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| Triangle | Blood Ties |
Buffy does a little cleaning up in her living room while her friends settle in. She apologises for the mess. Her mother still isn’t feeling 100% and Buffy has fallen a little behind on the house cleaning chores.
Buffy is a little upset to find one of Riley’s sweaters beside the sofa. Xander—whose arm is in a cast from his encounter with Olaf the troll—notices, and attempts to distract her by drawing her attention back to the matter at hand.
Giles has called the meeting to tell them the news he has received from the Council. They have learned something about Glory and they are sending a delegation to Sunnydale to pass the information along. Buffy is not pleased to learn that the Watchers are coming to town. She wishes that they would just phone in the information.
“What’s so bad about them coming here?” asks Tara. “Aren’t they good guys? I mean, Watchers. That’s just like other Gileses, right?”
“Yeah!” says Buffy. “They’re scary and horrible!” She looks a little apologetically toward Giles.
“Um, well, they can appear a bit, well, um, hard-nosed, but essentially their agenda is the same as ours,” says Giles. “They want to save the world and kill demons.”
“Kill the current demons, right?” asks Anya. “Current demons.”
Buffy doesn’t want anyone from the Council coming to Sunnydale and she asks Giles to call them back and tell them not to. Giles thinks it’s probably too late. They will be on their way already. He has more bad news. The delegation is being led by Quentin Travers.
“They put me through that test and almost killed me.” says Buffy. “And then when I was Faith, they almost killed me again. Honestly, I really can’t handle almost being killed right now.”
The more Anya hears, the less she likes the sound of this too. The Council don’t sound very ex-demon compatible to her.
Buffy really doesn’t want the Council of Watchers coming to town right now. She is afraid that they will just screw things up. “It’s a delicate time right now. I have to take care of Dawn—”
“But that’s not new,” says Xander. “You’ve always taken care of her.”
“Right. Right. I know that,” says Buffy. “It’s just— you know, there’s Glory, and I don’t need the Council looking over my shoulder when I don’t even know what we’re dealing with.”
“Well, that’s precisely why we need to talk to them,” says Giles.
No one has noticed that Dawn has quietly come down the stairs in her pyjamas and is listening in on their conversation from the foot of the stairs.
Joyce appears at the top of the stairs and sees her younger daughter. “Dawn, honey, what are you doing up at this hour? Go back to bed.”
“I was just getting a snack,” says Dawn.
“Dawn! Are you listening?” yells Buffy from the living room.
“I can get a snack if I want to,” mutters Dawn, as she goes back up the stairs.
Buffy is upset that Dawn was listening in on them, and is worried about what she may have overheard, but Willow doesn’t understand what the big deal is. “I mean, is she really going to set the junior high school buzzing with, ‘Ooh, there’s a delegation a-comin’?’”
Buffy calms down a bit. Nothing had been said about the Key. She asks Giles to get back to what he was saying.
“Um, just that if the Council knows something about Glory, her agenda or her origins, then maybe it will help us get a grip on what we’re dealing with. Right now, I think we’re a bit lost.”
Glory sits on the floor in her apartment, half leaning against the sofa. She is sweating and struggling to breathe. Her minions Dreg and Jinx burst in through the door, dragging a mailman between them.
“Mistress, at last we’ve found one!” says Jinx.
The mailman is terrified. He begs for them to let him go as they drag him before Glory. She struggles to sit up, but she is too weak to move. Dreg orders Jinx to help her.
Jinx lifts Glory up, and lifts her hands up the mailman’s head. “We’re here for you, Great One. Drink!”
Glory sinks her fingers into the mailman’s head, and he screams as light streams out of it. After a moment Glory falls back, and the mailman collapses to the floor beside her. Jinx moves to help Glory up, but she waves him off. She’s feeling much better now. She gives the mailman a swat on his head and he sits up.
The mailman’s face is pallid, and he looks around in confusion. “I know you’re all always looking at me. I can tell. Always tell. I can see. Where’s my hat? It’s—my hat.”
Glory sighs, and laughs. She tells her minions not to cut things so close next time. She tells Dreg to take out the trash, she wants hear what news Jinx has for her.
“Indeed, Glorificus,” says Jinx. “We have found that the signs of the alignment are moving faster than expected.”
“Meaning?”
“If you are to use the Key, you must act quickly,” says Jinx.
Glory thinks that’s just fine. Sunnydale has too many demons, and not enough retail outlets for her taste. Jinx reminds her that she still hasn’t found the Key.
“Yes, and I bet Mousy the Vampire Slayer has an idea where it is,” says Glory.
