SquidgeWorld Archive

Prolog

"Xander Lavelle Harris, I come for you!"

Xander jumped at the sound of the voice, dropping the bag of cans he had just picked up. He turned nervously to the nearest person within view, who happened to be Buffy Summers. She was a radiant young woman, even in the 'work clothes' she was currently wearing, (a stiff dark purple dress that went almost to her knees, and a long-sleeved purple sweater with a medium scoop-neck,) and Buffy and he had recently admitted to being in love with each other. But Xander wasn't looking at her with desire this time, but with fear and a trace of panic in his eyes.

"You can do it, honey," Buffy said softly to him, and flashed a sweet half-smile. "We can't help you directly, but that doesn't matter. Whatever form this thing takes, you can out-think it."

"Thanks," Xander said, walking out into the street and turning to scan the area. They were out in the front of the Chase estates, and Oz and Willow were standing nearby, but no-one else Xander could see. "Okay, so where are you already?" he called out loud.

"HERE!" the ferocious response came. Xander turned a third of the way around to orient on the Horror's voice, and his face blanched.

Walking calmly past Oz's van was a tall, thin, and angular figure, wearing brightly striped and spotted clothing in all colors of the rainbow, including long sleeves and oversized, slightly floppy shoes. His face and muscular hands were covered in white makeup, with primary colors marking the features of his face, and his hair seemed to be inordinately frizzy and electric blue in color.

"Just out of curiosity," Oz began, from the sidewalk where he watched. After watching his much-beloved Willow bravely face off a Horror of the Demon Eyghon, and hearing about Buffy's encounter with the Horror Angelus, the Horrors had apparently become 'same old same old' to the unflappaple wereboy. "What exactly is it you're supposed to be?"

"Harris knows!" the figure said, then burst into a long sequence of laughs.

"Yes I do," Xander said, holding his ground eight feet away from it. "You're the Master Clown." The Clown inclined his head gravely at the frightened teenager, then favored him with a malicious smile. "But you don't really exist," he continued. "You're just a Horror."

"Xander! No!!" Willow reminded him worriedly from Cordelia's front walk. "You've gotta keep it thinking that it's the clown!"

But the hellish spirit didn't even seem to have noticed Xander's misplaced statement. "You can't stand against me, foolish little boy," it crowed, laughing again for many seconds. "You can't deny your fear of me, no matter how hard you try." And, as if to prove that, the clown took a measured step towards Xander, and laughed as Xander reflexively backed away.

"Think, Xander, think!" Buffy called out desperately. "What is this creep afraid of?"

"Nothing!" The Master Clown asserted, again stepping towards Xander, and again laughing as Xander backed away.

"That can't be true, Xander," Willow assured her friend. "There has to be something, there has to be a key, and it came from YOUR mind."

"I... I..." Xander stuttered. "I got nothing," he muttered depressively.

"Ha ha ha!" the clown roared in utterly sadistic mirth. "How appropriate. He has nothing. That fits. No strength." He dashed forward and swung at Xander with a backhand blow. Xander tried to duck far enough away to avoid it, but the clown's arm stretched out to an amazing range and three fingers knocked into Xander's face, scraping the skin. Shocked, Xander tripped over his own heel and fell to the ground. "No courage," the clown continued relentlessly. "No character. No future." He bent down to grab Xander's head.

"Unhand my love, strange villain," a new voice rang out. Buffy, Willow, and Oz turned about to see Cordelia, her body surrounded by a pale red aura, an unearthly wind tugging at her thin blouse and somewhat short skirt. Within her right right hand, she held what seemed to be a ball of yellow light. "Lest the powers of the unseen strike you down through me!" Cordelia finished.

"No, Cordelia!" Buffy cried out. "DON'T!"

But from all the reaction Cordelia paid Buffy, the Slayer might have not even been there. Buffy looked in desparation at Willow, then Oz, a look of panic crossing her face where few similar expressions had gone before.

Act One

It was Willow who took action first. She dashed forward from the sidewalk to stand between Cordelia and the clown.

"Come on, Cordelia," she said. "I don't want you to hurt me, but I can't let you hurt the clown." Cordelia just snarled in response.

"You can't hit the clown," Willow continued. "If the clown gets it, Xander gets it - so do you. Do you understand that?"

Willow didn't get any farther. With a negligent wave of Cordelia's left hand, an unseen force picked Willow up and threw her off to the side.

But Buffy had figured out what Willow had been up to, and she furthered the cause in typically forthright fashion - she tackled Cordelia from the other side, knocking her to the ground.

"Help!" Xander called out, still being chased by the Master Clown while all of this went on.

"Hai!" Cordelia exclaimed, and blue energy lanced down her arms into Buffy's body, but Buffy's grunt of shock was a mild one.

Willow sat up and focused her attention back to Xander. "Think about the figures associated with the clown in your mind," she called out in blind hope. "Is there one who's as impressive as the clown, but not a bad-guy?"

