Shooting Stars

Part 9

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Spike almost laughed when Daniel told him the news. He was right, and the Slayer was still alive. And, she and her friends had killed his whole gang of seventeen vampires inside of twenty minutes.
"Well, this is working perfectly," Spike said, still grinning like an idiot.
"Sir, we just lost seventeen of our best warriors to the Slayer and four of her friends in eighteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds! How do you consider that a good thing?" Daniel asked.
"Look, I have the perfect plan. See they know I've started creating the Hellmouth by now, so they'll be on the way. But, newly created Hellmouths kill every living thing within a five mile radius, Daniel," Spike explained.
"What?" Daniel asked, his eyes wide.
"Basically, super-Slayer gets here to save the world, the Hellmouth rips her and her little friends to shreds in a matter of seconds." Daniel's eyes narrowed. Spike could tell that he was skeptical.
"How do you know that they don't know that?"
"Look, mate. If they know and decided to stay in New York, there's nothing more to worry about," Spike said. He turned to leave the room, looking back to Daniel. "Unless they're coming now… There won't be a 'here' left to come to."
* * *
Willow flipped through the pages of her of her Wicca book. Giles had told her that the fact he needed had something to do with the alternate consequence to opening a Hellmouth. Or, something close to it, if not that exactly. So, she was looking. There was something about Spike's ritual, and Giles had told her he'd done something different. And that could, therefore, lead to a different consequence.
She didn't know what it was, though. A Hellmouth pretty much did one thing, and that was to unleash Hell on Earth. There were, surprisingly, several pages about it in her book, but nothing seemed to be the right stuff. Like a lot of her old books, it was written in Latin, which she was pretty good at. That made it simpler for her to flip through the pages.
Earlier, there had been an announcement blaming some unexpected eclipse that only happens once in a million years, and that was the reason it was still dark. Of course, Willow knew that the real reason for it was Spike and his new Hellmouth, or whatever it was he was doing. She believed the Codex, though, and she figured it was maybe another spell to let Spike work on it nonstop. Make it easier.
"You okay?" Oz asked her. He'd been very concerned about her lately, especially with the spell stuff she'd been doing. It tired her out sometimes. She nodded; closing the book for the moment, amazed that she could actually focus on it at all with all the stuff that was going on.
"Yeah. You?" she asked. Oz nodded sleepily. "Tired?"
"Yeah. We should probably try to get a little sleep," he replied. Willow nodded, knowing that that was true. She leaned back against the chair, closing her eyes to try and rest. Maybe if she slept a bit, she could continue 'studying' later…
* * *
Buffy watched the light on the wing of the plane flash between red and green. It was strange to know that there should be blue sky and big, white, puffy clouds, but there was no natural light in the world. It creped her out.
Xander had finally fallen asleep next to her, after babbling something incomprehensible about Cordelia. She knew that Willow and Oz were asleep as well, and Giles probably had his nose buried in some old book. She sighed, absently wondering how Angel was doing down in the cargo bay, and wondering if he could tell it was still pitch black outside.
She also wondered how they would stop Spike. He was opening a new Hellmouth, and Giles wouldn't tell them much aside from 'danger, big'. He wouldn't share, so maybe she'd just have to ask him in the most demanding way she could without sounding pissed off or batty. The only problem was, they couldn't just start talking about Hellmouth this and Spike that. She'd have to find a way to give him a note so the other passengers wouldn't find out.
She looked to the empty seat on the other side of Xander, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen and moving over to it. It wasn't easy - mostly because Xander had his legs stretched halfway under the seat in front of him, but she did it eventually. Sometimes, she thought, it's nice to be a small person. She dropped the tray down to write her note.
Giles,
I know you don't want to tell us what's going on, and I can't say I blame you for it, but if we don't know what it is we're trying to stop, we can't very well stop it, can we? I don't mean to get pushy here, but asking politely didn't help, Xander proved that pretty well. Now, what is going on?
Buffy
She passed the note back to her Watcher. She waited patiently for his reply, which took a while. Maybe that meant that he was actually going to explain. She opened the note, reading what he had to say:
Buffy,
Yes, there is something I've been keeping from you, but I believe it was for a good reason. I found the ritual for creating a new Hellmouth, and it is very complex. The main point of the whole thing is that any living thing near it when it opens will be killed instantly.
