Dwarfbread

RATING: PG-13 for minor violence.

FEEDBACK: Yes, please, to [email protected]

PAIRINGS:  Ensemble.

DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first - but I'm going to say yes.

SETTING: This fic is set somewhere during the events of BtVS Season 6 in a happier world where Buffybot was repaired earlier and to better effect and in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, some time after the events of 'Guards! Guards!'

PROPS: Miss Murchison for the beta.  Thanks!

SPOILERS: None.  This is set pre-season 6.

DISCLAIMER:  These characters are not mine, but I’m just poking fun.

Chapter One - Here Be Dragons

Buffybot bounced on her toes, poised and ready.  She loved kickboxing; it was fun!

Buffy danced a little, shifting left and right.  Buffybot echoed her, taped fists held up in front of her chin.  There was a blur of yellow and white and Buffybot landed on her ass, with a little oof! Buffy had got her on the chin and stomach again. She shook her head admiringly.  Buffy sure was fast. She sprang to her feet, grinning.

"Let's go again!"

There was a chorus of groans from the Scoobies lined up against the wall in the training room.

Anya turned to Xander, who was slumped against the wall, resting against a tackle bag. "How many times do we have to watch The Slayer knock down the tin can, Xander darling?  I'm hungry. And very bored. I'm trying to think about sex, but this is very distracting."

Xander sighed; the sight of Buffy getting sweaty and punching stuff was normally a thrill, and he'd expected the sight of two Buffys laying into each other to be doubly so - but even he had to admit this was getting repetitive. It seemed that Dawn, who had chosen to stay on the sofa in the living room on Revello Drive, watching The Simpsons, had been the smart one. "We'll go get a Slurpy soon, hon."

"Ooh," said Willow, "Slurpies." She turned to Tara, who was gazing at Buffybot with a worried expression on her face. "Want a Slurpy, sweetie?"

Tara smiled at her, a bit absently.  "Sure. But first I want to make sure Bottie hasn't picked up any dents, or had her gyros knocked out of whack again. Buffy hits Slayer hard, and our little Bot's not as tough as she thinks."

Willow squeezed her arm.  "She's tougher than you think, though. And she's got a warranty from Alcoa stamped on her butt to prove it. She looked across at Buffybot, who had just taken a kick to the stomach, and was flat on the canvas again.  "She'll be fine." Buffybot bounced upright, and Willow smiled at Tara. "See? Gyros tiptop. For I am a gyro-tuning genius."

Meanwhile, Buffy was shaking her wrists and flexing her fingers.  "My knuckles are killing me," she said gloomily, "And my foot. I think I nearly broke a toe that time." She flopped onto a stool, pulled a towel around her neck, and gave Giles a pleading look. "I've put boom boom boomerang girl here down 16 times in a row, and she just flies back ready for more."

Giles nodded. "Which means it's very good endurance training for you.  Buffybot can't get tired, or bruised - or even bored of being knocked over apparently." He looked over at Buffybot, who was jogging on the spot, a happy grin plastered on her face.

Buffy nodded, "I know - and it's really de-motivating. I want to actually do some damage when I work this hard." She stretched her sore hand again, just as Spike stepped through the training room door.  She brightened; now here was someone worth punching.

"Hi Spike!" cried Buffybot. "I'm learning kickboxing.  It's great!"

Spike raised a cynical eyebrow.  "Yes. I see you're all having a really great time.  But if you could drag yourselves away from the thrill for a minute, I thought you might like to know there's a dragon sitting on the TV relay tower."  He looked at Buffy.  "And I'd appreciate you killing it sharpish, Slayer, because Match of the Day starts at 9pm, and that big scaly bugger's playing merry hell with the reception." 

.............

The Scoobies stood in a row staring up at the TV relay tower.  They were standing in a growing crowd.  For although the citizens of Sunnydale were conditioned to ignore pretty much anything Otherworldly, or just downright odd as they went about their daily business, a break in television reception was something else.  Deprived of American Idol, the good folk of Sunnydale (or the proportion of them too poor to afford cable anyway) had come out into the street in a milling crowd, to chat with their neighbours, eat corn dogs, and bitch about the cheapskates at the tv station.

And, as is the way with milling crowds everywhere, it was attracting more and more people, as a magnet attracts filings.  Cars were drawing up, and thermoses and soda cans, some of them even containing soda, were being taken out, as competing theories about the source of the shaking tower were bandied about. Quicksand? A local earthquake? Metal fatigue?

Because, strangely, they didn't seem to have noticed the most obvious explanation for the tower’s shaking. Which was the huge glittering 100-foot long scaly dragon wrapped around it.  The dragon stared down at the crowd with rolling eyes, breathing fire in little irregular gouts from its nostrils, and thrashing its tail back and forth.  Its huge obsidian claws were curled around the metal scaffold of the tower, which trembled with the dragon. All in all, as dragons go, it seemed a little nervous.

Buffybot gazed at the dragon, thrilled to the core.  A dragon!  In Sunnydale! How amazingly lucky. She frowned. But weren’t dragon extinct? She wondered where it had come from.

“Is that the same dragon ...?” asked Buffy.

“That came through the rift when you saved Dawn, yes.” Giles nodded. “After all, it would be odd if there was another one flying about near Sunnydale, when you think about it.”

Buffybot’s eyes grew wide. Willow had filled her in on how Buffy had died, and then come back, which had been jolly interesting, and she was glad Dawn got saved as well.  But she hadn't mentioned a dragon and surely that was the best bit of the story?

"I wondered where it went." Anya scowled at the huge scaly invader. "I suppose it was too much to hope it would fly off into Oregon and eat their cattle. Or their virgins, one or the other." She turned to her companions. "Dragons like to eat cattle, and human virgins."

"Boy, oh boy, am I grateful I'm not still a virgin," said Xander, looking at the huge claws, and the little gouts of flame coming from the dragon’s muzzle. "Even more grateful than usual, that is."

“Hmm, said Giles rubbing his chin, “Well, so myth would have it, but in fact...”

“Cattle and virgins!” said Anya loudly, cutting Giles off and glaring at him. “I think I can be said to know more about dragons than you, Mr Tweedy McTweed, since I’ve actually met a few.” She stared at the dragon again.  “She doesn’t look very intimidating, does she? In fact she looks downright scared.”  She sniffed disparagingly.

Willow coughed.  "Um, guys, we're not going to be able to keep this not-noticing spell going much longer.” She looked across at Tara, who shook her head, her expression strained. Willow held her hand a little tighter and gazed at the cars drawing up behind them. “And the more people who get here, the harder it's going to be."

"Okay," said Buffy.  She glanced at Giles, who was clearly thinking furiously, and equally clearly at a loss so far and then at the huge, multicoloured and undeniably magnificent dragon clinging to the strut work above them. "Don't worry, Will. I’m sure we'll think of something."

Chapter Two - If I Could Talk To The Animals

"Er, um, yes." said Giles. "Something. Only of course, the presence of a crowd, and the size, and location of our visitor, make it all rather difficult." He scratched his jaw. "And we don't want to open the rift again. Or just send it randomly on to another planet to wreak havoc. We need to act responsibly."

"Oh for heaven's sake." Anya walked boldly forward, tilted her head back, and shouted, "Oi! You!"  The dragon started violently, and hissed, and the crowd murmured in alarm and the tower rocked violently beneath her weight. "Oi!" said Anya again, and a few people at the edge of the crowd glanced her way.

Giles rolled his eyes.  "Oh yes, that's the perfect way to address a dragon, I'm sure. Very respectful."

Anya threw him a disdainful glance. "The trick is to show no fear. And also, to make sure you're not a virgin," she added as an afterthought.

"Or a cow," whispered Willow under her breath. Anya stared at her suspiciously, and she gave a little wave, even as she and Tara shifted their focus a little to extend the 'not-noticing' spell to Anya as well as the dragon.

The people in the crowd turned their backs again, and Anya continued. "Get off that tower at once, Impious One," she shouted. "You are preventing the inhabitants of this settlement from communing with their God. Begone to the northern wastes of Oregon, where I hear there are many fine cattle, and probably even some virgins as well."

Buffybot frowned.  Surely it was wrong to send the dragon to ravage someone else's lands? But Tara wasn't objecting, or Mr Giles.... Ooh! She bounced on her toes. It was a ploy! To get the dragon to come down off the tower, and go somewhere quieter, where they could deal with it. She gazed admiringly at Anya. How clever she was.

"Hey, it's ten to nine!" Spike had appeared with the sunset, and he pointed at his watch accusingly. He turned to Buffy, who was in a sotto voce discussion with Giles. "Just nip up there and cut its bleeding throat, why don't you?"

Buffy frowned. “Why don’t you try it, Spike? You’re the big bad vampire after all.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Don’t be daft, Slayer. It would fry me in my size 9s before I got anywhere near it. How stupid do you think I am?”

Buffy folded her arms. “And how stupid do you think I am?”

They faced each other, glaring. Giles rubbed his forehead. “If we could all try and take a sensible approach here,” he began, with very little hope on his voice, “we might get somewh …”

"Get off that tower!" 

Giles jumped, as Anya’s voice boomed out. She stamped her foot, and the dragon shrank back. Then its head turned to one side, as it appeared to consider Anya's words. It looked at the ground, and then, before anyone had a chance to react, it leapt off the strut work, and plummeted to the ground directly in front of them, landing with a shuddering thump.

The ground shook, and the crowd scattered, with screams of “earthquake!” Anya took a hasty step back, colliding with Giles. The dragon stepped after her. The Scoobies drew reflexively together into a little knot.

There was a sound of sirens in the distance. Someone had finally decided that a shaky 80ft tower in the middle of town might be dangerous.  Everyone’s head turned towards the sound, the dragon’s included.

“Okay,” said Buffy, “We need to do something very quickly.”

The dragon’s huge golden eyes took in their little motley group, shifting from one face to another, the colours whirling in its pupils. Spike stepped prudently backward, to the rear of the group. Xander, now suddenly at the front, shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like the way it's looking at us," he whispered.

The dragon’s head swung in his direction, and he shut up, his throat convulsing a little. The dragon's eye moved on, and settled on Buffybot, who was standing to the side, quivering with excitement.  She waved a merry little wave and smiled a friendly smile. The dragon's gold eyes darkened to bronze, as it stared into Buffybot's clear hazel ones.  A thought bloomed in her head, like a bubble, cold and alien and yet crystal clear.

"She wants to go home!" cried Buffybot excited. "She doesn't like California." Her smile faltered a little, as she contemplated someone not liking California. But she recovered - after all she'd heard that some people didn't even like Disneyland. She turned to her friends. "She told me, in my head." She tapped her skull for emphasis.

"Oh great," whispered Willow, "we've got our very own psychic E.T."

Tara sighed, "Well, luckily she's not going to fit in Buffybot's bedroom."  She squinted at the scaly and magnificent length of dragon, and then turned to Buffy. “Do you think she’d fit in the back yard?"

The dragon’s eyes glowed red, and a hiss of steam escaped her nostrils. “Or not,” said Tara hurriedly. “That was a dumb idea. Obviously it, she, wants to go home.”  The dragon’s eyes faded back to bronze, and everyone let out a breath of relief.

Buffybot turned to Giles. “Where do dragons come from?”

Giles smiled at her.  “That’s a very good question, Bottie.”

Buffybot beamed proudly. “Is it Europe?” she said hopefully. “I’d like to go to Europe. Everything there’s small and old, and shaped funny. It sounds great.”

Giles closed his eyes briefly, pained. “In fact, dragons are not exclusive to Europe. There’s a great deal of literature on the subject - most of which is the most appalling flowery and pretentious twaddle.  But the general consensus, among the serious commentators at least, seems to be that they’re from another dimension, and pop into this world from time to time.”

Anya tapped her foot. “I do wish you’d forget about all those musty old books and just pay attention to me sometimes, Giles.  I’m a thousand years old, you know. Dragons are just another, rather inferior, kind of demon…"  The dragon hissed again and its eyes burned like red coals.  A little jet of steam blew from its mouth, and kicked up just in front of Anya's feet. She jumped. "Never mind," she said rather shakily, "you carry on, Giles, with all that interesting book stuff."

Giles gave her a cold look. "Oh, thanks ever so."

“So, how do we send it back to another dimension?” asked Buffy. "Tell me it isn't going to be temporal rifts again.  I hate temporal rifts."

Tara coughed.  “Perhaps the dragon can tell us. Um, if she would?”

The dragon glanced at Tara, and seemed to nod. Then she stared at Buffybot again, and another cold bubble of knowledge formed in her head.  “There’s an orb,” she cried excitedly, bouncing on her toes. “But the dragon can’t make it work. Her claws are too big.” 

The dragon held up a demonstrative claw.  A golden orb swung from her talons, dangling by a chain.  They watched it swing, mesmerised; then Buffybot skipped forward, grasped the orb, untangled the chain from the dragon's talons and examined it.

“Be careful, Bottie,” said Tara anxiously.

“Oh,” said Buffybot, delighted. “I’ve worked it out. It twists this way.” She took the orb, and turned it just so.  The dragon, and Buffybot, vanished with a loud pop!

“Right, problem solved,” said Spike. “And I’m off to watch the footie.”

Chapter Three - Is This Europe?

Kernel panic! Buffybot’s eyes snapped open. She’d lost power for a moment and rebooted. Which meant, quite possibly, that she’d travelled between dimensions. Again!  She got to her feet, and dusted herself off.  There was a faint whumping sound above her, and she looked up to see the dragon’s silhouette in the sky, growing rapidly smaller. She gazed around her, at the huddled houses and cobbled streets, thrilled to the core.  This must be Europe. Everything was so small, and cramped, and above all, smelly!   She gave a little skip, delighted to have a chance to see some authentic European squalor, and hear the natives talking with their funny accents.  Spending time here was going to be the most tremendous fun. She squared her shoulders. First though, she should find a phone and ring Tara. She wouldn’t want everyone at home to worry about her. She set off down the street looking for a phone booth, hanging the orb absently around her neck while leafing mentally through her encyclopaedia entry on how to make international phone calls.

