Ashes to Ashes
Dawn noticed a lack of response from Andrew when Maya delivered her news about Nighna. Then she noticed that he left the
Flat soon after - not that she was spying on him or anything. It was weird, him cutting out like that, and Dawn was worried.
So she slipped on Buffy’s gray pullover (because Xander and Maya were still in her room, trying to figure out a way to wake
Spike, as if she and Andrew hadn’t already tried everything non-magically possible) and followed Andrew to the Watcher’s
Council. That’s what friends did for friends, right? She and Andrew were friends. Twice kissed friends. But that was all.
It wasn’t random luck, finding Andrew at the Watcher’s Council. The Ancient Text Storage under the Council’s main building
housed the texts they’d recovered from the Circle, and though the vault’s smell of brushed metal and recycled air had
replaced the damp leaves scent they’d cherished in the Circle, Dawn knew the ATS was still Andrew’s most favorite place in
the world. After all, he’d been instrumental in a lot of its specially designed gadgetry and security features, so if he was
going to hide out, the ATS was where she’d find him.
True to form, Andrew was there, dressed in an exquisite Italian suit, keeping up his sham of an excuse that he had
“research to do.”
Dawn knew better. He was flipping out. Why else would he wear his super-fancy suit when here it was a Sunday, and nobody
would be at the Council to see him and act all impressed with said fancy suit? Learning of Nighna’s death would be the thing
to finally push little Andy over the edge.
Dawn’s heart thumped with pity. She slipped through the coded vault door and hid behind a bank of steel-reinforced archival
cabinets to observe him.
He was so obviously repressing. Seriously: no tears, no gasping, no clutching his chest in despair, no pitiful whimpering. Even
worse, he held a stack of folders in the crook of his arm and was searching through an open cabinet for more. It was time to
act. Dawn stepped around the edge of the cabinet, ready to throw herself on the sword of his great suffering.
Dawn paused a moment to reconsider the metaphor of his sword and throwing herself upon it, as Andrew turned around and
shrieked, tossing his folders into the air.
She shrieked too. While they stood there screaming like frightened rabbits, they happened to miss the enormous demon that
walked in through the vault door which Dawn had, regrettably, left open.
“Great leaping Jesus!” Andrew exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Andrew bent down, explaining while he collected his files. He said, “Well, I measured the bite mark on Spike’s arm like we
talked about, then I dropped a sample of the poison off at the lab. Afterward, I got a Black Currant Frusion from the vending
machine, only to find it wasn’t cold, so I put it in the freezer in the break room. Then I came here to get files about the
Sasquatcha demons Lorne told us about…”
“Just stop,” Dawn said.
Andrew frowned. “Spike’s not gonna wake himself, Dawn!” He paused. “Well, he might, but it could take a… way long time.
And we don’t have a way long time with those demons fast approaching…”
Dawn’s heart pulled its pity-lurch again. She placed a hand on his arm. “That’s not what I meant.”
Andrew looked from Dawn’s hand and up into her face. She saw a whole mixed bag of emotions: sadness, regret… hope?
So not what she expected. Nor did she expect the enormous demon that chose that moment to appear.
“Oh God, Andrew…” Dawn said.
“I know,” he said. “I feel it, too.”
“Demon,” she said with a shove. “Behind you.”
Andrew turned to find the demon – all seven scaly-obsidian black-tusks-and-bony-armored-plated feet of it – towering at the
end of the row of cabinets.
“Ah, nu’ja nez blimbo jah, ha ha!” it bellowed.
Not missing a beat, Andrew said, “You don’t have clearance to be here.” He took a step in the demon’s direction. “No
visitors allowed in the ATS without written consent. Did you not read the sign?”
Dawn was right; Andrew had lost it.
The demon shot a puzzled look at Dawn over Andrew’s shoulder. “Nu’ja nez blimbo jah!” the demon howled. “Wei
Taonnoica?”
“Um, yeah. Restricted area,” Andrew whined, managing a level of snark Giles would never achieve. “All archived material
must be cleared through the reference desk. That'd be on the Fifth Floor.”
Amazingly, the demon backed down. Emboldened, Andrew continued in his bureaucratic rage. “Restricted, Big Feller! As in,
out, out foul demon! (Dawn, run.)”
