Chapter 11

Trust

When Buffy opened her eyes the next morning, dawn had just broken. She took a shower then stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She studied her reflection for a few seconds, lost in thought. She had decided to get up and get ready quickly so as not to run into Willow. The betrayal of the day before was still very present but the anger had turned into incomprehension. The Slayer sighed. She knew that a sensible reaction would be to ask her best friend directly. Even more logically, she could think that if Willow hadn't mentioned her encounter with the vampire, it was because there was nothing to say about it. Maybe they had met to chat. Like friends. If he didn't want to see her, that didn't mean he didn't want to see other people, she realized grumpily as she grabbed her hairbrush. As she finished getting ready, she decided to have breakfast in the small cafe not far from the high school and headed towards her car.

The atmosphere of the place soothed her a little. She felt strangely less alone in the middle of all these people who were quietly going about their business, sipping coffee or reading the newspaper. She suddenly thought that she was just like anyone. She seemed very ordinary and the thought made her smile. She observed the customers as she sat at a small table near a large window after taking her drink at the counter. She loved this feeling and these early hours where everyone took some time before the rush of the day.

Once again, the Slayer thought of the events of the day before. She couldn't avoid her best friend for this detail. She had every confidence in the young witch and shouldn't let her imagination prevail over reality. She already doubted herself enough and wasn't going to start doubting people who had proven their loyalty time and time again.

That same evening, the entire Scooby Gang met at the Slayer's house where everyone had taken a seat in the living room and they listened in silence to the summary that Buffy told Giles upon his arrival.

"I see… It's rather surprising but at the same time, it was predictable." The man sighed, taking off his glasses to clean them. "Predictable?!" Dawn exclaimed and he shook his head, "I mean that Good and Evil have always competed in our world. They are inexorably linked and it is therefore not so incredible that Evil tries to resurface even after the setback that the First has suffered."

"Giles! They eat people! Since when do demons eat humans?" Xander exclaimed in turn.

"He's right. It's nothing like we've ever faced," Dawn agreed.

A heavy silence settled in, broken only by Andrew's regular slight coughs.

"What if it was the First?" Willow asked cautiously.

"It's unlikely," Giles said. "I rather think that groups of demons must try to unite their forces given their situation…"

"Their situation?" Xander repeated, frowning.

"The fact that their leader, the First, has disappeared," he clarified.

"Demons eating people would be related to the ritual I saw then?" Buffy asked.

His former observer shook his head again in ignorance. "No doubt, but nothing is certain at the moment. This is the essential element that we must seek to discover as a priority. This could allow us to understand the dangerousness of the situation."

Xander shook his head. "The situation is dangerous if humans can no longer walk around without being sure of not ending up as a snack!"

"They've always been snacks for demons," the Slayer's sister pointed out with fatalism.

"Yeah, but not like that! They weren't literally swallowed and chewed!" The young man continued while Andrew grew paler by the second.

"Were you able to bring back some books?" The witch asked Giles hopefully.

"Yes, but most of them burned during the Bringers attack. Fortunately, I had collected a few…"

"Didn't you steal them?" Andrew said with the utmost seriousness.

Dawn frowned while the others decided to ignore him.

"I asked the potential, well new slayers, to collect whatever they could from their country and hometown," Giles continued.

"Good idea!" Willow exclaimed. "We'll have more opportunities to get information!"

"Hey, wait!" Xander chimed in, "We can ask them to come here and settle the score with these demons! They'll be no match with Buffy on top of that!"

The Slayer didn't feel particularly thrilled at the idea of welcoming ex-potentials who reminded her of the hardest weeks of her life. She was aware of the help that the new slayers could give her though.

"Actually," Giles said, pulling her out of her thoughts, "I asked them to form groups of two or three around the globe so that we could protect the entire population. We no longer need to stay near a Hellmouth now that the Chosen One is no longer alone. Besides, it's not wise not to know the demons' plan first," he finished, putting his glasses back on.

