“Tell your future, sir.  Very cheap.”

“My future is cheap?” Giles asked in amusement, looking at the young boy a.k.a. self-proclaimed fortune teller who'd planted himself in the way.

“Come on, Rupert,” said Wesley.  “You know there can't be anything to this."

“No, no, I see what is for you, sir.  Very clear, sir, in that place."  A gesture of a small head indicated an abandoned church with smudged windows and uncertain interior.

"But we're not going in there," Buffy said as Willow peered around her to get a better look.

The boy was stubborn.  “Your future is there, sir, all the same.”

Giles, politely, gave the child some coins and said, “Tell me.”

“Tall man, sir.  Very sad.  You know him, sir.  From long ago.  He make you sad, then he make you very happy.  If you trust him, sir.  If you trust him.”

The thief ran away.  Giles blinked, looking after him, then turned when Wesley snorted.

“Peculiar," Giles said.

“Do you believe him?”  Willow asked, almost eagerly.

“No, and we're not stopping," Giles said.  "Usually one is promised fame and fortune."

"And romance," Buffy said, a little bitterly.

"Still--" Willow said, but Buffy cut her off.

"T…..R…..A…..P….."

"We have matters of more importance right now," Giles added in.

And so they went on, with Willow looking behind them all the way.

The circumstance for that evening turned out to be more of a problem than the books indicated.  They went out in a huddle - Slayer, Slayerettes, and two Watchers - and got royally separated in the dark and a confusion of demons who, for some reason, weren't biting.

Buffy woke to the sound of Willow crying.  "Will?" she asked fuzzily.

"Oh, Buffy!  I can't wake him!"

Can't wake who?  Where were they?  Buffy opened her eyes, but she didn't get any answers for doing so.  At first she wasn't aware that her eyes were open, it was so dim, so dim that the discovery she was upright came slowly.

She was on a chair and her hands were fastened behind her.  She moved them and felt cold metal.  Handcuffs perhaps.  Her feet were secured below the range of her vision.  She shifted her legs, but they felt sticky.

Blood?  Hers?  Buffy could smell it, see it coagulated across her lap and it felt incredibly tender there.  She'd been hit in the stomach and at her side.  Somewhere else, she imagined.  Perhaps her head.  It would account for her headache and that she'd been unconscious long enough to be brought here, to this room.

"Will?"

"Here, Buffy."

Willow was several feet away, similarly tied.  Buffy could see the bare glint of her eyes and the white pallor of her skin.  In the shadows under her chair were gray outlines of shackles.  Not handcuffs then, and Buffy cursed to herself.  Handcuffs could be broken, sometimes, but she'd never managed her way out of those large medieval grips.

"I can't wake him, Buffy!"

"Who?" Buffy asked, squinting, and then she saw Xander's head at an angle behind Willow.

"He was hit rather hard," came a third voice way off in the dark.

"Wesley?" Buffy asked with a sinking dread.  "Who else?"

"It's just us four," Wesley answered in a strained voice.  "Oz and Rupert weren't brought with us."

"Then where are they?" Buffy demanded, panic spiraling in her stomach.

"I don't believe they were captured as we were."

"Where are we?"

"I don't know," Wesley replied.  "I tried to stay aware, but….."  He stopped, perhaps overcome by whatever was rattling in his throat, confirmed a moment later when he coughed wetly.

"This isn't good," Buffy whispered as she tried to make out her surroundings.  She had a sense it was large, the way their voices echoed for one reason.  Her own gut feeling as well.  Unmoving shapes lay half-submerged in the dusk around them.

Something rustled behind her, and she tensed as it nuzzled her ankle.  "Mouse?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Rat," Willow said in a terribly frightened tone.

Buffy thought about the blood on her legs, then tried not to.  The nuzzling stopped and she waited in horror, but the rat scuttled away.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm her heartbeat, which was thumping so loudly she could barely hear over it.  After a few moments, she could perceive the rat.  It was several yards away, it's fur rubbing like a scouring pad along the bottom of the wall.  When it quieted, she heard Willow's woolen sweater moving with her breathing, beyond her the hard gasp of Xander's lungs.  He was alive at least.  Comforted, Buffy sought out Wesley.  There was a catch under each of his draws of air, and something splattering slowly.

"Wes?  Are you bleeding?" Buffy asked.

"From my nose," he said.  "It's not bad, really."

Had it been Giles saying that, Buffy would have been worried.  Wesley, on the other hand, was generally quite clear on the extent of his injuries.  "Don't tilt your head back," she told him.  "If you get too much in your stomach, it'll make you barf."

She heard a sudden shift and smiled at it, despite the situation.

Reaching beyond him, she encountered a low vibration, but faint.  Too faint to give her any information beyond that it felt reassuring, though she had no idea why.  Giving up on that, she took a deep breath.  The air was musty, like the astringent tang from a decrepit aunt's trunk long-stored in a damp attic.

"We're underground," Buffy mused, "but not very far.  Will, were you awake when we came down here?"

"No.  Buffy, I feel strange, like I want to sleep."

"We've been drugged, Will," she said.  "Try to fight it."

