A scream, loud yet thick with mud, broke the deep silence underground. "Sir, please–" the creature cried, his claws scrabbling for a hold on the tunnel wall. Since his arms were broken, though, they slipped down into pain.

"'Please' what?" Pennith said with a hiss.

The earth-eater coughed up dirt. "Please don't, sir, please–"

"My Pennith, are you not finished yet? The day is breaking." He looked around to see Yeangelt and Griffin standing at the mouth of the Mysterious Emporium's main tunnel, Master Hat hanging behind. His lady's smile, mystery he'd followed across dimensions and time, wavered in the flame of the black candle she held. "You need to rest before we begin our journey."

"I've done nothing but rest for too long. I wished to collect the last of what we need, my lady," he said. "Even if it's from this...what was your name again, earth-worm?"

"Pim, sir." He was trying to crawl away into the depths –

Which certainly couldn't be allowed. Pennith shot out one hand, catching the creature by the throat, then smiling over his shoulder at his great lady. "Yeangelt, would you like to take our last spirit?"

"Not our last, surely." When Griffin's voice rumbled in the tunnel, more of the earth-creature shuddered off his bones, red mud slick as blood. They needed to hurry before the demon shivered himself into nothingness.

"No, not our last. But we value every contribution. Hold this, my Griffin." Handing her candle to the man – no, not man any longer, Pennith remembered–she came to them. After a delicate touch on Pennith's shoulder, she gazed at the crumbling demon. "You are Pim, is that right?"

"Yes, my lady." The words were mud-choked, almost inaudible.

"We appreciate you on this day of the dead," she said. "You will be part of our Rising Time." Then, as she sewed one sharp stitch in the air, the earth-demon collapsed in on himself, shattered.

Pennith leapt forward with the glass he had ready, saying the words of the magick under his breath. A green mist rushed from the dying creature's body into the container, and the demon screamed his last. One more spirit well-caught.

And Yeangelt smiled at them all, a dark light in the tunnel. "It is time at last to prepare ourselves for the opening. Tonight all who wish shall go home."

From inside came a sharp "Macallan! Cava!" At the sound of their names they skidded to a halt, gravel spraying outside the path like rain. Cava dropped onto her belly at once, but Macallan waited until "Down" was spoken in the same commanding tone.

"Yes, you guys, get down," Andrew added, trying too late for Giles's note and failing miserably. Stupid dogs, he thought again.

Giles, dressed for their run, shut the door behind him. "You need to concentrate if you're going to use your voice to control them. Take it down, and keep it even."

"Take it down, and keep it even. Okay." Andrew made a mental note, even though he still felt foggy and forget-y from staying up late with Spike and Xander. Playing poker with them had been like a dream or something, watching them tussle over cards and beers in the soft kitchen light, hearing them laugh, getting the odd smile or slurred question. He'd been part of a trio again, but a better one – no, no, bad thought. He really did need to concentrate. "Is the voice control like a Watcher thing?" Not a Jedi thing, which wasn't real. "And um, does it work?"

"It occasionally works on dogs. Very occasionally," Giles said, with a glimmer of mentor-guy amusement. Andrew considered saying something about Giles being a real Watcher, since Dawn had instructed him to reinforce the point, but she'd also told him to pick his spots carefully. Somehow the morning dog run on the day of a big, terrifying mission didn't seem like a good time.

Giles bent down to pick up Macallan's leash, wincing a little as he did and muttering, "Bloody hell."

"Are you all right, Giles?" Andrew imitated his action but with Cava, who responded by jumping to bite at his sweatshirt hem. But then he hadn't tried the voice: take it down, keep it even, he told himself.

"Just, er, a deal of exercise yesterday. A bit sore." A private smile, which told Andrew all about what kind of exercise it had been. At least that meant Anya would be in a good mood – were it not for the impending minor apocalypse, of course. "Shall we keep it to a mile and a half this morning? We're going to have a tiring day, after all."

Andrew stared at him. Although he had been studying English customs, he still hadn't got the understatement thing. "Um, Giles? Do you really think today is just going to be 'tiring'?" Because even for those of us who'll be manning Op Central, and even though I triumphantly survived one apparent end of days already, well–"

"It's all right to be scared, Andrew." Although Giles appeared to be looking at Mr Weir two doors down who was dragging his garbage to the kerb, Andrew was pretty sure he was gazing at some interior vision of the day ahead. "You'd be a fool not to be."

"Oh, I'm not scared ." Though the black-oil worms had never gone away, even during the magic of the card game. "That would imply distrust of my team, and I'm very team-oriented."

Giles didn't laugh, but he made the sort of Gandalf-sound which meant he would be laughing if he weren't humouring a hobbit. "Right. Well, come on," he said, as he opened the gate and took Macallan through it. The two of them began to run into the morning wind.

"Cava, come," Andrew said, but she was already bulleting after them. "No, wait! Heel! Stop!" Not that she paid attention – she dragged him into the street too. He could barely keep up, tripping over the cracks in the pavement, hand on the leash.

He really needed to concentrate, he told himself again, already out of breath.

He hadn't done family breakfast for years. He'd been gone so long, and last year his mother had been too distressed about his father to insist on the family ritual that had defined them, the servings of cold words and hot shame to start the day. He was weary of feasting on disapproval and self-disgust.

Not that the dishes had been replaced yet. Shutting his ears to the Lilah voice which had so taken over him that he had called his Slayer by her name, which had kept him awake half the night with images of trapdoors and hard crystal tears, he walked faster –

Straight into Faith as she sped out of the morning room.

"Hey, Wes, watch it!" She grabbed at his shoulders, although he didn't know which one of them she was trying to steady. At least she wasn't avoiding him: a small but important blessing.

"Good morning, Faith," he said, making himself smile. "Finished breakfast?"

"Um, no...." Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled him down the hall and into an alcove, perilously near a display table of his mother's treasures. She whispered, "You don't want to go in there."

"Why?"

"It's fucking creepy. I thought you had to pay and shit to get into Madame Tussaud's." She shivered. "I'm gonna go to Giles and Anya's for breakfast instead, hang out there before mission time. Want to come too?"

"No, thank you. I grew up with 'fucking creepy.'" This time his smile wasn't forced – something about this warrior being intimidated by his elegant fifty-year-old mother tickled his fancy.

Faith smiled in return, her hands patting his shoulders in what seemed like an unconscious caress. "Pretty sure you haven't seen this version." Then, as if she suddenly realised what she was doing, she stepped back, almost knocking over the table full of Wedgwood figures in the process. "Sorry, man."

"Faith–" Apparently they weren't going to get past last night's madness so easily. "Stop. It's all right, or at least I hope it is. I'm the one who's sorry, remember?"

He watched her bring herself under control, in an effort that he never would have seen five years ago. These small moments were when he realised just how much work she'd done to change. But then she smiled, a wide, knife-edged show of teeth to remind him how very much she was still the same. "Hell, Wes, you'd think we'd done the dirty in the middle of the street or something. One kiss, no big – could have been one fuck, still no big. Don't say 'sorry' again, okay? We're cool."

