Angels and Demons

Angel frowned as the phone rang, holding Cordelia just a little tighter as she stirred in her sleep as if his hold would delay the inevitable. She reached out anyway, not fully awake, but her response to the summons instinctive, pulling free of the vampire's arms as she picked up the receiver.

"Speak," she ordered, "and it better be good to wake me up at..." She wiped her eyes and peered at her alarm clock. "Half past four in the morning."

"Cordy, it's Fred. I think you and Angel had better get yourselves back to the hotel."

It wasn't so much the words Angel overheard, as the background noise. There was at least one child crying and another shouting. There were other voices as well, and such a variety of accents. He grabbed the phone from Cordy's hand.

"Manners much? It's still my apartment even if you think you live here... except when the rent's due." She pulled the phone back from his grasp. "Sounds like you've got a full house?" she asked the Texan.

"Not yet, but there are..." She paused as if waiting for information and Angel heard a cool female English voice supply the figure before Fred repeated it. "...twelve more minibuses coming."

"What the-?"

"They're from Sunnydale. Buffy's sent everyone who isn't fit to fight and some younger folk to keep an eye on all the kids. I don't know if we're going to have room for them all. Gunn's still on that stakeout at the Palisades. Connor's-. Well, he's got enough trouble trying to fend off all the hormone bombs. Most of them are kinda young for him, but there are a couple of injured ones near enough his age. Lorne's doin' what he can but some of the old guys are kinda hinky about the demon thing an'-."

"Enough already. We're on our way."

Cordy's first stop when she got to the hotel was the computer. To Angel and Fred's astonishment, she ignored the milling children and adults who were still waiting to be assigned rooms. She accessed their accounts package and went into the routine for issuing invoices.

"Cordy, don't you think maybe you should get them all settled before you start billing them for the rooms?" Angel asked, looking back and forward between the pair of young girls who were sliding down the hotel banisters and the old man who seemed to be giving Lorne a hard time as if he didn't know where to begin.

"I know that! I just figured that now would be the time to get them to pay up for all the damage their thugs did to the old offices when they were trying to assassinate Faith or abduct her or whatever it was they were doing that time. They ignored the first invoice I sent them with everything itemised, and our records got blown up with the old place, but three thousand should do it. Then, once we know how many we're doing room and board for and how long they're staying, I'll bill them for this time." With a flourish she pulled the sheet of paper from the printer almost as it finished printing. "Okay!" she called out loudly across the pandemonium of the hotel's reception area. "Which one of you watcher guys has a company Visa card?"

Lydia stepped forward, pulled a purse from her shoulder bag, and after extracting a rectangle of plastic, she tossed it onto the counter. "I can't guarantee the payment won't end up getting cancelled when Quentin finds out," she admitted, "but you're welcome as far as I'm concerned."

Angel abandoned his mission to protect the hotel's furnishings and turned sharply on his heel. "Quentin? As in Quentin Travers?" he asked, getting so close to the watcher in his unmistakable anger that the blonde had to tilt her head sharply back to meet his stare.

"Quentin as in Quentin Travers," she replied calmly, refusing to be intimidated. She had lived the greater part of her adult life in an organisation dominated by men who had often tried similar tactics of physical aggression. There were reasons other than her family connections that she had made it so far. "I assume that you must be Angel? Buffy sends her regards." She set her purse on the counter and removed an envelope from her bag.

Angel took the letter, pushing it into a coat pocket in an almost guilty manner. "You assume right." He picked up the card, reading it before Cordelia grabbed it from his hand and began processing the transaction. "Ms Lydia Chalmers. Are you telling me that Quentin Travers is here?"

"Not yet, but I imagine he would get here soon," she informed him, keeping her tone completely neutral. "His group had to make a stop at the hospital in Ventura but they were amongst the first to leave."

"Let me get this straight..." Angel glowered even more threateningly. "The man on whose authority my ex was poisoned and trapped in a building with a vampire who was a woman-hating multiple murderer before he was turned? The man who refused to even go so far as to provide us with information when I was dying? The one responsible for sending assassins after me and a woman under my protection and nearly destroying my apartment? The one who supplied more of that same poison so that it could be used on my grandchilde, not that there haven't been times when I'd have gladly staked Spike myself but that's my right... That Quentin Travers?"

The doors opened but neither Lydia nor Angel spared a glance for the new arrivals.

"I couldn't attest to all the incidents that you've brought up, but as the only other Quentin Travers I'm aware of is twelve years old, I would assume it's the same man."

"Lydia," Quentin's cool tones interrupted as the rest of the watchers he had travelled with seemed to disperse from around him. "I don't believe that your friend and I have met officially." He fixed the woman with a reproving glare. "I'm sure you and Rupert knew that if you had provided the name of our host or even the hotel name rather than just a number and street name that I would have foregone the pleasure, but since you declined to give me that opportunity I feel an introduction is the least I can expect."

Lydia showed she had as little intention of being bullied by Quentin as by the vampire who still towered over her. "We, and I believe you'll find there were rather more people than just Rupert and myself involved, decided it was for the best to avoid giving either of you advance warning. We thought the less time you both had available for pointless posturing, the better. Angel, meet Quentin Travers. It seems you already know him by reputation. Now, since the minibus should be on its way back to Sunnydale by now, and if you," she said, turning her attention to Angel once more, "continue to make a fuss then Spike will win a rather large wager, I suggest the two of you declare a truce or Quentin calls himself a taxi. Of course, if he were to do that he might find himself rather out of the loop on what's happening."

Angel's lips pursed as he spent a couple of seconds considering her words, but as she turned her back on him to take the Visa slip from Cordelia and sign it, he obviously decided that discretion was not in this case the better part of valour. "As if I care whether Spike wins a bet," he pouted. "This guy did everything he could to ensure that I died-."

"I assure you, Angelus, had I done everything I could to ensure your death, then you would be so much dust."

"Yeah, right, 'cause you made such an efficient job of killing Spike?" the vamp retorted.

At the reception desk Cordelia rolled her eyes, passed Lydia her card and her copy of the visa slip and locked the others safely in the drawer beneath the counter until the banks opened. "So how much is Spike making out of some chump?"

"Well, I believe if Angel keeps arguing then Faith is going to owe him two hundred dollars." The blonde smiled as she felt the vampire's gaze return to her. "She said that if she could cope with having the guy who tried twice to have her 'bumped off' around, then so could Angel. Spike said he'd play the drama queen."

The vampire realised that his mouth was open. He closed it and headed for the stairs. "I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me."

Cordelia scowled, looking very much like she wanted to point out that they needed him right now, but she let him walk away nevertheless. She reached behind her, picked the key to a chamber well away from where Angel's own was situated, and handed it to Quentin. "I'm thinking you might want to stay in your room most of the time," she suggested.

She waited until Quentin had headed up the stairs before she turned back to Lydia. "Did Faith really bet Spike two hundred dollars that Angel wouldn't argue with Quentin?"

"Faith broke out of prison a few months ago and hasn't had paid employment since. What do you think?" Lydia asked.

"I think you're a very sneaky woman," the once-more-brunette answered, her voice holding a note of admiration.

Angel brushed past the dark-haired girl as he made his way to his room, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Already struggling to maintain his temper, it was all he could do not to growl. The girl stared at him as if she too had felt the instinct to attack. She looked old enough to be at the fight, but she smelled of old blood, some wound mostly healed but one that Buffy might have judged too likely to reopen in a fight.

Her companion turned back when she realised that she had stopped. "Shannon?"

"He's a vampire," the first girl whispered.

The second girl smiled placatingly at them both. "I guess that would make him Angel then. Someone said this was his hotel. I'm sorry." She tugged at her friend's sleeve, with her good arm, the other one being cradled in a sling against her chest. She kept talking but the words seemed to bypass Angel's brain. Like the distant background chatter in a pub or at a hockey game, he was aware of it as noise, but it had no meaning or significance. All that mattered was that there were, not one, but two slayers here, now, in this hotel.

The hand in his coat pocket crumpled the envelope from Buffy, the letter she must have written before she went out on whatever mission had claimed her life with less than two days to go before her wedding. And Faith, just yesterday or so it seemed, teasing him for wanting a hug, demanding a Big Mac and waltzing through reception in nothing but a towel on her way to ransack Cordelia's locker in the basement.

And now two slayers, both injured, both here rather than back in Sunnydale where the trouble was... Just Spike and the Scoobies, only this time no Willow, no big gun.