“What?” Dawn stammered.
Her reaction time: definitely lacking. The demon’s skin turned molten and smoked.
“Moltz!” it roared. And then, it blew up.
Morning broke, sending spears of light through the flecked windows of the abandoned chapel. Rachel Greenspan lifted her
head to find that she had been dozing against the sturdy shoulder of one Rupert Giles.
She pulled away abruptly, patting her hair and rumpled clothing smooth.
“I must have dozed off,” she admitted.
“Indeed,” Mr. Giles said.
She felt embarrassed, and absurdly concerned with morning breath. What was worse, she felt she’d been tricked. He had
lulled her into a comfort zone with his soothing baritone and meticulous recounting of his life’s adventures so that when she
awoke she had nearly forgotten how intensely she hated him.
Nearly.
Rachel self-consciously rubbed her eyes. “Oh, God,” she fretted. “I snored, didn’t I?”
“No, no…” Mr. Giles assured her.
“Yes, you did,” Ethan’s voice sang from the trap beneath them.
Rachel glared first at Mr. Giles, and then redirected her scorn to the grate beneath which their captor cowered.
“Have we decided the fate of our wannabe Houdini?”
Ethan Rayne answered hopefully, “Let him go?”
“Highly unlikely,” Rachel muttered.
Mr. Giles sat forward, staring at the ground between his feet, but said nothing.
She stood and stretched, feeling awkward and eager to depart. She guessed that finding a Ladies Room in an abandoned
village wouldn’t prove too difficult. Judging by the silence, the demons had abated, chased back into shadow by the dawn.
“Reminds me of Night on Bald Mountain,” Rachel said wistfully as she pondered the barricade, wondering how best to
dismantle it.
“Beg pardon?” Mr. Giles asked.
“Fantasia,” Rachel laughed. “Childhood favorite: demons awake in the night – havoc, havoc; mayhem, mayhem – but they’re
dispelled by morning’s first light.”
After a moment’s study, Rachel lifted the frame of the cot, leaning it against the wall. Next, she hoisted the edge of one of
the teakwood pews, moving it a few scraping inches over the stone floor, expecting Mr. Giles to come to her aid.
However, when she turned to entreat him for assistance, she found him still staring down into the narrow shaft that held
Ethan Rayne.
“Mr. Giles?” she asked.
He plucked his glasses from his face to polish them. “What happens in the end? In this… Fantasia, is it?”
“It’s a Disney,” Rachel said. “You’ve really never seen it?”
“Ah, no.”
“Sun comes up. Demons return to Hell. In the end, the angels sing,” she said, smiling at the memory.
Mr. Giles didn’t share her smile.
After a moment, Rachel returned to the quiet work of removing the barrier to the outside world. The effort took longer than
she hoped, which cheered her considerably, knowing that the demons from the night before would have had at least a
fraction of the difficulty getting in as she did getting out. Once the door was open and the boiled cabbage scent of seaweed
wafted in with the humid air, Rachel stepped into baking brightness.
Mr. Giles’ voice followed after her. “Please remain outside, Miss Greenspan,” he said.
Rachel spun. Had he hit her open-handed in the face, it would have hurt less. After what they survived, it gutted her that he
would exclude her.
“No,” she said, stamping her foot. “I’m not leaving you alone in there with that... that criminal.”
The hardness of his features shocked her. The benevolent face of her storytelling companion had vanished. In its place, she
found a smoldering coldness.
“Rachel,” he said. “Get out.”
Stunned, Rachel closed the door. She put her back against it, straining with all she possessed to blink back her tears.
When Dawn came to, her ears were ringing, her skin feverish. The blast had blown her to the back wall, but after a cursory
check, she figured the damage ended with a deep demonic suntan.
Andrew, on the other hand…
Andrew!
Dawn scrambled around the cabinet to find the smoldering lump that was Andrew. The explosion had sprawled him flat, had
seared through his suit coat and shirt, leaving his tie smoking like a fuse. All of his exposed skin looked raw like a peeled red
onion. To her great relief, he was breathing - slow, deep, steady breaths like he had fallen asleep. In the Sahara. Without
sunscreen.
