Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Buffy the vampire slayer, I am just a fan.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 8 episode 1
Welcome to Ohio.
[The second Part of the Season beginning]

[-] Chapter 1

"What's gotten you so upset? And did you say an Urn of Osiris?" Ernie was bald, short and slightly overweight. His red polo short was stretched and stained and his jeans we tattered at the bottom, the tats draped over a pair of worn black leather pumps with mud around the rim. He was taken back when Willow mentioned she needed an Urn of Osiris so he began playing with his long dark grey beard.

"Nothing, I'm fine but about that Urn..." she continued.

"You must have heard too" Ernie assumed.

"Heard? What d'ya mean? Heard what?" Willow sounded confused.

"Well any witch at your level knows that the resurrection spell that involves the urn of Osiris is difficult, dangerous and largely unsuccessful. Any witch who can float a pencil and loses a loved one instantly comes in here asking if we had any of those urns. I had a few in stocks and I felt Y'know... sympathetic for the brauds. So I sold them the Urn. Most of them didn't even survive the spell and those that did were unsuccessful. And then about a year ago a spike went through the magical community all over the country saying that a witch some were in California successfully completed the spell. Suddenly everybody thought they could do the same, and that's when the dead bodies began turning up in cemeteries. So I've learned my lesson, no more." He explained.

"Ernie listen to me, I've been coming in here every day now for the past two weeks. By the ingredients I've bought from here you know I'm not just another witch. Now either you don't have an Urn in the store of you know where I can find one." Willow sounded threatening and Ernie could have sworn he seen the roots in Willows hair twinge to a shade of black. Ernie paused and argued with himself silently for a moment. Willow was not known for her patience, "Ernie!"

"Alright alright jeez, if it were up to me I'd give you the damn thing for free but it aint. But I know a guy..." Ernie began to mumble and stutter a lot after that, sweat dripped from his fore head and he began to quiver slightly.

"Why don't I believe you?" she asked while he was midway into explaining how Willow could get to Romania to find this 'guy'.

"What, I'm telling you the truth I swear." He leant on the glass of the counter and began to reach for something under it.

"Parralisum Incantontori!" She exclaimed as she held her hand in front of her. Ernie's hand froze and his body did also. He was unable to move his lips or even his jaw. However his eyes rolled around in his skull frantically. They became bloodshot very quickly as he was unable to move his eyelids to blink. Willow sighed and moved round to his side of the counter. He had a hex bag in one hand and a short yet sharp dagger in the other. Willow assumed that the hex bag when thrown over her would disorient her in some manner long enough for Ernie to make his move. She sighed once more and moved back to her previous position in front of the counter. "I appreciate you trying to warn me Ernie but this? Reaching for that knife didn't do you any good now did it. Now I'm going only going to reverse my spell when you start telling me where I can find an Urn." Ernie tried his hardest to keep his eyes focused on Willow so as to not alert her of where his Urn was being kept but Willow eventually caught a glimpse of him as he quickly looked to his right. She looked there also and there was a door labelled "Do not enter, staff only." She smiled at him sarcastically and walked over to the door. It was locked but he'd stupidly and conveniently left a group of keys on top of a cardboard box next to the door. Willow picked up the keys and opened the door. Cleveland's magic box had a bigger inventory space than Sunnydale's so it took Willow a reasonable amount of time to find the urn. There were two of them in fact and each was stored in an individual box at the end of a row of chicken brains. She took each one out of its packaging and carefully placed them both in a bigger cardboard container. She left the room and locked the door behind her; she placed the key in her pocket. Ernie was still frozen in place and blood had begun to pour out of his eyes like tears that streamed down his face. In any other circumstances Willow would have felt guilty for leaving that man in agony but she was completely focused on one thing. She cautiously placed the box on the floor near the exit and walked back behind the counter. She pulled the hex bag from Ernie's grasp and poured its contents on the floor. She was now baffled as to what the bag would have done to her, it was dark magic. She placed a folded piece of paper on the work counter next to the cash register, it was her order. "I want all that delivered to that address and I want it there by Saturday. Unless you want a repeat visit that is." She said threateningly. As she with drawled from the store she mumbled something in Latin under her breathe and closed the door behind her, 'bing' went the bell above the frame. He unfroze and crashed to the floor rubbing his eyes.

"I'll get you you bitch"" he exclaimed in the silence of the shop. For the spell Willow planned to cast she needed several litres of innocent blood, candles, and herbs and of course the Urn. Last time she performed this spell she used deer blood but as she was new to the city she didn't know where to find one, so the blood of an innocent pig from the butchers would have to do. But before she could even begin her ritual she needed to acquire a pretty powerful summing spell. Over the last week or so Nicholas had made quite a name for himself in the manor, Dawn and a lot of the other slayers called him 'Hunkolas', Faith however went with 'Nick', Giles went with 'A strikingly charming fellow' and everyone else just called him Nicholas. But Willow disliked Nicholas because he was constantly listening in on private conversations, spending so much time in his room and she couldn't recall a time when he was not wearing his glasses. In the light of recent events Willow called him the weasel or the snake in the grass; she felt his presence in the manor was perverse. But she knew that he knew how to get things and she needed that summoning spell. She loaded the Urn's of Osiris into the trunk of Giles' car and sat herself in the driver's position and made her way onto the familiar streets that led back to Slayer central. She parked outside of the smaller, black bared gates and let herself in. As she walked up the narrow path she spotted him sitting on one of the outside sofas that were placed under one of the windows on the front deck. He sat cross-legged wearing a blue buttoned up shirt and black pants. His hair was spiked as usual with the same sunglasses positioned on his nose with half of a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped the bud onto the wooden deck; he stopped it out with his shoe. He looked up and spotted Willow.

