"… and thank you," Anya announced brightly, handing her latest customer back his credit card before packing the various phials and packages he’d bought into the box Giles had handed her as he passed. "Please come and buy things again."

"I can’t see how they’re doing it," Buffy was saying, staring at the map she had laid out across the table at the back of the shop. "It’s as if they know where I am almost every minute of the day. This is beginning to freak me out."

The door bell jangled as the customer left. Anya watched him go with a bright smile - then shut the cash draw of the till with a smug look on her face.

"Bad thing, freaking," Willow said, frowning at the pattern of streets as if they were about to writhe into some arcane message that would reveal all. Her hand went out in a complex gesture, a hint of glamour trailing from her fingertips. "I could always –"

"Not in front of the grimoires, if you please," Giles interjected firmly, arriving beside the table and intercepting the gesture by wrapping her hand with his own. "Not without a protective circle at least. Willow, how many times do I have to tell you – ?"

"I know what I’m doing," the young witch protested, sounding both hurt and a little angry. She tugged her hand free and pouted at him. "It was just a little location spell. I can do those with my eyes shut."

"In which case you wouldn’t get to see the result," he countered archly. "I suppose you knew what you were doing when you summoned that vortex yesterday – and yes," he said, pre-empting her wide eyed remonstration of innocence, "Dawn told me about it, so don’t deny it ever happened. Willow," he declared, stepping back and regarding her with stern displeasure. "Magic isn’t a game. It’s a dangerous, delicate art. You use it profligately, or thoughtlessly, and you’ll end up finding it’s cost you more than you’ll ever want to pay. It has to be studied. Mastered. It takes years – and even then it won’t be something you summon without a price attached."

"I know what I’m doing," Willow repeated tightly, glaring at him. They’d had this argument the day before – and the day before that, a resurgence of the concern and condemnation he’d expressed after learning what the Witch had done to call their friend back from death. Part of Buffy thought it was a good sign – since it demonstrated that Giles was finally beginning to take interest in what was going on around him – and a part of her hated it, because Willow didn’t want to listen, and he’d fallen into his stubborn ‘I’m older and wiser and I know better’ lecturing routine which wasn’t getting his point across at all. She never liked to hear her friends argue, especially when – as in this case – they both had a valid point. Willow was getting more and more powerful every day. She was well past the baby steps that Giles was insisting she practise further before she moved on. But – equally – she was taking risks and wasn’t being all that meticulous in her spell casting. Sloppy work creates mistakes, Xander had been happily quoting earlier that day; he’d been talking about his careful ‘measure twice cut once’ approach to carpentry – but the concept was sound, and would apply equally well where magic was concerned.

"I’m sure you think you do. There’s nothing like a little over confidence for encouraging fools in their idiocy. Just – don’t cut corners," Giles advised haughtily. "Especially not in my shop."

"Our shop," Anya corrected sweetly, waving from behind the counter. He ignored her, fixing Willow with an admonishing glare – one which generated a decidedly angry glower in return. They held the confrontation for a moment, the tension practically heating the air between them, and then Giles angrily jabbed the slip of his glasses back up his nose and turned away, striding resolutely towards the training room. He threw one last furious scowl over his shoulder as the door slammed open under the impact of his hand.

"Well, of all the – " Willow raised her own hand, clenching it into a tight ball of anger. Flame rippled around her fingers as she drew it back, preparatory to propelling the power she’d gathered after the man’s disappearing back. Buffy’s eyes widened in alarm – but it was Tara who caught the witch’s arm, halting her angry gesture just in time.

"Willow, don’t," she pleaded. "He’s not trying to get at you. He’s worried about you. I’m worried about you. You promised me you’d be careful. What’s all this about a vortex?"

Willow’s angry expression instantly melted into contrite remorse. "It was nothing, Baby, really it wasn’t. I was trying to show Dawn how to fetch things – and I just fetched a little more than I intended. That’s all."

Buffy hesitated – then decided that Tara had that side of things in hand and went after Giles instead, hoping to diffuse his anger before he did something he was going to regret. Half the problem was that Willow knew that he might be right – but she was too stubborn to admit that she might be getting out of her depth, and too proud to ask for help when she’d been so adamant about her ability to control her power. He on the other hand, was struggling with some aspect of this that he really didn’t want to talk about – and that meant his concerns emerged as impatient anger, his anxieties lost behind what sounded like pompous criticism. There wasn’t much Buffy could do about convincing Willow she needed to take a step back, except to leave Tara to convince her of the wisdom of doing so – but she could talk to Giles and find out what was bugging him. Other than the usual issues, of course.

She found him standing in the middle of the training room, his back and shoulders rigid, his head back and his hands clenched in front of him, white knuckled with anger. This was not a good sign. His rapid retreat had obviously been a need to escape before he was driven to action; his current stance suggested that he hadn’t quite won his battle for self-control. "The stupid, childish, idiotic little fool!" he was muttering, clearly fighting down exactly the same desire to lash out that Willow had nearly succumbed to. Since – in his case – lashing out might involve razor sharp steel and the need for a complete new set of clothes, there was a fair bit riding on the outcome of his struggle.

