SquidgeWorld Archive

Prolog

"Hello? Willow?"

Willow Rosenberg was idly web-surfing at a public library computer. I need to get a hold on myself, she thought. Every voice I hear is starting to sound like...

"Buffy?!?" Willow had finally looked up at the person addressing her. To her pleasant surprise, the face really was that of her good friend!

Buffy looked a little bit weary and bedraggled, as she stood at the far corner of Willow's workstation, wearing a sleek new outfit - a brown suede jacket, delicate oyster blouse, and tight beige leggings. It made her look worldly, stylish, and surprisingly delicate... not at all like the Buffy Summers that Willow knew.

"Yeah, it's me. Hi, you!" Buffy managed to reply before Willow dived forward to embrace her friend. After hugging the cute redhead, Buffy seemed to recover some of her sense of humor. "Nice to see you too, Will."

Willow disengaged from the hug and dodged back to stand over her machine. She started moving the mouse around, clicking it in fits and starts. "I'll just close this up and log off. We have some catching up to do, don't we?"

Buffy quietly waited as Willow finished with the library computer, and followed her over to sit at a small table. "Where have you been, Buffy?" Willow opened, after a few seconds consideration.

"Here and there. In L.A. for a while. I had some business to take care of with my Dad."

"Oh, right. We... uh, we kinda heard what happened with your mom. She went to Giles to check out your story. She was worried about your, um... your unexplained absence too."

"Can't think why," Buffy muttered. "She was the one who told me not to come back. Anyway, she knows the score. Dad called her last night."

"What happened?" Willow blurted out suddenly. "With Angel, and Acathla? The spell worked, didn't it?"

A wave of pain passed through Buffy's eyes, followed closely by a trace of tears as Buffy turned her head down to look at the floor.

"Oh, no. Did you have to..." Willow stopped dead for a few seconds before whispering, "kill him?" Buffy shook her head violently from side to side.

"No, I didn't stake him. I had to do something so much worse." Buffy suddenly took a few breaths, and then turned her face back up to Willow's, forcing a smile. "But enough about me. How're you doing? You're better from your accident at the library, right?" Willow nodded. "How're the gang? Xander, Cordelia, Oz."

"They're all fine. Oz and I are... doing great, now that he's done his finals and everything."

"And how's Giles?"

* * * *

"Ah, good. Giles is coming around. Wake up, Giles!" The voice was female, sexy, but more than that, an extremely powerful voice. Rupert Giles groaned and sat up on the hard floor he had been sprawled out on.

"Good evening, Giles. Or would you prefer Rupert? No? Good enough. Hsartac, bring Giles a chair."

A dark form moved about in the shadows around Giles, and then lurched toward him, carrying a sturdy wooden chair, which was placed beside Giles, parallel to him. Looking up at the man, Giles suddenly noticed his facial ridges. Vampire!

With a *kiai* yell, Giles was up from the floor in a twinkling, knocking the chair forward before tackling the vamp and bearing him to the ground. Resting all his weight on Hsartac's, (if that was his name,) torso and pinning the fiend's two arms with his left arm and right knee, he broke a leg off the chair and was preparing to strike with it when he felt a hand gently cup his shoulder from behind. For no reason he could identify at the time, Giles shivered and relaxed slightly.

The same female voice spoke to him again, and Giles realized it must be connected to the hand at his shoulder. "Giles, why don't you stand up and let Hsartac go, if you don't like the chair he brought?" The voice was gentle and diplomatic, but the power behind it was if anything greater, and between the power of the voice and the continuing strange effect of the woman's touch, Giles didn't even think of arguing. He quickly stood back up, stepped away from the fallen vamp, and took a good look at the woman.

She was tall... about five feet, ten inches, with light golden hair and grey eyes. Her face was attractive, unlined, yet possessed of considerable maturity, perhaps indicative of forty to forty-five years of mortal age, (although Giles suspected that she was also a vampire, and after so many years as a watcher, he was not often mistaken.) Her figure, covered only by a white robe that looked remarkably Indian in style, was strong, lean, and overpoweringly feminine. As Giles gazed at
her, he felt not only a strong physical attraction, but the full force of a more spiritual bond that he didn't understand at all in that moment.

