“Buffy!” Spike shouted, and over his voice, she heard the sounds of more attacks coming from upstairs.
* * *
They came through windows.
They broke down the doors.
Hooded figures burst upon Willow and Dawn in the living room. From the kitchen more swarmed in; one of them hit Anya in the back of the head with his staff. She dropped to the floor.
Xander moved to take him on when he was hit from behind by two more of them. Their hoods fell back, their faces were revealed. Symbols carved in black covered their eyeless faces.
Chaos continued to unfold: one of them rushed Willow, whacking her across the neck with his staff. She flew back, hit the wall, and dropped to the ground.
Another one charged Dawn, who dropped to the ground and flipped him with his own momentum, sending him crashing into the wall.
Then Buffy flew through the door to the basement, shattering it to pieces. She joined the fray, aware that some of the attackers had broken off and were headed upstairs.
She shook off the others and followed after them into her room, where one of the robed figures burst into the room, dropped his staff, and took out two crescent-shaped daggers. He made for the bed, where Andrew lay bound. Andrew’s eyes widened as he rolled off the bed and the figure stabbed the mattress with his vicious blades.
Buffy grabbed the attacker; another one dashed into the room. And another. As Andrew managed to stand, she grabbed him and used him as a battering ram à la Jackie Chan, holding him by the shoulders and driving him into the chest of one of the figures. He fell back, and she repeated the maneuver with the other one.
Then she heaved Andrew out of her way, grabbed Two-Knives’ weapons, and stabbed him as he rushed her, directly in the stomach.
The other figure rushed her, and she stabbed him in the stomach with the other knife, so that her arms were crossed mummy-style over her chest. Then she drew out both razor-sharp knives, uncrossed her arms, and slashed each of them again with the opposite knife.
They fell to the floor, dead.
“Buffy!” Xander shouted, running into the room. He was carrying one of staffs, all action man and yecch face as he saw the bodies.
“Dawn?” Buffy demanded.
“She’s okay.” He looked around. “I thought there were more of them . . .”
She got it at once: there had been more of them. And they had gone elsewhere.
“Spike,” she said.
They raced out of the room and into the basement.
Spike’s shackles were empty . . . and he was gone.
* * *
Aftermath.
In the living room, the wounded tended to each other and to themselves. Willow brought The first aid kit and was just sitting down when Buffy and Xander came into the room together. There were dead guys lying around, too.
“They were so fast,” Xander observed. “And organized.”
“They were after Spike all along,” Buffy replied.
“And we were just in the way,” Xander added.
Then Buffy knelt to inspect one of the robed people lying face-up on the floor.
“I know these guys,” she said, as it all came together. “I fought them before. This isn’t some demon.” She had figured it out. “It’s all the same thing. Spike’s ghosts, the people you guys saw, from beneath us, it’s all the same thing.
“I know what we’re up against.” She paused, frightened. “The First.”
London, Watchers Council Headquarters
The members of the Council were in an uproar as they tried to contain the damage that had been inflicted upon them.
The building had been ransacked—maps torn off walls, files cabinets emptied and overturned. The atmosphere was frantic, though some of the Watchers cleaned up and spoke on phones with characteristically grim Englishness.
Through this all, walked Quentin Travers, surveying the damage, a grave look on his face.
Phillip briefed him.
“They took our files, wiped out our records. We’ve lost contact with operations in Munich, Switzerland, and Rome. We’ve got casualty confirmations coming in from as far away as Melbourne.”
Lydia, the young blonde, blurted, “Sir, we are crippled.”
Quentin gazed at her, and soothed, “It’s all right.” Then he quoted Winston Churchill, who had been Prime Minister of Britain during World War II, when London was being blitzed on a regular basis by Adolph Hitler’s Nazis: “ ‘We are still the masters of our fate, we are still the captains of our souls.’ ”
The words worked their magic on the young woman. Then Quentin said to the group at large, “Our fears have been confirmed. The First Evil has declared all-out war against this institution. Their first volleys have proved to be most effective.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I for one, think it’s time we struck back.”
