“Well?” Adam demanded. “Have you been able to make sense out of her story?”
“It makes perfect sense,” the demon shaman replied. “It explains a lot. I had sensed a great power at work here. African magic, deep magic from the very home of humanity, and that is where the roots of Brazilian Macumba voodoo lie.” His facial tentacles twitched. “The houngan must have been of great skill. I smell the power of one of the Greater Loa, Baron Samedi perhaps, or Shango.”
“I have little interest in the mythology behind the spell. All I want to know is can you reverse engineer it or not?”
“Wheels and cogs and circuits, that is all you understand,” the shaman grumbled. “The mythology is the magic. The man in Brazil did not merely cast a spell. He summoned a god; who changed the vampire so that he can walk under the sun, and no longer seeks the blood of humans but protects them instead. The Loa are capricious. If I summoned the god without the proper invocations and protections, or made the wrong offerings, it would slay me. Or worse. I have no desire to become a zombie.” He saw the dissatisfaction on the cyborg’s face and hastened to come up with something to placate him. “Give me a day at least to study the vampire at close quarters, to carry out tests, and I might be able to learn enough to come up with at least a partial shielding spell for your vampire troops. Possibly. The simplest solution, of course, would be to find the original houngan and force him to perform the ritual for you. Without, of course, the clause requiring the recipient to protect humans.”
“Impossible.” Adam frowned. An unaccustomed expression; he was not used to coming up against problems that he couldn’t solve. “That annoying Kendall creature informs me that Spike’s consort Drusilla killed the voodoo priest when she found out what he had done.”
“Poor woman,” the demon remarked. “The second time it has happened to her. Angelus was taken from her when he was cursed by gypsies, Spike when he was cursed by a voodoo houngan. She just has no luck with men.” He looked shrewdly at the cyborg. “Does the idiot female still believe that you will remove that electronic device from her brain?”
“How dumb does he think I am?” Harmony asked Giles rhetorically. “He’s got me on a leash, finger on a button that could control me, and he expects me to think he’ll let it go? Get real.”
“You are certain that he suspects nothing?”
“Hello, head still attached to body, check, me not big pile of dust, check. He bought it.”
“And the explanation of Spike’s ability to walk in sunlight?” Giles went on.
“Guess so. I didn’t really understand it myself, but then not supposed to understand. I mean, I never even knew there was voodoo in Brazil. New Orleans, yeah, and that hatty place, and I guess Jamaica like in ‘Predator Two’. ‘Voodoo magic. Fucking voodoo magic’. Although that was in LA, but they were Jamaicans. But Spikey was in Brazil, so I get why you chose it. Yeah, he seemed to swallow it.”
“I sincerely hope so. I spent a lot of time coming up with a plausible explanation for Spike’s abilities which would not give away his real vulnerabilities. More important, though, is that Adam must be convinced that you are repeating what we have told you. His doubting the story would be fine as long as he thought that we had lied to you. If he thinks you’re lying to him …” Giles took off his glasses and began polishing the lenses. “Play it safe, Harmony. Don’t leave it too late to run.” He frowned. “That hatty place?”
“Yeah. In the Caribbean, near Cuba, right?”
The vampire woman was beautiful. Incredibly beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman Riley had ever seen in his life, and he recognised her immediately. Hostile 22. “Can I help you?” he asked. “Sandy, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Agent Finn,” she replied. There was worry in her eyes. “My boyfriend’s disappeared. I’m hoping you might be able to help me find him.”
Riley frowned. Why was she coming to him? “I’ll help if I can,” he told her. “Who is he?”
“The bouncer at the club where I work. Allan Ellis, everyone calls him Ace.”
“… but if I stayed here with you, girl,”
Giles hesitated for an instant, seeing Buffy and Spike walking into the room, but Spike gestured to him to continue and he went on with the song.
“…things just couldn’t be the same. ‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now, And this bird you’ll never change, And this bird you can not change, Lord knows, I can’t change, Lord help me, I can’t change.”
Giles finished the song and put down his guitar. Harmony clapped her hands, and Buffy and Spike joined in.
“That was totally cool,” Harmony praised. “Anya told me about you singing at the Espresso Pump, I was sorry I’d missed it.”
“I thought you were enjoying yourself where you were,” Buffy said wickedly.
“Well, yeah,” Harmony admitted, “Wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the boinking, but I’d still have liked to have seen Giles playing. Maybe another time. Let us know in advance next time, okay? None of that stuff about needing grownup time.”