...........

Johnny ‘Masher’ McDougall jiggled the cut-throat razor in his pocket as he gazed at the young woman walking in front of him. She had a large gold knob on a chain slung casually about her neck, and the unmistakeable air of a tourist who is lost in an unfamiliar city. He shifted from one foot to the other, and groaned. Why didn’t he have a licence for daylight robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon? Why had he wasted it earlier on that old man with that oh so promising sack over his shoulder, which had turned out to be nothing but cabbages?

Masher stared again at Buffybot's irrepressibly perky figure, and the back of her shiny blonde head, just as she took a turn from the main cobbled street and into one of the darkest, smelliest, bendiest, and above all quietest blind alleys in the Shades.  He broke into a run after her. It was too much to resist. And he hadn't taken the cabbages after all, and the old man might survive that head blow for all he knew. Morally speaking, that licence was still unused.

Buffybot wandered slowly down the alley, making use of her excellent night vision to stare at the fascinating vernacular architecture around her. There were broken cobbles shifting beneath her feet, under a thick layer of straw, dung, soil and coal dust. The walls were coated in some sort of lime plaster that had fallen off in large chunks, laying in crumbling piles and revealing a chaotic infill of stones and mortar. Water dripped down the walls and black evil-looking mould sprouted from every crack and flaw.

Buffybot drew a happy sigh. This was great.  Way more cute, and quaint, and historical, than even the county courthouse in Sunnydale, which was only a hundred years old, if that, and very clean. She drew an appreciative breath, taking in the competing scents of dirt, decay, stagnation, and the persistent reek of stale urine that permeated the alley. Now that was what she called authentic!

The sound of approaching stealthy footsteps came to her super-sensitive ears.  She turned, using her super keen eyesight to pick out the approaching crouched figure, and the glint of metal in his hand. A broad grin split her face. Hoorah!  It was an authentic native European mugger, coming her way. She flexed her knees and prepared to kick him where it hurt most.

Masher crept forward into the darkness of the alley. He’d lost sight of his victim, but she couldn’t be far ahead, and there was no way out without brushing past him.  His mouth stretched into a feral grin; this was going to be good. And there she was.  Standing to face him, with her puny little fists held up in front of her like a featherweight boxer. His grin stretched even more broadly.  This pretty little pigeon was too pigeon-brained even to run.  He crept forward, razor at the ready, and then jumped.  As he did so, his victim blurred into motion and a fist crash landed on his nose, just as a dainty but pointed boot travelled upwards into his privates. He screamed and collapsed into the dung and straw of the alley.  And as he tried convulsively to get his legs working again and stagger to his feet, a heavy boot fell on his shoulder, and he heard a familiar voice uttering a very familiar phrase.

"Hello Masher. You're nicked."  And then another heavy boot accidentally connected with his forehead, and he passed out.

"Oops," said Nobby Nobbs, "clumsy me."

"Foot slipped, did it, Nobby?" Fred Colon bent over the reclining figure of Masher. There was a click of handcuffs, and then he straightened, puffing a bit. "Now, Miss," he said, gazing at Buffybot reprovingly, "What's going on here, then?"

Buffybot gazed at the new arrivals. The first was large and fat and red, while the other was small and rather hard to see under his baggy uniform, and helmet. It was just possible he was a monkey, but she thought he was probably human, which was a shame. She liked monkeys. Also they both had breastplates, and helmets, and little square swords.  It was so quaint!  She zinged her very best white-toothed smile at them, and they gawped. "I'm the Buffy Bot, and I'm looking for a phone booth to call Tara. Then I have to find the dragon and give its orb back. This bad man tried to rob me so I kicked him in the testicles. Thank you both for saving me," she added kindly, "though I could have kicked him in the testicles again of course."

Sergeant Fred Colon recovered from this announcement first, and touched the peak of his helmet.  "I see, Miss. Yes, well, that makes it all much clearer." He winked at Nobby. "Now, then," he said kindly, "we've got to haul this here miscreant off to the lock-up, before the Thieves Guild get him. Maybe you ought to come along with us, Miss. And you can send a message from there."

"Oooh! Are you a policeman?" Buffybot asked eagerly. "Can I try on your helmet?"

Fred and Nobby looked at each other, uncertain. Buffybot was the cleanest, shiniest person they'd ever seen.  And clearly she was stark raving bonkers, wandering through the Shades with a piece of jewellery the size of a small cannonball slung around her neck.  But on the other hand, she was also very, very pretty.

"Can she try on your helmet, Fred?" said Nobby at last.

Fred thought, heavily, sucking his teeth.  "I don't recall an actual regulation says we can't let members of the public try on our helmets, Nobby. Not as such." He thought a bit more.  Of course, if the loony ran off with his helmet and he had to explain to the Commander that he'd given it her; he could just imagine some of the words that might be spoken. And they were of the withering and sarcastic variety. He nodded, once.  "No reason you can't lend her your helmet, Nobby, none at all."

He looked over at Buffybot, who clapped her hands, thrilled. "Fancy being a Member of the Watch, do you, Miss?" he said indulgently.

"Oh yes!" cried Buffybot.  "I'd love it. Where do I sign?"

Chapter 4 - Buffybot Blends In

Commander Vimes scratched his head, and looked at the application form before him, ignoring the fact that recruitment was not strictly his job these days. Carrot was off on a three-day budget training course at Lord Vetinari's office, so there was no harm him helping out, was there? He leaned back in the familiar chair, and put his foot up on the conveniently half open desk drawer, just as he'd always done.  Buffy Bott, eh? He was well acquainted with the Bott family, of course. They lived in String Lane, and last year had accounted for a few cases of petty theft, several drunk in charge, an affray and some twenty six counts of public nuisance. (The public nuisance charges related to Lancelot Bott's habit of practising his trumpet with the window open. The affray charge came on the day one of his neighbours had rammed a turnip up it). 

All in all, then, the Botts were a family of fine upstanding citizens by Shades standards. Buffy Bott was new to him, but Fred Colon had told him she had a very effective kick to the goolies in her armoury, and she certainly had an extremely positive attitude to law enforcement. Also, the number of women in the Watch remained very small.  It made sense to recruit her. But still. He looked at the shiny headed recruit rocking on her toes in front of him, down and up, from her strange white cloth shoes, past her dwarf-style trousers and inexplicably glossy jacket, to her suspiciously clean neck, wondering absently why her skin was that funny biscuit colour. As his eyes reached her face she zinged him a dazzling smile that made her look even more half-witted than before.

Dropped on her head as a baby, perhaps, he mused; it would explain a lot. Although, of course, brain damage was no bar to a career in the Watch. But was it really appropriate to have a Guard who was so very, very bouncy? And pretty? And wholesome? And happy in her work?  Something in his soul revolted at the idea.

"Hmm. You can spell your name, and you can salute without knocking yourself out, that's good. But let's just see, Miss Bott," he said slowly, "how effective you are with a weapon in your hand."

"Ooh!" cried Buffybot, "I love weapons. Can I have a sword? A shiny one? I'm really good with a sword - and with axes, clubs, spears, knives and maces. I haven't cut my own ear off in ages."

Vimes winced. Was that Bott family humour?  He headed downstairs, summoning the new recruit with a finger, listening glumly as she skipped merrily down the stairs behind him. Merry skipping was not appropriate to the Watch. Steady, purposeful treads were what was needed. Perhaps he could put a stop to the skipping by insisting she wore boots? A pair of Geo. 'Strange' Device's super-economy paper-lined boots would take the skip out of anybody. He squared his shoulders and nodded grimly - it was a plan.

...............

Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale, a revolt was in progress. Spike leaned against the living room wall and folded his arms.  "I won't do it. There is no way I'm risking my pretty white undead skin for a walking tin can. And I'm not going to get transported to another world again, either. It's always bloody happening around here, and I’m sick of it.” He gestured to the chalice in front of him, and the knife, and the pentagram sketched hastily in front of it. "I am not stepping into that thing. Under no circumstances. N. O. Which spells piss off, the lot of you."

Giles rolled his eyes.  "We are not asking you to transport to another world, Spike. We are simply asking you to step into the void that will be opened by our spell, and pull Buffybot back out with you. I'd do it myself - but no living thing can exist in the void. You can. And Buffybot too.  Though she qualifies through a technicality, really..."

Willow coughed, heading Giles off before he could be distracted by the arcane rules of multi dimensional rifts. "It'll be easy," she said, "and not dangerous at all."

"Well, as far as we know, anyway," Tara added conscientiously.

"And then we'll give you back the tv remote." Anya waved the remote in question and Xander grinned at her. He was enjoying this.

"And the tv." Buffy patted the tv, that lay by her feet, looking slightly battered after being the subject of a recent tug of war between Slayer and vampire.

"There are other tvs in this town, you know," said Spike. He stood upright and faced them all defiantly. "In fact, I'm off to watch one of them now."

Willow smiled. "And I can scramble the signal of every single of them. Without even raising a sweat. I've been practising for the final of American Idol." She looked at Tara and grinned, "Okay, I really wouldn't do it, but a girl can dream."

Spike turned and cast her an evil look. "This is blackmail. Call yourselves the good guys?"

Tara shifted uncomfortably, and Willow patted her hand. "It's for the greater good, sweetie," she said. "Buffybot belongs here with us. Just think what awful things might be happening to her in that terrible Void."

"What's terrible about it?" Spike narrowed his eyes. "There's something you're not telling me about this, isn't there?"

Buffy looked at her nails, "It's a piece of cake. I don't know why you're making such a deal out of it." She muttered something under her breath that might have been,” You big wuss."

Giles nodded. "You can be in and out again in less than 10 seconds, Bot in hand. It's really childishly simple - step in, take hold of her collar and step out again. Even you can do that." He coughed and looked at his watch, "Kick-off in 10 minutes, Spike."

Tara smiled a little uncertain smile. "That really should be all it takes, Spike. The other side of the rift will open right by Buffybot, wherever she is. You just have to lean out, grab her and step back."

Spike gave an exasperated growl. "All right, all right, all right.  I'll collar your stray." He held up a finger, "If we can do it before kick-off."

"Well then," said Willow, bouncing on her toes eagerly, "let's get on with it."

She and Tara bent over their spell book and began to chant, with Giles leaning over their shoulders, his lips moving in synch as he checked their Latin.  Xander stepped forward, made a little nick in his elbow with the knife, squeezed a drop of blood into the chalice and turned to face them. 

"There's a drop of the blood from a fine healthy young American buck for ya, ladies. Way safer than Dawn blood, or Buffy blood, or ex-demon's blood, or even witch's blood." He grinned, and then jumped back hastily as the chalice began to bubble and puff smoke. "Wow, I guess it's pretty strong stuff all the same." He flexed his bicep, pleased.

The smoke from the chalice poured out from over the rim, and began to sink and then to whirl, widdershins about. It darkened to grey and then to black, and slowly a swirling hole of dark emptiness began to form in its centre. A howling noise began, drowning out the noise of the steady chanting.

"Right," said Spike, with no enthusiasm at all. He stepped forward over the line of the pentagram, and into the swirling smoke. He put one foot into the dark void, paused as he found a footing, and put the other in. He began to sink rapidly into the floor, first his feet, then his legs, his hips, his chest, and finally his shining bleached blond head, until only his crown was visible. 

Faintly, over the howling of the rift they heard his voice. "Hey, three girls in a bed, this might not be so bad after ..." He was drowned out by a huge sucking noise like the biggest carpet cleaner in creation trying to suck up a mammoth hairball. A huge blast of cold air erupted from the rift, sending papers fluttering and hair flying. The swirling hole reduced to the size of a pin, and was gone.

"Okay," said Buffy after a long pause. "So, which of you rocket scientists kicked over the chalice?"

Chapter 5 - Initiation Rites

Vimes looked at the three Watchmen drawing up in front of him. Two of them appeared to be limping. In addition, Sergeant Angua had a fat lip, the beginnings of a black eye and a brooding expression on her face. Corporal Littlebottom stood beside her, an egg shaped contusion on her forehead, and a ragged chunk cut out of her beard. Lance-Constable Bott, hmmm. Lance-Constable Bott was immaculate, and apparently as fresh as a daisy. It made him tired just to look at her, frankly.

He put down the incident report he had been reading, lit the butt of his cigar, and leant back in his chair. "So," he said, "I've got the official version. I've also got a complaint from Mrs Esmeralda Wiggins of 24 Sheephuggers Lane alleging that five of my Watchmen were involved in an orgy, and responsible for assorted property damage, to whit, one broken window, thirty smashed roof slates, a ripped gutter, a stoved-in water butt, a smashed table lamp, a small oil-based fire, and acid burns on the front hall parquet. Anyone want to explain that, in detail?"

Cheery shifted, a little uncomfortably. She looked at Angua, who did not respond. "Well, sir, I suppose it all started yesterday afternoon after Lance-Constable Bott here was sworn in.  Nobb.... that is, the lads thought it might be a good idea to take her along to the Mended Drum, have a few drinks to celebrate. It's traditional for new recruits, he says. Sergeant Angua and I thought it might be a good idea to go along, just to keep an eye on things, you know. And so we did."

"It was very interesting," said Buffybot brightly. "I've never met anyone who drinks sulphuric acid before. Or beer with lumps in. And I learned several songs. There was one about a hedgehog."

Cheery coughed and continued. "Anyway, along we went. I had a few lemonades with potato spirit, and Angua had a white wine spritzer. And, er, Lance-Constable Bott had a great deal of everything, really. They kept buying her rounds, though they didn't seem to have much effect - and of course the lads matched her drink for drink. And then time wore on and things got a bit raucous..."

"Corporal Littlebottom threw another dwarf through the window," said Buffybot eagerly. "It was very funny."

Cheery blushed. "There was a remark made, Sir."

