"For now we need to leave dealing with the Watchers Council up to the investigators." Xander decided. "And concentrate on Sunnydale. Here's what we know, the cops don't behave the way cops should. Crawford Street Mansion is a crime scene, there's evidence there that they've simply ignored, never attempted to collect as far as we can tell."
"Still haven't." Faith pointed out. "I've patrolled passed there a few times in the last couple of weeks, both alone and with you. Nothing's changed, the beds still have the sheets we found on them. The Acathla statue is still a pile of rubble. No new vamps have moved into it, but the cops appear to have been no where near it too."
"Xander, your memory of the month before Buffy made that wish is still blank, right?" Willow asked, something she was grateful for because it meant he also didn't remember the kiss on homecoming night, something she wanted to forget about herself, especially since he'd admitted he loved Cordelia the night of the wish.
"Yeah and I have no idea if it's because of the info dump and new skills I've got because of the Executioner Legacy, but I didn't lose any memory by keeping the stuff from Halloween." He reminded her.
"Halloween involved the power of a god being invoked, that's a lot more power than a demon can muster. The god's power might have helped you keep it, we don't know, Giles never checked us to see if being transformed like that affected us in any way."
"It affected Xander, he remembers it." Cordelia said.
"And my Magic studies tell me a diagnostic should have been done. Giles should have known that."
"The knowledge of Magic I have in my head tells me the same thing." Xander frowned. "Magic was known in Anita's world and people could be inherently magical, like she was and could practice it. They weren't well thought of by the general population. But yeah, Giles should of checked us to make sure we weren't hurt by it and he didn't. I wonder why?"
"Not the point of my question." Willow informed him. "Since you don't remember the month prior to that, you also don't remember that Ethan Rayne was back in town."
"The idiot responsible for Halloween?!"
"Yes and he pulled another of his stunts."
"It was very disturbing." Cordelia told him. "My mother broke into my closet and was wearing Lycra and Daddy locked himself in the bathroom with magazines. I'm pretending they were business magazines."
"Considering the adults were acting like hormonal, brain dead teenagers -." Willow started but stopped at a glare from Cordelia. "Anyway," Willow continued. "When we figured out the chocolate Snyder was making us all sell was responsible for the adult's behavior, we tracked it down to the factory it was being distributed from. Ethan claimed he was subcontracting, he'd been hired to provide a distraction while four vampires kidnapped four newborn babies from the hospital. He told Giles the babies were going to be sacrificed to a demon named Lurconis. We tracked Lurconis down to the sewers, Buffy killed him and fought a vampire, who also helped what we think was a human hiding in the shadows to escape."
"A vampire helped a human to escape?" Faith asked, having not been present during the whole incident. "That human would have to have a lot of power to command a vampire."
"The cops aren't investigating crimes the way they should be and are rarely seen out at night." Xander murmured. "Snyder, who treats Buffy like shit and is probably crowing that she's finally out of his school makes us sell chocolate that turns out to be part of a distraction that nearly leads to four babies being sacrificed to a demon and a human protected by a vampire that probably was responsible for the sacrifice in the first place. We suspect humans are either helping or ignoring the vampire activity in Sunnydale and now there's evidence of at least one human sacrificing to demons."
"More then one." Cordelia reminded him. "The frat boys we busted lasted year that roofied me and Buffy and tried to sacrifice us were also humans. That was a Legacy house, meaning their fathers were probably also sacrificing to that demon."
"Their families were rich." Willow remembered. "And all their business began to fail overnight."
"Daddy bought some of them, saved the employees who would have been jobless and pensionless." Cordelia offered.
"How long have humans been either sacrificing to or ignoring demons and vampires in Sunnydale?" Xander asked. "Some of the rich families in town were aware of at least one. We can connect Snyder indirectly to the nearly sacrificed babies and there's the cops who don't behave like cops should. Officials who may be anything from aware of the supernatural to sacrificing to demons themselves. And a powerful human protected by a vampire. Are they all aware of each other as well, one big organization or multi groups or just opportunistic?"
"How do we figure it out?" Willow asked. "This isn't like investigating whether someone with a neck wound is going to crawl out of their grave. Rich, powerful people and cops may all be involved in this, whatever this is. We could be opening a can of worms or risking becoming worm food."
"We're already risking our lives going out every night to find vampires." Cordelia pointed out. "And we've stopped everything we've encountered."
"Giles said I signed on as a fighter." Xander stated. "And the Powers feel I should have stuck to doing that, instead of interfering in Buffy's Destiny. I say, if I'm a fighter, than I'm going to fight."
"I'm in." Faith told them. "I choose to fight."
"Fight." Cordelia agreed.
"Fight." The oh so silent Oz.
"Fight." Willow nodded. "Let's figure out what's going on in our town and do something about it."
