JK Philips - D.B.C. Bk.3 Ch.10

ITLE: The Family Business
AUTHOR: JK Philips
RATING: PG-13 (swearing)
DISTRIBUTION: Not sure what all sites are out there, but if you want it, you can have it.
Just please email me your URL, so I know where my story is going. And of course, give
proper credit.
SUMMARY: After the events of The Ticking Clock, Buffy and Giles are still looking for their
daughter. Can they save her from a terrible fate?
SPOILERS: Everything up to “The Gift”
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.
SECOND DISCLAIMER: Lit soup from the last part: (if you want to match the quote with the piece, go here)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach; The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes; The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll; Poems by Catullus; The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe; Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet by Shakespeare; Les Miserables by Victor Hugo; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; and a passing reference to Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas. And there you have a little peek into my psyche.
EMAIL: jkphilips@hotmail.com. Would love feedback. This is only my third fanfic.
Well, technically my first if you want to lump Death Brings Clarity, The Ticking Clock,
and this together as one trilogy.
MY WEBSITE: (for archivers) www.geocities.com/jkphilips_fiction/

Part 10: The Last Watcher

The music was pounding. The volume couldn’t have been that loud and yet it seemed like the bass was vibrating through his chest. Spike was drumming on the steering wheel, bobbing his head in time to the music, and occasionally singing a line or two before returning to his drum solo on the steering column and dash. Giles had no idea the song or group, but he was fairly certain Buffy would have enjoyed exercising to it.

Finally he could take no more and snapped, “Must we listen to that infernal noise?”

Spike looked at him sideways and rolled his eyes, but thankfully turned the stereo off. “Better, Grandpa?”

“Much,” Giles answered, not rising to the bait. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and adjusted his glasses before continuing with his perusal of the unfamiliar book Spike had brought. “You say this was in our house?” he asked again, still amazed that such a powerful volume could have escaped his notice.

“It was in the attic with Tara’s stuff.” Spike shook his head. “Did you even go through any of it ’fore you packed it away? ’Cause, honestly, I found a whole lotta crap in most of those boxes. Really think anyone’d be needin’ all those back issues of Cat Fancy? And you might as well have given all those clothes to Goodwill. That’s probably where she got ’em from anyway.”

Giles glared. “We were leaving it to Willow to decide what to keep and what not to. We were waiting until her grief had passed enough for her to think clearly.”

Spike barked out a laugh. “Looks like you would have been waiting a long time.”

Giles ran his fingers along the perfect ink penmanship on the pages before him and murmured, “She’s not a lost cause yet.”

“After the mess she made of you, you really gonna forgive and forget?”

Giles didn’t lift his eyes from the book, but he spoke clearly and without hesitation. “Not forget, no. As for forgiveness… Should it surprise you so much?” He did raise his eyes then, but the vampire was focused on the road in front of him. “How much have we forgiven you? Your past, your attempts on Buffy’s life, as well as Willow and Xander’s, not to mention your betrayal of us to Adam. After all that, how many nights have you spent in our home as if we were friends?”

“As if,” Spike echoed, his voice bitter now, devoid of humor. He glanced at the watcher, true anger glittering in his eyes. “That’s just it, isn’t? You’ll forgive me enough to send on patrol and run your errands and save your hides and be your little whipping boy, but you’ll never let me in.” Both hands gripped the steering wheel now, and his eyes returned to the road. “I’ll never be part of the gang, be a friend, be anything but a convenient necessity. And I’ll damn sure never be forgiven enough to be considered anything more than Dawn’s big mistake. No matter that I love her, that I’d die for her. Oh, but you’ll take Willow back fast enough, no matter that she left you to rot inside your own skin, no matter that she’s likely cost you both your children. She’ll weep and show remorse, and Red’ll be back on Scooby duty before you can say ‘Oprah’s reunion special.’ ”

There was a long silence, and Giles continued to stare at the book in his hands, but he wasn’t focused on the words. Finally he spoke. “And have you shown remorse, Spike? Have you for even one second regretted any of the evil you’ve done?”

“No.”

“Then there’s your answer. There’s the limit to our forgiveness, why you’ll never be one of us.”

Spike turned the steering wheel sharply, slowed down, and pulled the van to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Giles looked up in surprise, but before he could demand an explanation, Spike was twisting in his seat to face him.

“Look here. What’s done is done. All the whining in the world ain’t gonna change anything. Angel may go for all that atonement crap, but if I had it all to do over again, I’d do it exactly the same. It’s made me who I am today, and so I wouldn’t trade any of it.

“And what did all that sulking get Angel? All those years with a soul, and he didn’t do diddly but hang out in the sewers eatin’ rats, moaning ’bout all the wrong he did. Took seeing your slayer to make him actually do anything about it.”

Spike leaned closer, his hand on the middle console and a dangerous glint in his eye, and Giles shrank back against the doorframe. “Let me tell you one more difference between me and old Angelus. Sure, I killed. I fed. I enjoyed it. Hell, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it. But the kill was always clean, quick.” He licked his lips and seemed to reconsider. “Maybe not always. The railroad spikes… well, sometimes critics have got to be put in their places. But my point is this: I never tortured anyone. I never got off on the suffering like Angelus and Darla and even Dru. If I’d been the one trying to wake Acathla…” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I would have just turned you. ’Cause, really, what was the point of puttin’ you through all that?”

Giles swallowed, but didn’t answer.

Spike pulled back slightly, a shadow of a smirk on his face. “What’s the point of regrets or of wishing things different? Not if it would turn me into a slayer-whipped pansy arsed Angel-clone. No thank you. I’d rather keep all my kills than chance that. I don’t regret anything. Not even gettin’ chipped.”

Giles’ eyebrows rose at that, and Spike smiled wider.

“Yeah, that’s a surprise, huh? I’m a better man today as a vampire than I ever was as a human because of it. And there’s Dawn. Without the chip, I would have never even known what I was missing.” Spike’s eyes hardened. “So ask me.”

Giles shook his head. “Ask you what?”

“No one cares ’bout what I did before. None of you would have anything to do with me if you did. ’Sides…” His eyes stripped the watcher bare. “I’m not the only one with blood on his hands.”

Giles dropped his gaze to his lap, the red-hot flush of shame burning his cheeks.

“There’s only one thing any of you care about. So be man enough to ask me already.”

Giles looked up again and met the vampire’s stare steadily. “If something happened to your chip… If tomorrow you found yourself suddenly able to kill again, what would you do, Spike?”

“The same thing I’m doing today, same thing I did yesterday.” Spike turned in his seat, facing front again, and pulled the minivan back onto the road heading towards LA. “Go ahead, ask me why.”

“Why?”

“I have a place, like I never did before. Dru loved me, you know. And I loved her. Always been a bit in love with love, wrote these God awful poems about it, pined after women who wouldn’t give me the time of day, but I never really knew what it was to be loved, unconditionally. Not even Dru did that. Left me ’cause I wasn’t dark enough for her. If something happened to me, Dawn would cry for me, same tears she’d cry for you. Never had anyone love me enough to cry for me.”

Giles looked back out the window, the breeze blowing across his face. “So you wouldn’t kill again if you had the chance? Because Dawn would never forgive you if you did?”

Spike chuckled darkly. “You just don’t get it, do you, mate? Dawn would forgive me, that’s just it. It’d break her heart to do it, but she’d forgive me anything, ’cause she loves me that much. I think if I ever went back to my old ways, she’d bare her neck for me and let me turn her. That’s what scares you. Scares me, too. But I’d never let that happen to her, never put her through that. It’s not worth hurting her. So no, while I may get a bit nostalgic for a good killing spree, I’ll never actually do any killing again.”

Giles nodded thoughtfully, unsure whether to believe Spike or not. He seemed sincere enough, but they would never know for sure unless, heaven forbid, his chip actually did malfunction.

Spike gave him a sideways glance. “Though I might make an exception in your case, if you ever manage to piss me off enough.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Giles replied sardonically.

And then, as if to signal that the topic was officially closed, Spike resumed their earlier conversation about the book in the watcher’s lap, asking about its usefulness.

“It’s a family spellbook,” Giles answered, leaving his concerns about Dawn and Spike for another time. “An assortment of spells passed down and added to over generations.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Her mother must have been quite powerful. Some of these spells… Some of these are certainly beyond anything that’s ever passed through my hands. I can’t believe Tara never mentioned this before. I can’t believe we didn’t notice it when we packed her things away.”

“It was wrapped in an old quilt. Anything useful in there?”

“Possibly.”

Spike shrugged and studied the road intently. “So what’s the plan? How we gonna stop this witch bitch from activating the sword?”

“We’re not. We’re not going to stop her; we’re going to help her finish the ceremony.”

That brought the vampire up short. “Is this some sorta thrall thing? ’Cause I may not be able to hit you, but I can get someone else to.”

Giles laughed. “No, just trust me. We have to make sure she finishes the ritual, just not with my son.”

“Doesn’t this sword give her a whole lotta power?”

Giles took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose in concentration. Every time an oncoming car’s headlights crossed his vision, he thought he would go blind from the unaccustomed brightness. How strange that a part of him wanted nothing more than to retreat back into the hated darkness. He sighed and replaced his glasses, his mind already forgetting Spike’s question. “I’m sorry, what?”

Spike repeated himself slowly. “The sword. Power. We help her. She gets power. Right?”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. In all of these books,” he motioned to the scattered volumes on the passenger floor and on the backseat, “we hear about the activation of the sword, the illustration of the lightning bolt and the 280 dead, but nothing afterwards. If the bearer truly gained all that power, what did they do with it, and how did they lose the sword to the next person?”

“S’pose with that kinda power, you could do some real damage, kinda damage people might write about.”

“Precisely. But none of these books mention what the sword was used for after, just tale after tale of its theft and the murders done to unlock its power. And not a single mention of the previous owner being killed to obtain the sword.”

“Which means…?”

“Which means, I think, that they were already dead. I keep rereading the account of its creation, and I believe the sorceress Camela is the only one who can wield this power.”

“She’s dead, right?”

Giles tilted his head in half-hearted acknowledgment. “Not quite. She gave her magic to the Mortog beast. Everything she could do, the Beast can now do. So the Beast is the only one who can wield the power of Camela’s sword. Anyone else who tries… the power is too much for them. It destroys them.

“Sabrina is the one with the sword this time. She…” He closed his eyes against the memories. “She came to me while I was trapped. I think I know her a little. She’s too powerful by herself. She can read minds somewhat, enough to anticipate any offensive moves you might make against her, magic or otherwise. I think our only chance is to let her activate the sword, to let the sword’s power destroy her for us.”

Spike nodded in approval. “Sounds like a plan. Means someone else’ll have to play blood sacrifice in your boy’s place.”

“I had considered that.”

“See, Rupe? We’re not so different you and I: both killers when we need to be.”

Giles focused on the book in his lap once more, unable to argue with Spike’s conclusion.

***

It took everything Buffy had in her not to bolt from their hiding place. Xander’s hand on her arm kept her still and quiet. There had to be more than thirty vampires grouped in the clearing, far more than even two slayers and one determined young man could take. They had arrived in a motorcade of limos like they were arriving at the Golden Globes. She and Faith and Xander had ducked into the bushes to watch and wait.

Faith didn’t seem to like the waiting any better than she did. The dark slayer was white knuckling her crossbow in the same way Buffy was gripping her sword. Too bad crossbows didn’t fire like machine guns; they could have dusted all of them before even one could reach their hiding place. But there was a reloading factor, which meant that they needed to wait for the crowd to thin.

Two vampires were standing at the forefront of the group, waving something at the invisible barrier and chanting. Apparently they were successful in opening a door, hopefully a door she could follow them through.

At least the party crashers are good for something.

They started to file through in pairs. Xander’s hand on her arm tensed, warning her not to rush them too early. Still, her body trembled, every muscle taut as a bowstring, ready to fly at the first opportunity, needing to reach her son before anything could happen to him.

But there was a sight she wasn’t prepared for, and even Xander’s soothing presence couldn’t curtail her instinctive reaction after she had seen it. She caught a glimpse as the crowd parted slightly, as they jostled for positions to make their way through the barrier’s narrow doorway.

Robin.

Her daughter held in the arms of one of these demons. Creamy bare legs dangled off the man’s hip. Golden curls obscured the face that was pressed against his shoulder. Her daughter.

The others might not have seen her. Buffy caught only a glimpse before the gap closed back up again. But Xander glanced at her when he felt the jolt of shock that nearly let loose the bowstring tension through her body into action. Even so, she held herself in check. Just barely.

