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Author's Chapter Notes:
Lyrics to Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
Andrew raced down the basement stairs.

“Halt the ritual!” he yelled. He skidded to a halt on the concrete floor.

Willow looked from him, to Xander and Giles. Both could only shrug.

“Already did,” she said.

“The Sisters are good!” he yelled in the same pitch as his previous statement. Dawn, who was on her way down the stairs with her books, got ready to back him up.

“The Sisters?” Willow asked.

“The Ninja Nuns?” Xander said. “I’m missing a link.”

Willow patted his leg.

Dawn tossed the Habbalissa Codex into the circle. Giles leaned in to have a closer look.

“Wanna help us out, Giles?” Dawn asked, all business.

Giles pulled his glasses off. He took the book into his hands, then opened to some of the pages that Dawn had marked with her glaring green highlighter. Giles cringed at seeing all those marks stricken across the weathered pages.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“It’s mine. I have books, Giles. The notations in the margins are mine, too,” Dawn said.

“Dawn, what...?” Xander began, but Giles interrupted him.

“This is the, um, Habbalissa Codex. It contains demonology from ancient Greece, including stories about demon clan wars and various demonic lineages. It’s also a kind of rulebook. It lays down guidelines for priests who interacted with ancient demigods,” Giles told them.

“Like the Pleiades,” Dawn said.

“The constellation?” Xander said.

“No,” Willow answered. Her eyes widened. “The Sisters are the Pleiades?”

Andrew came to stand beside Dawn. “The selfsame Sisters who attacked Buffy and Spike,” he said. He cocked his eyebrow in Spockian fashion.

Giles tapped the page. “But if they are who you say they are, why would they attack Spike unless he was an instrument of evil?”

“Because of this,” Andrew said. He tossed his notebook onto the altar in the same way that Dawn had tossed the book. His aim was off, though, and it bounced from the altar and on to Xander’s lap. Giles took it, impatiently, and slipped his glasses back on.

He read Andrew’s phonetic spelling of the words the Sisters had spoken. Then, he translated. “To embrace the light, you must pass the trial,” he said.

“What light?” Xander said. “Starlight? I am adrift in a sea of dead languages.”

Giles turned the pages of the notebook back to its cover. “This is Willow’s...” he said.

“Hey...” Willow said. “That has my spell notes in it.”

Giles settled back on his heels. “Where did you get this?”

Andrew lowered his eyes. He tugged on the hem of his shirt.

But Dawn said, “I took it. I found it in your satchel, the other day when you brought in the scrolls from...” she leveled her eyes on his... “From wherever you got them.”

Giles understood then that Andrew and Dawn knew a little more than they were sharing with the group. They would have questions, and, luckily, he had some answers. He pursed his lips.

“Well done,” he said. “Both of you. This...” he gestured to the notebook and the Codex... “It may prove helpful.”

“Meantime,” Willow said, getting to her feet. “We should get this place cleaned up. And I’ll be taking my notebook, thank you very much.”

Xander scrubbed his brow then adjusted his eye patch. He picked up the vessel, sniffed it, and sneered.

“So Spike isn’t a thing of evil?” Xander said.

“We still can’t be sure,” Giles said. “We have no clue as to why he is here, or what the Sisters want. If they are the ones who made him.”

“And so we may still have an ‘in’?” Xander asked. “’Cause I just hate having an ‘in.’”

“Helloooo, merry campers,” Lorne called down from the basement door. “Are the spellifications over? Is it safe to descend?”

“Come on down, Big Green,” Xander said. “Join us in the Pit of Despair.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Willow said. Her eyes glittered. “Maybe we should have him sing.”

Xander brought his hands together. “Great. A demon karaoke party is just the thing to round out my night.”

“No, not Lorne,” Dawn said.

Lorne left the staircase and joined them. “No, not Lorne what?” he said, smiling solicitously.

“Dethwok demons are empaths,” Andrew explained. “You know, like Deanna Troi?”

Xander nodded. “And?”

“Lorne can tell people’s destinies when they sing for him,” Willow said.

Lorne held out his hands. “Except I’m out of that gig, guinea pig. Madame Esmerelda’s packed up her crystal ball and set sail for less depressing vistas, if you catch me.”

Giles took the vessel from Xander. He said, “It would help us if we knew his intentions weren’t self-serving.”

Lorne steepled his fingers. “I take it Buffster didn’t go in for the spell?”

“Yeah, about that,” Xander said. “Did we not make it plain that if Spike was Spike, the spell would have no effect?”

Willow moved to a utility cupboard beneath the stairs. She took out a broom and dustpan. Over her shoulder, she said, “But Xander, if it wasn’t, she would be destroying all there was left of him.”

Xander looked for help from the others, but got none. Andrew went to the utility closet to help Willow. Giles replaced the vessel on the altar. Dawn folded her long arms, but avoided looking back at him.

So Xander stood up. “So I’m the only one not convinced?”

“No, not the only...” Giles said.

Lorne picked up the vessel for himself. He turned it over in his hands, looking for an inscription or name brand on its base. He said, “You’re concerned about Buffy’s judgement. You think she’s behaving irrationally because she hasn’t examined her feelings and you’re afraid she might not be seeing something that will put all you cats in the big D kind of danger.”

“She’s never seen things clearly when it comes to Spike,” Xander said. “And he’s bad for her in ways we all know about. Yet she keeps letting him in.”

Andrew, who was helping Willow with sweep detail, dropped his dustpan. “You loved Anya,” he said.

