When he walked onto the balcony, the sky had lightened to a milky-white drape beyond the rooftops, whose dark, irregular slopes reminded him of Prague, though they never had before. The balcony itself, he noticed, was carved from heavy stone and guarded on either side by elaborate gargoyles, leering heads and tongues outstretched to lick at the air.

His head turned right and through the balcony railings he noticed the cobblestones of the street below, broad and ancient, striped down the middle with a reflective rain puddle that captured the sky. The sky was everywhere, an overcast glory of pale grey, no individual clouds breaking its surface. He lifted his tea cup and was surprised to find it held tea. A white drape lifted in the breeze to wrap itself around his leg, then flounced back against the open French doors.

For a moment he'd mistaken it for a dog.

Spike turned, and his reflection smiled unpleasantly and said, "William." He looked out of place there in the doorway, an anachronism in a Nazi uniform against the shadowed, Victorian interior of his townhouse. Which should be in London, but this was Prague. Or...Sunnydale?

He was sleek in black and carried a sidearm, but it was just a mirror, he realized, and turned away. He lifted his tea-cup again and discovered that the white china now held an oblong of blood, its surface rippling. He set it carefully on the balcony rail and watched it settle until a bird winged past, and as his eyes lifted to trace its flight he saw the woman across the way, standing on the balcony of her own building, curtains blowing behind her through open doors. She wore UC Sunnydale sweats and her hair was lank, face drained of color. Drained to a living death. Her arms hung heavily by her sides as she stared. Spike took an instinctive step back, prickling with dread at her motionless, watchful form. But retreating, he felt behind his shoulder blades her perfectly replicated presence, a mass of cold air and pressure that arrested his movement. If he'd needed to breathe he would have choked.

The gun was heavy and strange in his hand as he lifted it to shoot her. She was human--could anyone truly call him that now?--but the chip didn't fire. The gun didn't either. When he pulled the trigger, it blossomed silently into a flag which said, Bang! Oh, classic, he thought, despite his stark raving terror. And then the woman embraced him from behind, sliding a hand between his legs, whispering in his ear.

You killed me for nothing.

He could feel her other hand inside him, rooting around his rib cage, searching for his heart.

Less than a snack. Tart on a tea-tray, sir. Killed me for a fancy uniform.

He looked into the long mirror at himself, watching the blood spread on his shirt-front. He could see the wind blowing behind him, waves chopping the water as the day darkened and blustered. Tower Bridge in the distance, a bell tolling. His first, fledgling kill peeped over his shoulder with a smile for him, brown-curled and bright-eyed, with kitchen smuts on her face. She was his last kill, too, flickering into a school spirit.

He wore glasses, and his hair was curled. He was dressed for the opera and looked scared. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Colonel Liyoge leaning against the railing, writing in a black notebook. He was inscribing Spike's proper name, which would bind him.

"I didn't kill you," Spike said primly to the dead girl. "They killed you. I just watched."

And you drank.

"Not in bloody AA, am I," he shot back, voice harder.

Dru curled around the other side of him, her vampire reflection smiling at him in the mirror. "Remember how this feels, my shining man?" She pulled his neck back and sank her fangs in, and he cried out as a flock of dark birds shattered the sky, as they became white against black, inverting like a photo-negative or an Escher painting, and Paris spiraled around him, the lights quilting the streets as he dizzily fell to his knees. He couldn't unfasten her; he was dying in the cold and sharp air of the balcony, winter on the brink of snow.

"There's my bright knight," Dru crooned, leaning over him, her hair a dark curtain, fangs a red smile. "No more ghosts and shadows to bother you." Her fingers trailed something wet across his cheek.

"Won't be a tin soldier," he whispered. He turned his head past her pooling skirts to stare at the city lights, which blurred as he lay dying. "You can't mend the toys you break. I'm not going to come back."

"You'll come home when the stars go blue, when the moon eats your head." He forced his greying gaze back to her and saw Buffy leaning over him, hair lank, face white, her bloodied UC Sunnydale sweats hanging off her thin form. "You'll come to this," she promised in a dull, empty voice.

"No," he croaked through his torn throat, eyes widening with horror. "No!"

But blood filled his mouth, and--

Spike woke on a small intake of breath, and found himself face to face with a ticking clock. It was quiet, wherever he was, the kind of quiet you get with a pricey hotel room. He lifted his head from the ridiculously soft pillow and spotted his cigarettes near the clock, lighter resting on top. Something familiar, and his mind clicked on. New digs.

He sat up, ran a hand over his head, and automatically reached for his smokes. As the lighter neared the tip, he paused, catching sight of himself in the tailor's mirror across the room: sitting on the edge of his four-postered bed in black silk pajama bottoms, hair mussed, hands paused in surprise. He was frowning, but lowered his eyes after a moment to resume lighting up.

He hadn't quite gotten used to that dead wanker staring back at him.

The dream lingered, leaving a bad taste in his mouth that tobacco didn't erase. What now--was he going to go all sodden and soulful like Angel just because he'd necked around with someone else's corpse?

"I didn't kill her," he said aggrievedly, then looked up again and saw the woman's ghost behind him in the mirror, watching with dull, steady eyes. He jumped up and whirled, stumbling against the bedside table. This was the moment you were supposed to realize there was nothing there, and there wasn't. But was that a dent on the bed covers? He glanced cautiously into the mirror, saw nothing but what was supposed to be reflected. And himself. "Cobwebs in the brain," he muttered, toughening up to dismiss the vision and deciding he was not at all shaky.

"Benny!" he called, raising his voice to a commanding bark. Then, under his breath: "Drag your hairy little carcass in here." He sucked down carcinogenic smoke as he carelessly pulled on his robe, and squinted as Benny entered. With his dark red fur, expressionlessly correct face, and butler's uniform the Hanomag resembled a particularly colorful but dour species of baboon.

"Good morning, sir." He held out a silver tray, on which a folded newspaper rested.

"Breakfast. Ninety-eight point six. Java, double that." Spike, newspaper open, turned away. "And run a bath," he said as an afterthought.

"Very good, sir. And the temperature of the water?"

"Somewhere between blood and coffee'll do." He was already immersed in the inner society pages, ignoring the front-page headline. 'Rebel Nest Burned Down' it said in forty-point type.

Old Factory in Flames.

The tunnel they crept through was part of the older network of sewer ducts which knit together the waterside, its bricked sides curving as they rose to a dripping, vaulted ceiling. Even Buffy rarely visited this area of town. The demons who hung around the marina or lodged in the sea caves tended to be peaceable and damp.

Willow was feeling her way forward, a phosphorescent leader light glowing and bobbing ahead of her, casting green stripes across her red hair.

"Where is this supply stash of yours?" Buffy asked, her skepticism renewed by the distance they'd traveled.

"Not much farther. The light will take us right to it." Willow's voice sounded assured and clear, even though the hunch of her delicate shoulders hinted at burdens. Well, if she was still feeling guilty, good for her. Blame hadn't yet rolled off Buffy's schedule, and it added a strain between them, but it seemed they'd both grown used to that.

"It smells like dead fish," Dawn said from behind them, her words echoing like the plink of water drops. "We aren't going to stay down here, are we?"

Buffy didn't look back as she edged along the narrow walkway, boots picking a path from stone to crumbling stone. "I don't know yet, Dawn." As they reached a cross-tunnel, she leaped nimbly off the walk to a gritty rise of shell, silt, and sand that appeared to have been deposited by a hole far above them, and looked back to see how the others were faring. Tara was easing along the wall, skirts brushing and catching on its rough surface, while Xander followed Buffy's lead by stepping off the walk, plunging himself mid-boot into the fishy water. He looked like a hunter with his heavy plaid shirt, four-day growth of beard, and gun. There was soot on his face and his clothes, an abrasion on his temple. Buffy knew she probably looked much the same. Well, except for the beard.

"Here," Willow called. She'd moved ahead down the cross-tunnel. "It's right through here."

They all followed as she led them to a massive, heavily rusted iron door and unwitched it with a few words and waves. "I put some barrier spells on it, just in case," she said, stepping back to let Xander tug it open. It screeched as he pulled, and everyone briefly paused with ears cocked before he resumed. Inside, Willow's witchlight expanded until the cavern glowed from its diffuse source. Everyone looked around at the petrified seaweed, sandy floor, and stacked crates. A moist, chilly draft that smelled of the ocean snaked around them.

"We aren't staying here," Buffy turned to assure Dawn with dry emphasis.

Dawn grimaced critically and folded her arms. "Uh, no kidding."

"It wasn't meant to be habitable," Willow said defensively, then caught Tara's glance of concern and reformed her face into an effortful smile. "It's just a kind of U-Store-It by the sea."

"Did your visions show you where we're sleeping tonight?" Dawn asked, raking Willow with a cool gaze.

The lines of Willow's face set more rigidly and her patience looked worn, if not ready to snap. Buffy walked between her and Dawn, drawing their attention away from each other. "So what have we got here?"

"Canned goods, sleeping bags, weapons, magic supplies. Also, flashlights, candles, blankets, cots, bandages, clothes from the Salvation Army...." There was a pause. "I had a lot of time to plan," she said diffidently, at their looks.

Xander opened a crate with a Red Cross logo and peered at the contents. "This will be useful. And Xander Harris, delivery boy, is at your service. Question is--where to?" He looked up and the light sloped off the grim edges of his face. "They found the factory. They have to know we took to the tunnels."

"But we don't even know if they were looking for us," Tara said. "In particular, I mean." She checked their expressions. "Do we?"