"And then this other dwarf threw Corporal Nobbs through the window, even though he had a certificate saying he wasn't a dwarf, and he was waving it."

"At which point I decided it was time for the Watch to leave," said Sergeant Angua, remotely. "Before anyone had to be arrested, or scraped off the walls."

"Very sensible," said Vimes, nodding. "And yet, things do not seem to have ended there." He stared right at Angua. "Let's discuss what happened next, shall we sergeant?"

Angua pursed her lips.  "We left the Mended Drum, and Cheery and Lance-Constable Bott very kindly offered to put the rest of us up at their lodgings - the boarding house run by Mrs Wiggins, Sir - since it was rather late by then. Dorfl took Nobby and Fred home in a cart instead, but Detritus came along with us. We got him as far as the lodging house, but he passed out in the front hall...”

"...and we couldn't move him, but Sergeant Angua said we should take his helmet off, and tuck it by his feet, in case he accidentally threw up in it and melted the metal." continued Buffybot happily, "so we did."

Angua threw her a look. "And so the three of us went to bed." She drew a breath, "And then, at about two o'clock this morning, I was awoken by a roaring noise, and Lance-Constable Bott's voice, and I found that there was a vampire was in our bedroom."

Earlier.....

Spike blinked and staggered. They've buggered it up, oh of course they've buggered it up, the useless bunch of tossers, he thought savagely. He looked around at the sloping whitewashed wall and the large double bed in front of him, full of young women. So where was he?

"Hello Spike!" said Buffybot.  She sprang up in bed and zinged Spike a friendly grin, making him jump back a little. "What are you doing in Cheery's bedroom?"  Her two companions in the bed sat up and stared at Spike as well.

He tried a friendly grin in return. "Hello ladies." And then, "Blimey," he added involuntarily. "What's that's on your face - a dead poodle?" For now he could see the faces of all the women. And the one on the right had a.... growth.

Cheery put a defensive hand up to her apricot coloured beard, which was neatly tied up in curlers. "It's the latest look - hey! What's it to you? And what are you doing here?" She reached down into the bedcovers and brought out her handy throwing axe.

"Ah...." said Spike. He balanced on his toes, his eye sliding to the third occupant of the bed, who had slid in a very sinuous manner out from under the bedclothes and disappeared into a dark corner.  He heard a nasty wet squelching noise and what sounded like a growl.

"You're under arrest," said Cheery, still smarting from the remark about her beard.

Spike didn't need to hear any more. He bounded to the window, and smashed through it head first. The shadows moved, and he felt a hot burning sensation in his ankle, and a sudden drag. He kicked out with full vampire strength as he went through the window. There was a muffled growl, and something bounced on the tiles of the roof beside him, slid down and disappeared over the edge.  He began to slide down after it, grabbed at the drainpipe rapidly approaching beneath him, and swung athletically around, to bounce back up on to the roof. Well, that was the theory. Instead, the drainpipe crumbled away in his hand, and he fell head first towards the pavement. That was the shoddiest piece of construction I've met in a century, he thought bitterly, just as he crashed to the ground, hit his head on a large water butt, and collapsed unconscious.

Buffybot gazed anxiously out of the window. "I do hope Spike is all right," she said. "And Sergeant Angua. She's very athletic, isn't she?"

"Come on." Cheery dragged on a rather flouncy dressing gown that was hanging from a hook on the bedroom door, and hurried out, axe in hand. Buffybot followed. 

"Of course, falling out of a window doesn't normally do Spike any harm." she said, as they thudded down the stairs.

"It doesn't?"  There was an odd note in Cheery's voice. She turned to look at Buffybot, who smiled.

"No, vampires are very tough." She noticed Cheery's look of alarm. "He's a good vampire, don't worry.  He hasn't murdered anyone in ages! Well, quite a long time. Well, not this year, anyway."

Cheery clutched her beard in alarm. A vampire! In her bedroom! There were days she wished she was still living down a goldmine, even one without lipstick.  She ran down the last few steps, her mind awhirl - and tripped over Detritus lying in the hall. She flew forward, knocking over a lamp, and banging her head on his patent head-cooling helmet, and her knee on her very own throwing axe. After a dazed moment, she opened her eyes to find herself lying beard first in a pool of troll vomit.  Her beard began to hiss.

"Oops!" said Buffybot brightly from above her. "Did you forget Sergeant Detritus was there?"

Cheery did not reply for a moment. Because she was opposed to swearing, and to cutting other people's legs off with her axe - unless it was strictly necessary - but there were times when she was sorely tempted.

Buffybot came down the last few steps, and lifted Cheery effortlessly to her feet and looked at her critically. "Your beard's gone a bit frizzy." Then she opened the front door, and peered out. Sergeant Angua brushed past her and came into the hall, her nightgown in her hand. "Right, Bott, she said, standing naked in the hall and glaring at the shiny little pinhead in front of her, "you have some explaining to do."

............

"And that's when Mrs Wiggins appeared," concluded Angua. "And cast the worst possible interpretation upon the presence of two naked women, a pie-eyed dwarf, and an unconscious troll in her front hall." Cheery blushed again, and Buffybot looked grave.  She liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, but even she had to admit that Mrs Wiggins had been very unfriendly, and frankly, plain rude.

"And once you had left the premises, with Mrs Wiggins's remarks echoing in your ears, did Lance-Constable Bott explain the presence of a vampire in your bedroom to your satisfaction, sergeant?"  Vimes looked at the report in front of him.

Angua sniffed. "Not entirely, sir, no."

Vimes tapped the paper, thoughtfully. "Apparently, Lance-Constable Bott, you - and the vampire - are not from Ankh Morpork, but instead from a coastal resort somewhere far west of here, called Sunnydale. Which is a place I have never heard of."

"Yes!” Buffybot. "It's a pity you haven't been there. It's very nice. You'd like it - despite all the demons, and vampires, and the Hellmouth. Of course it's a very long way away, probably."

"It sounds like a busy little place," said Vimes dryly.

"Oh, it is!" Buffybot nodded her head vigorously. "Only this week we found a dragon on the television mast."

Vimes became very still. "A dragon?"

Buffybot nodded again. "Yes, a lady dragon, about 100 feet long. I've got her orb, and I need to give it back, which is why I'm here looking for her. And Spike came looking for me. He's very sweet to be worried!"

"And why," said Vimes, after a long, dangerous pause, "do you think this dragon might be in Ankh Morpork?"

Buffybot looked surprised. "Well, I saw her arrive here." She pointed out of the window to the spire of the Unseen University. "She flew over that funny big tower over there. I expect she's gone off to eat some sheep. Or virgins. My friend Anya says dragons eat virgins."

Everyone looked across at the tower, as it loomed against the grey storm tossed sky. 

Another dragon, though Vimes glumly, I might have known we wouldn't get away with only one.

Chapter 6 - Mysteries

Sergeant Fred Colon and Lance-Constable Buffybot stepped out into the cold wet night, lanterns held aloft. Rain fell steadily, and mist swirled around their ankles.

Fred looked sideways at his companion.  She was bouncing on her toes, and obviously raring to go, despite the weather. He sighed. Just his luck to get stuck with a keen 'un. Commander Vimes had said to take her out and to be sure to keep her busy, oh, and to keep an eye out for a dragon. He shivered, he’d seen enough dragons to last him a lifetime already. But it was his night for patrolling, so patrolling he would do. He stuck out his chest unconsciously, and turned an even brighter red than usual, as he reflected on the noble calling of a sergeant of the Watch.

"Right, young Bott" he said, "Now this is the sort of night where we need to be heading down Squashed Artichoke Street and the Pig Market. Your actual villains aren't going to be out in the rain getting their vests wet, and setting off their sciatica, unlike some of us." He sighed heavily. "So, we'll keep an eye on the covered markets - and the marketplace taverns of course." He felt his belly give an anxious rumble as he spoke. He'd given it a bit of a workout the night before, it was true. And Mrs Colon had been downright sarcastic in her note this morning, about that business with the cart. No scumble, Fred, he told himself severely. Just a glass of small beer perhaps, and some port and water, to keep the cold out. Moderation, that was the secret.

"Do you think we’ll see the dragon in the market?” Buffybot asked eagerly. “I bet she’d like pigs to eat!”  Fred shifted uncomfortably, he hadn’t thought of that.  But still, by all accounts the dragon had headed off past the Unseen University, so they should be all right. “That’s just why we’re going that way, young Bott,” he said heavily, “patrolling for thieves, and dragons.”

Buffybot nodded, impressed, and they set off on their route, away from the smart end of town and down in to the commercial district, feet swinging in an easy rhythmical beat as Buffybot conscientiously tried to feel the cobblestones through her boots, as instructed by Commander Vimes. Very soon they came to the corner of Squashed Artichoke Street. 

“Why is it called Squashed Artichoke Street?" Buffybot asked eagerly. "Did someone squash an artichoke there? A famous artichoke?"

Fred nodded. "Well, in a manner of speaking. This big pig escaped from the Pig Market, and come charging down the street, and this fella George Artichoke - who was some sort of cousin of my wife's brother-in-law by the way - he decides he's going to try and head the pig off." He left a meaningful silence. "Poor fella. Never jump in front of a pig wot's got a golem with a knife in its hand behind it, and the scent of freedom in its snout. That's good advice, that is. They say you can still see the grease stain on the wall to this day."

Buffybot shook her head over the sad fate of George Artichoke, and made a mental note about dealing with emotional pigs. She could see that she was going to learn a lot from Sergeant Colon.

.............

The Summers living room was silent. After a second, Xander shuffled his feet, and Buffy glared at him.

"Hey!" he said, flushing. "It wasn't me. Why are you all looking at me? I am not fall-over-a-chalice guy here. Look at me! I'm over here, the chalice is over there. I'm innocent, innocent I tell you."

Anya patted Xander's arm. "Relax, sweetie. We all know you didn't do it. Don't we?" She glared with laser eyes all around the room. There was a chorus of coughs and murmurings.

"I didn't do it," yelled Xander. "I just look really guilty whenever anyone says 'Who did this?" It's a thing. Made life real difficult in kindergarten, I'll tell ya."

Willow nodded. "That's true. Xander was kindergarten fall guy. He had his milk and cookie privileges withdrawn every other week."

Buffy looked around the room. "So, who was it, then?"

"Actually," said Giles slowly, "It's rather hard to see how any of us could have done it. We are all over here, even Xander, once he'd made the blood offering - and the chalice is over there." He pointed to the other side of the room where the chalice lay on its side, still smoking slightly." He frowned. "This will need further investigation."

................

The patrolling Watch stopped in the Pig Market, just outside 'The Fletch and Foreflank'. The rain fell in a light but steady drizzle, making the wicks in their lanterns flutter, and shadows dance on the walls. The sky was a cold iron grey, and the wind was picking up. Fred shivered.

"This is great!" said Buffybot. "It's so ethnic!"

Fred cast an unenthusiastic eye over the looming red brick walls of the slaughterhouses on either side, and the black mould encroaching across the cobbles. His feet were getting wet and water was dripping off his helmet and on to his cape.

There was a faint scrabbling noise and a suggestion of movement in the impenetrable wet darkness ahead of them. Buffybot and Fred gazed at it together, Bot and policeman's eye drawn as one. Fred took a quiet step toward the tavern behind him.  Buffybot stepped forward into the dark.

"Ooh!" she cried, excited, "It's a puppy!" 

The dog drew closer, emerging from the shadows, and she squinted. "Well, it's a sweet little dog anyway." 

The dog came closer yet.

"Well, it's a dog," 

Fred took a step backwards, drew out his handkerchief and pressed it to his nose, his eyes starting to water.

"It's that 'orrible little cur Gaspode. Ain't seen him in a while. Reckoned he was long dead - and I might just be right, judging by the smell."

Buffybot pointed. "But he's walking! Well, limping. Poor little thing."

"Could just be the fleas," said Fred heavily. "I wouldn't rule it out." He looked longingly at the light spilling out from behind the ill-fitting door of 'The Fletch and Foreflank. "Don't touch him, Bott - you'll catch summat. Now, then." He gave his lantern to Buffybot. "You stand here and arrest anyone who falls out the door and passes out, right? Drunk and disorderly, that is." 

"Right!" said Buffybot, thrilled.

"I'll just check around inside for a few minutes."  Fred hitched his belt up, tilted his helmet back, and pushed his way through the door. As soon as he was gone the little grey smelly dog came up to Buffybot's ankles and sniffed them.

"You want to give your supper to the cute little doggie," said a gruff voice. "He's a nice little doggie, and I bet he's hungry."

“Hullo!” said Buffybot, looking down at Gaspode. "You can talk! Cool!"  She dug in her pocket for the squashed rat and jam sandwich the Night Watch cook had given her, and put it on the ground.

"No I can't," he said, rather indistinctly through a mouthful of rat, jam and bread. "Dogs can't talk. Well known fact."

"I expect it's magic," said Buffybot happily, "magic is totally cool."  There was pause filled only by indelicate gulping sounds as Gaspode bolted the sandwich in great bites. Buffybot looked him over as he ate, in the light cast by her two lanterns.  “Hey, little doggie, did you know you have mange on your bottom?”

Gaspode looked up from his supper. "Oh that's nice, that is," he said, his tone aggrieved.  "We just met two seconds ago and already you're making wiv the personal remarks. Charming, I don't think."

Buffybot's eyes grew wide. "Was I tactless?" she cried, "Anya says I'm always being tactless - and she should know!  I'm awfully sorry, little dog.  I bet you knew you had mange on your bottom already.  The bald patches and all that dandruff would have given it away."

Gaspode sniffed a very eloquent sniff, and returned to gulping the sandwich. Then he sat on the wet cobbles and began to give his stomach a thorough scratch. Mud and hair flew. "Don't s'pose you've got a hambone in your other pocket, eh?” he said casually after a while, "or one of them little mint chocolate wafers. They go down very nice after rat and jam."