"Well you've been out quite a while, it's almost dark and with this rain you can really worry a person Tabatha. Might I ask where you've spent this fine Thursday afternoon?" He had apparently nick named his fellow housemates just as they had nick named him.

"Okay now that's creepy, what are you stalking me now? I was at the magic shop like every other day." She said coldly. It was obvious by her tone that she didn't like him. He took pleasure from that.

"Yes that may be true but on all of your previous trips you haven't been gone for longer than maybe three quarters of an hour give or take, whereas today it's been around two and a half hours since you left the building."

"You have serious issues my friend, don't you have anything better to do than monitor every living thing that passes through the threshold of this house?"

"Actually" he got up out of his seat and stood facing Willow, "no." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Well then seeing how good you are at your job, has Xander come back yet?"

"Why?"

"Uh, well because he's my best friend and I want to check that he made it home okay. You said it yourself, the weather is awful" she tried to hide her worry behind a week laugh. He didn't fall for it.

"Now what I don't understand is that when I ask where you have been all this time you associate me with stalkers and sex offenders but when you want to know what Mr. Harris has been doing in your absence it is completely normal."

"But Xander and I are best friends." Willow argued.

"Why?" he asked annoyingly.

"Well just because."

"Because of what?"

"Y'know what, enough with the questions, I wanna know what Xander has been doing because he's my best friend and I love him. You don't have that right because we are not best friends Nicholas."

"Are you sure it's that we are not best friends or that you secretly love me as much as you precious Kennedy? Possibly more I would say."

"What! I most certainly- I can't believe- you would even- think that just- I mean c'mon- that's just..."

"You quiver at the sight of me, thank you for proving my suspicions. And nice job by the way with Ernie that shop keeper, you are savage one aren't you. Ah well Mr. Giles beckons me to do his bidding, I must be off." He turned to enter the manor but was pulled back by Willows hand on his arm.

"First of all, HELLO, lesbian. For four years now. Girlfriend is upstairs. You and I are never going to happen. And secondly, how the hell do you know about that? Have you been spying on me?"

"Ah yes but even the bendiest of spoons can be made straight again, with a little time, patience and...Skill. And I know a bit of magic on my part and anybody and everybody who holds residence in this manor is locatable on the liaison to the senor partners' radar."

"First, I never agreed to that and second, my girlfriend has a pierced tongue. Trust me buddy, you can't compete with that."

"Well no you never agreed to anything Tabatha but Miss Summers did. It says so in the contract. Now if there is nothing else of importance you need from me then please allow me to be on my way." He once again turned to slip through that huge wooden threshold.

"Actually, I-um do need a favour, sorta'." She stammered. He sighed and once again turned to face her.

"And the nature of this favour would be...?" he asked impatiently. Willow sat down on the sofa that Nicholas had just stood up from, she invited him to sit back down. If she wanted what she needed from him she would have to play along. She filled him in on the happenings at the magic shop and what she planned to do.

"But for that kind of spell you would need and Urn of Osiris. They're extremely rare." He said taken back by Willow's story.

"I got two of em' in the trunk." She said plainly.

"You must be mistaken Willow" he said in denial.

"For what I had to do to get them they better be real."

"So that's why I sensed you were in danger earlier. You do know that Ernie isn't human?"

"What, how do you know?"

"Well no mere human Ohio shopkeeper has two Urns of Osiris. And even before you can begin your ritual the body you need is buried under miles of rubble. I think it's safe to say your pursuit is impossible" Willow sighed, she felt defeated, "unless you're willing to take a little midnight swim?" Willow looked up at him flustered as to his meaning.

Meanwhile up on the third story Faith had knocked on Buffy's door. "Come in" she called. Faith entered the room. Buffy was sitting on a wooden stool next to an open window. Buffy's window faced the sea and so the sound of the waves hitting the cliff side flooded the room. Buffy was sitting with her legs up into her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She had a mug of something hot perched on top of the window sill and she was wearing a grey hooded jumper with her 'hello sushi' pyjama pants on. "Hey Faith" Buffy greeted.

"Hey B, what'cha doin'? Faith asked as she sat on the end of Buffy's bed.

"Honestly, I have no clue. I've done my nightly dose of staring out to the sea dramatically" Buffy said jokingly, "and now I guess I'll just wonder the halls, check on the girls and go to bed."

"B, it's only nine thirty." Faith stated as she laughed at how unconscious Buffy was of the time.

"You can't be serious, it's dark out." Buffy said.

"Yeah, it's been like that for around twenty minutes now."

"I must've fallen asleep in the tub; I thought it was later than this. I guess I'm used to patrolling every night and since we made the potentials into Slayers I haven't had too and so I lost track of time. Anyway did you need something?"

"Yeah I was wondering if I could pick your brain about somethin'..."

"Sure."