Things in Sunnydale must have gone to hell, possibly literally, and Spike, it seemed, was still there fighting. At least, Angel's demon hadn't felt the howling abyss that was the loss of family, true family, close family. Tonight when the sun set, he would head for Sunnydale to offer what help he could in Spike's search for vengeance. Today, he would mourn for his one-time love and for his friend.

Buffy watched as the last minibus pulled into its slot at the front of the building. In her head she went over the plan, trying to make sure that they hadn't forgotten anything. All the other cars and motorcycles had already been moved to the secondary rendezvous, Marie, Rosa and Rogue reluctantly going with the convoy and waiting out the battle there. Rupert, with that sixth sense that cats seemed to have for when they're about to be made to go somewhere they don't want to, had disappeared completely until the minibus had brought all the drivers and bikers back to the school. Then, he had complained most vocally at finding canned salmon in his breakfast bowl instead of fresh. She had even, finally, convinced Reverend Hamilton to evacuate the manse for one day, though that had also involved convincing four of his flock, who had still been in town, to have a day out. Now, he and the local priest were insisting on at least helping with any casualties. She'd talked them out of wielding weapons... just. Who'd a thunk that the clergy would play chicken with the apocalypse?

The slayers and the younger watchers waited only for her to lead them.

"I guess this is it," she announced for the benefit of Faith, James and Giles, who all waited in the library with her.

"It would appear so," Giles replied and pulled open the library door.

"Let's go kick some undead butt!" Faith agreed, the gaudy magical axe once more in her hands.

Buffy and James picked up the swords they had chosen from the table by the door and the slayer passed the last one to Giles.

The library door swung closed behind them, and as they left Buffy wondered if she... or any of them, would see this place again.

The caves were far under Sunnydale, hidden deep to keep their occupants safe from prying human eyes, their very remoteness part of what made them special. The distance, however, was of a purely physical variety. These caves were part of Sunnydale, and their fate depended on the battle that would soon begin, just as much as the fate of the town above.

For once, the way into the demons' home was unmanned, only the magical barrier designed to stun and disorient strangers so that they could be turned around and set on a different path protected the colony. Today, any such intruders could be of only little consequence. The high priest had called all to the meeting place. Today, every adult, adolescent and spawn was called to prayer.

Xander was one of the first off the Scoobies' minibus. "Welcome to the once and possibly future Sunnydale High! There's no running in the halls, no yelling, no gum-chewing... Anybody who wants a bathroom, the only ones where the plumbing works are the first set on the left once you go through the main doors. If you don't have to go to the bathroom, picture what you're about to face. Better to go now."

Buffy rolled her eyes and made her way to the building's top step, stepping into the shade of the entryway and Spike's embrace for a lingering and yet all too brief moment. She trailed one arm behind her so that her fingers ran down Spike's arm, then over the back of his hand and their fingertips brushed together until the instant she stepped back into the morning sunlight so that, with Faith at her side, she could address those who had answered their call to arms.

There were potentials... No, she corrected herself, they were slayers now. There were watchers, some like James, who were friends, and more who had arrived here with the 'human good, demon bad' mindset so deeply ingrained that Buffy didn't know whether all their training sessions and patrols with Spike and Ha Nath and her friends would be enough to sway them after the current truce was over, but however misguided they might be they were here and, for today, they were on their side. There were those demons who had chosen to help, Ha Nath, her friends, Bee, whose hand had never left Tara's since the two came down to breakfast this morning, the museum's curator, Lily and even the shy, timid, almost completely inoffensive Clem. There were the black-garbed clergymen. There was her family: Spike, Dawn, Tara, Giles, Wes, Xander, Anya, Oz and even the Michaels men, she supposed, at least until Dawn moved onto her next crush... and one cat, who, it appeared, wasn't about to let its mistress get involved in an apocalypse without him.

She looked at the sea of faces in front of her and smiled. "Someone," she began, her quick glance into the shadows leaving no doubt as to whom, "told me last night that there's a saying that evil prevails when good people fail to act. It feels kinda strange to find out there are this many good people willing to stand here, shoulder to shoulder with us... strange but good. We've never faced anything this dangerous before and we'll take all the help we can get.

We are going to win this, today. You all know me and Spike have got plans for tonight and tomorrow that we're not putting off for The First or a million Two Rock Hans or Lukes or Chewies, but even if this was a hopeless cause you guys would be here anyway and that makes me proud to have each and every one of you here with us.

You all have a part to play, and you all know what that is and where to go, so I guess I should quit the speechifying and let you all get on with it."

"Amen!" Faith added fervently from her position by Buffy's side. The brunette slayer was pulled to one side as everyone began to move, James bestowing one last good luck kiss.

Buffy didn't bother to ask whether her sister slayer was agreeing with the speech as a whole or just the part about Buffy shutting up. She simply tucked her shoulder under Spike's arm, wrapped her own arm around his waist and began the walk to the basement.

The Scoobies paused as they reached the point where they had to separate, letting the others move on ahead. The museum curator and the seven or eight watchers who were to help Giles and Clem with stretcher detail as well as the two dozen or so designated to act as reinforcements should any of their fellows' positions seem likely to be overwhelmed, made sure to mill slightly self-consciously at the opposite side of the entrance hall. Lily and the God squad had been forbidden to even enter the building. As non-combatants, they had been instructed to wait for the wounded to be brought out to the minibuses, where they and the watchers with most medical experience could perform triage, interim first aid or the last rites. Buffy, personally, found the idea of that last service less than comforting, but she knew that a number of the slayers had asked the priest for a blessing this morning. He had taken confession for what seemed like hours. Buffy would rather believe that they would all miraculously live, but if people were going to die, then at least some of them could die according to their beliefs.

Spike spared Clem, James, Wes and Giles a nod each before he turned to Xander and the Michaels. "One scratch on Bitlet or Demon Bint an' I'm holdin' the three of you responsible," he warned them.

Xander almost smiled. "We'll defend them to the death."

"Yes," Anya responded quickly, though she'd proven to be a more than able swordswoman, her deftness and agility equally as effective as her husband's greater strength. She ignored the fact that when they had faced Glory, she had been the one hit by falling rubble as she pushed the carpenter clear and all the others for levity's sake pretended that they had forgotten. "They'll defend us with their very lives."

"Remember, Bitlet," the vampire admonished, "short-sleeved dress tomorrow. No visible marks. Don't be afraid to use that boyfriend of yours as a human shield if you need to."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Check, Spike, I'll get right on that... just as soon as I spot you hiding behind Buffy."

"Dawn..." Buffy seemed to hesitate over what she should say.

"No," Dawn interrupted before her sister could think of the words. "Anything you say is going to sound like goodbye." Her gaze met Buffy's squarely, her determination equal of the slayer's own, as was the sisterly love that, for once, neither of them bothered to hide.

"So..." Buffy looked round at all her friends in turn. "Rehearsal dinner, six tonight, see you all there?"

"Ten thousand vampires couldn't stop us," Xander answered glibly.

"I may be a little tardy, if it turns out that I have to pick Lydia up," Giles said apologetically, "but I'll be there as soon as I can."

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," Wes answered, while Oz gave the slightest of nods and Faith answered with a smile on her and James' behalf.

"We'll be there," Bee affirmed, her hand still holding Tara's and the feline Rupert weaving back and forth between the two.

"Sure thing," Clem added.

Buffy smiled and tried to convince herself that all their promises would be kept. There was little more to be said and with a nod she pulled Spike toward the basement stairwell.

"Good," she called over her shoulder. "And we're holding you all to that 'cause we're not starting looking for new attendants at this stage and we've paid for all the dinners."

Xander began to question Buffy over the menu as they headed off, checking that they weren't dining on blood sausage, or any other funky English supposed-to-be-food.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Spike moaned.

Giles watched them go their various ways with an indulgent smile. "The earth is definitely doomed," he said to himself.

Xander's construction plans had shown three ways out of the basement, other than the staircase that led straight to the seal. Wes had taken the corridor to the left. Oz and James had headed to the right. Xander, Anya, Dawn, Brandon and his father had followed a third corridor that led straight ahead, as had the slayers, Spike, Tara and Bee, though they had veered off almost immediately taking the stairs down to the basement.

Clem and Giles each positioned themselves where they could see a signal from at least two of the corridors and began the nail-biting wait.

"Okay," Buffy called, looking at the glowing seal with suspicion. About a third of the new slayers stood just outside its light, standing front to back so that they could fit. "If you've got them, cut them."

