Chapter 33: Gingerbread

January 11, 1999 – Monday

Weatherly Park

Buffy and Faith eyed a heavy, close-cut bush a few feet off the walkway. Its leaf-laden branches swung sideways, an unnatural movement and sound so different from the way the wind would have shaken them that it might as well have been a gong in her ears. Buffy nodded toward her lover and fellow Slayer and they both pulled out a stake. They stepped toward the bush cautiously.

"Is it a vampire?"

Buffy and Faith spun and gripped their stakes as Joyce and Dawn strode up from the other direction and stopped in front of the couple. Smiling, Joyce held two brown paper bags and a thermos.

"Sorry," Dawn said apologetically. "I told her it was dangerous when you guys are on patrol."

Joyce hefted the lunch bags invitingly. "I brought you both a snack. I thought it was about time I came out to watch, you know, the Slaying."

"Wow, Mrs. S," Faith said in surprised as she took a bag from the older woman.

"Mom, Dawn's right. It's dangerous to be out here without one of us at your side," Buffy insisted

Dawn gazed past her sister, her mother and Faith and focused on the bush, the branches were jerking around. "Buffy, Faith," she said.

Buffy and Faith followed Dawn's gaze and nodded. Faith handed her lunch bag back to Joyce as she and Buffy slipped past Joyce and Dawn and circled the bush, then realized Joyce was trailing after them.

"But it's such a big part of your lives," Joyce pointed out. "And I'd like to understand it. It's something we could share."

Buffy blinked and glanced at Dawn, given what Dawn had told her of Cordelia's wish and that Dawn now had the memories of that alternate Dawn who had been called as a Slayer. As a result, even without the abilities the Slayer gave her and Faith, she knew Dawn could protect herself. Her mother on the other hand had none of that.

"It's really pretty dull, Mom," Dawn told her mother. "Bam, boom, stick, poof. Not much to—" she said a vampire leaped from behind the bush at Buffy and Faith. She pulled Joyce back to her.

Faith blocked the vampire's punch as Buffy spun and landed a solid roundhouse kick.

"Good, honey! Kill it!" Joyce shouted encouragingly.

"Mom, quiet," Dawn snapped.

The vampire stumbled backward, and Buffy jumped at it. Not quick enough—the thing got one of its feet up and caught her smack in the stomach. She went over its head like a rotating bicycle wheel and came down on her back behind it.

"Oh, my God —it's Mr. Sanderson from the bank!" Joyce cried incredulously.

Faith swept the vampire off his feet and raised her stake—

"Are you sure you have to kill him?" Joyce asked. "He opened my IRA."

Faith, Buffy and Dawn all glanced at Buffy in exasperation. "He's not Mr. Sanderson anymore, Mom. He's—" Dawn said.

The thing Faith had been holding down bucked and was up in an instant.

"—getting away," Joyce finished for her youngest daughter.

Buffy looked at her sister. "Keep her here," she commanded as she and Faith sprinted after the newly changed bank officer. Sanderson was fresh and awkward, completely inexperienced, and they were closing on him.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Joyce and Dawn watched Buffy and Faith chase after the vampire.

"Let's find someplace we can wait for Buffy and Faith," Dawn suggested as Joyce nodded. They moved on ahead and into the playground area.

Joyce spied a toy truck a few feet in front of her. Small and battered, it was on its side in one of a dozen mini-puddles left by yesterday's rain, just inside the swing-set area. Somewhere behind her and Dawn, Buffy and Faith yelled in triumph as they finally slayed the vampire. Joyce put the lunch bags and thermos on a bench and went over to the tiny truck, lifting the neglected toy from the water with a small smile as she straightened again.

"Mom," Dawn said as she froze.

Joyce followed her daughter's gaze and her eyes widened as he toy truck slipped from her fingers and fell to the dirt. Mother and daughter focused on what was on the merry-go-round twenty feet away, then went to the figure on the gritty ground next to it.

"Oh…God," Joyce whimpered. Against her will, against all reason, her feet carried her closer to the dreadful thing in front of her followed slowly by Dawn.

One child, a boy, lay on his side on the merry-go-round, his face serene and nearly as pale as his golden blond hair. The other was a girl, smaller and sprawled on the ground a few feet away, shining blond curls framing the cold, forever-silenced features of her face above a cute striped shirt.

"Are they?" Dawn questioned slightly panicky.

Joyce didn't reply as she felt a soul-chilling sadness at the sight of the two dead children, each with a hand flung out as if in supplication, palm up, and painted with a dark and enigmatic symbol…

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The area around the merry-go round was lit with portable lights as police officers moved from squad car to squad car and then to the waiting coroner's van, talking into static-filled radios and stringing crime tape while a police photographer recorded the terrible deed from all angles.

Unlike her lover, Faith had seen dead people before, after all she had watched Kakistos kill her Watcher and adopted mother. She knew out of everyone in the Summers family that Dawn was the only one to have ever seen death like this and that had been thanks to Cordelia's wish since she had received the memories of her counterpart when the wish had been reversed.

Buffy stood next to Faith who had an arm wrapped around her in comfort as they gave their statements to the police officer in front of them about the boy and girl.

The officer made a final notation on his clipboard, then nodded at them and angled away. The Slayers made their way to Joyce and Dawn's side. Dawn had her arm wrapped around Joyce in comfort as Buffy and Faith walked up.

"They said we can go home now," Buffy said softly.

For a moment neither Joyce nor Dawn said nothing, then their eyes met Buffy and Faith's. "They were little kids," Joyce said in a small voice. "Did you see them? So…tiny."

"We saw, Mrs. S," Faith answered.

Joyce's expression was devastated. "Who would do something like this? I never—" She choked a little and hung her head as Dawn wiped her tears away.

"I'm so sorry you had to see this," Buffy said. She touched her mother's arm. "But it's going to be okay."

Joyce only looked at her. "How?"

"We'll find whatever did this," Faith said without hesitation.

"Their the best," Dawn told her mother.

Still, it was obvious Joyce wasn't comforted. "I guess. It's just that you can't…" She paused, then drew in a breath. "You can't make it right." Her shoulders began to shake.

Buffy stepped out of Faith's arm and put her arms around Joyce and Dawn and pulled them both into a tight hug. "It's okay," she said as soothingly as she could. "I'll take care of everything. I promise. Just try to calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Joyce snapped.

Summers Home

Dawn sat at the window in her room looking out at the dark night.

"Hey, Little D."

Dawn glanced over her shoulder at Faith who stood in the doorway. "Hey," she said as Faith walked into the room.

"How are you holding up?" Faith questioned as she went and sat on Dawn's bed.

"It's hard," Dawn admitted sadly. "My mind keeps flashing back to my counterpart's memory of finding Buffy dead and how in that world that was essentially her and me."

"But you didn't…"

Dawn sighed as she moved and sat on her bed next to Faith. "There is one thing I haven't told anyone, not even Giles or Buffy, about that world and what I remember," she admitted as she thought about her counterpart's death. "I died, Faith, fighting the Master. The same vampire that in this world drowned Buffy, and who Buffy subsequently slayed. My counterpart was fighting him and he got in a good hit, sent her stumbling back. He grabbed her and snapped her neck. I remember her last thought as life fled from her body that she would be finally with her sister and mother."

Faith sighed as she wrapped around Dawn. She didn't know what to say about that revelation. To remember dying like that.

January 12, 1999 – Tuesday

Sunnydale High School

On the library stairs above her, Giles recoiled and stepped back. "I only meant—"

"They were kids, Giles." Buffy was so angry she felt her fists clench. "Little kids. You don't know what it was like to see them there. My mom—she can't even talk. And Dawn, I overheard her and Faith talking last night, Giles. Apparently, there was something she told none of us about the world Cordelia's wish created. Her counterpart died, Giles, the Master snapped her neck. Seeing them brought that memory as well as the memory of my counterpart's death to the surface."

Giles stood there, waiting. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I just want to help."

Buffy took a breath to continue her tirade, then realized how useless that was. Her shoulders slumped a bit. "I know."

Giles came the rest of the way down the stairs, and she followed him over to the library table. "Do we know anything about how? It wasn't the vampire—"

Buffy shook her head, stopping the rest of his question. "Faith and I looked. There were no marks." She started to say something else as Giles lifted his cup of tea, then her eyes widened. "Wait—I mean, there was a mark. A symbol." There was an old-looking piece of paper in front of her, and she snatched a marker from the counter and reached for it.

"Ooh—" For balancing a cup of tea in one hand, Giles moved pretty quickly as he slid the paper out of range before the tip of her drawing pen could touch down. "Uh…twelfth-century papal encyclical," he explained as he offered her a notepad instead. "Try this."

Buffy barely registered his words, so intent was she on remembering what she, Faith and Dawn had seen and getting it down properly. "It was on their hands," she told him as she worked. "The cops are keeping it quiet, but Faith and I all got a good look at it." After a few moments, she shoved the notepad back to the librarian and pointed at the symbol she'd drawn, a triangle cut through its upper half by a horizontal line with a downward curve at each end. "Find the thing that uses this symbol, and point me and Faith at it."