"What do you want with me?" Giles managed to expostulate.

"That will take quite a while to explain, Giles. For now, it would please me very much if you could take your left hand and feel the skin on the right side of your neck. Don't worry," she responded to what must have been a very skeptical look on his face. "We won't attack you. As you shall soon realize, we don't need to!"

Giles looked at the strange woman's charming smile as she said that and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Sure enough, his fingers quickly found the two small puncture wounds in his neck... fang wounds, deep, dry, and at least a day old.

Act One

"Yeah, Giles is okay," Xander said. The 'gang' was sitting in Coffee 'n' such, a small coffeeshop that Xander and Cordelia had discovered almost a month ago, and Willow and Oz had started going to as well, ever since school had let out. Small and warm, the little shop was opened up by glass-filled lattice, which formed the front wall and the front halves of the side walls and the ceiling. That afternoon, the place was cheerfully crowded, but not too noisy to disturb the conversation of the five teenagers.

"We've seen him around," Xander continued, "not too often, ever since you... uh... skipped town. He came by here yesterday; said he was going to do a patrol once night fell."

"So, what's next for you now, Buffy?" Willow asked.

"I settle in to the new place with Dad," Buffy shrugged, staring idly at Xander's face; while Buffy had been away, the teenager had grown a trim black moustache and goatee. "After that, summer school, I guess," she continued unenthusiastically.

"Summer school?" Cordelia echoed. "Does that mean your expulsion got pardoned?"

"Or commuted or something," Buffy said. "I don't have a clue as to how Dad did it. Except for this, I guess." She fished a small computer disk out of her backpack and handed it to Willow. "You should have this, I think."

"What is it?" Willow replied, blinking with surprise.

"It's a copy of your master passwords list. I got it from your web e-mail account; I remembered your password."

"Huh?" Willow sounded as if she wasn't sure whether to feel offended and violated or not.

"I hope you're not mad, but we needed it to get into the Sunnydale police computer and make sure I wasn't still a fugitive. Thanks for clearing me, by the way." Buffy smiles at Xander and Willow.
"Hey, no prob," Xander answered. "All we had to do was tell the truth." Noticing that Willow was giving him a strange look, he hastily amended, "Part of the truth."

"Anyways," Buffy continues, "it was a few days after that when Dad took the disk and went crazy with it. I found him breaking into the records of the Sunnydale morgue at six in the morning; he'd been working with it all night. That's when I took the disk away from him. The day after that, he told me that he had met with the Sunnydale school board, gotten me back in, and got a job transfer to Sunnydale. And so here am I, waiting for summer school, so I can finish some of the classes I
lost when I got expelled. Lucky me." Buffy sighed exaggeratedly, as if to signal that the story was done.

"So," Oz began, "how much does your dad know?"

"Everything. Or pretty much." Buffy began to list off, "Vampire Slayer. Angel. Curse. Murder rap. Fugitive. Mom finding out. Acathla."

"Really?" Xander snorted. "So everybody knows now."

"Come on," Buffy challenged him. "I had to tell him. I knew he would talk to Mom sooner or later, and that she would tell him all she knew. The best way to make sure he believed and he understood was to tell him myself. I even killed a vamp in front of him!"

"Really?" Oz asked, perhaps remembering his own initiation into vampire knowledge in a similar fashion.

"Yup. I knew it was the best way to make sure he believed, so I picked a likely vampirism case from the Times and we did the grave-vigil thing."

"How's he taking all of this?" Willow said.

"Enthusiastically. He thinks of all of this stuff as 'superheroic' and eats it up with a spoon. I think it's his answer for a mid-life crisis. On the 'plus' side, that means he's cutting me a lot of extra slack. On the 'con' side, I don't want him getting too near any of this."