Cordelia focussed her attention more intently on Buffy, and a sudden gust of wind blew them apart. Cordelia stood up and re-oriented on the Clown.

"The Tightrope Lady!" Xander suddenly and triumphantly declared. The Master Clown paused, phazed. So did Cordelia, thankfully aware that something new was going on.

"Yeah, that's right, of course!" Xander continued exultantly. "She's the one circus person who can take you on, isn't she, Clown?" Now it was Xander's turn to advance menacingly on the clown. "Listen carefully, buddy. Can't you hear her music? She's coming!"

And suddenly the clown was no more, as a burst of wind buffeted Xander for a moment, and then was gone. "Yeah!" Xander called out, pleased. "And the X-man whooshed his horror!" He turned around, towards Buffy and Cordelia, and saw with surprise that Cordelia had fainted. He rushed over. "Is she all right?"

"Yeah, I think so," Willow said. "But the witch-self is taking more and more of a toll on her system. Decreasing her stability."

"Which means that she keeps witching out on us more and more easily," Buffy muttered disgustedly. Willow nodded.

"By the way," Xander added in an aside, "did you and Tojo ever have any more luck looking for a way to de-witch her, Willow?"

"No," Willow said. "But it hasn't exactly been our priority. We've been trying to figure out a way out of Limbo that Kaliya and Giles can't interfere with.

"And faling spectacularly," Buffy observed. "Maybe the Cordy question need to get a higher priority again. We can't keep dealing with incidents like this - and what if she doesn't revert one time?"

Just then Mister Tojo showed up. Oz had gone to him for help, but there didn't seem to be any need.

* * * *

A few hours later, Buffy and Mister Tojo set out on a patrol of the strange parallel city. "Willow tells me that you think curing Cordelia's condition should be one of our important priorities at this point?" Akira Tojo inquired mildly.

Buffy swallowed. "Well, yeah. She's becoming more and more dangerous, in her witch-mode. She could have gotten Xander trapped by the Master Clown- Horror!"

Tojo surveyed her for a few moments with a piercing gaze. "And would this have anything to do with the fact that you and Mister Harris are secretly gratifying your mutual affection?" Buffy looked up at her in surprise. "It was not that difficult to comprehend the situation, Buffy."

"Oh," Buffy said, disappointed that Tojo had seen so easily through her secret. "Well, yeah, of course there's a connection. If Cordelia finds out about us again, it could easily be the worst witch-out we've seen from her so far, and that's something I'm very concerned about! I know that it's not fair, that Xander and me, we made our own decision and now I'm asking you to come through and save us from having to take our medicine..." She broke off. "Am I making any sense at all?"

"Quite a good deal of it," Tojo assured her. "I am not without sympathy to your predicament, Buffy - or to the decision you made. I was once young myself. But I must warn you - what you ask of me may be impossible."

Buffy smiled tiredly. "I know that." Suddenly a flicker of motion down an alley caught Buffy's eye. She stopped and looked more closely. Whatever it was had vanished, but Buffy wasn't willing to let it go at that. Briefly indicating silence to Tojo, she led the way down the alley, watching carefully for any other sign of whatever she had seen.

There was nothing - until they came to the next street down. About a half a block away from them, a man in a dark coat walked down the street. "Giles!" Buffy breathed. "I wonder what he's doing here - Kaliya's hideout is on the other side of town," she whispered. "Come on, Akira."

Tojo suffered himself to be led down the street by his student. "I suspect this is not what it seems," he muttered. "Consider his clothes. They are not characteristic of the vampire Giles."

But Buffy had already silently caught up to Giles. She reached out to grab him forcefully by the shoulder - and Buffy's hand passed THROUGH Giles' shoulder! Caught without the support she had expected, Buffy lost her balance and stumbled to the sidewalk. The Giles-figure continued walking down the street without pause.

"What the?" Buffy righted herself, and charged down the street again. Tojo followed, shaking his head. This time Buffy walked around Giles and in front of him. "Hey there!" she called out and waved her hands, but Giles didn't seem to notice. Defeated, she stopped still - and the Giles-image passed right through her!

"What's going on?" Buffy wailed as Tojo finally caught up to her. "Is that Giles' ghost? The real Giles, I mean?"

"It would appear that that is exactly what it is. Angel said that spirits of the ether were drawn into Limbo when it was formed. That could well include human spirits of the dead - ghosts."

"But why couldn't he see me?"

"That is a part of how some ghosts manifest. They simply reenact events from their human lives, unaware of the world around them, or in some cases can think for themselves and observe the fixed scenery, but not people or movable objects."

"Hmm," Buffy considered. "I thought it was that living people couldn't see ghosts, not the other way around."

"Also sometimes true," Tojo admitted.

"So," Buffy pressed. "What do we do about it? Is there a way to make contact with Giles? That could be a great help... no offense," she finished uneasily, realizing that Tojo could have interpreted that as a slight on his Watcher abilities.