Spike grimaced as the last bagged blood in Sunnydale, animal or human, splattered onto the white metal, thinking that Angel had better bring a decent supply from LA or he was going to be very hungry by tomorrow night. The blood seemed to pool within the grooves of the casting in ways proscribed by gravity before being absorbed by the metal, leaving the surface completely clean in the glare of the light coming from it. Like watching a slow-motion film of a flower opening in reverse, the five points of the star folded upwards. They formed a tall five sided pyramid which then dropped into the star-shaped hole, turning as it descended, the evil version of the end titles of Camberwick Green, only this was no plasticine figure cheerily waving goodbye as it disappeared into a music box. This was a gateway to at least one hell, but where Buffy walked, he would follow.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he sensed several crossbows pointed at his back, Faith's command and the reserves all ready to do what they had to do if the seal possessed any of those who had activated it.

Buffy was the first to begin the descent, and Spike flung out an arm to prevent Kennedy from being second, taking his rightful place as next in line. Kennedy followed on as did the rest of the first group and then Bee, Rupert and Tara. Only when none of them showed any sign of being possessed by the seal's evil, did Faith and the remainder of the slayers follow them down.

Buffy gestured to the girls of her group, including Ha Nath and her friends, to form a circle around the crude staircase they had descended. Bee found a position with her back against one side of the staircase and sat down cross-legged to begin the meditation that would speed the crystal's activation. Rupert climbed into her lap and Tara kept watch over her, ready to use her magic to defend her new lover if the slayers' defences should fail.

Faith's group formed an inner circle. With the exception of the slayer herself, who still carried the magical axe, they had ranged weapons at the ready. Amanda led the third group, who formed a knot at the circle's centre, encompassing both the stairwell and the area where Tara and Bee were.

Faith, Buffy and Spike moved away from the group and, with a stealth born of practice, they stole to the edge of the plateau where they had found themselves. They looked down the steep cliff face, seeing for the first time the true extent of the enemy's army.

Buffy gulped, took a deep breath and waved the other two back away from the edge.

"I think we have enough to defend this whole... flat bit," she whispered.

"Makes sense," Spike agreed. "We might end up a bit more spaced out, and Faith's crew won't be able to fire past the others. We'll have to alternate them in between your lot instead, but the climb the bastards'll have to make should more than make up for that. Better'n them coming at us on the flat."

Faith shrugged her silent assent and soon, instead of three circles, there were two lines of slayers spaced out along the cliff top.

The shallowest slopes were at either end of the cliff and Spike and Buffy took the right end of the line, while Faith stood on the left. The former potentials shifted nervously as they watched the enemy multitudes mill around below.

"I'm not worried," Buffy told them, her tone of voice screaming her concern to the vampire at her side and probably several of the younger slayers.

"Really?" asked Rona sceptically as she looked down at the throng. "'Cause I'm flashing back to Xander's whole bathroom speech.

"Buffy..." the pink-haired slayer sounded petrified, her gaze locked on a single ubervamp, who was staring right back at her.

"I'm not worried as long as Bee can get that thing started doing whatever it is that it does before they-." Buffy froze as the ripple of awareness spread out through the multitude below.

Just for a second the Turok Han all seemed to gaze upward and then, with a howl of anticipation, the vampires began to push and shove each other out of the way in their eagerness to scale the cliff face, their speed and agility so astounding that even Spike took an involuntary step backward as the tide approached, though he quickly righted that as soon as he realised what he had done.

"See us," the slayer finished in little more than a whisper.

Faith let the Turok Han swarm half way up the cliff face before she bellowed out the command, "Fire at will!"

Those of her group who had been carrying crossbows or longbows had, for the most part, already switched over to their hand-to-hand weapons. The heart shots necessary with those weapons were judged to be near impossible from the girls' positions at the top of the cliff that their opponents were climbing. The missile weapons had mostly been passed on to Amanda's group, giving the reserves a few extra shots before they were forced to reload in the case of the crossbow or a higher rate of fire from the longbows.

However, not all of Faith's group had been armed with such archaic weaponry. The specially adapted ammunition that the council's gunsmith had made had already been proven and nearly thirty of the girls had been armed with an assortment of pump-action shotguns and large calibre handguns. The caverns echoed with the sound of shot after shot, many of which shredded vampire skulls and the brains inside them, causing the affected party to detonate in a cloud of dust. Others, more or less fortunate, depending on your viewpoint, suffered injured limbs and fell from the rock wall, to be trampled or ripped apart by the blood-craving creatures below.

Dust billowed around the cliff face, obscuring the vampires that were making the climb... until another head would appear through the cloud and be used for target practice, causing the cloud to reach even higher. Nevertheless, all the firearms could do was delay the horde, buying less than a minute, but in that minute over two hundred of the Turok Han perished. A few of the handguns jammed. Mostly, the girls kept firing over and over, with so many targets to choose from that they soon expended their loads. There was no time to step back, get some space, reload. Just time to pull a sword or an axe before the first of the Turok Han reached the topmost heights and the battle proper began.

The slayers fought as they had never fought before. Power they had never unleashed flowed through their bodies. Every kick, every sword slash was imbued with supernatural strength. It didn't matter if their opponents were killed. All that mattered was that they were kept from gaining a sure footing at the top of the cliff. A punt as a vampire head and shoulders appeared over the edge. An axe crashing down on a barely visible skull. A sharpened stave driven deep into a chest as a vamp swung his leg over the lip. Fingers stamped to pulp as they search for the last handhold at the top of the climb.

Ha Nath and her friends proved nearly as effective, using experience to compensate where they might not match the slayers for strength or speed.

Time and again, vampires turned to dust or plummeted to an almost equally certain death in the maelstrom below.

Sometimes they turned the tables.

Molly's foot slipped in the loose dust as she tried for a spin kick. Her target ducked under the blow. She sprawled flat on the ground, her lower legs dangling over the abyss. As the vampire, which she had tried to stop, scrambled onto the cliff top, the one at its side tugged, hand over hand, at her jeans, pulling her further and further over the edge as her hands scrambled unsuccessfully to get a grip on something... anything. She fell screaming into the mass below and her cry was cut short.

The vampires attacked the girls on either side, who were already distracted by their own opponents, and both girls picked up scratches and scrapes before four of Amanda's group fell on the ubervamps.

Over and over, the line was overwhelmed simply by force of numbers, perhaps fluke, perhaps careful planning on the part of some of the Turok Han, waiting just short of the cliff top until all the defenders were engaged to scramble over the top in groups of three or four or five. At first, the reserves shot them down, or intercepted them, but the vampires kept coming and more girls fell.

As always when she was in a fight, Spike was aware of Buffy's every action. He knew her every sword stroke, kick or punch in the instant before she made them, knew how her body would twist, where her moves might leave an opening for the opposition and he moved with her to bar those opportunities. To an outsider, it made their small part of the fight look like a choreographed routine, so perfectly timed and so precise that it could never have been achieved without hours of repetition.

The vampire fought as if he were possessed by Mars himself. Vicious punches and kicks seemed to glance off the leather of his duster with as little effect as summer rain. Every blow he landed seemed either to result in a fresh cloud of dust or send another ubervamp tumbling into the void below. Buffy matched him vamp for vamp... and then the line collapsed.

One second they were in control, the next the Turok Han had broken through. The reserves had done the best they could, and it was thanks to them that the vampires hadn't been able to simply force their way left and right, obliterating either end of the line or turning the battle into a free for all. They had guarded their comrades' flanks, but the vampires had gained too strong a foothold to be driven back easily, and all Amanda and her girls had been able to do was funnel the Turok Han toward the exit.

Spike felt Buffy's moment of indecision, the fraction of the second while she tried to decide which of them should stay and which should go to Amanda's aid, before he answered her mental push and left her side. They couldn't do anything about the ones who had already escaped. That was up to the watchers and the others, but they had to stop the flow before there were so many that the mere humans who formed the second line would be overwhelmed.

Spike sprinted across the floor, his trajectory taking him straight toward the Brazilian football top that he recognised with ease. He called out in Portuguese as he ran.

Xuxa dropped into a low leg sweep and Spike threw himself over her head, using his body like a spear to drive her opponent to the ground.

Before the Turok Han could recover Spike had driven the sharpened end of his axe handle through its rib cage and into its heart. The blond bounced eagerly to his feet in the centre of the two lines of slayers. With one three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn he beheaded a vamp left and right, freeing two more of the slayers. He stepped forward, the axe swinging almost casually in a figure eight, which took up most of the width between the two lines.