Buffy tested her shackles again before subsiding into defeat.  They were simply going to have to wait.  "…..damnit….." she mumbled.

If this had been a cheesy movie, their captors would have shown up about now.  But no one came.  Hours went by.

Though she'd never admitted it to Giles, Buffy's internal sense of time was accurate.  They waited at least five hours.  Willow and Wesley slept on and off, and Xander moved several times, as if seeking consciousness.  Buffy flexed her arms and legs as well as she could, trying to ward off those numbing prickles that come from immobility.  Every so often, rats went by them in the dark, but either they weren't curious or they had a schedule.

Intermittently, they called for Xander.  It came around to her turn.  Buffy said his name tiredly and, all at once, he woke.

"Oh no," he said, so softly that only Willow heard him.

"Xan!  *Xander*!"

"Willow?" he asked, but then he made a choking sound.  "Oh God!" he cried in pain.  The sound came again.

"Xander?"  Buffy couldn't see him.  Frantically, she tried again to break free.

"Blood," Wesley said.

"No!  *Xander*!"  But when Willow started jiggling, Wesley said sharply, "Don't."

She stopped immediately.  "I can feel him.  I can't see him!"

"I think he's just unconscious again," Wesley said, but his voice shook.

"I can't understand.  What do they want?  Are they leaving us here to die?"

"Ssh, Will," Buffy said.  "It's ok.  We'll figure something out."

But they were beyond where even hollow words have comfort.  While Willow cried, Buffy swung between anger and futility.  Why were they being left like this?

She counted the passage of seven hours when the first light came.  At first she wasn't sure what it was.  A firefly, swinging on the end of a stick.

No, a lantern.  Then another.  A procession of them.

Vampires didn't need light, so it was meant for them.  Something was going to happen, and they were meant to see it.

Buffy raised her chin and waited.  The procession turned out to be six demons, gaunt solemn ones who hung the lamps on the walls before standing out of the way of the two vampires that followed.  A tall male in front and a female coming silently behind everything.

He neared Buffy, but not by much.  "Slayer," he said, in a deep grim voice.  "Your Watcher's left you here to die."

Giles! Buffy thought.  He *hadn't* been taken.  But she kept the relief from showing on her face.

"Nothing to say?" he asked finally.

"Stick it."

The female came up and regarded her, then moved past to Wesley.  "It is not this one, Danube?"

The grim one strode over, shaking his head, then said to Wesley, "I have lain, sated and revolted, beside ones such as you.  I want the other."

Wesley, terrorized, gaped back.

"He is lovely," the female said in a shivery cold tone.  She gripped Wesley's chin.  In a movement so swift that Buffy wasn't sure at first she'd seen it, the female bent down and slicked her tongue under Wesley's nose, gathering the congealed blood there.

"He tastes like fabric softener," she said, and Danube sighed.

"These kind always do, Neta."

The female strode around Xander and knelt beside Willow.  "This one smells like sage and those wild berries we used to pick in Budapest."  She touched Willow's hair.  Willow held her ground, but barely.

"There's magic in this one."  Neta pulled over a stool for herself, then kissed Willow's cheek.

"A little magic," Danube conceded.  He pulled a cover off a lump, revealing a couch, and sat down.  Dust flew around him as he added, "Not like the Watcher."  He looked at Buffy, a long dispassionate scrutiny.  "When he comes for you, I'm going to turn him."

"If he hasn't come by now, he's not coming," Buffy said, an edge in her voice.

"It's curious, that," Danube said.  "Once, when you were asleep, he stood and watched you, but he didn't go near you.  It was as though he feared you, even though you slept."  He glanced towards the door.  "I wonder, what is he waiting for?"

Giles had been stalked.  This had been planned.  Buffy kept the realization of it from her expression.

Neta smoothed her long dress over her legs, then reached behind her to pull a plait of heavy blonde hair free.  She stroked it out with her fingers before pulling a tress up beside Willow's head.  "Our hair looks pretty together," Neta said, though her voice was, ironically, dispassionate.

Willow met Buffy's eyes with a look of misery.  Wesley piped up.  "Leave her alone, succubus!"

Neta ignored him.  She gathered more of her hair and braided it into Willow's.  "How much longer do you plan on waiting for this Watcher, Danube?"

Danube didn't answer.  He was sitting, thoughtfully contemplating something.  Buffy didn't like thoughtful demons.

"We came for one reason only," Neta said.  Buffy glanced over and realized the vampire was speaking to her.

"And that would be?"

"Danube's reason.  Your Watcher.  My brother has eccentric taste."

Abruptly, Wesley said, "Xander, don't move."

"Oh God oh God," Xander said roughly.

"Not in this place," Neta mused, but Danube gave her an hesitant glance.

"Don't taunt," he said.  "Not here.  I don't know why you picked this den.  There is something around us that tries to balance itself, something that I don't understand.  I can hear it humming."  He gestured at Willow.  "Be careful that the Witch doesn't use it to her benefit."

Neta laughed at him, and said to Willow, "My brother thinks he sees angels in the corners."

"It is a church, Neta!"

"Was, brother.  It is so old, the crosses have all crumbled into dust.  No one bothers us here.  We are safe."