"Like Owen?" Xander asked. Buffy nodded.

"Speaking of slaying, how has the town been doing? You said Giles was patrolling, and I imagine some of you guys have been doing some too. Any results?"

"A few vamps, nothing else much," Xander said. "Actually, it's been really quiet."

* * * *

"I see you realize what has happened," the blond lady vampire told Giles. "And it's high time I introduce myself. I am Queen Kaliya."

"Of course," Giles breathed, "the Lady Loveless. Supreme vampiric ruler of India for over sixteen hundred years, until you were overthrown in 1872 by a vampire strongman of native Indian lineage. At that point you took over some territory in France from Napoleon IV, including Carnac, where you made your seat for the past twelve decades and earned yourself the reputation of 'The Terror of the Standing Stones'."

"All correct. You certainly do know your vampires, Giles."

"And now you're here in Sunnydale. Why? Were you deposed in Carnac, like you were in Delhi?"

Kaliya shook her head. "Not at all, Giles. I left Carnac in the hands of one of my most trusted lieutenants to come here."

"That was certainly a risky move. You've turned Carnac into a most prestigious seat. Someone else could take it over, while you're occupied here."

"Oh, Giles." Kaliya shook her head. "Carnac may be prestigious, but it must be clear to you that after the events of the past fifteen months, 'Boca Del Infierno' is by far the most prestigious seat of all, or will be, when any vampire can show that they have conquered it. And that brings me to why I made you into one of the brethren, doesn't it?
"You know better than anyone the strengths and weaknesses of the Slayer known as Buffy Summers. You will help me to defeat her in glorious battle!"

For answer, Giles only screamed, wracked in absolute pain. Kaliya looked at him pensively.

"Fascinating. Your watcher training has instilled in you loyalty and dedication to all incarnations of the 'Vampire Slayer.' Your mortal experience and memory reinforce that with personal loyalty to Buffy, friendship, and even love! Yes, while you lived you loved her... as you would love your own daughter."

Giles' cries and spasms had started to die down by this point as he began to look at Kaliya and listen to what she was saying.

"All that, your new demon soul denies, on the basis of an instinct as old as vampirism itself: that the vampire slayer is to be hated and feared, destroyed when possible and defended against otherwise. The forcible rejection of such strong feelings and values is felt as a tangible, physical pain." She smiles. "Does this make the pain go away, Giles?" Kaliya reached down and took one of Giles' hands into her own. Suddenly his face broke into a smile and his twitching stopped.

"Will you help me destroy Buffy, Giles?"

Giles tore his hand away from Kaliya's. Her touch had the most damnable effect on him, but somehow he still felt he had to make this decision rationally, instead of basing it on that instinctive bond. "I need time to decide."

"Very well, Giles. You have time." Kaliya motioned to the vampires standing by the door, who opened it, and then followed the vampire queen out. A heavy metal thud sounded as the only way out of the cell was barred.

Act Two

An impromptu party was being held at the Bronze to celebrate Buffy's return. Oz was up on stage with the band, finishing a set, and Cordelia had gone to powder her nose, so that left Buffy alone at the table to catch up with her two closest friends. Xander was telling Buffy the story of the one significant supernatural incident to come down while Buff had been out of town...

"So, there we were, Giles halfway across the graveyard, out cold after having his crown slammed into a headstone. I was the only thing left between the girls, and this dimensional ghoul..." Unnoticed by Xander, Oz quietly took Cordelia's seat.

"This thing's talons must have been, oh, three inches long and razor sharp," Xander continued. "And all I had for a weapon was the butcher knife. But I knew it had to be done..." Suddenly he was jerked out of his chair by his hand. "Dance with me," Cordelia commanded imperiously.

"But I was just telling Buffy..."

"Let it go," Cordelia interrupted. "She's never gonna believe that you were the one to kill that thing."

"But I was!"

"I know, sweetie." Cordelia patted Xander's hand as she led him out onto the dance floor. "But this is you we're talking about, honey." They started to dance as the teens still sitting at the table laughed quietly.

