Chapter 1.05

Buffy lay back, trying to relax in the sparse, lavender-scented bubbles. She couldn't help remembering how, less than a week ago, Spike had carried her upstairs and bathed her. It was quite probably one of the most sensual experiences in her life to date. The problem was, right now, she had no way of knowing if the experience was one they would ever be able to repeat. She knew she wouldn't actually relax until a certain vampire was once more available to massage out all the knots from her tense, aching muscles.

Spike had sort of sneaked into her life. Even before she came back from the grave, he'd been there to listen to her problems and support her through them. He let her fall apart just like a normal girl, and when she donned the armour of the Chosen One, he stepped back and let her take charge once more. He never mentioned her weakness or used it against her. He let her maintain the invincible facade that the Scoobies, in their naiveté, needed to believe in.

Now, she needed him there in his familiar role. This was the first major crisis since her mother's death that she'd faced without his support. She knew if Dawn had been missing instead of him, that he would have made sure that they somehow got half an hour to themselves for her to just let go. He would have ensured that she had a break from the pressure of always having to be the strong one. The fact that she had no-one else who could fulfil that role just compounded her sense of confusion and isolation.

She was up against unknown opponents in an unfamiliar setting, and they had taken the man who had become her emotional rock. Maybe this time she wouldn't get a chance to give vent to the scared girl inside her. Maybe Buffy would have to wait. For now, she was the Slayer. Spike was her mate and a master vampire in his own right. Before this thing was over, Dru and everyone else she recruited were going to learn that they couldn't turn enough vamps to keep the two of them apart.

Buffy decided it was time to see if there was some way they could make this bond work for them. Either it would work or it wouldn't. She scooped up a handful of bubbles from the end of the bath nearest the taps, and picked one that was slightly larger than the rest to act as a focus in lieu of the crystals Giles had trained her to use. As she concentrated on its shifting iridescent colours, she tried to empty her mind of everything else except Spike and their bond.

She gradually built up a sense memory of him, starting with how he smelled... menthol cigarettes, breath mints, cologne, and underneath it all. the musk that was uniquely his. Only when she could close her eyes and make believe he was in the room with her, did she start to think about his touch.

Dawn shifted awkwardly on the lumpy mattress. She switched off the TV and listened to see if she could hear anything from the bathroom. She couldn't help but feel guilty. Once Buffy had explained her interpretation of events, Dawn knew deep inside that she was right.

Part of what made her feel guilty was the fact she was nearly as pissed at the vampire for playing the martyr as she had been when she'd thought he was saying those things for real. She should have known better. She'd seen the look on his face just before Doc pushed him from that tower.

She had felt betrayed. Spike, the one adult she could rely on not to patronise her, or sugar-coat things, had talked about her as if she weren't even there. He'd treated her sister as if she were some whore instead of his fiancée, and then he'd let that woman fling herself all over him. Betrayed had turned to hurt, and hurt had turned to pissed. Pissed at Spike had turned into pissed at Buffy for letting him act like that, and now she'd earned the title that she'd been so upset about the vamp using in the first place.

She tried to think what she could do to help. Buffy was right. If they hadn't had to look out for her, he wouldn't have had to go with Dru, or they would at least have fought. Dawn tried to work out whether it would have been better if the pair had been taken prisoner together, rather than Buffy being free but separated from him.

It didn't occur to the younger girl that Drusilla had no reason to take her sister prisoner. The vampiress would be far safer in a world where the only slayer was serving twenty-five to life for murder.

It never occurred to her that Spike had made his decision in order to protect Buffy as well as her. She didn't realise that, while he had every confidence in the slayer's fighting ability, he wasn't prepared to take a chance on whether she might be immune to Drusilla's mind tricks. Dracula hadn't had a problem getting to her, and Dru had killed the last slayer she had opposed without even a proper fight.

So, in Dawn's mind she was the sole reason Spike was in his current position, and she'd been so self-involved that instead of helping Buffy, she'd been getting on her case. The younger girl decided she would do whatever it took to get the vampire back. Just as she was trying to remember Lily's phone number, a scream sounded from the bathroom. Dawn rushed to the door and then hesitated outside. Maybe Buffy had simply fallen asleep and had a bad dream.

"Buffy? Are you okay?" she called through the door.

She waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, she tried the door, finding it locked. She squatted down and examined the lock from the outside. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled a coin from her jeans pocket and fitted it into the slot in what looked like an oversized screw-head under the round door handle. There was a loud click as the bolt slipped back into the open position, and Dawn pushed the door open. Once again she thanked Spike for his pointers in petty larceny.

The sight that met her eyes momentarily left her paralysed with fear. Buffy lay in the tub, but her head had flopped back and to one side. If the bath had been free-standing, Dawn was sure it would be hanging right back. As it was, it was supported by the walls behind and along the side of the bath. It was obvious Buffy was unconscious. That alone wasn't what scared her younger sister so much. What scared her was the fact that where the bath water wasn't obscured by clouds of bubbles it was turning red, thick swirls of colour moving through the water as if it were some gross demonstration of Brownian motion. The coppery tang of blood filled the air, and Dawn had to concentrate to quell the churning it caused in her stomach before she was physically sick.

Dawn knew that the hot bath water would speed the bleeding and prevent any wounds from clotting. That was why people slit their wrists in the bath. So that meant the longer Buffy stayed in the bath, the more blood she was losing. Dawn reached down and pulled both her sister's arms slinging them over her own shoulder. She struggled with her sister's slick form; half lifting her and half dragging her startlingly light body out of the water and onto the bathmat.

Dawn grabbed a towel and wiped the mixed water and blood from Buffy's body, trying to find the wound or wounds the blood had come from. Even after close examination, she was unable to find a single blemish except for Spike’s teeth marks on her neck, which had long since closed over.

Lorne debated what he should do next. He could call the Furies and get them to come over during the day tomorrow to put the Sanctuary spell in place around the hotel. As Holtz had proved, it had its limitations. Nevertheless it was better than nothing. He could skedaddle as fast as his tastefully draped legs would carry him, and hope the vamps wouldn’t bother watching the exit through the sewers except in daylight, or that they didn’t know about it. Lastly, he could start making phone calls to the others in the crew to warn them not to come back to the hotel. With a sigh, he pulled out the list of cell phone numbers and started dialling.

"What's up?" Gunn asked.

"Something needs to be up?" Lorne responded.