“Andrew?” she whispered. Gently, she prodded his shoulder. “Andrew, wake up.”
He moaned, then stirred, then opened his eyes. “Wh?” he croaked.
With relieved exuberance, Dawn gushed: “You made that demon explode,” she said. “With your talking. You made him
explode.”
Andrew twisted uncomfortably on the floor. Gingerly, he poked the charred skin on his neck and shoulder, wincing and
muttering “Ow” with pain at every touch. With Dawn’s help, he propped himself against the metal cabinet.
Andrew coughed. “That,” Cough, cough. “Was awesome!”
Dawn stared at him. “How’d you know you could make him go all combust-y?”
“I didn’t,” he said, stretching painfully. “It was a time-buying ploy so you could get away.”
“Oh.”
Dawn inched toward him. The intensity of her stare seemed to burn him worse than any dynamite demon, and his eyes
darted to every place in the room that wasn’t Dawn. He saw the incinerated demon bits that littered the marble floor, but
failed to notice how they were slowly drifting together like the iron shavings in a Magna-Doodle.
“Andrew, are you okay?” Dawn asked. She was close enough now to feel the baking heat of his skin on hers.
“A little toasted, but… You?”
“No,” Dawn said. Then, “Yes. I’m fine. But are you okay?”
“I’m copacetic with a capital K,” he said, again with the looking everywhere but at her.
“You are not,” she said.
He glanced at her. “Maybe a capital C?”
Dawn took his right hand in hers. “Andrew, you are the worst liar. Apart from getting blown up, you’re upset about Nighna.
I see things.”
…She didn’t see the piles of soot join together to form larger heaps that likewise drifted toward each other…
Andrew held his breath before he spoke again. “I… didn’t think of her,” he said, his voice thick and gruff. His eyes drifted to
the ceiling. “When I kissed you, I didn’t even think of her.”
Dawn swallowed, “R-really?”
…Ash turned to stone which solidified into demon toes, demon feet, demon ankles, the beginnings of well-toned demon legs…
“It’s true,” he said. “And there’s more.”
“You can tell me…”
“Dawn,” Andrew said. “I think I’m in love with you.”
“What?” Dawn reeled. Getting blown up by a demon felt like nothing compared to the shock value of those seven words. It
seemed to her that everything got suddenly very small, like she was orbiting above the planet like a satellite, and Spike and
Buffy and Xander and everyone else were so far away she couldn’t see them.
…Neither could she see that the exploding demon had re-grown its legs and part of its thickly-muscled torso…
The look of dread on Andrew’s face – the part presently capable of expression – told her that he needed a response.
So she whispered, “You love me?”
“Kind of a lot,” he said.
Dawn smiled. It hurt. She said, “I’d kiss you right now, except my lips are tandoori’d.”
She tried anyway, only to discover that lips are incredibly sensitive when scorched.
Dawn pulled away, smiling. “Okay, so we’ll rain check the lip lock,” she said.
Andrew uttered a dithery laugh. “I have this really excellent burn balm,” he said. “We used it back when we took on the
Nezzla'khan. Our first attempt to steal the orbs left Warren with fried palms, but one application of burn balm later we were
back in the demon den, Trio-style…”
“Andrew,” Dawn said. “What did the demon want?”
“Mostly to crush us to borscht for stealing its balls,” he said. “Though I like to think recruitment might have been an
option.”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean this demon.”
“Right. Mr. Thermal Detonator. He said something…”
“Made demands?”
“He said Nu’ja nez blimbo jah!” Andrew said, in a remarkably accurate if somewhat caricatured impersonation of the
demon. “And then he said, Wei Taonnoica!”
“Translation?”
Andrew attempted to stand, but wobbled. Dawn slung his arm over her shoulder and helped him up.
…By now, the demon had re-grouped enough particles to have its massive pectoral muscles. The remaining scattered pieces
skittered and bumped along the floor with growing speed, rolling up the demon’s body to settle back into their proper order…
“Not sure, exactly,” Andrew explained. “I mean, it sounded like Klingon, but with a sprinkling of Greek?”
“You know it?”
“Maybe?” His brow furrowed. Ouch. The skin on his forehead felt sticky. And he smelled awful, like burned feathers.