For a minute there wasn't another conversation at that table, as Buffy, Willow, and Oz people-watched the dance floor, especially Xander and Cordelia. They were very much the good-looking couple this evening, Xander looking youthfully handsome in dark pants, a pale blue shirt and mid-brown sports jacket, Cordelia simply and elegantly beautiful in a short black dress, soft black boots, and some tasteful gold jewelry.

"May I have this dance, milady?" Oz asked Willow, extending his hand to her.

Willow looked quickly from her boyfriend, to Buffy, to Xander and Cordelia out on the dance floor. "Um... not just now. But... maybe Buffy would like to dance?" she hinted.

Oz shot a questioning look at Buffy, who, for her own part looked disapprovingly at Willow, and then considered Oz for a few moments. She shrugged. "Oh, why not?"

Oz and Buffy walked out onto the floor and started to dance. From the look on his face, Oz was feeling like he should be saying something, but wasn't sure what. Buffy felt the same way.

Finally Oz broke the silence. "By the way," he whispered self-consciously, "I never did thank you for, you know, saving the world from Acathla."

Buffy smiled wanly. "You're welcome. Nine world saves, and counting, that's me."

Oz stared at her for a second. "You keep count?"

Buffy shrugged. "Well, yeah, after the first few times," she said. "I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt on whether things like the mama bezoar could have destroyed the world, but still, that's gotta be some kind of record."

Oz considered this for a moment. "Well, I think James Bond's still got you beat, but he's fictional." He danced on in silence for a few seconds, then paused. "So, where was I for the other five?"

* * * *

Giles paced restlessly in his cell. Suddenly the door broke open a crack, and a small bag of blood, obviously raided from a local hospital, was thrown in. "Feeding time, monsieur Giles," a thickly accented voice called from the other side of the closing door. "Drink it up, and peut-etre Madame Kali will give you some of the real thing before dawn." The vampire guffawed and stamped away.

Giles walked reluctantly over to the bag and picked it up. Can I do this, he wondered. Drink human blood? If he did, his life as a human would undoubtedly be over. Suddenly, without thought, he lunged at the bag, tearing it open with his extended canines and eagerly sucking the blood down. It felt good, assuaging a raging hunger he hadn't realized he had.

Some time later, (he couldn't tell, in the happy afterglow of feeding,) the door opened and Kaliya calmly walked in. Giles quickly sprang to stand up straight. He had something to say to her.

"I've been thinking about the question you asked me, Lady Kaliya."

"Good," she said, nodding.

"There are just two things. First of all, I've seen first-hand just how deadly Buffy is. Dozens of opponents who thought that they could take her on have paid for that mistake. I don't want to be one."

"And the second thing?"

"I don't like being coerced."

Kaliya nodded at that. "That, believe it or not, is the reason why I came to see you; I thought you might have come to that misconception. I'm not trying to force you into anything. How could I trust your loyalty, if it had been achieved through duress?"

"Well, then, why have you imprisoned me here?"

"Simple prudence, and I'd prefer if you think of it as protective custody instead of imprisonment. At this point in time, I can't afford to have you wandering about the town, where you might encounter the Slayer or one of her associates. And I'm nervous about giving you the freedom of the complex until I have your decision, you might attempt to turn some of my followers against me."

"Buffy isn't even in town," Giles answered, shaking his head.

"No, as a point of fact, she's returned, while you've been enjoying my hospitality. Now, would you like to hear what will happen if you decide against accepting my proposal?" Giles nodded, curious.

"You will be fed well, and secured into a durable, light-protective crate, which will then be delivered by truck to LAX airport. You will then be handed over as air freight to be delivered to Gatwick airport, near London England. Come nightfall in England, you will be claimed by operatives of mine, trucked to a secure holding of mine in the English countryside, fed well again, and released to make your own existence, in England or wherever else you choose to travel."