"Guess that's true. After all, everyone in hiding's suddenly a 'rebel'." Xander made irony quotes with his hands and his mouth got a wry curve to it. He shook his head once. "May gremlins eat their propaganda machine."

"So do they find us?" Dawn's question challenged Willow, the angles of her slim body jutting with attitude.

Willow stared her down and said evenly, "I don't know."

"They kinda shortchanged you on the vision deal, huh? Hope you got your deposit back."

"Enough," Buffy said, before Willow could respond. "The snark isn't helping."

Dawn raised her brows. "Never stopped you before."

It shouldn't be tiresome when people behaved as you expected--Buffy was used to thinking of predictability as a good, a constant against the whims of the Hellmouth. But everything had its downside. Something must have shown on her face, because Dawn buttoned up and shrugged herself away to investigate some crates. Given a respite from sisterly distractions, Buffy game-planned. "We'll triage the supplies, take whatever's portable, whatever we can't do without. We'll head to the old Initiative tunnels, make our base there for now."

"It's near the campus," Willow said, musing. "I've been thinking--they're controlling the phone lines and local cable, but maybe they didn't get everything. There's a research center at school; they're networked to a communications satellite. We might be able to contact Giles or Angel."

"Good." Buffy zeroed in on this suggestion with a sense of relief, and an optimism that years of experience couldn't entirely quash. "That's our next step then." If they could reach Giles, if she could just hear his voice, she wouldn't feel so alone.
 
"What about the Little Rascals?" asked Tara. "Are we going to bring them with us?"

"I don't think we have a choice." Buffy caught Dawn's quick glance of interest. "There's no safe place in town. And we certainly can't leave them where they are."

The jars were dusty and each one was distinctively shaped; they looked as if they belonged in the window of an antique store. Their contents too were peculiar. "Eye of newt, frog gizzards, chicken's feet--boysenberry preserves? What kind of place is this?" Dor, fingers trailing along the shelf edge, turned away and picked up a steer skull, stared into its empty eye sockets and shuddered. "Gross."

"Why don't you leave that stuff alone," Jason said. "If you break something, that crazy woman is going to come down here again." He slumped on the couch and flipped through a battered copy of Starlog magazine he'd found. Near his feet Kerry and Marcos sat on an old, threadbare rug, flipping cards into each other's crossed legs.

Marcos grunted and looked up, expression haunted. "The way she stares at you--it's like a nightmare. Last time she pinched my cheek, man, then told me I needed to wash my face. Was like my nana came back from the grave or somethin'. And I don't even wanna know what's in those cookies." He eyed the snack plate suspiciously, then craned his head back as if trying to see through the basement ceiling. "You think she's really an ex-demon?"

"That's what Dawn said." Kerry reached out her hand for the water bottle Jason had uncapped, demanding a sip. "She introduced me to a vampire once too. I thought she was full of it."

"How can you be an ex-demon," Dor challenged from across the cluttered room. She was setting a pirate's hat on a mannequin's limbless torso. "What do they do, cut you from the hell squad? Take away your pom-poms?" She snorted a laugh.

"Maybe it's like when they defrock a priest," Marcos said. "But, you know, the opposite. Like, she wasn't unholy enough?"

"This is tired." Jason threw the magazine aside. "We're just sitting here. We should be getting busy on this action. Fighting, helping."

"I could kick some demon ass," Kerry said. She flipped her last card and jumped to her feet, pouring herself into a few graceless kicks. "Whooah, wahhh," she huffed, bouncing toward Dor, shadow boxing with the air. Dor ignored her until she side-kicked the mannequin, sending it crashing into a work-table with a cry of, "Take that, monster bimbo!"

"Hey!" Dor watched her plastic friend go flying, and turned with irritation. "Stop acting out your broken-home issues with my toys."

"She had it coming," Kerry sneered dramatically. "Beating up on my woman." She yanked Dor by the hips into a parodic embrace and air-smooched her.

"Mom didn't even have any arms," Dor pouted, pushing her away and righting the mannequin on its stand.

The door to the basement opened and the girls looked up to see Anya standing on the top step, hands on her hips. "Busted," Kerry murmured.

"What's going on down here?" The persnickety tone was followed by the click-clack of heels as Anya descended the steps. "I heard merchandise crash," she said accusingly, then narrowed her eyes when neither girl responded. "This stock isn't easily replaceable now that we're cut off from the rest of the world by a huge magical barrier."

"Sorry, ma'am." Dor had something of an authority reflex, despite her rap sheet. "We'll be more careful."

"You do that." Anya drew herself up slightly, curls bobbing. "I may not be a demon these days, but I still have a few spells in my repertoire. It's not pleasant having your lips zipped, let me tell you. You'd think you could just unzip them, but try it when the zipper's on the inside. Knotting a cherry stem is child's play compared to that. So watch it." She minced back upstairs, leaving a wake of awe.

Dor's fingers had raised tentatively to her lips as if afraid of finding a zipper there, and her eyes were wide. "Some things should stay figures of speech."

Anya closed the basement door, wishing she had someone to grumble to about those darn kids. Endangering her merchant status with their rumpus--what if a soldier had come in? Loneliness was having no one to share your complaints, to pull up a chair and pour you a cup of coffee and nod as you explained how your significant other wore every piece of clothing he owned twice before doing laundry, and how certain people really shouldn't insult your hair color when they got theirs out of the same box.

Her poor shop was empty, its bright lights ineffectual against the darkness outside. She wasn't one to brood, but she hadn't realized how much she liked the sunny balm of Sunnydale until the terribly literal Dark Ages arrived, enveloping the town in perpetual midnight and mist. If anyone had asked her opinion, she'd have said, why invade under cover of darkness when you can invade in cheerful sunshine? Like it made any difference on the Hellmouth. She supposed it was a concession to the vampires, though. This is what happened when you compromised with your allies, which is why she never did.

The bells over the door rang while she was pouring her own lonely cup of joe, and she turned, ready to exert herself with a beaming smile. "Oh," she said, smile dropping away, "It's just you." She was not at all nervous of Spike, but the way he stood in the doorway, mist rolling in around his ankles, made a favorable dramatic impression on her. A uniform lent certain men an aura of sexual power, and though she knew it was supposed to be wrong, she wouldn't have been unhappy to see Xander decked out for the winning side--she would have enjoyed undecking him. The cool way Spike sauntered into her shop annoyed Anya, though, wakening a thousand yawning years of demonic cynicism.

"Snazzy uniform. Who'd you have to kill?"

She didn't miss the sharp, disquieted look that passed across Spike's face before he hid it. "I've been commissioned. I'm a captain."

"Really? What's your ship named?"

"Not that kind of captain," he said as if she were an idiot.

"Oh, you're an officer." She cradled her coffee cup, continuing brightly, "I should have known, because you have a weapon shaped like a penis on your hip." Spike glanced at his gun. "They issue those to compensate for impotence. In my experience, the higher the rank, the more pitiful a man's sexual prowess is."

His initial male reflex of outrage had relaxed and he was waiting her out now, an expression of dry patience on his face. "Save your analysis for Alexander the Nate. The Big Bad doesn't need any compensation." He leered in a not unfriendly fashion.

"They say referring to yourself in the third person is a sign of dissociation and mental illness."

"They do, do they? Clever boots. What, you studying to get your sheepskin now?"

Anya sighed and slumped a little. "Willow left one of her psychology textbooks here. That's how bored I am, reading dry prose about bed-wetters and the electrical complex."

"I think you mean the Electra complex, ducks."

"Whatever...do you think I'm bipolar?"

Spike took out a silver cigarette case. "Like Mum Earth herself."

"No smoking in the shop." Anya pointed to a calligraphied sign on the wall. It was unsociable of her, though, and she half-regretted it, then wondered whether to offer him a cup of coffee. Was it so wrong to want some company?

He removed the cigarette from his lips with long-suffering grace and shoved it back in his coat pocket. "Where's Buffy, then--she been around?"

Oh, of course, Anya thought. He wasn't here to exchange gossip with a lowly shopkeep. It was all about Buffy. "I'm not supposed to tell," she said, feeling strangely resentful. "You should go. If Xander sees you, he'll kill you. Really kill you I mean, not just posture and threaten and sock you on the jaw."

"Yeah, I'm all a-flutter."

"His gun is bigger than yours."

Spike's outrage returned in force. "I don't think so!" he scoffed, jerking his head back like an insulted rooster. Suddenly the shop bells rang again; they both shifted for a view of the door. A demon with sleepy eyes and elegant facial crests strolled in, holding a handkerchief in one hand and a natty cane in the other. He was dressed in a black wool coat that matched Spike's, but his uniform and cap were grey.

"Oh, there you are, Aurelius." He stepped down into the shop, joining them with a sniff that he immediately covered by pressing the handkerchief to his nose. "By Sytos, this cold is miserable. I can't seem to shake it. There's nothing else for it--you'll have to help me get drunk." His sleepy eyes blinked and fixed on Anya. He lowered the handkerchief and raised a monocle in its place, screwing it into one ridged socket. "And who is this utterly charming damsel?"

"Er, Anya. Anya..." Spike paused blankly, at a loss.

"Christina Emanuella Jenkins," she finished, extending her hand instinctively to be kissed. The demon obliged with old-world courtesy. Spike, who might have benefited from the example of a real gentleman, rolled his eyes. "And you are?"

"Delighted," said the demon, showing polished teeth and no sign of letting go of her hand.