"Xander?" Buffy asked.  "How do you feel?"

"I'm ok," he said, but he wasn't.  Buffy could tell by the thin pitch in his words.  As well, from where he was, he could probably see at least three of the vampires, and no doubt felt Neta's clammy form behind him.

Neta pulled Willow's head around and kissed her.

"Don't!" Willow snapped afterwards.

"You've cast a spell recently.  It tingles on my tongue," Neta said.  "But you are too warm."  Despite that, she placed her lips to Willow's once more.

"Willow?" Xander asked.  Buffy could see Willow's legs trembling from where she sat, and likely Xander could feel it.

"Bitch!" Buffy yelled.  The kiss was going on too long.  It only ended because Willow gagged.

Neta ran her hands down Willow's arms.  "Tell me where you like to be touched."

"Buffy," Willow tried.

"Hang on, Will," Buffy said.

"My brother and I like the old magics," Neta said, her fingers stroking Willow's thighs now.  "Do you make fire and rain like the Watcher?"

"No," Willow said, her face stone.  "Leave me alone."

Bizarrely, Neta did, raising her hands and settling back on her stool, though her hair was still entangled in Willow's.

Danube stood.  "I'm going up, Neta.  Are you hungry?"

"Not yet."

He left after a quick fierce glance at Buffy.

"What kind of spells can you do?" Neta asked.  Willow didn't answer.

"What's your deal?" Buffy demanded.  "If you're looking for someone with power….."

"I'm not so foolish as to want a Slayer," Neta said.  "Your kind burns.  I wish only warmth.  My hands have been cold since I awakened."

"That's the price you pay for being dead."

Neta pulled her hair free of Willow's.  "I will not force you.  It is no pleasure to me.  If you will stay willingly, I will let these three go."

"Willow, don't listen.  She's lying," Buffy said.

"You will watch them go, and you will stay," Neta said.

"Ok," Willow started.

Together, Wesley and Buffy shouted, "No!"

"Buffy--"

"No!" Buffy told her.  "Will, think.  If there are six vamps here, can you imagine how many are above?"  She stared at Willow, trying to pass the silent message.  Wait on Giles.

But Willow closed her eyes.  Buffy could only guess Willow's thoughts were running the same way as hers.  It had already been seven hours, and Giles hadn't come.

Neta left just after Buffy counted to eight hours, taking two of the honour guard with her.  Hunger driving her, likely.  They were in the ninth hour before Giles came.

Carried.

The lanterns flickered as he was brought in, jostled by the shoulders of the vampires who bore him gracelessly to the couch.  They set him down with awkward care, then laughed as he attempted to sit up.  His arms and legs had been trussed with duct tape.

Buffy, sitting rigidly forward, relaxed somewhat when he met her gaze.  Despite the duct tape, he looked unharmed though his jeans and shirt were stained with mud.  Neta, who had returned with the group, looked in distaste at the mess.

"Buffy," Giles said, his look flicking down to the blood over her lap.  "Yours?"

"Xander's," Willow answered.  "He's hurt pretty badly, Giles."

"I'm ok," Xander cut in weakly.

Giles gave Buffy another rapid scrutiny before turning to the others.  "Willow?"

Neta bent over Willow.  "Don't be sad," she whispered.  "I will never let the Watcher hurt you."

"Willow!" Giles repeated loudly.

"I'm ok," Willow replied, trying to keep the shiver from her voice.

"Xander?" Giles asked.

"I've been worse," Xander said.

Giles met Wesley's eyes.  The latter shook his head once.

Neta sat on the stool and considered Giles.  "You seem an ordinary human.  You're not as nicely dressed as the other one.  I should get you something of my brother's to wear."

"He can have me as I am, Madam," he said.  "*If* he can."

She stroked Willow's hair.  Giles watched her for a moment, then said, "If I am taken, that girl is probably the first one I'll kill."

Neta brushed her lips over Willow's forehead.  "I won't let him touch you."

"I happen to have a bias for ginger hair, Madam," Giles said quietly.

"Don't be afraid," Neta said, but Buffy sensed a tinge of uncertainty in the words.  Neta glanced at Giles briefly.  "You have balls."

"I've always liked that one," he told her.

Neta gave Willow's hair a long caress before reaching down and breaking the shackles on the latter's ankles.  The ones at Willow's wrists were snapped next.  Neta took Willow's hands in hers with a hard icy grasp and said, "If he comes for you, run away."

Surprised and mute, Willow met Buffy's eyes.  Buffy almost told her to run, then caught sight of the honour guard, now increased to seven in the gloomy stairwell.  A movement came from the doorway and Neta said unenthusiastically, "My brother."

*********

Danube came down the stairs, saw Giles, and cried delightedly, "Neta!  Wherever did you find him?"

"He came to us," she said.  "He had a tiny cross.  It hardly sizzled."

When Giles spoke, Buffy thought she heard sadness.  "What are you called now?" he asked Danube.

"You can call me whatever you like, szerelem.  What you used to call me when it was late at night and we could hear only the river and lonely birds outside the window."

"You know him?" Buffy asked, but Giles was intent on Danube.

"When I knew you, you didn't have a sister."