"Have there been other attacks elsewhere?" Buffy asked, standing up.

"A few but nothing very important. Demonic activity remains rather low on all continents according to my information. Either way, no nest of the type you observed has been detected."

"Maybe it'd be wiser to call Faith," Angel pointed out, breaking his silence. "Even though the incidents in the city and on the rest of the planet are low, the demons we saw seemed extremely organized."

"I tried to contact her but she went with Robin to Africa for several months," the watcher replied. "So far, I haven't found her."

Once again, silence fell on the room for several long seconds.

"What do we do now?" Andrew murmured as he shifted on the couch.

"For now, the best thing to do is to keep a watch on them to find out more about the ritual," Giles said. "We must also continue research and maintain regular contact with the other slayers. What do you think, Buffy?" He asked, turning towards her.

"Yeah, okay. We'll do that," the Slayer replied.

"For now, we'll focus on research to see if this ritual is known. At the same time, I suggest doing patrols every evening." Everyone nodded in agreement. "Now I'd like to go to bed. The jet lag is not in my favor," the former watcher pointed out.

The Scoobies prepared to leave a few moments later. As they put on their coats and headed out the door, everyone continued to come up with theories that they shared with each other.

As he was leaving, Angel turned to the Slayer and gave her a pointed look to catch her attention. When she noticed him, he glanced in the direction of Giles who was chatting with Xander and Willow a little further away. Faced with the Slayer's frown showing her incomprehension, he moved closer to her.

"You should tell him," he whispered so as not to let the others hear.

"What?" Buffy replied, surprised.

"We don't know if his return has something to do with what's happening."

Realizing what he was implying, Buffy stood frozen for a few moments before nodding. "I'll talk to him when everyone is gone," she whispered back.

When she closed the door behind her guests, Buffy offered to guide Giles upstairs to show him his room while Willow finished tidying up the living room and going to bed.

"I know this isn't your kind of room, Giles, but I couldn't take the posters down… Dawn wouldn't have forgiven me," she joked as they entered the room. She had prepared her sister's room, the only one left free.

Giles took a look and shook his head. "It'll be perfect, Buffy. At least the wallpaper isn't pink…"

The young woman walked towards the bedside table and turned on the lamp that adorned it. She then turned back to her former watcher and watched him place his coat on the desk chair. He came back towards her but the Slayer seemed lost in her thoughts.

"Buffy?" He asked gently, placing his hand on her shoulder. The young woman jumped slightly before a hint of a smile stretched her lips. "I'm fine… I'm kind of distracted. I… There's something we haven't told you about but… it's possible that it has something to do with what's been happening lately…"

Giles watched as the Slayer twisted her hands nervously and finally sat down on the edge of the bed. "What is it, Buffy?" He asked her, sitting down next to her.

"Well… Angel asked me a few days ago if you had any information on this necklace that destroyed the First. He thinks it has something to do with the resumption of demonic activity."

"I don't have any specific information on this object, Buffy. What connection does Angel think there would be? It seems to be an object that destroys Evil," he began to think.

"I know but… he also told me that Spike had reappeared around the same time so… So we thought that maybe… it would be related," she finished, biting her lip.

"Spike came back?" His former watcher repeated, clearly surprised. "Indeed, it's… unexpected," he added simply.

"Could you find any information on this necklace, Giles? This could help us know if this is all related or not."

"Yes, I can probably find some things. I need to know how Angel found it…" The watcher got lost in thought for a moment, reflecting on the research opportunities available. "How did he come back?" He suddenly asked the Slayer.

"No idea," she sighed. "He showed up at Angel's one day without further explanation…"

Giles frowned. "He didn't say anything about how he got here?"

"No. Angel told me he seemed quite… traumatized."

"It seems that resurrections rarely go in an ideal way," the watcher pointed out with a smile while the Slayer nodded amusedly. "He needs to give us as much detail as possible about what he remembers. Maybe it actually has something to do with the necklace," he continued.