She managed to wait until there were only five or six still on this side of the barrier. Then she came charging out of her hiding space, trusting Faith’s crossbow and her own sword to finish them off before they could finish her off. She beheaded two before she realized the others were dust too. Faith was quick on the reload. Then she ran through the narrow doorway, not waiting for Faith and Xander to catch up.

She swung her sword once, twice, three times and dusted the three that had turned back in the clearing to take care of her. Maternal instincts mixed with slayer ones made her a force to be reckoned with. She started into the forest quietly, ducking behind a tree and observing the remaining vampires just ahead of her. Nine down, only twenty or so left to go. Easy as pie. Lucky for her, the battle had been silent and quick. The vampires she was tailing seemed unaware of her presence.

The one closest to her stopped, turned around, and studied the break in the forest just behind him. A puzzled frown creased his already wrinkled brow, and he motioned to another comrade. “Hey, Frank, what happened to Nick and Carlo?”

Frank shrugged. “Who cares? Move faster. We ain’t where the Boss wants us when he wants us, he’ll fit us both in an ashtray.”

They continued on, and Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. She still had the element of surprise on her side. She turned around, her eyes searching for Xander and Faith. She even backtracked a few steps to get a better view of the clearing she had just left behind.

Apparently they hadn’t been as quick as she had. Either that or Buffy had made it through in the nick of time. The sad fact was that the door through the barrier had closed before Faith and Xander could pass through. Buffy would have to go it alone.

***

Joseph walked onto the beach as if he owned it. Just him and his little slayer in his arms. Sabrina was the only one he recognized, the only one he had ever dealt with, and she was near the water’s edge beside a young black woman. Sabrina’s eyes widened when she saw him, and Joseph took some amount of selfish satisfaction in her surprise.

“Hello, Sabrina,” he called out, invading their sacred circle as he strolled past the three nearest the forest. He noticed the little boy standing in the middle of their sand drawn symbol and apparently so did his little slayer. She began whimpering and growing restless in his arms. He tightened his grip on the girl, threatening her with a low growl, after which she quieted obediently.

“Joseph,” Sabrina hissed. “What are you doing here?”

“What I should have done from the beginning.” He set the girl down as he reached the sorceress. The child didn’t move from his side. “You were right, Sabrina. I don’t need Wolfram and Hart or my father or, for that matter, a partner. I’m ready to run the show myself, see what I can do with my own vision.”

Her eyes narrowed in anger, but he remained unflappable. “If you want that vision to include tomorrow,” she warned, “then I suggest you leave.”

“You hired me for a reason, don’t forget.” He snapped his fingers in the air: a signal to the men who were waiting for him. A dozen or more vampires stepped out from the forest and onto the beach. Joseph smiled smugly. “Superior manpower.”

***

Xander kicked a rock and eyed Faith warily. “So now what?”

She was running her hands over the spot where the door had been and meeting only the invisible resistance of the barrier. She looked like a mime. “We tried over. We tried under. Around didn’t work either. Tried bashing it, and all I can say is ‘oww.’ I’m thinking…” She sighed and faced him. “Actually, that’s pretty much all I can think of.”

Xander was thinking of the wrecking ball he had knocked Glory over with and wondering if that would knock a hole in it. He sighed too. “Yeah, I think we pretty much need Willow, a good-on-our-side-Willow, or-”

“Giles!” Faith finished brightly.

“Yeah, Giles could maybe…” He trailed off as she nodded towards the road behind him. He turned and saw Spike and Giles making their way towards them, the watcher holding onto Spike’s shoulder for balance. “Oooh, Gi-iles,” Xander said, understanding now. “This is definitely of the good.”

And then, in spite of all the bad stuff that was still going on around them, he couldn’t help but give in to the goofy grin that twitched on his lips. Giles was okay. Maybe a little wobbly on his feet, but he was okay.

“Definitely of the good,” Xander repeated before bounding off to meet his friend halfway.

***

“You don’t want to do this, Joseph,” Sabrina insisted. “You forget that I could cut you down with a thought.”

“Not quite,” Joseph laughed. “Although, you’d like to think so.”

“Try me.”

“Let me just spell it out for you, Sabrina: you’re outnumbered. Even with just the men you can see. Add in the ones you can’t, and you don’t stand a chance. Doesn’t matter what you can see in my mind or theirs; won’t help you defend yourself against that many opponents.”

“Walk. Away,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

“Perhaps you need a demonstration?”

He snapped his fingers again, and she heard a scream. She felt the stab of pain through the joining spell and turned in time to see one of her coven fall from the cliffs above, a crossbow bolt driven straight through her heart.

“One down, eight to go,” he told her coldly. “How many do you absolutely have to have for the ritual to work?”

“What do you want?” Sabrina glanced up at the rising crescent moon, hoping that whatever Joseph came for, he could make it quick. She didn’t have time for negotiating. But neither did she have time to fight with him and his associates.

He smiled, and she met his eyes, shock clearly written across her face. He knew he didn’t have to say it. He knew she had just seen it in his mind. She had seen in his thoughts what he had come for. He hadn’t come to bully her into becoming his partner, into using the stolen power of the watchers to find the potential slayers for him. He had come to claim the power for his own.

He had come for the sword.

***

Willow saw the men step onto the beach below her. She counted them. Seven. Ten. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. And they were only nine. She couldn’t make out specifics at this distance, even though her concentration on the spell matrix had just been broken. The man closest to Sabrina was carrying something and set it down, but she couldn’t get a clear look.

Julia was at her side, her hands shaking. “Watcher’s Council?” she asked tremulously.

Willow nodded. “That’d be my guess.”

Then she heard a scream, carried across on the cool night air. Helpless to stop it, she watched one of their own tumble from the opposite cliff. Falling. Falling. Buffy fell. Then, she had been too magicked out to stop it. Now, she simply didn’t react fast enough. The woman had hit the ground before Willow could call up the spell.

“No!” Willow’s cry of anguish choked in the back of her throat. It had been either Melody or Delilah. She couldn’t tell from here, but it didn’t matter which; they were both her friends. Separated from her now by the distance of beach and the height of the cliffs she stood upon, just as a battlefield and a rise of rocks had separated her from Tara. She blinked away the memory of stumbling down that rock bed, of racing across the crevice, of the scrapes and cuts on her hands as she desperately tried to climb to her lover before it was too late. Too late. Too late. Too late to save Tara. Too late to save her friend now. She could have saved her if she’d been faster. Giles could have saved her if he’d wanted.

Julia had dropped to her knees, her hand covering her mouth. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she was murmuring. “What do we do?”

Willow wished she could panic too. Wished she could cry and fall apart. Wished she could go back and be just a little bit faster this time. Wished, for once, that she didn’t have to play hero, that she didn’t have anyone depending on her help.

But if wishes were horses… and all those years of Scooby duty had taught her how to push her feelings back long enough to get the job done. She took a deep breath, unshed tears still blurring her vision, and turned to Julia. “Climb down. Go back to the shelter. Get help. As many as will come.”

***

Alex watched the lady and the man argue.

When they had first brought him to the beach, they had made him stand in just this spot and drew something around him in the sand. The other woman had wanted to do something more to keep him there, but the lady had said no. She had said that he wouldn’t go anywhere, that something terrible would happen to him if he tried. She had been looking right at him when she’d said it, and he’d been very scared.

But there were bits and pieces of this he remembered from his dream. He remembered standing in the sand, his shoes sinking slightly every time he fidgeted in place. He remembered how cold it was with the breeze off the ocean, and how he felt the wet mist on his skin as each wave crashed just behind the lady and her friend. He remembered the bad dog, the monster that had come, and so he was afraid to run, afraid the monster would find him if he did. At the same time, he remembered that he had run, had taken Robin and run and run and run until his little legs were so tired, he just wanted to fall on the ground where he was.

So when he saw the man bring Robin, he knew he would need to go soon, that something worse would happen if he stayed.

He watched someone fall from a cliff, screaming. It looked like something out of a movie, like something out of one of those shoot-em-up movies that Uncle Xander always got in trouble for letting him watch. She fell faster than they did in the movies. No slow motion. No rising music. It was very quick, and he had never actually seen anyone die before.

Alex knew his mother had fallen once, long before he was born. It was one of those things he wasn’t supposed to know about, one of those things people started to talk about before remembering he was there. He’d always imagined that his father had caught her. Now, watching this woman fall, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe his father hadn’t caught her. Maybe his mother had gotten hurt when she fell. Maybe that’s why his father always looked so sad whenever anyone mentioned it.

But his mother had gotten better, and maybe this woman was only hurt and would get better too.

The lady seemed pretty sure that the woman was dead, though. She was yelling at the man for it. She was yelling at him about the sword she was holding, too. Alex didn’t understand. Mommy and Daddy had lots of swords. They never cared who used what sword. They only yelled whenever he managed to get his hands on one.

And then everyone started fighting. The lady’s friend said something, a magic word, like “open sesame” or something, except that it didn’t open any doors. It made three of the bad men fall down, holding their heads in pain. That made the others mad, and they started fighting.

And no one was watching Alex anymore, or Robin either.

He tiptoed over to her quietly and took her hand. She didn’t seem to want to go at first. She kept looking at the man who had brought her. But he tugged a few times, and she finally allowed him to pull her away from the beach.

They were small, and therefore below most everyone’s field of vision. No one noticed them as they crept past pairs of people fighting. No one noticed until they were nearly to the forest. And then someone called out, “Hey!” and pointed in their direction.

Alex pulled on his sister’s hand harder, and they were both running into the underbrush, running as fast as they could, and it was just like his dream. They were being chased, and they were running. He couldn’t remember much more of his dream than that. Except that he always woke when he saw the bad dog. He always woke knowing that the bad dog was looking for them, that it was hunting them, and he never knew how his dream ended. He never knew if it actually caught them.

***

Buffy didn’t dare step into the clearing. She didn’t know how many vamps were watching, unseen. They had killed the woman on the cliff with a crossbow. If Buffy stepped into the open, she would be kabobbed in a second. So instead, she focused on moving through the trees, sneaking up on each hidden vampire, and kabobbing them first.

She could barely see her twins, whenever she neared the edge of the forest enough to actually see the beach. She wanted to call to them, wanted to swoop in and rescue them. But first she would have to eliminate every last sniper.

She wished Faith were here. And there was a thought she had never expected to have again.

Silent as a ghost. Spreading her slayer senses out. Searching for the next target. And then gliding in from behind, careful with each step, not to break a twig or crunch a leaf or kick the smallest pebble, not a single sound to give away the game. Light on her feet, like a dance, and quick like lightning. A rain of dust and ash before he even knew she was there.

She looked out on the beach again, as she did every time she was close enough to see it. The witches and vampires were fighting each other now, but her eyes cared only to find her children, to assure herself that they were fine. Her heart caught in her throat when she realized that they were no longer there.

***

Giles sat on his knees in the grass, the book in his lap, poring through pages, through his memory, searching for something that would get them through this barrier. He was aware that he was rocking slightly as he did, but it seemed necessary to keep him focused. It seemed to provide comfort and a steady sensation that could almost drown out everything else and allow him to think. He was also aware that the others were watching him, were talking about him softly like he couldn’t hear. But he could hear them. He could hear everything, feel everything, smell the grass and the damp night air, feel the dull ache through the bones Angelus had snapped and the leg Sulla’s bullet had shattered, hear the steady roar of the ocean waves and the occasional rumble of a car passing on the road behind them. It was hard to concentrate, to push everything else out while the whole world was trying to push in. He had taken for granted how easy it was to tune out the myriad insignificant details of surroundings and self, to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. It was a skill he would need to relearn, and fast.

“He going to be okay?” he heard Xander whisper to Spike. His eyes returned to the beginning of the page, and he tried to force himself to pay attention to the words in front of him and nothing else.

“Sure.” Spike sounded doubtful. “Even if he ain’t... Well, he’s not as bad off as Dru, and she could still get the job done. Maybe you have to have a few screws loose to be any good at the magic. I mean, look at Red: trading in her grip on reality sure bought her into the bad-ass mojo crowd.”

“Just so he doesn’t turn us into rats or anything,” Faith muttered.

Giles turned and glared. “Your distracting conversation is making that ever more likely.”

They jumped when he spoke and quickly shut up. Blessed silence. Well almost. But the sounds of the night around them could not be so easily cowed into silence, and he would just need to ignore them. Rocking helped, as did moving his lips while he read, as a child who is first learning might sound out the words.

He heard a branch snap, and his head snapped up with it. He heard another, then the crunch of leaves, coming from the forest just beyond the barrier.