However, something Spike is doing is different. Nowhere related to the ritual does it ever mention something about the perpetual darkness, which we're experiencing now. And there's no way he could work on it nonstop, for the magickal energy is far too strong. I had Willow checking into what may be an alternate consequence, but it's possible, not necessarily likely, that Spike did do something different. If he is doing the Hellmouth ritual, and did something wrong, there are hundreds of possibilities for what could happen. We don't know any of them as of yet, but I promise to let you know if and when we do find something.
Giles
Buffy re-folded the note, wondering what different consequences to opening a Hellmouth there could possibly be…
* * *
Giles had closed his book and was now looking at Willow's witchcraft one. She had been on the trail of something, and he needed to figure it out quickly. He wanted to know what he could be getting the teens into.
His eyes skimmed over the Latin words, and he was more than a little amazed that Willow had found the time over the summer to learn the language. The Watcher had been fairly fluent in Latin since his days as a sorcerer with Ethan Rayne. And, he had continued the study of it after he became a Watcher, as language skills were required. Willow was quite an amazing girl, and would make a 'damn fine Watcher', as he'd once told her, to be a senior in High School and almost fully understand Latin.
Suddenly, one of the sentences he was reading left off in the middle. There was a Serbian paragraph in the middle of the page. Serbian was a more complicated form of Latin, slightly older, and he didn't understand it. Too many accents and symbols. Willow, however, did. A little bit, anyway. He reached over and shook the redhead awake. She looked over to him sleepily.
"Sorry, but I think you can understand this better than I," he said, pointing out the passage. She looked to the book, blinked a few times, and then looked at it again. She was suddenly wide-awake.
"What in the world?" she wondered aloud, taking the book from Giles.
"It's a quadruple translation, I'm afraid. To make total sense of it, it must be put backwards. From Serbian to Greek, to Latin, then back to English for it to make any sense at all," Giles explained, sorry he hadn't had the time to show Willow how to do a reversed translation. It was a form of code, without much of a 'key' per say. The trick was just knowing all the languages. Willow nodded, grabbing her pen and a piece of paper. She set them on her tray.
"This is definitely what we're after. I can get it to Greek if you can change it to Latin. I'll be able to figure it out from there," Willow said, starting to scribble down Greek characters on her paper. Giles nodded absently, wondering what the words might say…
* * *
Willow worked quickly on the small paragraph in her book, writing down various Greek characters from the Serbian ones in her book. She could sort of read and write Greek - emphasis on the 'sort of'. It was amazing, since it was such a hard language, but she couldn't translate it to Latin without a lot of hard work. And it probably wouldn't make any sense at all. So, she wrote it down neatly to give it to Giles, who could translate it to Latin for her.
The confusing part was that it was all backwards. The first word was the last one, and so on, so she had to try and work from the bottom of the paragraph. The words weren't backwards, but some of them were scrambled. I wonder, she thought, why they make the really important stuff really hard to read. It was always like that. Whenever they needed something, it was always encoded so no one could read it without switching languages five or six times and goring backwards.
She moved on to the second of four sentences in the paragraph, amazed at how easy it was. Or rather, how easy it seemed to be. So far, she knew the Greek was saying something about the alternate consequence to opening a new Hellmouth, which was what they were looking for. She brushed her hair back behind her ears. The rest of the text was too scrambled to read. She kept working, hoping that they could finish it in time…
* * *
Spike slammed his book shut, looking to Daniel. The ritual he was doing was so similar to the Hellmouth one that Daniel didn't know the difference between the two. Dalton would have, which made Spike happy that his messenger was a total moron.
"Why do I have the wrong books?" Spike asked Daniel, whose eyes got very wide. Spike stood, slowly backing Daniel up against the wall.
"I-I-I don't know. You told me which books you needed, and I got them. Simple as that, Spike," Daniel said, nodding.
"Then how come it makes no bloody sense?" Spike asked. Daniel shrugged.
"Maybe it's a code," Daniel stammered, mirroring Spike's thoughts. "Maybe i-it looks like something, but it's backwards or something."
"Right. How do I translate a backwards book, nimrod?" Spike asked, glaring at Daniel.
"Maybe with a mirror?" Spike laughed, shaking his head.
"In case you didn't notice, mate, we're all vampires here. I don't know about you, but I haven't owned a mirror in a hundred years."
"Well, that's not my fault, is it? I mean, I just work here," Daniel said. Spike grabbed him by the neck, pressing him up against the wall and lifting him off the ground.