Giles pondered this for a while. It seemed like a good alternative, and yet, the fact that Kaliya had offered it to him, strangely made him more interested in working with her. "Thank you," he said, bowing slightly to her. "I hope to have my decision for you in a day or so."

"That would be most appreciated, Giles." She curtsied, grinning, and left. Giles noticed absently how the heavy iron door was opened as soon as she began to turn towards it. How did the vamps outside the chamber know to do that, he wondered.

* * * *

Buffy walked through a park, one of the ones on her usual patrol route. She noticed a figure ahead of her in a dark coat.

"Giles!" she called, recognizing him. Giles turned around, and immediately assumed a jujitsu stance.

Okay, master mine, if you insist, Buffy thought. She quickly moved up to him and suddenly leapt into a jump kick.

Giles, still without so much as a nod of recognition at her, dodged slightly to the side, and tried to use her momentum to throw her into the ground, but Buffy foiled the counter and landed easily on her feet. She let out a kyokushinkai chop at him, which he parried, and settled down to serious sparring.

After about a minute, she caught him not guarding his legs and swept them out from under him. He landed badly, his head making serious contact with the earth, and she started to approach him to see if he was okay.

Suddenly, from behind her, where she hadn't noticed them, two tall figures appeared and grabbed Giles by the shoulders and ankles, holding him between them like an awkward piece of furniture and carrying him away. Although Buffy suddenly wanted to do something, to keep them from taking Giles away, or at least say something, she could do nothing but watch.

As they disappeared from sight, Buffy for some reason walked about the park, and paused to study her reflection in a fountain pool. She was dressed, (how had she not noticed it?) in only a long, loose, flowing white robe, not at all like her. She realized that she was wearing leather sandals that were also uncharacteristic of her taste.

Suddenly her reflection in the pool smiled, filling her with horror. For the face that grinned back at her was her own, except for one unmistakable characteristic; abnormally long canines.

With a start, Buffy awoke, checked her canine teeth and her nightclothes in the mirror, and returned to bed. She didn't sleep any more that night.

Act Three

"Hey, what's up?" Xander breathed, as he dashed into the Sunnydale High school library. "Cordelia couldn't make it; she says to go on without her," he informed Buffy, Willow, and Oz, who were sitting around the long table already.

"You told Cordelia?" Buffy asked faintly.

A slightly stricken look crossed Xander's face. "You said to tell the gang," he muttered as he sat down.

"Whatever," Buffy said, shrugging. "Thanks for coming, guys. I thought the library would be a good place for a war council, even without Giles here."

"Where is Giles??" Willow asked, looking around as if expecting the librarian to step out of his office any moment. "He's usually around here during the day, even since school let out."

"I haven't been able to find him anywhere, and I'm worried." Quickly, Buffy related the strange dream she had had the night before.

"Do you think this was, like, a spooky slayer-dream Buffy? D'you think this actually happened?" Xander asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think I want to check it out, okay?"

"Excuse me, wait a second," Oz interrupted. "Can I get this straight? Buffy, you think that you let some vampires kidnap Giles, but you didn't remember it until you dreamed it?"

"No." Buffy shook her head at Oz. "I didn't do it, but someone else might have, and I dreamed it with myself in the scene. That would explain why I was a vamp in the dream."

"Sure," Xander answered. "Anything we can do?"

"Maybe." Buffy turned to Willow. "Is there any way you can help find out where they might have taken him? It was in Weatherly park, that I'm sure of, and they took him off in a southwestern direction. Can you see if there's anything likely in that area?"

"Sure!" Willow answered, heading over to the library computer, closing the catalog program, and getting to work.

Willow worked for a while on the library desktop, then moved onto her laptop, letting Oz check out leads for her on the other computer. Xander and Buffy, knowing that they weren't of much help with this kind of work, chatted with each other while Buffy checked her supplies of stakes, crosses, and holy water for the raid she hoped was to come.

Later, Cordelia walked lazily into the library. "You guys still here?"

Buffy nodded. "It's gonna be an all-day hunt, Cordy. You don't have to stick around."