"Let us return to the Chase house. I should consult my references."

* * * *

Buffy slipped her sweater back over her head quickly when she heard a knock at the door. "Come in?" she called uncertainly.

"Buffy?" Xander poked his head in, then realized what she had said. He quickly entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Hi, you!" Buffy said, smiling and rising from the bed in Cordelia's brother's room. Xander quickly slipped his arms tenderly around Buffy and kissed her lovingly on the mouth.

"Hey!" Buffy protested, breaking the kiss off after a few pleasant seconds. "Come on! Cordelia's in the house, and she has a tendency to walk into rooms without knocking."

"I'm sorry," Xander murmured, stroking her back with his hands. "I just get carried away every time I see you."

"Well, stifle it!" Buffy snapped, disengaging from his embrace, then grinned at him to mitigate any insult he might have read into her remark. Buffy sat back down on her bed, and Xander turned the desk chair around to face her and sat upon it.

"So, Willow tells me you may have seen the ghost of Giles?"

"That's what it looked like," Buffy confirmed. "How are Willow and Tojo doing?"

"They've found some good references on communicating with ghosts already - it'll take them an hour or so to work out a plan." Xander looked closely at his secret love. "How do you feel about it, Buffy?"

"Um?" Buffy considered. "Excited, hopeful. It's like, if this works, I'll finally have my chance to make my peace with him. To say all the things that were left unsaid between us when I ran out on Sunnydale." She shook her head. "That's not all of it, though. I've wished so hard some nights that Giles, MY Giles, was back. As much as we snarked at each other, he - he was the kind of guy who could make everything all right, you know? Akira knows his stuff, and he's easier to get along with, but he doesn't have that Gilesness."

"Well, I never was as close to him as you were," Xander disclaimed, "but I think I know what you mean. And you've got a perfect right to want him back, to need him."

"Thanks," Buffy said, smiling back at him. She leaned over to stroke his arm caressingly. "I mean it," she whispered, and scooted over to give him a brief smooch on the lips.

"Hey, what about...?" Xander started.

"Quick. Doesn't count." Buffy informed him teasingly. "I'm gonna head over to Willow's and find out about making contact with ghosts, okay?"

"Of course," Xander replied, sighing.

Act Two

"My lady!" Giles called out in utter exasperation. "What are you doing? You need your rest."

"Do not tell me what I do or do not need," Kaliya snapped feebly back at him, not taking her gaze away from the magic mirror.

"I will indeed!" Giles burst out. Now Kaliya *did* turn away from the mirror, staring at Giles in utter disbelief. "I swore an oath to you, my queen, when I entered your service," Giles explained. "The oath bound me to serve your interests to the best of my ability, and THAT is exactly what I will do, even if it means saving you from your own stubborness, lady." He grabbed for the mirror, but Kaliya moved it nimbly away.

"I will rest soon, my loyal one," she placated him. "But other events command our attention. Observe for yourself," she ordered, handing him the mirror.

Giles peered into the image. At the Rosenberg house, Buffy, Akira Tojo, and Willow were preparing for some sort of excursion, and arming themselves with unidentifiable paraphernalia.

"We should arrange to observe their mission first-hand," Kaliya said. "We cannot afford to remain unaware of our opponent's plans."

"I will dispatch Michelle immediately," Giles assured her.

"No," Kaliya corrected him. "Not Michelle - she has not the necessary subtlety for this." She considered a moment. "You must do it, Giles."

"I could not," Giles demurred. "While you have not your full strength, my place is here at your side." To be ready for Michelle in case she runs out of patience, he added silently to himself.

"Very well then," Kaliya agreed meekly. "Perhaps your human friend, then? Mister Rayne? Would he be suitable?"

"Quite acceptable," Giles concurred, and left the room to seek Ethan out. Kaliya took another look at the mirror. Willow Rosenberg was saying some sort of farewell to the mysterious vampire, the one that Giles said was called 'Angel,' the one who had once had a soul and, presumably, did again. Shrugging, she set the mirror down on a table and sank into the covers of her bed.

"Mister Rayne had better hurry," she murmured to herself.

* * * *

"The spell must be cast in the place in which the deceased spent the most time over the year prior to his or her death," Tojo reminded them. "Are you sure that would not be his home?"

"Trust me, Akira," Buffy replied. "Giles *lived* in the library. That's the place."

"Very well." The three of them headed off towards the school. Just as they were about to turn the corner out of sight of the Rosenberg house, a black car passed silently by, moving swiftly up into easy following range.

Buffy, Willow, and Tojo arrived at the school and the library, and set up for the spell that Tojo had found. This was a fairly long and involved process, involving arranging and lighting candles all over the library, setting small open silver containers of crumbly black powder that gave off an incensy smell without flame, and drawing a quadranted mystic diagram in goopy red paint on the open floor in front of the circulation desk.