"Deep breaths," Buffy advised warily. "Long slow ones. Might help."

His head jerked round – and then his expression softened as he realised who it was and that she was alone. "Buffy," he acknowledged a little awkwardly. "I – um … Oh dear."

Instant dissolution. The tension went out of him like air let out of a balloon – and with it Buffy heard the soft but unmistakable click of metal nestling back against steel and bone. "Don’t tell me," she said. "You get mad, you … bristle. Right?"

He heaved a heavy sigh. "R-right," he confirmed, looking decidedly abashed about it. "They’re not just weapons, Buffy, they’re … emotional response, personal display … whatever you want to call it."

"Mood metal," she considered brightly. "Blades in, you’re mellow, blades out, you’re … mad," she concluded, trailing off under the look he was giving her. He wasn’t amused, and he wasn’t in the mood for flippancy either. "Sorry," she said with a wince. "It’s just that … I didn’t know."

"Well, you do now." He walked across to join her, turning to slump back against the wall with another of those disquieted sighs. "One of these days," he considered bleakly, "I’m going to do that in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m just so … jumpy, at the moment. I don’t know why."

Buffy looked at him with concern. She knew why. And so did he, even if he didn’t want to admit it. It had only been three months, and for all the progress he’d been making he was still incredibly fragile. These last couple of weeks he’d been desperately trying to build himself a wall of normalcy to hide behind - but they both knew how flimsy that wall was, how uncertain its foundations lay. The blood drinking thing hadn’t exactly helped either.

"Crowded place," he was considering softly. "Too many people. One of them bumps into me, pushes me … someone’s going to get hurt."

"No they’re not," she told him firmly, wondering if she’d let him go into action a little too soon. The fight on the ship had disturbed him badly – and not just because he’d been forced to reveal his demonic nature to that policewoman from Nevada. Those vampires had been so young; blood sucking monsters made from innocent runaways. Their destruction had been a necessity – even a mercy – but that hadn’t made it any easier for him to do. "You’ll get the hang of it – although yelling at Willow doesn’t really help matters much."

"No," he sighed. "I know. Oh lord." His head went back and his shoulders heaved, expressing some of the pain that still echoed in his heart. "I don’t mean to yell at her," he admitted miserably. "It’s just that … I see what she’s doing and … it scares me. I’ve been there, Buffy. Felt the rush, been seduced by the power … Summoning demons is fun – until somebody dies. Someone you care about."

Oh. Buffy mouthed her comprehension, letting the pieces fall into place. Sometimes it was easy to forget that the man beside her had seriously mispent his youth. He hadn’t earned the nickname of Ripper by opening too many envelopes.

"The magic is no different," he went on wearily. "And in some ways it’s even more dangerous. She thinks she’s in control and – if she’s not careful, it’ll end up controlling her. I can see her, making my mistakes all over again and I just – "

"- flip out," Buffy concluded, not without sympathy. "I get it. But Willow won’t. Not if you get mad and yell at her. She just thinks you’re being over protective. She’s not a child anymore, Giles. And none of us like being treated like one."

"If people want to be treated like adults then they should act like adults," he muttered with a hint of irritation in his voice. "I’ve tried being reasonable. I’ve tried talking to her, I’ve tried to warn her – and she just thinks I’m being a – a fussbudget. She thought I would be so proud of her for bringing you back …" He paused, to throw Buffy a wary glance. "Please don’t read this wrong, Buffy, but – you were safe. And it was over. And she should never have ...she had no idea what she was risking. When I found out what they’d done I – I wanted to shake her. If she could just admit that there was a risk. Take that much on board at least. She wasn’t good – she was lucky. Incredibly lucky."

"I know," Buffy acknowledged softly. It hadn’t entirely been Willow’s power that had dragged her back from bliss; Iolaus had told her that no-one left the Light unless they wanted to. A piece of her heart had answered that summons, and that made her partly responsible. But Willow had opened the doorway – and Giles was right. She’d taken an incredible risk.

She’d done it because she was hurting. Because she was afraid. And because she believed it to be for the best. Buffy still hadn’t figured out how to tell her she’d been wrong. About the hell dimension bit, anyway.

"Not that I wasn’t glad to get you back, and – even knowing what I know – there’s a bit of me selfish enough to think that I wouldn’t have it any other way. But if we’d lost Willow too …"

That was what was scaring him. Whether he’d meant to or not, he’d let the Scoobies get under his skin. Become family. He’d known he’d lose her one day; death was the Slayer’s gift and it came with the territory. But the others had come along for the ride, and each one had come to mean something special to him over the years. Somehow, at some point along the line, he’d invested his heart in all of them; for a father to lose any child was a grief almost too great to bear – but to lose more than one – or even one more than once perhaps – was something no parent should ever have to face.

And yet he faced that possibility almost every day, given the nature of their world and the war they constantly pursued.