Xuxa, Vi and a young Mexican slayer stepped up behind him. Suddenly, instead of a clear run to freedom, the vampires who had made it over the edge found themselves facing three stone-faced slayers and a bleached and leather clad nightmare, whose eyes promised no mercy other than a quick death and who seemed immune to their blows.

Spike moved forward, his axe swinging into another beheading circle as he began his dance of death.

The crowds at their back gave the ubervamps no room to retreat, and Spike gave them nowhere to go but into the path of his axe blade at the front. He spun and struck, again and again, sometimes high, separating head from body, and sometimes low, a crippling blow before he would deflect the Turok Han in the direction of the girls at his back, but always he moved forward toward the cliff's edge.

As the invading crowd thinned, more slayers managed to finish off their opponents and found that no one stepped up to take their places. The girls joined those with Spike. When the blond dropped his axe to pick up the last ubervamp, one hand at its neck, the other at its crotch and threw him over the cliff so hard that he knocked at least two others, who had been in the process of climbing, from their perches, almost half the girls stepped up and strengthened the line.

Spike grabbed his axe and stepped back to let the girls in.

The others began the job of checking the wounded. The ubervamps died and left no more than fallen dust, but the extent of the skirmish was marked by fallen bodies as clearly as seaweed marks the high tide mark on a beach.

Silently, Spike turned over the nearest body, already knowing that there was no heartbeat. The slender neck was ripped open, one eye socket a bloody mess, the other eye the same beautiful brown it had always been, Kennedy's prideful stare softened in death.

Panic suddenly gripped the vampire and his gaze was drawn to the staircase.

As if she felt his eyes on her, Tara smiled and lifted a hand, seeming almost to press it against the air as a mother might press her hand against the window, watching a young child head off for school. The air seemed to shimmer with a purple light and Spike understood. Tara had raised a barrier around herself and Bee, similar to the one they had used at the garage when the knights had attacked. She had been safe all along.

He didn't dare leave the chamber in case the Turok Han broke through again, but he quickly found the injured, picking out the heartbeats from amidst the carnage, and he made sure that Amanda and what remained of the reserves carried them upstairs and out to where Giles and his team would take over.

All the time, he listened to the sound of the battle, attuned to its cacophony, alert for any change that might mean he was needed, but these girls were his responsibility, and he wouldn't take the chance that any of them might die for the want of medical attention, or because they were unconscious when the time came to evacuate. His eyes darted often to the line. He checked for any signs that the girls were losing ground, any point where he might need to step up and steady the line, but his girls were doing him proud.

Faith wielded the axe at one end of the line as if it were an extension of her own body, staking, slashing and beheading in the smoothest of katas. Buffy moved with equal grace at the other end and if the girls in between didn't quite have the same flair or panache as the experienced slayers, they made up for it with determination and courage. They were his girls and he was proud of every one.

He gathered the last of the living wounded into his arms, a small dark-haired French girl, who he called Yvette though he had no idea what her real name actually was, and passed her to one of the other slayers to take out. Amanda came back downstairs as he did so, her eyes scanning the bodies that still lay scattered on the ground. He gave a slow shake of his head and she nodded her wistful understanding. They would see to their dead. They would not be left to lie in this hell hole, but they could wait. Now that the injured were out, most of the dwindling reserves would wait, again, in case they were needed. They spaced themselves out behind the main line, ready to step in if anyone was hurt. Only two or three could be spared to care for the fallen.

Spike turned, preparing to rejoin the fray, but he was still near the roughly hewn staircase when the diamond pendant that Bee wore began to emanate a faint but unearthly glow.

"Mr Giles!" The young watcher sounded panicked and he was staring fixedly ahead of him. Giles rushed forward, pulling open the basement door far enough to allow him to see why the watcher should be so flustered. He only just managed to push it closed and lock it with the keys Xander had provided before the arrival of the first Turok Han was intimated by a loud crash.

"You six," Giles shouted. "Yes, you lot with the polearms, get yourself up here and when something breaks through that door make it regret it..."

"B-But..." the watcher who had been on watch stuttered.

"But what, Frobisher? It's a single-width door, one which for obvious reasons that I feel the contractor would be loathe to admit is one of the very few finished doorways in this entire structure. I'm sure between six of them they should be perfectly able to deal with anything that breaks its way through."

"But what about the girls? They're locked in now, too."

"I'm sure the girls are rather busy just now, but if they get around to killing all the Turok Han in that basement and clearing the path to the door, then I believe they'll be vocal enough to attract our attention.

Now, pull it together, man. With this exit blocked some of them are going to find the other ways out. Hopefully, it'll take some time and they'll still get caught up when Bee sets off that amulet, but if not the others are going to need our help."

Anya nervously shifted her grip on her sword and cast a sideways glance at her husband. The triumphant cries of the Turok Han spilling into the basement below was audible as a dull roar.

"So why are we here, again?" she asked, looking round at the point they had chosen to defend. They were in a large open area at the junction of two corridors, all bare breeze-block and concrete.

"There's a staircase leading to the basement there," Xander answered, nodding in the direction of the corridor ahead. "And if they get into the ducting, which, thank goodness, we'd only just started, they could come out anywhere in that wing." He used his sword to point off to the right. "The dry riser is back down there. That's where we were going to hook into the-"

"I know what a dry riser is. It's the tunnels you guys build to give vamps free access to all the important buildings."

"It's a maintenance area where we channel all the electrics and other stuff from floor to floor," he argued defiantly before his expression changed to a more sheepish one. "...And where we hook up to the main grid via underground tunnels."

"So if we're just trying to stop them going that way..." Dawn interrupted. "...wouldn't we be better blocking off that corridor than standing around the big open area?"

Xander didn't get time to answer as they heard a door bang open further down the hall.

Anya shifted her weight from foot to foot and twisted her sword again in a two-handed grip. "God, Xander, I'm terrified. I didn't think-. I mean, I just figured that you'd be terrified and make jokes that are even less amusing than usual and I would be sarcastic about it."

"You can do this, honey," Xander tried to reassure her. "Just imagine they're from the IRS and they want to audit you... or they're..."

Anya looked no less nervous than before.

"Bunnies!" Dawn called as a group of five or six vampires seemed to spot them and head their way. "Big bunnies with bad teeth."

Anya's back stiffened and she raised her head to look her attackers full on. She lifted her sword into a ready position and when she spoke under her breath her tone was cool and collected. "Bunnies... Floppy... hoppy... bunnies."

Xander stood on her left, Dawn at her right and there were enough watchers around that, if she had wanted, she could have hung back until the vampires chose other opponents and then gone for a cheap shot, but she didn't. All the evenings of practice, everything she'd ever learned in her demon days, it all seemed to crystallize in her head and she met the first vampire head on with complete focus.

In another grey corridor Wes waited calmly. Many of those who stood with him were familiar from his years at Watcher Academy. He knew they expected him to panic when the attack came. They thought he would run, that he traded on his acquaintance with Buffy and the others to gain an undeserved influence. They waited, expecting him to falter, planning to report one more failure to his father, to Quentin and to the rest of the board that he might be ignominiously dismissed for a second time.

They thought that they knew him.

The Turok Han came and Wes proved to his fellow watchers that they were wrong.

The Turok Han swept toward the last vampire-friendly exit in a torrent. As they came out the stairwell and made the turn to the right a small blonde figure stood at their back and waved them on.

"Have fun, guys!" it urged in Buffy's most chipper California girl tones.

Just for a second as the vampires crashed into the line held by many watchers and one werewolf, James looked up searching foolishly for the source of the familiar voice.

Sensing his distraction, one of the Turok Han made a grab for the sword that the watcher held two-handed. Drawn back to his more current danger, James held on grimly, trying to pull free of the grip that crushed his fingers into the leather-wrapped metal of the sword's hilt, but it took a two-handed grip to balance the creatures greater strength and, before he could free himself, the vampire's free hand swiped out, ripping slashes in the watcher's shirt and the flesh underneath.

Pain and surprise almost made the Scotsman lose his grip, but he held on, and twisted the sword just enough to clear the area in front of his face before he brought his forehead smashing into the bridge of the vampire's nose. Blood trickled from his own nose now as well as his side, but the vampire gave up on its attempt to take the sword, and James kicked it backward, trying to gain enough room to swing the weapon properly.

