Xander pushed through the doors to the library. "Giles, I hope you've found something in regards to Acathla because I think we may be running out of time in regards to Angel. I told him he should investigate his curse then realized other people, like you, also hadn't investigated that damn curse. Which makes me wonder if there's something about the curse itself that keeps people from looking in to it, something that keeps them from, I don't know, thinking about it."
"Like a notice me not spell?" Giles suggested.
"Or a somebody else's problem field." Willow suggested. "But why would it matter if Angel investigated his curse?"
"Because he's suffering for Angelus' crimes and breaking the curse would free him from that. People have been known to kill themselves to escape suffering and breaking that curse would be the equivalent of it."
"You're right." Giles said grimly. "And I honestly have no idea why this Whistler fellow thought we'd need Angel in the first place. Everything I've found says two things can stop it. One, when a sacrifice and one's own blood had been used to activate it, than a sacrifice and one's own blood can close it and two, it was originally stopped by a Holy Knight who sacrificed himself to pierce it with one of the swords he'd forged. Someone sanctified and carrying the other sword could stop it. And that's if it's activated. If it's not activated all we need to do is take some sledgehammers to it. It's not protected by any Magic and is just a statue in its dormant state."
"So if it shows up than we just destroy it and call it a day?" Cordelia asked.
"Yes, other then I would recommend a quick patrol afterward, just to be sure you didn't attract any unwanted attention."
"Would Buffy qualify as sanctified, being the Watchers consider being a Slayer a Sacred Calling?" Xander asked.
"Yes, I believe she would." Giles confirmed. "Which means she probably could have died stopping it. You said Angelus activated it after Drusilla pulled the information on how from my mind. I take it he used his own blood and she closed it using him?"
Xander nodded.
"What happened to him?"
"He got sucked into the open portal. A few months later, he somehow came back. Time passes differently there and Buffy and you both believed he'd be tortured, but physically he was fine. He was feral for a while and Buffy hid his return from us and totally didn't understand why everybody was upset with her over it."
"Possibly more influence?" Giles suggested. "Especially since it would require a great deal of power to get him out of there. Which means someone had a use for him. All the more reason for us to dispatch him sooner, rather than later."
"Fine, first wooden bullets have Angel's name carved on them." Xander decided. "We can not risk Angelus being loosed. The Chronicles depicting his exploits are bad enough. And he has a pattern, he goes after the families and friends of his target, which could be our families, if he decides we've irritated him enough. In the meantime, we need to focus on an immediate problem. If things are progressing the way they did in the other reality then within a couple of days an old friend of Buffy's from Hemery is going to show up here. He's dying of cancer and he was aware that Buffy was a Slayer, he intended to trade her and a bunch of mixed up kids who think vampires are something out of a romance novel to Spike in exchange for being made a vampire. Spike's dust, but there are other vampires in this town. Willow, I need you to dig up information on Billy Fordham and the Sunset Club. Giles, I need you tracking Kakistos' movements. At some point he became aware of Faith, the Slayer called after Kendra died. He murdered her Watcher and chased her across the entire country. If someone is pulling strings, they may arrange for Kakistos to notice her sooner."
"On it." Willow said, heading for her computer.
"I'll begin researching Kakistos, I don't know much about him, he doesn't attract the kind of attention Angelus did. Which is how he's manage to exist for so long."
"How long?" Amy asked curiously.
"About 3000 years." Giles answered. "He may well be the oldest vampire in existence. Was he stopped?"
"Yeah, Buffy and Faith shoved a log through his chest. You remember how the Master could no longer achieve a human mask? Kakistos was so old, his hands and feet had become cloven. He was more demon than human shell. And huge, a good seven feet, easy."
"Before you get started on your research, Rupert, I need to talk to you." Ms. Calender said as she entered the library.
"Giles, listen to her with an open mind." Xander advised. "And remember, you have secrets and oaths too. I'm going to go make some wooden bullets, I need to get in some target practice with them before I go after Angel."