He knew the risks, he knew the dangers – and no doubt he’d steeled himself to cope if the worst ever happened – but the fire that Willow was playing with wasn’t anything to do with any of that. It was a path entirely of her own choosing, and he was watching her walk down it, seeing the mistakes he’d made, knowing the lessons he’d learned – and the price he’d had to pay for them.

"We won’t," Buffy assured him with a confidence she didn’t really feel. She didn’t know how much of this was over anxious fears and how much genuine concern. Willow was taking risks, and she needed to see that. On the other hand, she was an extremely powerful witch and had ably demonstrated the fact on more than one occasion. "Giles – you don’t need this right now. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’ll talk to her. Talk to Tara. And then you need to talk to her. And I mean talk. Not yell. Not lecture. Not preach. Just – talk. Tell her your fears. She loves you. She’ll listen."

"I don’t know, Buffy. I - " His sigh came from the heart. "I’m not sure she will. I’m not sure any of you do, sometimes. Good old Giles. Worrying over nothing again. He has to worry about something, you know? Otherwise he doesn’t feel like he’s contributing."

"Giles," she reacted, unsure whether she should laugh or simply hit him. "We don’t think of you like that …" She trailed off. He was looking at her with one of those patient, think about it looks that quietly reminded you that he knew you knew better. "Well," she admitted, a little uncomfortably. "Maybe – just a little bit. Sometimes. You can be … a bit of a mother hen, you know."

"I can’t help that," he said sagaciously. "I’ve been in this world a lot longer than you have. I know nothing’s fair, nothing’s ever easy, and, if you let it, life will slap you down, first chance it gets. Life is also good," he considered thoughtfully. "Life is very precious. And we only ever get one go at it." He realised what he’d said even as he said it. His correction was warm, wry, a little bit embarrassed – and decidedly affectionate. "Most of us, anyway."

 Sky sat in the car for a long time, observing the comings and goings down the street, assessing the neighbourhood and trying to decide – for the umpteenth time – if she really wanted to go through with this. She sat so long it started to feel like a stakeout; she didn’t exactly make notes on each customer as they entered the shop – or left it, sometimes carrying purchase and sometimes not – but she was still appraising them with a professional eye, trying to see what might lay beneath their everyday exteriors, second guessing motivations and wondering what they knew. It hadn’t taken much to track the place down. A few discrete enquires with the Sector of Commerce, and a moment or two with the local directory had identified the name, the location and owners of Sunnydales’ most well known occult suppliers. She suspected there might be several more, lurking in dark places and providing services that this place would never accommodate – but for now her objective was merely to make contact with the Slayer, so she’d had no need to pursue those avenues of investigation. Not yet, at least.

She probably could have found it just by spending a little time exploring her new home. The shop was positioned reasonably close to the centre of town, and fronted directly onto the street. A good, solid, commercial position – and it garnered a fair amount of passing trade by the look of it, customers drawn in by discrete displays and the notices posted in the window.

Look me up, Buffy had said. If you can find me, I’ll listen.

There had been three references to Summers in the phone book. Sky had briefly toyed with the idea of trying the direct approach, even going so far as to drive round the relevant neighbourhoods. But it hadn’t felt right. Confronting Buffy like that would have been too much of an intrusion. She’d already invaded the Slayer’s territory without an invitation; she suspected that arriving boldly on the young woman’s doorstep was not going to be the best way to get to know her.

Besides – the box that was currently sitting on the passenger seat beside her wasn’t a gift for the Slayer. It was a peace offering for her Watcher. She already knew his address – which wasn’t the same as Buffy’s, she’d been intrigued to note – and that was positively the last place she’d consider visiting uninvited. She wasn’t even sure she could face him again, now that she knew – well, now that she knew.

Knew what, she wasn’t entirely certain.

She sighed and shifted discomfortedly. She’d actually seen Buffy go into the shop over half an hour before, although she didn’t think the girl had spotted her lurking behind the wheel of her car. There’d been two other young women with her, similar to her in age and looking like college students. One had been carrying an armful of books, the other had had a laptop carry case slung over her shoulder. More of her ’gang’, Sky had surmised, adding them to her mental roster of the Slayer’s associates. I’m not supposed to have one, but I do …

She wondered who decided what the Slayer was supposed to do. Buffy struck her as the sort of young woman who wouldn’t take kindly to being told anything – by anybody. Not unless she had good reason to trust them, and did trust them, implicitly. She’d said something about some sort of Council – although she’d said so much that day that Sky could no longer remember many of the details. Something to do with her Watcher, she recalled – although that implied that he was the one who told the Slayer what she should and shouldn’t do, and she hadn’t got that impression of their relationship somehow. Advised her – guided her, perhaps. But not … well, maybe when Buffy had been younger …

I grew up – and he didn’t.

She remembered that remark, if only because it had echoed her own experiences at that age. Time and events change the way people see each other; perhaps that shift from father figure to friend had been echoed in other ways as the years had gone by. Buffy had said – what? That she’d been fifteen, sixteen, when she’d found out she was the chosen one? It was highly unlikely that, back then, she’d been the determined, confident, and forthright young woman she was now. Six years of facing the forces of darkness had to be character developing, if nothing else.