"Do I need to remind you that if you piss me off… Well, let's just say Drusilla likes to eat people's eyeballs," Spike said, grinning evilly. Daniel nodded, understanding the point, and Spike dropped him back to the floor. "Find a mirror, you idiot." Daniel scurried to his feet, smacking his arm into the table as he ran away.
Spike smiled. Daniel was around to run errands, but nothing more. He wasn't even that smart, which was even better. And, even if he did do something right - for once - he'd eventually die anyway. That was the way the system worked with Spike, even when he didn't plan it that way. Lackies served their purpose, and then they died. Little did Daniel know, he'd be dying as soon as Spike figured out the ritual. Either way, he was bringing on his own death…
* * *
Xander woke with a start to the slight turbulence that the plane was experiencing. He looked the TV screen that showed how close they were to England. It had a little picture of a plane, leaving a little red trail. There were still over the ocean. And they were about halfway to their destination.
He stretched, yawning, sort of surprised at how much his head hurt. The cut on the side of his face had long since closed up - at least a little - and stopped bleeding. But it still hurt when he tried to move his head too quickly. It hurt a lot.
He looked over to Buffy, who was writing something in a notebook that she had pulled out of one of her bags. When the teen leaned over to get a better look, she flipped it closed and set her pen down on top of it.
"Sorry," he said, figuring that it was a journal or something.
"It's okay," she replied, moving the pen aside and sliding the notebook into the seat pocket. "What's up?"
"Have you gotten any sleep?" he asked.
"Not since before New York," she replied. Xander shook his head, unbelieving. He was exhausted.
"Why not?" he questioned.
"Bad dreams." That was the extent of the Slayer's explanation, as she glanced to the window. "Still no sun." It was dark as night, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day.
"Not a ray of bright and shiny light?" Xander asked. Buffy shook her head absently, his joke apparently lost on her. "So, what's the plan for when we reach England?"
"Find Spike, I guess. Stop him from doing this. I think that's the idea, anyway."
"What's the sitch?"
"Well… Giles told me that any human near this thing when it opens would be killed. But, he keeps saying that Spike did something different. Which, of course, could mean that the end result is totally different."
"Different? How?"
"Well, no one knows yet, that's the weird thing. He and Willow are working on it, but they haven't found anything. Yet."
"So, if he's wrong and Spike's doing it the normal way? Then what happens?"
"Well, pretty much the obvious. The Hellmouth opens, demons come out, we all die, and it's the end of the world as we know it."
"Do you think he's right?" Buffy was silent for a long time before responding. She nodded slightly.
"Yeah. I think he is." Xander nodded, leaning back against his chair, hoping that Buffy was right about what they were doing. He didn't want to be walking into a death trap.
* * *
Oz was awakened by Willow nudging him on the arm. He rubbed his eyes a little, yawning sleepily. He glanced at the TV screen, seeing that they were about two thirds of the way to England. The remaining flight time was an hour and a half. Estimated, of course. If everything had started already, they wouldn't be landing in London.
"What's up?" he asked, glancing at what Willow was working on. There were Greek letters all over her paper.
"Can you translate Greek to Latin?" she asked.
"Sorry. I never took Latin," Oz replied. Willow seemed to deflate. "How come?"
"This is what Giles was looking for, but I can't figure it out. Some of it's still backwards-y, and… I'm not really that good at Greek," Willow said with a sigh. "And, Giles has been in the bathroom for almost twenty minutes."
"He'll be back," Oz replied. Willow nodded.
"I just wanna get this done, you know? I mean, this could say something like 'the world blows up', o-or that 'everyone gets turned into spiders' or something. Giles is, like, the only one that can figure it out. And, he's not even here! So, I can't really do anything about it, and I hate feeling helpless because then I think that I'm not a good member of the group because I can't do anything to help us. And, I'm babbling. But… I just wanna sort this out before the last minute because I don't wanna die, but that's probably what's gonna happen so I feel bad that I can't help, and… Did I mention that I was babbling?" Willow said. Oz smiled sympathetically.
"Well, one plus is that we don't have to worry about Angel bursting into flames," Oz said. Willow nodded.
"I'm sorry. I'm panicking, I guess," she said. "Stupid apocalypses."
"Understandable," Oz said in his typical, emotionless way. Willow had to smile, as she leaned her head on his shoulder. He draped a protective arm around her shoulder, waiting for Giles to return.