Giles studied it. "Hmm."

Buffy frowned at him when he didn't continue. "Hmmm what? Giles, speak."

"What? Oh, sorry." Giles tilted his head as he considered the drawing. "It's just…I wonder if we're looking for a thing at all. The use of a symbol on a victim like this suggests a ritual murder, an occult sacrifice by a group."

Buffy's eyes darkened. "A group of…human beings? Someone with a soul did this?"

"I'm afraid so," Giles told her as he stood and went over to one of the bookcases to scan the titles.

Buffy sat there for a second, not even able to form words as this concept made her feel colder inside than she had in a long time. "Okay," she said at last, then sucked in a lungful of air. "So, while you're looking for the meaning of the symbol thingy, maybe you could turn up a loophole in that 'Slayers don't kill people' rule."

Squatting by the bookcase, Giles swiveled and looked at her in alarm before standing and returning to her side. "Buffy, this is a dreadful crime, I know," he said gently. "You have every right to be upset. However, I wonder if you're not letting yourself get a shade more personal because of your mother's involvement."

"Oh, it's completely personal. Giles, find me the people who did this. Please."

Without another word, Buffy turned and strode out of the library, feeling Giles's gaze on her back before he went back to his beloved research books.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Willow stood in the crowded cafeteria with Amy and scanned the tables, looking for an empty one. A few feet away she could hear Xander trying, somewhat desperately, to make conversation with her boyfriend, Oz.

"So," Xander said with strategic brightness. "A burrito."

Oz glanced at him as he dropped the school's version of genuine Mexican grub onto his tray. His expression never changed. "This is a burrito," he agreed.

"Damn straight," Xander said.

Off to the side, Willow glimpsed Xander and Oz snag a table, so she and Amy angled that way. "Hi, Oz," she said, and smiled. She glanced at Xander and nodded. "Xander."

There were hi's and heys all the way around, then Xander peered at Amy. "Hey, Amy—like the new hair." She had recently darkened her normally blonde bob to brunette.

Amy smiled as Oz looked at Willow. "I haven't seen you all day. Where've you been?" he asked.

Willow opened her mouth to answer, but Xander cut her off. "Not with me!" he announced. "No, sir. Ask anyone." They all stared at him, and he floundered around a final denial. "No."

For a moment silence filled the air. Then Oz sat forward and saved the day. "So," he said. "Buffy's birthday is next week."

Xander's sigh of relief was audible. "Oh—yeah. Good." He grinned slyly. "I've been pondering gift options—"

Willow's eyes widened as she glimpsed something behind Xander. "Shh!"

"Oh, come on," Xander griped. "We just got a topic here."

"Hi, Buffy," Willow said purposefully. She smiled widely at her friend.

"Buffy!" Xander said. Surprised, he still recovered admirably, scooting out of his chair and offering it to her. "So, what's up?" He pulled an empty seat over from another table.

Buffy sat; her face somber. "You guys didn't hear?"

Xander frowned slightly. "Hear what?"

"About the murders," Buffy said quietly. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and Willow noticed she was lunch-free. "Somebody killed two little kids."

Willow gasped. "Oh, no!"

Buffy pressed her lips together. "They were, like, seven or eight years old. My mom and Dawn found the bodies during patrol last night."

"Oh, my God," Amy said.

"Kids?" Oz asked. Even he looked stunned.

Xander was puzzled. "How is it your mom was there?" Dawn he understood as Buffy had started taking her on patrols on occasion as part of their training sessions. But her mom, why would Buffy's mom go with them?

Buffy shook her head in disbelief. "More bad—she picked last night, of all nights, for a surprise 'bonding' visit. Dawn tried to stop her, but…"

Willow tried to process this. "God… your mom would actually take the time to do that with you?" When all her friends eyed her instead of answering, she realized her blunder. "Which… really isn't the point of the story, is it?"

Buffy sighed. "No. The point is both she and Dawn are completely wigging. Mom more so than Dawn, but still…"

"Who's wigging?"

When they realized Joyce was standing behind Buffy, their jerks of surprise were so perfectly timed they could have been choreographed. "Uh, everyone," Buffy managed. She stood, clearly nervous. "You know, because of… what happened."

Joyce nodded listlessly. "Oh, it's so awful. Both Dawn and I had bad dreams about it all night. In fact I kept Dawn home from school, she's staying with Faith."

The haunted expression on the Joyce's face made Willow exchange glances with her friends. "Hi, Mrs. Summers," Willow said, hoping to derail her train of thought. Xander and Oz put in their mumbled one-word greetings while Amy echoed Willow.

"Hello, everybody," Joyce said, but her heart obviously wasn't in it. She turned to her daughter. "Buffy, have you talked with Mr. Giles yet about who could have done it?"

Buffy looked uncomfortable. "Uh, yeah. He thinks it might be something ritual… occult. He's still looking. In the meantime, we're going to add to my patrols. Which will not include Dawn for the foreseeable future. You know, keep an eye out—"

"Occult?" Joyce was clearly appalled. "Like witches?"

Amy's mouth fell open, and she twitched at the same time as Willow's milk suddenly backed up in her throat and made her choke and start coughing. After a second or two, she pulled it together. "Sorry," Willow got out. "Phlegm—too much dairy."

Joyce's gaze stopped on the redhead briefly. "Oh, I know you kids think that stuff is cool. Buffy told me you dabble—"

"Absolutely," Willow agreed, trying to sound happy-go-lucky. "That's me. I'm a dabbler."

"But anybody who could do this isn't cool," Joyce continued. Her breathing was getting shorter and faster with every word. "Anybody who could do this has to be a monster. It—"

"You know what?" Buffy interrupted. She put a hand on her mom's arm as she glanced back at her friends. "Could you guys excuse us for a little bit?"

Willow and the others nodded as Buffy pulled her mom toward the cafeteria exit.

Joyce blinked, then gave them all a little wave. "Nice to see you, kids," she said absently, then let Buffy steer her away.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy followed her mother into the hallway outside the cafeteria, hoping the bustle of students would insulate them from anyone having a tendency to pay too close attention to their conversation. Before she could say anything—like point out that talking about murders and monsters in the cafeteria was way low on the desirable list—Joyce slowed to where they could walk side by side. "You said Dawn wouldn't be helping, which I am thankful for. But what about your friends are they and Faith going to help with the investigation, too?"

Buffy hesitated, trying to figure out how best to word this. "Mom, I really think—" She glanced around, deciding that the busy hallway wasn't any better than the busy cafeteria. Way too many prying ears. "Maybe this isn't the best place to talk about this."

Joyce's eyebrows lifted, then she actually had the grace to look self-conscious for her daughter. "Are you embarrassed to be hanging out with your mother? I didn't hug you."

Buffy tried again. "No, it's just . . . this hall is about school." She shrugged. "And you're about home. Mix them, my world dissolves."

"I know. You have no mother, you hatched full-grown out of a giant egg." Joyce managed the tiniest of smiles, but it faded instantly. "It's just… I keep thinking about who could have done such a thing. I want to help."

Well, Buffy could certainly understand that—like her mother and sister the memory of those children still haunted her, too. She wondered if the memory of it haunted Faith. "Oh. Well, Giles can always use—"

"I called everybody I know in town," Joyce told her, perking up. "I told them about the dead children. They're all just as upset as I am."

For a moment Buffy was speechless. "You… called everybody you know?"

"And they called all their friends," Joyce told her proudly. "And guess what? We're setting up a vigil for tonight at City Hall—the Mayor is even going to be there. Now we'll get some action."

"Uh-huh," Buffy said slowly. "That's… great. Uh, but you know what? A lot of times, when we're working on something like this, we like to keep the number of people who know about it kind of… small."

"Oh," Joyce said. Obviously, this had never occurred to her. "Right. Well, I'm sure there won't be all that many people."

City Hall

There must have been more than a hundred men and women there—milling around the spacious rotunda murmuring to one another about the terrible crime that had been committed. The air was filled with the faint scent of burning wicks from the unscented candles most of the people carried about like small, personal torches. Those who were candle-deprived had another prize to show off: signs with enlarged photographs of the two murdered children and the determined slogan "NEVER AGAIN" stretched across the bottom in thick, impossible-to-ignore red letters outlined in black. The same posters, only larger, had been hung all around the rotunda and on the wall behind an oak podium.

Dawn stood huddled between Buffy and Faith. When Buffy got home after school Faith had told her that Dawn had slowly been getting better throughout the day. Dawn wasn't back to one hundred percent but she was getting there.

"This is great," Buffy said as she eyeballed the crowd. Her voice was heavy with disgust, making no effort at all to hide her displeasure. "Maybe we can all go patrolling together later."

"I don't want to," Dawn whispered.

"You don't have to," Faith told the younger Summers' sister.

"At least your mom's making an effort," Willow pointed out to Buffy. "My mom's probably—" She faltered as someone edged out of a group and came toward them from among the people milling about. "Standing right in front of me right this second." She stared. "Mom?"