And that had to say a lot about her mentor - or at least the man he used to be before … before what had happened to him had happened, before the events which Buffy had described so tellingly. That much had stayed with Sky, even if the rest of the details had become blurred over the interceding weeks. How could she forget?

She sighed and shifted yet again, reaching to run her hand over the tooled leather surface of her father’s treasured books. She’d been trained to deal with victims of abuse. She knew all the right approaches, the strategies for dealing with them, the signs to look for and the signals they responded to. She’d worked with battered wives, abused children, the violated, the traumatised and the defiled. But none of her training or her experience had prepared her for the horrors of Buffy’s world – or taught her how to face a man who was no longer a man. An abused soul who had, quite literally, gone through hell – and who still carried, not just the scars, but the inescapable legacy of that experience.

"What do you think I should do, Max?" she murmured, tracing the symbols carved into the front of the topmost volume. She’d loved to explore those soft leather contours when she’d been a child, and she knew every curve, every line of the intricate tooling, even if she had no idea what they meant. Her father – God love him – wouldn’t have been sat out here like this, struggling with doubts and conjectures. He’d have marched straight into the Magic Box, full of questions, eager to know, eager to learn. He’d tell her to stop brooding and face her fears. What was it she afraid of, anyway?

Becoming a part of the Slayer’s world – or being expelled from it, as unworthy and unwanted?

"Dracu," she swore, slamming her hand down on the ancient book and raising a cloud of dust from its bindings. It was time she stopped floundering in doubt and took some positive action. She’d come this far, and she wasn’t about to turn back. It was time to act. Time to face up to her demons.

Sky had to smile to herself as she uncoiled her long legs from the well of the car and stepped out into the street. In the Slayer’s world, it seemed you faced demons on a regular basis. Some of them even fought beside you: Spike for instance. And Rupert Giles, whose violet eyes reflected hidden depths along with his bruised and fragile soul.

There was an unmarked van parked on the far side of the street. She’d watched it pull up several minutes ago, although she’d not seen anyone get out of it. She wondered if there was an undercover surveillance in progress, since the vehicle had that nothing going on here look about it which usually meant something was. It didn’t appear to be a police van, although that never meant anything. Sky gave it a wary glance as she stepped around the car and lifted the box into her arms. She had the oddest feeling that she was being watched, although she couldn’t see anybody who might be doing so. Just the odd passer by, one or two of whom gave her a second glance – although that was hardly unusual. She got second – and third – glances all the time.

Maybe it was her scarlet jacket that was drawing everyone’s attention ..

Okay, so she looked good, and she knew it. She always knew it, with a martyred sense of inevitability. It was her blessing, and her curse. Once she’d got past the initial gaucheness of her youth – the inevitable result of being the tallest in her peer group - she’d achieved the sort of elegant maturity that fashion magazine editors called ‘ageless’ and Megan had described as ‘damned infuriating’. Sky tended to prefer Megan’s version, since that was a little how she felt about it herself. She never worked at – it just happened, no matter what she threw on, or how rushed she might be leaving home in the morning. Her beauty routine was an hour in the gym every day – which was much more about keeping fit for the job than it had ever been about staying trim. She never had time to go to the hairdressers, so she kept her hair long and had learnt innumerable ways to tie it up or back, or both. She never had time to go shopping either, so when she did buy clothes it was the expensive, last forever kind – except for grabbing Walmart jeans, sweaters and sloppy shirts whenever the previous armful wore out.

When she was younger and a little less sure of herself, she’d taken great pains to try and dress herself down, deliberately trying to blend into the background and not get herself noticed. It had never worked. Her height had always made her stand out and that – along with her striking combination of dark hair and blue eyes – had unfailingly led to her attracting attention whether she wanted it or not. In the end she’d surrendered to the inevitable and simply accepted her fate. She’d decided that if she was going to get looked at anyway, she might as well wear what she felt comfortable in – and that had allowed her to reclaim her love of colour and put back a few dramatic keynotes whenever she felt like it. She felt like it a lot of the time; blacks and reds predominated in her wardrobe, along with dark purples, antique golds and the deepest blues. Rich flamboyant colours – like the jacket she’d thrown on that morning, which made a suitably confident statement beside the unassuming combination of cream coloured shirt and the matching slacks that she was wearing underneath it.

There were some distinctly negative aspects to standing out of the crowd, but she’d got used to most of them. The wolf whistlers and the owners of the leering looks tended to back off if she fixed them with a disapproving glare or a look of icy disdain; those who didn’t usually changed their tune if she flashed her badge and intimated at harassment charges. While the trophy hunters – the men looking to carve notches on their bedposts, or those hoping to impress their peers by acquiring a fashion plate as their girlfriend – were generally discouraged once they discovered she was not only smart and confident, but felt no need of a man to validate her existence.

Not on a permanent basis, anyway.