"Colonel Sordicov," Spike said, hurrying along the introductions.

"Call me Rick," the demon corrected smoothly.

Anya blinked. "Rick?"

"Short for Lothrick. But that's the only area in which I'm short, my dear."

"Oh." Anya pulled her hand back, rethinking her flirtiness.

Colonel Sordicov didn't seem put off by her withdrawal; his gaze roamed across her cherry-sprigged dress, making her wish she'd put on a sweater. But also making her glad she'd worn the dress. "Come for a drink with us, won't you?"

Spike shot her a look that said don't you dare, which Anya would have ignored if it had suited her. But she had no intention of going off in the middle of the day to tipple with demons who weren't suitably ex, especially since it would mean closing the shop and losing what little money was coming into the till. "I'm afraid I'm terribly busy, er, stocking and restocking. The stocking keeps me running." Sordicov looked with candid interest at her legs. "You know how it is for us working girls." She flipped one hand in a what-can-you-do gesture, feeling a bit light-headed. Spike's expression suggested a reevaluation of her sanity.

"Pity. But you must get out sometime." Sordicov raised his polished walking stick like a baton as a thought struck him. "Of course--you'll come to the inaugural ball."

"Probably not a good idea," Spike drawled warningly.
 
Sordicov peered through his monocle at him. "Why ever not?" Nonplussed, Spike met Anya's eyes and hesitated a fatal moment, allowing the demon to roll smoothly over the objection. "I'll have my secretary put you on the invitation list," he told Anya, before turning languidly to Spike. "Come along, Captain. The gin won't drink itself. Good day, my lady."

"Good day," Anya echoed doubtfully, as they swept out side by side like fashion twins in search of a catwalk. What was an inaugural ball anyway, she wondered. And was it the kind of thing that required a new gown?

The cavernous room which had headquartered the Initiative still bore the scars of the final battle that had raged there, orchestrated by Adam and waged by his demon minions. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and crumbling in places, and the floor was a tangled nest of cords and cables which had once powered their equipment. Here and there bloodstains were still visible on the tiles, not all of them nonhuman.

"Bet they didn't get back their cleaning deposit," Xander said. He dropped his crate with a thud next to Willow's and examined his hands, which looked as filthy and splintered as her own. With no way to clean them, he let them fall again, attention moving on. "Didn't this place have its own generator?" Drawing his gun to the ready, he headed off in search of things to fix.

Willow's heart had swelled with renewed admiration for him these last few days, until it pained her almost physically. He'd taken up arms against their oppressors with the same fervor she felt. Of all of them, Xander had always understood her best, and she was sure he'd come around to see that her decisions had been necessary. The secrets she'd kept had hurt him, but if she could do everything all over again...she wouldn't change anything. It made things easier to deal with, if you accepted the inevitability. In all honesty, that had never been her strong point, but it was the only thing that had kept her from breaking.

Quietly, keeping herself to the fringes, she began unrolling sleeping bags and arranging them in neat rows. Tara helped with her nimble fingers and Willow found it hard not to stop everything she was doing and take those hands in hers, all rough and scraped, and kiss them. There were still facets to her life that had nothing to do with demons.

"This is where Riley used to work?" Dawn asked the room at large, stepping past her.

"Welcome to your secret neighborhood government base."

"So this is where my tax dollars go." Dawn folded her arms. "Hmmph."

Buffy sat back on her heels from the crate she was inspecting. "You don't pay tax dollars, Dawn. I pay tax dollars."

"Not anymore."

"Yes, the demons have saved us from taxes. Yay."

The sisterly give-and-take made Willow smile, even if she didn't feel comfortable joining in as she once would have.

"I wouldn't count on that," Tara said dryly. "They say death and taxes are universal constants."

Buffy grimaced. "They've certainly got the death part covered." Her words effectively quieted everyone.

"So, where are we exactly?" Dawn asked a few moments later, changing the subject.

"Right under the campus," Buffy said, unpacking a crate of food and making an inventory of the contents. "They sealed off the entrance from Lowell house, so we shouldn't have any visitors. There's no one left who even knows this exists."

"Do you think there's anyone up there now?" Tara glanced ceilingward.

"Doesn't matter. This is completely sound-proof. No one will ever know we're here."

The high ceilings of the Initiative compound were in fact heavily insulated, and above them rested the weight of earth a hundred feet deep. Above that sprawled the wine cellars of Lowell House, decorated with the ceremonial paddles and heraldic shields of fraternal initiations that stretched back for generations past. And, finally, atop it all, sat Lowell House itself, a spacious mansion emptied of its rightful tenants and appropriated for the ranking elite of the New Grauth Reich.

Boots crossed paths along the polished floors, and laughter rose from knots of uniformed men, busily drinking and trading gossip with one another as the cocktail hour got underway.

"Not bad for an officer's club," Sordicov commented, shrugging off his coat. Spike stood to one side feeling inexplicably out of place, bristling as hands slid up his shoulders, then awkwardly submitting to the white-jacketed servant who was taking his own coat. He shadowed Sordicov as they passed through the foyer; to the right was a bar room filled with standing men and hung with smoke, to the left, a large room filled with round tea-tables and generous club chairs, into which Sordicov led them. A fire crackled on the hearth.

It took Spike a moment to identify his unease as niggling recognition. "Hey, I know this place. Farm Boy used to live here, back when he was--" And realization hit him with a small sizzle of shock that felt not unlike the chip firing in his head. Initiative headquarters. There was a lump of irony for you.

Sordicov gazed at him blankly. "Who d'you say?"

"Er, not important," Spike said. All the times he'd lain around his crypt drunk and wondered how his own personal history had become so entwined with those of humans, he'd traced the blame to here. His downfall had started in the containment cells and labs hidden below, where they'd taken everything that made him bad and handicapped it with a trick joy-buzzer no bigger than a thimble. He gazed sharply around, but of course nothing remained of the house's previous inhabitants, and as they took seats at a table amid the joviality of officers and bustle of waiters, he began to relax.

One of the white-jacketed servants came up to their table, looking nervous and not at all like a waiter. Spike glanced idly at his name-tag, which read 'Jonathan.' Kid looked familiar.

"W-what can I get you gentlemen?" the boy said in a subdued voice.

"Two martinis," Sordicov said, then turned to Spike. "What'll you have?"

"Same." The kid nodded, gave Spike an odd little glance, and scraped himself away to fetch their drinks. Spike's eye was drawn past his retreating back, to a corner of the room where a pair of demons sat smoking cigars and chatting amiably. At the feet of one sat a human girl in a sparkly, ill-fitting gold dress that had rucked up around her thighs, revealing long legs and bare feet. She stared off into space while the officer caressed her hair as one might pet a dog.

Spike had seen worse than this in his long unlife. Vampires took pets too, and tended to be careless with them, forgetting to feed them, or feeding from them too greedily, until one day you woke up and found a pale form lying cold and stiff on the carpet, like a canary at the bottom of its cage. Dru had liked pets, but she called them all dolls.

Sordicov, noticing his stare, said, "Nicely feathered tail on that bird, what?" He took Spike's silence as agreement. "You got your own yet?"

"My own?" Spike repeated as their drinks arrived.

"Tootsie. Bit of fluff. The humans are warm-blooded, I hear. Keep you toasty at night. Haven't tried one myself, yet, but there's this place I can take you--"

A martini glass spilled, its contents spreading across the pristine white tablecloth toward Spike's hand. The waiter gasped and stammered, "I'm s-sorry, sir. I'll, uh, get you another." His pudding of a face was white with shock, far out of proportion to the minor accident, but before Spike could form a reply, a demon in bow-tie and black tails came up, hands clasped and shoulders tucked in with the formal deference of maitre d's the world over.

"Gentlemen, please accept my apologies. We'll have this cleared away immediately." He raised one hand and snapped his fingers at someone as their waiter shuffled nervously to the side. "This creature's clumsiness will not go unpunished," he added, glaring at the boy, who looked sickly at his words.

"Oh, don't exert your arm on our account, my good man," Sordicov said negligently, sipping at his first martini. "Hardly worth getting excited about. In a few minutes, the brain cells on which this incident are imprinted will be drowned and eradicated by the very elixir spilled here."

Everyone gaped at him a moment in respect, and bolstered by this display of noblesse oblige, Spike felt safe weighing in. "Yeah, what he said." The kid, whose hang-dog attitude suggested someone who tried hard not to be noticed, lifted his head to gaze at Spike with a relieved, amazed look that was strangely disturbing. Where had he seen him before?

"Very good, sirs," murmured the maitre d', before shoving the waiter off. Discreet hands had already cleared away the glass, laid a napkin, brought more drinks.

"So, as I was saying." Sordicov settled back and stroked his thin mustache. "It's about time you got yourself a wench."

Buffy wasn't enthused about the results of her inventory, but there was something reassuring on a very primal level about the tidily stocked cans and boxes. "Looks like we'll be having canned beans and Lipton cup-a-soup until we're about thirty," she told the others. "But hey, at least we have food." The fluorescents went on above them with almost magical timing. "And lights, too. Yay, Team Xander."

"Well, I just waved my hand and said, 'Lo, let there be light,'" Xander explained as he rejoined them. "And, after much cursing and a severe electrical shock...lo occurred." He flourished his hand again at the ceiling to demonstrate.

"You're like a god," Tara observed, smiling.

"The gods must be hungry, then. Because I could eat," he paused assessingly before the food pyramid, "a lot of canned beans, apparently."

"Sorry, guys." Willow edged out of the shadows, nearing their circle. "There was a sale."