The others heard too and were coming to stand beside him. Faith wondered the same thing he did. “Buffy?”

But Spike nixed that idea. “Too noisy for the Slayer. Probably a deer or something.”

But he was wrong too. Stumbling into their sight in the distance beyond the barrier, where the underbrush thinned into the clearing they all sat in, Alex and Robin came running. The children caught sight of their father, and they picked up speed, their faces filled with a desperate fear.

Giles tried to warn them back, but it was Robin who hit the invisible wall first, and she fell flat on her butt, rubbing her nose and crying. It would have almost been comical if the situation weren’t so tragic. Alex saw her knocked back and stopped himself just in time.

Giles smiled reassuringly for them, and pressed his hand against the barrier. His son mirrored him on the other side, his chin trembling as tears slipped down his small cheeks. Giles wanted nothing more than to hold the boy in his arms and never let go, but the best he could do was rest his forehead against the invisible wall as his child did the same. Robin stood beside her brother now, too, pounding her fists on the barrier and crying. Giles laid his other hand against where her cheek pressed, trying to calm her with soft words, wishing he could touch her cheeks and wipe away her tears.

“Giles,” she whispered plaintively.

He smiled, the tears stinging his eyes. She had spoken. She had spoken his name.

“Giles,” Spike echoed, but it was a warning.

He looked over his children’s heads and saw the vampires step into the clearing. He looked back down into his son’s eyes. Robin was too upset to listen, but Alex had to be made to understand. Giles filled his eyes with unwavering authority, became the strict disciplinarian who had reached the count of three and now there would be no story before bedtime, no more arguments, no more chances. It was the same expression his father had worn before reaching for the strap, and Giles hated himself for looking at his own son in the same cold, unforgiving way he had sworn he never would, just as he had sworn never to repeat all of his father’s other mistakes.

“Run,” he told the boy firmly.

Time seemed to move more slowly. The vampires were only a few feet from the twins when Giles raised himself to his feet. Alex had grabbed his sister’s hand, but she resisted leaving her father’s side.

“Go, Robin!” he yelled, forcing his voice to anger as she had never heard it before. And then the dreaded word, the one that spurred all children to immediate action, stressed with the threat of what would come after that word if they didn’t act. “Now!”

Alex pulled her, and they started moving to the side, even as the vampires were moving more quickly towards them.

“Back,” Giles told the demons, uttered with the force of will, and anger, and power.

They flew back into a tangled heap, and the children disappeared into the forest off to the right. The vampires tried to regain their footing, but Giles was holding them in place, muttering the incantation under his breath, trying to buy his children time to escape.

He could feel his spell wavering. He was out of practice and old and used up and why did he ever think he could stand against Sabrina’s power? He couldn’t even hold three vampires in place.

The one closest to him sneered as he broke free of Giles’ power. “Your boy’s blood is going to be just the pick-me-up I need.”

“Ha! I wish you luck in finding him,” Giles snapped, raising his hands, calling out the words, his anger and fear fueling his magic. “Seeking dead three shall not find or see but shall blind be!”

The three vampires stumbled as they got to their feet, squinting at him, at their surroundings. They made their way unsteadily towards the forest the twins had escaped through, nearly colliding with each other and various trees before disappearing from sight.

Giles collapsed onto the ground, spent, unable to think of another spell to stop the vampires from following his children. He was no mage. Even Ethan would be better at this than him.

Xander approached him and offered a hand up, which he accepted. “What’d you do to them?”

Giles shrugged, not terribly impressed with himself at the moment. “It was supposed to make them blind, but…” He stared at the spot they had gone through. “But I think it just made them a little nearsighted.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Faith said, dismissing the whole scene. “We’ll pick them up later at Lens Express. Let’s work on getting us on that side of the invisible wall.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” he snapped. “Do you have any helpful suggestions to offer?” He stalked over and snatched the book back up off the ground, nearly losing his balance from the furious movement. Spike, thankfully, caught his arm and prevented him from toppling over. But Giles wasn’t as thankful as perhaps he should be. He was irritated and frustrated that he did need help now of all times, now when his children needed him. He was cursing himself and his body that wouldn’t work just as he remembered it had, that couldn’t just climb out of the darkness and his bed as if nothing had happened. He glared at Spike, although the vampire had done nothing to deserve his anger. But he was convenient and easy to be angry with. Spike released his arm, allowing him to stand on his own two feet, however unsteady they might be.

Faith seemed to have taken his harsh rebuke at face value; she was trying to think of suggestions. “Well those other vamps seemed to think it was easy enough. They waved something at it, chant, chant, and poof: magic door. Can’t ya just figure out whatever spell they did and… I don’t know… redo it?”

Giles froze, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Of course. I’m profoundly stupid. I don’t need to find a new spell; I just need to redo what’s already been done. Faith, I never thought I would be so grateful to have you at my side.” He was reminded of that long ago war council before the battle with Glory, when Anya had similarly come through in a pinch after he had yelled at her for her incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm and sad lack of ideas.

Giles stepped closer to the barrier and dredged up the necessary redo spell from memory. As he concentrated on uttering the correct incantation, the others gathered behind him, weapons at the ready and all blessedly silent, considerate of his current limited capacity for concentration in the face of distraction.

The door opened, and they passed through the barrier.

“Faith, Spike, find Buffy and help her. I’ll back you up as soon as I can. And Spike, remember what I told you about the sword.” Giles headed in the direction his children had gone, still slightly unsteady on his feet, but strengthened by his desperate need to save his children. “Xander, help me find Robin and Alex before their pursuers do.”

“Shoulda turned them into rats,” Xander muttered as he followed.

Spike started laughing so hard everyone stopped to look at him. He returned their looks with an incredulous one of his own. “Come on! Don’t tell me I’m the only one who gets it. Three blind mice?” No one else laughed, and he blew them off. “Oh bugger, go find your tots while we rescue the Missus.”

***

“Hey!” One of Joseph’s minions shouted, pointing towards the fleeing children.

Joseph and Sabrina paused in their shouting match, and the other pairs stopped their fighting long enough to look as well.

Whatever else might have forced them into the roles of adversaries, in this they were on the same side: they both needed those children. For Joseph, he was watching his hopes for his own slayer disappear with Robin’s retreating back. For Sabrina, she needed Alex as her sacrifice, and her window of opportunity was rapidly closing. What the others thought as they saw the running children didn’t matter. The others were Joseph and Sabrina’s to command.

They looked at each other, and the vampire offered diplomatically, “Truce?”

The witch nodded her acceptance.

“Halt!” Joseph called out, and each vampire on the beach took a few wary steps back from their opponents.

Stop. Sabrina ordered through the joining spell, and her coven backed off.

“We find the twins as a team,” she told him, “and I will have the sword, and you will have me as an ally.”

She could feel his indecision. Joseph did not truly want to be in charge. His years at Wolfram and Hart had done that to him. While he might enjoy being boss of his own division, while he might have truly enjoyed being a full partner of the firm, there had always been someone to answer to. Even Holland Manners had had to answer to the enigmatic senior partners. And so while Joseph could play the cutthroat game of competition and backstabbing as well as any other lawyer still with the firm, he didn’t know quite what to do with himself without a boss of his own. And Sabrina would be all too happy to assume that role for the time being.

On the other hand, he didn’t trust her. And rightfully so. Because if he could see inside her mind as she could see inside his, he would know that as soon as she gained the power of the sword, she intended to strike him down with it for his insolence.

He studied her, and she knew he hadn’t quite decided whether to align himself with her or make a play for the sword himself. For now that would have to be enough. Later, she would see that he made the right decision. She might not be able to use her gifts to influence a vampire as she could a mortal, but all of the self-doubt and insecurity she saw inside him, all of his father’s cutting remarks and his colleagues’ mocking jibes that still echoed in his mind, all of that had to be good for something. After all, she only needed to buy herself enough time to claim the sword and its power.

“We’ll find the twins, and then we’ll discuss it,” he finally answered her.

They split up into groups of three, all vampire or all witch, none of them trusting the other enough to mix. They set off into the forest, and Sabrina looked up to each cliff on either side of her. Delilah was starting to climb down. And on the other side, Julia was almost to the bottom. More distressing was the fact that Willow seemed on her way down as well.

That would never work. As long as Willow remained at a distance, she would remain ignorant of the true nature of this ritual. But one glimpse of Alex, and she would know. Despite Sabrina’s masterful manipulations of Willow’s own weaknesses and desires, she could never hold her after that.

She felt Morgaine’s eyes on her and met her friend’s knowing stare. It was almost as if her friend could read her mind, could see in her thoughts what she would never admit out loud: that in this final moment, her control was only a tenuous illusion.

“Go,” she snapped at Morgaine, angry with her for being right, for the “I-told-you-so” she could see burning in her eyes. “Find them.”

And Morgaine obeyed, wisely keeping her tongue, letting Sabrina’s self-recriminations be enough.

***

Willow started to climb down the rock face, intending to help where she could, afraid that her magic could hurt the wrong person if she tried from here. She might currently have the best vantage point, might be able to see the entire battlefield, but she couldn’t see enough detail to discern friend from foe. Her friend on the opposite cliff seemed to have the same idea as she. Melody or Delilah, she couldn’t be sure which was left, was carefully scaling down her own precipice to the beach.

Willow had only taken a few steps down the steep but doable path along the side leading into the forest. She was no mountain climber to try scaling down the sheer rock face along the beach. Even so, the path towards the forest was treacherous, much scarier on the way down than it had been on the way up. She started down in a crawl, her hands seeking purchase and anchoring her in place before her feet stretched for the next step. She’d only taken a few such careful steps when she heard Sabrina’s voice in her head, carried to her by magic.

Willow, no.

But you need help, she answered. I’ve sent Julia to the shelter to get backup, but you need help now.

Delilah is coming.

So Melody was the one who died, Willow thought, not questioning how Sabrina knew. Sabrina always knew. Her power was awesome, was what Willow aspired to. If Sabrina were standing in Willow’s place, the height of the cliff would not limit her ability to protect them all.

Let me help.

She felt Sabrina’s desperation, an echo of her own. No! I need you there. Willow wanted to argue, but Sabrina continued on, not giving her a chance. I need someone at that vantage point, someone to be my eyes over the whole beach if I need it. Melody is dead, and Delilah and Julia are coming down here. You’re the last. I need you to stay up there.

But I can’t see anything from here. I’m no use to you.

If I need you, my magic will let you see. Please, Willow, be patient.

Willow sighed and resumed her post, standing sentinel on her precipice and watching over the now nearly empty beach. She hoped Julia would bring reinforcements soon.

***

Giles kept a pace that even Xander had difficulty matching. His long legs were an asset in that regard, as was the panic that gripped his heart whenever he thought of the vampires reaching his children first. That thought urged him on, even though his body was rapidly tiring and his legs were beginning to ache. He stumbled more readily than he used to, losing his balance over slightly uneven ground or when stepping over fallen branches. Usually Xander caught him, but sometimes the young man was a few too many paces behind him and could only offer him a hand up after the fact.

They reached the edge of the forest and stopped for a moment to look out over the beach. The sand opened up to the water far off to their left, but directly in front of them the sand quickly turned to rock that rose straight up towards the sky.

“Now which way?” Xander asked.

But Giles was studying the cliffs in front of him, his eyes tracing their slopes upward. He was thinking of his son’s myriad close calls: jumps off the second story railing at the Magic Box that had necessitated him adding a gate, various time-outs for being caught scaling the bookcases Xander had had the foresight to bracket firmly to the wall before the child was even born, an endless parade of jumps off the couch until something was inevitably broken, and fresh in his mind, the memory of Alex’s daring climb up the school bleachers during Dawn’s play.

“Alex wants to be a mountain climber,” Giles murmured.

Xander followed his gaze up the rock face. “Are you kidding? Even I would be scared climbing up there.”

Giles shook his head and started in that direction. “Alex is fearless. And Robin would be more afraid of being alone.”

The challenge was finding where the children had started climbing. The incline was more gradual off to their left, near the beach, enough that a person could almost walk up, but Giles’ instincts told him that they hadn’t gone in that direction. So they continued to the right, hugging the edge of the cliffs to present a less visible target and watching the heights above them for the children.

***

Only Faith’s reflexes saved Spike a staking. Her hand stopped Buffy’s blow inches from her target. She shoved the other slayer back, and Spike whirled to see the danger he had narrowly missed.

“Hey, hey, I’m on your side,” he protested.

Buffy blinked at both of them, surprised by their presence. “How’d you get through the barrier?”

“Giles,” Faith answered, and Buffy’s eyes grew wider, filling with hope. She looked at Spike, understanding his presence now.