He didn't say anything at first. After counting to ten, then to twenty, he said, "Yes, fine. Well then – I'll see you and Spike at Investigations and Acquisitions later."

"Yeah. Yeah, you will." She hesitated. "You gonna be okay here with the waxworks?"

"Certainly. And you know, you might read the briefing folder before the actual mission, prepare yourself for whom and what you'll be aiming at –"

"Fuck you. Just for that, I'm not telling you what I was gonna." She punched him casually in the arm, which he was fairly sure wasn't meant to hurt him.

"What?"

"Nope. You lose, sucker." Waving a casual goodbye – was that her middle finger?– she strode away toward the door.

"Do you have Giles and Anya's address? Do you need the cab fare?" he called after her. Oh, that was the middle finger. He found himself smiling again.

Only a few black tiles left to touch, only the faintest echo-chamber effect of hellish laughter in his ears – he made it safely into the light and air of the morning room. His mother sat in her accustomed place at table, glancing through the Telegraph and sipping at her coffee. "Good day, son," she said without looking up.

"Hello, Mother–" But when he saw the room's other occupant, he fell silent.

"Good morning to you, Wesley," Jools Siviter said. Dressed as if he were off for a morning ride and carrying a plate he'd just filled at the sideboard, he took his seat next to her. "Would you pour me a coffee, Elinor?"

"Of course." She set aside the paper, then reached for the coffeepot. The domestic ease in the way she fixed Siviter's cup, adding sugar and cream without asking him what he took, troubled Wes more than the man's presence; it was like how she'd treated his father all those years, yet warped in some way he couldn't quite identify. Then it came to him: she was smiling. She never smiled in the morning.

He stood, angry for a reason he couldn't name.

After swallowing a bite of toast, Siviter said irritably, "For God's sake, Wesley, get your food and sit down. You'll need to eat – we've got a great deal of work ahead of us. I'd like to review the protocols before we go, especially the backup plans for any... undocumented dimensional immigrants."

"Cook's prepared your favourite eggs, son, and I think you'll find everything you need," she said. "Oh, your paper, Julian. I almost forgot." After handing the man a copy of The Times , she went back to her reading.

"Excuse me. Is there something I should know?" Wes's voice was as civil as he could make it, if distant, and he wrapped his hands around a chair back so that he could still stand without throwing something through the window.

His mother and Siviter exchanged a long look before she said, "Yes, Wesley, and we'll talk about it soon. But I believe you have more pressing concerns at the moment. Sit down and eat your breakfast."

"I don't think so, Mother. I'd like whatever information you're keeping from me."

"I'm disappointed, my boy. I'd assumed you were cleverer than this." Siviter sipped at his coffee, then pushed away his cup. After a brush over Elinor's hand so swift that Wes almost missed it, he reached into his blazer and pulled out a cigarette case. While flicking it open and extracting a thin brown cigarette: "If his hints a few days ago were any indication, even Rupert and his exceptionally strange wife have put two and two together. By the by, Elinor, did I mention how much Grandmother likes Mrs Giles? She's even asked her to tea. That's grounds enough for me to have her committed, wouldn't you say?"

"Hush, Julian. You're terrible." When she returned his caress, her fingers dancing over his, the man subsided into a cloud of smoke.

Wes's grip tightened on the chair back until he could feel wood cut into his palms. "Is it just possible that I'm to have a new father?" he said, chipping the words out of ice.

"Not exactly," his mother said. She rose from her seat and came to him, put her hand to his face just as she had the night his father had died. He remembered vaguely that there had been something else odd then, too, besides the unfamiliar maternal affection -- "Not a new father, Wesley."

Siviter stood too. "Your mother and I had planned this conversation a bit differently, you know. Can't say I think the morning of an op is quite – well, never mind."

"Julian, stop trying to put this off. I shan't humour you any longer." Her hand pressing against Wes's cheek forced him to look at her. She was smiling again, as if a cool breeze had stirred a curtain behind which the real Elinor Wyndam-Pryce had hidden for years: not much different from the mother he had thought he knew, but younger, less remote. She said, "My son, Roger gave you his name and raised you. Not as well as he might have, perhaps, but then he wasn't your father."

Siviter exhaled a hiss of smoke, withdrawing behind nonchalance. "It's simple enough, really. Sixteen-year-old boy falls in love with the girl on a neighbouring estate, she falls in love with him, they express their love in the usual idiotic and unprepared way, she gets pregnant. Family uproar, boy sent off to France to finish school, girl married off to the old family friend who volunteers for the duty. Boy and girl keep silent for as long as the family friend is alive." He examined his cigarette, almost burned down to ash, then with a sudden violent movement crushed out what was left. "Even Wagner couldn't have made anything out of the damned sickly story."

Dates and times arranged themselves in Wesley's mind, conclusions striking like a cane across his neck, and he fell into the chair in front of him. "Oh. Oh, fuck ."

"Wesley, please! You forget yourself," his mother snapped.

"Elinor, a less apropos expression one could scarcely hope to find," Siviter – no, his father, oh God, his father – said as he lit another cigarette. "Let the boy alone. Or perhaps get him some coffee, he looks like he needs something hot."

With a ladylike sound of disapproval, his mother moved toward the coffeepot, leaving Wes free to look across the table, try to trace himself in the other man. It was all too horribly easy: height, nose, eyes...."Yes," he said. "I see it."

"Of course, it's obvious. But you can bloody well deal with all the emotional trauma later. We have lives to save and demons to handle – which reminds me, after breakfast we need to think about an emblem of protection for you." Waving away a handful of smoke, he smiled. "And call me Jools, son."

Wes felt as if he'd stepped on an ordinary black square and dropped through a trapdoor. As he fell, he could hear Lilah laughing.

"Sod it, Harris. Some of us are tryin' to catch a few winks before prime demon-hunting time," a familiar voice said at his back. When the owner of the voice turned over, the covers slipped down Xander's body, leaving a shock of cold.

"Shut the fuck up, Spike," Xander said, pulling the covers back up and closing his eye again–

before snapping full awake. "Spike? Um, is that you?"

"Who the bloody hell else?" A cool bare foot brushed against Xander's ankle, which made him turn colder. "But it's my bed, so you shut the fuck up and let me get some kip." There were rustles and grumbles from Spike's side, then a deathly vampire-type stillness.

Okay, Xander, don't panic, he told himself. Although he couldn't remember exactly what had happened, there were misty water-coloured memories –

No, stop. He remembered last night now: the train delay outside Slough, the flowers bought at Paddington for Faith who'd already left Giles and Anya's. Funny to be the one left for a change. There had been disappointment and Heineken, and a poker game that had gone on for hours. He and Spike had been getting along pretty well, until like an idiot he'd mentioned Buffy and then Spike had slammed back with a dig about Faith – and then came a lot more beer. Much too much beer.

He also vaguely remembered losing the last poker hand to Andrew and signing away his entire comic-book collection. Of course drunk Xander had forgotten to mention that the collection had been destroyed in the Sunnydale crater. Which was the same crater that had swallowed Spike, who was back and lying next to him– "Oh God oh God," he said into the pillow. "Where did it all go so horribly wrong?"

