SquidgeWorld Archive

Chapter Text

Section one: Newcomers

"Okay, is anyone else intimidated here?"
We were all in the student lounge, and the conversation had drifted to Willow's university early admission packets, which included, it seemed, some of the most impressive universities on the planet. That's my Will.

"Not really," Cordelia volunteered. "I mean, I didn't apply for the early admission too much, being lying in the hospital from having a rebar stuck through me, but I'm not too worried. And I've already got a few safety schools in my pocket... USC, UC Sunnydale..."

"Good for you," I said with just a touch of snideness, and then regretted it. Cordelia and I were trying to turn over a new leaf after all, and not fight and snipe so much. We've been back together, in theory, for almost a week now, but the big night is tomorrow night - the first real date in "Xander and Cordelia, version '99," the first time we're spending all evening together since the reconciliation. I'm a little nervous, but confident. We've had a few lunches together as practice runs.

Now... where was I? Oh, yeah. "I'm just expecting little slips of paper with 'No way' printed on them," I grumped.

"Well, the spring S.A.T's are coming up, Xander," Buffy pointed out. "Much as I hate to even suggest this fate to anyone, you could take them again... improve your score."

"Hmm..." I considered that.

"You know..." Cordy decided reluctantly, "she's right, Xander. I mean, you've gotta get into college somewhere. If god had meant for the youth of America to be entering the wide world of work at eighteen, he would never have created college parties!" The uncertainty must have shown on her face, because Cordelia put on her best persuasive expression, (which is pretty persuasive, let me tell you.) "Come on. I can coach you - remember, 1400 score..."

Whoa! Bad memory there. It was just when the S.A.T. scores had come back last fall that things finally hit the fan for good between Cordelia and I last time. I had been complaining at my scores, had joked that Cordelia was suddenly a brain and she had better hide it from her cool friends. Cordelia had teased back that she had experience with keeping things secret. We had planned a celebratory double date with Willow and Oz, which kinda never happened because Spike kidnapped Willow and I. Cordelia and Oz rescued us and found us kissing. Bam - goodbye relationship.

"Umm... maybe," I mumbled, returning to the conversation. It shouldn't really hurt to remember, should it? I mean, I was the offending party, and I'd been forgiven. So why was I still sore about it?

Because of the hurt and betrayed look on Cordelia's face in that moment.

"Uh, but... even if I improve my scores to the point where a school will take me, what about the money? You know what things are like for my parents." Four boys in the Harris family, and neither of my parents currently has what you would call a steady job. When you do the math, it looks pretty nasty.

"So?" Oz pointed out. "They have these wacky things called student loans. And financial need grants. And work-study programs. Maybe you won't be getting into Harvard..."

"...But we knew that anyway," Cordelia put in.

"...But anyone who's willing to work a little and run up some debt can swing state school these days," Oz finished, shooting a slightly dark look at Cordelia.

"Hmm..." I thought about that. "Well, maybe. Where were you thinking of going, Cordelia?"

Cordy jumped a little awkwardly. "Um, well, actually..." Long pause. "No offense to anybody, but I was kinda hoping to get well clear of the Hellmouth, you know. New York, Chicago, Florida. Somewhere like that... which I know might be hard on you to follow, Xander." She sighed. "Well, do you want us to be co-ordinating plans to go to the same college?"

I blinked, caught completely off guard by that suggestion. "I... I, um..."

Luckily, I was saved from comeplete gibberness by an outside intervention. A girl... a pretty, no, make that a gorgeous blonde girl passed by our table, carefully dropped a tiny little piece of card down in front of Buffy, and then walked away. She hadn't looked directly at any of us during the whole operation!

Buffy picked up the dropped card. It was made of that slightly stiff beige stuff, two inches high by three and a half wide. "What does it say, Buff?" Willow whispered.

"'Buffy Summers?' with a question mark," Buffy read. "Oh, and there's writing on the other side. 'Join me.'" Buffy craned her neck to take a look around the lounge. The blonde was sitting by herself in an empty section, reading some kind of magazine. It all looked so very normal, as if she was trying to be unnoticeable. What was going on?

"It might be a trap, Buffy," I whispered. "She could be a... a sorceress or something."

Buffy considered, then nodded. "I'll go - but not alone. Willow, Xander?" She froze, kind of remembering the awkwardness of that particular pairing, especially in the opinions of Oz and Cordelia. "I mean, if that's okay..."

