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Chapter 9
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Giles narrowed down the origin of the glyphs to human, probably Asian. The difficulty was the numerous languages, many long dead, that used similar pictographic glyphs to express thoughts as well as magic. He was concentrating on the linguistic areas of investigation while Willow looked into magical uses for the glyphs. It would have helped so much if the person who’d put the glyphs under Dawn’s door had included some sort of clue for their intended use.

Willow closed her eyes and sighed as she closed yet another book. "Giles, you got any aspirin? These symbols are making me all headachy and the books just make me see more of ‘em than I started out with. A couple of them would make cool tattoos, though."

"Yes, I quite think we could both do with a short break. There is a bottle of aspirin in my office. Why don’t you go stretch your legs, have a couple of tablets and get a breath of fresh air? We can meet back here in, say, half an hour. I think I’ll give Dawn a call to be certain she’s all right." Giles was haunted by the fear that Dawn would turn up missing as well.

Willow went into Giles’ office and took the pills he had offered. She looked wistfully at the sofa and decided to just lie down and close her eyes for a few minutes. In a beat of a heart, Willow was sound asleep.

Giles entered his office, saw the lovely redhead asleep on his sofa and smiled fondly. The poor girl could use a brief nap and he did have that call to make… He decided to use the telephone in his secretary’s office so he wouldn’t disturb the sleeping witch.

"Dawn, is everything all right there? You sound odd… Oh, yes, I suppose it is rather late. Sorry, yes, 3 a.m. is a trifle early for a wake-up call, I agree… No, no, everything is the same here. No news, that is.
I wanted to be sure you were still fine there. Is Spike back yet? … Yes, well, I’m sure he’s fine. He’s survived far worse than he’s likely to encounter in the file room of a law office, even an evil one.… Yes, I suppose that is redundant. Well, I’ll ring off now and let you get back to sleep then… Good night to you as well, Dawn." Giles sat the phone
down sighed deeply. He opened the cabinet and reached behind the ledgers there for a bottle of single malt he kept for emergencies. A small drink might just be what he needed. Like Willow, he needed some down time and his would come in a shot glass.

Giles began to wonder if they should just call it a night. Perhaps he should just put a blanket over Willow and allow her to continue sleeping for a few hours. He eyed the chair in horror at the thought of the back
pain he would likely have if he decided to sleep in it.

Before he could decide what to do, Willow awoke.

"Giles! I thought someone was here with me. Guess it was you, huh?" She raised her hand to brush back her hair and noticed for the first time the slip of paper clutched in her hand. It had one word on it, in plain
print: Nepal. "What’s this?"

Giles had no answer for her. He had been in the outer office and no one else had been there or in the office where Willow had napped. "Perhaps you wrote a note to yourself before you lay down for your nap", he
suggested.

"No, no! I was totally note-free, I swear". Willow looked at the mysterious note as if it would spring to life and attack her. "Okie dokie, getting a little freaked out now. Notes under the door is one thing; notes put in my hand while I’m in sleep land, not so much.
Giles, I think we probably need to focus on the mystical with this."

"Indeed. What is it that’s written there, Willow?"

"It just says ‘Nepal’. Maybe it’s a clue about where those glyphs come from. Do you have that compendium on Tibetian mystical charms here?" Willow was suddenly quite awake.

"Yes, it’s actually on the shelf behind you. I was looking into something for our slayer there just last month and hadn’t gotten around to replacing it in the library", Giles offered.

