( RIPOSTE ][ A Watchergirls Archive )

__Perchance to Dream__
By Gail Christison

A lone figure slipped through the dark skeletons that covered the hillside, night turning the forest into a sea of bony fingers reaching skyward, and the sky a black and grey quilt, sequined here and there with a glittering diamond of gold, blue or white.

In time the figure reached the end of the tree line, and climbed out onto the rock shelves beyond it. Long and dark, the figure stood out against the night, the small breeze catching the edges of his open coat and flicking them around.

Angel scanned the rocks as far as he could see, in both directions. And then he began to search. He was still searching when the smell of dawn came into his nostrils. It was time to go. A gut-wrenching roar of frustration split the silence, then he was descending, sliding and slipping in the loose rocks, then darting through the trees like a fox in full flight, his feet given wings by the imperative to race the first morning light to safety.

*******

"Do you think he's thought about it at all?"

"Duh, Xander, of course he's thought about it. The biggest favour you could do him would be to not mention it at all," Buffy told him pointedly.

"Yeah, Xander. You know how hard it is for Giles to show his feelings at the best of times, so you don't want to go exposing his naked feelings now, at one of the worst of times."

Xander looked at Buffy. "I suppose that made some sense on some weird Willow planet somewhere?"

"Leave him alone Xander, I'm warning you. He needs to deal with this in his own way, and his own time. Fighting the Hellmouth demon already brought it all back again. This anniversary only makes it worse."

Xander put his hands in the air. "I'm warned. Anybody would think you guys don't trust me."

Both of them scowled at him.

"Point taken," he said huffily. "But my mouth is in training. I should have it housebroken by New Year's."

They reached the library doors and Buffy gave Xander one last, pointed look, before they went through them.

Giles was checking out books for a small group of seniors when he saw them. He handed the last book back and came out from behind the desk. The three seniors beat a hasty retreat. Bad enough being seen in the library, but for anyone to find out they'd been there when the geek patrol was in would have been death...

"They were in rather a hurry," Giles mused as the doors swung closed behind them.

"Yeah. Couldn't get out of here fast enough," Buffy agreed.

"Anybody'd think it was us," Xander drawled.

"I think it was," Willow added, annoyed. "Jerks."

"Forget them," Buffy said suddenly, resting her cast on the desk. "Why are we worrying about a bunch of losers like them?"

"Exactly," Giles added, not entirely certain what was going on. He was still looking slightly battered, with his vivid scratches, though the wrapping was off his sprained wrist and his bruises were fading. "Forget them. There's something else we have to discuss."

Xander looked uncomfortable but remained silent, Willow put on her best 'I didn't do anything' face and Buffy looked up at him.

"What?"

"Tonight's patrol. I don't think you should go alone, and Faith still hasn't resurfaced from her latest unauthorised expedition."

Xander exhaled noisily and Willow elbowed him. He looked at Will, then at the others, turned on his heel and left.

Giles stared after him for a long moment then Buffy broke the silence.

"So what's so scary about tonight? I'm perfectly capable of patrolling alone or with you for that matter. So what's the big?"

"What? Oh...tonight is the first in ten days of unusual astrological and astronomical alignments. Tradition has it at these times demons from the oldest times will rise to walk the earth."

"And, let me guess, they do really bad things because they're cranky about being locked away the rest of the time?"

Giles gave her a pained look. "It's a very dangerous time, Buffy. They're very difficult, if not impossible, to kill and there will only be a short period in which other demonic forces can rally around them and attempt to use their power to take back this world."

"Impossible to kill?"

"Almost. You must use the sword of Ielorid to pierce the demon's right eye. It's their only weak spot. There are twelve in number, but only four will rise near the Hellmouth. Two will rise in Salisbury, one in Dresden, one in Prague, two in Budapest and two in Saint Petersburg."

"So who's going to kill them all?"

"Well, technically you don't need to kill them all. They're called the Herrata and they're all interconnected. If you destroy one of them, you destroy them all, which is why they're so difficult to kill."

"I kind of like the symmetry of that," she mused. "Like dominoes. Okay, where do I find this sword?"

"Quite frankly, no one knows. I've been going through my books for days, but there are only standard references, where there is any mention at all."

"I'll help you look," Willow volunteered. "Oz has a gig in this place in Monterey the Dingoes go to a lot. He won't be back 'til tomorrow night," she added and sighed.

"Great. So patrolling looks like a barrel of laughs tonight."

"Buffy—"

"Don't worry, I'll find Xander."

Both Willow and Giles stared.

"Well he's better than nothing."

*******

Angel paced back and forth in front of the fire. The rising of the Herrata brought with it a chance he would never have believed possible; would never have dared dream existed.

Whistler had reappeared one day from nowhere, as cheerful and annoying as ever, but his news had changed everything.
It was Whistler who'd told him that the Herrata's raison-d'être was to use their powers to serve the demon world in whatever manner demanded of them by whichever dark power held the 'Right Eye of the Herrata.'
It was also Whistler who had smugly pointed out that 'dark powers' included vampires...

...Which included Angel.

He stopped pacing. If he could just find the Eye, he'd have a real chance at a life with Buffy. He stared into the fireplace, watching the flames. He was aware that he didn't deserve a second chance, but somehow, for whatever reason, he was being given one, if he was up to the challenge. It had seemed so easy. Between Whistler's knowledge of the Herrata legend and his own fragmentary memories, they'd pieced together the 'where' at least, but when he'd reached the site, there had been nothing...

"What is it, big guy?"

Angel swung around. "Whistler, I wondered where you got to."

"I was hungry," he said, and waved a half-eaten hot dog. "So, you obviously didn't get the brass ring?"

Angel looked away. "There was nothing there. No cave, no markers, nothing. I searched the whole area."

Whistler shrugged. "It's there. It just has to be revealed. We just have to know what—if any—magic is keeping it concealed, and why. Nobody said they make these things easy. Remember what's at stake here. These guys have the power of magics not seen on Earth maybe...ever. Whoever finds that Eye will have more power than any master, any demon king ever had. You have to be worthy...or at the very least you gotta be an expert in demon history and legend."

Angel's head snapped around and he smiled very slowly. "Or you have to know someone." Then suddenly the light died in his eyes and the smile faded.

The little demon shrugged again. "That too. Is there something I should know? Oh, wait, the Slayer, right?"

Angel shook his head, his expression sombre. "Close, but no cigar."

*******

Giles put down the volume he'd been studying and took his glasses off to rub his eyes for the umpteenth time. He was worried about Buffy, feeling guilty about not going with her himself, and frustrated by the lack of practical information available on the subject of the Herrata. His arm was aching…and four hours sleep at the most the previous night wasn't making things any easier.

Most of all, however, he was frustrated at his inability, for the last several hours, to focus on what he was doing. He threw the glasses on the table, picked up the drink he'd been worrying for the last hour, and drained it.

Had it really been a year already? It hardly seemed possible that he'd survived that long without her. Hardly seemed possible that she was gone. The ice rattled in the empty glass. He put it down with an unsteady hand and leaned back against the sofa to think...

"Rupert?"

He sat up, stunned.

"Jenny? How can you be here? What-?"

"Shh. I'm here now, that's all that matters."

Giles slowly became aware that the room was filled with red roses, that their perfume filled the air. Then he forgot the roses. Jenny was coming to him, the white silk negligee holding breathtakingly to her curves as she moved.

"I've missed you so much," he said softly.

"But I'm here now," she smiled and touched his face, brushed a thumb over one of his damp eyes. "Don't cry for me, Rupert."

Giles trembled as she slid into his lap and wound her arms around his neck.

"We didn't have a chance did we?" she whispered and kissed his ear, making him tremble again.

The pain of touching her, smelling her, hearing her voice again was almost too much to bear. Almost, but not enough to counter his body's response to her nearness, the ache in his heart where she used to be, the intense desire to carry her upstairs and lock himself away with her forever.

She drew back a little, found his eyes and smiled at him tenderly. "Hi, fuddy-duddy."

And then his mouth was claiming hers, searching, caressing, wanting, thrilling to her equally urgent, needing, response. He let his hands trail down the silken contours, exploring the intensity of his desire for her. Jenny was drawing off his tie and pulling the buttons of his shirt undone.

Giles caught his breath and tensed his body against the force of his response to her fingers brushing against the skin of his chest. His hands began to slide slowly back up from her waist toward the soft curves of her bosom, an exquisite torture of anticipation for each of them.

And then suddenly she was ripped from his arms. He leaped up after her, saw the intruder and went cold inside.

"No-o!" he screamed as Angelus shook her brutally to still her struggles.

"Not for you, Rupert," he drawled, amused. "Never for you. What have you ever done to deserve someone like her? You let her die, Rupert. You're weak."

"No-o!" Giles cried again in anguish, his traitorous body shaking with terror. "Let her go! I'll do anything, just let her go," he begged.

"Anything, Rupert?" Angelus lifted one of her slender hands. Jenny screamed as one of her fingers snapped like a twig. "Anything? Would you like to play with me again?"

"Jenny!" Giles sobbed, broke free of his fear and threw himself at the vampire's throat just as someone started pounding on the front door.

Giles started from his thrashing, opened his eyes and sobbed again. He was sweating and breathless and his heart was pounding its way out of his chest. Someone was knocking on the door. He gathered himself swiftly, ran a trembling hand over his face, pushed back his rumpled hair, then forced himself toward the door, pushing through lingering dread and anguish, to focus on reality again.

And almost passed out when he opened it.

Angel saw the look of sheer horror on the haggard face and stepped back. "Giles?" he said softly. "I'm sorry—"

Giles fought an urge to slam the door, an even more overwhelming urge to tear Angel to pieces, and his body's paralysing physiological response to the face that represented so much pain and grief.

Eventually he closed his eyes for a moment, swallowed, then spoke. "A...Angel? What...What's wrong?"

Angel wasn't sure what to do. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I just wanted some advice that's all. I can come back. Are you sure you're all right? You look—"

Giles straightened, clenching his fists and taking long, silent breaths. "It's nothing," he said roughly, "nothing. Come...come in."

Angel shifted his gaze slightly away from the green eyes and the hurt burning in them, nodded, and followed the Watcher into the apartment.

Near the sofa Giles' unfolded glasses were lenses-down on the floor, a whisky glass, too, on its side, almost-melted ice spilt on the rug, and one of the librarian's precious books was open roughly, face down on the rug where it had fallen. He looked at the other man again, at his rumpled, haggard appearance, the creases in his clothes and guessed.

"Nightmares?" he said softly, halting Giles half way to a temporary escape in the kitchenette.

He didn't turn. "N...no," he lied. "Just fell asleep doing some research a...and g...got up too fast to answer the door."

Angel closed his eyes as Giles went to put the kettle on. If his mission wasn't so incredibly important, or urgent, he would have slipped away and left the other man to his dignity. Apart from the single exchange at Christmas, when the Watcher had swallowed his bitterness and let him in, despite everything, they had never talked about what happened.

Giles returned with a cup of tea for himself, the cup not quite still on the saucer, and sat down on the sofa again. He sipped at it for a long moment, then spoke without looking up.

"What can I do for you this time?" There was a multitude of inferences in that voice, those words. Angel shut them out.

"The Herrata," he said quietly. "I need your help to find something."

Giles started to laugh softly, unnerving his guest. "My help?" He swirled his tea, his voice turning harsh. "So nice to be needed. Buffy needs me; you need me...so nice."

Angel picked up the book on the floor. It was open at the chapter Giles had been reading. Vague, rambling prose about the rising of the Herrata, the Armageddon-like consequences of leaving them unchecked and the larger than life description of the Slayer's battle to destroy them before the world was lost. He frowned. The last Slayer to face them, hundreds of years ago, hadn't destroyed the Herrata. She'd only stopped the Master who found the Eye, from using it. The Herrata's time had expired and they'd been returned to their enforced sleep again. It didn't state what had happened to the Eye after the vampire Master had been slain.

He looked up to find Giles' eyes burning into him, the other man's knuckles white and his face no longer pale, but flushed with long suppressed anger. Angel closed the book and put it on the table.

"I know what today is," he whispered, his eyes glistening in the lamplight. "I'm not going to insult you by saying I'm sorry. But I can ask you to help me with this one thing, because if we could make it work, Angelus would be dead forever..."

