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12:33 p.m.

Oz proved his jack-of-all-trades genius by crafting a makeshift immobilizing splint for Faith’s arm out of the carry-on handle of a suitcase and the olive green mini-blanket provided on their flight. It did what it was supposed to do – it kept her from moving her left arm. It did not in any way hinder her ability to wield a crossbow. Therein was its true brilliance as far as Faith was concerned.

They turned up in London after noon. Oz had a phone number and address.

“We should probably call,” Oz suggested. They had just stepped off the bus on the corner of Meteor and King Street. The day was over-bright and dry to the point of brittle. Oz shaded his eyes with his hand to read the street signs.

“Nah,” Faith said. “Calling ahead’s not my speed. I’m more the ‘drop in and cause a ruckus’ kind of girl.”

“I get that,” he said. Oz pointed up the street. “They should be up on the left, about ten blocks in.”
Faith struck out in that direction. It creeped her out how quiet the city seemed. Even as the metro areas around the bus stop gave way to pin-neat row houses, the noise level dropped to suspicious silence. Just like New York.

“It’s happening here, too,” Oz said, keeping his voice unnecessarily low. Faith was en garde, her crossbow concealed beneath Oz’s leather bomber jacket, which he’d slung over her shoulders for specifically that purpose.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. She scanned the blank windows of the houses that lined Meteor Street. They were older buildings faced with faded red brick. Tufts of brown grass and wilted garden plants lined the tiny front lawns, victims of the recent frost.

They knew they’d found the right house when they came upon glittering glass strewn across the front sidewalk.

“What the...?” Faith began.

“You said it,” Oz said. He headed up the front steps. Faith bounded up beside him. She kicked the front door open and swung inside, leading with the crossbow.

They stepped into the entry hall. The only sound they heard was the gentle sucking noise of breeze ruffling through the plastic bags taped over the windows.

“Looks like Priestess work,” Faith said. She moved forward, poking her weapon around the corners – the dining room, the seldom used parlor across the hall, the kitchen.

Oz sniffed the air. Faith waited for his cue, waited for him to pick up a scent. Faith was thinking how handy it was having a werewolf as a lookout. Her thoughts turned with brief stabbing pain to Wood, and how she’d lost him in Haiti. It wasn’t easy, having to leave that cesspool of an island behind without being able to find his body. Squaring with The Priestess was what kept Faith on a medium flame. Exacting the appropriate measures of justice meant Faith had to keep a level head. She would turn up the heat in time for face to face confrontation, and not a moment before.

“That way,” Oz said, pointing toward the kitchen. “But not your witch.”

“How can you tell that?” Faith asked before following his indication.

“Evil smells different,” he said. “Kind of like black licorice.”

Faith accepted this with a shrug, but kept her crossbow ready.

A girl with choppy black hair emerged from the kitchen wearing a roll of duct tape around her wrist. The girl’s head bobbed to a tune she hummed softly to herself. She took no notice of Oz and Faith; a stack of printed pages absorbed her full attention.

“Hey Cutie,” Faith said, leveling the crossbow. The girl lifted her head and froze.

“Where’s Buffy?” Oz asked.

MK’s mouth went slack. “Um. Buffy,” she said. Her eyes settled squarely on the point of the bolt notched into the bow. “She uh...”

Another girl scrambled out onto the landing above them. “MK!” she shouted. And then, rather unexpectedly, she vaulted from the banister, aiming to take the new intruders down with her own body.

Faith reacted. The bolt grazed Anjelica’s neck seconds before she landed on them. The three crumpled into a confused heap of flailing arms and kicking legs. This gave MK time to rush in as well. She had no weapon, but grabbed Giles’ black umbrella from the hat stand and struck Oz squarely in the forehead.

Faith was the first to shimmy from the fray. She caught MK with a powerful a powerful roundhouse to the abdomen, sending her soaring. The papers that had so fully commanded her interest before fluttered around them like giant flakes of confetti.

Anjelica, moving with surprising speed, drew a stake she’d tucked in her belt. She aimed it at Oz’s heart. He batted her arm away, retreating. When he saw its shiny metal tip, he moved even faster. She advanced, her face twisted into a contorted mask of frenzy. She slashed down, carving a neat line into his forearm. It sizzled; Oz yowled. He clamped his other hand over it before colliding with the wall behind him.