She pushed the passenger door shut and walked purposefully back to the pavement, carrying the box in both hands. The books were heavy; old, musty tomes filled with hand written words, sketchy diagrams and other arcane scribblings. Her father’s notebooks were tucked in down beside the older volumes – although, since her father had always written his notes in Latin, she had no idea which book went with which.

"Detective?" She turned at the call; the young man she’d met on the ship – and who’d so kindly driven her and the girls back to town – was standing a little further down the pavement, considering her with some bemusement. "I thought it was you," he said and she smiled, amused at his baffled expression. She’d decided early on that she was going to like this particular young man. Alexander Harris appeared to be mostly boyish bounce and puppy dog eagerness – despite a determined attempt to appear manly and responsible.

"Hello, Xander," she said, her smile turning a little wry as his eyes inevitably swept up and down her with startled admiration. He hadn’t seen her in daylight yet – or bereft of coal dust, either. "You on your way to the Magic Box?"

"Mmm?" He’d definitely been distracted by the look; he took a moment to recollect himself. "Oh – yeah. Yeah. Umm – we – ah – kind hang out there, after work. Before work – um – while we’re working … " he concluded a little awkwardly. He’d clearly just remembered that she worked for the police, that he didn’t know how much she knew about him, or the Slayer for that matter – and that maybe his volunteering information wasn’t such a good idea.

"That’s rather what I figured." Sky started to walk towards the shop and he darted forward, reaching the door ahead of her so that he could push it open and usher her in. "Thank you."

Xander looked a little abashed at his own gallantry. "You’re welcome," he said. "Ah – that looks a little heavy. Do you need a hand?"

"Do you mind?" She handed the box over with a slight sense of relief. It wasn’t that heavy, but carrying it put her at a disadvantage, and right now she needed all the advantages she could get.

"Wow," he registered, deliberately dipping under the weight. "What you got in here? Gold bricks?"

"Just a few books." Sky’s eyes swept the interior of the shop with professional assessment: it was well stocked without being cluttered, the most notable section being the ranks of bookshelves on the balcony at the back. There was a long glass counter, an open space in the centre and a table set towards the rear, so that, while the front half said shop, the rest of it looked more like a library than anything else. The two young women she’d seen with Buffy earlier were sitting together at the table. There was another young woman working behind the counter, who looked up to greet her new customer with a beaming smile. "I thought Mr Giles might like to take them off my hands."

"I’d like him to take them off my hands," Xander joked, carrying the box across to place it carefully on the counter. Sky followed him down the steps and into the body of the shop. "Anya? Is Giles around?"

"He’s in back with Buffy." The young woman named Anya was staring at Sky with puzzlement – and a little wary envy. The two women at the table were just staring. Period. "Hello. Do we know you?"

"Detective Zaherne." She turned. Rupert Giles was standing in the doorway at the rear of his shop, Buffy poised beside him. His greeting had a slightly brusque edge to it, but she was expecting that. His eyes swept her up and down the way Xander’s had done - but there was nothing admiring in the look, which held wary suspicion and a hint of quiet hostility. Well, she was expecting that too. "You took your time."

"I was thinking about what you said," she countered, watching him as he walked towards her, trying to reconcile this smart and seemingly inoffensive shopkeeper with the creature she’d seen in action three nights ago. The crisp shirt and the formal waistcoat went with the role and the accent, although it paid a certain lip service to California casualness; no tie, the top button of his shirt undone and his cuffs turned back. The glasses just added that finishing touch; they gave him a studious look – and effectively distracted a casual observer from the subtle colour in his eyes. Buffy, moving round to stand halfway between them with an equally wary stance, was much more the California girl: tight pants, a white ribbed sweater and her hair pulled back in a practical ponytail.

Neither of them looked much like demon killers – or demons, for that matter.

"And?" he prompted pointedly.

Sky took a deep breath. "I want in," she announced. She spoke to the Slayer rather than her Watcher, conscious that the rest of the ‘gang’ were studying her with various degrees of surprise – and suspicion. "I’m here, I’m not going to go away – and I can help. I know I can."

Buffy frowned. "You sure about that?" she asked softly. "Do you have any idea what you’re asking me? Us?"

"No," Sky admitted candidly. "But I’m not afraid, if that’s what you mean."

"You will be," Giles muttered grimly. He thrust his hands in his pockets and considered Sky with a unfriendly scowl. "It’s – um - your call, Buffy," he said, in a tone that suggested that if he were making the decision he’d have thrown her out of the shop by now. It earned him a puzzled look from Anya, equal bemusement from Xander and the two girls – and a quietly sympathetic smile from the Slayer. The look Buffy turned back towards Sky, however, was all business. This wasn’t the anxious young woman, so distraught by a friend’s peril that she could barely string one word after another. This was the Slayer; this was her world and her territory – and she wasn’t pulling any punches.

