her young colleague. "Did you find anything that knows anything?"

"Nuh-uh," Buffy shrugged, shaking her head. "'Course, that might not mean anything - Sunnydale's underworld? Not so mix-y with its nightlife. These people probably didn't go near 'em to start with. You guys?"

"Yeah, maybe." Oz had been leaning over a street-map of the town, and now he spun it towards the Slayer. Dots of red marker showed the sites of the four blood-mage murders to date. "I did like you said - geographical layout. Look." He'd found some sheets of clear plastic somewhere; the one he laid over the map superimposed a computer-drawn red circle on the four murder-sites to date, each being perfectly bisected by the ring... but they weren't evenly spaced.

"'As above, so below'," Cerian nodded. Seeing Buffy's quizzical look, she smiled, rueful at using a shorthand her colleagues didn't yet know. "It's one of the rules-of-thumb for magic: the symbols and components of each sub-section of a large ritual generally have to be consistent with those used in the overarching ritual which concludes the larger spell. Oz would appear to be correct, as circles are a classic magical symbol - everything within is protected from everything without, and vice versa. I would surmise that our unknown blood-worker is using these children to anchor the outer perimeter of a containment spell of some sort, making sure that the energies of whatever they do at the centre of the containment ring cannot escape and will instead be focused back into the capstone ritual."

"Any guess what that might be?"

Cerian grimaced, shaking her head. "Based on what we've seen, no - I probably couldn't tell you what this fellow's cooking up until I read his recipe-book, as it were. It could be a ritual to summon and bind one of the older, larger demons into servitude, though if that's the case, the use of children as anchor-points suggests they've seriously underestimated how much power that sort of containment actually needs. Heaven help us if they succeed in the summoning and it breaks loose," she added bleakly.

"Better idea? Let's stop 'em before they finish the containment ring." Buffy took the marker off the table, considered the red circle for a moment, then marked a point on its edge - evenly dividing the largest 'arc between dots' - and connected it to the other four with five quick, straight lines. "'As above, so below': this guy's used a star-thingie on all four victims, so if the supersize-combo has to have the same pattern as all the kiddie-meals, he needs to make a kill tonight to complete the big containment penta-whatsit - and that's where he'll do it!" she finished harshly, stabbing the pen down on the star-point she'd marked herself.

"Your grammar is abysmal, and they may say that logic is merely a way of going wrong with confidence... but I can't argue with your conclusion at the moment," Cerian shrugged, peering at the map more closely. "Mission Avenue, between MacArthur Drive and Mahan Way. Alliterative, if nothing else. Are you sure you've got the right place, though? Your pentagram seems a little lop-sided, and his marks on his kills haven't been."

"The average ritual knife? Not so good for artwork."

"Buffy, can we manage it?" Oz wondered, glancing around the table significantly. "Taking down a big-time magician-killer, with just the three of us?"

"Three of us? No." Buffy gave the werewolf a feral grin of her own, reaching into her jacket. "But my new friend here should make up the numbers."

Watching her brandish the OSS for a moment, Oz finally went with.... "Good point."

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

15:22, AUGUST 27, LIMA (23:22/27-08-99 ZULU)
"KILL-HOUSE", FORT QUICK, SUNNYDALE

The Kehua had left off their practice for the time being, mainly to perform maintenance on their weapons and replenish ammunition, and Willow's hearing was starting to recover. In between the stark yet fleeting terror of those live-fire rehearsals - the 'bad guys' had been shifted around between each and every 'evolution', and some of their positions had seen the bullets felling them missing her by mere inches - she'd had a little time to think, and she'd suddenly been struck by something they'd said. (Okay, better that than a bullet....) "Uh, guys, I was just wondering?"

"What's that, Willow?" Misha asked, looking up from the carbine he was cleaning.

"Taz said something earlier, about Travers? Um, something like 'he didn't like you proving him wrong, so he stood aside to let Mentor have you'?"

"Pravda," the Russian nodded.

"But he's still helping you with this?"

"No, Will: he's helping Andrushka with this," Xander corrected gently. "He thinks Taz and Misha did die in Napier; that Colt works for him, not them; and that Andrushka's doing all this to avenge the murders of his niece and her husband."

"Oh. Okay, but, still: even if he doesn't know he's actually working with you guys, you're still working with him, right? If he... well, if he screwed you that way back then, how can you trust him not to do it now? You know he's only doing this for his own reasons!"

"Oh, of course he is," Misha chuckled. "We could hardly expect him to be altruistic at this stage of the game, now, could we? The trick to it, Willow, is remembering the old parable of the scorpion and the frog."

"The what?"

