Continued...

"If that dead Sonofa…. lays a hand on Fred, that’ll be the last thing he ever does!" shouted Gunn as he tore down the street following Angel and Buffy.

"She’s close." shouted Angel. He stopped for a moment and looked off into the night.

"Dawn?" asked Buffy, as she followed Angel’s glance.

"Fred!" exclaimed Gunn when he saw Fred and Dawn run into view. In a second he was clutching her to his chest, inhaling the smell of her hair and murmuring his gratitude that she was safe.

"Buffy!" cried Dawn, reaching for her sister. Angel and Gunn glanced around and came to the same conclusion.

"Where’s Cordelia?" asked Angel as he looked at Fred. Fred’s eyes shone as she just shook her head.

"She’s still in the house. She was holding Spike off so we could escape." said Dawn as she clung to Buffy, relieved that they were safe now, but worried for Cordelia’s safety.

"I’ve got to get Cordelia." said Angel, not stopping for a response from anyone.

"Did he hurt you? Did that bastard hurt you?" asked Gunn as he held Fred tightly in his arms.

"No, but Cordelia." said Fred as she looked up at Gunn. She looked down at the ground, shaking her head. "she’s still there. Alone with him."

"Dawn, what’s wrong with Spike?" asked Buffy. "I don’t understand what’s happening. This doesn’t make any sense."

"I….I don’t know. I was upstairs asleep, then I heard this loud bang. I went down to see what had happened, and saw her and that other lady. I saw them standing at the kitchen door with Spike yelling about needing to talk to you." said Dawn as she cried in her sister’s arms, "I don’t know what’s wrong with him."

"Gunn, can you take Fred and Dawn back to the Magic Shop?" asked Buffy, "I need to help Angel."

"No!" screamed Dawn as she backed away from Buffy, "You can’t leave me."

"Dawn, it’s okay. Gunn will take care of you. I need to help Angel." replied Buffy.

"It will be okay Dawn. Charles will protect us." said Fred as she smiled at Gunn, now feeling completely safe with him back by her side. Dawn looked accusingly at Buffy, but finally nodded her head at her sister, and turned to walk to the store with Fred and Gunn.

"Hey, I think I’ve found something! Oh, no I found the Palkanees Tribe not the Palkees Tribe. Why are there so many Palkthings?" said Xander with a hint of disappointment in his voice. "I feel like I’m researching some kind of breed of dog." he continued.

"Just keep looking." replied Willow, "I’m sure you’ll find something soon."

"Do you by chance have ‘Dimensions of Evil’? asked Wesley.

"Uh, I don’t know. Anya?" asked Willow, as she looked across the table at her.

"Let me go check, it could be upstairs." replied Anya, walking towards the ladder in the back of the store.

"See if you can also find a book called ‘The Dark Arts of the Underworld,’" Wesley called after her. To the others he said, "I believe that Merhandra energy has been considered to be one of the dark arts for at least the past two centuries. Maybe something in the book could give us an idea of how to counteract it." He hoped he sounded more hopeful than he felt.

"Oh no you don’t luv." said Spike as he rushed to grab Cordelia before she made it out the window. She was halfway out when he grabbed at her, catching her left leg that hadn’t made it out yet.

"Let go of me!" she shouted as she leaned back on to the roof of the house to try and gain some leverage.

"Listen missy, if the Slayer’s too busy to talk to me, then I’m just gonna have to leave her a message." Spike told her as he began pulling her leg back through the window, "And you’re going to be the message!" He smiled again. Cordelia knew that her options were now limited, and her only hope was to try and pull Spike out with her.

"Cordelia!" shouted Angel as he ran quickly down the street. He could see her on the roof of the house. Hearing a yell, Spike looked up to see Buffy and Angel running towards them. Cordelia took this opportunity to act quickly while Spike was distracted and grabbed his black leather coat and pulled as hard as she could. Caught off guard, he pitched forward and they both went tumbling off the edge of the roof, landing with a giant thud on the grass lawn below.

