Cordelia leaned backwards, ignoring the teacher. She'd already sat through the class once, before she had made her wish. Being forced to go through it again was one of the less desirable complications of her wish, but there was no way around it. At least she didn't have to actually listen to what he was saying, giving her more time to think about her problems. Her wish had worked, by some fluke of the hellmouth, letting her relive the last eighteen months, without making any mistakes, but something didn't feel right.

Things were happening that didn't quite fit her memories. At first she'd told herself her memories were at fault, but that excuse didn't hold up. She had seen Blaine's head bitten off by that giant bug teacher, but she knew he had been in class the week before she made the wish. Of course, in Sunnydale being dead was no bar to an active lifestyle, but why would a zombie want to go to school? She could fudge her memories of the original history to fit the things she had seen after the wish, but she couldn't fudge them that much. It had to be the world that was at fault, not her memories. But why?

There were some things she had changed herself, none of which had worked out as well as she had hoped. She hadn't been able to save Jesse, Marcie had got herself killed, and they hadn't been fast enough to save Blaine. Worst of all, that giant bug had broken her left arm. She'd had to wear a cast for a week, which had taken a lot of explaining away. Still, at least she had some idea why those things had happened differently.

Some of the changes were probably inadvertent consequences of her actions, like that butterfly thing the history teacher had gone on about once. Aura was dating Mitch now, but that was only because Cordelia hadn't been interested. He'd looked nice two years ago, but her tastes were more mature now and he'd only get in the way. It was hard enough to spend enough time to give Buffy and her friends all the help they needed without Harmony noticing how much time she was spending with them; trying to keep Mitch happy too would have been a complete nightmare.

The inadvertent changes were an annoying complication, but she could have coped with those. What really worried Cordelia was the other changes.

The class started giggling, disturbing Cordelia's concentration. She looked up, and frowned.

"Cordelia is a thief," the teacher was writing on the blackboard. "Cordelia is a thief."

He seemed completely unaware of what he was doing, still droning on about math the way he always had, but he had half-filled the blackboard with that ridiculous accusation. It was just like what those ghosts had done, but it was the wrong time of year.

The teacher finished his lecture and turned to face the class, his smile quickly turning to a frown when he finally noticed the laughter.

"Look at the blackboard." Cordelia said firmly, before he could demand an explanation.

"Oh, my God!" The teacher began frantically wiping the blackboard clean while stammering incoherent apologies.

Cordelia smiled, briefly amused, then started thinking. She'd dealt with ghosts before. With her expert guidance Giles would banish the ghost before it could create any more trouble. The ghost wouldn't be a serious problem, but it was still worrying. She hadn't ordered extra ghosts, so where had it come from?

It could just be some accidental result of the changes she had made, like Aura dating Mitch, but if it was just random luck why did it never work in their favour? People had died because of Cordelia's bad luck, people who should have lived, but the only people whose lives had been saved owed their lives to Cordelia's hard work.

Cordelia had spent too long on the Hellmouth to believe in simple bad luck. Something was definitely wrong, but was it just the touch of the Hellmouth, or could it be something more serious?

Cordelia frowned as she slipped into the library. It looked like Giles and Buffy were already researching something. She'd just have to persuade them to deal with the ghosts first. It wasn't as if anything important was due to happen soon.

"Yuck, check these guys out. Hi, Cordy." Buffy said, passing Giles an open book.

"We've got ghosts." Cordelia said calmly as she sat down at the table. "What's this?"

Buffy picked the ring up. "A vamp dropped it last night. Giles thinks it's something special."

Then Buffy blinked. "Ghosts?"

Xander stepped into the library. "Not that I saw. Our math teacher just did this freaky channelling thing."

Xander still seemed to be expecting traditional ghosts.

"What happened?" Giles asked eagerly.

While Xander answered Giles's question Cordelia sat back and tried to work out who the ghost could be. Either her memory was worse than she wanted to believe possible or they were someone who had died recently, someone who hadn't died in the original history. That still left at least eight names, just counting the ones she was sure of, but there was another clue. The ghost had been angry at Cordelia, which really narrowed down the list of suspects.

"Ooh!" Buffy said, standing up. "Owen! Hi."

Cordelia smiled, amused, as Buffy brushed her hair nervously. She was being so obvious but Owen seemed oblivious, so far. Cordelia knew that wouldn't last. She'd wanted to date Owen herself, the first time around, but he'd picked Buffy instead, which showed what poor taste he had. Something had gone wrong though. She'd never seen the two of them together after that first date. Buffy had switched her affections to Angel, making him lose his soul. That was something that needed changing, and this would be a good time to do it.

"What do you want?" Giles asked while Xander glowered at Owen, clearly jealous.

"A book?" Owen replied, looking confused.

He actually wanted to borrow a book? Now that was weird. She'd seen more vampires in the library than students. Cordelia glanced curiously at Owen, then mentally shrugged. It didn't matter if Owen was odd. At least he was human, and Buffy obviously liked him. Yes, they'd definitely make a great couple.

If she could just work out why they'd split up she could keep Buffy and Owen together. It had been the night she first saw Angel, which had made it a night worth remembering, but she hadn't been paying much attention to Buffy. Cordelia struggled to remember what exactly had happened. Angel had told Buffy something, then Xander and Willow had turned up, acting weird, and the gang had all left the Bronze, including Owen.

Cordelia smiled again. There must have been something hellmouthy going on or Angel wouldn't have been there. Owen must have seen too much and been scared off. All Cordelia would have to do would be to give Owen some dating advice, so Buffy wouldn't want to let him get away so easily, and to make sure he didn't see too much.

"Poetry." Giles said, pointing Owen in the right direction. Buffy followed him up the stairs, trying much too hard.

Giles glanced at the book Buffy had passed him. His faced twitched in quickly hidden surprise, then he sat down and began reading.

"I can read poetry." Xander muttered, looking hurt.

Cordelia sighed. Why did Xander insist on chasing Buffy? It wasn't as if she encouraged him. There were two other girls who wanted him, or rather, Cordelia thought, correcting herself, there had been two other girls, in the future, but now there was only the one. She was prepared to pretend to be interested, so it would be easier to manipulate him and get her revenge, but she had to remember she no longer loved him. It would be easy enough to confuse pretence and reality, to get carried away by Xander's undeniable charms but that would wreck her plans for revenge.

Cordelia backtracked, picking up her thoughts where she had interrupted herself. As far as Xander knew, there were two girls interested in him. They might not be as obvious about it as Buffy, who might as well put an ad in the paper, but Xander must have noticed. So why did he insist on pining over what he could never win, while ignoring the prize at his feet? If she knew that, knew how he thought, her revenge would be so much easier. Of course, if she had known him that well Willow wouldn't have been able to steal him.

"I love books." Buffy said unconvincingly as she came back down the stairs. "I mean, I really love books."

Owen looked at Giles, still studying the book Buffy had passed him.

"What's that?" he asked, clearly wondering why the librarian was sitting next to students, "A book Mr Giles was showing you?"

"Not that one." Buffy said hastily, standing so Owen couldn't see the title.

"No one reads those books." Xander added.

Giles plucked Owen's book from his hands and walked over to the checkout desk. "Oh, Emily Dickinson."

Cordelia watched, amused, as Buffy continued her pathetic attempts at flirting until Owen left the library. Those two both needed urgent help if they were going to get anywhere. Buffy might be good with ugly monsters but, when it came to dating, Cordelia was the slayer.

"You were right, Buffy." Giles said. "That ring is worn by members of the Order of Aurelius, an old and venerated sect. If they are here it's for a good reason."

That was something she could secretly warn Angel about, keeping up her reputation. The more accurate the warnings she slipped him, the more he would trust them, making it easier for her to manipulate him.

Buffy ignored Giles's words, staring wistfully at the door. "That was Owen! Do you have any more copies of Emily Dickinson? I need one."

Giles glared at Buffy. "While the mere fact of you wanting to check out a book would be grounds for a national holiday, I think we should focus on the problems at hand."

Xander nodded, fiddling with the ring Giles had left on the table. "Who are these Aurelius guys?"

"And the ghost. Don't forget the ghost." Cordelia added. The Aurelius thing was probably just another bit of the original history she hadn't been told about, the reason why Buffy would leave the Bronze, which meant it wasn't a problem. Buffy would deal with it, the way she originally had.

The ghost was much more worrying, a change in history she hadn't asked for and didn't want. She'd grown used to knowing almost everything in advance, which made everything easier, but this ghost was a complete unknown. She didn't know what it wanted, she didn't know what it could do, and she couldn't be sure of victory, since Buffy hadn't even fought it the first time round.

"Right," Buffy said. "I'm sorry. You're right. Vampires and ghosts."

Buffy paused, looking worried. "Oh, does this outfit make me look fat?"

"Nothing could make you look fat." Xander said, smiling.

"I've seen worse," Cordelia said, making Buffy frown, then hastily added "but if you take my fashion advice you will be irresistible."

Giles started to speak, but Cordelia overrode him. "This isn't the time though. Vampires first, fashion later."

Cordelia knew that had to be the strangest thing she'd ever said but she needed Buffy to get her priorities right. If Buffy let the monsters win because she was too busy thinking about boys then fashion would be dead.

Buffy nodded agreement, but her expression still seemed unfocused.

Giles sighed. "Go to your next class. I need to check my books; see why the order might be in town."

That lunchtime Cordelia sat in the canteen, half-listening to Harmony talking about her last shopping trip. Odd to think there had once been a time when she would have enjoyed hearing Harmony describe every last outfit she had tried on, but now she was beginning to wonder if she had ever really enjoyed it at all. Still, being popular was worth any amount of boredom.

"Are you listening, or are you watching those losers again?" Harmony snapped.

Cordelia glared back. Who did Harmony think she was, taking that tone?

"Gold-and-green striped gloves, right?"

Harmony started to say no, but Cordelia interrupted, her tone dismissive.

"You know I don't have your memory for trivial details, I mean, remembering every last thing you bought, in order. The geeks think they're good, memorising all those books, but you're even better."

Harmony did not look flattered by the comparison.

Ignoring Harmony's spluttered response, Cordelia turned to watch Buffy. The nervous way she was acting was so much more entertaining than Harmony could ever hope to be, a big contrast to the confident Buffy Cordelia was used to seeing slaying monsters.

After what looked like a lot of encouragement from Willow, Buffy went over to Owen's table, much to Xander's obvious disgust. It was obvious both Owen and Buffy wanted to date each other but neither of them seemed able to find the words.

After a couple of minutes Cordelia stood up. She needed to know what Giles had found out about her ghost, and knowing what the Order of Aurelius were planning would be useful too.

"Going to another rehearsal with those losers?" Harmony asked sourly.

Cordelia nodded as she began walking. It wasn't much of an excuse but she hadn't expected to need one. People ignored the weird stuff, and the people involved in it. There were exceptions, but mostly people never asked awkward questions. In the original history Harmony had noticed Cordelia's affair with Xander, but she had never asked how they got together or why Cordelia spent so long in the library. Even after that Homecoming fiasco no one had asked why Cordelia had been so dishevelled, despite the shock in their eyes.

Giles had explained it once, something about people preferring ignorance. Most people didn't ask questions because they feared the answers. They might forget the weirdness and ignore all the evidence but nothing could be completely forgotten. In their dreams they remembered.

They avoided dangerous places, unless their hormones overrode their head. They never asked awkward questions and they certainly never asked Cordelia what she was doing with the Scooby gang, or followed her to the library.

Cordelia had never considered Harmony bright, but it had been three weeks. By now she should have realised there were times Cordelia was not safe to be around, the way she had in the original history. Well, if Harmony didn't learn, Cordelia would just have to teach her. She didn't want Harmony following her at the wrong time and getting herself hurt, but she'd have to think of a way to discourage Harmony without risking her popularity.

At the library doors Cordelia turned to face Harmony. At least the rest of her friends had been too sensible to follow her.

"Going to play with your new loser friends?" Harmony sneered. "What's happened to your standards? You shouldn't even be talking to those weirdos."

Cordelia had never liked being ordered around, and she certainly didn't like being addressed in that tone of voice. OK, she understood why Harmony would be upset now that she no longer had the privilege of spending most of her waking hours in Cordelia's company but that was no excuse. Harmony's incessant sniping was getting annoying and, worse, she was trying to control Cordelia's behaviour.

Cordelia remembered how, last Valentine's Day, she'd had to explain to Harmony that she was a natural leader, not a sheep, and didn't have to follow other people's standards. It looked like she would have to explain the same thing again, only earlier.

"Harmony," Cordelia began in deceptively sweet tones, "do I ever hang with losers?"

"No, but-"

"Then Buffy and her friends can't be losers." Cordelia said firmly.

"Not losers?" Harmony said disbelievingly. "Are you blind?"

"I see more than you do." Cordelia replied smiling. Harmony was as blind as the rest of Sunnydale. "You call Buffy a loser, but you don't even know the rules. Buffy is a winner. We are all winners."

Cordelia paused, thinking about what she could safely say.

Harmony looked defiantly at Cordelia. "Winners? Willow and Xander are much too ugly to make good actors."

Cordelia laughed dismissively. Xander hid a great body under his horrible clothes and if Willow dressed better she would look almost as attractive as Cordelia herself, attractive enough to get almost any boy she wanted. Willow certainly hadn't had any trouble seducing Xander, which wasn't something Cordelia wanted to think about. She pulled her thoughts back to the present and glared at Harmony.

Harmony stepped backwards.

"This is my school," Cordelia said. "I decide who the losers are. You're just a sheep, copying what's cool, but not me. If I'm doing it, it has to be cool. I do what I want to do, and I hang with whoever I want to, whenever I want to, however odd they are. Whine all you like but I'm not going to change, so shut up and stay away from my library."

Cordelia stopped talking, worried she might have got carried away. She didn't want to alienate Harmony, just remind her who she was talking back to. Still, Harmony knew she'd be nowhere without Cordelia, so it would be easy enough to mollify her later.

Cordelia smiled as Harmony stammered her apologies then scurried away down the corridor. Harmony certainly wouldn't be asking any more awkward questions.

"Your library?"

Recognising Buffy's voice Cordelia turned around to see all three of them looking at her, clearly amused.

"She was rude." Cordelia explained as she pushed open the library doors. "Giles, what've you found out about my ghost?"

"You've got a ghost?" Willow gasped. "But you aren't dead."

"Our teacher did this freaky channelling thing," Xander explained. "Cordy thinks it's a ghost."

Willow looked briefly thoughtful then asked "Whose ghost is it then?"

Giles smiled. "We don't have sufficient information to decide, but that can wait. The ghost isn't important, the Order of Aurelius is -"

Cordelia stopped listening to Giles, her attention gripped by the books behind him. The moment he'd said the ghost wasn't important the books had started vibrating. Now they were glowing a dull blood red and floating just above the shelves.

"Um Giles, behind you." Willow said, interrupting apologetically.

As Giles turned to look three of the books leapt of their shelf and hurtled towards Giles, clipping him on the ear.

"Everyone down!" Buffy yelled as more books floated away from their shelves and began zooming around the room.

Cordelia dived forwards, sliding quickly across the floor and underneath the main table.

From behind the counter Xander groaned. "So who's been a bad librarian? What have you done to these poor books? Miscatalogued them?"

Cordelia couldn't see Giles but he sounded affronted. "No! This is a poltergeist."

"A what? How do I kill it?" Buffy asked, showing her inexperience.

"A ghost, and you can't kill it." Giles replied. "But it can't keep up this level of activity for long without depleting its spiritual reserves."

"You mean we've got to wait for it to get tired?" Cordelia asked, clarifying Giles's answer.

"Thief," an hideous voice screeched.

Cordelia peeked out from under the table, trying to see what was talking. There had to be thousands of books floating in mid-air. Moving faster than the eye could follow they circled the main table, the air around them glowing a dull blood red. Giles had retreated into the safety of his office, Xander and Willow were both crouched behind the counter and Buffy was leaning against the wall, fending the books off with her hands, but there was no sign of any monster.

"Thief. Thief," the voice screeched again, and the light flickered in time with its words. It had to be the ghost talking.

"Cordelia is a thief," the voice screeched, and the light winked out. There was a moment of silence, then all the books fell to the floor.

Cordelia crawled out from underneath the table and calmly dusted herself down.

"Giles, next time don't insult the ghost." Cordelia said sharply then hesitated. That ghost had attacked twice in three hours, and it definitely didn't like her. If it made a fuss like that in the Bronze it wouldn't help her reputation.

"Giles?" Cordelia asked in gentler tones. "I don't think that ghost likes me. Is there anything you can do about it?"

Cordelia paused, thinking about the last time she had faced a ghost. Willow had made some special charm. "A scapula I can wear, but not the stinky kind."

Giles looked thoughtfully at Cordelia and smiled. "I may be able to prepare some suitable protection for all of us, but we need to identify the ghost. Are there any dead people who don't like you?"

Xander smiled but kept silent, refusing to make the obvious joke. He'd been a lot nicer about that ever since he almost killed her. He'd been a lot nicer to her about everything since then, calling her Cordy and hardly ever insulting her. Cordelia would have enjoyed his improved attitude, if she had thought he really meant it, but it was clear he was just trying to make up for almost killing her. Xander probably meant well but Cordelia would have preferred honesty.

"Marcie," Willow suggested. "And maybe Amber."

Cordelia nodded. They had both been spiteful people who'd enjoy embarrassing her.

"Both violent deaths." Giles replied, "so they would make good suspects. It should take several hours for our ghost to recover the energy for another manifestation, more than enough time to research a protective charm, but first we have more urgent business. I fear the Master is about to try and fulfil a violent and disturbing prophecy."

"The order of Aurelius?" Buffy guessed.

Giles nodded. "You were spot on about the connection. I've looked at the writings of Aurelius himself and he prophesied that the brethren of his order would bring the anointed one to the Master."

Cordelia smiled. She'd seen the anointed one once, a little child who looked completely harmless. Still, if the Master wanted him there had to be something special about the anointed.

"Um, Giles?" Willow said tentatively. "Didn't you say all the old prophecies were invalid? And this Aurelius must be old news 'cause he has this whole order, which he couldn't have got in three weeks."

Giles smiled. "Events do not happen because they are prophesied; they are prophesied because they will happen. There has to be a reason, outside prophecy, why those events will occur. Even though the prophecy has been invalidated the Master can still try and make it happen. His chances of success are much lower now, but they are not zero."

Cordelia frowned slightly, thinking about what Giles had just said. The old prophecies were wrong because Cordelia was changing things, but she hadn't done anything to stop the anointed yet. If Giles hadn't told her about the prophecy she wouldn't have known to stop it so it would have come true but now, because Giles had told her it would have happened, it wouldn't.

Cordelia paused, trying to untangle her thoughts. It wouldn't happen because it would have? That was the kind of twisted logic only Giles could understand.

Cordelia mentally shrugged, dismissing the issue. Xander was speaking.

"-Fun. Got any more good news?" he was saying. "Who's this anointed guy?"

"I don't know exactly, a warrior, but it says he will rise from the ashes of the five on the evening of the thousandth day after the advent of Septus."

He certainly hadn't looked like a warrior, but if the Master needed some brat's help Buffy would have to kill it first, which shouldn't be difficult. Cordelia would slip Angel a note describing the anointed one and he'd help Buffy kill it. Once that little nuisance was out of the way Giles would be able to deal with the much more worrying problem of the unexpected ghost.

Cordelia smiled, glad she had worked out exactly what was going on. This time there wouldn't be any unexpected complications.

It was almost dusk when Cordelia slipped the note under Angel's door, later than she would have liked. As Cordelia turned away from the door she quickly pulled a small cross out of her purse and wrapped her fingers tightly around it, ready for the long walk home. A cross couldn't offer much protection, but it was better than nothing. It would be better still if she didn't have to walk at all, but her driving test wasn't due for another two weeks.

Cordelia hadn't meant to be so late but it had been difficult to get away from Harmony. She had only meant to spend half an hour with her, after school, reassuring Harmony that they were still friends, but Harmony had kept her talking for hours. Much as Cordelia wished she could have just walked away, doing that repeatedly would have damaged her status. If she wasn't regularly seen with the other fashionable people everyone would start to think of her as just another member of Buffy's weird gang, and her popularity would plummet.

"Cordelia?"

Recognising Angel's voice, Cordelia turned around and sighed. Angel was standing in the shadows, a surprised look on his face and a piece of paper in his hand.

"Expecting someone else?" Cordelia said, trying to decide what she could tell Angel. He didn't need to know the truth but he wouldn't be easy to deceive. At least with Giles she'd been able to keep her story simple but Angel thought she was the messenger of a non-existent secret society. Angel would want more information, but there was no way she could actually answer those questions. Cordelia could twist the truth or even lie outright but either way, the moment something she said contradicted what he already knew, Angel would become suspicious.

Cordelia would have to play it cryptic, imply she knew more than she did and let Angel fill in the gaps, but if she made even one misstep Angel would suspect she was a fraud. She just had to hope Angel wouldn't be talking to Giles anytime soon.

"I wasn't expecting anyone."

Angel hesitated, then added "We need to talk. Come inside."

"Into your lair?" Cordelia said, displaying her cross. Angel might be old enough that the sight of a cross didn't bother him much but anything she could do to unsettle him would make her deceit easier.

"You know?" Angel said, sounding surprised.

Cordelia nodded.

Angel said nothing more until they were both inside.

"How much do you know?" Angel asked once they had both sat down.

"I know about the curse, and the loophole." Cordelia said, trying to sound like Giles. She couldn't hope to fake the accent, not that it would help if she did, but she could try and fake his style and mannerisms. If she could just copy Giles's authoritative tones then she would sound like the voice of experience, making her imposture much more convincing.

"So you've read the messages?"

Cordelia struggled to keep her face blank. Why hadn't she thought of that? If she'd pretended that she was just a messenger Angel wouldn't have expected her to know anything. There would still have been a few awkward questions, such as why she was delivering anonymous messages and who was giving them to her, but that would still have been a better lie.

Cordelia mentally shrugged. It was too late to change tack now.

"Who wouldn't?" Cordelia replied. "I am hardly going to deliver anonymous messages to strange men without good reason."

"Does Giles know?"

"He mustn't," Cordelia said, trying to think of some reason why not.

Angel smiled. "So those rumours are true."

"Which rumours? There are so many in this business."

Angel looked thoughtfully at Cordelia. "Meddling in the affairs of watchers is dangerous. The slayer is theirs, and theirs alone. They'll go to any lengths to keep it that way."

Cordelia smiled. That was an excuse she could use, not that she believed it. She knew Giles. If someone else turned up, wanting to help the slayer, he'd check their credentials then let them help. Any rumours Angel had heard to the contrary were probably just vampires spinning tall stories. It wasn't as though sensible vampires spent much time around watchers.

"We do prefer to avoid their notice." Cordelia said. "I notice you haven't told Giles your secrets either."

Angel smiled. "Watchers don't like vampires."

"Even when they have souls." Cordelia said, nodding.

Angel looked interested. "How do you know about that? You're no gypsy."

Cordelia smiled enigmatically. "We have ways."

"And the loophole? You're sure about that?" Angel asked, leaning forwards.

"Yes." Cordelia replied firmly. "One moment of perfect happiness and the curse is broken, so don't be happy, ever."

"But how can you be certain?" Angel asked.

Cordelia could understand his reluctance to accept the news, but he had no choice. If he wasn't careful around Buffy then Angelus would escape. She had to force him to accept it.

"I've seen-" Cordelia began hotly, then caught herself. "Documents. Books and prophecies. I've seen dozens of them."

"Which ones?" Angel asked, then rattled off a list of titles. Cordelia recognised a few from the library, but there was no way she could pretend to have read them.

"Do I look like Giles?" Cordelia said, feigning scorn. Not wanting to give Angel a chance to ask more questions, Cordelia quickly continued "The curse was meant to make you suffer. If you're happy you aren't suffering, and the curse goes puff."

Cordelia wasn't completely certain that explanation was right, she hadn't really been listening when Giles explained the details, but it seemed to have convinced Angel.

"That sounds like gypsy logic. Why do I have to avoid Buffy?"

Cordelia stared at Angel, annoyed by how stubbornly he was clinging on to hope.

"Do I have to spell everything out? Give it up. You'll only bring Buffy heartache."

That wasn't completely true, but it was worth lying if it stopped Angel losing his soul.

Cordelia watched the last dregs of hope drain from Angel's face, wishing she hadn't had to tell him that, then frowned. She'd just done the right thing, saved dozens of lives, so why did she feel regret? It wasn't her that was making him suffer; it was the curse, just like the gypsies had wanted, so why did she feel responsible?

Angel looked down, staring at the floor. His voice melancholy, he said "I saw Buffy the day she was chosen. She was walking down the steps and-"

Angel paused, shaking slightly. Cordelia waited silently, hoping he'd continue. She'd often wondered about Buffy's early days but Buffy had never wanted to share. Besides, talking about it might help Angel.

"She looked so vulnerable I wanted to help her, to protect her. I ... I love her. I know she'll never love me but I had hopes. We could work together, side by side. Now you tell me I can't even have that."

Listening to the barely suppressed fury in Angel's last few words Cordelia shuddered and tried to think of something sympathetic to say, some way to calm him down.

Angel looked straight at her and quickly said. "I don't blame you. I owe you, and your organisation."

Cordelia smiled. At least Angel was mature enough not to blame the messenger, and him owing her a favour could be very useful.

"But I will find a way round the loophole."

Cordelia took one look at Angel's expression and decided not to argue. Angel deserved some hope

"Until then I'll do it your way. I can't take the risk that you are wrong." Angel paused. "It is enough to be able to help Buffy. I don't have to watch her."

Cordelia hesitated, then decided she could offer Angel a little comfort. She had implicitly exaggerated the danger of the loophole just a little. If Angel realised he could safely watch Buffy he might falsely conclude that the loophole had been closed.

"You might be able to watch her from a distance," Cordelia conceded. "If it doesn't make you too happy, but if you get too close to her she'll fall for you."

Angel smiled. "She would?"

"She mustn't. It would make you too happy. Keep your distance. Let Buffy find a human boyfriend."

Slowly Angel nodded. "I will, for Buffy's sake. Why are you working for these people?"

Cordelia smiled at Angel's abrupt change of subject

"I learned the truth about Sunnydale. How could I refuse to help?" Cordelia asked rhetorically then, before Angel could ask for more details, changed the subject herself. "Do you know about the anointed?"

"I've read the prophecies of Aurelius. He was due to rise tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow? Giles said it was tonight. Buffy's out there now, waiting for him."

Angel looked surprised. "Doesn't Giles know? Three weeks ago the future changed."

"We know." Cordelia interrupted, then tried to remember Giles's explanation. "But prophecies don't make things happen, people do. The master can still try and raise the anointed, but he's lost his guarantee. He should fail, but he just might succeed."

Angel looked doubtful. "Whatever changed the future won't like him changing it back. It would be arrogant to defy such power."

Cordelia smiled, amused by Angel's misconception. She was the one who'd changed the future but she wasn't quite as powerful as Angel seemed to think.

"But the master has always been arrogant, and he still attempted the harvest." Angel added, looking thoughtful. "You may be right. Aurelius didn't say why the anointed will rise but the master has other sources. If there is some ritual that summons the anointed the master will try and perform it."

"And we will stop him." Cordelia said firmly, trying to remember if Giles had ever said anything useful about the anointed or vampire rituals.

"How?" Angel asked.

Spike had used some fancy ritual to cure Drusilla, but where had he got it from? It had been the week she had first kissed Xander, something she remembered all too clearly, but the rest of the week was a blur. Cordelia frowned slightly, struggling with her memory, then smiled. She remembered now. Spike had stolen one of Giles's books, and a fancy cross.

"Du Lac?" Cordelia said.

Angel's eyebrows twitched in hastily concealed surprise. "He might have known about the anointed, but all his writings were lost when the watchers had him excommunicated."

"Giles has a copy in his library." Cordelia said.

"He does?" Angel exclaimed, not bothering to hide his surprise.

Cordelia nodded. "But you'll need Du Lac's cross to decode it."

Angel smiled. "Where's that? In your purse?"

Cordelia smiled back at Angel, amused by his attitude. "In his tomb, somewhere in Sunnydale. Think you can find it?"

Once they had finished talking Angel offered to walk Cordelia home, an offer she reluctantly accepted. Angel was determined to help her, and she would feel safer with him, but it would also give him more time to ask awkward questions. She would just have to hope Angel wouldn't think of any before she got home.

Still, the conversation had gone very well, considering that she hadn't had any chance to prepare for it. Once she'd told Angel about the loophole in his curse, he'd been too unsettled to worry about the holes in her story.

Cordelia glanced sideways at Angel. He looked broody, and he hadn't said a word since they started walking, but she thought he'd taken the news very well. Buffy would have made a big fuss, blaming Cordelia for everything, but Angel had his priorities straight. He must be feeling awful, but nothing would stop him helping Cordelia and Buffy. If only more people shared that attitude.

"Stop." Angel whispered, then pointed forwards.

Cordelia squinted into the dark, trying to see what had worried Angel. Her house was over five hundred yards away but she could just see an upright figure dimly lit by a sickly green glow.

"Fetch," the distant figure shouted, its voice faintly familiar.

The green glow began to move, flowing towards Cordelia.

Cordelia stepped behind Angel.

"Recognise it?" Angel asked, moving into a defensive position.

It did look almost familiar. Cordelia leaned forwards, staring at the misty green glow, trying to remember where she'd seen it before, then she smiled, recognising them from that business with the witch.

"It's a demon mist wolf thing, not as bad as it looks."

They might be big with lots of teeth but they were also slow and clumsy. Angel would have no trouble killing two of them.

"Amy said her mother got them in a sale," Cordelia added in a conversational tone, trying to impress Angel with her calm handling of the situation, "which just shows how mad she was. Everyone knows you can't buy anything decent at a sale."

The wolves were closer now, just fifty yards away. Cordelia stepped backwards.

"Buffy killed two of them, but some escaped when the witch died." Cordelia continued, almost enjoying herself. For the second time in one night Angel was relying on her for the answers, a good habit for him to get into. It would make it easier for her to persuade him to do the right thing.

Twenty yards away both wolves paused and looked at Angel. One sprang forwards, leaping for Angel's throat, but the other hesitated.

"Cordelia." Angel said. "What kills them?"

The wolf knocked Angel to the ground, but he rolled with the impact, then whipped his legs up, kicking the wolf in its stomach.

Cordelia took another step backwards, trying to remember what Buffy had done. "Rip its head off."

The other wolf slowly circled around the fight, then headed straight for Cordelia.

Cordelia began running.

The wolf followed, close enough that Cordelia could hear every footstep.

Cordelia speeded up, trying to lose the demon wolf.

The wolf ran faster, matching her stride for stride.

OK, so she couldn't outrun it, but why hadn't it run this fast in the first place? Cordelia thought quickly, then slowed slightly.

Just as she had expected, the wolf slowed down, staying just behind her.

Cordelia smiled. The wolf must be toying with her, trying to terrify her, a stupid thing to do, but demons were like that. They enjoyed the gloating so much they ended up giving their victims time to escape. Since these demons were so stupid they'd tried the same technique on the slayer she shouldn't have any trouble outwitting them.

Cordelia began looking around, hoping to spot something she could use against the demon wolf.

The wolf leapt over her head, landing in front of Cordelia. Before she could recover from the surprise, it knocked her to the ground, then loomed over her, its jaw wide open.

"No!"

The wolf looked up, then whined.

Cordelia smiled, recognising the voice of the ghost. Giles had given them all amulets, so it wouldn't be able to hurt her, but when the ghost made a spectacle of itself it might distract the demon wolf enough to let Cordelia escape.

"Mine," the ghost screeched, "My body. Mine. All mine."

A bolt of blood red lightning struck the wolf and the green mist boiled away, leaving the bare skeleton behind.

The demon yelped, then turned and ran, back towards Cordelia's house.

Cordelia stood up, dusting herself off.

"Ghost," she said firmly, "Explanation time," but no reply came from the empty air.

Cordelia walked slowly back to where she had left Angel, thinking about the ghost. First it harassed her, then it saved her life. Why? Cordelia struggled to think of a sensible explanation but soon gave up. Ghosts didn't think like people but Cordelia wasn't a ghost so there was no way she could work out what the ghost was thinking. She just hoped Giles would have an explanation. Normal ghosts were bad enough but being stalked by an insane ghost would be a whole new hell.

"Cordy?" Angel said.

Cordelia smiled. Angel had been running towards her but now he was just standing there, looking confused.

"Easy fight?" Cordelia asked, looking at the demon skull tucked under Angel's left arm.

Angel shrugged. "What happened to the other one?"

"Didn't you see it? It ran this way." Cordelia said, trying to decide what she would tell Angel.

"Where did it go?" Cordelia asked, looking around as if nervous. She was confident that demon wouldn't go come near her again, not after the scare it had got, but asking the question would give her more time to think about an explanation.

Angel should know about ghosts, since they were dead like him, but Angel would expect her to know about them too. She should be able to pull off the same cryptic act she had earlier, when talking about the anointed, but it wouldn't be easy. On the other hand, if she said she hadn't been told anything about ghosts she might be able to get lots of useful information from Angel, information she could use to impress Buffy and her friends.

"Back to Absalom."

"Absalom?" Cordelia echoed, wondering what Angel would think if she implied she'd killed the demon herself.

"A vampire." Angel explained. "I recognised his voice."

"So the master's got some new pets." Cordelia guessed, trying to remember if she'd ever heard Absalom's name before.

Angel nodded. "But what happened to the other demon?"

Cordelia sighed. She didn't want Angel to overestimate her martial skills, that could easily get them both killed, so she had to tell him about the ghost, despite the increased risk of Angel realising she didn't know as much as the story she had told him implied that she should.

"A ghost did." Cordelia said flatly, trying to sound as if ghosts were normal. "It's been following me around all day."

Angel looked surprised but quickly recovered his calm. "Why?"

"I don't know. Nobody warned me about this." Cordelia said, trying to sound indignant. She paused, feigning thought, then looked at Angel. "You must know about ghosts. Why is it doing this?"

Angel looked thoughtfully at Cordelia. "Shouldn't we go inside first. It's not safe out here."

"I'm never inviting you in." Cordelia said firmly. Still, Angel had a point. Being seen talking to strange men on the street wouldn't do her reputation any good.

Smiling sweetly, Cordelia looked at Angel. "Wait ten minutes while I change, then we can talk in the Bronze. You can tell me all about ghosts."

"The skull was back on its pedestal, but now its teeth were bloodstained. No one has dared move the skull since." Angel said.

"In my family we bury our parents." Cordelia said firmly. "We don't use their skulls as ornaments."

Angel smiled. "Someone else could have stolen the bodies."

"But that wouldn't make me the thief." Cordelia replied.

"Have you got any new jewellery? Some ghosts protect their family jewels and greed can conquer death. The Ashmore miser was drowned in the village pond by his son, a gambler who sold all his father's possessions to pay his debts. Ever since then -"

Cordelia listened carefully. Angel didn't know much about ghosts, just a few stories, but he did know more than Cordelia had. While none of Angel's stories matched her situation precisely they were giving her an insight into the way ghosts thought, an insight that would help her enhance her reputation with Buffy and the others.

She just had to hope none of them would see her talking to Angel. Buffy and Giles were busy in the graveyard but she had no idea where the others were. For the twelfth time that night Cordelia glanced nervously around the Bronze.

Xander and Willow were nowhere in sight. She was probably helping him with his homework again, which was fine as long as that was all she was doing. Willow did still seem too innocent to be trying anything with Xander, but after what had happened in the original future Cordelia knew better than to trust appearances.

Cordelia froze briefly, lost in the painful memories, then forced her mind back to the present.

Owen was in the Bronze, sitting alone at a table across the dance floor. He might talk to Buffy, but he didn't know who Angel was yet. Besides, he was too busy looking longingly at the door to notice Cordelia.

Relieved that nobody important would notice her talking to Angel, Cordelia went back to listening to his stories.

"It didn't care if its victims were innocent. It wanted its gold back. The watchers bound the ghost ninety years ago, but the bed of that pond is still strewn with jewellery and bones, and the ghost still haunts its depths. It can not leave the pond while the binding endures, but now all those who swim in its waters die."

"Where have you been hiding him?" Harmony asked.

"You're early." Cordelia said, wondering how she could explain away Angel without making Harmony suspicious.

Harmony sat down next to Angel, brushing her hand against his thigh as if by accident, then leaned towards Angel, who promptly edged away from Harmony. She smiled suggestively at Angel, and asked him "Do you come here often?"

Cordelia smiled, amused. Harmony was trying her best but she had all the subtlety of a brick. She might seek to imitate Cordelia's own polished charm, but she only succeeded in appearing vain, domineering and arrogant, completely unlike Cordelia herself. Harmony had never yet kept a boyfriend for more than one date; she stood no chance with Angel.

Angel looked at Cordelia. "Do you know each other?"

He had to be fishing for more information, since the answer was obvious.

"Of course." Harmony said, missing the undertones. "Cordelia is my best friend."

"Harmony isn't one of Buffy's friends." Cordelia said, telling Angel what he had really wanted to know.

Harmony scowled. "That what you were talking about? Forget about her. She's a psycho. She attacked Aura with a stick her first day here."

Cordelia couldn't let Harmony get away with remarks like that, not while Angel was listening. She glared at Harmony but before she could speak Angel interrupted.

Ignoring Harmony completely he stood up and looked at Cordelia. "I'll get that cross for you. We can talk later."

"Leave it with Xander or you'll make Buffy suspicious."

Cordelia didn't want anyone to start wondering why she got special treatment from Angel. Annoying Xander would be a bonus.

Harmony watched Angel's back until he reached the door then turned to face Cordelia.

"Who is he?" Harmony asked, leaning forwards, a hungry look in her eye.

"Buffy's oldest friend." Cordelia said, hoping that would put Harmony off.

"Is that why you're hanging around them? Are you two dating?"

"No." Cordelia scoffed. Even Xander would be better than Angel. At least Xander was human, and alive.

"Angel is too old for me." Cordelia added. "Forget about him."

"But-" Harmony began, then she looked at Cordelia. "Want another drink?"

The next morning, before classes started, Cordelia stepped into the library. She had to get Giles's advice about the ghost's strange behaviour, and it would be a good opportunity to see if Angel had found the cross.

Several large crates blocked her view of the room, probably the new books Giles had been expecting from the board, but she could hear Xander talking.

"No one should be awake at five a.m."

Cordelia stepped around the crates and groaned. Giles had started to tidy up but there were still dozens of piles of books on the floor, remnants of the ghost's tantrum.

"Why hasn't he put these back yet." Cordelia muttered, skirting the piles.

Willow looked up. "He needs to resort them first. It could take days."

Xander and Willow were both sat at the near end of the main table, talking to each other, while Buffy was at the far end, looking depressed.

Cordelia looked at the extremely tacky cross Willow was holding and smiled. It had to be the Du Lac cross; even Xander's tastes weren't quite that bad. Now that Angel had found it they should be able to find out more information about the anointed, and other vampire rituals, information that could give them a significant advantage over the original history.

"What's that?" Cordelia asked, faking curiosity.

"Angel gave it to Xander." Buffy said, sounding slightly jealous. "It's some special cross."

"Bad night?" Cordelia asked. She could guess the answer, but listening to Buffy grumble would help her image.

"Nothing happened."

"Nothing?"

"Six demons, but no anointed and no Owen. I spent six hours in a graveyard waiting for a prophecy that will never happen."

"But you killed six demons." Cordelia replied, trying to get Buffy to see the good.

Buffy scowled. "That's why I had to wait six hours. Giles was ready to give up waiting, then the first demon came."

"Six demons in three hours is too many, even for the hellmouth." Giles said, stepping out of the stacks, a book in his arms. "There has to be an explanation."

Cordelia nodded. If six different demons had found Buffy on the same night there must have been a lot of them out there,

Buffy glared at Giles. "But what about Owen? What do I say? Sorry about last night, I was in a cemetery, with the librarian, killing demons?"

Cordelia frowned. She could understand why Buffy was so annoyed, she would have felt the same way herself, but this wasn't the right time to complain. Buffy could have all the sympathy she needed later, but right now they had more urgent problems than Buffy's hurt feelings; something Cordelia had ample proof of in her school bag.

"You weren't the only one." Cordelia said, pulling out the demon wolf's skull. "Giles, you know how to destroy this, right?"

Cordelia thought she remembered what Giles had done with the other, but she wasn't completely sure and Angel hadn't know what to do either. That was why they'd decided to let Giles deal with it.

"You killed a demon?" Buffy spluttered.

Xander and Willow stared at Cordelia, their eyes narrowed, but Giles frowned at the skull.

"How?" Willow said. "It was bigger than you, and stronger too. Even if you were warned it was coming, which you couldn't have been, because you would have told us and, since you don't know anyone else who would know apart from us who didn't know, the only people who could have warned you were the people who sent it who wouldn't have had any reason to warn you, that warning wouldn't have done you any good without special help which you didn't have since the only people who can give you such help are Buffy and Giles, but they didn't know."

Willow hesitated, looking at Cordelia's face, then nervously added "And I've said too much haven't I, that is not in the sense of saying something I don't want you to know I know since there's nothing I know I don't want you to know I know, but because questions shouldn't be longer than their answers, most of the time."

Xander groaned.

Cordelia smiled. "Been drinking coffee again, Willow?"

Willow nodded, looking relieved.

Cordelia knew coffee couldn't be the real reason for Willow's jumpiness, not unless she was drinking it by the gallon, but it kept things simpler if she pretended to believe Willow's excuse.

It was already difficult enough to tell what Willow was thinking, despite the clues she kept dropping in her incontinent babbling, but if Willow realised Cordelia knew that Willow had suspicions she would either come up with some clever trick that would leave Cordelia with no idea what Willow was thinking or panic and mess everything up.

Still, at least Willow was still on the wrong track. From the way Willow babbled when anyone mentioned children it was obvious she'd been reading the notes Cordelia had been giving to Angel. Cordelia had no idea how Willow had managed that trick, since they'd been deleted the moment the computer had printed them, but it was lucky she had. It meant Willow was too busy chasing shadows to realise what Cordelia's real secret was.

"How did you do it?" Buffy asked.

"The ghost did." Cordelia looked at Giles. "But I haven't bought any old jewellery recently, or disturbed any graves. What does it want with me?"

Giles hastily concealed his surprise. "No family history?"

"No." Cordelia said firmly. If that had been the reason she'd have been haunted in the original history too.

Giles nodded. "The ghost does seem to consider you the guilty party, so none of the standard motivations can apply. Hmm, Purvis's monograph has the most comprehensive classification of hauntings. There should be an explanation in there."

Giles paused, looking sadly at the untidy piles of books. "If I can find it."

Xander looked at Cordelia, at Buffy's confused expression, then back at Cordelia. "Could we have that again, with subtitles?"

"Never read any ghost stories?" Cordelia asked Xander, then smiled, pleased at her own ingenuity. It was difficult to use the information she had about the future and the occult without making Giles suspicious but she had to do it; it wasn't just a good way to put herself in a better position to get revenge on Xander, the world needed the foreknowledge she had. Fortunately, she had had little difficulty thinking up explanations.

It had been awkward trying to get the information out of Angel though, pretending she knew as much as him while asking questions. Cordelia knew she was up to the challenge, but if she was going to keep up the pretence she was working for a secret society she wouldn't be able to bluff all the time. She might need to think about getting her own sources, for when her future knowledge let her down.

Giles smiled. "Not the best of sources, but they do contain a kernel of truth. Cordelia, I presume the demon wolf was trying to kill you."

Cordelia nodded. "It was waiting outside my house, and it had a vampire with it giving orders."

She hadn't actually seen that herself, she was just going by what Angel had told her afterwards, but mentioning Angel would just raise awkward questions. It was so much simpler not to bother Giles with the petty details and only tell him what he really needed to know.

Giles frowned. "The master doesn't have that kind of power, not while he's trapped."

"That's what happened." Cordelia said, wondering what Giles's problem was.

"The demons should have been automatically banished when the witch died. Only some great evil could keep them here, but the master can't work such magics while trapped nor are any of his minions capable of such a feat. These demons shouldn't have been here."

"But we've got the hellmouth." Cordelia interrupted. "Couldn't that explain everything?"

They were already dealing with two situations, the ghost and the anointed; Cordelia really didn't need a third problem.

"The hellmouth isn't strong enough to explain this."

"Why not?" Willow asked.

"Incarnate demons have to be flesh and blood. The mist demons aren't. Demons like that, demons whose bodies defy natural law, can not exist in our reality unless sustained by magic, but even here, in the presence of the hellmouth, there is not enough ambient magic to sustain such flagrant defiance of natural law unless a witch dedicates their life energies to the task."

Cordelia frowned, thinking about the demons she'd seen. There hadn't been many, but they had all looked like people in masks, most of the time. They might have been ugly, but she could easily imagine them all having livers and lungs, keeping them alive in the normal way.

"What about vampires?" Willow asked, "They don't breath or anything."

"Vampires are thought to be sustained -"

Buffy sighed.

Giles looked at her then cut his lecture short. "That was a simplification. If you want the full explanation I'll show you the books later. Right now, the key point is that the numian demon wolves should not still be here. I will need to consult my books."

Giles paused, polishing his glasses. "As for the ghost, Xander, it is clear that it bears some grudge against Cordelia, but it still protected her from the demon. There must be something it needs from Cordelia, but we don't know what. She's ruled out the most common motives."

"Um, can't we just ask the ghost what it wants?" Willow asked, looking doubtful about her own suggestion.

Giles frowned. "That is not a safe option. Seances are always dangerous, and we are on a hellmouth. Any error could have dire consequences."

That hadn't stopped Giles from trying to talk to Ms Calendar's ghost, but then Giles always worried too much.

"Who said seance?" Cordelia asked, wondering why Giles was making such a fuss. "The ghost talks anyway, and it can hear us."

Giles shook his head. "Not precisely. Ghosts don't hear the words we say, they sense the intent behind them. Similarly, many ghosts do not actually speak, they just force their thoughts into our minds where we perceive them as speech. Listening too closely to such a ghost without the protection the procedures of a seance provide and you will open your mind to permanent possession."

OK, that was a good reason not to listen too closely to the ghost, but there had to be something they could do.

"What can we do?" Cordelia asked.

"Research. It's fifty minutes till school starts. That should be enough time to get started." Giles said.

Xander sighed.

Cordelia looked at Xander and smiled. She wasn't too fond of the hours of boring research herself, but it would be nice to see Xander suffering to help her.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'm sure we'll learn to love research. You'll end up just like Giles, but younger."

Xander looked at Giles then groaned, hiding his head in exaggerated despair.

Cordelia quickly concealed her smile, then played innocent. "What did I say? What?"

"Where were you this morning?" Harmony said. "Hanging with those weird people?"

Aura winced, edging away from Harmony.

Cordelia smiled. "You seemed to like Angel last night, amnesia girl. I bet you've forgotten what I told you yesterday too."

Aura smirked, then quickly changed the subject. "That a new necklace?"

Trust Aura to notice that. Cordelia had put the anti-ghost amulet on a proper gold chain in the hope it would be less noticeable, and it was definitely less conspicuous than the string Giles had originally put it on, but buying a new chain for it might not have been the best idea.

"This?" Cordelia said, pulling the amulet out from under her blouse, "This thing? It's a good luck charm Rupert gave me."

Harmony glanced at the amulet. "But it's junk. If my boyfriend gave me that I'd dump him. Who is he, anyway?"

"Oh, you wouldn't know him. He's a university man, and wealthy too."

"Couldn't he have bought you something nicer?" Aura said, looking puzzled.

Cordelia smiled. "This is genuine ancient Egyptian, absolutely priceless."

Well, technically only the language was ancient Egyptian, some old prayer Giles had found, but she didn't need to bother Harmony with such unimportant details.

Aura gasped but Harmony seemed unimpressed.

"C-can I look at it?" Aura asked, holding out her hand.

"You can't touch." Cordelia said, stepping backwards. The amulet didn't look too bad from a distance, but Cordelia was almost certain the ancient Egyptians hadn't had any plastic. Aura and Harmony might be too stupid to notice the rest of the holes in her story, but they'd certainly notice that.

"Blind much?" the ghost snapped.

Cordelia groaned. If the ghost kept manifesting when she was with her friends her social life would soon be on the critical list. They wouldn't consciously remember the details, but they would remember that weird things had happened around Cordelia, and start avoiding her, a horrifying prospect. Worse, there was nothing much Cordelia could do to stop it happening, she just had to hope Giles would find a solution soon.

Aura shuddered. "Um. I've just remembered I've got to go," she said, then hurried off down the corridor.

Cordelia half-smiled. If her weirdness avoidance skills had been as good as Aura's then Cordelia would never have got caught up in Buffy's gang. Of course, if she hadn't Willow would have died on prom night.

"Playing ventriloquist?" Harmony sneered, "Part of your talent show act?"