"But I always wanted one."  Danube lowered to his haunches in front of Giles and said in a high-pitched mocking voice, "He make you sad, then he make you very happy.  If you trust him, sir."  He shook his head.  "You used to fall for that kind of stuff, Rupert."

"I used to, and the one I used to trust was a gentle *man*," Giles emphasized.  He held up his bound arms but Danube shook his head.

"You're afraid of me?" Giles queried.

Danube's fist landed on his cheek with a sound crack.  Buffy heard Willow gulp, but Giles took the hit.

"You *are* frightened," Giles told him.

"Not of a human."  Danube undid the buttons of his shirt and slid it off before turning to Neta.  "I have the one I want.  We don't need these other ones any longer, though I suppose you want to keep the girl with the magic."

Neta pulled Willow's head to her breast, then used her blonde hair for a cover over Willow's shoulders.  "Do you think you can kill a Slayer, Danube?"

He paused.  "We'll let her Watcher do that."

"Why not you?"

Danube moved over to Neta and raised her chin.  "Because he'll be able to.  She won't raise a hand to him."

"Scared shitless," Giles murmured.

"I know my limits," Danube corrected.  To Neta, he asked, "What is worrying you?"

Neta glared at Giles as she snuggled Willow closer to her.  Danube suddenly understood.  Smiling, he suggested, "Turn the girl and he won't be interested in her."

"No," Neta said.  "If I turn her, she'll get cold.  Her warmth soothes me."

"And you think my tastes are strange," her brother mused.  He bent forward.  "Pick a nice vein, my dear."

Neta's fingers came up with a quick motion and Willow flinched.  When Danube turned around, Buffy saw a trail of black blood running down his stomach.

Danube returned to Giles and stood with his legs astride the Watcher's.  "I hear you, night after night, and something in me stirs.  For a long time after I woke up, I didn't remember.  Then I heard you.  I heard you and I came."  He lowered to kiss Giles.  The latter tried to pull away, but Danube held him by the back of the head.  His lips coursed over Giles', lingering to tug at the edges with his teeth.  While peering in Giles' eyes, Danube whispered, "You told me once that you hadn't taken the test of Vairhivni.  Are you ready to take it now?"

"Just stop with the theatrics, damnit, and do it!" Giles snapped.

"So impatient," Danube said, running the tip of his tongue along the side of Giles' face and up into his hairline.

Willow abruptly tried to get free, but Neta's fierce grip went around her.  Directing Willow's face into her bosom, Neta murmured, "Don't look.  Close your eyes."

Danube was on his knees now, giving Giles wet, trailing kisses over his neck and arms.  Giles sat motionless, his expression swinging between loathing and sorrow.  But as Buffy watched, she realized there was another element under Danube's display of power.  There was an odd tremor in the vampire's slow caresses.

"Giles?" she said, but he wouldn't look at her, fixing his gaze instead on a distant part of the floor.  Danube's mouth sucked at him through his shirt, ending each kiss by undoing a button.

He rested his face in Giles' chest hair, eyes closed.  "I hear movement.  Arteries pulsing.  Nerves like sparklers under my touch.  Blood cells singing as they stream under your skin."

"What's going on?" Xander asked, for he could see only Wesley.  The latter was shaking his head, eyes down.

Danube bowed to the clasp of Giles' jeans and rubbed it with his fingertips before pressing his lips against the zipper.  The cut on his chest stained a pant leg as Danube began rapidly moving his mouth up and down Giles' groin.

"Your technique is lacking," Giles said, his voice startling Buffy who'd been watching, mesmerized.

Danube looked up into Giles' eyes before pushing him back into the couch cushions with a soft shove.  He ripped the tape from Giles' legs, then spread his knees and leaned over him.  The bloodied area on his chest landed on Giles' mouth.

"How do I taste?" Danube asked.

"Bloody rancid," came a muffled reply.

"It gets better," Danube laughed, holding Giles by the back of the neck.  "You need to take more than that.  Swallow, Rupert, and then we'll play."

"Giles!"  Buffy erupted in a frenzy, yanking at the shackles.  "GILES!"

Danube glanced at her unhurriedly before closing his eyes.  As he thrust his hips over Giles', he said, "More, Rupert.  Just a little more and, ahh, I will come, it's so sweet."

"Selfish bastard," Giles choked.

"You're right," Danube agreed as his breathing harshened.  Buffy paused in her effort to get free when he continued, "All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, with God or man, will gain thee no remission.  But love constrained thee.  Call it furious rage to satisfy thy lust.  Love seeks to have love.  My love, how coulds't thou hope, who took'st the way to raise in me inexpiable hate, knowing, as needs I must be thee betrayed?"  He gave a last brutal plunge, then he gasped,  "Oh, torturous pleasure!  You are *here*!"  His face twisted as he cried out.

Buffy stared at him, thrilled and sickened.  She caught movement at the corner of her vision and realized Willow had clapped her hands over her ears.

Danube relaxed, then sighed and looked down.  "I suppose you didn't think you'd get laid tonight."  He lifted up, revealing smudges of the sooty blood over Giles' mouth.  "Rupert?"

"I detest Milton.  Only you could get off on him," Giles replied, trying futilely to wipe his mouth with his bound hands.