All gazes were riveted on him. He could practically hear the others saying, “Hear, hear.”
“Get me confirmations on all remaining operatives. Begin preparations for mobilization. Once we’re accounted for, I want to be ready to move. We’ll be paying a visit to the Hellmouth.”
He continued, “My friends, these are the times that define us. Proverbs 24:6: ‘For by wise counsel, you shall make your war.’ ”
And in the next moment, the Council Building exploded into a huge conflagration of bombs and flames. . . .
* * *
Spike’s double grinned evilly at Spike as the shirtless vampire was strapped to a sort of Catherine wheel above a large disc carved with a pentagram and other arcane symbols. It was scene directly out of The Black Cat, starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, only it was real life.
“You’ll have to excuse the spectacle, but I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for the ol’ classics,” Spike’s double said, as if it could read his mind.
Metal scalpels flashed in the light as the robed figures lay them out, passing them to one another. There were other sharp objects, torture instruments—Spike was familiar with them all. He’d used them all himself, at some point in his long, horrible life. He’d had Marcus, the skilled vampiric torturer, use them on Angel to make him tell them where the Ring of Amarra had got to.
They began to use them. Spike was shocked at how much The First slice hurt, then stunned even more by the second. Unbelievable pain, unimaginable . . .
He screamed and screamed.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” his reflection ordered him. “I wanted to do this more subtlelike. My Harbingers have a tendency to call attention to themselves.”
More pain.
Spike screamed again.
His double leaned forward and said, “You’re the one who couldn’t hold his end of the bargain. You’re the one who couldn’t take care of what’s-his-name. You’re the one who had to make breakthroughs and learn something about himself.”
Still more pain . . . oh, God . . .
“So now, fittingly, you’re the one who gets to do the honors,” his double continued. And then . . . it changed into Buffy, her smile evil and lustful, who drawled, “I have to admit, I’m glad it worked out this way. I was going to bleed Andrew, but you look a lot better with your shirt off.”
At her signal, one of her minions . . . her Harbingers . . . cranked a wheel that hoisted Spike’s Catherine wheel into the hair. He hung horizontally from the disc, ritual cuts carved into his chest, and they were bleeding steadily on the disc below him.
“To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of subtle,” “Buffy” drawled as she watched him dangling. “I think it’s about time we brought some authority to our presence. Now, Spike, do you want to see what a real vampire looks like?”
Spike’s blood was pooling on the grooves of the seal, running around the circumference. The Celtic knots between the points of the pentagram began to glow.
One by one, the points of the five-pointed star lifted, then folded into themselves, forming a pyramid. Once formed, it sank into the center of the disc, a
nd then the entire disc itself began to submerge into the abyss in portions, like a great medieval death machine.
Light streamed out of it, blue and sickly, a portent of what was to come.
And then a single hand shot out, followed by another. The flesh was gray, desiccated; the nails long and gnarled.
Dressed in black leather like the Master, the creature climbed forth. Its bald head stamped with exaggerated vampire features—forehead, teeth. Its cheeks were sunken and its eyes . . . its eyes were filled with demonic, unbridled power.
The it raised its hands and roared with fury.
And Spike could do nothing but watch.
And bleed.
Chapter Ten: “Bring on the Night”
In Buffy’s living room, Xander swept up the broken glass from any and all windows in the entire Summers’ home, for heaven’s sake. Buffy and Willow were at the table doing computer research, while Anya and Dawn sat on the couch with very old and musty-smelling books.
“It’s a loop,” Xander said, exasperated. “Like the mummy hand. I’m doomed to replace these windows for all eternity. You know, maybe we should board these up until things are less Hellmouthy.”
Anya, who had on her reading glasses to alleviate her eyestrain, was equally frustrated. She held up a notebook she’d been reading and announced, “Nothing. And nothing.” She held up two books. “Cliff Notes to nothing. Nothing abridged . . .”