Cordy shrugged. "Oh, what the heck. I could do with a little foolish action." She sat firmly down next to Xander.

A few minutes later Willow snapped the laptop down and turned to Buffy. "Got it!"

"What's the sitch, Will?"

"There's an old building just a few blocks south and west of the park. It used to be a copying business or stationary store; I'm not sure. It closed down last winter. Two weeks, someone leased the building over the internet, getting permission to renovate it..."

"Cut to the chase, Will," Xander muttered, but Willow ignored him.

"The renovation involved sealing over all windows with metal panes, installing a barred security door, and building an access to the electrical tunnels. Client inspections were done only at night, and the renovations were finished two days ago."

Buffy stared at Willow intently. "Did you get all that on the internet?"

Willow blushed. "Not exactly. I got some of it from a few... sources." Noticing the curious looks from Xander, Buffy, and Cordelia she clarified, "They were Jenny's sources... friends she trusted to tell her about strange things in Sunnydale. After she died... they had been leaving very worried e-mails to her..." Willow broke off.

Buffy nodded. "Good enough for me. Let's go."

* * * *

They went first to the park, where Buffy verified that every detail of the scene from her dream was valid. There was also some evidence there that the events of the dream had actually taken place, or so Buffy said.

"Can't you see them? The footprints over here, where we fought, the trail of sideways footprints where they took him away?"

"What footprints, Buffy?" Xander asked. "I don't see anything."

"The grass isn't as healthy... they were putting too much weight on it. And there are still impressions in the ground... oh, never mind." Buffy shook her head and headed down the trail she claimed she could see. Xander shrugged and followed her, and the rest of the team followed.

Buffy left the park and led the way down two city blocks and over one. "Is this the building, Willow?" she asked, coming to a stop.

"Yes." The building was long and mostly low, with the windows sealed over with metal sheeting as Willow had described. Buffy nodded grimly, surveying the building, and headed down the side of the structure.

"Home sweet vampire home," Buffy commented. "I think we have our suspects."

"Are you really thinking we go into this place?" Xander asked. "It's a fortress!"

"No 'we', Xander." Buffy remarked shortly. "I'm going in alone."

"Not a chance..." Xander started.

"Come on, Xander, I can't argue about this. Don't go in after me, okay?" She came to a grated vent in the wall that looked quite large enough for her to crawl into. "Okay?" Xander nodded, and she pulled the grate off. Getting ready to enter, she added. "Willow, Oz, you stay here. Xander, Cordy, wait near the main entrance. That way, I'll have help ready whichever way I come out." Buffy dived into the vent and disappeared.

She crawled through the several different vents, and finally came to an opening into a room. She left the vent, trying to land on the floor eight feet below as quietly as possible, but the floor made a loud thump as she made contact with it.

Buffy turned around and looked at the room. It was small, four by three meters, probably originally an office. Small as it was, the room seemed quite spacious, with very little furnishings but a raised stone slat, perhaps eighty centimeters high. As Buffy watched, a humanoid figure sat up on the slat; a young girl-vampire with long, straight dark hair, dressed only in a black negligee. She looked at Buffy for a few seconds, and then shouted out "AU SECOURS! HEELP!" Sounds of movement came from far outside the door.

"Uh-oh," Buffy muttered.

Act Four

Buffy moved quickly, grabbing for the vampire's arm. Moving smoothly, with the discipline of aikido, the other drew it back so that it wasn't within Buffy's reach. Desperately, Buffy caught her opponent by the waist and threw her off the slat onto the ground. This time she succeeded, the vampire not expecting this kind of attack. Buffy fell upon the other girl's back, poking Kendra's stake right behind the heart and using her other hand to get the vamp's right arm locked behind her back. Quickly she forced the girl-vamp to her feet, just as the door opened and several vamps charged into the room.