Oz could feel the wolf stirring inside him as the scent of blood began to fill the air, some of it old and fetid, most of it bright and human. As a whole the watchers were putting up a good fight, but they were human and fragile. Their opponents were not. He quelled the beast within him. Resisting the urge to allow it its freedom, he chanted under his breath and forced himself to stick to the moves they had practiced over and over.

The vampires were so numerous that they almost hampered each other but there were dozens of them and, with The First urging them on, they wouldn't quit.

Then there was a pounding of more feet along the corridor toward them.

This particular Turok Han made several pertinent mistakes. Ultimately, there was nothing it could have done that might have saved its life. That was true, but maybe, if it hadn't fought its way free of the cave, it might have survived at least until the roof began to collapse inward. It's possible that if it had tried to dodge its way through the second line of opponents rather than taking them on, it might even have made it as far as the access tunnels and then, who knows? Perhaps, if it had gone straight for the kill, it might have at least injured its feeble and puny-looking opponent. Unfortunately for it, all its instincts told it that leaping in front of a human and issuing a war cry, should result in the human panicking and giving ground.

Not this human. Anya swung her blade with deadly accuracy, severing its head from its body. "Floppy, hoppy, vampire bunnies," she muttered under her breath, as another sprang out in front of her.

Just feet away, Dawn and Brandon stood side by side. Dawn, struggling to parry the vampires' attacks, had little time to spare to watch what was happening to anyone else. Somehow, she always seemed to get her sharpened stave into position to block the attacks against her just a little late, which left her struggling to block the subsequent blow and so it went on and on. It would have been easy to quit, but the Summers girls weren't the quitting type. She might not be taking out any of the creatures, but at least she was keeping one of them from getting through until Anya could take it from one side or Brandon would get it from the other.

For Brandon, the vampires almost seemed to act in slow motion. He carried a wickedly sharp katana instead of the heavy wooden sword he normally used when he was practising. Kendo was all about balance, speed and accuracy and Brandon didn't think he had ever been so focused. Parry, strike lightning fast and with no more force than necessary, pull the blow back and before the vampire realises that its head has been split in two from crown to jaw, it's so much dust. Sometimes he skipped the parry and got in before the vampire could make a move. Always he was aware of what was happening in the fights on either side and, whenever he could, he would try to give Dawn a few seconds respite by turning on her opponent. Those opportunities didn't come as often as he might like but whenever he got a gap between adversaries, he did as much as he could to help her.

Andrew Michaels' movements matched his son's for style, but the time when he might match the youngster's speed had passed and as a result he had to spend more time beating down his opponents before he could get a killing blow. The watcher with whom he was paired swung a double-headed battle axe with more enthusiasm than finesse. More than once Andrew found himself dodging out of its way, but the group soon outnumbered their attackers and though it might have seemed to take longer, it was probably less than two minutes before the last of the vampires turned to dust.

Xander dabbed at a superficial cut over his right eye, using the sleeve of his plaid shirt. "Hey, was that it?" he asked. "Those guys weren't so tough! We could so do that all over-. Ow! What? Ow!" The carpenter bent almost double, using his arms to shield his head as Anya and Dawn took it in turns to pummel him for jinxing them.

There was one pump-action shotgun that the new slayers had yet to lay their hands on and that was Wes's. The watcher took position a full three or four feet ahead of the other watchers. He fired from a crouching position so that any missed shots would go upward into the ceiling rather than down the corridor toward the group containing Oz and James. It was unlikely that the shot would carry that distance and still do damage, but he wasn't taking any chances. He calmly blew apart three of the vampires before they even got close to the defenders, and then he turned the rifle round and used it as a club. Wherever the fighting was at its thickest, he was there. At close quarters the shotgun wasn't an ideal weapon for finishing off the feral vampires, but a good solid hit with the stock was enough to disorientate them and allow someone else to administer the coup de grace.

As the last cloud of dust began to settle to the concrete floor, Wesley looked from one to another, singling out those he knew to be his fiercest critics and one by one he stared them down. However, they quickly realised that while their battle was over, those at the opposite end of the long corridor were far less fortunate.

Wes watched the struggle, torn between the duty to hold his post and his desire to aid his friends and colleagues. Giles must have already sent reinforcements, for the vampires were hemmed in at both front and rear. They were slowly being whittled down, but there seemed to be far too many men being pulled out or crawling from the fray.

"What the hell are we waiting for?" one of the other watchers asked.

"We're waiting for the next attack," Wes answered, keeping his voice far cooler than he really felt, daring anyone to defy him and break ranks. "Giles has sent at least three quarters of his reinforcements in there already. They're three deep in that corridor. We would only get in their way. It's our responsibility to hold this area until we get the order to evacuate. However, if any of you can summon up a sunlight spell or something similar now that we're not under direct attack, I'm sure our colleagues down there would appreciate it."

Wes bit into his cheek as he saw Clem and a watcher he didn't know try to pull someone out of the back of the fight and onto a stretcher. His heart stopped beating in his chest as one of the many Turok Han seemed to notice the demon, and Wes wondered how he would ever be able to tell Marie that he had watched her child's uncle die and done nothing to prevent it.

Tentacles seemed to explode from Clem's head in a Medusa-like halo, there one second and gone again the next. The ubervamp jumped back even farther than the watcher who had been helping Clem, finding itself face to face with another opponent, and Clem straightened the body on the stretcher, waited for his colleague to recover sufficiently to grab the other end and began to head for the school's main doors.

Giles crossed Wes's line of sight, carrying a blood-splattered slayer in his arms, and soon he was followed by others. Slayer after slayer was carried out to the waiting minibuses, and still the fighting continued at the other end of the corridor and still nothing happened to indicate that the amulet had begun to do its work.

Oz chanted almost constantly beneath his breath as he fought. "It's not her. It looks like her and smells like her but it's not her. It's not her. It looks like her and it smells like her but it's not her."

"Poor puppy. All confused," the First sing-songed. "I bet I could lick it all better. I'm kinda out of practice what with the whole gay thing and all, but I think I remember the basics..."

"It's not her. It's not her. It's not her." Stifling the growl that was his instinctive response, Oz repeated the mantra over and over, faster now, as if the more often he could repeat it, the more effective it would be, but he could feel his control slipping. Hairs began to sprout on the backs of his hands. "It's not her. It's not her. It's not her. It's not her. It's not her." The hairs grew longer. Almost invisible stubble began to itch and sprout until he knew that if he reached up he would have the whiskers of an Edwardian gentleman. "It's not Willow. Willow's dead. Willow's dead. Willow's dead." Too late... Oz knew that The First was playing with him. He knew that this was just one last sick joke on its part, but he couldn't keep his beast in check, not when it could see his mate and smell her scent. Blood on the floor, copper tang of blood saturating the air and still he could smell Willow, his Willow, precious Willow.

The muscles in his back cramped, trying to send him to his knees and Oz knew he didn't have a choice. He had to get away from all the humans before the transformation was complete, before he became a danger to his own side. He broke free of the line and threw himself as far and as deep into the seething mass of Turok Han as he could get. While Oz was helpless in the throes of the transformation from man to wolf, one of the vampires pulled him up by his hair as his back twitched and contorted. Filthy, gnarled hands clamped one on either ear, jerking his head to the side so abruptly that his neck snapped, and then teeth buried themselves in his neck. His blood joined that of the others on the floor.

The light was gentle at first, silvery pure, like a solitary moonbeam breaking through a bank of cloud. For the first time ever, Spike watched as Bee transformed from a facsimile of her father's people to the likeness of her mother's. Her eyes were first to metamorphose, as if she had a burst blood vessel inside each of her eyes but instead of leaking blood it oozed liquid mercury. Her skin began to glow, as it had in the caverns of the Nezzla demons, its tint exactly the same silvery shade as that of the diamond, though the gem's intensity now matched that of the searchlights Spike remembered from the second world war, where their beams would pierce the perfect darkness of the blackout.

He watched from off to one side as the spear of light seemed to intensify further, stretching out in the direction Bee was facing. Every Turok Han that crossed its path turned to ash as if burned up by the rays of the sun. Spike forced himself to take a steadying breath. He tried to focus on the vision he and Buffy had shared so long before, willing himself to believe that this was not where it all ended. He had plans. He wasn't going to turn to dust. He couldn't do that to her.