The trio of Kehua traded slightly bemused looks - She hasn't heard that old classic? - before Misha took up the thread again. "Scorpion decides he wants to get to the other side of a river - only he's not built for swimming, and there aren't any bridges handy. He goes over to a blind frog, offers to ride on his back and guide him across the river: that way, they can both get to the far shore. Frog says 'piss off! You'll sting me, and I'll drown!' Scorpion says 'If I stung you, we'd both drown!' Frog says, 'well.... okay, then.' Scorpion hops on; off they go. Sure enough, halfway across, scorpion gives the frog the good news. As they're starting to sink, the frog's got just enough left in him to roll an eye back at his passenger and say, 'You fool! Now we're both going to die! Why'd you do that?' Scorpion shrugs: 'Couldn't help it - I'm a scorpion.'" Misha's voice took on a clinical chill, much as Willow had heard from Taz a few hours earlier. "Last thing the frog ever hears before he goes under? The scorpion, saying 'And you knew that when we made our bargain - so who are you to call me fool?'"

Willow stared at him.

"The frog's mistake was trusting a scorpion's word." The amber-eyed trooper chuckled humourlessly. "If you've got any sense, you only trust a scorpion... to be a scorpion."

Xander shrugged. "Remember, Will, we already know he thinks this little coup's going to put him at the top of what's left of the Council - and once it does, the people who put him there will have out-lived their usefulness."

"Cue the Night of Long Knives," Misha noted sourly. "And Colt and Andrushka will be right at the head of his little list."

"Thing is, this particular scorpion doesn't realise how canny this particular frog actually is," Taz added, idly toying with her OSS. "We learned a very good treatment for scorpions in Arulco - not that we didn't already know it. You keep a very close eye on them; you make sure they don't get close to anything really sensitive; and when they try to sting you -"

The knife spun around Taz's hand twice, then drove down and plunged its clipped point an inch deep into the table-top.

It took Willow a few breaths to get her voice back again. "... You guys?"

"No," Misha said, shaking his head firmly. "We'll be busy here, tying up some loose ends. Besides, it's not our place: if anyone has the right to deal with Travers, it's Colt. You shoot your own dog, Willow: you owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the dog."

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

19:45, AUGUST 27, LIMA (03:45/28-08-99 ZULU)
PARKING STRUCTURE, SUNNYDALE MALL

They'd taken a couple of hours off before heading back to into town to set up the drop. All four of them had showered and changed into civvies, though Willow was the only one who didn't accessorise with a holstered pistol. (She had been a little worried about that - wouldn't her being fresh-clean tip off the bad guys? - but Taz had waved off that concern. Apparently, SHRIKE Team-1 would have allowed her bathroom privileges during her captivity to keep her docile, though that courtesy wouldn't have afforded her any privacy: one of the women would have never taken their eyes off her the entire time, ready to shoot her if she even breathed the wrong way, much less tried to work magic.) With everyone back in civilian personae, they'd just lounged around the Kehua's VOQ for an hour or so, chatting quietly, enjoying each others' company... trying to ignore the deadline looming ahead of them, when they'd put one of their own back into harm's way.

Now, back in the same exact, out-of-sight corner of the parking structure where she'd been abducted last night, looking into the trunk of the SHRIKE's sedan and contemplating the insanity of what she was about to do, Willow thought back on that brief period of calm, casual camaraderie and closed her eyes tightly, remembering Xander's closeness, drawing strength and courage from that memory. He hadn't put an arm around her, or held her hand, or anything like that; he'd simply sat there next to her, his leg barely touching hers, and been... Xander.

"Last chance to change your mind, Will," he said quietly, just behind her shoulder. "We won't be committed to this until they answer the 'phone."

"I know." She turned to face him again, smiling ruefully. "But I can't let Buffy get herself killed when we're so close to finishing this. I was committed as soon as I made the offer."

"You mean you should have been committed," Misha snorted, finishing his preparation of the restraints.

"Yeah, that too," she laughed nervously, but she didn't look away from Xander.

After a moment, he chuckled. "Us and our life-and-death situations, huh, Will?"

"Story of our lives as Slayerettes," she murmured.

It wasn't clear who moved first; it didn't matter. They hugged each other as tight as they dared, Xander actually lifting her off the ground a little to bring her closer. "I love you, Willow."

"I never doubted it," she breathed back. "Let's... we can sort out the rest when this is over, huh?"

"Deal." Xander held her a moment longer, then gently set her back on her feet and looked to his fellow shooters. "Did I mention that this plan sucks?"

"Yeah, Snoopy, several times. So did we, as I recall." Taz caught Willow's eye for a moment, held it steadily... then sighed in resignation and tipped her head. "Go on, Willow: Misha's all ready to tie you up."

"Yay, Misha," the hacker snarked as he stepped forward. "Do Nga Kehua make you practice tying up redheads?"

"No, but I do," Taz grinned, raising blushes and laughter from her companions.

"I'm afraid those are a different kind of bondage, er, bindings. Okay, Willow: hands in front of you, palms and thumbs together, and interlace your fingers as tight as you can." When she obeyed, Misha slipped a black cloth bag over her clenched hands, wrapping the whole thing up with duct-tape so that she couldn't move her fingers by more than a fraction. No precise magic gestures in this rig! With that done, he helped her step up into the sedan's trunk, then sit down in it, so he could run more duct-tape around the cuffs of her jeans and lock her ankles together. The gag he fitted her with was a simple length of folded silk cloth, to reduce choking hazards; incongruously, the blindfold he raised looked like a commercial sleeping-mask. Before he wrapped that onto her as well, though, he glanced over his shoulder.