"Ya' see back in L.A you know Kate, two doors down?" Buffy nodded, "Well she was so enthusiastic and out spoken but ever since we got here she seems down and defeated. Even when I took her and eight other girls out on patrol with me just after sundown she barely spoke a word. We both know that I aint so good with the mushy gushy stuff so I was wonderin' if you could maybe talk to her or something?" Buffy had also noticed the decline in Kate's attitude since L.A and knew that she only had herself to blame. She told Faith that she'd talk to her but regretted it the moment Faith left the room. She would only make matters worse. She took one last sip from her mug and headed for the door. She stepped out into the hallway and looked down both ends of the corridor. Amalia was sat on one of the balconies at the end of the hall and Buffy waved casually. She wondered the halls of the Manor and checked into a lot of the girls' rooms. Everybody was fine. In any normal situation with any normal person, that would have been fine. But we both know that Buffy was neither normal or ever in a normal situation. She thought to herself about how sharing the burden of being a slayer would help with the loneliness that also comes free of charge but it never really goes away. Willow had Kennedy, Faith had Robin, Giles had his library back and now with an office to boot, Xander had... well... whiskey and Buffy had nobody. And yet she was content with that, oddly the feeling felt right.

"Maybe Andrew put something in the food" she thought as she pondered her growing insanity. She decided to avoid her promised talk with Kate... for now. Instead she made her way down to Giles' office. She knocked and opened the door but the laptop was off, curtains closed and all books were back on their shelves. She checked his room but he wasn't there either. The only other place Giles could stand to be in the entire building was the library so she made her way to the grand staircases that lead down to the entrance hall. On the way she past Kennedy, Rona and Simmone as they finished up filling the old classrooms with desks and book shelves for the girls to do their school work or just hung out. She saw Xander enter one of the bathrooms, she thought to call out to him, but before she could part her lips he shut the door behind him. She got to the top of the stairs; quite a lot of the girls were sitting around the dining table eating buttered toast with Andrew while others gathered around the entrance hall television and watched the local popular shows. She twirled herself around the end of the staircases banister and headed for the closed door. The library was just beyond that. Even though it was only a fraction of Sunnydale high school's library Giles found familiarity in there. She pushed open the glass door and spotted Dawn with her nose in a book while Giles simply sat himself in a computer chair and spun around whilst staring at the ceiling. "Buffy" Dawn called as she noticed that her sister had entered the room.

"Hey Dawnie" she said as she walked over to sit next to her.

"Is something wrong Buffy?" Giles asked.

"Wrong, why would something be wrong? I'm just, I guess I'm just... bored." She said as though it was absurd. Giles suddenly began to laugh hysterically. His glasses fell crooked on his nose, he kicked his legs in the air and he held his stomach as though it were about to burst. Dawn, at the sight of Giles in hysterics, began to do the same. Even Buffy after that, she didn't even know what she was laughing at. Giles got up out of his chair and leaned against a wall to try and calm himself but couldn't, the fact that Buffy was bored was ludicrous to him. Dawn just laughed at how Giles was laughing and Buffy laughed because the situation made it funny. Giles even got tears in his eyes. Eventually he calmed down and sat back down in his chair. "I-I-I don't understand how tha-that was so-so fun-funny" Buffy stuttered through what was left of her giggles. Giles wiped his eyes with the cloth he used for his glasses and turned to face Buffy, his face had turned bright red with laughter.

"In all my-my years of-of knowing you Bu-Buffy I cannot recall a time when you have actually said that to-to-to me."Giles said as he began to laugh again.

"There was always something for you to do though Buffy, Y'know your routine was get up, breakfast, stop an apocalypse, bed. Now that it's not just you I guess you have the time and freedom to be... bored." Dawn informed as she also recovered from hysterics.

"Yeah I guess. What are ya' reading Dawn?" Buffy asked even though she didn't really care.

"Wow you really are bored, well I've been reading up on the history of this place, apparently it was a boarding school in the 1790's but was set on fire and even further back than that there is a reference to a slayer called Carissa Blaire who killed some demon. See, you're not the only bored Summers girl in the house" Dawn laughed.

"Actually it was an earthquake that caused the fire; also it was the 1890's not the 1790's. The Slayers name was Cassandra not Carissa and it was a warlock not a demon but she only managed to strip his powers before he took her down." She said plainly as though it were common knowledge. Giles and Dawn both looked at each other in mild shock; they found it odd that Buffy was so informed on the Building that they had lived in for a few weeks now. They then both gazed at her, "what?" she said.

[-] Chapter 2

In the meantime while Buffy babbled to Giles and Dawn about what she knew of the building, Willow left her room to find Nicholas as they agreed about three hours earlier. It was around five minutes past midnight so she snuck out of bed and headed for the door. She stepped on a creaky floor board and froze. Kennedy tossed and turned in bed and would not settle, she opened her eyes and spotted Willow fully dressed. "What's happening, what's going on?" she asked as she sat up right in bed.

"Nothing, go back to bed" Willow tried to say convincingly.

"Will..." Kennedy said impatiently.

"I'm going to take Xander somewhere, I won't be long I promise." She lied.

"Okay, be careful." Kennedy advised as she clambered back into the bed sheets. Willow left the room and slid the door shut behind her. She made her way down to the entrance hall; everybody was in bed. She looked over the banister of one of the grand staircases and noticed Nicholas standing by the closed door, he was tapping his foot impatiently and had his arms folded. He still wore his sunglasses. She silently stepped down the stairs to meet him.

"Tabatha, your ten minutes late" he said angrily.

"I know, sorry." She apologized," I woke Kennedy by accident and I had to make up an excuse why I was fully dressed this late."

"Several Slayers are out on patrol so we only have half an hour to get in and get out before anybody suspects a thing." Nicholas said confidently.

"Just out of curiosity, what exactly are we doing?" Willow asked nervously.