“I second that,” Buffy agreed. “We all want to come. Will and Anya are still talking about it. You’ve got a fan club, Giles.”
“I’m surprised you teenagers appreciate Lynryd Skynyrd and the Who,” Giles commented, wondering if he was blushing. “A little old even for Spike, I would have thought.”
“Hey, my Dad’s got all the Skynyrd albums, I’ve heard them often enough,” Harmony told him. “And hey, ‘Freebird’, totally classic.”
“There’s more to me than just Punk, Watcher. Not averse to a bit of the old Southern Rock. I’ve got a twelve inch somewhere,” Spike was interrupted by a snigger from Buffy, which he ignored, “with ‘Freebird’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ on it. UK promo, never released in the States.”
“I haven’t seen that one. I’ve just got the albums. Oz would probably be interested in it.” Giles turned to Harmony. “I must meet your father some time, Harmony. Lynyrd Skynyrd, the ‘Modesty Blaise’ books that inspired you, he has some interesting tastes.”
“I’ll introduce you some time,” she offered, smiling. “I’m planning on moving back home if we get this thing cleared up with the Initiative. They’re doing up the basement for me, should be cool. Although,” she added, the smile fading, “I’ll miss being with Anya.”
“Won’t that cause rather a lot of comment?” Giles asked. “Their dead daughter returning?”
“Hello, not officially dead here,” Harmony informed him. Everyone looked at her in surprise. “What? Didn’t you know? Walked out of the hospital on Graduation night, no death certificate, still running my bank account, credit cards, still got a valid Social Security number, paying taxes. Still alive as far as the IRS are concerned. I was just a missing person for a while, now I’m back. Mom and Dad have just told everybody I went off to LA, which is pretty much true except for the timing.”
Spike grinned impishly. “George A. Romero presents,” he declaimed in a portentous voice, extending his arm in a sweeping gesture towards Harmony, “The Night of the Living Dead.”
“Thank you for trying, for what you did for him,” Sandy told Riley, her eyes wide and glistening with tears.
“I’m sorry I had to do it,” he told her uncomfortably. “Wish there’d been another way.”
“It was for the best, what he would have wanted,” she assured him. “I’m just going to have to learn to cope without him. But I’ll miss him so much.”
“I have to go,” he excused himself. “If there’s anything you need, get in touch.”
“I will. Goodbye, Riley, and thank you.” Sandy watched him go with big sad eyes. Once he was out of sight the sadness vanished and was replaced by a hate-filled glare. She glanced around, saw no-one was looking, and allowed herself to slip into game face. “Bastard!” she muttered. “Your girlfriend swans around freely, and all you could do for Ace was to kill him? You’re so going to regret that. I may not be able to rip your throat out, but I’m still going to make you suffer. Don’t care if it takes months, years, you’re going to pay.”
Riley knocked on Giles’ door, announced himself, and walked in to join the meeting. Harmony leaped up to greet him with a kiss, and then led him in to sit beside her. He was the last to arrive; Xander, Anya, Jonathan, Willow, and Tara were just settling down with cups of coffee.
Giles poured a cup out for Riley before returning to his seat. “It seems Adam is almost ready to trigger a confrontation,” he addressed the meeting. “Within the next few days he’s going to lure Buffy into the Initiative complex somehow, deactivate the microchips, and release the imprisoned demons. A massive battle will ensue, which he believes will result in major casualties on both sides. Harmony is supposed to change sides at the end and finish off any human survivors. He’ll have scores of human and demon corpses to rebuild in his own cyborg image. I assume his army will then engage in a campaign of conquest, growing in strength as the casualties are conscripted into his forces after death.”
“Anyone else thinking ‘eww, gross’?” Buffy asked.
“I kinda miss the Mayor. ‘I just wanna be a big snake’. Sorta simple, direct, easy to understand, although weird,” Xander commented. “Okay, tough as Hell and dangerous, but getting eaten probably beats getting dismantled and reassembled.”
Riley shot a puzzled look at him.
“Long story,” Harmony told him. “You had to be there. Although best you weren’t; I was, and look what happened to me.”
“We need to decide how we are going to handle it,” Giles continued, ignoring the byplay. “If we wait, and react to Adam’s plan when it happens, we run the risk of everything happening exactly as he has planned. However, I’m not sure what we can do to pre-empt him.”
“I’d say stay away and just leave them to fight it out, except that a whole bunch of the Initiative blokes are our mates,” Spike said. “The sodding Initiative itself getting trashed seems like a good idea. Shame it can’t happen without decent blokes getting hurt.”