Giles' eyes widened, startled.

"It's the one thing I have to offer for all you've suffered because of me—"

"Not me," he said. "Her..."

Angel resisted a cowardly urge to look away. "...Her," he agreed hoarsely.

"How?" Giles rasped, barely able to grasp the idea that he was being offered a chance to destroy his worst nightmare, forever.

"The Herrata. Whoever has the 'Eye' controls them. If I could find it first I could order them to make me Human again. Demons can't survive in living Human flesh. They can borrow an unconscious body for a while, but they can't survive in a living, conscious, breathing mortal. I would be free."

Giles put down the tea cup, rose and went to his whisky decanter, poured a shot in a glass and drank it without ice. Then poured another and came back to the vampire.

"So, all I have to do to kill Angelus is be a party to rewarding you with your greatest wish?" he asked bitterly.

"And Buffy's," Angel added, ashamed of himself.

"Don't you dare bring her into this," Giles replied coldly and downed half of the contents of the glass. "That she can still love you after everything you've done to her is more than you will ever deserve."

Angel swallowed. Giles wasn't saying anything he didn't already know, but there was a razor edge to hearing someone else voice the words.

"I know. But I can't help loving her, any more than she can help loving me. I don't want to live without her, but I can't stay with her while this thing is still inside me, while there's even a single chance that he might come back. A curse can be broken. It doesn't have to be a moment of passion; it could be a spell, another curse, done by anyone with a vested interest in turning me again. I can't let that happen again, not to her, not to the others...and not to you."

"She was trying to cure you," Giles whispered into the whisky glass.

"Willow?"

Giles made a noise in his throat. "Jenny. When you...killed her, she was so close to recreating the curse. The irony is she did save you in the end. Even she, with her family's history, was willing to help you. And you destroyed her."

Angel swallowed, unable to stop the moisture that sprang into the dark eyes. "Would you like me to tell you the names of all the people I destroyed? The lives I tore apart?" he asked angrily. "I remember the names of every single one, every face, every voice, every scream. I could start with the children—"

The glass slammed into the far wall and smashed, amber liquid trickling down the paint work.

"You bastard. Don't you dare beg my pity." The cold violence in Giles' voice was far worse than shouting. "All the torment, all the pain in the world isn't enough for what you've done, what you did—"

Angel's head bowed. "I know. And I have known all the pain in the world, and more. …And then I was sent back." His eyes lifted and bored into the green ones. "To be honest, I'm still not sure which is worse. Will you help me?"

Giles closed his eyes. "Does Buffy know?"

"Absolutely not. I won't risk raising her hopes for nothing. I won't hurt her like that again."

"Thank God." He finally looked up. "God help me, I'll help you. Angelus...must be destroyed." He sighed. "Tell me about this 'Eye' you were prattling about earlier..."

*******

"What is this? National Lampoon's Vampire vacation?" Xander asked as they wandered through Restfield cemetery. "One lousy vampire in five cemeteries and a dozen back alleys?"

Buffy kicked an empty cigarette packet, damp with dew, out of her path. "What are you complaining about? Do you enjoy being paralysed with fear?"

Xander stopped. "I was not paralysed by fear. He just surprised me, is all. Last time somebody tried to bite my neck—well, actually two people tried to bite my neck, but your boyfriend meant it. Drusilla the Demented was only going to give me eternal life, and make me hers forever," he retorted.

Buffy touched his arm. "I'm sorry. I know how hard it's been for you today. It's been hard for all of us, especially Giles, but I shouldn't have asked you to come..."

"Hey, no. This is where I'm supposed to be," Xander told her, surprised. "I don't want to be anywhere else...except maybe...in a bubble bath with Amy Yip...no forget I said that. Here. This is where I want to be."

They started to walk again. Xander thought of something. "What do you think has Giles so bugged about these Herrata? After last week…and we've faced invincible demons before. Remember when we aced blue boy with the bazooka?"

Buffy chuckled. "You aren't gonna let us forget that one any time soon, are you? But you're right. You should have been there when we closed the Hellmouth. He was so intent on protecting the rest of us, he almost got himself killed…"

Xander's expression was wry, his eyes bright in the moonlight. "I'd like very much to have been there, but everyone kept telling me to go away," he pointed out.

"You sound like you still have some issues with that?" Buffy asked, surprised. "We were just trying to protect you because we care about you."

"The same as you care about Willow, Oz, Giles, the same as they care about you? It's a lame excuse to get me out of the way Buffy, and you know it."

"Okay, so we did it to get you out of the way. Why? Because you were going to get yourself killed...because you don't think, Xander. Do you think I liked putting Willow...or Giles...in danger? I didn't. The difference is they knew—"

"—What they were doing," Xander finished.

"No. They know when to fight, and when to back off, when to duck. You don't."

"God, this is a serious conversation we're having. It's making me hungry."

Buffy stared, then laughed. "I know where there's a hot dog stand."

They were almost past the biggest mausoleum, where Giles had tried to enlist the help of the spirit guides only a week earlier, when an eerie violet light split the sky and fractured into a dozen violent colours. They looked up simultaneously and both saw the same thing at the same time. The moon was beginning to eclipse.

"What? God doesn't like hot dogs?" Xander cracked.

Buffy shot him a look, but she could hear the fear in his voice. "More like show time for the Herrata. We should keep moving."

The light show continued for the length of the eclipse. They cleared the cemetery and were crossing through one of Sunnydale's biggest parks on their way to the next when it all suddenly turned off, like someone flicking a light switch.

Buffy looked up at the clear sky. "They're he-e-re," she muttered. "Somewhere."

"Okay, officially wigged. Where are they supposed to rise from, pray? Like, are we going to be playing with them tonight? More importantly is this going to interfere with my hot dog?"

"Giles doesn't know yet. This is only the first night and the books aren't explicit enough. He and Willow are doing their best. They'll find something, they always do." She looked up at him and grinned. "Until then I have you to protect me."

Xander looked away. "Sorry about that," he muttered as they passed through a grove of trees.

Buffy stopped again and turned to him. "Hey, where's the snappy come back? How can I not think about what's out there if you don't keep distracting me?"

He shrugged. "Sorry. I ran out," he said half-heartedly, then turned and continued walking.

Buffy frowned, thinking about what she said, then put her head back and closed her eyes for a moment, before setting off after him.

"Xander, don't," she said when she reached his side.

"Don't what?"

"Don't do this to yourself. Nobody could have stopped what happened. Except me. All this time—it never occurred to me that you blamed yourself. It makes sense to hate Angel, to blame me, but—"

"Since when did you start channelling dead psychologists?" he snapped. "You don't know anything about me. Why should you? When did you ever have the time or the interest?"

"Xander, we're friends...of course I care about you—"

"Jeff Bainbridge in Chemistry is a friend. Corky Winslow from third grade is a friend. Even they know more about me than you do. I know more about your clothes than you do about my life," he retorted.

Buffy shifted uncomfortably. She had never seen that side of him before. She was also as jumpy as a cat, not just about the Herrata, but because air seemed electric with energy, with potential. Trouble was coming, but there was no walking away from what they'd started...

"I know you're one of my two best friends—three if you include Giles—and I know you don't want anyone to know how hard you find a lot of the classes at school. I also know you love Willow, but that you won't ever do anything about it."

Xander shrugged. "You couldn't at least let me have a little more angst time before you shot me down in flames?" he asked flippantly, but Buffy could see his eyes in the moonlight, still shrouded in pain.

"This isn't really about you and me, is it? It's about all that guilt you've been beating into weapons to hurt me, Angel, anyone who reminds you of everything that happened, of the fact that you couldn't stop any of it."

He threw his hands in the air. "Look, Sigmund, get out my head. I don't want to be psychoanalysed by you. If you think you can absolve your own guilt, or Dead Boy's, by shifting the blame to me—" An open palm connected violently with his left cheek.

The blow made him rock on his heels. Buffy's eyes glittered as she rounded on him and opened her mouth to yell. Then she stopped.

He turned quickly, but not quickly enough, and started to walk away.

Buffy caught him easily and grabbed his arm. He tried to pull it away and failed, but refused to turn and look at her.

"Xander, I'm sorry I hit you."

"I'm not. It could have got a lot uglier," he said quietly.

"Why are you so angry?"

He swung around, his eyes glittering with tears. "Because nobody else is. Because Miss Calendar is gone; Kendra is gone, Willow almost got killed—as a matter of fact damn near everyone, including me, almost got killed at some point, and nobody pays...Nobody pays," he repeated, his voice rising and wobbling. "When is somebody gonna pay? We're all making nice with Angel now, like nothing ever happened...even Giles. My God, Giles...and nobody even cares about Miss Calendar's death..."

Buffy couldn't stop the moisture that blurred her vision. "You're wrong, Xander, so wrong. Look, first of all how long does a murderer get in this state?"

He gave her a puzzled look and shrugged. "I dunno...twenty five to life, something like that."

"Angel spent hundreds of years in hell in perpetual physical and emotional torment—and he was cured. It wasn't even Angelus who paid; it was Angel. And second of all, don't you ever say that nobody cares. Take it from me this anniversary is tearing Giles to pieces, even if he never blinks an eyelash. It's hurting all of us, but life...and demonic activity, don't stop. We can't afford the luxury of grieving."

For long moments they stared at each other, then Xander straightened, cleared his throat.

"Can we get that hot dog now? I'm now officially starving."

Buffy swallowed then fixed him with a steely glare. "Only if you're paying."

*******

Willow stared at the screen on her computer. Frustration had driven her to some long and fruitless net searches after Giles had taken her home. They'd exhausted his meagre resources specific to the Herrata and there were precious few references in the other volumes they'd been through.

She frowned. Giles had been impatient to leave though she hadn't noticed anything different about him during the afternoon. When he drove her home earlier in the evening, however, she'd looked up at his profile in the half-light to ask him if he wanted her to come in at lunch the following day and was silenced by the pain in his face.

It took a few minutes to print out the information she'd found. It was a strange little web page, no graphics, not even backgrounds, just white screen, black writing...paragraphs of it, and some poetically nasty headings. Basically it was a long, rambling diatribe on the rights of the true demonic owners of this world and how they were going to take it back. That was it—it sounded more like some disgruntled demon's on-line diary than any sort of reference work...

The printer stopped and Willow picked up the pages. She couldn't wait to see Giles' face...provided of course it wasn't all just made up, but, then, who would make such a crappy web page to pretend something was real if it wasn't? And the information was too specific. She shook her head. Who'd have thought 'piercing the right eye of the Herrata' was anything but literal?

She leaped up then and went searching for shoes and a jacket. It was late, but the information couldn't wait...

If anyone else found either the Eye or the sword before they did...

A light was still burning in Giles' living room window when she arrived. Her skin was still crawling from the light show she'd seen on the way over and the suddenly hyper-charged atmosphere that continued to linger. She waited but the door didn't open.

Willow tried the handle. She knew Giles. He wouldn't go to bed at this hour with Buffy and Xander still out and so much still not known about the Rising. Something wasn't right. The door wasn't locked.

The apartment was silent and empty. There were a lot of books open on the coffee table and there was the merest hint of alcohol in the air. Willow looked in the kitchenette, felt the kettle. It was warm, but not scalding hot. There were dirty teacups in the sink. A chill went down her back. She found the bathroom empty then ran up the stairs and pushed the door of Giles' bedroom open expecting it to be as deserted as the rest of the house. The light was still on.

A whisky glass sat half-emptied on the side table. Giles was sprawled, fully dressed, across his bed, glasses still clutched in one hand, a large, dusty volume open half-underneath him, as though he'd rolled on it in his sleep. The partly healed scratches on his face and neck stood out in the lamplight.

"You're way out of your league, Willow," she whispered, her first, overwhelming, instinct to go home.

But it was Giles...

She shook his arm gently. "Giles?" He barely moved. "Giles? It's Willow," she repeated.

"Jenny...?" he moaned.

Willow jumped back as though stung. She bit her lip, looked at the papers still clutched in her left hand, turned and went back down stairs.

She was back minutes later with a large mug of hot, black, tea, set it on the side table with the glass and leaned over to shake Giles' arm again, strongly this time.