"Beans are good." Xander looked sideways at her. His face was hard, voice flatter than normal, but his words seemed to reach out, a small gesture she looked pathetically grateful for. Buffy felt less generous, and yet the open hope of Willow's face worked on her, softening her up.

"After dinner we'll get the kids, then head onto campus and look for the satellite lab," she said, focusing on business to avoid the mangle of social interaction.

"Yeah," Xander put in, "it should be dark by then...oh, wait." He shook his head. "Weird. Can't get used to this whole 'great darkness' thing. Since when are prophecies so literal?" He sat on a crate as Buffy began opening cans of food.

"Maybe they need the darkness," Tara said. She looked Willow's way for confirmation. "They might be sensitive to sunlight, like vampires. That's pretty unusual in other demon species, though--right, Willow?"

Willow glanced up from the hole she'd been picking in her jeans. "Well, not too unusual. But it's mostly the subspecies that are nocturnal--things that go slither in the night. Intelligent species are usually able to tolerate sun."

"Vampires must be loving this," Xander said in disgust. "It's like vamp mecca. They'll probably gather here from far and wide, hit the beaches in droves, moon themselves by the seashore." He paused as heads turned his way, and Buffy raised her brows with interest. "Moon as in lay out under the moon in modestly fitted swimsuits," he clarified with a brotherly glance at Dawn, who was unmoved by any double entendre.

"Except we're cut off from the rest of the world," Willow pointed out quietly.

"We're sure this isn't happening anywhere else?" The question was Buffy's own small gesture toward cordial relations, and Willow followed up while the others began eating.

"I don't think so. The barrier's there for a reason."

"Containment," Xander said shortly.

"But, c'mon, someone's going to notice." Dawn's expression was one of mingled hope and uncertainty. "I mean, hello, entire city missing? They'll call out the National Guard."

Everyone was silent, the only sound spoons scraping across metal, until Willow said carefully, "We don't know yet how the barrier works. It may be a while before our disappearance has an impact. We may be on our own for...for a while."

Buffy heard what Willow didn't say. If their disappearance wasn't noticed, it would be because of magic strong enough to bend the world around a gaping hole where Sunnydale had been. To cover them up for a while, as if they'd never existed. At least, that would work on most people, primed already to overlook everything that lurked in the shadows. Giles and Angel would know better and would figure out what had happened. The question was, were they strong enough to break their way in?

"That rig went right through the shield," Xander remembered. "Like we weren't even here. Not even a speedbump in the road." The memory seemed to hold them all captive for a moment.

"We'll be a bump again somehow," Buffy promised aloud for Dawn's sake, catching Willow's eye as she did.

"Yeah," Willow pitched in. "What goes up can come down, like corn harvests and, uh, stock markets." The sprightly zing with which she spoke was followed by a pronounced slump of her shoulders as she nibbled distractedly on a peanut, absorbed again in her own thoughts.

Buffy looked around at her friends, noting their collective tiredness. They were a ragged and dispirited bunch, and it made her afraid, down in that small, buried part of her that still wanted to wear footie pajamas and climb into sleep between her very married and immortal parents until morning came, sweeping all these bad dreams away. "Maybe now's the time to figure out what we know about these demon guys," she said, dispersing her fears by force of will. "Will? You want to kick off the exposition party?"

Willow's mouth fell open a little at the unexpected invitation, as the spotlight turned on her. "Uh, uh, sure. Okay." She gathered herself. "The stuff in Fenwhar's Demonology about the Grauth is mostly anecdotal--some monk back in the thirteen hundreds stumbled into a portal and, well, those are the boring details, but the book describes their culture and fighting tactics and stuff. I thought that would be useful, but after looking through it the other day, I think most of it's pretty outdated." Regret crossed her features.

"What is useful?" Buffy asked, fighting irritation.

"They're very interested in humans," Willow replied, licking her lips as if she tasted something weird or bad. "There are legends of them taking human children and raising them as their own. Other stories say they only enter our world at night, kidnapping virgins to take back with them into the underworld." She stole a look at Dawn. "They probably don't put much of a premium on the hymen anymore, though. Even demons have to get with the times."

"That's all pretty standard monster folklore," Tara said, frowning. "Fairies, werewolves, and elves were all accused of stealing children. Even Gypsies and Jewish people used to have that said about them." She radiated disapproval of this slander.

"True." Willow shrugged. "We can't really know yet why they're here. The Fenwhar mentions a few prophecies that were big back in the day. The Grauth think they're going to inherit the earth and lead it into a new age."

"And of course they're starting with Sunnydale," Xander said. There was a pause. "What's with the uniforms? They look like," he hesitated again, "like Nazis. I'm not the only one who noticed, am I?"

Willow shifted, putting down the bean can she'd been spooning from. "I think they're imitative. They may be attracted to our culture, want to blend in."

"Kinda laming on the fashion front, aren't they?" Buffy's lip curled in distaste at the thought of Nazi uniforms.

"I'm not sure they care." Willow held her eyes, her own hooding. "They've modeled themselves after the greatest evil the human race has ever known. That's no accident. They're demons, and if we don't stop them, they're going to make our world a barren hell where no one walks free."

Anya, basket over her arm, wandered through the light throng of shoppers in search of bargains. She had to remind herself not to feel self-conscious or out of place. After all, she carried money and her money was as good as the next person's. She stopped at a stand on the corner of the square, where mounds of fruit and vegetables were piled in colorful array.

"Are those blood oranges fresh?" she asked the merchant, plucking one from the stand to examine. The demon lifted his hands in a lazy gesture of incomprehension. "Where did you get these? From a supermarket? From some old biddy's pantry?" With a distrustful sigh, she put the orange in her basket and passed him one of the little sticks she'd been accumulating. He slipped a bead off and handed it back.

Walking onward through the plaza, she marveled at how quickly the bazaar had sprung up in the town center. Strings of colored lights hung between tents and booths where vendors sold fruit and candies and chunks of questionable meat on skewers. Other tables were laden with a mix of clothes which looked as if they'd been liberated from store racks and people's closets. Some of the displays saddened her, especially the one of children's toys, but the chaotic spirit of free enterprise hanging over it all made her nearly giddy in compensation. It was hard to be sad in the face of so much entrepreneurship.

"New watch, miss?" A short, unprepossessing demon opened his trench-coat as if to flash her and showed off rows of wrist-watches, pinned inside.

"They look second-hand," she sniffed critically.

"Don't got to worry about no previous hands, miss." He flashed teeth that looked sharp enough to cut bone, and Anya hid a shudder that did not befit a former vengeance demon.

"No thank you."

Around her humans, demons, and vampires mingled as they went about their shopping, while among them strolled pairs of Grauth guards, enforcing civil obedience. Near a coffee counter a pair of game-faced vampires were crowding a human between them, leering as the man shrank in on himself and tried not to spill the cups he held. A soldier appeared and uttered a few sharp words, and the vamps muttered and slunk away. Released, the man disappeared quickly in the other direction. He'd been wearing normal clothes, but with a red patch on his breast, a simple vee of cloth that almost resembled a devil's head.

Anya looked around, noticing that the other humans present wore this same brand. Conscious of her own lack, she positioned her scarf so that it covered where the brand would have been, and plunged back through the crowd toward the magic shop. It was craven, perhaps, but she suddenly wanted to retreat inside. Almost at once she was thrown off-balance, her shoulder bumped by a vamp who snarled and grabbed her arm.

"Hey!" she said, struggling to free herself. "Get off me!"
 
The vampire, a female in a chic black sheathe, snaked her head to one side. "Very rude, for a human. But maybe you haven't learned your place yet, so I'll let you apologize."

"Me apologize?" Anya said in vibrant, irrepressible indignation. "You ran right into me with your massive, quarterback shoulders and size-ten Manolo Blahniks." A snarl answered her remarks, but Anya, whose orange was rolling away like a ball between moving feet, was too annoyed to be scared. "I've heard scarier growls from zoo lions, lady."

Vamping out, the other woman gave a more creditable roar and Anya was ready to jam a stake between her pointy breasts when she felt herself tugged out of the vamp's grip. The guard who parted them wore an expression of boredom, as if he'd been breaking up interspecies brawls all day. "What's the trouble here?"

"This human has no signum," the vampire said in a cool hiss, twitching aside Anya's scarf and smiling fangily at her dismay. It wasn't hard to figure out what a signum was, or why not having one was bad.

"She bumped me," Anya countered in a faltering voice, trying to hold onto her righteousness. "I lost my orange."

The guard turned, focusing his full attention on her as the vampire adjusted her skirt and slipped off into the crowd. "Where's your signum?"

"Signum? Oh. I think I, I must have left it back in the shop. I keep a shop, right down there." She pointed, but he even didn't look in that direction. His gaze remained trained on her. "It has a bird on the door," she assured him. "That's good, right?"

"You have papers?"

"At the shop," she repeated, a little more desperate now. She hated bureaucracy. She'd never have made a good city council member. What had she been thinking? "Plenty of papers. Reams and reams. If you'll just let me take you there, I'll show you."

Her answer seemed to decide him. "You come with me."

"Oh, I can't. We're open until seven, and I hung a sign, back in five--" The guard took her arm and dragged her along with him, still protesting. "I left muffins in the oven," she cried hopefully, making up whatever sprang to her lips. "And the tea-kettle boiling. And there are four--four little kittens who need to be fed, or they'll eat all the dried monkey fingers!"

