Chapter Twelve

Oz spent the afternoon at the Mercury Sun paging through back issues of the paper for the last week and making notes. A murder robbery the day before caught his attention. A gang had knocked over an all-night chain drug store in Milpitas cleaning out the registers and killing the pharmacist, a counter clerk, and three customers, whose throats had all been ripped out. Smelled like a fresh vampire kill to him. Oz checked his map and was stunned to discover how near Milpitas was.

He made himself calm down and get organized. He marked the map in red with the date and kept reading. He had a system, in a manner of speaking. He was looking for assaults that could be vampire attacks. If they were clearly something else, he noted the locations in black. If vampire attack couldn’t be ruled out, he made a note in blue, and for those that were highly likely to be vamp attacks, he used red. He worked all afternoon to get back to the day Willow disappeared and decided to work back two more days.

When he got back to Willow’s the Dingoes were waiting for him in the living room. “We’ve had a band meeting,” Dan reported, in spokesperson mode.

Oz had been expecting something like this. They had dropped everything so he could go to San Jose to look for Willow, who was still missing. That was his problem. He wasn’t leaving without finding her, but the band didn’t have anything to do except watch him scurry around and puzzle over his refusal to involve the cops further.

“And, we’ve made some decisions,” Devon carried on. Dan’s spokesperson moments tended to be short-lived. Devon never wanted to be the actual spokesperson until the talking began, and then he took over. He couldn’t help himself. It was a front man thing.

Oz nodded. He had money saved up for his first semester at UC Sunnydale, and he could tap into that. “Yeah,” he said. “You need the van, right?”

Chris frowned at him. “Slow down, dude. We’ve noticed, over the last year, some pretty weird things that go down around your friends,” he said.

“Very weird,” Devon agreed. “Your girlfriend is hot in leather,” he threw in.

Vamp Willow’s appearance at the Bronze had been witnessed by Devon, and Oz had told him that she was having some issues. He also suggested that Devon was a little stoned, so he might have misunderstood what he had seen.

Chris glanced over at Devon. They had all heard about Willow in leather from Devon before. They had also heard Oz mutter something about Devon’s periodic overindulgences, which sounded more plausible than the idea of a slinky Willow Rosenberg.

“We’ve also noticed that weird things happen in Sunnydale,” Chris said, in an attempt to get them back on track. “Very weird things,” he stressed. “So, this is the deal. We want to help you, but you have to tell us what’s really going on.”

Oz looked at them. “Okay,” he thought about it for a moment. “Vampires are real.”

“Oh, man!” Devon smacked his forehead. “Willow is a vampire? Willow Rosenberg? She’s so . . . uh . . . cute,” he said, thinking that in a rational world vampires and cuteness should probably be mutually exclusive. “Man, nobody is that cute,” he realized. “It’s like a disguise, huh?”

“No. Willow isn’t a vampire. Willow is a witch,” Oz corrected.

“A witch?” Dan repeated, sounding skeptical. “Pointy hat? Warts? Or more like Sabrina the Teen Witch with the talking cat and the wacky spells gone wrong?” He looked around. “Hey, it could explain a lot,” he pointed out. “Did she, like, make herself disappear?”

“A vampire named Spike took her. Kidnapped her,” he clarified. “He’s been in Sunnydale before. He used to live in the old burned out factory on the edge of town. You may even have seen him around. Bleached blond guy with a leather coat, British accent.”

“Is that librarian guy a vampire too?” Devon wanted to know. “He’s British.”

“Uh, no,” Oz said. That librarian guy? “Devon, we went to the same high school. That’s Mr. Giles, the high school librarian,” he reminded him. Devon, never having found the library, looked blank. “Right. Moving on. Do you remember the older guy Buffy was dating?” he asked.

“Yeah? He’s a vampire?” Devon grinned. “Man . . . that’s wild,” he said. “And Buffy’s like, his girlfriend?”

“Was,” Oz confirmed. “They broke up. No future in dating the undead.”

“So,” Chris was pacing. “Willow’s a witch, and vampires are real. And a vampire guy kidnapped her . . . because she’s—oh, duh, she’s a good witch,” he was developing the plot, “and she fights vampires?” Chris said triumphantly. “I mean, come on, this is Willow we are talking about. She’s got to be a good witch,” he looked to see if Dan and Devon had caught up. “And her buds, that Xander guy and Buffy, they help her out?”