"Cordelia!" Angel shouted again as he ran towards her limp body lying twisted on the ground. Spike jumped up quickly and decided his best bet was to run. The Slayer he could handle, but with Angel there it would be more difficult. Besides, they would be to concerned with their friend to waste time on him now. He took off into the shadows.

"Is she okay?" asked Buffy.

"She’s still alive, I can hear her heart beating." replied Angel. "We have to get her into the house." Angel continued, as he picked Cordelia up in his arms and carefully carried her inside.

The door to the Magic Shop opened, and at the sound of the bell everyone inside stopped what they were doing to look up.

"Dawn!" Willow yelled as she scrambled to get up from the table. The relief etched on her face was comforting to Dawn.

"Hey Will." said Dawn as she limped across the room toward her.

"Your hurt?" asked Willow as she gave Dawn a huge hug.

"I guess. I think I stepped on something. I’ll be fine." replied Dawn. Now that she was safe, she felt a little tougher.

"What happened?" asked Wesley as he walked towards Fred and Gunn.

"That Spike creep attacked them. That’s what happened." said Gunn as he led Fred to the nearest chair to set down.

"Spike attacked you?" asked Xander. Anya’s, his, Tara’s and Willow’s eyes all met. This wasn’t good.

"Yeah, he kept saying that he wanted to talk to Buffy, and then turned all vampy on us. It was really weird. I don’t know what’s wrong with him…..someone must have done something to him….he’d never try to hurt me. I mean, other than I guess he just did." sighed Dawn as she sat down at the table to check the damage done to her foot.

"May I take a look at your injury?" asked Liz. She’d been silent for awhile now, not knowing enough about these people and the situation to really feel comfortable saying anything.

"Who’s this?" asked Dawn as she crumpled up her nose at the site of another new person.

"If anything happens to her, I’m going to rip Spike limb from limb!" Angel growled, as he gingerly placed Cordelia on the couch.

"She’ll be fine, I’m sure she will." said Buffy. She didn’t really know what else to say. First aid wasn’t really her thing.

"A…Angel?" asked a groggy Cordelia.

"Shhhh…I’m here." said Angel, as he grabbed a blanket that was on a chair close by and gently covered Cordelia.

"What happened?" asked Buffy who was standing closely behind Angel. Cordelia, with one hand on her head began,

"It was Spike. He, kicked in the kitchen door……….and when Fred and I went to check on the noise, there he was, just standing there."
"What did he say?" asked Buffy, a little too quickly, now very concerned that her secret was out.

"Buffy!" scolded Angel, as he turned away from Cordelia and gave Buffy a cross look.

"He said that he wanted to talk to you, and we told him you weren’t there and he got real mad and vamped and…. and then I shoved him out the door and we all ran to Dawn’s room. I tried to hold him off long enough for them to get out and find you. Oh God! Did they find you?" Cordelia started to sit up, frantic now that Dawn and Fred had made it to safety.

"They’re fine." replied Angel. Cordelia nodded, smiling a little, and lay back down.

"I’m Liz, I’m a friend of Angel’s." Liz said as she bent down in front of Dawn. "Can I look at your foot?"

"Oh, I guess that’s okay." replied Dawn. Liz reached inside of her dress pocket, and pulled out a bright lavender colored stone and placed on the bottom of Dawn’s foot where she had been cut.

"Hey! Ouch! What?" were the only words Dawn could speak, and then the pain and the cut had disappeared. Dawn looked at Liz, at the stone, and then back at Liz.

"Better?" asked Liz, still looking concerned.

"How’d you do that?" asked Dawn.

"Ancient Koplanta healing stone." Liz answered. She smiled shyly at Dawn.

"Cool!" said Dawn as she pulled her foot up to take a closer look at it. Liz heard soft footsteps approaching and turned away from Dawn.