"Sure," Oz said with a trusting smile. Cordelia nodded grudging assent, and the three of us headed off, taking two of our own chairs since there was only one near the blonde girl. I set my chair to the right of her, Buffy put the chair she was carrying down to the left, gestured Willow to sit in it, and took the spot opposite blondie.

"So," the Slayer began somewhat coldly. "What's this about?"

The blonde girl sighed good-naturedly and held her hand out towards Buffy over the table. "It's nice to meet you, Buffy. I'm Janelle Lindley and, so help me, I'm your new Council-appointed Watcher."

The three of us couldn't have been any more surprised if she had turned into a smurf. Come to think of it, that wouldn't have been really unusual by Hellmouth standards. Still, you know what I mean. Any one of us could probably have been knocked down by a feather at that point.

The only real idea I had of what a watcher was like was, rather obviously, based on Giles. Kinda old, very stuffy and formal, if with a good, kind heart underneath. This girl couldn't have been any older than twenty-one or so. As I said before, she was gorgeous, with wavy golden hair that fell down to just below her shoulders, piercing gray-green eyes, and a great figure. She was wearing a quite stylish forest green skirt and an off-white blouse, (at least stylish as far as I could tell... one thing that dating Cordelia taught me is that the ins and outs of women's fashion will forever elude me.)

She had spoken to us with a friendly and informal tone. As far as I could tell, the only similarity between this Janelle girl and Giles was the English accent, (and even that sounded different on Janelle. More attractive somehow.)

I couldn't tell if what had been going through Buffy's mind mirrored my own thoughts at all, but when I looked up, she was frowning just a bit. "New watcher, huh?"

Janelle grimaced cutely. "Yes, and I'd like to make a few things clear for the record. In my opinion, the Cruciamentum is a sham and Rupert Giles should never have been fired. The only reason that I'm here to replace him is because Quentin Travers thinks that I'll be able to win back your trust to the Council, and he believes that because I'm young, inexperienced, and female, I'll be easier for the Council to control."

Buffy pursed her lips narrowly in consideration of this. "And will you be?"

"Hah!" The sound was the explosion of a single laugh. "If given the slightest opportunity, I mean to be twice as much trouble to Travers as Rupert Giles ever was."

Buffy nodded with some slight measure of satisfaction. Janelle smiled, and turned her attention briefly to Willow and I. "Two of the 'Slayerettes,' I presume?"

I nodded in surprise. Willow blinked and blurted out, "How do you..."

"Word gets around the Watcher circles. I'm afraid I didn't have time to learn your names, but I've definitely heard of the Slayerettes - friends of Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles, helping to battle demons and monsters."

"Oh," I tried to say as suavely as I could. "Xander Harris. Pleased to make your meet you." Wait a second, that wasn't right...

"Delighted to meet your acquaintance," Janelle shot back with a smile.

"Hi, uh, uh..." Willow nudged her head a little as if to jar her brain out of a stuck spot. "Willow. Willow Rosenberg. Um, hi."

"Hi, Willow," Janelle repeated, and fished a notepad and pen out of a small backpack that had been sitting beside her chair. "Now," and she looked around to make sure that no-one else was close enough to be listening, "you should probably bring me up to date on anything strange or out of the ordinary that's been happening on the Hellmouth lately."

"Hmm..." Buffy considered that. "Pretty quiet since we stopped the sisters of Jhe from bringing the apocalypse last week. Um... oh, yeah. There were some vamps nosing around the graveyard. Weird leather costumes. I don't think they were freshly risen. Faith and I each staked one, and then we rooted out a third, who used these weird swords. Faith distracted him, letting me get the stake in. I've got the swords in my locker, if you wanna take a look at them..." Buffy frowned a little at that point.

"Hmm... that'd probably be a good idea," Janelle agreed. "Nice to meet you, Xander, Willow." She finished making her notes and led the way out of the lounge, and Buffy followed.

In just a few seconds Cordelia and Oz had come over and taken the seats Janelle and Buffy had vacated. "What was all that about?" Oz asked Willow.

"Jerk!" Cordelia proclaimed at me, swatting me ringingly across the face.

"Hey," I protested. "What was that for?"

"Do you think I couldn't tell how you were looking at her?" Cordelia said. Uh-oh.

*********

Cordelia and I drifted into the library after the last of afternoon classes. Over the course of the afternoon, I had half succeeded in convincing her that there hadn't been anything suspicious going on between me and Janelle. The trouble was, I could only half convince myself. She was gorgeous, a total babe, (which still seemed to violate the fact that she was a watcher,) and there had been a kind of a natural affinity when we met this morning.
Still, this was Cordelia. I loved her, or thought I did, and had just committed myself to an awful lot to get her to take me back. I couldn't just go chasing off to the next pretty girl I met...