"Giles is right," she said. "The things we do – the things we deal with – they’re dangerous. If you step into my world, it’s not just your life you’ll be risking. You’ll be putting your heart, your soul, your sanity on the line. There are things out there that make Zamaroth look like pussy cats. Things that will freeze your blood with a look, chill you to the bone – and give your nightmares for the rest of your life. You want in? In is in forever. Once you walk my side of the wall, you can’t go back. This isn’t a game. It’s for real. People die. People … change," she said, her brief hesitation marked by a darting glance towards the man who was watching them both with a shadowed and troubled expression. "I do my best to protect those I can – but I can’t be everywhere, and I can’t deal with everything. You sure you still want in?"

Sky thought about it, looking at each of them in turn, studying their wary faces and trying to assess what they were thinking. Anya smiled at her; a quick, don’t ask me reaction that was more amused than encouraging. Xander rolled his eyes, suggesting that if he’d had that speech, they wouldn’t have seen him for dust. Of the two young women at the table, one confirmed Buffy’s warning with a knowing look – and the other smiled supportively, if a little sadly. Buffy herself was unreadable, simply waiting for her answer with patient expectation. Rupert Giles, on the other hand, was studying her with disconcerting intensity, his body language tense and his eyes challenging.

"Yes," she found herself saying, driven to respond to that challenge, to prove that she could – and would – be worthy of this man’s respect and approbation. Even if he was a demon. Or was that only partly one? "I’m sure. Buffy," she explained, turning back to the Slayer, "I’ve spent half my life trying to protect the innocent, to defend the weak and support the vulnerable. I’ve seen a lot of bad things, more than enough to know that evil exists - and I’ve been fighting to do something about it. Once or twice I’ve come out ahead of the game – but all too often I’ve just been there to pick up the pieces. What you do makes a difference. You don’t just – bring the bad guys to justice. You save souls. That matters to me. And I want to help. Any way I can."

Buffy went on looking at her for a moment or two. Then she nodded. "She’s in," she decided, a little grudgingly. The implications were clear; Sky might be allowed in the Slayer’s world – but she was going to have to prove herself before she could become a part of her team.

"Thank you," she said, grateful to have been given the chance.

Giles snorted softly. "I wouldn’t thank her just yet," he advised, tugging his hands out of his pockets again and stalking round behind the counter. His actions were dismissive; deliberately walking away from their new recruit to busy himself with everyday, trivial issues. He clearly wasn’t going to protest Buffy’s decision, but he made it perfectly obvious that he wasn’t supportive of it either.

"Let me introduce you to the gang," Buffy said, ignoring the purposeful snub, almost as if she’d been expecting it. Sky decided it was probably best if she did too. She had been expecting it. The man had no reason to welcome her back into his life; she’d hardly made a good impression on him the first time round. Buffy was waving a vague hand in his direction. "Erm – Giles, you know, of course. This is Xander – you met him the other night …"

"Welcome aboard," Xander said, holding out his hand in friendly greeting. Sky smiled and took it. The enthusiasm of his handshake earned him a wary glare from the blonde haired woman behind the counter.

" … this is Anya. She’s – ah – "

"Pleased to meet you," Anya interrupted, thrusting out her own hand and holding it rigid – as if the gesture was one she’d practiced, rather than it coming naturally. "We’re engaged, you know. Xander and me. Me and Xander. Getting married. Soon," she concluded, with a firmness that was hard to dispute. Xander looked vaguely abashed. Buffy simply smiled.

"This is Tara," she continued, going on with the introductions. "One of our witches in residence. And this is Will – Willow. Our most powerful witch. And our computer expert."

"Hi," Willow smiled, lifting her hands to waggle her fingers in friendly greeting. Sky half echoed the gesture, pulling her hand down again as she realised how ridiculous she would look.

"I’m … pleased to meet you all," she said, wrestling to get her head round the dynamics of the group. Most of them appeared to be Buffy’s age – although, thinking about it, Spike could well be a lot older than he looked. That put her at a decided disadvantage; she was a good decade older than they were – and while she was actually more than a decade younger than their mentor, that would still place her as his contemporary in their eyes. Fitting in with this team was going to be hard work.

But – she decided, glancing round faces whose youth defied the fact that they’d been successfully holding back the forces of darkness for several years – potentially a lot of fun.

"Oh dear lord."

Giles’ quiet, but fervent exclamation drew everyone’s attention. He was standing behind the counter, one of Max’s books in his left hand, staring at it with an utterly dumbfounded look on his face. His right hand was hovering above the cover, as if he’d started to trace the symbols engraved there – only to pull his fingers back before they made contact. His stance was conflicted, hesitating: he really, really wanted to touch the volume, but was – for some reason – reluctant to do so. Sky had to suppress an urge to laugh at his expression.

"They won’t bite," she said, wondering what he was afraid of. "Least – they never have before."

"You brought these in?" he asked, his darting glance in her direction drawn back to the book as if he were unable to tear his eyes away. "They belong to you?"

"They were my father’s." She glanced at Buffy, who – for some reason - had broken into an amused grin. "I don’t really have room for them – and I can’t read them anyway, so I - wondered if maybe … you’d find a use for them."