“Taonnoica?” Dawn said, feeling over the word with her tongue. “I know it,” she said. She gripped his hand and led him,
almost running, to the archive cabinet marked T’aa – Tbaul.
“Do you have your key to these cabinets?” she asked.
He snickered. “Of course!” He took out the small gold key he kept on a ring inside his wallet and slipped it into the outer
lock. The steel door swung open to reveal tall vertical file lockers within. At the top of the locker was a nine-digit keypad
programmed with a special access code. That had been Andrew’s idea.
“Which one is it?” Andrew asked.
Dawn ran a finger along the index letters until she located the one that contained TAO.
“This one,” she said. Dawn punched in the access code. When the red display light flashed green, Andrew tugged the bulky
metal box from the locker. She took it from him and nodded, appreciatively. “Taonnoica was a city. The word Taonnoica
could be Pre-Hellenistic for Taonyx Parchments,” she explained. “We found them in the archive under The Circle. Maybe
they’re important?”
“Worth a shot,” Andrew said. “Lemme just gather the cindered remains of my research and we can jet…”
The demon stepped forth and, in a repeat performance, yelled, “Nu’ja nez blimbo jah, ha ha!”
Dawn screamed. “Another one?”
“Same one!” Andrew answered. “Run!”
They fled through the ATS with the demonic time-bomb fast on their heels. They slammed the 10-inch lead reinforced vault
door just as it exploded again. Panting, Dawn pounded the alarm button. In seconds, the emergency sprinklers kicked on,
inside the ATS and out.
“This won’t hold him long,” Dawn yelled. “We need to vanquish. There are texts and supplies in Magics, Third Floor.
Scoobies: TNG, right?”
A crooked smile quirked Andrew’s lips. “Did I mention I love you?”
Dawn grinned. “You did. And then, tandoori chicken lips…”
“Right,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Let’s vanquish.”
The door to the little chapel closed with a hollow thonk. Rupert Giles lifted the metal grate and dragged it into the shadows,
knowing that the girl – Miss Greenspan – was listening to everything.
“You heard her,” Giles said. “In the end, the angels sing.”
Ethan’s laughter bubbled up from the shaft. “Give me your word, old chap. I’ll come without a fuss if you promise to let me
up unscathed.”
Rupert lingered in the shadow beneath the window. “You have my word.”
Ethan stretched Rupert’s patience, taking an eternity on each foothold, until finally his head emerged from the hole in the
floor. Ethan glanced around, opportunistic little rat he was, until he picked Giles out of the gloom.
“There you are, old sport,” Ethan said. “Come out where I can see you?”
Giles didn’t move. “As a Chaos adept, I imagine that pistol is quite useless to you,” he said.
Ethan dragged himself onto the floor and rolled to his knees. “Appearances, Ripper,” Ethan said with a grin. “A man need
only see a gun, and it’s effective enough.”
“For most,” Rupert said flatly.
Ethan sat back on his heels. He squinted at Giles through haze and shadow. “Aye, for most,” he agreed, chuckling.
The mirth withered when Giles stepped from beneath the light, revealing a brutal expression Ethan had thought Rupert Giles
had left behind long ago.
“Ah, Ripper,” he said, his tone resolute. “So it is you after all.”
With startling ferocity, Rupert swung the metal grate, cracking it across Ethan Rayne’s skull. Ethan crumpled, blood
spurting across the ground in vicious gouts. Rupert descended on him, knees to his guts, tossing roughly through
Ethan’s clothes… Until his fingers curled around the gun.
Rachel didn’t know how much time had passed, and she didn’t care. She heard muffled scufflings inside, as well as possible
groveling, and she thought that if Mr. Giles was putting the hard brace to Ethan Rayne she should at least be there for moral
support.
So what if Mr. Giles was the head of the Order? They had formed an uneasy bond over the last few days, and she felt she’d
earned a share in whatever it was Mr. Giles obtained from Rayne. No, hang that: It was her birthright to stand beside him,
no matter what Mr. Giles’ rank and station decreed.
Just as Rachel decided to force her hand, she heard a single gunshot inside – one pure, piercing sound – and then, nothing at
all.