Buffybot looked sad. "I'm sorry, little dog. I don't have any more food." She paused, looking at the little dog sitting on the wet cobbles in front of her. "Have you got somewhere to go tonight? It's very wet and cold to be out."

"Oh, I've always got somewhere to go to, me," said Gaspode. "I know my way about, alright." He sniffed again, hacked, and coughed up phlegm onto the cobbles.

"I think you need to be somewhere warm and dry," said Buffybot, concerned. "You've got a chill." She paused delicately, "You could always stay with me. There's an old stable at the Watch House, and I'm sleeping there. With Cheery. We got evicted by our oppressive landlord - well, landlady." She spoke with a simple pride.  She'd never been oppressed before - she'd read about it, of course, but had never dared hope it might happen to her. The moment Mrs Wiggins had taken their payment for all the damages, and then slammed the door in their faces, and chucked their belongings from the first floor window into the street, had been one of the most exciting moments of her stay so far. She certainly was experiencing Life here in Ankh Morpork. "I could give you breakfast," she added enticingly.

There was a pause "Yeah, well," said Gaspode, "A stable's as good as anywhere, I reckon." He critically examined the pads of his right paw. "Look at that," he said, "I've got a blister. You wouldn't think a dog could get a blister, would you? But there it is." He waved his paw. "Know how I got this? Running from a bleedin' dragon, that's how.  There I was, minding me own business down by the sluice gates the other side of town, just lookin' to see what might have been washed up, and whoosh! there's this shadow in the sky, and this huge bloody flying worm appears and tries to have me for breakfast."

"Hoorah!" cried Buffybot, "it's a clue!" And before Gaspode knew what was happening, she had whisked him up, tucked him under her cloak and carried him off into the night.

Chapter 7 - Clues

Giles prowled around the chalk outline of the pentagram, stepping neatly over the chalice that lay on its side, contents spilled on the carpet.

"Aha!" he cried.  A fascinated audience rushed to his shoulder. He pointed, dramatically. The pentagram lay marked out on the chalk dust sprinkled carpet in front of them, lines rough but unbroken - except for the point where a large boot print bisected the line, directly facing the chalice.

"It wasn't me!" protested Xander, backing away. "I didn't step on the pentagram. Stop looking at me like that."

Giles closed his eyes. "We know it wasn't you, Xander."

"You don't wear hobnailed boots for one thing," said Willow.

Tara nodded, "and besides....”

"...the footprint is facing outwards from the pentagram," added Dawn, triumphantly. "It came from inside."

...........

Lord Commander Vimes was in a conference. The conference consisted of Captain Ironfoundersson, now back from his two day budget training course in Lord Vetinari's private office and looking a bit sandbagged as a result; Lady Sybil Vimes, who had been called in as an expert adviser in dragons (she had dropped by to make sure her husband would be ready for the Annual Ankh Morpork Charity Ball, but had been mercifully distracted); and Sergeant Angua, in-house expert in tracking.

He leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his aching temples. So far, they hadn't got very far. An unreliable witness statement, and a suspicious report of a flock of sheep dead by spontaneous combustion just outside the city walls were their only clues. Sybil reported no agitation among her swamp dragon charges, and Angua had found no trace of dragon spoor in the air. So where was the creature? It was hard to believe something 100 feet long and all the colours of the rainbow was somehow blending in undercover. He leaned back in his chair and pondered his next move - and then his nose twitched. What was that smell?

"Oh dear," said Lady Sybil. "Are the drains are playing up again?"

Angua's head swivelled. "Someone's coming up the stairs. Skipping up actually."

Vimes groaned. There was only one skipper in the Watch.

The door opened and Buffybot bounced in. "Hi everyone!" she said, beaming around the room. "I've got a Clue!" And she reached under her cloak and drew out a filthy mangy little dog, which she placed proudly on the desk. The vile stench doubled in intensity.

"Gaspode!" cried Carrot, jolted out of his reverie.  And he rushed forward and tickled Gaspode around the ears. "I thought you were a goner, little fellow. I'm so pleased to see you back." 

"Gerroff," mumbled Gaspode indistinctly, and Carrot turned away and clapped Buffybot on the shoulder. "Well done, Watchman  ... Bott, you must be Bott. Sergeant Angua told me we had a new member."

Buffybot beamed. "I am," she agreed. "Lance-Constable Buffy Bott. And you must be Captain Ironfoundersson. They told me to look out for a very tall dwarf with red hair." She drew herself up and saluted. Carrot drew himself up and saluted her gravely in return, and then he went back to patting Gaspode.

"Oh my," said Lady Sybil, "this is all so touching." She smiled at Carrot. "Is the little doggie yours?"

Gaspode hawked and spat, and then coughed a deep hacking cough that made his ribs heave. Lady Sybil immediately looked concerned. "Oh dear, catarrh. What the little doggie needs is a good chest rub, a dose of my special cough syrup, and a nice woolly jacket to keep his chest warm. That should soon get him well."

"What the little doggie needs," said Angua acidly, "is a bath. In bleach." Gaspode gave her a Look from under his eyebrows.

Vimes cleared his throat. "When we've all quite finished admiring what may be the whiffiest dog I've ever met, perhaps we could get back to what Lance-Constable Bott thinks he's a clue to, apart from the composition of every midden pile in Ankh Morpork."

Buffybot giggled, merrily, and Vimes closed his eyes, pained. Skipping and giggling. It was almost more than a man could stand. "Sorry, Lord Commander Vimes, Sir!" she said, patting Gaspode absently. Her hand collided with Carrot's, as they both patted what was, after all, a very small dog, and she zinged him a bright smile. He smiled right back at her.

"I forgot to say," said Buffybot, "He's a clue because he says the dragon tried to eat him, down by the sluice gates leading out under the City wall." She looked around her bright eyed, confident everyone would be as thrilled as she was.

"My word, the poor dragon must be starving." It was Angua again. Vimes spared her a glance. The sergeant seemed to be upset about something.

Then he turned back to his new Watchman. She was even pottier than he'd feared, and even more unreliable.  In fact, he was beginning to think that maybe there was no dragon, even though its presence confirmed his worst fears -and he was used to his worst fears being realised at some time or another.  It was gift, or a curse if you chose to look at it that way. 

"Are you telling us that you believe this mutt spoke to you?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Erm," Lady Sybil looked embarrassed. "It's not really usual, is it young lady, for dogs to talk?"

"No!" said Buffybot, "in fact I only knew one other dog that could talk, and he was really a human person in doggy shape.  But you know what I think?" She leaned forward conspiratorially, and Lady Sybil and Carrot leaned towards her, entranced. "I think it's magic!" said Buffybot with a flourish.  She pointed out of the window at the Unseen University. Everyone followed her pointing finger, and then turned to look at Gaspode. He coughed again, and sat down to scratch his privates with a lazy back leg.

"That is the least likely magical creature I have ever seen in my life," said Vimes.

"Can you talk, little dog?" asked Lady Sybil. She walked over to him, her eyes watering only slightly.

"Of course I can't," said Gaspode. "I've never heard such a silly bloody idea."

"Of course he can't, I've never heard such a silly bloody idea," said Vimes. He blinked.

Lady Sybil blinked in return. "Language, Samuel ...." She stopped. "Is there an echo in here?" Vimes and Lady Sybil stared at one another, and then at Gaspode, their mouths opening in little 'oh's of surprise.

"Gaspode can talk!" cried Carrot. "Golly, how amazing."

"Oops," said Gaspode, and he leapt off the table and headed for the open door - which shut with a clang, a large axe embedded in it. He turned at bay, and showed a yellow snaggled tooth.

"Not so fast, little doggie," said Vimes. He walked over to the door and retrieved his axe, and turned to face Gaspode. "Now then," he said, menace oozing from his voice. "Why don't we have a talk, eh? Man to dog."

Gaspode eyed him without favour "You nearly 'ad my nose there. There's hospitality for you, I don't think." He shifted uneasily backwards as Vimes continued to advance, and then changed tack. "And as for the talkin', it's no big secret. Her with the big nose over there knew all along." He pointed his own, rather short nose at Angua. Eight interested eyes settled on her features.

Angua raised her chin. "I can explain."

..................

Spike groaned, and sat up. His head hurt. But when did his bloody head not hurt? Every time he even thought about filling in Harris's ugly mush, or staking the Slayer (which would totally serve her right, the annoying little smartass), there was the headache. It was no way to live. Or not-live. Or whatever. He shook his head to dislodge the half-baked philosophy stuff - and groaned again. Aargh, that was not a chip headache. That was a smashed-over-the-head-with-a-heavy-blunt-instrument headache. He knew the feeling well, particularly now he hung around with the Scoobies.

He dragged himself slowly to his knees, and felt his head. There was a knotted lump at the back of his skull - and a sharp pain in his ankle. He hoisted up his trouser leg and looked down, vampire eyes sharp in the darkness. Teeth marks, red and oozing - and big. His mind flashed back to the scene in the bedroom. Three figures in the bed, one with a beard - in.... could it have been curlers? Little Pollyanna bot in the middle, and the third one - ah. A werewolf. He'd been bitten by a werewolf - and then the short beardy type had tried to arrest him, and he'd jumped out of a window, and the drainpipe had given way ... and he'd taken a knock. And no doubt those harpies had come along and carried him off somewhere.

He looked around. He was in some sort of cellar. Water dripped from the ceiling and plinked into little puddles on the packed earth floor. Mould bloomed on the brickwork, and dry rot ran in white tendrils across the wooden ceiling above him. All in all, it seemed likeliest he was now in prison. Well, it wasn't for the first time.

He got up and cast around, to see what weapons were handy for his breakout. There was a scurrying movement in the darkness, and his hand shot out. A large sewer rat sank its teeth into his finger, and then expired, its back broken. He cursed and sucked on the wound. He'd only been in this revolting place a few hours and already two of the inhabitants had bitten him. He was not used to being on the receiving end, and frankly, it sucked. He drained the rat and tossed it moodily aside, then stopped dead and stared into the darkness. Two little points of blue light stared back at him.

"Well now," said Spike, raising a sardonic eyebrow, "who the hell are you?"

Chapter 8 - A Blue Eyed Monster and A Green Eyed Monster

"Look Sergeant Angua," cried Buffybot. "I've got my own axe!" She swung it through the air and hit the brick wall beside them with a metallic cherchunk, striking sparks and dislodging a large chunk of masonry and mortar dust.

Angua jumped back.

"Oops!" said Buffybot merrily, "I'm not used to the balance yet." She lowered her voice in awe. "It's a genuine dwarf axe. Cheery lent it to me. She says it doesn't match her helmet or chainmail, so she never wears it."  She looked sad for a moment. "It's a pity I can't have the crossbow as well, but of course it's true I only have two arms - or at least I do for now - so the sword and the axe are enough. And Sergeant Detritus says I have to take more shooting lessons first, because hitting other members of the watch with bolts is inefficient and wasteful."

"Yes, said Angua absently, "and it was lucky it was only Reg. You could have done someone else a mischief. Even so, you gave him a nasty flashback."

Buffybot blushed. "I didn't realise you had zombies on the force, so he took me by surprise." She brightened,  "Still, he was very kind about it. Said it could happen to anyone. And Igor fixed the hole, no problem." She swished her axe happily, "Anyway this is really sharp, and really cool! Cheery says her grandma Merry Littlebottom cut off more enemies' legs with it than she could count!"

Angua sighed; she couldn't help thinking that taking away Buffybot's crossbow and replacing with it an axe had not really addressed the basic problem.

.................

The Scoobies sat around a table, several large tomes open in front of them.  Giles was frowning. "I cannot see in these descriptions," he tapped the books, "any creature who would be wandering around in the Void - and either interested enough to break our spell, or powerful enough to step through the pentagram to do it."  He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. "Meanwhile, we have no idea where everyone went, or what damage they may be wreaking on whatever unfortunate world received them."

Anya was frowning too. "I don't see why you're all so upset about it. You've got rid of the dragon, and Spike - and the most of all, you got rid of the annoying little robot. Seems perfect to me." She shuddered. "Someone taught her to whistle recently, and then they bought her the DVD of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs." She looked at Tara, who blushed. "If she'd sung 'hi ho, hi ho' at 8 o'clock in the morning one more time I'd probably have thrown her into a void myself."

Buffy drummed her fingers on the table. "We may not like Spike - or Buffybot - Anya, but it's our job to rescue them. They're part of the team." She got a brooding look in her face. "Plus someone is trying to interfere here from another dimension, and I'm betting it's not because they love little puppies and kittens, and want the world to be a better place."

Xander nodded. "We need to find out what's going on, honey. Before some giant evil worm appears, or some insane immortal Goddess decides to end the world. Or eat us, and not in a good way."

Willow looked up from her book. "Well, looking on the bright side, they don't have to be planning to invade the earth, or you know, bring down an age of endless night, or whatever. I guess maybe they just wanted Spike for something. But it's impossible to know."

Xander made a helpless gesture. "Yeah, I mean - who would want Spike? It's got to be a madman."

"Or," said Tara, her tone thoughtful, "it might be Buffybot they want. And they spoiled the spell just to stop us getting her back."

Giles sighed. "All possibilities. Not to mention that it might be the dragon they're interested in. Or that orb. It had some very impressive capabilities. But we simply don't know what is going on, or why."

"Well then," said Buffy, getting to her feet. "You book guys come up with a plan to find out. I'm going to get my best axe - and when we find the bad guy, cherchunk! Problem solved."

....................

Spike squinted into the darkness.  There was small figure there, dressed in a robe, and carrying a scythe. Pretty classic, in fact, except for one small thing. Very small.

"So what are you, then?" he asked "The Munchkin Grim Reaper?"

"SQUEAK!" said the Death of Rats, insulted. 

He moved closer, out for the shadow, and Spike blinked. "Well, hello Scabbers. You're looking a bit thin. Been on one of those celebrity diets, have you?"