“If I may remind Your Eminence? You don’t have much time.”
“Oh, baby, if that girl’s the only thing between me and my Key, I don’t need much time.”
Giles cautions a goth looking customer in the Magic Box not to go too quickly, and to measure her ingredients carefully.
“He’s quite right,” says Quentin Travers. “You wouldn’t want to do anything dangerous, turn the wrong person into a badger.”
Giles spins around as the woman smiles at the joke. Giles is somewhat surprised that Quentin has shown up so quickly. He is even more surprised by the number of people with him. Behind Travers are arrayed half a dozen other Watchers, four men, and two women. They are all impeccably dressed, and look like proto-Wesleys, and his sisters.
Giles asks for some introductions, but Travers declines. He wants to get reacquainted with Giles before he does that. The other Watchers spread out through the shop and start looking around while Travers speaks with Giles.
Giles offers to show Travers around the shop, but Travers declines that too. His companions seem to be doing a quite thorough job of that without him. Giles offers to show Travers the training room that they have set up in the back for Buffy.
“Oh, yes,” says Travers. “I thought perhaps you were keeping that space for the really dangerous items that should be kept out of the public’s hands. Or maybe you don’t worry about that.”
“I’m very careful.”
One of the men, Nigel, has been looking over the inventory behind the counter. Anya has been watching him suspiciously. “Most of this stuff couldn’t harm anyone,” says Nigel. “Incense, dime store trinkets, but there are some things.” He hands an ornate purple bottle over to Travers.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” asks Giles, but they ignore him.
One of the women, Lydia, has been examining some of the other shelves. “There are some very potent elements here.” She looks and sounds very much like Gwendolyn Post. “Focusing crystals, runic artifacts, an amulet of Cauldis.” She picks up an item off a shelf. “Also this statue. Its removal from Burma is a criminal offense, and when triggered, it has the power to melt human eyeballs.”
“In that case, I severely underpriced it,” says Giles.
Travers apologises to Giles and tells him that what is about to happen is only for the duration of their stay, Giles starts to ask him what he means, but it very quickly becomes clear, when Nigel loudly announces to the customers in the store that the Magic Box is closing early today. He and the other Watchers start to direct people toward the door.
Anya is upset to see all these people leaving while they still have money, and Giles is furious with Travers, but Travers just apologises again. “It’s just for the duration of the Council’s review.”
“Council? You’re the Council?” asks Anya. “Welcome to our store. We’re closed now. I’ll be in the back.” She turns around and starts to head for the back room. Giles asks Travers what he means by “review.”
Travers is more interested in identifying the young lady making the hasty exit. He asks her if she works there.
“Yes, I do,” says Anya. “Ever since I moved here from southeastern Indiana, where I was raised by both a mother and a father.”
Giles tells Anya to just go. She doesn’t have to answer Travers’ questions. Then he asks Travers what he means by “review” again. Travers suggests that they go sit together at the table. The other woman Watcher starts to prepare a cup of tea using Giles’ tea set.
Giles follows Travers. “You all stand around and look somber,” he tells the other Watchers. They do just that. “Good job.”
“You used to respect us, Giles,” says Travers. “You used to be one of us.”
“You used to pay me,” says Giles. “If you recall, firing me was not my idea.”
“Touché!” says Travers. “But you were on the inside once. You know what sort of resources we command. We’ve discovered information about this creature, your Glory. Some of it is clearly vital, the rest merely extremely disturbing.” The woman places the cup of tea on the table beside him. “And it won’t be handed over until we are convinced that you and your Slayer are prepared for it. Thus the review.”
“I’m not having you put her through another one of your insane tests.”
“It’s not a test,” says Travers. “It’s a check of her methods. We need to know that this information is safe.”
“You can trust her,” says Giles. “Buffy’s come very far recently. She’s acquired a remarkable focus.”
Buffy isn’t very focused at the moment. She’s struggling to stay awake while her history professor lectures on Rasputin. He starts talking about how his enemies found it nearly impossible to kill him.
“Nearly impossible?” asks Buffy quietly.
It wasn’t quite quietly enough. “I’m sorry. There was a question?” asks the professor. All the other students start looking toward Buffy. She looks around hoping that they are looking at someone behind her. “Miss Summers, of course,” says the professor.
Buffy slowly gets to her feet. “I, uh, about, you know, killing him…you know, they poisoned him and they beat him and they shot him and he didn’t die.”
“Until they rolled his body in a carpet and drowned him in a canal,” says the professor.
“But there are reported sightings of him as late as the 1930s, aren’t there?” asks Buffy.