“Wait!” Faith yelled. “We’re not vampires.”

MK skidded to a halt, her umbrella poised to strike. Anjelica continued her attack.

“Really? Lucky for you I failed my Slayer training,” she snarled. Anjelica’s stake knifed through the air. Oz brought his arms up to block. Faith caught the collar of Anjelica’s sweater and hauled her back.

“Chillax, girl,” Faith ordered. She looped her arm around Anjelica and twisted her body around so that they stood side by side, looking into the mirror. “No hablas vampiros. Compredé?”

Anjelica’s shoulders dropped a few inches. Then she tensed again. “His skin burned when I cut him,” she said. She struggled against Faith’s vise-like grip.

“Lemme see that,” Faith said. The bomber jacket had slipped from her shoulder. Both girls took note of Faith’s injury. Faith, missing nothing, dared either of them to try something. Anjelica watched Faith’s dark eyes in the mirror for a long time before reluctantly raising her stake to eye level.

“Is it silver-tipped?” Faith said, not concealing her approval.

“Yeah,” Anjelica bit out. She added, just to sound tough, “What of it?”

Faith released her. “Oz here is a werewolf,” she said.

MK and Anjelica exchanged worried glances.

“We kill those too,” MK announced. She held her umbrella a pointe.

Using the wall to help gird himself, Oz rose to his feet.

“Where’s Willow?” he asked.

“You know Willow,” Anjelica said. She cast a look over her shoulder at Faith. “And you know Buffy?”

“We’re Super Best Friends,” Faith said, rapidly losing patience with the situation. “Where are they?”

“Well, see,” M. K. began. “Buffy was with Giles at hospital. Xander went to relieve her but she was gone, which isn’t like Buffy since she said she would wait out the night to protect him. So our guess is that Angel got her, so everyone is currently out trying to find her.”
Oz and Faith took a few moments to process all of this.

“And you’re here because?” Oz asked.

Anjelica took up the narrative. She said, “Kennedy led the other Slayers into an ambush that resulted in their deaths. Now we’re standing guard because some scary evil chick called the Priestess pulled a Big Bad Wolf and blew our house in.”

“Priestess was here,” Faith said. “Priestess is still here. Likely she’ll be back tonight, finish the job.”

Anjelica shook her head vehemently. “Willow and Dawn renewed the spells on the Flat,” she said. “It’s hidden against those who seek to harm us.”

“Then why the hell did you attack us?” Faith asked.
Slashes of bright pink appeared above Anjelica’s pale cheeks. MK opened her mouth to say something, then abruptly closed it.

Anjelica cleared her throat. “Um. Pre-slay jitters?” she offered.

Faith and Oz shrugged in begrudging acceptance.

MK held out a hand to Faith. “I’m MK,” she said. “I’m one of Buffy’s students.”

Faith shook her hand. “I’m Faith. You’ve met Oz. Who are you?” she nodded, indicating Anjelica.

She stuck out her hand to Oz, forgetting the silver-tipped stake she was holding. Oz recoiled instinctively.

“May I?” he asked, cautiously examining the weapon.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry,” Anjelica said. Oz took it gingerly by the wooden handle and studied its gleaming silver surface.

“You made this?” he asked.

Anjelica’s blush deepened. She absently massaged the raised welt on her neck where Faith’s crossbow bolt had narrowly missed her carotid artery.

“It’s Anjelica’s thing,” MK blurted. Not liking how that sounded, she quickly amended, “I mean, it’s what she’s good at. She makes weapons.”

Oz held it up, turning it back and forth in his hands, so that all four could see their elongated reflections mirrored back to them.

“So, Anjelica,” he said. “You failed your Slayer training? ’Cause I’m thinking this makes up for it.”


Angel returned to Thellian’s loft above the city to find him in a fervent discussion with Lalaine. Which they ceased the moment he entered the room.

“Buffy escaped,” Angel announced.