There wasn't much wrong with Harmony's denial reflexes either, but sometimes these days Cordelia got the impression that even the hellmouth opening at their feet wouldn't shut Harmony up. She'd just attempt to deny it, then continue sniping.

Behind Harmony the ghost appeared, a blurred lump of red light.

"Harmony, serve me," it screeched. "Banish her. Banish the thief. Be rewarded."

"Nice act." Harmony said, looking at Cordelia.

"Harmony, leave now." Cordelia said. "You have to go, or you'll get hurt."

If Harmony didn't shut up and leave the ghost might just kill her, or it might possess her. Cordelia knew she was safe enough, since she had the amulet Giles had given her, but she couldn't protect Harmony and she didn't want to see Harmony hurt.

"Hurt?" Harmony drawled the word as if the concept were utterly meaningless. "By what? We're the only people here."

The ghost screeched angrily, then wrapped itself around Harmony's neck and yanked her into the air.

Harmony began screaming.

"Shut up!" the ghost roared, slamming Harmony against the wall. "Listen to me."

Harmony started sobbing quietly.

The ghost lowered Harmony to the floor. "You must help me. Cordelia has stolen my body."

Cordelia held her amulet out like a cross. "You're mad. I've not stolen any corpses. I'd remember."

Xander and Willow ran around the corner, looked at the ghost, and immediately pulled their amulets out.

The ghost laughed. "It's the three stooges; the thief, the dork, and the nerd. You can't stop me. Right is on my side."

"Hey!" Xander protested. "We're the good guys."

Willow looked at Harmony. "Is she all right?"

Cordelia nodded. "Just scared."

The ghost floated away from Harmony, then lunged towards Cordelia, red sparks crackling over its surface.

Cordelia's amulet flashed bright gold.

The ghost screamed in pain as it fell back against the opposite wall, its light almost extinguished.

Cordelia smiled. Willow's amulets hadn't worked very well, and they'd been smelly. Giles's amulets might look tacky, but they were much more effective. It was just unfortunate they only worked in self-defence, or Cordelia would have been able to chase the ghost away from Harmony, but Giles had flatly refused to even attempt to make anything they could actually attack the ghost with, saying that any magic touching the dead was dangerous so they should only do the minimum necessary to defend themselves.

"What do we do now?" Xander asked Cordelia.

"Wait for the ghost to give up."

"Don't worry. You're safe now." Willow said, coaxing Harmony upright.

Harmony looked around nervously, then shook Willow off. "Are you mad? You're the one who knocked me down."

Ignoring Willow's hurt expression Harmony rambled on, blaming Willow for everything the ghost had just done.

Cordelia glared at Harmony. "I've already told you to leave once. Must I repeat myself?"

"I'm not the one -" Harmony began, then looked Cordelia in the face. "Um, I mean you can hang with who you like but I won't join you."

"That's good denial." Xander said approvingly, watching Harmony walk away.

Willow looked nervously at the ghost. "Has it said anything new?"

Cordelia smiled. "It asked Harmony for help."

Xander laughed. "Harmony? What could she do? Buy it a new coffin?"

"It must be mad." Cordelia said, nodding, then patted Xander on the arm. "That was brave, running up like that. It might have been something dangerous."

It had also been incredibly foolish, but flattery was the best way to get Xander where she wanted him.

Willow scowled. "Shouldn't you be more careful what you say near the ghost?"

Cordelia glanced at the ghost, which still looked battered by its encounter with the amulet. "Why? It's harmless now."

Ignoring its whining, Cordelia turned her back on the ghost. "Where's Buffy?"

Willow stared at Cordelia for a second then shook herself. "Um, Giles took her into the sewers."

"Why?" Giles never went in the sewers. None of them did, apart from Buffy, and not just because of the smell.

"Oh, yes, you weren't here yet. The board sent Giles some special seals to demon-proof the library with but he's got to put some of them in the sewers underneath the school so he took Buffy with him for protection."

Cordelia smiled. "Demon-proof? So the board is good for something."

Willow nodded. "And they sent Giles all those extra books, books council members aren't normally allowed to read. That's why they wanted the extra security. It won't be completely demon-proof but they won't be able to just walk in and steal our books."

That was a change for the better, but the board's involvement worried Cordelia. These were people Giles respected, people who had already been fighting evil for decades when Giles was born, but they were panicking.

At first she'd tried to dismiss their warnings, telling herself that nothing was wrong. She was the one who had changed the future, for the better. The burst of bad omens must just be a coincidence. It wasn't as if she'd done anything that could cause it. No, it had to be the fault of this Omega who had been giving Buffy bad dreams, but Cordelia had been confident he was just another overhyped demon that Xander had never bothered to tell her about.

Now though, Cordelia was beginning to wonder. People as experienced as Giles said the board was shouldn't panic easily. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps there really was some dark god out there, plotting against them. It would certainly explain her persistent bad luck, but why wouldn't this Omega have been part of the original history?

Something about all this definitely felt wrong, but Cordelia had no idea what, or how to fix it.

"Cordelia." Xander said, "The ghost's gone."

Cordelia jerked her attention back to the present and smiled. "Has Buffy asked Owen out yet?"

Xander just rolled his eyes, but Willow began babbling excitedly.

That evening Cordelia went over to Buffy's house, prepared for a challenge. She had to make sure Buffy and Owen would stay together, not just for one night, but for months, either that or risk Buffy releasing Angelus. It should have been easy, the two of them were already flirting with love, but Cordelia knew the hellmouth was going to mess things up. Buffy was only going to have twenty minutes with Owen before Angel dragged her away, twenty minutes to so enrapture him that no hellmouth spawned terror could frighten him off. True, the anointed prophecy might fizzle, but Cordelia knew better than to rely on good luck.

Buffy would need all the help she could get, but Xander would be no use and Willow a positive hindrance. Fortunately, Cordelia was more than up to the challenge.

"Here, put these on." Cordelia said, handing Buffy a low-cut black top and some skin-tight red leather pants, "And you should wear a necklace."

Buffy looked doubtful. "Those? Aren't they-"

Cordelia interrupted. "Remember, you are the slayer."

"How could I forget, but -"

"There could be vampires in the Bronze tonight. If you have to keep disappearing you need to make sure Owen's attention doesn't wander."

Xander took one look at the outfit Cordelia had selected and began shaking his head frantically. "No, no. If his attention wanders you don't want him."

Cordelia smiled. It was pathetic the way Xander was trying to sabotage Buffy's date. He'd even wanted Buffy to dress like a nun, and all in the futile hope that Buffy would eventually pick him over Owen. Of course, if Xander knew the alternative to Owen was a vampire, his attitude would be very different.

Looking resigned Buffy began to put the outfit on, then stopped and looked meaningfully at Xander.

"You're not bothering me." Xander said, deliberately missing the point.

Cordelia sighed, then turned Xander around.

"Give it up," she said quietly, "You'll only get hurt."

Avoiding Cordelia's gaze, Xander began fiddling with a mirror. "What would you know? You've never been turned down. You've never had to wait and hope some boy would notice you. You don't know what it's like. I do. Buffy is worth waiting for."

Cordelia scowled, slapping Xander's hand away from the mirror before he saw anything he shouldn't. Thanks to Xander's betrayal she had been turned down. She knew exactly how painful love could be, and she knew that pain was all Xander would get from waiting for Buffy; she would never notice him that way.

"Remember, I'm your friend now." Cordelia said. "I'm only trying to help."

Cordelia didn't enjoy seeing Xander make a fool of himself, at least when she wasn't responsible, and besides, if she could persuade him to start taking her romantic advice it would be much easier to manipulate him, something she needed to do to get her revenge.

"Wow! I never knew being a teenager was so full of possibilities!" Buffy said, pulling on her boots.

Cordelia turned around and smiled. With Buffy looking like that Owen wouldn't be easily scared off. Clothes alone might not guarantee a successful relationship, but the right clothes were a good start.

The doorbell rang.

"That's Owen!" Buffy cried, dashing downstairs.

It wasn't. When Cordelia followed Buffy downstairs, at a safer speed, she saw Giles stood in the doorway, talking to Buffy.

"My calculations may not have been as far off as I thought," he said, holding up a newspaper cutting.

"Five die in van accident?" Buffy read.

"Out of the ashes of five shall rise the one. That's the original prophecy. Five people have died."

"In a car crash." Buffy stated flatly, challenging Giles to explain the connection.

"I know it doesn't quite follow but there's more. I've translated Du Lac's description of the harvest ritual."

"The harvest was weeks ago."

Giles smiled. "Exactly three weeks ago tonight."

"Is that significant?" Willow asked.

Giles nodded, pulling a notepad out of his shirt pocket. "Yes. Du Lac says 'Anointed is the vessel, blessed by his master.' He describes the harvest in detail then continues, 'But if the vessel should die before his master is sated the bond that binds them shall not be broken. Though the abyss of death separates them still they shall be linked, still the vessel shall heed his master's call. After thrice seven days he may return, bereft of memory, possessed of mystic might.' See, it all fits together."

Buffy looked hesitant, then said "May? Luke doesn't even have a body. How can he come back?"

"His demon will return from its afterlife and occupy the body of one of those killed last night. It's a vampiric parody of reincarnation."

"Hey!" Owen said, smiling at Buffy as he walked in, then he noticed Giles. "Um, hi?"

"You have a date?" Giles asked, surprised.

"Yes." Buffy smiled "But I will return those overdue library books by tomorrow."

"Wait, you're not getting off that easily."

"Man, you really care about your work." Owen interrupted, looking at Giles.

Cordelia frowned, trying to decide how to get Owen out of the way. They couldn't talk about the anointed with him listening.

"Um, Owen." Willow said quietly, nudging Xander.

"Yes, a couple of things about tonight." Xander added, pulling Owen away from the door.

Smiling, Cordelia followed the three of them. She hadn't had a chance to talk to Owen yet but now she would be able to give him good advice, advice that should ensure this wouldn't be his only date with Buffy.

"What, she doesn't like to dance?" Owen said, looking disbelievingly at Xander.

"Ignore him." Cordelia said, looking reproachfully at Xander. "I know what Buffy likes."

Cordelia paused, thinking about Angel, then looked at Owen. "Be mysterious. Don't speak unless she asks you a question, and don't give straight answers. Make her think you've got hidden depths. Then she'll want to unwrap your mysteries."

"Does that really work?" Xander asked, smiling hopefully.

Cordelia shook her head. "Not for you but Owen's naturally broody. Play to your strengths."

"Um, mustn't keep Buffy waiting." Owen said, sidling back through the door.

Cordelia followed him, Xander and Willow close behind her.

"Yes, and you'll face a pretty hefty fine in the morning." Giles said.

"Bye, don't wait up." Buffy said, avoiding Giles's gaze as she hurried away from the house, Owen on her arm.

"But, isn't something happening tonight." Willow said, looking concerned.

"Maybe. Buffy pointed out certain ambiguities in the translation and my calculations have already been proved inexact."

Cordelia frowned. That wasn't enough reason for Buffy to abandon her duties. Cordelia could understand why Buffy had downplayed Giles's concerns, she would have done the same herself if she'd had a hot date waiting, but she wasn't the slayer. Slaying shouldn't be the only thing in Buffy's life, or even the most important thing, but Buffy couldn't let anything else get in the way of the slaying. Buffy had learnt that by the time Cordelia had made her wish but it seemed she hadn't learnt it yet.

"What should we do?" Xander asked.

"You shouldn't do anything. Buffy may well be right. I'll just go to the funeral home, see if anything happens."

"This is bad." Willow said, watching Giles walk away.

Xander nodded. "I wish it was just bad."

"Don't worry." Cordelia said. Giles hadn't died in the original history so she was almost certain he would be safe, especially since Angel had said he would be hanging around the funeral home.

"Giles knows how to protect himself."

Willow didn't look convinced.

Cordelia paused outside the door of the Bronze. "Remember, act normal in front of Owen."

Willow just nodded but Xander smiled mischievously. "Cordy, don't worry. I'm sure Willow can think of an innocent reason for Buffy to leave her date for me."

Cordelia smiled faintly then slipped inside the Bronze, looking for Buffy.

"Cordelia!" Harmony said, smiling broadly at her friend.

Cordelia faked a smile. "Can't talk. I'm meeting someone."

Ignoring Harmony's affronted expression Cordelia left her standing by the door and stalked into the crowd. Much as she would have loved to talk she just didn't have the time, not with Giles in danger.

Why couldn't Xander have told her more about this evening? He'd gone on and on about the handful of times he'd done something useful, and hardly said a word about the other incidents. Well, it would be his fault if Giles got killed by those vamps just because she hadn't been told enough about tonight.

Angel wasn't doing his job right either. She had been expecting him to be guarding the funeral home, which would have kept Giles out of danger. Left to herself, Cordelia wouldn't even have bothered checking up on Angel. He was almost as strong as Buffy; a few vampires shouldn't have been any problem for him.

Willow had been worried though, worried about Giles walking into potential danger by himself. She had insisted that they follow him and Cordelia hadn't been able to object. Cordelia had wanted to go straight to the Bronze, where she could keep on giving Buffy and Owen dating tips, but saying that would have made it seem like she didn't care about Giles.

Instead she had let Willow persuade her to follow Giles, expecting to find that Angel had killed all the vampires leaving Giles completely safe, but there had been no sign of Angel and Giles had been trapped in a room full of corpses.

Cordelia stopped in the middle of the dance floor, half listening to the music while she tried to remember exactly where she had seen Buffy on this night the first time round.

"Buffy."

Recognising Angel's voice, Cordelia quickly turned and walked towards him.

"What do you know?" Angel was asking.

"Giles translated Du Lac." Cordelia replied. "She knows all about the anointed."

Cordelia paused and looked straight at Angel. "What are you doing here, alone with Buffy?"

Angel edged away from Buffy, looking apologetic. "I just thought I'd warn her. We need her."

"Angel's not with me." Buffy said hastily, then pointed at the bar. "I'm with Owen."

"You're here on a date?" Angel asked, clearly surprised.

Wondering where Xander and Willow had got to, Cordelia quickly glanced around the Bronze but she couldn't see them.

"Yes! Why is it such a shock to everyone? And, Cordy, why are you here?"

"Here you go." Owen said, passing Buffy a chocolate doughnut, then looked curiously at Angel.

"Um," Buffy said, looking at the two males, "Owen, this is Angel, and you already know Cordy. Angel, this is Owen, who is my date."

Cordelia caught sight of Xander dashing through the crowds.

As Buffy put her arm around Owen Angel looked at Cordelia. "This is good, right?"

Cordelia nodded, smiling. She could understand Angel feeling a little jealous but Owen was the best boyfriend Buffy could hope for. Angel would just have to get used to seeing them together.

"Hey! So, where do you know Buffy from?" Owen asked.

"Work."

"You work?" Owen asked Buffy disbelievingly.

"Buffy!" Willow exclaimed, running up behind Owen.

"Look at this." Owen said, as he glanced first at Willow, then at Cordelia, then finally at Xander. "I never thought I'd see you and Cordelia so close together. Interesting."

Xander smiled. "You don't know the half of it."

Xander paused and pointed at Angel. "What's he doing here?"

"I guess the same thing you're doing."

Buffy looked at the crowd surrounding her. "Um, excuse me, what are any of you doing here?"

"Look, we've got to get to -"

Cordelia quickly elbowed Xander in the ribs. "Angel's here because of his work."

"We thought it would be fun if, um, we made this a double date." Xander said.

Cordelia frowned. That might explain why Xander and Willow had appeared in the Bronze, but it did nothing to help get Buffy out of the Bronze. The way Willow had used that flimsy excuse to wrap herself around Xander wasn't doing much for Cordelia's blood pressure either.

"You guys aren't seeing each other, are you?" Buffy asked nervously. "Remember the dreams."

Willow edged away from Xander, but kept one hand on his waist. "Don't worry. We'd never really, um, do that thing that you had nightmares about, but we can still pretend."

"Nightmares?" Owen muttered, then asked. "You guys are thinking double?"

"Treble," Cordelia said, trying to make sure Angel would stay with the rest of the gang.

"I knew it, Cordelia." Harmony said, walking up behind Cordelia. "You two are dating. Does he know about Rupert?"

"Rupert?" Buffy echoed. "Are you guys really together?"

"Rupert gave her that tacky necklace," Harmony said. "Just like the one Buffy's wearing."

Willow nervously fingered the chain of her amulet.

"They're both just good friends, like Xander and Willow," Cordelia said firmly, "and this is a private conversation. Go and find someone to dance with."

"But-"

Cordelia glared Harmony into silence. She didn't have time to waste placating Harmony, not when Buffy should have been out of the Bronze five minutes ago.

"Hey, maybe we should all go somewhere else?" Xander said, looking impatient.

"Including Harmony? " Owen said, looking at the five gatecrashers to his date.

Everyone except Harmony hurriedly said "No!"

Ignoring Harmony's offended scowl Buffy quickly said "So nice of you to ask but Owen and I were, well, Owen and I."

"You know what'd be cool." Xander continued. "The Sunnydale funeral home."

Cordelia sighed. Could Xander have thought of a more suspicious way of mentioning their destination?

"The funeral home?" Buffy asked.

"Actually, that sounds kind of fun." Owen said, proving he really was Buffy's ideal boyfriend. "Do you think we could all sneak in?"

"We saw some guys there earlier." Cordelia said. "They were having fun with Giles."

"Bite me." Buffy said quietly, then sighed. "Owen, I've got to go."

"I thought we were all going to the funeral home."

"No. You can't. But I'll be back soon."

"Buffy -" Owen said, leading her away for a more private conversation.

Xander sighed. "We really need a bat signal."

Cordelia followed Buffy into the funeral home.

"Um, where's Angel gone?" Willow asked as she stepped inside.

"Into the sewers." Cordelia replied.

"Why?" Xander asked, looking suspicious.

"In case the vampires try and sneak the anointed out that way."

Willow nodded. "Smart move."

It was, but that wasn't the made reason why Angel had gone of by himself. He was worried that if Buffy had another chance to watch him fighting she'd realise he was a vampire. Cordelia knew that wouldn't stop Buffy trusting him, but she hadn't been able to convince Angel of that. After a short whispered conversation on their way to the funeral home Angel had decided the most useful thing he could safely do was guard the sewers.

"You let him go down there? By himself?" Buffy said, "He'll get killed. Why didn't he tell us?"

"He didn't want to waste time arguing with us. I think Giles is this way."

Cordelia pointed left. "You first, Buffy."

As they hurried down the corridor Xander smiled. "What I want to know is why a funeral home would have sewer access."

"Everywhere in Sunnydale does, um, probably." Cordelia replied. "An easy way to dump inconvenient bodies. It's all part of that lovely hellmouth ambience."

Willow nodded. "She's right. All the building plans I've looked at have indoor sewer access."

They turned the corner.

"Damn it." Buffy swore, looking at the dead end.

"This is so cool."

Cordelia turned around and groaned. Owen had followed them from the Bronze. Well, she would just have to hope that he'd seen enough of Buffy not to be easily scared off.

"Um, Owen, you can't be here." Buffy said, her voice filled with mingled worry and annoyance.

"Oh, and I suppose you guys are allowed? What are we doing here? Are we going to see a dead body?"

"Possibly several." Buffy replied offhandedly. "Guys, watch him."

Buffy ran back down the corridor, past the main doors, then turned left at the far end.

"Is she mad?" Owen asked, clearly puzzled.

Willow looked thoughtful for a second, then spoke. "No. She just wants to make sure there are no guards so we don't get in trouble."

Owen smiled. "Good thinking."

"Wait." Cordelia cautioned, seeing the building main doors swing open.

"What are you doing here?" Harmony asked, closing the doors behind her. "It's worse than the library. And where's Angel?"

"That's why you followed me? Harmony, Angel is out of your league. Forget him."

Harmony scowled. "No. I have to know, what's happened to you? Ever since Buffy came you've been hanging out with these weird people, in weird places."

"Hey!" Owen shouted. "Buffy's not weird."

Cordelia frowned. This was typical of the way her luck was running. Somehow, despite her Hellmouth denial, Harmony had noticed the subtle flaws in Cordelia's facade of normality.

It would have been bad enough if Harmony had just started gossiping about what she'd noticed, but nothing Cordelia couldn't cope with. Instead, Harmony had stuck her head in the hellmouth's jaws.

Now, Harmony might be killed at any moment, just because Cordelia hadn't been careful enough.

Ignoring Owen, Harmony looked straight at Cordelia. "Cordelia, what have they done to you? Drugs? I only want to help you."

Cordelia laughed derisively. The only person Harmony had ever wanted to help was herself.

"Transparent much." Cordelia sneered. "You're just looking for ammunition. I've told you -"

Buffy ran back around the corner, then stopped and stared at Harmony.

"What's she doing here?"

"She followed Cordy." Xander said, then looked apologetically at Cordelia.

Buffy glared at Cordelia. "This isn't bring-a-friend night. Anyone else brought a surprise guest? Xander? Willow?"

"I didn't invite her." Cordelia protested.

"Is everything okay?" Willow nervously asked in a transparent attempt to change the subject.

"It is." Buffy replied curtly.

"And we'll be leaving?" Xander asked.

"We're not done looking around yet." Owen protested.

"No, he's right." Buffy said. "So let's find a nice, safe, fun room to look around in."

Harmony started to complain but Cordelia grabbed her arm. "You're staying with us."

Being trapped in a room with Harmony and Willow was not Cordelia's idea of fun but she didn't want Harmony wandering off by herself on a night this dangerous.

Ten yards down the corridor Buffy rattled an office door on the left hand wall.

"I tried that," Owen said, "but it's locked."

"No it's not." Buffy said, forcing the door open.

As they all filed into the room Owen said, "Well, I don't think we'll find much in here."

"That's the plan." Buffy replied, glancing around the room.

"That's your plan?" Harmony echoed, clearly confused.

Buffy looked at Owen and laughed nervously. "I have to go now, um, to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom. If you hear anything, like a security guard or something, just be really quiet."

Buffy paused, looking at Cordelia, Xander and Willow. "And barricade the door."

As soon as Buffy had gone Xander closed the door and pushed a chair in front of it.

Cordelia grabbed one end of the sofa and began pulling it toward the door.

"What are you guys doing?" Owen asked.

"Just in case." Willow said, picking up a second chair.

"In case what?" Harmony asked. "This is the weirdest date."

Xander grabbed the other end of the sofa. "You're not helping."

Together they put the sofa in front of the door then piled more furniture on top of it.

"Oh, my!" Owen exclaimed.

Cordelia turned to see what he'd found and groaned. She'd never liked the idea of corpses but knowing it might become a vampire made it even less attractive.

Owen stared through the viewing window, his gaze locked on the corpse.

"I've read a lot about death but ... I've never really seen a dead body before."

Harmony glanced at the corpse, then shuddered and hurriedly backed away. "I never want to see one again."

Owen shivered.

"Death," he said. Reflectively. "I've never been so close. It's chilling, being so close. You can almost feel death's cold aura, chilling the room."

"Um," Willow interrupted apologetically. "It's not in your mind. Look at the walls."

Cordelia glanced at the walls then stiffened, her attention caught. She was still warm from her recent exertions, but the walls were speckled with frost, and it was spreading fast.

"This isn't right." Cordelia told herself. She'd never actually seen a vampire rise but Xander had, though he hadn't said when. Unnatural cold was not supposed to be part of the process.

Like mildew the gleam of ice spread across the off-white walls, then mantled the barricade in an armour of ice, sealing them in the room.

"Did someone turn the heating off?" Harmony asked, shivering heavily.

Xander looked at her disbelievingly. "You really are good at denial."

Owen tapped the viewing window. "What is it? Some kind of security system? Odd design. But why hasn't this window frosted up?"

Willow glanced at Owen. "Must be same temperature on both sides.

"We have to get out of here." Xander said. "We need Buffy."

Cordelia nodded. They always needed Buffy.

"She said we should stay here. There are -" Willow paused and looked at Owen. "There might be bad people out there."

Xander looked at the corpse then Harmony. "It's no better in here."

He touched the barricade, then swiftly pulled his hand back and blew on his fingers. "That's cold! Must be way subzero. Anyone got some gloves?"

Owen tapped the viewing window again. "What's happening in there? The light's gone all weird."

The window shimmered, bulged towards Owen, then splintered, a spiderweb of cracks radiating from a point perhaps six inches below Owen's finger.

Willow glanced at Owen and her eyes widened in horror.

"Duck!" Willow screamed, plunging to the ground.

Cordelia immediately copied her. Willow was smart, too smart to be playing games at a time like this. If she wanted them to duck there had to be a very good reason.

Harmony stared incredulously at Cordelia. "What-".

The window exploded.

The glass whistled overhead, hitting the opposite wall in a deafening fusillade, and the light dimmed.

Then the screaming began.

Cordelia looked up.

Her face pale, Harmony brushed her fingers across her back, wincing at every touch, then looked at her hands and screamed.

Xander and Willow both looked fine. Like Cordelia, they'd ducked below the blast. Harmony hadn't been so sensible, but at least she'd been facing away from the window. She might have a few scars on her back but Harmony should be all right.

Then Cordelia looked at Owen. He'd staggered backwards but he was still facing the corpse and he was screaming, a high-pitched heart-wrenching wail that forced Cordelia to cover her ears.

"Owen," Willow said softly, and he turned towards them.

Harmony took one look at his face and fainted.

Owen's face glistened, a myriad glass shards catching the dim light.

Cordelia hurriedly looked away, horrified. She had seen many terrible things in her time but nothing like this. Owen was not some demonic monstrosity, his appearance a reflection of inner evil; he was human. He did not deserve to be ugly, nor had he been, but now he would be. Even the very best plastic surgery would leave him disfigured and completely blind.

It should not have happened, but it had and Cordelia knew it had to be her fault. Not directly, she hadn't planned this, but she knew it hadn't happened in the original history. The new history only existed because of her wish, which made her ultimately responsible for every change in it, good or bad, intentional or accidental.

Still, Cordelia couldn't see how any action of hers could be directly responsible for this tragedy. It had to be more than just bad luck. There had to be something else altering history, for the worse. Perhaps some demon had followed her back from the future, perhaps the board was right about Omega, but either way it would have to be stopped. Cordelia had made her wish so the world would become a better place. She was not going to tolerate anything perverting her intentions. She would just have to find the thing responsible and unleash Buffy on it.

Of course, she needed to deal with the current crisis first.

Owen staggered forward two steps, then fell to his knees.

Willow hesitated briefly, then stepped forward and knelt down beside Owen.

"Don't worry," Willow said. "We'll get you to hospital. Um, we need to get out of here."

Cordelia sighed. Willow's heart was in the right place, but it wouldn't stay there if she didn't learn better priorities.

"The weird stuff isn't over, Willow." Cordelia patiently explained. "There has to be more to this than exploding glass. Getting killed won't help Owen. Staying alive comes first, always."

"But-" Willow began.

"Cordy's right, about the weird stuff. Look at the shadows." Xander said, staring towards the corpse.

The shadows were moving, dark stains sliding through the icy walls.

Cordelia hastily looked around, then groaned. While she'd been concentrating on Willow and Owen the light had faded, leaving the room as dimly lit as the bronze.

There were shadows everywhere now, racing through the floor, darkening the air.

"Something wicked this way comes." Willow quoted, peering warily into the shadows.

Cordelia nodded. There was a feeling in the air, a vague sense of some approaching menace, just like when the hellmouth had opened.

Behind the corpse the shadows pooled, shadow piling upon shadow to swallow all light. The walls, the ceiling, the very floor melted at their touch, as insubstantial as a dream, leaving the corpse at the near edge of an abyss of endless night. A wind blew out of the abyss, carrying the stench of decay, and shapes moved within it, darker than the darkness.

Shocked, Cordelia stepped backwards. That didn't look like Sunnydale out there. Either the world outside had gone downhill really fast or she was looking outside the world through a gateway into some demon dimension but, whatever the explanation, this should not have been happening. There was no way Xander wouldn't have told her about something this dramatic, much as she wished she could believe otherwise

Behind her Cordelia could hear Owen whimpering while Willow mumbled comforting words, but she ignored them. Instead she stared into the darkness, wondering what would happen next. So far she hadn't seen anything really dangerous, not like the night the hellmouth opened, but at any moment an army of demons might swarm into the room and kill her. She could only hope that the ghost would protect her, that it would be strong enough to kill them all, but if she didn't watch she wouldn't know if it won.

In the darkness of the abyss something vast moved, and the lesser shapes parted before it. Carved from solid night, so dark as to make the jet black abyss seem like the palest grey, its shape defied the eye. It was like those trick pictures, both face and vase, but much less attractive. It was an ancient monolith, stained with the blood of a thousand sacrifices; a gigantic skeleton, burning with ebon flame; a great three-headed beast, venom dripping from its jaws; all that and a dozen things more, each horrifying enough to fuel a month of nightmares.

Cordelia stumbled backwards, her knees trembling. She had seen much since she met Buffy, faced terrors that would drive Harmony mad within seconds, but she had never seen anything like that. She had seen a man made of maggots, seen Xander kissing Willow, seen the hellmouth open; but all those remembered scares were as nothing next to the horror in front of her. This was no ordinary demon; this was something new, something worse.

The aura of its power filled the room, whispering in her ear, prying at her soul, plaguing Cordelia with formless terrors.

Unable to look away, Cordelia sank to her knees, overcome by despair. The darkness had come to claim her, and all hope was lost.

Cordelia frowned, trying to focus on just one of the demon's faces, vainly hoping that would reduce her fear. It was a dead tree in a corpse-strewn field; its roots snaking through the rotting flesh to drink deep from the blood soaked soil, its ebon branches clawing at the sky in an endless struggle to pull down the very heavens. The wind swept through its branches, whispering in Cordelia's ear, and a single rotting apple fell from the tree, landing on the corpse's forehead.

The corpse jerked once then lay still as the apple's foul juices soaked into its skin.

The tree leaned forward, bending before the wind, until a single twig touched the dim light on Cordelia's side of the corpse.

The earth trembled.

The tree burst into flame, dazzlingly bright scarlet flame. Squinting against the light, Cordelia caught one last glimpse of the tree, a fast fading shadow scuttling away, then normal light returned to the room as the unnatural cold vanished.

"What was all that about?" Xander asked, his voice shaky.

Cordelia shrugged. If something important had just happened they'd find out soon enough. Right now, they just needed to find Buffy. She turned and looked at the door, then smiled.

It had only been a small tremor, but it had shaken the ice off the walls and toppled the barricade.

"Let's just get out of here." Cordelia said, pulling a chair away from the door.

"About time." Harmony said as she stood up. "This has been a really dull evening."

Exasperated, Cordelia turned to look at Harmony, "Are you really that blind, or just stupid?"

Behind Harmony the corpse rippled.

Her posture radiating contempt, Harmony looked Cordelia straight in the eye. "I am not scared of shadows."

Ignoring Harmony, Cordelia looked at Willow, who was once more bent over Owen. "Get him moving. The vampire's waking up."

"What!" Xander shouted. "How?"

Cordelia sighed, then turned around, wondering what was bothering Xander. He didn't sound scared, so it couldn't be anything much.

He'd opened the office door, and was staring into the corridor, a corridor that seemed to have been completely rebuilt in the last few minutes.

"That explains Buffy." Cordelia said. "She must be lost."

Five minutes ago there had been a blank wall opposite the door, and corridors leading to the left and right, but that wasn't what Cordelia saw now. Instead a single corridor lead away from the office, curving gently to the left.

Harmony smiled. "What's up. Can't you find the way out without your friend?"

"Can you?" Cordelia challenged, and Harmony fell silent.

Willow helped Owen upright, murmuring reassurances.

Behind them, the corpse sat up and stared at Cordelia, its flesh still rippling.

"That's no vampire." Cordelia quietly said, unable to look away from the bizarre spectacle.

Even as she watched its eyes moved, not the eyeballs, but the very sockets, slowly drifting together until they merged, the two eyeballs melting into each other, forming a single giant eye.

"Some kind of demon?" Willow speculated.

Cordelia nodded. Eyghon had done something similar to his hosts, making Ms Calendar look really ugly. This had to be another demon, which had somehow managed to possess the corpse.

"Who cares?" Xander asked. "We've got to run."

"Where?" Harmony snapped.

"Don't run." the demon said, standing up. "You have summoned me, Ytwomj, back from beyond the gates of death. Stay now, and receive your reward."

Harmony turned and glared at the demon. "No one asked you. Go back to sleep."

Ytwomj hesitated, looking uncertainly around the room. "Did you summon me? Where are the three hands of glory, the choir of chanting demons, the skulls of my enemies? Why have you brought me no sacrifices?"

Cordelia shoved Harmony towards the door. "Run."

Harmony glared at Cordelia, then slowly sauntered down the corridor, her seeming nonchalance belied only by the nervous way she rhythmically clenched her fists.

Ytwomj sat down, looking thoughtful. "This isn't right."

Cordelia hesitated. The ghost might protect her from this demon, if it was strong enough, but Giles had warned her she shouldn't rely on it. The only sensible thing to do was to run away, but Cordelia knew the value of her image. Being the first of Buffy's gang to run would look bad. It wouldn't feel too good either, abandoning people to the demon's mercy, especially if they died.

Xander looked nervously at the demon, then at Willow helping Owen, then back at the demon.

"The ceremony was not performed," Ytwomj continued, "yet I have returned. Well, no matter, that just means you are mine to devour. Run, foolish children, I would savour the pleasures of the chase. Run well and I might even permit you the honour of entering my service, if my appetite has been sufficiently sated by the hearts of your friends."

Cordelia smiled, relieved. It was just like a demon to waste time gloating, but Cordelia didn't mind. It just gave her more time to make sure everyone escaped.

"Who said that?" Owen asked, looking around blindly.

"A security guard." Xander replied, then looked at Willow. "Can he run?"

Cordelia frowned. In Owen's current state, blind and pain-wracked, he'd have difficulty outrunning a snail. They couldn't just leave him behind but he'd never be able to keep up.

"Can we carry him?" Cordelia asked, looking around the room for something they could use as a stretcher.

Ytwomj looked at Owen then giggled. "Chasing him will be no sport but torture is always fun. You may watch, if you like, watch and learn your own fate. The extra fear will make your hearts taste even nicer."

Ytwomj smiled, showing a mouth full of fangs.

"If you can't stand the sight of a little torture you can always run and abandon your friend to my pleasures. His dying screams should spur you to greater speed, but no mortal can outrun my hunger."

"We could fight." Xander said, his voice trembling.

"Fight?" Ytwomj laughed. "You think you could fight me?"

The demon lunged forwards, grabbed Xander by the wrist, then stepped backwards, flicked its arm upwards and let go.

Xander screamed as he bounced off the ceiling, then the demon caught him and hurled him into the sofa.

Willow yelped and ran to Xander's side.

"Fight me?" Ytwomj repeated scornfully. "You are not worthy of that honour."

Smiling, Ytwomj stepped forward, put his clawed hand on Owen's shoulder, and pushed him down.

"Are you coming?" Harmony shouted.

Cordelia quickly glanced behind her. Harmony was standing half way down the corridor, impatiently tapping her feet.

As Cordelia looked back into the room Xander shrugged off Willow and stood up, barely wincing at all.

The demon knelt down, bending over Owen's prone body, ripped Owen's shirt open, then with its longest claw drew a line of blood down Owen's chest, from neck to navel.

Owen screamed.

Shuddering, Cordelia hastily looked away.

Ytwomj looked up. "Will you watch or will you run?"

That wasn't a decision Cordelia wanted to make. She wanted to run, but she didn't want to abandon Owen, or watch him be tortured, so what should she do? It wasn't a decision anyone should have to make, but someone had to make it.

Cordelia looked hopefully at Xander. He could make the decision, and live with the consequences. It might trouble his conscience but that was no more than he deserved, not after the way he had betrayed her.

Xander hesitated.

Owen screamed again, louder.

Xander winced, looked uncertainly at Willow and Cordelia, then sighed and nudged Willow towards the door.

"I don't want you to watch." Xander said quietly, his voice trembling. "Run."

Willow grabbed Xander's arm. "Not without you."

The demon sniggered, then plunged its claw into Owen's ear.

"Run." Ytwomj suggested, then chuckled.

They ran, fleeing the sound of Owen's screams.

"Stop." Harmony said, three minutes later, then leaned against the wall, looking exhausted. "I think we've lost that demon."

Cordelia nodded. She didn't know what had happened to the building, but it had warped the corridors into a maze. Ytwomj would never be able to find them now, unless he could track by scent.

Xander skidded to a halt. "I think we've lost ourselves. Willow, you know about puzzles, mazes and stuff, how do we get out of here?"

"Um, right turns only, and we need something to mark the walls. Cordelia, have you got some lipstick?"

"Leave a trail?" Harmony said scornfully. "The demon will follow it. Um, I mean whichever of your loser friends is in that costume will."

Willow looked thoughtfully at Harmony. "Not a trail. We mark the corridors we've already tried, but there might not be an exit."

Cordelia passed Willow her lipstick. "Willow knows her stuff. Got your breath back, Harmony?"

When Harmony nodded Cordelia started walking, eager to find the exit before anything else went wrong.

At the next junction Cordelia waited while Willow marked the corridor they'd just come out of, then started walking down the right hand corridor.

"Is this your idea of fun now?" Harmony said, walking alongside Cordelia. "Willow might be useful, she can do your homework, but why Xander?"

Cordelia sighed. "We're stuck in a maze with a killer demon. Is this really the right time?"

Harmony smiled. "What? Not leaping to defend your new loser friends? Not surprising. What could you say?"

There were dozens of things Cordelia could say, but not in front of Harmony, not without alienating her permanently. Defending Xander or Willow would damage her social status, but not defending them would make it harder for Cordelia to work with them, harder for her to help them keep the world safe. Keeping everyone happy would be difficult, even for someone with Cordelia's superlative social skills.

Harmony looked at Cordelia, then laughed. "Nothing to say? That's not like you. You really have changed. Going in the library, hanging with losers; it's like you're a different person."

"A better person than you." Cordelia snapped, hoping she could divert Harmony onto a less sensitive subject. "I don't try to insult my friends in public."

Harmony glanced dismissively at Xander and Willow. "They don't count. The only people here who count are me and you, and I'm not sure about you."

"Why did you wait for us then?" Xander asked casually. "You don't have to stay with us."

Harmony scowled at Xander. "If you think I'm going to wander off by myself when there's a demon around you must be even stupider than you look."

Xander smiled. "Demon?"

Harmony hesitated, looking uncertain, then smiled. "It must have been Buffy in that costume. That's why she made that lame excuse to get away from us. She's probably doing kinky stuff with Owen right now. I'm just surprised you didn't stay and watch."

Too furious to speak, Cordelia glared at Harmony. It would have been bad enough if Harmony had actually believed what she just said but that explanation was far too creative to be the result of unconscious denial. Harmony must have realised something supernatural was happening and consciously decided to adopt the ignore-it-and-maybe-it'll-go-away strategy, a decision Cordelia could understand. Harmony must be feeling terribly confused and frightened.

Cordelia might even have been able to sympathise with her if Harmony hadn't chosen such a despicable way to deny the truth. Harmony had to know Owen was being tortured to death, she'd heard his screams, and yet she had still smeared his memory in a vain attempt at denial then gone on to insult Cordelia herself. Cordelia hadn't seen such arrogant contempt for human feelings since her aunt last visited.

Harmony did not flinch beneath Cordelia's glare but just smiled coldly and asked, "What's up? Worried about your secrets getting out?"

Trembling with barely suppressed rage, Xander glared at Harmony. "We should have left her back there. She'd enjoy watching."

"Xander!" Willow protested. "Even Harmony is human, I think."

Cordelia smiled, amused by Willow's little jibe.

"Who said you could speak?" Harmony snapped.

Willow looked nervously at the walls, avoiding Harmony's gaze.

Twenty minutes and seven corridors later Harmony still appeared to be going for the gold medal in bitchiness.

Naturally, Cordelia had no trouble defending herself against Harmony's absurd slurs, and Xander was doing almost as well, but Willow seemed close to snapping. She'd spent the last five minutes mumbling under her breath and looking suspiciously at the walls.

Cordelia had to do something before Willow broke down. She might not like Willow, but she had earned the right not to. Harmony didn't even know who Willow was. She had no grievance, no right to hurt Willow's feelings. Nobody did, nobody except Cordelia. Besides, being nice to Willow would look good.

Cordelia gently tapped Willow on the shoulder and in her most reassuring tones quietly said "Don't let Harmony get to you. She's just nervous."

"Harmony?" Willow said, looking quizzically at Cordelia. Either she'd managed to completely forget about Harmony, which would be worrying, or she was an even better actress than Cordelia herself.

Willow smiled. "I'd forgotten about her. Have you noticed the tiles?"

Cordelia quickly looked at the wall, trying to see what might be worrying Willow. The tiles were all large blood-red octagons with a skull in the centre, definitely not part of the funeral home's normal decor, but they didn't look disturbing enough to distract Willow from Harmony.

Cordelia shrugged. "They redecorated when they twisted the corridors up. So?"

"The tiles are all octagonal, but that's impossible. You just can't fit three octagons around a single vertex."

Cordelia didn't see the problem, but if Willow said it was impossible she had to be right. "But what does it mean?"

Willow frowned. "Um, well, I'm not sure, but I don't like it. The tiles are shrinking too."

"When you work out what's going on, tell us." Cordelia said, hoping that the distraction would keep Willow from being upset by Harmony.

"Great." Harmony said. "More corridors. Just what I wanted. Your sense of direction is almost as bad as your taste in clothes."

Cordelia looked up. Xander and Harmony had halted a dozen yards in front of her, at yet another T-junction.

Xander smiled. "Not very observant, are you? Look at the floor."

There was a large red arrow drawn on the floor, pointing from right to left. Cordelia walked slowly forwards, examining the arrow.

Harmony scowled. "Is Buffy stupid or what? Does she want that demon thing to find her?"

Xander looked sharply at Harmony. "The thing that that you think is Buffy in a costume? Tell me, when you speak does it make sense to you?"

"Um, well, that is..." Harmony looked away from Xander, stammering unconvincing explanations.

Willow glanced at the arrow, then frowned. "We don't know it's Buffy. It could be the demon, trying to lure us into a trap."

"Good thinking." Cordelia said, then knelt down to examine the arrow. "Looks like lipstick, and it's not sticky. Don't think it's blood."

Cordelia had seen enough blood spilt in her last year to write her name on every locker, she knew what it looked like, much as she wished otherwise.

Cordelia stood up and, ignoring Willow's poorly concealed suspicious expression, said "Ytwomj would have drawn the arrow in Owen's blood. Buffy did this. I say we follow the arrow."

"Buffy!" Willow shouted, ten minutes later.

Cordelia smiled as she turned the corner. Now that they'd finally found Giles and Buffy her problems would be over for the night. Between them Willow and Giles should be able to think of a faster way out of the building than trying every corridor, and if that demon did find them Buffy would soon kill it.

Buffy had been bent over Giles, but now she straightened up and smiled. "Guys! You found us. Great."

Harmony stopped talking in mid-sentence and looked nervously at Buffy.

Buffy hesitated, looking at the approaching group. "Guys, where's Owen?"

Willow looked uncertainly at Xander. "He's- ,he, um, he was- "

As Willow continued struggling for words, Xander looked glumly at Buffy. "You should sit down."

"It's a long story." Cordelia interrupted, not wanting to explain that disaster.

This wasn't the right time or place. Buffy should find out about Owen later, when she was curled up in a comfortable chair with a tub of ice cream in her lap and her mother standing by with a boxful of tissues, not now, not leaning against the cold walls of a barren corridor while a demon stalked the building.

Besides, if they told Buffy now she might not fight so well. She'd still try to do her best, of course, but no one could do their best when their heart was weeping. No, the only sensible thing to do was to wait until everyone was safely home, then let Giles tell Buffy. If that made it easier for Cordelia to avoid thinking about Owen's death, well, that was a pleasant bonus.

Trying to think of something else to say, Cordelia looked at Giles. He was sitting on the floor, his face pale, his mouth set in a grimace of pain.

"What's up with him?" Cordelia asked, pointing at Giles. It looked like he'd been knocked out again. Perhaps Buffy had already killed the demon.

"Some weird magic trap." Buffy answered. "Never seen anything like it. We were walking along when he suddenly collapsed, just a bit that way. I didn't see anything but it felt like I was being strangled. I realised it had to be a trap so I dragged him back here and he came to. He's been groggy ever since. Where's Owen?"

Willow knelt down besides Giles. "What happened? What should we do? Shouldn't we, um, take your tie off?"

"No." Giles said weakly. "I'm fine."

Giles put one hand on Willow shoulder and pushed himself to his feet, then leaned against the wall, clearly exhausted by the effort.

"Just need a few moments more. Willow, look at the junction."

Cordelia looked. A dozen yards ahead eight corridors met, each at right angles to the next. She couldn't see anything strange, just perfectly normal empty corridors, but she swiftly began to feel dizzy. There was definitely something weird there, but Cordelia had no idea what.

"Seven-hundred and twenty degrees!" Willow exclaimed. "That's the worst I've seen."

"Spatial distortion." Giles said, his voice almost back to normal. "A common side effect of summoning spells, but not on this scale."

Xander frowned. "Can we have that in English?"

Willow smiled. "There are eight corridors here, and all the corners are right angles. That's impossible."

"Nonsense." Harmony sneered. "It's happened. How can it be impossible?"

"Space has gone non-Euclidean." Giles said. "It's been warped."

Willow nodded, looking thoughtful.

"Does it matter?" Cordelia asked. She knew it must, or Giles wouldn't have mentioned it, but sometimes he needed prompting to get to the point.

Buffy nodded. "I don't care about math. Just tell me where Owen is."

"It matters." Giles replied "There are too many angles round each point because extra space has been squeezed into this building, space from which ever unholy realm whatever was summoned came from, an effect that is rarely noticeable and never this strong."

"Yetwonge came from the hell of endless corridors?" Xander said, looking even more confused than normal by Giles's explanation.

"No." Giles said, then hesitated, looking surprised. "Yetwonge? You saw -"

"Ytwomj." Cordelia said, correcting Xander's mispronunciation. If they didn't get the name right Giles might start giving them completely useless information about a different demon. "Or it might have been that shadow thing that did it. That was ..."

Cordelia hesitated, struggling for words strong enough to describe that monstrosity. "Worse, the worst."

Willow nodded, her face paling as she remembered. "It was ... other, vile, dread incarnate."

Xander looked at the floor, his voice trembling. "It felt worse than when Amy's mom did her stuff to me, much worse."

Harmony smiled. "It was just shadows, nothing important. Let's stop wasting time and get out of here."

"We could be trapped in here for days." Giles said. "Time isn't a problem."

"Days!" Harmony exclaimed. "Impossible! This building isn't that big."

"That's our first problem. The summoning squeezed extra space into this building, space which then formed a distorted mirror of the original architecture, but that extra space has made this building bigger on the inside than the outside, much bigger. The exit could be three days walk away, or three weeks."

"Three weeks? And I only brought one Twinky bar." Xander joked, but he still looked troubled.

"That's not the only problem. Fortunately, most of the spatial distortion seems to be concentrated in the walls, or we'd be ripped to shreds, but in the areas where it's strongest, like this junction, it must be leaking into the air. That's what I think knocked me out."

"How?" Willow asked, obviously fascinated. Cordelia couldn't see why. Half of what Giles had just said was unintelligible but one thing was clear. As long as they avoided the warped areas they'd be safe and that was all that mattered right now. Willow should wait to satisfy her curiosity until later, when the emergency was over.

"Imagine what it would be like if your body was bigger on the inside than the outside." Giles said. "You'd look normal to other people but your heart might be two yards from your brain, which would kill you. I think that's what happened to Buffy and me. Fortunately I passed out before the spatial distortion reached lethal levels, and Buffy is more resilient, but had I fallen forwards I would have died."

Harmony looked anxiously at Buffy, then relaxed and yawned ostentatiously. "Get to the point, librarian."

Giles's left eyebrow twitched. "This building is now a maze in a minefield. Running through these corridors will only get us killed. We need to sit and think about our predicament. Would you rather talk for a few hours, or walk for three weeks knowing that at any moment you might be pureed by an unexpected spatial distortion?"

"We'll talk," Buffy said firmly, "about Owen. Where is he?"

Cordelia looked at Xander, trying to think of a way to make him give Buffy the bad news.

Xander looked nervously at Willow, then sighed. "In the room where you left us. There was this demon."

"What happened!" Buffy demanded.

Harmony smiled. "Your friends left Owen alone with some psycho in a rubber mask. They didn't even try to rescue him."

"That demon threw Xander around like a toy," Willow said defensively, "and you were the first to leave."

"A demon?" Buffy gasped. "There was a demon?"

Harmony briefly looked uncertain, then rallied.

"I am a respectable girl," Harmony said, her posture radiating injured dignity. "I don't know how to fight but you're in Buffy's gang. In the last few weeks you've trashed the Bronze, blown up the science lab, and burned down a teacher's house."