“We can’t do that, Spike. ‘The victor would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt’,” Giles quoted.
“Yeah, suppose so. ‘But Isengard cannot fight Mordor, unless Saruman first obtains the ring’,” Spike carried on the theme. “Adam knows exactly what he’s up against, and still expects to win so easily that he wants the Slayer to join in to balance up the sides. You’re right; we’ve got to back up the Initiative. I’d want to anyway, for Gray and Forrest and Mase and the other lads, but the top bods can go hang as far as I’m concerned. They remind me of some German buggers I bumped into in 1943. Which is a story for another time, I know. Okay, we know what we have to do, the question is how?”
“It’s a pity you walked out on the Initiative, Riley,” Xander put in. “We could have really worked something out if you’d still been on the inside.”
“Forrest and Gray will listen to me,” Riley said confidently. “Colonel Havilland had some ideas for internal defence in the event of a break-out by the Hostiles, but the scientists objected. I think we can put them in place behind McNamara’s back. Some of the men can be ready to move to set positions when things go down. I’ll draw up maps of the complex so you guys can familiarise yourselves with the layout.”
“We’re gonna need to plan this out carefully,” Buffy decided. “Work out how to play to our strengths. I think this is where Xander and Jonathan come in.”
Riley raised his eyebrows. He had assumed Jonathan was there only because of his magic abilities, which couldn’t match those of Willow or Tara, and it hadn’t occurred to him that the short student would have anything else to contribute, or that Xander had anything to offer except courage and loyalty.
Buffy saw his look. “Xander put together the army we used to defeat the Mayor and his legion of vampires,” she explained. “Jonathan’s big with the wargames and Dungeons and Dragons. I think they can come up with something I can work with.”
Jonathan’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” he breathed, and turned to Xander. “The soldiers have the edge at a distance, what with the guns, but the demons’ll rip them apart if they get up close. Treat it as Brits against Zulus?”
“That’d work,” Xander agreed, “but what about Buffy, and Spike, and Harmony? They can match or beat any demon.”
“The cavalry?” Jonathan suggested. “Willow and Tara and me as the artillery?”
“More like the Hale’s rockets,” Spike put in, grinning at the two witches. “You’re still a bit unpredictable, pets, just like they were.”
Buffy frowned briefly. The reminder that Spike was an immortal creature, who had actually been alive at the time of the Colonial battle she’d seen in ‘Zulu Dawn’, made her feel uncomfortable for a moment. She shook off the feeling. “You know, I still haven’t seen Adam,” she remarked. “Every other Big Bad we’ve faced, I’d seen them way before we got this close to the showdown. Okay, with the Master it was only in dreams, but we still knew each other. Spike came and introduced himself.” He grinned at her. Riley looked shocked; he hadn’t realised Spike had ever actively been Buffy’s enemy. “Long story,” Buffy told him in an aside, and then continued her run through past enemies. “Angelus …” she hesitated, “we all knew. The Mayor, we saw him, talked to him, even met him at things where we had to put on false smiles and act civil with each other. But Adam, most of us haven’t even seen. I think I need to.”
“Believe me, Buffy, you don’t want to see him before you have to,” Harmony warned her.
“I’ve got some diagrams, I could probably even get you photographs,” Riley offered.
“No, I want to see him in the flesh, or whatever,” Buffy explained. “See him move. I think I’ll do some recon, see if I can find him. He can’t kill me, not if he wants me for his big mutually assured destruction thing, so I’ve got an advantage. Maybe I might even get a chance to take him out straight away, avoid the big battle altogether. Where did you say his power thingy is, Jonathan?”
Jonathan went through what he could remember about Adam’s vulnerabilities from when his magical enhancement had got him called in as an outside consultant by the Initiative, and Spike fidgeted through the lecture. “I’m going with you, pet,” he told Buffy as soon as Jonathan finished. “You’re not taking on the bloody Terminator by yourself.”
“No, Spike,” she said firmly. “Too dangerous. He won’t kill me, we know that, but he hasn’t any specific part for you in the big battle as far as we know; has he, Harmony?”
“He’s interested in how Spike can walk in the sun, which is why I fed him that voodoo line Giles thought up,” the blonde vampire replied, “but he hasn’t said anything else about Spike.”
“So?” Spike asked. “Not like I’m exactly fragile. Why should it sodding well matter if he tries to kill me?”