"The problem is no one knows where he is," the Slayer murmured wearily. Giles turned to her, frowning again, and Buffy grimaced. "He comes by Angel's sometimes but that's all," she clarified. "Looks like he doesn't wanna help this time…"

"Oh." The watcher removed his glasses, "It is very surprising. Spike has always been… very present in recent years."

"I know," the Slayer whispered. "That's why Angel and I think it may have something to do with the demons' new practices."

"I'll look for information on the necklace tomorrow," Giles replied, putting his glasses back on. "You should rest," he added as he observed her, "You look tired."

"Yeah… I've had trouble sleeping ever since this began," she admitted, lowering her eyes.

"I know it's quite difficult to accept and that you had started to build an ordinary life here," he continued gently, "But the possibility that demons would not reappear was highly unlikely."

Buffy looked up at him and nodded imperceptibly as her throat tightened. "It's just… A few vampires every now and then would have been enough for me," she whispered.

"You're not alone, Buffy. Don't forget it."

The Slayer nodded forcefully to chase away the tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks and headed towards the bedroom door. As she was leaving, the young woman turned one last time towards the man she considered her father.

"Giles?"

"Yes, Buffy?"

"I'm glad you're here," she simply said.

"So am I," he replied sincerely.

With these words, the Slayer gently closed the door behind her.

"I think I got something!" Dawn exclaimed.

The next day, the search had resumed. Willow and Giles had been at it since the early hours of the day. Buffy, Xander, Dawn and Andrew had joined them after their day of work. As for Angel, he was mainly involved in surveillance and he had reactivated his old networks within the city by getting back in touch with his partners. Earlier in the evening, Buffy had gone on a patrol but had only encountered two vampires. Back home, she had looked into the books Giles had brought again.

"What did you find?" She asked her sister.

"Well, it seems to be a story or rather an extrapolation of what could happen in the event of an imbalance of forces in the world."

"What does that mean?" Willow asked.

"According to this book, there are means for each of the two sides, Good and Evil, to return to a sort of balance if one takes precedence over the other…"

"Yes, it's a known theory," Giles added. "However, this is only a theory because neither has ever been in such a strong position."

"Until we close the Hellmouth!" Xander exclaimed. "Now, Good has overpowered the world and Evil is seeking to regain its place!"

Buffy turned her head towards her former watcher, worried. "Giles? Is that possible?"

He sighed and took off his glasses before massaging the bridge of his nose. "It's something to consider. The First appeared because you were resurrected, Buffy. Perhaps it is the same principle at work today."

The Slayer's heart sank at these words. "And… how does that work?"

The man seemed to think for a few moments. "This is something completely new… Dawn, is there anything else that might be useful in this book?"

"Hm… Not really." The young woman sighed, "This passage is a footnote. The book doesn't cover this subject at all. But I think I can decipher the bibliographic reference!" The student leaned towards the very fine writing and grimaced. Mandarin was definitely not her favorite language, especially when it dated back to hundreds of years. "I can't really make out all the letters, but I think the title must be something like Dynamic Forces in the Universe. Does it ring a bell, Giles?"

"It must be a book forgotten in the depths of a library in Asia," he murmured thoughtfully.

"In the depths of Asia?" Willow was worried.

"Yes… Theories of the balance between Good and Evil arise primarily from Taoism. So I wouldn't be surprised if this book was in China," he finished, putting his glasses back on.

"Can we contact the slayers who reside in China?" Buffy asked.

"Yes. I'll ask Jiang-Mai if she has any information." Giles got up and walked over to the phone. While he waited to get her, the rest of the Scoobies began to think about their next move.

"The ritual has probably something to do with restoring the balance between forces," Willow said, glancing at the book that had allowed them to find this information.

"It remains to be seen how it works and how we stop it," Xander continued.

"Well, I'd like to know why humans are disappearing and no one talks about it!" Andrew pointed out. He turned to Buffy and spoke again. "You've seen a lot of humans being… uh, eaten and no information is relayed on television!"