“I can assure you, there is near-consensus in the academic community regarding the death of Rasputin.”
Buffy isn’t impressed. There had been a near-consensus about Columbus being the first to discover America until someone looked into what the vikings had been doing a couple hundred years earlier. She thinks it might be interesting to keep an open mind.
The professor is not amused, and suggests that if Buffy finds the facts he is imparting to her so boring she should perhaps be teaching a class herself: “Speculation 101.” Buffy’s classmates laugh at that. “What was it you were going on about last week?” he asks. “Mysterious sleeping patterns of the Prussian generals? Now, some of us are here to learn. Believe it or not, we’re interested in finding out what actually happened. It’s called ‘studying history.’ You can sit down now. Unless you have something else to add, Professor?”
Buffy takes her frustrations with her professor out on a vampire in the cemetery that evening. “Miss Summers!” she says as she knees the vampire. “Some of us are here to learn, Professor!” She gives it a kick and a couple of punches to the head. “Maybe you would like to teach your own class?” She tosses it against the side of a backhoe.
The vampire looks around. “Who are you talking to?” It lashes out, managing to get a hit in on Buffy, knocking her back a bit. It prepares to follow up its attack, and Buffy braces to meet him.
Spike comes flying over the backhoe and knocks the vampire off its feet. As it gets back up he plunges a stake into the vampire’s heart, and it explodes into dust.
Buffy is not pleased to see Spike, and asks him why he did that.
“Not for money, if that’s what you’re thinking,” says Spike. “Your heart-felt gratitude’s plenty. I expect I’ll be getting that any moment.”
“Gratitude?” asks Buffy, “For getting in my way?”
Spike doesn’t see it that way. He thinks he was saving her.
“I was regrouping,” says Buffy.
“You were about to be regrouped into separate piles,” says Spike. “You needed help.”
“I didn’t need you,” says Buffy. “I never need you, Spike.” She starts to walk away from him.
Spike follows Buffy. He thinks he gets it. She just wishes that she was getting rescued by her boyfriend what’s-his-height. “Oh, wait. He’s run off.”
“You know what?” asks Buffy. “I don’t need a boyfriend to rescue me, or for any other reason.”
“Don’t need or can’t keep?” asks Spike. “You keep making notches in the headboard, but eventually they get up out of the bed and run off, don’t they?”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Oh, rough talk. Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you push them away. Or is it the other? Maybe you cling too much. Or maybe your beauty’s fading, the stress of slaying aging you prematurely? Things not as high, not as firm.”
“You know what, Spike? The more I get to know you, the more I wish I didn’t.”
“Or maybe you just don’t hold their interest.” Spike turns and walks away.
Ben starts to head out of the hospital at the end of his shift. Jinx reaches out of an examining room, and pulls him into it. Ben is not happy to see him, and less pleased that Jinx touched him. Jinx is all crusty. He wants to know what Jinx wants.
“Oh, not me,” says Jinx. “The magnificent Glory. She wants. She wants more information on the Slayer. She knows you know her.”
Ben tells him he doesn’t know anything about the Slayer.
“Oh, I believe you do, sir,” says Jinx. “She’s short, symmetrical, hair on top. Buffy something.”
“Buffy Summers is the Slayer?”
“That’s the one!” says Jinx. “Very clever of you, sir.”
“The Slayer?” Ben is clearly a little bemused by the news. “How does Glory know this?”
Jinx doesn’t know that, but Glory wants to know where the Slayer lives, and who her friends are.
“Why?” asks Ben. “So Glory can find her, do something to her? Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, sir,” says Jinx. “She just said to tell you to do it. For her. That was her message.”
“Well, I’ve got a message for Glory, too,” says Ben.
Giles is telling Travers about the new hybrid fighting style he and Buffy have been developing when Buffy comes into the Magic Box. She sees Travers. “Bad day.” She turns around to leave. “Bad, bad—”
“Miss Summers,” says Travers. “Good to see you again.”
Buffy stops and turns around again. “Mr. Travers.” She closes the door.
“Giles has just been telling us of your training regimen,” says Travers. “Perhaps you’ll favour us with a demonstration while we’re here.”
“Right now?” asks Buffy.
Travers tells her there is no need to rush, and Giles tells Buffy that the Council delegation is going to be staying longer than they had anticipated. Travers asks Nigel to outline for Buffy what they are planning to do.
“It’s an exhausting examination of your procedures and abilities,” says Nigel. “We’ll observe your training, talk to your friends.” Buffy is not pleased to hear that. She doesn’t want to have the Council anywhere near her friends.
