The older man�s breath caught in his throat as he found himself staring not at Buffy�s corpse but at the body of her little sister. Both Watchers gasped, as the dead girl�s eyes flew open. Dawn stared sightlessly toward the sky. There was no flicker of life in her cloudy gaze. Her lips were moving but her voice was too soft for either man to hear. Pulling himself together, Giles leaned in close to listen.

�It has a secret,� A voice very like Buffy�s whispered in his ear, �The shell�it has a secret�Listen�if you want to hear�you have to listen!�

The purplish sparkling energy began to dance again in the depths of Dawn�s filmy dead eyes. Travers pulled on Giles� elbow in an effort to move him away from the supernatural focal point as the light slowly crawled along the girl�s flesh shooting out fountains of green and purple sparks.

�This could be important,� Giles said shaking off Quentin�s grip and addressing the Body directly, �What kind of secret?�

�SHE�S GOING TO DROWN,� Willow�s voice bellowed out of the corpse�s mouth. �DAWN! DAWN?�

Giles, Travers and several of the diggers jumped half a foot each at the unexpected shout. The flickering high voltage field totally enveloped Dawn�s body. It began to grow viscous. The young girl�s eyes cleared and were filled with a terrible lucidity as she started flailing about in the confines of the coffin. It looked as if Dawn were actually drowning in the charged plasma.

Instinctively, Giles reached out to assist her. An electric shock hit him with the force of a cattle prod and hurled him into Quentin Travers. Both men went down. They untangled themselves and Giles struggled to sit up. He was rubbing the numbness out of his right arm when Willow�s voice spoke again.

�Somebody�.,� It said.

�Help�,� Dawn�s voice added.

�ME!� Buffy�s voice screamed completing the sentence.

The purple/green sparks and swirling plasma receded as abruptly as they had arrived. The energy field drained away like a cosmic plug had been pulled somewhere. Dawn�s body also faded and Buffy�s corpse returned. The former Slayer was laid out still and peaceful in her coffin.

Giles, weak limbed and shaking, was still the first man to find his courage. He staggered over to the coffin again to study the body of his beloved friend. She looked so beautiful. Her hair was a soft golden fall of silkiness; her flesh was firm and her cheeks held the rosy glow of youth. She seemed as peaceful as she had just after she�d fallen to her death. It seemed so right to him that it was several seconds before it hit Giles how very wrong it all was.

�Why does she look like that?� He asked suddenly.

Travers and the others stared at him uncomprehendingly.

�Well look at her,� Giles continued gesturing emphatically at the body, �It�s been almost six weeks since she died. And she might be asleep for all the difference there is in her. Where are the signs of decomposition, the odor of death, the sunken flesh�?�

�But surely if she was emba�� One of the youngest Watchers, an American by his accent, began but Travers immediately cut him off.

�Of course,� The elder Watcher said addressing Giles, �You didn�t let them embalm her?�

�The texts are all quite specific on that point, Quentin,� Giles reminded his superior impatiently, �The Slayer is never to be embalmed or autopsied. Her body, if it is recovered, is not to be desecrated in any way.�

�Yes,� Travers responded, �I just assumed that here in America�but then�you were always the traditionalist, Rupert. In so many of the minor respects and so few of the major ones.�

*****

�WHAT?!?� Tara screamed over the angry oceanic roar that had filled her apartment.

She had been forced into one corner of the room by the swirling currents of power surrounding Willow and Dawn. Spike was backed into the opposite corner. The vampire was crouched on top of a bookcase in an attempt to avoid the electrically charged plasma that was flooding the floor. Tara had climbed up on the back of an overstuffed chair. The waves of cosmic energy that separated the pair continued to lap higher and higher, threatening to swamp over them like an incoming tide. The vampire was shouting at her and gesturing wildly but Tara couldn�t make out his words.

�I SAID�� Spike bellowed again, �WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!�

Tara nodded her understanding but then indicating the distance to the door, she held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. The far wall of the room was barely visible behind a shimmering curtain of energy that was periodically ripped apart by purplish-green strikes of lightning. The door might as well be on another planet for all the good it did them.