The Slayer played with her hands on the table while trying to collect her thoughts. "Andrew's right," she sighed. "If this has been going on for several days, we should have heard about it. We need to find out who these people are. Surely someone reported them missing!"

"I passed the title of the book that Dawn deciphered on to Jiang-Mai. She'll call us as soon as she has any news," Giles said, returning to the group. He glanced at the clock and decided they had worked enough for today. "Let's go get some sleep and we'll resume the search tomorrow," he suggested.

"I'll search the police database for missing persons reports," Willow offered.

"Okay, thank you, Will," the Slayer replied. "Let me know as soon as you find something."

The young woman nodded positively and everyone prepared to leave after wishing each other good night.

The next day, Willow scoured the Los Angeles Police Department website for missing person notices. She was surprised to count only five files mentioning people missing since last month. It definitely wasn't enough considering the number of corpses Buffy, Angel and Xander had seen in the nest in Florence's neighborhood. Intrigued, the witch pushed her investigation on the police website of neighboring towns. Unfortunately, the number of people declared missing was approximately the same.

Disappointed, she left her screen to focus on her notes. All the information they had found so far as well as Spike's was written down. She let her mind wander for a few moments after hours of concentration. How could Spike be connected to the First? A spell, no doubt. She would need to test her theory. Deciding that this was probably the best thing to do for now, she grabbed a book of spells and delved into its pages in search of a formula that would reveal what connected the vampire and the First.

Willow glanced nervously at the clock. 9:30pm. She needed to come up with an excuse in the next five minutes or she would be late for her meeting with Spike. The witch thought back to all the excuses she had thought about over the past three days. In the end, she took a deep breath and headed towards the kitchen where Giles and Buffy were talking. Xander, Dawn and Andrew had gone out to buy food in town, only too happy to escape books for a few hours.

"I need to go downtown," she said as she entered and the other two turned towards her. "You need something?" The Slayer asked.

"Oh, no. Well, yes," the witch corrected herself. "I really have to go there right now." Faced with her friend's incomprehension, she continued. "It's about-about Oz," she stammered. "I'm gonna go to the cybercafe so I can talk to him."

"Is the internet connection down again?" The Slayer sighed.

"Yes… for three or four hours. And I promised Oz we could talk tonight because of the… the time difference so…"

"Okay, but be careful. You never know."

"Don't worry. I have my phone just in case." Willow came out of the kitchen while Giles and Buffy started talking again.

"Were you able to find out any information about the necklace, Giles?"

"Angel told me that one of his acquaintances had brought it back from a trip to Africa several months before the First's Awakening. It talked about a prophecy but the pages are almost entirely erased. I don't think we'll get much out of it," he told her.

"But you can get information in other ways, right?" The Slayer asked him, worried that this trail would be a dead end.

"I don't know, Buffy…"

"Giles! This is the element thanks to which we managed to defeat the First! We need to know where it comes from and how it can be used!" She exclaimed. His former watcher nodded, but he couldn't answer her for now. "I'll contact watchers based in Africa. Perhaps they'll have new information."

Buffy nodded. "Have you heard from Jiang-Mai about the book?"

"I haven't, but it's still early and I called the different groups of slayers today. Everyone has noticed that there are more demons in recent days. Their number, however, is not exceptional… This resumption of demonic activity on the planet is necessarily linked to what we are observing here," he added.

"I guess," the Slayer replied thoughtfully. "We're lucky the ex-potentials are here. Thanks to them, the population is much better protected."

"Indeed," his former watcher agreed. "The demons that Sasha, a slayer from Ireland, told me about seemed to be similar in description to the one that Dawn and Andrew saw. I'm sure I've heard of this demon before," he continued, shaking his head. "It must be in one of the books I brought because I looked through them on the way here."

"They must be in Willow's room, she studied them all day. I'll go get them," the young woman suggested while getting up.

"Thank you, Buffy."