Dawn and Buffy looked as surprised as Willow felt when Willow's mother, an exasperated expression on her face, pushed through a final knot of people and joined them. That same astonishment must have been contagious, because it sure showed on Mrs. Rosenberg's face when she saw her daughter. Then her mouth turned up in a pleased smile.

"Willow! I didn't know you were going to be here." She glanced at Buffy, Fawn and Faith briefly. "Oh, hi."

"Hi," Buffy, Dawn and Faith said, smiling thinly.

"Mom," Willow blurted, "what are you doing here?"

"Oh, well, I read about it in the paper, and what with your dad out of town—" She stopped abruptly, staring at her daughter. "Willow, you cut off your hair! That's a new look."

Willow tucked a strand behind her ear self-consciously. "Yeah, it's just a sudden whim that I had… in August."

The comment was lost on the older woman. "I like it," she said as Joyce joined them. "Hello, Joyce."

"Sheila," Joyce said, much too fondly for Willow's liking.

"I'm glad you could come."

"There you two are," Giles said as he threaded his way through the crowd. He sounded slightly breathless. "I almost didn't find you both in this crush." He started to say something else, then his words stuttered away as he realized Joyce was standing there. For an awkward moment, the two adults froze as they faced each other, then he found a small, strained smile. "Oh, uh, Mrs.… Joyce." He cleared his throat. "This is quite a turnout you've gotten here."

"Well, it's not just me," Joyce said a little too cheerily. "But thank you." She stared at Giles. "Well," she said again. "It's… uh, been a while."

"Right," Giles agreed. "Not since… not since…" He blinked. "Not for a while."

Sheila leaned forward. "There's a rumor going around, Mr. Giles."

Giles blanched. "A rumor? About us? About what?"

"About witches," Sheila said earnestly. "People calling themselves witches are responsible for this brutal crime."

Giles exhaled. "Indeed? How strange."

"Yes," Willow agreed with a nervous laugh. "So strange—witches!" Belatedly she realized how high and anxiety-riddled her voice was. To try to cover, she made a dismissive raspberry sound with her lips.

"Well, actually not that strange," Sheila put in. She looked at Joyce and Giles and twisted her hands together. "I recently co-authored a paper about the rise of mysticism among adolescents, and I was shocked at the statistical—" She stopped as she noticed activity around the podium. "Oh, are we starting?"

All the people in the overpacked area had finally fallen silent as the Mayor's voice shuddered through the microphone. "Hello, everybody."

Joyce leaned over to her daughters and Faith. "He'll do something about this," she told them. "You'll see."

Mayor Wilkins, appropriately attired in a somber gray suit and tie, kept his expression puppy-dog sad and his voice subdued. "I want to thank you all for coming in the aftermath of such a tragic crime," he told the crowd. His gaze swept the room. "Seeing you here proves what a caring community Sunnydale is. Sure, we've had our share of misfortunes, but we're a good town, with good people. And I know none of us will rest easy until this horrible murder is solved. With that in mind—" He reached behind the podium and raised one of the signs bearing the photo of the dead children. His voice took on a faintly dramatic tone. "I make these words my pledge to you," he declared. "Never again."

Murmurs of approval and agreement rippled through the crowd, cut here and there by a few over enthusiastic who outright applauded. Wilkins held up his hand. "Now, I ask you to give your attention to the woman who brought us all here tonight, Joyce Summers."

The Mayor gallantly stepped to the side, then guided Joyce up to the podium. "Thank you," Joyce said, then faced the audience. For a moment she didn't make a sound. But when she did speak, her words gave everyone in the audience a jolt. "Mr. Mayor, you're dead wrong."

Buffy, Dawn and Faith all looked at Joyce surprised, just as surprised as Willow, Giles, and the rest of the people in the room.

At the podium, Joyce's voice cut clearly across the room, and she leaned into the microphone. "This is not a good town. How many of us have lost someone who just—just disappeared, or got skinned, or suffered 'neck rupture'? And how many of us have been too afraid to speak out?" Her expression was faintly bewildered as she looked at all of them. "I was supposed to lead us in a moment of silence, but silence is this town's disease."

Buffy, Dawn, Faith and Giles all exchanged worried glances, and Buffy wrapped her arms around Dawn in an unconscious gesture of protection while Faith wrapped hers around Buffy.

"For too long we've been plagued by unnatural evils," Joyce continued. Her voice was growing stronger. "This isn't our town anymore. It belongs to the monsters and the witches, and the Slayers."

The sisters and Faith's eyes widened as Willow gasped. And no wonder. How could Joyce say such a thing—didn't she realize that by doing so she was lumping the town's salvation, its source of good, in with all the bad?

At the podium, Joyce now stood straight and tall, and her tone was filled with determination as she gripped the sides of the wooden stand. "I say it's time for the grown-ups to take Sunnydale back. And I say we start by finding the people who did this and making them pay."

Everyone in the audience—except Willow, Giles, Buffy, Dawn and Faith—cheered and heartily applauded Joyce's declaration of retaliation.

January 13, 1999 – Wednesday

Sunnydale High School

Buffy saw it start to happen from halfway down the hall, and her keen hearing picked up every word even as she lengthened her stride and began to weave through the mass of students hurrying in every direction.

She hadn't known him long, but Michael was an okay guy, maybe a little on the small side considering he had a penchant for going Goth, and that could attract all kinds of wrong attention. As he opened his locker and checked out his appearance—decked out in full tortured-soul mode, blackened lips included—in a stick-up mirror, he didn't see the knot of jock-jerks until they were right in front of his locker. As he stepped away from the door, Michael jumped as the lead one, Roy, reached out and slammed it, just missing his nose.

"Watch it!" Michael exclaimed.

In response the bigger guy grabbed Michael's collar and bounced him backward against the metal. "Oh, sorry." Roy sneered. "Did I make you smudge your eyeliner? Going to put a spell on me?"

Amy, getting something from her own locker a few feet away, stepped forward. "Hey, what is your problem?"

Hammy fists still wrapped firmly in Michael's collar, Roy looked over at her, then shoved his face close to Michael's. His cronies huddled close for support. "Everyone knows he's into that voodoo witch crap. I heard about those kids—people like him got to learn a lesson."

"And what about people like me?" Amy demanded hotly.

He gave her a withering glance. "Get in my face and you'll find out."

A small crowd of students had already gathered, and Buffy gave silent thanks that she'd only been half the hallway's length away. This was happening so quickly—had she been way over by the main entrance, poor Michael would have been pummeled by now. Whatever might have been, however, quickly dissipated when she angled past the last two or three teenagers and, making sure she was wearing the cheerfulest of expectant smiles, leaned her head in between Amy and Roy.

Healthy and athletic, Roy still stopped dead when he saw her. "Uh… no problem here." His big hands loosened, then he gave Michael's rumpled shirt a small pat and tug to put it back in place. He glanced at her again, then nodded to his pals. "We're walking."

The three of them watched the group take off, then Buffy turned back to Amy and Michael. "You guys okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Michael said. He sounded totally disgusted. "We're fine."

"Thanks, Buffy," Amy added. She and Michael walked away, and Buffy saw Michael rub his arm where his elbow had hit the lockers. Again, it was a good thing she'd been around. Even Giles had been drawn out of the library by the noise of the potential fight, and his expression clearly indicated he wanted to speak with her.

As she started to go to him, the sound of Cordelia's voice made her realize that her Watcher wasn't the only one waiting for her time and attention. "You're going to be one busy little Slayer, baby-sitting them."

Buffy regarded her. "I doubt they'll have any more trouble."

Cordelia's face remained calm and expressionless, almost cold. "I doubt your doubt. Everyone knows that witches killed those kids, and Amy is a witch. And Michael is… whatever a boy witch is, plus being the poster child for yuck."

"Cordelia—"

The dark-haired girl hugged her books. "If you're going to hang with them," she said icily, "expect badness. Because that's what you get when you hang with freaks and losers. Believe me, I know." She spun, but before she'd taken five steps, she turned back briefly and raised an eyebrow. "That was a pointed comment about me hanging with you guys."

"Yeah, I got that one," Buffy said, but Cordelia's back was to her, and she was already striding away. "Besides," she called a little angrily, "witches didn't do it! And you know I don't like being called a freak!"

Behind her, Buffy heard Giles clear his throat. When she faced him, he leaned closer, his voice dropping confidentially. "Actually, I think they may have. My research keeps leading me back to European Wiccan covens."

"You found the meaning of the symbol?"

"I'm pretty sure, yes." Despite his words, he seemed anything but. "There's a piece of information that I need that's in a book Willow borrowed. Can you find it?"

"No problem," she said.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The first moment she had, Buffy headed for the student lounge. Inside, it was easy to pick out Xander slouched on one of the couches.

"Buffy," he said brightly. "Hi."

"Hey," she said. "Is Willow around?"