* * *
Angel found himself wondering, for at least the millionth time, what time of night or day or whatever it was. He knew that they were still in the air on the way to England. He knew they were probably close. But, with his watch missing, he couldn't tell what time it was exactly. It was sometime in the day, or so he thought. It had been night when they left Sunnydale. He guessed that it was Spike's spell that had done this; he couldn't tell whether it was day or night. Something in him knew it should be day, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. Or sensed, in that case.
In some ways, that was a good thing. If the sun really had been blocked by Spike, he wouldn't have to worry about bursting into flames when they landed in England.
But, in other ways, that was also very bad. Spike was either trying to fool them or doing something entirely different. And, if he was, no one had any idea what he was planning. Lots of things could and probably would change if this were a totally different ritual.
However, they couldn't do anything about it right now. They'd be in England soon, right in the middle of Spike's deadly trap. Angel had to wonder if Drusilla was in on Spike's plan, whatever it was. He guessed that she probably wasn't, since he never liked to tell her things for her own good. That happened when people were insane. She freaked out whenever he tried something new and dangerous like this, so he probably wouldn't tell her anything resembling the truth.
Or would he? the vampire thought. Spike seemed to be doing exactly what no one expected. So the best way to not be surprised would be to consider every possible option. Which was a lot of options. That way, even if it didn't seem like something that Spike would do, they'd all be ready for it. Including the fact that Spike might tell Drusilla what was going on, just because no one would think he would.
Which made Angel wonder just what else Spike would do.
* * *
Spike set his book down, open, on the table. He was propping it up with another book so he could see it in the mirror. Daniel had suggested that he hold it, but it was too distracting and bizarre to see the book floating in midair.
So, now the book sat on the table, where Spike could look over the mirror from behind it to read the words. He'd also set the book upside-down, so that he could read it from above. He wrote the incantation on a separate sheet of paper, just so he wouldn't have to drag the book and the mirror around with him all the time. Plus, it was weird to look into a mirror and see nothing but the wall behind you. Which was why they didn't usually have them around.
"Now it makes sense, right?" Daniel asked, hopeful. Spike nodded, continuing to write down the words that he'd need to complete his mission. Daniel let out a relieved sigh. He was a newer vampire, and not really used to the non-breathing yet.
Spike had done something different, but Daniel didn't know it, since he was an idiot. He'd blocked the sun to lead Slayer and Company off track, but he didn't know if it had worked or not. Being a vampire, he wasn't eager to check. This wasn't what they expected, he was sure of that much.
Spike couldn't help but smile as he reviewed his perfect plan in his head. It would be night soon. And it was almost time to start the party…
* * *
Buffy watched the lights flicker on and off overhead as the plane landed in England. Which was, of course, still dark. It was four in the afternoon. Before they'd left Sunnydale, the group had agreed to meet Angel at the front entrance, since he'd have to go about getting off the plane just a bit differently.
She waited as the plane taxied up to the gate, grabbing her bag. Xander got his stuff, and she could tell the three behind them were doing the same thing. She could hear people muttering about how 'it's still dark', and 'it's the result of chemical warfare and global warming', or something.
No, there's a psycho vampire trying to end the world and we came here to try and save all of your lives before he can, she thought, as the plane finally came to a stop.
That's when the intercom clicked on.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I could please ask you to stay seated for a few moments. We've just received word that someone, a group of teenagers traveling with one adult male were carrying hidden weapons on the flight. If everyone could please stay calm, we will resolve this matter as quickly as possible," the intercom said. Buffy looked over to Xander, who apparently was thinking the same thing as she was.
"Emergency exit?" he asked her. The Slayer nodded, turning back to the others to tell them the plan.
"Guys. Plan B, let's move," she said, following Xander towards the emergency door. Giles followed Xander, followed by Willow, then Oz, letting Buffy bring up the rear. There were people yelling 'it's them!' as they passed. She wished they would be quiet.
Buffy paid no attention to them as she helped Xander with the large latch on the door. It sprung open, the yellow slide inflating and stretching to meet the concrete below. Buffy stepped aside, letting Willow go first. Oz, Giles, and finally Xander followed her out. The Slayer followed them with one last glance at the passengers, as security guards filled the airplane. She jumped over the side of the slide about halfway down, rolling into the shadows to meet the others.
"Can we possibly get something done without breaking the law?" Giles asked, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He was keeping an eye on the exit that they had used to make sure the police weren't following them.
"Not when it involves world saveage. No," Willow replied. The Watcher sighed, disappointed.