Oz sighed. “Close. Buffy is a—actually the—stress on the singular—Vampire Slayer. She hunts vampires and demons, and Willow and Xander help her,” he re-ordered Chris’s conclusions. “So does Mr. Giles, the librarian,” he explained, “And Angel, Buffy’s ex, because he has a soul. Spike and Buffy have had a long history of Buffy mostly kicking his ass without being able to dust him, and long story short, they kind of made a deal that Spike would leave Sunnydale.”

Devon nodded, “He’s in San Jose? And he runs into Willow, who is Buffy’s best friend,” he said. “Okay, I’m getting that. He kidnaps Willow,” he concluded. “What does he want?”

Oz shrugged, “Some ancient artifact thing that is hidden in Sunnydale. He wants them to find it for him. He’s going to trade Willow for it.”

“Dude, the cops are never going to go for this,” Chris surmised.

Dan looked at Chris. “Moratorium on 'dude.' Officially,” he announced.

Chris and Devon exchanged resigned looks.

Oz nodded his agreement with the moratorium announcement. Dude was so over. “It’s a problem,” he said, returning to the topic of the clash of the criminal justice system with demons and the mystical forces of evil.

“Is that the whole thing?” Dan asked. “You’re working with Willow’s friends in Sunnydale to get this artifact thing—“

“Or find Spike,” Oz interrupted. “He’s not well known for sticking to a plan or keeping his word.”

Devon looked at the others. “Good enough for me,” he decided. “What can we do?”

Oz took a deep breath. “Well, there is one other thing,” he began. He had just outted Buffy, and that wasn’t his secret to share. “About me,” he began. “You might have noticed that sometimes I can’t get together with you guys?”

They looked puzzled. “Well, you know, we all have stuff we have to do, and you’ve been busy helping your girlfriend and her buds fight vampires,” Devon said, reverting to de facto spokesman for the band. “It's cool,” he told Oz. “It’s not like you are bailing on us without a good reason.”

“I’m a werewolf. Three days a month I turn into the wolf at sunset,” he said.

“Willow is a witch? Her friend Buffy is a Vampire Slayer? Buffy’s ex is a vampire with a soul. You are a werewolf?” Dan ticked it off.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Oz agreed with his gift for understatement.

He called Giles to report in and told him that he had to let the guys in on the big picture, but that they had agreed to help out and they would be staying in San Jose for now. Angel was more or less in charge of the ‘find Spike’ sub-mission, so Giles put him on the phone. “What do you have?” Angel asked.

“A lot, actually,” Oz told him. “I think there’s a nest in the area, and it’s organized. San Jose has its share of mystery murders, and they have drug related gangs operating in and around San Jose. The other night a pharmacy was hit, and everyone there was killed. The registers were cleaned out. The pharmacy cages were broken into,” Oz said. “Okay . . . could be gangbangers? Except that every one of the victims’ throats was ripped out.”

“Vampires aren’t that interested in drugs as a rule,” Angel told him. “You can achieve some of the effects from taking drugs, but—“

“Right. They also stole cigarette cartons and booze, too. Look, people don’t kill a store full of people to get a fix. They do it to get drugs to sell, because it is as good as currency,” he hypothesized. “The local police are openly speculating that there is a new gang in the area and that the ripping out of throats is a kind of calling card—instead of shooting people in the back of the head.”

Angel grunted. “Got it. I’m on board with you now,” he said. “You think that Spike is still in the area?”

“Yeah, I do. Last night,” he frowned, “I had one of those eyes on the back of my neck feelings. If they are converting drugs into currency, we can ask around in the local clubs. See who the source is for your quality pharmaceuticals,” he explained. “Devon looks stoned most of the time, so we’ve got good cover for that.”





Rule one in the handbook for kidnap victims. Do not cry while gagged with your head covered by a smelly nylon sack that may have once held gym clothes.