Xander scowled defensively and sat up straighter. "How can I convince you people that it's over? You assume because I'm here, she's here—that I somehow, mysteriously, know where she is."

Buffy glanced at a table a few feet away and saw a couple of books, the edge of a familiar notebook. "Are those hers?"

"Yeah," Xander answered. "She's in the bathroom."

Buffy didn't say anything, just went over and started looking through the books.

Trailing after her, Xander was working himself into full indignation zone. "But the fact that I know that doesn't change that I have a genuine complaint here," he insisted. "Look, I'm sick of the judgment, the innuendo. Is a man not innocent until proven guilty?"

There, second from the top, was undoubtedly the one Giles was looking for—the nasty symbol etched into its cover was hard to miss. "You are guilty," she told him without missing a beat. "You got illicit smoochies, you have to pay the price."

"But I'm talking about future guilt." Xander waved his arm at the room in general. "Everyone expects me to mess up again. Like Oz—I see the way he is around me. You know, that steely gaze, the pointed silence."

"Because he's usually such a chatterbox." Buffy flipped through the book.

"No," Xander protested. "It's different now. It's more a verbal nonverbal. He says volumes with his eyes."

Buffy started to respond, then stopped as her gaze went to the table and Willow's open notebook. She managed not to recoil, but just barely. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. There, on a page in the center of her best friend's notebook, was the symbol, that very same symbol, hand-copied with a big black marker and surrounded by her friend's neatly written notes.

It matched exactly with what had been drawn on the palms of the murdered kids.

Buffy was standing by her pile of books when Willow came out of the restroom. "Hey, Buff," she said. "Whatcha looking for—you want to borrow something?"

Buffy picked up Willow's notebook by its edges, as though she were unwilling to touch it. "What's… this?" she asked as she tensed, her eyes going hard.

Willow looked at Buffy, then at the notebook. "A doodle," she said nervously. "I do doodle. You, too—you do doodle, too."

Xander folded his arms and gazed at Buffy. "You're not going to make me feel better, are you?" He sounded completely exasperated.

Willow didn't know what he was talking about, but Buffy ignored him and faced her. "This is a witch symbol."

Confused, Willow could only nod. "Okay, yeah. It is."

"Willow!"

"What?"

Buffy pointed to the symbol. "That symbol was on the murdered children!"

For a long second, Willow simply stared at her, unable to process what she'd just heard. When she did speak, her words were jumbled and running into one another. Dread seeped into her arms and legs, making her weak. "It was on the kids… oh, no, Buffy—I didn't know, no one told me about that. I swear—"

Before Willow could finish, there was a huge commotion in the hallway outside the lounge, with people yelling and banging, a whole bunch of locker doors clanging open and against one another. Her attention momentarily diverted, Buffy handed her the notebook and watched as she gathered the rest of her stuff. Then the three of them hurried to the hallway to see what was what. Just as they got there, a voice echoed over a bullhorn farther down the hall.

"Stay away from the lockers—this is police business! Stay away!"

Students were smashed together in the hallway, trying to get closer to their lockers despite the warnings.

Teachers wandered among them, their faces grim and etched with determination, without a hint of mercy or sympathy. Principal Snyder appeared absurdly pleased as he paced along the rows of lockers, supervising a custodian who bypassed the combination locks with a master key. Armed security guards flanked the custodian, their eyes mistrustful as they gazed at the unhappy students. Farther down, Buffy saw another faculty member stopping students and rudely searching through their purses and backpacks. As she, Willow, and Xander stared in dismay, Oz and Amy joined them.

"Oh, man," Xander said beneath his breath. "It's Nazi Germany, and I've got Playboys in my locker."

Ten yards away, the ratty, exhilarated smile on Snyder's face was impossible to miss. "This is a glorious day for principals everywhere!" he declared loudly. "No pathetic whining about students' rights—just a long row of lockers and a man with a key."

Oz leaned in between Buffy and Willow, keeping his voice low. "They just took three kids away," he told them.

Buffy frowned. "What are they looking for?"

Amy slid close to them, her face pale and distressed. "Witch stuff."

Willow gaped at her. "What?"

"They got my spells," Amy said in a low voice. "I'm supposed to report to Snyder's office."

"Oh, my God," Willow whispered. She tried to think of something comforting to say to Amy, but the thought was lost when a teacher stepped out of the crowd and took Amy by the arm.

"Okay, Amy," he said gruffly. "You'll have to come with me."

Amy didn't bother resisting as he led her away, but she did look back over her shoulder. "Willow, be careful."

Panic threatened to overwhelm Willow, and she turned back to Buffy. "I have stuff in my locker!" She looked around a little wildly as more lockers were forced open. "Henbane, hellibore, mandrake root—"

"Excuse me," Xander interrupted. "Playboys? Can we work the sympathy this-a-way?"

Buffy looked as if she was going to retort, then there was a bang as another locker was opened.

Cordelia's sharp voice rose above the unhappy muttering of the students. "Hey! Get your grubby custodial hands off that! That hair spray cost forty-five dollars and it's imported!"

Willow touched Buffy's arm, still unable to believe what was happening. "My locker's next—Buffy, I didn't do anything wrong. That symbol… it's harmless. I used it to make a protection spell for you, for your birthday, with Michael and Amy. Only now it's broken, because you know about it, and so happy birthday, and please—you have to believe me!"

"Ms. Rosenberg," the principal said in a calm, disgustingly delighted voice as he held up two bags of dried herbs and roots. "My office."

Convinced she was doomed, Willow looked at the floor and started toward where Snyder waited. Her heart was pounding with terror—what was she going to do? She faltered a little as Buffy suddenly cut across her path, then felt a welcome bit of relief as her friend oh-so-casually lifted her notebook and Giles's witchcraft book from her arms without anyone noticing. To help her even more, Oz immediately fell in step next to her.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy burst through the library doors, thinking that she was leaving the chaos of modern-day search and seizure behind.

She was wrong.

Three steps in, and an armed guard, a clone of the ones out by the students' lockers, pushed past her all the while juggling a full box of library books. She glared at him, then realized there were others inside and up the stairs, even inside the library cage, piling more of Giles's books haphazardly into a dozen waiting boxes. A good portion of the library was in disarray, and Giles was so angry he was practically sputtering. "Giles?"

The librarian hurried to her, then spread his hands. "They're confiscating my books!"

He joined her at the counter. "Giles, we need those books."

"Believe me," Giles said, and grimaced at one of the guards. "I tried telling that to the nice man with the big gun."

"No," she said. She stepped closer, trying to make him understand and keep her voice down at the same time. "There's something about this symbol we're not getting—Willow said she used it in a protection spell. It's harmless, not a big bad, so why would it turn up in a ritual sacrifice?"

"I don't know," Giles admitted. Frustration put lines in his forehead. "Ordinarily I would say let's widen our research—"

"With what?" Buffy demanded. "A dictionary and My Friend Flicka?"

Giles spun, becoming more furious as another box of books was hauled away. "This is intolerable," he growled as Buffy set Willow's notebook and the book she'd retrieved on the counter. "Snyder has interfered before, but I won't take this from that twisted little homunculus!"

Before Giles could continue his tirade, Snyder's sharp voice cut the air from a few feet away. "I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning," he said smugly. He toasted Giles with his coffee cup as yet another guard hurried past and began rummaging along the library shelves.

Every muscle in Giles's face was rigid, and he looked as if the only thing in the world he wanted was to pop the principal in the nose. "Get out," he said between clenched teeth. "And take your… your marauders with you."

"Oh, my. So fierce." Snyder glanced around the library. "I suppose I should hear you out," he said, then reached over and plucked a book from the top of a pile waiting to be packed up. "Tell me, just how is, um, Blood Rites and Sacrifices appropriate material for a public-school library? Is the Chess Club branching out?" He tossed the book into an open box, not noticing as Buffy casually reached out and pushed Willow's items off the counter. Amid the racket made by the guards, no one noticed the sound they made as they fell out of sight.

"Those items are my personal research materials," Giles said hotly. "I assure you, they're all perfectly harmless."

The words had barely left his mouth when a guard inside the library cage noticed the cabinet door and pulled it open. Buffy winced as the uniformed man turned to Snyder and gestured to get his attention.

Snyder glanced at the weaponry displayed inside—the deadly collection of crossbows, axes, spears, and more—then turned back toward Giles and grinned gleefully. "And?"

"They're antiques," Giles said quickly.

"And so are you," Snyder shot back. "A relic of a progressive era that is finally coming to an end. Welcome to the new age." He tipped the coffee cup toward them and started to walk away.

"This is not over," Giles snarled.

Snyder stopped. "Oh, I'd say it's just beginning. Fight it if you want. Just remember—lift a finger against me, and you'll have to answer to MOO."

Buffy could stand it no longer. "MOO? Did that sentence make some sense that I'm just not in on?"

"'Mothers Opposed to the Occult,'" Snyder said briskly.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "And who came up with that lame name?"

Snyder took a sip of his coffee, then stepped past Buffy and Giles. "That would be the founder," he said haughtily as he strolled away. "I believe you call her Mom."