Two tiny red horns began to poke their way through the considerably darker roots of Bee's platinum and gold-streaked tresses. Her blouse seemed to half dissolve, half fall away and, male that he was, Spike couldn't quell the thought that Tara had definitely traded up. It was only when the half-angel cleared her throat rather loudly, that he realised that not only had he been caught looking, but he'd completely missed the whole process where Bee had grown iridescent gossamer wings.

The angel beckoned and Tara stepped into her arms. Gradually the pair rose together from the ground, slowly spinning as they ascended until they were just feet from the cavern roof. Bee's skin glowed brighter and brighter until Tara, too, seemed to be lit up from within, glowing the sort of pink that your hand turns when you press it over the top of a bright flashlight.

The light from the pendant seemed to splinter as if it had hit a mirror ball, brilliant lances tumbling in every direction until Spike couldn't bear to look any longer, but it didn't matter. The battlefield had been swept clean. The vampire army waited in the lower cavern; the seal was still intact but all the Turok Han who had made it to the top of the cliff were gone.

The ground below him began to shake and the ceiling began to crumble. Spike scooped Rupert up under one arm, despite the feline's wriggling and vocal protests, and yelled the command to evacuate. "Everybody out!"

Up until a couple of months ago, Cordelia might have skipped the peace offering and gone straight for the butt-kicking.

Now that they were actually dating, she cut him just a little more slack, not much because if she gave him an inch, then he'd brood for a mile, but enough to let him know that there was always a little bit of concern under her often brusque manner. Having witnessed Angel's courtship of the younger Buffy, Cordelia had made it clear from the start that 'dating' meant she expected Angel to take her out for meals, to bars, clubs, the movies or the theatre and most of the time she expected him to pick up the tab for the privilege, not meet her inside and let her buy her own drinks. A romantic moonlight walk on the beach might constitute a date. A stroll around the local cemeteries did not. She was, after all, Cordelia Chase. Yes, they spent whole evenings together sometimes, armed to the teeth, loitering in the sewers, waiting for some icky demon to show it's face. That was their job she had told him. That was not dating. It in no way constituted any form of courtship... not that she expected everything to be on her terms. She'd even once gone with him to a hockey match. It had been okay, but it wasn't the same when you weren't down on the touchline or whatever the hockey equivalent might be, cheering on the local cuties. Angel had said if she watched more matches then she'd get to know the players, but for now she put up with letting him watch the games on her TV.

She shook her head, banishing thoughts of evenings on the town, popped the door on the microwave almost before it had given its final ding and forcefully stirred the mug to ensure its contents were an even temperature throughout. She felt almost impatient with herself for offering this crumb when she'd had such a hectic, crappy morning while Angel brooded in his room, but she knew it wouldn't be fair to leave Fred on her own for too long and now that the sun was well and truly up, she was going to have to take Lydia shopping. So, mollifying... or mollycoddling had to be done if Angel was going to be persuaded to deal with this lot.

She pushed open the door from the kitchen and was almost immediately hit by another onslaught of questions and complaints.

Two young girls. "We don't have any toilet paper in our room."

"Neither does anyone else. We only normally keep a couple of the rooms set up for visitors. Live with it. You can try the 7-Eleven down the road to the right and then first left or you can wait until I get back from the wholesaler's, which I can't even go to until people stop asking me questions."

"Excuse me, dear. You're Cordelia, I assume. We were wondering if you had a room available that we might be able to use to hold a meeting. Perhaps thirty or so people. Somewhere with tables and chairs would be ideal but as long as we have privacy and space for everyone, anywhere should suffice."

Cordelia had the strangest feeling that she had seen the stranger somewhere before. She eyed the woman's ash blonde bob, and her practical but expensive linen trousers and silk blouse, both of which were smeared with blood. Her shoes were Italian, probably hand made, her watch gold and the row of five diamonds on her engagement ring were large enough to make it clear that it hadn't been bought at your average jeweller, while not so large as to be vulgar. Recognising the air of someone who, however politely she might ask, expected her wishes to be complied with immediately, she decided to save her energy for the upcoming butt kicking and called across to Fred. "Fred, can you get the keys for the pool?" Besides, the woman had asked nicely.

"The pool? W-." The woman hesitated for just a fraction of a second, but it was enough to convince Cordelia that she didn't say what she had originally intended. "We weren't aware the hotel had a pool."

"Neither were we until recently. It's sort of like the one in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Flick the switch and you have a ballroom. There should be enough space there for your meeting and there are some tables and chairs in there, though you might want to move them around some. Just try to avoid the hole Groo hacked in the floor to find the demon prawn things. Anything else, Mrs...?"

"Mrs Wyndam Pryce..."

Cordelia suddenly remembered where she had seen the woman, or at least her likeness. One night at Wes's apartment, Chinese take-out, all the guys playing video games... laughing... and Wes had let her look through his photo album. A night that seemed a million years ago.

"And no, I don't think we'll require anything else for now. It was nice to meet you, Miss Chase. Wesley used to speak very highly of you."

The slight emphasis on the word was so faint that Cordelia tried to convince herself that she had imagined it and the implied censure. She wanted to demand to know what Wesley said now, but at the same time she really didn't want to know. When it came down to it she wasn't exactly proud of how they had all acted. "In that case, Fred will give you the keys and tell you where the room is. I better take this up to Angel before it cools."

She hesitated outside the door for a fraction of a second, realised that he'd have to be even more preoccupied with his melancholy than normal to not hear her footfalls and her breathing and intuit exactly what she was doing and so she threw it open like a hurricane. She walked around the bed, where he was reclining, taking in at a glance the way he was propped up by both sets of pillows, a professional portrait of him with Buffy at her prom in his hands where they rested in his lap. She placed the mug on the bedside cabinet with enough force that some of the liquid slopped over the edges, nudging the half full whiskey tumbler off the coaster to make room for it. Normally, Angel would have been grabbing at the mug to stop the drips before they could form a ring. At the very least he'd probably have given her a pained look at her disrespectful treatment of the old junk that he insisted was period furniture. He'd tried saying it was antique once, but she'd caught him on the hundred year rule.

"Okay, so, what's the big deal here, Angel? Any normal guy would at least try to hide the fact he's staring at pictures of his 'forever love' ex when his current and damn-well-better-really-be-forever girlfriend comes in the room. I guess at least your fly is done up, but, hey-eyyy, small mercy!"

He didn't raise his voice at all. He didn't need to in order to convey his absolute censure and distaste. "Cordy..."

The former cheerleader kept going in the verbal equivalent of running him over like a steam train. "Cordy, what? Cordy, run 'round and look after all these people Buffy sent us to look after while I lie in morbid solitude and mope over her picture? No way! I've done that already. It's old! Way old! You've got as long as it takes you to drink that mug of blood and then your butt had better be down in reception with Fred's, dealing with that invasion your beloved Buffy sent you."

"They didn't tell you, did they?" Angel looked at her with incredulity.

Cordy raised her eyes heavenward. "What part of 'drink that before it's a congealed mess and then get your butt the heck downstairs or I start opening all the drapes' did you miss, Fang Boy? I'm pretty certain that in the three and a half hours you've been marinating in Old Bushmills I've found out more about what's going on than you've read in that letter from The Chosen One of Many." She picked up the bottle that was alongside the whiskey glass, observing that he had probably drunk about a quarter of it and delicately removing its cap from the otherwise empty waste paper bin as she continued with her tongue lashing. "Since you didn't finish your Champion-sized post-tantrum brood in time to take the watcher babe - who, if you'd been in reception you'd know is like dating Giles, as in hot youngish babe getting it on with the librarian, and how weird is that? - shopping at the local Red Cross before sun up, I need to take her now, and then we'll be going to the wholesalers, pick up some food and other vital supplies for the actual breathing types..." She trailed off as she replaced the now resealed bottle back in the sideboard that was its normal home and looked up to realise that Angel was watching her, his jaw just a bit slacker than normal.

"Say that again," he requested, sounding half incredulous and half hopeful.

"What? Giles is getting some from a thirty year old natural blonde?"

"What did you call Buffy?"

"Lots of things." The flippant answer came out before she began to put together the photograph, the even worse than anticipated mood and the last epithet she had used for the slayer.

"There are two new slayers in the hotel," Angel babbled.

"Well, uh, no. Actually there are ten. Two that were too badly injured to fight, and eight that didn't meet the thirteen or over age limit for slayer boot camp... as you'd probably have known if you'd read your instructions."

"So Faith and Buffy...?"

"Who the hell do you think sent all the refugees?"