“Giles?” she asked him, hardly daring to put into words her hope, lest he dash it with his answer.

“Yeah, I rescued your man,” he answered, straightening his leather duster by tugging on its lapels. “I think that deserves not getting staked.”

Buffy closed her eyes in relief, a weight lifted off her shoulders by the simple knowledge that her watcher, her husband, had rejoined the land of the living, that he was somewhere close by, that when this crisis was over, she would be able to look into those green eyes once more and give him hell for all the worry he’d caused her. Her eyes popped open in the next instant when she’d fully processed Spike’s accusation. “Hey, I didn’t know I was about to stake you,” she replied defensively. “I sense vampire, I’ve just been going for the kill. I’ve dusted eight already. Add in those nine we got by the barrier, and I’d say that’s half as many vamps as we started with.”

Faith shrugged and adjusted her crossbow in her hands. “Double the slayers, double the fun. Been a while since we played on the same team.”

Buffy smiled faintly. Not that she didn’t trust the other slayer. Well, alright, she didn’t trust the other slayer. A few betrayals, a little body snatching, and some extra-curricular boyfriend stealing wasn’t so easy to get over. But there were more important things at stake. “Yeah, maybe another time.” She turned to the vampire, not even wanting to think about the fact that Spike of all people was the one she trusted more. “You and Faith got it covered? I have to find the twins.”

He hooked her arm and pulled her back before she could go more than a few steps. “Giles and Xander are on it. Your watcher wanted me to make sure you knew. First priority’s gettin’ to Sabrina and the sword.”

Buffy shook her head. “The beach is pretty much abandoned. No ceremony tonight. They went after the twins.”

“That’s just the thing.” Spike drew out a cigarette and started smoking. God, time like this and the vampire couldn’t lay off the cancer sticks for five minutes? Buffy and Faith both coughed when he exhaled a large cloud of smoke. “See, it goes something like this,” he continued. “Watcher doesn’t give us good odds ’gainst Queen Witch there. He wasn’t a match for her, and he doesn’t reckon you are either.”

“She’s the one who cast that spell on him?” Buffy gripped her stake tighter and shifted the sword and scabbard slung across her back, every nerve on fire with her anger. Slaying was comfort food, and the last days without her watcher had left her craving some serious comfort. She hoped this Sabrina was demon enough to slay, but even if she were human, Buffy didn’t know if it mattered enough to stop her hand this time.

Spike smiled slyly as he tapped off his ash. “No, not her. But I’ll give you three guesses who did.”

Buffy felt her anger run cold. No. Please, no. She found her mouth suddenly dry. She had wondered, standing in the sorority house, staring at Willow’s forgotten picture, if she had it in her to face off against her best friend. Fate seemed determined to put that question to the test. Just the idea of hurting Willow made her stomach churn. Best friends since day one. And ever since that first night at the Bronze, Buffy had felt responsible for Willow. If not for her, the shy high schooler would have never learned about the ooglie-booglies it was Buffy’s destiny to fight. If not for her, Willow would probably be at Oxford right now, learning some language only two other people in the world could speak, or inventing some computer thingie that would put Microsoft out of business.

If she had a choice, she would do what Giles had done: he had walked away from Ethan. After Randall, after Halloween, after Eyghon, and even the band candy. With a sharp threat on his tongue and a dark warning in his eyes, he had turned his back on his friend, let the man disappear back into the underworld, and made no effort to track him down and bring him to justice. The Initiative may have taken Ethan off to Nevada for a short time, but even after securing his freedom and helping Longsworth to steal their twins, Ethan was spared retribution from his old friend.

Giles had his limit, of course, and that was the warning that always darkened his eyes. But he didn’t want to be pushed to that limit, didn’t want to be forced to fight someone he had once cared about.

And neither did Buffy.

Spike nodded a small confirmation as he saw the recognition in her wide eyes and ashen complexion.

Faith, however, hadn’t connected the dots. “So, who cast the spell on Giles?”

Buffy looked down at the ground. Spike answered the question. “Red did.”

“Red?”

Spike squashed out his cigarette to punctuate his reply. “Red.”

Buffy could feel Faith’s eyes on her. The other slayer sighed and offered kindly, “God, B, I’m sorry.”

Buffy shrugged off the sympathy and started walking through the undergrowth, the other two quickly falling in step beside her. “Right now let’s just focus on stopping this Sabrina and finding the twins. We’ll worry about Willow later. So we find the sword and destroy it or something, right? Living Flame like with the Glove, right?”

Spike shook his head. “Your watcher doesn’t think you’re a match for her. She’ll turn you into a slug or worse. Best Giles can do at the moment is change your eyeglass prescription before your yearly checkup.”

“And she’ll be even more scary powerful if she activates the sword.” Buffy stopped and studied the bleached blond vampire. They had done the research. It all seemed to be pointing in the same direction, and yet it felt as if she were missing something. “So we destroy the sword, right?”

“Wrong,” Spike countered. “Your watcher is certain the sword can only be used by the Mortog beast, that the Sorceress who made it gave the Beast the power to wield it. Anyone else who tries, finds themselves properly dead, and the sword starts over from square one. You try and go up against Sabrina, you won’t get close enough to land a blow. But if you let her activate the sword, you won’t have to. She’ll get herself killed for you.”

“So that’s the plan.”

“Means you’ll need a sacrifice.”

Buffy grumbled, “Volunteering?”

Spike laughed, but Faith piped up with the best idea Buffy had heard all day. “Can a vampire count as the sacrifice?” She was quick to add, “One that isn’t Spike, I mean.”

Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance. The vampire smiled wickedly. “Looks like we’re hunting vampires. Good, something I can hurt.”

***

They were all hunting something. Giles and Xander were hunting the twins, as were Joseph and Sabrina and the many vampires and witches spread through the forest and along the beach. Buffy, Faith, and Spike were hunting for the sword and the sacrifice. Willow was hunting the brushline for the first sign that Julia had returned with reinforcements. And the Beast. The Beast was so close, it could taste it. It was hunting as well, unseen and unknown. It hunted the children, wanting its vengeance and its promised power. It thought sometimes that they knew it was near, was nipping at their heels. The Beast could sense it in the boy’s thoughts, in the boy’s gifts, that the child had Seen this moment coming, that he had woken in the night, trembling in fear with the knowledge. The Beast might not have cared before who was the sacrifice, as long as the power belonged to it in the end. But now the Beast wanted the watcher’s child. Predator and prey, it hunted. The other watchers had spilled their guts with each stroke of its claws, and the Beast had tasted their blood. The boy would be the last of the watchers. And the girl…

And so we shall become our enemies, and we shall use their own power to defeat them.

The girl would become their instrument, their slayer. Let an army come. The memory of Camela would stand fast, defended by the very power that had been her death. As the Beast had promised, she would be avenged, for the lines of watchers would soon be wiped from the earth and the slayers would die and be Called forevermore in Camela’s name.

***

Robin was crying. Alex kept telling her it was only a little bit farther. He didn’t think she’d ever climbed before, not even a tree, because she kept almost slipping. He didn’t think it was that hard; they’d found a spot where the cliffs went up at an easier angle and there were lots of weeds and roots to hang onto as they climbed. But she kept shouting at him to “Wait!” and he kept shouting at her to “Hurry!”

He reached the top first and turned to look down. They were very high up, higher than he’d ever been before, and the view was amazing. The ocean went on forever and ever, a black mirror reflecting the night sky. Each white cap glittered in the faint light of the crescent moon.

Robin reached the top a moment later, and she scurried back from the edge. That was when Alex noticed that the ledge they were standing on continued back into the rock, turning into caves. He wished he knew how his dream had ended, but he always woke as they were running through the forest, running from the bad dog. He didn’t know what to do now, except to wait and hide and hope his parents found him before anything else did.

They didn’t have to wait long before they heard voices. But it wasn’t their parents. It was the vampires who had been chasing them. And obviously they knew where the twins were hiding, because they were climbing the cliffs after them.

Robin started whimpering when she saw them, and Alex put his arm around her, even though he was just as scared as his sister. They both sucked their thumbs and waited.

***

Giles was tiring, was leaning against Xander’s arm. They’d had a couple of close calls when they’d nearly been seen by some of the vampires who were also after the children, but they’d either managed to tuck themselves into a divot in the cliffs and evade notice or they’d managed to dust the vampires before they could alert any others. Giles made a mental note to give the young man some crossbow training when they got home. For some reason, he had thought Xander was a better shot than that. One poor vampire had taken a bolt in the shoulder, stomach, and groin before Xander had finally nailed the heart. Giles was fairly certain the vampire had welcomed death at that point, especially after the bolt to the groin. Luckily, for both them and the vampires, the next two were felled on the first try. Still, a little after hours crossbow training couldn’t go awry. Giles had done the same for Jenny after that fateful incident in the park when she had shot him in the back.

The rocks opened up slightly just ahead, and when they neared the crevice, they could see a narrow path carved through the rock and leading to the ocean. Giles paused for a moment, wondering if the children might have hidden themselves in there. He chanced calling their names and waited, listening to the answering silence.

Xander tugged on his arm. “Come on. The cliffs don’t look so hard to climb up ahead. They kinda go up at an angle. Don’t worry, we’ll find them.”

Giles nodded, calling out for Alex and Robin once more before turning to follow Xander.

A moment later, and they heard an earsplitting whistle above them and looked up.

***

At first Alex thought he had imagined his father’s voice, but then Robin raised her head, and he knew she had heard it too. Their father called each of their names, and he sounded very close by.

Alex stood and went to the edge to look down. The vampires were halfway up, and their father was nowhere in sight. Robin tugged on his arm and pointed to the caves behind them.

“Giles,” she said with certainty.

So they went back through the caves, holding hands, both of them stopping for a moment when they entered total darkness. In the end, they were more afraid of the monsters behind them than the darkness ahead, and they pressed on, their courage bolstered by the promise that their father was nearby.

They heard him call their names again and followed the sound out of the darkness, which was thankfully brief. The caves opened up again onto another ledge similar to the one they had just left. The view was of a flat rock face straight ahead, but it was still the most beautiful view Alex had ever seen. Because directly below them, he could see Daddy and Uncle Xander.

“Giles,” Robin called softly, plaintively, but nowhere near loud enough for anyone to hear more than five steps away.

Alex tried a little louder: “Daddy!”

But his father didn’t seem to hear him, and they were starting to move away. That was when Alex remembered his Happy Meal toy from dinner. It was still tucked safely in the front pocket of his overalls. He pulled it out and gave the little plastic whistle a good blow.

***

“Jesus!” Xander exclaimed, his eyes tracing the sheer rock face up to the children. “How the hell did they get up there?”

Giles was wondering the same thing. “There must be an easier way up on the other side.”

“Either that or you’re going to need me to brick up the kid’s window so he can’t climb out.”

Giles laughed off the comment, but in the back of his mind, he was thinking it wasn’t such a bad idea. He waved at the children, and they waved back happily. But when he started to move around the corner, Xander quickly stopped him.

“Whoa, hang on a sec. You’re barely mobile there, Giles, and in hardly any shape to try mountain climbing. Stay here. I’ll scout out a way up that doesn’t involve pickaxes and rappelling equipment.”

Xander passed him the crossbow and left. Giles carefully maneuvered himself farther into the crevice, his hand gripping the rock wall for balance and his feet sliding slightly on the slick, uneven surface. His mind was already working through a plan B, because that was pretty much what a watcher’s mind was trained to do. And if Xander couldn’t find a way up to them, they would have to find a way down for the children.

Plan B soon became Plan A. Xander was only gone for a few minutes, but his return made it clear that no one was getting up to the children.

“There’s an easier climb on the other side, but there are already three vampires almost to the top. And some others heard Alex’s whistle and came running.”

“Did they see you?”

“No.” Xander took back the crossbow. “I could try and pick them off, but there’s a lot of them, and I’m thinking we would need a slayer for this.”

“Or at least someone who’s a better shot,” Giles said, more harshly than he’d intended.

“Hey! I got three.” Xander relented a little on his defense. “Okay, the first took a few tries, but if he hadn’t caught the first bolt in mid-air, I’m telling you, I would have dusted him in less than a second.”

Giles smiled softly. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite myself yet, and I’m worried about my children. It all makes me a bit snappish, I’m afraid.”

Xander patted him on the shoulder and looked back towards the clearing. “Forget about it. So, full front-on assault?”

Giles frowned and tilted his head in thought. “High casualty risk. Low chance of success.” He was looking in the opposite direction, towards the ocean. “I say we get the children to jump in the water and go in after them there.”