"Giles, wake up!" she shouted.

He jolted awake, blinked and screwed up his eyes against the light. "W...Willow? What on Earth…?"

"Here." She handed him the tea.

Giles squinted at it, sniffed then drank.

"A...Are you okay?" she ventured.

He looked up from the tea, and she barely recognised the haggard face with its
carved grooves, dark circles and five o'clock shadow.

He half laughed. "Never been better," he said bitterly and swung his legs over the side of the bed, unconsciously rubbing his left wrist. Then he stopped and looked at his young friend. "I'm sorry, Willow. I'm all right. I've had rather...a lot...to think about today."

"You don't have to do that, you know," she said softly.

Giles looked at her curiously.

"What you always do. You know: pretend you're okay so other people won't worry about you, or pretend you're okay so Buffy keeps her mind on what she has to do, instead of worrying about you. I know what today is as well as you do," she told him.

He smiled slowly, tiredly, affection warming his eyes. "When exactly did I miss your growing up?"

Willow smiled back then handed him the print-outs. He put his glasses on and scanned them.

"Then Angel was right," he muttered to himself when he was finished.

"Angel? Angel was here…today?" she squawked, surprised, then angry. And then bit her lip when she saw the bleakness in his eyes as he looked up.

"Y...Yes, earlier. He had some useful information about the Herrata."

"You're doing it again," she said before she could stop herself. And at Giles' 'time to mind your own business, Willow' look: "Like you said, I'm not a kid any more. I'm allowed to worry about you the same as I do Xander, or Buffy, or, or, Oz, okay? Giles, you might be a grown up but nobody made a rule that grown ups have to deal with everything by themselves...just most of it...do you want some more tea?" she finished breathlessly.

Giles couldn't help but chuckle as he stood up gingerly. "How about I make some for you and then drive you home?" he offered. "You sound like you could do with a cup." And when she nodded and picked up the mug and the glass, "And Willow—"

She turned and looked up.

"Thank you...for worrying."

She smiled, her face flushed with emotion. "I'm glad you let me," she said softly, then thought of something. "A...And speaking of worrying, do you think Xander and Buffy are okay?"

"No reason they shouldn't be," he said as they went down stairs. "According to this," he held up the print-outs, "and Angel's information, the Herrata were wakened tonight, but will take at least another twenty-four hours to regain enough strength to leave their resting places. Angel has a friend who might be able to decipher some glyphs found on a cave wall in Budapest—I have some plates in one of my books—which mention the Herrata, but have never been successfully translated, even by the experts. I had hoped they'd be back by now..."

*******

Giles put away the car and made his way to his front door thinking wistfully about the bed he'd left to take Willow home, but stopped a couple of yards away when he heard movement in the darkness ahead.

"It's all right, Giles, it's only me," Angel's voice called and two figures stepped out into the dull glow of the security light.

"Hey, what am I, chopped asparagus?"

Angel rolled his eyes. "This is Whistler. Whistler, Rupert Giles."

Giles moved past them without speaking, down the steps to the porch, opened the apartment door and closed it behind them.

Whistler immediately made himself comfortable on the sofa. "So where's these books I'm supposed to look at?"

Angel shot him an annoyed glance. "I can't take him anywhere."

Whistler looked at the Watcher. "Angel told you about me?" he asked, his tone unexpectedly serious.

Giles nodded. "Everything. Pity you weren't a little better at your job."

"Hey, Angelus wasn't my fault. How was I to know what the big happy was gonna be for this guy? It coulda been a Big Mac for all I knew. Gimme a break, I've already been roasted...literally...for this. Can we move the topic along here already?"

Giles handed him the book, open to the pages with the coloured plates of the photos taken in the caves outside Budapest.

"Whoa, whichever demon wrote this was way old. I can't even remember how many lifetimes ago since I last saw this script." Whistler took some time to study all five.

"Well at least we don't have to go to Budapest," he said when he looked up again.

"Whistler!"

"All right. Jeez. Look, it says here," he pointed to the third plate, "the Eye was brought to the New World, and the sword followed it. A Slayer followed the Eye here. It makes sense that they brought it here. The reason there are four Herrata here is this Hellmouth. Congrats, by the way, on that job you did…keeping it closed."

"Yes, but where are they now?" Giles interrupted, not wanting to be side-tracked. " The sword, and the Eye?"

"The Eye is supposed to be where I said it was in the first place: on that mountain. Or, actually, in the mountain. The sword, that's a little harder. It's pretty much up to you, Mister Chips. You're the Watcher. You find out who the Slayer was who brought it here and maybe we'll have a shot at finding it, because it doesn't say anything in here about where it ended up."

Irritated, Giles stepped across to the pile of books on the coffee table and picked up the one Angel had read earlier, handed it to Whistler.

"Celine, huh? I remember this one. She wasn't that good. Not anywhere near as good as yours. Well, all we gotta do now is find out where she hung out once she got here...Wait a minute," he turned to Angel. "She was killed not long after she stopped the Rising, probably by severely hacked off minions of the Master she wasted with that sword."

"A tomb?" Giles asked.

"Maybe. Or at the very least a nice grave somewhere."

"I'll see if he Council will help." Giles looked at his watch. "They should have records of the resting places of all the Slayers."

Angel shifted impatiently. "Maybe I should go back and search that mountain again."

Whistler shook his head. "Waste of time until we know how to get to the Eye. All the rest of these writings tell of is the destruction that ensued when the Herrata rose there. And the vampire Master who found the Eye months before, and the Slayer's pursuit of the guy across Europe. That forced him to stow away on a ship to San Francisco to get to the Hellmouth here before all the Herrata went night-night again..."

"You said 'in the mountain'?" Giles asked.

"Sure, hidden somewhere below ground, like most demonic stuff. At first me and Angel, we thought there'd be a cave or somethin' and what with Angel being a vampire and all, it wouldn't be so hard to find."

"We were wrong," Angel said darkly.

"Perhaps you're both missing the obvious," Giles said quietly.

Angel looked at the haggard, weary face. "Giles?"

"If the Slayer stopped the Master from using the Eye, then it stands to reason that the Slayer was, conceivably, the last person to have it, although we know it wasn't destroyed, or there would have been no Rising earlier tonight."

"The Slayer was killed only three days after she stopped the Master, and one day after the Herrata went back to the big Zs again," Whistler interjected. "The question is: did she have the Eye? If so why the hell didn't she destroy it?"

"If she didn't destroy it when she killed the Master, maybe she didn't know how to. Maybe all she knew how to do was kill the vampires who were going to use it," Angel offered.

"It's possible," Giles agreed. "In fact, probable, because the Council would have been informed if she had learned how. Still, Celine or her Watcher must have been the last to have the Eye, because no one in the darker realms seems to have possession of it yet. Either that or it was lost during the battle. "

"I think we'd better find this tomb," Angel growled.

"Sounds like a plan," Whistler agreed jauntily. "Or maybe the site of this battle."

"Fine," Giles sighed wearily, "I'll try contacting the council at a civilised hour and then come to you at the—" He stopped suddenly.

Angel—who'd been mentally absent for a moment, finding the Eye and becoming Human, coming back in the sun and claiming Buffy in his daydream—looked sharply at the older man. Giles had gone deathly pale.

"Never mind. We'll come to you at sunset," he said quickly. "Whistler, let's go. Giles has to work tomorrow."

The demon looked at the Watcher curiously, swallowed and followed Angel out the front door. When it closed he turned to the vampire.

"Looks like the mansion ain't his favourite place. Boy you really did a number on that poor bastard, didn't you?"

Angel's hand balled into a fist and he grabbed Whistler by the throat with the other. "Just remember how good a number next time you want to remind me of it," he hissed, his eyes shimmering, and threw the little demon into the bushes before striding off.

Whistler struggled out of the shrubbery, brushed himself off and stared at Angel's receding back for a long moment.

"Two poor bastards," he muttered, then scuttled after him.

*******

Buffy grabbed a chance to go to the library during a free morning period, unable to wait until lunch to find out what Giles had learned. Besides, Xander hadn't come to school and Willow was in a class.

The library was deserted. She crossed to Giles' office a little unnerved by the silence. Normally he was around, doing something, or somebody was looking for a book, or the photocopier was going...or she was with the others and didn't notice the quiet.

He was busy studying a very old manuscript, the bright light of the lamp intensifying the ravaged lines of his face and the bright redness of the scratches as Buffy came to his side.

"Giles? Are you all right? You look terrible." She touched his forehead. "No fever."

He blinked and looked up. "Oh, hello Buffy. Don't fuss. How did it go last night?"

"Almost vampire-free. Great light show, though. So what do we know?"

He took his glasses off and swung his chair around. Buffy caught her breath at just how tired and drawn he looked, bit her tongue to still the questions on it.

"We now know that to kill the Herrata requires the sword of Ielorid and the Right Eye of the Herrata, which is not, in fact, a literal eye, but a polished, spherical gem which can only be shattered by the sword. We also know that a former Slayer followed the Eye to this Hellmouth, bearing the sword."

"Then it's here, somewhere?"

"Y...Yes, one hopes. It appears, however, that she didn't know how to use it. The texts we have suggested that she killed the vampire master, who had possession of the Eye, with the sword but failed to destroy the gem, which is apparently the key to the destruction of the Herrata."

"Then the Eye is here somewhere too," Buffy mused. "You and Willow have been real busy. Burning the midnight oil too much? I thought she looked a bit sleep-deprived this morning...not anywhere near as drastic as you though."

"There's a lot to do," Giles said quietly. "Willow has been a great help. In fact the text she found on the web last night led me to this." He touched the manuscript on the desk. "Also, in their infinite wisdom, the Watcher's council has condescended to provide me with what little information they have. The Slayer, Celine Marais, who by the way also practised witchcraft, is in fact not buried in Sunnydale as first thought."

"They're scared," Buffy snorted.

"Indeed," Giles agreed and continued. "She is actually entombed on Rogue's Ridge, where presumably the sword and possibly the Eye also lie."

"Entombed?" she repeated. "Not alive, I hope?"

Giles shook his head. "She was killed trying to clean out the nest of followers of the vampire Master, before returning to Europe. The diary of her Watcher, Colm Cavanaugh, indicates that, mortally wounded, she threw Cavanaugh, dazed and with a broken arm, clear and brought down the roof of the cave with a spell, thus entombing all the remaining demons and herself. It prevented the Eye from falling into the hands of darkness and the small Mexican settlement, which existed here at the time, from being ravaged by a rather large number of unhappy demons and vampires."

"Okay, so tonight it's shovels and picks?"

Giles shook his head. "You can't afford to be away from Sunnydale, Buffy. There are four Herrata who will shortly be strong enough to start looking for food. I need you here to protect the town. I'll go to Rogue's Ridge, myself."

"Fine, take Xander. Just don't go on your own."

"I'll be perfectly—"

"Giles, I'm not staying here if you go up there on your own. Who says 'Herrata Central' isn't up there too?"

"My texts...Cavanaugh's diary. They lie beneath Shady Hill cemetery in fact. In the pioneer section, beneath that four hundred year old oak tree the Sunnydale Historical Society dotes on."

"Giles, I won't let you go alone—"

"I'm not...going alone. Angel is going with me."

Buffy's eyes widened. "Is there something I should know?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet.

"Not...not really. He provided some useful information, as is his wont, occasionally, and when I said I was going, h...he volunteered to accompany me."

"You're going at night? No wait, not getting sidetracked here. Giles, I know you helped him at Christmas, but I also know he's never going to be on your Christmas list, so give, what's going on?"

Giles' expression hardened. "I told you. We need all the help we can get on this one and as you so kindly pointed out I need someone to hold my hand at Rogue's Ridge. Angel happens to be the only one available."

Buffy opened her mouth again.

He raised a hand. "I'm not taking Xander. That boy could start a landslide just by tripping over his feet."

"He's hurting," Buffy said softly.

Giles stared at her for a long moment. "I know. I've known for a long time. It only serves to make him more of a danger to himself. He's so intent on covering it up with stupidity and bad jokes that he fails to see the bigger picture on almost every occasion."

"Okay, no Xander. He didn't come to school today, anyway. We kind of...discussed things last night."

