CHAPTER 25: Going to war

Buffy was sprawled across the bed on her stomach, naked. One arm was thrown across Spike's chest and her head was resting on it. The sheets were tangled and wrinkled; the result of hours of lovemaking. She looked at her lover with sleep laden eyes.

"You think it will work?"

The question confirmed what Spike already knew: the distraction he'd offered had only worked temporarily and she was still worried.

"Yes, luv, I think it will work," he said truthfully.

"I wonder if Xander will show up tomorrow morning. I left two messages but he didn't call me back."

Spike rolled his eyes. "It's not like the Whelp would be of much help. His only expertise is in the boring jokes that nobody gets department."

"Spike..." She warned.

"Sorry, can't get over the way he treated you. The boy should learn to mind his own business. If there's ever a chance of me and him getting along, he'll have to stop treating you like property first."

Buffy couldn't deny it, so she didn't reply. Her mother always said, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. That was definitely the case here.

"Let's see the brighter side, pet. If your plan doesn't work, I'll get to use plan B."

She raised her head off his chest to look at him. "What's plan B? You never mentioned any plan B before."

She didn't like the smirk on Spike's face. It meant trouble.

"I get to scare the living daylight out of Quentin Travers. That's plan B." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Travers knows about the chip. Threatening him won't do anything."

He huffed. "Who said anything about threatening? It would be worth the nasty headache, believe me."

She dropped back on his chest, groaning. "God I hope my plan works."

Spike chuckled. "You're no fun, pet."

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

"So, what are we researching?" Willow ask Buffy. The redheaded witch was sitting at the table in the Magic Box with Tara, Giles and Anya. Xander was nowhere to be seen. "Prophecy? Demons? Apocalypse?"

The redheaded witch tried her best to break the awkwardness by being overly cheerful. Buffy and she had had a long overdue talk in the training room before Giles arrived and things were fine, but there was still an underlying discomfort and she didn't like it. She'd apologized for not defending her friend and had told her she was OK with her and Spike, but now she just wanted things to go back to normal.

"Nothing like that." Buffy said.

"So why do you need us then?" Anya asked, already bored with all this and wanting nothing more than to open the store to paying customers and go back to her money. "And by the way, I just want to mention that while I'm happy you're finally having hot sex with Spike, it's affecting my own sex life in a very negative way. Any chance you two will break up soon so I can go back to having orgasms?"

Spike narrowed his eyes at Anya. "Maybe YOU should break up with your immature wanker of a boyfriend, pet. Ever thought of trading up? I‘m sure a lot of blokes would just love to have orgasms with you and won‘t have a hard time getting it up because they obsess too much over their friend‘s love life."

Anya opened her mouth to reply. Buffy cut her off.

"Enough!" The Slayer said angrily. "Spike, behave. Anya, sorry about your orgasms, but Spike and I are not breaking up. Can we move on now?"

The ex vengeance demon crossed her arms petulantly. "Fine. Be selfish."

The bell jingled, indicating that someone had walked in. They all turned to look at the newcomer. Xander walked right to the table and sat down without a word. After being stared at by the Scoobies for the longest time, he finally felt obliged to explain his unexpected appearance.

“I’m here to help.” He grumbled. “Doesn’t mean I approve of...” he gestured in the general direction of Spike and Buffy without looking at them, “this freak show.”

Spike growled threateningly. “Watch your mouth, Whelp.”

Buffy put a calming hand on his chest. “Forget it. It’s not worth it.”

Xander ignored them.

Buffy decided it was best to leave the issue with Xander for later and focus on the problem at hand. She lifted her arms and pulled her hair into a tight ponytail then crossed her arms, ready to bring her friends up to speed.

Spike smiled. She always did that when getting ready for action, whether to face demons, or research the latest threat. He went to sit on the counter while Buffy told her friends about the other Slayers and their vampire lovers, the Council‘s policy about that, the murders, and how Quentin Travers wouldn‘t rest until both she and Spike were dead.

Tara was the first one to regain use of her voice. “Buffy, that’s terrible. How are we going to stop the Council?”

Willow added her concern to Tara’s. “Yes, Buffy, you did a good job at putting him back in his place before, but I doubt you can make him change his mind with a speech this time. Not that your speeches are not good.”

Buffy smiled. “I know, Will. I do have a plan that will get the Council off my back, but for it to work, we need to do some research. I need to know everything there is to know about the most recent murders. If something was written in the news paper, I want it. And police reports would be good. We already have someone at the Council working with us. He’s going to get us those Slayers’ personal files and fax them to us later on today. I do have the journals, but it’s not formal enough to prove anything. He says the Council also keeps files with personal information on every Slayer.”

The curiosity made Xander ask: “Who’s working with us at the Council?”

“Travers’ nephew.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Oh the sweet irony.”

“Hate to be the party pooper,” Willow said “but can we rely on this guy? He’s related to Quentin Travers so unless he’s adopted, he could be a backstabbing bastard just like his uncle.”

“So far, it appears that we can count on him. Which is rather surprising I must say.” Giles confirmed. “He did send Buffy the missing journals so I don’t see why he would have a change of heart now.”

“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to explain, but I know we can trust him. So, are you guys on board?” Buffy asked. She couldn‘t keep the hopeful expression from her face as she nervously waited for an answer.

“Of course.” Tara answered with a warm smile. “Whatever.” Anya shrugged. “If you die again, we‘ll have a repeat of last summer‘s drama and that would suck. I‘m in.”