He pulled the crumpled envelope from the leather jacket he was still wearing. "Instructions?"

"What did you think it was? Some lovesick deathbed epistle of how, even though she'd been about to marry Spike, it was really you that she loved? Were you savouring it until you hit the right stage of maudlin?"

"Th- that would be..." Angel couldn't blush, but Cordy was familiar enough to know when he was embarrassed.

"Pathetic?" she suggested helpfully. "But it does kinda explain why you didn't show to introduce Giles's honey to Larry the Red Cross guy... I thought you were just being petty about being asked to help get the blood for their honeymoon... which would also have been pretty pathetic by the way." There was no need to clarify whose honeymoon she was talking about.

Angel just grinned back at her, bounding from the bed and raising the mug to his lips before he double checked. "So Faith and Buffy are alive?" His eyes watched Cordy over the mug's rim as he began to chug down the blood.

"They were alive and well and about to lead an assault on the gates of hell... Well, not literal gates but kinda. Let's put it this way - we're all supposed to show for the rehearsal dinner tonight."

The vamp suddenly fidgeted with a nervous energy that would have looked more at home on his grandchilde, twirling the now empty mug from one finger. "Okay, I can do the whole gracious host thing... You, go do the shopping thing..." He held open the room door for her to leave ahead of him, his mood almost euphoric.

"Oh, by the way..." She spoke in as casual a tone as she could manage as she strolled past him, hoping that the almost tangible relief that was radiating from the vampire would buoy him through the next bit of news. "I know you do that freaky smell thing. Don't spaz out again if you run into Wes's mom... or his dad or any of his other relatives that might be here," she added as a sudden afterthought. "You're kinda meant to be this Champion guy... I mean no more visions, not since the whole exorcism deal, so I guess they were like part of the whole con, so not Champion to the Powers as such, but you're still meant to be fighting the good fight and the drama queen deal really doesn't cut it."

Angel gritted his teeth. "I'm not a drama queen. Spike's the drama queen," he hissed under his breath.

"So prove it!" Cordelia replied with a satisfied smile, knowing that she had the vampire right where she wanted him. "I might even make it worth your while."

Quentin scanned the faces in the slightly foxed ballroom with suspicion. Penelope Wyndam Pryce and a brace of younger watchers, both of whom he seemed to remember from the minibus journey south, sat at a round table off to one side. Apart from these three, everyone else in the room was a member of the council's executive committee. Though they sat at several round tables, the way the tables had been arranged in a line, with everyone facing the solitary empty chair that seemed almost marooned on the other side of the line, had a courtroom air about it.

"What's this all about, Henderson?" he demanded of the watcher in the centremost seat, the place that should have been his. "Surely we can wait until we are restored to the privacy and security of our own buildings again before we return to the day to day business of the council, especially as these walls may very well have vampire ears."

"We are not dealing with the day to day business of the council. We have matters to discuss that cannot wait. Mrs Wyndam Pryce was kind enough to deliver a taped message from my nephew. You might remember him? He was the young man who was stabbed and badly injured while you were trying to make bargains with a madman the other night.

Having heard my nephew's testimony, and having received corroboration in part from the testimony of these witnesses, the committee in an emergency meeting has recorded a unanimous vote of no confidence in you as Senior Executive Officer. Due to the nature of the charges we must ask you to vacate the apartment within headquarters that is linked to that position immediately upon resumption of operations at the London base. Your company car, should you continue in our employment, will obviously also be downgraded."

"That is preposterous... That rule hasn't been used in over a century."

"And yet it is not unprecedented and, even if it were, our current situation is so far removed from that to which we have become accustomed that in light of the charges against you we would have no other option. We stand at the brink of a new era. We need a leader who can adapt to that. Sit down, Quentin. As Junior Executive Officer I am now in over all charge of the council until such time as the next Senior Executive is elected.

You no longer have any special privileges to fall back on and, in light of the evidence that we have received, you are hereby charged with malfeasance. You stand accused of using your position to pursue several personal vendettas and of endangering the council by acting on its behalf in a manner contrary to the law and with premeditation without obtaining the consent of a majority of the committee. It is an accepted fact that the council must sometimes act in a manner that is less than legal. It is also a fact that field operatives often have to make on the spot decisions about such matters. However, on an executive level such decisions are never the prerogative of any one individual."

"I do not have to stand for this," Travers protested.

"No, you do not. That is why we provided you with a chair. You may also elect to stand trial in absentia, but may I remind you that should you be found guilty you forfeit all benefits, including accrued retirement benefits and health insurance."

"I have a feeling, that whether I stay or go, the verdict will remain the same," Travers answered, turning for the door.

"The evidence is rather damning." Any further remarks on the part of the interim council head were muffled as the ballroom door swung closed, leaving Quentin Travers on the outside in more than just the physical sense.

"Hey!" Angel had at least had the tact to wait until Cordy had left on her shopping spree before he called through to Faith's cell.

The vampire could hear the squeal of abused tyres and the background mutterings of several people.

"Angel?"

"I-em-well, I just wanted to check that you're okay."

"How about I give you a call when we're done playing dodge the sinkhole? I'm okay, Buffy's okay and for some reason best known to himself, Spike's even okay despite every other vamp in the place going kaboom, but they're on a different bus and until we get to the rendezvous point I can't tell you about anybody else you know."

"Dodge the sinkhole?"

"Yeah, you know the mall? It looks like it relocated to the bottom of a quarry and the quarry's spreading outward. Now would you get off the line so I can try calling my b-... someone?"

Angel didn't even bother to reply, he just smiled to himself and hit the button to end the call. 'Faith with a boyfriend...' That was something he'd have to see.

His train of thought was rudely interrupted by even more slayers, a group of three girls, younger even than Buffy when she was called. "Our toilet's busted. Shanice flushed a tampon down it and now it's all backing up. It's nearly up to the top of the bowl. One more flush and it's going to get nasty."

Angel sighed. Give him demons to fight any day.

"Everybody out!"

Though their mutual awareness was still such that there was no actual need, Spike's eyes met Buffy's across the cavern's width, blue imploring hazel green to get the hell out. There was just a moment to make the plea before he fell to hustling the new slayers out and he knew before he made it that Buffy would be the last... or second to last to leave, but he had to try anyway.

He pulled Amanda and a couple of others to one side as they made to pass. "'Manda, pet, you make sure that Dawn an' Anya an' them know we're leavin'." He nodded to Vi. "You tell the ones down the right hand corridor as we came in an' you take the one on the left," he said motioning to the cerise-haired slayer. "They'll probably get the hint when they see the mass exodus, but if it turns out anyone got left behind I'm blamin' you three, right?"

He stepped up to the crude spiral stairway, cat still squirming and writhing ineffectually under his arm, to break the flow of girls for long enough to let his designated messengers through. He lifted the flailing cat up to eye height as he stood back. "Will you bloody give over? Unless you can damn well sprout wings an' fly you're not goin' anywhere with The Good Fairy an' Glinda.

If I thought you wouldn't shred the poor buggers I'd give you to one of the bints to take out, but since I'm the only one here who's been loaned some neat little balls that mean all the scratching you're trying to do is totally pointless an' it'd be more than my life's worth to let you get yourself killed in this mess, you're damn well staying with me. Get used to the idea."

Rupert let himself go limp in Spike's hands and the vampire stared at him suspiciously before he muttered, "Alright, then." He tucked the cat back under one arm and made his way to the edge of the cavern where he manhandled Kennedy's body until he managed to get it into a fireman's lift over his opposite shoulder. Buffy joined him as the room cleared, retrieving another of the fallen, but when Faith made to join them Spike shook his head. "Get topside. Make sure they're filling up the minibuses in order like they're meant to be an' that the first ones have started leavin'. We'll have a right balls up if they all end up tryin' to leave at the same time."

Faith nodded, knowing that the vampire was right. The potentials and others had been told that once they had at least one driver per bus, to make for the furthest bus first. As soon as it was full it was meant to leave and they would begin filling the next one. It should be fast and efficient, but human nature would make them want to hold on just a little longer, to wait for a friend or try to make sure everyone was out before they got on a bus. If those first buses weren't already filled and gone and it wasn't going smoothly, instead of a convoy they would end up with gridlock.

Soon the stream of bodies slowed to a trickle. Ha Nath and her friends scooped up the last few slayer corpses from the ground and when the last demon disappeared up the stairs, Buffy and then Spike followed after.