"Well I'm right in believing that you came to me tonight in the hopes of acquiring a powerful summoning spell to begin the ritual, correct?" Willow nodded her head. "Then you came to the right place. As you know the basement just off of the laundry room has been magically sealed, it was I whom sealed it. The reason the basement needed sealing was because of extensive water damage. When my firm acquired the building 8 months ago apparently a bone head plumber burst a pipe down there and the water level reaches just about 1 and a half meters off the ground. On you I would guess that is just below your neck line. Now I can unseal the basement door long enough for you to find what you need."

"And just what is it down there that's going to give me what I need?"

"If memory serves a client of Wolfram and Hart, which was housed here before all of you, requested we bring him numerous Babylonian summoning hex bags. Its powerful stuff Tabatha, maybe out of your league perhaps but I find myself curious whether you will actually succeed."

"How big is the basement and were will I find them?" Willow asked, she sighed at the mention of water, she'd never liked the pool at school and the sea freaked her out.

"The basement is the same size as the manor itself in perimeter, except it has no walls. The boxes down there are in fact magical and protected so you will not be able to open them, I will teleport you in there, then you will have fifteen minutes to find what you need and then I will teleport you back out. Since it was I who magically protected them, only I can reverse the spell. After that I will have no further part in the matter except knowledge of the end result. Its pitch black in there, how do you plan to see?"

"Magic." She conjured herself a tiny ball of light, it was easy to sustain for long periods of time and it was supposed to help its conjurer find what he or she or even... it is looking for. She followed Nicholas through the corridor behind the closed door and down into the wash room. The walls in there were just plain grey brick and about seven of the fifteen laundry machines gurgled as they cleaned the girls' clothes. And there it was; the basement door. It was relatively small in fact, and even though the door was old, the handle was brand new. She turned to face him and to ask how he planned to get her in there but he was already mumbling Latin words to himself under his breath.

Cleveland cemetery, this was what she was talking about. It had its differences sure from L.A and Sunnydale but there was no shortage of demons and vamps to dust and bust. It was Rona and Vi's turn to take the girls out on patrol, they were a lot more protective of the girls because they knew how scary and frightening it was to be told you were chosen, and so were sixteen other girls. Vi, Rona and Faith had initially brought all of the new Slayers out on patrol and divided them into three teams. Rona was the head of one team while Vi and Faith was heads of the other two. They split up into different cemeteries all over Cleveland. There were actually a grand total of thirteen of them but tonight they would just have to leave the remaining ten to defend themselves. Faith called Rona on her cell and told her she would have to skip out early, something to do with asking for Buffy's advise. Vi called Rona about nineteen minutes after saying that her team had done a sweep of the cemetery and dusted a few vamps and that they were also heading home. Rona huddled up her team.
"Okay you guys were the last ones out here, and so far we haven't dusted anything. I think we need to split up. Alex, Bethany, Joy and Amalia, pick a partner and spread out. Protect each other and remember constant vigilance." Rona advised. Rona had only now taken her cast off her arm from the battle about two months ago at Caleb's wine vineyard. But she was still scared from the battle down in the Hellmouth. Buffy had only just now agreed to let her out of the building to fight so Rona was just itching for something to get her teeth into... so to speak. She told the girls to meet her back at the cemetery entrance in fifteen minutes. The girls paired up and went off in their separate ways. Rona wondered around but nothing seemed to be happening, "the night I get out and I get stuck with the only cemetery in the world with no demons or vamps, figures" she thought. The mist rolled in and the clouds over shadowed the moon above, a twig snapped somewhere in the hedges behind Rona but before she could make a jump at the silhouette in the trees, Amalia's scream echoed throughout the cemetery. Rona quickly changed direction and set off at break neck speed towards the epicentre of the screams. She found herself in a clearing of trees and empty graves that looked soon to be filled. She surveyed her surrounding but it was too dark to see. "Amalia!" she exclaimed in panic. From behind a crypt a man entered the clearing. He clapped in mockery as he walked. He wore a dark red and black suit and had shaven brown her. He stopped about 10ft in front of Rona and revealed a short cane he used to balance himself. He certainly did not look old, no older that forty that is. But he walked as though he was 80 and leant heavily on his Cane. "Where is Amalia?" Rona asked with scorn.

"Well well, isn't this interesting." The man said as he ignored the question. "Which one might you be then, pray tell?"

"Where is she?" Rona exclaimed as she started at him.

"Ah ah ah" he said as he tutted and shuck his index finger from side to side in Rona's direction. She stopped. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, unless you don't want your precious Slayers back."

"Who're you, why are you doing this?" she questioned frantically.

"Me? That's not important but what I want however? Good things come to those whom wait. Are you Faith or Kennedy perhaps?"

Rona was confused as to how he knew of her friends but he had Amalia so she knew she had to co-operate with him... or it. "Rona, my name it Rona." She said timidly.

"Ah yes, you were so badly hurt weren't you, and the night the slayer lets you out you go and lose all your precious Slayers in a vampire filled cemetery and to a man like me" he tutted once more.

"What? This has to be the deadest cemetery in the world. There are no vamps here." The man grinned at her and clicked his fingers. Heavy footsteps colliding with the hard mud ground echoed behind Rona. She turned around. There must have been twenty five of them standing in a perfect circle around the clearing; you would probably have counted more if you took the time to. A lot of the vampires were covered in mud which Rona took to mean that the man behind her had taken them immediately after they clawed their way out of their coffin, brought them here and waited for the girls. Only a handful was dressed normally. Only around fourteen of the vamps had something in common though, they each restrained one of the girls while another covered their mouth so they couldn't scream. Unlike the others Rona could tell that Joy put up a fight when they were attacked as she was beaten and bleeding and it took three vampires to restrain her. Rona could only count seven of the eight Slayers in her team. She turned to face the man. "Let them go!"