"Freeze!" Buffy called. "One false step, and honey gets Mister Pointy right between the ribs. Do I make myself clear?" She could see from the expression on the vampires that she did... and that they, at least were not ready to take responsibility for letting her hostage perish. Is this the leader, Buffy wondered? If not, the leader would be the one to weigh the life of the hostage against the value of capturing a slayer. Buffy hoped that whoever she held captive, the girl was more important than she was.

"Back away through the door, nice and easy... that's good." They did, and Buffy followed them through the door, keeping her hostage before her with the armlock. Outside the room was a large floor area, dimly lit with incandescent bulbs, since no sunlight came in. Besides the three guards who had come to help little Miss Paris, there were two more brethren around, and one very different figure. She was on the tall side, with white-golden hair, and a firm and toned figure, covered only by a loose, thin white robe...

"You! You're the one who kidnapped Giles!"

"Miss Buffy Summers I presume?" The blonde vamp smiled. "I'm Queen Kaliya, and I'm going to kill you."

Buffy's heart sank. "Then I guess I should slay this little girl here, so we can get to it."

Kaliya smiled. "Not necessarily. I'm sure that I'll have other opportunities to take you out, and I'm quite ready at this point to negotiate your freedom... this time, in exchange for Michelle's safety."

Buffy considered. Whether this vampire headwoman was really motivated by concern over her underling or whether she didn't feel ready to fight it out with Buffy yet, Buffy suddenly had leverage. She might as well see how much.

"I came here for Giles. I don't plan on leaving without him."

Kaliya considered for a moment, and then suddenly broke into a wide grin. "Hsartac!" she called to one of her flunkies. "Fetch Mister Giles and bring him in here."

The flunky left down a corridor and, in about a minute, his footsteps started back, along with those of another. Neither Buffy, Kaliya, or Michelle moved a muscle as they waited, holding the strange tableau absolutely still.

Hsartac came back into view, holding Giles before him, holding both of the Watcher's arms behind him.

"Well, Giles, it seems that you have a new option. Buffy has come for you."

Giles spotted Buffy, who turned herself and Michelle to look at him. Reflexively, Giles smiled. Instantly, Buffy noticed his vampire fangs; she helplessly recoiled in horror, and Giles' happiness turned swiftly to dismay.

"Buffy has come to take you back. Do you want to go with her?" Kaliya continued, still grinning. She had figured out exactly how this reunion would go, Buffy realized.

"No." Giles answered flatly.

Realizing her mistake, Buffy quickly backtracked in an attempt to change Giles' mind. "No, Giles! I could never slay you! Come on! We can leave by the tunnel access. We'll get you set up with blood, like Angel. Just don't work with her!"

Giles shook his head. "And you'd try to find a way to curse me? To turn me into a broody loser like Angel? To..." he broke off, for a few seconds, as if surprised by what had entered his head. "To bring HIM back?" he gestured at his own clothes. 'The Librarian, the Watcher? No thanks." he muttered, shaking his head.

"That settles that matter, I'm afraid, Buffy." Kaliya interjected. "Giles is under MY protection now, and I won't let anyone take him out of this complex without his permission. Which leaves my earlier offer of your freedom for Michelle's still on the table."

Buffy shook her head, stunned by the enormity of what had just transpired. "Okay. How do you propose we do that?"

"Well, there are two ways I can see... through the tunnels, or out the main door."

Buffy considered. "The tunnels are out. You could have set an ambush anywhere down there."

"Very well, so you want to walk out the front door. You aren't ready to let Michelle go until you're free, and I don't want to give you a chance to kill her, either by stake or sunlight, and escape anyway."

"Bit of a pickle, isn't it?" Buffy muttered sarcastically.

"Hardly. You simply need to give me your word that you will release her, unharmed, before you reach the sunlight." Kaliya made a gesture, and the main door slowly creaked open, letting in some ambient daylight that made all the vamps cringe.

"That's it? You'd trust my word?"

Kaliya nodded. "Honor is a part of a slayer's training... Michelle has shown me that. You won't break your word of honor, not even to a vampire crimelord."

Buffy breathed hard. "I promise you, I will release her unharmed before I leave this place, unless I am attacked on the way to the door."