"You know," Buffy quipped, looking over the changes, "if Giles really does come back, he is gonna be SO pissed with us!"

"Hey, it's not really his library - it's a copy," Willow shot back jokingly. "We're all ready here." She went over to the lectern that they had set Tojo's book on at the head of the diagram. Tojo and Buffy went over to stand at the sides of the diagram, with their accoutrements, a small leather bag for Buffy, and an ornate iron bell for Tojo. They waited a few seconds for Willow to start.

"I call upon Hades, the arbiter of the paths of the dead, to lend us his guidance in this time," Willow intoned. "We are far from the lands of our home; yet the spirit of one dear to us is near." She gestured to Buffy, who remembered her instructions and reached a hand into the leather bag. Taking a handful of the contents, which turned out to be a floury purple powder, and scattered it over the diagram. As each grain landed, it exploded in a microscopic puff of smoke, and a fine haze spread about them all.

"Seen by us, he walks through this dark place unseeing," Willow continued. "Extend your rod, oh Hades, and guide our friend to us in spirit and in sight!" Tojo lifted up an iron bell and rang it solemnly. With a sudden flash, FOUR figures appeared within the magic diagram!

"Giles!" Buffy exclaimed gladly, before she even realized that there were others.

"Jenny!" Willow breathed amazedly, a few seconds later.

"Kendra?" Buffy said at almost the same time, recognizing one of the other two apparitions!

"Jesse?"

The ghost of Giles coughed. "What is going on here?" He turned around to take in his surroundings. "Jenny! Akira Tojo!! I - I say, am I dead?"

"'Fraid so," Buffy confirmed. "For a few months now."

"Of course," Giles rambled on. "The ritual of Amtena - for communicating with the spirits of the dead. And the last thing I remember is being subdued in Weatherly park by a mysterious vampire. She had me killed?" A few seconds later, he added a new observation. "You changed your hair again, Buffy?"

"Uh, she, Queen Kaliya, the vampire who kidnapped you, had you changed," Willow told him reluctantly. "Your vampire self is her chief assistant now."

"My god, Rupert!" Jenny Calendar breathed. "Uh, that monster, Angelus; he didn't change me, did he?" She considered, then decided herself. "No - he broke my neck, didn't he?"

"You remember?" Willow asked, morbidly fascinated.

"Well, it's kind of a hard death to forget."

"So, wait a second," Jesse broke in. "We're all dead? I'm dead?!?"

"Uh, yeah Jesse," Willow said. "Going on for two years, now."

"Man," Jesse sighed. "You look nice with the new hairdo, Will." He shook his head. "The last thing I remember is a big football player charging at me. With fangs."

"Where is Drusilla?" Kendra asked Buffy. "She is de one dat slew me, correct?"

"Yeah," Buffy confirmed. "Probably in England, back on Earth. I had to give Spike the chance to take Drusilla out of town; in exchange for his help against Angelus." At Kendra's outraged glare she muttered, "Hey, it was either that or let the whole world go to Hell."

"Back on Earth?" Giles repeated. "If we're not on Earth, where are we, Buffy?"

* * * *

"Ghosts?" Kaliya inquired incredulously.

"I cannot think of anything else that would account for what I saw, Kaliya" Ethan confirmed. "Giles was there, and his technopagan ex-girlfriend, whom I believe is dead, yes?" Vamp-Giles nodded solemnly. "Buffy's hand passed right through them."

"Could it have been illusion?"

"Perhaps," Ethan admitted. "But why would they have gone to the trouble of crafting such a phantasm? To deceive me? I don't believe they even knew that we were following them. And even if they did, what purpose could it serve?"

"Ghosts, then," Kaliya allowed. "This raises grand possibilities. Even before now, I have believed that I felt - " Suddenly, she broke off, closed her eyes, and started repeating what sounded like a four-syllable mantra over and over.

Ethan and Giles stared at her, then, after about twenty seconds, Giles interrupted her. "Are you alright, my lady?"

Kaliya broke off her chanting, and groaned long-sufferingly. "Yes, of course, my dear Giles." She squinted appraisingly at the two others. "Are either of you familiar with methods for contstraining and compelling the spirits of the dead?"

Giles stared at her in utter astonishment. "I am," Ethan admitted simply.

"Very good. Go to the houses that the Slayer and her people have been using, find any one of the ghosts, and bring him or her to me." She fixed a cold glare at both of them. "NO-ONE is to disturb me until this has been accomplished."

"Understood," Ethan replied, and dragged Giles out of Kaliya's chambers. As they left, Giles could hear her return to her chanting. "Am-ah-tar-een. Am-ah-tar-een..."

* * * *

"No, no, you worked the spell perfectly," the ghost of Jenny Calendar was assuring Willow as they walked back to the Rosenberg house. "The only thing is, it's not that discriminating a spell. If you had wanted a single ghost, you should have put in more specific information. As it is, it just kinda zammed in all of us, and a good thing too."