“Buffy, I can sense your resistance. I don’t blame you,” says Travers. “But I think your Watcher hasn’t reminded you lately of the resolute status of the players in our little game. The Council fights evil. The Slayer is the instrument by which we fight. The Council remains, the Slayers change. It’s been that way from the beginning.”
“That’s a very comforting, bloodless way of looking at it, isn’t it?” asks Giles.
“Giles, let me talk to Buffy. Because I think she’s understanding me.” Travers turns his attention back to Buffy. “Glory is stronger than you. She’s a more powerful instrument, if you will. We can help you. We have information that will help. Pass the review and we give it to you without reservation. Fail the review, either through incompetence or by resisting our recommendations—”
Giles starts to lose his temper. “Resisting your recommendations?” He moves toward Travers. “She fails if we don’t do whatever you say. How much under your thumb do you think we are?”
“How much do you want our help?” asks Travers.
“She’s not your bloody instrument and you have no right to do any of this!” says Giles. The largest member of the delegation—a rather imposing looking fellow named Philip—places a hand against Giles’ chest to hold him away from Travers.
“Giles!” says Buffy, and Philip pushes him away. Giles calms down a bit, but he continues to fume.
“I understand you think this is unfair but there are factors which should motivate you to go along with the review,” says Travers. “I don’t want to do this but obviously we could shut this place down permanently.”
“You can’t do that,” says Buffy. “You don’t have that kind of power.”
“Of course we do, and a great deal more,” says Travers. “In fact, if you insist on fighting us, we’ll arrange to have Mr. Giles deported within the day. Never set foot in this country again. Now, perhaps you’re used to idle threats and sloppy discipline, Miss Summers, but you’re dealing with grown-ups now. Am I making myself clear?”
Glory is fresh from her bath when Jinx returns. She has a fuzzy red towel wrapped around herself. She asks what happened to him. Jinx’s face is battered, and one of his eyes is swollen shut.
“It’s a message from Ben,” says Jinx. “He…isn’t going to help.”
Glory can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Isn’t going— isn’t going to help?” She rubs moisturizing oil on her arms. “All he has to do is turn over that tiny, squirming, Slayer girl. I have business to do with her. If she knows where I can start looking for my Key— Ghah!” She stops, and then she calms down a bit. “Why won’t he help? He knows her. He could go to her. He could talk to her. He could seduce her and bang the Key out of her!”
“He is quite attractive,” says Jinx.
“Well, of course he’s attractive!” says Glory, “But he drives me insane. You know what I mean?”
“He drives you insane?” asks Jinx uncertainly.
“Yeah, that’s it, exactly.” Glory puts her hands against Jinx’s chest, and pushes him up against the wall. She rests her head against his chest. “Oh…sweet, lumpy minion. You’re the only one that understands.” She looks up at him. “Probably because I haven’t sucked your brain out yet. He makes me so mad.” She puts her hands up beside Jinx’s head, and he braces himself to have his brain sucked out. “If I could just…get my hands on him. You know?” Glory drops her hands, and turns away. Jinx sighs with relief. Glory walks into her closet to get some clothes. “I’ll just find her myself.”
The people from the Council have left the Magic Box, giving Buffy and Giles the opportunity to have a private talk. Giles knows that the Council is just pulling a power play, but he doesn’t know what they can do about it. “I should have set you loose on them. That’s what I should have done.”
“Giles, that Travers guy is, like, 60,” says Buffy. “I can’t hit him. Can I?”
“I suppose not,” says Giles. “But I could. I think I will.”
Buffy asks if they could really get him deported.
Giles has little doubt that they could. He takes off his glasses and starts to clean them with his handkerchief. The Council tends to be a bit ham handed with the rough stuff. “But this stuff, the bureaucracy, the pulling of political strings, they’re the best in the world.” He continues to clean his glasses, with increasing force. “They can kill you with the strike of a pen. Poncey sods.” His glasses break.
Buffy is wondering about how well she will do on this review. Giles isn’t sure. He expects the physical tests to be challenging. That isn’t the part that is worrying Buffy. She’s worried about how they are going to evaluate the decisions she has been making lately. “Twice now I’ve been within slaying distance of Glory, and twice she’s kicked my ass without even tensing a muscle. And I haven’t been able to figure out what she is or anything about her except that she wants the Key, which I have, and I can’t even figure out if it’s okay for me to tell anyone that!”
“Buffy, no one could have done any better than you.”
“But no one else is going to be asked the questions that I can’t answer! They’re going to expect me to— to be like a Slayer and know stuff, but I’m just me, and I don’t know anything, and they’re going to go away, and they’re not going to tell me how to fight Glory, and I’m not going to be able to protect Dawn!”