Janelle and Buffy were in the library, of course. Cordelia shot me an unimpressed look.

"I couldn't find out anything about the swords in my own reference books," Janelle was saying, "but I talked to M- um, to Faith's watcher, and she just called me back to say that she knows who we're up against. Faith and Miranda are on their way over."

"Miranda," I said out loud. "Council's sending in the girls, is it??" Oh, great. Nice thing to point out in front of Cordy.

"I think he wants to know if Miranda is as pretty as you," Cordelia announced scathingly.

"Hmmm." Janelle seemed to be mulling that over. "Kind of older, but really, the two of us look a lot alike." She left it that for a second, then let out a confessional sigh. "She's my mother."

"Oh boy," Buffy said, chuckling. "And I thought my mom was getting too close to the Slaying thing. Any idea why they assigned you as a mother-daughter team?"

"Ooh, hey," I commented. "Like the Judds." Unimpressed stares from Buffy and Cordelia. "Shutting up now."

Janelle never really got Buffy's question answered, because someone else came through the doors - Giles. Where he had been, I wasn't sure, since he didn't often leave the library until late at night. Maybe running errands around the school, called in for a meeting with Snyder or something...

He took one look at Janelle and went into ana-bolectic shock or something. Like he had seen a ghost, except not exactly, becuase seeing ghosts is same old same old for all of us now. He was totally wiggins, anyway.

And then he caught himself, and smiled pleasantly. "Pardon me, but for a second you reminded me of someone I knew. What brings you to the library, miss..."

"Lindley," Janelle said, pronouncing the name very distinctly, as if worried that he would find some fault with it and refusing to give him a chance to doubt it. "Janelle Lindley. I'm, um, I'm Buffy's new Watcher."

Shock-ville again. Not just that she was the new watcher... we were all expecting one, after all. It was something about Janelle, maybe the fact that she was so young, maybe something else... I couldn't tell.

"I see," he said, finally. Stiffly. "Well, I'm sure that the two of you have a lot to go over. I'll leave you alone." Before anyone could react, he turned and left again, and though he had to hear Janelle's protests that she wanted to talk to him too, he didn't so much as look back. It occured to me only after he left that Giles hadn't betrayed any sign of even noticing Cordelia or myself.

"Well, that didn't go so well," Janelle said with a frown. "But it's probably just as well if he's not here when Mom arrives today. By the way, we really need to set up some place other than the school Library as base camp. It's quite an intrusion on Mister Giles' territory. Mom and I, we've gotten an apartment, not far from the school, convenient to the cemetary and all."

"Hmm..." Buffy considered that, seeming torn for an instant between her devotion to Giles and the liking she had taken so quickly to Janelle. I knew how she felt. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"Okay, well, why don't you show me some moves, while we wait for Mom and Faith to show up," Janelle suggested. "I, um - well..." A blush crept up her lovely face. "If we're not gonna have another chance, I'm gonna browse Mister Giles' library a bit. See what books I'm gonna have to pick up for myself."

"Okay," Buffy said, and started running through some sort of karate moves or something while Janelle poked around among the books, looking over at her new charge every now and then.

"Is it any good?" I spoke up again. "The library collection, that is. Miss... Post? - she wasn't very impressed, as I remember."

"Gwendolyn Post was an insufferable bitch even before she became an evil rogue watcher," Janelle declared. "Rupert Giles' occult archive is well known for being first rate. Well, or maybe a very good second rate, depending on who you talk to. He's made a few unorthodox book choices, and seems to be still missing a few of the old standbys, but they're hard to find outside of Europe. Probably still on order. And he's got books here than I've never even seen, only heard of."

"Sounds impressive," another woman said, entering the library. Faith was trailing her with a typically sour expression on her face, so I presumed that this was Janelle's mother, Miranda.

She looked the part too - a still-beautiful fortyish woman, with bright blue eyes, shoulder length blonde hair just starting to get its first tinges of silver, and a mature, handsome figure.

Her eyes, though, seemed to speak of pain and sorrow. For a moment, at any rate. And then, the sadness was gone, and she seemed all business.

"Hello, Mrs. Lindley," Buffy said with a smile. "Janelle says you have information on our vampires?"