"SQUEAK!" The Death of Rats stepped over to the drained rat in the corner, and swung his scythe. A rat phantom rose from the little flat corpse, gave Spike a dirty look and then turned and faded into the cellar wall.

"Well, there's a thing," said Spike. "You know, I've eaten hundreds, or maybe thousands of rats in my time, and I've got a mate who's gone through hundreds of thousands of 'em - and yet I've never met you before, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't either. Want to tell me all about it? And while you're here you can tell me who put me in this cellar, and the best way out. Do that and I might stop eating your little furry mates."

"SQUEAK!" The Death of Rats turned his back ostentatiously, and began to trudge away, his robe trailing in the dirt behind him. Spike put a detaining thumb on the hem of his robe, and he turned.

"You're a bit limited conversationally, aren't you? Still, luckily for you, I'm resourceful. So, let's have two squeaks for yes, and one squeak for no, shall we?""

"SQUEAK!"

"All right, be that way." Spike thought for a moment. "Okay, I've got it. "Tell me, what sound does a rusty door make?"

"SQUEAK!"

"There!" said Spike triumphantly, that's got the conversational ball rolling. "Now .... argh!"

The Death of Rats had turned and brought his scythe down squarely on Spike's thumb. As Spike's hand shot back, he took a nimble leap into the dark, robe flying, and melted into nothingness.

"God, I hate this bloody world," muttered Spike, looking at the welling slash on his thumb.

"Oh, how super," said a voice. "Because I've got a plan that will let you wreak havoc all over it."

..................

Angua looked up at the sky, worried. The full moon was rising soon, but it had been so thoroughly overcast when they set off, she'd thought she was safe. Now, though, the clouds were scudding across the sky, and little wisps of moonlight were beginning to show as gleams that bounced off the rackety roofs and towers of Ankh Morpork.

Still, she comforted herself, there's plenty of overhang to these streets - and I'm not upset about anything. Not at all.  Even if she was still nursing a black eye, and a very sore back, because of the little dimwit beside her. Even if Gaspode had dropped her in it - and Commander Vimes had promised to have a chat with her about the Watch, and what she might expect that her senior officers needed to know, once he had a moment. Even if he had sent her to sniff out the dragon, and then when she hadn't found the trail, sent her back to the Watch House again to carry on regular patrols instead of keeping her with his search party. Even if he had told her to keep their newest recruit in her sights, as though she was some sort of nursemaid for brainless, perpetually smiling little dandelion-headed twits like Lance-Constable Bott. But still, she wasn't upset. Nope. Not at all.

"So," she said after a pause during which she reflected on just how calm and in control she was, "what did you make of Captain Ironfoundersson?"

"Oh, he's great!" said Buffybot, her eyes lighting up. "We went on a tour this morning and he knows everyone, and everyone knows him, and they all like him - even the evil villains! And when our shift was over he took me to the Dwarf Bread Museum, which is really historical!"

Angua felt a twinge. Carrot hadn't suggested a trip to the Dwarf Bread Museum in months.  True, this was probably because she'd expressed just how much she didn't care about dwarf bread, or the science of offensive sugar glazing.  But still, the fact remained that the Dwarf Bread Museum was on Carrot's list of places to take a date, and he'd taken blondie there. And on her first day at work as well. It had taken him weeks to ask her if she was interested in ballistic bakery.

“He told me all about the history of dwarf bread,” said Buffybot, unconsciously twisting the knife in the wound, “and it was very interesting.  There’s a Saga about a Scone. And did you know you can slice someone's head off with a slice of bread - as long as the slice is sharp enough? But the poor Captain was sad because not enough young dwarfs come to the museum to learn about dwarf bread heritage. So I told him about the interactive displays at the Los Angeles Science Museum, where my friend Tara took me, and we're thinking about making a firing range at the back, and baking some chakram bagels for the young dwarfs to throw. Of course, we may need to reinforce the courtyard wall first."

Angua felt a growl rising in her throat. 'We' may need to reinforce the courtyard wall, eh? Her teeth bared, and she began to fall into a hunched crouch.

"He has a very shiny breastplate, doesn't he?" continued Buffybot. "He uses grease from elbows.  I never knew people had grease in their elbows before, but I looked at the people in the Mended Drum and they had grease absolutely everywhere!” She looked at her friend who seemed to be bent over with a stomach ache. Was Angua all right?

“Let’s just get one thing quite clear,” said Angua, falling to her knees, her lip curling back from her teeth.  “Carrot is my boyfriend.” She shimmered, as hair sprouted in every direction.  "Damn!" she howled, as her breastplate and armour clattered to the ground. She sprang around to face the Bot, teeth bared, claws clattering on the cobbles.

“Ooh!” said Buffybot, pleased. “You’re a doggie, too.” She leant down and patted Angua’s lean flank. 

Angua flashed a fang. “I am not a doggie,” she said, biting each word off with her sharp white canine teeth.  “I am a wolf. A werewolf.”

“Would you like me to scratch your back?” said Buffybot solicitously. “I bet I can find the spot that makes your leg twitch!” She flexed her fingers.

“No,” said Angua firmly, although her tail had wagged a tiny bit, despite herself.  She frowned. Where had the anger gone, and the overwhelming urge to rip her rival's throat out? Why was there now an equally pressing urge to thrash her tail and butt her rival's knees with her head? She was a wolf, not a lap dog. But Buffybot made her want to curl up on a rug on front of a roaring fire, with a nice juicy hambone to chew, and an owner's leg to press herself against.  The sensation was similar to the way Carrot affected her in her weaker moments, oddly enough. She stared at the perky little blonde dimwit in front of her.  Could anyone as irritating as Buffybot have charisma? It was downright disturbing.  And another thing...

"You can carry my armour, though," she added grudgingly. "It's very difficult to do that with just teeth. And then," she paused for effect, nostrils flaring. "And then you can explain to me why you don't smell of human being - or dwarf, or anything at all for that matter. I should have noticed sooner, but Gaspode had enough smell for ten."

Buffybot gave a dismayed gasp.  Her secret was out!  And after only 12 hours in Ankh Morpork. Willow would be so disappointed in her.

Chapter 9 - Revelations & Revolutionary Politics

Spike looked up at his visitor.

The man standing before him was exceptionally tall, and thin, and pallid - and with terrible posture. He sagged inwards at chest height, his shoulders bent forwards. His hands were clasped together in front of him, and a black cape fluttered around his shoulders. His clothing was black, except for his stiff shirt, which glowed so brilliantly white that it was almost blue. It was complimented by his skin, which was a deathly white, while his slicked back hair was black, his sunken eyes were black, and he had added to the general black effect with paint, ensuring that his nails were black, his lips were black, and his eyeliner likewise.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Count Nosferatu, is it?"

"Hah, hah," said his visitor. "My appellation is not Nosferatu, no. But you may call me Count, certainly. That is fitting enough."

Spike got to his feet, and approached his new acquaintance. "Well, hello, Count old son - is there any special reason you look like a recently deceased member of the Magic Circle? Cause you don't smell like one. In fact," he paused significantly, "you smell quite fresh, and tasty." He grinned in a shark-like fashion and moved a little closer.

The Count chuckled again, "Very droll, Sir Vampire. Though I do not know this Magic Circle of which you speak. Instead, I am Grand Master of the Brotherhood of the Orb!" He drew himself up as he spoke and flashed Spike a significant look.

Spike pounced at the same moment, and then fell back, snarling, his forehead crinkling involuntarily from the pain in his head and the pain in his hands.

"I take a tincture of silver nitrate daily," said the Count, looking repulsively pleased with himself. "I find it most effective in warding off the various creatures of the night that I inevitably encounter in my work. Oh, and I also wear a number of holy symbols stitched into my underwear, and my clothes are steeped in a garlic washing solution on a regular basis. And of course," he flourished the red garnet ring glowing on his right index finger, "I have this useful little geegaw, which you may or may not recognise. And the tools of my trade, of course."  He lifted a large Gladstone bag and shook it. It gave an unpleasant rattle, as of dead and dried things rolling together, dustily. "Worked it out yet?" said the Count brightly. He held up a pair of silver handcuffs, lined with fur, and snapped them shut upon Spike's wrists with a triumphant flourish, and then turned the ring on his finger.

Spike rose, the pull on his wrists irresistible. He snarled. If there was one thing he really hated (apart from the Slayer, of course - oh, and Angel) it was a know-it-all smartarse Necromancer.

............

"She's a what?" Commander Vimes' eyebrows drew together. Wasn't it enough, he was thinking, that he had to worry about a dragon on the loose, without Watch members being exposed as wind-up toys? And why the delegation? Lance Constable Bott was accompanied by two Sergeants, and two Corporals - who should all have been home in their beds at this time of day. Well, except Dorfl, who should be attending a prayer meeting or ... Vimes imagination rebelled as he tried to imagine what else golems did when off duty.

"I'm a Bot," said Buffybot guiltily. She trembled, and her hand went to the Watch badge pinned to her left breast. Was she going to be fired? She felt a small, reassuring hand land on her shoulder, and she straightened. If it turned out to be an offence not to mention your non-organic origins on the Ankh Morpork Night Watch application form, then she would take it like a Bot.

"Apparently she's a sort of metal version of a golem, sir." Sergeant Angua stood upright, restored to her two-legged state, her armour correctly re-buckled. Corporal Cheery Littlebottom stood beside her, with her hand on Buffybot's shoulder, the pair of them flanking their new constable. "She's got words in her head, same as they do, written on a board - although she says we can't actually see them."

"Hmm," said Vimes. "And these words tell her how to act, and to behave, and so forth?"

"So I understand, Sir."  Angua gave a frustrated sideways glance at Buffybot. It had proved very difficult to understand half of what she said on the subject, which was annoying when the speaker was as fluffy-headed as the lance-constable.

Vimes sniffed. "Then whoever wrote the skipping and giggling parts needs locking up." He turned to Buffybot. "So, why were you sent here, Bot - and what is it your master wishes you to do?"

"I don't have a master, Mister Commander Vimes, sir," said Buffybot blinking. "Warren made me for Spike, but Buffy took me away from him and gave me to Willow. And she sort of shares me with Tara - and Dawn of course. I make Dawn pancakes."

Dorfl shifted from his spot against the wall, and prodded Detritus, who stepped forward, looming in the small room with the top of his helmet brushing the ornate plastered ceiling, its vents pulsing little jets of steam. "And dat is sounding like slavery to us, sir, which is contrary to Onion rules."

"Union," whispered Angua, "Onions are quite different."

Detritus coughed, "Union rules, I was meanin' to say. As Lance-Constable Bott's Onion - Union - representative I would like to respectfully suggest that she should be," Detritus looked at the scrap of paper in his hand, written in exquisite Golem script, "e-man-ci-pated, sir."

Buffybot stood up straighter still. She still wasn't clear what being emancipated was, but it was really sweet of all her new friends to be trying to get it for her. She zinged her best smile at Commander Vimes, who flinched.

"Well, she's not a man, is she?" he said irritably, "She's some sort of fancy clockwork."

There was a pall of silent disapproval at his words. He looked at his gathered subordinates, all grouped around Buffybot, and sighed.  "Oh, fine, fine. She can be emancipated if you all want her to be. After you tell me what you think a Union is for. Sergeant Angua?"

She scratched her head. "As far as I can tell, it's a bit like a Guild, sir - only the members don't actually have to be any good at anything."

Vimes steepled his hands, and lowered his chin. Cheery and Angua shifted uncomfortably, and took a little step backwards. Hand steepling was a bad sign. But Vimes remained mild. "And since when did the Watch have a union, Sergeant Detritus?"

Detritus continued to look straight ahead. "Dat would be from this morning, sir. We presented our demands to Captain Ironfoundersson and he said it was a corker of an idea, sir." Vimes turned to look at Captain Carrot and raised an eyebrow.

"I thought it was an excellent notion," said Carrot brightly. "Solidarity and mutual aid, and ... um, things. I haven't actually had a chance to read the whole document yet. But it's the golems' idea. And the lads are very enthusiastic."

Commander Vimes rubbed his eyes. "Oh, whatever," he said tiredly, "as long as they realise they can't go on strike."

"Dat is a matter still open to negotiation, sir," said Detritus, staring straight ahead. "I am not able to give such an assurance on behalf of my members at dis time."

Vimes groaned. This day was getting worse.

...............

Gaspode sat in the courtyard of Lady Sybil's mansion in the sunshine, scratching vigorously. After Lord Vimes had declared him to be under house arrest, her ladyship had whisked him off and subjected him to the indignity of a bath with insecticidal shampoo, cheerfully ignoring all his protests, and turning a deaf ear to his cursing.  Short of actually biting her he'd been unable to put a halt to events. And Commander Vimes had made it very clear what would happen if he did bite Lady Sybil. Red hot pokers had featured.

The bath had been followed by vigorous brushing with a metal comb, and the application of a number of patent salves to his various bald patches, and drops in the filthy wax encrusted recesses of his ears.  It'll be perfume next, thought Gaspode mournfully to himself, or ribbons round me neck, or clipping me hair in funny shapes, or something equally bleedin' embarrassing.

Lady Sybil came around the corner of the stables building, pails of dragon chow in hand. Gaspode cast a jaundiced eye in her direction, waited until she was walking past him, and then shook his head vigorously. Eardrops and softened lumps of earwax flew through the air in every direction, splattering themselves on Lady Sybil's dress, legs and boots. She looked down.

"Oh good," she said brightly, "my wax dissolver is really getting to work, isn't it? I must be sure to send the recipe to 'Pet's Corner' in the Ankh-Morpork Times." She leaned forward and lifted the flap of Gaspode's nearest ear and peered in. "I'll get after the rest of that with a damp cloth later. We'll have you shipshape in no time!" And she strode off across the yard, pails swinging.

Gaspode sank his head onto his paws. He hadn't realised prison would be so terrible.