"You had an argument?"

" Well, yeah, but we had hotdogs afterward."

Giles sighed. "Good, then I take it he's home with food poisoning, not terminal teenage angst?"

Buffy shrugged. "Be careful," she said softly.

He looked up, saw the worry in her eyes and smiled, just a little. "Both of us," he emphasised, then stood up. "You know you can't defeat the Herrata, Buffy, not without the eye. You must try to disable them somehow without getting yourself killed." He pulled a very large bag out from under his desk. "Over the last several days I've prepared a selection of the most effective weapons I could find or devise for you, taking into account your arm and their er…disposition..."

*******

"I made protection spells for all of us—"

"Will, it's way too dangerous. I can't—"

"No, I'm coming with you, Buffy. You can't go on your own, and I've been in danger of getting killed more times than I usually want to think about. Nothing's changed. And you don't have the right to stop me."

"Or me."

They turned. Xander was standing in the doorway of Buffy's bedroom. "I've been doing a lot of thinking today. So much I forgot to go to class...but I do know one thing: Willow's right. We've always done this together, and we're not going to change that now, just because these guys are supposed to be un-killable."

Buffy ran a nervous hand through her hair. "I might not be able to protect you guys this time—"

"Didn't you ever think that this time we might be trying to protect you?" Willow interjected, looking pointedly at her cast, which for anyone but a Slayer should still have been in its sling. "It's almost sunset. We should go before they get out of the cemetery."

"Did it occur to anyone that the Herrata might not be the only bad things at Shady Hill tonight?" Xander pointed out as they walked out onto the road. "We're not the only ones looking for them, you know."

"Yeah, but most of demondom is going to be out looking for the Eye, which is
other-where, which is good for us..." Buffy stopped, her expression sombre. "But very bad for Giles and Angel..."

*******

"This is giving me the creeps."

"You're a demon. You're supposed to give other people the creeps."

"Very funny. I'm a very nice guy. I just don't happen to like very dark forests which could very well be filled with very unpleasant things also looking for what we're looking for, and therefore with a very valid reason to knock us off."

"Shh."

Giles, behind them, stopped, listening.

"What?" Whistler demanded nervously.

"Shh!" Angel repeated. They listened.

There was nothing to be heard, but Angel could feel the presence of others, smell them.

"Trouble," he whispered. "Get behind me, both of you," he ordered, facing the direction of the scent.

Giles eased off the backpack of weapons he was carrying and dropped it on the ground. He pulled the sword from the antique leather scabbard strapped to the side of it, checked the stake in the inside pocket of his navy blue windbreaker and moved up alongside Angel.

Whistler crouched behind them.

There were five of them, all dressed in similar quasi-military clothes. They looked like bizarre demon commandoes emerging from the darkness, their swollen, cadaverous faces the more horrible for the transposition.

"So what's their problem?" Whistler asked from his hiding position. "They look like somebody dragged a river and found a bunch of dead marines, who suddenly aren't so dead no more. Jeez."

The lead demon drew an oversized hunting knife from his belt and lunged. Angel dodged the blade and hit the demon a double handed blow in the back as the others charged at them.

Whistler shinnied up a tree. Giles decapitated Angel's attacker as it stumbled then lunged towards the next, swung and missed when it ducked out of the way. There was another right behind it. Alongside him Angel was wrestling on the ground, evenly matched with his large opponent. Giles thrust with his sword as the oncoming demon jumped over his comrade's corpse, but found his blade knocked aside and a clammy, slimy hand around his throat.

He could feel his larynx being crushed, his lungs screaming for air, but no amount of struggling, clawing, scratching, nothing he did, made any impact on the demon as it throttled him. There was no oxygen left in his lungs. He felt the panic seizing him, his body flailing against his impending death, his lungs screaming...and then just as suddenly he was being violently ripped from the vice-like hand and thrown to the ground.

It took several moments of gasping and holding his chest as the air rushed back in for Giles to clear his head enough to realise what was happening.

Angel was grappling with his attacker, trying to bring him down, whilst fending off knife and fist attacks from the other two demons.

Giles staggered to his feet just as one of them picked up his sword. "N-o-o!" he cried as the creature swung it at Angel's head, and crash tackled it at the same instant.

The sword went flying as both of them crashed into Angel and the demon he was fighting. In the furore Angel got hold of the discarded hunting knife and drove it into the heart of the body on top of him, rolled out with it and intercepted the last standing demon as it made for Giles, the Watcher's own sword raised over its head.

Giles was too busy grappling with his own opponent to see the danger.

Angel came within a hairsbreadth of having his left arm amputated by the blow from the sword as he deflected it from Giles' back, but the angle caused it to glance off the bone as it sliced into the top of his forearm. As the demon's sword arm flew up, Angel brought his other arm in to its rib cage with sickening force, leaving the hunting knife protruding from the place where it's heart used to beat.

Behind him Giles had rolled on top of his demon and was trying desperately to throttle it as it raked his back with its clawed hands, shredding the jacket and coming perilously close to penetrating the thick ski jumper underneath. He made little headway, his left arm yet to fully recover its strength after the bout with the Hellmouth demon.

"Let go!" Angel shouted.

Giles looked up to see his sword raised overhead, knew a blinding moment of indecision and panic when he saw Angel's transformed face behind it, then let go of the demon's throat and arched backward. There was a blur, a sickening crunch, and the head was rolling away. He chose not to look back at the gore, getting up and staggering back towards Whistler instead.

Angel dropped the sword, his left arm throbbing agonisingly and bleeding profusely, and transformed back. He'd seen the other man's face. He'd also seen him, hopelessly outnumbered and mismatched, still try to save his life.

"You guys were sensational. Talk about action heroes. Don't you think we oughta get out of here before any more come along?" Whistler babbled. "We gotta do something about that arm—"

Giles looked around.

Angel gripped it harder. "I'll handle it."

But Giles was already tearing fabric from the shirt of one of the corpses and dragging a
box out of his backpack. In moments he was tearing open a swab, pushing Angel's wound together and cleaning the worst of the dirt and blood off before putting butterfly dressings along the slash and binding it with the shirt strips. He was done before he really realised what he was doing.

"There," he said self-consciously, blood at the corner of his own bruised mouth, his arm aching, his back smarting where claws must have penetrated his thick sweater after all, and his contused throat throbbing. "That should hold it."

Angel watched him drop his ruined jacket, pick up the sword and take the box back to his backpack, trying to remember if he'd ever met anyone else whose first instinct was always to help, regardless of consequence or history. He failed.

"We should keep moving," he said, holding his arm as Giles straightened. He was in a lot of pain, but the others didn't need to know exactly how much.

The Watcher nodded.

"Now you're talking."

"Shut up, Whistler."

*******

Shady Hill cemetery looked relatively peaceful and calm in the clear, cool evening. Buffy, Xander and Willow were all carrying heavy backpacks filled with the divided up weapons and other items provided by Giles.

It took several minutes to hike through the newer parts of the grounds to the Pioneer section right at the back. Again Buffy was struck by the unnatural peace. No vampires, no monsters or demons. It was almost too good to be true...

At that moment the night air was split by a blood-curdling howl so piercing that she could hear her own eardrums vibrate and her teeth were set on edge.

"Do I want to know what that was?" Xander asked without his usual flippancy.

Buffy shook her head. "Nope. But it's coming from the right direction." She pointed toward the tops of the giant oak tree a couple of dozen yards away.

They were almost at the security fence that surrounded the historical tree when Buffy saw the hole. One side of the wire fence was almost completely ripped apart.

"Not good," she muttered.

There was another howl and dirt seem to explode upward from the earth inside the fence. From it rose a creature of such great age, such great evil that its putrescent flesh hung in grey cowls around its throat, its huge, horse-like head the more horrifying for serrated bones visible through the semi-translucent blue-white flesh.

"Does anyone mind if I throw up?" Xander muttered.

It turned its four-yard frame and sniffed, one huge, leathery foreleg poised in the air, black scimitar like claws splayed menacingly in the moonlight, eyes flashing like two glittering topaz orbs slashed with black.

"Good doggie," Willow squeaked.

Then, suddenly, in one terrifying movement, it threw up a stunning black spine and bristle crest from its rump to the crown of its head, threw back its head and screamed at twice the volume of the previous one. A spine chilling snap and billow followed, heralding the deployment of vast blue-white bat-like wings shot with blood red veins and bristled here and there with black hairs.

Willow and Xander screamed simultaneously and Buffy rolled her eyes. "Guys, its just another monster—" As Buffy spoke, the creature's nostrils dilated and flared, as though it had picked up a scent, and it's eyes flashed, the more terrifying for the awareness in them.

Then its mouth opened, triple uneven rows of long, filthy, needle-sharp teeth filling the orifice, sharing space only with a revolting, cadaverous tongue and a stench the like of which even Buffy had never come across before, and it leaped.

She screamed and they all broke and ran.

"It's just another monster," Xander mimicked as they broke into a tomb and barricaded the door with the lid off a crypt.

"Well it is," Buffy shot back, "it's just a little big and I've never smelled anything that bad before."

"I have," Willow said, still breathing hard. "Xander's gym socks."

"Oh, rapier yester-wit," Xander shot back. "But what exactly are we doing in here when we're supposed to be out there protecting Sunnydale from FOUR of those babies?"

"Trying not to soil the laundry?" Willow ventured.

"Okay. Xander has a point. We have to have a plan. There are two more of them still in the ground, and we now have two roaming Sunnydale. The first thing we have to do is get back to that tree and stop the next one before it gets out of bed."

Buffy took off her backpack and sorted through the equipment Giles had procured for them. The items that made her smile, however, were the hand-grenades and the automatic hand gun with the flashy looking bullets.

Xander who'd been sorting through his own collection, snorted. "Hey, how come you get the good stuff? All I've got is a crummy crossbow with weird bolts, wire cable and a bunch of these."

"Smoke bombs. We may or may not need them. And those bolts have explosive heads," Buffy pointed out.

"Oh. Okay, then I'll tell you that your ammunition is teflon—armour piercing."

Willow wrung her hands. "Can we stop with the 'yours is bigger than mine thing' please? People could be dying out there."

"Oh yeah, like we can stop these things," Xander retorted as they shifted the heavy lid from the door again and started to run.

"Not stop," Buffy agreed as they reached the tree, "but we can still really ruin their big day."

The third creature burst predicably from the ground and this time Buffy stood her ground until it opened its great jaws and leaped at her.

"Eat this!" She pulled the pin and lobbed the hand-grenade into its mouth, leaped back a couple of yards and drove Xander and Willow down onto the ground.

"Why is it not happening?" Xander complained. And was drowned out by the deafening report of the explosion and then grossed out by the bits of stinking flesh and black spiny teeth that rained on him.

They jumped up and looked back together. The creature was howling with rage. It's jaws were a mangled wreck, yet it was still on its feet.

"Well he's not going to eat anyone tonight," Buffy said with satisfaction, just as the fourth beast emerged.

"Can you say encore?" Xander drawled and fired his loaded crossbow as it lumbered towards them. The bolt buried itself in the creature's right hind leg and exploded, enraging it beyond measure. It deployed its crest and wings with frightening speed and charged.

Buffy rolled her eyes and reached for the gun. "Way to get us killed, Xander."

"I try," he said, reloading as they retreated.

Buffy fired her gun a half dozen times but the bullets made holes the size of cantaloupes in the creature's hide without slowing it down at all. Xander's second arrow hit the creature in the eye and caused commensurate and particularly revolting damage to its head but had little effect in slowing its enraged flight.

They were almost at the front gates when something whistled through the air, hit the ground a yard in front of the creature and exploded into an incendiary inferno.

They watched the fireball in awe.

"Look, a crispy critter," Xander chirruped gleefully as it burned.

"Way to go, Giles," Buffy sighed, relieved.

"Do you think it's in pain?" Willow asked mournfully.

The others turned to her. She had her open backpack over her arm, matches in one hand and one of Giles' incendiary devices in the other.

Xander did a little dance. "Way to save our butts, Willow!"

"But it won't die," Willow said unhappily as the creature collapsed.

"Will, you were this close to being a happy meal for that thing. Let it burn," Buffy told her. "Besides we've got two other problems on our hands. Anybody see which way they went...?"