Danube grinned.  "No doubt you'll be quoting that loathsome Tennyson to me soon enough.  What was your favourite?  Oh yes.  Morte d'Arthur.  "The goodliest fellowship of famous knights whereof this world holds record.  Such a sleep they sleep, the men I loved."  He kissed Giles before adding, "It's terrible stuff, Rupert."

"If you're going to kill me, kindly do so before I have to listen to any more poetry."

"All right," Danube said, and bit him.

Hard.

Giles arched off the couch and gasped in pain.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit….."  Buffy pulled furiously at her shackles.  She saw Willow, eyes squeezed shut, and Wesley watching in terror.  "Willow!" Buffy tried, but Neta was holding her down.

"Damnit," Buffy cursed angrily.  It took a lot for Giles to make a sound, she knew, and his gasps had turned into low, continuing moans of anguish.  She'd experienced this once, the ice-cold draining rushing through her body and the unbearable feeling of being hollowed out.

Willow ran by her, careening into Danube and pounding him with her fists.  "Get off him!  Get OFF!"

But she was hitting a glacier.  Danube didn't notice her and Neta pulled her easily away.

Giles flailed, his arms coming free of the tape to slam the vampire's side once, ineffectually, as Danube lifted him up, still feeding.  Giles' head fell to the side, the skin pale around his closed eyes.  Danube continued suckling blissfully, making small wet noises as his hands travelled down Giles' back in a slow embrace.  They were upright on the couch now, Danube on his knees and Giles pulled against him.  One of the vampire's hands stroked over Giles' buttocks as he bit deeper and began to swallow huge draughts.

Buffy stretched forward until her chair nearly toppled.  "Giles!" she sobbed.  She shut her eyes, but she couldn't stop the sound of it, the drenched gurgles and the fast swallows, and Danube's rapturous groans.

All at once, Giles' cries of pain stopped.

Buffy dared to look.  She saw Giles stiffen, raising so high on his knees that the ridge of his spine showed taut through his shirt.  He held the position for so long that Buffy's body ached, as if she could feel the rigid tension in her own bones.  Then he cried, raised that bare inch higher, and, in the space of a beat, fell.  Giles slumped in one entire, ghastly movement.  His arms, bloodless and white, dropped limply to his sides.

Danube let go.  Giles' body fell in a pallid tangled heap onto the cushions and stayed where it lay.  The vampire, gulped air, trying to catch his breath, as he looked down happily.  Then he raised his eyes to Buffy's.

And laughed.

In a voice steel-hard with rage, Buffy said, "You fucking--"

That was all Danube heard.  A bewildered look came over him.  He gasped and abruptly put a hand to his throat.  Then he gasped again.  The surprise became fear.  Both hands came up as he cried, "Ne-Ne--"

She stared at him, still holding Willow.  "Brother?"

He jumped to his feet, holding his throat, his face red now and swollen.  "I-I!"  He choked, clawing at his throat until he drew blood.  Neta stepped back, unsure, pulling Willow behind her.  Danube gave her a last frightened look before falling with a scream to the floor.  He convulsed a few times, then stilled.

The honour guard, with the exception of one, looked at each other before fleeing up the stairs in a panic-stricken mass.

Neta moved further away from Danube.  "Brother?" she asked.  She didn't see the last of the guard come towards her out of the dim.  He would have made it to her had Willow not abruptly jerked up.

"Oz?" she cried.

Neta whirled, smacking the figure away.  Oz went flying against the wall, the stake he'd been holding hurled out of his grasp.  "What have you done to my brother?" Neta demanded, holding a struggling Willow in front of her now.  She exposed Willow's neck as she came towards Oz.  "What did you do?"

Oz eyed her warily, his gaze flicking briefly to Buffy, then back to the vampire again.

"Tell me!" Neta said, shaking Willow.

Oz groped for the stake, then stood, planting himself in front of the stairs.  "Your brother's dead.  The Watcher's dead.  I'd say we're even.  Let me have Willow."

Neta grasped Willow more tightly.  "She's all I have.  I have nothing else and I have to get her away before the Watcher rises."

"Stalemate," Oz said quietly.  "Because I won't let you out of here."

He waited.  Neta, caught, looked slowly between him and Giles' body.  In the silence, Willow started to cry.

"Oh Buffy, Giles is dead.  He's dead!"

Buffy turned her eyes to the couch.  Giles lay where he had fallen, his bloodless body twisted and still.

"Giles….." Buffy whispered.  He was supposed to be looking back at her.  She couldn't understand it.  All the bad things that had happened in the past hadn't done this.  He'd always been waiting for her afterwards.  It had never been like this.

"I can't move," she said, feeling a terrible weight on her that had nothing to do with the shackles.  Where Giles should have been, where she should have been able to sense him, was ripped open and empty.

She turned to Oz.  At the look on her face, he stepped back, but it made no difference.  She screamed so hard, the granite shook under his feet.

"YOU LET HIM DIE!  YOU STOOD THERE AND LET HIM DIE!"