"Look, we can deal with this later, alright? Right now, we have to stop Spike from ending the world," Buffy said. It was starting to seem like she was going to deal with everything later. Angel, her mom, the police.
Right now, though, she had to deal with Spike and his Hellmouth, which was why nothing else held priority in her mind. The police were a pretty pressing issue, but, if Spike succeeded, there wouldn't be any police. Or much of anything else, for that matter.
"So, where do we look?" Xander asked, interrupting Buffy's thoughts.
"Well, if Spike's serious, he'll find us," Angel said, stepping out of the shadows. Xander jumped, shooting a glare at the vampire.
"Don't do that! Jeez," Xander said, as he took a few deep breaths to calm down from the surprise of Angel's appearance.
"What did you say?" Giles asked, paying no attention to Xander.
"Guys, if there's anyone he's after, it's gonna be me," Angel said. "Believe me, he'll find us if he wants to. He had connections in this country."
"Other vamps?" Oz asked. Angel nodded, glancing around them at the shadows.
"So, we wait?" Buffy asked.
"You guys law low. From what little I heard, you've got enough problems. I'll see if I can track Spike down," Angel said. "He'll be someplace open, which is the first place the cops are gonna check for you."
"So, we're looking for a field?" Willow asked.
"Yes, he will need quite a bit of space for this," Giles said. "Now, we just have to figure out which field he plans to use." There was a pause.
"Oh, you shouldn't have too much trouble. It's right near here," a British-accented voice said from the shadows. The others looked around to see who it was, but Buffy already knew.
"Okay Mister Mystery Guest. Why don't you just… Stop being Mister Mystery," Xander said.
"Why don't you just ask the Slayer? She knows well enough," Spike's voice told them. Now, everyone seemed to realize who was there with them.
And their plan had just been totally re-fashioned.
* * *
Now, they were playing his way. Spike smiled, knowing that his trap was working beautifully. They were all so incredibly busy playing the 'hunters' that they didn't realize the simple truth. They were the prey.
"What happens when he finds us?" Willow asked. Spike knew he couldn't be seen, at least not by most of the group. Angel would have an easy time finding him, and so would the Slayer, so he kept moving so that they couldn't track him by his voice.
"You'll know soon enough where to go. It'll be damn obvious," Spike said, smiling. "See you there." With that, he ducked back around the corner where Daniel and Drusilla were, and the three went out of hearing range of the group.
"Did you tell them?" Daniel asked, desperate to get away from Drusilla. She'd been on an 'I'm going to tell you everything there is to know about every one of my dolls whether you like it or not' kick lately, and she'd obviously been telling Daniel about them again. He hated it. Especially when she started talking to him like he was a doll.
"Yeah, they get the picture. They'll find us," Spike said, as Drusilla walked over to him.
"Do you miss my Miss Edith?" she asked Daniel over Spike's shoulder. Daniel nodded, and Drusilla smiled. "Good boy…" She turned her attention to the other vampire. "Spike? Is it time to start the party?"
"Yeah, Dru, almost. It won't be long now," he said. He looked to Daniel. "You coming?"
"M-me? Spike, I am so… Honored that you'd invite me to one of the greatest historical events of the millennium!" Daniel replied, his eyes wide with excitement. Spike laughed, wondering how he ever got such an idiot working for him.
"Yeah, come on," he said. Daniel smiled, looking like he was the happiest vampire alive. "And now we get to start the party, right Dru?" Drusilla leaned her head on Spike's shoulder, looking up at him and humming in reply.
"Let the fun begin," Daniel said, as they moved out to head for their spot.
* * *
Willow relaxed a little when the shadows stopped moving; knowing that it meant that Spike was gone. She took a deep breath, looking around her to make sure everyone else was okay. They seemed a little shaken, like her, and Giles was cleaning his glasses again. But, everyone was there and alive, which was a relief.
"Told you he'd find us," Angel said, breaking the silence after the long pause.
"I could've figured that one out," Xander said. Willow almost missed having Cordelia with them to smack him sometimes when he made stupid comments.
"Well… Now what?" Buffy asked, looking to Giles.
"Um, I suppose we should look for Spike. See if we can find out where he plans to do this ritual," Giles replied, putting his glasses back on.
"Giles? Coming to a screeching halt on the subject of the cops," Xander said. The Watcher seemed confused for a moment, and then seemed to understand what the teen was trying to say.
"Oh. Right," he said.