"For you to be callin' when we're out on a job?" When Lorne didn't immediately reply, Gunn continued. "Don’t matter, man. We were just on our way back to base anyway, once we detoured past the taco stand. So, man, what is up?"

"We just got a heads-up that Angel's got some family in town. From what I've heard, enough family to fill a small convention hall."

"Whooo, I take it you ain't talkin' about any of the "good" side. And what does the main man have to say about this?"

"I left that job to Miss Sunnydale, along with letting him know that they've already got her honeybun."

"This call just keeps gettin' better and better," Gunn commented in a dry tone.

"Yeah, well, bearing in mind that they might already be watching the hotel, I'm thinking you and cup cake should maybe take Junior and find somewhere else to stay the night."

"That would be just fine... if Junior hadn't taken off after a bunch of vampires ten minutes ago."

"How big a bunch are we talkin' about, here?" Lorne asked wary of the answer he might get.

"'Bout five or six."

"From what I've heard that ain't even the tip of the iceberg. Sounds like they might be bait."

"Or they could just be a bunch of neighbourhood vamps lookin' to party. We'll see if we can catch up with 'im."

"And I'll call Daddy Dearest..."

Gunn cut the connection and turned to Fred. "Looks like we gotta whole mess a trouble. Seems like Connor might need some backup."

"Can't let you do that," a soft, and under other circumstances, Lorne would have said seductive, female voice came from the kitchen doorway. At the same time, the main doors of the hotel pushed open to admit a dozen people he suspected weren't really people any more, not in the strictest sense of the word.

"Sure you can, sugar." Lorne turned to face the woman who had addressed him, startled to realise that he recognised a couple of Caritas' former patrons in the group flanking her.

"'Fraid not. See according to the plan, Angel doesn't come into this until after we take all his people from him."

"Somehow, I can't see Angel liking that plan."

"I beg to differ. Angel likes the plan just fine, or he did when he used it on Grandma." She smiled broadly at Lorne as she sashayed across the room toward him. "So, what's it to be, songbird?" She reached up to stroke Lorne's cheek with her cold fingertips, before drawing them across his furrowed brow. "You want to take the limo ride in the back, or trussed up in the trunk?" Her thumb dropped to press against Lorne's eyelid. "Lonesome wants you alive, but I'm reliably informed that all we really need is your head. And eyes, well, they would also be optional extras, and you've got such pretty ones, too."

"Gee, honey, when you put it like that, it's like an invitation from mom. How's a guy goin' to refuse?"

The vampiress tossed her head back and patted Lorne on the cheek a couple of times. "He isn't. And the name isn't sugar or honey or any other confectionery you might care to mention. It's Scheherezade, and you'd do well to remember it."

The vampiress slipped an arm through Lorne's, drawing him toward the main exit as if he were escorting her on a date, instead of her prisoner.

A stretch limo waited outside, and once Lorne was safely ensconced in the back seat, surrounded on all sides by Scheherezade and as many of her clan as would fit, the vampiress turned to her apparent second in command.

"Keep an eye on the place and call if we have any more visitors. If no-one else shows up by half an hour before dawn, head back to base, but avoid contact with Angel, he belongs to Lonesome."

"What about the kid?"

"That hasn't been decided yet. For now we just watch, and if you get the chance to pick off a human straggler..."

Somehow, it didn't surprise Lorne at all when one of the vamp toadies opened up the small fridge compartment in back to produce a cocktail shaker from which he poured a perfect seabreeze.

"I would have thought Drusilla would have first dibs on our Angel," Lorne commented.

"That's what she thinks, too," responded the vamp.

'So,' thought the green demon. 'There's already dissension in the ranks.'

Connor pursued the fleeing vampires. He had easily picked off the first couple as they had fallen behind the main group, stealing furtive kisses. He still had four left to get, but when they had realised that two of their number had been taken out without them noticing, they had taken to the rooftops. Their plan would have allowed them to evade human pursuit, but then, Connor wasn't human.

When they realised that their pursuer wasn't just keeping up he was gaining, they turned as one to face him. The four lined up as if they were gunfighters making their stand on the Main Street of Dodge City. Connor ran at them, launching into a flying kick on one of the men at the end of the line. He reached out with an arm at the last possible instant, to catch the one next to that with a high speed clothesline. At least, it would have been a clothesline were it not for the stake in Connor's hand.

Both the vamps were bowled over by the impact while Connor managed to land deftly on his feet, only to go straight into a spinning kick, even as the one he'd staked turned to dust. That left one off-balance, one prone and one unimpaired. He allowed his momentum to carry him round full circle and staked the vampiress that he had just kicked. As she dusted, a broad fist impacted with Connor's face, and almost simultaneously, a blow from the vamp on the ground struck him behind one knee in an effort to take him down to the ground, too. Connor felt himself begin to fall. His father’s words echoed in his brain. "Watch your balance. You lose it, you lose."

The vampire he hadn’t managed to take down, smashed a boot into his face even as he was going over. Before his head could clear, the vamp on the ground grabbed his wrist slamming his hand repeatedly against the tarred roof, small particles of gravel that had been set in the tar for traction grazing Connor’s knuckles until eventually his grip on the stake loosened. As he watched it roll away across the roof, he knew that was it. Sixteen years in the hell that was Quortoth had failed to prepare him for even a month on the streets of LA. He couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.

The vampire who had been on the ground moved to straddle him, pinning his shoulders to the ground as the other vampire stepped back preparing to practice his punting with Connor’s head as a replacement for the football.

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you," came a voice from the shadows along with the double click of two crossbows being cocked. "He’s family. And we take care of our own."

The vampire stalled in his run-up and stared at the speaker. "This guy ain’t no family to you. He ain’t even the same race."

"Nobody’s the same race he is. But he’s family just the same."

"Man. You ain’t so-"

The words were cut off as the vampire turned to dust, a wooden bolt through his heart. The figure in the shadows turned to the remaining vamp, who was still holding Connor down. "I suggest you run," he told him as he methodically reloaded, "cause if you’re still here in, say seven seconds, you’ll be joining your friends in hell, about a second after that."

Chapter 1.06

Willow tapped away on the keyboard. "Somewhere, there's got to be something to say where they are. You can't just swing into town with an army of vamps and not leave some sort of trace."

"But you said yourself there hasn't been a noticeable increase in deaths or missing persons. So either they've got someone in the police department, or rather lots of someones, or they're brown-bagging it," Tara suggested.

"Of course," Willow started typing rapidly again.

"Wha' d' I say?" Tara asked.