Cordelia stiffened. The fire in the giant bug's lair had been a complete accident, and how did Harmony know they'd been involved anyway?

Harmony looked directly at Buffy. "I thought they knew how to fight. Didn't you bother teaching them?"

"Only Buffy can fight demons." Giles said, looking curiously at Harmony. "What can you tell me about Ytwomj?"

"He was fast and strong, with just one eye." Xander said, sticking to a purely physical description.

"At first, he thought we'd summoned him. He said he'd come back from the dead." Willow paused, looking thoughtful. "It must have been that shadow demon. There was already a human corpse in the other room, but the demon dropped a brick on it and the corpse turned into Ytwomj."

Willow stopped and looked tenderly at Buffy. "Ytwomj, um, he ... You might want to sit down."

"Why did you leave Owen behind?" Buffy asked, "Is he hurt?"

He was, but telling Buffy that would only upset her. Instead Cordelia looked at Willow.

"A brick? I saw an apple."

Willow nodded, then. "The tree. I saw that too, briefly, but -"

"Is it still here?" Giles interrupted, sounding tense.

"No. The water scared the black fire away." Xander said, then frowned. "Is it me, or has this been a really weird night?"

Giles smiled, looking relieved. "Even by Sunnydale standards, it's been an unusual night, but I think the worst is over."

"Giles!" Xander scolded. "What did you say that for. It's the ultimate jinx. Now something worse is going to happen."

Harmony scowled back. "I'm stuck in an endless maze with a demon and you freaks. This night can't get any worse."

"Xander is not a freak." Cordelia protested. He was the most normal person in the corridor. Harmony had no right to attack him, or anyone else.

"He's Buffy's friend. He's got to be a freak, just like you are."

Her patience exhausted, Cordelia spun on her heals and smiled at Harmony. The girl had done nothing all night but get in the way and bitch at everyone. Cordelia had been willing to make allowances for Harmony's nerves, but enough was enough. Nobody had ever talked to Cordelia like that, not even her aunt, and she wouldn't tolerate it now.

"A demon, you say. So you don't still think Ytwomj was Buffy in a mask?"

Buffy looked sharply at Harmony. "You thought I was a demon?"

"Why not? You left the room and Ytwomj entered. It's a perfectly natural conclusion."

Cordelia smiled broadly, and moved in for the kill. "Even after you saw what Ytwomj was doing to Owen?"

"Owen?" Buffy echoed. "What happened to him? He's dead, isn't he? Why won't anyone tell me?"

Cordelia winced. She'd been so angry with Harmony she had forgotten Buffy was still listening. Now it wouldn't be possible to put off telling Buffy any longer, so Cordelia would just have to think of a gentle way of breaking the news.

Cordelia turned to face Buffy and quietly said. "I hope so."

Buffy looked shocked but Cordelia pressed on. If she told the story right, Buffy wouldn't get sad, she'd get angry. Cordelia need to be careful Buffy didn't blame her though.

"Owen was being tortured. If Owen is still alive he'll be wishing he was dead."

Buffy gasped.

Willow instantly stepped over to Buffy and hugged her. "I didn't know how to tell you."

Buffy nodded uncomprehendingly, then glared furiously at Harmony. "You thought I could -"

Smiling, Harmony looked at Buffy. "Why not? Everyone knows you're weird."

Willow's eyes widened. "That wasn't a yes. If you really believed that Buffy could do such things you wouldn't say so to her face. You made it up, didn't you?"

Harmony leaned against the wall and started looking at her nails. "What if I did?"

"Then you have forfeited all claims on our sympathy." Giles stated flatly.

Buffy punched the wall. "Cordy, tell your friend that if she doesn't shut up I'll -"

"You'll what?" Harmony asked. "You aren't allowed to hurt people."

Giles smiled menacingly. "Buffy isn't."

Xander looked uneasily at Giles then nodded. "You need us. We don't need you. If you want our help, act like it. If you want to bitch and moan, go and find the demon. Five minutes in your company and he'll kill himself."

"I don't care what you think." Harmony said. "You owe me, all of you. Ever since I, um, since Buffy arrived bad things have been happening to me."

"What things?" Cordelia asked. Nothing unusual had happened to Harmony before now. Nothing unusual should ever have happened to her, making this more proof that something else was meddling with history.

Harmony looked disbelievingly at Cordelia.

"You made me touch a corpse." Harmony began heatedly. "You got me int-"

Harmony stopped midword, looking panicked. "I mean, you made me touch a, um, horse. You got me in trouble, so much trouble. I could have died, but death means nothing to you. You don't care if you die. There'll always be another puppet. You don't care about my suffering, about my pain. Three weeks I've suffered, while you wear my shoes. Buffy should have killed you, but Giles won't talk so you walk. Xander gets the red carpet, but you lock me out. Three weeks, until I found the exit. Three weeks of hell, and then this. It was, it was ..."

Still mumbling bizarre grievances, Harmony stared at the floor, seemingly on the verge of tears.

Cordelia frowned. Harmony might have had a bad night, but that was no excuse for a nervous breakdown, or her earlier intolerable behaviour. Cordelia had had bad nights herself, but no one had ever seen her break down, not in public. Harmony didn't have Cordelia's inner strength, but she should still have been able to cope better than this, assuming it had only been one bad night.

Perhaps it hadn't. Harmony had hardly mentioned tonight's fiasco; she kept going on about three weeks, the same amount of time as Buffy had been in Sunnydale, and Harmony's complaints had absolutely no basis in reality, as far as Cordelia knew. She would have like to believe Harmony was simply deluded, but this was Sunnydale. It was just as likely something weird had been happening to Harmony for weeks without Cordelia noticing a thing.

Ignoring everyone else, Cordelia looked straight at Harmony. Whatever had happened to her, she had clearly suffered, and Harmony was supposed to be her friend. Seeing her like this was making Cordelia feel uncomfortable; she had to do something.

Wearing her most understanding smile, Cordelia advanced on Harmony, her arms outstretched to deliver a reassuring hug. She could punish Harmony's insolence later; right now the girl needed sympathy.

Harmony looked up, then stiffened. "Stay away from me. You've had your fun. Now it's my turn."

Harmony smiled, her posture oozing rabid fury. "You are going to pay. You will pay and pay again, in blood and pain, until justice has been done. You will-"

Harmony paused, then laughed unconvincingly. "Only joking. Where's your sense of humour?"

Xander glared at her. "Where's the joke?"

Harmony sighed. "This place is getting on my nerves. I may have been a little touchy, but it doesn't mean anything. Tomorrow we can both forget it ever happened. Tonight, I think it's best if we just ignore each other, or someone might get hurt."

Willow nodded.

Harmony walked five yards down the corridor, away from the junction, then sat down with her back to Cordelia.

Buffy glared after her. "I'm not going to forget, not after what she said."

Cordelia nodded. It would be interesting talking to Harmony tomorrow; to compare her polite smile with tonight's frenzied ranting.

Giles rubbed his forehead. "Could we concentrate on what's urgent. Cordelia, can you tell me anything else about Ytwomj?"

Five minutes later Giles was still asking questions, trying to work out what was going on.

"You're sure he said three?"

Willow nodded. "Is that bad?"

Giles nodded, his face ashen.

"The hand of glory is an instrument of darkest magic. Its greatest power is to open any lock, physical or metaphysical. If the Master had one it would give him the power to escape his mystical prison, or to enter any house he chose, uninvited. If it should have taken three such to summon Ytwomj he must either be extremely powerful, or have been long dead."

"So, who's Glory?" Xander asked, smiling. "How many hands does she have?"

Giles shook his head. "No, the hand of glory is so named because it is made from a murderer's corpse-"

Buffy looked impatiently at Giles.

"In a highly complex procedure you don't need to know how to perform." Giles continued smoothly. "The significant point is that, since it did the summoning without the hands, this shadow creature you saw must be of godlike power."

Cordelia shivered, remembering the sight of the shadow tree. It hadn't looked like any god she'd ever heard of but she couldn't argue with Giles.

"So what?" Buffy asked, "They said it ran away."

"It might come back. We must keep watch for unnatural shadows. If it returns, we will run."

Cordelia frowned. She was sure what Giles was saying was important, but it wasn't exactly urgent.

"That shadow thing's gone. Ytwomj is -"

"Here." Ytwomj said, stepping around the corner, his hands behind his back.

Harmony quickly stood up and retreated behind Buffy.

Giles tilted his head slightly and looked thoughtfully at the demon. "A suspiciously timely entrance."

After a moment's thought Cordelia realised what Giles meant. The demon must have been lurking just out of sight, waiting until it could make a dramatic entry. It was like she'd told Giles. Ytwomj was arrogant, and not just by human standards either.

"Ytwomj." Buffy snapped, her voice radiating cold fury. "Ready to die?"

"Buffy, remember what Cordelia said." Giles said, seemingly unruffled by the demon's presence. "You can use that against him."

Ytwomj smiled. "So this is Buffy? I do believe I have something of yours."

Cordelia could guess what. She quickly looked at Xander, not wanting that to be her last memory of Owen.

"He cursed you with his dying breath."

Buffy gasped.

"Would you care for an eyeball?" Ytwomj asked.

Speechless with rage, Buffy launched herself at Ytwomj, running towards him at eye-blurring speed.

Ytwomj chuckled, then Cordelia heard something break.

Willow paled in sudden horror, her knees trembling.

"That's...." Giles gasped, his shock tinged by fear.

"Don't look." Xander said, his face grimly pale, as he gently turned Willow's face away from Buffy.

Despite her fears, Cordelia could not resist looking. She didn't want to see what had so shocked Willow, but she had to know.

Buffy was just thirty feet away, flat on her back, a handful of shattered bones on her breast. In front of her a trail of blood and gore stretched for perhaps twenty feet, petering out less than ten feet from the corner where Ytwomj still stood.

Realising what must have happened, Cordelia groaned. Ytwomj must have thrown Owen's head at Buffy so hard that it hadn't just knocked her off her feet, it had actually splattered, making him stronger than any vampire Cordelia had ever seen. Buffy should still be able to win the fight, she was a slayer, but it wouldn't be easy.

Buffy sprang to her feet, instinctively moved to wipe the mess from her front, then recoiled in disgust. While Ytwomj watched, clearly amused, Buffy gently peeled the blood-soaked fragments of skull from her top and placed them on the floor, then glared at Ytwomj, quivering with doubled fury.

"You're so going to pay for that." Buffy stated flatly. "You'll wish you'd-"

In mid sentence Buffy leapt towards Ytwomj, presumably hoping to take him by surprise.

Ytwomj sidestepped her kick, grabbing her ankle as it passed by his hip, then yanked hard, pulling Buffy off her feet, leaving her dangling from his outstretched arm, upside-down, her hair brushing the floor. Buffy immediately punched Ytwomj in the groin, making Xander wince, but Ytwomj just started giggling

"You must be a slayer," the demon said, stating the obvious, "almost a worthy opponent."

Buffy grabbed Ytwomj's right knee in both hands then began to twist, dislocating it. Ytwomj smiled, dropped Buffy, then stumbled back around the corner, rubbing his knee. Buffy bounced to her feet and went after him.

Cordelia looked at Giles. "Can she win?"

"Cordy!" Xander protested. "She always wins. She's the slayer, remember, with super strength and everything."

"She can still die." Giles replied. "Ytwomj seems much stronger than her, though maybe less skilled."

Buffy retreated back into view, trading blows with Ytwomj.

Giles watched the fight, frowning intently. "Maybe more skilled. It looks like he's toying with her. He has proven himself strong enough to shatter all Buffy's ribs with just one blow, but he's only giving her gentle taps, barely enough to bruise her."

"Great." Harmony said. "We're trapped between an invincible demon and a, um, a weird angle thing. Cordelia, you got me into this. How will you get us out?"

Cordelia faked a smile. She would pay back Harmony for her slurs later; right now all that mattered was staying alive.

"Harmony, dear, I didn't know you thought so highly of me but I haven't been fighting demons long. Giles is the one you need to ask."

"Well, librarian," Harmony said, her tone imperious. "You know magic. Do something. Make him a frog."

Giles sighed. "I know about magic but I don't have that kind of power."

"But the demon doesn't know that." Willow said. "Can't you bluff him?"

Cordelia smiled, pleased to see Willow had recovered from her shock.

"Bluffing hardly ever works. Most demons are too stupid to be scared off by threats, however convincing."

Cordelia nodded. Darla had believed her bluff but attacked anyway.

"Got a better idea?" Harmony said sharply.

"He doesn't know how he was summoned here." Willow reminded Giles. "You could claim the credit."

Giles hesitated, then nodded. "We don't have time to think of anything better."

Giles straightened his tie, then began calmly walking towards Ytwomj.

"Enough." Giles said curtly. "The slayer is mine, and so are you."

Ytwomj turned his head to look at Giles, fending Buffy off with just one hand.

"I summoned you by force of will alone. You are mine. Obey me in all things or face the wrath of Abrasax."

"No!" Ytwomj screamed. "Not that!"

In one smooth move Ytwomj snatched up Buffy and hurled her fifty feet down the corridor, knocking Giles over, then turned and ran.

Willow smiled. "Giles, that was wonderful. I won't dare keep my library books overdue now, not that I ever do."

Buffy untangled herself from Giles and sprang to her feet. "Where'd the demon go? I'll-"

Buffy paused abruptly, staring at something behind Cordelia. "I don't think it was Giles that frightened him."

Cordelia turned to look, then groaned.

A wall of shimmering light was oozing down two of the opposite corridors.

"What is it?" Willow quietly asked, backing away from the advancing light. "Good or bad? It scared Ytwomj but does that mean it's good or just that its more powerful than him?"

Giles stared blankly at the light then sighed. "Willow, I haven't the foggiest."

Xander looked at Cordelia. "Now, that really was frightening."

"Are you sure this is safe?" Harmony said, scowling at Giles. "Couldn't you think of a better plan?"

"You've already asked that." Buffy said sharply, glaring at Harmony. "Shut up and let Giles think."

Cordelia pulled Harmony away before she could provoke Buffy further. "You can see how slow it is. We'll have plenty of time if we need to run."

Personally, Cordelia would rather have run, but she wasn't going to let anyone see her agreeing with Harmony, not after the things she'd said. Still, she was sure Giles knew what he was doing and what he'd said about getting stuck in a dead end made sense. If he thought they needed a better idea what the weird light was he had to be right, didn't he?

Giles walked towards the light, showing no signs of nerves.

Cordelia took another look at the advancing light, then inched backwards. If she did have to run, which she was sure she wouldn't, the further she started from that weird light the better.

Two feet from the light, Giles stopped and looked thoughtfully at it, then pulled something out of his pocket. Cordelia couldn't see what it was, not with Giles's body in the way, but he seemed to be swinging it around and chanting.

Xander looked at Willow, who was staring anxiously at Giles, then smiled at Cordelia. "Bet you're wishing we'd stayed in the Bronze."

Cordelia smiled back, glad for the distraction. "And had to spend the night with Harmony?"

Willow smiled as Buffy looked at Harmony then said "Tough choice."

Giles turned around, clutching his anti-ghost amulet, and Cordelia suppressed a sigh of relief. Giles seemed concerned, but not actually frightened, so the light couldn't be anything too dangerous.

"Have you all got your amulets?" Giles asked, walking back towards them.

Everyone nodded, except Harmony.

"That tacky thing you gave Cordelia?" Harmony asked. "Why would I want one?"

"To keep soul and body together." Giles said.

He looked briefly thoughtful, then bent down and pulled some holy water out of his weapons bag.

"This should work for long enough. When you start hearing voices try to ignore them." Giles said, dipping his finger into the water. "Hold still."

Using the holy water, Giles quickly drew a six-pointed star on Harmony's forehead.

Willow looked at Giles. "What is it? Another ghost? That'd make sense because-"

"Not one ghost." Giles said, cutting Willow off mid-babble. "A myriad. This is a soulstorm."

"A what?" Xander asked, pulling his amulet out of his pocket.

"One of the hazards of necromancy." Giles explained. "Sometimes, when the spells go badly wrong, thousands of human souls can be pulled back into this world. Fortunately, soulstorms are both rare and short-lived."

"But why did Ytwomj run away? He can't be scared of ghosts?" Willow asked, looking nervously at the soulstorm.

"If the souls are in suitable bodies when the storm ends, they can stay in this world. Ytwomj's body is definitely suitable. The ghosts will attempt to possess him, and everything else within range."

"But we've got protection, right?" Willow said, fingering her amulet. "But-"

Cordelia nodded, then swiftly interrupted. She still had plans to take revenge on Xander, when the time was right, but they wouldn't work if she let herself be sidelined so she had to seize every opportunity to make herself look good, though not suspiciously good.

"There are other bodies in the building." Cordelia said.

Buffy nodded. "And Owen."

"Owen's safe." Giles said quickly. "He was decapitated, which prevents possession. You won't have to kill his corpse."

"But the rest of them will be rising." Cordelia concluded. "We'll be safer inside the soulstorm."

Outside the soulstorm there were walking corpses, the order of Aurelius, and Ytwomj. Inside the soulstorm, everything they met would be running away. It might not be safe, but by hellmouth standards it was safe enough. Besides, they didn't have any choice. The soulstorm was only a foot behind Giles now, and getting closer.

"Actually, since all the souls were human-"

Cordelia blinked, briefly dazzled, as Giles's amulet burst into brilliant golden light.

Willow just watched, clearly fascinated, as the soulstorm oozed around Giles, but Xander and Harmony both took a quick step backwards.

Cordelia looked carefully at Giles. The soulstorm hadn't actually touched him, it had just flowed around the edges of his amulet's light, and he still looked calm, so it had to be safe.

Cordelia shrugged then, holding her amulet high, stepped into the soulstorm, barely trembling at all.

The moment before she crossed the soulstorm's edge her amulet began to glow with a steady golden light, forcing the ghosts aside., leaving her inside a ten-foot wide bubble of golden light.

Giles looked at her. "You may have been more right than I thought. Look at the ghosts."

There were thousands of them, hovering just outside the golden light, staring hungrily at Cordelia, but not one of them looked human.

"What about them?" Cordelia asked, wondering why Giles couldn't cut straight to the point.

Two more amulets burst into light as the soulstorm washed over Xander and Willow.

"Wow!" Willow gasped, watching the ghosts swirl around her. "It's beautiful, all those colours, like a swarm of butterflies."

Buffy stepped into the soulstorm, pulling Harmony behind her.

Harmony winced as the golden light of Buffy's amulet hit her skin, then scowled. "You think this is safe?"

"Safe from demons." Cordelia said. "Ytwomj won't come in here."

"The amulets should protect us from the ghosts," Giles added, "and you have some protection too."

Cordelia nodded. The star Giles had drawn on Harmony's forehead was glowing, a dim blue light barely visible in the golden aura of the amulets, but enough to show it was working.

"We're just going to sit here and wait for the bad guys to go away?" Xander asked impatiently.

"No," Giles said firmly, "but charging blindly round the corridors won't get us anywhere."

"What about magic?" Willow asked. "Can't you just zap us out?"

Cordelia smiled, knowing what Giles's reply would be. Willow had been fascinated by the thought of magic long before she started doing it though Cordelia couldn't see why. In her experience, magic always caused more problems than it solved.

"I don't have that kind of power and, even if I did, we're inside a spatial anomaly. Teleport from here and you would be smeared across several continents."

Giles looked at Willow, who was looking understandably depressed, and softened his tone. "That is the right approach though. The most important thing is to get out of here. After that we can do something about Ytwomj and the soulstorm but we can't walk out of here, so we have to think outside the box."

Xander look puzzled. "You mean go through the ceiling?"

Cordelia smiled, pleased to see Xander could still joke. At least, she hoped he was only joking.

Willow looked briefly amused, then thoughtful. "We haven't seen the roof, and gravity isn't weird. Could that work?"

Looking surprised Giles nodded. "The spatial distortion does seem to be vertically stratified and there is ample precedent for it to be confined to the interior of the affected building. None of those cases were ..."

Cordelia stopped listening. Giles was talking for himself now, just thinking aloud, but the details didn't matter. Xander's idea might actually work. Explanations could wait.

Buffy looked at Willow and rhetorically asked, "Do you understand that?"

Willow hesitated, then nodded. "We haven't seen any bits of sewer or roof caught up in this weird angle stuff so they might be unaffected. Gravity hasn't done anything weird so that means the roof is probably still above us not underneath."

"And how are we going to get through the ceiling?" Harmony asked, her tone scathing. "I didn't bring a pickaxe with me. I thought I was going to have a normal night."

Xander smiled. "Buffy can just punch a hole in the ceiling."

"I'm not that strong!" Buffy protested.

Giles smiled "You'll need at least half an hour."

"I can help."

"Let me."

"No, let me."

More ghosts joined the chorus, all of them promising to help, offering to do anything. It was a tempting sight, an army of ghosts begging her for orders, but Cordelia didn't believe them for a moment. Things were never that easy.

One ghost, brighter than the rest, forced its way to the front of the crowd and looked directly at Cordelia.

"Please, do me just one favour and I shall serve you for all eternity."

"No!" Giles cried. "He wants your body."

"I know." Cordelia said, "I can remember yesterday."

Giles had already told them all about that loophole, at great length. If Cordelia gave a ghost permission to possess her the amulet would be powerless to stop it, and ghosts had a very flexible interpretation of permission. Knowing she was completely safe in the aura of the amulet Cordelia looked at the ghost, a three-horned monstrosity with needle sharp teeth.

"I wouldn't date you if you were alive. Go away."

The ghost roared then sank its claws into its neighbours, who started to struggle.

Giles watched, clearly fascinated. The three-horned ghost was getting brighter, but its victims were fading away.

"I've read accounts of this, " Giles said, "but I-"

Giles hesitated. "Cordelia, you shouldn't have teased the ghost."

"Why not? We've got the amulets."

"They don't provide complete protection."

Its original victims reduced to sparks, the three-horned ghost reached out again and began sucking the light from something that appeared to be half-cat and half-octopus. The other ghosts backed away, leaving a ring of empty air around the three-horned ghost.

"I know." Cordelia reminded Giles. "But I didn't invite it in."

"Not that." Giles said, rummaging in his weapons bag. "The amulets are strong, but they have limits. A strong enough ghost could brush them aside like tissue paper."

Xander looked nervously around. ""And you didn't mention this because?"

"There shouldn't be ghosts that strong, not even in a soulstorm. It's against the oldest rules."

"So," Harmony demanded, "what's the problem?"

Giles pulled a knife out of his bag. "Demon ghosts break the very same rules."

Cordelia looked at the ghost and swallowed nervously. That was most definitely a demon ghost.

"On the positive side," Giles continued, "that does mean we don't have to obey the rules either. It's safe to attack these ghosts with the amulets."

Cordelia grimaced. So it was only safe to hurt ghosts that were too strong to be hurt. That was just typical.

Its third donor extinguished, the ghost pointed at Cordelia. "Living or dead, you shall be mine."

Cordelia looked at Giles. "Do something."

"I am." Giles said sharply. "Anyone got a mirror?"

Cordelia quickly tossed him her makeup mirror.

The ghost hesitated, then stepped inside the amulets' glow.

From each of the amulets a beam of golden light lanced out, striking the ghost.

Under the impact of that pure light the ghost began to fade but it still struggled on, slowly moving towards Cordelia.

Giles cut his right ring finger with the knife

Buffy quickly wrapped her fist around her amulet, then punched the ghost.

The ghost screamed as the amulet passed through it, then turned to face Buffy.

Holding Cordelia's mirror in his left hand, Giles began writing on his forehead, in his own blood.

"Osiris can not save you," the ghost said. "He has no power here."

That was obviously a lie. The amulets weren't working very well, but they still had enough power to make the ghost scream.

Giles drew a second letter on his forehead, in an alphabet Cordelia didn't recognise., then started chanting in a strange language.

Cordelia hesitated then decided to attack the ghost. It wasn't as though she had anything to lose, and it would look good.

The ghost plunged one hand into Buffy's head, then groped inside her chest with the other.

Buffy whimpered once, then clenched her jaw and pushed her amulet into the ghost's head.

Giles drew a third letter on his forehead.

Cordelia gripped her amulet tightly and pushed it into the ghost. Beside her, Willow and Xander did the same.

The ghost screamed, then twisted its hand in Buffy's head.

Buffy shuddered as her face began to bleed, blood oozing from every pore.

Cordelia looked impatiently at Giles. "Hurry up. Buffy hasn't got long.

As Giles drew the fourth letter, all four began to glow.

The ghost smiled; its light strengthening as it sucked Buffy dry. "You're too late."

"Stop!" Giles shouted, pointing at the ghost.

The ghost looked at Giles.

"Go now!" Giles commanded, "Or face the final judge."

The ghost pulled away from Buffy and reared up. "I fear nothing."

Breathing heavily, Buffy wiped the blood from her face.

Giles smiled. "Yod. Het. Vov. Het."

The instant Giles spoke the fourth word his head vanished in a ball of white fire.

Cordelia blinked, surprised.

A stream of white flames ran down Giles's outstretched arm.

Cordelia stepped sideways, out of the line of fire, dragging Xander with her.

Buffy grabbed Willow, who was watching Giles with wide-eyed fascination, and hustled her to the far wall.

A torrent of white flame blasted out of Giles's hand, racing down the corridor.

The three-horned ghost didn't even have time to struggle before it was ripped apart by the white fire. One moment it loomed tall, swollen with stolen power, the next there were only a few scattered wisps of light, swiftly consumed in the flames.

The other ghosts turned to flee, but the torrent swept on, overwhelming them all.

Harmony smiled. "Someone point him at the ceiling."

Cordelia did not move. Harmony's suggestion might work, but she didn't want to get too close to those flames.

The ghosts behind Giles retreated, showing a surprising amount of common sense for demons.

Buffy gingerly reached out and nudged Giles's left elbow, the one that wasn't on fire.

The flames vanished.

Giles groaned once, then collapsed.

He still looked all right, his skin completely unscarred, but his face was haggard.

"Why did you stop?" Harmony demanded, shaking his shoulder.

"Harmony!" Buffy snapped, pulling her away.

Willow knelt down by Giles, reached out to touch him, then hesitated. "Shouldn't we loosen his tie?"

"I'm fine." Giles said, opening his eyes, but his voice was weak.

"What happened?" Willow asked. "You looked wonderful."

Giles adjusted his glasses. "I saw myself."

"Cryptic much?" Harmony said scornfully. "If you must waste time with explanations, talk sense."

Giles looked nervously at the floor. "I saw myself as I really am, shorn of all self delusion. I saw all my many failures, all my past sins. If you knew how much blood was on my hands..."

Cordelia shuddered, imagining how it would feel if she saw herself that clearly. She'd never hurt anyone, unless they'd deserved it, but she knew she wasn't perfect. There had been mistakes in her past, minor errors of judgement best forgotten. Having them dragged up by some spell would not be pleasant.

Giles fell briefly silent, then looked straight at Harmony. "Pray you never see yourself so clearly."

"It wouldn't bother me." Harmony replied, but she didn't sound convincing.

Xander smiled. "How bad can it be? You're a librarian. So you misplaced a few books, it's no biggie. We don't mind."

Cordelia knew better. Giles had been a real hellraiser once, literally. He certainly had a lot to regret, but he'd more than made up for it since.

Buffy and Willow nodded, then started trying to reassure Giles, but Cordelia knew they didn't stand a chance, not when they didn't know what the problem really was. She would have to reassure him herself, letting him know she wasn't bothered by his Ripper days without letting him know she knew about them.

"We don't care what you did when you were young." Cordelia said. "Not even if you turrned all your teachers into rats or seduced girls with black magic. It doesn't matter who you were. All that matters is who you are now."

Seeing that Giles still looked doubtful, Cordelia decided to divert his attention with a quick question.

"Why the trip down memory lane anyway? Wasn't the spell supposed to hurt the ghosts, not you?"

Giles sighed. "I invoked one of the Powers That Be, by name, but I am not worthy to channel, um, the triune Power. That is why I suffered for my hubris."

"Um," Willow said, looking at something behind Cordelia. "Do you think you could do it again?"

Cordelia turned and looked behind her.

The ghosts were creeping back.

Giles went pale. "Maybe, once or twice, but no more."

"Then get us out of this soulstorm. We should have stayed outside it." Harmony said.

"With all the topological distortions in this building it's likely that the soul storm had already surrounded us before we saw it. The ceiling is our best option."

"It's built to resist earthquakes." Buffy protested.

"It's not built to resist spatial distortion." Giles replied. "It should have been weakened."

He pulled a small axe out of his weapons bag, then stood up and passed it to Buffy. "Stand on Harmony's shoulders and you should be able to break through within an hour."

"But what about the ghosts?" Willow asked.

"The amulets will deter most of them, and it should be a while before any of them gather the strength and courage to risk facing me."

Cordelia suppressed a cough as the dust billowed down around her.

"Keep still." Buffy snapped.

"Well, excuse me." Harmony said flatly. "I'm not a freak. I can't breathe dust."

Cordelia frowned. Buffy had a foot on her shoulder too, but was she complaining? No, she knew better. Any disturbance and Buffy might loose her balance. Cordelia really didn't want that, not with Buffy carrying a sharp axe.

Giles sighed. "It won't be much longer. We just need to make the hole a little bigger."

Cordelia relaxed slightly. She'd been beginning to wonder if she'd ever get out of the building.

"We haven't got much longer." Harmony protested.

Xander looked at Willow, who was staring nervously at the ghosts, then forced a smile. "Don't worry. We've got Giles."

Willow did not look convinced, and with good reason. Giles had already cast his special anti-ghost spell twice; he might not survive a third attempt, not when the second casting had left him catatonic for ten minutes.

"Great," Harmony said. "Now I feel a lot better. If Giles is so great, why are we still here?"

Cordelia smiled, spotting an opening.

"Without Giles, we wouldn't still be here," she said. "We'd be dead."

A chunk of wood fell from the ceiling, followed by a shower of plaster.

Buffy jumped down, then turned and looked at Willow. "Think you can fit through there?"

Harmony looked up and smiled. "I can. I don't know about you guys."

"How are we getting up?" Willow asked.

"Buffy should go first." Giles said. "She can jump up, then pull the rest of us after her."

"One other question." Harmony said, smiling. "How are we getting off the roof?"

Two minutes later Buffy reached down through the hole, grabbed Cordelia and pulled her onto the roof.

Cordelia rubbed her shoulder, looked around, then smiled. It seemed most of the ghosts were too stupid to go through the ceiling, which wasn't surprising for ex-demons. There were only a few dozen visible, oozing out of the roof then hurrying away.

The roof was dimly lit by the moonlight, but Cordelia could just make out Harmony and Willow.

Ignoring Harmony, Cordelia walked over to where Willow was standing, looking out over the town.

"How will we get down?" Cordelia asked, smiling gently.

She might not like Willow but she needed her friendship, for now.

Willow glanced at Cordelia, clearly worried. "We've got bigger problems. Look down there."

Cordelia looked down at the town, trying to see what was bothering Willow, and frowned.

"Mass arson?" Cordelia said. "Great. Another demon to look for."

She could see at least twelve fires, just looking straight ahead, and with her recent luck there would be more fires on the other sides of the building. This was yet another thing that shouldn't have happened, more proof that something would need to be done. It might not be a big thing, not compared with the soulstorm, but it was a change she hadn't authorised and that made it completely unacceptable.

"I meant look straight down." Willow said. "I think those are zombies."

"Zombies?" Xander said, coming up behind Cordelia. "Where?"

Cordelia carefully knelt down at the edge of the roof and looked straight down.

The walls of the building were glowing, probably because of the soulstorm inside, and by that light Cordelia could see human shapes walking towards the building, and demons running away from it. She couldn't be completely certain, but the human shapes certainly looked a lot like the zombies Cordelia had seen before, and there was a faint scent of decay drifting up from them.

"Buffy can kill them all." Xander said.

"Not if she wants any sleep." Cordelia noted.

"Hey!" Buffy shouted. "Someone, come and hold my legs while I get Giles."

Xander smiled, and hurried to obey.

Below Cordelia a zombie touched the building wall, then jerked as if electrocuted. Its eyes flashed a sickly green, then it stepped away from the wall. Its body shimmered slightly, then changed, growing horns and tentacles. The new demon turned and hurried away from the building.

"That's our problem." Willow said. "Something must be calling zombies here for the demon ghosts to possess."

Cordelia shuddered, wondering how many demons had escaped already. "We have to tell Giles."

She turned around and walked back towards Buffy, followed by Willow.

Xander was holding Buffy by the ankles while she dangled inside the hole.

"We can just jump off the roof." Willow said, answering Cordelia's earlier question

Cordelia looked sceptically at Willow. "Won't it hurt?"

"Buffy can catch us. The roofs only about thirty feet high, which means we'd normally hit the ground at around thirty miles an hour but Buffy can roll with the impact, so thirty feet at one gee will be countered by, say, ten gees over three or so feet. We shouldn't break any bones."

"That's reassuring." Cordelia said, watching Giles climb up Buffy. "We didn't do that."

Willow smiled. "We had someone to give us a leg up."

Giles clambered onto the roof then turned around to help pull Buffy out of the hole.

Buffy brushed herself down then smiled. "Now we've just got to get off the roof."

"Um, no." Willow said, looking apologetic, then began to explain the zombie problem.

As Giles listened he began to look worried.

Xander looked suspiciously at the roof under his feet. "Why don't they all come through the ceiling?"

"Magical effects, such as the soulstorm, have a strong tendency to conform to the boundaries created by human structures." Giles explained. "The reasons why are rather complex but it means that, since the ghosts have to stay inside the soulstorm to stay in our world, most of them will be trapped inside the building unless they can get themselves embodied. Only the strongest will be able to ride the fringes of the storm out where we are. However, even the strongest shouldn't be able to summon zombies for themselves to possess. It could be because they were demons but I'm afraid that it may be the result of the same act of necromancy as raised Ytwomj and created the soulstorm, an act most likely performed by the shadow entity you saw. The most worrying, though, is that the spell appears to have been cast from outside our reality."

Giles paused to adjust his glasses. "I really need to consult my books, and the board's."

"I only asked one question." Xander said, smiling. "You heard, just one question."

Buffy smiled. "Just tell us what we need to do. Can you stop the soulstorm?"

"No." Giles said. "Not without more research. Normally they stop at sunrise, by themselves, but this one may be different."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Buffy persisted. "This town doesn't need more demons."

Giles hesitated. "The lesser seal of the board should work. It invokes the same Power as I did to channel the holy fire. No evil short of a god should be able to pass that seal."

"Okay." Xander said slowly. "This would be the power that you said could drive you mad if you used it again?"

"This is more like a cross." Giles said. "I don't channel the Power directly. It's the same seal as I used to protect the library earlier."

"Those were stones." Buffy objected.

"Stones with this seal already on them. Drawing the seal is not entirely safe. Eventually the Power will require me to pay, but as long as I draw the seal with appropriate reverence for good purpose the price will be manageable. If I didn't, if we just scrawled it over our doorways, the price would be our souls, but I'm confident drawing it now will be acceptable."

"You didn't say they were that dangerous when I was holding them." Buffy complained.

"Those weren't, not to us. It is the board member who created them who will pay the price for their use, and for any abuse."

"Just get on with it." Cordelia said. If she let Giles keep explaining they might still be on this roof next week.

"I just need to find the centre of the roof." Giles said, pulling the holy water out of his bag.

Giles looked around, trying to find the right spot, then sprinkled the holy water in a six foot circle.

Cordelia carefully memorised the diagram as Giles drew it; two crossed keys inside a six pointed star, with a circle just touching the points of the star, and a letter in each quadrant of the cross, the four letters spelling the same word as Giles had earlier written on his forehead. She didn't want to have to use it, not if it was as dangerous as Giles said, but if it worked like a cross, without needing magical talent, it might be useful to remember as a last resort.

As soon as Giles completed the last line, the diagram began to glow a brilliant white.

"They didn't do that this afternoon." Buffy said quietly.

A stream of white flames flowed out of each point of the star, across the roof, and down the walls.

"There was no great evil inside the library." Giles replied, "and its boundaries are less clearly defined."

Circles of white flame rippled out from the seal, like waves on a pond.

"We should get off the roof." Giles went on, "and quickly."

Harmony stood up and smiled. "How?"

Three minutes later Cordelia closed her eyes then jumped, off the roof.

It wasn't something she'd ever expected to do, but she had no choice. She'd already seen Buffy catch Xander, so she knew she should be safe but-

Then the jolt of impact drove all thought out of Cordelia's head.

After the initial confusion, while Buffy struggled to get a good grip, there were a dizzying roll and two knee-grazing brushes with the ground before Cordelia finally came to a dead stop.

"OK?" Buffy asked, helping Cordelia to her feet.

Cordelia nodded, then wobbled over to join Xander.

He looked at her and smiled. "That was fun."

Cordelia smiled back. "If only you'd told me earlier, I'd have thrown you off the school roof years ago."

Xander laughed. "If Buffy had been here then I would have jumped."

He looked up at the roof, then frowned nervously. "Is that Willow?"

Cordelia looked up. It was Willow, getting ready to jump.

"Now." Buffy shouted, and Willow leapt.

Buffy jumped up, only five feet but every inch counted. She grabbed Willow in mid-air, knocking her sideways, then rolled with her across the grass, absorbing the impact.

As Buffy got into position for Harmony, Willow stumbled over to join them.

"Spectacular spell," she said, looking at the building.

Cordelia nodded. The building was wrapped in a net of white fire, and there was a copy of the board's seal in the centre of the wall Cordelia was facing.

"It certainly frightened the demons away." Cordelia said. Few demons would be arrogant enough to stay and fight in the face of magic that powerful.

"It didn't stop the zombies." Xander said, looking nervously at an approaching zombie.

"Giles thinks they'll stop soon." Willow said. "He thinks they were all summoned when Ytwomj woke up. They've just taken their time getting here."

"Great." Cordelia said, then stepped aside to let the zombie pass.

"Don't they bother you?" Willow asked, peering at Cordelia.

Of course they did, but she wasn't going to admit it, not in public.

"They're harmless."

The moment the zombie touched the wall it disintegrated, swiftly crumbling away into dust.

"They're stupid." Harmony said. "Nothing sensible would come here."

Xander smiled, but before he could he could make the obvious reply Harmony overrode him.

"That's why I was never here. I went straight home from the Bronze. Remember that."

Harmony walked slowly away, alone.

A few minutes later Cordelia was walking home with the Scoobies.

"Tonight's events will require intensive research." Giles said. "Be there by half eight and I'll get you out of all your morning classes."

"Are you kidding?" Xander asked. "It's-"

As Xander looked at his watch his eyes widened in sudden shock. "Three AM! I'll still be asleep."

"Three!" Buffy muttered. "I'll be grounded for weeks."

"Only if she's still awake." Cordelia replied.

"It might not be." Willow said. "Space was distorted in there. Could time have been?"

Giles hesitated. "Space and time are closely linked, but I think not. The moon is still in the same phase, and patch of sky, which would be too much of a coincidence had there been significant temporal distortion."

Buffy looked blankly at Giles then smiled. "Look! A fire. Shouldn't we investigate?"

Fifty yards ahead the building on the left was burning.

Giles nodded. "What was it?"

"St Cuthbert's." Xander said. "My cousin had his first wedding there."

They stopped at the police cordon, and Giles went off to speak to one of the firemen.

Cordelia couldn't see the entire fire clearly, some of the fire engines were blocking her view, but she could see enough to know it wasn't just arson.

The very ground under the church had melted, leaving a cross shaped pit of lava, red-hot except in its centre, where the altar would have been. There the lava was white-hot and bubbling. No natural fire could burn that hot.

"Must have been magic." Willow said. "The rocks melted but the surrounding building aren't even singed."

Giles walked back to the group, his face grim. "It's not just this church. All the churches in Sunnydale are burning."

Giles looked at Willow. "And both synagogues. All the consecrated buildings were hit, whatever their religion."

"Why?" Willow asked.

Giles shrugged. "There was a tremor just after eleven, then the fires started, all at once."

"There was a tremor when that shadow creature appeared." Willow said, shivering.

"And there was only one tremor tonight." Giles replied. "Most likely, the shadow creature was responsible. Most likely, it was responsible for everything that happened tonight."

"So I've got to kill it?" Buffy said.

Giles blanched. "You've seen what it did to the holy sites, throwing down the gauntlet to every god worshipped there, and that was done in passing. Its power would have been focused on the room where it manifested. You wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately, it left. We just have to clean up the mess."

"It didn't hurt us." Xander protested.

Cordelia nodded. It had frightened them, and seemed to have done black magic, but it hadn't hurt them directly.

Giles looked at Xander. "It could have. You may have been too unimportant for it to bother with."

There was another obvious possibility, but that wasn't something Cordelia wanted to think about. She quickly looked at Buffy and changed the subject.

"You walking us home again?"

Buffy nodded. "Which way?"

Willow looked hesitantly at Buffy. "Will you be all right alone, after, um, what happened to Owen. I can sleep over. My mum won't notice."

Cordelia nudged Xander before he could speak.

"Don't even think about it." she said quietly.

Xander looked hurt. "Of course not. I'm not you. I do have some tact."

Buffy smiled at Willow. "My mum would notice. I'll be OK."

Cordelia didn't believe her. Buffy had seemed fine while she was protecting them from danger, but now they were safe Buffy was beginning to look wobbly. When she got home Buffy would probably curl up on her bed and cry herself to sleep, just as Cordelia had done when Kevin had been killed.

There wasn't anything Cordelia could do about it though, nothing she could say that would ease Buffy's pain, so she changed the subject.

"Cloudy tonight." Cordelia said, looking up at the sky.

Slowly the scoobies began to walk home together, chatting lightly about inconsequentials, while around them the churches burned.

It was eight AM when Cordelia stepped into the library the next morning, much earlier than she had intended.

Xander looked up. "You too?"

Cordelia nodded. Xander looked as bad as she felt and Willow no better. Their postures radiated bone-deep exhaustion, their faces were haggard, and their eyes were haunted by the memory of horror.

"What about Harmony?" Willow asked. "She was with us when ..."

Cordelia sighed. "I phoned her earlier. She said she hadn't had any dreams."

"Lucky her." Xander said. "She was sleeping when that thing came."

"Is she normally awake this early?" Willow asked.

Cordelia slowly shook her head as she sat down.

"It could just be a coincidence." Cordelia said quietly, hoping she was right. After the way Harmony had acted the previous night Cordelia had little sympathy left for her, but no one deserved the nightmares Cordelia had suffered. Not even Angelus would have deserved to suffer so.

Buffy looked sympathetically at the scoobies. "You shouldn't have to go through this. None of you should. Giles was right. You shouldn't be involved. You should have stayed away from me."

Seeing where Buffy was going Cordelia quickly interrupted, glad for the distraction. Dealing with Buffy's problem, comparatively trivial though it was, might at least get her mind away from the nightmares for half a moment.

"Owen only died because you dated him. His death is your fault. Right?"

Buffy nodded.

"Wrong." Cordelia said firmly. She'd seen Buffy like this before, after one of her rare failures, wracked by doubt, blaming herself for half the world's ills. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Owen's death is no one's fault." Cordelia said, trying to remember how Buffy had been cheered up those other times.

That wasn't strictly true. Cordelia knew Owen wasn't supposed to have died so his death had to be the fault of whatever was changing history for the worse but she couldn't tell Buffy that nor would it have helped if she could have. Buffy would only have ignored logic and blamed everything on Cordelia, even though that would be completely unfair.

Buffy frowned. "He wouldn't have died if-"

"If he'd ducked when Willow told him to, if Angel had spotted him following us, if his parents had moved away, if, if, if..."

Cordelia looked at Buffy, trying to judge her reaction. She was copying something she half remembered Giles saying once, but what worked for him might not work for her.

Cordelia sighed, then tried to look patient. "If's don't matter. Ytwomj killed Owen, no one else. You didn't do anything wrong. You just did the best you could."

"It wasn't good enough." Buffy persisted.

"You'll do better next time." Willow said, smiling weakly.

"Don't waste time brooding." Cordelia added. "Revenge is much more satisfying. Make Ytwomj pay, and pay."

Buffy nodded slowly then changed the subject. "You have nightmares too?"

Cordelia shuddered, remembering the terrors that had wracked her sleep.

"You did." Buffy said softly. "Why?"

Xander looked up. "That shadow thing was really ugly."

Cordelia frowned. There had to be more to it than that. She'd had nightmares before, but nothing like this. Those other nightmares had been a natural response to the horrors she had seen, shadowy fears bubbling up from her subconscious mind that vanished as quickly as any other dream on waking. Not one of them had been even half as frightening as the reality.

Last night had been different. Every last horrific detail of that nightmare was engraved on her mind as indelibly as the memory of Xander's betrayal. She would never be able to forget the blank look in her father's eyes as he coupled with a rotting corpse, the sound of Xander's laughter as he juggled the severed heads of three women, the blissful smile on her mother's face as she devoured the heart of her firstborn son, or any of the myriad other ghastly vignettes that had formed the backdrop to her nightmare.

Cordelia wrenched her mind away from the nightmare parade. She would never forget the things she had seen beneath the branches of the shadow tree, but she would not let herself spend all her time dwelling on them either.

"You dreamed about that?" Buffy said. "All of you? I had a slayer dream."

Willow shuddered again, then quietly said, "Not just that. I saw other things, terrible things."

She paused, clearly searching for the right words. "I was shown all the evils that gnaw at the human heart, all the crimes of which we might be capable, in full colour with surround sound. I could even smell the blood, but that was not the worst of it. There were other creatures moving in the darkness, savouring the fruits of human malice, creatures-"

For a moment Willow's face was contorted in abject terror, then she quickly changed tack. "That don't belong in my dreams. I don't think these were normal dreams. I think the shadow creature sent them."

Cordelia half-smiled at the good news. She had been assuming the nightmare had been the product of her twisted subconscious, an assumption which had led to uncomfortable speculation about her mental stability, but if the nightmare had been sent from outside she didn't have any reason to worry.

"Makes sense." Xander replied. "We have to tell Giles."

"He's still on the phone." Buffy said. "Talking to his people in England."

Cordelia looked at the table. "Tell Giles what? 'Nasty monster gave us bad dreams?' What can he do anyway? You saw how powerful the shadow creature is."

Giles himself had said it had to be of godlike power but, if even half Cordelia's dreams had been true, that was a major understatement.

"Giles has all these weird books." Xander said, looking at the shelves. "He might know something."

Willow nodded. "Did you hear the whispering? I didn't recognise the language but Giles will, if I can just remember the words. That'll help him identify the creature."

Cordelia shuddered, remembering the half-heard whispers that had underlain her nightmares. Words murmured in an alien tongue, they should have gone unnoticed amidst the images of terror.

They hadn't.

Though the words had meant nothing to her the language of the whispers had transcended words. Like a mushroom growing within a rotting log understanding of the whispers had grown within the darkest recesses of her mind, then suddenly erupted into the light, and Cordelia had woken whimpering.

It had been almost an hour before she'd found the courage to get out of bed.

"You heard that too?" Xander said, looking at Willow. "What about the laughter?"

"Laughter?" Buffy said sharply, "Was it sniggering?"

"No." Xander replied, "This was, um, it wasn't bad. It was laughing at the badness. It was nice but in a not good way."

Xander hesitated. "It was like chocolate sprinkled over a rotten egg."

Cordelia looked closely at Xander. He did seem slightly less haggard than Willow, not quite so burdened by all the sorrows of the world, but why should he have suffered less?

"I remember now." Willow said tremulously. "Not much of it but enough for Giles, I hope. These are not comfortable words to remember."

Her face ashen, Willow turned to face Buffy then quietly said "Burzum angor korateng burzumengat valash leng."

The light dimmed, swiftly fading to a dull red glow, and the room changed.

Bone spiders scuttled over a floor paved with human skulls, dodging the pools of blood and slime. There were faces bulging from the walls, screaming in agony as blood gushed from their eyes, and the ceiling was a slender lattice of branches silhouetted against a crimson sky. Snakes slithered through those branches, snakes and other creatures less wholesome.

From the shadows there came a whispering, as of a myriad flies swarming over a fresh corpse.

Cordelia frowned. She had seen worse in her nightmares, things that made the warped library seem hardly more unpleasant than Snyder, but this was still disturbing. If any untrained witch could accidentally warp the world with a half-remembered spell then reality was even more fragile than she had realised.

Cordelia looked at her friends, hoping for reassurance, then sighed. They too seemed changed.

Xander was wearing clown makeup, half a dozen bells on blue silk ribbons, and very little else, a bizarre outfit even for someone with Xander's fashion antisense. Xander did look jaw-droppingly sexy, with his normally well-hidden physique on full display, but he should also have looked ridiculous. Instead he looked dangerous, like a tiger lolling in the sun. This was a glimpse of Xander as he had been in her nightmares; neither good nor evil, all he wanted was to be amused but his humour was as twisted as the room. This Xander could strangle a woman with her new-born child's intestines then turn around to rescue a kitten from a burning tree, and would rank both deeds of equal worth. At least demons were predictable.

