At that moment, the object of Giles' rage was looking for an abandoned nightclub known as the Bronze. Richard Merrick looked down at the address he had gotten from the wretched little man in the tavern on the corner of Main and 7th. The man, who had introduced himself as Willy, had laughed until he choked when Merrick had asked who the head vampire in town was and where he could find him. After slugging back a shot of tequila, he refused.

"They'll kill me, man. I'm already living on borrowed time here," Willy had said, giving the Watcher a look that bordered on contempt. "If I tell you where to find them and you go in there with stakes and good intentions, I'm as good as drained. You want to know where they are? Call information."

His smart-ass response earned him a mouthful of Merrick's beefy fist and a broken tequila bottle in the face. His eyes had bugged out in disbelief as the man calmly informed him that he had a deal to make with the vampires, a deal that would ensure their continued survival. The cold rage in the man's black eyes scared Willy more than any demon ever could.

So now, address in hand, Merrick found himself outside a large warehouse, a broken neon sign proclaiming it the Bronze. A barstool sat tucked in the corner next to a blackboard still bearing traces of writing from God knew how long ago. The steel door was tightly shut, no doubt firmly bolted from the inside.

Raising his fist, he rapped sharply on the steel, the sound echoing hollowly. After waiting several interminable minutes, Merrick knocked again, harder and longer, determined to rouse the slumbering beasts inside.

Finally, the door opened a crack and the grotesque visage of a vampire peered out. Merrick took a couple of steps backwards, back into the feeble shaft of sunlight that had found its way between the warehouses that rose on either side of the alley. The beast growled, a warning rumble that sent an involuntary shiver down Merrick's spine.

"What do you want, human? Are you mad, coming here?"

"I wish to speak to Xander Harris," Merrick said, successfully keeping the fear out of his voice.

Vincent shifted from one foot to the other and stared at the burly human man who stared back at him with so much arrogance. He glanced up, squinting against the harsh sunlight, then back at the human bathed in it. "He's resting."

Merrick smirked. 'Resting', he called it. The sleep of the damned was more like it. "It's important or I wouldn't have bothered to come here."

The vampire grinned around a mouthful of sharp teeth. "Well, then, would you like to come in?"

Merrick laughed then. Did they think he was stupid? "I don't believe so. Just tell him that I can provide him with the means to walk in the sunlight. Then let's see how fast he comes to the door."

The vampire gaped at him for a long moment, then slammed the door in his face with a resounding boom. Merrick grimaced in distaste and settled down on the barstool to await an audience with the almighty Xander Harris.

He didn't have to wait long. Within a minute or two, the door swung open and a young man stepped out, staying just clear of the sunlight hovering at the edge of the alley. Merrick scrambled to his feet, trying to appear nonchalant, and placed himself back in the shaft of light.

"Who the fuck are you?" the dark-haired vampire snarled, his gameface hidden, but his eyes flashing demon-gold.

Merrick stared at the vampire. He couldn't have been much older than fifteen or sixteen when he was turned and had been quite handsome. Still was, if one liked that pallid, dead look.

Like my bitch-whore of a Slayer. . .

Shaking off the vision of Buffy locked in a sinful embrace with the demon Angel, he smiled tightly. "Richard Merrick, Watcher to the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers. When was the last time you walked at high noon?"

Buffy and Giles sat on the swing in comfortable silence, as they were bathed in the coral and gold flush of the impending sunset. To her surprise and utter relief, she felt as if an enormous, crushing weight had been lifted from her soul, leaving behind a spreading sense of peace. Telling Giles the story of her parents and her abuse at the hands of her Watcher had filled her with unreasoning terror, afraid of his judgment, his revulsion.

But, he had shown none of the reaction she had expected. Instead, his love and support surrounded her like a blanket, warming her and giving her renewed hope. Giles had wiped her tears away, kissing her flushed cheeks, then pulled her into a compassionate embrace. She had buried her face in the scratchy tweed of his jacket and let go of the past, keeping only the sweetest memories for herself.

"It's going to be dark soon. We should go."

Buffy sat up, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of her sundress. "Yeah, I suppose. So, when can we move in?"

Giles got up from the swing and pulled Buffy up by the hand. "You really like it?"

"I love it! Giles, it's perfect! You can have a place for all of your books, well, most of them anyway, and your desk and. . . and did you see how big the kitchen is?" Buffy babbled in renewed excitement.

"I saw," he answered, smiling affectionately at her. "I don't know if the parlor will be large enough for all of my books. I do have a fair amount, you know."

Buffy gave him a look that said, "Duh!" "A fair amount? Try the Library of Congress, Jeeves!"

"Not quite. The third bedroom will work well for storage, I think."

After locking the house and pocketing the keys, Giles and Buffy walked down the path to the curb, where his ancient Citroen was parked. Buffy pointed out the flowers lining the walk of the house across the street. "I've never tried planting flowers before, but do you think we could? Plant some, I mean?"

Giles unlocked the passenger side door and held it open for her. After getting in the car, he looked over at the landscaping Buffy was so excited about. "I certainly don't see why not. Raising flowers isn't hard. It just requires a little hard work and a lot of love."

Buffy smiled brightly. "Goody! We have lots of that, don’t we?" She reached over and took his hand, her fingers curling between his. Giles squeezed it gently, a soft smile creasing his handsome face.

"Yes, we do. We do."

Xander tossed aside the slim volume that Merrick had given him to look at. "I never took Latin. Sorry."

"It isn't Latin. Greek, translated from the ancient Sum. . ."

"What the fuck ever. It's old. It's dusty. I can't read it. Why don't you just give me the Cliff Notes version before I figure out you'd make a better snack than a partner in evil," Xander drawled, leveling his black, dead gaze on the Watcher.