As he lay, a dark shadow fell over him, and he looked up. A great dragon, coruscating in the sunshine, glided overhead on silent wings. Gaspode sat up hurriedly, and scurried to the safety of the open kitchen door.  He paused just inside the doorstep and looked up. "Bugger off!" he shouted from his place of relative safety. "Stop following me around, you big scaly bugger!"

Just for a moment it seemed that dragon tilted its huge head and looked down at him - then it glided on by, sinuous and otherworldly, glittering like a jewel.

"Oh!"

Gaspode became aware that he had company. Somehow in his flight from the dragon he had backed himself up against the rubber-clad shins of Lady Sybil, who was looking up out of the open kitchen door with him.

"Oh my!" said Lady Sybil. "What a wonderful, magical thing."

Chapter 10 - Dragons and Sausages

Buffybot stared at the little swamp dragon, fascinated.  She still had her badge - since Commander Vimes had decided that being an alien made of metal did not actually disqualify you from serving in the Night Watch of the City Guard of Ankh Morpork. And she was a member of the new Watch Union! And emancipated! Which was great. She'd never been any of those things before.

Commander Vimes had ordered her to remain on the premises of his mansion with Lady Sybil and Gaspode, while he continued to hunt the dragon. Gaspode, unnaturally clean and with the inside of his ears scrubbed pink, was sulking in the kitchen. But Buffybot was making the most of her opportunities.

"Can I pet him?" she asked eagerly.

"Of course you can," said Lady Sybil, delighted. "They like having their eyebrow ridges scratched. But watch out if they start hiccupping - you can get a nasty scorch mark that way. And if they start getting pop-eyed, or begin trembling, or you hear a nasty rumbling noise, drop down fast behind something structural and make sure your head is covered.  Otherwise it's perfectly safe."

Buffybot stared at the knock-kneed little dragon in front of her. Moonmist Talonthrust II stared back. She extended a finger, and scratched.  The dragon listed to one side, and his eye closed. There was faint whistling noise from his bottom, and the air became full of the scent of methane.

Lady Sybil gazed at the little dragon indulgently. "They do that when they're relaxed," she said, approval in her voice. "I think he likes you." She gazed across the courtyard where Sam and Carrot stood staring uselessly at the sky through which the larger dragon has passed, and then set off together towards the exit gate, heads bowed together as they discussed their next move. She sighed. Poor Sam was brooding again. Still, nothing she could do about it for now, except to make sure that he ate regular meals and remembered to change his underwear. She looked at the lance constable, who was on her knees making chirping noises to Moonmist as he lay on his side, tail writhing.

She slapped Buffybot heartily on the back, "I can see you're a natural with the little beasts." She picked up her slop pail, and tossed Moonmist a charcoal biscuit. "And that's one down; now to muck out the other twenty six."

Buffybot picked up her coal shovel, face glowing from the praise. Twenty six more - what fun! 

...........

Vimes snarled to himself.  He was sitting down in the Watch House with Captain Carrot composing a report for Lord Vetinari about the events the last two days. Once it was sent he fully expected an early summons to the palace.  An account of metal golems, golden orbs, chimerical dragons and parallel worlds was not the sort of thing he enjoyed seeing in black and white in a police report, and definitely not the sort of thing he wanted to have to expand upon before the disinterested gaze of Lord Vetinari.  It was fantastical, and magical, and just exactly what annoyed him most, and made him wish that all practitioners of magic could be dropped into a deep hole, with a large mountain dropped into the hole on top of them.  Some people might think that fantastical and magical things added colour to the dull everyday world, but he knew better. They were trouble, and generally extremely unhealthy for any non-fantastical and non-magical entities - as for example members of the Watch, or the general public - which stood in their way. He hunched his shoulders and brooded. Someone somewhere was behind all this upheaval, he knew it - and almost certainly for a criminal reason. And he planned to get them.

..........

Spike stepped out of the Count's carriage, into a dark street somewhere in Ankh Morpork. The fur lining was preventing his silver handcuffs from burning, but they still itched unbearably. He wondered if that was deliberate, or just ignorance. Not that it really mattered - given the chance he'd gladly slaughter the Count, either way. He shouldered his way through a heaving mass of the great unwashed, Count Nosferatu casting a pallid shadow just behind him, his fingers resting lightly on his garnet ring.

From the street arose a great reek of rotting things - powerfully organic, and almost thick enough to cut with a knife. Spike's nose wrinkled. He'd forgotten what a world without hot and cold running water actually smelled like. Then his nostrils caught a whiff of something more appealing than rotting cabbage and emptied chamber pots, and his head lifted. Ah, a sausage seller pushing a cart was coming his way. Spike sniffed again. Frying sausages and something else.... rats? He frowned. Cooking was just a waste of a rat in his opinion.

"Sausage-inna-bun, rat-onna-stick! Buy yer sausage-inna-bun, or rat-onna-stick here!"

The cart came closer and Spike drew in a deep appreciative breath.

"Sausage-inna-bun, sir? Lovely juicy sausage, made with mostly pig product?" CMOT Dibbler held up a sausage on a skewer, and peered forward into the darkness, hoping to make a final sale for the night.

Spike gave him a very unfriendly look. He had now taken a closer sniff, and if there was pork in those sausages, then he was a flying armadillo. He gave a flash of fang and Dibbler recoiled.

The Count took Spike's arm, and he turned, another unfriendly look at the ready.  "I really wouldn't, my dear boy," said the Count. "In hot weather such as this, at the very end of a long day spent festering on that tray, Mr Dibbler's products are almost 100% lethal for those not actually brought up in the city. And even those who are already dead can expect a very uncomfortable result." He shuddered fastidiously, "Once we reach my house I can offer you something much fresher - still running about, indeed." He licked his lips a little, unconsciously, as he spoke.

Spike rolled his eyes a little, briefly. Human blood rituals were so ... dismal. It took a vampire to really get a blood sacrifice party going - and he was retired. He walked on with the Count, plotting his next move. He had the notion that once The Brotherhood of The Orb discovered his little difficulty with eating people, his stock was likely to fall.

CMOT Dibbler gazed after their retreating figures and swallowed. He was a live and let live - or not-live - sort. As long as he could sell a fellow citizen something he minded very little if that citizen were man, dwarf, troll or zombie. But a vampire without a ribbon, in the company of a bloke who wore black lipstick and an opera hat, was trouble. He pondered for a moment, and then pushed his cart away quickly into the darkness. Information, like everything else, had a value. And he had a notion just who would value this tidbit the most.

.............

Buffybot scritched the eyebrow of the twenty seventh swamp dragon. Lord Mountgay Gayscale Talonthrust III of Ankh closed his eyes in ecstasy, and keeled over on his back with a little thump. She transferred her attentions to his round upturned belly.

"You have a wonderful way with dragons," said Lady Sybil admiringly. "Not a single little accident among them today, from either end. Normally strangers make them nervous, and that upsets the digestion." 

"I think they're great!" said Buffybot enthusiastically. "And they're so cute, with their buggy eyes and flappy wings - and those darling little talons!" For as she spoke, LM Gayscale had clenched his talons reflexively into her wrist, and was clamped to her arm like some exotic bangle.  Buffybot gently untangled him, and straightened. She'd had a really wonderful couple of hours, and Lady Sybil knew an amazing amount about her little charges. She was looking forward to reading her Ladyship's book, 'Guardians Of the Marsh: Draco Swampensis in Myth and Legend', once she got a free moment from Night Watching, crossbow practice, emancipation, and of course, finding her friends and getting home. Oh.

She gave a little guilty start when she realised how long it was since she'd put any thought into how to get herself rescued. Or giving the dragon its orb back. The orb was now in Commander Vimes' - or strictly, Captain Carrot's - safe in the Watch-House. (Commander Vimes had suggested it would be safer there than in her pack - and since Mrs Wiggins had dented it by throwing that very pack out of her first storey window, Buffybot had agreed with him.)

Now she gave a little firm nod. She would have to ask Captain Carrot for the orb back, and return it to its owner as soon as possible, and then see about finding Spike and going home. How, she wondered, could she get the dragon's attention? She pondered for a moment, chewing her lip, and then she sent a dazzling smile Lady Sybil's way, receiving a jolly but slightly puzzled smile in return. She had a Plan!

Chapter 11 - Unwelcome Guests

"Whoa!" said Xander. "That's a zombie all right. I've met zombies before - but this is your larger economy size zombie." 

Everyone clustered a little closer together and stared at the apparition before them.  The zombie stood on the carpet of the Summers' living room, his head looming against the ceiling, his shoulders bulking massively against the flower printed wallpaper. His clothes, hair, and face were a nasty pasty green, and his skin seemed to have slipped down his skull, giving the phrase 'bags under the eyes' new force. Meanwhile, his right foot and arm were clumsily smothered in bandages, giving him the look of a partly unwrapped mummy.

No pentagram constrained him, and no magic wards. He looked at the assembled Scoobies, took a step forward, opened a mouth like a nasty gaping wound and hissed, showing a mouthful of very sharp teeth.

Buffy stood squarely in front of the zombie troll, her arms crossed and her axe resting against her shoulder. "Don't even think about it."

"You know," said Giles, "when we discussed the possibility of zombies, I did assume it would be a human zombie, as it were. Whereas, our guest..."

"...Is a troll," nodded Willow. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"Why was this a good idea again?" whispered Xander. He was standing by the living room door, fiddling nervously with the handle.

"It's not a good idea, it's a lousy idea," Anya whispered back. "I suggested we leave the room, and ideally also the town, the moment that Tara suggested it, if you remember. But no, you wanted to stay and get killed along with all your friends."

"Buffy?" Tara put a gentle hand on her shoulder, the one without an axe resting against it. "No need for any confrontation. We're all friends here." She smiled at the zombie.  "It was very kind of you to, uh, drop by."

"Exactly." Giles stepped in front of Buffy, and adjusted his spectacles. He cleared his throat nervously. "Um, how do you do? I'm Rupert Giles, Watcher. This is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, erm, she's very attached to her axe... it's an occupational thing. And we are her companions and supporters." He waved to indicate the rest of the party, and frowned at Buffy, who reluctantly put the axe down and leant against it, like a woodchopper taking a breather.

The zombie's mouth opened, and it spoke, its deep voice muffled and distorted. Saliva and other unsavoury detritus sprayed from his lips.  "Not friends. Hate humans."

"Oops," said Xander, opening the door a crack.

"Just for the record," said Anya quickly, "I'm not a human. Demon all the way."

"Oh, human hating is cool." Willow tried a friendly grin, "Hey, we can dig that. I have severe issues with Pat Robertson, for example. But the question is," she spoke slowly and carefully, "which humans do you hate most?"

The zombie's eyes flashed, and flecks of spittle flew from his lips like bullets as he roared, "The Brotherhood of the Orb!"

There was a silence, as everyone surreptitiously stared at the green gobs of zombie spit on each other's faces and tried not to shudder.

"Well, then," said Giles after a moment, taking off his glasses and wiping them vigorously. "I believe that we will be able to do business."

..............

Vimes opened the front door. After a long, fruitless day hunting the dragon, and a spectacularly useless interview with Arch Chancellor Ridcully, followed by a long and painful interview with Lord Vetinari, he had dragged himself home for some peace and quiet, and a good cigar. As he stepped in he heard the rise and fall of female voices, and he groaned. Sybil had a visitor, and probably a ghastly one, because she generally saw her actual friends at Sunshine Sanctuary meetings, or the Ankh Morpork knitting and crochet club. He slipped off his boots and was tiptoeing down the corridor, hoping to get to the safety of his study, when the conversation was punctuated by a high-pitched giggle. Vimes stood stock still, frozen in his socks. Lance Constable Bott! In his living room. Would she give him no peace?

He flung open the door, to find Buffybot and Lady Sybil sitting cosily side by side, a pile of dragon studbooks on the floor beside them. But what they were examining now was worse than studbooks. It was the dreaded family iconograph album, which after pages and pages of floridly overweight and interchangeably stuffed-looking Ramkins, included no fewer than three pictures of himself in fancy dress, including the last and most ghastly picture, which involved a ruffled lace shirt, skin-tight pantaloons, and shoes with huge buckles on them.

"Hullo, Sam," said Lady Sybil, "I was just showing dear Buffy your court picture. You look jolly dashing there."

"You've got funny shoes on!" said Buffybot, pointing happily. "And frilly bits on your shirt." She giggled.

Vimes growled.

Lady Sybil smiled at Buffybot, "She's very sweet, isn't she?" She patted Buffybot's shoulder. "Buffy has agreed to come and volunteer at the Sanctuary regularly, which will be splendid. She'll make a wonderful addition to the team."

Vimes clamped a cigar between his teeth, and began to chew it. If he ground his teeth any more today, he was likely to start a small fire in his mouth.

..............

Buffy stood on the back porch, tapping her axe against her boot and waiting for the crack in space time to appear. Things were working out, though their new ally Porphyry the zombie troll had proved to be a tougher negotiator than she'd expected.

When it had become clear that he would create a hail of sticky saliva every time he spoke, the negotiations had moved to the backyard. Tara had produced a plate of home baked cookies (on the Summers' best china of course, Buffy noted) and offered him herbal tea and/or formaldehyde - and once the zombie had established that they had no sulphuric acid, he had accepted all three. Then he had sat himself on the attractive wooden bench in the arbour  -  which she would probably have to burn now - tossed off the formaldehyde and tipped the plate of cookies down his throat, accidentally taking a bite out of the plate as he did so, and settled down with tea in hand for some serious horse-trading.  Buffy scowled. She could only hope the zombie's saliva wouldn't kill the grass. If it was as toxic as it looked there would be a large scorched semicircle on her lawn when she got back. 

Still, painful though it was to host a flaking, undead zombie in her home, she had to admit that Tara's initial idea, which was simply to send a polite invitation for tea, biscuits and chat to the owner of the large hobnailed boot that had broken their pentagram, was a good one. After all, Tara had argued, even a creature magically powerful and shielded enough to break such a circle would find it intensely painful, so there was an excellent chance that it hadn't done so voluntarily. And consequently might want a bit of revenge.