"A dimensional Limbo? Really? How extraordinary," Giles commented to Tojo and Buffy, a little further along the street.

"'Ow many vampiyahs?" Kendra asked.

"We're not sure," Buffy admitted. "There were about fifteen of them when the spell went wrong, plus Ethan Rayne and the two demons. But it seems like they captured some other people who got transported into Limbo and, uh, made them."

Jesse had been walking at the very end of the procession, looking *very* lost and confused. Realizing this, Willow turned around to address him - and couldn't figure out what to say. "Um, how's death been?" she blurted out at last."

Jesse shook his ethereal head. "Nothing much. It really feels like it's only been a few days since that, that thing bit me." He frowned slightly. "I was floating in somewhere kind of dark blue for a while, then all of a sudden I was here. Two years, huh?"

"Yep," Willow confirmed. "Oh, Xander is gonna be SO pleased and surprised to see you, Jesse!" She smiled in anticipation of that moment. "One word of warning though - don't do anything to make Cordelia mad." After saying that, Willow considered pensively for a moment. "That probably means don't talk to her, no offense."

"Cordelia's here?" Jesse demanded incredulously.

"Jesse!" Xander's voice came. Buffy looked for him for just a second, startled, then realized that they were within sight of the Rosenberg house. Xander had been waiting on the porch. "What, uh, how..."

"We found more ghosts than we bargained for," Buffy told him.

"Xander!" Jesse called out with relief. "Can you tell me what's going on? I mean, I hardly even remember her," he indicated Buffy with an idle pointing gesture, "and I've understood like *nothing* that Willow's been saying for the past ten minutes!"

"Ack!" Buffy swirled to see what had happened, and gaped. Kendra was being dragged away, by a glowing arm that had its deathly white hand about Kendra's throat!

Act Three

Buffy swirled around, frantically tracing the arm back almost ten feet to its source.

Ethan Rayne! More specifically, a golden sphere in Ethan's hands.

Ethan had noticed Buffy's attention at least as easily as she had spotted him, and he dashed back to a black Ferarri, drawing Kendra through the air behind him quickly as the white arm retracted. Buffy charged over, trying to reach the car before Ethan could drive off, but he got into the drivers seat and in seconds the car was charging directly towards her! Buffy dove off to the side in a frantic attempt to dodge, and she felt the cold metal brush past her ankle. Twisting about as she landed, she saw the Ferarri drive off.

"What the heck?" Cordelia asked out loud - apparently she had come out to watch the commotion.

"Why would anyone want to ghostnap a dead Slayer?" Willow put in.

"Well, we're not gonna find out staying here," Buffy shot back. "Uh, Tojo, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, come on. We'll take the van. Oz, you stay here with Angel and the ghosts, okay?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess," Oz replied gloomily.

* * * *

As Buffy had somewhat expected, the black Ferarri was parked outside Kaliya's hideout when they got there.

"Okay, Buffy, what do we do now?" Willow asked obviously. The hideout was a fortress, as Buffy had found out the last time she had tried to rescue someone from inside - that time it had been Giles, not realizing he had already been turned into a vampire. The main entrance was a high-tech security door that could not be opened except from inside - and it surely would not be opened for them, unless Kaliya's vamps were quite certain that they had the situation well in hand. Last time, Buffy had gone in through a vent access, but as she wandered over to examine them, she realized that Kaliya had blocked off that ploy - additional grates had been built into the vents, solid steel and built right into the frame. It would take far too much effort to remove them, if they even could.

"Hmm..." Tojo said out loud, coming up from behind them. "I wonder if there would be a back door of any kind?"

Buffy thought back to that ill-fated rescue mission again. Just as she had left Michelle's room, down at the other end of that corridor, there had been... "Yes. Blocked off from top to bottom with heavy wooden bars, nailed right into the walls."

"Possible to go in through the sewer access?" Tojo suggested.

"Possible. But I don't know exactly where it comes in, and there's sure to be guards there."

"Hmm..." Willow checked to make sure where the other two were and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Use Cordelia? Let Xander get taken inside and have her bust through to get him?"

"Maybe," Buffy waffled. "That's pretty risky, don't you think?"

"All we've *got* at this point is risky, Buffy!" Willow hissed back, frustration and anger creeping into her voice.

"Hey," Buffy said, putting her hands on Willow's shoulders. "Calmly, okay Will? We'll find a way to do it - we always do, right?"

Suddenly, the desperate discussion became moot, as Kendra herself suddenly burst through the hideout's wall forty feet away from them. Well, not exactly burst - she simply emerged through the wall as if it were a mere bank of fog.

"Kendra!" Buffy called out. "Thank goodness you're safe!"

"De magician, he let his spell go of me for moment," Kendra explained. "Dat was all dat it took for me to escape, now dat I can walk trew de walls!"