Dawn noticed a lack of response from Andrew when Maya delivered her news about Nighna. Then she noticed that he left the
Flat soon after - not that she was spying on him or anything. It was weird, him cutting out like that, and Dawn was worried.
So she slipped on Buffy’s gray pullover (because Xander and Maya were still in her room, trying to figure out a way to wake
Spike, as if she and Andrew hadn’t already tried everything non-magically possible) and followed Andrew to the Watcher’s
Council. That’s what friends did for friends, right? She and Andrew were friends. Twice kissed friends. But that was all.
It wasn’t random luck, finding Andrew at the Watcher’s Council. The Ancient Text Storage under the Council’s main building
housed the texts they’d recovered from the Circle, and though the vault’s smell of brushed metal and recycled air had
replaced the damp leaves scent they’d cherished in the Circle, Dawn knew the ATS was still Andrew’s most favorite place in
the world. After all, he’d been instrumental in a lot of its specially designed gadgetry and security features, so if he was
going to hide out, the ATS was where she’d find him.
True to form, Andrew was there, dressed in an exquisite Italian suit, keeping up his sham of an excuse that he had
“research to do.”
Dawn knew better. He was flipping out. Why else would he wear his super-fancy suit when here it was a Sunday, and nobody
would be at the Council to see him and act all impressed with said fancy suit? Learning of Nighna’s death would be the thing
to finally push little Andy over the edge.
Dawn’s heart thumped with pity. She slipped through the coded vault door and hid behind a bank of steel-reinforced archival
cabinets to observe him.
He was so obviously repressing. Seriously: no tears, no gasping, no clutching his chest in despair, no pitiful whimpering. Even
worse, he held a stack of folders in the crook of his arm and was searching through an open cabinet for more. It was time to
act. Dawn stepped around the edge of the cabinet, ready to throw herself on the sword of his great suffering.
Dawn paused a moment to reconsider the metaphor of his sword and throwing herself upon it, as Andrew turned around and
shrieked, tossing his folders into the air.
She shrieked too. While they stood there screaming like frightened rabbits, they happened to miss the enormous demon that
walked in through the vault door which Dawn had, regrettably, left open.
“Great leaping Jesus!” Andrew exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Andrew bent down, explaining while he collected his files. He said, “Well, I measured the bite mark on Spike’s arm like we
talked about, then I dropped a sample of the poison off at the lab. Afterward, I got a Black Currant Frusion from the vending
machine, only to find it wasn’t cold, so I put it in the freezer in the break room. Then I came here to get files about the
Sasquatcha demons Lorne told us about…”
“Just stop,” Dawn said.
Andrew frowned. “Spike’s not gonna wake himself, Dawn!” He paused. “Well, he might, but it could take a… way long time.
And we don’t have a way long time with those demons fast approaching…”
Dawn’s heart pulled its pity-lurch again. She placed a hand on his arm. “That’s not what I meant.”
Andrew looked from Dawn’s hand and up into her face. She saw a whole mixed bag of emotions: sadness, regret… hope?
So not what she expected. Nor did she expect the enormous demon that chose that moment to appear.
“Oh God, Andrew…” Dawn said.
“I know,” he said. “I feel it, too.”
“Demon,” she said with a shove. “Behind you.”
Andrew turned to find the demon – all seven scaly-obsidian black-tusks-and-bony-armored-plated feet of it – towering at the
end of the row of cabinets.
“Ah, nu’ja nez blimbo jah, ha ha!” it bellowed.
Not missing a beat, Andrew said, “You don’t have clearance to be here.” He took a step in the demon’s direction. “No
visitors allowed in the ATS without written consent. Did you not read the sign?”
Dawn was right; Andrew had lost it.
The demon shot a puzzled look at Dawn over Andrew’s shoulder. “Nu’ja nez blimbo jah!” the demon howled. “Wei
Taonnoica?”
“Um, yeah. Restricted area,” Andrew whined, managing a level of snark Giles would never achieve. “All archived material
must be cleared through the reference desk. That'd be on the Fifth Floor.”
Amazingly, the demon backed down. Emboldened, Andrew continued in his bureaucratic rage. “Restricted, Big Feller! As in,
out, out foul demon! (Dawn, run.)”