Miranda seemed a little surprised by the way Buffy had addressed her, but after a single look at Janelle, she shrugged it off. "Yes. It took me all day to root it out, but I have it now. The swords are trademark of a deadly cult of vampire duelists, called 'El Eliminati.' Reached their peak in the fifteenth century - places like France, Spain, and Portugal. By 1779 vampire hunting and pointless duels had taken their toll, and the numbers of El Eliminati had dwindled. A demon..."

"A demon named Balthazar!" Janelle interrupted suddenly. "I remember the story now. Balthazar recruited the El Eliminati as his flunkys."

"Essentially correct," Miranda said, nodding with pride. "Servants and acolytes, more properly. Balthazar took them to the new world - to this very area, actually. The vicinity of the Hellmouth."

"So, why haven't I ever seen one of these sword toting vampires before?" Buffy asked with a smile.

"They were driven out a hudred years ago," Janelle said. "Balthazar was supposedly killed. But for some reason, it seems his followers have come back."

"Possibly for the Taugrammacon," Miranda suggested. "An amulet worn by Balthazar, which gave him great strength. It was taken in the battle with Balthazar, and given to a local landowner. Nobody else could figure out how to use it, but maybe the Eliminati have found a way. Or perhaps Balthazar never truly died. It can be tricky to be sure, with beings of demonic origin."

"Yeah," Faith spoke up. "So, we do the snatch and grab? Nab the amulet before the vampires can?"

"If they haven't already," Janelle agreed.

"The amulet was buried with the landowner who was given it," Miranda said, also smiling in agreement. "Named Gleaves. In a crypt in the old town cemetary."

"The one that says 'Gleaves family crypt,'" Buffy pointed out with a teasing smile. "Got it."

"Okay," Janelle agreed. "Um... when can you get there?"

"Well, I need to be back home in fifteen," Buffy pointed out. "Specially designated mom time. Slaying is pencilled in for after dinner."

"Plus," Faith observed aloud, "that crypt is really pretty musty. We'll need to get some gear, especially if more swordsmen vamps are sniffing around."

"It'll be dark by then," Miranda noticed disapprovingly.

"Still, the way it's gotta be," Buffy said.

"Okay," Janelle sighed. "Well, as Faith said, you'd better take precautions - arm yourselves, go together. Do you want either of us there, or are you more comfortable working without watchers on the scene??"

"Um, that depends," Faith decided. "For this kinda thing, yeah, stay in, have a family bonding session. We'll get the magic charm." She grinned in anticipation of the mission.

As the girls were getting ready for their mission, I asked Cordelia if she'd like to take a walk with me that evening. "You know, just kinda hanging out in a non-threatening environment, getting ready for the big date tomorrow night. What d'ya say?"

Cordelia turned that over in her mind once or twice. "Yeah, okay. A walk."

So, as twilight fell, Cordy Chase and I were wandering around Hammersmith park, wondering what to say. "You know, I'm really glad that we're doing this," I told her. "Not just the walk, but... you know. The whole you and me thing. I know that it took a lot of faith for you to trust me right now, and... um, well..."

"Is this the part where you say that you're not gonna let me down?" Cordelia asked out loud. "'Cause it kinda looked like you were possibly heading into the arms... and lips, of another girl today. Already."

"What, Janelle? C'mon, Cordy." I broke out my best sweet-talking voice. "She's nice, and she seems like a fun person, and she's going to be around Buffy a lot now, so if I can be friends with her, I'd like to. But she's not the girl I love."

Cordelia's eyebrows raised at that. "Am I?? Do you love me??"

I had to think about that for a second. "I do, but that isn't really what I meant to say. After all, I love Buffy, and I love Willow - strictly in a bestest-buds kind of way, of course," I hastened to clarify. "And I love you too. Big sweeping romantic love? I'm not sure, but what I have with you is the closest I've ever come to it. That much, I can tell you."

Cordy thought about that. "What would you say if I asked you to not hang out with Janelle that much?"

"I'd say..." A second's pause while I thought. "...that 'that is *so* Emily Waltham.'"

"Who??"

"From Friends. Ross' british wife who wouldn't let him even be in the same room with Rachel." Cordelia seemed unimpressed by my pop-culture reference, so I continued on. "I know that you're worried about me going off and having another fluke, but we can't start dictating who each others' friends can be. That's a path of badness. All that we can do is trust each other."

"I'm..." Cordelia began. She never finished whatever that statement was going to be, though. All of a sudden, a bunch of screaming people were running into the park. Buffy and Faith were at the head of the column, followed by eight vampires wearing leather armor and carrying big swords!! (And small swords too, really nasty looking sharp ones.)