Oz looked down, risking both he and Willow by the action, but Neta was staring at Buffy, transfixed.  "He told me to," Oz said softly.  "Giles worked it out this way.  We spent all afternoon trying to….."  But the set of Buffy's face stopped him.  He braced himself, but she was looking at Giles' body now with a terrible, dark expression.

"You're supposed to say something, Buffy," Oz said quickly.  "Giles told me.  He said you knew about it, that he taught it to you.  Something you say keeps him from becoming a demon."

"I can't believe he did this to me," she said in a broken voice.

"Buffy!" Oz raised his voice.  "He didn't do it to you.  He did it for you.  Please, Buffy, say it, whatever it is, if only to keep Willow and Xander safe from him.  Buffy, *please*."

"Sacramentum?" Wesley whispered in the hush, and flinched when Neta turned to him.

"If you know it, Wesley, say it," Oz said.  "Before he gets up.  I don't think he's going to be too pleasant."

"I can't say it.  I don't have the power.  Only the Slayer does," Wesley told him.

"What does it do?" Willow asked in a high, shaky tone.  "Because, Buffy, you're still in those shackles and so's Xander and Wesley."

"It will send his spirit through the light," Wesley said.  "Domine Veniteo Sacramentum.  If you can't remember it, Buffy, I can help you, but you have to say it."

"I can't bear to lose anyone else," Buffy murmured, her voice so bare that Oz wasn't sure he heard her.

"Buffy," he tried, but she closed her eyes.  She hadn't heard him.  The vibration, or whatever it was, was getting louder, like a haze of bees coming over a field.  She could almost see it.  Behind her eyelids, it was bright.  So bright, as though a shaft of sunlight had broken through a loose slat.

"Giles?" she asked.

She heard movement, a swish of clothing and someone saying, "What's she doing?"  Then it was overcome by the buzz.

"Domineo Veniteo Sacramentum," Buffy said, not sure if she were whispering or shouting.  The noise was deafening and she couldn't hear herself.  "Codladh fada, codladh domhain, eirigh!  Siul lion, bhean cheile, mo chiele.  Deireadh.  Galwaf i.  Meus mihi.  Et itur ad astra.  Cursum perficio.  I liom gan tu."

Oz's head snapped over when Wesley burst out, "Buffy!  *NO*!"

"What's she doing?" he demanded.

"It's wrong!"  Wesley struggled with his shackles as Buffy began to repeat the incantation.

"What do you mean?" Oz asked, his rapid glances firing between Buffy and Wesley.  If he went to Buffy, it would leave the way open for Neta.

"She's calling him back.  Oh damn."  Wesley paused to catch his breath.

"But that's a good thing?" Willow tried.

"No.  Someone's died and a soul has to go, but she's offering hers."  Wesley pulled frantically at the shackles again.  "Oz, make her stop!"

"Why is the floor shaking?" Willow asked suddenly.

Everyone looked down, then Neta asked, "What is that noise?"

Oz just had time to catch Willow's eyes when, as if in answer, the room darkened.

"Oz!" Willow called, then yelled, "Ouch!" as she batted the air around her.  Insects too small to see whirled around them, thousands of them it seemed, for their shadows pitched the room into dusk.

Buffy opened her eyes, then quickly shut them, the tiny wings slicing at her like razors.  She put her hands up to protect her eyes.

She froze.

Then opened her eyes to stare.

Her hands were free.  She moved her legs and heard the shackles fall away.

In a heartbeat, she was up, racing to where Giles lay.

Only he wasn't there, and neither was the couch.  She turned around, but all she could see was gray surging mist and those flying things with the knives for wings in the melee.

A blow of cold wet hit her, feeling like the fling of a storm whipping water from a lake.  It rushed her again and drenched her clothes.

"Willow?" she called.

Buffy heard a foghorn, far off a shore.  Or it was someone's voice, unable to penetrate the unfathomable mist.

Have I died, she wondered?  Was this how it went?  No bright light.  No rising up.  Just a quick plop to someplace else.  Someplace wet.

She took a step, but she still had cement under her feet.  Maybe she was halfway, the result of fudging the Sacramentum.  Giles had forced her to learn it, forced her to repeat it at least once a week.  Syllable upon meaningless syllable, for she hadn't known the language, until she found it translated in a book.  Finding what the prayer could, *would* do, had frightened her right through.  The prayer sent both soul *and* body into the void.  When both went, there was no coming back.

She'd found the book last October, four and a half months after Acathla, four and a half months since she'd cast Angel into the vortex.  The glimpse she'd seen, before Acathla closed his mouth, had made her scream.

She knew she couldn't send Giles there, the way she'd sent Angel.  Every week she repeated the prayer to Giles, the same as always, but in the secrecy of her room and with the stolen book, she changed it.  It took weeks, but the prayer became a vow, then a dismissal.  She'd been so sure she'd done it right.

Buffy took a quiet breath, then repeated it carefully.  She had just reached the vow when she heard a voice under hers, a woman's voice, one she didn't know.  It was so soft, she barely noticed it at first.  It was a faint echo travelling to her through a tempo of rain.  Buffy silenced and found that the woman was singing.

"Who's there?  Who are you?" she ordered, moving towards the voice.