"Very well."

Buffy backed up towards the door, and just as Michelle was starting to writhe in pain, she shoved her away and dashed for the door. As she ran out into the bright sunlight, the door slammed.

"Buffy?" Xander was at her side in an instant. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Buffy managed to croak out. Tears were starting to flow from her eyes, grief for the brave man she learned had died.

"Oh, man. Giles?"

"I found out what happened to him." Buffy said shortly, getting control of herself. "Let's go. WILL!" she called that last down the street to where she had entered.

"Yeah, Buffy?" Willow said as she and Oz caught up to the other three.

"Do you know where Giles kept Mister Zebuto's number? Kendra's watcher? We need to call him."

* * * *

About a week later, Buffy and Willow headed into the library after the computer basics course Willow taught for Summer school. They often did that, just moseying into the library, expecting Giles to appear from the stacks or his library with a new 'fascinating' occult reference to bore or shock them with. No one was willing to admit this, though, so once they were in the library, without Giles, they always pretended that the purpose of the trip was looking something up on the computer, or sitting to think or do homework at the war-council table.

After Willow had gotten her 'excuse book,' as she and Buffy were turning to go, someone else entered the library. He was a tall, athletic-looking Asian man, apparently in his late thirties, and dressed in a moderately casual blue suit.

"I am looking for Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers," he stated to them, speaking in a voice that was precise and easy to understand, and yet carrying a distinct trace of oriental accent with it.

"Well, you've found them," Buffy replied. "She's Willow, I'm Buffy."

"Akira Tojo, the new Sociology teacher." He shook Willow's hand, and then offered it to Buffy. Buffy reached out... and lifted the hand up so that she could see it better. On the index figure of Mister Tojo's right hand was a very distinctive ring, silver, set with a large, flat dark stone. Upon the dark, circular background was laid a silver latin cross, with tiny sapphires set at the points of the cross. "Giles had a ring like that," Buffy mouthed silently.

She looked up at Akira Tojo's face, and he was looking intently at her, and smiling. "Are you..." she began to ask, intensely. Shaking her head, she continued in an attempt at a more conversational tone, "the new Watcher?"

Mister Tojo nodded gravely, but he was still smiling.

Willow looked from Tojo to Buffy and back, and then attempted a sentence. "We thought that Mister Zebuto..." She trailed off uncertainly.

"I received this letter from him," Tojo answered. He drew a folded piece of paper out of the leather flexi-case in his left hand, and started to read:

"Dear Mister Tojo,

"It is with a heavy heart that I summon you into active duty as Watcher. Word has just reached me that Rupert Giles, one of the greatest of our calling in recent times, has been taken by the vampire. Of all our number currently trained and fully ready, I am sure that you are the best choice to carry on Giles' duties in the United States.

"First amongst your charges will be to carry on the training and education of the Slayer Buffy Summers. She is already accomplished in her skills, having found her way to victory against countless threats. But you must not allow her to grow complacent; her greatest challenges are yet to come. Queen Kaliya, she who has taken Giles into the enemy camp, is a greater enemy than any the Slayer has yet faced; and in the time to come I foresee an even greater peril.

"One other charge I give you is beginning the training of Willow Rosenberg, one of Buffy's close friends, to take up the destiny of becoming a Watcher. Rupert Giles
was of the opinion that she was a likely candidate, and Kendra expressed her approval of that nomination after she first met the young lady.

"News reaches me from the Mediterranean and Franco Belone... he is satisfied that Marea is indeed a new slayer, called when Kendra died, and he has begun her
training in Rome. For myself, I am satisfied that no contention has arisen in Jamaica, and this long after Kendra's death, none will. I shall thus leave the Caribbean and travel to Africa, surveying that land for supernatural activity, since no Watcher has been there for the past twenty years, except for one escapade of Martin Crail and Shanna Jones in Egypt. Samuel Zebuto."

Buffy shared a surprised glance with Willow, and then turned to Mister Tojo. "Cool."