Part 4

"Barbie attacked you?!" Gunn looking rather astonished.

"Yeah, with this." Buffy pulls the wand out of her pocket and hands it to Willow, " I don't know what these marking on it are, you think you can do some research, try to figure it out."

"Will do, having the wand to refer to should make it easier. I'll get some books." Willow heads out of the room and into the dining room, where her laptop is set up on the table.

"She must have been under some kind of spell. Her eyes were all dead like, like she was in a trance." Fred explains.

Cordelia is lying on the couch, with Angel kneeling beside her a look of worry on his face, "Come back to me Cordy, you have to."

The tension and worry coming from Angel spreads through the group of heros and everyone suddenly feels that they should be elsewhere, as if they are intruding on a private moment they were not meant to see. It becomes quiet, the only sounds are Angel's own pleading to Cordy's motionless body on the couch.

Buffy turns to Xander and quietly speaks, as if not to disturb the scene in front of her, "How are you feeling?"

"Alittle bloated, but otherwise fine. Man I'm starved! Anyone else want a sandwich?" Xander turns to go to the kitchen, followed by everyone, but Buffy, using food as an excuse to leave the room.

Buffy slowwly walks to Angel's side and kneels beside him, "How long have you been seeing each other?"

Angel looks up at the slayer suddenly, fear in his eyes, "What makes you think that we're ..."

"Don't lie to me, it's obvious. I'm not upset I just thought you would like someone to talk to about it. No one else knows do they."

"No. They don't know. We're not...intimate, and don't intend to be. So we decided they really didn't need to be worring about it."

"If they did know, perhaps they could help you try and find a cure."

Angel looks at Buffy, a little shocked that she would so calmly make that suggestion, and he sees that she has truely grown since they last were together and he is proud to know her because of the woman she has become. "Perhaps you're right."

At that moment Cordelia stirs on the couch, streaches as if waking from sleep, and slowly opens her eyes. Angel leaps up and grabs her arms, pulling her into a seated position only to see confusion in her face. " Where am I? Who are you? Who am I?" the panic is rising in her voice with each new question.

"Cordy?" Angel is stunned into silence, unsure what to say. Luckily Buffy manages to keep a level head.

"You're name is Cordelia, we are you're friends. I'm Buffy and this is Angel. Do you remember anything about what might have happened to you?"

"Buffy... Oh God Buffy.. I ... I tried to... I remember ... I tried to hurt you, he made me do it... I shot Xander. Oh god Angel.." the tears begin to well up in her eyes as she recalls the horrors she was a part of. Angel grabs hold of her and pulls her into a feirce hug, letting her sob into his chest as he gently strokes her hair. "Go get the others."

Cordelia breaks away for Angel, her composure returning quickly, "And could you get me a glass of water." She takes a tissue from the box on the table and begins drying her face. Buffy and Angel look at each other and smile. She's going to be just fine. As Buffy leaves the room, Angel takes Cordelia's face in his hands and kisses her suddenly, "You had me scared there for a minute."

"Sorry about that, won't do it again, I promise." she smiles up at him, as people begin to reenter the room. Angel slids up on the couch next to Cordelia as she begins to tell them everything she can remember about her experience in the demons lair.

"That's why I couldn't see the attacker in my vision, I was the attacker. They really need to work on the vague vision thing." Cordelia says, exasperated.

"Well, whatever this demon was trying to do to Buffy didn't work, cause I feel fine." Xander says as her munches on a ham sandwich.

"Good. We should probably get to a hotel before the sun comes up. We'll stop by again tommorrow, and see if we can track this thing down." Gunn says and starts heading for the door with Fred. Angel and Cordelia, still a little shaky on her feet, follow behind them.

"Yeah we should probably go to." Xander says through the last bite of sandwich.

"Hey, Xand what about the wall?" Buffy looks at him.

"Not a problem, a little plaster and some paint and it will be as good as new. I'll bring the stuff by tommorrow."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, wait to thanks me till after you get the bill. The labor costs are what kill you everytime." Xander ducks a smack and laughs as he heads for the door with Anya.

***********

The next afternoon the group has reconvened at the Summer's house. Books of all sizes lay all around the living room and they try to find something about the wand or a picture to match the demon Cordelia met.

"Nothing! I've found nothing! This thing could attack again at anytime, and we still don't even know what it is!" Cordelia, still aggravated about what happened to her, slams her book down and heads for the kitchen.

The doorbell rings, Buffy answers it and pays the pizza man, taking the four slim boxes from the pimply faced teenager. "Thanks." She turns around and see's Xander just finishing up with plastering over the fist size hole in the wall. "Hey Xander, take a break, pizza's here." She steps up to him and he turns towards her, but the minute he gets one whiff of the pizza he turns and runs the other way, shoving Cordy aside to get to the bathroom, where he becomes ill. The two women look at each other and then at the bathroom door. "That's weird."

Cordelia looks back at Buffy, "Is it just me or has he put on weight since last night?"

"You don't think that it has something to do with the blast he took do you?"

"We should get Willow to run some tests, see if he's mystically sick or something."

"I'll get the chem set."

"I'll get Willow."

***********

"There is nothing wrong that I can tell." Willow looks up at the group from the kitchen table, "I've run every test on his blood I can think of, and it all looks normal."

"Well, there has to be something." Xander looks up at the red head, "I can't even smell food without wanted to vomit. There has to be something you haven't tried."

"I have an idea!" Cordelia looks over at Buffy, "Do they still have karoke night at the Bronze on Mondays?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"They have karoke at the Bronze, I didn't know that." Angel looks over at the girls.

"We never went, for obvious reasons. Using the 'school night' excuse." Cordelia gets up and heads for the phone "I need to make a long distance call to Las Vegas. I think we know someone who might be able to help figure this out. You think you can hold out another day Xander?"