“Okay, there’s a plan I would expect my father to come up with, and he’s a sick bastard. Are you crazy?”

Giles started carefully picking his way towards the ocean, not deigning to reply to the young man’s jibes. He blew out a frustrated breath when he felt Xander’s hand on his arm, stopping him. “What? Unless you have a better idea, this is the only way.”

“Can I ask you something, Giles? Back in England, did you happen to grow up next to the ocean?”

“No,” he replied quickly, eager to get this over with.

“And in all the years you’ve been in Sunnydale, how many trips have you made to the beach?” Xander interrupted before he could reply. “Where you actually went in the water?”

“Well, none. Your point being…?”

Xander started stripping off his shirt and shoes. “My point being: stand aside for someone actually born and raised near the ocean. Uncle Rory used to think it was funny to dump me overboard and make me swim for shore. If he was really drunk, he’d fall in after me, and I’d have to haul him back in the boat. Yes, sir, you are looking at a swimmer extraordinaire, summer lifeguard, and star of the Sunnydale High swim team.”

“Xander,” Giles warned with a small smile.

“Well, okay, I was only on the swim team for a week, but I played no small role in saving them all from becoming fish people, so I say that makes me a star.” He wagged his finger in the older man’s direction. “I’m telling you, if I’d wanted to, I coulda won medals. They didn’t know what they were missing, not putting Xander Harris on the relay team.”

Giles nodded his acceptance of Xander’s revision to the plan. As much as he hated to admit it, if he were to try diving in after his children right now, he would likely end up drowning with them. “If you bring them both to shore safely, I’ll pin a medal on you myself.”

“Let me swim out a little ways before you get them to jump.”

And barefooted, Xander trudged across the slick rocks and performed a perfect swan dive off the bank and into the water. Giles motioned to the children to follow along the ledge to the outcropping reaching over the water. He got as close to the bank as he dared, glancing over the side to assure himself that the children would clear the rocks when they jumped.

“Ready,” Xander called.

Giles pointed to Alex and tried to illustrate in gestures what the boy was supposed to do. He was really terrible at charades. “Jump to Uncle Xander,” he repeated over and over to his son, pointing to the young man treading water. Finally, Alex seemed to get it and stepped closer to the edge, staring down at the water and trying to discern his Uncle’s dark form floating in a sea of dark water.

Giles gestured madly, trying to get the boy to move. “Jump far,” he told him, wanting him to get as far out into the water and as far away from the rocks as possible. “Like a parachuter, Alex.”

This Alex seemed to understand, and he backed up a few steps before taking a running leap over the side. Ah, the fearlessness of youth. The child was actually giggling as he freefell. Giles, however, felt his heart stop for those few seconds as he waited for his son to hit the water. He felt nauseous and swallowed back bile as he blinked away the vivid image of Buffy falling from Glory’s tower, falling to her death. Sabrina had kindly made that image fresh in his mind, and for a moment he thought he could feel a twinge of remembered pain through his side. He was able to replay Buffy’s fall more than twenty times before Alex plunged into the water with a splash. His son would be fine; his son would be fine. He hoped if he repeated it to himself enough times, he could make it come true.

And part of him was afraid of how easily Alex had jumped off the ledge. With the same careless abandon that he had jumped off the bleachers at Dawn’s school. This was much worse than then. This was much higher, the landing less visible and more treacherous, and his father wasn’t catching him, no one was. And yet, once Alex had understood what he was to do, he had done it without hesitation. Giles wondered how he would ever instill caution in the boy and what might befall him if he didn’t.

He waited and watched as Xander swam to where Alex had dropped below the surface. He counted the seconds off in his head. One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three-one thousand. He wondered how long the child could hold his breath. Xander dove beneath the surface, and Giles was still counting. Four-one thousand. Five-one thousand. He wondered how strong the undertow was. But then Xander broke the surface with Alex in his arms. The boy was gasping and clinging desperately to his uncle. But he was fine. And Giles smiled, taking a gasping breath of his own, realizing for the first time that he had been holding his breath for as long as Alex.

***

Xander dove beneath the water before the spot Alex had hit, ripples still marking the point of impact like a bull’s-eye. He wasn’t sure if the boy had gone deep enough to reach the undertow, but if so, he would hopefully pass the child as he swam in against it. Xander was a good swimmer, always had been, and if he’d cared anything for sports, he might have done well on the swim team. But letterman jackets and school trophies paled in comparison to the nightly struggle against evil that had comprised his high school career, and so he had never bothered. Or rather, that’s how he had rationalized it to himself. Sour grapes, some might say. Athletics tended to be one part ability and two parts popularity, and Xander had always come up short in the latter category.

The water was dark, too dark to see, so there was no point in opening his eyes. He reached out with his hands, far and wide, high and low, as he swam, searching for Alex. Surprising how much of his lifeguard training he still remembered: how to search murky or dark water for a drowning victim, how to get them both to the surface, different grips to swim them to shore. He had thought it would be a cool summer job after his freshman year of high school, but it turned out to be a lot more boring than it seemed on Baywatch. So he hadn’t gone back and had never expected to use that training again.

But sometimes fighting evil required an eclectic set of skills. For example, when learning how to operate a wrecking ball, he had never needed to ask the foreman, “So, if I were to hit say… a hellgod with this thing, how much damage could I expect to do, and would I need a second hit?”

His hand touched denim, and he clamped on, pulling the child towards him by the strap of his overalls. He felt the boy’s arms slide around his neck, trying to almost climb up his body in panic, and Xander adjusted his grip so he had hold of him from behind instead, so Alex couldn’t grab him and drown them both as Xander struggled towards the surface.

He reached the surface and took a deep breath of air. He hadn’t actually been under for that long and wasn’t winded, but Alex was gasping, probably from a combination of having smaller lungs, being more afraid, and holding his breath longer.

“Shhh… It’s alright, kiddo. We’ll get you to shore and give your sister a go.”

Alex was shivering, and Xander realized he was cold as well. The ocean was nippy this time of year. He swam them both to shore, where Giles was reaching for them and motioning frantically for Xander to hurry.

“Get her to jump,” he told the watcher as he passed up the child, and then started back out into the water.

But Robin was more timid than her brother. Xander wondered briefly if she would have jumped if Giles had been the one waiting to catch her. But as the situation stood, she wouldn’t budge. He could hear Giles pleading with her to jump, promising her that Xander would catch her, which was somewhat of a lie. But he would get her up to the surface in a hurry. The girl looked like she wanted to jump. She kept peering over the side. She was scared, and Xander didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure he would want to jump in her place.

“Come on, Robin,” he called, holding up his hands to her for a moment before needing them to tread water again. “People pay money to do this at the water park all the time. It’s fun.”

She made a few tentative tries, backing out at the last second before ever jumping. But her time ran out, and Xander saw the vampire behind her before she did. She screamed when it picked her up from behind.

“You want her?” the demon taunted, holding her out over the edge.

Xander clenched his jaw, muttering to himself, “Come on, just throw her in, you stupid jerk.”

But it turned out the demon wasn’t that stupid and didn’t just throw her in for Xander to get. The vampire turned away from the ledge and disappeared from their vision.

Xander swam for shore with a speed that would have won him first place in any race. Giles offered him a hand up as he clambered up the rocks along the bank. As soon as he had regained his footing, he found young Alex pushed into his arms.

“Take him back to Anya at the car. I’m going up for Robin.”

“Don’t be crazy, Giles. There’s like half a dozen vampires up there and probably more coming. We’ll have Alex wait for us down here and go up together.”

“No. Take him back to the car. Make sure he’s safe. Take the crossbow with you.”

“You’re not the Slayer, Giles. You can’t fight that many vampires hand-to-hand.”

The look Xander received was deadly serious and brooked no argument. “No, but I can fight them with magic. Go.”

Giles turned and walked off without waiting for any further debate.

Xander sighed and looked down at the child he was holding in his arms. “Your daddy’s really stubborn, you know that?”

Alex sniffled. “Daddy ’ake up. No s’eep.”

Xander smiled and slipped his wet feet in his shoes with a squish each. “Yeah, your Uncle Spike woke him up.”

“Code,” Alex complained, shivering as if to illustrate.

“Yeah, me too.” The cool water mixed with the night air made it very cold indeed. Xander wrapped his dry shirt around the boy instead of putting it back on and earned a kiss on the cheek for his consideration. “Come on, let’s get you back to Anya, and then I’ll find your mommy. I wonder what she’ll have to say about your daddy’s little suicide mission.”

***

The Beast saw the vampires near the top of the cliff and knew they had found the girl. It saw the watcher near the bottom and knew he was going after her. So the boy was not the last of the watchers after all. His father still lived and had broken free of the witch’s spell.

And the watcher’s son had already been rescued and spirited off.

The Beast roared its frustration and heard its cry echo across the landscape. Above, the crescent moon was nearing its zenith. The ceremony would need to be finished soon. It sensed that more witches had come to the beach and decided that one of them would have to do for the sacrifice. The watcher’s child could be dealt with later. For now it had to claim the power of the sword.

It turned back into the forest.

***

Buffy eyed the other slayer warily. Faith had an unconscious vampire slung over her shoulder, which she promptly deposited on the ground in front of her.

Buffy pushed her own choice of sacrifice forward, the demon’s hands firmly bound behind his back with her shoelaces and his mouth gagged with her hair band. She had really liked that hair band, too.

“Wish I’d thought of knocking him out,” Buffy said with a frown.

“Where’s Spike?” Faith asked.

“Still looking for his own sacrifice, I guess. But we beat him back. I say we just head for the beach.” Buffy nudged the unconscious vampire with her foot. “Mine’s a little more mobile than yours.”

Faith shrugged and staked him. “Problem solved.”

Buffy frowned down at the pile of dust with a thoughtful expression. “Notice how all the vampires in this little cult are men?”

Faith slipped her stake back into her front pocket, unconcerned by that bit of knowledge. “Yeah, I hear the glass ceiling on these vampire law firms can be a real bitch.”

They heard a sound echo around them, something between a lion’s roar and the first rumble of an earthquake.

“What the hell was that?”

Buffy’s eyes were searching the woods around her. She was remembering her son’s dream, how he had kept mentioning the bad dog and pointing to the Mortog beast. She was remembering April’s description of the mutant bear that had attacked her and walked away from a bullet wound to the heart. She was thinking about what Spike had said: that only the Mortog beast could wield the sword.

Buffy swallowed and answered Faith. “I’m thinking Sabrina isn’t the only one who wants the sword. Let’s hurry.”

***

Giles could feel his legs shaking from the effort of scaling the cliff. Even if it were an easier climb and a less hazardous incline, he was not in the best of shape to attempt it. But he could see the second group of vampires near the top and knew the first had already captured his daughter. That was enough to give him strength to go on.

His hands gripped each patch of tangled weeds and roots as his feet sought out purchase on each protruding rock. He needed to reach the top before the vampires started back down, or they were likely to just push him off. To that end, he struggled for a spell that might help.

Concentration was still difficult, and he wondered how long it would take him to recover from days of forced isolation and deprivation, or if indeed it might mark him forever. He actually had to pause in his climb for a moment to think of the spell, because he found he could not do both at the same time.

The answer skittered just beyond his grasp when he heard the Beast’s howl. Not animal or human or vampire. It was definitely a demon of some kind. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound happy, which he hoped foreshadowed a victory for the forces of good.

The spell. Focus.

He thought of a small bit of magic, something he had used at Oxford before dropping out, before joining up with Ethan, before Randall’s death, before locking his magic away deep inside and avoiding its use at all costs. A small spell to make the long walks between classes and his dorm a little shorter. His roommate had always wondered how Giles always arrived everywhere first.

He spoke the incantation softly, his memory for the whole spell returning after the first few words, as something learned by rote flows to the end once it’s begun. The spell folded distance, making each step he now took worth ten.

He reached the top in record time and pulled himself up onto the ledge. He strode into the cave, meeting the vampires on their way out. Four of them. The first three blinked at him in the dim moonlight, their vision still weakened by his previous spell.

“You again,” one of them said.

The vampire he didn’t recognize was the one holding his daughter. It looked as if the others had been fighting over her, but now this one held her and met his gaze evenly. Giles addressed this vampire, his voice cold and unforgiving.

“Get away from my daughter.”

“Or you’ll what?” Two vampires stepped out from the shadows behind him, leaving him surrounded on all sides. He remembered too late that there had been six total. “You are outnumbered and unarmed, mortal.”