Thellian pursed his mouth. “Did she?” he asked.
Angel came further into the room. He tossed the D’Ganti blade onto the lacquered rosewood table. “And your fancy knife here didn’t work on Spike, either,” Angel said. He stood before them, shoulders down but eyes up, as if he wasn’t sure what kind of response to expect from Thellian and Lalaine.

Thellian’s chest rose in the imitation of a sigh. He swept a wave of Lalaine’s hair from her ivory shoulder, then caressed the skin he exposed.

“Can you do it, Angel?” Thellian asked. “Can you kill her?”

Angel stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have a choice,” he said.

Lalaine made a soothing sound. “Oh, but we always have a choice,” she said. She gave him a look of genuine concern. “Always, Angel.”

“My son is with them,” Angel said.

Thellian squeezed Lalaine’s hand, then released it. He moved over the floor, crossing half the distance between Lalaine and Angel before he said, “Do you think he will join their side?”

Angel considered this. He said, “Connor will do what he feels is right. But when the witch rescued Buffy, he was there.”

Thellian nodded. He placed his hands on his hips and thought for a long while. Lalaine moved listlessly away, turning her attention to the wide window and the world beyond it.

Angel shifted his weight from one foot to the other, growing more restless by the second. At length, Thellian said, “It’s a bad piece of irony, you being the one to bear this burden. Especially given your history with the girl. The boy – Connor – will come to understand things in his own time. He will realize that we do what we must to protect our children.”

Angel moved uncomfortably, again shifting his weight. He said nothing.

Thellian fussed with his cufflink. “So the question remains: Can you do this task? Can you kill her? It’s safe to say that she can kill you. She’s done it before.”

Angel winced, but tried to downplay it. Lalaine was standing at the window, watching him from the corner of one eye while pretending to survey the land below with the other. Thellian was more direct with his scrutiny. He stared at Angel, unflinching. Watching for cracks to form. Seeing none, he nodded once and moved to join Lalaine at the window.

“There is something else?” Thellian said.

The question caught Angel off guard. He couldn’t quite grasp what Thellian meant by it. “Come again?” Angel asked.

A subtle change occurred in Thellian’s eyes, as if he suddenly reasoned out a matter of substantial gravity.
He said, “The Slayers are not really our concern, Angel. Our plans go forward regardless of their actions. As for Miss Summers, we will know where to find her.”

Angel kept a look of well-practiced impassivity on his face. “Will we?” he asked.

Thellian lay his hand over the hollow of Lalaine’s throat.

Lalaine gave him a relieved and knowing smile. “She really doesn’t have anywhere else to go, does she?”
“No,” he said, “She doesn’t. And we’ll be waiting for her. All of us.”


“You’re alive,” Buffy said. She touched the faint thread of pink that traced its way across William’s throat.

“About that,” he began.

“Buffy,” Dawn interrupted. “We have to...”

“Not now, Dawnie,” Willow said.

“But Willow, The Priestess and the house, which has been haunted all these months…” Xander exclaimed.

“Not to mention Thellian and the Circle,” Giles added.

“And my Dad, with the big jaggy knife,” Connor said.

“Legions of vampyres taking over the world with their evil vampyre spawn,” Andrew whined.

“Then there’s the partridge and the pear tree,” Lorne said, not to be left out.

“Guys!” Willow intervened. She looked at Buffy and William. It was clear neither had heard a single thing they had said. “Give them a minute, okay?” She opened her arms and shooed them like an old woman in a park herding up a gaggle of geese.

William brushed his fingertips over the angry red gash on her temple. Buffy cringed.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “That’ll scar, you know.” Buffy nodded. She was leaning for him, all misty eyed, their brows nearly touching.

Willow felt even more intrusive. It was obvious to her that William and Buffy were sharing a much needed moment of privacy, a little calm after the recent violent storm. She had dreamed of such encounters with Tara and knew with eerie clarity what Buffy must be feeling. Willow herded the others back to the center of the room where she, Connor and Lorne had first found William.

Giles bent his head into the huddle and whispered harshly, “We have little time for such reunions.”

“Hello?” Willow said, “Spike just came back from... almost dead. We just rescued Buffy from Angel. I think we have all earned half a minute’s breathing space. But especially them.”