Summers Home

"I don't want you three seeing that Willow anymore," Joyce Summers said looking at her daughters and Faith. "I've spoken with her mother—I had no idea her forays into the occult had gone so far."

"Mrs. S, I'm not…" Faith started.

"As long as you live under my roof, Faith, you are," Joyce countered.

Speechless, all Buffy and Dawn could do was stare at Joyce. They both felt as if they'd stepped out of sync with time for a month or two, and while they were gone their mother, and most of the town, had gone crazy. The insanity had even come to roost inside their house, where somehow their mom had converted a perfectly normal dining room into an area that was half bizarre campaign office and half morbid shrine. On the table that was now a desk was Joyce's laptop computer, but it was almost lost in the phone lists, file folders, papers, pamphlets, and paraphernalia. The sorrowful eyes of the murdered little boy and girl watched her from posters in every corner of the room; more signs leaned against the desk and all available wall space. Red buttons—'MOO, Mothers Opposed to the Occult!'—littered the space around the computer, and, of course, one was pinned to her mother's lapel.

"You're the one who ordered the raid on the school today," Buffy said in amazement.

"They raided yours too?" Dawn said as she looked at her sister. "They came to my school and opened lockers. Took a couple of my friends."

Joyce gave her daughters a dismissive glance. "Honey, they opened a few lockers."

"Lockers," Faith said pointedly, her eyes widening. "I'm sorry, Mrs. S. but the whole point of a locker is that it's supposed to be private."

"And they took all of Giles's books away!" Buffy added.

"He'll get most of them back," Joyce said as she made a notation on some form or another. "MOO just wants to weed out the offensive material. Everything else will be returned to Mr. Giles soon."

Annoyed, Buffy handed Dawn to Faith before pacing in front of the table. "If we're going to solve this, we need those books now."

"Sweetie, those books had no place in a public-school library. Any student can waltz in there and get all sorts of ideas." Joyce stood and came around the table, stopping in front of her daughters and Faith with her fists clenched. "Do you understand how that terrifies me?"

Buffy pressed her lips together, trying to be patient, needing, willing, her mother to see her point of view. "Mom, I hate that these people scared you so much. And I—I know you're trying to help. But you have to let us handle this," she said motioning between herself and Faith. "It's what we do."

Joyce only looked at them placidly. "But is it really? I mean, you two and sometimes Dawn patrols. You all slay. Evil pops up, you all undo it. And that's great—but is Sunnydale getting any better? Are they running out of vampires?"

"I don't think they run out—" Dawn started.

"It's not your fault," Joyce said gently. "You three don't have a plan. You all just react to things. It's bound to be kind of … fruitless."

Buffy took a step backward, stung, then turned in a circle as she tried to organize her thoughts.

"Okay, maybe we don't have a plan," Faith said. "And lord knows we don't have lapel buttons—"

"Faith—"

"—and maybe the next time the world is getting sucked into Hell, Faith, Dawn and I won't be able to stop it, because the anti-Hell-sucking book isn't on the approved reading list!" Buffy said cutting her mother off. She glared at Joyce.

"I'm sorry," Joyce said. "I didn't mean to put down—"

"Yeah, well, you did," Dawn cut in.

Buffy shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Faith and I have to go—we have to go on one of our pointless patrols and 'react' to some vampires… if that's all right with MOO."

Joyce didn't say anything, just stood there watching her daughters and Faith. Buffy couldn't help stopping on hers and Faith's way out and sending her mother a final, disgusted glance. "And nice acronym, Mom!"

Joyce sighed, feeling the weariness caused by this terrible situation all the way down to her bones. "I'm just trying to make things better," she said to Dawn softly.

"I know, mom," Dawn admitted as she turned toward the stairs. "But you are also making things more difficult for Buffy and Faith to do their jobs. And should something ever happen to Faith for me to do mine eventually." She took off up the stairs and Joyce heard the bedroom door slam behind her youngest daughter.

Weatherly Park

"You have to admit this place is eerily quiet," Faith said looking around the playground.

"Yeah," Buffy sadly agreed.

No bushes rustled, no leaves blew across the walkway, not even a breeze dared to shake the overhead branches of the trees. The vampires and beasties of the night had elected to stay huddled away from the child murderer that apparently still roamed free on the streets of Sunnydale.

"Something is off," Faith admitted. "No idea what though."

"Yeah, I know," Buffy agreed sadly. "And I have no idea how we're going to fight it."

And ahead was the hard proof of what they were talking about.

Innocent on the surface, the sight that met their eyes was indicative of emotions gone to the extreme.

The merry-go-round and the ground next to it where Joyce and Dawn had discovered the children was now blanketed in red and blue candles, cards, and photographs. Between the pictures and spots of softly glowing flame were bowls and vases of flowers, so many that it looked like an outdoor version of a funeral home waking room. As they walked slowly toward the piece of playground equipment turned shrine, they saw Angel slip into step beside them.

"Hey," he said.

They stopped and faced him. "Hey," Buffy said softly as Faith wrapped her arms around her. "How are you?"

"I'm all right." He studied them; his face solemn. "I think I'm better than you two right now."

Buffy glanced toward the improvised memorial, then looked glumly at the ground. He was so close to the truth that she didn't know what to say.

"I heard about this," Angel said in a low voice as he eyed the merry-go-round. "People are talking. People are even talking to me."

"It's strange," Faith said. "People die in Sunnydale all the time. But since I came to Sunnydale, I've never seen anything like this. Now back in Boston is another thing entirely, I've seen it there."

Buffy glanced at her girlfriend and knew what Faith was talking about, Diana's murder by Kakistos. She turned and headed for the park bench at the border of the playground, Angel and Faith followed.

"They were children—innocent. It makes a difference," he said.

"And Mr. Sanderson from the bank had it coming?" Buffy sat, still staring at the shrine, thinking how it looked like a little island of glowing light in the midst of darkness. "My mom," she said slowly, "said some things to us and Dawn about being the Slayer. That it's fruitless." She looked at her fingers, then raised her gaze to Faith and Angel and shook her head. "No fruit for us or Dawn should she ever be called."

"She's wrong," Faith said.

"Is she?" Buffy searched Faith's eyes. "Is Sunnydale any better than when I first came here? Okay, so you and I battle evil, Faith… but we don't really win. The bad keeps coming back and getting stronger. I'm like the kid in that story, the boy who stuck his finger in the duck."

Angel blinked. "Dike." When Buffy and Faith only looked confused, he explained. "It's another word for dam."

"Oh," they said.

"Okay, that story makes a lot more sense now," Buffy admitted.

Angel took Buffy's hand before reaching for Faith's. "You two know I'm still figuring things out. There's a lot I don't understand. But I do know it's important to keep fighting. And I learned that from you, Buffy."

"But we never—" Buffy started

"We never win," Faith finished for her.

Buffy looked at her girlfriend sadly. "Not completely."

"We never will." He squeezed their fingers. "That's not why we fight. We do it because there are things worth fighting for."

"He's right, B," Faith said as she sat down on the bench next to her girlfriend. "Do you know what my reason for fighting is?" Buffy shook her head. "You… you and Dawn and your mom. The three people who showed me that I could be better than I was. Three people who showed me that I could be in love and have friends. Something I never thought I could do or have before I met you."

Buffy remained silent.

Angel looked toward the playground area again, the telling circle of candles, photographs, and flowers. "Those kids. Their parents."

Buffy sat up a little straighter. "Their parents…"

"What is it, B?" Faith asked seeing in her lover's face that Buffy had realized something.

Sunnydale High School

When Oz and Xander strode into the library, the first thing Oz noticed were the huge, ugly gaps in the book shelves, sad evidence that the heart had been cut out of most of the Watcher realm of Giles's world.

The second thing the two teenagers saw was Giles himself.

The librarian looked totally out of place, sitting at the library table in front of the computer for which he had never hidden his dislike. He was leaning toward it with a small bag of munchies—probably something dry and tastelessly adult—clutched in his right hand while he poked angrily at the keyboard with his left.

In the time it took for Oz and Xander to walk through the door and past the counter, Giles had already made several rude gestures at the screen and gone into shouting mode.

"Session interrupted?" Giles's voice rose even louder as he stared at the monitor in amazement, then jammed another tidbit from his bag into his mouth and chewed furiously. "Who said you could interrupt, you stupid, useless fad! That's right—I said fad! And I'll say it again!"

"At that point I will become frightened," Xander said next to him.

"Take heart," Oz said. "We found your books." At the almost painfully grateful expression on Giles's face when he turned and looked at them, Oz wished then that he hadn't made such an announcement of it.

"You can put the heart back," Xander said quickly. "We can't get 'em—they're locked up in City Hall." He leaned over Giles's shoulder, trying to read what was on the computer screen. "'Frisky Watchers Chat Room.' Why, Giles…"

Giles shot Xander a withering look, but before the librarian could retort, Buffy followed by Faith burst into the library.