*******

"This is getting ridiculous. How many more?"

Angel brushed the dust off himself and Giles put away his stake. "As many as it takes. You're the one who told me about the power of the Eye...and you weren't expecting company?"

Whistler made a face. "I'm just not used to this fight stuff. I mean, after the ghoul commandoes I thought we were in the clear, you know? And how many does this make…six very annoyed vampires in the last hour? I mean, who needs a Slayer with you two around?"

Giles straightened, then staggered slightly. Whistler's eyes narrowed. "Hey, Teach', what's wrong? Angel, I think we've got a problem here."

Giles blinked several times and squinted, trying to clear his vision. Everything was suddenly not quite in focus and his head was pounding. He sighed with relief when after the seventh blink things clicked back into sharp focus, but he felt terrible and his back hurt abominably. He dropped his pack.

Angel was at his side in moments. "What is it?"

He shook his head. "I don't know…dizziness, headache, nausea, visual disturbances. Sounds like head trauma, but I didn't get hit." He swayed again.

Angel put a steadying hand on his shoulder and saw the back of his sweater. Small patches of blood had soaked through the wool.

"Maybe not," he said grimly, "but you did get scratched. Let me look at the wounds."

Giles pulled off the sweater and his T-shirt, which was far more bloodied, not feeling like going a round with a cup of tea, much less arguing with Angel.

Whistler came around to see what Angel was scowling at.

"Ick."

"Shut up, Whistler," Angel warned, and this time it was a threat, rather than a warning.

"Something I should know about?" Giles asked dryly.

"The scratches are already swollen and infected. Their claws might have been poisonous."

"Or they could just have very bad hygiene," Whistler offered.

Angel glared. "Some demons have poisonous claws or teeth. Others can knock you out with their breath, by a touch from toxins on their skin, or by looking at you."

"Funnily enough, I knew all that," Giles said sarcastically as he drew his sweater back on. "The question is: what can we do about it? We have to get through this. Buffy needs the sword and the Eye to kill the Herrata, and you need me to get you to them first."

"We go on," Angel said firmly, "but Whistler goes back and finds Willow. You aren't fit to travel that far on foot and if it is poison, the exertion will only pump it through your system faster. He can give her a detailed description of those demons, maybe even get a claw on the way back for her to test. Hopefully the treatment—or the antidote—will be something simple, a spell or a potion or something."

Neither of them voiced the thought both shared at that moment: if he lived long enough for Whistler to get back in time.

"You want me to go back through those woods on my own? With half of hell out for a stroll tonight?"

"You're a demon. Act like one. And don't forget that claw." Angel growled.

Giles handed the little demon a hunting knife from his pack and his car keys.

Whistler looked from one to the other. He was fond of Angel and he'd quickly grown just as fond of the gutsy Watcher. "Be careful," he said. "It's gonna get worse before it gets better. I know I'm no secret weapon, but there's not going to be anyone to watch your backs now, so you'd better watch each other's."

They watched him out of sight, then turned, but Giles stumbled, the weight of his backpack shifting his centre of gravity faster than his equilibrium could adjust when he tried to swing it on to his shoulder.

Angel caught him by the arm and slid the backpack off again. He slung it over his own, wincing as it jarred his arm, and kept hold of Giles with his other hand. They had to stop frequently as they climbed, Angel providing as much support as he could for the few hundred yards they had to go.

Giles had started a fever and he was rapidly losing strength. Angel marvelled at his courage, not for the first time. He had distinct and terrible memories of what he'd done to the big librarian as Angelus. Yet the single most powerful memory of that interlude was not the suffering he'd inflicted but Giles' stubborn courage and endurance.

When they reached the area pinpointed by their research, Angel could see for the first time that there was indeed a cave mouth behind the wall of fallen rock, which was now partially obscured by mosses and weeds, trees and small bushes, all nestled in the gaps and crevices.

He lowered the Watcher to the ground, dropped the bag and crouched in front of him. Giles' fever was worse and his breathing was laboured.

"Giles, how bad?"

Giles closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. "I've had worse hangovers, but I think you can safely say I won't be much use for a while. Have you handled explosives before?"

"Explosives?"

Giles took another deep breath. "Great," he muttered. "Just great." He opened his eyes. "Look, I'll tell you what to do, step by step. If you don't get it right the first time you'll bring down the rest of the cave on us."

Angel nodded. "When did you—?"

"—Learn about explosives? Misspent youth. Some Internet meandering when I realised what we were in for up here and a Watcher's basic weapons training course some years ago. It's an interesting syllabus: crossbows to Kalashnikovs. Very thorough," he added facetiously. "Uh, Angel..."

"What?"

"Behind you."

Angel leaped up and turned. Three vampires were approaching them without haste. They were dressed in very old armour and leather, carried broadswords and looked like they had just come from a battle.

Angel transformed into hunting mode before walking up to the biggest of them, a head taller than he was. "Good hunting?" he asked affably.

"Not tonight," the vampire growled. "Too much competition. I abhor those grey slimy creatures."

"And those spiny, scaly blue abominations," said a bored voice behind him.

"Silence, Crispian. But it is far too crowded out there tonight." He pointed his sword at Angel's throat, lifting the weapon easily with one hand, no mean feat even for a vampire. "I sincerely hope you aren't going to add to my claustrophobia."

Angel shrugged with Angelus' ease and arrogance. "I've got my own agenda, and my own tools." He nodded towards Giles. "Too useful to kill, but I like a picnic lunch as much as the next guy."

"Anything left to share?"

"Plenty," Angel drawled, "except that he's been shot full of demon toxin. Tastes like shit."

"Looks like shit," said another of the subordinate vampires.

Angel nodded. "Yeah, I just hope he lasts long enough to help me find what I'm looking for. Care to join my little expedition?"

The broadsword pushed roughly into his throat without, quite, breaking the skin.

"Okay," he drawled. "Our expedition. But unless you've got jackhammers under those cod-pieces, he's the best chance you've got of getting in there."

"As you wish," the creature said, his more-British-than-Giles accent beginning to irritate. "Crispian, Elwyn: pickets. Nobody approaches, and nobody leaves," he ordered pointedly and removed the sword.

Giles exhaled, finally, gave fervent thanks for Angel's manifest acting ability, then chuckled nervously to himself. Only Angelus' alter-ego could have manipulated things so that the enemy ended up effectively working for him, whether they knew it or not...

It took over an hour to guide Angel through the complexities of assembling the explosive to blow open the cave entrance, as the poison progressively incapacitated him.

He'd repeated himself three times in his explanation of how to assemble the trigger mechanism, unable to maintain his concentration for longer than a few minutes at a time, when Idris growled and leaned forward, sword raised.

Angel roared and pushed the vampire out of the way. "Nobody plays with my toys," he warned in Angelus' unnerving psychopathic drawl and backhanded Giles hard across the mouth. "Except me."

The librarian was almost knocked over backwards, his mouth splitting in the corner and his head snapping back as Angel connected. When the glazed green eyes looked up at him there was confusion and hurt in them.

Angel looked away, picked up the partly assembled explosive and began asking questions again. Giles, mesmerised by that hateful voice, was struggling to focus on the device, to recall the steps. They progressed slowly until it was finally assembled and he was barely conscious.

Patiently Angel tried to activate the led display on the trigger mechanism but it remained dead. As the minutes dragged he could hear Idris beginning to shift restlessly. Finally he took a deep breath and snarled loudly, snapped his head around to Giles and yelled:

"It won't work!"

The Watcher's eyes snapped open, dilating alarmingly when they recognised the enraged vampire. Then he sagged, his head bowing almost to his chest, barely conscious.

Idris crossed his arms. "Well that was a big help," he observed sarcastically. "Crispian, your knife—"

Angel leaned between them almost too quickly and grabbed Giles by the front of his sweater, moved his mouth close to his right ear and shoved the device into his lap.

"Fix it," he hissed. "Or perhaps you'd rather play?"

For a split second Giles slipped back into nightmare, the unrelenting pain and horror...and that voice. Then his head snapped up, rage flashing in the semi-lucid eyes.

"Go to hell, you bastard," he snarled.

"Uh-uh. Been there, done that. That would be you, this time, if you don't fix this piece of crap," Angel shot back, violence in every word.

Giles tried to wrench himself angrily away, heard a well-smothered gasp, looked down and saw the blood seeping through the improvised bandages on Angel's arm. He blinked, sudden clarity in his eyes, looked up at the vampire glaring at him, as if searching for something, then let his face harden again.

"Get off me, you pillock," he growled, watching, and saw the flicker of recognition...or was it pain?...in Angel's face. "I can't fix it with you in my lap."

Their eyes held for a long moment, each knowing what had to come next.

"Then do it!" Angel shouted viciously, roared and backhanded the librarian again. This time, however, Giles leaned back with the blow, considerably lessening the impact whilst making it look even worse.

Angel got up still hurling invective and abuse and paced between Giles and Idris, doing a very good imitation of barely controlled fury, his hands balled into fists. Only Giles had seen the trembling of the fingers he'd so desperately crushed into his palms to hide.

It took the librarian long, painful minutes to get the triggering device operational, but he finally did, and slowly went over the positioning and detonation procedures with Angel, halting with each bout of nausea from the poison, sweat almost literally running off him as he struggled to stay conscious.

When he was ready, Angel set the explosives exactly as Giles directed, Idris at his heel constantly.

"What is this device the mortal has devised?" Idris demanded when Angel straightened.

"Where have you been for the last five hundred years?" he muttered.

"In the service of our Master, who awaits our success."

Angel jumped. He hadn't expected the other to hear him. "Right...and where would that be? Camelot?" he asked sarcastically.

"Hardly. But you at least have the right country."

"Yeah, but which century?" Angel shot back. "Now if you don't mind I have to go and dispose of my spoiled supper. Why don't you stay here and guard the entrance?" he added off-handedly.

Giles was all but out of it when he reached him.

"Giles?" he whispered.

"Tutu..." he muttered, delirious. "Bloody..."

Angel looked away. Then he swiftly lifted the other man in a fireman's carry, saving his bad arm, took him to a safe distance and lay him behind a good-sized boulder, rolling up his own jacket to make a pillow.

Giles was unconscious now, damp with sweat and burning hot to the touch. Angel despaired of Whistler making it back in time, even if he found Willow. Reluctantly he left the unconscious man and went back to the task at hand.

He stopped a safe distance from the explosives and smiled in spite of himself. Idris' henchmen were deep in discussion with him in front of the cave entrance. He took the small remote device from his pocket and touched the button Giles had told him would detonate the bomb if he'd rigged it right.

The noise was horrendous, rocks and debris showering the whole area. A pall of dust settled like mist over the site as Angel made his way to the cave mouth. The bodies of two of the vampires were buried under rubble and debris. The disembodied head of the third, Idris, turned to dust nearby. He eyed the protruding legs with suspicion. If they hadn't disintegrated they weren't yet dead. On the other hand even a vampire couldn't lift that weight in rock and dirt. They'd be gone with the dawn anyway...

Angel was disappointed to find that his explosion, ultimately, had not cleared the cave mouth as he'd expected, rather it had blown a hole barely big enough for him to wriggle through in the slip. He enlarged it a little, then ran out of patience and squeezed himself through. He was running out of time, and so was Giles...

The cave didn't smell bad, which meant there was probably some ventilation somewhere, and it wasn't empty. He had to climb over a lot of fallen rock and debris to make his way into its heart, giving thanks for his night vision as he went.

He wasn't more than a few yards from the entrance when he found his first skeleton: a small demon. And then there were five more, all close together. There were also weapons scattered around the bones, none of which resembled the sword of Ielorid, and much of the scene was covered by rubble.

The small demon had obviously been trying to escape, and the others might have been preparing to fight. There were far more weapons than identifiable skeletons, which likely meant a number of vampires perished in the cave-in, probably at Celine's hands. So where was Celine?

Angel made his way along one of the walls, peering at the piles of rubble from the ceiling, looking for any sign of the dead Slayer. He'd just climbed onto a pile of rock when he thought he heard something. He focused on the sound, almost more an intuition than an out and out noise. It seemed to worry at the corners of his mind, like a mosquito humming, and it was getting louder.