"Blood bags. They're not killing people. Least ways not enough for it to be noticeable, so far. So maybe they're using butchers, but somehow I can't see Drusilla living off pig's blood, which leaves hospitals and blood banks." Willow turned toward Tara as she spoke, catching the coffee cup next to her terminal as she did so and knocking it to the floor.

"Oh shoot!" Willow ducked to mop at the mess with a tissue. "Why don't you get us another couple of cups and maybe some muffins? And I guess it's time to admit we'll be here till closing time."

"Sure. It's not like I'm a lot of help with the hacking. Kinda makes me miss Giles and his books."

As soon as Tara headed for the cafe counter, Willow ceased all pretence at working the computer normally. Safely hidden from the other customers by cubicle walls, she used magic to access the records of the local hospitals, clinics and blood banks. Three showed marked increases in their blood usage over the preceding weeks.

Willow frowned. If the evil bloodsucking fiends weren't actually sucking people, were they still evil bloodsucking fiends? She mentally filed that one away with the one about if a tree falls in a forest. She scribbled down the names with seconds to spare before Tara returned with a tray full of snacky goodness. Now all she had to do was backtrack and see if she could find a link between the three. Maybe when Tara visited the ladies?

Dawn dialled the number for Xander and Anya's apartment from memory.

"Anya? Are you there?" she gasped before Xander could get a word in.

"Hey, Dawnie. How's" Everything after the first syllable of Dawn's name was drowned out by Dawn's rapid-fire interruption.

"Xander, I haven't got time. Just shut-up and put Anya on."

"Anya's visiting an old friend." Xander seemed to place undue emphasis on certain words. Dawn was suddenly reminded that it had been decided the previous night that the vengeance demon would use her teleportation skill to apprise Giles in person of the group's suspicions about being under surveillance. "And don't think I won't be telling your sister how you speak to your elders, missy."

"Feel free, if she's around to talk to, but for now just make yourself useful and see if you can find her address book."

"Dawn Summers, put your sister on the phone right now."

"Gee, Xander, she's right next to me, and she hasn't complained. Just find the damned address book and look for a number for where the three of us went last night."

"But you've already got that. At least Fangless has."

"Xander, is there anything else you want to say, or will you fetch the damn book?"

"Dawn?" The weak question had Dawn throwing the receiver to the floor. "Who're you calling?"

"Nobody, just directory assistance," Dawn answered. She grabbed the handset up off the floor. "Look, have a real nice evening. Why not take your girlfriend somewhere..."

There was a flash of light outside the bathroom door, and Dawn shifted to peer round its edge. "Never mind." Dawn returned the handset to its cradle.

"Say, how about I just give you some time on your own to get dressed?" Dawn took the phone back to the main room as she left.

"So what's up?" asked Anya brightly.

"I'm guessing since Buffy just managed to summon a vengeance demon all the way from Tweeddom within a minute of being conscious that whatever it is, it's not good, but..." Her words faded away as Buffy walked into the room wrapped in a towel that barely covered her ass. Other than looking a little pale, she seemed to be none the worse for her ordeal, just royally pissed.

"Anya, nice of you to drop in. How's things? Notice you've got your pendant back."

"Well, I went to see Giles like we talked about at that bar Spike took us to. Where is he, by the way?"

"You tell me," Buffy answered. "I just got the psychic backlash. He got the real deal, so if I'm this ticked off, then I would imagine he'd be lit up like a vengeance beacon."

Anya frowned. "Nope, you're the only real blip against all the background radiation, so to speak."

"You mean Spike's dead?" Dawn asked in an anguished tone.

"Well, yes." Anya answered. "But that's not why I'm not picking him up. I normally hear vampires perfectly well."

Dawn slapped Anya on the arm.

"Ow. What was that for? Buffy, she hit me."

"And you made me think Spike was dead when he wasn't."

"Dawn." Buffy's voice sounded rather like Joyce's 'I'm at the end of my tether, and you don't want to be around if this goes any further' voice. "Okay, Anya.Why can't you feel him? I don't know what happened, but I know he just got hurt bad."

"Well, either he doesn't bear any ill-will toward the person that hurt him. I mean you'd be amazed how often that happens, mostly in relationships though. Battered wives and so on, they get conditioned into thinking they deserve it, so it never occurs to them to blame the person doing the hurting, but that's not the case here. I mean you wouldn't... Anyway, I'd go with the more obvious option." Anya stopped as if the other two shouldn't need her to spell it out.

"Yes?" Buffy asked in a tone of iron a she tried once more to keep a lid on her guilt. Spike might have let her hurt him. That didn't mean he would take it from anyone else.

"He's unconscious or dead, or quite possibly in his case, both. If he's badly hurt, like you say, even vampires pass out now and again. So how did you all get split up in the first place?"

"Long story," Buffy responded. "Think you could pass it on to Clem when you get back to Sunnydale? I get the feeling we're going to be looking for all the help we can get before we're through."

"Sure. I'll even make sure Xander helps, if he can."

"Xander help Spike? Neither of them would forgive me if I even suggested it."

"He'll still do it if I threaten to cut him off," Anya said.

"Anya," Buffy gave the vengeance demon a quizzical look. "We are just talking figuratively here, aren't we? Not Bobbitville?"

"It's no fun if he doesn't scream."

"Now, Dru, you can make him scream all you want later. First, though, we let the nice doctors play with him and take away the baby fishes. Remember?"

"Couldn't I make him scream, just a little, first and take away the fishes once he comes home again?"

"No, Dru. We need to get the operation taken care of today, before anyone begins to join the dots. You'll be up in the mountains training your puppy before they link us to the hospitals."

"What about the Angel-beast? Can I make him scream instead?"

"You can make him scream all you want. But first we're going to take away all the people he cares about. Remember? We'll make him pay for how he hurt you. Now, pass the phone to Jennifer."

A period of silence followed. "Dru. Be a good girl now. You won't have to wait long,"

Dru grudgingly passed the phone to one of the other vamps.

"Hey," the newcomer acknowledged.

"How's he doing?" Lonesome asked.

"The bleeding's stopped, but so far he's not really healing. Other than that, he's hooked up to a couple of morphine drips that would keep an elephant down. He won't be causing any problems. We'll be at the clinic in about ten minutes. After that, it's down to the quacks."

"Good. The sooner he's up and running and back to playing nursemaid for mommy dearest, the sooner the rest of us get some peace and quiet. I'll call Fairfield and let them know you're coming in."

"You think they're really up to this?"

