Impact

It was very late, and Fred was having a hard time keeping her eye’s opened. She rubbed them and glanced across the table to look at Gunn and Lorne. Gunn was leaning back in his chair, asleep with his mouth open. Fred smiled and hoped he wouldn’t catch any flies. Lorne was sprawled out on the corner sofa, a book firmly in his grasp. He was intent on the research, so much so in fact that his Sea Breeze lay neglected on the sofa table. Fred had just returned to her own studies when Lorne leaped up off the sofa. “I found it! This is it!”

Gunn jumped, awakened in his chair. “Yo, I’m awake. What’s happening?” He was disoriented for a moment. Lorne came over to the round table that Fred and Gunn occupied and showed them the illustrated page. On it was a huge yellow demon.

“That’s the demon from my dream.”

“A Blimey demon,” read Fred. She continued, “The Blimey demon is a mercenary species that uses it’s abilities to change shape, rarely showing it’s true form unless threatened. It attaches onto the brain of it’s unknowing host, controlling it’s every will and movement, until releasing itself and moving on, or killing the victim.”

“So this Bunny lady is the host?” asked Gunn.

“Could be. Or Bunny, since she has been so hard for Wesley or Angel cakes to track down, might be a form the host has been transformed into.” Lorne scratched his horn in thought. “What would it be after, that’s the question.”

“It says it’s a mercenary species.” Fred surmised. “That means it’s a worker beast, right? It’s performing a job for someone?”

“Yes, I guess so.” Lorne walked over and downed the rest of his Sea Breeze in one gulp. “I say we head over to the Hyperion and talk to Angel, tell him what we’ve found. He’s bound to still be up.” The trio agreed and headed out of Wolfram and Hart’s offices.

“You know, we really should change the name of this place.” Gunn said wistfully as they walked back to the hotel. “W and H has such negative connotations these days.”

They walked in silence for a bit, each lost in their thoughts of the past few years, and the damage that Wolfram and Hart had done. But all three noticed the dark lady run by them, cradling a book in her arms. She smiled at them as she passed, and gave a little wave. All three felt the chill of her gaze. It was not a warm smile she had presented, but a crazy cold grin. It was too dark to make out her reflection clearly, and all three shrugged the woman off. This was LA. after all, and the city was full of loony bins.

When the three entered the lobby of the hotel, they were stunned to find it in disarray.

“Oh God, we’re too late.” Fred sobbed. “Angel? Wesley?” She cried out their names as Lorne and Gunn ran around the lobby and office looking for them. Xander came running from down the hall, motioning them to come with him. They all entered Giles’ room to see both him and Buffy lying on the bed. Both looked worse for wear.

“It was here, wasn’t it? The demon?” Gunn looked worriedly at his boss.

Angel nodded and Wes answered for them all. “Yes, it was. It caught us all unawares.” He then proceeded to tell the three what had occurred in their absence.

Buffy was lying on Giles’ right side, his arm protectively around her shoulders, while she held an ice pack at her forehead. An angry bruise was spread underneath the pack, evidence of her head’s contact with the wall. “I should of squished it while it was a spider. It just took me by surprise.”

“It’s not your fault, Buffy.” Giles whispered hoarsely at her. The three smiled in surprise that Giles could speak.

“Nice to hear you again, Giles.” Gunn said.

Giles smiled at the man. “Thank you. It’s nice to be heard.”

“Hey, pets, we have news, even if it is belated now.” Lorne whipped out the book he had been carrying under his arm and opened it on the bed so that all of them could gather around and have a look at the beast’s illustration. He read the text out loud to them, and they all pondered what it meant.

“We now know that it wanted the Shanshu book. But we don’t know why, or who it was working for.” Wesley uttered. “What could they want from it?”

Angel looked at Wesley for a moment. “Wait one minute,” he said, hastily leaving the room. He was back in a moment, another book in his grip. It was what appeared to be another Shanshu book.

“You have another copy?” Wesley asked. Angel nodded.

“It was at Wolfram and Hart. Apparently they had two copies, and I kept one in my room. I was going to read it sometime, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. ”Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Wes asked the vampire.

Angel shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was hiding it from you. It just didn’t seem all that important. I mean, it was personal, to me…and after what happened with Spike..” he floundered his words to finish, glancing at Buffy’s face. But she just peered at him intently, relaxed in the arms of Giles. The Watcher also looked at him keenly, emotion masked on his face. Angel shrugged his broad shoulders again. “Keeping it from you wasn’t intentional.”

“Have you learned anything that might be of value to us now?” Wesley softly inquired.