“Giles is right, though,” Xander said. “We need to plan. We need to act. We need to keep in motion or I for one will become paralyzed from sheer terror.”

Maya finished re-wrapping her Looking Glass while listening to the conversation. In the two-second lull that followed Xander’s terrified comment, she said, “Why not plan without them?”

“Plan without Buffy?” Xander scoffed. “Hey, wait a minute. We can do that.”

“Sure,” Dawn said. “It’s been a while, but...”

Andrew crossed his arms. “The last time you all planned without Buffy, Faith led the Potentials into a trap and got half of them exploded.”

“Thanks, Andrew,” Giles said blandly. “Helpful as always.”

Andrew looked pleased with himself until Dawn cut her eyes to him in disapproval.

“All I’m saying is we can start, and then catch them up to speed once they’ve finished,” Maya said.

“Start what?” Buffy asked.

She and William stood just outside the circle, side by side. “Finish what?” William added.

Willow looked from them to the others. She uttered a weak laugh. “Um. Job well done, I guess. Now to the planning.”


Luxe wiped his dripping bloody nose on a scratchy EconoLodge hand towel. With his free hand, he shoved his few belongings into his Nike duffel bag. He had to leave London before the Senior Partners had a chance to perceive his most recent failure.

Actually, fleeing this plane altogether was looking more and more appealing. He went into the bathroom to collect the mini soaps and shampoos (he loved those things), when he heard a tapping on his door.
He craned his head momentarily, then resumed his packing. He knew who it was. She had found him. Again.

Luxe tried working the zipper one-handed, but managed only a few inches purchase. It was the hotel towels he’d filched. They swelled the bag to near bursting, but it was in his nature to take them. He lowered the ruddy hand towel for a few seconds, but drops of blood splattered everywhere. He launched into a raunchy stream of curses when a fine dark hand reached in to take control of matters.

“I did not ask you in,” Luxe said, voice gone even more nasal from the blood in his sinuses.

She ignored him. “You should have that looked into. You might well hemorrhage,” she said. She patted the bulging Nike bag with her slim hands. “There. All fastened up.”

He gave her a scathing glare. “Nosebleed is the least of my worries, Nighna,” he said.

She plopped to the edge of the bed with a girlish bounce. “Yeah, you’ve really bollocksed things up, I hear. Lost control of a Wolfram & Hart spy. Got the bile kicked out of you by a ghost,” Nighna said. She examined the plum-colored enamel of her nails. “There was one other thing. What was it?”
Luxe narrowed his eyes.

Nighna simmered in her gloating. “Oh yes. Your girlfriend. She lost your Watcher captive, didn’t she? Badly played. You're bound to me, Luxe. I know about everything...”

“She wasn’t important,” Luxe said dismissively. “Not to me. Only to Thellian’s cause, and my part in that is nearly done.”

“So he’s still pulling your strings,” Nighna said. “You really don’t learn new tricks, do you? Every near-Earth shattering event in history, you’ve always played Gepetto’s good little stick of wood.”

“Why are you here, Nighna?” Luxe asked. “Trying to find out what’s next?” He shouldered his bag. Behind him, the redwing blackbird shuffled on its perch excitedly.

Nighna crossed her smooth legs so that she was sure Luxe heard the rasp of her stockings. “I always see you off when you run away. Why should now be any different?”

Luxe laughed through his dabbing cloth. It was a dark, bitter sound. “Maybe because you have chosen a side this time,” he said.

Her smile faltered for the first time since she’d entered the room. But she recovered beautifully.

“I serve the Order, as always,” she stated.

“Careful Nighna,” he said, his lips spreading over his teeth in a dry smile. “Your humanity is showing.”

Nighna actually hissed. Luxe gleaned immense satisfaction from that.

“You’ve fallen for him. It may as well be branded all over your skin. Or his, knowing you. Your little whelp; that milquetoast Watcher. Ah, Nighna, it pains me that I will not be around to see you crash and burn,” Luxe said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nighna seethed. “Humans and vampires will exterminate each other, and I will be left standing. That’s what the Order of Kimaris has wanted all along. It’s what I want still.”