Suddenly the security door burst open, and six vampires burst out, followed by Ethan with his golden sphere and Vamp-Giles. "We're not safe yet, Kendra!" Buffy called out. They made a break for the van, but they had started further away from it than the vamps, and soon found themselves cut off from it. The vampires menaced Xander and Cordelia just enough just enough to discourage them from getting out, then turned their attention to Buffy and her friends.

Buffy looked them over disparagingly. "You gotta be kidding me," she muttered, and stepped towards the nearest vamp. He grabbed for Buffy, but before he could complete the grab Buffy gave him a staggering punch in the head, sending him off to the side, staggering.

As Buffy turned her attention to 'discourage' the next nearest vampire, Willow noticed that Ethan's golden sphere was active again, the ghostly white arm and hand beginning to stretch from it. She tugged on Tojo's sleeve, pointing at the new threat. "Efflit!" Tojo muttered. A breeze blew towards Ethan, and the arm stopped as if balked by the wind, though it was hardly more than a puff of air. The breeze picked up slightly, and the arm puffed into cloudlike vapor.

Buffy threw a vamp over her shoulder, the fourth she had now dealt with. "Come on!" she called out, drawing the van's sliding door open. Tojo and Kendra followed her. "Can you ride in the car, Kendra?" Buffy asked, suddenly realizing what might happen if she could not.

"I doan know," Kendra admitted. "But I tink so. I walk upon de ground, do I not? Dis seems little different." Sure enough, she was able to step up into the passenger compartment and sit insubstantially on a seat.

As Willow stepped up into the compartment, however, Giles grabbed her from behind. "Ahh!" Willow called out in surprise. But she reacted with the precision Buffy had trained her in, driving her left elbow into Giles' ribcage. It didn't hurt Giles, but he bent back in reaction just perfectly. Buffy swung the door between them, knocking Giles back to the asphalt. Xander put the van into gear and drove off, leaving Ethan and the vampires behind.

* * * *

Buffy, Xander, and Willow piled out of the van as soon as they had gotten it to Willow's house, and chatted as they climbed up the stairs to the porch, flushed with the adrenaline from their close escape. Oz, Jesse, and Giles came out onto the porch from inside.

"Whassup," Jesse said to them.

"How'd you do?" Oz asked Willow.

Giles put it more simply. "Success?"

"Yeah, we got Kendra back," Buffy reported. "It was *so* not a problem."

As Cordelia, Kendra, and Tojo slowly wandered individually over to the porch, a voice rang out again over the Limbo street: "Akira Tojo! I come for you!!"

"What the heck?" Jesse said aloud.

"We've been through this before," Willow reassured him. "Attack of the horrors. Go get em', Tojo!"

Tojo had already reversed course and was heading back down the stairs. As he reached ground level, the Horror became visible - a huge, gray, vaguely humanoid shape, its body dripping mucous-like slime. From its head rose an impossibly complex network of antlers. Its face was a simplified human profile, but the eyes were dark enough that they seemed almost to *glow* black - even Buffy found it a chilling effect.

"A chaos demon!" Giles said aloud.

"Yess!" the thing hissed. "I am Mentrog, of the Koarg clan. We meet again, Akira Tojo. But this time, there is no precipice for you to so treacherously throw me off of."

Tojo froze in silent horror for a moment, then resumed his guard against the thing.

"You cannot defeat me that way again, Akira," Mentrog spat. "In point of fact, you cannot defeat me at all."

"Except by the path of horror," Tojo amended desperately.

"Which you will not be able to complete," the demon shot back. "Try it. Tell me what I fear."

* * * *

A knock sounded at Kaliya's door. "Come!" she replied imperiously.

Giles and Ethan Rayne entered. "You wished to see us?" Ethan inquired formally.

"Yes. Thank you for your good work, Ethan, in capturing the ghost and arranging her escape, and Giles, in assisting with the false chase."

"Thank you," Ethan murmured.

"Perhaps, my lady, in lieu of appreciation, you could give your humble servant information as to what all this was about," Giles said pointedly. "It seems so far to have been a pointless exercise."

"Really Giles?" Kaliya pouted at him just slightly. "I would have thought my intentions were slightly clearer than that. Quite simply, I have been arranging to bring several notorious vampires back to life."

Giles reacted with surprise. "You have my attention, my lady."

"I have been aware of a subtle vampiric presence in this Limbo ever since I first recovered consciousness after the accident. It was only after Ethan made his report about the discovery of human ghosts that I realized that they could be vampiric ghosts - vampire spirits drawn into Limbo from the Ether when Limbo formed."

"Is such a thing even possible?" Giles asked suspiciously.