Merrick glared at the vampire, his rage simmering impotently. "Very well. The ritual is very old, supposedly dating back to the first appearance of the Old Ones. . ."

"The Old Ones?"

"The first vampires. Demon and human hybrids. The ritual is called the Purgation. Loosely translated, of course."

Xander's lips curved in a ghost of a smile. "Of course."

"It means the purging of all vampiric limitations, the releasing of the pure demon without the obstacles of the once-mortal body."

"A vampire-demon has no form. Without the 'once-mortal body', we have no means of existence," Vincent said, from his vantage point near the door. He was the only other person Xander had allowed to attend his meeting with Merrick, the only one he trusted not to betray him to Willow.

"Which is why the Purgation has never been attempted. Understandable, given the risks." Merrick rose from his chair and walked over to the window. It was fully night now, the last violet streak of dying sunlight faded to navy. He could sense Xander's interest, but knew that the tiniest wrong move would mean his death.

Xander laughed harshly. "It's never been attempted? How do you know? Maybe that little ritual is bogus, a smokescreen someone has blown up your fat ass!"

Vincent walked over to the table and picked up the book. He flipped through it, the strange words nothing but gibberish. But, he felt the rightness of it, the malevolent truth between the fragile, handsewn leather covers. He looked up as Xander jumped up from his chair, knocking it over in the process.

"You are a headcase if you think I'm just going to let you chant some mumbo-jumbo and sprinkle some herbs on my head, then send me out in the sun to fry!" Xander stalked up to Merrick, his eyes blazing. It gave him a satisfied thrill to see the larger man shrink back against the window. "What assurance do I have that this little ritual isn't designed to kill all of us, instead of making us invincible?”

Merrick took a deep breath, hoping to calm the jackhammer beat of his heart. "You don't. No, of course, you don't and I understand your position. . ."

"No, I don't believe you do." Xander said, calm settling once more over his features. He walked back to the table, righted his fallen chair, and sat back down. "I'm hungry. Vincent here is hungry. The humans aren't stupid, they've caught on and hide in their homes, where we cannot touch them. Many have left town, which is what my brethren want to do."

"Why don't you? It seems a simple solution."

"In a word, Hellmouth. It's here. We are stronger here in Sunnydale, where the energies of the Hellmouth can nourish us, even when blood supplies are low," Xander said. "If we leave Sunnydale, what little control we have over the fledglings will be lost."

Vincent picked up the topic. "The Master, when he first rose from his prison, was voracious, his appetite was boundless. In that first year, over half of the population of Sunnydale fell victim. The young ones, he turned. Soon, the vampire population exceeded the human population. When the Slayer arrived, he had just completed work on his factory, designed to 'mass-produce' our food. As you know, the Master fell to the Slayer's hand, leaving hundreds of young vampires with suddenly no food supply."

Xander looked up at the man. "They panicked. Especially the fledglings, whose appetites are unrefined. They began to kill each other, then cannibalize each other. Within months, our numbers dwindled to less than two hundred. Not including the ones that the Slayer cunt is taking out on a nightly basis."

He smiled suddenly, with feral glee. "That is, when she isn't fucking them."

To his credit, Merrick kept all the emotion from his face. "Indeed."

The vampire's smile slipped when he saw that the Watcher wasn't surprised by the revelation. Vincent, however, was staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. "Yeah. Seems the Slayer has a thing for undead cock. If I'd known that, I would've fucked her myself. She sure seems to enjoy it. Quite the screamer she is, too."

Merrick smiled slowly. "Yes, I know."

Surprise filled Xander's dark eyes. "Is that so? Been sampling some Slayer, huh? So, she as good as Angel seems to think she is?"

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. Her screams of pain are better than any drug," Merrick said.

Xander grinned, his good humor restored. "Okay, Watcher-man. Sit down and tell me all about the Purgation."

Cordelia crept away from the vent, her movements as silent as death. She crawled deftly through the air ducts, nimbly squeezing in and out of impossibly small openings until she was back in her lair. Several tattered blankets were piled in a corner of the crawlspace between the walls of the Bronze that she had claimed for herself. Here she was safe from Xander, Willow and the vampires that would occasionally decide she would do nicely for a fuck. She curled up on the nest, pushing aside several drained rats, so she could pull the edge of a blanket over her trembling shoulders.

Idly, she sorted through her scavenged belongings; things that, as a human, had brought her pleasure. A stolen lipstick, mismatched pieces of jewelry, also stolen from the victims. Some torn pages from a magazine. A Barbie doll, missing an arm and most of her hair. A scrap of aluminum foil was wrapped around its body in fairly decent imitation of a dress.

The strange man's words echoed in disjointed snippets through Cordelia's head, along with those from Xander's earlier fight with Willow. Little of it made sense to her; her mind was so far gone, so deeply embedded in her insanity, that only the simplest commands could get through.

She was wily, though, and a compulsive eavesdropper. Fortunately, for her, no one paid her any mind. She went where she pleased, utterly unnoticed by her vampire family, stealing little trinkets and catching mice and listening.

Always listening.

And, although the meaning of the words 'Purgation' and 'ritual' and 'invincible' held little cohesive meaning for her, the tone with which they were delivered frightened her. She hated change and the big man's attitude promised change. Willow, always so vicious to her, promised change.

Xander, her sire, the man she hated with every fiber of her undead being, promised change.

And the soul of Cordelia Chase, trapped inside her broken body by her own insanity, howled, tormented by the prospect of the vampires winning their terrible war.

She began counting the mice, her long fingers brushing over the little skeletons with affection. One word pulsed inside her mind, an insistent, throbbing chant. . .

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