"'Round about the fifth beer, I reckon," Spike said, sounding very much awake. "You all but passed out, mate – didn't think pouring you in a cab was the answer, so me and Andy dragged you in here to save Rupes and Anya from finding you snoring at their kitchen table."

"It's England. I blame it all on England." Xander suddenly felt very, very tired. He rolled over and looked up; the guest room's blue ceiling had some kind of insane paint effect, blotchy and nausea-inducing. "Thanks. And man, do you even know how much you just sounded like Faith?"

"Only natural, us working together and what all – but we're just colleagues and friends, right. Don't get fussed about me and your girl. Well, your girl if you had the sense of a sodding gnat."

Yeah, if he had the sense of a fucking gnat and he didn't feel so crap...."Seriously, where did it all go so wrong?" he asked the ceiling.

"Seriously?" Spike was silent for a long minute, in which Xander stared upward, listening to the muffled sounds of Anya and Andrew and the dogs stirring outside the room, feeling the ache of what and who wasn't there. Then:"Went pear-shaped too long ago to figure it. But it bloody well did."

"Yeah."

They lay there together, unmoving yet kind of comfortable. If Xander thought about the moment, he'd be weirded out, so he didn't think about it. Just lay next to an undead enemy turned world-saviour and read the paint smudges on the ceiling like clouds, like a map to nowhere. After a minute he said, "I've been thinking – do you ever want to go back and start over, Spike?"

"All the time. All the fucking time. Tell you about Angel some day... but no. The real hell of it is, you can't. Only way out is forward."

"Yep. That's the hell of it." More silence, deeper and mistier than clouds. He found himself thinking of Faith again, of what he hadn't done and what he'd missed.

But from beside him came a sudden familiar taunt, an echo from a long-gone basement. "Xaaander."

He couldn't help his smile, but for form's sake – "Quit it, Spike."

"Xaaander, are you ready to navigate? Lead us into darkness and disaster and what all?"

"Damn it, shut up. I thought you were all soul-having now." Without looking, he pushed at Spike's shoulder – which had absolutely no give.

"Nothing 'bout the soul says I can't take the piss, mate." That was his normal voice, before one more "Xaaaander."

Despite the hangover, Xander managed to shove at him again, grinning. "Freak."

A shove back. "You're the sodding freak, carpenter-boy. Can't believe I'll be following you."

Then there was a strange moment where they were both pushing, kind of wrestling without strength, and it was like high school but not , really not, and they'd gone back to a place where they'd never been–

The guest room door opened. "I knew it," Anya announced from the doorway.

"What?" With a return of nausea, Xander realised that he and Spike were locked together, shirtless and under the covers, which must look like – "No, Anya! There is no 'knew it'! Nothing to know!"

"Calm down," she said, over Spike's laughter. That guy couldn't really have a soul if he'd laugh at a time like this. "I meant I knew you had a hangover, Xander. You can stop the unnecessary homophobic panic at any time." Then she looked over her shoulder. "Please bring in their breakfasts, Andrew. These two need to be ready for their role in today's mission."

Andrew appeared, bearing two glasses full of blood-red liquid which made Xander's stomach lurch harder. The dogs burst in before him, leaping onto the bed, barking and jostling, and Xander found himself with a face full of terrier ass. He hoped that didn't explain the taste of dog fur.

"Blood and burba for you, Spike. The famous Magic Box Morning-After Potion for you, Xander – plus tomato juice," Andrew said, carefully not looking at them as he came toward the bed.

"Cheers," Spike said, sitting up to take the glass, casual as if he did this every day.

"Okay, great, thanks," Xander got out, once he pushed Cava away. He grabbed the glass Andrew held out to him; the first mouthful of juice slipped down easy, taking the edge off all the aches and panic.

Anya said to Andrew, "I'm going to finish the protection-bracelets before we leave to meet the others – please come help me when you're finished, okay?" After he nodded, she looked toward the bed. "By the way, Faith's going to be arriving any minute for breakfast, so you might want to get out of bed. Or not." The smile that flashed across her face was pure vengeance. "You see, Xander, I also knew you always wanted Spike."

While Spike fell back on the pillows and guffawed, while Andrew made a little noise that really shouldn't be identified, Xander downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. Then he said to the ceiling, "Where oh fucking where did it all go so wrong?"

While the cafe owner began a quiet conversation with Giles about Dawn's beverage preference, Willow clutched her backpack more securely and stared at the window. In the grey morning, strange shadows hovered between her and the street, between her and Giles – the cloaking spell she'd cast reflecting like a broken mirror. She smiled at herself.

Broken mirrors could be remade, of course, and Randolph and Catriona, whom she'd grown to adore in the last weeks, were up in the Investigations and Acquisitions office preparing the conference room and arranging the mirrors they'd made for later.

In Devon she and the Mortimers had beaten silver into blessed wood; they'd forced the elements into a hollow like Michael had shown them, and then pieced together the edges with bits from the scrying mirror Giles and Anya had shattered during their honeymoon. As she worked on hers, she had felt the hum of power from the broken shards: dim silhouettes of roses and stairs and a cup sliced in two, and her fingers shadow-burned with the acid of falling leaves from a tree that was far from home. But she had been in Tor House, where she was always safe.

When she had put the last piece into its place, her mirror had flashed, her reflection going from red to white in the glass. That change might have been past, might be yet to come. The evening would show.

"Willow. Your coffee?" Giles said at her elbow, holding out her cup. Steam rose through the small hole in its lid and warmed her hand when she took it.

"Thanks, Giles." She smiled up at him, letting him open the door for her even though the gesture was a relic of a patriarchal age and he was carrying Dawn's coffee as well as his own tea. She thought it made him feel better.

Sipping their drinks, they stood for a moment. "Didn't you want to go by the Watcher site and check on... stuff before we picked up Dawn?" she said.

"'Want to'? Not exactly. But since you've, er, hidden us –" he smiled down at her– "a bit of reconnaissance wouldn't hurt."

"Let's go then," she said, nudging him companionably.

Caught off balance, he had to juggle the drinks, which made him shoot her an old-school library look that warmed her. But the warmth faded the closer they got to the old Watchers place.

She could feel it here. It might be a normal day on the surface, traffic and hurrying pedestrians, noise and orderly chaos, but all around them rose uncanny pressure. She could sense pain and loss, the fraying edges of the fabric that kept selves and worlds apart.

He stopped half a block away from the old Council site, pulling her into the shadows. " Geez, over-cautious much? Even if the Yeangelt baddies are there, they can't see us, Giles. My spell, remember ?" She didn't say it, though, but sent it into his mind.

"You *are* feeling better after your Tor House stay ," he thought back dryly, even as he sipped at his tea. When she listened like this, his thought appeared in her mind as if etched in the clearest script. " No harm in being careful, however ."