Willow located the book and rapidly looked through the index for illustrations of talismans and magically powered symbols. Turning to the indicated chapter, she had the first bit of success all night. "Eureka! By George, I think we’ve got it!"

~~~
Dawn wasn’t able to get back to sleep after Giles called to check on her. She decided to get up and make a pot of tea while she waited for Spike to get back. She found herself looking nervously toward the front door, half expecting another envelope to be there. The floor remained bare.

Spike got back around a quarter to 4, entering the apartment as quietly as possible so as to not disturb Dawn. "Hey Spike, how’d it go with the evil empire?"

Spike jumped slightly and clutched his unbeating heart. "Bloody hell, Bit. Give a fella a heart attack you would, providin’ I was livin’ of course. It went okay. I didn’t find where Buffy is, sod it all, but made copies of lots of files on her and that wanker she’s been datin’. Figured we’d go through ‘em and find out more. I can always have myself another
date if I need more information. Gotta send some flowers or somthin’ to the not-so-little lady to keep that door open in case we need it."

Dawn accepted the pile of papers Spike took from the lining of his coat and went to the kitchen with them. "So, how do you plan on explaining why your date went to sleep on you, loverboy? That can’t be good for your reputation." Dawn snickered a bit.

"Hey! If I HAD been seducin’ the bint, she’d still be awake and keeping her neighbors up, too! Figure I’ll say she must have been tired and what with the wine and all, fell asleep. Me, bein’ the gentleman I am, left her to get her rest. Probably need to call her in the morning, though, along with the flowers. Don’t want any suspicion or to make any new enemies.
Besides, she’s a nice lady. I’m thinkin’ of introducin’ her to the Watcher."

Dawn gave Spike a smirk and laughed at the idea of Giles dating the notoriously uninhibited Italian lawyer. "Yeah, like he’d date anyone YOU fixed him up with", she snorted.

"I’ve got great taste in women, I’ll have you know. Giles needs someone to look out for him that way. Gonna get as sour as those old watchers if he doesn’t get rescued by someone. Could use my guidance and good taste."

"One word for you pal: Dru!" Dawn broke into gales of laughter at the look on Spike’s face. "Oh, don’t pout! She picked you, you didn’t pick her. Come on, let’s see what you got here."

They laid copies of the files on the table and spread them out for both of them to see what he’d found. Dawn picked up the pile on The Immortal and began to thumb through, stopping to read from time to time.

Spike began to leaf through the pages about Buffy and saw that they had information going back even before she was called as the Slayer. The information was more in-depth after she began her relationship with Angel, then rather sketchy after he moved to L.A.. There seemed to be an effort to fill in the blanks at some point after Spike had returned to Sunnydale with his soul.

The main interest seemed to be Buffy’s relationship with souled vampires. ‘Must be because of their interest in turnin’ Angel evil’, Spike thought. He’d heard stories about the campaign on the part of the Senior Partners to manipulate Angel. He wasn’t sure why their interest picked up again with his winning his soul back. Spike hadn’t even contacted Angel until the bleedin’ amulet coughed him up in the Poof’s office.

"Whoa, man! What is it with my sister and old guys?!" Dawn looked horrified.

"Hey! I’m not as old as Angel, I’ll have you know. I prefer to think of myself as well-aged, anyway." Spike looked more than a little hurt by Dawn’s comment.

"Not you, silly. I never remember you’re old anyway; you’re such a juvenile delinquent. You’re more like guys Buffy’s age. Yeah, Angel was old and acted it, too! I remember how he was always all, ‘I know what’s best because I’m Mr. Experience here’ and Buffy let him make decisions … geesh! I was talking about Eduardo the truly Immortal! He makes Angel look like a kid."

Spike snorted, remembering the obvious lies that buggering bastard had told about himself to enhance his image among the impressionable.

"No, really! They have the documents here. He was born ...."

Dawn’s reading was cut off by Spike’s interruption. "Let me guess, he was one of the bleedin’ apostles followin’ Jesus about in Palestine."

"Wrong again. Just shut up for a minute and I’ll share. You’re supposed to be a good example to me, so stop being rude! According to these church
registers in the file, he was born in 1580. He was named Marcello de’Medici. His father never married his mom, but claimed him and let him take his last name. His dad was Francesco de’Medici, the oldest son of Cosimo. He was the one the made the family important in Tuscany, with their hands in everything from politics and business to art. They were a really powerful family."