His reaction was a strangled laugh – one of disbelief and total astonishment "A – use – oh, my." He looked decidedly shaken. "Does one use the holy grail?" he asked, almost in a whisper. His fingers dipped forward, finally caressing the surface of the leather, much as Sky had done out in the car. Her hand hadn’t been shaking though.

"The what?" Sky asked bemusedly. Buffy laughed.

"Giles has this – thing – about books," she confided happily. "The older they are, the better." She stepped forward, reaching to tug the book out of his hands and study it curiously. "So what are they exactly?"

"Buffy – Buffy," Giles protested, snatching back the book and glaring at her reproachfully. "Please." He cradled the volume with reverence, placing it down on the counter with gentle care. "If these are what I think they are, they are priceless. They need to be treated with respect. Like any book," he added pointedly.

"Hey," Anya said, tilting her head to study the symbols carved into the cover. "I recognise that. That’s – oh …" Comprehension struck her with awed revelation. She looked up at Giles, who nodded significantly. "I don’t think we’ve got enough in the kitty to cover those. I doubt we’ve got enough in the bank." She frowned thoughtfully. "We could always take out a second mortgage …"

"They’re really worth money?" Sky moved across to stare down into the box. "Max always said they were precious, but – I never really believed him. He brought them over from the old country." She smiled, suddenly remembering how earnest her father became when he spoke about the books, about how important they were. "I think he stole them from somebody. But if he did it was a long time ago. Those are his notebooks. He spent every spare moment he had working on those texts. It was his life’s work. But he never finished it." She looked up, meeting violet tinted eyes; they were watching her through equally tinted glass, and they held a wary consideration. "I thought, maybe, you’d be interested in seeing what he’d done. Make some sense of it."

"Giles," Anya hissed at his elbow, "make her an offer. A low one …"

Sky laughed. "No," she denied, a quick shake of her head. "No, I don’t want any money. They’re a gift. A peace offering," she added softly, sharing the thought – and the intent – with the man she’d wronged so badly. Giles frowned.

"Putting bribery aside," he noted archly, "these really are priceless. They won’t be a full set, of course." He began to lift the remaining volumes out of the box, handling them with reverent care. "Even the Vatican’s collection is missing volumes and pages … " His voice trailed off. The hand that lifted the last leather bound tome out of the cardboard trembled a little as it gently placed it beside the others. There were seven books in all; he counted them twice, just to make sure.

"Giles?" Buffy asked, looking a little concerned at the look on his face. "You okay? What are these things?"

He didn’t answer her for a moment, his eyes dazed and his fingers delicately tracing the outline of the stylised bird incised on the front of the final volume. When she’d been young, Sky had thought the bird was some kind of eagle – at least until her father had corrected her. It was a raven, he’d explained. The bird of prophesy.

Finally, Giles heaved a quiet, almost happy sigh. "This," he announced, his hand still resting lightly on the tooled leather, "would appear to be a complete copy of the Codex Tageris. The collected works of Maximillius Tagerov. Carpathia’s greatest alchemist and seer."

"Wow," Willow breathed, looking impressed. She and Tara had moved across to join the group at the counter; Xander had made room for them both. "May I?"

Giles threw her a wary glance – then relaxed into an odd little half smile. "Of course," he said, lifting the book and handing it over with care. "Gently now."

Sky caught the look Buffy gave the exchange – a pleased smile, backed with just a little resentment that Willow would be trusted where she hadn’t been. The young witch opened the book eagerly – and then her face fell. "Ah – what language is this written in?" she asked, twisting the volume to try and make some sense of what she was seeing.

"One of the Carpathian dialects, I would think." Giles gently opened the cover on another of the books and began turning pages with care. "It’s certainly the right Cyrillic alphabet. Although it appears to have been written backwards. And it’s a copy. Second or third generation, I think. This paper is 17^th or 18^th Century. The original would almost certainly have been on vellum."

"This leather’s so soft," Tara noted. "More like suede. What sort of animal did it come from?"

"It didn’t," Giles answered abstractedly. "It’s – um - demon skin."

"What?" several of them chorused – Sky included. He looked up at the exclamation, his face creasing in puzzlement.

"It’s Ventrax leather," he said, as though that were obvious. "A – a common binding for grimoires of the period. I already have several volumes that were made using it. It’s tough, it ages well – and it’s – um - fire proof. I’ll admit it’s a little … macabre, but it does allow certain preservation spells to be woven into the bindings." He closed the book and studied the embossed symbols on its cover. "These marks – they would probably have been tattooed into the living skin before it was prepared. Quite an art, really." He paused in his academic dissertation, as if only just realising the looks he was getting. Willow had warily closed the book she’d been given and gingerly replaced it on the counter, stepping back with a small shudder. "Oh come on," he protested impatiently. "The Ventrax are classic demons; they have razor sharp fangs and they eat - well, anything they can get their talons on. Hungry muscle, used by greater demons to torment and terrorise helpless populations. A lot more deserving of being slaughtered than your average, innocent cow."

"If you say so," Buffy decided, still looking a little askance at the volumes. "But – why would anyone go to the trouble of catching a demon, just to protect a few scribbled notes and jottings?"