"If they can give a guy an evil hand, they can take a chip out of a vampire, and if they can't, then they're just walking dead men, and not in the good way. Speak to you later."

"Gee, if I'd known how long the ride was going to be, I'd have visited the little boys' room before I left."

"We can always land if you really want, but we'd have to cuff you to a couple of the guys first," Scheherazade answered, raising her voice only slightly to make herself heard over the noise of the rather swish helicopter. .

"You sure you don't want to supervise yourself?"

"Intriguing as the suggestion is, my daddy always taught me to at least get a decent dinner from a guy before I feel up his dick."

"So where are we headed?" Lorne asked his captor.

"My place. One of them."

"And we're headed there because... "

"We're headed there because it's in the middle of nowhere. You need a proper four-wheel drive or a chopper to get in or out, and you could walk till your Gucci loafers came to pieces and never meet anyone, living or dead, human or demon that doesn't work for me."

"Something tells me you ain't exactly new to this lifestyle?"

"Well, sure, baby. Doesn't take a brain-surgeon to figure that out. Or did you think I got turned for my looks?" She flashed a wicked and not unattractive smile. "You think our boy picked his people up off the street. Hell, no. He picked them out of his Rolodex. The best and the brightest. The ones with money and connections. The ones who own the companies who own the hospitals. The ones who own the slaughter houses. The ones who already have enough money to live the sort of life you would want to have for eternity. What's the point in being poor forever?"

"It works for some people. And your boy? What does he get?"

"Once this business is over... a straight ten percent cut. Not a bad deal for eternal life."

"I take it he's collecting quite a few commissions."

"Sure is. Nobody's going to come take no farm from him."

"And where do I fit in?" Lorne asked.

"The way I see it, you don't. You've got some 'gift' we don't want the 'good guys' to use, but if you don't co-operate, it really works out a lot easier to kill you than to keep you.

Lucky for you, someone finds the world a bit more interesting with you in it."

"What do you mean, suspended? I was your employee of the month for seventy-three years in a row, and Halfrek only won out on the numbers with that whole flu pandemic thing. It's not like she was really creative or anything..."

"Anyanka, you just teleported ten thousand miles in one day, and not a wish to show for it."

"Is it my fault that Buffy won't say any of the things she's thinking out loud?"

"Once, you would have loosened her tongue and had no qualms about how you did it. I fear you have outlived your usefulness to me, Anyanka." D' Hoffryn gave a melodramatic sigh.

"Well, you could at least have let me teleport home before you canned me."

"And what would be the fun in that? I am evil you know."

With a flash of light, the horned demon disappeared, leaving Anya alone with her rapidly cooling, happy hour collection only special pizza and her similarly quickly melting tub of lemon cheesecake Haagen Dazs. That was when there was the first ominous flash of lightning, swiftly followed by a crash of thunder. Then, it started to rain so hard she was almost looking round to see if she could see Noah.

In seconds the pizza box was so wet it began to fall to pieces, and she was forced to drop it into the next convenient bin. Anya's hair and clothes were plastered to her body, but her spirit was far from drowned. Still clutching her tub of ice-cream, she yelled her defiance, oblivious to the strange looks of passers-by. "Alright, you evil, blue fairy, you. I get the message. You made me into a "real" girl. I get wet when it rains, and I can't teleport. Big deal! I get friends that care about me and a husband who loves me even if I don't take home his favourite pizza and I do say embarrassing stuff sometimes. And when was the last time anyone gave you an orgasm you blue, bearded, horny freak?"

Chapter 1.07

The scene looked like nothing so much as an extended family picnic. Buffy's mood, however, was far from jovial. In fact, murderous would be a far closer approximation to the truth. Willow found herself wondering how long the slayer had been deceiving herself about her true feelings for the vampire, for her to be so deeply affected. It was certainly hard for the Wicca to accept that until just over a week ago she, for one, had been oblivious to the on-off affair the pair had been conducting.

"Where the blazes are they? All they had to do was show up. We've hired a car, cleared out everything from our old rooms, raided the mall for enough cell phones for a small country, and bought lunch."

Buffy picked up a sandwich, knowing she should eat something, if only to provide an example for Dawn, but ended up putting it back down without even attempting to open the wrapping. Her fingers kneaded absently at her temples until she noticed Dawn's eyes following the giveaway gesture. The whole scene was just too reminiscent of the night that she and Spike had managed to get the sand, which was currently irritating her hands, on the blanket in the first place. Same sandwiches, same blanket, same cooler. Same company? Who knew when they would get him back.

Wesley tried to defend his former colleagues. "I'm sure they've just been held up in traffic or something. They are generally quite reliable."

"Yeah, when Cordelia's there to keep Angel's ass in line." Dawn couldn't help but betray her partiality.

"Dawn!" Buffy automatically started to go into lecture mode but stalled as she thought how, had he been here, Spike would have smiled with his lips, but laughed with his eyes, silently encouraging her sister in her vendetta against his grandsire. "Not constructive, okay?" she finished in a far softer voice than she originally intended.

"Like what you just said was?"

"Em, Buffy?" Willow nodded in the direction of the parking lot. "That wouldn't be Fred heading our way? She kinda hid the last time I was here."

Buffy and Wesley both turned as one to see the figure she was looking at. Even at a distance, it only took a fraction of a second for Wesley to pick out the differences. "She's too short, and her hair's too light. The way she moves isn't right either. Fred's more... coltish." Tara gave a knowing smile, wondering if the Englishman realised just how much he had given away to a group of people, who were almost total strangers.

The woman seemed to be heading straight toward them, and as she neared the group, she pushed her sunglasses up to rest on her forehead. Buffy figured the gesture was deliberate, removing the barrier that would have prevented the group from making eye-contact. The woman's ponytail hung down past her shoulders and was a couple of shades lighter than Dawn's. She wore a white camisole top teamed with faded blue jeans and a silver dolphin pendant, but her footwear was a concession to practicality; well-worn comfortable trainers. She carried the biggest bag of Cheese Doodles that Buffy had ever seen in one hand, and they seemed to be out of place somehow, but Buffy couldn't think why. She seemed to be appraising the group as she came closer, as if she were trying to fit them to their descriptions, which of course, she was. Her blue eyes, fair skin and the smattering of freckles across her nose somehow seemed to fit with every stereotype of a Midwest farmer's daughter that Buffy had ever seen. Still, Buffy wasn't surprised when her accent turned out to be pure California.