"Um, no" the man stated plainly.

"Where is Amalia?" she asked, she felt defeated and powerless.

"Safe, for now." He replied.

"What do you want?"She asked cautiously.

"I want you to take a message to the Slayer." He said

"And you'll give me my girls back?" she asked.

"In a sense" he grinned. He clicked his fingers and the vampires behind Rona growled. She quickly turned to see a large smirk on each vamps faces'. They each plunged their fangs into the necks and wrists of the girls. Rona screamed "NO!" and started at the vampires. Two more appeared quickly out of the darkness and restrained Rona in place, she tried to fight back, she wriggled and pulled but it was useless. They made her watch as the girls in her care were viciously murdered. Joy was the last to hit the ground. The two vampires restraining Rona released her and she fell to the floor. Tears flooded down her face in anger and frustration. She watched as the vampires dragged the bodies of the slayers back into the darkness of the trees. She turned to face the man. He was grinning soullessly.

"So that's it huh?" she was in hysterics, beating the floor with her fists and her hair flying out through the air above her head. "Am I next, is that what's going to happen now, you can certainly try you pompous bastard but I will not go down easy!" She got up from the floor and began to run at the man. She was stopped though before she could take another step. Amalia emerged from behind the same crypt that the man had just moments ago. She ran past the man and straight at Rona and jumped right into her arms. Rona picked her up and squeezed her tightly.

"I'll be seeing you." the man said as he faded into the mist.

Willow quickly found herself submerged in ice cold water that reached halfway up to her neck in a vast, dark open space. The only light was under the water were her hand was. It was so bizarre, just a second ago she was standing right next to Nicholas but she could hear him from the stirs behind her chanting to maintain the teleportation spell. "Gods and Goddesses of the hereafter I implore you. Use the light to help me find may way, so let it be" she quivered. The little ball of light instantly got brighter and shot from her hand. She watched it travel quickly to her left under the water, it must have gone pretty far because it became just a small dim glow in the distance. She waddled her way through the ice water in the direction of the glow. She bumped into floating chairs and boxes along the way but she quickly became numb from the cold. She made it to the light but it was on top of a small crate next to Willow's feet. She was dreading this part; she had to submerge her head below the water to reach the box. She made several attempts but as the water approached her jaw she would pull back, she inevitably mustered her courage and took the plunge, it hurt the most when the water entered her ears but they numbed twice as quicker as the rest of her body parts. She grabbed the box and pulled her head out of the water as fast as humanly possible. She now knew that she had to make her way to the stairs back the way she came. Now with her hair wet she knew that she couldn't make it without passing out from the cold, she gathered what strength she could and bellowed "Nicholas!"
Before she knew it she was laying face down on the laundry room floor. Nicholas helped Willow to her feet and she grabbed a blanket from the laundry pile and wrapped it tightly around her. Nicholas held the box in one hand and waved the other over it whilst mumbling a Babylonian spell simultaneously. The box glowed slightly put that might have been a figment of Willow's imagination; she was pretty out of it. Nicholas peered his head over the lid of the box to reveal three small pouches. The pouch itself was a dark blue and wrapped with a yellow string. He handed her the box and said "let me know how it turns out, okay Tabatha?"

"Sure" she said she pulled the box into the blanket with her, "An Nicholas, thank you. I owe you one." He turned to face her and allowed his sunglasses to drop to the point of his nose and reveal his light green eyes.

"Yes... I'll hold you to that." He adjusted his glasses and exited the room. It must have been about 1 am in the morning but all Willow could think about was getting out of that room, getting a cup of hot chocolate from the kitchen and climbing back into bed with her lover. But she would have to pit her plans on hold for another night because as the microwave bell rung a huge bang from the Entrance Hall door echoed throughout the manor. "Buffy!" screamed a voice. Even Faith whose room was on the fifth floor heard the shriek from below. She jumped out of bed with Robin and they made their way out into the hall. All the girls had heard it as well as they all head their heads poking out of their bedroom thresholds. "Girls go back inside and go back to sleep, everything is fine. Now!" Robin reassured loudly. They met Buffy on the third floor and began descending the stairs. Even Xander had gotten out of bed, well Faith assumed that but he was still fully clothed and had a whisky in his hand. None of the new Slayers except Kennedy and Vi were allowed downstairs. Andrew trailed behind them. Rona was pacing up and down the dining room table while Amalia was cowering on the sofas to the left. Dawn must have still been in the library as she burst into the entrance hall, fully clothed, from the closed door.

"Rona, what's wrong, what happened, where are the girls? Buffy asked sleepily. Rona just looked at Buffy, the fear in her eyes and the guilt was the only thing Buffy needed to know what happened. Faith saw it too.

"How many?" Faith asked.

"Ni-nin-nine of, of us, t-twenty five of the-them. Maybe more." Rona stuttered. Willow took her blanket off of her and wrapped it around Amalia. Buffy dragged Rona over to the sofa and sat her down. Everybody else either took a vacant seat or crowded around. Faith sat next Rona on the sofa while Buffy sat on the other side, Willow sat with Amalia and Giles sat next to them. Andrew perched himself on the coffee table and everybody else crowded around.

"What happened Rona, I mean when I left you and Vi in the field everything seemed fine. Did something? Is the first back?" Faith asked worried.