Willow glanced up from the laptop. “Yeah, my search isn’t turning up anything, either.” She asked Buffy, “Are you sure this thing called itself ‘The First.’ ”
Buffy gave a thoughtful shrug. “Pretty sure. It claimed to be the original evil, the one that came before anything else.”
Anya peered over glasses and rolled her eyes. “Please. How many times have I heard that line in my demon days? ‘I’m so rotten, they don’t even have a word for it. I’m bad. Baddy bad bad bad does it make you horny?’ ” Off everyone’s startled glances, she added quickly, “Or terrified. Whatever.”
“It wasn’t a line,” Buffy argued. “When I came up against this thing, I felt it. It was ancient and enormous. It nearly got Angel to kill himself. And if we don’t rescue Spike soon, God only knows what The First’ll get him to do.”
She felt helpless at the thought, and tried to push her fears away, concentrate on the situation at hand.
Xander shot a look at Andrew, who was back in his chair and unconscious again. “I wish Sleeping Ugly would come to,” he grumbled. “He’s been out all night.”
Anya added, “He was just starting to squeal when the spooky SWAT arrived. Said The First was held up at the Seal of Danzar something?”
Dawn walked over to Andrew, regarding him suspiciously. “Maybe he’s just faking so he doesn’t have to answer any more questions.” She slapped him and stood back to gauge the effect. “Or maybe he’s in a fugue state.” She pulled back her hand in preparation to slapping him again, but Buffy interrupted her.
“He’ll come to when he comes to. If we’re going to rescue Spike, we need how to figure out how to fight this thing.”
Dawn pouted as she headed back to the couch. “Anya gets to hit him.”
“Hey,” Willow called excitedly. “Here! The First!” She kept reading, grimaced, and added, “Bank of Delaware. Sorry.”
Sighing, Buffy said, “Hand me the Watcher’s Codex again.”
And then, as she took it . . .
“Can I get you something else, baby? How about some tea?”
Joyce Summers stood beside Buffy, her face sweet and kind and solicitous. She was so beautiful, so vibrant and alive. But she wasn’t really there. Buffy knew that, and yet, she couldn’t staunch her reaction.
She closed her eyes and said, “You’re not real. You’re The First.”
“Oh, baby, you’re so tired, you’re not making sense,” Joyce said kindly. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”
“No,” Buffy murmured, though the idea of sleep was unbelievably tempting.
Joyce’s gaze filled with concern. “You can’t win against this thing. Not if you don’t rest.”
Visibly shaken, Buffy said, “Stop. Stop being like this. It’s a lie.”
“I don’t want to scare you,” Joyce continued, “but I want you to take care.” She bent and said slowly, “You need to wake up.”
“What?” Buffy asked, frowning in confusion.
Then Xander said, “You’re dreaming. Buffy, wake up.”
She roused, sitting upright as she realized she had been asleep. She looked around and said, “Did you see it?”
“There’s nothing to see,” Xander reassured her. “You were just doing a little dream talking. That’s all.”
“Oh,” she said pensively.
He eyed her. “You okay? What did you see?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It was nothing.”
* * *
To the dirgelike chant of The First’s Harbingers, Spike was dragged face up along the floor of an underground cave. Torchlight flickered on his ruined face and the symbols on his chest. He managed to focus long enough to make out the image of the . . . what should he call it? The Ubervamp? It was the monster that was dragging him along. He flashed to another time he had been dragged powerlessly along—by the Initiative soldiers—and wondered what would happen to him this time.
Keepin’ me alive for something . . .
Then The First appeared to him as his double, sneering at Spike’s condition, and said to the Ubervamp, “Go on, Give it a kick, then. You always liked that, didn’t you?”
As he spoke he morphed into Drusilla, and Spike had to remind himself that this wasn’t really Dru.