"Of course - to an extent. The demonic vampire spirit, like the human soul," here she made as if to spit, "is immortal in its essence. However, a vampire spirit is in many ways less flexible than the human, and is hard-pressed to manifest after separation from the vampire body. Thus, you have none of the same paranormal effects associated with a vampire ghost as a human ghost. However, a vampire spirit *is* much more suited to restoration to the bodily state. After a short examination of the human ghost, I was able to learn enough to begin the process. Behold." She waved a hand towards the far corner of her room, where two strange boxes had been set up.

Giles and Ethan went over to look at them, and Kaliya followed them. In each box, a strange sculpture of a humanoid child lay, expanding and contracting ever so slightly.

"From these homonculi will grow the bodies for three of my newest vampire warriors," Kaliya breathed. "Luke the Loyal and Darla the Defiant. Several of the other vampire spirits that have been drawn into Limbo I have not yet identified, and so cannot restore yet. At least one I dare not call upon - the Master Heinrich Nest. But these two will be a grand addition to my forces!" She smiled demonically and began to laugh.

Act Four

"What you fear," Tojo stalled the Chaos Demon uncertainly. "The, uh, the Slayer!"

Buffy smiled and waved at the two of them.

"Ha ha ha," Mentrog chuckled unmercifully. "Hardly. Not that I'd be unconcerned about the prospect of taking her on in a fight, but Slayers rarely dirty their hands with our kind, and that gives me sufficient peace of mind when it comes to them. Next guess?"

Tojo was visibly agitated now, to all of their dismay. "Er, uh, that is," he sputtered, then brightened again. "The sword of Kascionare!"

Mentrog burst out lauhging again. "Of course not, you simple-minded fool! We venerate and seek the sword, always. It can be deadly when used against a chaos demon, but for us to fear it would be heresy!" The chaos demon glared maliciously at his Watcher opponent. "One more guess."

"What?" Tojo exclaimed, horrified. "I may make as many guesses as I please within the llowed time!"

"Not so," Mentrog countered. "Only three. That modification to the Strictures has been in place for two years."

"A curse on those out-of-date references," Tojo muttered.

"One more guess, mortal!" Mentrog gibed him. "Then I get to take you!"

Tojo pondered for only a second. "The Alcatier Prince of the Joragi sea-devils!" he called out.

Mentrog stopped still. "Wrong," he drawled spittlesomely. He extended a hand to Tojo, and a beam of turquoise light passed between them. In a moment Mentrog was gone, and only a large elliptical mass of blue-green substance remained where Tojo had been.

"Tojo!" Willow and Buffy breathed simultaneously. "What happened to
him?" Buffy asked out loud.

"He has been trapped by the Horror," Giles said sadly. "His body lies within that stasis bubble, but his mind is in the fantasy realm of the chaos demon. If he cannot defeat the demon there, he could die. But there is truly no way to help him now."

"We can get his body under cover, at least," Buffy asserted. "Xander!" Xander had come out during the fight, and was chatting quietly with Jesse's ghost.

Jesse said something, (Buffy couldn't tell what,) to Xander as soon as he recognized that she had said something to Xander, and Xander whispered something back to Jesse. Jesse responded by attempting without success to clap his hand against Xander's. "Xander!" Buffy repeated, now angry, and he rushed over and followed her out to the stasis bubble.

"You told him?" Buffy demanded incredulously as they heaved the thing up into the air. "Just like that? In front of everyone?"

"Well, yeah," Xander responded. "Come on, Buffy, he's my best friend, or at least he was. I'm not allowed to share our secrets?"

"No, you're not. And even if you were, there's a better time and place," Buffy told him off sourly as they began to move the bubble up the porch stairs.

"Okay," Buffy said aloud once they had gotten the stasis buble into the Rosenberg house. "Mister Tojo's under cover, Kendra's back... is there anything else we need to sort out right now?" She turned to Giles. "Do, uh, do you know if ghosts need to sleep?"

Giles laughed. "Probably we do, but I suspect that we'll just vanish while our spirits are resting and reappear when we wake. We shouldn't be hard to accomodate."

"Okay, anything else?" Nobody said anything. "Goo-ood," Buffy sighed, sinking down into the recliner in the Rosenberg's living room. "It's been a busy few hours."

"Do you have any idea why Ethan and your double would have tried to kidnap Kendra, Giles?" Willow asked.

"Not really," Giles admitted, sitting down on the sofa next to Jenny. (Angel had gotten moved upstairs sometime in the past few hours, Buffy realized with mild surprise.) "But it isn't hard to formulate defenses against that ectoplasmic arm and other devices to capture ghosts."

"I could teach you how to craft a few defense markers for each house, Wilow," Jenny put in.

"Do you really think that that's the best way?" Giles asked her. "Surely we could do it ourselves, using Xander or Cordelia's assistance for the physical construction."

"So, what, it's okay for you to know the spell, but not for Willow?"

"She already knows far too much of -"

"Wake up, Rupert!" Jenny snapped her fingers in front of Giles' face. "She's a watcher now! She has as much right to know this stuff as you do!!"