Shrugging, she followed his gaze toward the site. It looked normal enough, with its chain barrier around the empty land, posted with keep-out and Pennyworth Consortium signs. No sign of demons, but a circle of pickets in the centre imitated the fence outside –

"That's new. Must be the site for the magicks, right over the Council cellars. I'll tell Xander, make sure he gets Spike and Faith there through the old central tunnel ," Giles sent to her. Then he looked down, turning his cup in his hands and thinking something she couldn't read.

" Are you able to block stuff from me now ?" she thought back.

A raise of the eyebrows and a half-smile. "Time to fetch Dawn," he said out loud.

He took them through a side-passage she wouldn't have known was there, a long thin shadow between buildings. It made Willow think of Judith Cary and Henry Giles back in 1665; when she'd read the transcription Giles had faxed her, she had tried to envision that moment, a Slayer and a Watcher on patrol in plague-filled, moonlit streets. It made her miss Buffy even more than usual. Weird how it wasn't his Slayer whom Giles led through the maze.

But maybe the world couldn't be protected by just a Slayer and a Watcher any more. Too many Slayers, too much broken–

Her thoughts faded as Giles brought them out of the passage near Bloomsbury Square, into what would count for sun. Tossing his cup into a trash container, he said, "We should be all right now. Although really, with your skills – you've gotten much stronger in your latest visit to the coven, Willow. You feel, er, centred?"

"Yes, I really do. It's a healing place." She smiled up at him. "It's like the only place I really feel like home, you know? With Margaret fussing over me, and Siobhan, and Michael to work with signs, and then Miss Harkness, I mean, Gillian–"

"I'm glad." He returned her smile. "Are you thinking of joining them permanently?"

"Yeah, wouldn't you love that. More Scoobies underfoot in England, just what you don't want." She stopped at a corner, the stoplight blinking red.

"That's bloody nonsense. But, actually, Xander said something like that a few weeks ago. What have I done to make you two think I wouldn't welcome you?" When she stared at him, he said, "All right, perhaps I've not quite, er.... But it truly would please me to have you all close."

"Really? But there's that whole bolting-away-from-the-Scoobies theme you've been playing for years. And now there's the Anya thing."

"I'm sorry– but what about my wife?" His voice was sharper than she thought he intended; he looked away almost at once. "Light's changed," he said, taking a step off the kerb.

"See there, you're bolting again–" she began, but caught herself. Pressure underneath had made her say what she didn't mean. "No, hang on, hang on. Giles –"

"My apologies." He wore one of those Giles expressions she never knew how to deal with, anger and disappointment flaring out behind his reserve, and she couldn't think herself into his head this time. "I didn't mean to."

"Come on, we can't stand here in the middle of the road." She dragged them both to safety in Bloomsbury Square before she said, "No, it was just... And the Anya thing's just that you have someone else to look out for. We get that you don't have time for us now. The same time, I mean."

"I'm sorry you all feel that way," he said quietly, with a complete lack of comprehension of what she was trying to express. For the first time she understood why Anya was always smacking him.

Before she could figure out the right way to put it, the square was brightened by a flash of red jacket and long brown hair. "Hey, you guys! You're late."

"Sorry, Dawn," Giles said. He handed her the coffee he'd carried all the way from the café. "I think we remembered what you took. And how was your history exam?"

"I am totally an alpha-plus star, go me." After a sip, she said, "Mmm, just right, thanks. So are we going or what?"

"We're going," he said, striding off in the direction of the Holborn tube station.

As they followed, Dawn whispered, "Did something freak him about the mission? He's working a nasty slammed-door face."

"No. I might have accidentally said something, um, about his leaving Scoobies behind. And there was a misunderstanding about Anya – or something."

Dawn scowled. "Oh great . Here I'm trying to get him back in the Council, and you're bringing up ancient history that makes him all light-sabered to the heart and 'I'm a bad Watcher'? And on the day of an op when he and Anya have the hardest jobs?"

"No, that's not what–"

"Yeah, whatever. We've got work to do." Dawn ran up to Giles and put her arm through his. The wind carried back her asking him a quick question about the Henry Giles notes, Giles saying something about the river.

"C'mon, wait!" When they looked over their shoulders in one synchronised move, Willow felt a little shudder, like her window on the world had cracked. But she hurried to catch up, linking her arm through his other one. "Don't leave me behind. Can't do this alone, you know."

"I'm sorry, and I do know," he said. But his slammed-door expression remained.

The three of them stayed linked until they got to the Tube station, and even as they caught the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square and then changed for the line to the Embankment, pushing their way through the crowds and standing in the full cars, she kept both Dawn and Giles within touching distance. She wasn't doing great with words today, she thought, so she'd rely on actions.

When they walked out on the Embankment, they were bathed in the shimmering grey reflection off the river. Willow exhaled, long and slow. She could feel old magicks flowing past, rising up, but first– "Dawnie, the spell."

"Oh, right," Dawn said, pulling a handful of powder out of her jacket pocket and speaking the right words under her breath. A haze rose around her like water; this wasn't about making themselves invisible, but making them unnoticed.

The three of them crossed over to the Thames side, then walked quickly to the nearest pier. The gate was secured – no taxi service today – but after a quick look around, Giles took a small silver pin out of his coat pocket. "You saw nothing, you say nothing," he muttered to them as he fiddled with the lock, which was silly because Dawn and Andrew already had told everyone in and out of the Council about his breaking-and-entering skills. It took only a few turns of the pin before the gate swung open.

Behind them traffic snarled its way along the Embankment, shouts and laughter lifting above engine growls; in front of them, the pier rose and fell with the dark grey, littered tide.

As they walked down the ramp, Willow pulled six glass jars from her backpack, handing two to Giles and two more to Dawn. Then the three of them bent down by the side of the pier, their motions mirroring each other, and dipped their jars in the water. Willow whispered for all of them, "Mother River flowing to the sea, let us take so we may save you."

The water they caught in their vessels was pure, and she smiled at herself in the glass.

"I know. Giles kept one of his jars," Willow said, with the barest roll of her eyes.

Then Willow gave one filled glass to Randolph, who said, "A lovely thing this, darling," before she passed another to Catriona. These three would be working from this room tonight, the table already laid with their mirrors and smoky with their incense. They were even dressed alike, dramatically attired in purples and gold – although Anya couldn't believe that Willow had found another hideously fuzzy sweater somewhere in the world, and apparently on purpose. It might be kind to take her shopping at Selfridges tomorrow and point her toward more flattering apparel.

Assuming they made it to tomorrow, of course.

Pressing her hand against her stomach to subdue the nerves, she said briskly. "Do you need me to do anything else?"

"No, I think we're prepared. A little deep breathing, a little swirl of the Thames water, and we'll be watching you." Catriona tossed her hair and gave a teasing sorceress smile. "Still – will I be allowed to kiss your husband before you leave this time, Anya?"

"No." She didn't feel that required elaboration. With one last smile for Randolph and a pat on Willow's back, she said, "Okay, I'll send in Andrew to get the extra vials for the other teams."

It was a surprise when Willow threw her arms around her, hugging tight. "You know that I think you and Giles are great together, don't you?" she whispered. "And you guys can do this, I know you can."