The woman tossed the bag of chips underhand toward Dawn. "Clem sends his regards. He's waiting in the car with Lily. He prefers to avoid too much direct sunlight. He says putting on all that sun block is way too much like hard work."

The group as a whole, seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief, but Buffy couldn't afford to take things on face value at the moment. "That still doesn't tell me who you are?"

"Lori, Lori Patton. You have to be Buffy, Dawn, Tara. Hear you play a mean hand of poker." She nodded to the members of the group as she said their names. "I'm afraid Clem couldn't remember your real name, just that Spike pretty much always calls you Red. And you, I know nothing about, at all," she admitted to Wesley.

"In case you're wondering why I'm here..." the woman shrugged. "Marie would say that I'm her assistant. The creeps at City Hall would say that I'm her secretary, and the reality probably falls somewhere between the two. More importantly, I'm her friend. Marie can't be here herself. She's got Rosa to look after, and as she put it, she's got court dates "up the wazoo". But anything an extra pair of hands or eyes, or an extra body can help with, I'm here for as long as you want."

"Do you know what you're getting into, here?" Buffy asked.

"I'm no demon hunter or whatever, but I can look after myself most of the time, and I research stuff for a living. I can drive, and I gather with Spike gone, you girls have a bit of a problem with that, and yes, I know that we're looking at a big bunch of vamps, the like of which we haven't seen in Sunny D since Spike was running the town."

"Okay, Clem and Lily vouch for what you've told me, and you're in," Buffy conceded.

"Marie wanted to help out, too. Like I said, she's pretty much stuck in Sunnydale. She said to let you know that Dawn's welcome to stay with her for as long as it takes for you to get things sorted out, if that's okay with both of you."

Buffy gave her sister a wry half-smile. "You know you've got to go back. We can't afford for you to miss school with the whole Social Services thing and all that."

"It's okay, Buffy. I know you'll be happier with me safely out the way. And if that makes it easier for you to concentrate on getting Spike back, so much the better, but if there's anything we can be doing back in Sunnydale to help, I want to know."

"Marie said if you wanted to hop a flight, she could pick you up at the airport, or if you prefer, I can drive you back," the newcomer added.

"I don't suppose you happen to know the times for those flights?" Buffy asked.

"Every two hours at ten minutes past the hour. Last flight ten past eight. Last flight out before sundown ten past six."

"Okay, people," said Buffy as she began packing things back into the cooler. "Mohammed won't get off his butt and come to the mountain, then he can't blame the mountain if it pays him a visit. I vote we spare Clem the prospect of sunburn and move this meeting to the Angel's place."

"You really think he would come back here?" Connor asked. "Wouldn't that be really stupid?"

"Well, it's not so much that I think he would come back here, as I really don't know where else he would go," Gunn admitted.

Connor hesitated as they opened the doors leading from the hotel garden into the foyer. "They have been here. The others. Many of them and also something else. Something most foul. The scent seems old, but we should be careful."

The group cautiously checked out the ground floor before making their way upstairs to Angel's room. Gunn slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open, only to immediately start gagging and coughing.

Connor pushed the door fully open, and the other two followed him in. "As I said, something most foul." He gestured in the direction of Angel's bin, which was currently overflowing with viscera soaked clothing.

"Well this is all well and good, but who gets to wake him up?" Gunn asked.

"I'll do it," came a voice from the doorway. "I don't think we've got time to wait while you three start playing "One potato, Two potato"."

Wesley walked past the three Angel Investigations employees and grasped Angel's exposed shoulder, shaking it firmly. Almost instantaneously, Wesley found his had clenched in a painfully tight grip. For a fraction of a second, before Angel awoke fully, Wesley found himself matching wills with a golden-eyed demon. Then Angel's eyes turned to their more normal brown, though the glare he gave Wesley was no less cold. Wes met his gaze without flinching. Spike was right. He had nothing of which to be ashamed. He had acted as his conscience dictated, using the knowledge he had at the time as the basis for his decision. He had tried to check the veracity of the prophecy in every way possible before taking the drastic action he had deemed necessary. And Angel could go fuck himself if he thought Wesley Wyndam-Price was going to back down just because he put on a temper tantrum.

"You're not wanted here, Wesley," the vampire told him.

"That goes for all of us, English," Gunn added his support.

"Be that as it may, since I'm here to help tidy up Angel's mess, since we, by which I mean myself and your guests who are waiting downstairs, are only here now because you failed en masse to make any attempt to meet at the rendezvous which had been arranged and since of those present, Buffy is the party who has suffered most grievously so far in this campaign and she has requested my help, I will remain until such time as she might choose to dispense with my services.

Should you choose to take any form of responsibility for your actions in letting this situation come to pass, we will be pleased for you to join us downstairs. They do say better late than never." With that Wesley turned on his heel and left the room.

"Was he just speaking the same language as what we all speak?" Gunn asked.

"Give or take the odd phrase," Angel answered. "Do any of you have the least idea what he's talking about?"

"You mean you didn't talk to Lorne last night? He didn't call you?"

"No, should he have?"

"Damn straight, brother. And you probably didn't talk to your ex neither." Gunn picked up Angel's cell phone from the bedside table. After glancing at the screen, he checked the latest text advising him that he had a voicemail message. Giving the vampire a long-suffering look, he then accessed Angel's voicemail, upping the volume and holding the phone halfway between his own ear and Fred's. All four listened as Buffy gave a brief description of the situation as at the earlier part of the previous evening, followed by details of the rendezvous.

Even in a recorded message, Buffy's distress was apparent to all in the room, as was her willingness to use every tactic possible to get Angel's help. "Look, Angel. I know you can't exactly come play in the sunshine, but if you wait somewhere while the rest of your people check things out, we can all meet up. And I know you all blame Wesley for what happened with Stephen, but I need him to get Spike back, just like I'm going to need all of you. I'm playing an away game here, and I can't afford to lose. I know I'm asking a lot. And I guess, I'm as much to blame for letting her walk away that last time in Sunnydale, as you are for the time you let her walk away from LA, but she's gone too far this time, and not just with Spike.

Angel, I asked him what the deal with you two was. He wasn't exactly over the moon about it. It hurt his pride, but he told me. This is one instance where I'm not going to accept the Angelus line. You owe him. And I'm calling it in."

"He was right," said Connor. "It is your mess."