“Kick a dolly when he’s down,” she said in her Cockney accent. “That was always your style.”
She watched, pleased, as the Ubervamp kicked him so hard he rolled. She said evilly, “Has buckets of energy, poor dear. He’s been laying in wait for his moment since before the bug walked.”
She said to the monster, “There, there, pet. Soon as the moon comes, you’ll have your carnage. Little girls tear so easily . . . like pink paper.” The Ubervamp kicked Spike again.
And again.
And again.
* * *
Buffy walked in just as Dawn splashed Andrew with cold water, which worked, but Dawn and Anya didn’t want to get in trouble with Buffy so Anya blurted, “Silly Andrew. You drooled all over yourself.”
Andrew gazed at Buffy hero-worship style and said, ‘I was about to be dead. You saved me.”
“For the time being.” She crossed her arms just like Wonder Woman and said, “But if you don’t tell us what we need to know, then I’m going to offer you to The First on a platter and let him chop you into tiny pieces.”
Andrew swallowed, composing himself. He was about to talk when he stopped, confused, and asked, “The First what?”
“It’s the name of the evil thing that pretended to be Warren to get you to kill Jonathan.”
He was disappointed. “Not very ominous sounding. An evil name should be like Lex or Voldemort or—”
“Hey, I was intimidating here,” Buffy groused.
“Oh, sorry,” Andrew said contritely. “Go ahead.”
She sighed. “Forget it. Where’s the Seal?”
* * *
And then they were in the basement, staring down at the disc, and Xander said, “Whoa. Check out the goat-heady badness.”
“What does it do?” Buffy asked.
“I don’t know. It didn’t work ’cause there wasn’t enough blood.”
Dawn was examining a strange wheel-cross thing as she said, “There’s blood on this. Lots. Looks like The First made a sacrifice. Or a music video.”
Buffy was worried. “The Seal could’ve been activated. I bet that’s what The First needed Spike for.”
Andrew began to panic. “That’s wasn’t there before,” he insisted, indicated the crossworks. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Thanks for clea
ring that up,” Xander drawled, “ ’cause otherwise we might’ve thought you were up to no good here at the satanic manhole cover.” In exasperation, he added, “You killed your best friend!”
Andrew murmured, “He’s in a place of joy and peace. He told me.”
Buffy rolled her eyes as Xander said impatiently, “No, nobody told you. You got tricked by a fake ghost.”
“Can we save the encounter session?” Buffy demanded. “We need to cover this thing up.”
She grabbed one of the shovels that Andrew and Jonathan used to uncover the Seal and tossed it toward Xander and Andrew.
Xander got one too, and everyone began digging.
* * *
When they were finished, they walked out of the room and into the hallway. Andrew muttered, “Man, this place gives me the creeps. It’s like in Wonder Woman, issue 297-299.”
“Catacombs,” Xander said reflexively. “With the skeletons.”
Simultaneously they both said, “That was cool.”
Okay, I did not just massively geek out, Xander thought.
“So what next?” Dawn asked . . . and then she and Buffy both clammed up as Principal Wood emerged from another corridor, carrying a shovel of his own.
“Buffy . . .” he began.
“Hey,” she replied.
They eyed each other. And the shovels. It was . . . odd.
“Apparently somebody left this in the courtyard, and I was just returning it,” he told her.
She raised her brows. “That’s some full-service principaling.”
The principal in turn looked at Buffy’s shoulder.
“Oh.” She said earnestly, “And I was just down here helping Dawnie with her project.”
“For science,” Dawn volunteered.
“We buried a . . . time capsule,” Buffy informed him.
Dawn said, way too brightly, “Hello, people of the future! Kids now like Red Bull and Jackass!”
They moved off awkwardly, but not before Principal Wood asked her if she could come back to work.
“Things are backing up,” he told her.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised him. “One hundred percent ooze free.”
* * *
After they got home, Willow and Anya made preparations for a locator spell, to see if they could find The First.