Irritably, the guard stopped and grabbed her face. His fingers dug into her skin, squishing her mouth into an "oh" and it was the surprise more than anything else that silenced her. "Be quiet now, ka?" he said in a low, surly voice. "Or I will gag you with your pretty scarf, and carry you to jail. And I will be not so happy when we get there."

"Jail?" she squeaked as he released her face. Real fear blossomed in her stomach, giving her an unpleasant sensation, like when she ate too many Gummi worms. "I'm going to jail? But who'll feed the kittens?"

Dor thought that a magic shop of all places would have cool drugs. Magic mushrooms, for sure, and witchy potions--maybe even some happy pills. Pills to make you larger, pills to make you small. But the shelves of Anya's basement didn't have any pills at all. It was no fun being Alice down the rabbit hole when all you had to play with was pressed frogs and skullcaps made into novelty ash-trays.

In her restless wanderings she had found a box of old books, though. The carton was labeled 'errata', which meant nothing to her. She drew out a book, opened the pages at random and became absorbed by the naughty pictures. Whoa. "Hey," she said absently to the others, who ignored her with bored slumps, "I think this is a spellbook." She traced her finger across a page and read slowly, "Ful-me-nos ve-ni-te--"

A tiny bolt of lightning leapt from the page and zapped her in the face. She squeaked and dropped the book. The others didn't even look up from their comics, but just as she was about to complain the rug began to twitch and everyone was suddenly alert and paying attention. The trap door was lifting. Jason grabbed the sword he'd been given and stood with it raised, while Marcos flipped back the rug and made a fist. Like if it was a vamp, he'd really get a punch in, thought Dor.

The door banged open and Buffy's head popped up. "Hold your fire," she said as she hoisted herself out of the tunnel. She was wearing a dykey plaid man's shirt over a stained tee, her face was dusty, and her hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. Dor wasn't quite sure what to make of Dawn's sister yet. She was bossy and athletic, kind of like a gym teacher. But she seemed to know what the hell was going on in Sunnydale, and for that alone Dor was ready to follow her anywhere. And the others too, like Xander, who was climbing out after Buffy--they possessed the inside scoop that raised chances of survival. They might look like your average losers, but right now they had the cool quotient of outlaws.

"How you guys hanging in there?" Buffy checked them over with a critical eye, as if they might have been getting into the stash. No such luck.

"I'm going to check on Anya," Xander told her, without a word of greeting for the rest of them before he climbed the basement stairs.

"When can we get out of here?" Kerry asked for all of them.

"Soon." Buffy seemed just as impatient as they felt, and was fisting her hands on her hips, close to a pair of knives that her lifted shirt revealed. "We've found a place to hole up. We'll take you there, and you can get some rest."

"Man, we been duffin' all day," Jason grumbled.

"Count yourselves lucky," Buffy said tartly. "You missed the fun crate-lugging portion of our program."

Jason scowled. "We can help with that stuff. And we want to fight, too."

"Yeah," seconded Marcos. "Bust some demon heads. Bam, ka-pow, rat-a-tat-tat." He jiggled with restless macho energy and fizzed like a pop can about to blow. He'd been a sour voice of reason not three hours past, when Jason and Kerry were on their demon-ass-kicking kicks, but now all of a sudden he wanted in on the action. Twerp was showing off for Buffy's blonde sake, thought Dor. Kerry was so going to kick his ass if he didn't watch it.

Buffy only stared him down. "No bam, ka-pow. No rat-a-tat anything. These aren't things you want to fight unless you have to, believe me. These are the monsters under your bed all grown up. Most of us got drafted to fight them. You may want to think about what you're getting into before you enlist in this rebel army."

"So, what?" Jason's brows knit together resentfully. "While they're out there crashin' our town, we're supposed to just hide in the dirt?"

"You think that's a bad plan, padawan? Because let me tell you--"

Xander's boots clattered back down the stairs, and he paused midway, gun upright in one hand. "Anya's not there." His eyes swept over them darkly, but it was Buffy who turned and asked,

"Where is she?"

Dor shifted, spoke up when no one else did. "She said something about going down the street for a few minutes. She should be back by now. That was a while ago."

Xander and Buffy met each other's eyes for a moment. "I'll stay here," Xander said. "Wait for her."

"I'll take the kids back to the Initiative."

Kids, thought Dor. As if they were five year olds. But the expression on Buffy's face didn't invite back-talk. "Initiative?" she said instead. "What's that?"

Dawn had never seen the commando hide-out from the inside before. She'd only heard tell of it from Buffy and Spike and the others. Their descriptions had made it sound all top-secrety and bad-ass, but it didn't seem very exciting to her. The Initiative must have taken the fun toys with them when they bugged out. The stripped desks and shelves said they'd left in a hurry, but not so much in a hurry that they'd abandoned anything interesting. You could see indentations in the floors where heavy equipment must have stood, and dust-bunnied outlines of clean tile, like when you moved a fridge.

"I'm going to take a walk around, check things out," she said to Tara and Willow.

She left them in a girlish tangle of limbs on one of the sleeping bags, waved off their warnings not to go far, and nosed her way through the empty halls. She was the explorer in her family, daring and unafraid and...was that a sound? She paused, head cocked, then drew a stake from her pocket and ventured forward again.

"I wish she wouldn't take off alone like that," Tara murmured, settling her head back down on the pillow of Willow's arm as they were left alone. "It's too easy to find trouble these days."

"Summers women. Headstrong and foolhardy." But Dawn was nearly of age and in fighting trim, and if she wanted to leave them alone, Willow wasn't going to complain. Another time she might have felt obligated to play the responsible aunt-figure. Not now. Right now she was the bad aunt, a witch of ugly visions, hung in the stocks for seeing the inevitable. Power made people angry. How long would she have to apologize for her power? She slid her free hand lower, tickling her fingers across the laces on Tara's skirts, then lower still. Tara's eyelids were getting heavy and her lips were parting. "Dawn'll be okay," Willow said, an inch before kissing. "She knows not to get lost."

"I know it's not the best time, and I can't stop worrying about the Dudleys and everyone else. But it's been a while since we..." Tara caught her lip between her teeth, face blossoming with a heat Willow could almost feel. "...went to the valley."

"You mean, to pick flowers?" Willow moved her fingers, and Tara shifted against them.

"And have figs and honey."

"Fiddle the night away," Willow said breathlessly.

"Put a coin in the juke-box."

A giggle sprang from Willow's throat. "They never said that."

Tara managed to look both sultry-eyed and innocent. "They might have. If they'd thought of it."

Willow rolled on top of her and smiled, hair a short red curtain around them. Beneath her, Tara was soft as a garden bed, posied and sun-warmed. "Crank up the band," she said goofily, and kissed her lady love.

The corridors were lit by some kind of emergency glow-strips that must have come on when Xander powered up the generator. Each of the stark white cells had its own low illumination, a small circle of light surrounded by shadows. This must be where they'd kept their captives, like Spike and Clem, and others who hadn't been so successful escaping the Initiative's experiments. It was an eerie, depressing place, the way Dawn imagined an insane asylum to be. In one of the cells, a blackened blood bag dangled from the ceiling like an oxygen mask, caught on an arm of machinery that had frozen in place, or maybe been yanked loose. In another, a perfect body-shaped shadow of dust lay on the tiles, undisturbed since its creation.

A chittering sounded in the corridor, herald of a rat. It scurried by Dawn, who watched it pass with a frown as she noticed it was wearing a small gold collar studded with jewels. "Huh," she said curiously, then turned to find herself face to face with a demon.

"And what brings a nice young lady like you into my office?"

The Grauth prefect of police smiled benignly at her and waved a hand toward one of the empty chairs in front of his desk. Anya took a seat, smoothing her skirt and nervously crossing her legs, then uncrossing them again. The man was leaning back in his comfy chair now and watching her, and though he seemed ready to listen to reason, Anya remembered how she used to feel whenever D'Hoffryn called her on the carpet for a botched curse or a low quota. The carpet had been the living skin of men who lay so closely and intricately curled that a visitor could spot no marks of humanity except the occasional downtrodden spine. That had been D'Hoffryn's rococo period.

Anya tried on a smile. "It's all a silly misunderstanding." She lifted a hand up as if to say what can you do?  "I left my signum back at the shop. I didn't think I'd be more than a minute. I have a shop on Main Street, you know." She imparted this as if word of the local hot-spot might be carried to Sunnydale newcomers on the wind. "The Magic Box? We've had many customers in since the--" She hesitated, unsure if 'invasion' would be tactful. "Change of government." Still smiling in a matey fashion, she added, "There's a bird on my door."

The prefect raised his heavily ridged brows. "A signum terregnum?"

"Right!" That sounded official enough. She stood. "So, I'll just be getting back--"

"Sit."

She sat, and he leaned forward and considered her too closely. After a moment she got twitchy and opened her eyes wider, questioning his attention. When he still said nothing she got explicit. "Yes?"

"Is that your natural hair color?"

"Huh?"

He got up and came around the desk, rested his fleshy posterior against it and reached out a hand. Bewildered, she let him lift a few strands and examine them. "What do they call this? Honey? Wheat?"

"Mostly they call it hair."

The prefect cupped her chin, tilted her face left and right. Anya was quickly growing tired of strange men touching her without asking. It didn't matter that he was a demon. A man was a man was a man. She wouldn't have minded her powers back right about now, but since she was human and a ridiculously feeble one despite her gym membership, she tried to keep her mouth shut. It was difficult. Xander had often told her she was bad at it. She'd pointed out that he was too. Maybe that's why we're together, he'd said, and chucked her under the chin with a smile. She really wanted Xander with her right now.