"No, the first is gone, well he wasn't there anyway..." Rona began. She told the story from were Vi had called and said she was going home. She informed Buffy about the man and how that the killing of the seven Slayers was a message for her and how he referred to her as the slayer. After she finished the room fell silent, almost as though an invisible force kept their lips together. Giles broke the silence,

"Yes, well, I, um" Buffy cut him off before he could form his sentence.

"You let them go off alone?" she said angrily.

"I-I-I-I-I-I-I thought that" Buffy cut her off just like she did Giles.

"No Rona you didn't think, and it's cost seven innocent girls their lives!" she exclaimed.

"Chill it B!" Faith said shocked at how angry Buffy was. Rona's tears began to well up in her eyes. Buffy ignored Faith's comment.

"Get upstairs." Buffy ordered Rona.

"Buffy I"-

"Now, Rona!" Rona sped off towards the stairs and she ascended up them. Buffy turned to face Willow. "Will, is she okay?" she was talking about Amalia.

"She's pretty shaken up, Kennedy and I will take her up stairs and clean her off and put her in bed." Willow added.

"Here, let me" Xander interjected.

"Um, sure... okay" Willow agreed whilst confused. Amalia took Xander's' had and followed him upstairs.

[-] Chapter 3

Since Anya's death Xander had isolated himself from his friends. His daily routine was the same every day, wake up at 1:00 pm, eat Andrews pancakes, go to the liquor store, sit on the bench outside until all hours of the night, come home at 9:00 pm and then go to bed again around 3:00pm. The gang just assumed he had done his daily routine alone but when he offered to take Amalia upstairs they remembered times when they saw them walking with each other, eating together and talking amongst themselves. It all started like this.
About a week ago, Xander had just come back to the manor at around 11:00 pm from a long days work on the liquor store bench. He was drunk, wet and found everything hugely funny. He opened the front doors to the entrance hall and groggily made his way to the stairs. Amalia couldn't sleep that night and was lying down in the lounge behind the closed door; she thought that she was the only one up and when she heard loud muttering and weak hysterical laughter outside, she got up to see who it was. Her first thoughts when she spotted Xander on the third step of the stairs were "Oh, it's just the drunk man on the fourth floor who throws towels at the girls when they aren't being quiet enough at night." Amalia wiped the sleep from her eyes and followed him quietly up the stairs. He was muttering loudly under his breath, she managed to make out the words Sunnydale, some girl called Cordie and a craving for a double meat medley. He got almost all the way up when he dropped his liquor all over the red stream of carpet that was sown into the stairs. He turned, without spotting Amalia, and bent down to pick the bottle back up again. Naturally as he was Xander, he tripped and went staggering down the stairs. Amalia luckily wasn't too far behind him and managed to catch him. It was a lucky thing that Amalia had the strength of a slayer otherwise Xander would have knocked her off her feet to her possible death at the bottom. She helped him to his feet; it seemed his stumble knocked his drunken brain into a coma so that his sober side was all that was left. He shook his head from side to side and looked down at her, "Th-than-thank you." he stuttered, "Amalia right?"

"Yeah" she replied. She helped him up the stairs.

"Why are you up so late, it must be about midnight right?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep, bad dreams I guess."

"What kinda' dreams? Like standing naked in front of your whole class in an assembly when you have to give a big speech? Coz I've been there my friend. Or bad dreams like demons and apocalypses?"

"Well I guess... neither, I dreamt of this girl. Or I dreamt I was this girl I dunno'. I was a lot older, maybe around twenty seven. I was wearing a long flowing white dress and a necklace with a cross on it. My hair was black, long and curly. And I was standing on the front lawn outside of the house. I was giving some big pep rally speech to a bunch of men and women who were dressed in armour and had swords and stuff. Then this man appeared out of nowhere and hurled some purple static thing in my face and then... then I woke up." Even though Amalia only knew Xander from overhearing what other girls had said about him, mostly the words they used were drunk and loud but she liked him when he was sober, he was easy to talk to.

"Yeah well way back when, when the Buffster was the one and only slay gal she used to have dreams about demons and vampires and stuff and it usually meant some big evil was coming. But from what it sounds like you dreamt of a past slayer. Buffy did mention that a slayer lived in this house but I was kinda' out of it. How old are you anyway?"

"I turn fourteen in November." She said reluctantly. They reached the fourth floor and Xander thanked Amalia once again and went into his room. Amalia went another floor up to her bedroom that she shared with Vi and went to bed also.
The next night when Xander came in late, Amalia had stayed up waiting for him. He didn't fall down the stairs that night so he still remained drunk, but he treated Amalia like she was his age whereas everybody else thought of her as the youngest and most vulnerable slayer. So every night she would wait for Xander and he also looked forward to seeing her, she somehow eased his pain over Anya, she was his newest best friend. Then last night when Xander came home and Amalia was not sitting on the couch waiting for him he was worried he had said something to piss her off or she just eventually lost interest. So he went to bed. And then when he heard what happened with Rona he was worried. Amalia told him everything that had happened that night and she couldn't stress enough that there was nothing Rona could do to save the others. Amalia asked Xander to tell Buffy what she told him but he was reluctant to do so. Xander had not had an actual conversation with Buffy since they stood in the hallway with Willow and Giles back in Sunnydale. He blamed her, maybe more than he would admit. Possibly more than he begrudged blaming Willow. Buffy was last out of the school that day, she could have done something, anything. Maybe dragged her body out or maybe even protected Anya. The slayer is supposed to protect everybody right? Did Anya not factor into the category of everybody? He thought to himself many times before he would go to sleep. He made his way back down to the entrance hall, it was late so the chandelier light was out but the wall lamps remained on. Everybody was talking amongst themselves so he just sat in the corner. He made numerous attempts to interject in the conversation and tell the room about Amalia's side of the story but he chickened out. He took a leap of faith. "Willow, Willow can you hear me?" he thought. She turned to him abruptly and confusedly.