"Notes and ...? " Giles had started to delve back into the box, picking out one of the heavily annotated notebooks so that he could flick it open and study it. He looked back up with a pained sigh. "Buffy. The complete Tageris has been lost for centuries. Some scholars even think there were volumes deliberately destroyed because of what they might reveal. Baron Tagarov wasn’t just a sorcerer alchemist. He was a seer. These books are believed to contain his prophecies – warnings of events destined to shake the world. But he was so afraid that the knowledge he’d gained would fall into the hands of dark powers, that he scrambled the verses and encoded them throughout his arcane and alchemical notes. No-one’s ever been able to piece those warnings together, because no-one’s ever had a full set to work from."

"Until now," Willow realised. "Well, not until now, because the Detective’s father had them. And someone must have had them before that, but didn’t tell anyone … Not that that matters," she said with a half laugh, suddenly aware that she was babbling, "because now you have them. Just think of what might be in there," she went on to say, sharing the thought with Tara’s quiet smile. "Spells and incantations. Stuff like that."

The smile, Sky noted, became a slightly anxious frown. Willow didn’t seem to notice it.

Anya snorted. "Forget the spells," she muttered. "The way I heard it, old Tagarov figured out how to create his own gemstones, using nothing more than dust and blood. Now that would be a trick worth knowing."

"Yesss," Giles drawled doubtfully. "Well, the prophecies are the important thing, but – I suppose the rest of the notes will prove equally interesting. I really can’t believe these are real," he breathed, running his hand once more across the volumes before returning his attention to Sky. There was still more than a hint of distrust in his eyes – but it was battling with eager curiosity and reluctant gratitude. "You must tell me more about your father."

"I will," she promised warily, recalling hidden steel and how he’d made use of it in the darkened hold. She had to remember that he – like the Slayer, like, she suspected, others among those gathered around her – was much more than he seemed. She’d been watching him – them – with fascination, watching the dynamics of the group play out around her. She’d never dreamt her father’s books might be so important – or that they’d invoke the kind of reaction that they had. She finally understood Buffy’s smile, though. It was a quiet, happy smile, tinged with the barest hint of sorrow; a smile that welcomed her friend’s fervour for the books – not just because of her affection for his eccentricities, but because he was able to express that fervour. Sky suspected that such moments had been few and far between in the past few months.

It actually felt a little like over reaction, even for a dedicated academic, but there was a strange, old fashioned kind of charm about it; his obvious respect for the books, along with his equally obvious fascination for their subject added a whole new facet to her perceptions of him.

It was clearly one that Buffy and the rest of her gang knew well.

Somewhere behind them, the doorbell jangled, signalling the arrival of a customer. Xander, Tara and Willow looked round, distracted by the intrusion. Buffy turned her head to see who’d entered and Anya adopted a cheery smile of welcome. Giles looked up, past Sky’s shoulder – and his expression deepened into decidedly disquieted frown, triggering her own turn so that she could see who it was they were all looking at.

There was a woman standing in the doorway. A rather striking woman, whose small stature, slight build and short red-blonde bob of hair conveyed an air of waif-like vulnerability, despite her no-nonsense, all-business stance. She was dressed in a tailored grey suit; her jacket, and practical knee length skirt was offset by a white shirt and a discrete flare of colour from a knotted scarf tied around her throat. She was also carrying a disconcertingly large carry-all, which she carefully stowed by the door before striding across to the top step and down into the body of the shop. She looked round with interest as she approached the gathered group, her eyes sweeping across them with studied observation.

"Good afternoon," she said, in an unmistakably British accent. "I’m looking for a Mr Giles. Is he available?"

The group parted almost as if by magic, revealing the Englishman in their midst; Sky – who’d taken a polite step to one side, didn’t miss the way that Buffy, rather than moving back, moved forward – positioning herself defensively at his side.

"He might be," Giles observed warily, considering the new arrival with almost as much suspicion as he had done Sky, a few moments before. "It depends who’s asking."

The woman arched an eyebrow in his direction, eyeing him up and down with penetrating assessment. Her hand went to her breast pocket, producing a smart, gold edged business card, which she laid onto the counter with a snap. "My name," she announced, "is Sarah Alice Dimwithy. You are Rupert Giles I take it?"

He reached out and turned the card towards him, reading what was printed on it. There was a symbol stamped in gold on one corner, Sky noticed – a pentacle, pierced by a sword. "I am," Giles acknowledged warily.

The woman drew herself up to her full height – which was more or less the same as Buffy’s – and found she still had to tilt her head up so that she could look him firmly in the eye. "In that case," she said, "at the request of the Council of Watchers, I hereby place you under full and fair investigation, subject to the laws and outcomes of my calling. Where do you stand?"

 Long Sea Crossing-Chapter Three. Part A-Three. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by anyone - Universal, Pacific Rennaisance, or any other holders of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Buffy the Vampire slayer trademarks or copyrights.
© 2005. Written by Pythia. Reproduced by Penelope Hill