“She still has a good point,” Giles backed Buffy. “You might be highly resistant to harm, Spike, but you could still be captured, and that would give Adam exactly the lure he wants to bring Buffy into the battle at his chosen time. And he might start experimenting on you, even cutting body parts off you.” Buffy’s lips compressed into a tight line. Willow paled. Tara went white as a sheet and buried her face in Willow’s shoulder. Xander, Jonathan, and Riley winced. Harmony flickered into game face for a split second. Anya helped herself to a slice of chocolate cake.
“Yeah, suppose you’re right,” Spike grumbled. “But you bloody watch yourself, pet,” he warned Buffy. “He might decide to dump his plan and just kill you when he has the chance.”
“I’m not easy to kill,” Buffy reminded him. “I’ll be careful, I promise, but tomorrow I’m going for some reconnaissance. ‘Cause, Mom wants a ceiling painted, and she’s got this chunk of marble that’ll make a cool statue, and I’ve got this great idea for a man-powered helicopter.”
Buffy approached the caves cautiously. A sound behind her made her spin round, hands coming up into a defensive position, but it proved to be a friend. Forrest Gates.
“Hey, easy there, Buffy,” he greeted her, lowering his taser rifle. “We’re on the same side.”
“Guess we are,” Buffy agreed, coming out of her combat stance. “How come you’re alone? Thought you’d be with Graham.”
“Yeah, well, Riley walking out left a hole in our TO, and Willis isn’t fit for duty yet. They had to move things around some, Gray’s filling a command slot in another team, and I’m left on my own. Which is why I’m patrolling in by day, so as I can make a getaway if I get in too deep. Not many of the Hostiles can operate in daylight.”
“Good thinking,” Buffy agreed. “Same reason as me.”
“Where’s Spike?” Forrest asked. “Thought you two were inseparable. Lovers’ quarrel?”
Buffy flushed. The real reason she’d insisted on doing this reconnaissance alone was because she was jealous of Harmony’s recent successes, and wanted to do something alone to reinforce her self-image as the Chosen One; she could hardly tell that to someone who was hardly more than an acquaintance. “He had some marking to do,” she told him, knowing it was a lame excuse.
“And he let you go out by yourself?” Forrest asked incredulously, and then flushed himself as he realised how patronisingly un-PC that sounded. “I mean, he didn’t see that backing you up was more important than grading papers?”
“I wouldn’t let him come, okay?” she admitted. “I wanted to do this by myself. I want to eyeball Adam. I’ve got a feeling things are going down soon, and I still haven’t seen the guy. Thing. Monster. Whatever. Anyway, I didn’t want Spike along, too much danger of it turning into a knock-down drag-out fight, and I just want a look-see for now. So I made him stay home.”
“Are you crazy?” Forrest burst out. “You made him stay home so you could go looking for Adam yourself? He’s way out of your league, girl. Get on home.” He looked nervously towards the cave entrance. “This is near where they found that little boy, right? You think Adam might be holed up here? Get out of here. I’ll take a look.”
“Not alone. You’ll get yourself killed,” she warned him. “Stay out of it and let me handle it.” She saw his expression; he obviously thought she was crazy or suicidal. “I’m the Slayer,” she told him. “This is what I do.”
“The what?”
“The Slayer. Chosen One, the. She who hangs out in cemeteries a lot. You’re in the demon fighting business, you must have heard of me.”
“The Subterraneans have some sort of legend, yeah, heard them talk about the Slayer,” Forrest admitted. “Thought it was just their version of the Boogeyman. Something to make the spawn eat up their humans and tidy their crypts.”
“I’m no legend. Well, suppose I am, but real too. Not just an ordinary girl here. Hey, remember when you guys burst into me and Willow’s dorm room chasing Harmony and I kicked you across the room? I was holding back.”
“You were what?”
“I was holding back. You know how strong Harmony is, right? I’m at least twice as strong. One girl in all the world with the strength and speed to stand against the vampires, the demons, there’s this whole big spiel to go through which I can never remember. Mystically enhanced. The whole superhero bit, without having to get bitten by any yucky radioactive spider.”
Forrest stared at her with eyes wide. Buffy began to grow nervous. She’d blurted out her secret identity in a fit of pique, and to one of the Initiative at that. The last time her secret had been revealed Maggie Walsh had systematically set out to have her killed. She didn’t know much about the new boss, McNamara, but from what Riley had said he seemed to be too similar to Professor Walsh for comfort. There was so much potential for badness there. Worst case scenario, the Initiative coming to the conclusion that the Slayer couldn’t be human, classifying her as a Hostile, and trying to whip her off into the laboratory for experiments. Or trying to reverse engineer the Slayer powers; taking her in to conduct tests and take DNA samples and so on, with or without her consent. Buffy shuddered.