Even as she hugged back, Anya's eyes narrowed. When Rupert had come back from his expedition with the young women, he had been upset – giving her a rough, swift kiss hello and a clenched-jaw 'I'm fine' which indicated the opposite, before he'd grabbed Xander and Tom Quinn and dragged them out to get pizza for the troops. His distress was probably Willow's fault, judging by this act of contrition. Still, this wasn't the time to berate her. "Thank you, Willow, we rely on your power. So please don't go dark in the process and destroy this business."

With a laugh, Willow let go. "Anya, you never change."

On a impulse, she kissed Willow's cheek. "No, I do, and you do too. Different, better choices."

In the doorway to the outer office she ran into Tom Quinn, who stood there with bent head, studying one of the briefing folders. "Sorry, Anya," he said without looking up.

"How are you feeling, Tom? Espionage-ready? Able to remember who you are and everything?" she said, with an unprofessional rub on his back. She worried about him, she really did, despite slight lingering resentment about cellars and honeymoons and his interruption of lovely spousal renditions of Joni Mitchell songs.

"Fine," he said, somewhat remote. "We'll get you through this."

"That's right, Tuppence." Zoe was sitting at Anya's desk, eating a slice of pizza and making notations on the briefing file, but she looked over and smiled. "Tom and I are ready to be your backup, should the, um, magick surveillance tell us you're in trouble."

"Yep! Andrew and I can run op stuff if they take off – but they won't have to. You guys will be fine," Dawn said through a mouthful of pizza, from her perch beside Zoe.

"Thanks, sweeties. I appreciate your inadequate words of comfort." As she spoke, she scanned the office, looking for Rupert. No husband in sight, but Andrew was talking about tunnel issues to Xander, who was book-ended by Faith and Spike lounging on the client couch.

That seating arrangement was a surprise. The semi-crushed autumn bouquet hadn't appeared to melt Faith that morning; when Xander had nervously presented the flowers at breakfast, she'd just looked at them and then crunched down on some bacon with sharp Slayer teeth. They hadn't really spoken after that, which was uncomfortable, and he'd let Faith ride in the front seat with Anya on the way to the office. Of course he also was occupied in the backseat, holding a blanket over Spike to reduce inflammability issues (despite the window-tinting that she and Rupert had just got for that purpose). It could be difficult to juggle business and relationships, Anya thought.

She looked again. Yes, there was Xander's hand sneaking out to touch Faith's leg, in a move she identified impartially as a Xander-girlfriend-habit. But she had important work to do and her man to track down: "Andrew, could you get the water for the blessing of the protection for the Council team? Also, where's my husband?"

"At once, mon capitaine," Andrew said, hurrying toward the conference room. "And Giles is across the hall."

"Meditating in the new space," Dawn clarified. "'Cause you still need the thing, don't you?"

"Thanks. And yes, Dawn, I need the thing." As she headed out of the main office and crossed to their new Inventory and File room, she absently rubbed her arms as if to wash away her nerves.

When she walked into the darkened room, however, she shook her head. Rupert sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a circle of lit candles – though he'd left plenty of room for her – and rather than meditating, he was reading Henry Giles's journal for the hundredth time. "Hello, Tuppence," he said, not looking up from the book.

"Don't you know that by heart, Tommy?" She closed the door behind her.

"A quick review. I rather wish Martin would have stolen more than just the one volume, though." He put the book outside the circle of candles, next to a plate heaped with blue powder, next to their coats and backpacks and his sword. "Everything going well out there?"

"Everything's under control." She stepped over the candles and took her place, folding her legs underneath her in a mirror-pose to his, their knees touching. "The protection-bracelets are ready to be dipped – but I'll let Willow and Catriona supervise that. We're still waiting for Wes and Jools, too, and then we can go."

"And you need your mark." His smile was so sweet, if tense around the edges. With a flourish he produced a Magic Marker from behind his back, saying, "It's a bit ironic that you've rubbished my drawing for years, but now–"

She pulled a face at him. "Yes, haha irony. But I guess it's lucky that Tom's breakdown meant we didn't get our tattoo-work at the coven. This will be better, if you can manage to follow an actual pattern."

He caught her arm in one hand, pushing up her sweater sleeve, fingertips caressing as they slid over her skin. When her biceps muscle was exposed, he bent and touched his lips to it – and she felt a rush of something powerful along her arm and into her heart, a connection that shouldn't feel so new. She whispered, "Whatever have you been doing today?"

"Working. Thinking. Thinking about you." He dipped his free hand onto the plate, bringing up fingertips coated with the powder she'd concocted the day before. Lightly he dusted blue against her skin in the pattern he would trace with the ink. With each touch of his fingers, she could feel old strengths, old skills rush to the surface. "All right?" he asked quietly.

"All right. Go ahead, honey." She bent her head to watch as he ran the marker over her skin, following the powder line. He drew a sigil she'd known for eleven hundred years, yet with a difference: Anyanka recalled, but with the love and connections that now defined her. Even with his significant artistic handicaps, the sign of Arashmaharr was clear.

When he was done, she took his arm in her hand and rolled up his sleeve to show the mark of Eyghon. It was still faded, although the various needle-stabs of the past months had left a permanent red spot at the bottom of the tattoo. With the powder she dusted the outline of the mark – chaos, but with the love and connections that now defined him. "All right?" she asked, and he nodded.

Then, without speaking, they sent their still coated fingers through candle flame. The fire didn't hurt them, even as the powder was set alight, flaring blue in the dark.

"I think we're good," she said, blowing out the sparks on her fingers.

"Quite good." He leaned forward, putting his hands on her thighs. "Stay there, dearest–" And his mouth found hers, in a kiss that went on for a long, long time, enough for every name they'd ever had and for every life they'd ever lived.

She was so deep in love that she almost missed the door opening behind her and Jools Siviter's drawled "Ah. They're 'working,' you say? An interesting interpretation of the concept."

"Oh, sod off, Jools," Rupert said. Still, it really was time to get back on task.

After they snuffed the candles out and picked up their materials and coats, they headed into the hall. Everyone was there by now, with Wes nearest, all haggard and stubbly. She caught his arm, whispering, "You look a little crazier today. Are you all right?"

It alarmed her that he gave her a one-armed, desperate hug, even though his voice was chilly and even. "Fine. Not to worry."

"Wesley, I am going to worry – or I will after the apocalypse is averted. Show me your protection." When he lifted his wrist, the river-damp, woven links of red and blue thread glimmered. "Good. But seriously, you be careful."

"I will, Anya," he said, his voice softening, before he reached a hand out to grasp Rupert's shoulder. "Success and safety, Giles."

"Success and safety," he echoed. But as Wes moved away to say something to Spike, Rupert got Jools's arm, saying under his breath but loud enough for her to hear, "You bloody told him today ?"

"Don't touch the gents' casual suiting, please." Jools brushed off Rupert's grasp. "And we can have a jolly talk about good timing after the threat's averted." More loudly he said, "God luck to all – now are you ready, son?"

" Son ?" Spike and Faith said in unison, with Faith continuing, "Oh Christ, pal, and I was just fucking with you last night–"

"I trust that's an expression," Xander said.

