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When Dawn and Andrew left the Temple of the Sisters, storm clouds had begun their late summer simmer over the south part of town. Andrew looked repeatedly skyward. It was clear he did not fancy Dawn’s plan of sneaking in to the Watchers Council Building in Wapping to do stealth research on The Sisters. After all, he pointed out, he had worked so hard to ingratiate himself shamelessly to Giles.

“And if I get caught with my hands in the Watcher Council cookie jar now, it means no more career as a budding bureaucrat for the paranormal,” Andrew told her. “Or is it biscuit jar in England?”

Andrew had been given a key to the outer doors to the Watcher Council Headquarters. They entered the simply furnished front lobby to find the building was deserted. Apparently, even the new Watchers thought highly enough of themselves to keep a British banker’s hours. Dawn reasoned, though, that Giles had gone home early to prepare for the spell. Which gave them very little time, if they were going to be useful.

Dawn knew, also, that all of the worthwhile information would be securely locked away in Giles’ office. Andrew did not have a key to that door. Dawn crouched in front of it, trying to pick the lock with a paper clip she found in her book bag.

“I think we should not be doing this,” Andrew told her, for the millionth time. “This storm’s kicking up the pollen count. You do not want to deal with Allergy Me right now.”

Dawn was nonplussed. She had been practicing a little freelance locksmithery since their demon scare in Italy. Some things just seemed like advantageous skills. She had been kidnapped enough by now to know that picking locks was one of the many.

“Why robes?” Andrew said.

Dawn did not look up from the lock.

“Did we miss some form-meets-fashion mandate from the 1500s? Because all the Big Bads, yeah, they wear robes,” Andrew said.

“They don’t all wear robes,” Dawn said. She jiggled the straightened end of the paper clip. She felt the tumblers in the knob wiggle, but they would not turn.

“Well, enough to perpetuate a stereotype. Robes, hoods, sandals: All part of the demon ensemble. Hey, do crosses work on Jewish vampires?” Andrew said. He leaned against the wall and stroked his chin.

Dawn looked up at him. “Andrew, ignore all external stimuli.”

Andrew watched her struggling with the lock. He said, “My brain equals internal stimuli, thanks very much. Besides, it’s a valid question.”

Frustrated, Dawn combed her hair back behind her ears. “No. It’s not. We’re not fighting vampires. We’re breaking and entering. Second time today. We’re racking up the whole array of felonies here, and you’re talking vampire theology. How did you get into the church, anyway?"

Andrew looked embarrassed. “It was just a knock spell,” he said.

“Well, can you knock again? This lock’s looking unpickable,” Dawn said.

Andrew crossed his arms. “Giles would have protection against it. It’s pretty basic, really...”

“Try it?” Dawn suggested. She got to her feet and moved aside.

Andrew covered the doorknob with his fist and muttered something in a demonic tongue Dawn didn’t recognize. An ember-red glow fanned out from his fingertips, but... nothing.

He shook his head. “Got a credit card?” he asked.

Dawn flounced in her theatrical teen manner. “I wish. Oh, but I have my ID. How’s that?”

“Sufficient,” Andrew said. She passed it to him. He ran it between the door and the jamb. “This is an old building. Xander’s crew is working on updates and overhauls, but these things take time.”

Dawn watched Andrew as he worked the ID card over the catch. He slipped his tongue out over his lips in concentration.

“More leftovers from your days as Crime Lord of Sunnydale?” Dawn asked.

Andrew popped the lock open and swung the door out. He looked down at her through squinted eyes.

“More like every crime movie in existence, babe,” he said.

Dawn slipped by him. “Finally a pay off for all those hours watching 007 marathons...”

Andrew flicked on the light. Giles’ office looked a frightful mess for one so fastidious as they knew him to be. At first Dawn ignored the smeared mud tracks and haphazard piles of books. She went right for the bookshelf behind his desk.

“Willow told me he keeps his secrety texts on the top shelf,” Dawn said.

Andrew dragged his finger through the caked mud on the desk set. “I’m thinking he’s got them scattered here in plain sight. Kinda cheeky.”

Dawn went around to the other side of the desk. There, she found a mud-crusted crate full of sodden books, a pick ax and a worn leather map.

“What are these?” she asked.

Lightning flashed brilliant white outside.

Andrew took the map between his hands. “Mr. Giles has gone Dr. Jones on us. Been holding out on the goods,” he said. “Seems like.”

“Yeah, but why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Andrew unfolded the map. “Amesbury,” he said. “He’s not cooking with the fresh, but he knows his way around the kitchen.”

Dawn snatched the map from him. “Can you be more random?” she said. “What does that even mean?”

Andrew huffed. “It means Giles found something. An archive. A hidden one. Look,” he said. He pointed to a spot on the map that someone had marked with a black grease pencil.