“Buffy, calm down,” says Giles. “The scandal here is not anything you’ve done wrong. It’s the way they’re behaving, holding what they know hostage with a gun pointed at my bleeding green card, no less. It’s humiliating.”
“Also smart. They picked the perfect thing. I can’t lose you.” Buffy gets up from the table. “I guess I should be getting ready. What do you think it’ll be like? I mean, how do you think they’ll start?”
They start by interviewing Buffy’s friends. Philip talks with Xander and Anya in Xander’s apartment. He asks Anya her name. She tells him that it’s “Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins” and goes on to tell him that she was born on the fourth of July, and about how all the kids used to make fun of her when she was growing up because of it—
“So you spell it A-N-Y-A then?” asks Philip.
“Yes,” says Anya.
“Fine,” says Philip. “Now we can get to the questions.”
Nigel interviews Willow and Tara in Willow’s dorm room. He wants to know about the Slayer and their relationship.
“Our—our relationship?” asks Tara.
“We’re friends,” says Willow.
“Good friends,” says Tara.
“Girlfriends, actually,” says Willow.
“Yes, we’re girlfriends.”
“We’re in love.” Willow places her hand on Tara’s knee. “We’re lovers. We’re lesbian, gay-type lovers.”
“I meant your relationship with the Slayer,” says Nigel.
Willow removes her hand from Tara’s knee.
“Um…just good friends,” says Tara.
Xander tells Philip how he, Buffy and Willow have been best friends ever since Buffy came to Sunnydale, and how he accompanies her on patrols and things. Nigel asks if Xander has learned any special fighting skills, which Xander hasn’t.
“So, you have no special skills, or powers, or knowledge that you bring to the mix, neither of you?” asks Philip.
“Just enthusiasm for killing the demons,” says Anya. “Go deadness for the demons!”
Xander tells Philip that he doesn’t have any special powers, but he does help. Philip wants an example. “Last year, Willow, Giles, and me combined our essence with Buffy, which isn’t as weird as it sounds,” says Xander. “We merged, and I was the heart part of a super Buffy. Again, let me stress the not-as-weird thing.”
“I’m told it was all very professional,” says Anya.
“Are you saying that the Slayer needs that level of help from you often?” asks Philip.
Willow and Tara tell Nigel that Buffy can do just fine without their help. “Sometimes she goes off and does stuff without even telling us,” says Tara.
“Not that she’s like a weird loner or anything,” says Willow. She starts to tell Nigel about the ball of sunshine spell she’s working on. Nigel asks them what level they are at in their witchcraft.
“Level?” asks Tara.
“Magical proficiency level?” asks Nigel.
“Oh!” says Willow. “Uh, high, a high level, very high. One of those top levels.”
“Five!” says Tara. Nigel makes a note in his notebook. Willow shoots her a look, and Tara shrugs at her.
“And you’re registered as practicing witches under the names as you gave them to me?” asks Nigel.
“R-registered?” asks Tara.
“Oh, yes,” says Willow. “Yes, of course we’re—we’re…”
“Registered,” finishes Tara.
“Do either of you know anything about the Key?” asks Philip.
“Nope,” says Anya. “Sounds demony to me. I don’t hold to that demon nonsense.” She picks up a basket of muffins and offers it to him. “Muffin? I cooked them myself.”
Philip shakes his head. “So, Buffy sometimes protects you from the dangerous elements of her work?”
“Yes. She’s saved my life lots of times,” says Xander. “The vampires in this town hate her.”
Three of the Council members are visiting Spike’s crypt. Two men, one of them armed with a crossbow which he keeps pointed at Spike’s heart, the other armed with a large cross.
Lydia is standing behind them with a clipboard. “We understand that you help the Slayer?”
“I pitch in when she pays me,” says Spike. Lydia is surprised that Buffy gives him money. Spike says he gets money, and sometimes a bit of blood out of some stray victim.
“Blood?” asks Lydia.
“Well, if they’re going to die anyway,” says Spike. “Come to think of it, though, that’s a bit scandalous, isn’t it? Personally, I’m shocked. The girl’s slipping.”
“You’ve noticed a decline in her work?”
“Oh, yeah. See, the poor little twig can’t keep a man, gets her all down. Few more disappointments, she’ll be crying on my shoulder, mark my words.”
“Is that what you want?” asks Lydia. “I’d think you’d want to kill her. You’ve killed Slayers before.”
“Heard of me, have you?” Spike starts feeling pleased with himself. He takes a step toward Lydia, and the Watcher with the cross raises it higher.