"Em, not that I want to interrupt," Fred began in her quiet way, "but am I the only one that's kinda worried about why Lorne didn't make that phone call and why Connor said he could smell that all these other vampires that had been in here, 'cause I'm guessin' that if Angel smelled like that when he got in last night, I kinda doubt that he was goin' to notice, and that probably means that they've got Lorne. At least, something stopped him makin' that phone call and there isn't a body, except we haven't checked his room yet, so maybe there is... Did Lorne say whether he was callin' from his room or from the desk? Maybe we should go check his room. D'you think?"

Lorne had made a point of listening out for the helicopter's comings and goings. After all, there wasn't much else to do. He appeared to have free rein. No-one had impeded his progress as he had explored the cabin, if you can call somewhere with twelve bedrooms a cabin, or the surrounding grounds. Unfortunately, his hostess hadn't been exaggerating when she had said that you would need a helicopter or a good four wheel drive to reach the place. She'd just neglected to mention that the four wheel drive in question would also need to be fitted with a winch. The cabin was situated on a... well, ledge was an accurate description, albeit slightly misleading as regards the scale of the place. It still conveyed the impression of the cliff face that rose up behind the cabin, and continued down to the ravine floor hundreds of feet below. Not that the geographical remoteness of the accommodation was the only reason they let him wander where he wanted. He suspected the low-jack they had fitted around his ankle also had something to do with it. All the windows and doors were protected with security shutters and only the main doorway was left uncovered. Somehow, Lorne didn't think this was to protect against burglars.

About the only thing he could say for it was that the acoustics were pretty darn good. He had stood at the edge of the cliff and belted out the first few bars of "Indian Love Call" from Rose Marie, but it kinda defeated the point of the exercise when you had to do your own answering. Over the course of the night, the helicopter had left, come back, and left again. Since its last visit, several of the previously vacant bedrooms were now locked up tight. Whether that was to protect who or whatever was inside, or whether it was to keep them inside was anyone's guess, though he suspected the former for the most part. Every hour or so, someone would check on one the rooms, unlocking it from the outside. Other than that they seemed to leave the room's occupants to themselves.

Currently, Lorne was keeping himself amused by tinkering on the baby grand in the main reception room. Far be it from him to wonder about how they had managed to get the thing up here in the first place, or to marvel at anyone coming all this way for the purpose of tuning it. As long as it was here, and he had vodka, cranberry, fresh grapefruit and ice, he would make the most of his little period of incarceration.

The guard appeared to do his hourly check, and Lorne decided it was time to belt out a chorus or two of "Release Me"

"Ah, shuddup!" bellowed the guard. "We ain't gettin' paid to listen to you caterwaulin'"

"Hey, I'll have you know I've been offered my own show in Vegas, sweet cheeks. Maybe the next time you get a vacation, you could be paying to hear me."

"Only if nobody kills ya first. Come up here and make yourself useful."

Lorne sighed, but he supposed useful was better than bored. He followed the man into the shaded room.

"Right, every hour, ya stick one of these in a mug," he indicated one of several bags of human blood. "Ya take this." He picked up a straw and stuck it into the mug. "And ya feed that." He shoved the mug into Lorne's hands and gestured to a figure that was not only strapped face-down to a gurney, but held down with numerous cuffs, chains and padlocks as well. "And don't get no ideas 'bout settin' him loose or offin' him, 'cause, either way, you'll end up dead as a dodo."

With those final comforting words, the goon made his exit and left Lorne and Spike alone.

Spike raised sleepy eyelids to watch Lorne as he brought the oversized mug over. The vampire managed a wry grin, even though he winced as the movement set off another wave of pain from his chip. He corrected himself. From the hole they had left when they took out his chip. "Sso," he still slurred slightly from the last remains of the drugs in his system. "Wasn' a nightmare. Really was a lounge act doing a five-hundred decibel rendition of 'Look Homeward,' bloody 'Angel' in the next room."

"'Fraid so, sweetie."

"Always thought Johnny Ray was underrated... but I never did like that one for some reason."

It was several hours and not a few blood packets later before the drugs had cleared Spike's system enough, and the blood he had drunk allowed him to heal enough to manage a proper conversation. Once he'd got as much information as he could about where they were, who else was there and what was going on, as best the anagogic demon could tell, conversation turned to another matter.

"I gather from your honey bun, that present circumstances not withstanding, congratulations would be in order... again."

"Yeah, we've got plenty to celebrate lately. Least we will have once I get out of here. What event exactly are we commemorating now?"

"The whole psychic bond, Ring of Fire, deal."

"Ring of Fire?" Spike asked.

"So I borrowed from Johnny Cash. Let him try to sue me. It sounds better than "Ever-encroaching inescapable passion that may or may not prove fatal or cause insanity," which, by the way, is the literal translation from Pylean."

"And I'm sure if I was from Pie-lee or wherever, then I wouldn't have to ask you to explain again, in English, this time."

"Well, see, we have this sort of similar ritual that some people do back home. At least, how you do the ritual isn't exactly similar, and we won't go into that, but when both the participants have been trained to use their empathic abilities, you sort of get the same result?" Lorne glanced across at Spike waiting for an indication that he was following so far.

"They call it... Okay, I call it the Ring of Fire, puddin', 'cause there ain't no way out. There's just you and her. At first you're kind of feeling your way. The bond lets you relate to each other in ways you didn't think were possible before, and it makes you feel kinda warm inside, sort of like standing a few feet from a bonfire on a cold night at the beach. Over time, you get to know each other, maybe better than you know yourselves. The flames burn that bit brighter and closer, and you learn things you'd rather were kept secret. The fire starts to burn, to hurt. Compared with how things are between the pair of you, it's like the rest of the world could burn right up and you might not even notice, and maybe you'll get so wrapped up in each other that you'll let it do just that. Your girl comes with a heavy destiny and nothing good'll come of it if she neglects a sacred duty."

"You think I don't know that? You think I don't try to help her?" Spike interjected.

"Sure you do, sugar. You'd do anything for her. But what happens to the world if she feels the same way about you? And what happens to the pair of you if she doesn't? What if, somewhere down the line you find out that all that's holding you together is passion? If you can't both see all the bad, as well as the good, and love each other still, then it'll destroy you just as easily as it can purify. You two signed up for the emotional equivalent of the auto de fé. And until those flames close right in around your feet, there ain't no way to tell whether the pair of you are going to burn up like tinder, or be tempered like steel."

Lorne took a sip from his drink and treated Spike to a contemplative look.