"I….I’ve read about the Koplanta stones and their healing powers, but I wasn’t sure that they even existed." said Tara, as she walked toward Dawn and Liz to get a better look. Dawn proudly showed Tara her now unmarked foot.

"Oh they’re real alright, just a tad bit hard to come by now days." remarked Liz.

"So, where’s Buffy and Angel?" asked Xander. "They went to get you, right?"

"They went to rescue Cordelia. She was still in the house with Spike when we escaped." Replied Fred.

"Do you think that they got to her in time?" asked Wesley, in a quieter voice than usual. Willow smiled at him.

"I’m sure they did." she said, trying to sound positive. "I’ll try calling the house. If they got to her, I’m sure they will be there. I mean the sun is beginning to come up now, so Angel would have to stay inside." added Willow. She got up and walked toward the phone.

"Are you sure you feel okay?" asked Angel. He looked doubtful.

"I’m fine. I fell a few feet off the roof, not a few hundred off a cliff, besides there have been worse things happen to me." replied Cordelia as she sat up on the couch, still holding her head.

"Do you want some water, or maybe some aspirin?" asked Buffy, trying to be helpful. She still felt uncomfortable with the "mom" role.

"I’ll be fine, Buffy. Thanks…. Just give me a couple of minutes." Cordelia smiled at Buffy.

"Hey, wait. So what is Spike’s deal anyway? He kept saying he wanted to talk to you and when Dawn came in the room she said something about him having a chip in his head and he couldn’t hurt us. Not that that held true, but still." said Cordelia.

"A chip? What kind of chip?" asked Angel.

"You remember Riley and his commando pals?" asked Buffy.

"Yeah." said Angel hesitantly. His lip automatically twisted into a mini sneer as he recalled the tall goofy looking guy that had been Buffy’s new interest the last time he had been in Sunnydale.

"Well, that was part of their job. The government had this little secret operation going where they captured demons, and did all kinds of freaky experiments on them…. Anyway, one of these experiments is where they would knock out the vamp or whatever and put these chip things in their brains to control their behavior. They got Spike and put one in him. After that he couldn’t harm humans anymore." Buffy said, anxious to see their reactions.

"Hurt humans how?" asked Cordelia. "With his lack of fashion sense? Because I’ll tell you, his style caused me greater pain than falling off the roof."

"Like at all!" said Buffy, ignoring Cordelia’s fashionista comment. "No hitting, no biting, no nothing." she continued.

"No biting?" asked Angel with a smile on his face. The thought of Spike being totally harmless was becoming quite amusing to him. With Spike’s anti-authority tendencies it must have been brutal for him. He smiled even wider.

"Nope, no biting! Even if he acted like he was going to bite someone it sent these incredibly painful bits of energy into his brain." added Buffy. Angel began to laugh, under his breath at first, but the more he thought about Spike being a helpless, hopeless vamp became too much for him and he began to laugh out loud.

"What’s so funny?" asked Buffy. The chip was old news now, and other than Xander, the novelty of it had warn off for most of the Scoobies.

"Spike! That’s what’s so funny, a vamp that can’t even bite anyone!" burst Angel as he continued to laugh at this amusing thought.
"Um….Angel." Cordelia got his attention.

"Yeah?" Trying to contain his amusement was still really difficult.

"You can’t bite either." Cordelia reminded him, in an attempt to be diplomatic about the situation, and remind him of his own bite-less lifestyle. Angel stopped laughing for a minute.

"Oh…. urmmm….. yeah, but that’s different." he said, trying to justify his laughter at Spike.

Suddenly the telephone rang breaking into their mini revelry.

"I….. uhhhh…… I’ll just go answer that." Buffy walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Buffy…… Buffy are you okay? Is Cordelia okay? What happened to Spike?" Willow rapidly fired questions at her from the other end of the line.