"Never mind. Spike, Faith, be safe. I'll need to organise you lot when I get back, after all," Wes said. "See you later." After favouring Xander with a glare, he headed out the door to the outside. Smiling with equal nastiness, Jools sauntered off, letting the door shut with a bang behind him.

"Inherited cold-hearted bastard behaviour, or bloody delusions of Watcher grandeur? You be the judge," Spike said, shoving his hands in his duster pockets.

"Yeah, well...like the man said, never mind. Can we get going?" Xander said. "There's the world to save and everything, and if we hurry, Dawn might even leave us some pizza."

"Hey!" came from inside the main office, and Andrew and Dawn poked their heads out. They looked so young, Anya thought with a strange feeling she tentatively identified as maternal. It was better that they stay here, watch and learn. Their time would come soon enough.

Tom and Zoe looked out too, inspected the troops, waved, and then retreated into the office, even as Dawn said, "You guys be cool. But the magick people are almost in the zone, so –"

"Yeah, we're going, Bit." At Spike's words, Dawn rolled her eyes. He put his hand up as if to pet her hair, then thought better of it and twitched his duster closer to his body. "Once more into the breach, right?" As he went out the door, he intoned, "' Four great gates has the city of Damascus...Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear–'" His voice echoed and faded in the stairwell as he descended.

"Poetry? Spike's a poetry geek?" Xander said. "This has made my life, I can't begin to tell you. Or I'll tell you at great length after we win." After a peck on Anya's cheek and a smile for Rupert, he grabbed Faith's hand and began to pull her toward the door.

"You three take care," Anya said sharply. "Tell Spike, too."

"Yes, and you're the Slayer, Faith, so you're responsible for those prats," Rupert said.

"You got it, Gileses." Faith's grin was the last thing visible as she and Xander disappeared down the stairs–

Which left the core Investigations and Acquisitions team alone, caught in a current of chanting and incense flowing from inside the office. Anya looked at Dawn and Andrew, let herself feel all the caring she usually didn't think about, and then said, "All right, junior Watchers. You keep everyone here on task – it's your sworn Giles and Jenkins duty."

"You got it. You can trust us," Andrew said, with the merest quaver in his voice.

Rupert said, "We do."

Dawn burst through the doorway past Andrew and threw her arms around the two of them, holding on for a long breath, before she stepped back. "That's our Watcher and our Anya. Now go already!"

"Right then, darling. Let's do as Dawn says."

As they left, Anya felt the nerves boil up one last time, terror rising to her throat. But then he reached across to tap his wedding ring against hers, gold chinking against gold. He didn't even need to say anything — her nerves retreated.

She was the first one out into the afternoon. She believed in being punctual for work.

Smiling, she turned to her followers. Her Pennith and her Griffin were closest, as was only right; Master Hat with his most faithful assistants, Garrison and Bixp, behind them; a dozen minions, unimportant in themselves but useful for the moment. "Are we ready for the Rising Time?"

Although the minions cheered, her closest ones smiled. They knew what this moment meant.

To Master Hat she went first. Pulling a silk square out of her sleeve, she revealed her sigil for the last time to him and the others. "Strike at the right time, Master," she said quietly. "And take this in remembrance of me. I know that you will stay to guard the Terminal when it is done. The human interlopers and the half-breeds will be gone, and you shall let all others pass."

"Yes, in your name." He took the silk, then bowed low one last time.

To Griffin she went next. Concentrating, she kissed him on his cheek, at the intersection of two old tattoos – underneath her lips the marks fused into her sigil as if stitched. "My mark on you, Griffin, is more lasting than silk. And you'll find us when it's done?"

"Anything for you, my lady. I couldn't stay away." Her own demon, created for travelling, smiled down at her

"My Pennith, come with me." The two of them, together as they always should be, paced to the table. Without words they took hold of the hourglasses, in the same breath stood them up. That which was not sand began to pour through the glass funnels, shining acid-green in the candlelight.

"Master Hat, my Griffin, come take your timepieces," she said over her shoulder. "When the magick has run its course, we open the gates."

"That's so Batman," Xander said, peering over her shoulder, his hands on her waist. "But, curses, no bat-pole. Just a ladder."

She let herself sink back into his hold for just one betraying moment, feel him solid behind her. No sharpness, no cuts. She figured she could allow herself one breath of security even if it was a lie, him disappearing on her like that and then popping back up all Xander-in-the-box with that cute puppy look, but– "Hell, thought you knew where we were going. Got work to do, man."

His fingers sliding under her sweater to play for just a second, he said, "A little more respect for your Facilities Administrator, please. I do know the way. Cast off, yo-ho, it's a navigator's life for me." There was the fleeting caress of a eyepatch against her cheek before he let her go and began to climb down. She watched him descend into the dark alone–

Spike said from behind her, "Well, stop mooning and go. Slayers first, yeah?"

She shot him a look: "Always gonna be that order with you, huh?" When the lines of his face shifted into pain, though, she said, "Dude, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to bring up B or nothing."

"No worries. Just go, pet." He managed a smile, right before his boot came up to make hard contact with her ass. She almost fucking toppled down the ladder, to the accompaniment of his laughing, "That's one way to get a lazy Slayer moving."

The cellar below the storage space was pitch, but Xander already had his flashlight out. In the spin of the light the space looked empty, a long narrow box with crumbling concrete walls and floor. "Where the hell are we?" she said, dusting off her jeans.

"Bomb shelter. Built in World War II during the Blitz," Xander said. "The Watchers' Council had several escape routes linked to shelters. Robson remembered them, Amelia Markby knew more, and then I did a little digging – not literally."

Spike landed softly next to them. "Right. War-vintage construction – I remember it well. Never could get the smells out. Everything hangs on for-bloody-ever."

"You were in London for the war?" Xander said.

"Part of it, not all." Spike seemed to be looking at something ugly in his mind's eyes, Faith thought, something that hurt him as much as saying B's name. But then he shook off the demon – hell, he probably was the damn demon – and said, "Where to now, Harris?"

"Right. Yeah. It should be–" he trained his flashlight on the far wall – "there."

"What? Can't see it." She came up behind him, mimicking his posture from upstairs, so she could look too. Too distracting, though: he was comfort like her favourite T-shirt, the one washed until it hugged her in all the right ways, and Slayers like her didn't get comfort.

"It's a door," he said kind of huskily, the way he would right before when she'd strip him down and start to ride. "There – um, Faith, before we go any further, can I just say that we're not on a break any more?"

She pushed him away. "Excuse me, pal. Mission first, remember? Besides that I don't think you get to fucking choose."

"I said we were on the break, so why can't I call it over?" His free hand covered hers. "Please, Faith."

Okay, that was sweet and shit, but no. "Because you can't. Asshole."

"Come on," he began –

"And we're done." A strong vampire grip got her jacket, then caught Xander. Although a stake could have been in her hand before Spike could have said 'bloody hell,' she forced herself to be still. He continued, "I reckon I'm damned for eternity, but not even the Powers on their worst day are going to trap me in a sodding bunker with Ross and Rachel. Work, people, or London's going on permanent break."