Buffy looked no better. She looked like a killer, conscienceless as a cat. She was so encrusted in mud and gore that Cordelia couldn't begin to tell what Buffy was wearing but in her left hand she held a spear, its point dripping blood, and around her neck was fastened a string of teeth. Without friends, without family, this Buffy walked alone, living only for the kill. A slayer unfettered by human emotion, free of morality and shame, she was death walking, and nothing of this world could stand against her.

The whispering drew closer, rousing the memories of nightmare, and the room writhed, growing ever more vile.

Willow was shrouded in yards of black velvet, studded with diamonds. In her left hand she clutched an ancient tome, caressing it with as much love as Cordelia had once thought she had for Xander, which was normal enough for Willow. Her face wasn't. Only a few scraps of withered skin still clung to her skull, maggots crawled on her rotting tongue, and over her head lay the shadow of an iron crown. In her right eye socket a ruby slowly spun, but in her left only shadows lay. This was the Willow Cordelia had seen hang herself from the shadow tree. Love, humanity, her very soul, this Willow had sacrificed them all to feed her obsession. Nothing of Willow now remained, save the hunger that had consumed her, but still her empty husk walked the world, a master of every magic in thrall to its own dreams.

Cordelia thought quickly. If everything else looked like a watered down version of her nightmares, what must she look like? She had felt like her normal self in her own dream, but the shadow tree wouldn't have let Xander dream about anything so pleasant.

There were words in the whispering now, hovering at the edge of comprehension, words Cordelia did not want to hear, not after the effect Willow's six words had produced.

Cordelia looked slowly down at her hands, then shivered. Her hands were still beautiful but it was not a human beauty. Her skin was covered in iridescent scales, her little fingers were blood-red claws, and her other fingers had been replaced by two sets of tentacles, bonelessly supple.

The whispering resolved into a single voice, gentle as a scalpel brushing the throat.

Cordelia cowered, anticipating horror.

The voice spoke.

"A dark sun shall rise to shadow the brightest star"

There was a moment of silence, then daylight returned.

Cordelia looked around. The room looked as if nothing had happened, which would be good if true. Cordelia didn't like illusions, they were just another way of tricking her, but there were some things worse than being tricked.

Her friends were back to normal too, by their standards. Really normal people wouldn't be seen dead in Xander's shirt.

For a moment they all sat frozen then Xander smiled at Willow. "Great special effects but no plot. Hollywood will love you."

Cordelia half-smiled, then looked at the office door. She'd expected Giles to be out by now, stammering explanations. Did he even know anything had happened or had the visions been confined to the main library?

Pale-faced and trembling, Buffy stared at Xander. "Y-you're joking? H-how?"

Xander shrugged. "The dreams were worse."

Cordelia nodded. Compared with the dreams the vision had only been mildly unnerving, but it still shouldn't have happened.

"Worse?" Buffy gasped, her voice quivering. "There's a worse? How much worse?"

Xander leaned forwards. "I saw my mother burning Giles alive on a pile of his own books. She laughed as ..."

Cordelia stopped listening. Telling Buffy about the nightmares wouldn't help, it would just give her something else to feel guilty about. What they actually needed was an explanation, and a way to stop the nightmares recurring. What they actually needed was Giles, but rather than doing anything useful he was just chatting with his English friends, watchers who had been completely useless in the original history.

True, this time round they had deigned to tell Giles about some useful stuff, such as the fancy seal he'd used to lock up the soulstorm, though they'd only done that little because the thought of Omega had them running scared, but even if they did happen to be telling Giles something important surely it could wait.

Giles needed to get his priorities right. Buffy and Cordelia should come first, the other scoobies second, and the Council a distant third. In fact, if Giles had been doing his duty properly, explaining last night rather than chatting with his friends, he would have stopped Willow repeating the words and Cordelia wouldn't have been subjected to that unpleasant experience.

Just as Buffy was starting to look queasy Giles dashed out of his office with several folders clutched to his chest, holding a single slim folder at arms length.

"What spoke?" Giles asked hurriedly, before he even reached the table. "Did you see it?"

Buffy smiled with obvious relief. "The vision? Yes. You know what-"

"No." Giles interrupted. "Before that. There will have been strange words. Did you see what spoke them?"

"Um," Willow said apologetically, half-raising her hand. "That was me, but I didn't know they'd do that."

"You!" Giles gasped. "How? Where did you hear those words?"

"In my nightmares." Willow replied. "We all did, except Buffy. Were they a spell?"

"They were in the midnight tongue," Giles explained. "The primal language of black magic. What nightmares?"

"A spell?" Cordelia said hastily, not wanting to hear another rehashing of the nightmares. "Were we really changed?"

Giles hesitated. "Yes, and no. Nothing physically changed, but what we saw was as real as love or death. To speak the midnight tongue is to open a channel into the outer darkness, a channel through which the power of Omega can flow into the world. Fortunately, since Willow had neither the knowledge of how to focus that power nor any intention of doing so, the power was dissipated near harmlessly. Even so, while the sound of the midnight tongue lingered the shadow of Omega lay upon we who had heard it, and we saw what Omega would have us believe to be the true nature of the world."

"That's bad, right?" Xander asked.

"It's catastrophic, perhaps even apocalyptic." Giles said as he put the pile of folders down then carefully placed the slim folder in the centre of the table.

Recognising the danger signs, Cordelia edged her chair backwards.

"Willow, " Giles continued, "has just set off the thaumaturgical equivalent of an atom bomb on top of the hellmouth, only hours after something ripped open a death gate within its umbra. The damage done to the hellmouth seals is incalculable; at the very least we must expect another increase in demonic activity, but we could well be facing a complete failure of the local causal nexus."

Cordelia had spent enough time with the Scooby gang to know what that meant. The end of the world was nigh, again.

"Great," Cordelia said, looking wearily up at Giles. "And all because you were too busy chatting with the council."

"But what did we actually see?" Buffy asked, looking speculatively at Xander's chest. "Why was he wearing bells? Is it a prophecy?"

"Bells?" Giles echoed, looking puzzled. "Interesting. What you should have seen was a manifestation of Xander's potential for evil. I'm not entirely sure how bells fit in."

"So that was what we'd look like, if we went over to the dark side?" Willow said hesitantly. "It was difficult to see the details in my dreams. All that blood got in the way. Um, what did I look like?"

"Hungry." Buffy said. "And half dead. Black is not your colour."

Cordelia looked at Giles. "So if Buffy stops washing her hair we'll have to-"

Cordelia stopped. What could they do if Buffy went bad?

"The clothes were principally symbolic." Giles said as he sat down. "And it wasn't a prophecy per se."

"You mean Cordelia isn't going to run around naked." Xander said, sounding almost disappointed.

Reminded of her dreams, Cordelia shuddered

"You had scales, and horns." Willow said quickly, elbowing Xander. "He didn't see anything. Was it a warning?"

"More a threat." Giles replied. "You saw the worst you could become, but only if you make the choices Omega wants you to make. It need never happen. What did Buffy look like?"

"Savage." Xander said, "but not as bad as in our nightmares."

"They can't have been normal nightmares," Giles noted, "not if you heard the midnight tongue."

"That's why I repeated those words." Willow said. "So you'd know something weird had happened."

"You certainly proved that." Giles said. "Couldn't you have waited?"

"Why should we have?" Cordelia asked. "You knew we were out here. England can wait."

Giles sighed. "I was talking to Dame Margo fforbes-Hamilton, a member of the board. If I ended the conversation before she was ready she would not have been pleased."

"So what?" Cordelia asked flippantly. "You can always apologise later. We needed you five minutes ago."

Personally Cordelia didn't think Giles would have had anything to apologise for, but she remembered what Giles had said about the board before. They were the people who had stopped the council interfering with Giles, after spending ages interrogating Cordelia and the others. Giles had to be polite to them, or they might let the council off its leash.

"Dame Margo has never been an easy woman to say 'No' to," Giles replied, "and in the current circumstances that would have been particularly unwise."

Giles hesitated, looking thoughtful, then smiled. "Dame Margo had, um, certain questions she needed to ask me concerning recent events. Had I given any excuse for not answering them in full, even attending to the needs of the slayer, that could have been considered evidence of, um, a capital crime."

Surprised, Cordelia looked at Giles, then flinched. Giles looked just like he had when he had convinced Buffy to kill herself so he might enjoy her corpse.

Cordelia closed her eyes and counted to ten. That was not a real memory, just another short scene from her nightmare. She had to remember that, remember the difference between reality and nightmare, or she'd spend the rest of her life afraid to breathe.

Cordelia forced the nightmare memory aside, then looked carefully at Giles.

Had he really suggested that the council might have killed him just for being rude? She'd expect that from the Master, but not from the council. They were supposed to be good guys.

"Why? What circumstances?" Willow asked.

Giles began cleaning his glasses. "Dame Margo said the council have decided, despite her most strongly worded recommendations to the contrary, that I should say nothing unless you happened to ask me a direct question."

"Willow just did." Cordelia pointed out, not bothering to mention that Giles had provoked the question. He wasn't normally deliberately indirect, but it sounded he might have good reason.

Cordelia looked speculatively at Giles. He had good reason to be indirect, but only if he wanted to talk to them about the council, which he had never done before. He'd mentioned it, sure, but only when he'd absolutely had to. Why had he chosen now to start talking?

Now that she thought about, while Giles seemed to be his normal unemotional self, there were subtle signs that something was troubling him in a way the hellmouth never had. No one else would have noticed, but Cordelia had spent long enough in the library to recognise all the different ways Giles cleaned his glasses.

"The activist factions have rebelled against the council, which puts us all in additional danger."

Xander looked at Giles. "Why? Aren't they all good guys?"

Cordelia smiled patiently at Xander. "If they're fighting each other they can't help us."

Since they'd been completely useless the first time round, that was a big no change, good news for Cordelia. The closer everything stayed to the original history, the easier it would be for Cordelia to stay in control of the changes.

Giles frowned. "That's not the only problem. The rebels feel the board has been too passive in its response to the current crisis."

"You mean last night." Cordelia interrupted. Giles kept forgetting he wasn't speaking to a bunch of stuffed shirts.

"No." Giles said. "Well, not precisely. Last night is part of it, but concern has been building since the future changed. The board quelled dissent when they interviewed you, but last nights events precipitated an unprecedented rebellion."

Giles paused. "Normally, dissident factions confine their actions to bureaucratic infighting and selective deafness but Travers and his people spilled blood in the council chambers."

Giles scowled. "He actually spilt blood in our inner sanctum, a place inviolate since its building. It doesn't matter how vigorous the debate got, there's no excuse for that. He could have resigned at any time, and been free to do as he liked. The council would not have given him any support but neither would they have tried to hinder him. But, no, he lacked the courage of his convictions. Unwilling to stand alone he tried to force the council to support him, an unforgivable crime."

Giles looked apologetically at Buffy. "The wet squads will hunt him down, and everyone suspected of supporting him That's why I had to tread carefully with Dame Margo."

Xander looked confused. "Can you say that again, in English, not whatever language they speak in-"

"England." Giles said, smiling slightly. "When the death gate opened-"

Willow raised her hand. "Um, what's a death gate."

"A permanent portal to one of the afterlives. Last night the shadow creature you saw ripped one open, from the outside. That's what caused the soulstorm."

Cordelia frowned. That did not sound like good news.

"So it's a gateway to hell?" Willow said, shivering. "You mean we've got another hellmouth?"

"No." Giles said quickly. "This is different."

"How?" Willow asked.

"Whereas-" Giles began.

"Do we really need to know the details?" Cordelia said, before Giles could get theoretical.

Giles half-smiled. "Not all of them. You do need to know what a death gate does but I can explain that later, after I've answered Xander's question."

Cordelia nodded. Giles and Willow might find the theory fascinating. No one else did.

"Anyway," Giles continued, "when the death gate opened there was another burst of omens and portents. Travers seized the opportunity to call an emergency session while the board was otherwise occupied."

"Tell us what he actually wanted to do." Cordelia said quickly, before Giles could start describing the council's bureaucracy.

"He proposed the impeachment of the current board for incompetence, and his election as its new chairman. He and his cronies said they would open the Ragnarok Vault and kill every demon in Sunnydale. It might only have been a negotiating position but it gained the support of many of the younger members."

And rightly so, Cordelia thought. Travers would certainly have won her vote.

"- can do that?" Buffy was asking. "Why don't they?"

"It wouldn't just be the demons who died. Dame Margo says the Ragnarok Vault contains weapons with which one man can stand against an army, weapons that can smash mountains to rubble and boil oceans dry."

"Cool." Xander said. "The Master will be toast."

"No." Giles said firmly. "You don't use heavy artillery for pest control. The Ragnarok Vault is the board's last resort, to be used only when all else has failed, when the old ones have reduced the cities of men to charnel houses and built their thrones upon the smouldering ruins."

"In case of apocalypse, break glass." Willow summed up.

"After the last minute." Cordelia added sourly.

OK, the vault meant that if the demons won they wouldn't live long enough to enjoy the victory party, which was some consolation, but Cordelia would still have lost, a completely unacceptable outcome.

Giles frowned. "I was not entirely without reservations when Dame Margo informed me of this policy but consider this. There are over ten thousand near apocalypses recorded in the council's archives. The board did not think any of them worth opening the Vault for, and they were right every single time."

Giles smiled. "Of course, if the board had told the council about their secret vault it would have been used by now."

Buffy looked at Giles. "Why tell us about weapons we can't use?"

"Travers proposed using them on Sunnydale." Giles said. "After seeing last night's omens, and learning of the photos, many of the younger watchers agreed with him. It may be that-"

"But you said people would die." Willow interrupted. "How could they agree to that?"

"At first Travers avoided mentioning the likely death toll," Giles explained. "But when Miss Kimberthwaite's persistent questioning forced him to admit how many would be killed he said 'better a few million than billions'. Shortly afterwards the fighting started."

Cordelia smiled inwardly. That explained why Giles seemed slightly troubled. His old friends were fighting each other, maybe even killing each other. Everything he had spent his adult life working for was in jeopardy, and there was nothing he could do. Cordelia would have been seething but Giles was English; he vented steam so quietly only someone with Cordelia's superlative people skills would have noticed.

If Giles had been one of her friends she would have taken him out for some retail therapy but overt sympathy would only embarrass him. No doubt he'd prefer it if she just listened, and he might let some useful information slip.

"Must be bad omens." Xander said quietly.

Giles nodded. "At 10:06 PM, Sunnydale time, there was a magnitude four earthquake."

"That all?" Cordelia said. "They happen every few months."

"Nothing by Californian standards" Giles conceded, "but this earthquake was felt as strongly in Surrey as Sunnydale. Nor was that all. In that moment, many of the world's most sacred sites were defiled."

"Like the synagogues and churches here." Willow said. "Why?"

"Not quite," Giles corrected. "The consecrated buildings of Sunnydale were destroyed because they were within its unholy aura. The board believes the holy places were defiled during an attempt to sunder our world from the powers that be. Had it succeeded nothing could have kept the shadow entity from perverting our world, swiftly making real the vision we just saw."

"But it failed." Xander said. "We saw it running away."

Giles smiled. "The powers that be, um, slammed the door in its face, thrusting it back into the outer darkness."

"So why the panic?" Cordelia asked. "And what has this got to do with us."

"The rebel watchers will be coming here."

"I'm guessing they're not coming for the night life." Willow said. "Um, not the human night life, that is. They will be killing vampires, but if that were all they were coming here for you wouldn't be worried so they must be planning something else. What?"

Giles nodded. "They are planning to put into practice the policies they advocated."

"What policies?" Xander asked.

Cordelia tried to remember what Giles had been saying. The rebels wanted to help Buffy kill demons, which was good, but they considered innocent casualties acceptable which was fine, in principle; if a few strangers had to die so that Cordelia, and the rest of the world, could live then let them die.

Giles looked at Xander, sighed, then began patiently explaining the rebel's policies.

Unfortunately, from what Giles had said, it sounded like the rebel watchers might be willing to let her die, which would be completely unacceptable. Even if they didn't, they'd certainly get in the way, making even harder for her to make history follow her script.

There wasn't anything Cordelia could do about them though. She'd just have to hope the other watchers kept the rebels away from Sunnydale.

"-consider such deaths deeply regrettable, but necessary for the greater good. The board disagrees." Giles said. "The other danger is that some of the rebels will try to void the new prophecies by removing you three from consider-"

Giles suddenly paused and looked thoughtfully at Xander. "Bells. Did you hear, um, portentous laughter?"

Willow nodded. "He did, in his nightmares, but not part of them. You mean they'll want to kill us, right?"

"No, they just want you three on separate continents. The standard tactic would be to try to bribe your parents to get them to leave Sunnydale. Did you hear this laughter too?"

"No, just Xander. Why-"

"Describe it." Giles said.

As Xander repeated his description Cordelia quickly thought. Bribing Xander's parents would be easy enough but her own parents would be much harder to shift. If some stranger offered her father a million dollars to move he'd just assume they were trying to cheat him out a two million dollar opportunity. Besides, Giles obviously didn't have much money, or he'd have a better car, so the rebels couldn't have much either, and certainly not enough to bribe her parents, unless they'd stolen it.

"Did the rebels steal much?" Cordelia asked, interrupting Xander.

"Part of our library." Giles said sourly. "Five minutes after Travers escaped the building he returned with a dozen removal vans. While most of the rebels were fighting the loyalists hand to hand in the council corridors, Travers and his cronies absconded with some of the more important texts, and the card catalogue. The board suspects a conspiracy."

Well, obviously. Cordelia had heard enough business gossip while gracing her father's social functions to recognise an attempted boardroom coup. Travers had probably been planning his rebellion ever since Cordelia's interview with the board had convinced them to veto Travers's proposal to interfere.

"Did they steal anything useful?" Buffy asked.

"They broke into one of the vaults where dark magic weapons are stored."

"They'd be bad, right?" Willow interrupted. "Why have you got bad weapons? How dangerous are they? They can't be too bad or they'd be in the Ragnarok Vault, but if they were harmless you wouldn't be bothered."

"Stored until we find out how to safely destroy them. The stock inventory is missing so we don't know what Travers took. We do know the items in there were of only moderate power, capable of putting their wielders on a par with the slayer but no more than that."

Xander looked at Giles, flinching slightly. "What about my dream? The laughter, remember? Isn't that important?"

"Ah, yes, that." Giles said, then hesitated. "If it is pigs can fly."

Not, Cordelia noticed, an unambiguous denial. There were stranger things than flying pigs, here on the hellmouth.

Willow looked thoughtful but Buffy shrugged the issue aside.

"You're telling me that there'll be dozens of watchers running amok in the streets with magic weapons?" Buffy said, looking disbelievingly at Giles.

"Not this week." Giles said. "The police have been misinformed, which will make it harder for the British rebels to leave the country. We shall have a few weeks to prepare for their arrival. Nor will they be running amok. They want to fight but not to die. Without the overwhelming advantage the Ragnarok vault would have provided them they can be expected to fight the way they have been trained, with the pen not the sword."

Giles smiled. "Most likely, Travers will seek to infiltrate local government, reducing the mayor to a figurehead and gaining control of the police, then arm the police with magic and let them fight pitched battles with the vampires. It's an attractive tactic, if you aren't worried about the death toll."

Willow trembled slightly as she looked at Giles. "Why did they panic? I know you said omens, but they've seen omens before. What was so bad about these?"

Giles hesitated. "Do any of you listen to the morning news?"

Willow frowned. "My mom had the radio on. They were saying something about, um- Riots? Mass hysteria? I couldn't listen to it too long, not after what I saw my dad doing with it, in my dreams I mean. Real dreams, not figurative. Did it do that?"

Xander patted Willow's arm reassuringly as Giles nodded. "Most of those sacred sites defiled have been abandoned but some are still revered today."

Giles looked nervously at Willow. "Of those, the best known is the wailing wall."

Willow leaned forwards, staring intently at Giles.

"At the instant of the tremor the words Willow quoted were engraved on the wall, in the Arabic script."

"Why?" Willow snapped, her face pale with fury. "How dare-"

"The script isn't important," Giles hastily interrupted. "It was used as a cruel joke. It wouldn't matter what alphabet the words were written in; it is the sound of the midnight tongue that taps into the outer darkness, not mere arbitrary human representations of it."

"So it's OK to write it down?" Cordelia asked, wondering what it would take to make Giles speak plain English.

Giles nodded. "The problem is that people keep reading it, which isn't doing much for the city. The other sites similarly defiled we can temporarily conceal but hiding the wailing wail from public view is less practical. We may need to demolish it."

Cordelia looked at Willow, wondering what her problem was. Giles had mentioned Arabic, so this wall was probably in the middle east, maybe Baghdad or Cairo, but why would Willow be concerned about those places?

"You can do that?" Willow said, sounding shocked. "You can't do that! I mean, I'm not observant, but I know how important it is to those who are. Destroying something that holy, it wouldn't be right. Can't you just erase it."

"If we had time," Giles conceded. "Time, and enough privacy to perform the ceremonies necessary to cleanse the stones of the taint of the shadow creature. You only spoke a few brief words in the midnight tongue, and we all saw what effects that had, despite our being under the protective umbrella of the lesser seal. Can you imagine what it must be like to spend nine hours under its shadow, completely unprotected.?"

Cordelia could, now.

Buffy shuddered. "Destroy it."

Willow started to object, but Cordelia was only half listening.

In the morgue she had realised something had to be altering history for the worse, but she had assumed it was probably just another demon, nothing she couldn't cope with.

Now, though, Cordelia knew better.

Before, in the original history, nothing this bad had ever happened. There'd been a few deaths, well maybe a few hundred, but nowhere outside Sunnydale had been affected. Even in Sunnydale things hadn't been too bad, the school paper might have an obituary column but property prices were low. Even in the worst years nearly three-quarters of the deaths were from natural causes, which were better odds than smoking would give.

This time round things had been changed, and not in ways she wanted. An entire city had been plunged into a living nightmare, from a distance of ten thousand miles, and they hadn't even been targeted.

This wasn't just bad luck or demonic mischief. This was an evil that dwarfed everything she had seen before, power on a scale that could only be called godlike.

Cordelia sighed. Demons weren't a real problem, especially not with the advantage her wish had given her, but a god would be a much tougher proposition.

Still, whatever dark god was to blame hadn't done anything until she had made her wish. That must mean it had been unable to act without her, so it had a weakness. It also made her partially responsible for its actions.

She would just have to take care of this meddling god before she could enjoy the benefits of her wish. It wouldn't be easy but Cordelia was sure she'd think of something.

"-the only evidence, Travers might not have been so successful." Giles was saying. "But there were also the photos."

Giles paused, looked nervously at the slim folder, then pulled a pair of silk gloves out of his breast pocket.

"Photos of the wall?" Willow asked, staring intently at the folder. "Um, you said those words were written there. Photos of them aren't dangerous, are they?"

"No," Giles said quickly. "Not of the wall."

Cordelia watched warily as Giles put the gloves on, then pulled a slender pair of tongs and a matchbox out of his jacket pockets. She had no idea what Giles was planning, but he clearly thought it was dangerous.

Giles tossed the matchbox to Buffy. "When I show you the photo, burn it. The rest of you, sit well back."

Cordelia edged her chair back another three inches.

"Why?" Buffy asked as Xander nudged Willow's chair further from the table.

Ignoring Buffy, Giles took a deep breath then flicked the folder open with his tongs.

There was a single sheet of paper in it, face down in the centre of a pentagram.

"Are you ready?" Giles asked, his eyes still focused on the open folder.

Buffy lit the match. "Yes, but what's the-"

Giles half-closed his eyes, then used the tongs to gingerly flip the sheet of paper over.

Cordelia frowned in puzzlement. There was nothing on the paper except a poor quality satellite photo of southern California, and that had a grey splotch in the middle, where Sunnydale should have been.

Buffy hesitated, looking puzzled.

The splotch writhed, tendrils of shadow snaking across the page.

"Quickly!" Giles urged.

Faster than the eye could follow Buffy whipped the match towards the paper, so fast it guttered out before it got there.

Cordelia winced.

The shadows deepened, a fast darkening stain blotting out half California, coiling in serpentine patterns that drew the eye.

"Not again." Willow sighed.

Buffy lit a second match.

There was nothing visible left of the paper now, just a window into darkness bordered by shadow.

Her gaze caught by the hypnotic writhing of the shadows, Cordelia watched helplessly as shapes formed in the darkness.

In the darkness she saw a heartwarming family scene, a smiling mother nursing her baby while her husband bounced their daughter on his knee, and she saw how their idyll had ended, when the demons came. The father had died first, his heart ripped out before he had recognised the threat. The demons had offered to let the mother escape, but she had stayed and fought, in a futile attempt to protect her children. The boy had been nailed to the wall, a warning to all who dreamed of happiness, but the girl had been used to satisfy the demons' many hungers.

In the darkness she saw a peaceful nation, green and prosperous, a land that had taken noble dreams and made them real, and she saw how the dream had ended. Demons had-

Cordelia gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the vision, but the shadows compelled her attention.

Demons had walked its streets in human shape, whispering poisoned counsel into the ears of men.

Giles began to mutter, his voice gradually gaining strength.

Before five years had passed the land fell into civil war.

"-despair. These are but shadows. I must not despair." Giles said

Famine had followed, as-

Cordelia struggled to focus on Giles.

Image followed image, each with its tale of suffering, but Cordelia clung to the thin thread of Giles's voice and refused to despair.

After a few moments Cordelia began to echo Giles's chant.

She still could not look away or even blink but, her willpower bolstered by the chant, she found she could look at the images more dispassionately.

They looked like fragments of her nightmares, but they felt somehow different, weaker.

First Xander, then Willow joined in the chant.

The images radiated the same boundless malice, the same delight in the destruction of hope and the loss of innocence, but they lacked the overwhelming power of her nightmares.

Where the nightmares had been like being buried alive under a mountain, a crushing weight she could never hope to bear, the photo was more like being buried in a shallow grave, unpleasant but survivable.

When Cordelia finally saw Buffy's hand inch into view, a lit match clutched in the trembling fingers, she managed to smile.

After what felt like ages the flame reached the shadows.

The images froze.

Golden flames raced around the edge of the photo, surrounding the shadows.

Dazzled by the sudden light, Cordelia blinked and looked away.

Xander smiled, the first real smile Cordelia had seen that day.

Feeling unexpectedly reassured, Cordelia looked back at the table.

A ring of fire hung in mid-air, the shadows still writhing in its centre, but the ring was shrinking, squeezing the shadows out of existence.

A new image formed in the shadows; Buffy, naked, chained to the wall, a thousand cuts marring her naked skin, each swarming with maggots, while all around her friends danced, heedless of the screams.

Suddenly pale, Buffy wobbled in her chair, her eyes unfocused.

The shadows vanished, chased away by the flames.

Giles dropped the tongs.

Buffy turned to look at Giles.

"Why?" she asked plaintively.

Giles was still staring at where the shadows had been. "It didn't do that before."

"Before?" Willow said. "You had already looked at it?"

Giles blinked, then slowly nodded. "That was a sixth generation copy. Dame Margo did describe similar effects, but they were from a third generation copy. Something must have reinvigorated it."

"The hellmouth?" Willow suggested before Cordelia could work out what Giles was talking about.

"No." Giles said firmly. "When I first looked at it, it was unpleasant, but no more. A few hours on the hellmouth shouldn't have empowered it that much."

"What was it?" Buffy asked, looking intently at Giles. "What did we see?"

Buffy licked her lips then swallowed. "Was it, um, a, I mean, will it ... come true?"

"No." Giles said. "The last vision was an empty threat. What you just saw was a routine satellite photo of southern California, taken last night, which-"

"You've got your own satellites?" Xander interrupted, looking surprised. "Aren't they too modern-"

"We have, um, unofficial contacts in US intelligence who let us know when anything untoward happens. This certainly qualified."

"But what made the photo go all wigsome?" Buffy asked, leaning forward.

"The satellite photographed the aura of the shadow entity that-"

As he spoke Giles looked quickly at Cordelia and the others before turning back to Buffy.

"These three saw last night."

Buffy looked puzzled. "A vampire's photo doesn't bite. How-"

Giles half-smiled. "A vampire is small fry. If the evil is sufficiently great, anything inanimate in its presence can become imbued with its malign aura. It's happened before, but not on this scale."

Willow looked briefly thoughtful. "The satellite wasn't in Sunnydale."

Giles nodded. "It was looking this way, which was enough."

"So the satellite is evil now?" Cordelia said, to prove she was listening.

"Not precisely." Giles said. "It's still only a mindless machine, but it has become ... vile. Our contacts will be shooting it down once they've destroyed the hard copies."

Giles hesitated. "It's probably not a good idea to use the fax machine either. I'll have to cleanse it, and this room."

"So everything the photo has touched went bad?" Cordelia asked nervously. If a photo of the shadow tree could do that, what had being near the real thing done?

"Not just the original photo. In the next worst case the council knows of, the photo just radiated a mild sense of unfocused malice. Copies of that photo were harmless. The shadow entity was so powerful that even its photo radiated more malice than a dark god, enough that copies of the original photo were themselves contaminated."

Giles frowned. "The copy the council received was third generation, but it was still powerful enough for a pseudo-visual manifestation of the shadow entity's desires, much like the one we just experienced."

Cordelia nodded understandingly. If that was what the council had seen it wasn't surprising some of them had panicked. "But-"

Giles ignored Cordelia. "The copy we received was sixth generation but, even before something reinvigorated it, that copy radiated as much dread as the photograph of Shub-Niggurath. We have not yet been able to conclusively identify the shadow entity but this much is clear. It was no mere demon lord or petty godling. It was an ancient terror spawned of the outer darkness, a power vast beyond our comprehension."

That did not sound like good news. Cordelia thought quickly, trying to remember if Giles had described anything like that before, and came up with just one answer.

"Omega?"

Giles nodded gravely, but Willow looked doubtful.

"Isn't there only one Omega?"

"Yes." Giles said slowly, looking warily at Willow. "Why?"

"We only saw one of the shadow creatures clearly but there were lots of others behind it. They just didn't come close."

"They were smaller." Xander said.

Willow looked at him. "Smaller, or just further away?"

Giles stared at Willow, his face bone white.

Cordelia shuddered. If that had only been a minion she never wanted to see its master.

"Marvellous," Giles said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Bloody marvellous. What next? Tea with the Morning Star?"

Giles glanced at Cordelia. "A public reading of the Al Azif?"

Giles looked at Xander. "Riding with the Wild Hunt?"

Buffy leaned forwards. "Leave them alone. They haven't done anything wrong."

Giles laughed sardonically. "We left them alone for five minutes and they, they-"

Giles stopped and stared blankly at the table.

After a moment he sighed. "I just wish I'd learnt this sooner. I-"

Giles stopped again, then began cleaning his glasses.

Cordelia scowled at Willow. Couldn't she have waited to break the bad news?

OK, they needed to know there might be worse things than the shadow tree out there, but they didn't need to know about them right this minute. They had more urgent concerns.

"Giles," Cordelia said quickly, "Everything near the shadow tree soaked up its evil, right? What about us?"

Giles put his glasses back on. "Everything inanimate. With neither mind nor soul, such objects were defenceless. You have both so should be in no danger."

"Should?" Cordelia said, looking challengingly at Giles.

Willow nodded. "We've already had nightmares which must have been implanted in our subconsciouses by that creature since we heard the midnight tongue spoken during them though we'd never heard it before, at least not so far as we remember, so we know the dark tower, that is the creature that looked like a dark tower to me, must be able to meddle with our minds to some extent. What other surprises might it have buried there?"

"I don't know." Giles said.

Cordelia shivered, trying not to imagine the possibilities.

"But you are still sane." Giles continued. "And the shadow entity had only a few seconds to act, during which we know it forced open the deathgate and assaulted the powers that be. It can't have had enough time for anything other than a brute force assault on your minds, and that would have shattered your sanity."

"Um, Giles." Willow said. "That doesn't explain how the dreams got into our minds. If we don't know that how we can we know nothing else was put there?"

A sensible question, but not now. It was only, Cordelia glanced at her watch, twenty to nine, far too early for-

Cordelia stiffened. Twenty to nine? That couldn't be right.

Her watch ticked on.

"How long have we been here?" Cordelia asked, interrupting Giles. "It doesn't seem like forty minutes."

Giles checked his own watch. "Ah, yes, perceptual time distortion, a classic symptom. We didn't see the visions with our eyes; they were rammed straight into our minds, a process which has several side-effects."

Giles looked at the shelves. "Staniforth wrote at length on the subject. 'On dreams and visions' has the clearest explanation."

Willow smiled.

Giles stood up and started towards the shelves. "And it should answer your other questions too."

Buffy yawned. "Can't this wait?"

Xander nodded. "Willow can read the book, then tell us about it later."

Cordelia looked at Giles. "There's no immediate danger, is there?"

Giles sat down. "Well, there is the possibility that the nightmares will recur, and remembering them may have adverse effects."

Cordelia shuddered. "Can you do anything?"

If he couldn't they'd just have to grin and bear it. Talking wouldn't help.

"There are certain meditations that should help, if you have sufficient mental discipline, but I need to consult Staniforth to find the most suitable."

Cordelia looked at Xander. She was confident she would have no trouble, and Willow had always had good concentration, but Xander had never been good at anything that required thought.

"What about amulets?" Cordelia asked. "Something easy to use?"

"Unfortunately," Giles said, "All such devices invoke the protection of godlike beings. Your minds have already been assaulted by one such. Invite a second in, and your mind may become a football, tossed willy-nilly between contending powers. The outcome would not be pleasant."

"Worse than the nightmares?" Willow said.

"Maybe." Giles said. "You haven't told me what they were like yet-"

Xander started to speak but Giles rushed on "And I don't want you to, not until you have the memories under control. Any dream in which the midnight tongue was heard must have been at least as unpleasant as the visions it engenders. That is all I need to know."

Giles smiled. "However, since you survived the initial onslaught, which is more than most untrained people could have done, you must have enough willpower to survive any aftereffects unaided. Once you've mastered the Staniforth meditation techniques you should be able to shrug off most future psychic assaults."

Cordelia frowned. She had hoped for more, but it seemed Giles had nothing better to offer.

Xander would just have to learn how to meditate, unlikely but there was always the chance luck would go her way for once. The laughter Xander had heard did seem to have softened the impact of the nightmares; it might soften the aftereffects.

Cordelia smiled grimly. If she was really lucky there might not be any aftereffects.

Willow was talking now, asking another unimportant question.

Before Giles could digress again, Cordelia quickly interrupted.

"Is there anything else urgent? We should talk about that first."

Willow scowled, clearly annoyed, but Cordelia just smiled, then leaned back and waited for the answer.

Buffy looked at Cordelia, then at Giles. "You said something about a deathgate?"

Giles nodded. "Um, yes, the deathgate is definitely important. It's why events last night went so spectacularly wrong, for both us and the Master, and it's here to stay."

"For the Master?" Buffy said. "That wasn't what he wanted?"

"No," Giles said. "The Master only wanted to summon an anointed one, but the shadow entity hijacked his ritual. Now he may have to contend with dozens of resurrected demon lords and he may not even have the anointed one he wanted."

Buffy smiled. "I can live with that."

Giles just looked at Buffy. "The demon lords will be a problem for us too. Since they escaped the soulstorm we know they must all be comparable in power to Ytwomj."

Cordelia swallowed nervously. One Ytwomj was bad enough. If there were a dozen demons like him loose in Sunnydale keeping the situation under control would stretch even her abilities to near breaking point.

"How do I kill them?" Buffy asked. "I want to kill Ytwomj."

"Decapitation normally works," Giles said, "but you shouldn't go looking for them."

"Why not?" Buffy asked, quite reasonably.

"Far too risky. We know nothing about any of them, apart from Ytwomj. Fortunately, demons are not naturally co-operative. Most of them are likely to kill each other fighting for dominance. We can protect the bystanders, then kill the survivors before they recover."

"And Ytwomj?" Buffy said, her voice quivering with barely-supressed fury "After what he did, I want to kill him myself."

"If he escaped, and don't know if he did, he will not be easy to kill."

Willow looked at Giles. "How did he die last time?"

Giles looked at his notes. "After the San Francisco earthquake he was trapped under a collapsed building. During the ensuing fire he was badly burnt, weakening him. Before he could recover an unknown sorcerer found him and decapitated him then removed his eye."

"Eeew." Buffy said. "You mean I've got to poke his eye out."

Giles nodded. "After you take his head. It is the seat of his power."

"Why would anyone want his eye?" Willow asked.

Giles shrugged. "I can think of at least six uses, most of them dark. Since the same sorcerer appears to have harvested body parts from several other injured demons in the aftermath of the earthquake their motives were unlikely to be good."

"Does he have any weaknesses?" Cordelia asked, before the conversation could drift any further.

"Silver and salt water." Giles said. "But they only weaken him. They will not kill him."

Xander smiled at Buffy. "So get him on a boat, then hit him with your jewellery."

"Are any of your rings real silver?" Cordelia asked. They looked more like cheap tin.

"I have a silver plated sword Buffy can use," Giles said. "But that is not an immediate concern. What matters is the nature of Ytwomj's death and rebirth."

Giles looked at Buffy, then at Willow. "Why it matters is a rather complex eschatological question but I'll try to keep it simple."

Cordelia groaned inwardly. She wasn't even sure what eschatology was.

"Demons can sometimes be resurrected on significant anniversaries of their deaths, if the proper rituals are performed. Ytwomj died ninety-one years ago, to the month, which made him a candidate for resurrection, but no one wanted to bring him back."

"However," Giles said, "last night the Master sought to resurrect Luke's demon, as part of his creation of the anointed. His act opened a, um, crack between the demonic afterlife and this world. This crack wasn't enough to allow Ytwomj to return, but it did weaken the barriers. That was when the shadow entity stepped in."

"It reached into our worlds from outside and, um, rammed Ytwomj's spirit through the dimensional barriers, ripping open the deathgate. Other demons then followed the pathway thus created, forming the soulstorm. We did manage to bottle that up but all Sunnydale now lies within the necrotic aura of the deathgate."

Willow frowned. "This deathgate still sounds like a hellmouth. They both lead to hell."

"No." Giles said.

"But demons are evil." Willow said. "Dead demons must go to hell."

Giles sighed. "While the demon dimensions are commonly referred to as hells that is actually a misnomer. To humans they would seem like hell but they are actually physical dimensions, not fundamentally different from our own. The various afterlives are, um, different."

"Think of it this way." Giles said, after a short pause. "Our universe is like one house in a great city. We live on the ground floor. Underneath us are the cellars, places of punishment for damned souls, and beneath them are the dark foundations on which the city was built; above us are other floors, the heavens of human legends; further up the gods and powers that be dwell; and all around us are other houses, each a universe like our own. Outside the city lies the outer darkness, where Omega dwells, but the entire city has been infiltrated by its malice. The houses on the outskirts have long since been drowned in shadow. Some have been demolished by their inhabitants at Omega's instigation, which is to say those universes were unmade by its touch. Other have become places of horror, inhabited by Omega's deluded pawns."

Willow smiled, clearly interested, but Buffy also looked strangely intrigued.

"The various demon dimensions start about half way out," Giles continued, "just past the other end of the hellmouth, and come all the way up to our doorstep. As you head inwards, the universes become less corrupt, but even here we are not safe."

"What's it like further in then?" Willow asked. "Must be nice there, away from all the demons."

"Willow," Giles said, "we are in the centre. This is the best of worlds. Life doesn't get any better than this."

Cordelia scowled. If this was the best life could offer she would have a few sharp words for the management, if they dared to show their faces.

Buffy looked at Giles. "That sounds a lot like my dream, except it was a big castle."

"You had a dream?" Giles said. "You didn't say."

"You started talking about all this other weird stuff." Buffy said. "Do you want to know about it?"

"Yes!" Giles said quickly, then paused. "If it wasn't like theirs."

"It wasn't." Buffy said. "I was standing on the tallest tower of a castle under siege. The enemy army had got through the main gate. Their soldiers were occupying the outer rooms but the leaders were outside."

Buffy paused, her face growing pale. "I couldn't see them clearly, but they felt really bad, almost as bad as that sniggering I heard."

Giles smiled. "The forces of darkness, occupying the outer universes, just as I said. What else?"

Buffy pushed her hair back. "There were three people standing with me, but not normal people."

"Describe them." Giles said, leaning forwards.

"There was a young child holding a book. They looked really cute."

"Male or female?" Giles asked.

"Couldn't tell." Buffy said.

"And the others?" Giles asked.

"There was a blindfolded woman holding some scales."

"Either a seer or Justice." Giles said. "What was on the scales, and on which side?"

Buffy blinked. "The castle was on the right hand side. The other side had, um, a heart with seven swords stuck in it."

"Erzulie Gé-Rouge." Giles said. "A symbol of corrupted love."

Cordelia frowned. If that woman was a seer it was probably meant to be her, since she did know about the future. Hopefully, this latest dream wouldn't give her secret away.

"The third was a knight, " Buffy said. "But they were wearing one of those funny hats. You know, the stripy ones with bells on."

That sounded like Xander's idea of fashion, which meant Willow had to be the child.

"I suspect the three figures were your three friends." Giles said. "But I'm unsure which was which."

"Doesn't Xander have to be the knight?" Willow said. "Weren't they all men?"

Giles smiled at Willow. "We are dealing with symbolism. The knight clearly represents someone both noble and foolish, but they could be of any gender."

That still sounded like Xander to Cordelia, apart from the nobility bit. He had always been the foolish one.

Giles looked back at Buffy. "What happened next?"

"The army fired a catapult at us. Then things changed. A wolf howled in the distance and a old woman appeared. She was giving away rainbow-coloured handcuffs, but no-one wanted any so she killed herself. After that, the child opened its book then giggled while the stars fell from the sky. The woman put her thumb on the left hand scale, and it rained blood. Finally, the knight picked up a sword and the castle walls turned to custard."

"And that was it?" Giles said, "No more details?"

Buffy nodded.

Giles looked slightly disappointed. "It appears to be another warning about what will happen if these three make the wrong choices. I will have to cross-reference the imagery before I can be more specific but, apart from the old woman, I can't see anything of immediate relevance."

Xander looked understandably confused. "What about the old woman? Is she good or bad?"

Giles smiled. "It seems that when she offers you a gift you should accept it, but I've no idea what that gift will be."

"Anything else we need to know?" Cordelia asked, giving Willow a meaningful look.

If Willow didn't stop asking question Giles might still be talking at sunset, which wouldn't be Cordelia's idea of fun.

Cordelia was willing to do research, Giles needed help and it wouldn't look good to refuse, but listening to Giles and Willow discuss esoterica didn't help anyone or do anything for her image.

Willow looked away. "Um, Giles was telling us about the structure of the multiverse."

"Ah, yes, that." Giles mumbled. "Do you remember the metaphor I outlined?"

Before he could elaborate Cordelia quickly nodded.

"Good," Giles said, once everyone had agreed. "The hellmouth is like a door leading to a house further out, but not a flimsy modern door. This door is six feet of solid oak, with a dozen strong steel bolts, and it's set in a wall that could, um, hold Godzilla. Even closed and locked the malice of the Old Ones leaks through, but it can not be opened from their side, only from ours, and then only with a suitable ritual key."

"We get the picture." Buffy said. "What about this deathgate?"

"The floor of our house makes the walls look like tissue paper but the shadow entity's acts ripped an hole straight though it. That hole is the deathgate, a gaping wound in reality. Almost anything could come through that hole, as long as it's dead, and there is nothing we can do to stop it."

Xander looked at Giles. "You said that seal thing would work."

"That was before I knew about the deathgate." Giles said. "The seal is only a sticking plaster. It will hold in the soulstorm but if anything powerful comes through the seal will fail."

"Can't you brick the hole up?" Willow asked. "Or put a proper door on it, one we can lock?"

"I wouldn't even know where to start." Giles replied, his tone scornful.

Giles hesitated, then in softer tones continued. "Dame Margo did say the board are investigating options. Before, they've always denied having that kind of power, but if they could keep the Ragnarok vault a secret from the council there's no telling what other tricks they may have up their sleeve. Still, even if the board can do something they won't be doing it today. We are going to have to deal with an unwarded deathgate. We will just have to hope that none of the Old Ones are willing to kill themselves to enter our world."

That sounded like a pretty safe bet to Cordelia. She could understand why Giles was on edge, it seemed like the shadow tree had been wreaking metaphysical havoc, but she suspected he was overreacting. In her experience of the hellmouth worst cases hardly ever happened.

"How will it affect us?" Buffy asked. "You said it had a nektic aura."

"Necrotic." Giles said. "The aura of the deathgate blurs the boundaries between life and death. All necromantic magics will be amplified, for good or ill, and the undead will be strengthened."

Willow looked briefly thoughtful. "Can it amplify the hellmouth, or vice versa? You said positive feedback would be really bad."

"No." Giles said. "That only happens when the loci are sufficiently similar. Both spears amplified martial magic so they could amplify each other. This time the hellmouth amplifies malign magic and the deathgate amplifies necromantic magic."

"But isn't the deathgate itself malign?" Willow asked.

"No." Giles said firmly. "It is morally neutral. It makes it easier to raise an army of zombies, but it also makes it possible to restore an intact corpse to full life without the normal problems."

Willow looked puzzled. "How can it be neutral? It was created by black magic and you said it goes to a bad afterlife."

Giles nodded. "True, but once created it linked to all the spiritual dimensions."

"Aren't they in opposite directions?" Willow asked, then jumped as Xander nudged her.

Giles smiled. "Yes, and no. It's complicated, too complicated for me to explain in full today. All you need to know is that the deathgate gives easier access to all the spiritual dimensions but only the damned will want to enter our world through it. Those enjoying heavenly bliss prefer to stay there."

"Strengthen the undead?" Buffy said. "You mean the vampires will get stronger?"

"And harder to kill." Giles said. "Dame Margo thinks you will need to use a rowan stake or a consecrated blade. Normal wood won't be enough."

"What if I dip them in holy water?" Buffy asked. "Or has that stopped working too?"

"No." Giles said slowly. "You'll need to soak the stakes first, not just wet them, but that should work."

"Why now?" Willow asked. "Why did the dark tower wait until last night."

"Good point." Giles said. "If it could have acted earlier it would have. We believe some unknown factor weakened the barriers. That must be why the future has been changed, because whatever happened made this possible."

"But that happened three weeks ago." Willow objected.

"Yes," Giles conceded, "but last night may have been the first night since then that someone attempted to resurrect a demon. It's not something that happens every day."

Giles nudged his glasses. "We still don't know what happened to trigger these changes, we have so little information to go on, but after last night ..."

Cordelia winced, horribly aware that Giles was missing a vital piece of information. There had to be some connection with her time-travelling, otherwise it would be too big a coincidence. Something else must have come back with her, and used its foreknowledge to mess things up. Either that or she had been tricked into doing something that gave Omega a way in.

If Giles learned about the time-travel he'd probably be able pinpoint the source of the changes and stop them. They wouldn't be able to put things back to normal, not now the deathgate had opened, but they'd stop getting worse leaving Cordelia free to enjoy the benefits of her wish.

Things would be better if Giles knew, but she couldn't tell him. He might fix the present, or he might find some way to cancel her wish, which would not be acceptable. That would mean losing, and Cordelia was no loser.

Giles was looking patiently at Willow. "We can't tell which events were supposed to happen and which are part of the changes ..."

Cordelia frowned. She could, sometimes anyway. She couldn't always distinguish between random changes and enemy action, but she knew which changes were her work and she had some idea how things had been in the original history. She couldn't tell Giles that though.

At least, she couldn't tell Giles how she knew what the future would had been. She could tell him what she knew as long as she lied about the how. She'd have to think about that.

".. can wait." Giles said. "The research is more urgent. You've been excused from class all morning so, if you're willing?"

Willow immediately nodded, beating Cordelia by half a second.

Buffy sighed, "OK."

When Xander finally nodded Giles started picking up books and handing them out.

As the morning wore on Cordelia leafed through her book, a dull treatise about the interdimensional barriers, and thought about what she could tell Giles.

She would to keep him off-balance, like she had Angel, and say as little as possible. Let him guess how she knew, then confirm his guesses. Flatter him into thinking he was right about everything and he wouldn't start asking awkward questions.

She'd have to tread very carefully, but her plan should work.

When the other left for lunch Cordelia lingered.

After a moment Giles looked up. "Still here?"

"Ripper, we need to talk." Cordelia said.

That should have knocked him off balance. Now all she had to do was keep him there.

Giles did not seem ruffled though. He just smiled and said, "About time, Cordelia."

"Sugar?" Giles asked.

"Three lumps." Cordelia said, endeavouring to sound as if this were part of her normal routine.

Giles nodded, then started fussing with the teapot.

Cordelia smiled. He was obviously playing for time, which meant he must have been more surprised than he'd looked.

She didn't mind that. She needed a few seconds to think herself.