"She is?" Giles repeated blankly. He turned about to address Willow. "You are?"

"*Apprentice* watcher," Willow clarified. "Tojo's apprentice, technically, I suppose. Which means that as long as he's out of action..." Willow's face clouded up with concern.

"Don't fret, Willow," Giles assured her. "Tojo is a most resourceful man - he will win free of his demon yet. In the meantime, I suppose that makes ME your mentor, Apprentice Watcher Rosenberg!"

"Willow looked up, startled. "Really?"

"But of course. I'm not certain if Watcher perogatives usually extend beyond death, but since I'm not a vampire... er, that is, it's not me that is the vampire of me..." He shook his head, confused. "What I'm saying is, the Watchers would not object, under the circumstances. If only because they would have a hard time understanding the circumstances." He shot a joking grin at his young friend.

* * * *

After a little while, Buffy left the living room and climbed up to the second floor of the Rosenberg house. As she reached the top of the stairs, she noticed that she could hear Cordelia's voice. Carefully, Buffy crept over to the source of it, Willow's room, and listened intently.

"I don't know. It's just, for as long as this has been going on, it's like he's just not interested in me! Not even when we're pissing each other off, and I'm really mad at him, and *I* just feel like... well, you know... he just walks away like nothing happened!"

"Well, you know how guys can be," Willow put in awkwardly. "Sometimes they're all, well, you know, and sometimes they're just not."

"Yeah, I guess so. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something else going on. You wouldn't have any idea what it could be, would you?"

"Me?" Willow squeaked. "Um, no... er, that is..."

Buffy sighed. Willow was a bad liar, but Cordelia was so clueless that she probably wouldn't pick up on it. Still, this conversation gave her the chills. She and Xander had pretty much used up their lead time for keeping Cordelia in the dark. Too bad we didn't actually use more of it being together, Buffy thought bitterly. Tojo had better -- oh no! She hadn't thought of that before - with Tojo out of action, the 'de-witch Cordelia' timeline was going to be delayed even more. She'd better find a way to bring Giles and Miss Calendar up to speed soon.

But right now, Buffy had other things to do. She moved stealthily down the hall to the room Xander was occupying, and found that there was a conversation going on in there too!

"Oh, you're kidding me!" Jesse was saying. "You actually went all the way with CORDELIA?"

"Uh, yeah," Xander said unenthusiastically.

"And how far with this Buffy chick?"

"Um, well, uh, kissing, a little touching..."

"Oh man!" Jesse burst out. "She's got some body on her... But man, how was Cordelia? Boy, if I ever..."

"Okay, just knock it off!" Xander said. "Between you walking through stuff, and this conversation, I'm feeling like Sam Beckett here!"

"Oh, no way are you a Sam Beckett," Jesse shot back.

Buffy suddenly realized that at no point in this conversation would she be able to just open the door without embarassment, so she turned around, stalked back to the stairway, and then walked with a very loud and obvious step back over to Xander's room. The conversation broke off as she approached, and she knocked.

"Hey?" Xander's voice came out.

"Just me," Buffy called in response.

"Come in," Jesse said. She pushed the door open and poked her head in. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Not, uh, really," Jesse said. "Did, uh, did you guys want to be alone?"

Buffy stepped the rest of the way into the room. "Um, no, er, that is... yeah, kind of. But we really do need to get to know each other soon, Jesse, now that you're back. We were almost friends when I first came to town - I'd like the chance to make it the rest of the way there."

"Cool." Jesse stood up and walked through the wall.

"So, how much did you miss me?" Xander asked playfully, crawling over to sit beside her on the bed.

"Hey," Buffy blurted out, shifting ten inches away from him.

"Hey, what? Quick."

"No, no quick," Buffy frowned at him. "Cordelia, getting suspicious now, grilling Willow down the hall to find out what's wrong with you lately!"

"So? You know, that's probably the best way to let her find out."

"Come on, Xander. You know there is NO best way to let her find out - not until someone's managed to de-witch her."

"Oh, okay. Well, if it wasn't for that, why did you want me all to yourself?"

"To talk to you as a friend?"

Xander did a double-take as he realized how he had been acting. "Oh. Okay, I can do that. What is it?"

"It's about the whole Tojo thing." Xander looked at her questioningly. "I can't help feeling like it's all my fault."

"Your fault? Why?"

"You know. Just this afternoon I was wishing that I could have Giles back instead of Mister Tojo. Now - what do you know? I got my wish. I feel awful about it."

"Hey, come on, Buffy!" Xander shook her shoulder comfortingly. "This is not your fault. You did what you had to do, to help out Giles and other people. Tojo had some bad luck in a fight and got into trouble. None of this is your fault."

"Hmm," Buffy said. "You sure?" She smiled up at him cutely.

"Positive."

"Okay. Then we had better go find Giles and Jenny, ask them to help with de-witching Cordelia."