"Calm down Will, everyone is fine." replied Buffy. She could hear Willow’s sigh of relief and quick shout to everyone that Cordy was okay.

"Will? Did Gunn get back to the shop with Fred and Dawn? she asked. Buffy had trusted him with her sister, and wanted to be certain that she was safe.

"Oh yeah, they made it back. Dawn hurt her foot when they were trying to get away, but Liz fixed it with this neat little stone." replied Willow. "It was so cool." she continued. Buffy grabbed the opportunity of a mini lull in the conversation to divert Willow back to the topic at hand, sensing a big description of this tone thingy coming on.

"Listen Will, we’re going to have to stay here until dark. Can you take care of Dawn until we can get over to the shop?" asked Buffy.

"Sure, but I could bring her home if you want." replied Willow.

"No, just stay there, and be careful." Buffy paused for a moment. "Will, I think…. We should remember that just because it’s daylight doesn’t mean we should feel safe." she continued. "Not everything bad only comes out at night, right?"

"Yeah. Good point. I’ll just keep everyone here and researching, and we’ll see you guys at sundown." Willow replied.

"Good. We’ll be there as soon as we can." Buffy said, and hung up the phone.

* * * * * * * * * *
Chapter 10 –

"Damn that Angel!" Spike shouted, as he began throwing his possessions viciously around his crypt. The sounds of breaking glass didn’t calm him. "Damn him!" he continued, "Every time I get that Slayer right where I want her that…..that….Robin Hood wanna be is there, saving the bloody day!" he roared, punctuating his points with smashing bottles against the walls.

"So, you’re having a problem with the Slayer are you?" asked a mysterious voice from the shadows of the crypt.

"What the hell?" asked Spike as he quickly turned toward the direction of the voice. Suddenly he saw a tall man with dark brown hair, and a strikingly large frame walk into the light.

"I asked if the Slayer was causing you problems." The man repeated.

"Who the bloody hell are you, and what the hell are you doing in my place?" asked Spike.

"I’m here to help you. You do want to rid yourself of that dreaded vampire killer and her lover don’t you?" asked the man. Dumbfounded, Spike just stared at him.

"Well….yeah." replied Spike.

"Oh….Oh…..I found something!" exclaimed Xander. "I researched! Successfully! Check it out!" The pride emanated from him.

"What?" asked Willow as she looked up from her very large and very dusty book. She wasn’t in the mood for any of Xander’s research delaying tangents.

"Its about that Bangola guy-demon-thing-whatever." replied Xander.

"Well? What does it say? Any specifics?" prodded Wesley. Xander set back, feeling pleased with himself but at the looks that he received, promptly leaned over the book and started describing what he’d found.

"Well, it shows a picture of its demon self, and may I add…..yuck, but it also mentions a human form."

"We already knew that." said Gunn. Disappointment resonating through his tone.

"Yes we did, but we don’t know what it looks like in its human form." said Wesley. "At least I don’t believe we do. Liz have you seen Bangola as a human?"

"No. I only know of it’s ability to transmute to human form, I have never seen it as such." replied Liz.

"Sorry guys, all I have is just a really disgusting picture of the demon side in here." said Xander. "But on the up side, it does say that he is more vulnerable as a demon. In his human form he seems to be more powerful." he continued.

"That seems odd. Are you sure you read that correctly?" asked Wesley.

"Yeah, its right here. Blah, blah, blah…..‘The leader and high priest of the Palkees Tribe known to mankind as Bangola is the most powerful of all the Palkees members. Though all members of the Palkees Tribe have the ability to transmute to a human form in order to walk among the living, only the high priest Bangola is most powerful in this form.’" Xander read aloud. "It also goes on to say that, ‘Bangola has brought to his Palkees Tribe the use of Merhandra energy. He obtained this useful tool by defeating Merhandee the elder and one of the earliest members of the Merhand Demon Clan." He paused. "Oh, that’s just great."

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