Dawn was shaking her head. She knelt beside the crate to get a better look at the books inside. Her jaw went slack as she ran her hands over them. She said, “This is amazing, Andrew. I don’t think these books have seen sunlight in like 500 years.”

Andrew knelt across from her. “Think they contain usefulness regarding the Sisters?”

“We don’t have time to go through them all,” Dawn said. “There are dozens. Unless... can you speed read?”

Andrew snorted. “No.”

“Well how long do we have before Buffy goes home from the school?”

Andrew checked his watch. “She leaves around 6, which gives us less than... one hour.”

“It’s no good. We need more time,” Dawn said.

“We need one of those time turners that Hermoine uses in Prisoner of Azkaban,” Andrew mused.

“Andrew! Reality, will you?” Dawn said. She tossed a number of the slimmer volumes from the top of the crate at him. “Take these. I’ll get the ones down from the shelf. Flip through them. Look for something – anything – resembling those symbols we found at the church.”

They flipped through the books frantically. With each one, Dawn got the feeling they were trapped in a well with the water quickly rising. To punctuate this, the rain spattered the windows in fierce nips, with strokes of lightning thrown in like exclamation points.

Andrew suddenly stood up. “Wait...” he said.

Dawn looked up at him. “I’m waiting... note the impatience.”

He said, “Na galleck till nestful gal a conga.”

“If that’s a spell from Harry Potter, picture this book upside your head,” Dawn told him.

“The Sisters said it to Spike. Right before they attacked,” he said. He pulled out his notebook, then dragged out Dawn’s laptop. She watched him with rough curiosity as he plugged in the computer and waited for the startup screen.

“What does it mean?” Dawn said, in an icy tone.

“It’s a recipe for ancient tofu tacos for all we know,” he said. He pulled the laptop onto his knees. “I wrote it down phonetically, but maybe someone else has a translation...”

Dawn watched him in disbelief. “Andrew, you can’t Google a dead demon language,” she said.

He began to type in his phonetic translation. “If we can match some of the words, even one of them, we might have square one,” he said.

“It’s impossible,” Dawn said.

Andrew ran out his tongue again in concentration. “So says you, but...” he said. And then, “Ponderous...”

“What?” Dawn said.

Andrew read from the browser window: “Did you mean N’galeck t’ll nesthul gal aconda.”

Dawn slid around to sit beside him. They shared the laptop between them.

“No way,” Dawn whispered. “Click it.”

Andrew clicked on the hyperlink. A web site appeared which contained scholarly looking information about the Pleiades, complete with sketchy star charts and images of the blue-white stars in the cluster.

“I’ll be damned,” Dawn said, pointing at the screen. “Galeck n’al aconda – ready for the light. Light of what? What light?”

Andrew went scholarly. “Patience, paduwan,” he said. He clicked the link in the text. They read in silence. Lightning flashed again outside, followed by the hollow rumble of thunder.

Dawn pointed again. Andrew cringed. “Do not touch the screen.”

Dawn touched it. “It’s my computer, weirdy,” she said.

Andrew sneered. Dawn ignored him. She pointed at another section of text. “This part talks about a trial,” she said. “It’s Kabalist legend, Andrew. And the Sisters...”

Andrew scrolled the page down. He looked disappointed. “All just surface-y descriptions. This is just someone’s Master’s thesis. It’s all information, not connection.”

“Wait,” Dawn said. She pulled out the book she had been highlighting so furiously the night before.

Andrew glanced at it. “The Habbalissa Codex?” he said.

“It’s mine,” she said. “It’s like the demonic companion reader to Herodotus...”

“I know what it is,” he said.

“Here.” She flipped to pages she had marked. “The Pleiades. The Sisters. The Habbaliss called them sacred protectors. And here...” she flipped again, then showed him a section she had outlined in pen. “This talks about a kind of test – a rite of passage for proving their worth.”

Dawn sat back on her heels. “Andrew...”

“They attacked him,” Andrew said.

“It’s a test. Oh my God.”

Andrew pushed his hair back from his forehead. “If the Sisters aren’t evil...” he said.

“And they created Spike, then he’s been sent as a kind of...”

“Helper? Like C-3PO to Princess Leia. Except Spike would be more of an IG-88 than a protocol droid,” Andrew said.

Dawn snatched Andrew’s wrist and squeezed it. “They’re gonna disenchant him. Andrew!”

“Ow,” he said. He reclaimed his wrist and checked his watch. “It’s raining and we’re 20 minutes from the Flat.”

Dawn got to her feet. “Stash the books and laptop in the broom closet. We’ll have to run if we’re gonna stop that spell.”

“Right,” Andrew said. His lips pressed into a thin smile.

“You up for it?”

“I am so up,” he said.





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