"I’m familiar with that bit of history, thanks. Don’t know all the details, but the name brings a few things back from my education. If the old man claimed him, he must have been part of the family business, too. Might explain the wealth and connections, but not the whole immortality thing."

Spike remembered how Marcello’s family had sponsored some of the most gloriously beautiful art to come out of that part of the world. Florence was still filled with the results of their patronage. His inner William felt a pang of envy that Marcello might have been around to see such beauty being created. ‘Bloody wanker would probably claim to have posed for some of those sculptures’, he thought.

"Looks like he worked in the banking part of the family business. He was pretty good at it, I guess, and the Wolfram & Hart partners used that bank to handle their money. That’s where they seem to connect. Hmm … Looks like he got passed over for inheritance when his daddy died. His uncle became the big shot. Marcello was seriously pissed at that! Looks like he signed some kind of deal with W&H about that time."

"Now you’re cookin’, Niblet! What did he promise for his soul, what did he get?" Spike was interested now. He gave Dawn his full attention, putting aside the files he’d been glancing through.

"I don’t find anything about what they got from him. He seems to have promised to return a favor whenever they called it in, but nothing specific in these files. He made out like a bandit though! He stopped
aging, hence the immortal part, and got rapid healing in case he gets hurt or has an accident or something. He also got to screw over his family. They went into a decline from that time on and lost most of their power eventually. He just got richer and richer." Dawn shook her head in amazement at the balance sheet of Eduardo’s current worth.

"So what’d they finally ask from him?" Spike was afraid the price tag included Buffy.

"Nothing in the files about him having to return the favor yet. God, this is like that scene in ‘The Godfather’, you know when that guy came in to ask a favor of Don Corleone and later had to fix up Sonny’s body for the funeral." Dawn shivered at the thought of what an evil like W&H would ask for their help. She was pretty certain it wouldn’t involve anything as tame as the funeral director had to do in the movie!

There’s lots of stuff in here telling things Marcello/Eduardo did over the years. They kept close tabs on him. It’ll take a while to go through it all. You find anything interesting in Buffy’s file? And can I just say how creepy it is, knowing they have a file on her?"

"Nothin’ I didn’t already know. Lots of general stuff. Most of the details are about her love life, excludin’ Finn." Spike was pleased to see the human boyfriend not being deemed worthy of an entry in Buffy’s file.

"Can I just say ewwwww again? Anything about me in there?" Dawn wasn’t sure which would be worse, to be noted enough for W&H to have included information on her or to have been considered so unimportant as to be
ignored.

"Mentions you as her sis and a cross reference to a file on the Key. Wish I’d known that. I would’ve picked up that file, too. Guess I’ll have to have another date after all. Probably more than one, if I don’t want her to catch on. Wouldn’t do to have her fall asleep twice in a row. Gonna have to come up with another brilliant idea for the next time, yeah?
We need to make a list of any files I need to look for the next time. I don’t think I can promise more than one more try at getting what we need."

Just as the sun was rising and the pair were getting ready to call it a day, the phone rang.

"Hello, Summers residence. Dawn speaking. Oh, hi, Giles. Sorry if I was all grumpy when you called earlier. I was having a great dream about Orlando Bloom when you woke me. Spike’s back, by the way."

Giles debated whether he should indulge his desire to have little to do with the vampire, or be a grownup and just ask to speak with him. He sighed and asked, "Would you put him on then, please? Oh, and Dawn,
please be extra careful. Whoever it was that followed you and slipped the note under your door is still about. There may be more than one person involved as we’ve had a bit of a note ourselves. Since we aren’t sure of the motives or source, be on guard, dear."

Dawn assured Giles that she would make certain to be on alert and handed the phone to Spike. Then she waved good-night to her vampire and headed for bed.

"Watcher. You got something?"

"Yes, actually we think we do. Those glyphs turned out to be Tibetian in origin. Some sort of ward that prevents mystical detection. Willow thinks she can make some talismans from them and they may be useful for us. They would ensure secrecy, at least from any supernatural source. We would still need to exercise discretion in our conversations and be on alert for more traditional spying methods. It could come in handy to place the symbols on the walls to protect our homes and office. We still are in the dark about who could have passed the glyphs to Dawn or what the motive might be."