Shrugging off Spike's hold, she went blind toward the wall. "You're right, Blondie. Now where the hell is the exit?"

"Here," Xander said. He brushed by her, then touched what just looked like black on black to her. With one sharp move he cracked a door open, dust flying everywhere in the dark, hurting her throat.

As he played the light over the darkness, he caught her hand again. "Okay, you're right. Come on. This is just the first tunnel – we've still got a ways to go yet until the fork." And as he took the first step beyond the threshold, he whispered, "We're back together, sweetheart. Take it how you want."

"Asshole," she said again, but her fingers gripped his harder as they went into the black. Ahead of them was the distant sound of breaking glass.

Wesley just stared coldly at him. Apparently his son wasn't much of a one for irony. Or talking, actually, since only five or six words had been exchanged on the drive from Islington. But then he said, "I'd like to suggest once more that we split up. I can go through the shell of Hartman's tattoo shop, and you could–"

"No," Jools said, bored with the discussion. "We're going through the Frontier. The specs are clearer there, and the op has a greater likelihood of success, which I believe you know."

"Then let's proceed with the 'op.'" Irony in his son's voice there, at least. After waiting for a couple of disreputable cars to pass, he crossed the street between lengthening shadows. The witch's cloaking spell seemed effective enough.

Jools followed more slowly. Although he still was field-rated, it had been a good few years since he'd crept about in the statutory cloak-and-dagger manner. He had the key to the gate, though, so Wes was forced to wait for him to unlock it before slipping inside. Once in, they stopped at the right corner of the smoke-damaged club building and took time to breathe.

And he took time to inspect his boy. Wes was calmly checking his gear, professional like the sort of fellow that Jools preferred to work with. Part of that ease might be the impressive range of weaponry they'd filched from Roger Wyndam-Pryce's private demon-wetworks collection, but more likely it was the last few years that had given Wes his edge.

Of course Jools had known this already. He'd followed Wesley's career from the moment of his birth – there were files in a lock-box which detailed young Wesley's first step and word ("babbit," referring to a stuffed animal vaguely resembling a bear), his first school marks, his complete incompetence at games until he'd begun to practice archery and shooting, his time as head boy at the Watcher's Academy, his Oxford First, his embarrassments at informal dances and deb balls. In addition to information gathered through espionage channels, Jools had taken copious notes during those precious annual phone calls from Elinor. He'd once called her from a safe house in Leningrad, on a spy-satellite link dedicated to military secrets, so he could hear of Wesley's exploits at a special Watcher's camp.

It wasn't until after Roger died that Elinor told him what the normal channels had missed – that the official father had blasted and belittled his false son just one step short of abuse, no matter what she'd done to shield him; that Wesley's flight into independent-operator status and thence to collusion with that damned (literally) Angel was in no small part down to Roger Wyndam-Pryce.

She'd waited until the bastard was dead, of course, because she knew that otherwise Jools would have executed him himself.

Wes stepped almost free of the shadows, his hand going to the protection-bracelet around his wrist. Even in the dimness the thing glimmered, the blessed water from the Thames keeping it damp, keeping it powerful. Witch had done a good job there, too; Rupert Giles had made the right connections for the task.

It was Rupert who in the past days had also filled in some of what Jools had wanted to know about Angel – told him a little about the vampire's soul-curse but more about the annealing process that Angel Investigations had put Wes through, the apocalypses and the betrayals and the way his boy had kept going until he was tempered glass. It was Anya, however, who'd mentioned something about a dead woman whom Wesley had loved and lost but who didn't seem to want to leave.

Jools would have to find out more about that. But after the mission.

He touched Wesley's arm and inclined his head. Reading the signal correctly, Wes unholstered his specially modified pistol and slid around the corner. Jools mirrored the action, following on his heels and watching.

The passage between burnt-out building and emptiness was dark, like a hell-road to nowhere, and the chain-link fences rattled in the wind. Good cover for the sound of footsteps, of course. The two were halfway down the path when Wes put his hand on Jools's chest to stop him.

One glance revealed two demons standing at the point where the Frontier back door had been. "Back up and try the tattoo place?" Wes whispered.

Jools shook his head: better to forge ahead here, where they had more information. However, he shouldered past Wesley and took the lead. Father's duty and all that.

The demons – one large, multi-horned, ugly; the other smaller, speckled, uglier– were restless and not paying much attention to their bloody jobs. Reminded Jools of all too many guards he'd seen on his various travels. "Take the big one," he whispered over his shoulder, even as he drew his own pistol and fired at the smaller target. No sound – the silencer did its work.

His demon dropped only a couple of seconds before Wesley's did. Both had been plugged neatly between the eyes.

Only good policy to drag the demons further into the shadows, of course. Wes was first to the bodies, getting the big one and rolling it to the wall. Jools did the same, but then bent down to check. His was dead, but Wesley's target was still twitching – could be an involuntary muscle reaction post-death, but no use taking chances. Jools put his pistol to the demon's head and blew the top of it off.

Unfortunately, the result was acid-blood splattering all over his John Lobb shoes. Fuck. He suddenly remembered why he so disliked field ops.

At a touch on his shoulder, he looked up. Wes stood over him, a hint of a smile on his lips. "Come on." Then, a hesitation, before he said, "Jools." First time he'd called him by his name.

Despite his ruined shoes, Jools was smiling as he followed his son into the blackness of the open door.

Willow sat on the table in a circle of light – her own light, not shared by the Mortimers, not given solely by candles – her eyes closed, her head tilted as if she were listening to music no one else could hear. She didn't look like familiar, sort of goofy Willow any more, but like a woman who carried magick in her hands and her swaying body. Whenever she moved, the incense burned more strongly.

"Two demons down in Brixton. Siviter and Wesley are in darkness now, in the passage," Catriona said. She passed her hand over the centre mirror, but said nothing. Saw nothing, maybe.

Randolph bent forward to look at his mirror, long hair draping his face. "The Council team is in darkness now too, seeking the right way. Not as far as they might be, but they move forward."

Tom looked at his watch. Dawn could read the numbers from here: despite slippages, everyone was making good time. Everybody moving forward, she thought. She didn't know why she shivered, like thousands of scissors were snipping the fabric that lay next to her skin, blade-edges biting at her with cold. She didn't hurt, though.

A hand on her back eased her tremors for a minute: Andrew, returning from his errand. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, "I called Mrs Rajan. Anni walked the dogs and gave them their dinner as arranged."

"Good deal," she whispered back. She and Andrew had learned a lot from Anya, Dawn thought. Sometimes the devil lurked in the small details of connection, and you had to take care of them too.

With her own nervous twitch, Zoe asked the magick guys, "Do you see Anya and Giles?"

"No. Something's interfering –" Catriona said, hand passing over the centre mirror again.

" I can see them." Willow's voice was a deep hum of power. "They're moving forward."

Dawn startled. From one breath to the next, it was like the scissors had dug into her skin and started to slice.