Angel just shook his head. “No, I haven’t really had the time to read it yet.” He placed the book beside the other demonology text and flipped it’s prophetic pages. As he did, pictures passed by. Fred let out an “Eep,” and stilled Angel’s hand at one of the open pages. “That’s her.” She said. She looked up and Gunn and Lorne to confirm her suspicions. They nodded and agreed.

Angel looked at the picture. His rage seethed at the vision.

Wesley looked down at the page, and swallowed. “What do you mean Fred?”

Gunn spoke for the three. “We saw her as we were walking back from the offices tonight. She ran right by us.”

Buffy couldn’t see the book well from her vantage point, so she scooted towards the foot of the bed and bent over Giles’ legs to peer at the book. She gasped. “It’s Drusilla!”

All the color drained from Giles’ face. The last time he had seen Drusilla in the same vicinity as Angel, Angelus had tortured him.

Even Lorne’s green face was blanched. “She was holding a book.” He paused, again and added. “She has the book.”

No one moved. No one breathed, so full of shock as they were.

“Who is Drusilla, and why would she want the book?” Dawn piped in. She was utterly confused as to what was going on. Xander pulled her down into a chair, “I’ll tell you everything later,” he whispered. Xander glanced at the look on Buffy’s face, and smiled sheepishly at her fierce glare. “What?” he asked, hands up in the air.

Buffy just shook her head, and scooted back against the headboard, holding Giles’ hand in her lap. This could not be of the good, she thought. “It has to be because of Spike.”

Giles nodded in agreement.

Willow was reading over Angel’s shoulder about Drusilla. “Hey guys, why would Drusilla be in the prophecy book and none of you notice before? I mean, I’d think she would be kind of obviou you you before.”

“That’s true. Give that to me Angel.” Wesley picked up the book and looked at it intently. “I know I’ve studied these various pages before. I’ve never seen this particular page before, however.” He flipped through more pages. “Are you sure this is the same book?” he asked Angel

“Yes, it is. It’s identical to the other one. I got them both out of Wolfram and Hart. I thought they were identical any way.”

“I’ve studied that tome many times myself, especially recently, and I don’t recall that page either.” Giles added.

“Could this get more confusing children?” Lorne piped in, settling himself on the floor at the foot of Dawn’s chair. She gently rested her hands on his shoulders and gave them a squeeze. She had come to be fond of the green demon.

Wesley continued to peruse the book, and what he was reading was beginning to be very disturbing. “This is a ritual. This page contains a ritual to put the Shanshu into effect. How could I have not noticed this before?”

Buffy began to cough, and her head was hurting. Angel turned a concern eye towards her. “Do you need some water, and perhaps an aspirin?”

She smiled at him. “That would be nice.”

He smiled back at her and left the room to fetch the medicine and a glass. When he was completely out of the room, Wesley let out a girlish squeak and threw the book back onto the foot of the bed as if it were a hot potato. Then he snatched it back up and waved it around. “Look, it’s blank now. The pages are blank now!” He passed it around to all of them, and it was true. The pages that had been there moments before containing the ritual and the picture of Drusilla were now blank. The moment Angel stepped back into the room, the pages were again filled. Angel had no idea what had occurred, as he entered to them all gasping. “What?” he asked. They all just gaped at him. He handed the water to Buffy and she took it numbly.

“Is someone going to let me in on what just happened?” Angel looked intently at Wes. Wesley picked up the book again, stepped out of the room, and gasped again, and then came back into the room.

“Are you going to keep doing the hokey pokey all night or are you going to tell me what is going on?” the vampire asked again, frustrated at the display.

“It seems that the pages of Drusilla and the ritual only appear when you are in the same vicinity of the book. When you left, the pages went blank. When you came back in the room, the pages reappeared. When I stepped out of the room, the pages went blank again.”

“This is why we didn’t see her picture before,” added Giles.

“So do these pages only appear when Angel is with the book?”

Wesley continued to read the text. Then he shook his head. “This ritual must be read by a vampire, it says. Only a vampire can recite it and put Shanshu in effect.”

“Does that mean that only another vampire can bring back Spike then?” Willow asked.

“I think so, yes.” Wes answered. “Or Angel. Or any vampire. A vampire illuminates this ritual, they must recite it at the place of “demise” and the spell activates to bring back the ensouled vampire, which in this case would be Spike.”

“Demise?” Xander asked.

Buffy looked up then. “It’s where Spike died, isn’t it? Drusilla is taking the book back to Sunnydale, or what’s left of it, to bring Spike back.”

“But why would she want humany Spike?” Dawn asked. “I thought she didn’t love him anymore anyway.”

Who knew what Drusilla wanted, Buffy thought. But the crazy vampire had loved or at least wanted Spike once. And she was his sire. “She’s going to sire him again. Once she brings him back, she wants to turn him again. To make him her’s again.”

TBC