He turned slowly, concentrating, until he was sure he knew where it came from. The small hollow in the wall hadn't been made by nature. It had been dug and scratched out, probably with a sword tip. The humming was intense, almost urgent, now.

Angel reached in and drew out a filthy, earth-encrusted silver chain and held it up. The pendant at the end of it stared at him like a cat's eye from its ornate setting. The humming abruptly ceased at his touch.

Celine had to have hidden it there, but where was she—and the sword? He put it around his neck, dirt and all, and slipped it under his shirt while he searched for the Slayer's remains.

It took him another hour of moving rock and rubble, hampered by his arm, to locate a nearly-disintegrated leather boot half-buried not too far from the group of five. More digging revealed leg bones and remnants of leather. He was about to start again when he noticed that the stone was getting hotter against his breast and the humming had returned, though the pitch had changed to a shrill whine.

The sword was two feet from her right hand. Angel hauled and pulled on the blade with his good hand, trying to dislodge the hilt from its burial place. When it finally came free he was amazed to see that it hadn't corroded.

Then he touched it. The hilt almost vibrated with the power of the magic in it.

Unfortunately it was also energising the pendant, which was now burning his skin.
He took the chain off, put it in his pants pocket, leaned the sword against the cave wall and scrambled out into the early morning air where he caught the first, vague scent of the coming sunrise. He would never get Giles back in time if Whistler didn't come with help.

If Giles was still alive...

He sprinted down to the boulder, dropped to his knees next to the Watcher's inert form and lay a hand on his brow. Still warm. He held the back of his fingers near Giles' nose and mouth and felt warm breath against them, and exhaled tremulously.

Still alive... Just. His pulse was rapid and thready and his colour was terrible. The smell of sunrise filled Angel's nostrils now. His arm throbbed, but it had begun to heal. He ignored the pain and lifted him again, this time in his arms, and carried him back up the hill to the cave.

It took several minutes of frantic digging with Giles' sword to enlarge the hole enough to get him through without injuring him in the process.

Once inside Angel watched through the opening as the first sliver of light touched the horizon, then turned, desolated, to tend his dying friend.

* * * * *

Whistler closed the door of the Watcher's apartment with a frustrated bang. He knew where they all lived, where Buffy patrolled, but none of them were home, nor were they at the library. He'd have to start on the patrol areas, but where to first? A moment later he pushed his hat back and slapped his forehead.

"Stupid!" he berated himself and sprinted back to Giles' car.

The Shady Hill cemetery was remarkably peaceful when he arrived, though the further into it he got the more signs there were that the kids had been there. When he got to the writhing mess of burnt demon on the access road he knew they'd been there. And when he saw the signs beneath the old tree and realised that all four demons had risen, he knew he had almost no chance of getting back in time to save the librarian's life.

It was now a matter of finding the other demons. Wherever they were, the Slayer would be too. He shook his head. Hadn't any of these Humans ever heard of cell phones...?

*******

"Buffy, look out!"

She leaped to one side at full stretch, landing with a jar on the sealed surface of the car park and felt the wake of the giant foreleg that swiped past her, claws splayed.

"They learn too fast," she muttered and looked at the hand-grenade still in her right hand...without a pin. They had to be able to communicate with each other the way this one knew instantly that the grenade was a threat.

It screeched and wheeled, its wings billowing again, but didn't open its mouth to Buffy until it was almost on her, and even then it kept its head right down. She was leading it away from the shopping centre, over cars and around them, the others in hot pursuit.

Then, just as it was about to snap her in two, it threw its head up in rage and let out a screech that should have broken windows.

"Yes!" Xander celebrated, twirling his crossbow as the others took their hands from their ears, or hand, in Buffy's case.

She pitched the grenade, now so sweaty and slippery from her palm that she was lucky not to lose it. Despite the plaster cast, the overarm pitch was sure and powerful, hitting the back of its throat and lodging there so that it couldn't spit it out before it exploded.

Xander dove behind a blue sedan. "Ick, incoming!" he yelled to Willow who only just rolled under a truck before the explosion sent more flesh and teeth raining down.

Buffy worked her way back to them as the creature reeled from its wounds.

"What did you do to it?" she demanded as Xander stood up

He grinned smugly. "Shot it in the ass," he boasted. Willow joined them, brushing herself off. "The SPCA would put us in jail," she pointed out as the creature stumbled over a row of cars and fell on its back.

Buffy's face lit up and grew intense with concentration. "I've got an idea. Quick, Xander, where's that wire?"

He dragged it out. "It's just a glorified tow cable—" he began, but Buffy snatched it and ran with to the thrashing creature's head. "Xander, with me!"

When he got there she gave one end back to him. Then, when the creature raised the mess of flesh off the ground and tried to screech, she flipped the cable under it, threw her end over it and back to Xander and gestured for him to throw his to her.

"Pull!" she ordered.

The crossed cable became a garrotte, pulled ever tighter by the super strength of the Slayer and the best Xander could offer.

"Why...are...we...doing this?" he puffed. "You...can't…kill it."

"How do you kill a demon?" Buffy yelled back.

Willow had joined Xander on his end of the cable. "Cut off its head?"

"That's what we're trying to do, but it's a tough turkey, and my arm...."

"A sword would be good," Willow observed.

Xander looked at the cowls of flesh around the thick neck as the creature bucked and struggled. "I thought it...was...supposed to be invincible. How...about an industrial strength...chainsaw?" he muttered.

"How about this?" demanded a familiar voice.

Whistler pitched the axe, still with its price tag on, to Buffy.

"Whistler!" Buffy yelled, startled, caught it, and started making two-handed strikes at the creature's throat while the others were thrown about like a sheet in the wind on their end of the cable.

"This is so gross," Whistler complained.

"Well pardon us while we draw the curtain," Xander yelled as he tried valiantly to dig his heels in and hold the cable down, Willow still picking herself up off the ground.

Buffy struck one more time, an arc of purple blood shooting into the air as the mangled head rolled backward and the thing trembled and bucked for the last time.

"Does that mean they all die now?" Xander asked happily.

Buffy shook her head. "Don't count on it. That's what the sword is for—why it's so important."

Whistler helped Willow to her feet. "You gotta help me," he was saying.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Buffy demanded.

"Giles is dying," he said without preamble. "Demon toxin." He tilted his head toward Willow. "Angel says she can help, but it has to be fast."

"Me?" Willow squeaked.

A stunned Buffy sucked in a less than steady breath. They all looked in the same direction. There was a suffuse glow of pre-dawn light on the horizon.

"Dawn," she whispered. "Where are they?"

Whistler paled. "Still up on Rogue's Ridge. I hope they found that cave."

"We have to go," she said, ignoring the last death throes of the creature behind her. "Willow—Demon poisons—Internet or books?"

"Both, at the library."

A car started behind them. Whistler withdrew from the driver's side door of the Citroen. "Who's driving? This thing is out of the ark."

Before anyone else could volunteer Xander was in the driver's seat. The others scrambled in behind him and he slammed it into reverse, backed out and screeched away, willing the tired veteran to its best speed.

The library was locked. Buffy used her side-exit key, the only one besides Giles' and Snyder's master key, which was more than Snyder needed to know...

"Whistler, what kind of demon?" Willow demanded, booting up the computer then hot-footing it to the card index.

"Sorry to say I don't exactly have a name, but they kind of looked like military guys— ones that had been drowned and not dragged up for a couple of weeks, you know what I mean? There were five of them, and they had claws, maybe with poison on them. Here, I brought one."

He gave it to Willow, who opened a drawer. "Okay, I'll take this to the lab, after. Right now: demon toxins." She pulled a half a dozen cards from three different drawers and handed them to each of the other three. "Find these. They're in the library somewhere. Xander, check Giles' filing cabinet if you have to. I'm going on line as soon as I can. I can find out what the poison is from the claw, but the books are the best chance for a cure or an antidote, if only we can find out which demon."

Within ten minutes all three had dumped all the volumes on the reading table and were choosing the most promising to start with and Willow had disappeared to the science lab.

A half an hour passed in relative silence, only the rustle of pages turning and the click of Willow's keyboard when she returned, disturbing the intense stillness.

Then the silence was shattered by the sound of fists smashing down on keys.

Everyone jumped, Xander turning in his chair, Buffy jumping out of hers like a startled rabbit and Whistler shielding his face with his forearm.

Willow hit her keyboard again and made an angry, frustrated noise. "Nothing," she growled. "There's nothing. Giles is going to die."

Buffy's eyes widened and her colour waned again. She sat down hard. Hearing Willow say it so bluntly was like being hit between the eyes by a sledge-hammer. He couldn't die...

Xander sat up, his eyes bleak. "Oh yeah, then you'd best get your cute little tush over here and help us with these books. You know nobody does a cross index like you do."

Whistler chuckled. It broke the tension and they all plunged back into the books, each painfully aware of the consequences of failure for Giles, of the immediate danger to Angel and the presence, somewhere out there, of one fully operational Herrata.

A short time later Whistler threw his latest book on the table. "That was the first book that mentions the poison, the claws and the 'come drag the river for me' look, and the clothes are all wrong," he grumbled.

Willow looked up, her eyes narrowing. "Show me," she demanded.

He pushed the book towards her. "Page a hundred and fourteen. I wouldn't be seen dead...well, anyway, I wouldn't be seen with these guys..."

"It's the right kind of poison. These military uniforms are all eighteenth century American. They might have just upgraded the clothes. Do demons get bored?" she asked, checking another book mentioned in a footnote of Whistler's article.

"Or have fashion sense?" Xander offered, looked at Whistler's clothes, slid down in his chair and cleared his throat.

Whistler shrugged. "Who knows? Depends on your demon, really. So you think these may be the same guys?

"People, Angel could be dead already, and Giles…could die," Buffy pointed out in a tight voice. "Can we do this any faster?"

Willow turned to her. "I think this might be it. I'm going to call Oz to bring his van—he should be back now—for Angel—then I'm going to check the tests on the claw. They should at least confirm the type of poison, and that should let us confirm or rule out these, what did they call them?" She looked down at the second book. "'Kovhai Foot Soldiers.'"

Whistler sat up. "Hey I know them, but they didn't look like this the last time I saw one. Back then they were human-looking, mostly, but with ritual paint masks on their faces to show who they were working for."

"Oh yeah, and when was that?" Xander drawled.

"About fourteen-ninety or so. If it was a Kovhai the cure is easy."

Buffy jumped up, on edge, her eyes glittering, and grabbed him by the shirt front.

"How easy?" she demanded.

Whistler extracted himself. "Cool it, Slay-girl. Angel is my friend too, and I like your Watcher a whole lot, so don't be taking your worry out on me. The Khovai were bred purely to be foot-soldiers for demon lords or kings in the war to reclaim the mortal realm. I thought they were all wiped out until now. Their poison is strictly for mortals. Undead blood neutralises it on contact. All you need to do is get a demon or a vampire to bleed a lot for you. Hey, what are you all looking at me like that for?"

*******

Angel took the librarian's pulse again and cursed. He didn't know how Giles was hanging on. He'd never felt so relentlessly helpless, at least in the mortal realm. Or frustrated. Not much more than a week earlier the man had stepped in when he'd been knocked out and saved them all by killling the demon and closing the Hellmouth…

The Englishman was bathed in sweat, and periodically seemed to lapse into some kind of delirium. Angel could hear him mutter but not what he was muttering. From their shadowed vantage point he could see the daylight through the hole, a rare lingering view of another lifetime, another life... But now the view almost suffocated him with his claustrophobic limitations.

He got up and prowled around the cave, stumbling over rocks and kicking shale and bones out of the way in temper. He was going to lose Giles, had probably already lost Whistler...

He closed his eyes.

And God only knew if the others...

He tripped on a boulder and came out of the stumble in hunting mode, snarling with rage, slammed the fist of his bad arm into the wall and snarled again. A moment later he reverted to his human face, his eyes closed again. She could be dead…

…And if she were alive she would never forgive him for losing Giles.

The big librarian was delirious again, and the sweating had stopped. Angel felt his brow. It was cold and clammy. Carefully, he eased the sweater off and turned him gently onto his side.