"Not that I don’t find all that interesting, mate, but what the bleedin’ hell are you talking about? Dawn didn’t say anything about any glyphs. You might want to start from the beginning or wait ‘til I go in there and shake the answers out of Sleeping Beauty." Spike reminded himself to give Dawn a sound yelling-at in the morning for holding back something so obviously important that the Watcher was involved.

"Well, in a nutshell, Dawn was followed home yesterday while you were out. When she got home, she engaged the bolt and called me. By the time she rang off, there was an envelope on the floor that had obviously been pushed under the door. It was a single sheet of paper with pictographic symbols on it. There was no explanation and no sign of who put the envelope under the door. She quite rightly faxed a copy to me and we began research at once. We weren’t getting very far in the research when Willow took a brief nap. Upon awakening, she discovered someone or something had placed a slip of paper in her hands with ‘Nepal’ written on it. That led to our discovery of the meaning behind the glyphs. I can’t imagine why Dawn didn’t tell you about being followed."

"I can. Bint likely knows I won’t let her out of my sight now! Tie her up while I’m out if I have to", Spike muttered.

"I doubt you’ll need to go to that extreme, Spike. She was properly shaken and will certainly be quite careful."

"Damned right she will! Anything else from your end?" Spike listened as Giles relayed the information Xander had collected. Spike then passed on the information he and Dawn had gathered from their own investigations.

"So, looks like I need to turn the charm on again and get back into those files one more time. I don’t like leadin’ the lady on like this, but she does work for Evil, Inc." Spike concluded as he finished telling the Watcher his plans.

"That’s precisely the way I felt when you and Angel were connected to Wolfram & Hart in L.A.", Giles said. It felt good to feel some vindication for his attitude the previous year. Willow had read him the riot act and Spike had been acting morally superior as well. It wouldn’t do to let matters stand that way.

"Least you knew us, could at least ASK what we were up to", Spike reminded him. "’Sides, not like Ilona’s asking for help savin’ a life and we’re turnin’ her down flat. Just don’t feel good leadin’ the lady on’s all. Not gonna kill her or even hurt her feelin’s if I can help it. Don’t try weaselin’ out of what you let happen, old man. Not the same thing."

Giles coughed and decided not to reply to that. "Well. I suppose that’s all until any of us has further information. I’ll be sending the talismans to the two of you as soon as Willow has put them together. Meanwhile, it would be advisable to copy the glyphs onto the doors and windows of Dawn’s apartment. She has the paper that was slipped to her.
I assume you have the ability to copy them?"

"Not a useless wanker, ‘course I can copy some symbols! Any more insults before I ring off?" Spike rolled his eyes at Giles’ attitude.

"Tell Dawn I’ll call her later today after we’ve all had a chance to get a bit of a rest. Spike, I don’t mean to stir things up with you. Years of habit, I suppose. Perhaps it would be best to start with a fresh slate between us. If we’re to be deserving of Buffy’s love and, more to the point, be successful in finding her, we need to get along. For what it’s
worth, I am sorry that my judgment was flawed regarding Angel…and you. I am dreadfully sorry for that young woman dying. I don’t know that we could have helped, but I am sorry we didn’t try. When this is all resolved, we will likely need to clear the air between us on many issues. Suffice that we plan on it and achieve a truce for now?"

Spike was still as a mouse. Had the Watcher nearly apologized? To HIM? He blinked several times and then realized he hadn’t replied. "Right. For Buffy. Guess that’d be best all round. Suppose I can do anything needed for her. Truce then, might even find it in me to be civil on occasion. I’ll tell Dawn…and don’t worry about her, I’ll take care of her like she was my own. Love her too, you know."

"Yes, Spike, I’m beginning to see that. Be careful with this Ilona woman. And good luck."

Spike was gobsmacked--a near apology and well-wishing from Giles! This must be an apocolypse! Be just his luck to start getting on well with all the Scoobies only to have Buffy tell him to get lost, he thought. Seeing how it looked like she didn’t know he had returned from burning up in Sunnydale, she’d likely be furious with him. Just needed to get his Slayer back so she could kick his ass proper, if that’s what she wanted to do.