"Yeah?" she replied telepathically. He told Willow what Amalia had told him.

"She asked me to tell Buffy not to be too hard on Rona."

"I think Buffy understands that Rona was in a tough position, she's angry because Rona shouldn't have let the girls go off alone. And why are you telling me? Buffy is standing like five ft away from you."

"I haven't talked to Buffy properly since we left Sunnydale."

"And you haven't talked to me since the day I saw you by the liquor store. Talk to Buffy."

"Y'know what, forget it." Xander got out of his seat and went through the closed door to the kitchen.

"What d'ya think Will?" asked Buffy in conclusion to what she was saying to the rest of the room that was listening. "Willow? Hello, anybody in there? Willow!" she said louder.

"Huh, what? Yeah cat fish is an odd type of sea creature." Willow said trying to sound like she was listening by saying the first thing that came into her head.

"Have you listened to a word that I've said?" she asked impatiently.

"I'm sorry Buffy, I was kinda' out of it."

"Yeah, it's okay. I get that it's late. What I said was why don't you in the morning do a locater spell for the girls' bodies and Faith, Kennedy, Vi and I will go and get them, maybe bring them back here and have a burial in the yard?"

"I can't, I have something to do tomorrow; could we do this earlier, or now even?"

"What happens tomorrow?" Buffy asked concerned.

"I um have a new lead on a slayer out of town, I'll be gone all day but this is pretty important so I'd rather do this now." Willow lied.

"Well... okay sure. I guess we'll go and get dressed and everybody else... um go to bed or... something." Willow, Buffy, Faith, Kennedy and Vi went up stairs to get properly dressed while Robin and Andrew followed Xander into the kitchen. They met up on the front porch outside the manor and they climbed into Giles' car. Faith drove, Buffy rode shotgun and Vi and Kennedy sat either side of Willow in the back seat. Willow did her locator spell there. Her goddess instincts told her that the Slayers where still in the cemetery that Rona had described but the locator spell said the bodies were half way across town. Something has been seriously wrong with her powers for a while now. They pulled up in Giles' car just across the street from the entrance to the cemetery. Buffy decided that since Willow's spell didn't help at all they would go back to the cemetery and see if Faith could track the man Rona described. Kennedy and Vi went off together to the west, Faith went to the east and Buffy went north. Willow remained in the car but was in contact with them all via telepathy. She was trying to lead them to the clearing but trying to mystically oversee the cemetery was unusually hard. She managed to zone in on the clearing but only for a brief second. Faith was the closest.

"Faith, you're the closest it's just north of your location." Willow said to Faith telepathically. Faith jumped at the sound of Willow's voice inside her head.

"Jeez red, you almost made me go all kung-fu on that tree man! Okay I'll speed up my pace, I'll let you know when I'm there, tell the others." She replied.

"Buffy?" Willow asked telepathically.

"Kinda' busy here Will!" Buffy replied. She was overwhelmed by three vampires. She was backed into a corner; two of the vamps grabbed her and threw her at a musty old crypt. They grabbed her again and pinned her against it. The third walked over to her and threw continues punches at her face, even though she wriggled as hard as she could she could not break free. The third vampire attempted a high kick; Buffy, instead of breaking free, pulled the two vampires together so they head-butted each other and were whacked by the third vampires high kick. The two vamps lost their grip and while they were down Buffy pulled two nearby branches off of the floor and staked them simultaneously. The remaining vamp put up a good fight, high kick, left punch, right punch, head-butt and scissor kicks but Buffy's guard was impeccably good. She caught one of his punches and twirled him round sending him tumbling over a tomb stone. He staggered to his feet but was to slow, Buffy staked him hard and fast. "Okay will what's the 911?"She thought.

"Faith's closing in on the clearing; you have to go west, and Buffy? Run." Willow advised. "Vi, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, what's the sitch?" Vi replied.

"Faith and Buffy are on their way to the clearing, you have to go back in the direction you came, hurry!"
Faith got there first; there was nothing there except blood stained grass on the edge of a line of trees. Faith spotted Rona's description of the crypt and she checked it out. Before she could get to check around the back of the crypt, Buffy had run at breakneck speed into the centre of the clearing.

"Faith?" Buffy called.

"Yeah B, I'm over here, you gotta see this." Faith said.
Buffy met Faith behind the crypt where she was standing motionless with her arms crossed across her chest. Bethany's body was positioned on the cold grass in front of the back of the crypt. Her blue sweater was drenched in her own blood and her skin had turned grey. Her eyes were frozen open and the brown colour that once inhabited them had dissolved leaving an icy blank stare. Her hands were missing... or not; they had been thrown across the cemetery; Buffy could see them near a ditch around 20ft away. What Buffy found confusing was the pentagram drawn in blood on the crypt wall. It was fresh blood, maybe Bethany's but it's doubtful; she'd been dead for a few hours now. In the centre of the pentagram was a dream catcher. Relatively small but still, Buffy and Faith were baffled. "Willow, are you getting this?" Buffy asked aloud.
"Is that a dream catcher?" Willow replied into both Buffy's' and Faiths' mind.
"Looks that way red," Faith stated. "Where are Vi and Kennedy?"

"They got held up, they'll be there soon." Willow said. Faith un-folded her arms and walked towards the crypt.