“You leave her out of this,” Xander snapped.

Dawn said, “You did love her, Xander. And she was once evil. And when Buffy almost had to...”

Xander threw his hands up. “I give up. And maybe we should all drop it before I put this candle into my own eye socket.”

Willow took the candle from Xander. “It’ll be okay, sweetie. Really,” she said.

Lorne smoothed the lapels of his peacock blue blazer. “Hey, Pussycats. I have this bang-up plan for putting things back into OK-Land.”

“Shoot,” Xander said.

“Let’s all go to the pub and get a round in English-style,” Lorne said. “And you all can table the construct conversation until another time.”

“I’m down with that,” Andrew said. He wiped his hands on his jeans.

“I hear the man,” Xander said. “I’m for minding a few p’s and q’s.”

Dawn glanced and Giles. “Great,” she said. “A plan that can’t include me. Guess I’ll just stay here and listen to Giles recite the entire Watcher’s Codex from memory.”

Willow looped her arm around Xander’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Dawnie. It’s never as fun as we say it is. Oh! I’ll be designated driver. I can’t hold my liquor and Lorne’s glamour spell at the same time.”

She and Xander made their way toward the stairs. Andrew fell in a pace behind them.

Andrew said, “Shepherd’s is around the block. No car required.”

“Silly me, with my inefficient American notion of driving everywhere,” Willow said. “Guess then I’ll be the designated walker.”

Lorne got in line behind them.

As they all went upstairs, chatting in fashion much less tense, Dawn turned her eyes to the Watcher. Giles stood up, stretching the stiffness from his legs.

“So,” Dawn said. “You want to explain the pick ax and the hidden something you found in Amesbury?”

Giles stammered. He said, “How on earth...?”

“That’s what we were thinking,” Dawn said. “We found the crate of books.”

“You broke into my office?”

Dawn looked up at him. Her large blue eyes held a kind of sternness in them that must be the trademark of all Summers women.

But before Giles could say anything, Willow came to the basement doorway.

“He’s home,” she called down. “Spike came home.”

~*~

“Oh, this can’t be good,” William said when he stepped over the threshold to find Xander, Willow, Lorne and Andrew standing there, as if they awaited his appearance. Rupert and Dawn came into the hall from the kitchen. With the exception of Lorne, who always looked super stellar, they looked worn with concern and terribly bedraggled. Not that William looked any better, with his shirt sliced to ribbons and muddy patches that marred his clothes.

They formed a loose circle, the six of them, as if they intended to bar his entry. He looked at each one carefully, then decided it best to just play along.

William closed the door behind him “What’s with the welcoming committee? Where’s Buffy?”

“She went out to find you,” Dawn said.

“Fine then,” William said. He turned to leave again.

“Wait!” Willow said.

William turned. He crossed his arms.

“We were hoping you could do us this tiniest little favor,” she said.

Lorne sighed dramatically. He shot a teeth-grinding grimace at Willow.

“You want me to sing.” William chuckled. He shook his head slowly.

“Just a bar,” Lorne said. “A note or two for those who love you?”

“Love may be too strong a word for what I feel,” Xander muttered.

Willow said, “Xander, it’s pretty plain how you...”

“Guys,” Dawn said.

“All we’re saying is give the man a chance,” Andrew said.

And then William started to sing:

“I heard there was a secret chord,
Which David played and it pleased the Lord,
But you never cared for music, do you?
Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor chord and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah...”

It can be said that it takes a great deal to stun the Scooby gang into downright silence. This was one thing that did the trick. Xander’s mouth dropped open like a freshly caught trout. Willow wore the same expression she made when watching the last scenes of Gone With The Wind.

And for a moment, Lorne was utterly devastated. He felt as though he had just glanced at the last page of a horror novel. He wished, as he often did, that Spike’s song had remained unsung.

William stood there, shoulders slightly slack, like a man who was about to be judged.

Finally, Lorne managed words. “I figured you for a Ramones man,” he said, breathlessly.

“Hmn. Jeff Buckley,” Dawn said.

“I was gonna say Rufus,” Andrew said.

“Oh bloody hell,” William said. “It’s Leonard Cohen, you nit.”

Xander gave a gurgle of bitter laughter. “The softer side of Spike,” he said.

“Right, Harris. Salt. Wound. Rub it in,” William said. “I sang your tune. Are we done?”

Lorne swallowed. He turned to Giles. “You’ve got no cause for concern with this one,” he said. “Therein beats the heart of a true poet.”

“Good,” Giles said. “That’s, er, good. Thank you.”

An uneasy silence ensued. After which, Xander said, “Hey, we started something with Shepherd’s and I for one think we should finish it.”

Without waiting for input from the others, Xander plunged past William to the door and out to street level. Willow went after him. She squeezed William’s arm as she went by. Andrew fidgeted and shuffled before deciding to join them. Dawn and Giles went quietly into the dining area, leaving Lorne and William alone in the entry hall.

Lorne made a sour face. “Geh. They’re all so...”

“Human,” William said.

“I was going for clueless,” Lorne said. He looked down at William, who looked just about worn thin to transparent for all he had been through in the course of one night. And Lorne knew that it would be a long funky trip before the fat lady gave her final note.

“So,” William said.

“Big storms on the horizon,” Lorne told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “They’ll weather. They always do.”

Lorne shrugged. “I think I’m due for scotch with rocks,” he said. “You in?”

William shook his head. “No. Go on. Enjoy drinks with the Scoobies. I’ll be in the garden.”





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