Giles raised his hands. “Incederete mortuī reī sed relinquerete meam cognatam integram!” The other vampires surrounding him burst into flame and fell as dust to the floor. Now just him and the vampire holding his daughter. “I’m telling you: put my daughter down. Now.”

The vampire appeared shaken, his previous arrogance evaporated. He clutched the girl tighter to his chest, one hand resting against her cheek. “I’m willing to bet my life that I can break her neck before you turn me to dust. Are you willing to bet hers?”

Giles hesitated. If he did nothing, she was dead. If he did something, she was dead.

A moment later, the decision was taken from him. He felt a cold hand grab his throat in a crushing grip from behind. His own hands came up in a pointless effort to loosen the chokehold enough to breathe. All he could think of was that he had failed her. Again. He had lost his daughter to the darkness, and there was nothing he could do to save her. Robin would watch him die, and then she would become the slayer they molded her into.

His panic was banished in the next instant when he heard Spike’s voice beside his ear. “So what you got there, mate?” Spike was in vamp-face and speaking to the other demon. “She doesn’t hardly seem worth draining. You know, you catch ’em that small, you got to throw ’em back in. Wait for ’em to get bigger, big enough to eat. Like this one here.” He stepped forward a few steps, still holding Giles in a death grip, his lungs screaming for oxygen. “Go ahead. Have a taste. I had my fill of the witches down on the beach. Couldn’t drink another drop. I’ll hold him for ya. Won’t get a chance to do none of that mojo on you. Promise.”

The other vampire smiled and set Robin on the ground. That was his fatal mistake, because in a single motion, Spike tossed the watcher aside with one hand as he raised the crossbow he had hidden behind him with the other. The vampire was dust less than a second after he realized his betrayal.

“Stupid fucking moron.”

Giles remained on his knees for several moments, coughing and trying to catch his breath. He felt Robin’s arms circle his neck, and he turned to take his child in his arms. She was trembling and frightened, but then again, so was he.

Spike stepped over to offer him a hand up.

“You didn’t have to actually choke me,” he complained.

“Had to look real.”

“Yes, well, very successful. I nearly blacked out.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Well maybe the first time without actual head trauma. Although, I do recall Angelus throttling you ’til you were unconscious, so…”

Giles rubbed his throat and glared. “Don’t you have a chip in that skull or something?”

“Your slayer and I went ’round on this before. Like I told her: only kicks in if I mean to harm you. You weren’t in any danger.”

“Tell that to my bruised windpipe.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Do stop being such a baby. Poor watcher. Your life pass before your eyes? Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, shagged the living daylights out of Buffy, cuppa tea? On second thought, not such a bad life to watch on repeats.”

Giles sighed and glanced down at his daughter, still trembling against his chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her face burrowed into the crook of his neck, her bare legs cold to the touch. Strange, that after they had kidnapped his daughter, he should find it in himself to be irritated with them for not dressing her properly for the cool night. He rubbed her back in soothing circles as he shifted his weight back and forth, trying to calm her terror. “Speaking of Buffy?” he asked the vampire.

“Me and Faith caught up with her.” Side by side, they both walked out of the cave and stood at the edge of the ledge. “I told her ’bout the sword, and we split up to look for a sacrifice. Figured demon would do as well as human. That’s when I ran into a half-naked Xander, said you might need some help.”

Giles nodded, thankful to whatever twist of fate was responsible for that chance encounter. “That makes twice today that I owe you my life. And now Robin’s as well.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking this deserves at least a month’s supply of blood and some of your best Scotch. You could cut Dawn a little slack while we’re at it.”

They both looked over the cliff’s edge at the distance they would have to climb down. Giles shifted Robin’s weight in his arms and took a deep breath. “There’s one more favor I need to ask of you. As much as this pains me to say, Spike, would you please take my daughter back to the car with Anya and Alex? I think she might be safer with you.”

“You seemed to do alright for yourself there, calling down fire and all that.”

“Yes, well…” Giles trailed off, his eyes seeking out the entrance to the cave, his mind tracing its possible route out to the ledge Alex had leapt from and on to the neighboring cliff, possibly on from there to the next and the next until connecting to the very cliff beside the beach and the ritual. “I have a strong suspicion that my magic might be needed elsewhere tonight. Will you take her?”

Spike slung the crossbow over his shoulder and reached for the girl, but she was having none of it.

“Spike, you’re still in vampire face.”

“Oh, sorry.” He smoothed his features and tried again. “Come on, Half Bit. Uncle Spike won’t let anything hurt you. Promise.”

Giles rolled his eyes. “You are not her Uncle Spike.”

“Well, I’m sure that nice snark will win me her trust.”

“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, having run out of patience for the moment. “Now, Robin, you’ll have to go with Spike. He’ll make sure you get to Anya safely. Alex and Xander are there as well. Be a good girl and go on. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

She whimpered as he tried to hand her over, and he felt her nails dig into his shoulders as she held on. She pleaded with him softly, her voice beside his ear, “No, Giles.”

It broke his heart, but it had to be done. “I’m sorry, Robin. Spike, just take her.”

She started to cry as she was ripped from his arms. Her little hands stretched for him desperately, and Giles had to turn his face from the sight. “Don’t drop her on the climb down,” he admonished the vampire softly.

“No worries. Your son’s more of a handful at bath time than she could ever be.”

Giles paused for a moment, wondering how on earth Spike could know that, before turning his back on both of them and heading into the cave.

***

Buffy and Faith had argued until the last possible moment. Faith seemed to doubt her fellow slayer’s skills at undercover work. And while Buffy may not have had past experience at deceiving her friends and playing double agent, she didn’t trust Faith to keep her cool long enough to play the lead in their little game.

So when they reached the group of witches standing in the clearing, they both tried to speak at the same time.

“So, guys, need help?”

“Look, we brought the sacrifice!”

The coven stared at them silently. A short sorority girl with long black ringlets eyed them skeptically. “Who are you?”

Buffy stepped forward in front of Faith, taking over their charade. “Friends of… you know, one of…umm…” What had Spike called her again? Oh, yeah. “One of Sabrina’s friends. We came to help.” She pushed the bound vampire in their direction. “We brought another sacrifice. Whadaya say we get the show on the road?”

Another sorority girl stepped forward. She seemed to be evaluating Buffy and Faith’s taste in clothes. Buffy was reminded somewhat of Sunday’s superior arrogance, and she felt a little like a freshman again.

“How come we’ve never seen either of you before?” the girl asked.

Buffy rolled her eyes and dismissed the question. “Like we don’t have better things to do than hang out with all of you. So we going to do this or not?”

She felt Faith poke her in the side and with an irritated sigh turned to look at her. Faith was pointing to the forest behind them. Vampires. At least a dozen of them. One of them smiled. “Slayer,” he said. So much for the undercover approach.

The sorority girls gasped. “You’re the Slayer?”

Buffy shrugged. “What? No slayers allowed in your little club? Gotta tell you, the University’ll be having a talk with you about Equal Opportunity.”

Faith had already drawn her crossbow and was starting to take down the first line of vampires as they charged them. Buffy drew out her stake and joined the battle. The witches, thankfully, did nothing more than make an appreciative audience. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled vampires and magic if they had joined in. Although, she began to suspect that they were offering the vampires a little magical protection. Each foe seemed a little stronger, a little faster, a little harder to stake than normal. And Faith’s bolts were just falling to the ground as fast as she let them fly. Eventually she gave up on her bow and tossed it to the side, joining her fellow slayer in hand-to-hand.

Sabrina’s coven of witches continued to watch and to use their magic to defend, but not strike down. And Buffy and Faith placed their backs to each other and fought in unison as they hadn’t since the accidental slaying of the Deputy Mayor.

***

Spike was thinking to himself that Buffy’s kid was pretty much a pain in the ass. A brat. He would like to think that she got that from Giles, but having heard Dawn’s stories from her childhood, he was pretty sure that trait was inherited from the girl’s mother. According to Dawn, Buffy had always insisted on getting her own way. And when they were younger and still living with both their parents, back when Buffy had still fit the stereotype of vapid cheerleader, she’d had a tendency to whine when she wanted to weasel something out of their parents.

Robin was still fighting him. She’d struggled against him the whole climb down and almost gotten both their necks broke. He’d nearly lost her in the clearing at the edge of the forest, when he’d needed one hand to feel for the door Giles had magicked in the barrier. The little bint had actually bitten him, and he’d almost dropped her. “You don’t want to get in a biting contest with me,” he’d warned her.

Now he could see Giles’ car just ahead and Anya in the driver’s seat, dutifully ready to take off at a moment’s notice. And the girl continued to kick and squirm in his arms. Alex, on the other hand, came running at the first sight of the vampire.

“Uncie ’Pike!”

He hefted the boy up with his free hand, carrying both children like footballs back to the car. Alex was cold and wet and making a damp spot where he pressed against Spike’s side. But the boy was giggling, and Spike bounced him a little as he walked, eliciting more fits of giggles.

“I go sp’ash. Jump water. Big s’pash.” Alex relayed the tale of how he got wet, not caring that he had already told the vampire when they met in the clearing earlier.

Xander was standing next to the car, his arms crossed over his bare chest, shivering. Alex was still wearing his shirt, which was now just as damp as the rest of the little boy. “Where’s Giles?” the half-naked young man asked.

“Playing hero. Or getting himself killed. One or the other.” Spike kicked the door, demanding that Anya open it, and she scowled at him as she did. He tossed the girl in the backseat. Luckily when Robin made a break for it, she found the door on the other side locked and childproofed. Spike wasn’t sure where the girl would run off to, given the chance, probably to look for Giles, but wherever she wanted to go, it would be far less safe than staying in the car with Anya.

He tossed Alex in the backseat with his sister, and the boy immediately began tormenting her by rubbing his wet hair on her shirt.

“Stop it!” she whined, swatting him away.

“Good luck with the pair of them,” Spike muttered to Anya, before shutting her in with the twins. He turned to Xander and looked the young man up and down. “A little more of you than I ever wanted to see, Harris.”

Xander was rubbing his arms to warm himself up. “I didn’t exactly bring a change of clothes. Didn’t expect swimming to be on the agenda.”

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes. Christ, he could remember when he used to be evil. When had he gone all soft? He stripped off his black leather duster and handed it off to the young man. Xander didn’t seem to know what to say, and Spike had an uneasy feeling that they were headed towards some sort of tender moment. He nipped that in the bud when he warned the young man dourly, “Mind you: ruin it, and I’ll be mighty put out. Got that coat off the last slayer I killed.”

Xander’s arms were already in the sleeves, but he made a face before buttoning it up. “You have washed it since then, right?”

“What, and lose the lovely slayer smell?”

Xander shuddered, but was obviously too cold to refuse the coat on that basis. The pair of them headed back to the beach to offer whatever backup they could.

***

Sabrina and Morgaine reached the site of the ritual at the same time. They saw the battle raging between slayers and vampires, with their own coven tipping the scales in the vampires’ favor.

“There’s the slayer you said was Joseph’s problem,” Morgaine pointed out bitterly. “And look, she brought a friend.”

“Give me the lecture later,” Sabrina retorted, turning her eyes up to the night sky above. “We are running out of time.” She pointed with Camela’s sword towards the symbol still drawn in the sand. “Start the ritual. I’ll make sure they don’t interfere.”

Morgaine didn’t argue, but Sabrina could feel her friend’s anger. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps she had taken too many chances, been too cavalier with their successes and too dismissive of their setbacks. It had become a game. But no longer. The finish line was in sight, and Sabrina would no longer concern herself with the other runners in their race, would no longer worry about who she could destroy and who she could turn dark, would no longer worry about anything except gaining the power of the sword.

She closed her eyes and found Willow through their joining spell. The twins were gone, and so there was nothing here for Willow to see that might shake her confidence in Sabrina and the coven. Only the two slayers, but that was easily explained, and Willow’s faith in her old friends was already broken. This would put it to the test.

Willow!

Sabrina looked through the other’s eyes, surveyed the battlefield from above, and listened to the witch’s heart, knowing just what she wanted to hear, just what she needed to hear.

The Council has found us, Willow. They’ve sent the slayers to hurt us. If we can just finish the spell, we’ll be safe.

I can’t. Willow answered. I can’t see at this distance. My magic might hurt someone.

Then let me be your eyes. Sabrina used the joining spell to channel some of her own power to Willow, to bolster her vision so she could see the battlefield not just with her eyes but with her magic as well. Protect our circle. We just need enough time to finish the ritual.