Willow pulled her computer out of her bag and set it down on the table, a determined look on her face. “Willing and ready.”

Buffy turned to Xander. He nodded. “Yeah sure. If someone wants a piece of the Buffster, I sure as hell won’t let them.”

Buffy grinned. “Thanks.”

She went to take a seat at the table. “So, where do we start?”

“I’m thinking this is more of a hacking job than a book research job.” Willow commented. “Most big libraries have put their old newspapers on computer files. All I have to do is get into their system. Shouldn’t be too hard. Then I can hack into local police computer files. I’ll need the names of these girls though.”

Spike stood up and pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. He handed it to Willow. “We wrote down the names, locations, and dates. We left out the ones that took place too long ago. I doubt the police are interested in investigating a murder that took place in the eighteenth century.”

“Probably not.” Willow conceded while looking at the names in front of her. “This should only take me a couple hours. I’ll hook up my computer to the printer in Giles’ office and print the files so we can all look through them. It will speed things up and help to make sure we don‘t miss anything.”

They worked until sunset, bouncing ideas off each other, reading police reports and looking through articles in old newspapers. Spike’s knowledge of the French language, although limited, came in handy when researching the death of the Slayer from Quebec. Until they later on figured out that Quebec also had English newspapers, which greatly amused Xander and annoyed the hell out of the vampire who had spent almost an hour on a translation. They all worked hard, except maybe Buffy who was bored out of her mind and kept finding excuses to get up every half hour until Giles lost his temper and pointed out that it‘s her life they were trying to save. She pouted for a while but managed to stay put until Dawn arrived from school and the two of them left to get Chinese food for everybody.

They were all sitting and enjoying pineapple chicken, fried rice and eggrolls when Willow finally closed her laptop with a long sigh. They all gave her an expectant look.

“I think that’s it. We won’t find anything more.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly.

“Do we have enough?” Spike was sitting at the table between Buffy and Dawn, and munching on a deep fried eggroll. Xander had been glaring daggers at him since the moment Dawn had pulled a chair for the vampire to sit between her and her sister, but he’d managed not to say anything.

“I believe we do.” Giles said while gathering everything they had and putting it in a big brown envelope. He added the files Ben had faxed earlier and sealed it.

“So what now?” Xander asked, his eyes still not leaving Spike.

Buffy had noticed--the flames of hatred shooting from her friends’ eyes were hard to miss--and she knew she’d have to talk to him sooner than later, but now wasn’t the time.

“Giles and I... and Spike,” she added quickly, not wanting to leave her mate alone with Xander and risk coming back to a pile of dust “are going to meet with a lawyer and make sure everything’s in order. Then tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the bank and put this in a safety deposit box.”

“Buffy?” Tara said almost hesitantly.

“What’s up, Tara?”

“It’s just... I was thinking that maybe we should have an alternative just in case. If you don’t mind, I think Willow and I should look into a spell to use on Mr. Travers if we can’t convince him. You know I’m against using magic for personal gain, but I think saving the Slayer’s life doesn’t really count as personal gain, does it?”

Buffy frowned and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know...”

“I think the little witch has a point, pet. Better be safe than sorry. You know how much I hate magic, but I’m willing to risk consequences if it means that you’ll be safe from this wanker.”

“Fine. You guys look into it. But it’s only to be used as a very last resort.” She agreed.

“There’s still the problem of getting to London, Buffy.” Giles pointed out.

“What’s the problem?” She hadn’t really had a chance to think about the trip to London yet.

“Well, for one thing, we can’t very well use the Council’s credit card or they’ll find out we’re coming and we’ll lose the element of surprise. And I doubt my finances will allow me to pay for all of us. It will probably have to be only you and me, Buffy.”

“But, what about Spike? This concerns him too.” Disappointment was showing clearly on the Slayer’s face at the idea of facing Quentin Travers without Spike.

“Buffy, even a night flight would eventually reach day light. It’s unavoidable. A few passengers leave their window shades open and there will be nowhere for Spike to go. It’s too big a risk to take I’m afraid.”

She pouted. “Can’t we tell the flight attendant that Spike has a severe sun allergy and ask them to ask the other passengers to keep their window shades shut?”

Giles raised an eyebrow in answer.

“Actually, I might have a solution to that little problem.” Spike mentioned.

Buffy looked hopeful. “Really?”

“Don’t get your hopes up too soon, but there’s this man who owes me a huge favor. I wasn’t planning on collecting, but considering the situation, I don’t think we have a choice.”

Xander scoffed at the idea that Spike of all people could save the day. “Yeah right, what’s he gonna do, beam us there?”

“No, Captain Kirk. But he might let us use his private jet though.”

That got Anya’s attention. “You have a friend who owns a private jet?! Why am I only hearing about this now?” She asked excitedly. “Can I meet him? Is he single?”

“Anya!” Xander looked positively horrified.

The soon to be Mrs. Harris had the decency to look guilty. “Sorry honey, I didn’t mean it like that. But can you imagine the investment advice this guy could give me?” Her eyes glazed over at the thought.

Buffy turned her back on the bickering couple and faced Spike. “You think this guy could help?”

The vampire shrugged. “He might laugh in my bloody face, but it’s worth a shot.”

“And where does he live?”

“About forty five minutes outside of town. The bloke’s a bit of a recluse; he doesn’t like the attention. I could drive us there after you meet with the lawyer.”

Buffy nodded. “Alright. Let’s do that then.”