“What?” Dawn stammered.
Her reaction time: definitely lacking. The demon’s skin turned molten and smoked.
“Moltz!” it roared. And then, it blew up.
Morning broke, sending spears of light through the flecked windows of the abandoned chapel. Rachel Greenspan lifted her
head to find that she had been dozing against the sturdy shoulder of one Rupert Giles.
She pulled away abruptly, patting her hair and rumpled clothing smooth.
“I must have dozed off,” she admitted.
“Indeed,” Mr. Giles said.
She felt embarrassed, and absurdly concerned with morning breath. What was worse, she felt she’d been tricked. He had
lulled her into a comfort zone with his soothing baritone and meticulous recounting of his life’s adventures so that when she
awoke she had nearly forgotten how intensely she hated him.
Nearly.
Rachel self-consciously rubbed her eyes. “Oh, God,” she fretted. “I snored, didn’t I?”
“No, no…” Mr. Giles assured her.
“Yes, you did,” Ethan’s voice sang from the trap beneath them.
Rachel glared first at Mr. Giles, and then redirected her scorn to the grate beneath which their captor cowered.
“Have we decided the fate of our wannabe Houdini?”
Ethan Rayne answered hopefully, “Let him go?”
“Highly unlikely,” Rachel muttered.
Mr. Giles sat forward, staring at the ground between his feet, but said nothing.
She stood and stretched, feeling awkward and eager to depart. She guessed that finding a Ladies Room in an abandoned
village wouldn’t prove too difficult. Judging by the silence, the demons had abated, chased back into shadow by the dawn.
“Reminds me of Night on Bald Mountain,” Rachel said wistfully as she pondered the barricade, wondering how best to
dismantle it.
“Beg pardon?” Mr. Giles asked.
“Fantasia,” Rachel laughed. “Childhood favorite: demons awake in the night – havoc, havoc; mayhem, mayhem – but they’re
dispelled by morning’s first light.”
After a moment’s study, Rachel lifted the frame of the cot, leaning it against the wall. Next, she hoisted the edge of one of
the teakwood pews, moving it a few scraping inches over the stone floor, expecting Mr. Giles to come to her aid.
However, when she turned to entreat him for assistance, she found him still staring down into the narrow shaft that held
Ethan Rayne.
“Mr. Giles?” she asked.
He plucked his glasses from his face to polish them. “What happens in the end? In this… Fantasia, is it?”
“It’s a Disney,” Rachel said. “You’ve really never seen it?”
“Ah, no.”
“Sun comes up. Demons return to Hell. In the end, the angels sing,” she said, smiling at the memory.
Mr. Giles didn’t share her smile.
After a moment, Rachel returned to the quiet work of removing the barrier to the outside world. The effort took longer than
she hoped, which cheered her considerably, knowing that the demons from the night before would have had at least a
fraction of the difficulty getting in as she did getting out. Once the door was open and the boiled cabbage scent of seaweed
wafted in with the humid air, Rachel stepped into baking brightness.
Mr. Giles’ voice followed after her. “Please remain outside, Miss Greenspan,” he said.
Rachel spun. Had he hit her open-handed in the face, it would have hurt less. After what they survived, it gutted her that he
would exclude her.
“No,” she said, stamping her foot. “I’m not leaving you alone in there with that... that criminal.”
The hardness of his features shocked her. The benevolent face of her storytelling companion had vanished. In its place, she
found a smoldering coldness.
“Rachel,” he said. “Get out.”
Stunned, Rachel closed the door. She put her back against it, straining with all she possessed to blink back her tears.
When Dawn came to, her ears were ringing, her skin feverish. The blast had blown her to the back wall, but after a cursory
check, she figured the damage ended with a deep demonic suntan.
Andrew, on the other hand…
Andrew!
Dawn scrambled around the cabinet to find the smoldering lump that was Andrew. The explosion had sprawled him flat, had
seared through his suit coat and shirt, leaving his tie smoking like a fuse. All of his exposed skin looked raw like a peeled red
onion. To her great relief, he was breathing - slow, deep, steady breaths like he had fallen asleep. In the Sahara. Without
sunscreen.