The first face that Faith saw when she left the building was Dawn's. In a sea of motion the teen and her boyfriend hovered at the pavement's edge, the girl bouncing up and down on her tiptoes in what Faith assumed was an effort to spot her sister. The slayer ignored the girl and headed straight for Brandon. "I thought you were bright enough to know that if you didn't get her on the first bus out of here that Spike would remove your spleen with his bare hands."

"He wouldn't," the boy argued.

"No, he wouldn't," Dawn interjected, "but he'd probably make you wish he had."

Faith raised her eyes to the sky. "They're fine. They're just making sure everyone gets out from down below, and I'm meant to be making sure everyone gets on a bus and gets gone."

"They're both okay?" Dawn had to double check before she could be convinced.

"They're peachy damn keen. Now get on that bus before I'm the one Bleach Boy is doing exploratory surgery on."

After that Faith didn't bother wasting any conversation on any of the stragglers. Where there were wounded, she helped them to the nearest transport. Where there were dawdlers, she just grabbed whatever body part or piece of clothing was convenient and gave them a push or a pull in the direction of the next bus. Dawn and Brandon were long gone by the time she saw Ha Nath and her friends emerge from the building, closely followed by Buffy and Spike. With a last nod for Xander, who waited at the wheel of the final vehicle with Anya in the seat immediately behind, she climbed into the penultimate bus, pulled the door closed and swayed her way to a seat as it sped off. She twisted to watch behind as the others clustered around the door of the last bus, holding her breath as she watched the metal framework that towered over the incomplete building warp and then, farthest sections first, begin to tumble.

"Floor it!" she shouted, with an urgency that left no room for even the watcher at the wheel to argue.

Spike tossed the Siamese onto the floor of the minibus, leaving him to find a home between people's legs or on a vacant seat, and then climbed the first two steps before turning to pull the door closed.

"Damn!" Xander swore as he flung the bus into gear, but there was no vehemence behind it. "All those vamps going poof and we're still left with Billy Idol?"

"Only as long as you stay ahead off that..." Spike answered, looking out the back window as he made his way toward the rear of the bus, trying to find an empty seat where he could deposit Kennedy's body before he joined Buffy.

Xander shifted frantically in his seat to make out what the vampire was talking about, but his rear view mirror was blocked by the number of people who were by some sort of unspoken agreement trying to place the corpses they carried at the back of the bus and then make their way forward to find seats for themselves. After a couple of seconds he gave up and checked the side-view mirror. There was nothing behind him but a cloud of dust, no school... worse he suddenly realised, no road. Forgetting about making for the right exit out of town to get to the rendezvous - slowing down for corners suddenly seemed like a very bad idea - Xander just put his foot to the floor and told himself that that bump was just a pothole in the road that he'd somehow missed with the front tyres but caught with the rear wheels. It, no way, no how, was the road dropping away from under the back wheels. Not at all.

The merest crook of Bee's finger and Tara found herself walking into her new lover's arms, the only sliver of doubt because she had no doubts. That was enough to make her wonder for a moment if perhaps, like vampires, angels had their own version of thrall... though she thought with a wry smile that if that were the case she was a willing victim. Gripping with her elbows to press their bodies together, letting her forearms rest parallel with Bee's spine and curling her fingers over the angel's shoulders, she relaxed instinctively into the embrace.

Bee's dragonfly wings looked too fragile to support even one and if mere mechanics had been involved, then Tara knew she would have been forced to cling far more tightly to stay with her lover as they rose in a slow gyre toward the cave's apex.

Tara found herself wondering at the beauty of the creature in her arms. The light that was both part of the angel and the product of the diamond burned coolly against her skin but it did nothing to mar the aura of complete contentment and well-being in which she found herself cocooned.

Bee stretched out her right arm, to point at the ceiling some thirty feet behind the witch and Tara joined her will with her lover's as they sought to influence the energy of the precious stone, focussing so that the rock immediately overhead held firm despite the tremors that shook the entire cave, and aiming as much as possible of the pendant's devastating power in the direction that Bee pointed.

Tara's eyes had long since drifted closed but in her mind she could envisage dust and then rubble beginning to fall, followed by great slabs of sandstone, capable of crushing the demons below. Sunlight lanced through the resulting opening and gouts of sooty flame issued upward for each ubervamp that was caught in its rays. Together, the two women strove to contain the power in order to allow them to move into the sunlight without being hit by falling debris. They hovered, slowly spinning between worlds, a hell dimension at their feet, the California sun above them. Knowing that it would take time for their companions in the battle to reach safety, they tried to delay the coming destruction.

Nevertheless, in slow but steady increments the opening between dimensions grew larger.

Like cockroaches, the Turok Han scuttled away from the light, trying to find sanctuary in the crenellations of the cave's walls.

Then, like a tidal wave breaking through a flood barrier, the amulet's energy overwhelmed the meagre containment that Bee and Tara had been able to muster. Destruction radiated outward, but even this failed to taint Tara's feelings of serenity. It was as if she were right where she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do, with the person she had always been meant to be with. All her will was focussed on how they needed to channel the stone's power, but that was completely divorced from her emotions. Within the light fear could not exist, nor anxiety, nor frustration, nor anger. There was only love, contentment and warmth.

The ceiling of the cave crumbled and then the walls of the cave itself, earth tumbling down into a deep abyss. Any Turok Han that might have escaped the sun and the purging glow that issued from both the angel and the necklace she wore would surely be crushed by the sheer weight of falling earth, stone and other debris.

The initial breakthrough, it seemed, had occurred to the rear of the half-completed building and the first non-vampire casualties were pieces of plant and heavy equipment that had been left at the site, plummeting downward as if they wouldn't stop until they reached the centre of the earth. The partially constructed school was claimed next. Girders twisted, walls bent and then broke before they, too, cartwheeled end over end into the deepening maw of the hellmouth.

Flames began to rise up, silvery green from wherever Bee's body touched Tara's, but they left her skin unharmed, their touch a caress.

As the school tumbled through the ground, the last of the minibuses was pulling away.

Instinctively, Tara and Bee joined their wills against the force that had been unleashed, trying somehow to shield the vehicle, to hold back the devastation that threatened to swallow it up. As The Magic Box, the cinema and the mall all slid into oblivion it seemed as if they could make no difference. Nevertheless, when Bee carried them both higher still above the crater, it was plain that there was now a significant dent at the edge of what had once been a perfect circle of annihilation.

At first, all they were able to do was to slow its path outward. They strained to stop it from swallowing the bus station, tried to divert its energy around the chain link and tarmac, but all they bought was a token delay. The crater devoured it and then the apartment block that had once been home to Lily, Maria, Rosa, Clem and Bee herself.

However, even magical energy sometimes has to obey the laws of physics. As the ruined area grew wider, the women found that they could tweak things around the edges. While the downtown apartment block was a lost cause, Revello Drive was four times that distance from the epicentre. That meant that it only took one sixteenth of the energy to shield it from the destruction.

Perhaps by accident and perhaps by design, Miss Chalmers School for Gifted Girls teetered on the very brink of the abyss. One whole wing plunged into the depths, whilst that end of the building which contained the library and the rooms the Scoobies had been using sat seemingly untouched.

Tara couldn't help but indulge in a smile. She suspected that whether consciously or subconsciously Bee was unwilling to have scores of watchers based in her home town and therefore wanted the building to be condemned. She also suspected that the blonde would have been distraught had her own personal library, that of the museum curator and the council's entire catalogue all been lost forever.

The cave-in seemed ridiculously easy to divert around the hallowed ground of Reverend Hamilton's churchyard, though they had to concentrate a little harder to ensure that the roads leading to it remained intact.

The light of the crystal was waning as they strained to keep it from claiming the hospital's empty shell. For now the building lay dormant, but when people returned to the town it would be needed.

And then, the light from the necklace fizzled out, like a faulty fluorescent bulb, its energy spent.

Much of the town had been lost. Most of its businesses were gone, but they could be rebuilt. However, many of the outlying residential areas were untouched. Most importantly of all, as Tara opened up the mystical senses she used to read someone's aura, there was a freshness and lightness to the town. It felt like the first sun after a cleansing storm, as if some invisible but pervasive miasma of evil had been washed away.

The hellmouth was no longer active.

Bee's lips met hers, the kiss joyous and triumphant. For long seconds they luxuriated in the knowledge of what they had all achieved before exhaustion claimed them both and they twirled downward, like a sycamore seed on an autumn breeze.