"Buffy! Faith!" Xander exclaimed. "Oz and I found out—"

"What do we know about those kids?" Buffy interrupted.

Giles frowned. "What?"

"Facts," Faith said sharply. "Details."

"Well, they were found in the park," Xander began.

Buffy held up a hand, stopping him. "No—where did they go to school? Who are their parents? What are their names?"

Oz looked at Giles and Xander, but none of them had any answers. At their perplexed expressions, Buffy continued, "We know everything about their deaths, but we don't even know their names!"

"Sure, we do," Xander offered. Then he hesitated. "Uh… it's on the tip of my tongue—"

Oz pondered this. "It never came up. Ever."

Faith nodded. "And if no one knows who they are, where did these pictures come from?"

Giles sat back. "I—I just assumed that someone had the details. I never really… well, it is strange."

Buffy jerked a finger at the computer. "We need to get some information."

"Well, let somebody else do it," Giles said in indignation. He glared at the computer. "This thing has locked me out."

Xander grinned. "Well, if you wouldn't yell at it . . ."

Oz stepped up to the table, and Giles gave him a thankful nod and pushed himself out of the chair, offering it. "I can look around," Oz said, and settled in front of the keyboard. "But Willow would really know the sites we need."

"That's great," Buffy said. She was practically spinning in frustration. "She can't even come to the phone."

Oz smiled a little as he covered the mouse with his fingers. "We don't need the phone." The cursor zipped around the screen as he found the dial-up program and keyed in Willow's modem line. A few seconds later, a pop-up menu indicated she'd picked up the call on her computer. "All right," he said. "We're linked. If anybody ID'd the kids, she'll pull it up and feed it here."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Oz motioned at Giles and the others, and they crowded around behind him to get a look at the monitor.

"Two children," Giles read, "found dead. Mysterious mark… no. These children were found near Omaha in 1949."

Xander made a dismissive noise. "They ain't ours. Keep going."

Oz reached for the forward arrow, but Buffy stopped him. "Wait," she said.

Oz paused and focused on the black-and-white image downloading on the screen, the resolution

improving with each passing second. Soon the image was obviously of two little kids, and when it was finally finished and sharp, the five of them stared at it.

"The same kids," Faith said.

Giles's voice was filled with amazement. "More than fifty years ago!"

Suddenly the screen's contents shifted and a new article, this one without a photograph, took the place of the previous information.

Oz leaned forward to read it. "Utah, 1899, two children—rural community torn apart by suspicion."

"A hundred years," Giles said, perplexed. "Yes, but how is that possible?"

Oz kept reading. "There's no mention of who they were."

Buffy crossed her arms. "They've never been seen alive, just dead. A lot."

The screen image wiped again, this time filling with old-style German type. In the upper right of the article was a reproduction of an antique woodcut; not very well rendered, yet the two small figures on it were still eerily familiar. A message box flashed in the upper right of the screen, and Oz read aloud what Willow had noted in it. "Yeah, there are more articles. Every fifty years, all the same."

"From as far back as 1649," Giles said thoughtfully. "May I see that?"

Oz rose and let the librarian take his place in front of the computer, watching as Giles scrolled down and concentrated on translating the German. "Written by a cleric from a village near the Black Forest," the Watcher told them. "He found the bodies himself, two children, Greta Strauss, age six, and Hans Strauss, age eight."

"So, they have names," Xander murmured. "That's new."

The computer bleeped, and Giles stared at it in confusion. "What—"

Oz reached over his shoulder and tapped a key. "We lost Willow."

Rosenberg Residence

Leaning on her elbows as she read from the screen, Willow jumped when her mother opened her door wide and strode over to the bed. "I thought I made myself clear," Sheila Rosenberg said angrily. "You're not minding me, Willow." Before Willow could think, the older woman reached down and closed the laptop, then her fingers slid to the side and disconnected the modem line. She lifted it from the bed and tucked it under her arm. "I see what you're doing," Sheila said. "You're challenging me. But I will not have you communicating with your… cyber-coven or what have you."

Willow brought her legs around and sat upright. "Coven? What happened to me being delusional and acting out?"

Sheila hesitated, and when she spoke again, some of the sternness of her voice had vanished. "Well, that was before I talked in depth with Mrs. Summers and her associates. It seems I've been rather close-minded." She waved a hand in the air.

Willow brightened. "So—you believe me?"

Her mother's face softened, and she smiled sweetly. "I believe you, dear." She hesitated again for the briefest of moments, then said, "Now all I can do is let you go with love."

Willow's mouth dropped open. "Let me go? What does that mean? Mom?"

Her mother didn't answer. Instead she turned and walked out of Willow's room, shut the door behind herself—

—and locked it.

Sunnydale High School

"I can't get her back—she's gone off-line," Oz told them. He tried again, but it was no use.

"No, wait a minute," Giles said as he paced around the room. "Greta Strauss, Hans Strauss." After a few seconds, he hurried over to a bookshelf, then realized the books he so desperately wanted were gone. He looked at the empty spaces helplessly, then turned back to Oz and the others, trying to pull the facts from his overtaxed memory. "There is a fringe theory held by a few folklorists that some regional stories have actual, very literal antecedents," he said. He pulled off his glasses and chewed absently on one earpiece.

Buffy's mouth turned down. "And in some language, that's English?"

Oz gave up on trying to reconnect with Willow and looked over at Giles. "Fairy tales are real."

"Ah. Hans and Greta." Faith's brow furrowed as she crossed her arms and tried to work this out. "Hansel and Gretel?" she said remembering the fairy tale her mother had told her as a child, before her mother had become a drunk and drinking herself to death.

"Wait," Xander protested. "Hansel and Gretel? As in breadcrumbs, ovens, gingerbread house?"

"Of course," Giles said distractedly. "It makes sense now."

Buffy frowned. "Yeah, it's all falling into place. Of course, that place is nowhere near this place."

"There are demons that thrive by fostering persecution and hatred among the mortal animals," Giles explained. "Not by destroying men but by watching them destroy each other. They feed us our darkest fear and, by doing so, turn peaceful communities into vigilantes."

Understanding slipped over Faith's features. "Hansel and Gretel run home to tell everyone about the mean old witch—"

"And she and probably dozens of others are punished by a righteous mob," Giles finished. "It's happened throughout history—it happened in Salem, not surprisingly."

Xander blinked. "Whoa, whoa, whoa—I'm still spinning on the whole fairy-tales-are-real thing."

"What do we do?" Oz asked as Giles paced in front of him again.

"I don't know about you," Xander put in glibly, "but I'm going to go trade my cow for some beans." When they glared at him, he hunched up his shoulders. "No one else is seeing the funny here?"

"Giles," Buffy said in a rush, "we need to talk to Mom. If she knows the truth, she can defuse this whole thing—"

Before she could keep going, the library door burst open and Michael barreled through. His face was bloodied and full of bruises, and everyone ran to him as he clutched at the counter.

Xander was the quickest on the verbal draw list. "What happened?"

Michael gasped for breath, finally found enough to push out the words. "I was attacked!"

Xander winced. "Officially not funny."

"By whom?" Faith demanded.

Michael hugged himself and struggled for more air, his expression full of a pain that had nothing to do with the physical. "My dad! His friends. They're taking people out of their homes, something about a trial down at City Hall—" He inhaled harshly. "They've got Amy."

Oz jerked. "Willow!"

Michael reached out and clutched at Oz's arm. "Tell her to get out of her house!"

"Michael, stay here and hide," Buffy instructed.

"In my office," Giles added.

"Giles, we'll go find my mom." Buffy turned toward Oz. "Faith, you go with Oz and Xander—"

But Faith was already at the library door, with Oz and Xander right behind her. "We're motoring."

Summers Home

Buffy could smell cookies and baked hors d'oeuvres when she and Giles rushed through the front door into her house. It was an absurdly homey smell, one that, for just a second, made her think this entire situation had been a mistake that had somehow rectified itself in the time it had taken her and Giles to get from the library to here.

But when she turned into the living room, she immediately saw how wrong an idea that was.

Joyce was sitting on a chair she'd placed at one end of the coffee table, while on the couch and the love seat were five people Buffy didn't know, no doubt fellow MOO members. The comforting scents were coming from the platters of cookies and freshly made snacks amid the pamphlets and what-not on the coffee table, while more of those dreadful dead children signs leaned against every available piece of wall space.

Buffy's first thought was where was Dawn? She didn't see her sister. Was Dawn in her room?

"Did you speak to the families on Sycamore Street?" Joyce asked before she realized Buffy and Giles were standing in the doorway, obviously agitated. "Buffy, Mr. Giles." She looked at them, surprised. "Did something happen?"

"Mom, we need to talk to you." Buffy looked at the other people in the room, and they stared back without a trace of friendship or warmth in their expressions. "Now."

"Of course, honey." Joyce put the pencil and papers she'd been holding aside and rose. She slipped one hand into the pocket of her sweater. "Go on without me," she said to her guests, then made her way toward Buffy. "Where is Faith?"