The Slayer went upstairs and opened the door to her friend's room. She walked over to the desk and picked up the few books scattered around the computer. Raising her head, the Slayer frowned: a web page was open on a spell and magic recognition site. No doubt Willow had done some research and hadn't closed the page. The Slayer grabbed the mouse and refreshed the page which loaded immediately.

The young woman bit her lips. The witch had claimed that the connection had been down for many hours. Had she… lied again? Worry rose within her. Her best friend hid her meeting with Spike and was now making up excuses to go out… With horror, the Slayer didn't have long to wait to imagine what Willow could be hiding from her.

"It's me!" Willow said as she knocked on the crypt door. It opened and she stepped forward while glancing around. The decoration was roughly similar to that of his former crypt. At least something hadn't changed, she thought with a smile.

"What did you tell them?" He asked her as he closed the door behind her. The young woman smiled nervously. "That I was going to the cybercafe."

"To the cybercafe?" The vampire repeated, wondering if Willow was really capable of hiding the truth, even for a good cause. "And they don't suspect anything?"

"I don't think so," the witch replied, embarrassed. "I told Buffy I needed to talk to Oz."

Spike looked doubtful and gestured for her to sit on the single seat in front of the television while he leaned against the coffin in the center of the room. "I haven't found all my furniture yet," he clarified.

"Oh, that's all right!" The young woman quickly replied as she sat down. Yet she preferred to keep her coat on because the temperature was probably not above 64F and she turned the chair slightly to face him.

"Did you find anything?" He asked, looking for his pack of cigarettes in his pockets.

The witch nodded vigorously and began to summarize what the Slayer's sister had discovered. "Dawn found a quote about the balance of forces on the planet and the possibility of using a ritual to restore it in case one becomes too important over the other. Unfortunately, the book that deals precisely with this subject is probably to be found in Asia…"

The vampire took out his lighter and lit his cigarette. "Giles will send one of his slayers to get it."

"How do you know?" Willow asked him with a frown.

"Angel."

"Ah… I didn't know you two were talking."

"We only exchange information," he growled.

"l'll bet," the young woman retorted, laughing. "I can't imagine you going to the movies or for a drink after dark!"

Spike stared at her for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Anything else I should know?" He asked.

"I didn't find many wanted notices for missing people and it's rather strange because there were a lot of corpses according to Buffy and Angel… What about you?"

"Not much," the vampire replied, taking a drag on his cigarette. "I spotted the place and the demons hanging around. I started making friends so they would invite me to their private party. I hope to go down there soon. Either way, it's important enough for them to remain discreet and establish truces between races to make it work…"

"I'd like to get you tested to understand how you can be connected to the First and why you came back," Willow said.

"Tests?" He asked with a frown.

"Yes, uh… I found some spells and… it shouldn't be painful."

The vampire shrugged his shoulders. "That seems like a good idea, and the sooner the better."

"I could have everything I need tomorrow night so… I guess I'll have to come back?" The young woman asked, grimacing. Spike nodded while throwing away his cigarette butt. "Just come when Buffy is out patrolling."

Willow sighed and rubbed her hands together to keep warm. "I didn't really manage to convince by talking about the First," she added. "Giles thinks it's their initiative. Anything new about it?"

"I still feel that it's getting stronger but I didn't find any sudden change. It's a continuous but stable feeling."

"At least it doesn't seem to be affecting you like last year," she pointed out hopefully.

Spike nodded in agreement. "No memory loss, no waking up in strange places and I haven't drunk human blood recently since I can always drink whatever the butcher provides me."

"That's definitely a good sign," she said while getting up. The vampire looked at her for a few moments and noticed that she was trembling. "I'm used to the heat of radiators," she explained, smiling when she caught his eye.

He smiled back and headed towards the door to open it for her. "One of the advantages of being dead." Willow followed suit and turned to him before leaving. "See you tomorrow and… be careful," she told him.

"Don't worry. But you, try to find a better excuse." The witch grimaced and hurried out into the night air.