"Red I'll take it off its hook and bring it to you... whoa" she abruptly stepped back and watched the crypt. The blood drawn pentagram began to turn slowly in a spiral on the tomb. Buffy and Faith took on a defensive stance and watched the crypt in fear and confusion. It turned and spun for around thirty seconds before Bethany's dead body let out a piercing high pitch screech. Buffy and Faith fell to the knees and covered their ears. The crypt began to crack and crumble as the pentagram continued to spin. It stopped precipitously and the blood turned from a shade of dark red to a bright purple glow. It abruptly began to spin again. Bethany stopped screaming and looked at Faith. She opened her mouth and a flash of bright purple light, just like the pentagrams, shot at Faith knocking her a few ft back and unconscious. Bethany's corpse crumbled into a pile of ash. The pentagram began to spin again. There was nothing Buffy could do; she just called out to Willow silently in her mind. Faith was lying face down in the dirt when she was suddenly enveloped in a purple flux of energy that originated from the pentagram. Faith laid perfectly still even though the flux looked painful. Faith began to wake up and the flux dissolved into the dark sky above. Buffy looked back to the crypt; there was no trace of the pentagram or the dream catcher.

"Okay... now I'm pissed." Faith exclaimed. Faith stood up and Buffy spotted a burn on the upper left side of her leather jacket.

"Faith, your jacket!" Buffy said sounding alarmed.

"What, my jacket?" Faith began frantically undressing until she was only wearing her pants, shoes and bra. Faiths back was enflamed and it seemed to originate from her tattoo.

"How long have you had that tattoo?" Buffy asked worryingly.

"I don't have a tattoo on my back B, just my arm and wrist. You're trippin."

"No, Faith I'm serious stay still, it looks like a... oh god."

"B what is it, some demon head or something?"

"No... It's a...it's a... dream catcher." Buffy stammered.
Faith tried bending over backwards to see her new imprinted tattoo but she wasn't...that flexible. They met Kennedy and Vi as they were taking on several vampires, it looked like an ambush; like the vampires were making sure that they didn't get to Faith and Buffy. The four of them finished the rest of the vamps off and met up with Willow by the car, she was pacing up and down the sidewalk. Willow spotted them and embraced Kennedy tightly. "What happened, the last thing I heard was Faith telling me she was going to pick the dream catcher off the wall and then I lost all contact and there was this weird glow and..." She began to rant on and on. On the ride home, Faith and Buffy described in great detail and depth what had happened since they left Willow at the car. Willow guessed that the sorcerer used Bethany's body as a host for some kind of essence and when it shot Faith with the energy it served its purpose and dissolved but what its purpose was and the significance of the dream catcher was a complete mystery. But Faiths new tattoo would have to be tomorrow's problem. If she was going to get to the Sunnydale crater, she would have to leave now. Willow swapped places with Faith and she drove them home. The previous night Willow had packed the blood, the urn, various candles and the hex bags in the trunk of Giles' car. She pulled up just outside of the private roads leading to the manor next to the main gate.

"Okay guys I'll see around this time tomorrow" Willow said innocently with a smile. Everybody had already walked up to the main gate but Buffy only had one foot out of the car when she heard what Willow said.

"Will it must be around 5:00 am, surely you could wait until sunrise?" Buffy advised.

"Well yeah but this girl is in Indiana so I better leave now so I don't arrive at an Y'know... inappropriate time." She lied. Buffy looked at her sceptically, she wasn't convinced that Willow was actually going to recruit a new Slayer but Willow never lied.

"She must have a good reason" Buffy thought. "Well at least take somebody with you, Kennedy or Simmone?" Buffy asked concerned.

"I'll be fine really Buffy. If you need me I'll be on my cell." Buffy studied her for a moment, usually Willow couldn't hold a lie this long but she seemed intent on whatever it was she was doing.

"Okay Will. Be careful and I'll be waiting here exactly twenty four hours from now, okay?"

"Buffy don't worry, I'll be okay."

"Be safe."

"You too."

It had been just under a month since Buffy and the girls made the trip from California to Ohio; except they had had seven more girls going than there would have been if they all were going back. But it was just Willow, all alone on an empty highway at 5:35 in the morning. Willow questioned her ability to do this spell, or that it was even the right thing to do. If she's anything like Buffy was when Willow resurrected her then the repercussions might be just as bad, or worse. What if it doesn't even work and all of this is for nothing? The sun rose and Willow still had fifty-seven miles to drive. Dawn had broken the radio years ago so the silence was deafening.
'fifty-seven miles'
'forty-seven miles'
'thirty-seven miles'
'twenty-seven miles'
'seventeen miles'
'seven miles'
'three miles'
'two miles'
'one mile'
'Welcome to Sunnydale! Home of the Razor Backs!'

Willow spotted the familiar road and road sign, which had not fallen over the edge, where they had all clambered off the yellow school bus two months ago. The cacti were still there along with the vast sand and of course the jaw opening crater that was all that remained of the infamous Sunnydale Hellmouth. By the time she reached the Hellmouth crater it was dark, around 10:00 pm.
Willow took the ingredients she needed to begin the ritual. She poured the blood into the urn of Osiris and laid out eight black Hecate candles, four on each side of her and set them alight. First thing was first, the summoning hex bags. She got up and walked over to the trunk of the car and picked out the box. She kneeled down back into her position by the candles and began to chant in Babylonian. She stopped abruptly and turned around at the sound of shoes colliding with the hazardous highway concrete.

"Witch..." echoed a voice ominously.