Clearly, Giles knew something, but what? Had he worked it all out or did he-

Cordelia paused and corrected herself. Giles appeared to know something, but he could just have been bluffing. She'd have to be alert for potential traps like that, or he'd trick her into giving away more than she had to.

She shouldn't really have let him usher her into the office either. Her father had always said, 'make them come to you and the argument's half won.' In fact, her father had said a lot about how he won hostile negotiations, which this meeting was. She'd ignored most of it, business was boring, but after a hundred repetitions some of the boasts were bound to sink in.

Perhaps she should try and remember more of them. Giles was a lot smarter than Harmony or Xander, more like the people her father did business with; the techniques that kept those two in their place might not work very well on him. Her father's methods would work better on Giles. Combine them with her own people-managing skills and Giles wouldn't know what had hit him.

Cordelia looked round Giles's office, wondering what other tricks he might use to tilt the conversation his way.

Giles put the tray on the table then sat down and looked at Cordelia expectantly.

Cordelia knew that trick. If she spoke first Giles would ask a few simple questions, each time forcing her to answer or look suspicious. The conversation would quickly fall into a rhythm of question and answer, a rhythm that could lure the unwary into careless talk. Even if she remembered to watch her words, she'd be so busy answering Giles's questions she'd never get a chance to find out what he knew.

She could try asking the first question herself, that might work, but Giles would probably brush it aside and ask what she had wanted to talk to him about.

No, she was better off waiting patiently until Giles gave in.

Giles leaned back in his chair, a chair that looked much more comfortable than Cordelia's. His chair had arms, with decorative carvings, and a padded leather back; hers, dragged in from the main library, had a plain wooden back, no arms, and not enough padding in the seat.

Cordelia smiled inwardly. Like everything else in the office, the chair added to Giles's air of authority, subtly encouraging her to believe he had a right to control the conversation.

Giles smiled as he picked up his cup and saucer.

Cordelia followed suit.

Giles had a sip of tea then looked at Cordelia. "You wanted to talk?"

Giles had already tried this trick but this time she couldn't stay silent, not without looking bad. She would have to try and put the onus on him.

"There was something I wanted to discuss," Cordelia said, careful not to give anything away, "but I got the strong impression you already knew."

"I know you have a secret." Giles said. "I've known that since the day we met but what it is I can't say."

Cordelia took a sip of tea, hoping the cup would hide her surprise. If Giles had really known that long he must be even smarter than she had thought.

Well, even geniuses were vulnerable to flattery.

"But you're smart." Cordelia said, as if stating an indisputable fact. "And I must have given you some clues, or you couldn't have known I was concealing anything. Surely you've been able to work some of it out."

"So you don't think the other people involved would speak to me." Giles said. "Interesting."

Giles had slipped up there, giving her a glimpse of what he suspected, but only because she had slipped up first. If Giles hadn't had any preconceptions he might have realised her phrasing was consistent with Cordelia working alone, which was more than Cordelia wanted to admit this early in the conversation.

"But do you have any ideas?" Cordelia asked, playing for time.

"Many of the possibilities were easy to rule out." Giles said. "In my experience, non-human shape shifters can rarely sustain a convincing masquerade for long. Even in brief conversations their alien mindset is readily apparent."

Cordelia suppressed a smile. Giles could have given a shorter answer, or avoided the question completely, but he'd seized the opportunity to show off his expertise, another trick Cordelia recognised.

She'd used the same technique herself, showing off her superior fashion sense to keep her friends properly respectful. Reminding people how much better you were at the important things was an excellent way to undermine their confidence, the first step to dominating the conversation, but it wasn't a trick that would work on her.

It didn't matter that Giles was smarter and knew more. Her secrets were hers alone. She might choose to tell Giles some of them, when she felt it was really necessary but he had no right to know.

"Furthermore," Giles said, "I can be almost certain that you are the real Cordelia Chase, in both body and soul. Your face shows no trace of plastic surgery, any magical disguise would have been dissolved when you helped cast the spell on Marcie and most forms of possession can be ruled out since none of your friends, other than Willow, appear to have notice any personality changes."

"Has Willow told you anything?" Cordelia asked, genuinely curious.

Giles smiled. "Not knowingly. Willow has been trying to discover what I think about you, but she's been hampered by her apparent wish to do so without alerting me to her suspicions. Since she lacks my watcherly training in, um, difficult conversations I learned rather more from her than she did from me."

Cordelia immediately recognised the implicit threat in that last statement, and dismissed it as quickly. Willow might have lost to Giles but that was no surprise, not the way Willow babbled under pressure. Cordelia knew she would be a much tougher opponent.

What should she ask him next?

Before Cordelia could decide Giles leaned forwards. "What do you know about Ripper?"

Rather than answer immediately Cordelia sipped her tea.

She'd made a slight misjudgement there, giving Giles the chance to slip a question in, but he had slipped up too, asking her a question to which she had already prepared the answer. Now he had to allow her a few seconds thinking time if he wanted to keep the conversation polite, which he had to do to have any chance of tricking information out of her, a few seconds in which she could think about how to regain lost ground while he thought her mind was safely preoccupied with his last question.

"I know it's your old nickname, and I know why." Cordelia said. "Why haven't you told Buffy about me?"

Talking about Giles's Ripper period was too risky, if she accidentally mentioned something only he should have known he might work out that it had to be him who had told her, but her question should close off that topic and put Giles on the defensive.

"Why haven't you told her about me?" Giles asked.

Cordelia saw no parallel. "Ripper is ancient history. I'm not."

"You are confident of that?" Giles said. "Certain I will never return to my old habits?"

Cordelia was, and not just because of her time-travel. Giles was too smart to make the same mistake twice.

That clearly wasn't the answer Giles wanted though. He wanted her to say 'No', but why? What follow-up did he have planned?

If anyone else had asked self-incriminating questions in the middle of a fraught conversation she would have assumed they were about to crack but not Giles. With someone as smart as him, someone who frequently displayed impressive verbal skills, she had to assume every word was picked for maximum effect.

That left only one explanation.

Giles must have seen a parallel between the reasons he believed she hadn't told Buffy about his secret and the reasons he hadn't told Buffy about hers, though she had no idea what.

Rather than just answer the question Giles had actually asked Cordelia decided it would be more impressive to address the point he was actually making. Hopefully he'd be startled by her unexpected acumen.

"Certain enough. Telling Buffy now would cause too many problems." Cordelia said. "How can you be so certain that I'm as harmless as you?"

Buffy would have to be told one day, so she would be prepared for Eyghon, but not for months yet, and certainly not until Buffy knew Giles well enough that finding out wouldn't affect their partnership.

Giles looked at his cup. "We watchers are required to assume that all humans are innocent unless we find clear evidence of evildoing. Keeping secrets does not constitute such evidence, so I could only watch and try to discern your intent."

"Did you?" Cordelia asked.

Giles nodded. "It didn't take long to decide your short term plans were benign. It didn't take much longer to recognise the marks left by your training."

Training? The only training Cordelia had ever had was in cheerleading, not something Giles had any interest in. He had to be thinking about something occult-related, probably part of his theory about her actions.

"Marks?" Cordelia said, offering Giles another chance to show off. While he was trying to intimidate her with his big brain he might give away his theory, which would make it much easier for Cordelia to play along with it.

"You've been using concealer to hide your bruises." Giles said, glancing at her bare arms. "Why? Other people will ignore all evidence of the unusual, even if it's in plain sight."

Cordelia frowned. Giles had concealed his point behind an apparent non-sequitur, not a common tactic in her circle. Well, if he thought she'd get confused by his elliptical conversation he was wrong.

After spending a few moments trying to work out why Giles had asked that particular question Cordelia decided it didn't matter. None of the reasons would give anything away.

"People may not need help to ignore the unusual," Cordelia said, repeating the advice Giles had given the summer Buffy ran away, "but that doesn't mean there is no need for discretion. People will invent explanations firmly rooted in the quotidian world for any oddities in our behaviour but they may not be such as we would welcome. Misunderstandings are too likely to be lethal, to them or to us. It is better that we remain superficially normal, that our actions might pass unremarked."

Bruises were also ugly, but telling Giles that wouldn't make her look good.

Giles smiled. "That was very nearly a direct quote from the training manual."

It was? Then it was obvious who Giles thought she'd been trained by. There was only one training manual he should know well enough to recognise quotes from.

Cordelia concentrated, trying to work out how she could safely take advantage of Giles's misconception.

"Don't worry." Giles said. "That was only the third time you've used such a blatant quote. You've done an excellent job of concealing your sources but you couldn't hope to succeed."

Cordelia shrugged off Giles's latest sally. The first thing she needed to do was get Giles to admit they both knew what he was thinking.

"You think I'm a watcher?" Cordelia said, trying to sound as if she was faking scepticism in an effort to divert Giles from the truth, an difficult piece of acting, but not beyond a performer of her undoubted skills.

Giles chuckled. "Hardly! You are far too young."

Giles looked at Cordelia, then continued. "But you've clearly been trained by a watcher. You've been asking leading questions, haven't you?"

Cordelia nodded.

"Questions carefully phrased to rule out the wrong answers but," Giles said, his tone now didactical, "you can only rule out the alternatives you know about. Every question you ask reveals the assumptions that underlie it. Your questions showed you think about the supernatural the way we watchers do. You must have spent months in the company of a watcher.

Despite herself, Cordelia was impressed. Giles was right. She really had spent the last year hanging round a watcher, picking up esoteric trivia by osmosis. It seemed she'd picked up some watcherish habits too, probably only minor tics, but not minor enough to escape Giles's attention.

The only detail Giles had missed was that he was the watcher in question, no great surprise when he must know dozens of more plausible candidates.

"You noticed that?" Cordelia said, giving herself more time to think.

Giles was smarter than she had realised, and observant enough that he had noticed the subtle marks a year of his company had left on her. That was an almost Holmesian level of deduction, a display of intelligent that far outclassed anything Willow had yet managed. It might just be that Giles had so much more experience than Willow, or he might be a real genius.

Well, it didn't matter how smart he was. He was still only human. There was no way he could trick her into admitting she'd time-travelled, no way at all.

Giles nodded. "When you have spent as much time in the company of watchers as I the shared traits do become rather obvious. There are certain habits of thought, certain mannerisms and forms of speech, with which our common experience has imbued us."

Giles shrugged. "Naturally, the traces your watcher contact has left on you are much fainter, only noticeable to the expert eye. However there are times when you sound almost like a trainee watcher."

Cordelia froze, unsure whether she had just been insulted or complimented. Giles had to be exaggerating, a lot, but even so, that was not something she'd ever expected to hear.

"Biscuit?" Giles said, pushing the plate towards Cordelia.

Cordelia picked a cookie up, looked at it, then put it on the saucer.

OK, so Giles thought she was secretly involved with another watcher. How could she exploit that?

It would make it harder to dissemble, since Giles knew much more about the watchers than she did, but there were advantages. Giles was bound to find it much easier to trust his fellow watchers than any group of strangers Cordelia invented. It wouldn't be difficult to persuade him to trust in the watcher plan he thought Cordelia was a part of, and from that it would only be a small step to persuade him to trust Cordelia herself.

That approach would also keep the lying to a minimum, easing her conscience. She could tell the truth about some of her future experience with Giles, and let him think she was talking about a non-existent watcher.

"Who was your contact?" Giles asked.

Cordelia nibbled daintily at the cookie. She could refuse to give any name, but that would make it harder to talk about the supposed contact. A real name would be too easy to prove false and Giles would recognise a fake, but did that matter? She didn't want Giles to think she was making things up but she didn't care what he thought about the contact.

"Winston Thatcher-Lennon-Smythe." Cordelia said, deliberately picking a name that sounded too English to be real. "That's what I called him but I don't think it was his real name."

"An obvious alias." Giles agreed. "This Winston must have been acting without official council sanction. What did he look like?"

Cordelia couldn't answer that question; any description she gave might resemble too closely a real watcher.

"I can't answer that." Cordelia said. "Winston might get in trouble."

"He seems to have abandoned you." Giles said dryly.

Cordelia nodded. If Winston had been real she wouldn't have talked to Giles with him still around, not by herself.

"He couldn't be here if you were." Cordelia said, quite truthfully.

Winston couldn't be anywhere, since he didn't exist, and the future Giles she was really talking about couldn't be here now, not without creating a lot of problems.

"How did he recruit you?" Giles asked.

Cordelia cast her mind back, thinking about how she had drifted into the weirdness.

"He was insufficiently discreet," she said smiling. "When I started asking questions he told me the truth. He clearly needed my help and I could hardly turn him down, not when our work is so important."

Of course Giles had never actually admitted needing her help. He hadn't needed to. Anyone forced to rely on the likes of Willow and Xander had to be desperate.

"How did you know him?"

"I can't answer that." Cordelia said. At least, not until she had a chance to manufacture corroborating evidence.

"Literally?" Giles said. "Or do you mean won't? If you are under any constraints, magical or-"

"Nothing like that." Cordelia said firmly, not wanting to give Giles any excuse to use magic on her.

"What then?" Giles asked.

Cordelia thought quickly. She needed a reason to stay silent that Giles would accept, preferably one that covered all the questions she didn't want to answer. She had thought of a few possibilities earlier, while reading through that dull tome, generic explanations that would have worked whatever Giles believed. They needed a little tweaking now she knew what Giles actually believed but that wouldn't be difficult.

"Winston trusted me." Cordelia said. "If I broke his trust at the first excuse he would be disappointed."

"And yet you have told me of his existence." Giles said.

Cordelia smiled. "I'e told you nothing you hadn't already discovered."

"So far." Giles said. "I presume you did intend to do more than merely tell me you have secrets."

"Only because of the extraordinary circumstances." Cordelia said. "I don't like breaking promises unnecessarily. This is necessary. There are things you need to know. Winston is not one of them. I'm sure if you needed to know about him you would have been told."

"Winston is clearly a rogue." Giles said sharply. "If he had told anyone about his plans he would have been fired."

Giles looked at Cordelia then sighed . "I can't make you tell me anything but I can't fully trust you until I know the whole truth."

Cordelia struggled to keep her face calm. Giles had just surrendered! He'd given in completely, and admitted it.

Of course, her victory had been inevitable from the start. The only surprise was that Giles had given in so soon.

At least, he seemed to have given up. Giles was a good actor, almost as good as Cordelia herself, and he was dangerously clever. As her father said, 'some people never stop looking for an edge. Relax around one of them and they can talk you into selling the farm. You have to find out what they are really after, and let them know you've seen through their ruses.'

Which reminded her, she had been assuming that Giles wanted to keep his theory a secret but she had no real evidence for that assumption. He might have just been using that as bait to keep her from noticing his real motivations. He was certainly smart enough for that kind of chicanery.

"However," Giles said. "You might wish to reconsider if Winston is worthy of your loyalty. He lured you into the occult, all but guaranteeing your premature death, then abandoned you when he was most needed, and he didn't even have the decency to tell you his real name."

"Death?" Cordelia echoed. She knew being involved with the weirdness was risky, she'd realised that long before it became part of her routine, but Giles had never said death was a risk before.

"He didn't tell you-" Giles said. "Um, I mean, I-It's nothing, really. Forget I mentioned it."

Cordelia certainly wasn't going to fall for that act. That had not been a slip of the tongue; that had been a deliberate revelation. Giles wanted her to ask questions, presumably as part of some greater strategy; he didn't want her to realise the questions were his idea.

Cordelia wondered briefly about his motivations, then decided that could wait. Finding out what Giles meant by guaranteed death was more important.

She looked Giles in the eye. "My death is not nothing."

Giles looked down at the tea tray, a piece of elegant silverware that was definitely not school property.

"Well?" Cordelia said when Giles stayed silent.

"I should say that it has not yet been proved that this is more than a coincidence." Giles began.

"However, as far as we can tell, few field watchers have ever died a natural death. There are many cases where no body was found, and the older records are incomplete, but the pattern is suggestive. Even the headquarters staff have a statistically anomalous rate of early death, mostly due to unexplained accidents."

Cordelia could see why that might concern Giles but what did it have to do with her? She wasn't a watcher.

"We on the front line are less lucky." Giles said quietly. "We always seem to die ... unpleasant deaths, killed by the demons we fight."

Giles looked up. "Has Buffy told you how her first watcher died?"

Cordelia shook her head. She had never even been told his name.

"He was forced to shoot himself. If he hadn't Lothos would have turned him and Buffy would have died not long after. The previous watcher only outlived her slayer by two days. A vespoid demon had injected her with its spawn. They ate her alive, from the inside out, and she was conscious throughout."

Cordelia shuddered, remembering her nightmares, remembering how it had felt to see the maggots squirming beneath her skin, remembering-

"Another biscuit?" Giles said in the same calm tones he had used to convince Buffy that cutting her mother's tongue out was a perfectly reasonable course of action.

"Deny the memories, Cordelia." Giles said, sounding worried. "You must deny them."

Cordelia focused on Giles, reminding herself he had never really done those things, not even in his Ripper days.

She had to think about her next question, not ... that, or evil would have won another victory.

"What has this got to do with me?" Cordelia asked, her voice barely wavering. "I'm not a watcher."

Giles nodded approvingly. "Our records of non-watchers are less comprehensive, but the same trend is clear. Anyone who chooses to fight demons, as you have done-'

"I've what?" Cordelia said. "I never did. That's Buffy's job."

And she was welcome to it. Cordelia was willing to help, she could hardly refuse when Buffy so desperately needed her invaluable support, but she had no intention of making demon-fighting her career. Once she graduated she'd be able to leave all the Sunnydale weirdness behind her, and live a normal life again.

"Buffy was chosen. You chose." Giles said. "It makes little difference now. Even after you learned the truth you could have chosen to hide from it. You didn't. You chose to fight. That is what matters."

"I didn't sign up for a grand crusade." Cordelia said firmly. "I don't want to spend my life fighting vampires and demons. I'm only helping now because I don't want people to die."

Cordelia hesitated, trying to think of the best phrasing. She didn't want to make herself look bad but she didn't want Giles thinking she was like Buffy either.

"Do you think you could ever stop helping?" Giles asked. "If in twenty years you spot a vampire will you do nothing? Will you be able to stand back and let it kill as it pleases?"

"No." Cordelia said hotly. No decent person would be able to do that. Letting people die when you could realistically have saved their lives wasn't much better than actually killing them.

She wouldn't want to fight it, especially not when she was that old, but she would need to make sure the right people knew. She supposed she might even need to do something herself, if there was really no alternative.

"It has been suggested that is why so many active watchers die young." Giles said. "Wherever you go you will inevitably encounter vampires and demons."

"Not after I leave Sunnydale."

"Even then. They are not confined to the hellmouth; they just congregate here. No city is free of them. If you are lucky, and I hope you are, you might go for years without meeting any but, so long as you remain unwilling to watch people die, when you do meet them you will feel obliged to take action. Eventually your luck will run out."

That couldn't be the whole truth, it didn't explain the headquarter's staff, but it did sound plausible.

Cordelia wasn't worried though. She had already survived over a year on the hellmouth, she could certainly survive a lifetime away from it.

She wasn't worried but Giles clearly expected her to be, which meant he was trying to disturb her. Why?

Cordelia faked a despondent expression, as if she were thinking about the prospect of death, and thought over what Giles had said. What did he have to gain by making her worry?

He wanted to nudge her thoughts in his favour, which hadn't worked, but he was hampered by his false assumptions. She needed to work out what he would have expected her to think if Winston had been real.

Cordelia smiled, realising the answer. Giles was trying to undermine her trust in the watcher who had trained her, not realising he was that watcher.

"Why didn't you warn me?" Cordelia asked, wondering what excuse Giles would make.

"It was too late for you. As for Xander and Willow, would it have made any difference?"

Well, Cordelia knew she wouldn't have refused to help someone just because of a vague warning. Willow and Xander lacked her moral fibre, their affair showed that, but she didn't think either of them was that selfish.

"No," Cordelia said. "But-"

"Then it is better for them that they not know." Giles said. "I failed to protect them from knowledge of the vampire threat. I will protect their remaining innocence."

A noble-sounding sentiment but Cordelia wasn't impressed. She'd never sought any such protection and if Giles really believed what he just said he wouldn't have told her anything. He was probably just following the standard watcher policy.

Cordelia looked Giles in the eye. "So why tell me?"

"I would rather not have." Giles said with a straight face, "but if you will ask me questions you must expect answers."

Cordelia didn't believe that for a moment but she couldn't call Giles a liar to his face, not and hope to get anything out of the conversation.

"So," Giles said smiling. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

Corelia smiled back. "I don't want you to tell anyone else about this."

She'd avoided the question long enough to learn a good bit about what Giles was thinking; now it was time to tell Giles what he needed to know.

Giles nodded. "As long as it endangers no one I will keep your secrets."

That would have to do.

"During my time with Winston I saw the future that would have been, if this Omega-guy hadn't messed things up."

"But no longer?" Giles asked, looking intrigued. "There are said to be ways to induce vision."

Cordelia nodded. "What I saw was much more detailed than the normal cryptic gibberish."

"Hence Marcie." Giles said. "Did you mean her to die?"

"No." Cordelia said sharply. "That was unexpected. If we hadn't found her she would have gone mad and tried to kill me."

"Which means you've been trying to change the future."

Cordelia glared at Giles. "You can't blame me. I'm only human. Nothing I could do could have this much effect."

"One pebble can not divert a river," Giles agreed. "But the ripples may be visible for many yards downstream. What use is knowledge of a future that will not now be?"

It was obvious what Giles was doing but Cordelia wasn't going to be tricked into handing her information over for free.

"Lots." she replied. "Not everything has changed. I know what the annointed one looks like and who you will be dating next."

"You k-k-know?" Giles said. "B-but-"

Giles stopped and had a long drink of tea.

"Few prophecies are that detailed," he said, sounding calmer. "And with good reason. For anyone to know to much about their own future carries more dangers than the obvious."

"You see why I didn't want to tell anyone?" Cordelia asked, pressing home her advantage. "I might have said too much."

Giles put his cup back down. "Why tell me now?"

"If we compare what I saw-" Cordelia began.

"With what has actually happened. Yes, that should be useful. We'll need to establish how much it's safe for me to know, but..."

Giles trailed off into a thoughtful silence.

Cordelia smiled. She couldn't tell what Giles was really thinking but, whatever doubts he might be hiding, he seemed willing to act as though he believed her story, which was enough for now.

"First though," Giles said abruptly, "I will need a convincing demonstration of your foresight. I presume you intended to tell me about what was to have happened next?"

That question Cordelia had prepared for.

"I did not see all the details." she cautioned, "and you agree there are things I should be careful about mentioning."

Giles smiled. "Too much detail could be dangerous. Just tell me what you can."

"You know about the zoo visit on Monday?"

Giles picked up a letter and passed it to Cordelia. "It's been rescheduled for tomorrow."

Cordelia glanced at the letter, something about an official visit by the Mayor on Monday, then groaned. "We don't have much time."

It shouldn't be that difficult to keep Xander away from the hyenas but she'd hoped to have a few peaceful days' relaxation before the next crisis.

"A day is more warning than we normally get." Giles said. "What about the zoo?"

Cordelia half-smiled. "Xander will get a little too close to the animals."

When Cordelia finally got out of the library she leaned against the wall, mentally exhausted.

She'd won, of course, got most of what she wanted and given nothing away, but it had been a narrow victory, requiring all her considerable skill. If it hadn't been for Giles's little slips she might have cracked.

She'd need to do a lot more preparation for the next talk, and there would be a next talk, Giles hadn't given her much choice there.

"Cordelia." Harmony said with false sweetness. "We missed you this morning. You must tell us where you've been."

"Where were you last night?" Aura added. "Did you really have a date with a college guy?"

Cordelia sighed, then turned to face them.

Aura looked genuinely curious; she clearly had no idea how sensitive that question was.

Harmony did, but she didn't seem bothered. She just smiled and ostentatiously straightened her outfit, not a good move. Harmony's outfit was more elegant than normal, but bright red was most definitely not her colour.

"Yes," Harmony said. "Do tell."

Cordelia scowled. If Harmony thought she could get away with that attitude after the atrocious way she'd acted the previous night she was even more stupid than Cordelia had suspected.

"Have you forgotten already?" Cordelia said sharply. "You were there."

"I was in the Bronze." Harmony said, then looked at Aura. "She did not leave with me. She left with Buffy and her freak friends. She probably spent the morning with them too."

Cordelia smiled at Aura. "Harmony never did have a good memory, did she?"

For a moment Harmony looked strangely amused, her lips twitching into a genuine smile, but then her face tightened.

"At least I can remember who my real friends are."

Still looking at Aura, Cordelia nodded. "I suppose managing to remember two names might be considered an achievement, by some people."

Aura winced, looked at Harmony, then looked back at Cordelia.

"She," Cordelia continued, "has clearly forgotten what I told her only last month, that I have been rehearsing for the talent show."

Aura stepped backwards. "Um, I've remembered. I've, um, got to go. I've got t-to talk to a teacher about my work. She's waiting for me."

Aura turned round and hurried down the corridor.

Harmony smiled. "You think she might have noticed?"

Cordelia nodded. "How could she not? You-"

"Not me!" Harmony said sharply. "You. You've-"

"Me?" Cordelia said. "I'm not the one who brought up last night."

Harmony laughed scornfully. "You didn't have to. You're a freak now, and everyone kn-"

Cordelia moved closer to Harmony, menacingly close. "You will not say that, ever."

Harmony stood her ground. "Or what? You'll set Buffy on me?"

"No." Cordelia said quietly, though the idea was not without appeal, "I will cut you dead, and where I lead, everyone follows."

Harmony glared unwaveringly at Cordelia. "Not any more. You are not the woman you were."

"Enough." Cordelia snapped. "I know last night was ... unpleasant."

A pallid word that, but there were no words for what she had seen, no words that could capture the depths of the horrors to which she had been an helpless witness.

Cordelia shuddered, trying to remember what she'd been about to say.

"Unpleasant?" Harmony said. "Understatement much? Unpleasant is Xander's clothes or Willow's face. Last night was worse. Last night was absolute torture, and you will apologise for it. You will fall to your knees and -"

"An apology? After the way you acted?"

Harmony sighed. "I explained that last night. N-"

"You lied last night, Harmony." Cordelia said flatly. "To my face. Since you had enough mental composure to think up that smear you must have had enough to know better. Buffy may be a loser but there are limits."

Pointing out the many flaws of the losers was practically a duty, simple honesty required no less, but making up gossip was a step too far, and not just because it was dishonest.

"Clearly," Harmony said, "you didn't understand what I said. Perhaps if I repeat it more slowly, with smaller words, you will be able to understand."

"Harmony," Cordelia said sharply. "Even you couldn't be stupid enough to believe what you just said. Ap-"

"Listen carefully." Harmony said, as if Cordelia hadn't spoken. "I am normal. You are not. Normal people, like me, are not used to weird stuff. Weird people, like you, are. When weird stuff hap-"

"I am not weird." Cordelia said. "I am normal."

"You? Normal?" Harmony sneered. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

"I am normal." Cordelia repeated. "It is Sunnydale that isn't. You were there last night. You saw."

Cordelia tried to look sympathetic. "Clearly, you saw too much."

Harmony nodded. "I saw what you've been trying to hide."

Ignoring that feeble riposte, Cordelia continued "And your mind cracked. It's your fault, of course. You should have known better than to follow me, not that it matters now. All that-"

"Whose fault?" Harmony said disbelievingly. "You know your friends have always followed where you lead. You should have realised what would happen. And my mind didn't crack."

"Have you tried listening to yourself?" Cordelia said. "You wouldn't be talking to me this way if you were in your right mind."

Cordelia shrugged. "At least you can still pass for normal; most people would have been gibbering wrecks after last night, what with the torture and the shadows and the dreams. Your mind was only bruised, not broken. You'll be your old self again in a few weeks, with my help."

Help Cordelia was certain Harmony wouldn't want. Harmony had definitely suffered some kind of mental trauma last night, even someone as blind to emotional nuances as Willow would be able to see that, but she wasn't acting like someone who had been terrified.

Harmony wasn't starting at shadows, quite the opposite. She was meeting Cordelia's gaze unflinchingly, as she had never before dared do.

No, there had to be reasons other than the memory of fear for Harmony's new attitude. Cordelia had no idea what they might be, not yet, but she'd uncover them soon enough.

"I'm sure you'd just love that." Harmony said, her voice unexpectedly sarcastic. "You're the one who got me into this, deliberately. You po-"

Harmony bit off the word, then swiftly changed tack. "You're nothing like the Cordelia I used to know. You can't expect me to treat you like I did her."

Cordelia watched Harmony walk away down the corridor and smiled. Whatever was bothering Harmony couldn't be anything serious, just the light relief she needed to distract herself from impending apocalypse.

Twenty-five minutes later, after an hurried lunch, Cordelia was sat in the temporary science lab, half-listening to the teacher drone on.

She needed to work out what to do about Giles. He'd accepted her story, for now, but Giles was too smart not to look for corroborating evidence, evidence she would have to manufacture.

If she really had been working with a watcher in secret for months what traces would he have left, apart from the effects on her vocabulary?

"... half-fill with water," Mr Ward said, turning on the tap. "Then-"

Cordelia looked up.

The water was running pink.

Looking startled, Mr Ward dropped the beaker, then hastily turned off the tap.

The tap began to vibrate.

"A plumbing problem?" Mr Ward said.

The vibrations grew louder.

Willow nudged Xander, then put covered her ears and ducked under the desk.

Cordelia followed suit. Two seconds later, so did Harmony.

"It's only the plumbing." Mr Ward shouted, barely audible above the noise. "Don't-"

A final thunderous blast silenced Mr Ward, then the stench of blood swamped the room.

Her ears still ringing, Cordelia stood up and looked round. She had to know what was happening, or she wouldn't be able to tell Buffy what needed doing.

There was blood everywhere; dripping from the ceiling, oozing down the walls, pooling on the floor, more blood than Cordelia had ever seen outside her nightmares, even when Kevin died.

Most of the class was staring numbly at the blood, seemingly too shocked to move, but Harmony just looked curious.

Aura grabbed a lock of her blood-soaked hair, as if to wring it dry, then recoiled in disgust.

The broken tap was stuck in the ceiling, directly over the sink, and from the hole where it had been more blood gushed, an endless torrent to delight any vampire's heart.

Gwen closed her eyes and started mumbling "Not real. Not real," over and over.

Mr Ward struggled to his feet, then stepped forward to look at the blood fountain.

"That's certainly not the typical plumbing problem." Mr Ward said with mingled curiosity and disgust, "Can't be blood. It would have clotted. Smells the same though. Hmm."

Larry glanced down at his bloodstained hands, shuddered, then began feverishly wiping them on his pants.

Willow looked hesitantly at Buffy. "A omen? It could be a omen. Maybe something bad is happening, or-"

"Something bad is always happening." Buffy said, watching the sink warily.

"Something worse." Willow said quietly.

Xander smiled. "Or maybe the vamps are just playing tricks."

"We need Giles." Cordelia said, and not just because he'd be able to explain the blood. He'd also clean up the mess, shield them from awkward question, and generally help everyone pretend life was normal.

Xander scowled at her. "You going to run off and fetch him?"

Certainly not. That was the kind of thing she'd done before her wish, the kind of vital but easily-overlooked help that had left her on the sidelines. This time round she needed to be in the centre of the gang, where she could make sure Xander was properly punished for his affair and use her wish-granted foresight to steer Buffy in the right direction, which meant she needed be close behind Buffy when the action started.

Besides, the blood didn't seem to be dangerous. Disgusting, yes, but not actually dangerous.

Cordelia glared back at Xander. "Certainly not. Harmony can go."

Harmony quickly nodded and stood up, then stiffened. "And leave you here with the other freaks? You'll forget yourself and do something weird."

Harmony smiled. "Think how lucky you are to have a friend like me, someone who can remind you how normal people act when you get these bizarre urges. Aura will go."

"This is my classroom." Mr Ward said. "I decide who fetches the janitor."

Jonathan looked up, his eyes wide with terror. "S-shouldn't we e-evacuate the classroom? We c-can't continue with the l-lesson now."

Mr Ward hesitated, then nodded. "It will take the janitor a while to clean this mess up. You may leave."

Jonathan dashed for the door, closely followed by half the class, but the rest just sat there, paralysed by fear.

As the mob struggled to get through the door Cordelia looked sternly at Jonathan. "Tell Giles."

"He's a librarian." Mr Ward said. "He's not interested in plumbing."

Xander smiled. "Librarians need hobbies."

An eyeball plopped out of the sink, was carried up the fountain, then hovered at the top, defying the current.

"Um," Willow said. "I don't think it's an omen."

Her gaze fixed on the eyeball, Buffy nodded. "Never heard of anything like this."

A second eyeball plopped out of the sink, following the same path as the first.

"Impossible." Mr Ward said. "Any debris should collect in the pool."

A third eyeball joined the others.

"Mr Ward." Buffy said. "You should leave too. Go and, um, do teacher stuff."

Willow nodded. "You need to make alternative arrangements for the class that was have been in this room next period. Staying here isn't safe."

As another eyeball came out of the sink Cordelia edged her chair backwards.

Mr Ward sighed. "This is just a plumbing problem, somewhat atypical yes, but nothing a professional plumber would find unusual. They doubtless deal with this kind of problem every day."

"Only in Sunnydale." Xander said.

A fifth eyeball spiralled up the fountain.

"Where's Giles?" Buffy said, with a trace of petulance. "He'll know what's going on."

The blood fountain shuddered, then swelled, swiftly growing to ceiling height as its shape shifted.

Mr Ward blanched, then flattened himself against the blackboard and put his hands over his eyes.

Cordelia shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "It's just a demon. Kill it."

Buffy looked at the demon, now a five-sided column, eight feet tall, with a single eye glaring from high in each mirror smooth face, then looked back at Cordelia. "How?"

"Eureka," the demon said, its eyes twirling anticlockwise, then started babbling in a strange language.

Willow looked briefly thoughtful. "I think that's Greek."

Harmony laughed. "The geek speaks Greek, what a surprise."

Willow twitched. "I don't speak it, not yet anyway, it might be interesting to learn and I'd be able to read some of Giles's more esoteric books, but there are a lot of technical words with Greek roots, words like pneumocephalic or anootic. I don't know what it's saying, I'd need to see it written down first, but I do recognise enough of what it's saying to be able to tell that it's either speaking Greek or saying something very technical."

Xander looked blankly at Willow. "You think this thing is Greek?"

Willow nodded. "Either that, or it's been dead a long time."

The demon stopped babbling, hesitated, then started again, this time louder.

"That sounds more like Latin." Willow said

Cordelia nodded. She'd heard enough Latin from Giles to recognise the cadence of that language.

"I don't care where it comes from." Buffy said. "It's not staying here."

The demon paused, its eyes twirling clockwise, then flowed towards Mr Ward.

Harmony looked at Buffy. "Don't just stand there. Kill the monster, now."

One side of the demon rippled.

Buffy glanced back at Harmony, clearly displeased. "That's what-"

A blood-red tentacle shot out of the ripples, hitting Mr Ward in the centre of his forehead.

Mr Ward crumpled inwards, his skin tearing as it folded up.

Cordelia stared, trying to work out what had just happened. She'd seen people die before but there was normally more blood.

There was normally more body too, not just skin and hair. The demon must have done something with the rest of Mr Ward, something nasty, but it had happened so fast, faster than even Buffy could react.

There was something familiar about Mr Ward's death though. She'd never seen anyone die that way before, but she had heard about something similar.

Cordelia closed her eyes, trying to remember the details.

Of course, the swim team. The coach had turned them all into monsters, but when they'd changed they'd left their human skins behind.

That definitely wasn't what had just happened, so she couldn't use that experience directly, but she'd done some reading about demons who killed that way during the incident, reading that might prove useful now.

"Finally." the demon said. "Now that I have wrested the keys to your uncouth tongue from your elder's feeble mind even your pathetic little brains, incapable of true thought though they be, will be able to comprehend the folly of your actions, the fulness of my éclat, and the utter futility of resistance."

Great, Cordelia thought, a gloater. The more time it spent boasting the more time she would have to work out how Buffy could kill it.

"Who are you?" Willow asked. "What do you want?"

Xander twitched.

The demon's eyes twirled clockwise. "I will not have the name bestowed upon me by the great lord sullied by the unworthy tongues of malformed monkeys. You will address me as knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood."

"Or," Buffy said, "we could just kill you."

The demon chuckled "You puling brats? Kill me? Your friends are mere humans, talking cattle, and you, little spear, are young in your power. Without a guardian, to offer what passes for wisdom among your crude kind, you are helpless against my puissance. A knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood is not so easily defeated."

"Spear?" Willow said quietly.

The demon's left front side bulged, rapidly forming a new tentacle, which it pointed at Buffy.

"That slattern. I am no mere nightwalker or mindeater, easily lured to my death by the semblance of human weakness that hides your peculated strength. I am a knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood, and I detected the peculiar reek of her soul the moment I escaped the afterworld."

The demon paused, its blood bubbling in what it probably thought was a dramatic manner.

"She is the one you whimpering mortals call the Spear of the Guardians, Herald of Dawn, Sole Hope of Man, Bane of Nightmares and The Midnight Sun; and all your denials are but empty air."

"These days," Xander said dryly, "we just call her the slayer."

Looking half-embarassed half-amused Buffy muttered, "I prefer Buffy.

Ignoring them, Harmony looked straight at the demon, trembling only slightly. "Is there something you want, or are you just trying to bore us to death?"

"I, a knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood, know my duty to the great lord and the gods we serve. Other demons may waste their strength in a struggle for dominance over the fetid sewers of this cesspit but I have a greater purpose. I am a knight errant of the great lord. I have kept my oaths for a hundred centuries, and I keep them still. "

"That's nice." Cordelia said tartly. "Now tell us why you're here."

It probably wouldn't say anything useful, but the longer it spent talking the better.

"Second," the demon said, "among my oaths was extirpate all evil. That is why I have come, for there is evil present here to rival the First. I, knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood, can not permit it to live."

"You're going to kill yourself?" Xander said, looking surprised. "I'm-"

"No, insolent whelp," the demon said. "I am not evil. I have slain a myriad harbingers, and destroyed seventeen temples dedicated to the First. You are the ones who are evil. You have consorted with an Herald of the Last, and one amongst you has dared speak the midnight tongue. For those vile deeds there can only be one punishment."

"What deeds?" Harmony snapped. "I don't know about those freaks but I haven't killed anyone, and neither has Cordelia. You have. We saw you kill him, so don't pretend you're not evil. The only, um, -"

The demon laughed. "Such vanity! Human lives don't matter. You are a lesser breed, the pets of third-rate gods, bred as a mockery of my people. You live only a few short years; I can outlive the very hills. You are deaf to the song of magic; I can shape it at will. You-"

Cordelia tuned out the demon's rant; doubtless just a sequence of self-aggrandising lies.

How could Buffy kill it? She certainly couldn't risk touching it, she might end up like Mr Ward, so all she could do was throw stuff at it. The textbooks wouldn't be any use, too light, and the desks were too heavy, Buffy could pick them up but Cordelia didn't think she'd be able to get enough range with them, so throwing stuff was out.

The other option was to find some kind of weak point, a vulnerability Buffy could exploit. The demons obviously had one, or it wouldn't spend so much time boasting about its strength; she just had to find it, preferably before Giles turned up.

Passively waiting until Giles told Buffy how to save the day wouldn't look too good.

She didn't have his advantages though. He must have spent years studying demons, learning how to identify their weaknesses; she only had one year's experience, and she'd tried to avoid reading all those dull books, books written by watchers for watchers, books no watcher would be without.

Cordelia smiled, glad to have solved at least one of her problems. She just had to buy a bunch of old occult books then tell Giles that Winston had left them behind when he had to leave town. Once Giles saw she had physical evidence to back up her story he'd have to accept it as true.

"-And that is why I have the right to do as I will with all that lives."

"You are trying to bore us to death." Xander said, smiling. "It won't-"

The doorknob rattled, then began to turn.

Cordelia leaned forward, looking expectantly at the door. Giles would-

Startled, Cordelia blinked.

There wasn't a door there anymore, just a plank of wood firmly embedded in the walls.

"Buffy," Giles shouted, "Remember what I said last night. They can restore their old appearance b-"

Giles was cut off mid-sentence, probably by magic.

That was two spells the demon had cast, without all the flashing lights and mystic gibberish Cordelia had learned to associate with magic. It hadn't needed to chant, it hadn't even bothered pointing, it had just gone straight from thought to deed.

Well, almost straight. The demon had taken perhaps a second to respond when Giles tried opening the door, and another second when Giles started talking. It was a quick response by most standards, but it wouldn't be quick enough to beat Buffy.

"That won't keep Giles out," Buffy said, fiddling with her pen. "He knows about magic."

"He is only human." the demon said flatly. "True magic is beyond his feeble comprehension. He will not enter this room until you have left this world. His despair shall be most amusing."

"You want to kill us?" Harmony said, smiling strangely. "Get on with it, and kill me first."

"Do I look like a mooncalf?" the demon asked. "Other demons may be blind to the dangers inherent in your death but I am a knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood. I do not make such errors."

"Um, what dangers?" Willow asked. "What can- Oh! Ghosts. You're worried we might haunt you, but what about Mr Ward?"

Cordelia nodded. From what Giles had said about the deathgate and what she'd read that morning, it sounded like death was going to be less final now. Anyone with half an excuse to become a ghost would be able to haunt their killer, and violent death would certainly qualify.

Unfortunately, most demons were too stupid to think about that, but they'd find out soon enough.

Cordelia smiled, imagining the master's reaction when ghosts started swarming round him. If the ghosts could drive the demons away from the hellmouth, the deathgate wouldn't be all bad.

"Your tutor had not consorted with an Herald of the Last. His shade can hold no fear for me, but your souls are unclean. I will not loose such horrors on my world."

That was the second time it had accused them of doing bad stuff, probably because they'd helped kill a few vampires.

"The last?" Willow said, looking thoughtful. "You mean Omega?"

"Omega, Unbeing, the great unraveller; I care not by what pet name what you call my enemy. Four of you have consorted with its herald." The demon hesitated, its eyes lazily tumbling in place. "And, impudent querist, there is another blot on your soul. You dared speak the midnight tongue. For that crime alone, your soul is forfeit."

"The only people she has consorted with are these freaks." Harmony said hotly. "Let her go."

The demon laughed scornfully. "I can sense her aura, and the scars her dalliance with that foulness has left upon it, as they have been left upon yours." The demon hesitated again, its eyes spinning faster now. "Nor were either of you innocent before last night. She is a malign locus, and you burn with an unnatural desire for her body; both crimes for which death is insufficient punishment."

Xander smiled. "Really? Can I-"

Willow quickly elbowed him in the ribs.

"It's a demon, Xander." Cordelia said patiently. "They lie."

"And if three were already accursed, what of the fourth?" the demon said quietly, focusing three eyes on Xander.

Willow casually nudged her pen, knocking it onto Buffy's desk.

"You bear the Herald's mark more lightly." the demon said, looking at Xander. "Did you dream of laughter?"

"Yes." Xander said slowly, apparently surprised by the question.

"Truly evil laughter?" the demon said hopefully. "Laughter more dread than a banshee's wail? The laughter of which the murmurings of the Cocytus are but the faintest echo? Tell me you heard the laughter that negates all hope, the laughter that sets the works of the very gods at naught. Tell me you heard sniggering of the Last."

Xander looked blankly at the demon. "Could you say that again, in English?"

"Was it really bad evil laughter, like Buffy heard in her dream that time?" Cordelia clarified, before the demon could start repeating itself.

"You're worried," Willow said, looking at the demon. "Why? You've said Omega is your enemy too. Why would you want to hear its laughter? What could be worse?"

"Suprisingly smart, for a human." the demon said, its eyes still focused on Xander. "If your soul were clean you would make a superb pet. Now tell me, boy, what was the nature of the laughter you heard."

Xander hesitated, then shrugged. "It was laughing at the bad stuff."

The demon swiftly moved backwards, its eyes circling at a dizzying speeds. "Ioculator lasciviat pauperum tabernas regumque turres. Omega edax rerum. Incidis in Scylla cupiens vitare Charybdim."

Cordelia frowned. The demon seemed worried, so the laughter Xander had heard was either good news or a looming disaster. If only she'd understood what the demon had just said she might have a better idea which but she'd never learnt Latin and the few words she had recognised just added to the confusion. What did Omega have to do with lascivious paupers?

Willow finished scribbling something down, then dropped her pen on Buffy's desk, apparently by accident.

"You know what the laughter means?" Xander said, half hopefully.

"It means, little fool, that you should have been eviscerated at birth."

"Forget about Xander." Harmony said. "He's just a loser. Cordelia hasn't consorted with anything evil. Let her go, and she can tell everyone how great you are. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Harmony," Cordelia snapped. "I don't make deals with demons. They're evil, and they always cheat."

Harmony sighed. "I'm just trying to save your life."

"Don't bother," the demon said. "Both of you must perish. Such is the price of consorting-"

"With the herald." Xander echoed. "We know. Can't you say anything else?"

"You have glimpsed the wind that withers the fruit upon the vine, the rock on which all hope founders. Its shadow lies upon your dreams and haunts your every waking moment. Soon, the memories shall devour your mind from within, reshaping you into abomination. These are not matters that can be laughed away, little fool, not even by your kind. Only one power can do that, and its touch would be no safer. Thus it is that I must act, in fulfilment of my ancient oaths as a knight errant of the great lord, to ensure that you are destroyed, body and soul."

It sounded like the demon was talking about the shadow tree, especially since it had earlier mentioned the previous night, but the demon was being a lot more pessimistic than Giles. Cordelia just hoped that was because the demon was underestimating the strength of the human spirit, not because Giles was wrong.

The demon hesitated, then laughed. "And now you will learn how. While you were safely enraptured by my wisdom, thus avoiding the distractions of combat, I have been covertly working magic with a subtlety beyond human comprehension, preparing the ground for your doom. Now, behold, the flowering of the instrument of your demise!"

A dozen tentacles bulged out of the demon, all pointing at the back wall.

Cordelia turned round.

Tiffany and Jason were both leaning against the wall, blank looks in their eyes.

As Cordelia watched they turned to face each other, walked forwards until they were almost touching, both took two steps backwards, then bent at the waist, bending over until their heads banged together in the middle.

"Mind control?" Willow muttered; obviously correct, but there had to be to it than that. Watching modern dance wasn't fatal.

Tiffany and Jason straightened up, then tried again. This time their lips met in the middle, their mouths opening into a deep kiss, but their hands stayed firmly by their sides.

"Little spear," the demon sneered. "Your classmates are about to die. Will you watch, or will you try and stop me, knowing-"

Buffy snatched the pens off her desk then, her hands moving at eye-blurring speed, threw them all at the demon.

The pens whistled thorugh the air, each heading straight for one of the demon's eyes.

The demon zoomed left, moving so fast Cordelia couldn't even see a blur.

"I did warn you," the demon said, almost conversationally. "You are no match for me. I am the master of flesh and blood, and you are my toy. Later, we shall spend many weeks together, exploring the limits of your endurance. Until then, have a migraine."

Buffy gasped, then covered her eyes, wincing as she did so.

"Don't worry," the demon said. "The pain will stop when I've disposed of your friends."

Buffy tried to stand, but stumbled and fell, then curled up on the floor, whimpering in pain.

As Willow and Xander moved to help her, not that there was anything they could do, the demon spoke again. "This is the parlous part. Distract me now and everyone in the building will perish."

Cordelia turned back round.

Still kissing, Tiffany and Jason took one step backward, but their lips didn't move. They just stretched.

Tiffany and Jason were almost two feet apart now but a tube of flesh still linked them, a red ring round its middle, where their lips had melted together.

Their faces rippled then began to flow, the flesh peeling off their bare skulls and oozing down the ever-stretching tube connecting them.

Cordelia looked away, not wanting to be reminded of her dreams.

Harmony shuddered, then looked at Cordelia. "This is what happens when you associate with freaks and losers. Do as I say and you'll soon be normal again."

"What losers has Gwen been associating with?" Cordelia snapped.

This was certainly not a good time to start arguing, but it would blot out the sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking.

"You." Harmony said.

"Be quiet, please." Willow whispered. "The noise is hurting Buffy."

"Of course," Cordelia whispered, then looked at Harmony. "You dare care me a loser? Now I know you've cracked. I was willing to help you, but now I'm beginning to wonder: do you still deserve to be my friend?"

It would be better for Harmony if she wasn't, stopping her from being tempted to follow Cordelia into dangerous places, and it wouldn't harm Cordelia's reputation. Spending time with Aura and the others would be enough to keep her social staus intact, and there should be no risk of any of them becoming too curious.

Harmony scowled. "Do I deserve to get locked in a classroom with a demon and a bunch of freaks?"

A minute of whispered arguments later the demon spoke: "It is done."