Willow had been roughly shaken into wakefulness by her kidnapper in chief and told she had ten minutes to get dressed and ready to leave. Recalling that Spike interpreted his own ten minute injunction as an expression, she pulled on a pair of jeans over the boxer shorts she was sleeping in and slid her feet into the black sandals Georgia had given her. She stuffed as many of the toiletries that she had collected over the week as she could into one of the many plastic bags that littered one corner of the room she shared with Spike.

When he came back with Georgia and the small, dark haired vampire named Jeanie in tow, she was more or less ready to leave. Georgia had a Polaroid camera. Spike advanced on her. “Pet?” he prompted. “Can’t have you screaming your bloody head off,” he told her.

Willow gaped at him. Screaming? Why hadn’t she thought of that before now? Oh, right. The threat of harm to innocent civilians wandering around. Hello! “Can’t we just stick with the normal, try to get help, and people die thing?” she suggested.

“Not this time. But, nice try,” he told her. “Don’t make me chase you around the room. I’ll win. You’ll loose, and it won’t be pretty,” he warned.

What was he talking about? What was he going to do that was going to warrant running? He fished a roll of duct tape out of his pocket. “Hands,” he prompted.

She still had bruises on her wrists from the handcuffs, so duct tape constituted an improvement. She gritted her teeth and stuck her hands out in front of her, hoping that this would satisfy him. He raised an eyebrow, but he wrapped her left wrist in duct tape and bound her right wrist to it with two additional turns. It wasn’t cutting off her circulation, but her wrists were securely bound. He vamped out and razored through the trailing edge of the duct tape without difficultly.

He tore off a four-inch strip and Willow backed away from him. “Now, wait a minute,” she began nervously. “This really isn’t necessary,” she said, trying to fend him off with her bound hands.

He slapped the tape over her mouth, catching some of her hair in it. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her over to a chair, forcing her to sit. The hair pulling made her eyes water. Georgia raised a Polaroid camera to frame the picture Spike wanted. Spike peered at Willow. She looked angry and a little teary eyed. He yanked her head to one side and ran his tongue over her carotid artery, smelling fear invading her scent. Much better. Terrified, angry, and teary eyed. He let her go and her head fell forward. Georgia continued taking pictures, handing them to Jeanie.

The bag over head indignity was reserved for the car. She found herself in the back seat of the Desoto sitting stiffly between a pair of the male minions. Spike was driving and the dark haired girl was in the front passenger seat.

Claustrophobia threatened, clawing at her fragile hold on herself. With nothing to distract her but her own growing panic and confused senses, Willow lost track of any real sense of time. They could have been in the car one hour or three. She was pretty sure it was less than three. She was flung over a hard, bony shoulder after she was dragged out of the car when they reached their destination. The bag over her head slipped down to her chin and she shook her head to try to get it off. That earned her a hard smack on her ass.

“Knock it off, Red,” Spike growled at her.

She could feel him moving down a long, winding staircase. She registered cooler, damper air, and the sound of a door opening, then closing with a metallic sound. She was unceremoniously dumped on a mattress. She pushed the bag over her head. It was pitch dark, wherever she was. She heard the sound of water dripping somewhere nearby and smelled something dank and familiar in an unpleasant way. Mildew? Dry, dusty, ugh! Crypt. She shuddered. It was a crypt. No crying. Crying made her nose fill and she couldn’t breath through her mouth.

Spike was busy giving orders. “Okay, people, fan out. I want a perimeter maintained,” he ordered. “We are here until dusk, and then we move, so don’t go getting comfortable,” he told them.

Willow picked at the duct tape covering her mouth, getting an edge of it up to grasp between her fingers. The sticky tape pulled on her skin painfully as she tried to separate it. Seeing that she was occupied in a way that would keep her busy and out of the way for a while, Spike went back to supervising their occupation operation. He had a packet of Polaroids to mail, threatening phone calls to make, and he set Colin to work on finding them a new place to call home. His presence in San Francisco wasn’t going to go unnoticed for long.




“I’ve got it,” Giles exclaimed. The painfully slow task of translating text had fallen largely on his shoulders. Further complicating matters, the text that Dalton had been working from was itself a translation, and it took Giles three days to realize that it was somewhat flawed. He had to work his way through some translation errors, consulting with colleagues as he worked out a few more common translation errors based on some speculation about the original language the text had been translated from.

