"Willow's made a second wish already," Azriel cried. She popped out of D'Hoffryn's chambers for a moment. When she returned she laughed till she cried. "She didn't even realize she made the wish."

Anyanka clapped her hands. "What was the wish?"

"She wished that everyone would quit making such a big deal out of her first wish." Azriel grinned. "One more, Master."

D'Hoffryn smiled with evil benevolence. "Time for you to take your place, Anyanka."

"Yes, Master." Anyanka bowed to the head vengeance demon. "I am yours to command."

Anyanka popped out of D'Hoffryn's chambers and onto a Sunnydale street. She was stylish dressed with a resume in her hand. Anyanka hummed a merry tune as she started off towards the Magic Box. She entered the store in question where she marched up to Giles and stated, "My name is Anya Jenkins, and you need me."

"I-I do?" Giles stammered. He glanced at Tara and Lydia.

"Yes, you do!" Anya gestured at the shelves. "If you want to look successful you need a good employee that not only knows your stock, but will give you good orgasms."

"What?" Giles stared at the pretty, but exceedingly blunt young woman in astonishment. It had been a while since he'd been intimate with anyone, but he never expected a woman to come right out and say she'd have sex with him.

"As you can see I have extensive knowledge of the supernatural." Anya handed the resume to Giles. She went around to the shelves, and she rearranged some of the merchandise more safely. "Yes, you really do need me, Mr. Giles. I will start first thing in the morning."

"Um, huh?" Giles watched as the energetic whirlwind swept out of the shop. The Englishman turned to Tara and Lydia. "What just happened?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow pounded on Jesse's apartment door. It took several minutes before the sleepy disheveled young man answered the door.

"Is Faith here?" Willow blurted out.

Jesse gave Willow an odd look. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he hissed. He looked over his shoulder before he stepped out of the apartment. "Are you mental or something?"

"I may have made a teeny, weenie wish tonight." Willow blushed under Jesse's scrutiny. "A vengeance demon granted it, and Giles wigged."

"What was the wish?" Jesse grabbed Willow's arms, and he leaned into her face. If she had anything to do with the kiss he had shared with Hope, she would be very sorry. "How have you fucked up our lives this time?"

Willow cringed in fear. Jesse didn't look anything like her childhood friend now. "I-I just wished that Faith would come back from the dead is all. You should be ecstatic because I think it worked. Her gave was disturbed like someone crawled out of it."

"How could you do that to her?" Jesse pushed the redhead away from him. "To us? Do you even know what crawled out? She could be a vamp, a zombie, or something worse now!"

Willow gasped in horror. "Angel went to check on her, and he's gone too. What have I done?" She covered her mouth with her hands.

"You never think about the consequences of your actions, Willow." Jesse gave his longtime friend a cold look.

"Well, it isn't like she was in Heaven," Willow protested.

"You don't know that! You need to quit doing stupid, irresponsible things!" Jesse stepped back into the apartment, and he shut the door in Willow's face. The young man leaned his forehead against the wood. He sobbed for the first time since Faith had died.

"So, Faith's back," Hope said quietly from the hallway. "Well, ain't life grand in that Hellmouth-y kinda way."

"You're awake," Jesse said unnecessarily.

"I heard the knocking." Hope licked her lips in nervousness. She had something to tell Jesse, but she wasn't sure how he'd react. "I received an offer to attend Oxford. I'm going to accept it."

"What?" Jesse turned to stare at Hope. "No, don't do that, Hope. Faith will need you. I'll need you. I can't do this alone."

"What you don't need is me getting in the way." Hope shook her head. "I won't be like Willow and come between you and Faith like she tried to do with Xander and Cordelia."

"That's not why they left," Jesse protested. "Cordy wanted to become an actress."

"Oh, wake up and smell the ultimatum!" Hope scoffed. "Willow's exactly why they left. She finally decided to go after Xander even though they were dating other people. If only she had done that before Xander was dating Cordelia, maybe things would be different."

"How do you know this stuff?" Jesse shouted. He didn't want to believe what Hope was saying. "You didn't even exist then."

Hope bit her lip to stem the words that threatened to spill forth. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and replied, "I'll make my arrangements in the morning. I love you, Jesse. I really do, but Faith needs you. Good night." She turned towards her bedroom.

Jesse watched Hope walk down the hall. His emotions were conflicted. He loved Faith, and before her death he had planned on asking her to marry him. He had barely started to come to terms with her death. Now he was faced with this mess. Jesse knew he loved Hope just as equally as he did Faith. He wondered if he had always loved them both that way.