"It's ugly," Xander whispered, looking at the back wall. "Should I be impressed?"

Cordelia turned to look.

There was nothing recognisable left of Tiffany and Jason now, just an arch of pulsing flesh over gates formed from human bones. There was a demonic face at the apex, eight feet above the floor, its yellow eyes leering down, but the rest of the arch was all slimy guts coiling round pillars of throbbing muscle.

At the base of the arch, Tiffany's earings lay next to a few scraps of cotton and torn denim; all that remained of their clothes.

Unable to look any longer at the arch, Cordelia focused her gaze on the bone gates.

They moved, just as Cordelia had expected. There wouldn't have been any point to them otherwise.

Red light seeped through the crack between the gates.

The gates swung away from Cordelia, moving into the space behind the walls, the space where the next classroom should have been.

After one glimpse of the hellish landscape beyond the gates Cordelia turned away, not wanting to add to her nightmares.

"Knn-Yrr," the demon said, "a dimension difficult to enter, impossible to leave. There you will die, and there your tainted souls will be trapped."

Cordelia quickly move to stand by Xander. With Buffy incapacitated they didn't stand much chance in a fight but his help was better than nothing.

"And to usher you into that dimension," the demon said, "your classmates will serve."

Cordelia frowned, wondering why the demon didn't simply shove them through the gate itself.

"It is a simple matter-" the demon said.

As one, all the other people in the room, the ones who had never before been involved in anything weird, stood up.

"-to strip humans of that-"

Their faces changed, their mouths bulging forwards as their foreheads sloped back.

"-which they so laughably call a mind,"

Dull yellow eyes looked out of bestial faces.

"-and to make their bodies revert"

Broadening shoulders and newly bulging muscles stretched their clothes tight.

"-to their ancestral shape,"

As their clothes tore, fur spread across their skin.

"-becoming the animals they should have remained,"

Gwen casually reached down, ripped off half her skirt, and began scratching her upper thigh.

"-mere tools, apt to my use."

The once-human creatures all started to walk towards Cordelia and the others, snarling menacingly as they advanced.

Harmony dropped to the floor and began crawling toward the wall.

Cordelia slipped her shoes off, quickly picking up one herself and passing the other to Xander who looked uncertainly at it.

Willow reached over Buffy, stuck her hand in Buffy's backpack, and pulled out a small axe. "Anyone know how to use this?"

Then the creatures were on them.

Cordelia narrowly dodged the first punch, kicked the ex-Amanda in the kneecaps, then slammed the heel of her shoe hard into the next apeboy's side; brutal, she knew, but necessary. With her life in danger she couldn't afford to fight fair.

It did help that she couldn't tell who most of them had been. She'd only recognised Amanda by her earrings. A couple of the other ex-girls also had signs of their former identities left but the rest could have been anyone. They were all apeboys now, bestial figures draped in rags, and that included the girls. Humanity's ancestors must have been really flat-chested, judging by the ex-girls' figures.

An apeboy grabbed Cordelia by the neck and yanked her off the floor.

Buffy groaned in pain, grabbed the apeboy holding Cordelia by the ankle, twisted, sending it sprawling, then groaned again.

Xander steadied Cordelia before she could fall, then punched another apeboy in the stomach.

Still groaning in pain, Buffy slowly sat upright.

Harmony flattened herself against the wall between the window and started flailing at the two apeboys attacking her.

The next apeboy grabbed Cordelia's hair and pulled.

Cordelia screamed, hit it in the face with her shoe, then managed to clip an apeboy attacking Xander on the backswing.

Buffy, her face contorted with pain, grabbed an apeboy by the foot, lifted it above her head, threw it at the demon, then collapsed again.

The apeboy landed two foot short of the demon, but didn't get up.

Another apeboy jumped on a desk and started kicking Willow.

She stumbled, then tripped it up with the axe.

Cordelia stepped sideways, dodging a punch, then scowled. She'd been forced to step toward the back of the classroom, where the gate waited, and not by accident. That was the only direction the apeboys weren't attacking from, the only direction she could retreat in. It was also the way to a living hell.

Harmony was standing only five feet from the back wall now, with a window at her back.

If this kept up, they'd all be forced through the gate within five minutes, and that was assuming she could manage to stay upright.

Harmony ducked a punch. The apeboy put its arm straight through the glass, then stared blankly at the blood.

But Cordelia was not Buffy. She did not have Buffy's unnatural strength and resilience, nor did she have even the smallest fraction of Buffy's combat skills.

An apeboy sidestepped, dodging Cordelia's kick, and jostled the apeboy attacking Willow, knocking its punch off target.

All Cordelia had to protect herself were her instincts, and those were not enough.

Still groaning, Buffy grabbed another apeboy by the ankle, pulled it down, then knocked it out.

Cordelia had managed to fend off a few blows, and to hurt some of the apeboys, but she knew she couldn't keep it up. The bruises were starting to pile up, and her muscles were growing tired.

Soon she would slip up, and the apeboys would take her down. She would be helpless in their hands, unable to resist when they threw her through the gate.

Breathing heavily, Willow clubbed an apeboy in the shoulder with the flat of the axe.

Buffy was too pain-crippled to help, Xander and Willow had even less experience of combat than Cordelia, and Harmony was hopeless.

One apeboy dodged Xander's punch, but another tripped over Buffy, falling straight into the path of Xander's fist. He knocked the stumbling apeboy backwards, where it clutched at a third apeboy, pulling them both down.

No one was going to rescue Cordelia, so she would have to do it herself, which should certainly impress the others.

Still thinking, Cordelia ducked a punch then stamped on the apeboy's foot.

Again Harmony ducked a punch, tricking the second apeboy into putting its arm through the window.

Stupid of it, but none of them had shown much intelligence. They hadn't even tried to disarm Willow. They were just relying on their brute strength to overwhelm Cordelia and the others.

The demon must have literally stripped their minds away, a big mistake. It clearly couldn't control their bodies directly, or the apeboys would be fighting a lot smarter, but it did have enough control to make them attack; perhaps enough to tell them what to do but not how to do it. That meant Cordelia was effectively fighting a pack of dangerous animals, and animals were easy to trick.

Cordelia feinted left then tripped the apeboy up as it dodged right.

Cordelia smiled, then tricked another apeboy into hitting its neighbour. It was a tactic that wouldn't have worked on a five-year old, but it would be enough to win this fight.

Now all she had to do was work out how to kill a demon.

"Of course!" Willow said as she dodged a punch. "That demon's really only a possessed corpse."

Cordelia remembered Giles saying something similar the previous night, just after they'd left the morgue. The new demons might look and act just like they had in their heyday but they weren't proper demons; they were just demonic ghosts riding shapechanged human corpses, apart from Ytwomj.

Ytwomj had stolen the body of a nascent vampire, a body already part demon, and so returned to true life. The others had taken bodies both fully human and fully dead, achieving only undeath.

Despite its obvious power this blood demon was technically still just a zombie, with the same weaknesses as any other zombie, which must be what Giles had been trying to tell them before the demon had cut him off. The new demons would need to do some weird ritual with bits of its original body to get rid of those weaknesses, and they hadn't had time yet.

A ring of salt should be enough to trap the demon, or maybe a six-pointed star, but only if they could keep the demon still long enough to draw round it. They didn't have anyone invisible to sneak up on the thing this time.

Harmony was wedged into the corner now, and Cordelia was only five feet from the gate but there were only eight apeboys still standing; two attacking Harmony and six-

Buffy grabbed an apeboy by the ankles, pulled it down to the floor, knocked it out then, looking sickly pale, rolled under a desk.

-seven apeboys still standing; five of them attacking Cordelia and Buffy's friends.

Also, normal salt might not be enough, not considering what Giles had said about the effects of a deathgate making undead stronger. They might need to use sea salt, or to bless it first, or something weirder.

Hitting it with the Osirian amulets might work too, if they were as effective against zombies as against ghosts, but again only if they got the demon to stand still, which ruled that out.

Cordelia grimaced at the taste of blood, kneed the apeboy in the groin, than ran her tongue round the inside of her teeth, groaning when two of them wobbled. Nobody would be able to tell, once her dentist had repaired them, but it was still a nuisance. Her parents might ask questions.

Three feet left and Xander tripped an apeboy then Willow, after a nervous glance at the gate, stamped hard on its back.

Good to see Willow putting self-preservation above her scruples; they weren't worth dying for. Perhaps now she'd start using the sharp side of that axe.

"Can either of you remember what you read this morning?" Willow asked. "It might be relevant."

It had been dull. Cordelia had skimmed half of it, using the time to prepare for her talk with Giles, but the gist had been clear.

Nothing could move to a better address with an invitation. It didn't matter whether they were trying to move dimensions, timelines, or just bodies; they needed permission from someone who belonged there. It was all because of some old spell, cast soon after Omega first came ravening from the outer darkness, so the prohibition wasn't absolute. Still, breaking the rule was difficult enough that most demons preferred to trick people into giving them an invitation.

The new demons hadn't. The shadow tree had forced open a deathgate for them, letting them into Cordelia's world without an invitation, or the protections it gave.

Two feet left and Cordelia tripped an apeboy then, as it stumbled past, elbowed it in the back, knocking it into the wall.

The new demons were like gatecrashers at a party. The hosts might not notice them, as long as they didn't do much, but once they were noticed security would eject them.

Similarly, if Cordelia remembered the book correctly, there would now be forces rising against the new demons, forces that would strive to eject them from Cordelia's universe. The new demons had a tough fight ahead, unless they managed to fake or steal an invitation.

The book had been rather vague about what those forces would be like though, just saying they'd make good use of locally available resources. They weren't likely to turn up in time to help Cordelia anyway.

One foot left and Cordelia stumbled backwards when an apeboy punched her in the eye then, when it charged at her, stepped aside. The apeboy tried to turn, skidded, and fell, its head hitting a table with an audible thud.

"Exorcism?" Willow muttered, which would have been a good idea if there had been anyone in the room who knew how to do magic.

Harmony ducked between the two groggy looking apeboys, and limped over to join Cordelia.

Clenching her teeth, Buffy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, pulled down another apeboy, then curled up, groaning in pain.

Half a foot from the gate, but it was four against three now, not counting Buffy.

Why hadn't the demon done anything? Maybe it couldn't touch them without killing them, and getting itself haunted by their ghosts, but if it had just given them all migraines they wouldn't have been able to fight.

Cordelia kicked the apeboy attacking Xander in the small of the back, then Harmony grabbed its left arm and swung the apeboy round, sending it crashing into the back wall.

Xander stumbled, then punched the apeboy attacking Willow in the neck. When the apeboy turned to look Willow kneed it in the groin, then punched it in the stomach.

All four of them hit the last apeboy at once.

Cordelia looked over her shoulder at the gate, just two inches behind her, saw the shapes reaching for her, and quickly jumped forward. Those things clearly couldn't get through, but Cordelia wasn't going to stand any closer than necessary.

Willow dropped the, still unbloodied, axe, looked at Cordelia and stiffened. "Your mouth, it's bleeding."

Cordelia shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "I'll live."

"How?" the demon said. "You are only vermin."

"If you wanted stupid minions," Xander said smiling, "you should have made them stronger."

Cordelia nodded. If the apeboys had been vampire-strong they would have lost, but they had only been body-builder-strong, not strong enough to make up for their stupidity. They'd spent half their time getting in each others way. They'd been slow too, slow enough that she could dodge them.

Even so, it had been a close fight, leaving them all battered. Xander's knuckles were bleeding, as was his nose; Willow had a cut over her left eye, probably from a ring, and was rubbing at her right shoulder; Harmony had a limp, bloody knuckles, and a cut on her cheek; Cordelia wasn't sure she wanted to know what she looked like.

"That's why it hasn't touched us." Willow said excitedly, then looked at the demon. "You're scared to."

"I am a knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood." the demon boasted. "I do not fear puny humans."

Willow smiled. "But we've stood in the shadow of a herald - not on purpose, we couldn't have done it on purpose because we had no idea they existed, and if we had known we wouldn't have gone anywhere near it - and that worries you. If you'd used your magic on us or fought us yourself we would have lost. There has to be a reason why you didn't, and I don't think it's because you've got a secret plan. Of course, if I'm wrong, you'll stand still and let me touch you."

Cordelia silently cursed. She should have thought of that. Giles had said much the same often enough, and so had her father. If your enemy's behaviour didn't make any sense they were probably hiding a weakness you didn't know about, either that or they were mad.

Willow rubbed her neck, then put her hand over her mouth, a convincing display of nerves, if you didn't know Willow. Cordelia knew better. Willow had to be planning something.

Cordelia glimpsed a piece of string falling down Willow's back, then Willow stuck out her clenched fist and slowly stepped towards the demon.

The demon started laughing but its eyes were spinning.

Her arm trembling slightly, Willow stepped to within an hairsbreadth of the demon.

The demon zoomed sideways.

Okay, so the demon couldn't directly attack them. That was nice to know, but it didn't get them out of the classroom.

Cordelia glanced down at Buffy, who appeared to have passed out. She'd done her best, fighting through the migraine, but that wasn't enough.

"This will be easy," Willow said. "I think. It could fit through the gaps but I don't think it can jump high enough. We need to move the desks first."

"What are you babbling about now?" Harmony snapped.

"It is of no consequence." the demon said, pointing a tentacle at the door. "There must be thousands of people living in this cesspit, waiting for me to free them from the burden of mind. Faced with such numbers your doom shall be assured."

After a moment's shock Cordelia raced to the door, knowing she wasn't fast enough. Even if she did manage to block the door they couldn't stop the demon escaping through the windows or going back into the sewers, but that didn't matter. She wasn't going to sit and watch while the demon turned everyone in her town into mindless apeboys. Doing nothing just wouldn't be right.

The door wavered then vanished, not even dust left behind.

On the other side stood Giles, a lit candle in his left hand, a charred stake in his right, and a bag at his feet.

Halfway to the door Cordelia stumbled into Willow, almost knocking them both down. Xander quickly dodged round them, sliding to a halt in front of Giles.

"A volunteer," the demon said. "You may watch his transformation, the first of many, or you can submit to my authority and go meekly to your just fate. It is your choice."

Why was it wasting time talking? It must know they'd suspect a bluff unless it actually changed Giles, so there had to be a reason for the delay, perhaps the same reason as why it hadn't just changed Giles when he tried opening the door earlier.

Giles looked frantically round the classroom then froze, his eyes locked on Buffy. For a long moment he stared at her, his face pale, then he slowly turned away and breathed deeply.

As Cordelia reached the doorway Harmony pulled a shard of glass from the broken window, looked at her wrists, and shuddered.

Giles threw the stake at the demon, only to see the demon disintegrate it in mid-air, then stuck in hand in his jacket.

"Run!" Willow said. "Before it can warp you."

Giles pulled out his Osirian amulet. "I am under the aegis of Osiris Khenti-amentiu. No child of the grave may touch me."

"Osiris is sleeping." the demon said.

Giles nodded. "But his power still flows through the ancient channels."

Willow looked intently at Xander, then sidled round to the far side of the demon.

"Power unguided by intelligence," the demon said. "Circumventing the protections that feeble device offers will poses no real challenge for a knight errant of the great lord, herald of the doom of man, and master of flesh and blood. My inevitable victory will be delayed by less than five minutes."

Not for the first time either. Cordelia had already delayed its plans by a few minutes, fighting off those apeboys, with a little help from the others. No doubt she could do so again, through one stratagem or another, until the minutes stretched into hours. Maybe Giles would think of something, maybe the demon would slip up but either way they needed all the time they could steal.

Holding his hands out of the demon's sight, Xander gestured at Cordelia, pointing first at her then to her left. He couldn't have thought of anything himself, so he must be relaying some idea from Giles or Willow.

Harmony strolled across the classroom, stopping three feet from the demon. "Put the door back now. I don't want to be seen in here with these freaks."

The demon focused four eyes on Harmony. "Your petty wants are of no consequence. I am a ..."

Taking advantage of the demon's distraction, Cordelia quickly circled a third of the way round it, ending up opposite the door.

Xander shuffled a little closer to Cordelia.

Harmony smiled at the demon. "Pathetic much? These losers have outwitted you. Crawl back in to the sewers, where you belong, and leave Cordelia alone."

"A transparent ploy." the demon said. "I will not be goaded into killing you. I know what terrors would follow."

"Terrors?" Giles echoed, sounding curious.

"It's scared of ghosts." Willow explained, prompting another defensive speech from the demon.

"Of course," Giles shouted five seconds later. "I should have thought of that earlier. Many ghosts are natural telempaths and some can project emotionally charged memories."

That fitted with what Giles had said the previous morning, but it couldn't be the whole story since the demon wasn't scared of everyone's ghosts, only of the ghosts of those who had seen the shadow tree.

"The dreams." Willow said, just seconds ahead of Cordelia. "You're scared our ghosts will project those memories. Seeing our ghosts could be almost as bad as having those dreams."

"Insolent brat," the demon said. "Do not pretend innocence. You knew full well the consequences when you chose your path.

While the demon was still speaking, Willow looked at Cordelia and silently mouthed "Amulet, on ten."

After a moment Cordelia realised what Willow must be planning. It should work, since the demon had let them surround it, but it would be risky.

"What consequences?" Xander asked, eight fingers held up behind his back.

"You would be like a banshee." Giles said.

"Far worse." the demon said. "Their unhoused souls would become windows into the outer darkness, wellsprings of despair, and in their shadow would prosper all that is vile."

That might be true, but Cordelia would have to think about that risk later. The demon wouldn't waste its time telling them what it thought they already knew unless it was trying to distract them, as it had earlier. It had to be planning another spell.

"I wouldn't do that." Willow said indignantly while surreptitiously showing Cordelia the amulet concealed in her clenched fist.

"Of course you would. Remember the master plan?" Cordelia said hastily, before Willow could convince the demon it was safe to kill them.

As she spoke Cordelia casually rubbed the back of her neck, undoing the clasp on her amulet.

"Oh, that master plan." Willow said unconvincingly. "Our brilliant plan to, um, use evil against evil."

Harmony scowled, then shuffled diagonally backwards until she was leaning against the chemical supply cupboard.

Xander signalled four.

"The Herald did not serve your plans; you served it. You followed a trail of obscure references in esoteric tomes, but that trail was laid down by other pawns of the Herald and the promise at its end was false. I studied the lore of the outer darkness in the library of the great lord, before my people were driven from this world by the plague that is man. Most of my fellow demons were not born until much later, after men had torched the great libraries, when only fragments of my people's lore survived. They know too little of the Heralds to recognise what horrors your deaths would now entail."

So all the demons wouldn't be too scared of ghosts to kill them, only the well-read ones. Disappointing, but there was still a chance the blood demon was wrong. It had repeatedly underestimated Cordelia; perhaps it was also underestimating its fellow demons.

Xander signalled two.

Cordelia looked carefully at Xander, trying to decide whether he was going to wave his amulet on one or zero. They had to strike together if Willow's plan was going to work.

Xander signalled one.

Cordelia started moving, then froze when Xander and Willow stayed still.

The demon laughed. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice your pathetic attempts at subterfuge?"

Then the blood demon had underestimated them again.

"They're waking up." Harmony said from behind Cordelia.

Cordelia looked to her right, and winced. One of the apeboys had just stood up.

Holding her amulet between two fingers, Willow closed her eyes, then stuck her arm straight out.

Cordelia dangled her amulet from its chain then swung it at the demon.

When they touched the demon the amulets began to glow.

Its eyes spinning fast, the demon giggled. "That tickles."

Not what Cordelia had wanted to hear, but she didn't believe it. Giggling was a human reflex, and the demon wasn't remotely human. It wouldn't laugh in a human way; it would more likely just twiddle its eyes.

No, the demon had to be faking. Otherwise it would have brushed Giles aside by now. Perhaps, if they pushed the amulets further in ...

Gripping her amulet more firmly, Cordelia took one step forward, then gagged.

This close she could smell the blood, its coppery reek filling her mouth.

Somewhere behind her Cordelia heard glass shattering, probably Harmony throwing a bottle.

Cordelia clamped her right hand over her nose and mouth, hesitated, then thrust her left hand deep into the demon.

The amulet glowed more brighter, but nothing else seemed to happen.

The demon laughed again. "Your protégés are ill-informed, little shieldling. Those devices are much better suited for self-defence. I could withstand this feeble attack for hours, and by then I w-"

The demon stopped mid word, its eyes a blur of motion. "Megali archontas. Anefiktos. Knn-Yrr kurnugia"

Cordelia blinked, wondering whether that was good news or bad.

The demon babbled a few more foreign words, then Cordelia felt a tug on the amulet.

"Uh-" Xander said.

Redness, golden light, and a thunderous roar.

Pulled off her feet, Cordelia slid along the floor until she hit a desk.

"-oh." Xander finished, swaying slightly.

"Aaah!" Cordelia gasped in sudden pain, then looked at her palm, wincing at the sight of the gash. Half a inch deep and bleeding, that was no ordinary rope burn.

Using her other hand Cordelia pulled herself upright and tried to work out what had just happened.

Giles quickly pulled his tie off and gave it to Cordelia, then gave Willow a clean-looking handkerchief.

Cordelia started bandaging up her hand while she looked round the classroom.

The demon was smouldering, two plumes of grey smoke rising from its near side.

The amulet had been wrenched from her hand with force enough to sever fingers, but it looked like the demon had been hurt too.

"Broken." Giles said, gently stroking Willow's fingers. "You'll need a splint."

Cordelia spotted two scorched looking amulets on the floor, halfway to the demon.
Xander and Giles didn't look injured, and there were only two plumes of smoke.

Giles began examining Cordelia's hand.

Something big had rushed past her on the left, moving so fast she'd been dragged along by its wake.

That must have been the demon, charging the gap between her and Willow.

Two of the amulets had gone off, injuring the demon, but the other two hadn't done anything, probably because the demon had been moving away from their holders.

The demon hadn't left the classroom, though it easily could have; it was standing in front of the gate muttering foreign words.

Something must have happened to the gate, something more important than all the demon's other plans.

"This needs stitches." Giles said, then turned to look at the demon.

"Stitches?" Harmony echoed, looking coldly furious.

One of the plumes of smoke winked out.

"Demon," Harmony said sharply, radiating hauteur. "You will explain yourself, now."

"I know your puny sensorium is incapable of detecting a maledicted causal nexus," the demon said. "But surely even your feeble eyes can sense the malignities now approaching local immanence."

"You mean something bad's coming?" Cordelia said. "One of your friends?"

Probably not, since the demon refused to admit it was evil, but needling the demon might get it to tell them something useful.

"One of your friends," the demon said as the last of the smoke vanished. "They too consorted with the heralds. This is what became of them. Is it truly the destiny you desire?"

It had to be talking about the things beyond the gate, all the other horrors visible in the room was the demon's own work, but the demon had been adamant that those things couldn't come though its gate.

Cradling her injured hand, Cordelia edged left until she could see round the demon, see if she needed to run.

At first, she saw nothing.

There was nothing sticking out of the gate, no tentacles squirming into the classroom, no cracks in the floor.

Cordelia shivered. There was nothing visible, but somehow it looked wrong, deeply, fundamentally wrong.

Remembering the previous night, Cordelia looked at the floor tiles.

They didn't look very square.

"Look sideways, Cordelia." Giles said. "That ... monstrosity is leaking."

Cordelia looked at the wall beside the gate, and glimpsed something flickering to her right.

"What is it?" Willow asked, and Giles began to explain.

Looked at directly, the flicker vanished, but when she looked away again it was still there, a roiling mass of shadow and fire oozing out of the gate.

"You said this was impossible." Cordelia said, glaring at the demon.

"I underestimated the last," the demon said. "And in avoiding Scylla found Charybdis. Now the world must pay for my lapse."

"You may be just a talking monkey, a mockery of my people," the demon said. "But you are still a shieldling, bound by the ancient vows. Perhaps you may be of some small use against the common enemy."

Cordelia turned round, trying to see who the demon was talking to now.

"My vows are to fight your kind," Giles said. "Not to take sides in your squabbles."

The demon pointed at the blackboard. "Have you sufficient lore to recognise this sigil?"

As it spoke, blood jetted out of the demon, arcing ten feet across the classroom, and painting a geometrical pattern on the blackboard.

Giles hesitated. "I've seen it in the council archives. It was, um, said to be the badge used by a defunct group of rogue watchers."

"A partial truth," the demon said. "It is the sigil of the knights of the great lord."

His eyes widening, Giles looked first at the pattern then at the demon.

"But it incorporates the four signs. You can't use those."

"Cease your denial," the demon said. "Had I no right to this sign I would have been struck down."

Giles nodded. "B-but you'd have had to have sworn the vows."

"A commonality which shall provide the basis for a modicum of mutual trust."

Ridiculous. Giles couldn't have anything in common with a demon; it had to be lying.

Giles stared at the demon. "H-how? Those are watcher vows. You're a demon. You can't be a watcher."

"Presumptuous child," the demon sneered. "Those vows are older than the planet on which we stand. They have been spoken by octopodous savants swimming in methane seas, and by the mirror light birds, who flock in the heart of stars. Your claim is an insult to every one of those legions of heroes."

That might be true, but it wasn't relevant. The demon was just trying to overawe Giles, but Giles knew those tactics too well, as Cordelia's talk with him had proved.

Whatever the demon wanted from Giles, it would be better off asking for it straight out. Its posturing was just wasting time.

"B-but the watchers aren't that old," Giles protested. "And we're all human."

"Names change, and the memory of man was ever short."

"You've killed people," Giles said firmly, looking at Mr Ward's remains. "Innocent people."

"Humans are not true people," the demon said. "Their lives are as worthless as the sands of Araby. They are weak where I am strong -"

"Overcompensating much?" Harmony interrupted, sounding bored, then glanced nervously at the gate. "Are you going to spend all day boasting?"

Cordelia looked back at the gate, then edged further away. She could see shapes in the roiling shadow now, unpleasant shapes, and the floor beneath it looked different, more like raw meat than tiles.

"Silence, worm," the demon snapped. "This is no time for infantile prattle."

"Then take all your claims to superiority as read," Giles said. "Tell me what you want and we can discuss terms."

"Giles!" Xander said, his voice tinged with surprise and disappointment. "You can't want to talk to that thing."

"The enemy of our enemy-" Giles began.

"Is our ally of convenience, no more." Cordelia quickly finished. She didn't want to trust the demon either, but she did trust Giles. If he thought he could get the demons help he was almost certainly right.

"It is really quite simple," the demon said. "If I do not seal this gate to Knn-Yrr within the hour all the gates will fail, and the legions of nightmare march forth, but if I do seal this gate these four will escape, and their tainted souls drown the world in horror before the first snows fall. I can not, in good conscience, let either fate come to pass."

Snow? In Sunnydale? The demon definitely had no idea where it was.

"So," Giles said, "you want me to take care of them for you?"

"You are vermin, but the shield stands behind you, and their age-old wisdom has never been found wanting. Give me a surety and I will trust you thus far."

"Release Buffy," Giles said, "and you can have my word."

"Here, Cordelia." Harmony said sharply, pointing down at the floor. "Now!"

The demon said something else but Cordelia no longer cared what. Harmony clearly needed reminded just where she stood; everything else could wait.

Cordelia leaned ostentatiously against the wall and yawned.

"Cordelia." Harmony repeated. "I will not let you kill me. Come here, now."

Cordelia smiled at Xander. "Pitiful, isn't she?"

Xander looked uncertainly at Cordelia, then smiled. "Reminds me of someone I used to know."

"Warped priorities?" Cordelia suggested, idly wondering who Xander was thinking of.

"If she saw a demon, she'd complain its clothes didn't match." Xander said, smiling more broadly.

"Cordelia!" Harmony shouted. "Stop talking to those freaks and come with me."

"She certainly wouldn't be grateful when you saved her life." Cordelia said.

"No," Willow said. "She'd just bicker with her friends while Armageddon crept closer."

After that morning's verbal duel, spotting Willow's double meaning was easy.

"You can't let things like this affect you," Cordelia said, gesturing dismissively at the demon, then winced as her much-bruised shoulders flared with fresh pain. "They happen every week."

Admittedly, nothing this bad had happened before, but the principle still held. Besides, it wasn't as if there was anything she could actually do. Giles and the demon were still talking-

"-teeth out, and carve runes into her skin." the demon suggested.

"No," Giles said firmly. "I do not torture, ever. Nor do I wish to see anyone cower before me."

"But the greatest pleasure lies in the infliction of pain."

-and it sounded like Giles knew how to say no.

"Do you want to die?" Harmony said. "This is our chance to escape."

It was a tempting idea, on the surface, but Cordelia knew better. Running away wouldn't keep her safe; it would only make her look bad. Nor was that the only reason to stay.

"I will not abandon Buffy." Cordelia said, carefully watching Xander's reaction.

"Why not?" Harmony demanded. "She's just a loser freak. I'm your friend."

"She's human." Cordelia said simply. She actually needed more reason than that, trying to save everyone just because they happened to be human would be too hard, but her reply was both literally true and difficult for Harmony to object to without sounding bad. It should also impress Xander and Willow with her saintly nature, a big return on three little words, but she had always been good at verbal manipulation.

Harmony smiled. "So was Owen. You abandoned him."

"Harmony." Xander snapped, his fists tightly clenched. "You-"

Willow gently nudged him, then asked "How's your back?"

Harmony glared at Willow. "Better looking than yours."

Willow looked down at her hands. "So you didn't get any scars? Some people would get hurt if they were blasted by flying glass."

And Harmony had. Cordelia remembered seeing her back covered in blood, but she'd forgotten about Harmony's injuries in all the excitement.

"There must have been thousands of pieces," Willow continued. "It should have taken hours to pull them all out, and weeks for your back to heal. Instead, here you are, looking as though nothing had happened. It's almost as if you had magic healing powers, but you don't know anything about magic, do you?"

"Some of us can afford good doctors." Harmony said, her voice trembling most unconvincingly, then pointed at the gate. "Are those maggots?"

"We don't have much time left." Giles said.

Cordelia turned round. If there was another crisis, she needed to know about it.

The shadow was larger now, and its centre more solid, no longer flickering on the edge of vision. Beneath the shadow maggots crawled over a floor of rotting meat while a green mist fell from the ceiling.

Cordelia hurriedly backed away.

The shadow wrapped itself round one of the apeboys, enclosing it in a dark cocoon.

"Perhaps your blood will suffice." the demon said.

Inside the cocoon, the apeboy writhed, its half-glimpsed flesh changing under the shadow's touch.

"Done." Giles said, holding out his hand.

The demon extruded another blood tentacle, and tapped Giles lightly on the palm, making him wince.

"Awaken, little spear!" the demon cried, and Buffy sprang to her feet, her face free from pain.

The shadow-spawned monstrosity burst from its cocoon, an inhuman skeleton wrapped in emerald flames. Coils of rotting flesh snaked over its twisted bones, heedless of the barbed spikes, and its eyes were orbs of ebon shadow.

Cordelia shuddered. The creature wasn't that ugly, not compared with the shapes that had stalked her nightmares, but its every malformed curve and glistening spike radiated wrongness. Such creatures should not walk the waking world.

Worse, it was still wearing Sarah's ring.

Buffy grimaced. "Which one should I kill first?"

Giles pointed at the skeleton. "We have a … truce with the other one."

"My blessing is upon you." the demon said. "Guard well your fellow vermin; I go to battle."

The skeleton lunged at Cordelia.

The demon glided towards the gate.

Buffy jumped in front of Cordelia.

Cordelia stepped further back, leaving plenty of room for the fight.

The skeleton grabbed Buffy's left shoulder, then stroked her face, the barbed spikes sprouting from its warped bones ripping her right cheek into bloody shreds.

Cordelia covered her nose, trying to blot out the stench of burning meat.

The skeleton raised its left hand to deliver a second blow.

Buffy's cheek knit itself back together; long rips becoming mere gashes that faded into pale scars then vanished completely.

Half a second later, Buffy kicked the skeleton back, then tentatively patted her right cheek.

"That didn't hurt." Buffy said in a shocked whisper. "What the hell just happened?"

Then the skeleton grappled Buffy, and the two began to fight in earnest, Buffy ignoring the wounds she recieved, wounds which now healed as quickly as the demon could open them.

"The demon." Willow said. "It must be its blessing."

Cordelia silently nodded, wondering how long the gift would last, and what the price might be.

The demon stepped into the gate, into the space between reality and Knn-Yrr.

"Hear me, O lords of the pit," the demon cried. "Hear me and tremble, slaves of the heralds, for a knight of the great lord has come against you."

The shadows recoiled from it, then surged back.

"I fear not your fury for I am armoured in righteousness; against me you shall contend in vain."

More like self-righteousness, but Cordelia wasn't going to correct the demon, not while it was fighting the other demons. It might decide she was right.

Giles picked up a piece of chalk, then walked over to the doorway.

One of the maggot-ridden coils slithered off the skeleton, wrapped itself round Buffy's neck, and squeezed.

The demon switched languages, first to Latin, then to Greek.

With a nauseated grimace Buffy staggered back, dug her fingers deep into the rotting flesh, and ripped the coil in half, flinging the pieces into the far corner, then brushed the maggots off her shoulders.

Giles drew a five pointed star over the lintel, one point upwards, then added letters in an unfamiliar script.

The shadows wrapped themselves round a second apeboy.

"How do I kill it?" Buffy asked, then the skeleton was on her again, its claws raking her stomach.

The demon began to glow, a faint red beacon amid the growing shadows.

"You don't need to." Giles said. "It will perish with the gate."

The demon faltered in its chanting as veins of shadow marbled its surface.

"Try decapitation." Cordelia suggested. It wouldn't work, or Giles would have suggested it himself, but it couldn't hurt, and it made her look helpful.

"Won't work." Giles said quietly. "That creature is animated by the unnatural forces coming from Knn-Yrr."

The skeleton tripped Buffy with a low kick, then put its other foot on her neck, the barbs shredding her throat.

A second skeleton rose from its dark cocoon.

"Segenarith." the demon said, and the gate quivered.

"Get down," Giles said. "And cover your eyes."

"Segenarith." the demon repeated, its voice louder, and the floor shook.

Cordelia crouched down, putting both hands over her eyes.

"Segenarith!" the demon shouted, and the room blazed with crimson light.

Even through closed eyes Cordelia could see that light, seeping through her fingers.

As the light faded an apeboy wailed.

Cordelia opened her eyes.

Two of the apeboys were awake now; both sitting on the floor, rubbing their eyes and crying, apparently blinded by the blast.

They needed help, but there was nothing Cordelia could do.

She looked away, toward the back of the classroom.

The gate had gone, but not without trace.

A great many-pointed star stretched from floor to ceiling, gradually shading from coral pink at its outermost points through cherry red into a dark maroon. It looked almost like a giant flower, surprisingly attractive for the work of demons, but in its heart unnatural shadows still writhed.

"What happened?" Willow asked. "Is it over?"

"For now." Giles said. "The blood demon sealed the gate to Knn-Yrr with its own body. The gate can not open again while the wall stands."

"But why?" Willow asked. "Why would demons fight?"

Buffy kicked idly at the crumbled remains of the skeleton. "Because they're demons?"

"There is worse than demons." Giles said. "You saw one such last night. The creatures of Knn-Yrr are not so terrible as that was but they too are the enemies of man and demon alike."

Harmony scowled. "Cordelia, why are you wasting time with these freaks? You need to go to hospital, before you get a scar."

"Still here?" Xander said, feigning surprise. "Anyone would think you wanted to hang out with us freaks."

"They'd have to be mad to think that, which would explain your clothes." Harmony said, glaring at Xander, then turned and stalked out of the classroom.

Willow rubbed her injured hand. "How long will Buffy heal like that? Forever?"

Giles hesitated. "Until the moon draws her blood, according to the demon."

Willow blushed, then looked at Xander. "Don't ask."

Cordelia nodded. That was something Xander didn't need to know about. "The rest of us aren't so lucky."

She looked at Giles. "Can you drive us to the hospital?"

Giles nodded. "We can talk on the way. I need to know what else that demon said."

Couldn't it wait? Cordelia looked at the others, gauging their mood, then said what they all appeared to be thinking.

"It's been a long day, and we still haven't recovered from last night. We need a break, before we collapse."

Willow glanced at Xander, then nodded.

"We do need to talk about meditation techniques before you sleep." Giles said.

"Ok," Cordelia conceded. "But nothing else."

Giles nodded. "We'll need to clean up this room too, decide what to do about your ex-classmates, but not right now."

As the five of them strolled out of the classroom together, casually discussing future plans, Cordelia glanced backwards wondering, once again, just why her luck was so much worse this time round.

"You sure you don't want us to wait?" Willow asked.

Cordelia nodded. "Go home, let your parents pamper you. You've been through enough already without spending hours listening to the whine of the dentist's drill."

And, with them gone, she'd be able to look for the old books she needed to keep Giles fooled.

Willow and Xander looked at each, then Xander gently said. "And we don't want to watch you suffering."

"Think of it as an opportunity to practice your meditation." Giles added.

Buffy smiled brightly. "Remember, the Bronze, eight o'clock. We're going to have fun, not like last night."

Buffy scowled, as if at some unpleasant memory, then Xander nudged her.

Cordelia watched as the other four got into Giles's car, half-listening to their subdued banter, then turned round and stepped into the dentist's, trying not to shudder.

There were so many things he could do to her, once he got her in the chair, so many things he had done, in the background of her nightmares. Quite apart from the normal tortures, he had plenty of sharp instruments and a drill that could pierce bone as easily as enamel.

Cordelia paused on the doorstep, struggling to force the memories down. Her dentist had never done anything like that the first time round, at least not to her, so she had nothing to fear.

Besides, if she started avoiding the dentist she'd end up with ugly teeth.

After a few brief words with the receptionist Cordelia sat down in the waiting room and tried hard not to think about what might happen next.

Meditating was beginning to seem like a good idea.

Two hours later Cordelia looked around to check no one was watching, then slipped into the fifth second-hand bookshop of the afternoon.

None of the others had been much use, they only stocked trashy paperbacks and discounted textbooks, but the proprietor in the last shop had dismissively suggested this might be a good place to visit, just before he suggested they discuss her literary tastes in the local wine bar.

Cordelia frowned indignantly at the memory. The man had looked almost sixty, far too old for her, and his beard had been full of crumbs. Did she really look that desperate?

"Can I help you, madam?" the proprietor asked.

Cordelia quickly glanced at him, then nodded.

This one didn't look too bad. He was middle-aged, a slim man with neatly combed hair and an immaculate tweed jacket. In fact, he looked a lot like Giles, but he couldn't be a watcher. They were all English; this man had a definite French accent.

"I'm looking for, um, esoteric materials." Cordelia said, carefully watching his reaction.

He didn't smirk or start laughing; he just looked slightly puzzled. "Relating to folklore and mythology?"

"And demonology." Cordelia said. "But not fairytales."

Reading 'Hansel and Gretel' would not help create the right impression with Giles.

"A strangely popular subject," the man said, heading for the shelves. "Those books are over here."

"New in town?" Cordelia asked as she followed him.

"I opened last month," the man said, then pointed at the shelves on the left. "Do let me know if you require any further assistance."

Cordelia nodded absent-mindedly, her attention focused on the books. They certainly looked like the kind Giles had, handmade and leatherbound, and some of the titles seemed vaguely familiar.

She picked up the first one, 'Bristow's demon index', and flicked through the pages, comparing the pictures with the things she'd seen.

Ten minutes later she had a large pile of books, all of which looked like ones a watcher might read.

"Hey!" Cordelia shouted. "Help me with these."

She picked the four smallest up herself, leaving the other twelve for the proprietor to carry.

He looked at the pile, then said "One moment, madam," and hurried away.

It wasn't long before he returned, pushing a shopping trolley.

"May I presume you have your own transport?" the man asked.

"I can call a taxi." Cordelia replied, wondering how she would unload them when she got home. Doubtless the taxi would be willing to wait, but the longer it took the more chance someone would notice her uncharacteristic behaviour.

She really should have thought about that before, and about where she would put them. Her friends sometimes came in her room, so the books couldn't go in there without raising awkward questions, and anyway she didn't have any bookcases. Piling them on the floor would look messy and keeping them on her dad's shelves would risk more awkward questions.

Whatever solution she thought of, it would need to fit with her story.

"How will you be paying?" the man asked.

Cordelia handed over her platinum credit card.

She was planning to tell Giles the books had been left behind by Winston. If that had really happened, what would she have done?

No watcher would have left the books with her without making sure she had somewhere suitable to put them so she would only have them if she'd collected them herself from Winston's place, which wouldn't have been any easier than getting them from this shop. It would have been easier to leave the books in his rooms, where there was no chance anyone would see her looking at them.

"I do have more books on this subject," the man said. "I haven't unpacked them yet, but the auction catalogue has the complete list."

"Auction?" Cordelia said politely, waiting for the man to finish wrapping her books.

"The disposal of the Lindcroft estate," the man said, as he ducked behind the counter. "Apparently, he was a well-known local collector of such works."

"What happened to him?" Cordelia asked, not wanting to buy trouble.

Lindcroft's books might be useful, but if it sounded like he'd been killed by some demon trying to steal the books, she'd let Giles have them. He'd be able to use them too, and he'd know what to do about any problems they bought.

"Lots thirty-seven through fifty-one." the man said, passing Cordelia the catalogue. "Suicide, three weeks ago. He told his maid he couldn't face the new future, whatever that means."

Cordelia had a good idea. She made her wish three weeks ago, changing the future. Buffy had suffered horrible dreams the next night, and she hadn't been the only one, according to Giles. Lindcroft must have been one of the others.

Unfortunate, but at least that meant his books were safe.

Strange that the proprietor had been so open about the suicide though. That was the kind of detail that normally put people off their shopping. Could he have some ulterior motive?

Cordelia hesitated then dismissed the idea. If he didn't want to sell the Lindcroft collection he wouldn't have mentioned it, and it was his first month in business. The man just wasn't very good at selling things.

Satisfied with her reasoning, Cordelia glanced down at the catalogue, then smiled. The collection included a complete set of Dramius, an occult encylopedia which the book she'd been reading that morning had repeatedly cited as an authoritative guide.

These books would definitely be useful, and much safer in Cordelia's hands than in the bookshop, where any would-be dark sorcerer could buy them. There were considerably more books in the collection than she'd planned on buying but the sheer number would also help support her story, and she was sure she'd find some way of dealing with the storage problem.

"I'll buy them all, if they are in good condition." she said quickly.

She didn't want to sound too eager or the man might put the price up.

The man looked faintly disbelieving. "You are aware that many of these books are in archaic languages?"

Cordelia patted her school bag. "I've bought some textbooks."

She didn't have the time to waste on mastering dead languages but knowing a few sentences would help make her story more believable. Basic Latin couldn't be that hard to learn; it was only old-fashioned Spanish. Greek would be harder, since they didn't use the proper alphabet, but she could manage a few words, enough for her purposes.

"May I see?" the man said, pointing at her bag. "I may be able to make further recommendations."

Shrugging, Cordelia pulled them out. Having lots of language books wouldn't hurt her story, and her dad would be paying the bill.

The man frowned. "The Latin primer is adequate, but that book is on modern Greek. The language has changed somewhat over the last three thousand years."

He paused. "You will need comprehensive dictionaries of both languages, and a guide to Classic Greek. I can provide this."

"Ok," Cordelia said. "But I want to see the Lindcroft collection first."

Examining her purchases was always more pleasurable than hanging around shop counters, even if they were only books.

"Very well, madam," the man said. "This way."

Cordelia followed him into a back room, where he pointed at a stack of crates.

"All those?" Cordelia said, looking uneasily at the size of the stack.

There was a dozen big crates there, each over three foot across. She'd never be able to fit them all in a taxi. They might not even fit in her bedroom.

"There were another two crates, which I had started unpacking."

Cordelia groaned inwardly. "I'll have to hire a van," which would be hard to do anonymously. " Can I pay a deposit now, and collect them later?"

"Of course, madam," the man said. "It will be a pleasure to be of service."

Cordelia smiled, then began discussing terms.

Forty minutes later, Cordelia leaned against her gatepost and smiled. Now she was home, she could finally relax.

She'd spent half the last twenty hours facing nightmares and demons, and the other half engaged in tedious research and brain-straining conversations.

None of that could bother her here. She could just go straight to her room, put on a CD, and lay back, untroubled by the cares of the world.

Smiling broadly, Cordelia began walking up the drive.

Halfway to the house, her mom looked up.

"You're early," she said, inaccurately. "Get bored?"

Annoyed by the interruption, Cordelia stopped and looked down at her mom.

Despite the overcast sky, she was slumped across a sunbed, wearing only a bikini and G-string combination more suitable for someone half her age.

Her mom had never let unpleasant facts bother her.

"There was an accident in the science lab." Cordelia replied. "They sent us home."

Her mom smiled. "Lucky you."

"I was hurt." Cordelia said sharply, holding out her injured hand.

Her mom glanced at Cordelia's hand, then quickly looked away, grimacing. "That's hideous. You'll have to hide it. Wear a glove, or something."

"It wouldn't fit over the bandage." And it would look conspicuous. A little makeup, carefully applied, would do the same job far more discretely.

Cordelia's mom shrugged, dismissing the issue. "Your father wants to speak to you."

"What about?"

Her mom smiled. "Who cares? It's bound to be something nice."

Cordelia knocked on her dad's office door, then waited.

It was inconvenient, having her dad do so much work at home. When she needed something from him, she couldn't just find him and ask, she had to check she wasn't interrupting anything important first.

His clients didn't like it either; meeting him in his own house put them off-balance. He lost out on a lot of business that way, but Cordelia's mom was more important. If she had another of her episodes and the maid couldn't fetch her husband in time she might have to go to the clinic again, not a place Cordelia wanted to see her mom.

It wouldn't do Cordelia's reputation much good either.

Cordelia knocked again, louder.

Her dad shouted "Come in."

Cordelia pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Dad -"

He shushed her, and pointed at the TV.

Cordelia sighed as she turned to look. Her dad knew she thought the business news was a complete bore. If that was what he'd dragged her in here for …

The TV wasn't tuned to the business news.

A tank was rolling through the streets of a burning city, its turret slowly turning from side to side.

For a moment Cordelia glimpsed a pile of severed heads, then the camera abruptly jerked up, taking the sidewalk out of shot.

Cordelia quickly looked down at the station logo; CNN, so this was really happening.

"… more on the crisis in the Middle East soon, but first news of the other terrorist incidents."

Her dad turned the sound off.

"Isn't there always a crisis in the Middle East?" Cordelia asked, hoping this was just a coincidence. Giles had said last night had caused problems over there, and Willow had mentioned something about riots, but neither of them had suggested anything on this scale.

"Some idiots defaced the wailing wall," her dad said, "then released hallucinogenic gases. The first rioters levelled the dome of the rock, then the situation escalated. Now they are talking war."

Cordelia hastily sat down.

It was the shadow tree that had defaced the wall, according to the watchers, which made all this its fault but Cordelia was almost certain it had only been able to act because of some unwanted side-effect of her wish, which meant this mess was also partly her fault.

Not by much, not when she'd been tricked into making the wish, without full knowledge of the consequences, but it still wasn't a comfortable thought.

"There's going to-" her dad said, as he turned to face her. "What happened!"

"There was an accident," Cordelia said casually. "In the science lab."

"Another one? It's only three days since they took your cast off."

"Don't you remember what it was like when you were in school." Cordelia said, rather than risk attempting an explanation. The less she said, the less chance her father would catch her in a lie.

Her dad's face twitched with hastily concealed emotion, then he smiled. "I remember Jamie Nicoll. Some days, he couldn't cross the classroom without tripping himself up and breaking both legs."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. Happened four times in tenth grade, then his family emigrated."

Cordelia's dad paused, then looked thoughtfully at her.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She still hurt a little, but not half as much as when she'd been impaled by that metal bar.

"Anything I can do?"

"No." Not unless she told him the whole truth, and then he'd probably ground her until she was thirty.

"If you're sure," her dad said, sounding uncertain.

"I'm sure."

Her dad frowned, then turned back to face the TV.

"Mom said you wanted to talk to me." Cordelia said quickly, before he could forget she was there.

"Oh, yes," her dad said. "What have I told you about my phone number?"

"It's only for emergencies."

"So why did you give it to your friend. You've got your own number. Use it."

"I haven't told anyone." Cordelia said. "Who was it?"

"I've got the message here somewhere," her dad said, riffling through the papers on his desk.

Cordelia stood up and looked over her dad's shoulder.

"What's this?" she asked, putting her hand on the map. It looked like a map of the neighbourhood, but her dad had circled five of the local houses, including Cordelia's, then drawn lines joining them all up, lines which formed a pentagram inside a pentagon.

That was not a shape Cordelia wanted to see near her house.

"Strange, that." Her father said. "I got an offer for the house this morning from Parandol Properties. Five million dollars, and the opportunity to rent the house back for just one hundred a month."

"Sounds like a fraud." Cordelia said. Either that, or the would-be purchasers weren't interested in money.