"Jenny…" he groaned.

Angel winced and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at the wounds, hopes of any improvement dashed when he saw the raw, oozing welts. Lint from the woollen sweater was stuck to most of them. He'd removed most of the fibres from one when something happened to the slash above it. He watched in amazement as it bubbled, a white cleansing sort of effervescence, then withdrew into itself until it was gone.

He took his hand away, swallowed, dumbstruck, then stared at it for several more seconds before the urgency of it took hold of him.

"What?" he whispered and repeated what he was doing at the exact moment it happened.

His knuckles were brushing against it as his fingers picked lint from the wound below…

He stared at the smashed, bloodied knuckles, the deepest gashes still oozing, then, as though in a dream, he reached out and touched another wound with them. The process repeated itself.

Angel blinked. The sword…

He un-wrapped his arm very gingerly. The wound was half-closed, the healing process well under way. There was dried blood encrusting the area and the butterfly dressings, which he removed. Then, calmly and deliberately, he picked up the sword and opened the wound again, his agonised cry echoing through the cavern and bouncing back again.

Giles called Jenny Calendar's name again as he smeared all the slashes with his blood. Then the Watcher began to tremble and shiver, his breathing laboured.

When he began to struggle Angel lifted him and held him in his arms to keep his back out of the filth on the cave floor, terrified that he'd killed him after all. For several minutes the older man seemed to be in terrible pain, hanging between life and death.

And then at once he was still. Angel panicked and picked up a limp arm. For long, terrifying seconds he couldn't find a pulse, and then Giles took a long, rattling breath.

"Jenny!" he called ecstatically and opened his eyes.

Angel had never seen such absolute joy transmute so quickly to grief. The green eyes stared silently at him for so long, and with such deep shock that he had to fight to keep from looking away. Then they filled and overflowed silently, Giles' body shaking with the uncontrolled intensity of his despair.

It was more unbearable than any torture Angel had ever suffered. He sat silently, his head bowed, holding the librarian, and grieving for the terrible cost of his own existence.

*******

"I can't take it any further in," Oz announced. He'd brought his van at least a half mile off the road, into the forest, everyone helping to spot hazards, move logs, rocks, overhanging branches before they could become a problem.

They were all out before he'd finished the sentence. He'd taken a considerable amount of time off their journey on foot and no one wanted to waste a moment. It was already after eight.

The biggest surprise was Whistler, who, for all his average physique and unassuming looks, seemed to be able to run endlessly without flagging. The others followed him without faltering, all the way up the slopes to the edge of the tree line, where they paused, breathing heavily, Xander and Oz bent, their hands on their knees, sucking in air.

"Take five," Buffy told them, sweating and breathing hard, but with wind to spare. "I'm going ahead." She turned to Whistler. "Which way?"

Buffy found the site of the explosion without much difficulty. The signs of Angel and Giles' presence were plentiful, not least Giles' backpack and sword. It was open and half- pulled out, bits of wiring and other components scattered in the dirt with weapons and rations. But the one thing her eyes zeroed in on was a piece of rolled up clothing.

The white t-shirt could only have been Giles', meaning the stains all over the back of it were almost certainly his blood too. She threw it away with a trembling hand and continued her search, stopping at a pile of rubble and shivering at the sight of the ashes protruding from it.

"No…" she said softly, then screamed: "Angel!"

And almost passed out with relief when she heard the muffled reply.

It took her eyes some time to adjust after she'd scrambled through the smallish opening, but she didn't wait, stumbling toward the silhouette that had to be Angel on the ground at the back of the cavern. By the time she reached him her pupils had dilated enough to see his face and the figure in his arms.

"Is he…?" she asked, still trying to assimilate Angel's survival…that they weren't his ashes lying out there in the dirt.

Angel shook his head slowly. "I found something to heal the wounds, but he's still sick, maybe dying…"

"The cure is the blood of any non-mortal," Buffy told him. "Something Whistler remembered." She registered his bloodied, damaged arm and hand for the first time, and swallowed. "I see how you could maybe stumble on that yourself."

He nodded. "I touched the slashes and they healed by themselves. But it wasn't
enough—"

"Obviously," Buffy interrupted, "but it kept him alive," she said softly, her eyes drinking their fill of Giles' ravaged, but living face. "The others are coming. Oz brought the van, and Willow has your heavy cloak and stuff. We left so fast Whistler didn't say how the blood cures, only that it was easy."

"I can't ask him to drink me," Angel said wretchedly. "I mean, I want him to if it will cure him. I can open an artery…and it won't make him a vampire, but after everything I've done—"

Buffy knelt beside them. "Worse even than you drinking me?" she asked, remembering what he'd said about the First Evil.

Angel blanched. "Not worse," he corrected, "but just as bad. He shouldn't have to suffer like this for getting hurt helping…" He swallowed, silently cursing his mouth. "…Me."

She looked up from her vigil over Giles, a limp hand clutched in one of hers. "Helping you? I thought you were helping him?" she demanded, her inner senses pricking. "What aren't you telling me? He was hiding something when I talked to him before about coming up here. Give," she ordered.

Angel reached to his left and picked up the sword, gave it to Buffy. As a distraction it worked perfectly.

"The sword of Ielorid," she said, gently placing Giles' hand on his chest again. "And the Eye…? What's that noise?"

Angel pulled the necklace from his pocket. "You can hear—feel that?"

Buffy nodded. "Irritating."

"It's the stone. When it's near the sword they kinda energise each other."

"We have to destroy it now. There are two monsters doing a lot of suffering and a healthy one probably causing a lot of suffering because we're not there to stop it…not to mention the ones—"

"No!" Angel cried. "We don't know how it works…I wanted—"

Buffy was staring at him. "You wanted…what? Angel, people are very probably getting munched from here to St. Petersburg as we speak."

He shook his head. "Never mind," he said, looking down at the unconscious Watcher, and clenching the stone hard to keep from screaming his frustration. There was no way to get to the remaining Herrata, regardless of how much he wanted to…

A new hum started up, pulsing almost in rhythm with the waves of rage and frustration washing over him. He could feel the stone vibrating in his hand, getting hotter and hotter.

Buffy heard it, extended her hand, reaching for it, sword poised. Outside the sounds of the others approaching could be heard in the distance.

Angel swallowed, his eyes beseeching. "Buffy—"

But Giles was stirring in his arms. His gaze shifted from her searching blue eyes, to the now lucid green ones looking up at him in confusion. He held them for a long moment before closing his own in infinite pain, then slowly, almost reluctantly, looked up again.

As she reached for the stone, Buffy saw the hand at Angel's side become almost x-ray transparent for a moment.

A strange look passed over his face, and his eyes closed again. Moments later they looked down at the Watcher again and softened, then the glow was gone and the hum was back to its original irritating pitch.

He looked up again, his expression one of profound sadness.

"I'm sorry," he said as she reached out and took the pendant.

"Buffy?" Giles croaked disorientedly. "Angel…what…?"

Angel helped him to a sitting position.

The others were coming through the hole into the cave. Whistler and Willow were already through and Oz was climbing in.

Buffy sat the Eye on the nearest rock, raised the sword above her head, which was throbbing violently from the intensity of the whining hum, and used both hands to bring it down with a bone shattering crash.

The cave lit up with searing white light which seemed at once to be all colours and no colours, writhing violently and yet still at the same time and there was a terrible, prolonged, bone-splitting screech, as though all the Herrata were screaming at once.

A moment later the sword and the shattered gem were gone.

Everyone converged on Giles, except Buffy. She was shaking her arm and watching Angel, who'd moved away from everyone and was sitting against the cave wall, his head bowed, weeping silently.

Willow and Xander dropped to their knees either side of the Watcher.

"You're not dead," Xander observed redundantly.

"Obviously," Giles agreed, his voice still shaky at best.

Willow, who was checking his back, leaned back, confused. "There are no wounds on your back."

Giles, who was even more confused, swayed, then frowned. "Why? Should there be?"

Xander instantly shifted so that Giles' right shoulder blade rested against his chest, allowing the librarian to lean against him, rather than continue to exert himself to stay upright.

"Easy there old man, don't have a relapse on us," he teased.

Giles made a noise in his throat, but he could hear the worry in Xander's voice.

Willow frowned. "Whistler, the scratches are gone, but Giles is still sick."

But Whistler was watching Buffy and Angel. He turned slowly, distractedly. "Gone?" he said slowly, then looked at Angel again, at the open wound on his arm. "Yeah, well looks like Angel might have worked out part of it himself…which is why Rupert here is still with us. Now all he has to do is taste the blood."

"Angel's blood?" Oz asked quietly.

Whistler shrugged. "Yeah, well, he's already on tap and I'm not big on pain."

Oz's eyes widened. "You mean drink him?"

"Jeez, Giles, a vampire librarian, I bet that'd be a first."

"Shut up, Xander," Willow hissed. "Giles, you were scratched by a demon with poisoned claws…do you remember?"

Giles nodded stiffly. "My back…"

"Is healed. The poison is only meant for mortals. It's neutralised on contact by any demon or non-mortal blood. A—Angel must have used his blood to heal your back, but the toxin has gotten into your system."

Giles closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember. "I remember fighting…and then the pain. The bomb…and medieval vampires…then nothing…" He stopped to concentrate again, memories, both real and nightmare, blurring together.

His eyes sprang open suddenly. "Jenny," he whispered, unaware of anyone or anything. "Oh, Jenny…"

Xander put a hand on his shoulder without even realising he'd done it and Willow clamped teeth on her bottom lip to keep it still.

Xander looked up at Whistler. "Get Angel, now!" he ordered angrily.

Buffy knelt next to Angel, not knowing what to say, or why he was so distraught. She put a hand on his nape.

"Talk to me," she said gently.

"I can't," he said very softly. "Not now. Maybe…maybe later." He lifted his head and looked at her with a ravaged face, touched her cheek, trailing trembling fingers across her lips. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"I don't—"

"Ah, excuse me for interrupting, but the team over there needs Angel now. I think the kid is going to hurt me if you don't come," Whistler said, about as self-conscious as he was ever likely to get.

Angel looked up. "What do I have to do?"

"Not you: him. He has to taste the blood to neutralise the poison that's still in his system. That's all. Not drinking, just tasting."

Angel nodded. "Tell everyone to leave us alone." His gaze moved to Buffy, asking her the silent question.

She got up, confused and worried but determined. "I'm staying," she announced, and went to Giles.

Xander was still supporting the semi-conscious Watcher, Buffy kneeling next to them, when Angel reached them. The boy looked at him with smouldering eyes.

"If you hurt him, Dead Boy—" he said between clenched teeth.

Angel's eyes flashed. "Get out!" he growled.

Xander left reluctantly, Buffy taking Giles' shoulders as he slipped away.

He stirred, disturbed by the movement. "Xander?" he muttered, his eyes fluttering open again.

"It's Angel."

"We're here," Buffy said softly, brushing rivulets of sweat from his brow with the backs of her fingers.

Giles jolted a little and opened his eyes fully. "Buffy…? Where?" He squinted. "The others? Another dream?"

"I'm here," Buffy said near his ear, and when he raised a hand as if to confirm the reality of her, took it in hers and held it tight.

Angel shook his head. "They're outside. Do you remember what Willow said about the poison?"

"My back…healed. No pain…"

"My blood—it neutralises the poison," he said, holding up his ravaged arm.

"Good show," Giles said quietly then paused. "Bit bloody slow though," he added, grimacing at another bout of nausea.

"It's slow because it's not finished yet." Angel looked tortured. "You…you have to—"

Giles' un-focused eyes narrowed. "Oh, no. Not for all the bloody tea in China."

Before Buffy could speak Angel dropped his head. "If I have to, I'll cut Whistler for you, but it won't be by his choice," he said quietly.

"Whistler? Cut?"

Angel looked up. "You don't have to drink me, Giles. You only have to taste it."

Giles exhaled loudly. "Is that all? Christ, man, did you have to make such a bloody drama out of it?"

Angel looked puzzled.

"Arm," Giles demanded.

Angel extended his damaged arm. The librarian wiped an unsteady thumb across a small trickle of blood, closed his eyes distastefully and touched the thumb to his tongue.