“I…wrote my thesis on you,” says Lydia.
“Well, well,” says Spike. “Isn’t that neat? Tell me, pet, now that we’re such good friends, how’s the Slayer doing? Is she okay? High marks in all categories?”
“Agility, clarity, stamina and strength,” says Quentin Travers. “These are the qualities that the Slayer must possess to do her job.”
“What came after agility?” asks Buffy. They are in her training room in the back of the Magic Box. Giles is there too, along with the other people from the Council. Philip—who is well over six feet tall and looking very fit—is dressed in a martial arts gi and carrying an axe. Nigel ties a blindfold around Buffy’s eyes.
Travers explains that Buffy is to protect the practice dummy from Philip. “Getting the best of Philip will require agility. Listening to my instructions at the same time well, that will demonstrate clarity, and stamina and strength will win the long fight. Good luck.”
“Instructions?” asks Buffy.
“Yeah, I’ll be telling you what to do. How to counter Philip’s thrusts,” says Travers. “We assume you’re familiar with the Japanese names for aikido, jujitsu moves.”
“Japanese?” asks Buffy.
“And…Go!” Lydia clicks on a stop watch. Buffy thinks this is going a little too quickly. Travers says something in Japanese, and Philip bows to Buffy.
“Huh?” says Buffy.
“He wants you to bow,” says Giles. “Take a bow.”
“Oh…” Buffy isn’t sure who she should bow to, so she bows toward Travers.
The match between Buffy and Philip begins, with Philip moving around Buffy, and her trying to respond the way Giles is translating the Japanese instructions that Travers is giving her. Giles’ translations always come too late. After one of Buffy’s combinations comes nowhere near Philip, Travers turns to Giles. “How have you been training her?”
“I’ve trained her to win,” says Giles.
“Know what? I’m going to have to do it my way, guys,” says Buffy.
Philip swings his axe at Buffy, and she ducks under it. She comes back up quickly and grabs his arms as he tries to bring the axe back down on her. She kicks him in the chest, knocking him back up against her pommel horse. She hits him in the face with her elbow, and knocks him right over it. She pulls the axe out of his hands and tosses it back over her shoulder.
Buffy lifts her blindfold and looks back to see where the axe went. It is buried in the chest of the practice dummy she was supposed to be protecting, and the dummy is lying on top of Nigel on the floor.
Lydia bends down over Nigel, and clicks her stop watch again. She makes a note of the time on her clipboard.
“Oh…” says Buffy.
A couple of the other Watchers help Philip back to his feet. “I think she broke my rib!” he says.
“Yes. Well…I didn’t mean to,” says Buffy. “You know, I can do better. I think I might be getting this inner ear thing, and so maybe if I got a note, I could try again?”
Travers doesn’t think that will be necessary. They are done with the physical tests for a while. It is time to move on to the real review. “Look into your strategies, plans. Figure out what’s going on in that head. We start at seven tonight. Give you time to, uh…well…however you prepare.”
Buffy returns home and calls out for her mother. She doesn’t get an answer, and moves into the living room. She is shocked to see Glory is there waiting for her.
“Long day, sweetie?” asks Glory.
Glory slowly circles around the living room, looking over where the Slayer lives. She is not impressed. She runs her finger along one of the table tops checking for dust. While Glory’s back is turned, Buffy quietly moves toward the fireplace and reaches for the poker.
Glory is suddenly behind Buffy, having moved with impossible speed. “If I wanted to fight, you could tell by the being dead already. So play nice, little girl.” She takes the poker from Buffy, and goes and sits in one of the chairs.
“What do you want?” asks Buffy.
Glory wants her Key. She thinks Buffy has it, or at least knows where it is. That is the only thing keeping Buffy alive right now. “You may be tiny queen in vampire world, but to me, you’re a bug.”
Dawn comes through the door from the kitchen behind Glory and stops. Buffy sees her, but pretends not to.
“You should get down on your knees and worship me, but, oh, no, you still think it’s neat having Slayer strength,” says Glory.
“What?” mouths Dawn, but Buffy doesn’t react. She keeps looking at Glory.
“Ooh, big deal. Stronger than humans. Who isn’t?” asks Glory.
Dawn starts to quietly back out of the room.
“I could crush the life from you as easy as you’d break a nail, but I need the Key,” says Glory. “Kid! Come here a sec.” Dawn freezes.
Buffy tells Glory to leave Dawn out of it, but Glory has no intention of doing that. She snaps her fingers, and Dawn moves around in front of Glory’s chair.