In Sunnydale, when people did peculiar things, the hellmouth had to be the first suspect.

Her dad smiled. "I started asking questions. Parandol were only formed three weeks ago. The directors are proxies for a consortium of private companies whose beneficial owners are completely untraceable. They've made the exact same offer for these other houses, but the properties aren't contiguous; they have nothing in common not shared with the other fifteen houses on the block."

Cordelia listened carefully, memorising the details. Giles would know if they were significant.

He rubbed his forehead. "I can't see what's in it for them, and if I can't do that I'll never be able to make them give me a cut."

"They might not be after money." Cordelia said, tapping the map. "Isn't this shape one of those superstitious things?"

Her dad laughed. "Then they'd be fools with money, an unnatural state of affairs easily corrected."

He pushed the map to one side, uncovering a small notepad.

"We need to talk about last night. Phone me between six and seven. Angel." her dad read, pulling the sheet out of the notepad. "The number's at the bottom."

Cordelia sighed. That would not be a fun conversation, and it might make her late for the Bronze.

"Who is he?" her dad asked, "Your latest boyfriend?"

"Hardly." Cordelia scoffed. "He's this boy Buffy knows."

"So why is he phoning you, on my private line?"

"He probably wants help with Buffy." Cordelia said. It better not be Angel's first priority right now, but he definitely needed help if he wanted Buffy.

"What do you get out of it?" her dad asked, looking concerned.

He always asked questions like that, every time she mentioned a new boy. It was sweet of him, she supposed, wanting to protect her from conmen and Casanovas, but it was also annoying, going through the same old questions time after time.

Didn't he trust her judgement?

At least he'd stopped hiring detectives to follow them round, after the unfortunate incident last summer with Ben and the pineapples. Quite what would have happened if he'd tried that with Angel, Cordelia didn't want to guess.

Cordelia sat back down and began answering her dad's questions, carefully slanting her replies to imply that Angel was a perfectly safe normal boy who should never be allowed in the house.

An hour later, Cordelia was sitting in a cafe, sipping surprisingly good coffee and wishing Angel would hurry up.

It was a seedy little place; faded posters peeling off the walls, a slimy patina of grease on the formica tables, clouds of cigarette smoke drifting out of the kitchen, but it did have one advantage.

No one she knew would come in here.

Even if they walked past, they wouldn't see her, not through the grime-smeared windows, and none of her friends were likely to come down this alley anyway. Certainly Cordelia wouldn't have, if she hadn't been looking for a good bookshop.

"Cordelia." Angel said, slipping into the seat opposite her. "What happened? Is Buffy all right?"

"She's fine." Cordelia said sharply, "She's got magic healing powers, unlike me."

Buffy was not half covered in bruises, with scars on her face and hands that would never fade, nor had she seen the horrors festering beneath the branches of the shadow tree. Even through the make-up, Angel must be able to see how badly she had been hurt and yet he'd had the effrontery to ignore her injuries.

She would need to teach Angel how to show proper respect.

Angel looked carefully at her. "What happened to you? You look terrible, and those bruises … They're fresh, not from last night."

"I had to fight a demon."

"You shouldn't be fighting. Leave that to Buffy."

Cordelia scowled. "The demon gave her an headache, left her curled up on the floor."

"Then you should have run."

"And leave Buffy behind?"

She couldn't have run anyway, the demon had sealed the door by then, but Angel wouldn't want to be bothered by those little details.

Angel grimaced, then looked down at the table, clearly unable to think of a reply. Instead he trailed one finger through the grease, then asked "You know how long this cafe's been open?"

It looked like it had been open for decades, without ever being cleaned, so that couldn't be the right answer.

"It doesn't look new." Cordelia said, carefully stressing the 'look'.

"Two weeks," Angel said. "Before that, this was a cleaning agency."

Then the dirt had to be deliberate. No one could get a place this filthy this fast.

Hopefully, they were just using the cafe as part of some big fraud, but Cordelia would have to assume the worst.

"Did you know that?" Angel asked.

"Why do you think I chose it?" Cordelia answered quickly, ostentatiously not looking over her shoulder at the counter.

She could get Giles to find out what the cafe owner's were up to later; right now the details didn't matter. As long as nothing she said made her look bad it wouldn't matter if anyone was listening, and if things got violent Angel would protect her.

Angel looked up from the table. "Places like this get two types of customer, the desperately poor and friends of the staff."

"Three types," Cordelia said, before Angel could get the wrong idea. "Other cafes will want to see if this place might be competition."

"But they don't come back." Angel said. "Will you?"

She certainly hoped not. Even if she could stand the filth there'd be too much risk of getting caught up in the cafe owner's secret plans, and she already had more than enough intrigue in her life.

"I shall do what is required of me." Cordelia said, her words carefully chosen to make Angel, and any eavesdroppers, think she had major obligations, an impression her feigned slip into Giles-speak would bolster.

"What did happen last night?" Angel asked. "Was Buffy-"

Cordelia glared at him.

Angel half-smiled, as if at some private joke. "Were any of you hurt?"

"Owen was killed. The rest of us escaped unhurt." Well, not physically hurt. The nightmares were worse than any physical injury could have been, but talking about them wouldn't help anything.

"How's Buffy taking it?"

"Don't get any ideas." Cordelia said firmly. "Buffy doesn't need you to comfort her. She's got me."

"Why aren't you with her now?" Angel asked, playing straight into Cordelia's hands. He never had been able to think straight where Buffy was involved.

"Because you wanted to talk to me," Cordelia said flatly.

Angel winced.

Before he could recover his composure Cordelia moved to take control of the conversation.

"I think you wanted to know what happened."

Angel nodded.

Cordelia shrugged. "Some big evil ripped open a death gate. Giles bottled up the soul storm, but some of the demon ghosts had already escaped. Now this town has two permanent interdimensional portals, and a lot of new demons. One of them tried to kill us this afternoon. It failed."

Looking startled, Angel leaned forwards. "Demon ghosts? That's impossible."

"I saw them."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Cordelia said firmly. "What else do you need to know?"

"Everything. I -"

"We don't have time for that."

"Thi-" Angel began, then Cordelia interrupted.

"I'm meeting Buffy at eight."

Cordelia paused and looked thoughtfully at Angel. "Tell me what you saw and I'll explain the important bits."

She knew he wouldn't have seen much, he'd spent most of last night in the sewers, at a safe distance from the action, but asking the questions would help set the proper tone for their relationship.

"The Master is stronger."

"Because of the necrotic aura of the death gate. It will make all the undead stronger," or so Giles had said, not that it mattered much. The Master was no longer the biggest evil in town.

Cordelia smiled sweetly. "How about you? Feeling any stronger? More powerful?"

Angel looked thoughtful, then picked up the salt cellar and squeezed.

Cordelia watched carefully, jumping slightly when the glass cracked.

Angel put the salt cellar down and stared at the cracks. "You're right."

"Of course."

"The Master is stronger in other ways too. He shrugged off the demon's hellfires and battled it mind to mind."

"Makes sense," Cordelia bluffed. "He must be a magnet for the necrotic energies. What demon?"

"He called himself Dumuzi Abzu."

"What did he look like? What did he do?"

"I thought you were in a hurry." Angel said.

"Buffy needs to know about this now. You can wait."

"I need-" Angel began.

"I'll give you the full explanation later," Cordelia said. "Or do you want to keep Buffy waiting?"

"No," Angel said vehemently.

Cordelia smiled encouragingly.

Angel looked at her. "When I saw all those demons I thought the Master must be responsible, so I went to spy on him. He was ranting. He said the walls of Nastrond were burning, and the gates of Abbadon stood open. Then Dumuzi came."

Angel paused, a faint smile on his lips.

"Describe him." Cordelia said.

"He looked-" Angel paused again, clearly struggling for words.

Cordelia gently tapped him on the arm.

"He looked," Angel said, "like a young god; golden hair, bronzed skin, rippling muscles. And his voice! Deep syrupy tones, a joy to hear. He wasn't just a pretty face either. He moved like a tiger, feline grace allied with immense power, and he radiated authority. Just looking at him, you felt here was a leader you would gladly follow into hell itself."

Surprised, Cordelia stared at Angel. She'd never heard him talk that way before, not even about Buffy. Dumuzi must have been using magic.

"What was he?" she asked. "Some kind of super-incubus?"

Probably not, but showing off her knowledge would help to give everyone listening a good impression.

"Could be," Angel said. "I've seen incubi have the same effect, on men as well as women, but vampires are supposed to be immune to such glamours."

Tell that to Drusilla. Xander's love spell had certainly worked on her. If vampires thought they were immune they were just deluding themselves, a popular hobby.

"Vampires may be more resistant," Cordelia conceded.

Angel grimaced. "Not to Dumuzi. They all knelt before him, except for the Master."

"And you." Cordelia said confidently.

"I had Buffy," Angel said, his voice strained. "I clung to the memories of her beauty, and told myself that she was the real thing. Her beauty doesn't come from dark magics; it is the outward reflection of her kind and gentle heart."

Cordelia clenched her teeth, struggling not to laugh. Buffy's supposed beauty came from a bottle, no match for Cordelia's own natural good looks, nor would she have ever lifted a finger to help anyone if she hadn't had the misfortune to be chosen.

She didn't think Angel would want to hear that though.

"I struggled to think only of her," Angel said quietly, "and to ignore the demon's siren call."

Cordelia glanced at Angel's gloom-laden face and shuddered. Best not to ask if he'd succeeded, or at what mental cost. Some things were best forgotten.

Instead she forced a smile. "What did the Master do? I bet he wasn't pleased."

"He spoke in our heads. He ordered us to obey only him, and to kill Dumuzi."

"Telepathy," Cordelia said. "That's new."

Angel nodded. "There are rumours of rituals which can give old vampires many powers over those of their blood, but the Master does not know them."

"Or he'd have done them years ago." Cordelia said.

"And yet, somehow he has gained those powers."

"The death gate," Cordelia said. "What happened next?"

"Dumuzi and the Master struggled for control of our minds. It was … a disturbing experience."

"Who won?" Cordelia asked, making a mental note to find ways of protecting herself if anyone tried to take over her mind. Perhaps her new books might say something useful.

"No one," Angel said. "When the mental battle deadlocked Dumuzi set the air on fire."

"Air doesn't burn."

Angel shrugged. "That's what it looked like. The entire cavern was filled with flames."

"How did you survive?"

"I wasn't in the cavern. I saw all this through a half-inch crack in the tunnel wall."

"Because you were spying." Cordelia said, kicking herself. She should have realised Angel would have been well hidden.

Angel nodded. "Only the Master survived the flames, but the other vampires took longer to die than they should have."

"The death gate," Cordelia repeated. "You'll be less vulnerable to fire too."

"I'm not going to test that," Angel said, sounding almost amused, then went back to his story.

"When the screaming stopped Dumuzi let the flames go out, and the Master charged. I've never seen anyone move that fast. He was like a whirlwind, with fangs and claws. I'd have been dust in two seconds flat, but Dumuzi met him blow for blow."

Cordelia leaned forwards, impatient to hear who had won.

Fifty minutes later Cordelia walked through the light drizzle, still thinking about what Angel had said.

When a second demon had turned up in the Master's lair, apparently looking for control of the hellmouth, the Master had hidden himself at the bottom of his pool, leaving the two demons to fight.

Before they'd got very far, two more demons had rolled into the lair, already fighting. Dumuzi immediately ran away, but the other three fought to the death.

Just as the half-crippled winner was starting its triumphal rant, the Master had crept out of his pool and stabbed it in the back, then cut its head off.

Angel had left the lair after that, deciding he couldn't learn anything there, or so he claimed. Cordelia suspected he'd just been looking for somewhere less dangerous to lurk.

She detoured round a large puddle, then scowled.

It had been good to hear how eager the demons were to kill each other, and save Buffy the work, but the numbers were worrying. If four major league demons had visited the Master in under half an hour there must be hundreds more roaming the sewers.

The way her luck had been running lately, half of them were probably going to try and kill her.

Still, she couldn't do much about that. She needed to concentrate on the problems she could actually solve, such as where to meet Angel next.

She couldn't go anywhere decent, since she'd be recognised, and she never wanted to go back to that cafe again, or anywhere else like it.

The moment she'd got home from there, she'd jumped straight in the shower. It had been fifteen minutes before she'd felt clean, which had left her barely enough time to get ready for the Bronze.

Unfortunately, ruling out anywhere that was either popular or unclean left her with a choice between sex clubs and demon bars; two equally unattractive choices.

She couldn't meet him anywhere private either. If they met in his apartment, he'd get too big a psychological advantage, and she'd never invite him into her house.

Cordelia stopped walking, suddenly struck by a brilliant idea.

Just as she needed somewhere private to meet Angel, so she would have needed somewhere equally private to meet Winston, had he been real. He wouldn't have wanted to invite a teenage girl into his apartment, in case the neighbours talked, and everywhere else would have been just as unsuitable then as it was now.

Rather than think up two different secret meeting places, why not say they were the same place?

At first glance, that didn't make the problem any simpler, but it did give her a new angle to look at it from.

What would Winston, a wealthy rogue watcher, have done?

He'd have used his money and influence, bought somewhere neutral, and met her there.

She'd never thought about property investments before, she'd always assumed that could wait until after she'd left home, so she wasn't entirely sure what she'd need to do, but her card did have a $3,000 dollar limit. That should be enough to rent somewhere nice, and persuade people to back up her story.

It'd also give her somewhere to keep her new books.

Smiling broadly, Cordelia crossed the road then turned left; another fifty yards and she'd be out of this rain.

There might be a few technical problems with her idea, but none her dad's money couldn't solve, and the advantages were obvious.

Angel wasn't the only person she might want to meet in secret.

Still congratulating herself, Cordelia strolled inside the Bronze and looked round.

Harmony wasn't there yet, which solved one problem, but neither was Buffy.

"Cordy! Over here!" Xander shouted, standing up and waving vigorously. Clearly, he'd never heard of discretion.

Cordelia checked her watch then sighed. She didn't mind spending time with Xander. He could be good company, when he wasn't betraying her. Willow wasn't. She babbled incessantly about the most boring things, and she stole boyfriends.

Still, Buffy should be arriving soon, and it would look a lot better if all her friends were sat together. Cordelia could tolerate Willow's inane prattle for ten minutes, and Xander did make it more bearable.

Half way to their table, Cordelia started smiling.

She could see now why Xander had been so eager. Willow was leaning forwards, explaining something with her customary overenthusiasm. At first glance, Xander looked like he was listening intently, but Cordelia wasn't so easily fooled. To her expert eye, he was clearly struggling not to yawn.

"Most of them just went catatonic," Willow was saying as Cordelia reached their table. "But some of them decided to enact the dark visions."

Cordelia sat down, next to Xander. "Let's talk about something more cheerful."

"I told her it had just been a joke." Xander said, smiling at the memory.

Willow giggled. "She offered him another hundred dollars."

Buffy started laughing.

"I tried to explain," Cordelia said, "but Harmony thought I wanted to keep them all for myself."

"You mean," Buffy managed to say through her laughter, "she still believed that, that-"

Cordelia smiled at Xander as Buffy collapsed in a fit of giggles.

"Remember when-" Willow began.

Out on the dance floor, someone screamed in agony.

"What was that?" Buffy said, straightening herself up.

"Another demon?" Cordelia suggested as she stood up, trying to see what the problem was.

The screaming had stopped now, but the dance floor was too quiet.

"And the evening was going so well." Xander said dryly.

It had been too. For a few brief minutes Cordelia had felt like a normal girl, with normal worries.

More people stared screaming, only to be quickly cut off.

A skull rolled out of the crowd, stopping at Cordelia's feet.

"Not a vampire," Buffy said, rummaging through her bag.

Cordelia looked down at the skull, then edged away.

Willow scowled. "One demon a day is enough."

People were running from the dance floor now, heading straight for the exits.

"More than enough." Cordelia said, peering through the thinning crowd.

She could see some bodies now; three people who looked like they'd been trampled in the rush and five headless corpses.

And in the middle she could see the demon; a furiously bubbling mass of black slime oozing out of the ground.

A dozen mouths opened in the slime, each crying "Tekeli Li!" in a high pitched voice, then vanished.

The slime bulged up, forming a dome five foot across, and growing.

Buffy pulled a large salt canister from her bag.

More mouths opened in the slime, each repeating the same nonsense words, then they too vanished.

"Get the injured out of here," Buffy said, then tossed a box of matches onto the table. "If it doesn't look like I'm winning, set the building on fire. It won't hurt me."

Xander picked the matches up. "You can't loose."

"I lost Owen," Buffy muttered, then walked boldly toward the demon; the salt held in one hand, her Osirian amulet gripped tightly in the other.

"Hey, demon!" she shouted. "Do you know what we do to gatecrashers?"

Cordelia winced as the demon slammed Buffy against a wall, the sound of her bones shattering clearly audible even at Cordelia's distance.

At first, she had thought Buffy would win easily. The salt and the amulet had seared the demon, forcing it back, and its wild blows hadn't touched Buffy.

Then the floor under Buffy had disappeared, dropping her into darkness.

Before she had fallen two feet, the demon surged out of the new hole; a geyser of black slime bursting out of the floor, crushing Buffy against the ceiling as the demon swelled to its full height.

Buffy had never really recovered from that setback.

"Who's got the matches?" Cordelia asked.

"Xander," Willow said, "but we also need something to burn. The cushions are flame retardant, I think, and the tables are, um, too big for a match. Alcohol might work, not beer, too watery, but spirits. Does the Bronze stock them?"

"Great," Cordelia said. The bar was on the opposite side of the room, just a few feet from Buffy. If they tried going near there, the demon would get them.

"We could burn our clothes," Willow suggested, looking sideways at Xander.

"Not mine," Cordelia said sharply, "I'm not stripping in front of you, Xander. And Willow won't either."

Both of their outfits deserved to be burnt, but half-stripping Xander would have other benefits.

Willow nodded, looking slightly embarrassed, then quickly knelt down and started rummaging through Buffy's bag.

Stammering objections, Xander looked nervously around, then his gaze settled on Buffy.

The demon had knocked her down, again. Now it was oozing toward her, a twenty foot ball of bubbling slime shouting nonsense words in a thousand voices.

"Ok," Xander said quietly.

Willow stood up holding three stakes. "If we wrap the rags round these, we should get a big enough flame to burn the tables."

Cordelia looked thoughtfully at Xander's T-shirt. "Is there enough material for three?"

"I'm not taking anything else off," Xander said firmly. "Not in front of you girls."

"Do you really think either of us actually want to watch you strip?" Cordelia asked with feigned sarcasm.

"Willow's not that kind of girl. She doesn't think about those things."

Cordelia glared at Xander. "And what kind of girl am I?"

Looking annoyed, Willow dropped the stakes onto the table. "We don't have time to talk."

Cordelia glanced back at Buffy.

The demon was dripping slime on her, little droplets that ate away at her flesh, exposing the bone beneath.

Buffy wasn't in any physical danger, not with her new superhealing, and she should have the mental strength to endure such torture for days, but her clothes wouldn't last five minutes.

Buffy would not be happy if she ended up naked in front of them.

"She's right," Cordelia said quickly. "Get your shirt off, Xander."

Willow nodded, a faint smile on her face as she waited.

Xander dropped the matchbox on the table, hesitated, then pulled his T-shirt off and dropped it on the table.

Cordelia suppressed a smile. Xander's body wasn't quite up to his swimming team standard yet, that would take a year of running around after Buffy to achieve, but he was already a lot easier on the eye than his clothes suggested.

Xander shifted uneasily under her gaze, then crossed his arms and turned away, obscuring her view.

"I don't look that bad, do I?" he asked nervously.

"You'll do." Cordelia said noncommittally. She deserved some compensation for having her evening ruined by a demon, but telling Xander what she was thinking would make him nervous.

Instead she looked back toward Buffy, still being tormented with acid drops.

Buffy rolled across the floor, away from the demon, toward where she'd dropped the amulet.

The demon casually reached out and yanked her back.

Willow finished tying the T-shirt round the stake, then lit a match.

Cordelia frowned suspiciously. The flame was blue-white, not the normal yellow-red, and it was much too steady. Where had Buffy got that matchbox from?

Willow gingerly touched the match to the cloth, which began to burn with the same unnatural flame.

Cordelia grabbed the matchbox from Willow, then began reading it.

"Ignis hastae", she said, sounding out the unfamiliar words. "Made by blind monks from a rowan tree grown on the grave of a slayer, these matches burn with a sacred flame guaranteed to enhance all benign magics and to protect against the forces of darkness. Leto quoque custodiunto nos."

Cordelia looked up. "Must be watcher matches," she said, carefully putting the matchbox back on the table.

Xander picked the matchbox up, squinted at the small writing, then turned it over.

"All guarantees will be null and void," Xander read, "if these matches are used in Antarctica, Afghanistan, France, Haiti, Tokyo, or Transylvannia, or if they are used for defence against any dark power of godling rank or higher. If a failure of this product should leave you dead, undead, inhuman or soulless, please do not complain in person."

Xander smiled. "So, at least if we die Giles will get his money back."

Cordelia glanced over at the demon, currently busy trying to dissolve Buffy's knees. If that was a god, it was a pathetic weakling. A real god would just turn Buffy into a ant, then step on her.

"This will work," Cordelia said, looking at the flame. "Willow, what do we set fire to next?"

"Everything."

"When you said everything," Cordelia said as they watched the Bronze burn, "I didn't think you meant my hair."

Willow winced.

"Cordy," Xander said. "It was an accident. Willow just tripped, and she did put the fire out."

"With a bottle of beer," Cordelia said, one hand plucking at her damp top. "Do you have any idea what I look like?"

Inwardly, Cordelia smiled. For once, she didn't have to restrain herself. She could tell Xander and Willow what she honestly thought of them, and they wouldn't hold it against her.

"My cousin Gwen," Xander said, smiling tentatively in what was obviously a feeble attempt to divert Cordelia's justified anger.

"Exactly," Cordelia said sharply. "Reme-"

Cordelia swallowed the end of the word. Xander didn't remember telling her about Gwen's problems, because he hadn't yet. Now he was looking curiously at her, clearly puzzled by what her objection to Gwen might be.

"Um, guys," Willow said nervously. "I think the demon's doing something new."

Grateful for the interruption, Cordelia turned away from Xander.

She couldn't see much, just two fast moving shapes silhouetted against the flames but if Willow thought something was going to happen she was probably right.

"Is it getting smaller?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the burning demon.

"Maybe," Willow said. "Volume is cubic. If it lost half its mass and, um, not fifteen, sixteen cubed is, um, we'd barely notice, but that's not what I meant. It's stopped fighting Buffy."

"That's good, isn't it?" Xander said.

"Last time we thought that," Cordelia reminded him, "it dissolved the floor underneath Buffy."

The demon flowed into a new shape, a single tall cylinder, higher than the flames.

Buffy stepped backwards.

The demon quivered, then fired a ball of black slime out of the top of the cylinder.

Now free of the flames, the ball began to reshape itself as it fell, while beneath it the cylinder slumped down into the flames, and was consumed.

"That's definitely different," Willow said, blushing.

Newly formed wings beating frantically, the demon lurched through the air, crashing into the roof of the building opposite.

Buffy walked out of the fire, stepping over the burning rubble as blithely as if she was strolling through the mall, not a hair out of place, not a mark on her skin.

Unfortunately, the blood demon had not extended the same protection to Buffy's clothes.

Xander gulped, then looked away.

A moment later Willow elbowed him in the ribs.

"Where'd that demon go?" Buffy asked, her posture alert.

Willow silently pointed up at the roof behind her.

The demon was shifting into a new shape, sleeker but still winged.

Buffy scowled. "How am I supposed to fight something that can fly?"

"Buffy," Cordelia said slowly. "You're not really dressed for fighting."

"What!" Buffy said, brushing herself down, then "Oh. Right. Not much left, is there?"

Nothing at all, as far as Cordelia could tell, only a smearing of ashes.

"Got anything I could borrow?" Buffy added plaintively, while ineffectually trying to cover herself with her hands.

"We burnt it all." Xander said.

Buffy glanced at Xander's bare back. "So I see."

"Fortunately," Xander said smiling, "people round here are very unobservant."

"Not that unobservant." Willow said. "We'll have to find her some clothes."

The demon sprang into the air, circled once, then swooped down to attack.

Buffy snatched the matches from Willow, lit one, and held it up high.

The demon immediately swerved, flying into a wall.

Cordelia blinked.

The demon had gone straight through the wall, its acid touch dissolving a neat, almost cartoon like, hole.

"Must be switchable," Willow muttered as the demon surged through the roof.

It circled overhead once more, at a safe height, then with a final cry of "Tekeli Li!" flew away, soon disappearing into the clouds.

Two seconds later, the sirens started, fire engines rushing to the blaze.

Suspiciously convenient that, but it would have to wait.

"Looks like all the excitement's over," Cordelia said with what she hoped would be impressive calm, "See you tomorrow."

"-or maybe a flame thrower," Xander said the next morning, looking at Buffy.

"They're not traditional," Willow said. "Giles wouldn't use something that modern."

"Greek fire," Cordelia said, remembering a conversation six months hence. "But there are too many things that could make the fuel tank explode. Now, can we please talk about something normal."

Ever since they'd all met up this morning, Xander had been going on about what fancy stuff Giles might have that Buffy could use to kill amorphous demons, like the slime demon and blood demon they'd met yesterday.

A natural enough line of speculation, of course, but quite pointless. It would be a lot more sensible, and discreet, to wait until they actually met Giles rather than talking about weird stuff in public.

"Too late," Buffy said, smiling, as she pushed open the library doors.

"Ooh!" Willow said, looking at the table. "More new books."

Cordelia glanced at the new pile of boxes, then at the line of crates still waiting to be unpacked. "I don't think so."

The books had been packed into sturdy crates; these new boxes looked like flimsy cardboard, far too weak to be filled with books, and the one emptied box appeared to be lined with white tissue paper.

"Giles!" Buffy shouted.

Xander walked over to the table and opened one of the smaller boxes.

"Definitely not books," he said, pulling out a woman's black shoe.

Cordelia took it from him; low-heeled and plain, at first glance it looked like the kind of thing Willow wore, but it smelt expensive. It was definitely quality leather, and hand-stitched too.

Someone had spent a lot of money on a deeply unfashionable shoe.

"Oh, good," Giles said as he came out of his office. "You're here. Did you sleep well?"

"The meditation worked," Cordelia said quickly. She'd still had a few nightmares, each filled with the imagery of despair, but nothing she couldn't live with. "What's all this for?"

"Dame Margo is coming."

"Your boss?" Willow said tentatively.

Definitely bad news. If she started interfering it'd make it a lot harder for Cordelia to guide events, and there was a good chance Margo would be able to expose Cordelia's little deceptions.

"Why?" Buffy said.

Xander nodded. "You said they were going to leave us alone. You made me come here at the weekend so they'd leave us alone."

"That was before the council split." Giles said.

"What's she want?" Willow asked. "She can't make us stop being Buffy's friends."

"Dame Margo agrees it's too late for that," Giles said. "She said she was coming for the death gate."

"So she's not stopping." Buffy said.

"She'll only be here a few days," Giles confirmed. "But we'll need to tread carefully around her, hence the clothes."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Cordelia said sharply. Judging by the shoe, Margo had lousy taste.

"They didn't wear clothes like that when Dame Margo was young," Giles said, smiling faintly. "She is prepared to tolerate them as casual wear, -"

"How generous," Buffy said as Xander asked "How old is she?"

"Those records are sealed." Giles said. "But her slayer died in 1916."

"So she's an alchemist," Willow said.

After a moment's thought Cordelia nodded. Margo must have been around Giles's age back then, and that was eighty years ago, so she had to be at least one hundred and twenty now. People could live that long without using magic, but only just and they were all far too decrepit to actually do anything. Margo must be using magic to stay alive, and the only such magic Cordelia had heard of was alchemy.

"She spent forty years in her lab after her fall, mastering the basics."

"Slow," Xander observed.

"Alchemy is hard," Giles said. "Most watchers who attempt the great work die of old age before they can learn how to hold back the ravages of time."

"Why?" Willow asked. "Can't they just do what the last one did?"

"This isn't science," Giles said. "The rituals that would give me eternal life would kill you, and vice versa."

Seeing the intrigued look on Willow's face Cordelia quickly spoke, before the conversation could get completely sidetracked.

"So what are the clothes for?"

"Ceremonial purposes," Giles replied. "Dame Margo is … fond of ceremonial."

"She wants us to dress up?" Xander said.

"Only for her presentation to Buffy. As civilians, less is expected of you."

"She's going to give me a present?" Buffy said, looking slightly confused.

"No," Giles said. "First she'll deliver the shortened ritual greeting of the slayer, that should only take an hour, then-"

"An hour!" Buffy exclaimed. "What's she going to do."

"We're lucky Dame Margo isn't staying long," Giles said. "The full version takes three days. Then, after that, these three will be invited into your presence. I will, um, 'proclaim their heroic deeds', then she will declare them worthy. Old-fashioned nonsense, but Dame Margo insists."

Or in plain English, 'I'm really on your side. Margo is making me do this.' Giles had to trying to make sure Margo's eccentricities didn't reflect badly on him.

"But haven't done anything heroic," Willow said. "Buffy's the hero. We just help her."

"That counts," Giles said. "Use a few stock phrases and some archaic language, and it'll sound a lot more impressive. Really though, it's enough for Dame Margo that you've chosen to help Buffy. Everything else is just to satisfy her love of pomp."

Cordelia nodded, remembering how she had bluffed Darla. "Did not we battle the minions of the master of flesh and blood beneath the dread gaze of the lords of Knn-Yrr?"

For a moment Willow looked strangely triumphant, then she put on her poker face, an expression so clearly fake it stank of ill-concealed secrets.

Cordelia quickly reviewed her last few words, then smiled inwardly. She had accidentally fuelled Willow's suspicions, but her slip had been so unspecific it would just reinforce Giles and Willow's misconceptions.

Xander smiled. "Cordy's always been good at boasting."

Cordelia deliberately smiled back, as if she had been complimented, then looked at Giles. "I'm not wearing those shoes. They're ugly."

"Dame Margo insists," Giles repeated.

"So?" Cordelia said. Margo was Giles's boss, not hers.

"It will save much trouble if we humour Dame Margo."

"Until the next time she comes."

"It should give my party time to prevent her returning."

Cordelia hesitated. Giles knew more than she did about the internal politics of the watcher's council, so he was probably right. Humouring Margo probably would give his friends in the council time to stop her coming back.

Still, Cordelia wasn't a watcher. She shouldn't have to follow their rules. Surely Giles could sweet-talk Margo by himself, without requiring her to wear ugly clothes.

Willow carefully lifted a black silk dress out of one of the boxes. Floor length, with a pleated skirt, and a high neck line, it looked expensive but several decades out of fashion. The silvery crosses embroidered on the bodice looked like a good idea though.

Buffy looked disdainfully at the dress. "Find another way."

"I think this is supposed to be for you," Willow said, passing a top hat to Xander.

"You want me to wear a suit," he protested. "I'll look silly."

He couldn't look any worse than he normally did. In fact, given how little men's fashions changed, he'd probably had the least to complain about.

"It would only be for twenty minutes," Giles said. "It's supposed to be a sign of your respect for the slayer."

"But I don't want him to." Buffy said.

"It's not for you, as such," Giles said. "It's like the difference between respecting the presidency and respecting the incumbent."

Xander half-smiled, then pulled a silver-topped cane out of one of the boxes. "I'm not old. Why do I need a walking stick?"

Giles took the cane then, holding it parallel to the ground, then pressed his thumb down.

A six-inch wooden spike sprang out of the base.

Xander smiled, and took the cane back. "Now that, I like."

"Dame Margo's party believe those who fight the dark forces should never go unarmed. Sound in principle, perhaps, but not very practical with modern clothes."

"What do we get?" Cordelia asked, wondering how many supporters Margo had in her party, and how influential they might be. "A spring-loaded parasol?"

Giles carefully pulled two boxes from the bottom of the pile, then opened one and took out a gold-encrusted fan; very shiny, but too gaudy for Cordelia's liking.

"Dame Margo once killed a vampire with one of these," Giles said, opening the fan to reveal an oil painting of an old man in a library reading by candlelight.

"When he asked her for a dance," Giles said, "she held out her hand to be kissed-"

Giles nudged one of the jewels.

Silently the steel emerged from under the gold, a sharp-looking blade running along the leading edge of the fan.

"The vampire bent down to do her the honour-"

Giles whipped the fan down, hard.

"-and lost its head."

Margo must have had strong nerves. Personally, Cordelia would have liked a slightly longer ranged weapon.

A hundred yards sounded about right; just close enough to tell they weren't human.

Giles smiled as he put the fan down. "They're also heavy enough to make a decent club."

"There are only two," Willow said. "Why?"

"Buffy's slayerhood is felt to be weapon enough."

"There are only two dress boxes, as well," Buffy said. "And Xander's suit. What does she expect me to wear?"

"Um, yes, well," Giles said slowly. "The ceremonial dress of a slayer is of somewhat older vintage."

"How old?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

"Our records don't say," Giles said. "Um, I'll just fetch it, shall I."

Giles hurried back into his office.

"What do you think?" Xander asked. "Medieval, roman, or cavewoman?"

Giles wheeled the costume out, without offering any excuses.

The boots were passable, Cordelia supposed; dove-grey was not a good colour but the knee-high legs would be flattering; and the leather miniskirt would have looked nice if someone hadn't covered it in metal studs.

The top wasn't much better; a leather T-shirt, in the same drab shade of grey, with a white tree painted on the front and, resting on its trunk, a scroll and a spear. Cordelia knew she was attractive enough to get away with wearing that ensemble, but Buffy certainly wasn't.

Not even Cordelia had enough poise to carry off the helmet though.

No one wore hats these days, especially not metal ones, and even when they had they'd only walked around with a few feathers in their cap, not an entire bird.

This helmet had a stuffed seagull mounted on top.

The strangest thing, though, was that someone had mounted the entire outfit on a life-size copper statue of Buffy, not something Cordelia would have expected Giles to have.

"I am not wearing that thing," Buffy said flatly.

"Who made the statue?" Willow asked. "You couldn't have had the time."

"Dame Margo," Giles said, not looking at Buffy.

"How?" Willow asked. "They've never met."

"There are many spells that can summon the image of the slayer," Giles said. "Dame Margo must have cast one, then used her alchemy to make it real. She'll have done the same to get your measurements; used a recording of your interview with the board to conjure your image, then solidified it."

"You mean she's got a statue of me?" Xander said. "With, you know, nothing missing?"

"I don't think she'll keep it long," Giles replied. "Not unless you really impress her."

And Margo was much too old to be impressed by that kind of thing. At least, Cordelia hoped so.

For all she knew, thanks to her alchemy Margo might now look twenty, with two lifetimes of experience. Competing with that would be difficult, even for Cordelia.

"I'm not wearing that," Buffy repeated. "I'll bet she won't be."

Giles looked down at the table. "Dame Margo will be making other sacrifices."

"Such as?" Buffy challenged.

"You'll be sitting over there, on the top step," Giles said, pointing.

"Dame Margo will enter through the library doors," Giles said, "on her hands and knees. She will then crawl across the library, stopping every five yards to sing a hymn of paean to the slayer. When she finally reaches you she will kiss the ground at your feet, then beg for your permission to serve the slayer."

"So that's why it'll take an hour," Cordelia said quietly. "How long has she been mad?"

The singing was merely eccentric, but crawling around on the floor was undignified, especially at Margo's age. No sane person would volunter to do anything so demeaning.

"Why?" Buffy asked. "I don't want people crawling at my feet. Tell her she doesn't have to do it."

"Dame Margo wants to." Giles said. "She thinks if she doesn't abase herself she will start to place herself above you."

Giles scowled. "Completely unnecessary, of course. I've never done anything like that, and I have no difficulty remembering that it is you who is on the sharp end. I've never thought of you as merely a weapon in my hand, and I never will. None of us do. We all know the truth, without need of obsolete ceremonies to remind us."

"So tell her that." Buffy said.

"I have," Giles said. "But there are very few people who can out-argue Dame Margo, and I am not one of them. She is determined to perform this ceremony, irrespective of our wishes."

"If I don't come, she won't be able do it."

Giles sighed. "Dame Margo might not let that stop her. Time permitting, she will hunt you down, force you into the appropriate costume, and pay her respects, even if she has to use magic."

"Strange way to show respect," Xander muttered, while Buffy silently fumed.

"Her party often does seem to pay more respect for the position than for the person."

"They influential, much?" Cordelia said, deliberately giving Giles the opening he seemed to be angling for. Normally, she wouldn't have been interested in the internal politics of the council, but now it looked like she might be about to become entangled in it.

"I'm not supposed to speak about such things, but since you asked ..." Giles said, smiling.

"There have always been many factions within the council, many different views about our proper role, and that of the slayer. Dame Margo's is a old faction, discredited since the twenties, after the scandal over her expenses. As its then leader, she was forbidden to hold any office, and placed under house arrest, but she is an adroit politician. She quietly studied alchemy while the memories faded, then traded her continued silence for a place on the committees, where she caught the eye of the board."

Giles scowled again. "Travers was highly placed in my party, until his rebellion. We have controlled the council for seventy glorious years, but now Travers's idiocy has placed all that in jeopardy. If he'd had enough self-restraint to confine his protests to the traditional channels, you would never have heard of Dame Margo, or her discredited policies, but instead he threw a tantrum, and brought our party down. Now we must pay the price for his folly."

So the council was leaderless, and the fanatics running loose? Not good news.

No doubt Giles's friends would regain control soon, it sounded like they were the only sane candidates, but until then the council would be more hindrance than help.

"Could Margo take over the council?" Willow asked.

"You mustn't call her that." Giles said quickly. "Address her as Dame Margo, or Custos Sophiae Veterrimus. The board does not permit its members to take any other position of authority within the council, but Dame Margo's reputation may be enough to garner support for her party. They are considered moderates, and they do have recent-"

"I don't care about the politics." Buffy said sharply. "I'll call her what I like."

"Dame Margo will acccept that from the slayer," Giles said. "But if the rest of us are disrespectful she will be most disappointed."

"I can live with that," Xander said.

Willow looked down at the table. "Can Giles?"

Cordelia caught her meaning immediately. Giles had said yesterday there were squads of watchers hunting down everyone who seemed disloyal, and Cordelia was pretty sure they wouldn't bother with a fair trial, not when the council was in the middle of a civil war.

Anything that might make Giles a target would definitely be a bad idea. He wouldn't be in any actual danger, Buffy would see to that, but fighting off vigilante watchers would be a distraction from the main battle.

Buffy frowned. "I won't let Margo do anything to you, Giles. Ignore her."

Giles winced. "It is not quite that simple."

Cordelia nodded. "We already have enough problems with the hellmouth, without having to fight watchers as well."

Xander scowled. "They're supposed to be on our side."

"They are," Giles said. "But they're not sure if I am."

"So we should tread carefully now," Willow said, "to avoid trouble later."

Xander looked down at the suit. "What's the worse they can do? Take away his library card?"

Giles did not respond.

"Get him deported?" Xander suggested, more hesitantly this time.

Giles looked at Xander, but stayed silent, neatly disassociating himself from the emotional blackmail he was relaying.

"They wouldn't kill you, would they?" Xander said quietly. "Not for that?"

"Dame Margo would not give such orders," Giles said, not exactly a denial.

Willow looked briefly uncertain, then smiled faintly. "But her followers might hear them."

"There is precedent-" Giles said.

"Thomas á Becket." Willow interupted.

Not a name that meant anything to Cordelia, but Giles clearly recognised it.

"Among others," he said. "If Dame Margo were to deem me unsatisfactory in this time of crisis, there are many who would take it as proof of my supposed disloyalty, and some who would attempt to satisfy her presumed wishes with my head."

"So make her say she doesn't want you dead." Buffy said firmly.

"That will only work if Dame Margo sounds like she means it, which means humouring her."

Buffy hesitated, then looked uncertainly at Giles. "Margo doesn't have any other strange ideas, does she?"

"Dame Margo holds somewhat idiosyncratic views on many topics-" Giles said.

"He means yes," Cordelia interpreted, thinking about the way Giles was talking.

He'd condemned Margo's policies, and rightly so, but he'd been very careful not to overtly criticise Margo herself. Why? Was it out of fear, or out of respect? If fear, then Margo didn't take criticism of her policies personally; if respect, Giles would not be a reliable protection against her dictat. Cordelia needed to know to be able to deal with Margo effectively.

Ignoring Cordelia's comment Giles continued, "but she will only be here a few days, not long enough to do much. At worst, you might put on a few pounds."

"Why?" Buffy asked, looking puzzled.

"Dame Margo likes slayers to be well fed."

"Don't you?" Willow asked.

"I don't quite think Buffy needs to dine on champagne, chocolate and caviar every single day," Giles said smiling.

Well, that explained Margo's problem with her expenses.

"Once might be nice," Buffy said, looking intently at Giles. "Will you tell us all her other strange ideas?"

Giles nodded.

"Then I'll do this silly ceremony," Buffy said slowly, "for your sake."

Cordelia waited patiently while Mrs Bodsworth carefully searched, looking for bugs. It was embarrassing, standing around in her underwear while some prim-looking elderly woman looked her over but, after hearing what Margo herself could do with a recorded voice, she could understand the necessity. Creating a statue might be mostly harmless but there would certainly be other, more sinister uses for that technique, uses with which Margo's enemies were probably all too familiar.

"Are you sure nobody will come in here?" Willow asked, for the fourth time.

"Dame Margo's magics do not fail," Mrs Bodsworth said, glancing meaningfully at the classroom door, where the ward hung.

Mrs Bodsworth claimed it was a powerful piece of magic that would leave anyone without permission unaware the classroom even existed, but to Cordelia it just looked like a dozen grey feathers stuck in a lump of clay.

Still, Cordelia had seen enough real magic to know it didn't always look spectacular. She was prepared to take trust that piece of apparent junk, for now. Besides, if it did happen to fail the leverage that failure would give her over Margo would be worth the embarrassment.

"Wouldn't it be safer to simply lock the door?" Willow persisted.

"Dame Margo felt this was the most effective way of achieving her aims," Mrs Bodsworth said.

Then Margo had a very casual attitude to the use of magic, more so than anyone else Cordelia had seen, which fitted with what Giles had said about her.

"But what do you think?" Willow asked.

Cordelia suppressed a sigh. Mrs Bodsworth was Margo's aide, and had been for over twenty years. There was no way Willow's crude tactics would get her to say anything against her boss; they would only annoy her.

"Dame Margo is never wrong," Mrs Bodsworth said in tones that scorned the possibility of doubt.

"Must be nice, working for her," Cordelia said, trying not to sound sarcastic. "No worries, no doubts."

Mrs Bodsworth half-smiled, then grabbed a handful of Cordelia's hair. "Dame Margo will not like this."

"What?" Cordelia said sharply. "I have good hair."

Willow smiled.

"Too easy for an enemy to grab hold of," Mrs Bodsworth explained. "For now, I'll put it up, but Dame Margo will insist on it being cut."

There was a lot Cordelia could have said to that, but it would be pointless arguing with Mrs Bodsworth. It wasn't her opinion Cordelia needed to change; it was Margo's.

Instead Cordelia looked pointedly at Miss Bodsworth's outfit, a grey dress in the same drab style as the black ones Margo had sent, but with a grey shawl worn over it, and faked a thoughtful frown.

"I thought you'd wear white," she said, trying to sound curious. She wasn't really interested in hearing about Margo's fashion tips, not when the woman was decades out of date, but the answer should give her a better feel for Margo's personality.

Mrs Bodsworth smiled. "We're human, creatures of the grey lands, where sunlight fades into shadow. We can not dwell in light undimmed. Its full glory would blind us as surely as its absence, and abomination would follow thereafter."

Mrs Bodsworth paused, her lips pursed in concentration as she threaded a silk ribbon through Cordelia's hair.

"No," she went on. "The light is not for the likes of us. Better to wear grey, and remember our human failings, than to aspire to the white, and fall short."

That wasn't a sentiment Cordelia could ever agree with, far too defeatist for her liking, but it did help suggest what arguments Margo would be vulnerable to.

"I suppose Margo wears white," Willow said. "She can't have many failings, not if she's never wrong."

Cordelia winced as Mrs Bodsworth's hands tightened in her hair. Willow did have a point, the humble words of Margo's aides didn't really fit with Margo's own arrogance, but this was not a good time for an argument.

"Dame Margo has wisdom enough not to speak while doubt remains," Miss Bodsworth said firmly. "Do not think to judge her, child. You could not even begin to grasp the subtleties of her thoughts."

"Bodsworth," Willow snapped. "You can't tell me what to think. Th-"

Mrs Bodsworth rapped Willow across the knuckles with the hair brush. "You will address us with proper respect."

"I'm afraid Willow's parents are very progressive," Cordelia said hastily, before Willow could dig herself deeper in. They needed to concentrate their fire on Margo herself, not waste their energies scrapping with her flunkies. "Perhaps if I have a quick word with her?"

Mrs Bodsworth stepped back and looked at Cordelia, then nodded. "You'll do. See if you can talk some sense into her, and ask for help should you have any trouble with your underskirts."

Willow scowled as Cordelia dragged her to the far side of the classroom.

"Why-" Willow said, far too loudly.

"Quieter," Cordelia said softly, her glare silencing Willow. "Do you want her to hear? And don't whisper either. That wouldn't look good."

"You're not taking her side?" Willow said quietly. "I thought-"

"Our argument is with Margo, not with her flunkies, and if we butter her up ..."

Cordelia waited for Willow to get the implication.

"You think she might give stuff away. You want to cross-check what Giles told us?"

Cordelia nodded. "Next time, remember to read between the lines. I know you're smart enough."

Willow had no hope of ever matching Cordelia's social skills but if she put her mind to it she should be able to do well enough, by more normal standards.

Looking half-apologetic, half annoyed, Willow began babbling.

"I was doing that, with her. I didn't have to expect to do it with you as well, not because I think you're not smart enough to do it, which you are, smart enough I mean, not doing it, though you are that too, but because you're, well, you. And you shouldn't have talked about my parents like that, or dragged me-"

Cordelia gently tapped Willow on the arm, before she could say something unforgivable. "Mrs Bodsworth is waiting for you."

"For Giles, right?" Willow said.

Cordelia nodded.

Willow sighed, then walked slowly over to where Mrs Bodsworth stood waiting.

"Have you done something to your hair?" Xander asked, looking at Cordelia and Willow.

"Apparently," Cordelia said, patting her bun, "Dame Margo is worried someone might try pulling our hair."

"But nothing can get in the library. The board gave Giles magic stones to prevent that, right?"

"Dame Margo did," Mr Bodsworth said, "but there is a principle to be upheld."

Ignoring him, Willow smiled nervously at Xander. "How do I look?"

Xander hesitated. "Good."

Cordelia didn't believe him. The classroom hadn't had any mirrors, so Cordelia hadn't been able to get a good look at herself, but one glance at Willow was enough to show the dresses were putting ten years on them.

Cordelia did not appreciate being made to look like some twenty-five year old spinster.

Xander's outfit did make him look older too, but for him that was a good thing. Xander looked like a man of the world now, not a callow youth. The skillful tailoring of the suit helped too, making Xander look subtly taller and slimmer.

Xander had definitely got the best of the bargain.

Mrs Bodsworth stepped out of the library. "Everything's ready now."

"Finally," Xander muttered.

"Patience is a virtue," Mr Bodsworth said sharply. "Waiting two minutes should not test yours."

"You have had your instructions," Mrs Bodsworth went on. "Try not to disgrace Mr Giles."

"We won't, Mrs" Willow said, glancing sideways at Cordelia.

Mrs Bodsworth looked at her husband, who nodded back, then they fully opened both halves of the library door.

Cordelia looked through the open doors, trying to see Buffy, but she was too far to the left.

"Three seek audience," Mr Bodsworth announced.

"I will vouch for their worth," Giles replied, his voice ringing out from within the library.

"Stand forth, and be recognised," Mr Bodsworth said. "Master Alexander of Sunnydale,"

Xander strolled into the centre of the doorway, halfway between the Bodsworths.

"Miss Cordelia of Sunnydale,"

Cordelia stepped gracefully forward to stand at Xander's right.

Now she could see Buffy, in full costume, sitting on the top step, a box of chocolates in her lap.

She didn't look happy.

Cordelia quickly glanced at Giles, looking rather out of place swathed in his grey cloak, then looked down at the foot of the steps, where the cause of all this needless fuss was sitting, a grey-haired old lady with a contented smile.

Cordelia was not fooled. Everything else about Margo, from her ramrod straight posture to her unwavering gaze, spoke of a lady of iron will, long accustomed to trampling over all opposition. Others, far stronger than you, have challenged me, Margo's face seemed to say, and failed utterly. What hope have you?