Too late now for second thoughts. She put it out of her mind. “Okay, I’m going in to take a look. If you insist on coming along I can’t stop you, but watch yourself.”
Forrest hefted his shock rifle and set his jaw determinedly. “Yes, ma’am,” he grinned. “You take point, I’ll cover you.” Somehow Buffy knew the disclosure was not going to be a problem.
“Look, we know how to fight demons,” Riley protested.
“You know how to fight individual demons,” Xander replied. “This ain’t gonna be the same at all. Not one bit.”
“Modern military tactics are based on dispersal,” Jonathan explained. His usual hesitant manner was completely gone. He was on his own ground for once, totally confident, and in lecture mode. “No bunching into groups when a single grenade or mortar shell could take everyone out at once. Fine against another modern army, but totally wrong against a whole bunch of demons. They’ll hit one of you at a time, rip each guy apart, and move on to the next one. You’ve got to stop them dead in their tracks with massed firepower; otherwise you’ll be like the Brits at Isandhlwana. You’ll hurt them, but they’ll kill you. At a distance everything works for you, as long as you’ve got the firepower to keep them back, but if you let them up close everything changes.”
“I thought the Zulus won Isandhlwana because the Brits couldn’t open the ammunition boxes fast enough,” Riley commented.
“Nope, that was just an excuse,” Jonathan told him. “They were too dispersed; it’s as simple as that. They let 22,000 Zulus get too close, and they spread their lines out too far, and they didn’t have enough concentration of fire to hold the Zulus off. So the impis reached the lines and rolled over them. Remember the guys at Rorke’s Drift had the same ammo boxes and they won against much bigger odds. Difference was that they stayed close together, could always support each other.” His normal shy smile came back. “Plus, they sang ‘Men of Harlech’.”
“Yeah, well, not many of the guys in the Initiative are Welsh,” Riley pointed out.
“You could sing ‘Born in the USA’,” Xander suggested.
“That would be really cool,” Jonathan agreed, a dreamy look coming to his eyes.
“I’ll do photocopies of the lyrics and get Graham and Forrest to pass them round the troops,” Riley said, his face deadpan, and then he broke into a smile. “Sorry, just kidding, can’t see there being time for a pre-battle singsong.”
“Guess not.” Disappointment was evident on Jonathan’s face.
Harmony reached over and ruffled his hair affectionately. “I’ll make him sing it if he has time,” she promised him. “You’re real smart, Jonathan. I was so dumb at school. Making fun of you, teasing Willow, the two smartest kids in our year and it never occurred to me that if you were my friends you could like help me out with my homework and stuff.”
Jonathan went crimson. “Th-thanks,” he stammered. “I’m not that smart really. Just with some stuff that really interests me. None of it’s stuff that g-girls are interested in, except for a few unusual ones like Willow and Tara and Amy.”
“These days the only things that interest Amy are cheese and Habitrail,” Xander put in. “She’s a rat. Object lesson in why you should be careful with the magic.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan said sadly, as Riley looked blank at this reference to yet another story which predated his arrival in Sunnydale. “Not that I need any lessons. I liked Amy. Shame what she did to herself. If only there was some way we could fix it.” His brows creased for a moment, but then his eyes lit up. “Hey, maybe there is a way! I’ve got an idea. Have to get together with Willow and Tara on this one.”
“It can wait,” Xander told him. “She’s been a rat for more than a year, another few days can’t hurt. Concentrate on Adam for now. He’s the number one priority.”
“Welcome to my parlour,” Adam greeted them. He stood alone in the centre of the cave, relaxed and confident, a calm smile on his face. “Miss Buffy Anne Summers, I presume?”
“No, I’m with the Girl Scout Cookies program,” Buffy replied. “We’ve got a choice of eight flavours, and it’s for a good cause.” Her hand went behind her back and suddenly she was holding a Balisong knife, flipping it open to expose the wicked five-inch blade. She advanced cautiously towards the cyborg.