“Where is it?” Buffy asked, abandoning the book she was reading.

Giles rechecked his calculations and started plotting them on a map. “We need to check this against a few landmarks that are rather cryptically described, but I believe that we are looking at a location roughly fifty feet underground here,” he pointed at a spot near a major intersection.

Xander threw his hands up in the air. “Great. That’ll be real subtle. No one is going to notice us digging there.”

“We’ll have to tunnel in,” Giles conceded, looking for a copy of his maps of Sunnydale’s extensive tunnel system, developed courtesy of the late mayor of Sunnydale and elaborated on by Sunnydale’s demon population. “I think we can get within twenty yards of it, and then start digging.”

“How long?” Buffy asked.

Giles had thought carefully about what to tell them. He had talked to Luke Holbrook at UC Sunnydale about excavation issues. Using picks and shovels Holbrook had estimated that a safe tunnel could be made without heavy equipment based on the soil and bedrock composition in the area with a team of four moving at approximately two feet per day, which was disheartening to say the least.

“A week under optimal conditions,” Giles lied. Based on Holbrook’s estimates it was more like a month. He watched Buffy and Xander exchange incredulous looks.

“When Spike was after that cross for Drusilla, he got to send a minion into a crypt,” Buffy objected. “This is so not fair. A week? A week is too long.”

“We’ve reached a point where we have to make a decision,” Giles announced. He had not been pleased by Oz’s unilateral decision to inform his band mates about their activities. It was done, and there was no use regretting it. It did suggest one manner in which they could double their manpower resources.

“What kind of decision?” Xander asked. He was with Buffy. Willow had already been gone over a week. Another week was out of the question.

Giles took off his glasses and started cleaning them. “We need to decide if we are going to continue looking for Spike, or if we are going to abandon that and work towards finding the Gem of Amara. If we can increase our workforce, double it in effect, I think we have a good chance of finding the crypt in a week or less. If we don’t . . . it is going to take longer,” he paused, his attention fixed on his Slayer.

“Conversely, we could simply abandon the search for the Gem of Amara. There are other issues that we haven’t fully considered,” he said carefully. “Oz has made some progress in San Jose. If we dedicate ourselves to finding Spike and rescuing Willow, we may be equally successful. Though, the risk to Willow is considerably greater should Spike conclude that we are no longer on task.”

Buffy frowned. “Spill. What aren’t you saying?”

Giles frowned. “We cannot let Spike have the Gem of Amara, Buffy. What we have learned of the Gem suggests that it would make him invulnerable. Impossible to kill,” he elaborated. “Such an advantage in the hands of your mortal enemy is unthinkable.”

Buffy stared at him. “You’re starting to sound like Wesley.”

It was not a compliment. Her former Watcher had ordered her not to trade the Box of Gavroc when the Mayor and Faith took Willow hostage for it. He exemplified everything she had learned to despise about the Watcher’s Council before she broke off contact with them.

“I’m having deja vu in a bad way, Giles.” Not bringing Willow home was so not an option. “We’ve been here before, and we found a way. Thanks to Willow,” she reminded him. “So, if you are thinking that we aren’t going to make a trade if it comes to that, then unthink it.”

“Gotta say I’m with Buff on this, G-man,” Xander put in. “Willow’s priority one. We’ll deal with the fall out, because . . . that’s what we do. Deal. This is Willow. It’s non-negotiable.”

Buffy nodded. Since Willow had disappeared, she had spent way too much time deferring to Giles and Angel and worrying about Willow. She was worried about Willow. Being weak wasn’t alleviating her worry. She had quit on the Watcher’s Council after they had refused to help Angel, and she had averted another apocalypse. Great. That didn’t mean that she was done. She was the Slayer because that is what she was, not because the Council made it so.

“Okay,” she felt more centered than she had since Angel left Sunnydale the night she had graduated from high school. It was a good feeling.

“This is the plan. Everyone is now on Gem of Amara duty. We call Oz and tell him to get here because we need every able body we can get on this,” she said, pacing. “In the meantime, we keep researching. We figure out what the Gem is, exactly what it does, how it works, and work on plans to either take it back or keep it out of Spike’s hands,” she rapped out. “We play for the endgame. That’s the plan.”