Spike looked agitated and angry. It crossed the blond witch�s mind that he might jump into the middle of the sea of supernatural fire despite the obvious danger. She shook her head at him. Waving her arms to hold his attention, she mimed out the need to reach Willow. Spike seemed to understand. He pulled a book from the top shelf of his perch and tossed it toward the red-haired witch. A dozen high-voltage bolts of green energy struck at the missile, instantly reducing it to its molecular components.

�Willow,� The blond witch called to her lover for the tenth time in as many minutes, �WILLOW? Honey? You have to come out now. You have to stop this.�

�I can hear the ocean,� Buffy�s voice said from every corner of the room. It seemed to Spike as if the crackling of energy itself was speaking as it swirled and raged around him. �DO�YOU�wanna�hear?�

With alarming suddenness, the charged plasma began to collapse in on Willow and Dawn. Twirling like a funnel spout of water, it sucked up thousands of purple and green sparks and coalesced them into the shape of the Slayer. It wasn�t her. It was a manifestation of energy in her form. A purple bridge of energy linked the newcomer to Willow and an identical green bridge flowed toward Dawn. Shakily, Spike and Tara climbed down from their respective pieces of furniture. They advanced on the trio at the center of the room with a tentative sideways gate both prepared to bolt for cover at a moment�s notice.

�Wanna hear what?� Spike asked finally. He had cocked his head to one side as he studied this new creature. The Slayer-being turned to look at him. Her hair swirled about her with medusa-like life of it�s own. Her eyes were bottomless pits of hellish emptiness.

�The Shell,� The Slayer-being said in the same echoing Buffy voice that came from everywhere in the room. �It has a secret.�

The being swept one hand toward the place where Dawn had been sitting. Buffy�s corpse had taken Dawn�s place. Spike felt his hackles rise as the dead woman turned to look at him. Her lips didn�t move, but the vampire heard her voice sparking like a stray radio signal off the chip in his brain. The force of her words sent him to his knees.

�The monks made her out of me.� The dead Buffy said inside Spike�s head setting off the same searing pain that an outbreak of violence on his part would have caused.

�It has a secret,� The Slayer-being intoned again, �Somebody help��

��ME!� Willow yelled, �She�s going to drown.�

There was a blinding flash of occult fire and the Slayer-being vanished.

�Well, that works, too.� Willow said in a normal, if somewhat shaky, voice.

Dawn was choking and sputtering on the far side of the room. She had one hand at her throat as she leaned forward, taking in great gulps of air. Tara ran to embrace Willow. Blinking back tears of pain, Spike crawled over to Dawn as she struggled to catch her breath. The vampire grimaced as he took her in his arms. She leaned into him shaken and afraid.

�Are you alright, Sweet Bit?� Spike asked as he pushed Dawn�s hair back out of her eyes with paternal tenderness.

�Yeah,� Dawn nodded, �I think so�it was really weird�I couldn�t feel anything, or see anything, and I couldn�t seem to catch my breath. It was like I didn�t even exist.�

�Honey, what happened?� Tara asked Willow after she released her from the hug.

�I don�t know,� Willow said. �Everything seemed fine. We were at the seaside and Dawn was tied up and then the tide started coming in.�

�Yeah,� Spike said sarcastically as he helped Dawn stand up and herded her toward a chair, �We kind of noticed the part with the tide.�

�Buffy was there,� Willow continued ignoring Spike�s interjection.

�She was here, too,� Tara supplied.

�In more ways than one,� Spike put in his two cents worth again, �What the bloody hell was that Buffy shaped thing anyway?�

Tara sighed and looked from Spike to Dawn to Willow and then back to Spike again before she answered.

�I�m not a hundred percent sure,� She said, �But I think that was the Key!�

*****

�Do you have any idea how dangerous it was to do that kind of spell with Dawn?� Giles asked in exasperation.

�I wasn�t thinking about her being the Key,� Willow said, �Or rather�well�I didn�t think it would matter that much.�

�NOT! MATTER! MUCH!� Giles shouted before throwing his hands up in supplication to Heaven, �Give me strength!�

They were gathered at the Magic Box. The rest of the visiting Watchers were arranging for Buffy�s body to be held at the Hospital morgue. Giles, however, had sought out the less than Fab Four as soon as he had recovered his ability to navigate. Spike was perched on the iron staircase, holding a hot compress to his brow. Dawn was fussing over him. A subdued Willow and Tara were seated at the research table opposite the pacing Giles. Buffy�s former Watcher took a long steadying breath. He pulled off his glasses and gave them a quick polish before addressing the assembled group of supernatural investigators again.