Forrest moved aside to get a clean line of fire. Adam paid no attention, his eyes fixed on Buffy. The Initiative soldier seized his chance and pulled the trigger. A bolt of electricity seared through the air and into the patchwork demon, causing his metal parts to coruscate briefly. Adam grinned. “Thank you. That was most refreshing,” he said, and then leaped forwards and aimed a punch at Buffy’s torso. She blocked with the knife, allowing Adam to impale his arm on the blade, but then yelped and released it hastily as an electric shock shot through her.
“Holy shit!” Forrest exclaimed. “The sonofabitch just stored it up and used it!” He dropped the tazer, pulled an ASP telescopic baton from his belt, and advanced to assist the Slayer.
Buffy hit Adam five times in three seconds. Vicious blows which had all her Slayer strength behind them. Any human on the receiving end would have been dead; any vampire would have been a mass of broken bones and helpless to resist a staking. Adam ignored them and struck back. She took the blow full in the chest and flew backwards across the cave to crash into the wall.
Forrest struck out with the baton. The cyborg caught it, crushed the steel rod in his hand, and tossed the mangled wreckage contemptuously to the floor. Forrest stepped back, hand going to his pistol holster, as Adam extended the Polgara demon bone skewer from his wrist and returned his attention to Buffy.
The Slayer bounced back to her feet and came forward again. She kicked low at Adam’s legs, knocked him off balance for a moment, and grabbed for the knife hilt protruding from his forearm. She ripped the knife free, tearing a long gash in the arm, and struck for his torso, aiming to thrust up under his ribs towards where the uranium battery lay against his spine. The knife went in to the hilt; but before she could penetrate anywhere near as deep as the battery Adam backfisted her across the face and sent her sprawling.
Forrest drew his Beretta and fired twice, double-tapping the cyborg demon in the chest and head. Adam rocked under the impacts, staggered slightly, and then hurtled towards his assailant and shoulder-charged him to the ground. He stamped on Forrest’s hand, crushing it against the gun, and then thrust downwards with the skewer. Forrest cried out in pain as the natural weapon pierced his bicep until it grated against the bone.
The bullet holes in Adam were already beginning to close up, and there was no sign at all of the knife wound which had laid open the cyborg’s arm. Buffy began to realise this was a fight she couldn’t win. She would have retreated, but she couldn’t abandon Forrest. She threw herself at Adam again, burying the knife in his back, and trying her best to open a hole through to his power source. He powered backwards and slammed her into the rock wall of the cave. Once, twice, and a third time she hit the rock, her head connecting heavily with the unyielding surface, until she was forced to release her grip on the knife and disengage. Adam spun round and seized her by the back of the neck.
“Forrest! Run! Save yourself,” she croaked, clawing futilely at Adam’s arm. Then he smashed her head into the wall again and everything went black.
“Of course in the world with nothing but shrimp it would be ‘Prawn in the USA’,” Anya remarked. “Assuming that the shrimp had political units equating to our countries and gave them the same names.”
“USA could mean ‘United Shrimp of America’,” Harmony responded. “Prawn in the USA, I’m a prawn in the USA,” she sang, and both girls giggled.
The men ignored them. Jonathan and Xander had laid out cardboard Dungeon Floor Plans on Giles’ table to represent the Initiative complex, and were using wargaming figures to illustrate their battle plan. Giles, Riley, and Spike were watching and taking notes. Willow and Tara were off buying magical supplies, and Buffy hadn’t returned from her reconnaissance mission yet.
There was a knock on the door. Buffy wouldn’t knock, she would just walk straight in, and the same applied to Willow. Tara always knocked, even though Giles had told her that it wasn’t necessary, and so the Watcher assumed that it was her. “It’s open,” he called.
The door opened to reveal Forrest Gates. Bruised, his face set in an expression of pain and worry, and blood seeping from under a makeshift bandage on his arm.
“Forrest!” Riley exclaimed. “What’s happened to you, man?”
The shaven-headed Initiative agent looked around the room warily. There were people there who he hardly knew. “Is it okay to talk freely?” he asked, stepping into the room.
“Yeah, everyone here knows the score,” Riley assured him. “What’s up? No medic put that dressing on, you did that yourself. Hadn’t you better head off for sick bay?”
Spike stood as still as a statue. His stomach twisted in a knot of fear. “Something’s happened to Buffy,” he said in a voice as heavy as lead.
Forrest twisted his hands together nervously. “Yeah. Adam’s took her prisoner,” he announced. “I couldn’t help her. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry, man, but there was nothing I could do. He stabbed me in the arm and kicked me out to deliver a message. He says he’ll trade her for Spike.”