God, she'd become such a woman.

"You are in your child-bearing years, ka?" he asked, releasing her face.

The hairs on the back of Anya's neck rose in a very human way. "Oh, not my peak child-bearing years." She uttered a short, forced laugh. "I'm well past those. Old, old, old. Washed up. Decrepit, even--"

The prefect loosened his necktie and pushed off from the desk. "Would you like a drink?" he said to her, crossing to a bar where he poured golden liquid into the kind of short, fancy glasses Anya had wanted to order from Pottery Barn, except she'd never been able to decide on the color and what a fool she'd been, because everyone knew that blue was the right color for cocktail glasses. Wasn't that true?
 
"I'm not supposed to drink," she said as he returned. "It makes me act inappropriately in public places."

His smile broadened, wrinkling the fine grey skin of his face. "Ah, but we're in a private place. Door locked, no one to bother us." He held out the drink until the gesture became prolonged and awkward and Anya felt compelled to take it.

"Isn't there some fine I could pay?" she asked, holding the cool glass carefully as if it were a coiled, deadly snake. The prefect of police took the chair next to her and stretched out his legs comfortably as she spoke, took a sip of his drink. "I mean, how serious is it to go out without your signum? I'm sure it could happen to anyone."

"Oh, it is a very serious infraction." He touched her knee and slowly slid her skirt up her thigh. "For a pretty woman."

Anya's face froze. She was a mere flinch away from throwing her drink at him, but she did have a sense of self-preservation. It was perhaps a millimeter thicker than her dangerous pride. She leaned forward. "Listen, bust--" She cut herself short, bobbed her curls and smiled in a way that had made saner and more sensible men quail. "Sir. You're a moderately attractive man, and in vastly different circumstances I'm sure I'd feel almost charitable about your interest." She removed his hand from her leg, placed it on his own. "But I have a boyfriend. A man friend. A big man, and he wouldn't be happy about this."

"But he never needs to know," he reassured her, a small crooked smile appearing. "Your infraction would be wiped off the books, and you would be spared the labor mines, and how could he not be happy to have you safe and well at home?"

'The--the labor mines?" The prefect's face didn't look quite so benign now.

"Drink up," he said.

Dawn lashed out with her stake and would have nearly caught the demon in the chest if he hadn't jumped back. As she whirled and tried her slayer side-kick on him, she had no time to process the details of her foe, but a blurred impression of Baja pullover, jeans, and headphones began to sink in as she continued her attack, and gradually she became aware that instead of fighting her the demon was backing away and holding up his hands, yelling, "Whoa, hey! Easy, lady!"

Lady? What was she, forty? Dawn lifted her stake higher and glared at the demon, trying to determine his species from his green and thorny-looking face. She didn't recognize anything else about him weaponlike, like stingers or battle fins, and was beginning to suspect this might be one of the more harmless types of demon. Unless it was one of the ones that looked harmless but used their camouflage to win your trust until they were ready to eat your brains. Err on the side of caution, Buffy would have said.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Dawn challenged, eyes narrowing.

"Uh, Kethas." The demon waved a hand. "And I'm just hangin' out." A note of pathos couldn't be entirely ignored. Dawn's gaze focused behind him, piecing things together slowly. He'd been camping out in one of the containment cells. There was a pile of blankets and CDs and some canned food, and a backpack stuffed messily with clothes. She looked at him again, saw that he was wearing two earrings in one ear, three in another, several bracelets, and a pair of ancient sneakers. His hands were dirty.

"You're just a kid," she realized aloud. "Like me. That's...weird."

"I'm not like you," he pointed out a bit sulkily. "You're human." He didn't sound very impressed with this fact.

"And what are you?"

"Bracken." Pride touched his voice.

"Okay." Whatever. It meant nothing to her. "Do you eat brains?"

The kid faked a gagging sound. "No. Do you?"

"As if." Her brows curled together in disdain. "Gross." She studied him another moment, then slowly lowered her stake. She felt foolish continuing to hold it up, plus her hand was getting tired. Kethas shifted his weight from foot to foot, scratched his face, bumped his CD player against his thigh, all without looking quite at her. It was like being at a school dance and having some dorky guy ignore you. "Look," she said. "Nothing personal, but you should know that I'm kind of a demon slayer...apprentice."

"Yeah, right." Kethas snickered, stealing a skeptical glance.

"I am!" She lifted her chin with hauteur. "I could take you down if I wanted. But you begged for mercy, and I don't kill helpless creatures."

He looked insulted. "I didn't beg for mercy! And I'm not helpless, either. You're just a skinny human girl. I could knock you out cold."

"Oh yeah?" Dawn's eyes gleamed. "Bring it on."

When Buffy returned to the Initiative with her bedraggled ducklings in tow, she found Willow and Tara snuggling and whispering together on a sleeping bag, their clothes rumpled. They both sat up guiltily when they spotted her arrival.

"Hey," said Willow, getting to her feet. "Um, we were just--"

"Looking for a button," finished Tara, eyes going innocently wide for a moment before her lips curved.

"Hope you found it," Kerry said as she passed. She gave Marcos's shoulder a rude shove. "This chilito always has trouble." Marcos muttered something back at her under his breath, and they collapsed next to each other on some crates while Dor and Jason scavenged for food.

"Xander's stayed at the Magic Box," Buffy told them. "We shouldn't wait on him. I want to get on campus now, try to make contact with Giles." As Willow nodded readily, Buffy scanned the room, feeling her nerves and exasperation rise when she didn't see her sister. Great. First Anya, now Dawn. Again. "Where's Dawn? Has she wandered o--"

"Hey, everyone!" Dawn waved as she entered from a corridor, her other hand clutching the strap of a bedroll. She had a black eye and a cheerful grin, along with a big rip down the side of her shirt. Beside her shuffled a demon with blue pointies all over his face, headphones around his neck, and unlaced sneakers, carrying a knapsack and a bulging pillowcase. Buffy gaped.

"Dawn." She assumed her sister voice. Voice of doom. "Are you okay? Who is this?"

"I'm fine. This is Kethas. He's a Bracken demon." Dawn's smile faded and she cast her new pal a sympathetic puppy look. "His parents were killed by the Grauth and he's been hiding out in the tunnels. I told him he could stay with us."

Buffy cast a glance at Willow, who answered her unspoken question by saying, "Bracken are peaceful." She eyed Kethas dubiously. "As far as I know."

"He's really strong," Dawn said, the optimism of her face suggesting this should be a persuasive factor when adopting stray demons. "And he can pass for human." She turned back to Kethas excitedly. "Show them the thing with your neck!" To Buffy, she added: "It's so cool!"

Kethas ducked his head and scuffed his shoe against the floor. "Aw, it's kind of sore."

What the hell, Buffy thought, ire deflated by his floppy-haired adolescence. One more lost boy wouldn't strain their resources to max capacity. "Party tricks later," she said, and saw Dawn's face light up with an irrepressible pleasure, though she carefully didn't peep. "Willow and I are heading to the surface for a while. You and Tara are in charge here."
 
"See?" Dawn crowed triumphantly to Kethas. "Me. In charge. Who's big? Who's bad?"

Kethas rolled his eyes. "You--"

"--aren't going to get away with this," Anya said as the prefect manhandled her through a door in his office, into a smaller adjoining room with a cot. The protest came out melodramatically but she felt melodramatic. And vulnerable, and terrified. Besides, it was what they said in the movies and it was true, the bad guys never did get away with it. Someone would burst in to save the girl at the last moment, someone with big strong arms and a no-nonsense attitude. And usually a semi-automatic weapon.

But what if no one saved her? What if her only recourse was...vengeance?

That would suck.

"Look," she said, trying once again to find her reasonable tone. She knew she had one. "You don't want me. I'm really not that pretty compared to supermodels, and--and at certain times of the month I bloat." He tossed her down onto the cot, and she landed butt-first with a bounce, arms outstretched to balance herself. She would fight him, of course, if she couldn't talk her way out of this. The trouble was, she wouldn't win. He was looming over her now, unbuttoning his uniform, undoing his belt. Eyes level with his hips, Anya swallowed, a chill running down her body. "Really, one demon type to another," she whispered up to him with imploring eyes and a last-ditch smile, "don't you think you could--"

Sooner than she'd expected, Anya found herself shoved out the office door, purse and coat in hand. Bemused, she took a few awkward steps down the hall and touched her disarranged hair. Glancing suspiciously from side to side, she determined no one in the police station was looking at her and, straightening her shoulders, sniffled, and left.

Her signum pinned to her chest.

In the Magic Box, she found Xander waiting. "What are you doing here?" she cried, feeling a bright flame of anger rise inside her, like an oil lamp turned up high when home is reached. "Just hanging around in the open--why not go outside and stand in the street and wave your arms and say, 'Come and get me, I'm a big stupid human! I have no signum! La la la!'" Irrationally close to tears, she tried to push past him, but he caught her arms.

"Anya--"

"Stupid, stupid," she cried into his chest. "Where were you? I needed you."

"Anya! What happened?" She heard panic in his voice, felt the bruising strength of his fingers. Such a relief, all that strength, even if it wasn't hers.

"I was touched by a man with sweaty palms and bad breath. Because I'm a woman, Xander!" She glared at his befuddled face, accusing him with her own tear-stained one. "A weak, mortal woman in a skirt, which because I'm wearing instead of big mannish pants must mean I want the sex. But I don't. Except with you."