Buffy caught sight of me, put on an extra burst of speed, and brushed past me. "Xander, Cordy! Run!!" She pointed to the old path between the houses on the far side of the park, and dashed away in a different direction herself.

Cordelia was looking at Buffy disbelievingly. "You heard her!" I yelled. "Go!!"

And we sprinted for the path as quickly as we could, not daring to even look back at the vampires behind us.

*********

I didn't dare look back behind us until we were three quarters of the way to Riveigh street. "Well?" Cordy called out between puffs.
There's good news and bad news, I thought, but didn't say it out loud because it would be a waste of perfectly good air for running with. The good news is that only one of the eight vampires is following us - the other seven or however many must still be chasing Buffy and Faith. The bad news?? "He's gaining on us!!" I gasped out loud, hoping that a smart girl like Cordy could fill in the blanks.

It looks like she did. She took a quick glance over her shoulder to confirm my reactions - we had a fair margin of safety, but Vampy boy behind us was eating into it with every pace he took. Soon, we wouldn't be able to stay out of his reach.

Which meant that... but Cordy was already one step ahead of me, scanning the area for weapons. "Here!!" she cried out, stepping smartly sideways to snatch up a garden rake next to one of the houses we were passing. As I turned around in sudden understanding, she passed the rake into my hands, point towards the charging vampire. "Stake him!!" Cordy ordered.

"What, me??" I spluttered. "Why don't you do it??"

"Excuse me, but you're the Slayerette here, not I," Cordy informed me. "I may help out sometimes, but killing vampires is NOT in my..."

But exactly what vampire slayage was not in of Cordelia's would have to wait, because the vampire had almost arrived. Now, I may not be an expert vampire-killer, (I've done it once or twice, mostly lucky and desperate stakings,) but I've hung around Buffy enough to know what NOT to do.

Rule number one is to be sure of your weapon. For a staking it has to be wooden, slender, fairly long, (Buffy's done it with those little chopstick hairpins, I know, but in general longer is better,) and come to a sharp leading point.

This rake only fufilled three of those requirements. Wooden, yes, (at least the handle was, which was what counted.) Five feet long, only and inch and a half thick, but it wasn't pointed. The end was rounded off into a solid butt. It wouldn't penetrate the vampire's skin, never mind pierce his heart, and from what Buffy's said, the impact if I hit the vampire with it end-first would probably be harsh enough that I'd drop the darn thing altogether.

Panicking slightly, I did the only thing that came to mind. I swung the rake a little to one side and, as the vampire came into range, I clubbed him on the side of the head with the damn thing.

Whap! Off he goes, stumbling to the side. Having bought myself a few seconds, I try to break off the tip of the rake to create a point. Nothing - the damn thing might as well be steel for all the effort I can exert on it. I try whipping it at the side of the house, hoping that that might break it, but no good there either.

Meanwhile, vamp-boy is climbing to his feet again, and unsheathing one of those nasty, sharp, little swords I mentioned earlier. And suddenly, inspiration struck, so brilliantly that I wasn't even scared of what that sword might do if it made its way in among my vital organs.

I just swung the rake - right at the sword. Vamp-sucker actually laughed and swung back a little, as if he thought I'd been aiming for him again and missed. With a stinging retort, contact was made, and the sword bit into my makeshift staff. The tip didn't come off completely, which was what I had been hoping for, but oh well. I yanked at the pole handle, and vamp-boy, connected to the pole via his sword, lost his balance again. I managed to unhook our weapons from each other and swung the tip of the pole at the brick wall again.

CRACCK! With a very satisfying sound, an angular fragment of wood flew off, leaving me with a neatly jagged point. It took me three tries to get it in at the right spot, but the whoosh as Sucker disintegrated made it all worth it.

Cordelia came at me from the side, clinging to me like I'm her knight in shining armor, which is kinda nice in a stifling way. "You were so... wow! I don't think I've ever seen you like that before," she muttered.

"Well, I couldn't have done it without you, finding a weapon for me," I graciously allowed. We stood there for a moment, the situation getting more and more awkward.

"Umm... what do we do now?" Cordy asked, breaking the uncertain silence.

"Uh, meet up with Buffy and Faith at..." I almost said 'the library.' "...Base camp, make sure that they're okay?" I ventured. Cordy nodded uncertainly. "I guess that base camp is the Lindley place now."