“And you are just the darlin’est thing I ever did see in my life. What’s your name, honey?” asks Glory
“Dawn.”
“Dawn. Did you know your sister took my Key, Dawnie? And she won’t give it back. I bet you know where she put it, don’t you?”
“She doesn’t know anything,” says Buffy.
Dawn shoots an annoyed look at her sister. “I know some stuff.”
“I bet she takes your stuff all the time without asking, doesn’t she? Where’s my Key, Dawn?” asks Glory again. Buffy tells Dawn to go upstairs.
“You’re always talking about stuff I’m not supposed to hear. I’m going to figure it out, you know,” says Dawn, and she leaves.
“Ooh! I like her. She’s sassy! And I’ll kill her. I’ll kill your mom. I’ll kill your friends, and I’ll make you watch when I do. Just give me the Key. You either have it or you know where to find it.” Glory gets up out of the chair. “Obviously, this is a one-time-only deal. Next time we meet, something you love dies bloody. You know you can’t take me. You know you can’t stop me.” She drops the poker on the floor and leaves.
Joyce comes out of the kitchen. “Buffy, who was that?”
“Pack a bag,” says Buffy.
Spike is awakened by a light shining in his face. He starts off the lid of his sarcophagus, but relaxes when he sees it’s Buffy. Then he notices that she isn’t alone. “So, what’s with the family outing?” he asks. Joyce and Dawn are standing by the door to his crypt.
Buffy tells Spike that she needs his help. That’s fine with Spike, he could use some cash.
Buffy isn’t playing that game this time. “I’m serious. You have to look after them.”
Spike is still amused by the request. “What’s the matter, Slayer? You’re not feeling 100%? They didn’t put a chip in your head, did they? Be funny if they did.”
“Spike, I need an answer, now,” says Buffy. “In or out? You’re the only one strong enough to protect them.”
Spike looks at Buffy for a while, and then he looks over at Dawn and Joyce, and invites them in. “There’s plenty of blood in the fridge.”
“Do you mean like real blood?” asks Dawn.
“What do you think?” asks Spike.
“Mostly, I think, ew.” says Dawn.
Buffy tells her mother to keep Dawn there as long as she can, and that she’ll be back soon. She has a parting reminder for Spike.
“Yeah, yeah,” says Spike. “‘Anything happens to ’em, I’ll stake you good and proper.’ Sing me a new one sometime, eh? That bit’s gone stale.” Buffy leaves.
Joyce has a bit of a look around. “I love what you’ve, um, neglected to do with the place.”
Spike tells her just not break anything, and to keep quiet. He turns on his TV. “Passions is coming on.”
“Passions?” asks Joyce. “Oh, do you think Timmy’s really dead?”
“Oh, no, no,” says Spike. “She can just sew him back together. He’s doll, for God’s sake.”
“What about the wedding?” asks Joyce. She and Spike take seats on the arms of his chair to watch the TV. “I mean there’s no way they’re going to go through with that.”
Dawn rolls her eyes, and looks for something else to do.
Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya sit along the edge of the loft in the Magic Box watching the Council delegation going through Giles’ books below them. They are not happy.
Quentin Travers consults his pocket watch. Buffy is twenty minutes late. Giles assures him that she will show up.
“Yes. But when?” asks Travers.
Buffy hurries through an alley toward the shop. She looks at her watch and sees how late she is. “Crap!”
Someone dressed in chain mail jumps out the shadows and tackles her. Buffy throws him off of her, but he’s joined by two companions. They too are dressed in chain mail, and are armed with metal quarterstaffs. The one who originally attacked her pulls a sword.
“Uh…guys?” asks Buffy. “Any way we could not do this?”
The three figures in chain mail circle around Buffy swinging their weapons. The swordsman swings at her, but she ducks under it and kicks him away.
The two with quarterstaffs come at Buffy. She evades their attack, and kicks one of them away into a stack of crates. He doesn’t get up. The swordsman comes at her again, but Buffy grabs the end of her other attacker’s quarterstaff, and uses it to block his attack. She kicks him away again.
Buffy takes the staff away from her attacker and disables him too. Now it’s just her and the swordsman, and Buffy has a weapon. She uses it to knock his sword out of his hand, and then she takes him down. She sits on him with the staff across his throat.
“Okay, let’s see what you are.” Buffy pulls chain mail cowl off the swordsman’s head. “Or who you are.” The face she has revealed looks human, but he has a strange tattoo on his forehead.
His name is Orlando. “One soldier in a vast army,” he says. “The Knights of Byzantium, an ancient order, and now your enemy.”
“You work for Glory?” asks Buffy.