It turned out Porphyry had a great deal he wished to be avenged for. Enslaved by the Brotherhood of the Orb through the use of their leader's magical garnet ring, he had been fetching and carrying, and robbing and assassinating at their beck and call for more than a decade. Being forced to endure the vortex between worlds, and now to breach magical pentagrams, acquiring a number of weeping burns in the process (he pointed to the bandages), was only the latest, and most intensely uncomfortable phase of his miserable existence.

Anyway, he was willing to transport one of their number to his native world - and even to help everyone leave again, but not until The Brotherhood of the Orb was smashed, and the garnet ring destroyed. After that, he said, cracking his knuckles, you could leave the tidying up to him.

So here she stood, dried zombie spit still on her jacket, waiting to be transported through a crack in space time to another world apparently chock full with necromancers, power mad dictators and savage trolls, just so that she could rescue her perky metal doppelganger and the most annoying vampire in existence. She sighed. Sometimes she really hated her job.

............

Vimes looked around the guardroom of the Watch House. After rousting the Lance Constable from his living room, and eventually retiring to bed, he had found himself after all unable to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, elusive dragons, idiotic wizards, sardonic patricians and giggling bots swirled in front of him in a nauseating swirl. Eventually, he had thrown back his bedclothes with a curse, and set off for his old night-time haunt.

He looked around the empty room, which was as scruffy and insalubrious as ever. A kettle and some plates rested beside the fireplace, and mugs and crumpled copies of the Ankh Morpork Times were strewn about the tables. "Where's Bott? I told her to come here."

Detritus looked up from his place at the front desk. "She did come here, Mr Vimes, like you say. And then she went to find the dragon. Wants to give it der orb back."

"And you let her?"

Detritus shrugged, "She off duty."

Vimes resisted the temptation to bang his fist on the desk. Experience told him this simply led to splinters. "And did she say," he enunciated through his teeth, "just how she planned find the dragon?"

"No, sir." Detritus looked straight ahead. "But she a free Bot, sir. Free to hunt for dragons if she so chooses to do, being e-man-cipated. She made the lads sandwiches before she went." He indicated a huge teetering pile of beautifully cut ham and mustard, and rat and mustard sandwiches in front of him, and a pile of rocks beside the desk, cut neatly in half and buttered on one side. "and den off she went."

Vimes made a little annoyed sound. "Oh well," he said after a moment, "never mind, at least that remarkably stupid idea won't come to anything. The orb's locked up safe and sound in the Watch House safe." He took a large bite of a ham and mustard sandwich. What with one thing and another he'd been skipping meals.

"Actually, no, sir,” said Captain Carrot, appearing behind him. "Lance Constable Buffybot has the orb. She asked for it back."

Vimes stopped dead, sandwich between teeth. He put the sandwich down and turned to his deputy. "She asked for it back," he said, a note of wonder in his voice.

Carrot nodded, a gently benign expression on his face. "Yes, sir, that's right."

"And you gave it to her," said Vimes, a twitch beginning under his eye.

"Yes, sir. Remember, you said we'd keep it safe for her until she needed it?"

Vimes took a deep breath. "You gave an extremely rare and powerful magical object, that has the power to convey creatures between worlds - and who knows what else, probably to destroy cities - to that pea-brained, giggling, little tin can on legs?"

"Well, yes," said Carrot, "it's hers, after all. Keeping it would be stealing."

Chapter 12 - All About The Orb

The Count threw the doors open with a flourish. “Welcome,” he said, “to the Temple of the Brotherhood of the Orb!”

Spike strode in, lip already curling disdainfully. It was bound to be a miracle of bad taste - these places always were.

………….

Buffybot skipped down the street, lantern in hand, heading for the Tower of the Unseen University. If you wanted to attract the attention of something that flew, she reasoned, you should go the highest point and wave.  She smiled, proud of her own reasoning power. Mr Vimes was very clever of course, and everyone said he was an amazing copper, but he was just going the wrong way about the matter. What he needed to do was look at things from the dragon's point of view. Did it want to be chased by lots of men in armour and shot at with big crossbows? Almost certainly no. What it wanted, much more likely, was to get its Orb back and go home. Buffybot knew how to activate the Orb of course - though she hadn't quite worked out how to do that without sending herself to another world along with the dragon. But she can tell me, thought Buffybot happily. And maybe even send me home if she wants, though I'm not sure if dragons do favours. She skipped onward into the night, the twenty fifth verse of 'Gold, Gold, Gold' on her lips.

…………..

“Greetings, my Brothers!” cried the Count expansively. “I bring our third dark servant, someone finally capable of assassinating the creature Vimes, and even Vetinari, if necessary, as I pledged to you all I would do.”  He indicated Spike with an expansive gesture, chalky white features splitting in a ghastly grin. “Looks as mean as a weasel, doesn’t he?”

Spike scowled. He could do without personal remarks from someone who resembled an albino bat in a frock coat. It was insulting - and he was nobody’s bloody servant  - dark or otherwise.

The Brothers looked up.  They were clad in dark brown robes, their faces shadowed by dark cowls, their hands lost in the long sleeves. But Spike had his nose to guide him. He smelt riches - rich foods, rich wines, rich perfumes and spices - and the faint metallic reek of gold itself. He nodded, grimly. Rich men, all of them, and not one with even a sniff of magic of their own. And yet here they were dabbling with necromancy and demon summoning. Tut tut.

The lead Brother stepped forward, waving a languid hand inside his robe.  “He does have an evil and criminal look, true. And heaven knows we’ve all wasted enough money trying to get Vimes wiped from the board. But I do hope he proves to be more use than the dragon, Winkelson old chap. It’s been here three days now. And what do we hear? Any buildings burned? Villages terrorised? Livelihoods ruined? Virgins torn limb from limb?” He licked his lips a little at this last image. “Not a one - and each time you summon the creature into the city it turns around and flies right out again. There should be panic in the streets and mobs calling for Vetinari’s head by now. It’s not good enough, you know.”

The Count frowned. “Once I have the Orb in my hands, the dragon must bend itself to my-our will …”

“But you don’t have the Orb,” interrupted the Brother. “Here we are, the Brotherhood of the Orb. And yet with no Orb upon the altar. Because you lost it.”

The other Brothers all nodded and murmured, as though he’d made an excellent point.

The Count ground his teeth. “If you recall, I did not lose the Orb. The great serpent and your servant Porphyry fought one another across vast vistas of time and space, locked together in mortal combat for many days, as they fought for its possession. Finally the serpent tumbled out of the Void and into another world, where apparently it lost the Orb.”

“Well we didn’t see any of that, did we?” It was another brother - smaller and wider than the first.

“And the effect is the same anyway, from our point of view.” It was the first Brother, a smug note in his voice. “What we need to concentrate upon here as a Brotherhood is the outcomes, not the processes. You do the executive stuff, Winkelson. It’s what we hired you for.”

Spike grinned. Seemed he wasn’t the only creature in the room that the Brotherhood was mistaking for a servant.

………

A dark carriage veered out of the darkness, drawn by four coal black horses, their heads decorated with nodding black plumes. It drew to an abrupt halt, and a carriage door bearing a large golden crest creaked gently ajar.  Buffybot stepped up to it, delighted. Perhaps someone wanted to ask for directions! She’d been studying her map of Ankh Morpork religiously all week, to be Prepared.

"Hello, pretty little Watch Person," said a husky voice from the carriage, with a rather delightful foreign timbre to its voice. "What a very interesting jewel you are carrying."

"Hi!" said Buffybot. "I am pretty aren’t I? And you have a funny accent!"

There was a chuckle from the depths of the purple velvet lining. "A naïf. How delightful."  There was a faint creak, as the person in the carriage leant forward. A very pale face appeared. "I wonder," said the elegant lady now revealed, "if you would care to give me the pretty jewel. I am sure I can replace it with something you would like better. Turkish Delight, perhaps?" She produced a satin padded box, lifted the lid and proffered it towards Buffybot; her dark eyes boring into Buffybot's clear hazel ones, which gazed guilelessly back. The Lady’s pupils lengthened to slits, and then widened into blackness until no iris remained. The air became thick and cloying as a heavy scent arose from the sweetmeats in the box. A pale be ringed hand reached out confidently towards the Orb.

"That's very kind of you," said Buffybot, "and I'm sure Turkish Delight is very tasty. But the Orb belongs to someone else. Sorry!" And she turned and skipped off around a right angled bend in the alley, beyond the light cast by the carriage lamp, disappearing into the fog in an instant.

A faint rumble of laughter came from the depths of the carriage. "Vell, vell, my dear. I do believe you are losing your touch. Not enough glamour for one innocent little girl, travelling through this dark forest of brick and stone, alone and unafraid."

The box shut with a snap, and just for a moment fangs flashed beneath rouged lips. Lady Margolotta turned to her invisible companion. "If you make that offensive snickering sound again, Boris my dear, you will be leaving my carriage. Head first."

Boris made a tutting sound, and a long white finger appeared in front of her ladyship's eyes and wagged from side to side. "My dear Margolotta, I do believe you have forgotten the sacred promises you have made as the wearer of ze Black Ribbon." The long white finger gestured casually to the bosom of the lady's dress, where the ribbon was affixed with a beautiful gold pin. "We are creatures of peace now, my delightful one, are we not?" he added. He chuckled again.

Lady Margolotta slapped the side of the carriage sharply, and it jolted into movement. A moment later the door opened and a male figure flew through the air in a great parabola, to land with a sickening crunch on the cobbles. The crumpled form stirred, turned on its side and coughed some blood, then turned further onto its back, gleaming white shirt front uppermost. Lord Boris chuckled again, and then laughed, blood bubbling in the corner of his mouth. I do believe she's broken a few of my ribs, he thought. How delightfully retrogressive of her.   

…………

Spike looked around him. The Temple of the Brotherhood of the Orb had a lot of the classic features a House of Black Magic might be expected to feature. A large brass censer hung from the ceiling, for example, incense-heavy smoke pouring from it and defying convention to fall heavily downwards and spread across the floor in oily billows. A huge pentangle was inlaid into the floor in what looked remarkably like silver. Inside the pentangle a large white altar stood in the centre of the room, covered in ominous stains, while various sculptured winged and scaled creatures stood in shadowy niches around the walls, cold jewelled eyes gazing down upon the chicken, the goat, and the scantily clad young woman who were all tethered there. 

The thirteen Brothers stood in a circle around this odd little group, dressed in black robes, heavy cowls covering their heads, and a symbolic pair of sickles crossed across each Brother's chest. So far so traditional. Though the sight of the Count lurking behind them in his evening wear, Gladstone bag on his lap, struck a slightly odd note. The coffee tureen and the plate of biscuits on a table to one side simply struck Spike as practical. Black Magic rites were thirsty work.

He rolled his eyes briefly. He recognised the set-up all right. Blood rites, bringing access to the Void and communion with demons. And all to get their precious Orb back. What a bunch of bloody idiots the Brotherhood were. Anyone with a lick of commonsense knew the demons would eat them in the end. The only question was when, and how much of the town they'd take with them. Oh, and there was also the question of whether the Count would be getting chewed up as well - except he wasn’t a Count was he?  He was some bloke called Winkelson.

Spike looked at the girl lying limp on the altar. And I suppose the Slayer'd tell me to leap in there and save that stupid bloody girl, would she? he thought savagely. And the witches would probably tell me to save dear little Benjy, and Cock-a-Doodle as well. Even though I've got silver handcuffs on, even though the Phantom of the Opera over there has a garnet ring that can stop me in mid stride, even though I can't even give one of these wankers as much as a scratch without this bloody chip giving me the migraine from hell. So how am I going to do that, eh? Bloody impossible, innit? And I'm going to die in terrible agony trying, aren't I? And I still don't know what the Man U score was. God, I hate my unlife.

Chapter 13 - Rescue

Vimes had experienced very little difficulty tracking Buffybot's progress through Ankh Morpork. A shadow loped along beside him, ghostly in the shadows, visible only by the glow of its golden eyes and an occasional flash of white fang. But a keen nose had not been needed for this job. The sight of a fully armed and uniformed Member of the Watch merrily swinging a huge golden orb from its chain, while skipping and singing little snatches of 'Gold, Gold, Gold!' as she crossed the dark alleys and squares of the city, had drawn considerable attention. Mainly from sporting citizens laying bets with one another on how soon she would either be mugged or, even worse, be collared by Mr Vimes for being drunk on duty. Now that Vimes was after her, the odds were shortening considerably on option two, and he was attracting a crowd of eager punters, happy to point out her direction. They trailed after him as he strode grimly across the cobbles with a select group of Watch officers, grinding his teeth as he went.

Buffybot had clambered over the wall of the Unseen University and up to the base of the tower. She had paused on the railing that surrounded the fifth floor balcony and was looking up. A number of apprehensive gargoyles were peering back down at her from higher up the tower. Up until now they had always considered it a place that was safe from the attentions of the Night Watch, but it seemed even this bastion had been breached. Buffybot waved to them merrily.

“Hi there!” she cried. “Have you seen a very big dragon with pretty patterns?”

She swung out onto the balcony rail and reached up for a handhold, as the gargoyles shuffled very slowly round the tower and as far away from her as they could. At that moment there was a flash and a roar and the balcony shuddered under the sudden weight of a huge green zombie troll and a small blonde Slayer.

Buffybot made a little surprised ‘ooh!” as the railing beneath her knee gave way, and she fell forwards and outwards, headfirst towards the ground until her ankle caught on something, stopping her fall with a judder. Her helmet fell from her head, spiralling downwards into the darkness to hit the ground with an ominous clang, and the Orb swung down and clouted her around the ear. She swung, dangling from the tower, her watchman's bloomers fluttering in the breeze and her armour jingling, as gravity caused all the overlapping metal plates to flap backwards. After a second everything went abruptly dark as her breastplate jammed itself over her head.