"At work," Buffy said. "We need to talk alone." She turned and let her mother follow her into the entry hall. "First off, where is Dawn?"

"Upstairs, sleeping," Joyce answered.

Buffy nodded. "Second, there's more going on than you—"

Her mother's hand came around her cheek and clamped over her mouth. Buffy sucked in a lungful of air to protest and realized too late that it was laden with chemicals—chloroform! Now she understood what her mother had meant by Dawn was sleeping.

She wanted to fight, but the effects were instantaneous: tingling shot through her arms and legs, weakening her to the point that she couldn't even push Joyce's hand away. From the corner of her eye she saw Giles's outraged expression turn to disbelief as one of the men from the living room clamped his own chloroform-soaked rag in place over the librarian's mouth and another rushed up and literally lifted Giles's legs out from under him.

As her vision blurred and moved, Buffy's head rolled back to where she could see her mother kneeling by her side and looking down at her. "You were right," she said. Her voice seemed as if it was coming to Buffy's ears through a ten-foot-long cardboard tube. "It was easy."

The first thing Buffy thought was that her mother had not been the one to knock Dawn unconscious. The second thing she though was wondering who Joyce was talking to, then her head turned even more as she started to fade out, and she saw the two blue-lipped children standing on the stairs and regarding her. Everything about them looked gray and lifeless—even their hair had the same faint dull tone as their skin.

"I told you," the dead little girl said hollowly.

"It gets even easier," the boy added. Balanced on the railing, his left hand was wrapped around the bottle of chloroform.

"But I'm still scared of the bad girls," his sister said.

"You have to stop them." The dead boy—Hans Strauss—regarded Joyce unblinkingly. "You have to make them go away. Forever."

Despite their chilling words, the children's faces remained completely and utterly expressionless, finally whirling down to a tiny dot of pale gray that simply winked away as Buffy passed out.

Rosenberg Residence

Faith, Oz and Xander didn't bother to knock, and they found the door to Willow's house closed but not locked.

"Willow!" Oz shouted as they barged through the door.

"Red!" Faith shouted when no one answered from downstairs. She led Oz and Xander up the stairs to the second floor. Their headlong rush into Willow's room stopped dead at what they found inside—

Desk chair overturned, papers everywhere, books that looked as if they'd been thrown across the room. The bedspread and pillows were half on the floor, and Willow's teddy bear lay scrunched in one corner—some of the wall posters had even been knocked askew.

They didn't bother to stick around and ask what happened.

City Hall

The rotunda at City Hall, once an attractive if rather stuffy oversized room, had been turned into a stage for execution.

The execution of Buffy and Dawn Summers, Willow Rosenberg and Amy Madison.

Willow struggled against the rope that was wound around her and only succeeded in making her mother tighten it even further. To her right, Buffy and Dawn were similarly bound, upright but unconscious, to two tall, heavy wooden stakes driven through holes in the formerly nicely tiled floor. On the other side of Willow was Amy, trussed securely in her own winding of rope, and a five pole with no one attached to it. Willow could only surmise it was for Faith and the only reason Faith wasn't tied up like, her Buffy, Dawn and Amy was because she had yet to be found.

Willow looked down and saw piles and piles of books—new, old, hardback and paperback. Were those Giles's precious research books at the base of these poles? Was that going to be the fuel for the upcoming pyre?

"Hold still," Sheila said impatiently. "Be a good girl." She tugged on the rope, and Willow felt it tighten painfully around her upper arms.

"No!" Willow cried. "Why are you doing this to me? Mom?"

Sheila shook her head regretfully. "There's no cure but the fire."

"Buffy!" Amy shouted from her spot a couple of yards away. "Wakeup!"

Willow tried again. "This is crazy, Mom!"

"Buffy!" Amy wailed.

No good.

Buffy and Dawn were both still out cold.

Summers Home

Something vaguely hot stung his cheek, a growing, uncomfortable sensation. Giles groaned and tried to ignore it, but it came again, then again, seemingly harder and more painful each time. After the third time, he forced his eyes open—

"Wake up!"

—just in time to see the hand swoop downward and slap him solidly across the face.

"Faith?" he managed.

"We went by Red's house. She was drug out of there," Faith said as she helped Giles to his feet. "I ran back here as quick possible afraid that…"

City Hall

Panic was fast running through Willow's nerves. The situation was bad enough, but both Buffy and Dawn were still unconscious—what had they done to the sisters? Did either of them have a concussion, or even something worse? She tried again, raising her voice in an effort to be heard over the muttering, shifting crowd in front of the five poles. "Buffy! Dawn!"

No response—no, wait. Yes, both of the sisters were finally coming to! First Dawn and then Buffy's heads came up, then fell forward again, then came up a second time with a jerk as their surroundings sank in and they opened their eyes wide.

Willow could see Buffy and Dawn trying to comprehend everything through the leftover grogginess of whatever they'd been dosed with.

Joyce was there and waiting, standing right below where she had bound both of her daughters to the stakes in the ground. "Good morning, sleepyheads."

"Mom," Buffy and Dawn said.

"You don't want this," Buffy said, her voice growing stronger with every word.

Joyce gazed up at her daughters sorrowfully. "Since when does it matter what I want?" she asked. "I wanted a normal, happy daughter. Instead I got one daughter who is a Slayer. And other daughter who has the potential to become a Slayer."

Dawn and Buffy stared at their mother, shocked, then glanced over at Willow with a stricken expression.

Sheila walked up to Joyce and offered her something. "Torch?" she said pleasantly.

"Thanks," Joyce said, and took it.

"Mom," Dawn said her lip quivering.

Joyce and Sheila chatted as if they were doing nothing more important than discussing the schedule of the next neighborhood council meeting. Joyce sighed. "This has been so trying, but you've been such a champ."

Sheila nodded agreeably. "Oh, you, too, Joyce."

Joyce perked up a bit. "We should stay close," she suggested. "Have lunch."

"Oh, I'd like that," Sheila said. "How nice."

"Oh, you can't be serious!" Amy said as the two mothers leaned over and used their torches to light fires in the books surrounding the base of each stake.

"Mom, don't!" Buffy and Dawn yelled.

Too late—flames were already spreading among the pages and sending small, bright towers of heated yellow to dance only a few feet away from each girl.

"All right!" Amy shouted furiously at the crowd. She tried to twist within the ropes but succeeded only in vibrating the stake that held her. "You want to fry a witch? I'll give you a witch!" Willow's eyes widened as Amy threw back her head and started to chant, gazing up toward the stars. "Goddess Hecate, work thy will before thee let the unclean thing crawl!"

A sound split the air, like muffled thunder, and Amy's body was suddenly encircled with a line of glowing white light dancing with sparkling purple spots. The MOO crowd gave a collective gasp and fell back, some covering their eyes as the light grew to blinding proportions and peaked. And when it was gone in a final puff of white and pink-tinted smoke—

—so was Amy.

A small, sleek rat darted from the pile of Amy's clothes that had billowed into an empty mass at the base of her stake.

The fleeing rodent was not lost on Dawn. "She couldn't do us first, Buffy?" Dawn demanded as the rat disappeared between the feet in the crowd.

So much for Amy's show-stopping abilities—the crowd was already slinking back into place, hungry to get their front-row seats for the big roasting.

Willow inhaled, searching for courage. "You've seen what we can do!" she shouted at the crowd, trying to make herself as loud as she could. "Another step and you will all feel my power!"

"What are you going to do?" Buffy whispered at her. "Float a pencil at them?"

Despite Buffy's doubt, there did seem to her to be a sudden sense of hesitation in the attitude of the people crowding around. She made her voice even more fierce and frightening, so loud her throat actually hurt. "It's a really big power!"

Buffy must have noticed the way the MOO people were falling back, too, because she decided to join in on Willow's threats. The more, the merrier. "Yes! You will all be turned into vermin—and some of you will be fish! Yeah, you in the back will be fish—"

People backed away from the would-be pyres, and even Sheila and Joyce suddenly seemed less than sure about their actions.

"Maybe we should go," someone in the crowd said, and there were murmurs of agreement.

"But you promised . . ."

The high, sweet voice of a child cut over everything, making the crowd fall silent in a way that even Amy's incantation of a few moments ago had failed to accomplish.

"Is that who I think it is?" Dawn asked.

"The dead kids from the poster," Buffy confirmed looking at the 'dead' little boy, standing right in front of the crowd. And with him was the girl—

"You have to kill the bad girls,"

—her own sickly, toneless voice adding to his words and rolling over the paralyzed people like a proclamation of broken vows and guilt.

Streets of Sunnydale

Giles coaxed a little more speed out of his old car, at the same time trying to pry Old World German out of his brain's memory banks. "Shred the wolfsbane—that's the leafy stuff," he instructed Faith. "Then you can crush the satyrion root." He slowed and turned left, then pressed on the accelerator again. "Luften sie den . . . something. Schumer? Schluter?"

"You do know I'm a Slayer not a Watcher," Faith said.

"I know, Faith, but you are all I have and if we are to save…" Giles informed her.