"Done," he said, screwing up his face. "No wonder vampires are so foul tempered," he muttered, and promptly passed out again.

Buffy let go of his other hand and shifted to hold him close while the struggle raged between the toxin and Angel's blood.

It took much longer this time. When it passed the librarian stopped struggling and went limp. Angel searched for a pulse for long seconds. Buffy looked at him beseechingly. He couldn't find one. Minutes ticked away until both were close to frantic. Then, at last, Giles drew a long, rasping breath again.

Buffy sobbed and clutched him even tighter.

Angel exhaled loudly and swore softly with relief. For a long moment he just stared at the ravaged face, then touched Buffy's hand.

"It's time to go," he said gently, and lifted the Watcher from her arms.

Xander and Oz were near the entrance, keeping vigil. Within seconds of his call they were back inside, taking Giles from him.

Angel looked down at the heavy cloak Oz handed him and through the opening at the bright sunlight, then turned to Buffy.

"I'll wait for sundown and make my own way back. The cloak is all right for short distances but…"

Whistler moved to his side.

Buffy stared at them for a long moment. She knew he was right, and she didn't want to leave him, but… Her eyes slid to the Watcher's pale face.

"Go," Angel said softly. "I'll see you at sunset."

Xander, holding Giles by the shoulders while Oz eased his legs through the small exit, stared at him for a long moment.

"He is going to be all right, isn't he?" he asked quietly.

Angel nodded. "Before, when I touched his wounds with the blood, it was hard on him for a little bit. It was the same this time, only worse, but he should be fine when he comes around."

*******

Buffy cradled a still unconscious Giles tightly as the van bumped and trundled over the rough ground for the half mile or so back to the road, until Oz managed to find the one rock they'd missed on the way in. She was thrown against the side of the van, landing on her back.

Giles woke to find himself lying on top of Buffy, his nose at the base of her throat.

He lifted his head just enough to find himself eye to eye with her.

"Hi," she squeaked. "Feeling better?"

"Much."

"No pain?"

"No…no…I'm fine—I think. Exhausted, but fine."

She grinned with relief. "Good. Then do you think you could get off me?"

Giles turned beet-red. "Oh…yes, of course."

There were some snickers behind them then Xander offered an arm. Oz had finally made it back onto the highway so there were no more unexpected jolts. Xander settled the librarian against the side of the van and sat back down on the other side as Buffy scrambled to a sitting position herself.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Foolish," he answered, holding his brow.

"Giles…"

"My head hurts, and my mouth…as a matter of fact, pretty much all of me. I'm extraordinarily tired, but essentially I am…well. The…er, antidote seems to have done its job and my system appears to be free of the poison," he said wearily.

"We thought we were going to lose both of you," Xander told him, his voice for once devoid of humorous inflection.

daresay it was a near thing. Did Angel find the sword? The Eye?"

"Check and check," Buffy confirmed. "We won't know for sure until we get back to town, but the light show when I smashed the Eye kind of indicated that I probably did something right."

Giles sat up very straight. "You've destroyed it already? Where is Angel?" he asked urgently.

"Waiting up in the cave for sunset," Xander told him. "He didn't want to get pot-roasted in that stupid cloak. It was a long way down to the van, and boy, were you heavy…"

Buffy watched Giles close his eyes in something very like anguish. She shifted along until she was at his side, touched his hand.

"Giles, what's wrong?"

He looked down at her. "I can't break a confidence, but if he hasn't left the cave then I daresay he has failed, for which I am truly sorry."

"But the Herrata are gone, permanently… which has to be a 'good' right?" Xander asked edgily.

Buffy scowled and rested a cheek against the point of Giles' shoulder. "I hate it when you get cryptic and I hate even more when the cryptic sounds distinctly like something I won't like at all."

He looked down at her affectionately. "I'm sorry, but I promised," he said softly, looked up and straight into Xander's dark eyes, and saw that the boy had worked at least part of it out by himself.

Xander shrugged and threw him his sweater. "My glass is half full," he said harshly, then looked away from the disappointment in the green eyes.

*******

Giles' apartment was Oz' next to last stop. They'd all wanted him to be checked out at the local ER but he was determined to go home, certain that he was okay, if totally exhausted. Buffy had insisted on remaining until he was safely there, so that only Oz, in the driver's seat, and Buffy and Giles in the back, remained when they reached the apartment.

The van slid to a noisy halt.

"Oz, you need a new rear suspension," Giles announced, uncoiling his long frame from its extremely uncomfortable resting-place and getting gingerly to his feet.

"So noted," Oz replied philosophically, pulling open the rear doors and helping the older man down. Buffy threw out the backpack and jumped out after him.

"I'm going to take a swing by Shady Hill with Oz, just to be certain the Herrata really are all gone," she told him. "Are you sure you're well enough to be on your own?"

"I have coped with far worse before now," he said quietly. "I'm fine, Buffy. Go home, and get some sleep."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I don't do naps," she muttered. "And I have to make sure Angel is okay, but I promise I'll get an early night."

He picked up the pack and started to turn.

"Giles…"

He turned back, saw the look in her eyes.

She reached out and touched his arm. "Don't ever try dying on me again."

Their gazes held for a long moment, then he smiled gently and nodded. A moment later the smile was gone.

"Later, if you should need me…I'll be here."

Buffy's head tilted to one side. "Again with the cryptic. Well it works both ways. If you need anything...if you get sick again— "

He touched the soft mouth momentarily with a long forefinger. "I'm fine. Stop worrying."

Her eyes filled unexpectedly. "Once was bad enough," she said softly. "Three times is pushing it." She started to turn, then whirled unexpectedly and threw her arms around him in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. "Don't do it again or I'll hurt you," she warned the front of his sweater.

He put his arms around her for a moment and returned the hug, his eyes glistening with both warmth and moisture. Then he bent his head. "I promise," he said near her ear. "Now away with you."

He watched her turn and climb into the passenger side of the van, half-smiled as she waved and Oz blew the horn, then headed for his apartment, profound sadness in his eyes. He'd had never felt so tired or dispirited as he unlocked the door, despite their victory over the Herrata. Angelus had won…and Buffy had lost, yet again…

*******

Something was wrong. Even as he opened the door he could sense it. Once inside he knew something was different. It was almost subliminal, but the hairs on his neck were standing up. He dropped the bag and went to his weapons chest, ever watchful, and took out his crossbow. It had been constantly loaded since…

He checked every nook and cranny downstairs, wondering if he was just over-reacting to a rotten couple of days, or if he was hallucinating again, but found nothing. There was still something though…and it was driving him crazy.

He'd climbed only four steps on the stairs when he froze. The déjà vu almost overwhelmed him. Why? He wondered wretchedly. Am I relapsing? And then: I'm not going to the bloody hospital and that's that!

He took another two steps and stopped again.

It was the air…

There was the faintest scent of roses. His mind was playing tricks. He said something unprintable and clutched the crossbow tightly, his hands shaking, and continued up the steps.

On the landing at the top of the stairs he stopped again, trembling. He hated himself for the terror, the dread, when he knew there was nothing there. For God's sake, he thought. The front door was locked, the windows untried…

After several deep breaths and another heartfelt expletive he pushed open his bedroom door with the end of the crossbow…then promptly dropped it, the trigger firing and sending the bolt whizzing under the bed.

"No…" he keened, tears choking him, shock almost taking his legs from under him. "No…"

A hundred nightmares replayed themselves before him as he forced himself to the bedside, his trembling increasing with each step, until he was close enough to reach out a shaking hand and touch a soft cheek.

Oh God…it was warm…

He trailed his fingers along her jaw, feeling its warmth with disbelief, shaking so much he could barely control their movement.

Her eyes opened and his heart almost stopped. "Rupert?" she said sleepily. "What are you doing here?"

A strangled sob escaped his throat. "Jenny…? It can't be."

"Why?" She blinked and sat up very slowly, looked around, startled. "Wait…What? Is this a joke?"

Giles shook his head and swayed slightly.

She drew a sharp breath, slid out of the bed. "Rupert, what is it? What happened to your face…your neck?"

He stepped back. "Y…You can't be here. I…It's not possible…don't you remember?"

She frowned. "I remember working late. It worked—"

"The translation," he whispered, closing his eyes.

She nodded. "How could you know? I haven't told anyone…"

He opened them again, half afraid she might be gone when he did. She was still there. Beyond rational speech, he reached out instead and touched her hair. Everything about her was exactly the same, every detail, except it was a year too late.

"Can you be real?" he finally whispered, aching to take her in his arms, to hold her again.

"Real? Rupert, you're scaring me."

"Try," he said with difficulty. "Try to remember…did you see Angelus at the school?"

Her brow furrowed and a moment later her face crumpled. "Oh God. He was chasing me. The b…bastard was going to kill me," she said tremulously. "Why didn't I remember that? He said he was going to. I was running, and then he was there…I was sure he was going to…Then there was this incredibly intense, weird light. It was so bright it blotted everything else out. And now I'm here…in your bed…was in your bed. Rupert—"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's just—"

"Oh, God, you're crying," she exclaimed and took a step toward him.

He shook his head. "I lost you…you can't be here."

"Lost me?" Her eyes narrowed. "As in 'died' lost? I'm not dead, Rupert, and this isn't funny."

"You…you died, a year ago yesterday. And now you're here, where I found you…where he put you…after…"

Her eyes narrowed again. She was frightened and he was talking in riddles. "Yeah, right, I died. So…so what? Someone made a wish and now I'm a real, live girl?" she demanded sarcastically and was shocked to see all of the remaining colour drain from his face, leaving it almost blue.

"Oh my God…Angel…" His heart hammered against his chest. "Oh God, Jenny, it is you."

She forgot to be annoyed. He looked so bad she was worried he might pass out. She came to him, touched his damp, battered face with gentle fingers. "It's all right, Rupert. Whatever is happening to you, we'll find a way to stop it…"

He covered her fingers briefly with his own, shook his head and drew reluctantly away. She watched him pick up a crisp, unread copy of the London Times from his bedside table and hand it to her, his finger pointing to the date.

"Oh God," she said. "This isn't real. Oh, God…Rupert you didn't raise me, did you? Tell me you didn't—"

Giles shook his head. "You're warm, and real…and alive."

"But…how?"

Giles closed his eyes. "I'm not entirely certain. There…there was a chance for Angel and Buffy…for him to be mortal—alive again—using powerful, ancient magic. Angel failed, but I think…I think, somehow, it…brought you back to me."

She paled and stepped back. "Angel?" She held up her hands. "This…this is all too much," she said and turned away.

It hurt more than he believed possible.

"Jenny…"

The word was filled with despair, longing, need.

"I thought I would never see you again. I…" he swallowed the tremor in his voice, ignored the moisture crowding his eyes again. "…I buried you."

She turned back slowly, her dark eyes glistening with unshed tears, her hands trembling, her heart breaking for him.

"I'm scared, Rupert," she whispered.

Giles stepped towards her, moved to open his arms, and sobbed with exultation when she came to him. He crushed her to him, buried his face in her hair and wept. "Not anywhere near as terrified as I," he whispered as her arms tightened around him. "My God, I've missed you so much…"

Jenny trembled and pressed herself harder against him, holding him even tighter. She'd waited so long for him to forgive, to feel his arms around her again…but at what cost?

Giles groaned and reluctantly separated himself from her, his hands shifting to gently cup her face instead, his fingers in her hair.

Jenny looked up at him and smiled gently, reassuringly. She knew exactly why he'd moved.

"Hello, fuddy-duddy," she said softly, stroked his brow with unsteady fingers. "You've changed."

"I…I have?" he asked huskily, bringing his breathing back to a normal rhythm.

"A lot less 'fuddy' and way less 'duddy,'" she told him tenderly, her fingers playing with his hair. "It suits you."

Giles smiled, despite the jumbled tumult within. "I'm just older," he said self-consciously. "And rather battered at this juncture."

Jenny shook her head slightly within his hands. "You're different. The way you talk, the way you look…even the way you hold me."

His head tilted to one side.

"You're stronger, more solid…and more sure of your self," she told him, letting her hands trail across his chest and slide around him again.

He chuckled wryly, if not dryly. "I'm a jibbering, emotional wreck right now…how could you possibly…?&quo