“Andrew?” she whispered. Gently, she prodded his shoulder. “Andrew, wake up.”
He moaned, then stirred, then opened his eyes. “Wh?” he croaked.
With relieved exuberance, Dawn gushed: “You made that demon explode,” she said. “With your talking. You made him
explode.”
Andrew twisted uncomfortably on the floor. Gingerly, he poked the charred skin on his neck and shoulder, wincing and
muttering “Ow” with pain at every touch. With Dawn’s help, he propped himself against the metal cabinet.
Andrew coughed. “That,” Cough, cough. “Was awesome!”
Dawn stared at him. “How’d you know you could make him go all combust-y?”
“I didn’t,” he said, stretching painfully. “It was a time-buying ploy so you could get away.”
“Oh.”
Dawn inched toward him. The intensity of her stare seemed to burn him worse than any dynamite demon, and his eyes
darted to every place in the room that wasn’t Dawn. He saw the incinerated demon bits that littered the marble floor, but
failed to notice how they were slowly drifting together like the iron shavings in a Magna-Doodle.
“Andrew, are you okay?” Dawn asked. She was close enough now to feel the baking heat of his skin on hers.
“A little toasted, but… You?”
“No,” Dawn said. Then, “Yes. I’m fine. But are you okay?”
“I’m copacetic with a capital K,” he said, again with the looking everywhere but at her.
“You are not,” she said.
He glanced at her. “Maybe a capital C?”
Dawn took his right hand in hers. “Andrew, you are the worst liar. Apart from getting blown up, you’re upset about Nighna.
I see things.”
…She didn’t see the piles of soot join together to form larger heaps that likewise drifted toward each other…
Andrew held his breath before he spoke again. “I… didn’t think of her,” he said, his voice thick and gruff. His eyes drifted to
the ceiling. “When I kissed you, I didn’t even think of her.”
Dawn swallowed, “R-really?”
…Ash turned to stone which solidified into demon toes, demon feet, demon ankles, the beginnings of well-toned demon legs…
“It’s true,” he said. “And there’s more.”
“You can tell me…”
“Dawn,” Andrew said. “I think I’m in love with you.”
“What?” Dawn reeled. Getting blown up by a demon felt like nothing compared to the shock value of those seven words. It
seemed to her that everything got suddenly very small, like she was orbiting above the planet like a satellite, and Spike and
Buffy and Xander and everyone else were so far away she couldn’t see them.
…Neither could she see that the exploding demon had re-grown its legs and part of its thickly-muscled torso…
The look of dread on Andrew’s face – the part presently capable of expression – told her that he needed a response.
So she whispered, “You love me?”
“Kind of a lot,” he said.
Dawn smiled. It hurt. She said, “I’d kiss you right now, except my lips are tandoori’d.”
She tried anyway, only to discover that lips are incredibly sensitive when scorched.
Dawn pulled away, smiling. “Okay, so we’ll rain check the lip lock,” she said.
Andrew uttered a dithery laugh. “I have this really excellent burn balm,” he said. “We used it back when we took on the
Nezzla'khan. Our first attempt to steal the orbs left Warren with fried palms, but one application of burn balm later we were
back in the demon den, Trio-style…”
“Andrew,” Dawn said. “What did the demon want?”
“Mostly to crush us to borscht for stealing its balls,” he said. “Though I like to think recruitment might have been an
option.”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean this demon.”
“Right. Mr. Thermal Detonator. He said something…”
“Made demands?”
“He said Nu’ja nez blimbo jah!” Andrew said, in a remarkably accurate if somewhat caricatured impersonation of the
demon. “And then he said, Wei Taonnoica!”
“Translation?”
Andrew attempted to stand, but wobbled. Dawn slung his arm over her shoulder and helped him up.
…By now, the demon had re-grouped enough particles to have its massive pectoral muscles. The remaining scattered pieces
skittered and bumped along the floor with growing speed, rolling up the demon’s body to settle back into their proper order…
“Not sure, exactly,” Andrew explained. “I mean, it sounded like Klingon, but with a sprinkling of Greek?”
“You know it?”
“Maybe?” His brow furrowed. Ouch. The skin on his forehead felt sticky. And he smelled awful, like burned feathers.