"So what was that you were saying?" Faith wondered.

"It's part of an incantation," he told her. "It's in German, but without my books… It's about lifting a veil. It should make the demons appear in their true form, which with any luck should negate their influence." Giles glanced quickly at what she was doing. "Oh—and you need to drop a toadstone into the mixture."

Faith poked around in the small bag of things he'd quickly put together back at his place and pulled out the toadstone. "So, once it reveals its true form. That means I can kill it right?"

"You should be able to, yes," Giles answered.

City Hall

Dawn saw that the flames were spreading, and it seemed their destruction was inescapable. "I have a confession, Buffy," she said.

"You can tell me when we get home," Buffy said as she struggled uselessly again the heavy rope. "And we are going to get home, I promise, Dawnie."

"They hurt us," the little girl said plaintively.

"Burn them," added her brother.

"Mom, dead people are talking to you —do that math!" Buffy said turning her attention to Joyce who just stood there as though she were hypnotized

Joyce watched the fire move closer to her daughters. "I'm sorry, Buffy… Dawn."

"Mom, look at us!" Buffy shouted. "You love us. You're not going to be able to live with yourself if you do this!"

Joyce only shook her head. "You both earned this," she pointed out quietly. "You both toyed with unnatural forces. What kind of a mother would I be if I didn't punish you both?"

Although Giles and Faith had finally made it to City Hall, they soon discovered that the troubles weren't over just yet. There were no guards, but they weren't convinced that was a good thing—it was far too likely that they were off tormenting someone else or inside the locked rotunda area and cheering on whatever terrible escapades were taking place.

"Can you make out what their saying?" Giles asked motioning toward the door they could hear shouting coming from.

"Not very well," Faith admitted. "But I would say we have to get in there."

"Then by all means," Giles said taking the potion from Faith.

"Wicked," Faith chuckled as she leaped spinning into a roundhouse sending a kick to the door.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The heat washed over Willow, Buffy and Dawn, and over her, and over her again, until they felt like a steak in a frying pan.

Yellow sparkles teased at the edges of Dawn's vision, warning signs of impending unconsciousness. "Buffy," she tried, and barely managed to turn her head toward her sister. "I—I can't take it—it's too hot!"

"Neither can I," Willow admitted having seen the same warning signs at the edges of her vision.

Buffy looked more miserable than in pain. "I'm sorry—if it wasn't for me, none of this would have happened. It wouldn't be—" She broke off suddenly, and Dawn and Willow forced themselves to gaze where Buffy was looking. There, far in the back, they saw the main doors flying off their hinges with a loud crash and Faith leading Giles into the room.

The crash of the doors broke the trancelike hold over the two women and their MOO associates.

"Let my girl, her sister and our friend, go," Faith snarled.

Giles was nearly stunned into immobility by the sight that greeted him and Faith when they entered the rotunda. If it hadn't been for the lights of City Hall shining through the frosted glass windows and into the rotunda, he would have thought they'd stumbled across an old-fashioned witch burning in England. He scanned the room and spotted a firebox off to the side. "Faith," he said and pointed her in that direction, assuming she'd simply open the door and take out the hose. Wrong, of course—Faith opted instead for the much louder access route of smashing the glass in the door.

"Uh, Dämonen zeigen sich," Giles announced, hoping desperately that he was getting the order of the words correct. "Ich um die Energien von Hecate heraufbeschwören, Königin und Schützer von der Hexen, zu Streifen weg die Masken. Lassen Sie Übel ein übles Gesicht anzeihen."

"Stop them!" Joyce cried.

A dozen people and more whirled to face them, but Faith yanked out the fire hose and twisted the valve at the end; when they tried to rush her and Giles, she used the force of the water to keep them at bay. She fought with the hose and sent would-be attackers slipping and stumbling backward as Giles continued trying to recite his unveiling spell.

"Buffy!" Dawn wailed. "I'm on fire!"

"Faith, baby, put out the fire!" Buffy shouted over the voices of the crowd at her girlfriend.

Faith focused the blast of the water hose toward the flames licking at Dawn, Buffy and Willow's feet.

As the fires around the rotunda sputtered and went out and Faith twisted the hose shut, the crowd and the smoke suddenly parted. For a moment Giles's words faltered as he saw the two children—the dead ones—step from the gathering of people and walk toward him, their expressions condemning. He tried to think faster, to translate faster then finally just blurted out the rest the best he could. "Hecate Sie inständig bitten. Heben Sie den Schleier an. Heben Sie den Schleier an. Verstecken Sie sich nicht hinter falschen Gesichtern!"

With the final words of the incantation, Giles threw the glass vial at the feet of the kids. It broke, splashing their ankles with the steaming potion. Mist boiled upward from the liquid, and the children recoiled, then turned toward each other and embraced. An instant later the tiny forms were melding together and elongating, growing upward and lengthening until the figure that stood before the terrified crowd was not at all that of either of the innocent-faced murder victims who had stood there only a second before.

What faced them now was big, hairy, and incredibly frightening.

"Time to party," Faith smirked as she looked at the ghastly-looking demon that was at least seven feet tall.

Bony chest heaving, it swung to face the crowd, its leathery face creased with fury. "Protect us! Kill the bad girls!" it commanded in a loud, sandpaper voice.

Instead of obeying, the people in the crowd screamed and scattered. Only Joyce and Sheila remained, frozen and incredulous.

"You know what?" Buffy called sarcastically. "Not as convincing in that outfit."

"Couldn't agree more, B," Faith said and she leaped up and spun into another roundhouse sending a kick at the demon. She missed but only because the demon had turned Buffy and charged.

"Your stake, Buffy," Dawn said. "Can you…"

Buffy instantly got what Dawn was suggesting. She jerked, then wrenched her body sideways and finally succeeded in breaking off the heavy, pointed stake to which she was tied. She bent over and braced herself just as the demon surged forward with a snarl, and she shudder with the impact of his leap.

Then everything just… stopped as everyone realized that Buffy had embedded her makeshift weapon directly into the base of the hellish demon's throat.

Facing the ground and stuck, unable to straighten up but not knowing why, all Buffy could do was turn her head sideways as she tried to see. "Did I get it? Did I get it?"

"You got it, B," Faith said as she started to step forward. She didn't reach her lover, or friends as the ceiling directly in front of where the five stakes had been set up collapsed. Two figures plummeted to the floor along with the pieces of a broken air-conditioning vent and landed amid the sodden remains of the partially burned books—

Oz and Xander.

With Xander stunned at his side, Oz twisted around in the mess until he could look up at Willow. "We're here to save you," he said.

January 14, 1999 – Thursday

Willow sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the bed with Buffy, Dawn and Faith across from her, carefully arranging the ingredients for the upcoming spell. All the usual stuff was there—candles, herbs and dried roots, a little spell bowl to burn the stuff in. They were just about ready.

Buffy eyed the layout critically. "Your mom doesn't mind us doing this in the house?"

Willow gave her friend a little smile. "She doesn't know."

"Ah." Buffy glanced at her sympathetically. "Business as usual?"

"Sort of." Willow shrugged and added a final pinch of a special herb conglomeration to the bowl. "She's doing that selective memory thing your mom used to be so good at."

Dawn's eyebrows raised. "She forgot everything?"

Willow grinned outright. "No. She remembered the part where I said I was dating a musician. Oz has to come for dinner next week." She peered at her friends. "So that's sort of like taking an interest."

Faith nodded, then sat back pulling Dawn to her. "Okay—shall we try this again?"

"Let do it," Willow said firmly. "I think we got the mix of herbs right this time."

Buffy leaned forward and dropped a little clump of brown hair into the spell bowl, then lit the whole concoction with a match. A thick plume of pink smoke rose, swirling in the air between the four girls.

"Diana, Hecate—I hereby license thee to depart," Willow intoned. "Goddess of creatures, great and small, I conjure thee to withdraw!"

As the smoke finally cleared, Willow, Faith, Dawn and Buffy looked to the side hopefully.

And there, still, waited the Amy-rat, sitting up as it watched them with quivering whiskers and tiny eyes full of expectation.

Buffy, Dawn and Faith looked at Willow, then again at the rat, and Willow could only shrug.

"Maybe we should get her one of those wheel thingies," Buffy suggested.

"Yeah, I think she might like that," Faith agreed as Buffy leaned back beside her and Dawn. She held both of the sisters close to her.

"So, Dawn," Buffy said looking at her baby sister. "What did you want to tell me?"

Dawn let out a long sigh. "You died."

"What?" Faith asked confused.

"In the world created by Cordelia's wish," Dawn admitted sadly. "You weren't the only one dead, Faith." She sighed. "Buffy, you committed suicide. You didn't have anyone but me. No Willow or Xander. No Giles, Faith or even Angel. You saw how people looked at you and you couldn't take it. One night you went to take a bath and you slit your wrists. I found you too late. In that world I didn't save you."

Buffy, Willow and Faith all looked at Dawn with wide eyes in surprise and shock.