"Oh my god--did someone attack you?" A wild look flashed in Xander's eyes and he let her go, heading for the door. "Where is he?"

"No!" she cried, grabbing his arm. He stopped at her command, obedient and loyal as a dog. A good, sweet little doggie. It made her want to cry more, but for happiness and love of him. "He pawed me and threatened me--and then he didn't even want me!" Fresh outrage surged at the memory of her experience. "I told him I was a demon and all of a sudden I'm an untouchable! I hate men."

"Oh, thank god," he said and wrapped himself around her, pressed his cheek to her hair in that way she liked.

"I want all our sons to be daughters," she told his fuzzy shirt sleeve. "But that won't work, because they'll just get screwed over by men. Unless they stay virgins. Or lesbians." She pulled back and gazed up at him seriously. "All our children must be lesbians, Xander."

"No problem," he said, stroking her hair. "I'll get right on that."

The Sunnydale campus was quiet and familiar in the dark. Buffy knew every secluded path that traced the grounds, every clump of shaggy bushes where a monster could hide, every arbor and tool shed, every ugly bronze statue to higher education. She and Willow gave wide berth to the dorms, whose lighted windows indicated wakeful inhabitants. It wasn't hard to guess who was living there now.

"Do you think there're any students left?" Willow asked softly, as they crept along the other side of the quad.

"Don't know." Don't you? Buffy wondered, but kept the words off her lips. Practice was making almost perfect.

After pausing behind some rhododendron to wait out a pair of strolling guards, they made it to the science building undiscovered and broke inside.

"This way," Willow said when they'd cleared the foyer, leading her down a hall and into a room with a high ceiling and tall windows that made Buffy nervous, like dozens of eyes that might spy their presence. Seeming to lack any such unease, Willow went immediately to a lab station and brought a computer to life. After scoping out the room, Buffy let herself drift closer and watch.

"What do you have to do?" she asked.

"It's kind of neat, actually." Willow typed as she spoke. "The school is part of a global student program that recreates early low-earth satellite communications. We can record a message for uplink and it'll be retransmitted to anyone on the network with a receiver. There's a few stations in England."

"So we record a message for Giles, and hope someone delivers it."

"Yeah." Willow turned away from the computer a moment, looking at Buffy with doubt in her face. "But you should know, this may not even work. The shield they have could prevent any transmissions from getting through."

Buffy frowned. "It's a magic shield, right? And this is, like, technology." She knew it wasn't that simple, but sometimes she didn't get magic at all. Its rules were complicated and obscure. It was like math. Stupid math.

"Yeah, but--oh!" Willow's face lit up, the way it did when her hundred-watt brain bulb went on inside. "Oh, oh, oh, I just had an idea!"

"Will, if that idea had been a scream, they'd have heard it across town."

Willow grinned at her and for a moment everything felt perfectly right between them again. "If I can figure out a spell to boost our broadcast, we may have a better chance. It'd be like sending our message off with a magic bullet--we could punch a hole right through the shield."

That sounded like a plan all right, and what were they waiting for? Buffy raised her brows and waved a hand. "Make it so."

With a little oops-good-idea expression, Willow eagerly resumed work.

The brothel had been a small hotel only the week before. Not much conversion required, thought Spike. Girls and beds, that's all you needed for a modest start-up; and not necessarily girls, if it came to that, but he didn't see anything else on offer. They were all human, of all races. And all young. Some Dawn's age, the rest no older than thirty. Management had draped them around a hastily redecorated lobby, now filled with bar tables and quite a number of potted palms.

A suited human man with dazed, nervous eyes came forward at their entrance. "Welcome to the Sunnydale Square Inn, sirs," he said with the air of someone reciting from a script. "Now serving the finest in traditional Grauth cuisine and," he cleared his throat with a sickly expression, "and delicacies for other appetites." His smile was forced, his eyes glassy as he finished his spiel. "May I seat you at a table, or would you prefer a private room?"

There was no reason to feel appalled. Spike had been in a thousand places like this, usually to take advantage of the establishment's marginal legal status--you could get a shag and a snack in one-stop-shopping convenience, and they weren't likely to run complaining to the police if you left a girl low on juice. Still, it gave him a weird feeling to see the choicer female inhabitants of Sunnydale arrayed for purchase. Schoolteachers, shopgirls, secretaries, waitresses--he matched imaginary jobs to the women in the room, but one or two actually looked familiar, including a cat-eyed, fuschia-haired barista from the coffee shop down the street, who'd always flirted with him in a charmingly rude way. She'd been stripped of her nose ring and dressed in a frilly prom gown that clashed with her tattoos, and was seated next to a fat Grauth officer, his arm slung around her shoulders.

Something clenched in Spike's gut. After a moment he dredged up the reluctant recognition of his own anger. He hadn't known he could feel it on behalf of the people of Sunnydale, but apparently if you stuck around in one town long enough, you got a bit territorial. He should have left this damn place years ago. The Hellmouth bent you to its will, twisted you up like a pretzel or some kind of balloon animal for the kiddies to play with, and you'd think that the punchline would be pure evil, but there were other forces at work here.

I am not a toy, Spike thought distractedly, as he followed Sordicov to a table crowded with officers and women. Not a tin soldier.

"Pyit, Koba," Sordicov said heartily, while drawing Spike in with a hand on the shoulder. "Meet Captain Aurelius. Fellow saved my worthless life. Buy him a drink."

Hailed and welcomed, Spike sat and smiled thinly at their effusions. "Bring me a bottle," he said to the human waitress. He was the only one meeting her eyes and ignoring her cleavage, and she managed a tremulous smile for him. As she left, another woman came up and took the empty chair next to Spike. She was dressed in a shimmering evening gown, but the name-tag pinned to its strap was a garish cartoon turkey used by a local family restaurant. Rosa, it said.

She was beautiful, and her warm smile surprised Spike, who cocked his head down attentively as she leaned close and whispered, "Traitor." She was still smiling as she drew back.

Stiffening, he realized she mistook him for human. He could only stare as she settled near him and picked up a drink. A makeshift stage had been constructed at one end of the lobby, which Spike only noticed as the lights dimmed and heads turned its way. He dragged his attention from Rosa, following the audience's collective gaze and responding to its hush. Unsure what to expect except the worst, it took him several moments to connect the subdued tinkling of a piano with the appearance of an older black woman at the microphone, who stood swaying gently in the circle of a spotlight.

"This day and age we're living in gives cause for apprehension," she sang, "with speed and new invention, and things like fourth dimension..."

He'd heard Billie sing this in thirty-eight, thirty-nine, in a Harlem dive he'd forgotten until now, as the lyrics brought it rushing back. The singer wasn't a patch on Billie, and the piano player was a grey-skinned demon with a slight cough, but nostalgia closed around him, the elements of the room coming together to evoke a different, better era. And as the woman sang like a tragedy, and the ice in people's glasses tinkled, and cigarette smoke unfurled across the room, he saw it for a moment all in the perfect clarity of black and white--spectacle and stage sets and cinema--and understood exactly why the Grauth had come. It was the same reason he'd taken such unlikely joy in the first few days of the invasion.

It was a fucking huge and beautiful crisis, a blood-thrilling adventure, an atmosphere for grand gestures and great risks, and with the music seeping through the air like the darkest wine, a sense of formless, dramatic urgency rose in Spike and spilled over in the nearest direction. He leaned close to Rosa, arm around the back of her chair. He could feel the tension of fright and dislike in her motionlessness, in how she kept her gaze fixed on the stage. "What say you and me have a little talk somewhere more private," he said softly into her ear. "I've got a proposition for you."

"You're going to what?"

"To the inaugural ball," Anya said.

Xander sat stunned at the magic shop table from which they'd launched a thousand daring campaigns--or at least several dozen foolhardy ones--and tried to make sense of her words. He loved her, and he knew she wasn't crazy. She was a practical, self-protective woman who kept her eye out for the main chance and didn't believe in stupid risks. So what the frelling hell was she telling him?

"You're going to dance with demons."

She gazed at him, eyes ever so slightly wider than usual, which meant she thought he was being obtuse. "Well, yes, Xander. A ball usually has dancing." Like that was the point.

"You just barely escaped being some demon soldier's afternoon sex snack, and now you want to go socialize with them." He kept thinking if he put things into simple, straightforward words, she'd recognize their wrongness.

"Actually, he was the prefect of police. Strictly speaking, I don't think that's a military position."
 
Xander wished he had a pair of small eyeglasses so that he could take them off and clean them. Lacking a better way to signify his utter lostness, he nodded. "Is it higher ranking?"

"I don't know." She frowned. "Why?"

"Because it's really going to matter," he said, voice rising, "when he pushes you into a coat closet and rapes you, don't you think, Anya?"

"No!" Anya said, with a strikingly hurt and angry expression. "I don't think it matters! How can you say such a thing? And if that's some of your ill-timed sarcasm, you can just stuff it, mister."
 
He clenched his jaw. "I don't want you going."

"Well, I don't think it's wise to turn down the invitation." She adjusted her shoulders against the chair, and the broody wrinkles in her brow and pouting lips were those of someone much older; he could see Anya at fifty, Anya at seventy, cranky about moving to Florida, wanting a bigger condo by the beach. "Besides," she said, "I won't be in any danger. Spike will be there."

"Thanks," he said. "That was the bitter frosting on the cake that I needed to make this moment complete. I'll feel so much better knowing that a collaborating vampire is looking after you when I'm hiding below in my tunnel."