“You think we align ourselves with the Beast?” asks Orlando. “You must be mad!”
“You’re the ones tried killing me.”
“We were fools,” says Orlando. “Three alone. But if it takes a hundred men, we send a hundred men, and if it takes a thousand, we send a thousand.” Buffy is disturbed by the manpower this guy claims to represent. “So long as you protect the Key, the Brotherhood will never stop until we destroy it, and you. You are the Slayer, and we know what we must do. Now, be done with it. Kill us, and let legions follow.”
Buffy gets off Orlando, tosses aside the staff and picks up his sword. She holds it to his throat as he gets back to his feet.
Buffy stands holding the tip of the sword pointed at Orlando’s throat for a moment. “Go!” She lowers the sword. Orlando seems a little surprised by that, but after a second he leaves.
Buffy watches Orlando go, and then looks at the sword in her hand.
Buffy enters the Magic Box still carrying the sword. Travers doesn’t seem to notice it. He’s sitting at the round table looking over his notes. Giles asks Buffy if she’d been attacked.
“Yeah,” says Buffy, but Travers still takes no interest. It is time to begin the review.
Buffy lays the sword down on the table on top of Travers’ notes. “There isn’t going to be a review.”
“Sorry?” Travers seems to notice the sword for the first time.
“No review. No interrogation. No questions you know I can’t answer, no hoops, no jumps,” Nigel starts to open his mouth to object, but Buffy shoots him a look. “And no interruptions.” Nigel closes his mouth.
Buffy paces around the shop while she talks. “See…I’ve had a lot of people talking at me the last few days. Everyone just lining up to tell me how unimportant I am. And I’ve finally figured out why. Power. I have it. They don’t. This bothers them. Glory came to my home today.”
That gets Giles’ attention. “Buffy, are you—”
Buffy takes off her coat. “Just to talk. She told me I’m a bug, I’m a flea, she could squash me in a second. Only she didn’t. She came into my home, and we talked. We had what—in her warped brain—probably passes for a civilized conversation. Why? Because she needs something from me, because I have power over her.” Buffy looks around at the Watchers arrayed around the shop. “You guys didn’t come all the way from England to determine whether or not I was good enough to be let back in. You came to beg me to let you back in, to give your jobs, your lives some semblance of meaning.”
This is too much for Nigel. “Oh, this is beyond insolence—” He stops, and stares at the sword which is now sticking out of the wall a couple of inches in front of him.
“I’m fairly certain I said ‘No interruptions.’” says Buffy.
Xander looks down from the loft. “That was excellent,” he says quietly.
“You’re Watchers,” says Buffy. “Without a Slayer, you’re pretty much just watching Masterpiece Theatre. You can’t stop Glory. You can’t do anything with the information you have except maybe publish it in the Everyone Thinks We’re Insanos Home Journal. So here’s how it’s going to work: you’re going to tell me everything you know, then you’re going to go away. You’ll contact me if and when you have any further information about Glory. The magic shop will remain open. Mr. Giles will stay here as my official Watcher, re-instated at full salary.”
“Retroactive.” coughs Giles.
“To be paid retroactively from the month he was fired,” says Buffy. “I will continue my work with the help of my friends.”
Lydia clears her throat. “I, uh, don’t want a sword thrown at me,” she says timidly, “but civilians— we’re talking about children.”
Buffy looks up at her friends sitting along the edge of the loft. “We’re talking about two very powerful witches and a thousand year old ex-demon.”
“Willow’s a demon?” asks Anya.
“The boy?” asks Philip. “No power there.”
“The boy has clocked more field time than all of you combined,” says Buffy. “He’s part of the unit.” She looks around at the Council members spread around the shop. “Now…you all may be very good at your jobs, the only way we’re going to find out is if you work with me. You can all take your time thinking about that, but I want an answer right now from Quentin, ’cause I think he’s understanding me.” She looks at where Travers is still sitting at the table.
Travers considers his options for a few seconds. “Your terms are acceptable.”
Buffy’s friends in the loft all cheer.
“Uh, Rupert…” says Travers, “when we inventoried your shop, we found a bottle of single malt scotch behind the, uh, incense holders. I think I could use a glass.”
“Well, I suppose we could—” says Giles.
“Just a minute,” interrupts Buffy. “Glory. I want to know. Tell me what kind of demon I’m fighting.”
“Well, that’s the thing, you see,” says Travers. “Glory isn’t a demon.”
“What is she?” asks Buffy.
“She’s a god,” says Travers.
Buffy takes several seconds to digest that. “Oh.”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | The cemetery | Staked by Spike |