Luxe hefted Francis’ cage from its stand by the window. “The return of the Demon Age is what I want,” he said. “I am a Kimaris. You are confused. I do not envy you, Nighna. Not one sliver.”

Luxe strode to the door.

“You don’t get to condescend to me,” Nighna said, her voice as cold and hard as stone. “You understand nothing. You care for nothing.”

He opened the door. Before passing through it he clucked his tongue and said, “Poor Nighna. Once you were magnificent in your cruelty. Now you are foul and useless in your compassion.”

Luxe closed the door, leaving Nighna to stew in her confusion.



Buffy stepped into the circle. She took a few moments to look at the faces around her, to gather her thoughts and settle her nerves. They all looked worse than she had ever seen them. Even when they had gone up against the First, they had managed to slip in some basic hygiene and halfway adequate sleep into the mix. But now, they appeared scraggly and gaunt. They were bruised and frayed and frightened. And they were looking to her to put an end to their fears.

“Dawn,” Buffy said.

Her sister nearly snapped to attention. Buffy felt a tug of admiration in her heart.

“I need to know everything you have about the Circle,” Buffy said. “Every detail you’ve managed to unearth. We need to have it.”

Dawn nodded. “Well, actually, we should probably start with Andrew. He completed the Kimaris translation this morning.”

Buffy turned to him. “All of it?” she asked.

Andrew stepped forward. “I was gonna prepare a PowerPoint presentation on my laptop,” he said. “I could scan in the pieces of the scrolls and put the Kimaris bits in order so that you all could get the full picture of...”

“Andrew!” Dawn, Willow and Xander all said at once.

“Nobody appreciates the presentation,” he sulked.

“Can you just skip the visual?” Buffy said. “We can go with bare bones for now.”

“’Kay, so, well,” Andrew began. He had actually rehearsed this part in his head. “Travel back with me to the height of the Demon Age. It all starts with the Order of Kimaris about 6,000 years B. C. These guys were like judges in the demon world. They did stuff like publicly torturing and executing political criminals and performing ritual sacrifices to keep the Old Ones satisfied.”

“Old Ones,” Lorne said. “Like Illyria.”

“Sure,” Andrew said, briskly waving off the interruption. “So, these guys were the first ones to inscribe the Circle. The bits I wanted to scan are what remains of the original.”

“But what did it do?” Buffy said.

Andrew paused to let the dramatic tension build. He said, finally, “The Circle was designed to destroy a whole lineage. First to last. By using the blood of one, they could eliminate every descendent. It was the ultimate Kaiser Sose death sentence. Make the wrong demon mad and your whole family gets it.”

“So,” Willow said. “The Kimaris could sacrifice one member of a certain demon clan and the whole line would die along with them.”

“Very well stated, Little One,” Andrew said, steepling his fingers. “Over time, the Kimaris altered the spell so that it served a more specific purpose.”

“Eliminate the Slayer line,” Giles said. “Of course.”

“Wait,” Dawn said. “What about the parts Willow and I translated from Damas? And how does the Shanshu tie in?”

“Well, it’s interesting,” Andrew said, relishing his moment before an audience. “See, the Kimaris Circle predates that one by several millennia. Around A. D. 90-ish, a band of Druids uncovered the Circle and its dark purposes. Knowing that the power of the Demon Age had sufficiently waned, the Druids overlaid their own magics on the Circle. They lacked the power to erase the Circle entirely, but were able to add in a kind of anti-demon post script.”

“Like in 'Sleeping Beauty,' when Merryweather changed Maleficent’s curse on Princess Aurora from instant death to eternal sleep until her prince awoke her with true love’s kiss?” Maya excitedly put in.

This drew a mixture of mirth and bafflement from the group.

William said, “You had stuffed unicorns in your bedroom at home, didn’t you?”

Maya seemed to shrink slightly until Dawn said, “Actually, it’s a good analogy. Instead of eradicating the line of Slayers, the Druids gave the world another option. If a vampire with a soul sacrificed himself on the Circle – poof – no more vampires. The spell was reversed.”