And then Sabrina strode across the sand in long strides to stand beside the others. Morgaine had already divided them out, choosing eight to form the circle around the symbol and sending the others to stand guard and defend them against any would-be attackers. The bound vampire was positioned in the center of the symbol to serve as the sacrifice. But that would never do. What did Sabrina want with a vampire’s power? She called another of their coven to stand as ninth in the circle. When the time came, Sabrina would push her into the symbol, and she would be the sacrifice. But the poor thing was innocent and trusting and never wondered why, with Sabrina, they now had ten and not nine.

***

Faith hadn’t felt so alive in years. The adrenaline was pumping, the whole world had fallen away, and she felt righteous again. Things were simple again. She was fighting bad guys, and she was one of the good guys again. With Buffy at her back, it was like having a second pair of hands, like they could read each other’s minds. Buffy would lose the upper hand with the one she was fighting and toss him in Faith’s direction. Faith would return the favor. Both vampires would turn to dust at the same moment. It was like a choreographed dance, how they each made room for the other, how they filled in the gaps and weaknesses of the other, how they made a natural team.

Faith didn’t seem to care much that the vampires seemed faster, stronger. It only made it more of a challenge. She still had that same familiar feeling: the one that told her that they were going to lose and she was going to win.

That feeling faded somewhat when she felt herself go flying across the beach and land flat on her back. She shook her head to clear it. She noticed that Buffy was in a similar position on the other side of the beach, the group of vampires now between them. They had been separated.

Buffy looked up at the cliff behind her and shouted to Faith, “It’s Willow!”

Faith looked up and saw it too: the figure standing on a ledge high above them. Buffy was headed in that direction, but Faith knew she couldn’t let her go. She raced across the distance, dodging vampires and ducking blows until she had reached Buffy’s side. “No, B, I’ll go.”

Buffy shook her head. “I have to do this. She’s my friend.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t have to do this.” Faith didn’t know how to make anything up to anyone, how to atone for any of the wrongs she’d done. Angel had told her that she would get through it one day at a time, a fine philosophy for dealing with her own pain and guilt, but it couldn’t hope to even the score. In the end, she had done the right thing by confessing and going to jail. That was the more abstract right, but it did nothing to mend the more concrete wrongs she’d done each person. Not Wesley. Not Buffy. Not anyone. This was something she could do for Buffy. She could spare her fellow slayer the pain of fighting her friend. Because Faith knew as much as it had pained Buffy to fight her, it would kill her to have to fight Willow.

Buffy finally nodded, her eyes haunted with the knowledge of what would have to be done, their blue depths grateful to Faith for bearing that burden for her.

Faith headed for the path up to the cliff, leaving Buffy behind to take on the less confusing evil of the vampires surrounding her.

She reached the ledge, and Willow was waiting for her. Her eyes were black, not the slightest sliver of white in them. Faith had heard that the more powerful magic did that to people, but she had never seen it up close and personal. It dawned on her then that she had no idea how she was going to fight Willow. All those years ago in the Mayor’s office, Willow had barely had the power to float a pencil, let alone square off against a slayer. Faith had threatened her with the knife the Mayor had given her, and that had been enough. Now, she doubted if any weapon would be enough against a bad-ass witch hell bent on tearing her apart.

“Faith,” Willow said sharply. “I should have known the Council would send you.”

Faith shifted slightly on her feet, her hands twitching in anticipation. She felt like they were two gunfighters from some cheesy western, each waiting for the other to make the first move. She licked her lips and tried talking first. “So how ’bout that ‘Willow, we’re still your friends, we can help you, it’s not too late’ speech?”

Willow shook her head, her face serious. “Oh, it’s way too late for that.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She tried a different approach. “How ’bout we take a time-out to figure out which side you’re really on here, Red. I mean, they must have really done a number on you if you’re willing to fight Buffy and… and Giles of all people. I mean, hello, librarian. Not exactly Big Bad material.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “No, of course I wouldn’t understand being seduced over to the dark side, ’cause I’ve never been standing in your shoes before.”

“No, you haven’t,” Willow spat back. “I didn’t betray my friends. They betrayed me! Tara is dead and… and you wouldn’t understand that either, because you’ve never loved anything.”

“Okay, so I don’t understand. Explain it to me. Make me understand why you would turn your back on your best friends, why you would mess up Giles with that spell, why you would hook up with this witch bitch who would make the Mayor look like Mister Rogers.”

Willow knocked Faith back three feet with a simple gesture. The slayer glanced behind her and realized one more foot would have sent her over the edge. She looked back at the witch. Willow’s face was pinched with anger.

“She’s not like that. She’s nothing like the Mayor. Sabrina’s good. She’s only trying to protect us. It’s the Council that’s messed up, Faith. And the fact that they would take you back has got to be proof positive of that.”

Faith pulled herself to her feet. Keep her talking. This was good. She didn’t actually have to fight her; she just had to keep her talking. “Maybe that’s how things are in your world, Red, but here in the real world, the facts are just a little bit different. The Council is toast. I’m talking bombed out, no survivors, hole in the ground to mark the spot, toast. Giles is the Council now, so if you’ve got issues with him, you two should sit down and have a little heart-to-heart. And your friend? Yeah, she’s so good, she tried to kill me. Killed Travers. Kidnapped Alex, tried to use him for this insane ritual. And just a little heads up here-” Faith pointed to where the witches were circled together on the beach. “That? Not a good thing. Someone’s about to get killed down there.”

Willow laughed. “And why should I believe anything you say? Every word out of your mouth has been a lie from day one.” Her eyes narrowed. “The Council set you free, Faith? They make a deal with you? You’ll be their little assassin, and they’ll set you up real good like the Mayor did?”

Faith felt her temper flare. Willow was making the same mistakes that she had and was still playing the role of little Miss Perfect. Talking, apparently, was going to get them nowhere, not with Red’s holier-than-thou attitude. And Faith was starting to feel the need to give someone a good beating. “So, we gonna throw down, or what?”

“I’d like to see you try and touch me.”

And then Faith was having second thoughts about a face off and was wishing she could go back to the talking part. Because Willow was chanting something in some language she didn’t know, and the air was beginning to swirl around her, and Faith was realizing that she was out of her league.

With a final word, power crackled from Willow’s fingertips, and she unleashed her spell. Faith thought briefly of Giles lying unconscious on the floor, of his soul-rending cry that had sent Buffy charging down the stairs, of how even now he was marked by it, how he had sat curled in the grass with the book across his lap, rocking and murmuring to himself like the guy from Rainman.

Faith hoped that Willow would just kill her. Not just to avoid Giles’ fate, but also to put an end to all her regrets, an end to every hour of every day when she was haunted by the memories of what she had done: Wesley’s bloodied face staring at her in contempt, You are a piece of shit, looking at herself through Buffy’s eyes and pummeling her own face as she repeated it like a mantra: You’re nothing; you’re nothing, and always, always, the face of Deputy Mayor Allen Finch as the light went out in his eyes.

Let Willow kill her. What could Faith do to stop it? This could be her redemption. She would die in Buffy’s place, and this would make everything right again.

Willow’s power coalesced into a raging fireball that came hurling straight towards the slayer. Faith closed her eyes. A moment later, and she opened them again. Willow looked as baffled as she was. The fireball had dissipated before ever reaching its target.

But all was soon explained by the familiar voice inside her head, and Faith smiled. She closed the distance between them and punched Willow in the jaw, knocking her back on her butt. Hands on hips, Faith looked down her nose at the witch. The scales had just tipped back in her favor.

“Check it out, Red. I got watcher back-up.”

Willow turned her face to look out across the beach. Giles was standing on the opposite cliff.

***

Willow’s head was pounding. It felt like Faith had broken her jaw. And with her magic-enhanced vision, she could see Giles standing on the opposite cliff where Melody and Delilah had stood before Melody’s fatal fall.

Giles had escaped her spell, and now he had come with the other watchers and the slayers, and Willow didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice. She had held back her power before, trapped him and nothing more, but this time she would hold back nothing. Melody was dead. Four others of their group were dead. Tara was dead. No more innocent blood would be spilled for the foolish ideals of the Council, not if Willow could help it.

She raised herself to her feet. “God of wind and winter storm, I call on thee my will perform: walls of cold unyielding ice surround and squeeze him like a vise.”

She felt the cool wind rise at her command, sensed the force of her spell begin to solidify into his ice prison, but then his own magic lashed out and met hers. Her spell crumbled beneath his will. And Faith was advancing again, was pressing her advantage.

Willow struck out at Faith: “Kali, Hera, Kronos, Tonic… Air like nectar thick as Onyx... Cassiel by your second star... Hold mine victim, as in tar!” The air became impossibly thick, and Faith pushed against it, struggling to come closer to Willow, but barred by this barrier.

Willow felt herself flung backwards. She hit the rocks behind her hard and slid down to the ground. Raising her head, her eyes found Giles. He wasn’t giving an inch; he was already casting the next spell, meaning to bind Willow this time, and God, was his magic strong. Willow had the disadvantage in this situation: her attention was divided between Giles and Faith. She raised her hand and blocked his spell, their power clashing in the air above the beach, exploding like fireworks in the space between the cliffs.

But it weakened her hold on Faith, and the slayer came closer. Willow couldn’t hold them both off, but she could divide his attention as he had divided hers. She wondered if he could protect both Faith and himself.

She faced the slayer and smiled in anticipation. She had always privately thought that someone should turn her into a rat. “Goddess Hecate, work thy will: before thee let the unclean thing crawl!”

Light swirled around the slayer, but it crackled as it failed to solidify. Giles was shielding her. And so Willow lashed out at her old friend and mentor. Her magic increased steadily, and his own weakened as he fought to shield both Faith and himself. He dropped to one knee. The air between them rippled and flashed with light and energy. She knew tricks that he couldn’t even imagine. Sabrina had taught her well, hadn’t hidden books out of sight or scolded her for curious explorations. Under Sabrina’s tutelage, Willow had awakened power within herself that Giles and the Council would have rather lain dormant.

And so she wanted him to see what she had become, what he had tried to deny her. She wanted him to taste her magic and know that she was no longer a naïve schoolgirl. And so she threw every bit of power she had at Giles. If he wanted to fight her with magic, then he would learn the hard way that she couldn’t be bested.

***

Giles struggled to hold back Willow’s onslaught, feeling himself torn in two directions as he also tried to maintain the shield around Faith.

He had followed the caves through the cliffs, past the ledge Alex had jumped from and onto another set of caves and another. He had been right to hope that they might eventually open out onto the beach and the ritual. He had searched, not just with his eyes, but with his power as well, the magic becoming easier the more he used it. He had searched for Buffy first. She was on the beach, fighting for her life against a horde of vampires. He had wanted to help her, but he had noticed Faith then, standing off against Willow on the opposite cliff. In times past, there wouldn’t have even been a choice. But now Faith’s fate was linked with his daughter’s, and to choose between Buffy and Faith was also to choose between Buffy and Robin.

In the end, Buffy was holding her own, and Faith was in dire straits. So he had used his power to stop the fireball Willow had hurled at the other slayer.

Now, he was thinking very little of how he could help Buffy or Faith, and was more worried about keeping Willow at bay, stopping her from sending him back into the darkness or worse.

He was tiring. He was a match for her, but not with his concentration divided. The air between them was alive with power, a raging firestorm above the beach below. He blocked her every spell, but that left him with nothing to mount his own attack. He protected himself, and he protected Faith, and even those two ends were becoming more difficult. Willow was powerful. And she was angry. And for some reason, she blamed him for Tara and for who knew what else. She lashed out at him with a righteous rage, and he didn’t know if he had it in him to give as good as he got. He didn’t know if he had it in him to actually hurt Willow.

He couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

Faith. He called to her, as he had after blocking the fireball. Be ready. I’ll give you an opening, and then you must take out Willow.

He bolstered the shield around Faith and felt his own weaken accordingly. He whimpered slightly as wind like sharp knives assailed him. He took a deep breath and braced himself as he knocked down the barrier between Willow and Faith.

Pain.

He flew back against the rocks behind him, as there was nothing now between him and Willow’s assault. Half a dozen of her spells that he had kept at bay now roared to life around him. Fire and ice, serpents and steel, quicksand beneath him and a rain of glass across his skin. He cried out and felt blood spill out his nose and into his mouth. He tasted blood and fear, and through it all, he held the shield around Faith.

***

Faith pushed against the barrier. She was trapped, like trying to move through drying cement. She had felt a brief moment of panic when she had thought Willow might turn her into a rat. She remembered that after Buffy and Willow had narrowly avoided being burned at the stake back in high school, that they had shown her Amy in her little cage with her little wheel. Faith might have thought prison was bad, but she would gladly take those bars rather than that tiny cell.