It was a look Cordelia had often tried practising in the mirror, with only limited success. She'd developed a glare that could silence the likes of Willow and Harmony, a useful addition to her social armoury, but she knew she didn't look anywhere near as intimidating as Margo. Not even her aunt could have managed that feat.

Still, Cordelia was not daunted. Margo was on her terrritory now, among people who cared nothing for her reputation, who did not respect her supposed authority. Formidable though Margo clearly was, she would be accustomed to manipulating watchers; her techniques finely tuned to exploit the shared habits of thought ingrained in them all by their common training.

Against Cordelia and her friends, none of whom had shared that training, most of those techniques would be useless.

"These are the three who would be admitted to the company of the slayer," Mr Bodsworth announced, breaking Cordelia's concentration.

Dame Margo looked at Giles. "Ausa cane sua, tutor hastae augustissima, ut censeam suum pretium."

Cordelia had only understood one word in all that gibberish, but she recognised the language: Latin, just as Giles as warned them. Apparently, Margo thought dead languages sounded more impressive, which showed how little she understood her current audience.

Cordelia took a second look at Margo, carefully comparing her clothing with Mrs Bodsworth's. Margo's dress had more embroidery, her shawl had a lace edging, and she was wearing an ugly green broach, presumably all signs of her status in the watchers, which should make mocking them a good way to knock Margo off-balance.

Giles smiled. "Of their deeds I shall sing, oh Custos Sophiae Veterrimi, that you may marvel, for these children of the hellmouth have done such things as should be the wonder of the age. Truly, their names should be revered throughout the land; their deeds celebrated in song and story."

Cordelia half-smiled. That was true, of course. Her name should be revered, and the others deserved a little fame. Giles didn't really believe that though, he was just using the standard laudatory formulas, which made the compliments much less satisfying.

"Bellum nostra secreto bellandum est," Margo said. "Clamare populi nobis erit numquam. Si veritatem tuum verbum est, nos unica suum ausum potest meminisse."

Margo did have a beautiful voice, perfect for voice-overs, but Cordelia still wasn't impressed.

"Then I shall sing," Giles said, "lest their names be forgotten, and their deeds fade from all memory."

"And so they went," Giles sang ten minutes later, "where few would dare, the place of death, the reaper's lair, daring battle to save a friend, that he not meet early his end."

Which had been just two nights ago, so Giles couldn't have that much left to sing about.

At least Giles had a good singing voice, not as nice as Margo's but still decent, and his words were pleasant to hear. It would have been better if he'd skipped over the verses about Xander and Willow, neither of who deserved such praise, but the verses about her, those she could have listened to for hours on end.

Margo seemed to like the song too. She'd been saying 'venite propius' every few verses, and beckoning them closer, just as Giles had said she would if all went well.

Now, they were halfway to Buffy, and the ceremony was nearing its end. Soon it would be over, and Cordelia would get the chance to show Margo how little her status among the watchers meant here in Sunnydale.

"But behind them others followed," Giles sang. "To danger blind they walked death's road."

"Halt." Margo said abruptly, the first English word she'd spoken. "Someone comes."

She paused, fingering her broach, then looked at Giles. "Mr Giles, you have erred, and endangered my security. Was this on purpose?"

"Dame Margo," Giles said quickly. "I assure you I know nothing about this. I'd never seek to harm you, never."

"Incompetence, then, Mr Giles," Margo said. "But one must make allowance for the follies of youth. I will exact no penance."

Hearing the unspoken threat, Willow winced but Cordelia smiled. Margo wouldn't be wasting time with her posturing if she thought their unexpected visitor a threat, not if she was even half as competent as she looked.

Looking unruffled, Giles glanced at the doors then asked, "Dame Margo, I am at somewhat of a loss. I was under the impression nothing short of a full god could penetrate your wards."

Cordelia carefully watched Margo's reaction to the covert insult, half expecting trouble, then relaxed. Judging by the way Margo's lips had twitched, Giles's information about her had been right. She really did relish verbal combat, so much so she was prepared to overlook minor transgressions rather than deny herself the thrill of the fight.

That would make Cordelia's life much easier. She'd be able to confront Margo overtly, without endangering Giles, as long as she heeded the rest of Giles's advice; to act respectfully, lose gracefully, and show no emotions.

"Mr Giles," Margo said, "need I remind you of the power inherent in an invitation, however illicitly gained?"

Buffy leaned forward. "Just tell us who's coming."

Dame Margo smiled. "Patience. She will be here in three seconds. You may stand at ease."

As she finished speaking, Margo leaned back against the stairs and closed her eyes.

Cordelia half-turned, then took one step backward, giving herself a clear view of both the doorway and Margo.

The doors swung open.

Harmony stared into the room, her initial composure swiftly giving way to unconcealed shock migled with a hint of fear.

She quickly hid her emotions behind a scowl, a moment too late. "What weird stuff are you freaks doing now?"

"Play rehearsal," Xander said, staring at Harmony.

"For Boadicea," Willow added, glancing at Margo. "You know, the Shakespeare play you saw us rehearsing once before. Doesn't Buffy's costume look great?"

Cordelia just stared at Harmony, wondering who could be desperate enough to use her in their plans. She couldn't be here by pure chance, even if some slip of the tongue had given her an accidental invite she still wouldn't have gone anywhere near the library under normal circmstances, so someone must have arranged this, but why? What use could Harmony be?

Harmony started to look at Buffy, then stiffened, her gaze locked on Margo.

"Why are you here?" Giles asked.

"This is a library," Harmony said, still looking thoughtfully at Margo.

"I don't recall ever seeing you here before." Giles said pointedly.

Harmony finally looked away from Margo. "No, I have a life, not like these freaks. Who's the lady?"

"A colleague," Cordelia said. "Why did you come here, today?"

Harmony hesitated. "I won't let you hang round these freaks any longer. It's bad for my -"

"Harmony," Cordelia snapped, her hand tightening on her fan, "Do you enjoy being popular?"

Harmony laughed. "Did you?"

"I always will," Cordelia said, unphased by Harmony's empty threat. "You are-"

"Of course," Harmony said. "You wouldn't have heard. You've been spending so much time with these freaks that-"

"Harmony," Buffy said, her voice dangerously low. "I am not a freak. None of us are."

Harmony laughed again. "Looked in the mirror lately?"

"That's a costume." Xander said hotly.

Harmony looked scornfully at him. "One you picked, no doubt. It looks like something out of your comic books."

"I-" Xander began, then Willow leant over and whispered something in his ear, silencing.

Harmony looked back at Buffy. "You are a freak. You can't hide it. You could have been normal, like me."

Harmony hesitated thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps not quite like me. You don't have my natural beauty, or my way with people, but I could have helped you disguise those flaws. If you wore quality clothes, not your normal rags, and had your hair and make-up done professionally people wouldn't notice how short and fat you are, or how grotesque your nose is."

"Cordelia," Buffy said quietly. "How long has your friend been mad?"

"Thirty-six hours," Cordelia replied smiling, hoping the detailed knowledge falsely implied by her precision would unsettle both Harmony and Margo.

Ignoring the quick exchange, Harmony rambled on. "-normal inside, but you aren't. Normal people would have avoided those two losers, and that monstrosity."

Harmony spat the last word, pointing at Cordelia, her face contorted with hate.

"Harmony," Giles said. "You-"

"Shut up." Harmony shouted. "You don't know anything important. You're as bad as Buffy, wasting time on saving losers while the real cri-"

"Enough," Margo said, her voice a silk-wrapped sword, and Harmony stopped midword.

"Furis cassum pretium sunt verba," Margo added, looking steadily at Harmony.

Cordelia looked at Margo, then suppressed a shudder. Margo had dropped the sweet-old-lady act.

Harmony winced, as if struck, then looked down at the floor.

"Look at me, wretch," Margo said softly, and Harmony's head jerked back up.

After a few seconds Harmony began to shake.

Cordelia started rethinking her plans. She was stronger than Harmony, of course. She wouldn't crumble beneath Margo's gaze, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of personality now visible in her eyes, but still it might be best not to provoke Margo too much.

"What was that gibberish?" Harmony said; a brave show of defiance undermined by her unsteady voice.

"Not just ill-mannered, but ill-educated too," Margo said. "There would not be much doubt about your future profession, even if your clothes did not proclaim it."

Willow smiled.

Margo looked at Mrs Bodsworth. "Agatha, you will cover her up."

Mrs Bodsworth looked around, fingered her shawl hesitantly, then scowled and dashed into Giles's office.

"Mr Giles," Margo said. "You may have the honour of translating my words."

Mrs Bodsworth —no, Agatha— dashed out of Giles's office, carrying the overflowing wastepaper basket and a roll of sellotape.

Giles frowned, almost imperceptibly, as Agatha began sticking the cardboard from the parcels to Harmony, who shifted uneasily but, still transfixed by Margo's gaze, did not dare protest.

"As you wish, Dame Margo," Giles said. "The words of a thief are worthless."

"Hey!" Harmony said hotly, then paled beneath the lash of Margo's redoubled stare.

"I'm not a thief," Harmony added, her voice barely audible.

Margo toned her gaze back down a notch, then smiled, showing perfect teeth. "Did you buy that supposed dress? No. You did not. Nor did your mother, or your father, or your latest beaux. No, that dress was not bought for you, was it."

Harmony's expression shifted, from initial shock, through impotent fury, to realisation. "You know?"

"Answer my question, wretch," Margo said, the steel now showing through the silk.

"No, it wasn't," Harmony admitted, her voice a broken reed. "But I had no choice."

"The oldest excuse." Margo said disdainfully. "There is always a choice."

Cordelia frowned, digging through old memories. It had been nearly two years ago, for her, four months for the rest of the world, but she was almost certain she'd seen Harmony buy that dress.

Yes, that sounded right. Late December, it had been, for the Christmas parties.

And yet Harmony's admission had sounded genuine, and her whispered 'You know?' seemed to confirm its truth. How could that be?

"It wasn't really theft." Harmony muttered. "Friends share everything."

"And where is your friend now?" Margo asked. "In what hell did you abandon her that she could not follow you hither?"

"I'm the one whose been through hell." Harmony feebly protested. "You should-"

"I will not take instruction from you, wretch," Margo said. "And the third party has not insulted the slayer."

"Dame Margo," Giles said, looking uneasily at Harmony. "Does this matter truly fall within our jurisdiction? Insults to the slayer, however grievous, are-"

"Mr Giles," Margo said, the steel once more masked in silk. "I would never exceed my authority. This matter would fall to me even were not its resolution entangled in prophecy."

"Dame Margo," Giles said. "May I remind you that, as tutor augustissimae hastae, I hold amongst my perogatives the prosection of violators of the ancient law."

"Mr Giles," Margo said, turning to face him. "Your failure to interpret this prophecy imperiled my security, a lapse which places the matter into my hand."

"My apologies, Dame Margo," Giles said unconvincingly. "May I at least know what this prophecy is."

Margo smiled. "Translated from the original Tibetan, it reads, in part: 'When the old man first dances before the great mother on the day of the sea-foam's daughter, then shall the exiled queen battle for her former throne.' Now do you understand your error, Mr Giles?"

Harmony looked briefly thoughtful, then nodded to herself, clearly pleased.

"That's tomorrow." Giles said, "but I do not see the relevance, Dame Margo. That girl is neither a queen nor a throne."

Harmony smiled, apparently amused by Giles's incomprehension. She must think she knew what the prophecy meant, implausible though that sounded; unless, perhaps, she knew some other secret that fitted with it.

"I see the relevance, Mr Giles. Do you wish to dispute my judgement?"

"No, Dame Margo," Giles hastily assured her.

Buffy leaned forward, scowling. "Harmony isn't worth talking about. Get rid of her, and we can get on with this … ceremony."

Harmony looked nervously at Margo, who was still facing Giles, then scowled back at Buffy. "Selfish, much?"

Margo turned to face Harmony

Harmony squealed in terror as she stumbled backwards, into Agatha.

Cordelia couldn't blame her. Her gaze upped another notch, Margo now seemed aglow with fury, a figure of menace to rival Angelus at his worst. This was a woman who fought the dark for untold years, a woman whose wrath even the demons must fear, and now it was focused on a single helpless girl.

Harmony might as well have challenged Buffy to a wrestling match.

Cordelia smiled, wondering how long it would take her to learn that look. It should certainly prove useful next time she needed to negotiate an extension on her homework, or an increase in her allowance.

Agatha helped Harmony steady herself, then cuffed her across the back of the head. "You were warned, wretch."

"Um, sorry, dame?" Harmony stuttered.

Margo smiled, a shark's smile.

Giles frowned, clearly displeased.

"What, I wonder," Margo said slowly, "do you think should be the slayer's priority? Waiting on you, hand and foot? I'm sure we'd all love to hear what passes for wisdom in your empty head."

Willow and Buffy both smiled, but now Xander was looking uncertain.

"I was thinking about that exiled queen." Harmony said quietly, an obvious riposte.

Too obvious, in fact. Margo was considered verbally adroit even by watcher standards; she would not make such slips accidentally.

Margo turned down her gaze to almost friendly level, a move Cordelia watched with grave suspicion. If that weak apology had been enough to appease Margo, she would have stood down immediately. She hadn't, so she must still be planning some punishment for Harmony's insult.

"Are you going to help her?" Harmony continued with growing confidence. "Could you do something now?"

"One might almost think you had a personal interest," Margo said, her tone dismissing the possibility.

Harmony shifted uneasily. "Could you?"

That really did sound like personal concern, despite Margo's implication, but Harmony had never cared about anyone except herself. Harmony must know some secret, one that suggested the prophecy was all about her, which knowledge might also explain her recent strange behaviour.

"I could," Margo said, "but side stepping prophecy is a hazardous business for we whose souls do not echo to the laughter of the bells."

Xander looked sharply at Margo, a question hovering on his half-open lips, but then he hesitated, and chose silence, the wisest thing Cordelia had seen him do in months.

"So, the queen will have to wait until tomorrow?" Harmony said. "Will you help her then?"

Buffy yawned, then looked at Giles, who shook his head.

"I might," Margo said, "If I were convinced she would be a better tenant of that throne."

Harmony blinked at that setback, then asked, "If this queen didn't know how to get her throne back, wouldn't you have to tell her how?"

"Indeed, I would," Margo said. "Lest prophecy be denied. I would have to arrange for the necessary items to come into that queen's possession."

Or, in plain English, Margo would help this queen get ready for the fight tomorrow, not something she'd have bothered telling Harmony unless Margo too thought her to be that queen, and if Margo thought that she was almost certainly right.

That must also be why Margo had maneuvered the conversation onto that topic; temporarily deferring her revenge for Harmony's last insult.

Harmony smiled, blissfully unware of her impending doom.

"Agatha," Margo said, "I believe the wretch's outfit is now adequately modest."

By Victorian standards, perhaps. From neck to ankle, Harmony was swathed in cardboard, a level of coverage that was, by any reasonable standard, almost nunnish.

Agatha nodded and stepped back.

"Harmony," Margo said, the steel back on display, "will you promise that in public, from now on, you will wear only your current apparel, or some other no less decent?"

"Dame Margo!" Giles protested. "Is this really-"

"It is for her own good, Mr Giles." Margo said, not looking away from Harmony. "Respectable men will find her modesty becoming, and the wretch clearly has no other hope of advancement."

Margo might believe that, she was certainly old enough to, but she must know Harmony didn't. She wasn't doing this for Harmony's sake; she was doing it to punish her for insulting Buffy.

It wouldn't work, though. Harmony would have that outfit off three seconds after she left Margo's sight.

Harmony hesitated, a transparent attempt to feign the reluctance Margo would expect, then mumbled, "OK."

"Speak your promise, in full," Margo said.

Harmony sighed. "I promise that from now on I'll never wear anything less decent than this in public."

"Then you may go," Margo said.

Harmony turned to leave.

"Stop, wretch!" Margo snapped, her voice the very essence of command.

Harmony stopped, absolutely still.

"Face me," Margo ordered, her gaze now back to its full-

Cordelia stopped herself midthought. Margo had been turning that look on and off to order, too smoothly for it not to be under full conscious control. This was not Margo's full fury, just a carefully calibrated act.

Quite what the real thing would look like, Cordelia wasn't certain she wanted to know, not firsthand anyway.

She definitely wasn't going to lie down and let Margo trample all over her, but the lady was going to need extremely delicate handling.

Still silent, Harmony looked at Margo.

"You have not the right to turn your back on the slayer, wretch." Margo said. "You will kneel."

Unable to resist, Harmony knelt.

"Now crawl, wretch," Margo said. "Crawl backwards, until you are gone from our sight, and then let Agatha search you."

Cordelia frowned, troubled. Harmony's recent insults had certainly needed punishing, but they didn't quite merit this kind of treatment.

Besides, Harmony wasn't Margo's to punish. Only Cordelia had that right, a privilege earned by all the time she spent giving Harmony good advice.

Harmony started crawling backwards, moving just slowly enough not to tear off the cardboard.

Margo looked up at Buffy. "That is how the unworthy should treat you, how they would treat you were your watcher one of my party."

Buffy said nothing, but looked distinctly unimpressed by the possibility.

Giles waited until Harmony and Agatha had gone, then looked at Xander. "Now I understand the seventeenth charge of Dame Margo's impeachment proceedings."

"Those charges were all dropped, Mr Giles," Margo said, only the faintest hint of steel in her voice.

Cordelia mentally nodded. Giles was getting a lot more leeway from Margo than Harmony had, probably because she had more respect for him, but he'd said this whole ceremony was about proving Cordelia and the others worthy of respect. Given how seriously Margo was taking it, going through with the ceremony might actually force her to be gentle with them too.

Giles nodded. "They were dropped, Dame Margo, after you agreed to resign your position as head of the council."

Margo shrugged. "Back to your places. You may resume your song, Mr Giles."

"Against the demon's wrath they stood, as only true-born heroes could," Giles sang. "Against darkness, they pitted light, and the demon fled, afraid to fight."

That had to be the end of the song, nothing hellmouthy had happened since then —unless Margo counted— so the ceremony must be nearly over, far too soon for Cordelia's liking.

It had given her twenty minutes to think, twenty minutes to prepare herself to face Margo, but twenty minutes was barely enough.

"Such are the deeds of these, the children of the hellmouth," Giles said. "If they are not worthy of the slayer, none are."

"Condignus hastae augustissimae est." Margo said. "Comrades-in-arms, I name these three, banes to the foes of man, guardians to the innocent. To this high company I welcome them, for so long as their light endures. Hail!"

"Hail!" Giles and the Bodsworths shouted, then bowed low to Cordelia, and the others. "Hail! Hail!"

Cordelia smiled, enjoying the well-earned praise. Giles had never treated her like this. He'd just taken her invaluable help for granted, never giving her the recognition she deserved, not until Margo forced him.

Well, Giles was wrong.

Not completely wrong, of course. The Latin and the unflattering clothes really were pointless, but those were only superficial details.

At its heart, this ceremony was about recognising how heroic Cordelia and the others were, and that could never be a waste of time, whatever Giles thought. Surely they could manage an afternoon a month to celebrate their achievements, even with all the hellmouth weirdness.

Cordelia smiled broadly, imagining Xander, Giles, Buffy, and Willow taking turns to congratulate her selfless bravery, then hurriedly jerked her thoughts back to the present. This was not a good time for daydreams, however pleasant.

OK, this once, Margo was half-right, but that wouldn't help her.

Cordelia knew how to resist flattery, how to savour the bait yet escape the trap. Margo would not be able to sweet-talk her into surrender, not even with her unfair advantages.

Margo looked up at Buffy. "You may go now, hasta augustissima."

"The ceremony's over?"

"Yes, hasta augustissima."

"At last." Buffy said, smiling broadly, then looked at the clock. "Too late for class, we can-"

"Mr Giles's acolytes shall be stay here, hasta augustissima. We have much to discuss."

Cordelia hesitated, then decided she could tolerate Margo's demeaning description. It would be difficult enough to force Margo to back down on the important issues without fritter away her energies on endless minor disputes first.

"We do?" Willow muttered as Buffy said, "Without me? And don't keep calling me Augustissisti"

Margo nodded. "The slayer should not weary herself with the tedium of research, nor taint her purity by the study of darkness."

"You mean I can skip all the boring bits?" Buffy asked. "Giles never lets me do that."

A typically self-serving remark. Buffy often got out of research duty by claiming she needed to train or go patrolling.

Buffy looked apologetically at Giles. "I don't mind though, honestly."

"Thus is the extent of your pernicious influence revealed, Master Giles," Margo said.

"I see no need to apologise, Dame Margo," Giles replied, "for arming the slayer with knowledge, the most deadly of weapons. It was through her research that the virgin-thief was slain."

"Mr Giles," Margo said scornfully. "My Helga would have needed no such assistance. She could have slain that puny creature bare-handed and blindfolded."

Giles smiled. "I am sure Buffy is pleased that was not necessary, thanks to my policies."

Buffy nodded, then scowled at Margo. "Anything that makes slaying easier is good."

"So might a man say of a crutch," Margo said, "until he discovers himself unable to walk without it."

"If you understand that simple truth, Dame Margo," Giles said, "why would you see such excesses lavished upon the slayer?"

"Dare you suggest, Mr Giles, that my Helga, the greatest slayer for two centuries, was weakened by my support?"

"Dame Margo, I am confident my Buffy will soon surpass your Helga, without needing three chefs in her entourage."

Cordelia nodded. A few professional hair stylists and beauticians would be much more useful to Buffy than some chefs; none of them would be any help with the slaying, but looking good would help Buffy's morale.

"Have school lunches improved since my day, Mr Giles?"

Xander smiled. "They're still serving your leftovers, um, dame."

Margo looked at him. "Potatoes hard as billiard balls and custard like glue, Mr Alexander?"

Xander nodded.

"Just like my old school," Margo said, then smiled. "We used to stick our crockery to the ceiling with the custard, then bet on how many potatoes it would take to knock it off.

That was obviously meant as an endearing anecdote, but Cordelia was not so easily fooled. Every word Margo said was carefully chosen; none should be taken at face value.

Margo looked back at Giles. "The slayer should not have to eat such offal, Mr Giles, nor shall she while I am here."

Giles looked at the Bodsworths. "Which of you is the chef?"

"Neither, Mr Giles," Margo said. "She will dine at Le Jardin Noir."

The third most expensive restaurant in Sunnydale and, according to Cordelia's dad, the one with the best chef. Margo definitely had good taste, and good sources.

Margo looked at Buffy. "You shall eat as a slayer should; the richest meats, the choicest fruits, the finest wines."

Not an easy offer to turn down. A refusal would just make Buffy look ungrateful, giving Margo the moral high ground, but acceptance would set an undesirable precedent.

Hopefully, Buffy would not make the obvious riposte.

"I eat what my friends eat." Buffy said flatly.

Margo smiled. "I have already booked them a private room for all our meals. I am confident they'll enjoy their reward."

Xander looked pleased, hardly surprising considering the calibre of his normal diet, but Willow frowned. "Um, Dame Margo, we're all too young to drink."

"Nonsense, Mistress Willow," Margo said. "Our cause is eternal; those laws, ephemeral. They mean nothing to us. We cannot constantly be trimming our sails in blind obedience to the whims of the mob. We must steer a steady course through treacherous seas, with the great moral truths as our guiding light."

Easy for Margo to say; no court would dare convict her. Cordelia wouldn't be able to muster enough hauteur to get away with that attitude for a few years yet.

"Dame Margo," Giles said, "I am not entirely convinced that breaking those laws would serve any higher purpose."

"Mr Giles, have not these three taken on duties most adults would shirk?"

Giles could only nod.  

"Then, Mr Giles, we are obliged to treat them as adults. To do less would be to demean them. Is that your desire?"

Flawed logic that, but if Giles tried to take advantage of the holes in Margo's argument he'd end up looking like a rule-obsessed pedant determined to stop Cordelia and the others having any fun, not a good move.

"I had not previously considered the matter in that light, Dame Margo," Giles said, neatly abandoning a failed attack without conceding an inch.

Margo looked at Buffy. "Agatha will escort you to Le Jardin Noir."

Buffy scowled. "You can't make me go anywhere. I will eat lunch with my friends."

"So, Mr Giles," Margo said, "you have failed to teach your slayer how to accept good advice."

Giles winced, then looked pleadingly at Buffy.

Buffy hesitated, then smiled brightly. "Let's all go."

"We shall all eat there this evening, hasta augustissima," Margo said. "And on many other occasions, but not this time. I refuse to burden your pure soul with my dolorous counsel."

"If bad things are coming, I need to know about them." Buffy insisted.

"My Helga didn't. Armed only with the sacred weapons and a pure soul she slew demons more terrible than any you have yet slain."

Not quite as impressive as it sounded, since two of the big demons Buffy had fought had run away and the third killed itself. That only left the fog dogs but Buffy had killed one of those without forewarning so she couldn't be that much worse than Helga had been, if at all.

"I need to know." Buffy repeated.

"I have already rebutted that claim," Margo said. "I should not need to do so again, not if you have been properly taught."

"Dame Margo," Cordelia quickly said, before Buffy could get Giles deeper in trouble, "What about us? Le Jardin Noir does not deliver."

"Mistress Cordelia, ubi pecunia dicit quisque audit."

Cordelia thought quickly, trying to work out what Margo had just said. An audit was a financial checkup and pecuniary had something to do with finance so, if those words had come from Latin, Margo must have said something about money, which did make sense in context.

"You bribed them, dame?" Cordelia guessed.

Besides her, Willow nodded in agreement.

"Mistress Cordelia, to be bribery it would have to be in pursuit of immoral ends."

Margo looked back at Buffy. "Are you ready to accept my generosity, hasta augustissima, or do you wish to continue with this unbecoming display of petulance?"

Buffy looked at Giles, who shook his head, then sighed. "OK, I'll go, but I won't enjoy it."

Cordelia smiled sympathetically as Buffy trudged to the library doors, where the Bodsworths bowed.

Margo waited until Agatha had led Buffy away, then smiled. "Since you three are not accustomed to dressing properly, I will not insist on any sartorial standards for these meetings."

Margo waited a moment, then frowned. "I see your manners are less than polished."

"Thank you?" Willow said hesitantly.

"Better," Margo said. "You have five minutes to get changed. Go."

Hearing Mr Bodsworth step behind her, Cordelia leaned sideways so he could reach in and take her soup dish away.

"Mr Giles," Margo said. "The board believes that this 'ooze demon' is the same demon as assaulted a fishing boat four hours later, slightly to the west of Easter Island. Their description was incoherent, but the essentials appear to match."

"That's about three thousand miles," Willow said, then passed her dish to Mr Bodsworth.

Xander smiled. "I guess Buffy really scared it."

"Or there's something there the demon wants." Cordelia said. "There are lots of weird statues there. Some of them might be evil."

"Some of them are," Margo said. "But Easter Island was not the demon's target. Radar traces indicate it continued due south from there."

Giles frowned. "Those cities were never cleansed."

"What cities?" Willow asked.

"The demon cities of Antarctica," Margo said. "They are sealed deep beneath the ice, and guarded by agents of the Board. The demon should not be able to penetrate them."

"The council is in disarray, Dame Margo," Giles said. "We won't be able to keep that demon out."

"Other agents of the Board, Mr Giles."

"The demons had cities?" Willow said. "Um, dame?"

"Haven't you told them anything, Mr Giles?"

"I told them what they needed to know, Dame Margo, in accordance with council policy."

"Mr Giles, once they had proved their worth in battle you should have told them somewhat more."

Giles looked faintly disapproving, but said nothing.

"The old ones did have cities once," Margo said. "They had a high civilisation, perhaps more advanced than our own. Then the First came, and the old ones fell, becoming demons. Civilisation crumbled into barbarism and worse, an Hobbsian war omnis contra omnem that raged for unnumbered millennia, until at last this very universe rejected their corrupted souls, with the encouragement of the precursors of the Board, banishing the demons into the outer dimensions."

"Can't you do that again? Get rid of all these demons?" Willow asked.

"No," Margo said, frowning faintly. "The demons have taken countermeasures, or else there would be none present. Now, their civilisation did not fall overnight. Its twilight lasted perhaps a thousand years, during which the once great cities became citadels of evil, their armouries brimming with weapons forged of the blackest magics, their libraries filled with the honeyed words of the First."

"When the demons fell, we cleansed those cities, before the evils they contained could corrupt mankind, but there were some cities we could not reach."

"The ones in Antarctica, dame?" Willow guessed.

"Indeed," Margo said. "During the twilight years the nascent demons turned the energies that had once held back the ice on each other. Blinded by &hellep;"

Hearing a clatter behind her Cordelia covertly angled one of her knives until she could see a reflection. Turning round would not have been a good idea, not after what had happened when Xander had yawned, but she needed to know what was happening.

Mr Bodsworth had just left six plates on the library counter, next to a bottle of white wine, and was now hurrying back to the door.

Should she drink the wine? Getting drunk would leave her vulnerable to verbal trickery from Margo and spoil her image with everyone else but one drink wouldn't hurt and it might help impress Giles and Margo with her maturity.

Mr Bodsworth backed into the library, then turned round, revealing he was carrying a large covered tray.

"&hellep; for several months," Margo said.

Mr Bodsworth started putting the plates on the table, starting with Margo.

"What are we having now?" Xander asked, looking curiously at the library counter — easy for him to do, since he was sat opposite Cordelia.

"Salmon, Master Alexander," Margo said. "The second course is always fish."

"Second course, dame?" Cordelia asked, spotting the implication. "How many are we having?"

"Four main courses," Margo said. "Soup, fish, meat, and dessert, followed by coffee and biscuits, to round the meal off."

"To round us off," Willow muttered, looking down at her cutlery. "Um, dame? You said something about all our meals. Are they all going to be like this? The amount that is, not the quality."

"Yes, Mistress Willow," Margo said. "Why, is there some problem?"

Cordelia's family dietician would certainly think so. The soup alone, though irresistibly delicious, had been more than Cordelia would normally have eaten in an entire day.

Cordelia looked toward Margo, being careful to avoid meeting her gaze head on. "Dame Margo, we don't want to eat all that."

Margo frowned with faint annoyance, and Cordelia shuddered in anticipation.

"How long has Mistress Cordelia had this problem, Mr Giles?" Margo asked.

"What problem, Dame Margo?"

"A poor appetite is a sure sign of poor health, Mr Giles."

Mr Bodsworth passed Willow her plate, then went back to the counter.

Giles smiled. "Dame Margo, these girls are simply concerned about their weight."

"Poor mental health then, Mr Giles." Margo said. "Neither of these women should have any reason to worry given the amount of exercise they get, or have you fallen short of your duty?"

Cordelia silently fumed. Treating Margo the way she deserved for that slur would be suicidal, but she could not let it pass unchallenged. She had say something, if only she could think of something safe.

Giles nervously adjusted his glasses. "Yes, well, standards are not what they were, Dame Margo. Now that we've finished reviewing the events of recent weeks perhaps we should discuss your mission here."

Icy politeness should work. Margo used it herself, so she couldn't object to it on principle, and it should keep the stakes low while getting Cordelia's message across.

Xander looked at Willow, at Cordelia, back at Willow, then opened his mouth, probably to make some tension-breaking joke.

"Dame Margo fforbes-Hamilton," Cordelia said, before Xander could spoil the moment, "Would you care to clarify your last remark?"

"With respect, Mistress Cordelia," Margo said, in a tone of voice normally reserved for disobedient pets, "I would have thought my meaning clear, even to those somewhat lacking in mental capacity. Due to the demands of the training Giles is putting you through, you should have no problem remaining girlishly slim whilst eating like this at every meal. Indeed, to eat much less might well prove less than healthy."

Giles blanched.

"What training?" Willow asked, and Giles groaned.

Cordelia absent-mindedly leaned sideways, so Mr Bodsworth could serve her salmon.

Giles clearly didn't want to answer that question, which must be why Margo had provoked Willow into asking it, simultaneously giving Margo a chance to reinforce her authority and to prevent Cordelia from responding to that last insult. Anything Cordelia said now would easily be dismissed as unimportant, compared with Giles's alleged misdemeanour. Margo had got away with her intolerable arrogance, again.

"The training the Board asked Mr Giles to give you." Margo said, then looked at him. "You have followed our advice, I presume."

Giles hesitated, then clutched his throat, his eyes opening wide.

Margo waited a few moments, then smiled. "Mr Giles, when you stop trying to lie, you will be able to speak."

"W-what?" Giles stammered. "How?"

"One of the incidental fruits of my alchemical studies, Mr Giles," Margo said. "I can neither lie, nor be lied to."

But there were many ways to deceive, without actually lying, and Margo would know them all, giving her an enormous advantage against anyone not accustomed to speaking under that constraint.

Fortunately, since Cordelia was scrupulously honest but had been compelled to deceive by the wish, she had some experience at bending the truth, enough to spot Margo's evasions.

"Now, Mr Giles," Margo said. "Would you care to give me an honest answer?"

"I fully intend to follow them, Dame Margo," Giles said, "at the appropriate time."

"The appropriate time, Mr Giles, was three weeks ago."

"With respect, Dame Margo, I am forbidden from substituting your judgement for my own. I must give it all due regard, of course, but the final decision as to how best to do my duty must be mine alone."

That didn't sound good. Giles hadn't even attempted to defend his actions, appealing instead to a watcher rule Margo had already broken, in all but name. Calling her orders advice did not make it advice, especially not when her followers were willing to kill any who disobeyed.

Either Giles thought his actions indefensible, unlikely, or he didn't want to admit his real motives.

"With respect, Mr Giles, that provision is intended to prevent corrupted watchers from exploiting the loyalty of their subordinates, not to enable lazy watchers to evade their duties."

"With respect, Dame Margo, I am not lazy. I am simply doing what I think best for these three."

"With respect, Mr Giles, you should be helping equip them to do as they think best."

"Giles," Willow said hesitantly. "Are you talking about the occult training you mentioned the other week, after those phone interviews? It's the only training you've mentioned for us, that I remember, but that wouldn't keep us slim, unless you teach us cosmetic spells, but why would you do that?"

"Mistress Willow," Margo said. "We quite strongly advised Mr Giles to teach you three the rudiments not just of occult lore, but also of self-defence."

"You wanted us to learn kung-fu?" Xander said smiling. "Why didn't you do that, Giles?"

That explained why Giles didn't want to defend his actions. If he did, Xander would be tempted to take Margo's side, giving Margo another victory, and Giles would still be in trouble for disobeying orders.

"Xander," Giles said, "how to teach non-slayers was not part of my training. I would not be able to devise a suitable course overnight."

That couldn't be the real reason or Giles would have mentioned the self-defence at the same time as the occult training, but the false implication should be enough to keep Xander happy, provided he didn't get too long to think about it.

Presumably Giles did have some good reason for not wanting to teach self-defence, since he hadn't done it in the original history either, but now was not a good time to find out why. Maybe later.

"What would this training involve?" Cordelia quickly asked, hoping to divert the conversation into territory less uncomfortable for Giles.

"The first lesson, Mistress Cordelia," Margo said, "will be in running away."

Xander stared at Margo, "That's, that's -"

"Not quite what you were expecting, Mr Alexander?" Margo suggested. "Our experiences that you will be spending most of your time either hurrying to fetch the slayer, racing to stop a dark ritual or trying to lure a demon away from innocents."

"But it's not just running?" Xander persisted. "Dame?"

"No," Margo said. "Running will also improve your general fitness. Once your speed and stamina are sufficient, Mr Giles will begin the second lesson, unless he, like Travers, wishes to place himself in a position of deep disfavour with the Board."

"That will not be necessary, Dame Margo," Giles said hastily, conceding another defeat.

"You will find a suitable manual for the training amongst the books the Board provided, Mr Giles," Margo added, removing Giles's last excuse for delay.

"What's sufficient?" Willow asked warily, then shuffled sideways so Mr Bodsworth could serve her.

"A hundred yards in twelve seconds for speed, Mistress Willow, a mile in six minutes for stamina. You should only rarely have to run more than four miles at one time."

"I can't do that." Willow gasped.

"You three are in your prime," Margo said. "Unscarred by age. You should have no trouble meeting that standard if you eat properly, unless you are somewhat lazy."

Margo was probably right about that, and being able to run for help faster certainly would be useful. Arguing with Margo on this topic would just make her look good.

Cordelia smiled brightly. "Now that's decided, what shall we talk about next?"

Mr Bodsworth sat back down in his chair, directly opposite Margo.

"Dame Margo," he said, "has generously chosen to share her wisdom with you."

Margo nodded, then passed the salt left, to Giles. "I will answer any remaining questions you might have about recent events, or about occult generalities."

"Dame?" Willow began, then Xander interrupted her.

"Dame," he said, "people keep saying things about bells and laughter and me. The blood demon did, and the witch, and you said something about laughing bells. What's it all mean?"

"Aah," Margo said slowly, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to ask a slightly easier question, what song the sirens sang perhaps?"

"No, dame." Xander said flatly.

"It would be easier to nail down water," Margo said. "The cliff stands firm against the rising sea, and the laughter in the trees is the pealing of bells upon the heights, except when it is otherwise. The cliff crumbles before the advancing sea, and the laughter of the waves is the tolling of bells drowned in the deep, except when it is otherwise. Fey are those who have heard the silent bells, those whose feet know the dance of the dog, and no web binds them, except when it is otherwise."

Margo paused, looking at Xander's uncomprehending face. "That is the most lucid answer I can give you without lying. Now, does anyone have a simpler question? One I can answer without riddles?"

Cordelia frowned thoughtfully as she swallowed a piece of tomato. If that was the clearest answer Margo could give Xander was definitely involved in something really weird, something that would need investigating.

Willow looked thoughtfully at Xander, then shrugged. "Dame," she asked, "why did&hellep;"

"Very well, Dame Margo," Giles said thirty minutes later, "but what are you going to do in Sunnydale?"

Cordelia sliced herself another piece off her T-bone steak, a bit large but mouthwateringly good, then looked curiously at Margo. Presumably she wasn't here just to cause trouble, but anything she felt needed her personal attention would have to be big. People like her didn't leave their offices and get their hands dirty unless there was no one else who could do the job.

"In the medium term, Mr Giles," Margo said, "the board has decided we need to depopulate Sunnydale. Once the town is gone the hellmouth will be unable to sustain a significant demonic population and the deathgate will have no new dead to empower. After that's done the site will no longer need a slayer's presence; a team of watchers will be sufficient."

"You can't do that," Willow said. "If all the hellmouth weirdness hasn't driven people away, nothing will. They wouldn't leave unless you killed them, um, that is the people you kill wouldn't leave, they'd either stay in their graves or enjoy the deathgate ambience; it would be their friends that would leave if you did that, but you don't kill people, do you, dame?"

"No, Mistress Willow," Margo said, smiling faintly. "Fortunately, there is an alternative method."

Giles put his wine glass down. "Do please enlighten us, Dame Margo."

"My pleasure, Mr Giles," Margo said, her smile as false as Xander's supposed love had been. "People who would not notice a demon at ten inches will spot a rat at one hundred yards."

As Giles frowned disapprovingly, Willow smiled. "Of course!"

"Like the pied piper, backwards." Xander said, then speared a mushroom with his fork. "Won't they just put poison down, dame? A lot easier than moving."

Cordelia nodded. "Property prices are low here, a third what they should be," according to her dad, anyway. "It'll take more than rats to drive people away."

"Rats are just the beginning," Margo said. "The spell I shall cast will summon an unending tide of vermin — rats, mice, ants, fleas, lice, termites, flies, and more — until even the least fastidious leave. Naturally, your houses and persons shall be exempt."

That would be a great comfort, when everyone else was knee deep in bugs. The thought of Harmony scratching at her lice did have some appeal, but Cordelia would have preferred a cleaner solution. Why couldn't Margo simply make everyone want to leave town?

"How long will this take, dame," Willow asked. "You said it was medium term so —"

"A few years, Mistress Willow," Margo said. "The vermin must appear to be a natural phenomenon, or people will strive to ignore them, which forces us to move slowly."

Not an immediate concern then, but it did give her a chance to bring up Parandol without sounding paranoid if she was wrong.

"Does it matter if our houses are only rented, dame?" Cordelia asked, feigning curiosity.

"Not for this spell," Margo said.

"Why?" Willow said, looking askance at Cordelia, just as she had planned. "You own that house, don't you? Or rather, your parents do."

"They got an offer yesterday," Cordelia said. "Someone wants to pay five million for it, then rent it back for just an hundred a month."

"Some people do have more money than sense," Margo said, "but I would suspect ulterior motives."

Xander nodded. "Must be dirty money, drugs or something."

"Were any other households made this offer?" Margo asked.

"Four others, my dad said, all on the same block, dame" Cordelia said, knowing Margo would get the implication.

"On all four sides?" Margo said, checking.

Cordelia nodded.

Margo looked at Giles. "Mr Giles, I suggest you investigate the history of those properties, and of the would-be purchaser."

"I will, Dame Margo." Giles said. "However, I must object to your scheme. It violates the Hepwhite convention."

"I know that, Mr Giles. The Board is not bound by the council's conventions, only by the great oaths and its own decrees."

Giles scowled. "The council will repudiate you for this, Dame Margo. They will impeach the board, as Travers wished."

"The council has broken, Mr Giles. It is no longer capable of such action," Margo said, then hesitated. "In truth, it never was."

"With respect, Dame Margo," Giles said hotly, "esteemed beyond all measure though the board may be, it remains a subcommittee of the council, and subject to its sanctions. It is only the board of directors of the fund for the maintenance of the libraries of the council, after all."

"With respect, Mr Giles," Margo said, steel in her voice, "would that be the advisory council called by the abbots of the West Riding to investigate the reports of ungodly activity, and to recommend countermeasures?"

Giles's silence was answer enough.

"With respect, Mr Giles, you must not confuse the nominal with the real," Margo added. "The official records are an accurate description of the superficialities of the current council's creation. The inner truth is somewhat different, as the words of the 'blood demon' should have made clear."

Very different, if those official names were correct. An organisation founded by monks would not be swearing oaths older than the planet without outside intervention. Some other older group must have taught the early council those oaths; possibly the board, after they'd use a subcommittee to take over, possibly another group, working from the shadows.

Cordelia had heard talk of similar manoeuvres while gracing her dad's parties, backwards takeovers they called them, but they hadn't been secret. Doing that to the early council without it realising must have required a degree of political acumen greater than she had dreamt possible.

Cordelia pulled her thoughts back to the present, and looked at the others. Willow had put down her knife, and was staring thoughtfully at Margo, but Xander appeared to be completely ignoring the conversation.

"It was telling the truth?" Giles gasped. "But it was a demon, Dame Margo. It may have —"

"Mr Giles," Margo said, then hesitated again. "There are secrets in play, which it would unnecessarily endanger these three to hear. I will discuss this matter with you later. Until then, you must assume that neither the Board nor its members will heed the strictures of the council."

"Very well, Dame Margo," Giles said slowly, "but summoning vermin does not require your personal intervention. Why are you here?"

Margo smiled. "To put a gate in the deathgate, Mr Giles. At the moment, it is unwarded. Demons of great power can enter our world at will, provided they are dead."

"Giles put a seal on the morgue, dame." Willow said.

"Fried all the zombies that touched it, dame" Xander added.

"That was commendable of him," Margo said, "but it was only a sticking plaster. By itself, it could hold the soulstorm in for a few months, before being corroded by the presence of the hellmouth. Unfortunately, the new prophecies indicate that Loki will attempt to pass the death gate next week, once he's managed to kill himself. The seals will not be able to hold him."

"The evil Norse god?" Willow said. "Dame, wouldn't that start Ragnarok?"

"It would, Mistress Willow," Margo said. "We can not let him pass."

"So you're going to wall up the deathgate, dame?" Cordelia asked, hoping she'd remembered Giles's metaphors correctly.

"The Board does not have quite that much power, Mistress Cordelia. We can only install a gate across the dimensional breach, and lock it securely. Like the hellmouth, it will be unpassable without appropriate rituals, and far harder to open from the other side than from this, but its necrotic aura will no more be contained by the ward than is the hellmouth's malign aura."

"How?" Giles asked. "How can you hope to bar the path of a god, Dame Margo? No human magic is strong enough."

"Not with human magic alone, Mr Giles, but with a human soul freely sacrificed. That will tap into the most ancient magics, created when the last first came ravening out of the dark, and unleash forces against which no god born of earth can hope to prevail."

For a long moment Giles stared at Margo.

"That", Giles finally said, "is the most audacious plan I have ever heard. It sounds about as easy as redeeming a vampire, but if you think it's possible, Dame Margo, I will back you to the hilt on this one matter. It's not as if I could even begin to offer an alternative."

"It is not unprecedented, Mr Giles. The Board used the same procedure to ward a hellmouth when Stonehenge was young, and there are fragmentary records of earlier uses. Indeed, some of our records suggest that the very hellmouth on which this town stands was thus ward, when the world was young."

"Do you need a volunteer, Dame Margo?" Giles asked.

Cordelia tried to discreetly shuffle out of Margo's eye-line. Saving the world was a good thing, but not at the cost of her soul. Mr Bodsworth would be a much more suitable volunteer.

"Not just any soul, Mr Giles," Margo said. "It must be the spellcaster's own, and they must have begun the great work."

Giles took another sip of wine. "You mean your soul, Dame Margo."

She nodded. "I will stand at the centre of the soul storm and kill myself, then transform my naked soul into a gate, separating the quick and the dead, and there I shall remain until the end of time. I expect it will be quite a painful eternity, but the world is worth far more than any one soul. I've lived a fairly long life, and my supporters will continue my work, in the proper manner. That is all the consolation I need."

How could Margo think like that? How could anyone?

Cordelia was prepared to make sacrifices, or she wouldn't be in this library now, but only so she could continue to enjoy life, rather than being killed in an apocalypse, and maybe get some revenge for the way she had been betrayed, both very tangible rewards.

Margo was prepared to sacrifice everything and submit herself to what, allowing for Margo's fondness for understatement, she expected to be an eternity of unbearable agony, all for no more reward than a few pages in the watcher's annals.

It was a magnificent gesture, but pure folly nonetheless. Any sensible person would have persuaded someone else to volunteer.

Cordelia wasn't going to try and stop Margo though; she might succeed. Someone was going to have to sacrifice themselves for the world's sake, but so long as the sacrifice wasn't her, Cordelia didn't much care who it was. Whoever they were, Cordelia would benefit.

Satisfied with her conclusions, Cordelia turned her thoughts to the political consequences. At first glance this sounded like it would be good for Giles; dead, Margo would be unable to punish him for his supposed misdeeds, but she did have followers, followers who would be inspired by Margo's noble self-sacrifice. They would be filled with new fervour, devoted to fulfilling her final commands, and their fury at her enemies would be unquenchable.

Giles would have to be even more careful stay within what Margo considered the bounds of acceptable dissent, or he would become their target.

Xander looked at Margo. "There must be some alternative. There must."

"The library of the Board is to the library of the council as the sea is to a garden pond, Master Alexander, yet it can suggest no alternative."

"You can't be certain, dame," Willow said. "Even if the council's library were only twice the size of this one-"

"It is far larger," Giles said, his eyes dreamy, "Floor upon floor, packed with books from floor to ceiling, shelves that stretch for miles.

"The library of the Board is somewhat larger than London," Mr Bodsworth said.

Willow looked at him, clearly surprised. "Where do you keep them all? Something that size would show up in satellite photos. Even if you buried it underground, there'd be a heat signature."

"A little thought should show you why we should not be expected to answer that question, Mistress Willow," Margo said, almost gently.

Willow nodded. "Anyway, the board's library's catalogue alone must be bigger than the entire council libraries, so big it would take years to find the right catalogue entry —unless you digitise it, which would also take years— and those entries must be several pages long, or they wouldn't be able to distinguish among the thousands of similar books you must have, and that only helps if there is a catalogue entry relevant to your question. No, catalogues wouldn't be enough to find stuff in a library that size. Nothing would be. Computers aren't clever enough, yet; the book you want would be lost in a list of ten thousand others that aren't quite right, and human memory isn't good enough, dame."

"Our librarians say much the same every time their budget is up for review, Mistress Willow," Margo said dryly. "But if nothing better has been found in three thousand years of searching, it is hardly like to be found in the next three days."

"Kill Loki when he comes here, dame," Xander suggested.

"A somewhat daring proposal, Mr Alexander." Margo said. "Perhaps you could find a way to defeat Loki, and all the other gods that would follow after, perhaps, but at what price? What would you have to become, to win those battles? I know only that you would all be changed by such battles, forged anew in a crucible of magic, but whether for good or ill I cannot say. There are possibilities here, set against which the return of the old ones would seem small beer, possibilities I dare not risk."

"I think she means we might become supervillains." Cordelia mouthed to Xander.

Xander nodded, mouthing "Dark Phoenix."

"No," Margo went on. "My duty is clear. I will not demean myself by trying to escape it, nor whine about the unfairness of it all."

Margo paused, and looked at each of them in turn.

"I will do my duty, without thought of wealth or glory, my only regret that I have but one life to give in the service of mankind. I can do no other."

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