"What am I going to do?" Jesse muttered. He went to his bedroom. He needed to change his clothes to go look for Faith. "Things are so fucked up!" he grumbled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spike and Buffy showed up at Joyce's place a couple of hours before sunrise for an early breakfast. There was plenty to talk about for the three core members of the Summers' team. Joyce fixed bacon, eggs, pancakes with syrup, coffee, and blood for Spike. They were about to sit down when there was a quiet knock at the door.

Joyce answered the door. She found Tara standing on the other side. The young woman shifted nervously under the older woman's gaze.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Tara asked softly. "I know it's really early, but I wanted to talk to Buffy."

"Of course not." Joyce smiled. "We were just about to have breakfast. You're welcome to join us." She stepped aside to welcome the younger woman inside.

"Oh ... um ... that'd be nice." Tara stepped inside the apartment. She smiled at Spike and Buffy. "I was hoping to catch you guys."

"Everybody dish up," Joyce announced as she closed the door. "Then, we'll talk."

They filled their plates with food. Tara was surprised at the amount of food on Spike's plate. She had always thought that vampires didn't eat food after they were turned. Angel certainly never ate human food. She wondered what else was different about the two vampires.

"So, Glinda, what did you want to talk to us about?" Spike asked. He took a bite of pancake.

Buffy and Joyce looked at each other. Spike gave the shy Wicca a nice enough nickname. They both knew that meant he liked the young woman. Usually he was a pretty good judge of character and anyone that would be a danger to them. They went back to their food.

"Well, uh, last night, after you all left, Willow made a little wish for Faith to come back from the dead," Tara whispered. She wasn't sure how the new Slayer was going to take the news. Buffy was an unknown entity. She had only come to Sunnydale because Faith was dead.

Buffy dropped her fork. "Well, I guess that explains what we felt last night or rather what Spike felt. I was just along for the ride."

"Was the wish successful?" Joyce asked in a concerned voice.

"Willow showed up at our place a few hours ago. She said that the gravesite was disturbed." Tara sighed. "Angel went to check on the spot before Willow did. He's disappeared."

"He was obsessed with her, wasn't he?" Spike asked. He put down his fork as well.

"A little, but Faith was never interested. She and Jesse have been dating since she moved here." Tara thought about how close Faith and Jesse had been before Faith's death.

"It's too close to daylight, damn it," Buffy grumbled. "We can't track Angelus until dusk."

"Angelus always liked to keep a secret lair," Spike speculated. "When Darla and Dru got to be too much for him, he'd sneak off for a few days."

"Fred can look up property deeds for the most likely places when she's pulling up blueprints," Joyce said. "I better call her now before we forget." She rose from the table.

"H-how was patrol?" Tara asked to fill the void.

"It was good." Buffy nodded. "The demons were surprised to see us. Other than that, it was good. There's a couple of vamp whorehouses to burn down though."

"One might be a mite harder to burn than the others," Spike grunted. "It's run by some fledge named Finn. He appears to have a military background."

"Riley's a vamp?" Tara asked. The surprise was evident in her features. "We thought he left town at the same time the Initiative did." She realized that both Spike and Buffy tensed up at her words. "What did I say?"

"The Initiative is here in Sunnydale?" Buffy asked. She was suddenly worried for Dot. The young werewolf had a history with that particular group.

"No! They're gone, I swear." Tara reassured the worried Slayer. "It's just that Riley was a nice enough guy, you know. I wonder how he got turned."

Spike and Buffy glanced at each other. They hated to shatter this innocent young woman's view of the world.

"Vamp whorehouses usually cater to those humans who become addicted to the biting," Buffy said carefully. "I can only assume that's what happened to Finn. Maybe he got bit once in a fight accidently, and then he went back for more later on purpose."

"I-I didn't know that." Tara blushed. "I was always under the impression that all the bites hurt."

"Most times vamps don't care and they do," Spike replied. "The pain and fear feeds the demon, but it doesn't have to." He gave Buffy a lusty leer.

"Oh." Tara saw Buffy's blush. "Oh! I didn't realize. I didn't realize you were together like that. Are you mated?"

"I don't think Lydia's ready for that info." Buffy bit her lip. Her hand inched across the table to Spike's hand. "We were both in very bad places when we found each other." She remembered distinctly how depressed both she and Spike were when they met.

"The scared little Slayer you were expectin' to show up actually disappeared years ago," Spike agreed.

Buffy gave an indignant huffy. "I was never scared. I was confused, angry, and ready to pummel whoever was responsible for all the terrible changes in my life, but never scared."

"Yes, you should have seen her." Joyce had returned from making her phone call. "Hank and I were already headed towards a divorce by that time. Buffy refused to let him drag her into the middle."

"Your ex is a git," Spike muttered. He never had any respect for males -- human, demon, or otherwise -- that abandoned their women.

"I agree." Joyce gave the vampire a smile before she turned to Buffy. "Fred should have some results in a few hours."

"That's our Fred," Buffy replied. "Always on top of it."

"We'll get together at dusk." Spike glanced at Tara. "You're welcome to join us, Glinda. Bring the Watcher if you'd like."

"Which Watcher? We appear to have several," Tara asked with a giggle.

"Rupes, of course. I don't think that other one is too happy with us." Spike went back to his breakfast.

"Au contraire," Tara giggled again. "She wants an interview. Apparently she did her thesis on the Scourge of Europe. In fact, she hopes she didn't make you too mad to talk to her."

Spike goggled at the Wicca. "You've got to be kidding me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wesley rose to his feet to greet Leticia Dobbins, an agent of the Sunnydale branch of a national chain of real estate company. He had already given the woman the must haves that their group required. The woman had oozed enthusiasm when she had learned that money was no object.

"Mr. Pryce. I'm so glad to meet you." Leticia put out her hand in greeting. When she had heard the Brit's accent she had been intrigued. Now that she saw him in person, she was even more intrigued.

Wes noticed the speculative look on the woman's face, but he chose to ignore it. "Hello, Ms. Dobbins. Were you able to find a house that suits my party's needs?"

Leticia gave a mental sigh. This one's all business. Such a shame. She took a stack of files out of her briefcase. "Each one of these houses has many of the amenities that you requested, but this one... " She pulled a thick file from the pile. "This one is perfect for your group. It's called Skald Hill Manor."

"Skald Hill Manor? It has a name?" Wesley asked. "Is it an estate?"

"All haunted houses have names. Didn't you know that?" Leticia replied. She gave a nervous chuckle. "But of course... haunted houses... HOGWASH!"

"Indeed." Wesley didn't feel like informing the young woman that he didn't think it was hogwash at all. "Tell me about this manor."

"Skald Hill Manor was completed in 1848 by William Jamison for his bride Elizabeth. They were killed three short years later while on a business trip in San Francisco." Leticia opened the file. "The house has passed through several Jamison relatives until a decade ago when the house went on the market."

"A decade? Is it in disrepair?" Wesley was worried about the house being in bad shape.

"Oh, no. There's been a caretaker hired by the Jamison estate to ensure the upkeep." Leticia had contacted the man just that morning to make sure he was doing his job.

"The price?" Wesley nodded when Leticia quoted a number. "We need to inspect the house first, of course. If everything is in order, we'll look into purchasing the Manor."

"Oh, how delightful." Leticia clapped her hands. "When would you like to take a tour?"

"It'll have to be late. Will 10 p.m. be okay with you?" Wesley glanced at Buffy's schedule.

"That is late." Leticia bit her lip. She was going to complain until she realized the size of the commission she'd receive for the sale. "I can do that. No problem. I'll just have to take a nap is all."

Wesley copied down Skald Hill Manor's address in his appointment book. He shook Leticia's hand before he left the woman's presence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow woke suddenly from a bad dream. She reached for Tara, but her girlfriend wasn't in the bed.

"Tara?" Willow called out, but she received no answer. She rolled over to find a note on the dresser next to her. "'Will, I needed to talk to Buffy. I'll be back by lunch. Love you, Tara'."

Willow threw the note down on the floor in a fit of anger. She climbed to her feet, and she walked naked towards the bathroom, forgoing her usual bathrobe.

"Why is Tara talking to them? I've got to change this!" Willow went into the bathroom.

The red-haired witch didn't feel the presence of Azriel or the vengeance demon's whispers in her ear. Azriel chuckled to herself. Hoffy never said anything about undue influence. If she could hurry the third wish along in some way, then the sooner Willow Rosenberg's soul could belong to the Master of the vengeance demons.

"This is all wrong," Willow grumbled. She turned on the shower, and she stepped under the warm water. "Maybe if Buffy was called first, we wouldn't be having these problems." She thought about her spell books as she bathed. "I bet if Buffy was the Slayer first, then Faith and I will be great buddies."

With that in mind, Willow finished her shower.