�We are talking about a force of cosmic significance,� Giles continued in a dangerously soft voice leaning on the table top and glaring across at the Wiccan Lovers, �I know that Dawn is comfortably familiar to all of us. And in her present form she is as harmless as any other teenage girl. But to attempt to enter her subconscious via a Spirit-walking Spell. My God, do you have any concept of the power that you might have unleashed on the world. Your body could have been used as a conduit. You could have been incinerated on the spot. This entire dimension could have been reduced to smoking cinders.�

�But we weren�t,� Willow reposted with a touch of spunk, �We weren�t even singed around the edges. We�re just fine.�

�Speak for yourself, Sabrina!� Spike growled wincing as the sound of his own voice delivered an aftershock of pain to his temple.

�I-I-I th-think the K-k-Key w-w-was trying to help us,� Tara stammered.

�Help?� Giles asked in a resigned tone as he sank into a chair. The day�s remarkable events were catching up with him at last, �What do you mean help us? Help how?�

�W-w-well, I-it said that Buffy�s body was a shell,� the blond witch supplied, �That the body had a secret.�

�That�s right,� Willow nodded, �It wanted us to listen to the shell�to Buffy�s body, maybe?�

�There is something wrong with Buffy�s body,� Giles admitted.

In short order he brought the group up to speed on what had happened at the exhumation.

�But what does that mean?� Dawn asked in confusion, �Is Buffy really dead?�

�Yes,� Giles confirmed but then he hesitated, �That is I believe so but we aren�t sure. It�s like something is keeping her from dying. Her core body temperature is low but higher than it should be�and she hasn�t any of the physical signs you would expect in a six week old corpse. She is more undead than dead.�

�Best news I�ve heard in weeks,� Spike said earning a full set of angry looks from the others.

�What?� He said in an offended manner, �Nothing wrong with the undead. We�ll just get a little fresh blood into her and��

�But Buffy�s not a vampire,� Tara said reasonably.

�No, she�s not,� Giles supplied as he shot Spike a hostile glare, �She�s something else entirely.�

�A shell?� Willow asked.

�Just like me,� Dawn murmured sotto voce. Giles turned a quizzical look on her and she expounded, �The monks created me to hold the key. But all of those crazy people kept saying there was nothing inside of me. It was like I was just a shell full of energy.�

�Oh, Dawnie,� Willow soothed, �You know that isn�t true.�

Spike, however, was staring at Dawn through suddenly narrowed and appraising eyes. An idea was taking shape in his subconscious. It wrapped itself around the core of pain that Buffy�s words had ignited in his brain. He tilted his head to one side as if listening to the voice again.

�The monks made you from her,� Spike muttered absently as he worked things out in his mind.

�Yes,� Giles said impatiently, �But that doesn�t make Dawn any less of a real person��

�How�d they do that?� Spike asked turning suddenly to confront the former Watcher.

�What?� Giles asked caught off guard by the unexpected question.

�How did they create Dawn in the first place?� Spike asked pointedly. He spaced out his words as if he was addressing a room full of Special Ed. Students. Giles, Willow and Tara exchanged puzzled glances.

�Uhm�well�I guess...it must have been a spell of some kind,� Willow finally supplied and the others nodded their agreement.

�So?� Spike encouraged. He made a �come on then� motion with the fingers of both hands and lifted his eyebrows at the magical trio. When no one responded to his prompting he sighed heavily and shook his head like a put upon genius.

�So�� the vampire said as if leading the others by the hand toward enlightenment, ��if the MONKS did a spell and created Dawn. Then why don�t we do the same spell ourselves...?�

�And create another BUFFY?� Tara yelped as the pieces clicked into place for her, �A new shell for her spirit to go into!�

�Dear Lord!� Giles exclaimed as he and Willow exchanged a delighted and suddenly hopeful glance.

�Is it possible?� the red-haired witch asked.

�It just might be!� Giles said grinning like a madman, �Mind you, it won�t be easy recreating a spell of this magnitude.�

�Do we know where the spell originated?� Tara asked already starting to pull assorted Magical texts from the shelves, �If we could find their records��