“Taonnoica?” Dawn said, feeling over the word with her tongue. “I know it,” she said. She gripped his hand and led him,
almost running, to the archive cabinet marked T’aa – Tbaul.
“Do you have your key to these cabinets?” she asked.
He snickered. “Of course!” He took out the small gold key he kept on a ring inside his wallet and slipped it into the outer
lock. The steel door swung open to reveal tall vertical file lockers within. At the top of the locker was a nine-digit keypad
programmed with a special access code. That had been Andrew’s idea.
“Which one is it?” Andrew asked.
Dawn ran a finger along the index letters until she located the one that contained TAO.
“This one,” she said. Dawn punched in the access code. When the red display light flashed green, Andrew tugged the bulky
metal box from the locker. She took it from him and nodded, appreciatively. “Taonnoica was a city. The word Taonnoica
could be Pre-Hellenistic for Taonyx Parchments,” she explained. “We found them in the archive under The Circle. Maybe
they’re important?”
“Worth a shot,” Andrew said. “Lemme just gather the cindered remains of my research and we can jet…”
The demon stepped forth and, in a repeat performance, yelled, “Nu’ja nez blimbo jah, ha ha!”
Dawn screamed. “Another one?”
“Same one!” Andrew answered. “Run!”
They fled through the ATS with the demonic time-bomb fast on their heels. They slammed the 10-inch lead reinforced vault
door just as it exploded again. Panting, Dawn pounded the alarm button. In seconds, the emergency sprinklers kicked on,
inside the ATS and out.
“This won’t hold him long,” Dawn yelled. “We need to vanquish. There are texts and supplies in Magics, Third Floor.
Scoobies: TNG, right?”
A crooked smile quirked Andrew’s lips. “Did I mention I love you?”
Dawn grinned. “You did. And then, tandoori chicken lips…”
“Right,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Let’s vanquish.”
The door to the little chapel closed with a hollow thonk. Rupert Giles lifted the metal grate and dragged it into the shadows,
knowing that the girl – Miss Greenspan – was listening to everything.
“You heard her,” Giles said. “In the end, the angels sing.”
Ethan’s laughter bubbled up from the shaft. “Give me your word, old chap. I’ll come without a fuss if you promise to let me
up unscathed.”
Rupert lingered in the shadow beneath the window. “You have my word.”
Ethan stretched Rupert’s patience, taking an eternity on each foothold, until finally his head emerged from the hole in the
floor. Ethan glanced around, opportunistic little rat he was, until he picked Giles out of the gloom.
“There you are, old sport,” Ethan said. “Come out where I can see you?”
Giles didn’t move. “As a Chaos adept, I imagine that pistol is quite useless to you,” he said.
Ethan dragged himself onto the floor and rolled to his knees. “Appearances, Ripper,” Ethan said with a grin. “A man need
only see a gun, and it’s effective enough.”
“For most,” Rupert said flatly.
Ethan sat back on his heels. He squinted at Giles through haze and shadow. “Aye, for most,” he agreed, chuckling.
The mirth withered when Giles stepped from beneath the light, revealing a brutal expression Ethan had thought Rupert Giles
had left behind long ago.
“Ah, Ripper,” he said, his tone resolute. “So it is you after all.”
With startling ferocity, Rupert swung the metal grate, cracking it across Ethan Rayne’s skull. Ethan crumpled, blood
spurting across the ground in vicious gouts. Rupert descended on him, knees to his guts, tossing roughly through
Ethan’s clothes… Until his fingers curled around the gun.
Rachel didn’t know how much time had passed, and she didn’t care. She heard muffled scufflings inside, as well as possible
groveling, and she thought that if Mr. Giles was putting the hard brace to Ethan Rayne she should at least be there for moral
support.
So what if Mr. Giles was the head of the Order? They had formed an uneasy bond over the last few days, and she felt she’d
earned a share in whatever it was Mr. Giles obtained from Rayne. No, hang that: It was her birthright to stand beside him,
no matter what Mr. Giles’ rank and station decreed.
Just as Rachel decided to force her hand, she heard a single gunshot inside – one pure, piercing sound – and then, nothing at
all.
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.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal