Chapter 1.12

Wesley was first through the bookstore's doors. Instantly, he was surrounded by the familiar slightly musty smell of old books and also by the less pleasant scent of cat's urine. Display cases lined the right hand wall, containing all sorts of curios, and the remainder of the shop seemed filled with waist-high stacks of books and papers. He made his way to the counter, while Fred, Gunn and Connor spread out as much as they could amongst the room's cramped shelves. The sound of the shop's bell drew the shop's proprietor from the back room behind the main shop.

"Good day, gentleman... and lady," the withered-looking old man amended his greeting as Fred straightened up from behind a stack of books whose titles she had been scanning. "How can I help you young people?"

It was difficult to believe that this apparently frail, slightly cross-eyed and myopic old man could represent the sort of threat that Buffy had warned him of. Wesley pulled a photograph from his pocket and placed it on the counter.

Cordelia and Groo smiled up at both of them. The photograph dated back to the vacation that the pair had shared. They looked happy. They looked like they belonged together. "Our friends are missing. We heard that possibly Groo might have contacted you about finding a way home." Wesley pointed to the smiling champion.

"Hmm." The man picked up the picture, taking off his glasses and holding the photo close to his face. "Hmm. Yes. He looked rather different. Not quite so cheerful, you might say." He replaced the image on the counter.

"So you remember him?" Wesley pressed for information.

"The lights may look dim, but that doesn't mean that there's nobody home. He wanted to go to some place called Pylea, that's right?" the man confirmed.

"There's a strong likelihood that that would be the case," Wes responded. "Did you help him get there?"

"Not yet. I advised him to take a vacation," the old man began to hunt through some stacks of books and papers until he found what he was looking for.

He pulled a glossy colour brochure from the midst of one of the stacks. He flipped it open at a page that was marked by a bright pink post-it note. "The book he needs comes up for auction in just over three months time. I told him, if he wanted, I'd be happy to act as an agent for him in the auction. In the meantime, I suggested that he should see some of the sights, round here."

"So Groo is still in this plane?"

"Can't say for sure. We never came to any definite arrangement. I think he was hoping he might find another copy somewhere else. The prices were running a little rich for his blood. Though your young friend there would be the one to speak to about that. The Destroyer's such a cruel nickname for a child to have to live with. Never mind."

"What sort of price are we talking about?" Wes asked.

"For the book? I'd say around twenty thousand. It's one of the cheaper pieces, but it's ten thousand just to get through the door on the day. Discourages the looky-loos, you see."

"I'm guessing that this isn't your run of the mill book sale, then?"

"No, by no means." The demon flipped the brochure shut. "Some of the items are priceless, though, of course, since we are talking about an auction, one shouldn't take the word literally."

* * * * *

Buffy, Willow, Tara, Clem and Lily loitered in front of a shop window about thirty feet from the bookstore on the same side. Every few seconds, Buffy would throw a hopeful glance at Clem, who had an earpiece firmly inserted under one floppy ear. The demon was relaying the conversation between the pair inside the shop. The remainder of her time was spent pacing back and forth.

"Maybe we should just go in now?" she suggested.

"Patience. You and William too the same," Lily chided.

* * * * *

"But as far as you know, Groo was likely to be in this dimension for another few months?"

"It certainly seemed so. That's not the sort of book you find in the local library, you know."

Wes was grateful that the old man didn't realise just how wrong his last comment was, otherwise he was sure that the volume would rather rapidly go missing. "Well, in that case we may be looking at a different problem. We haven't had any luck using any of the standard location spells. We had thought it might be because he had already travelled to another plane, but it may be that his location is being warded to prevent magical detection."

"Let's see." The old man wandered out from behind the counter and into the main shop. The man paused near Fred, bending to scan titles on one of the lower shelves. "Heillige's Counterspells and Enchantments." He pulled a fairly hefty leather-bound volume from the middle of the stack. "That should have what you need, though you may need to try a few different spells before you find one that works. There's quite a few different ways that these wards work and they all have to be countered differently."

"How much is it?"

The old man pulled a strip of paper from between the pages of the volume and checked that the title and edition matched before he quoted the price to the Englishman. "It's a hundred and twenty bucks, but if you want to bring it back after you've used it, then you can keep the receipt and I'll give you eighty bucks for it, provided it's still in the same condition."

When Wesley made no demurral the old man carried the book to the counter and set it down, beginning to wrap it up with a double layer of thick brown paper and twine.

"And if he has found another way to leave this dimension?"

"Then, I suspect he'll probably stay lost." The old man pointed at the brochure's cover. "That," he said, "is the only way I know of to find something or someone who's lost in another dimension. And I expect it to go for a considerable sum."

"What is it?" Wesley asked.

"That, is the Axis of Pythia. It's also conservatively valued at thirty-three million dollars."

"In that case, we'd best hope that our friend's location is merely warded."

"If I were you, I would certainly hope so," The aged demon confirmed.

"Well, I suppose I'd best just pay you for the book and that will conclude our business." Wesley reached for his wallet. "I'm afraid I've only got fifty in cash. Will you take a personal cheque?"

* * * * *

"Whoa, Wes is done. We can go," Clem announced.

Buffy looked across to the two witches. "Ready?"

The two girls nodded and clasped hands to form a very small circle. Clem and Lily carried the weapons for those already in the shop, while Buffy carried only the broadsword she herself would use. She burst into the shop like a small tornado.

'Doc' immediately lashed out toward her with his tongue, and Buffy ducked underneath the strike, whilst simultaneously twisting her wrist so that the broadsword swept round in a circle that caused the last foot of the demon's tongue to drop to the floor.

Unwittingly, Buffy echoed Spike's words on the tower. "Can't a guy stay dead when you push him off a tower, these days?"

"And you would be in a position to talk?" the demon responded apparently unimpaired by his injury, even as he leapt toward the door that was only just beginning to shut behind Lily and Clem.

"Yeah, well, I just couldn't bear the thought that you were still walking around. Had to come back and do something about it."

"The feeling's mutual, I'm sure. What happened to your pet vampire by the way? I don't suppose he was fortuitous enough to land on, say, a nice wooden fence when he fell?" the demon taunted from atop a stack of books.

"Nope. He has gone missing, though. Good of you to help us out with that counterspell thing, though I guess Spike'll be disappointed at not getting a piece of your hide for himself. I think you might have pissed him off."

The demon leapt at Clem and Lily who dove to either side out of his way. From his position on the floor Clem slid Gunn's axe toward him, so that he had only to stoop slightly to pick it up. 'Doc' pulled the door open, convinced that nothing now stood between him and freedom, only to collide sharply with a solid wall of fresh air.

The demon found himself cornered with Buffy approaching from one flank, Gunn on the other and Connor taking the same approach, leaping from stack to stack, that the demon had taken himself.

"Can't we just let bygones be bygones?" the demon with the face of an old man suggested.

Buffy shook her head slightly. "Even if we could, which, seeing as how you tried to sacrifice my sister and turn this and every world into a living hell, is a big no, by the way, I don't really think that I want you using this pithy-thing to find out where your little hell-bitch ended up when she couldn't live in Ben any more."

The demon sighed. "Religious intolerance is such a waste of everybody's time and effort I've always thought."

"But sometimes it just feels so good," Buffy quipped.

"Are you two going to exchange witty repartee all day, or can we just kill him now?" Gunn asked.

"Well, either way suits me." Wes, having safely stowed away the book that they needed and reclaimed his axe from Lily, moved to join the others who formed a quarter circle around the demon at the shop's door.

The demon made a last desperate bid for freedom, trying to knock Connor, the only one of his assailants that was unarmed, out of the way. However, the youngster was quicker than he anticipated managed to grab his arm and swing him back into the area encircled by Buffy and the others. As the demon collided with the shop door, Buffy lunged and pierced his heart from behind.

As she expected the demon fell to the floor, and his strange blue blood began to pool around him. She had to admit that it was convincing. She nodded to Wesley, who brought down his axe, severing the head from the body in a single stroke. He passed the axe to Buffy and picked up the demon's head by the curly white hair. Buffy followed him through to the back of the shop. It seemed that even spring in California was too cold for the blue-blooded demon, for just like in his old apartment a coal fire burned in the old-fashioned tile fireplace.

Wesley tossed the offending item into the flames. Buffy wasn't surprised when the head seemed to stir slightly as it burned, but she was glad that this time she was spared the sight of the shrivelling eyeballs and the silent scream. Events differed from how they had unfolded in Spike's nightmare in that the head had landed facing the back of the fireplace.

"I've never come across that particular species before. How did you know what to do to kill him?"

Buffy glanced over to the grim-faced ex-Watcher. She decided that the simplest explanation was probably best. "Spike told me."

As they made their way back through to the main shop Wesley's cell-phone began to ring.

* * * * *

Spike pulled his leather duster from the closet, noticing the light that shone through multiple holes in the back of it as he swung it round to put it on.

"For crying out loud, Dru. You could have at least got the coat fixed while I've been laid up."

Drusilla began to bluster and Spike rushed to apologise before the tears hit. He cupped her face between his hands.

"I'm sorry, love. I'm a nasty, evil, bad-tempered man. It's not your fault. C'mon, love. Finish getting dressed and we'll go out. We'll take you somewhere nice and you'll have a special treat."

"Can we go to Paris? I want to go in the boats on the Seine."

"We can go anywhere you want, my dark beauty, my moonlit rose." He used his hands to tilt her face toward his as he ducked his head to claim a kiss: a soft, tender, seemingly endless kiss that spoke of mutual devotion. When their lips finally parted they stood forehead to forehead, Spike's palms still resting gently against her cheeks. "Next week, we'll leave for France, but first there's a few loose ends to be tied up." His lips met hers again in a brief caress. "Okay?"

"Will Daddy come with us?" Dru asked.

"I don't know, pet." Spike's hands dropped to his sides. He didn't raise his voice, but there was a core of steel to it that hadn't been there before. 'With any luck,' he thought to himself, 'if he does, it'll be in a bloody urn.'

Spike held out Dru's coat for her, sliding his left arm around her waist and drawing her against his left side, he rested his cheek against hers. "C'mon, pet. I know just how to celebrate your return to health."

Lindsey, Drusilla and Spike waited for dusk in the cabin's small library. A phone call to Lindsey's informants had confirmed that the combined group seemed to be carrying on as normal during daylight hours, only seeming to worry about the possibility of attack or being observed after dusk. At present, it appeared that Angel and the unidentified female were alone in the hotel. All the others had gone to some junk shop downtown. Lindsey noted the number for the shop before he hung up the phone.

He dialled the number and waited for a reply. "It would seem that the staff are indisposed. I suppose we'll have to use the more direct route."

He pulled open the top drawer of the desk at which he sat and extracted the pad, which was normally kept at the hotel's reception desk. He flipped the pages until he found a list of cell phone numbers, and dialled the first one.

"Wesley Wyndham-Price."

"Wesley, I hope Mr Holliday was able to help you."

Wesley moved to the front of the shop and scanned the area for anyone who might be watching their movements.

"Who is this?" he demanded.

"Oh, I think you know. Tell the slayer if she isn't at the Hyperion with Angel an hour after dusk, then a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt unnecessarily. See you then."

Spike smiled as the phone slid back into the cradle, not noticing Drusilla's agitation at the mention of the slayer's name.

"It looks like we've got a date, princess. How about that?"