"Oh, get over yourself," she said irritably, rising to retreat behind her cash register. He followed. "At least Spike has the sense to..." She broke off hesitantly, noticing his dangerous look.

"To what, Anya?"

Her face set hard. "To find high ground when the floods roll in."

"Oh, he's quite a survivor, all right. Like a rat from a sinking ship." His mouth tightened with the sore, endless hatred he never wanted to lose, because losing that piece of himself would mean the game. "You know what the funny thing is? He didn't even join their side. That I could have understood, at least. But the only side he's on is his own."

Anya shut her cash drawer with a rattling slam and twisted her key in it. "Take it from a girl with a thousand years of experience. Sometimes that's the only side there is."

The hotel room was small and plain, with an insipid watercolor over the bed whose hues matched the quilted coverlet too closely for coincidence. One lamp glowed on a small table, picking up the facets of a crystal decanter and a glass. There was a TV, but it was silent and black. Rosa moved inside as he closed the door behind them, turned, and began sliding her dress off her shoulders. Her face gave nothing away.

"Now, now," Spike said, pushing the straps back up. "None of that."

Registering confusion, she crossed her arms high in front of herself, adopting by some instinct a burial pose Spike hadn't seen on corpses since the last century. "What do you want?"

"Information." Spike lit a cigarette for something to do, giving her time to assimilate this.

"Information," she repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah. Gossip, plans," he said a bit vaguely. "Like that."

"Plans?"

He grimaced. "This will go faster if you don't parrot everything I say."

A flash of anger hit her face and was quickly absorbed back into wary expressionlessness. "I don't know anything," she said, playing it defiantly cool, even though she couldn't have any way of knowing what he was asking for or why.

"Not yet you don't." He dropped into a nearby chair, bringing them eye to eye. "But you might learn a lot, working in a place like this." He thumbed his cigarette suggestively into his mouth and watched her flinch. She had a smart edge to her that he liked. That, and hatred.

"Why should I help you?" she challenged, and Spike's unbeating heart soared a bit higher. It was like something out of a movie. It was bloody marvelous. He unleashed a slow smile.

"Because you'd be hurting them, ducks."

It clicked for her. He could see it in her widening eyes. "You're--you're a spy." But doubt and good sense regained hold almost at once and she drew on a sneer. "You're human. They can't possibly trust you."

Spike vamped out and the woman screamed and scrambled away; he swore and leapt across the bed, grabbing at her, muffling her cries. "Shut up," he snarled in exasperation. She was limp in his arms, weeping and red. "Oh for crying out--" He lowered her to the bed, one hand still clasped over her mouth. "Stop bawling. Look, peek-a-boo, now you see it, now you don't." He unfaced himself and gave her his most Williamy regard, trying to reassure her. Quiet her. When she did calm at last, he removed his hand.

"What are you?" she asked, and he could tell she hadn't expected anything new. She'd gotten used to one race of demons, thought she'd mastered herself, maybe, but now he'd shown her there was more to fear.

"Vampire," he informed her matter of factly. "Undead, demonically animated. Lot of us about in Sunnydale. You're lucky you never noticed. 'S usually the last thing you see."

Her eyes welled with fresh tears. "I wanted to move to Pasadena. My mother lives there. I told Derek, it's close to L.A., and they have their own symphony...."

Spike sighed and climbed off her, hoping she'd pull herself together. "Wouldn't waste too much time on regret. Vampires everywhere." Of course, the Grauth probably weren't there, and she could have avoided servitude in a demon brothel if Derek had liked classical music better, but the truth wouldn't set her free, so what was the point? "Besides, fate's a tricky bitch. Got us all in its teeth, drags it where it wants us to go, whether we like it or not." He poured a glass of what smelled like rum and handed it to her. "Drink this."

She sat up shakily and drank, then wiped her hand across her mouth. She was staring at him, gaze crawling over his face as if she were trying to locate the seams of his mask. When her eyes began to gloss over sightlessly, he snapped his fingers and she came back with a start.

"I'm on your side," he reminded her.

"My side."

"Yeah. Side of good and righteousness and, er, humanity. More or less," he amended, feeling faintly ridiculous and glad none of the Scooby team could him fumbling his lines. In his fired-up imagination, he had a big-screen, surround-sound movie playing glorious stuff, where he could speechify inspiringly at the tip of a hat. What came out instead was halting, lame, and inelegant. Playing the role of hero didn't come easy, especially when you'd the last century honing your cynicism. But that's why they made method acting.

"More or less?"

"Here. I said to stop that." He glared at her and, strangely, she seemed to relax a little.

"So you're recruiting me."

"Right, that's it." Finally, he thought in relief. Progress.

Her steely gaze drilled into his. "You want me to whore my body to demons, collect what information I can, and pass it on to you."

Spike raised his eyebrows. She seemed to have a need to spell out the obvious. "Well, yeah."

Leaning against the headboard, Rosa smiled coldly at him, tears completely dry. "You've got a deal."

Buffy paced the lab. She hated being the watcher, having nothing to do while someone else worked. It made her a testy and unfun Buffy, and she knew that, but the knowledge didn't help. Trying to squeeze her impatience in was like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into a tube. "How much longer?" she asked for the umpteenth time. Umpteen. How many umps was that, anyway?

"As long as it takes me to figure out this spell, multiplied by the number of times you ask that question." He voice lowered to a mutter. "In dog years." It sounded like Willow was getting testy too, but Buffy couldn't summon up a worthy reproof. She wasn't sure she fully trusted Willow again after learning the enormity of the secret she'd kept, but the worst sting of anger was fading. Besides, now was no time to pick fights.

"Okay, I think I've got it. Get ready for some fusion-powered mojo."

Buffy hovered. "Fusion? Like nuclear? Willow--"

"No." Willow tapped speedily on the keyboard. "Fusion like cyberpunk meets ancient magics, with a dash of pap...ri...ka..."

"Huh?"

"What?" Willow returned absently, so absorbed she didn't even glance up from the computer screen. She flickered from window to window, resizing and dragging them, cutting and pasting text so fast that Buffy couldn't track a thing. "All right, let's get cooking."

Tap, tap, tap went her fingers.

There was a long, stretching minute of silence in which Buffy's tension ratcheted up notch after painful notch. "Do you need me to help with the spell?" she asked, wondering when it would begin.

"Nope. It's all done. I typed it into the computer. Cool, huh?"

"Wow," Buffy said with grudging interest, peering at the screen. "Are the powers logged on?"

"Guess we'll find out." Willow hit the enter key and the computer flashed a brilliant green, running fluidly with incomprehensible numbers and symbols like those ads for The Matrix, before going completely black. Sparks shot out of the monitor and showered them, and Buffy yelped and dragged Willow away, both of them beating at their clothes.

"Is that success or failure?" Buffy wondered aloud, an arm in front of her face to bat away the smoke that was quickly filling the air. She coughed.

"I'm not sure, but I think the computer's toast." They exited the lab. "We'll know it worked if Giles arrives," Willow said once they were outside in the corridor.

If, not when. Buffy felt that one word sink like a stone in her gut, drowning her optimism. "Great. More waiting."

"That's all I could do for months, is wait."

Buffy turned to Willow in disbelief at the quietly spoken words. Her friend's face was unhappy and vulnerable, but it was also something else. She didn't know quite what, but she knew it was there, self-satisfaction or self-pity, some selfy part of Willow that didn't regret at all what she'd done. She knew it was there because it was in her too, whenever she did something no one else agreed with, when she took the hard road against their reproachful looks. She'd paid over and over again for doing what was necessary; she'd suffered guilt, but deep down she'd always kept that little voice that said: I had to do it--I know I was right--they don't understand.

She could hear Willow's little voice, and it angered her.

"All you could do?" she burst out. "No. You could have told us, Willow. You could have maybe said something about the prophecy, instead of lying to our faces. You could have been a team player, instead of taking the entire weight of the world on your shoulders. I thought we were past all that." She'd been saving this up, and the vent was inevitable.
 
"God, you still don't get it, do you?" Willow's face tightened and seemed to glow more brightly in the dark hallway. "I knew what I wasn't supposed to know, Buffy. That was the only thing--the only thing--that changed our fate. Without the visions, I'd have translated the prophecy and we'd all be dead. It was supposed to be. And I unmade that. I did. You couldn't have. You'd have had to fight. There'd have been no stopping you. And that's what kills you, isn't it. That it was me, and not you. That I did something you couldn't."

Under that accusing glare, Buffy didn't back down, but her hands clenched by her sides. That's what kills you, she'd said, all unheeding of the irony. Or not. Not all Willow's layers were sweet now. There was a sharp bite to that cake, like bitter fruit. But the flavor wasn't so different from her own.

"Maybe you're right," she said all at once. Willow blinked, taken aback. "But I don't know how to take you being right when I feel so betrayed."

"Oh, Buffy." Willow's face opened to her as easily and suddenly as an unstuck door, full of love and yearning. "I never meant that. Never. It was for you and Xander and Tara and Dawn, and it was hard, really hard, every day."

And then she was crying and Buffy was crying and they were puddling in each other's arms like a couple of girls, which they were, so that was okay, wasn't it. She agreed with herself, yes, it was, and just at the moment she was getting in touch with her inner Oprah, a pair of Grauth guards burst through the doors at the end of the hall.

"Patete," Willow yelled and Buffy thought, pate? But apparently it was Harry Potter hoodoo for 'please open a big gaping hole in the floor', which was what happened, leaving them on one side and the guards on the other, at le