Cordy frowned a bit at the indirect reference to Janelle, but didn't raise any objections out loud. To tell the truth, she was still looking at me with just a trace of an admiring smile, which kinda creeped me out. That's just something that our relationship has never had, Cordy being proud of me for something. I know it should be a good thing, but on some level I just can't accept it.

We strolled quickly across town to the apartment building corresponding with the address that I had heard Janelle mention to Buffy. It was a fairly elegant and modern highrise in an affluent part of town, and there was a buzzer security system at the front door. I checked my memory one more time, and then pressed the button for 308.

A few seconds passed, very slowly. "Hello, who is this?"

The voice sounded like Miranda, though I'd noticed that she and Janelle sounded quite a lot alike when they talked, and of course it was well within the possibility that I had the wrong apartment altogether. "Um, it's Xander?" A pause - I hadn't actually been introduced to Miranda, had I?? "Wuh- one of Buffy's friends."

The woman on the other end paused for a second too. "Oh! Are you - is there some sort of trouble?"

"Um... not really, I hope not anyways. Can we come up, though?"

"Oh, of course." The door unlocked, and Cordelia and I headed over to the elevator, up to the third floor, and found 308.

"Hi there, Xander," Janelle said, smiling warmly when she opened the door. She was looking much less 'chic' than today at school, wearing a light purple t-shirt, blue jeans, and comfy slippers, but still looked amazing. Cordelia glared, but Janelle didn't even notice. "Can I take your coats??"

We handed off our jackets, joined Miranda for some hot chocolate at the dining room table, and quickly told the two Lindley watchers about the encounter in the park. "Generally, whenever we've been in a situation like this in the past, getting split up," I commented, "the thing to do has been to go back to the library - base camp. But now, since you said this afternoon that your place would be base camp instead... well, here we are."

"Sounds like very smart thinking," Janelle agreed.

"We should call over to the library, to see if they went over there out of habit," Miranda mentioned, in a wise, motherly way. "Also the Summers house and Faith's motel room." She looked over at me. "Barring any of that... would you say that they're in any serious danger? Mounting a search party would seem to be to be a wise move."

"I dunno," I said, torn. "Buffy and Faith have taken on more vampires than that, I'm sure, but these guys looked hard-core. And there's no sense in taking chances, I suppose."

"Let's worry about first things first," Janelle suggested. "I'll call around, see if we can find them without having to arm up and comb the streets."

Neither Giles nor Joyce had seen Buffy or Faith since seven-thirty, and there was no answer at Faith's place. However, just as Janelle had finished making those calls, there was another buzz on the intercom. "Slayers 'r' us," Faith's unmistakaeable voice came back when Cordy went over to the intercom and asked who it was. Within a few minutes, they were up in the apartment too.

"Yeah, the amulet was in the crypt all right, just like you said it was," Buffy said. "The Eliminati spotted us as we were leaving the crypt with it. Odds looked nasty, so we legged it. Bumped into Xander and Cordelia in the park, staked one or two of the vamps and lost the rest of them up around Lookout point. No problemo."

"Perhaps," Miranda said, "but one important question remains. Where, exactly, is the amulet now??"

Buffy looked around with confusion. "You mean you guys don't have it??" She turned to be with a wild and frightened look on her face. "Xander - your jacket, what happened to it?? One of the vamps didn't get it, did they? I stuck the amulet in your pocket - just in case, you know."

Janelle laughed light-heartedly. "Then it's right here in our closet, Buffy." She crossed over to the wardrobe, rooted into my pockets, (well, the pockets of my jacket that was hanging up in there,) and came up with a solid-looking sculpture of cast pewter or something metallic, hanging on a strong, thick black string. "Voila."

"Good," Faith said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I did not run away from vampires for the first time in my Slaying career just to have them get what they were after anyways."

"There are probably some tests to make sure that it's the real Dodecagrammacon," Miranda pointed out, "and not some unrelated jewel. But you girls did very well indeed - and the two of you as well, Xander, Cordelia. You're none of you injured, I hope?"

Three of us shook our heads. "Banged up wrist," Buffy admitted. "Better by morning. Thanks for the concern, though."

"Well, I guess that's everything for tonight, then," Janelle said with a bright smile. "Buffy, I know your mom's probably worrying about you. Would it be possible to meet here tomorrow morning, a bit before school starts??"

"Fine with me," Buffy decided. "I... Oh, no!!" She broke off, a horrified look on her face.

"What is it, B?" Faith asked, looking nervous herself.

"I was supposed to be studying for the chemistry test with Willow tonight," Buffy moaned. "She's gonna be pissed."

END