"Back home, it's kind of reserved for all these noble champion types, 'cause, truth to tell, most people don't want to know that much about anyone else, and if they do, they don't want them knowing all their little secrets. It's got to be one of those great kyrumption things before anyone would be nuts enough to try it, but they say if you don't wind up hating each others guts so much that you either go insane or destroy each other, then you can both draw great power from the union."

"Well. Isn't that quite the cheery little thought? Y' know you almost make me wish that whatever Dru has planned to break the bond would work... Except for one little thing."

"And what's that?"

"Buffy. She wears my mark and I wear hers. Dru can cut chunks out of my hide until you can't see a single tooth mark and it won't change anything between us. If we have to do the ritual all over again, we will, because I realised a long way back that Buffy will always be drawn to the flames, and for her, I'd walk through the nine circles of hell and take a detour to heaven besides."

"Well, cup cake" Lorne drawled. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that... Not that you wouldn't cut quite a dash."

Chapter 1.08

Angel, Connor, Gunn and Fred surveyed round Lorne's empty room. "So, no-one has seen Lorne since we left here last night? And the last time he spoke to any of us was when he spoke to me? And he said that he was going to call you straight away, but he didn't?" Gunn confirmed.

"And his bed hasn't been slept in, and Connor says that the reception smells like strange vampires, so they've got him, haven't they?" Fred said what none of them wanted to admit.

"And with him, goes our last link to the powers," Angel added grimly. "They're trying to make sure we can't find them. I don't know who Dru's got working with her, but they know too much about us."

"And if they took Lorne, maybe they took Cordy, too."

"I don't think so. If there had been vampires near her car, either me or Connor would have picked up on it." Angel gave his head a weary shake. "This is something different."

"Not that I want to rain on your parade, but how long had Cordy's car been sitting at the side of the highway when you found it? An hour? Two? With a nice breeze off the ocean the whole time? And they wouldn't need to go near her car. Just overtake her and pull in as if they'd broken down or something. She might not be a mechanic, but she woulda pulled over and offered to call one, especially if it looked like a car full of young girls or something. She could have gone over to see if she could help," Gunn suggested.

"I would have known." Angel's voice brooked no further argument.

"Ho-o-o-kaay! Well, if that concludes that topic of conversation, I guess maybe it's time we went to see what all is happenin' with the party downstairs."

Angel and he presumed Connor could hear sounds of arguing long before they reached the reception.

"Just tell me, Wesley." Buffy's tone bristled with indignation.

"It won't do any good. I had thought to enlist Spike's aid in the matter, but now there's only one person who can do it."

"Yeah, well, I'm not holding my breath, and I am dead, or I was, twice even, so spill,"

"It really ought to be Angel. You may have died, but you aren't dead. If that were the criteria then I wouldn't have needed anyone else in the first place."

"And you think-"

"What ought to be Angel?" the vampire asked as he purposefully made his way downstairs at the head of his remaining people.

Wesley watched the group approach and couldn't restrain the thought that Angel's penance after the whole Darla / Drusilla affair had been short-lived. Even as others suffered the consequences of his actions, Angel forsook the facade of the sinner, who wanted to redeem himself by working for the others.

Wesley's face twisted into a bitter grimace as he tossed a manila folder to the vampire. "I was keeping myself busy whilst I considered my job options."

Angel opened the file, staring at the photographs of Cordelia and her car. "You did your own investigation?"

"Apparently with more success than you. However, the potential source of information could prove equally useful to find Spike, since apparently his location is warded in some manner, which reduces the efficacy of normal location spells." Wesley indicated some spell-casting paraphernalia on the reception floor. "However, I doubt that she would care to give you information on both."

"Em," Fred interrupted. "Now that you all are here, couldn't we try one of these location spell thingies to find Cordy and Lorne, and then ask whoever about Spike?"

"Lorne's missing, too?" Wesley asked.

"That's the green guy? Right?"

Wesley nodded a confirmation to Buffy, and then looked to the Angel Investigations crowd for an explanation. Gunn was the one to respond. "He called me last night. Said he was goin' to get straight on to Angel, but he never did. Connor reckons there were a bunch of vamps here last night, so we figure they took him before he could make the second call."

Buffy looked across at the teenager, only to find him eyeing Clem and Lily with evident distaste. "Can you tell whether Spike was here last night."

Connor shook his head. "Not if he was wearing that same cologne. There were a lot though, and they're all related."

"To each other or to you?" Dawn asked pointedly. It seemed that Buffy wasn't the only one who had been aware of the looks Connor had been sending Clem and Lily's way.

"Both," Angel and his offspring answered simultaneously, even as Lily whispered soothingly in Dawn's ear. "Be still, child. His hatred harms no one so much as it harms himself. A child so full of self-loathing deserves understanding, not anger. He stands at a crossroads. Don't push him toward a wrong path."

"I'd say there were at least twenty vamps here, and neither Dru nor Spike were among them. They're all young, and I couldn't bet on it, but I don't even think any of them were even Dru's. My best guess would be that she turned one, and there's a good chance he or she's still with her, and then this one's turned a few who've turned a few. Beyond the first half-dozen, you've got weak vamps making weaker ones."

Willow pulled a printout from her bag and walked forward to pass it to Angel. "Weak enough to account for this?" Angel looked down at the numbers on the hospital reports. "You're sure these numbers are right?"

Willow gave him a hurt look. "Sorry, it's just if you had twenty or so vamps getting this much human blood... Then we'd have some seriously strong fledglings about."

"But we're not talking about twenty," said Connor. "Because round about the same time they were here, I was having a little discussion of my own. We've got at least forty."

"Either of those two batches mostly women?" Buffy asked.

Connor and Angel both shook their heads.

"Up that to nearer seventy."

"You didn't tell us you'd seen no vamps other than the ones you went after." Gunn's tone with Connor was decidedly antagonistic.

"You weren't in any danger. They were just watching."

"Yeah, just watchin' while you let me lead them right to my people."

"Guys, can we get back to Wesley's file and whatever Fred was saying?" Dawn asked, "Cause the sooner somebody goes and talks to whoever, the sooner we get somebody back."

"A standard location spell won't do any good to find Cordelia. I can't prove it but I believe she's no longer in this plane of existence," Wesley supplied.

"So, I go and talk to this Dinza, and she tells us where Cordy is, and we go get her," Angel replied.

"See. I told you!" Buffy looked at Wesley, seemingly reverting to their earlier argument, even as Wesley rebutted Angel's comment.