Xander met Willow's level gaze once more, shot her a confident wink... then nodded to Taz. "Make the call."

Willow's last sight before Misha slipped the mask over her eyes was of Taz fitting a voder disc onto the mouthpiece of Amethyst's cell-phone before she hit a speed-dial code. Then, as the Russian spoke - sounding perfectly like Amethyst to the person on the other end - Willow scootched back in the car's trunk for more room, then curled up and lay down sideways, listening to Taz spin her tale until it was cut off by the gentle 'thud' of Misha's closing the trunk above her.

Then she was alone, in the dark, tied up and helpless, waiting for the bad guys to come and get her.

By all rights, she should have gone into panicked hysterics... but strangely, she'd never felt calmer in her life.

They'll come through for us. Xander will come through for us.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

19:54, AUGUST 27, LIMA (03:54/28-08-99 ZULU)
SHRIKE SAFEHOUSE

"I don't bloody believe this!"

Forgetting himself, Beryl openly stared at the back of his superior's head. What the hell's gone wrong now?

Onyx glared at his cell-phone for a moment longer, almost visibly willing it to spontaneously self-combust, then punched the 'disconnect' with the exacting precision of the truly livid, folded it shut, removed the SIM card - and hurled the cellular against a wall with all his might, watching it explode into a hundred shards and shattered circuits. Still with that frightening precision, he snatched a packet of panatelas out of his pocket, extracted one, and bit off one end ready for lighting, spitting the stub onto Topaz' former work-desk.

"Onyx... what's going on?" Beryl asked carefully.

"I truly love working with professionals. Do you know where I can find some?" the Englishman spat, applying flame to the tip of his cigar. After a long, apparently soothing drag, he looked back to the German with a thunderous expression. "It seems that someone in town had a brain-wave: Team-1's decided that since they were headed out across the Mojave to bury Giles' body anyway, they might as well keep driving once they're done and go all the way to Las Vegas!"

The other SHRIKEs stared at him. Amber blurted, "Natte ittan-dayo?"

"[I thought we weren't supposed to get our Vegas vacation until after the Slayer was dead!]" Jade puzzled.

"So did I, Jade, but apparently our colleagues couldn't contain their enthusiasm," Onyx shrugged, taking another hard drag of sweet, calming nicotine. "They've left Rosenberg in the boot of their car at the mall's parking structure. Jade, you'll have to drive me into town so I can pick up the car and her. And when we next see Amethyst and her people, remind me to explain the term 'report by absence' to them all in baby-talk, since they clearly didn't understand it when it was phrased in plain English."

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

20:11, AUGUST 27, LIMA (04:11/28-08-99 ZULU)
PARKING STRUCTURE, SUNNYDALE MALL

Funnily enough, Willow had actually dozed off by the time her 'captors' arrived. Wow - who knew being a hostage could be so boring? But it was easy to tell the bad guys had arrived: the continuous, sulfurous swearing in an upper-class English accent was a dead giveaway. Whoever-it-was - and even muffled as it was, Willow was fairly sure she recognised that particular voice - was very much not happy about this turn of affairs.

If he likes this, he's gonna love Sunday night, Willow thought wryly. But, hey: good to know they're so punctual!

The approaching footsteps stopped by the trunk, though the profanity didn't, and she heard a momentary jingling - Taz-playing-Amethyst had left the sedan's keys in an envelope at the mall's security desk for her companions to pick up. A second later, she heard the trunk creak open above her and started her 'helpless victim' act, squirming against her bonds and trying to speak past the gag.

"Calm down, Miss Rosenberg," Onyx said flatly. "Panicking won't help your situation."

Willow went rigid in 'shock'. "MESWEY!?" she 'shouted', the word half-ruined by the gag.

"Surprised to see me again?" he asked, leaning down a little.

By the time he'd tugged the eye-mask off, Willow had 'mastered her emotions' and gave her 'captor' her best flat, baleful stare.

"My - such hostility! And here I was, thinking you were a shy and gentle soul," he smirked.

Willow didn't falter in the least; she just kept looking at him, the same silent message in her emerald-hard eyes: You're gonna die. And I'm gonna be there.

Wesley's gaze was as dead and passionless as any shark's. Would you care to phrase that in the form of a wager?

Chapter End Notes:

Buffy's limited description of 'Nemo' and 'Shooter' is exactly why Misha and Taz adopted those particular personae: it's a disguise-technique known as 'peacocking', wherein the subject wears flashy accessories that attract attention but also focus it, so that someone who looks at a 'peacock' remembers their 'bling' better than the face with which it is associated. (Thanks are due to the makers of Criminal Minds for providing me with the 'in-trade' name for this gambit; while I knew exactly what I intended to do when I first wrote my OCs adopting those personae, I didn't know the professional term for it. :-D)