At the mental image, his mark began to burn. He could feel the chaos simmering now, but the magick Anya had used and the magick that she was kept it under control.

Looking around at the shadows, she put her hand over her nose. "Hurry, honey, this place is ripe. Worse than any massacre I've ever attended."

Once again he worked with his lockpick, spoke the counter to the wards, and opened the disguised door for her. They stepped inside the room, but this time it wasn't dark.

Pale in uneven lantern-light, two half-dressed bodies in a corona of dust and moans writhed on the room's bed. Not the vampire-brothel normal activity, but – "Oh for fuck's sake."

The male and female vamps looked up. Young, weak ones, it seemed; game-face gleamed almost as yellow as the fangs. "Oh, snacks!" the female said, snapping off the bed and onto her feet. Her dress hung open to her waist.

"No, cupcake, we have to set terms. But how wonderful these visitors smell!" the male said, scrambling up after her, almost tripping on his loose trousers. He snaked his hand around the other vamp's waist and grinned. "You two here to pay for a little pleasure, I reckon?"

"Oh, please. Vamp-prostitutes? I don't think so." Anya said. "If you'd just move aside –"

"You don't want to pay us to taste your life? But that's why humans come to Madame Sangre's."

When the female took a step forward, Giles unobtrusively slid his left hand into his jacket pocket. He said pleasantly, "Not always. There's a door behind you, and we need to pass."

"Oh, but that would be a waste. That's not–" The vamp's words cut off as she rushed toward them.

But he'd expected the attack. His handful of crushed laceprig powder went into the vamp's eyes. It was enough to stun, and the creature fell, still game-faced. Easier to stake that way.

Anya's handful went in the male vamp's eyes a few seconds later. He staggered, saying, "What the–" before Giles's stake sent him to join the dust.

Giles's hands tingled, and not from the crushed laceprigs. The adrenaline produced by the short encounter had raised more chaos, with violence licking through his veins. But Anya had already stepped over the unmoving bodies and was at the tunnel door. As she reached into her backpack for the torch: "All right, honey."

"Right." Catching up, he pried open the door; he had to be careful, though, work around the soreness and the ache of what he had and hadn't done.

Her light flashed out, blinding him for a heartbeat, before it illuminated the tunnel to Nalph's. Seemed familiar, one tunnel looking like any other: dry earthen walls and wooden floor, stretching into black.

The odour, however, was new. Worse than outside, like a street full of lost plague victims – "Too much already," she said under her breath.

They had taken only a few steps inside when his boot crunched on the first bone. Her hand caught his, interlacing their fingers, but neither one of them spoke. Memories to live down.

The further they went, the more anonymous demons' bodies they passed. Must have been a sodding busy night once the sleepers had been awakened. He could smell the bitter almond of Pennith mixed with the blood. His backpack weighed more with every step, and the burdens he and Anya carried began to hum.

It couldn't have been as dark as this on the night Henry Giles and Judith Cary had come down the Thames, he thought; his mind's eye showed him the pale drowned faces and the moon shining off a Slayer's sword as they passed familiar landmarks, neared the shore. His Watcher predecessor had made it over the water to the steps. But he'd run from being a Watcher, he reminded himself; the Slayer he'd failed to watch over was somewhere in Mexico with her own charges, and the connections he'd made as Robert Gordon and James Sedgwick were broken. The connections he'd made as Giles the librarian were strained, too; he thought of Willow's words, the way she also had accused him of not caring. Not the equal of Henry Giles, then.

When Anya's fingers tightened on his, however, he also remembered that Henry Giles had died alone. Rupert Giles had new connections and a treasure to protect, and so he would. "Anya," he murmured in the darkness.

"Rupert," she whispered back. It was enough to say each other's names, and they went further into the tunnel.

The wooden door to the Mysterious Emporium, a match to the one in Madame Sangre's, loomed ahead of them, but the torch showed a body heaped against the door. Familiar, somehow –

"That's Pim! Oh, they got Pim too. The earth-demon I told you about." She bent down and shone the light on the battered body, its head dangling at an unnatural angle. "I never wanted him, you know, and he was a demon. Not a good guy. But... but he really wasn't dangerous. He didn't deserve this."

When she looked up at him, he could see the vengeance trace itself under her skin. He kissed her, sharing what she felt, before he said, "Come on, darling."

They broke through the door on the first try, frightening the three Contar demons left standing guard in the shop's private space. Before the sentries could make more than muffled cries, he took out the first with the sword he'd concealed under his coat, slicing through its scales to get to the heart. She threw another handful of crushed laceprig at the second, then pulled a dagger on it when it fell.

The third demon lunged for the door to the outside passage – but Giles caught him and threw him against the wall. When it tried to get up, Giles used his sword again, although this time he wasn't so careful about where he aimed.

The curtain of Ihioo babies's skulls chattered in warning, but no one except them was left to hear.

As she put away her dagger, she whispered, "Where's Nalph? Wasn't he supposed to be here, helping?"

"Can't worry about that. We need to finish."

Kneeling, they put their packs together, then opened them at the same time. The broken Cup, one part his burden and the other hers. stopped humming at the touch of the light. Anya carefully took the vial of Thames water and anointed their hands, like clear water-kisses along the palms and fingers, before pouring the rest into each golden half. Next he reached for the blue elemental powder. Though this time the magick dissolved in the water, they could feel it in their hands, feel it in each depression of the halved Cup.

Without speaking they got up with their burdens and went to the last door. Unlocked, it opened with a touch of Anya's hand.

The wind of lost souls and spirits struck them as soon as they stepped outside. Yeangelt – the woman he'd seen in Body Frontiers, he realised – and Pennith stood inside a circle of shattered glass, on the spot where they had first fallen into this dimension centuries ago. Behind them was a cart still half-full of glass containers, obscuring what looked like a dead boium tree against the brick and stone. An hourglass, almost out, rested on the cart's edge.

Even as Giles and Anya went outside, Pennith raised another glass and dashed it to the ground. On impact the wind heightened, its keening sharp like a scissors blade drawn against silk. Another soul lost, another weakening in dimensional walls.

But after the glass shattered, both Yeangelt and Pennith looked up. "The Beresfords," Pennith said with a hiss.

"These Beresfords are the creatures who hurt you, my Pennith?" She took a step to the edge of the circle, her hands lifting, tying a knot in the air. Giles could feel a slight, distant rope-tug at his neck, feel Anya's flinch. "I have been looking for you everywhere, humans."

"Well, no wonder you didn't find us, because those aren't actually our names," Anya said briskly.

Another glass fell at the other end of the cart; its wheels moved, scraping a few inches against stone while the wind howled louder. The hourglass rocked on its base. Then a broken but familiar voice came from behind the cart, croaking, "What is the password?"

With a rush of what felt like relief, Giles said, "Nalph, there is no password."

The rope-tug on his neck eased when Yeangelt whirled around. "You are more traitorous than we knew, Mikh-creature–"

But at that moment Anya said "Now," and Giles clasped her hand, the connection far stronger than any thread. In the teeth of the wind they brought the broken Cup together in front of them.

The dimensional fabric tore.