"I doubt that you'll find it that simple. Dinza is one of the Elusian mysteries. A demi-goddess of the lost. Only the dead may enter her realm, and those who do, she is often reputed to trap there. And it's doubtful that she'll tell you where anyone is. At best, she'll give you a pointer as to where you should look. However, she's hardly trustworthy, and I'm sure it would amuse her to trap a Champion for the Powers."

"But he has to get Spike back first, not Cordelia," Dawn protested.

Angel fixed his gaze on the teenager. "And why would that be? Spike's a monster. He's done terrible things. Why does he deserve to be rescued more than Cordelia does?"

"He doesn't." Buffy admitted, "but it's the logical thing to do."

Angel obviously didn't manage to connect the dots on his own, but Fred supplied the missing links.

"If Dinza will only help you once, then if you ask about Cordy, and we get her back, that's it. But if you ask about Spike, and we get him back and maybe Lorne's in the same place, then Spike can go to Dinza and ask about Cordy. Of course, it's also possible that if we get Cordy back, she might have a vision about where the others are."

"You want me to trust Spike to get Cordy back?" Angel asked Buffy incredulously.

"And you want me to give up our best hope of finding him for some vapid ex-cheerleader." Buffy stepped forward as she made her reply until she and Angel were almost toe-to-toe.

Angel glowered down at his petite ex. "Cordelia isn't like that any more."

"And Spike isn't some ravening monster either, but that didn't stop you bringing it up," Buffy spat back at him.

"It's hardly in the same league. Cordelia works for the Powers That Be."

"Yeah? And how many apocalypses has she helped prevent? And how often has she stood up to a god to protect one little girl? And if they're so almighty powerful, then they can look after her, can't they?"

Angel had forgotten just how mad Buffy could make him. "The Powers didn't save Doyle and they didn't save you."

"Angel, I didn't want to be saved. I was tired and I had fought long enough. It was better to go then, when it meant something, than to drag it out in some meaningless charade that I was protecting the world when I couldn't even protect my own family. Are you telling me Doyle didn't make a similar choice?"

"By that standard Spike chose to be where he is now. No-one knows what happened to Cordy."

"Fine," the slayer yelled as if Angel wasn't mere inches from her. "But, if we can't find another way to find him, it'll be on your head when I take Lily round every demon bar in LA until we find a vamp that's telling the truth when he says he's prepared to turn me."

"You cannot be telling me that Spike means that much to you."

"Why not? There was a time I would have done it for you. There was a time I would have done anything short of damning the entire world for you, and you didn't even love me enough to stay in the same town.

Spike is mine. Every pound of flesh, every drop of blood in his veins, every thought that passes through his head, every last feeling, every last impulse. It's all mine, and I'm his. You never knew what I would have done for you, so you can't ever hope to comprehend what I would do for my mate."

"Your mate?" Angel almost growled, despite the fact he had been warned that it was on the cards.

"My mate. My lover. My future husband. The man I love. Are we catching on, yet? I could have sworn we covered this last week."

"Spike wasn't your mate last week."

"But we said that we were just waiting for Giles."

"So Giles gave you the all-clear, just like that?"

"Actually, no, but I don't see that it's any of your business."

"It's my business when you come asking for favours, and you're judgement is obviously skewed."

"And your being in love with Cordelia has nothing to do with why you want her back, 'cause you sure don't seem half as bothered about good, old Lorne there," Buffy pointed out.

"Children! This help no one. The vampire must do what to him is right. We must all take the consequences. And if Spike die, then we curse the name of he who betrays the blood."

Angel's jaw dropped, and he stared at Lily in disbelief. "Who is this?"

"Oh, sorry, did we skip the introductions?" Buffy asked in a sarcastic tone of voice. "This is Lily, and her son Clem and Lori. They drove down this morning from Sunnydale to help out getting Spike back. I think, other than that, the only person you don't know is Tara. Anya would have been here, too, but apparently she had some sort of employee / employer dispute that resulted in them taking away her teleportation privileges. You did know that Xander's wife was a vengeance demon, didn't you?" Buffy asked with a sunny smile. She decided that it wasn't really necessary to let Angel know Anya's currently inactive status, so long as he got the point that where Spike was concerned, she wasn't the only person with skewed judgement.

"Did she just threaten to curse me?"

"Only if Spike dies." Buffy said with a smile. "Of course, she'd have to try real hard to top the whole soul thing. But, I'm sure she'd think of something. After all, she probably comes closer to thinking of him as family than you do." It was really so much better having Lily around when you were absolutely on the same side.

"Spike like favourite brother's son," Lily confirmed.

"And did I tell you she's empathic, so all those nasty feelings you're having toward him..." Buffy raised an eyebrow toward Lily, who merely gave a curt nod. "They aren't secret any more.

Why don't you take Wesley's file into the office and read it properly. And while you think things over, think of this...

Stephen, would you be here now with Angel, if Spike hadn't opened his big mouth the night your father died?"

Connor shook his head. "That woman told me that Angelus killed my father, and I would have found a way to get revenge," he stated.

"I think you should be feeling pretty grateful that Spike chose to be so eloquent."

Angel took the file and headed for his office, looking as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Buffy could admit to feeling slightly guilty about pressuring Angel into asking this Dinza about Spike. It was only very slightly though, and she was so going to hug Lily the second they were out of sight of Angel's crowd. Buffy looked over in Lily's direction as the demon, who had called a two hundred and fifty year old vampire a child, held out her hand palm down and jiggled it slightly to show Angel's decision could still go either way.

The two factions sat facing each other, each wanting the return of their own people to take precedence over the other ongoing problems. Tension filled the air and would not dissipate until Angel returned. Lily had apparently picked up on Angel's indecision even up to the time when he left the hotel to make his way through the sewers to Dinza's lair.

Without further information there was little they could do in the way of planning. Tara and Willow had tried another location spell in hopes of finding Lorne but it had proved as futile as the one to find Spike. Now, they, Lily and Wesley were poring over Angel Investigations’ meagre library in hopes of finding a spell that worked in a different way. Lori had taken up position at Cordy’s PC and was trying to follow up from the hospital leads that Willow had found.

As for the others, all they could do was wait for Angel's return.

Buffy slipped a couple of painkillers from her purse and managed to wash them down with some coke without attracting any attention. The headache had been bad enough on its own. Then, just as it was easing off, the other pains started. Nothing so far had come near to a repeat of the previous evening, but then, so far, Buffy hadn't dared to repeat her experimental meditation, either.

She kept reminding herself that pain was good. Pain meant that he was still alive. She’d put up with a lot more discomfort if it meant that she knew that one thing.

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