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Author's Chapter Notes:
the chapter that refused to be written:)
thank you to my kind reviewers
jennifer, cordykitten, jenn, all4spike, prettygirlbpd, dusty and ariadne
They were ready. Willow and Morgana had set up unbreakable sanctuary spells on the three small rooms in the cellar, and Baya and Sam had taken the children and Andrew into one of them and were bedding them down. Septamus had brought a few of the books down and was studying them by the light of a small lamp in one corner. Their inner sanctum had been doubly sealed with the strongest spells Morgana and Willow could devise. They could leave, but nothing and no-one could get in to them.

Martin had set up the medical room in the second. Dawn had spent as much time as she could with the man. He had been very nervous when Spike had come up to him the night before. Spike had helped Martin carry down the medical equipment the doctor, his preternatural strength coming in useful for the big boxes of drugs and supplies that were normally shifted by two men.
Spike watched as Dawn wrapped a blanket around Andrew after he had been lifted onto a stretcher and been readied to move. The poor man was still more zombie than human. His injuries had turned even Spike’s strong stomach. He thought that Angelus could be sadistic, but that master vampire could have taken lessons from Rupert Giles.

Martin and Spike were alone for a few moments; the human felt the demon staring at him, hard. It was the first time since they had arrived that Martin had really seen Spike in game face and looking deadly.

‘You hurt her and I will kill you. You know that, don’t you?’

Martin gulped, the tone of voice had by-passed his brain completely and hit some nerve that hadn’t seen the light of day since a sabretooth had chased his ancestors. He was having difficulty controlling his bladder. As a doctor he knew people could be frozen in fear, but he’d never felt it himself before. And all the vampire was doing was propping up a doorway, talking.

‘Pardon?’ Martin asked.

‘You hurt Dawn in any way and I will be forced to kill you.’

Martin nodded.

‘I love the bit you see, she’s family, and it would kill Buffy to see anything happen to her; so you hurt her and I will kill you,’ Spike continued. ‘That’s if Clem or Xander, or even Riley didn’t get there first, but I’ve got the advantage with the speed you see, so it will most probably be me.’

Martin managed to nod again.

‘Course, you treat her well and we won’t have a problem, will we?’ Martin managed to shake his head.

Dawn reappeared from the cellars and saw the look on Martin’s face and the way that Spike was nonchalantly leaning against a door smoking a cigarette.

‘Spiikkee, have you been talking to Martin?’

‘May have shared a word or two niblet, nothing much.’

‘You’ve been bullying him!’ she accused Spike, who at least had the grace to look a little ashamed.

‘Have not: if I’d been having a go at him there would be blood or bite marks or something.’

‘In that case, get rid of the bumpies, you’re scaring the natives,’ she growled.

Spike laughed, there were times that they were much alike, him and his little girl.

‘Now!!’ she shouted at him over her shoulder while she made sure Martin was alright. Spike shook off the demon face and smiled at Dawn, but there were fangs in the smile he gave Martin.

‘That was interesting,’ Martin stuttered. ‘Normally meeting the family doesn’t include threats of bodily harm.’

‘He what!!!’

‘It’s OK Dawn, they are just being protective.’

‘They?’

‘Well yes, I’ve had a similar talk from Xander, and Buffy and Sam and Riley and that demon, Clem? And Willow…I’m getting used to it now, they love you, and they don’t want anything to happen to you. I think they have spent a lot of years keeping you safe and they see me as the biggest danger to you at the moment. In some ways it’s reassuring, we’re going into battle and they all see me as the biggest danger in their world.’

‘I suppose, but I wish they would let me grow up!’

Spike’s voice sounded from the hall…’Come back when you’re ninety for that one niblet!’

‘Go away Spike,’ she yelled back and proceeded to make it up to Martin.

The humans and demons who weren’t up to the fighting made their way to the third, and largest of the sanctuary rooms. Everyone else, slayers, Clem and his friends, witches, Initiative soldiers and Spike were waiting with Dawn in the dining room. Buffy and Faith had dressed in fatigues, stashing weapons everywhere they could think of. Spike still couldn’t see where she hid her final stake. In the years they had fought together he never had worked that little mystery out.

The plan was simple. The dining room would be under a glamour, making it appear empty. Dawn would then open a portal, and it would appear that Faith and Buffy had jumped into the hotel to check it out as a possible base. When Giles and his partner came to grab them, Willow would drop the glamour, throw the weakening spell at Giles, and then it would be a free-for-all. Any demons he brought with him would be taken down by the joint forces of the Initiative and slayers under the command of Rona and Riley. Anya would be with the combined strength of the witches. As they had all been betrayed by a man, she felt that she would be justified in helping them with their wishes, as long as they were careful what they wished for. They had actually practised what sort of wishes could be used without them rebounding on the white-hats. Anya had actually been helping, teaching them how she could twist wishes to harm the wisher. The girls had been giggling over some of the ideas all day, leaving many of the men feeling gelded.

Morgana, Willow and Cathy took their places at the top of the stairs and Willow waved her hand over the entrance and it vanished. There was no trace at all that there ever been a door there at all.

A wave of Morgana’s hand put a glamour over all the waiting army and all that was left were the two Slayers. Kennedy would be staying with the witches as their body-guard.

Faith and Buffy were ready. They had overnight bags with them, everything that would give the impression that they had just portalled in to examine the place.

A last look round and the final wards were brought down and it looked like Faith and Buffy were on their own.

‘It’s all your fault B, that last place was good enough.’

‘Yeah, good until that group of vampires found us.’

‘Come on: we’ll find something to eat then look around.’

‘I need to sleep first, I’m shattered.’

Faith dug Buffy in the ribs and held up her charm bracelet. One of the charms was glowing, showing that they were being spied on.

Buffy unrolled her sleeping bag and put it onto one of the chairs; Faith took another and they pretended to go to sleep.

It was less than half an hour when two dark and swirling lights appeared in the middle of the foyer. Ethan Rayne and Rupert Giles walked out from the centre of them, closely followed by a swarm of ant like demons: six foot high ant-like demons.

The battle was about to start.





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