The singing went on, oblivious to her or despite her.  The fog billows were so thick that Buffy couldn't see beyond a few inches.  She extended her arms before her until her hands disappeared from her sight.  She could hear the woman so near now, and the vibration under the floor turning into the pound of drums.

"Hello?"

Sleet hit her and she startled at the cloudburst.  But, as she stepped through it, steam rose from the floor like uncurling sails.  A shadow lay in the midst of it.

"It's me," she said in a hushed voice, but the woman continued her song like a hidden warbler that has not yet discovered a witness to its trill.

Buffy edged towards the shadow and found the couch, looking incongruous in this place of rainforest and vapour.  On the couch was a figure.

"Giles?"  She came around the side and it *was* him, lying on his back now, his arms outstretched with tension as though he were being held down.

"Giles!"

But there was someone else there, someone bending over him.

Buffy could see only a shifting profile, for mist curled around her in weaving tatters, but she knew this was the woman she'd heard.  She sang to Giles, her voice clear and high.  Buffy took another step, then stopped, for there was more to this woman, a thing over her back that draped down and something flowing out behind.  It made her appear immense.

Buffy opened her mouth, then closed it quickly.  She was afraid to approach, afraid to break the song.  Terror of this woman lay like cold water in her womb.

Another voice came into the song and Giles' body twitched.  His head went back and, in stark opposition to the white mist, a bead of black appeared at his mouth.  It swelled into a bubble, then burst, becoming a stream of ebony blood that rolled down the side of his face and onto the couch.  Another bead appeared at his nose, erupting into a second dark course alongside the first.  The steady expulsion continued until Buffy thought he couldn't possibly have even one drop left.

"What are you doing to him?" she entreated, raising her voice and revealing herself.  "I'm here!  It's me!  Please, do it to me instead!"

Something slammed into Giles' body, like a sudden return of gravity had plummeted a heavy object from the ceiling.  The couch screeched as it bent and nearly collapsed in on itself.  The woman silenced, then, slowly, began to raise her head.

Buffy quickly stared down.  She shook, from her feet to her shoulders, terrorized by the knowledge that the figure was looking at her.

This is what you wanted, she told herself.  This is it.

Not knowing what else to do, she tried the Sacramentum again, following each line with the chorus that she'd worked out in her bedroom as if, by doing so, she could explain.  But it was hard.  She trembled so badly that she had to keep repeating, all the while feeling the gaze of the figure on her.

When she finished it this time, she waited.  Waited for a sound, a breath, a touch.  Anything.

The mist spun around her quietly, unchanging.  Then it occurred to her that Giles could have been taken while she'd been looking away, and she jerked her head up.

He was there.  The woman and her song were gone.

"GILES!"  Buffy ran and grabbed him.  He was unconscious but warm, and the broken couch felt fiery.  The heat killed the fog, drying it away until Buffy saw that she was still in the underground room.  "Willow?" she called.

Giles moved at the sound.  In a raw, stripped voice, he cried, "Where are you?  I can't hear you!"

"Giles!  It's Buffy!"  She hugged him, pulling him half off the couch, but he kept twitching under her.

"Where is my wife?  I hear her calling!" he sobbed.

"Open your eyes, Giles!  It's me!" Buffy tried.  She heard flying footsteps behind her and glanced back to see Willow and Wesley.

"It *is* you!" Willow said.  "We couldn't see.  Everything disappeared."

Wesley, coughing on the remnants of the vapours, gasped, "The vampiress died when the fog came.  Then our shackles fell off."

"Xander?" Buffy asked.

"He seems all right," Willow said.  "He stood up with the rest of us.  I told Oz to take him to the hospital, but they've only just left.  They might be just upstairs.  I'll make him wait and we can take Giles too."

She raced away.  Wesley bent down and put his hand on Giles' chest.  "He's breathing."

"He's alive.  He just won't open his eyes."

"You said the Sacramentum incorrectly," Wesley said in a rather severe tone.  "Do you know what you did?"

"Yes," Buffy retorted.

"The part with the vow makes you his w--"

"*Don't* say another word," Buffy cut in.  "Just help me carry him."

To her surprise, he complied.

---

"It was warm," Xander said.  "It felt lovely, like I was in a hot tub."  He sat on the edge of the hospital bed, eager to go, waiting only on the intern's all clear.  "Normally I think of fog as cold."

"And an outdoors event," Willow added.  "Rain and fog in a basement.  What will this hellmouth do next?"

Xander was obviously ok, Buffy decided.  When they'd arrived, the hospital staff had plucked up both he and Giles like lost kittens.  She'd been looking for them when she'd heard Xander's voice.  "I'm going to find Giles," she said.  She turned to go and found Oz at the doorway.

"Buffy, I'm sorry," he said.  "It was Giles' plan.  He said it was the only one he thought might work.  He wanted desperately to get you and Willow out of there."

"I'm real fuzzy on what this plan was, exactly," Buffy said.  "I don't even know how that vamp died."

"Danube?" Oz said.  "Giles knew him, before, when he was human.  He was allergic to bee stings.  Giles and I spent all afternoon in the cemetery, where people had put flowers and stuff that would attract bees.  It took him a long time to get enough stings.  Then he carried the venom in…..in his blood.  Giles figured that Danube's death would be weird enough to make the rest of the vampires run off, but if any stayed, I was to get them."