"And I still need to figure out the rest of this passage," Willow said, waving the paper at Giles. "There are still a few parts that don't make sense." He'd gotten it to Latin for her, but some of it was still scrambled.
"Okay. We have to find somewhere to hide out, first off. With the police out to get us, we really can't go searching for Spike," Buffy said. Oz just nodded in agreement, not really surprising anyone with his lack of words.
"Spike really did plan this perfectly," Angel said.
"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, turning to him.
"He's going somewhere open. We can't go there until he's already started without getting caught. That gives him the advantage," Angel explained.
"Great. We have to wait for him to surprise us," Buffy said, looking both annoyed and frightened.
Willow could really identify.
* * *
Spike smiled as Daniel reviewed the plan. He'd done everything perfectly. The cops, the traps, the catches. Everything. He didn't expect it to work out so well, but it had. And even better, too. Everything was in place.
Now, he had to focus his energy on the spell. It was basically exactly like the Hellmouth one, but with an added twist he'd come up with himself, after some research, of course. It created a Hellmouth. A portal to Hell, leaving it open for a short time. Then, it sort of closed it for seven seconds. There were seven sins, so seven seconds made perfect sense. Then, it executed the wave that killed all the vampires or vampiric demons that were not affected by his counterspell. The counterspell took exactly three and a half seconds to perform, giving Spike time to protect Drusilla and himself, leaving Daniel, Angel, and all the other vampires in the general area to die. But, Daniel didn't know that. That was the beauty of it.
Spike was getting tired, though. He'd been casting powerful spells almost nonstop for the past three days. His energy was running low, especially after the 'perpetual darkness' bit he had done first thing that morning. Plus, all of the spells were in Latin and had really long incantations.
"Spike? Are you okay?" Daniel asked, interrupting the vampire's thoughts. He nodded.
"We ought to wait. They'll be looking for us, and I want this perfect," Spike said, not wanting to explain that he couldn't do the spell or it might kill him. That would kind of take all the fun out of it.
"You're drained, aren't you?" Daniel asked, shaking his head in disbelief. Spike grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off the ground.
"Who do you work for?" Spike asked, not bothering to so much as look at the idiotic vampire.
"You," Daniel replied, struggling to get free. It wouldn't kill him because vampires didn't breathe. But, it still hurt a lot, and Daniel was still choking out of habit.
"Yes. You work for me. That means that if I say we wait, we wait!" Spike dropped Daniel to the ground, kicking him in the ribs once for good measure.
"What about the party?" Drusilla asked, a hurt look on her face.
"Do you want the Slayer to spoil all the fun?" Drusilla shook her head. "Then trust me. It'll be a lot better if we wait."
"So… We're waiting, then?" Daniel asked, sitting up on the ground. Spike looked back to him, annoyed.
"What part of that previous exercise did you not understand?" he asked. Daniel winced, looking to the ground. "Yes, we wait." Spike would postpone the rituals long enough to regain enough energy to live through it, and then he would carry out the final phase of his plan…
* * *
Oz found himself awake and staring at the ceiling once again. Only this time, it wasn't his ceiling. Giles had made everyone spilt up into three groups of two and hide out somewhere. The werewolf was with Willow, Xander was with Giles, and Buffy was with Angel. They'd used Giles's money to check into a hotel under separate and fake names.
Oz knew Willow wasn't asleep either. After all, Spike was poised to end the world at any minute. And it was totally dark, except for the emergency lights in the hall. Oddly, the hotel's power was out. It was probably from all the magickal energy that was being gathered in the area.
"Oz?" Willow asked quietly. "Are you sleeping?"
"Nope. What's up?" he asked, sitting up on his narrow bed and looking to Willow. She was sitting up as well.
"What do we do when we find Spike?" she asked. He sat in silence for several minutes, wondering the answer himself.
"Not sure," he said after a while. Now, it was Willow's turn to be silent.
"I mean… We walked right into his trap. Didn't we?" she finally asked.
"Not really. I mean… He's doing something different, we know that. So… We can't really know if we walked into a trap or not, because we don't know if there is a trap. Really, I mean. If there is, there's no way to find it, since we don't know what he's doing yet."
"I know. But… He could have a plan to open the Hellmouth and let the demons massacre us or something."
"Is that what the book said?"
"Well, no, but… I don't know what it says yet. But, you know what I mean. Anything could happen, and we don't know how to narrow down the possibilities." Oz thought about that for a minute, wondering how they could figure out what Spike had in store for them…
* * *

Part 10

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