But she could almost see the shield that kept Willow’s spell at bay, and so she thankfully wasn’t turned into a rat. Giles, of all people, was protecting her.

She could do nothing but stand witness to the mage battle being waged before her eyes. She could make no move. She could offer no magic of her own. She could only stand idly by and hope Giles’ shield would hold. She watched their power clash in the air at the mid-point between their cliffs. She could barely see Giles at this distance, and she wondered briefly if his eyes were as black as Willow’s, if his hands crackled with power that arced between his fingertips as Willow’s did.

And then she heard his voice inside her head, just as she had after the fireball had miraculously dissipated. Just like then, it momentarily scared the crap out of her, having someone else’s voice suddenly inside her head. But she recovered quickly and focused on his words.

Faith. Be ready. I’ll give you an opening, and then you must take out Willow.

Like a runner at the starting block, she prepared herself for that opening. She saw a flare of light from the shield surrounding her, and then the thick air around her thinned enough for her to move. She sprinted the short distance between her and Willow, and without hesitation, landed a punch that should have knocked the witch out cold.

But Willow had seen her coming and had time enough for some small measure of magical defense. The blow only knocked her off her feet. Those black eyes were focusing once again on Faith, and the slayer rushed forward in an attempt to head off the witch’s next spell.

I can protect you, Faith. Giles’ voice in her mind again. He sounded winded. He sounded tired. He sounded like he was in pain. Knock her out, but don’t kill her. You understand me, Faith? Don’t kill her.

Faith wasn’t making any promises.

Her hands around Willow’s throat, she would introduce Red to unconsciousness if she could, but if it came down to saving her own skin or saving Willow, Faith would weep no tears over this death. Not an innocent life beneath her hands, but not a demon either. Willow had made her choices, and that put her somewhere in the middle.

One of Willow’s hands tried to loosen Faith’s grip on her throat. The other hand was pressed against Faith’s belly. Where it touched her, she grew steadily warmer. She hoped Giles was doing his stuff, and if he was, she wondered how much worse it would have been without him.

Faith’s hands began to slide from Willow’s throat. The warmth changed to pressure, and Faith found herself again thrown back nearly to the edge.

Willow charged, determined to be the one on top this time, determined to have her own fingers around Faith’s neck. Faith waited for the right moment, and then she turned Willow’s momentum against her. She flipped the witch over and past her, except that there was no ground on the other side for Willow to land on. Nothing to keep her from falling except Faith’s hand, still gripping Willow’s arm tightly.

How could a Slayer lack the strength to hold onto one petite young woman? How could the hand that could keep its grip on a sword while being hammered by a 300 pound, battleaxe wielding Slith demon lose its grip on another person’s hand? Faith knew they would ask her those questions later. She knew they would believe that she had done it intentionally. It didn’t matter what they thought. All the Slayer strength in the world couldn’t keep hold of Willow’s arm as it slid through Faith’s fingers.

Willow fell, with only the beach to catch her.

***

Buffy didn’t see her friend fall. She didn’t see much of anything except the mouthful of fangs that leaned over her. Two other vamps pinned her down as their friend tried to sample a bit of slayer’s blood. But then he was dust, and soon after so were his two friends. Buffy coughed and tried to see through the cloud of vampire remains.

“Spike?” The air settled, and the figure became clearer. “Xander?” Her friend offered her a hand up. “Why are you wearing Spike’s coat?”

“Been asking myself the same question,” the vampire answered from behind her. “Duck!”

She and Xander both dropped to their knees as one. Spike staked the vampire who had thought to sneak up from behind.

They rose again, and Buffy sized up her two allies: Spike and Xander each had a crossbow strapped to their backs and a stake in their hands. Xander was also clutching a large cross in his other hand.

“Think you can handle the LA Law rejects?” she asked them.

“Sure,” Spike assured her gamely. “You’ve already thinned the herd a bit for us.”

“Keep them occupied. I have to get to the ritual.”

And Buffy was off. She pushed her way through the line of vampire lawyers, Spike and Xander lending a hand to give her room. And then she was face-to-face with the small group of witches assigned the job of guarding the circle.

“Hey, look! It’s Harry Potter on a broomstick!”

None of them turned to look.

“Alright, looks like we do this the hard way.” There were only four total, and Buffy doubted any of them were really prepared to hurt someone. So far they had only used their magic for defense. She expected that’s what they would do now. Or at least she hoped that’s what they would do.

Her slayer speed allowed her to catch the first one off guard. A solid punch to the jaw, and she was out cold. The second one didn’t go down so easily. The other two were shielding her. They probably expected Buffy to keep trying until she’d knocked her out. But Buffy never did the expected. She spun and delivered a round house kick to one of the other pair, abruptly shifting targets. Her partner stood in shock, unable to recover fast enough to shield the punch Buffy delivered to her immediately afterwards.

Three out cold, and Buffy faced the one left standing. She looked impossibly young. Closer to Dawn’s age than college-age, she must be one of the runaways instead. The girl’s eyes went wide, and all the color drained from her face. She didn’t wait for Buffy to knock her out; she turned tail and ran.

Buffy strolled over casually to join the circle standing around the sand drawn symbol. They were chanting. Their hands were moving in a synchronized pattern. It reminded Buffy somewhat of a very odd cheerleading routine.

Sabrina was holding the sword aloft, and her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of the slayer. Buffy smiled sweetly and drew her own sword, using it to gesture between them as she mouthed the words: You’re mine.

Sabrina’s eyes darted up to check the moon’s progress across the sky.

“Go ahead and finish,” Buffy told her. “I can wait.” Can’t wait to see your power go boom, though. Want a front row seat for that. She thought of Giles lying pale and still on their bed, thought of Alex crying himself out in her arms after a terrible nightmare, and her anticipation for Sabrina’s destruction only increased.

Sabrina seemed to accept Buffy’s reprieve, and her eyes closed. The chanting continued, reaching a crescendo, and Buffy waited. Bored, she studied her opponent head-to-toe, disappointed that she couldn’t deliver Sabrina’s destruction with her own hand. At the moment, Buffy felt no moral compunctions against taking a human life. As she would have taken Faith’s life to save Angel, she was ready to take Sabrina’s life to protect her family.

That was when she noticed it. Her gaze skipped past it at first, but quickly backtracked to focus on that spot. A slayer’s intuition and the past days’ research… Alex’s dream and April’s attack… Giles would be proud of her. Buffy had just pieced the puzzle together, as even her watcher hadn’t. In that single instant, with that tiny, seemingly insignificant detail, everything clicked into place, and Buffy knew.

She knew that Giles was wrong.

She leapt through the circle and tackled Sabrina on the other side. Both their swords went flying across the sand.

“Don’t stop!” Sabrina shouted to the others. “Finish the ritual!”

The nine witches continued without pause as Sabrina struggled to gain the upper hand on Buffy. She was rapidly succeeding. There wasn’t a single move Buffy could make that Sabrina couldn’t anticipate. Buffy found each blow blocked before she could even think of it. Buffy was not so lucky. Sabrina seemed to know just where to hit, just how to use the slayer’s momentum against her, exactly how to slip beneath her defenses, and just where each weakness lay.

Buffy heard Giles’ voice inside her head: Let her take the sword, Buffy. It will destroy her.

But Buffy was too absorbed in combat to carry on conversations in her head. The two of them rolled across the sand, and Sabrina landed on top. She smiled down on the slayer and whispered, “They’ll forget you, you know. After you’ve died. They’re too young.”

Buffy took a swing, which Sabrina easily avoided. The chanting lent a steady drumbeat to their fight, an urgent reminder that time was running out.

***

Silence. All the more quiet in contrast to the urgent chanting of moments before. Morgaine tilted her face up until she could feel the moonlight across it. She could feel the light of the crescent moon at its zenith shiver through her whole body. She knew the others felt it too. They caught their breath and waited, feeling it across their skin and in the wind as it whipped across the breakers and over the shore. The first smatterings of rain tickled her cheeks, and she smiled as she heard the faint rumbling of thunder.

The light raindrops pricked random holes in the sand, and the circle of nine waited, watching the vampire in the middle of their crescent moon and lightning bolt, a sacrifice bound by rope and spell to their altar. Camela’s sword lay abandoned only a few feet away, and soon it would contain the power for which it was forged.

“Well, well, well,” a voice called out from behind her. “Sabrina leave you in charge, did she?”

Morgaine stiffened and spun to face the intruder.

Joseph Zalk held a crossbow leveled at her, and she had a sinking feeling that Sabrina would soon learn just what sparing his life would cost her.

***

Giles wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He stumbled closer to the ledge’s sharp drop-off. He had untangled himself and defused all of Willow’s spells. He was now left with shallow cuts across his face and hands, a monster migraine, and a slight ache and limp in his right leg as reminders of their battle. Great, just great. You’ll have *two* lame legs when this is all over.

Faith was headed down after Willow, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He couldn’t dwell on the possibility that Faith might find her dead at the bottom. For right now, he had to focus on the battles yet to be decided.

Buffy was losing to Sabrina, just as he had feared she would. He had tried to remind her.

Let her take the sword, Buffy. It will destroy her.

But why should he have expected her to listen to him? His slayer was stubbornly independent that way. And now that stubborn streak was likely to get her killed.

Because how could she hope to fight a foe that could practically read her mind?

***

Morgaine flicked one of her fingers ever so slightly and conjured a small distraction. It was all she needed to make a play for the crossbow in his hands. But never having fought a vampire before, she found him stronger than she had imagined. He held tight to his grip on the weapon, and they wrestled for it, sending the loaded bolt flying into one of the unsuspecting coven. The girl went down to her knees, the bolt driving itself into her side, her cries of pain echoed by the rising thunder.

Morgaine and Joseph twisted and switched positions again and again, neither willing to relinquish their hold on the crossbow. She drew breath to utter a spell, and that was when he seemed to realize he couldn’t win.

He let her have the crossbow. She was tugging against him so hard that when he abruptly let go, she found herself staggering backwards, knocking into the bound sacrificial vampire and bumping him out of the symbol. She landed on her butt, the bow in her lap. Her eyes traveled over the sand surrounding her: the half-circle of crescent moon, the jagged line of lightning bolt, the small divots the soft rain had poked in the sand.

She jumped to her feet as quickly as she could, but she wasn’t fast enough. She heard the crack of lightning, and her eyes sought out Sabrina’s one last time.

For hundreds of years, they had stood at each other’s side. Sabrina had freed her from mortality, had shown her worlds she had never imagined. Morgaine smiled for her friend, hoping she would appreciate the irony.

For they had met all those centuries ago on just such a rain dappled, moonlit night. She wasn’t called Morgaine then. She couldn’t remember what they had called her. But she could still remember the sound of drums and the smell of burnt offerings left on the rocks before her. She had come to Sabrina as the sacrifice, and now she would leave her in the same way.

***

Sabrina’s attention wavered, her head snapping up the moment Morgaine toppled into the symbol. It gave Buffy the chance to free herself from the witch’s hold. Buffy should have pressed her advantage, but she couldn’t resist following Sabrina’s line of sight to the ritual circle and the woman standing in the center. She was smiling back at Sabrina. It was only a half-second at the most, the crash of thunder booming near, before a loud crack rent the air, its sound sharp like trees snapping in half.

An arc of lightning reached down from the heavens and struck the woman. Blue flame consumed her, and Buffy was reminded of Gwendolyn Post after the Glove of Myhnegon was sliced from her arm. Morgaine screamed, and it seemed like her mouth opened wider and wider, becoming a chasm she disappeared into until the only thing remaining of the black witch was the spotty aftervision her brilliant departure burned into each observer’s eyes.

Buffy blinked several times before that too disappeared. No one was moving. Even Sabrina seemed riveted to the spot lightning had struck.

So Buffy was the first perhaps to notice that the ritual symbol drawn in sand was now alive with blue flame. And the sword too glowed blue, like it had just been pulled from some unnatural forge.

She was the first to notice, Sabrina was the second, and Joseph was the third. They all started to move at the same instant, Sabrina and Joseph each making a desperate bid to reach the sword first and Buffy caring only to stop Sabrina.

She managed to tackle the witch to the ground, buying Joseph the remaining seconds he needed to reach the blazing sword. Sabrina howled in defeat as she saw him lift Camela’s blade from the sand.

“My own Council,” he told her smugly. “Each generation of slayers will be mine, from now until the end of time.”

The blue halo of the blade spiraled down the hilt and then around his arms. The blue energy continued to circle him, wrapping its power around his shoulders, his torso, and down his legs. Joseph smiled and brandishe