Giles removed his glasses and thoughtfully polished them on his sweater. “Extraordinary,” he said. “And because Damas collected and translated prophecies, he learned of the Circle from the Shanshu, which originated in Japan. He must have seen how it all tied together...”

Dawn was nodding. “I also found from dismantling the Damas journal that he belonged to the same Celtic order that first inscribed over the Circle. That organization later became part of the Watchers.”

“It is all connected,” Connor said. Until now, he had been numbed into silence. “All of it, preordained. My father is part of it. He never had a choice...”

“He does now,” Willow said, slicing in to the conversation before Connor had a chance to get too distraught. “The Circle calls for blood sacrifice. His blood, or the blood of a Slayer.”

“Not the blood of a Slayer,” Buffy said. Her voice was shaky and her body went suddenly cold. “The blood of a Slayer’s child.”

The words sank like stones through icy waters while they contemplated this new bit of information.

“We know a Slayer’s child,” Xander said. “Do you mean to say Thellian’s been after Robin Wood all this...”

“Not him,” Buffy said softly. “Mine. Ours. It’s the blood of my child he’s after.”

After a long, long comfortless silence, a stifled sound escaped Dawn’s throat.

William glanced up to find Lorne watching him with a look made up of equal parts awe and anguish. It was troubling to see those expressions on the demon’s usually jovial face. Though William knew it did not bode well seeing them in light of recent events, he decided he could live without knowing what Lorne still knew about the battle ahead.

“Lemme just get this straight,” Xander spoke up, breaking the tension like a glass ornament under a hammer. “Spike’s a dad?”

“Use my blood,” Connor cut in.

Everyone looked at him, stunned.

“What do you mean?” Dawn asked, a note of shrillness in her voice.

“If the Circle wants a Slayer’s child and not the blood of a Slayer, why wouldn’t my blood work for his? I’m the son of vampires. I have a soul. Use my blood,” Connor said.

Buffy lay her hand on his arm. “It won’t work,” she said. He began to protest, but she continued. “You were right when you said pre-ordained. It’s Angel’s destiny, and he knows it.” Buffy lifted her eyes and her voice to address them all. “Angel knows, about the child I carry. Even with that knowledge, he... he would have killed me.”

“Oh, Buffy,” Willow said. She gripped Xander’s elbow and held on tight.

“Look, guys,” Buffy said. “I know what’s going on out there. Every vampire they sire is a loss for humanity. Well, Thellian knows that too. He sent the Priestess...”

“Oh, by the way” Xander said raising his hand to interrupt. “The Priestess. None other than Sunnydale’s own former rat queen.”

Buffy nodded slowly. “The Priestess is Amy. Good to know,” she said. “Looks like the gang’s all here,” she said. She thought for a time before continuing. “He sent her – Amy – to turn the humans in our group into vampires. Yay for us that she failed. He drained the Deeper Well to make vampires stronger. He wanted us to witness his strength, to show us that we had no power to stop him. But the worst of it is that Thellian thinks what he’s doing is good and right. He believes it, so much so that I think Angel does too.

“Now there are so many vampires, we can’t beat them alone. It’s like...”

“It’s like trying to dam Niagara Falls with Lincoln Logs,” Giles said.

Buffy swallowed. Her throat was dry and her legs felt wobbly from fatigue. “Just like that,” she said.

She felt William behind her. She felt his strength and drew on it. She closed her eyes and whispered an inward prayer of thanks that he and the others were still there.

“What do we do, Buffy?” Dawn asked.

Buffy had known one of them would ask. She showed them a grim smile.

“They have a Circle. But it is bound on all sides by death,” she said. “I say, we have a circle of our own. Us.” Her eyes danced from Willow, to Dawn, to Xander and Giles. She glanced from Lorne, to Maya and then to Andrew. “They can’t touch us. I say, Angel wants blood, he’ll have it. But not ours. Not ours.

“Tonight we’ll assemble our forces all over the world. We’ll make a stand, Kennedy-style. She wanted this city cleaned out by Christmas. We’ll be slightly ahead of schedule. Tomorrow, we march on the Circle itself. Destiny says it comes down to Angel or to me. So I plan to meet him face to face.”





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