"A suicide plan!" Buffy shot, but Oz didn't recoil.

"It's not the first time Giles has offered his life for you," he said.  "Am I supposed to pretend to be surprised by it?"

"He is such an idiot," Buffy muttered.  "And so are you for going along with it.  And now I'm going to go find him and tell him to his face."

Oz stepped out of her way.  Fortunately she found Giles in a room nearby, thus sparing her mood from any nurses who might have gotten in her path.

He was lying in a propped up bed, looking almost as white as the sheets around him.  She charged in, intending to be the one delivering the lecture this time, but he stalled her by asking, "Is everyone all right?"

"Yes.  You took the worst of it and this time it's *not* my fault.  Now, about your big dumb plan--"

"You changed the Sacramentum," Giles accused, tiredly though.

Buffy stopped for a second.  "Wesley told you?  Was he here?"

"I heard you."

"Really?"  She eyed him.  "So, what do you think of the new version?"

"Did Willow make the alterations?"

"No.  Me."

Giles blinked.  "You?"

"I can do things like that too," Buffy said defensively.

"Buffy!  Do you know what you've done?"

"Well, I *think* so."

Giles breathed out heavily as he put both hands to his forehead.  "Right," he mumbled.  "Let's hear it."

"I thought you already had."

"Humour me, because if I actually heard what I *think* I heard….."

Buffy pulled his hands away, then perched on the bed.  "Domineo Veniteo Sacramentum."

"Heavenly Father, God is with us," Giles said.

Buffy scowled at his peevish tone.  "Codladh fada, codladh domhain.  Eirigh."

"Long sleep, deep sleep.  Rise."

"So far the exact same.  Are we noticing?" she contended.

"Go on," he said in a grouchy tone.

"This is the part where I made a teensy change," Buffy told him.  "Siul lion, bhean cheile, mo chiele.  Deireadh.  Galwaf I.  Meus mihi."

Aghast, he stared at her.  His mouth worked for a moment before he accomplished a strangled, "Buffy!"

"This is the way I see how it deals," she said.  "Walk with me, your wife, my husband.  The end.  I call you.  Mine to me.  Then I said, Et itur ad astra.  Cursum perficio.  I liom gan tu.  We go to the stars.  I am making an end to my course.  I go in your place."  She settled back, hogging a good portion of his pillow.  "I found it in a book.  It said that a wife could offer to go to the stars, to heaven, in her husband's place.  So I changed one little tiny part--"

"Tiny!  Buffy, my Lord, you married us!"

"I know," she said with a shrug.  "Which means I can yell at you from a whole new angle."

The hands came back up to his forehead.  "Buffy, you don't understand.  The marriage vow, when said during the Sacramentum, is rather, uh, binding.  It's not as though you did this in a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas!"

"Oh," Buffy said, looking thoughtful.  After a moment, she asked, "So it's, like, legal and everything?"

"It's sanctified.  Also as, I gather, Wesley heard, we have a witness, which makes it, ah," Giles took a deep breath.  "It's…..yes.  It's legal.  To put it mildly."

"So that means, if we divorce, I get half of everything you own?"

"You've already taken more than half of everything I own."

Buffy pulled his hands off his forehead, again.  "Figures."

Giles glanced at her.  "Excuse me?"

"My luck," she sighed.  "My wedding night and my husband is flat on his back in the hospital."

"Buffy, this is serious."

"I know, because you nearly died and I didn't even get to wear a pretty wedding dress."  She snuggled down until her head was resting against his shoulder.  After a glance at the beige walls, the utilitarian furniture, and a tray of tired out hospital food, Buffy asked, "So, what do you want to do to pass time in this…..honeymoon suite?"

"We could have a long talk about why Slayers shouldn't do things behind their Watcher's backs."

"Nope.  Don't like that one.  What else do you have?"

"I could explain the dangers of altering sacred words," Giles replied.

"Looks like the choice of subject is up to me," Buffy said.  She was quiet for a few moments, then suddenly asked, "That vamp talked about something called Vairhivni.  What's that?"

"Vairhivni.  Bloodsummons." Giles said.  "It's a test that Watchers are supposed to take."

"Is this another one of those tests where someone gets a needle?"

"No, actually, it doesn't involve a Slayer at all.  Because of the, um, break in my training as a Watcher, I missed it."

Buffy craned up to look at him.  "What were you supposed to do?"

"The Watcher is to drink the blood of a demon and survive."

"Eww!  Yuck!"  Buffy sat up.

"Exactly my feelings on the matter," Giles agreed.

Buffy gave one last ick before saying, "Giles, *everything* in our world is disgusting.  Have you ever noticed?"  She paused after a look at a table beside them.  "However, I'd rather do that test than eat what's on that tray."

He smiled.  When she saw it, she relaxed, then settled down beside him once more.  After a few more minutes, she asked, "Giles?"

Her answer was a soft snore.  Buffy eyed him, then sighed.  "This wedding night is just getting better and better."

She kissed his cheek, then nestled in against him and closed her eyes.