“Hello Bottie,” said a familiar voice. “I’ve come to save you.”

..............

The ritual droned on, with much crossing and uncrossing of sickles, and reciting of bad doggerel backwards. Spike yawned and rested his eyes for a moment. Been there, done that.

Then Count Nosferatu stirred, and opened his Gladstone bag. Spike’s eyes snapped open. The Count took out a number of shrunken head fetishes, some barely articulated bones, and various dried and desiccated little furry bodies. He arranged them in an arcane pattern and began to mutter, eyes closed.

Spike wrestled with his cuffs now the Count was distracted, until he heard a faint rattle behind him. He turned and stared suspiciously into the shadows. Sitting on one of the scaled and winged statues behind him, eyes glowing blue in the darkness, and scythe in bony paw, was a familiar skeletal figure. Standing beside him, and currently investigating vigorously beneath its wing for mites, was a raven. He moved towards them and bent down, not too close - that scythe was sharp.

"You again. So, how's a rat going to cop it in this little melee then? I can see me getting it in the neck easily enough, and the girl, and the goat, and the chicken - and maybe even a Brother or two if I'm really lucky. But where's the doomed rat, I ask myself?" He sniffed the air. "Can't even smell any rats around here. I reckon any rodent with any sense buggered off long ago."

The Death of Rats tilted his head on one side, as though considering Spike's words. "SQUEAK."

"Oh yes, very informative, as ever. And how about him, eh?" Spike pointed at the raven. "I don't see any ravens flapping about either, ready to get a flying arrow through the unmentionables. Don't see any arrows come to that."

"Oh, I ain't a Death," said the raven, making Spike jump. "Goodness me, no. Just a humble raven, me." It peered out over the room. "This ritual sacrifice business," it added casually. "That'll be your basic hearts and livers I daresay? No one going to be bothering about a little thing like an eyeball or two are they?"

The Death of Rats turned to look sternly at the raven.

"Just asking," it said sulkily, shuffling from foot to foot. "Can't blame me for taking an interest, now can you?"

"Well, in a minute I'll do my best to cut a few heads off for you," said Spike, turning and girding himself.

"Ta, mate." The raven hopped from one foot to another and ruffled its feathers, excited.

Spike raised a scarred eyebrow. Looked like he’d made a friend. Pity he was going to die in the next few seconds and wouldn't have a chance to really get to know his new pal. Because there was no point delaying any further - the ritual had wound its way around to the ceremonial unsheathing of the sacrificial axe, and the Count - who was doing the real work - had finished his summonsing as well. The axe flashed in the smoky incense laden air, swung in an intricate pattern, and on the altar the chicken shifted uneasily. Possibly it had seen an axe before.

"SQUEAK!" said the Death of Rats.

"He says you might want to wait another couple of minutes or so, though," added the raven after a pause, his tone disappointed. "There's stuff going to happen."

Spike rocked back on his toes, frustrated. If he was going to go out in a stupid, agonising, blaze of glory, he'd like it to be soon. Apart from anything else, he was getting hungry - and a wee bit bored, frankly.

.............

“Buffy!” cried Buffybot, from inside her breastplate. “Hi!” She felt herself raised effortlessly through the air, and in a moment she was deposited head first on the shaky remains of the balcony, and her leg was abruptly dropped. She lay on her back and beamed up at her rescuer, who scowled back down at her.

“Ooh!” she said, thrilled. “You’re a troll. Do you know Sergeant Detritus? He’s really cool - especially his brain.”

Porphyry’s forehead wrinkled alarmingly as he scowled. “No small talk!” he yelled, “Let us find the Brotherhood of the Orb, and slaughter them like the miserable bleating sheep that they are!”

Buffybot lay in a shower of rotting detritus fallen from the zombie’s mouth. She wondered if he would be open to some tactful hints about minty toothpaste?

“I see you’ve still got the Orb, at least.” It was Buffy. She leant down and helped Buffybot to her feet. “And nice to see you’re still in one piece,” she said, patting Buffybot’s shoulder gingerly, “Tara was worried, so she sent me to fetch you.”

Buffybot glowed, and grabbed Buffy in a big hug. Buffy had come to save her! Her friends were so sweet! “I am in one piece - I haven’t even cut an ear off,” she said proudly, “and my legs both stayed on fine, even in these funny boots.”

“Yeah,” Buffy extracted herself from the hug, and began flicking bits of Porphyry’s spittle from her jacket. “That’s quite some costume you’ve got there, Bottie. You’re going to have to tell me all about it.”

“NO!” It was Porphyry. His greyish green face was turning an interesting mottled colour. “No telling, just killing! We smash the Orb, now. And then we kill them all.” His bandaged hand reached out for the Orb dangling around Buffybot’s neck.

………….

Spike’s foot tapped impatiently. When was whatever it was that was going to happen, going to happen? The Head Brother had just taken hold of the chicken and was swinging it in an arc with one hand, axe held ready in the other. The chanting had reached a climax. The Count was holding a fetish in one hand, and a small black notebook in the other, his lips moving in a very different form of words.

There was a knock at the door.

Everyone ceased moving, and the chanting tailed off. Heads turned towards the great temple door. As they watched, the great locking bar began to shift, and the handles to turn, as it slowly unbarred and unlocked itself. The door swung inwards in a scream of hinges and a slender, elegant figure stepped through the threshold.

“Cooee!” said a sultry foreign voice. “I do so hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

…………

Buffybot moved the Orb hastily behind her. “I’m awfully sorry, but it belongs to the dragon. I can’t let you smash it even though you saved my life - thanks very much for that, by the way.” She beamed the troll her friendliest smile.

Porphyry’s face mottled further with rage, and flaky peeling chunks began to detach themselves from his distorted face and to rain down on the balcony floor. Buffy and Buffybot took a hasty step backwards. The saliva was bad enough.

“Give Me The Orb!” he yelled, and smashed his fist down into the spot where Buffybot was standing. She skipped nimbly aside and his fist crunched through the wood of the balcony and into the planking below. A large hole opened as shattered wood fell away into the blackness. Porphyry roared again and smashed his fist down into the next section, sending it spinning away and downwards.

“Oh boy,” said Buffy, clinging to the remaining railing. “He’s not dumb enough to smash the whole balcony he - and we - are actually standing on, is he?”

Porphyry’s fist smashed down a third time, and she and Buffybot gazed at each other in wild surmise.

Chapter 14 - Sacrifice

Porphyry smashed two more balustrades and threw them out into the darkness.

"Aaargh!" he cried, beating his chest with his fists and stamping his feet. His eyes began to glow.

The balcony creaked ominously, then with a terrible ripping and rending sound the supports tore away from the tower, and the walkway dropped downwards, hanging into space. Porphyry slipped in mid beat, and began to slide away, grabbing at balustrades that splintered under his weight as he went.

Buffy and Buffybot ran back around the tower, to the relative safety of the part of the balcony that hadn't yet been pulled from the wall. They pressed their backs against the stone wall, and then Buffybot darted forwards and knelt down.

"Oh boy," said Buffy, rolling her eyes. "Now I'm going to have to save the dumb dead rock!"

"Ooh, yes!" said Buffybot, blushing. She turned, holding a rope in her hand. "It's the right thing to do! I'm sorry, I just thought we could climb down my rope ladder before the balcony collapsed," she waved the rope, "but that was selfish, and wrong!"

"There's a rope ladder?" Buffy groaned. "Of course there's a rope ladder, and an easy way out. The Gods of Irony are on my tail night and day." She looked across at Buffybot, who was scuffing her toe and looking guilty. "Look, Bottie. There's nothing I'd like better than to get off this balcony and leave slime boy to it. But he's our ticket back to earth. It's a deal."

She edged back around the balcony and peered at the torn woodwork in front of her, and the dangling figure of Porphyry some twenty feet below. "We've got to save him. The only question is how?"

..............

The Lead Brother stood blinking at Lady Margolotta, who gave him a charming toothy smile. "Er, I'm terribly sorry, Madam, but this is a private meeting."

"Oh, I can see that it is." Lady Margolotta stepped forward.

The Brother moved sideways, between her and the altar. "In fact, it is an er, religious ceremony. Of the Holy Brotherhood. I'm afraid no women are allowed."

"No women?" Lady Margolotta looked across at the unconscious girl on the altar. "You seem to make an exception for sleepy virgins. How very... broad minded."

She stepped forward, to examine the altar more closely. As she did so, several Brothers moved quietly through the shadows, towards the door. "And what a very pretty pentagram. I can see you are all gentlemen of taste." She stepped up to the pentagram, and stretched out her hand, which began to glow. "Delightful craftsmanship, and pure silver."

"Well, you'd certainly know, madam." Count Nosferatu Winkelson stepped forward, a fetish in his hand, emerald ring glowing. He bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Lady Margolotta. Yours is a famous name in necromancy circles, I do assure you." Lady Margolotta batted her eyelashes modestly, and Nosferatu smiled. "And in such circumstances, with a pentagram to hand - pure silver as you noted - and a binding spell almost fully worked. It really couldn't be better." His lips began to move.

The Brothers had now reached the door, and the first to arrive pushed it closed with a clang, and took hold of the bar. "Ha!" he cried. "We have you now, Foul Sister of the Night!" The door blew violently inwards with a huge roar, smashing him and his companions to the ground in a pile of savage splinters.

"Or not," said Lady Margolotta, raising an eyebrow.

Count Boris strode through the blackened hole left by the door, a bloodstained handkerchief held delicately to his lips, and a hand to his ribs. "May I be of any assistance, dear lady? Perhaps you vould like some priests exsangvinated, yes?" 

Nosferatu turned towards the new threat, and his ring glowed like fire. A thunderbolt flew across the room and hit Count Boris in the chest.

Lady Margolotta smiled, took hold of Nosferatu's arm, and squeezed. He screamed.

Spike waited no longer. With a happy yodel he ran forward, and leapt, to grab the chains holding the huge censer above everyone's heads. It rocked violently from side to side, spilling glowing coals and stinking incense in every direction. The Brothers ducked from the shower of sparks, and scattered, as their habits smoked and burned.

The goat, which had been getting increasingly fed up with all racket, chose this moment to act as well. The Lead Brother had retreated into the safety of the pentagram, to avoid both the falling coals, and the vampire in front of him. He rested a damp palm on the altar, and took a firmer grip of his axe. The Goat lowered her head, bucked, and with an ear splitting '''baaa!", crashed her horns into the Lead Brother's unprotected behind. He was flung violently forward, out of the pentagram, his habit flung up over his head by the force of his fall.

Spike swung from side to side, laughing his head off at the sight of the priest's bony white backside, marked with the imprint of two horns, until his head exploded with pain, and he fell into the blackness.

................

Buffybot edged along the planks of the shattered balcony, one rope around her middle, and another between her teeth. Buffy stood anchored, ten feet behind her, playing out the ropes.

"Don't worry, Mr Zombie Troll!" Buffybot cried out to Porphyry, who was dangling below her, now hanging on by his fingernails, rage forgotten. "I'm here to save you!"

There was a sudden blazing light that drowned out everything else into blackness, and Buffybot stopped, blinking.

"Stay right where you are, miss!" The voice came from the ground. Buffybot quickly adjusted her vision, and moved into the infra-red. Standing below her in a little circle around the huge spotlight was a motley collection of trolls holding clubs, dwarves with swords, human kitchen staff wielding pots and pans, and a few wizards in their nightshirts, pointy hats askew. She waved merrily. "Hi everyone!"

"Evening, miss." The dwarf at the front coughed, "That is to say, you're under h'arrest. Trespassin' and vand-halism of University property." 

Buffybot's mouth made a concerned, "Ooh!" She had a feeling that getting arrested when you were a Watchman was a Bad Thing. Still, she could put them right on one thing... "I am sort of trespassing, but I didn't vandalise the tower, the zombie did. I'm rescuing him." She pointed to the dangling Porphyry and everyone's eyes followed her finger. There was a collective intake of breath, and the spotlight began to turn. "I don't think you should point that at him," began Buffybot, but it was too late. The spot struck Porphyry in a dazzle of blazing light. His hands came up to cover his eyes, and he fell. The crowd screamed and scattered, as he plummeted towards them.

"Because I don't think zombies like strong lights," finished Buffybot, looking down over the side at the carnage below.

.............

"What happened?" Spike sat up, and groaned. "No don't tell me, I know what happened. The sodding chip happened, as per."

"Oh, how quaint." A darkly handsome lady bent over him. He blinked and tried to focus. "I do believe he's speaking in dialect."

Spike counted to ten, then sat up. Biting the hand that had saved him was very tempting, but unwise. "Did Nosferatu get away?"

"I am afraid so." The Lady's eyes darkened to black, and she cast a brief unamused glance at her companion. Spike turned his head, very slowly, and made out the pouting dandy with the lace sleeves and the silly accent who had made such a big entrance the night before. He curled his lip. "Scared of a little thing like a fireball are we, sonny?"

"Zere vas also a goat," said Count Boris defensively. "It vas running into me." He rubbed his kneecap in memory.

"Yes," said Lady Margolotta, "such a shame. However, looking on the bright side, I do believe it trod on the Mr Winkelson's foot as it passed. And I may have squeezed his arm a little too hard, when I grasped it for reassurance. I was alarmed, and these little accidents can happen." She cracked her long white knuckles and smiled again at Spike. "And now, I believe, we should have a chat about what far flung part of the vampire lands you have come from, and what the charming Mr Winkelson might have wanted with you."

............

Buffy and Buffybot swarmed down the ropes, to the ground beneath, and ran over to the crowd that surrounded the spotlight, which lay on its back, bulb broken and dark, a large zombie troll lying across it, head lolling.  Hundreds of salamanders were slithering out of the jagged holes made in the glass, running down Porphyry's arms and dropping to the ground, where several frantic spotty young wizards were trying to scoop them up in their pointy hats before they disappeared into the darkness. 

"Tell me he's not dead!" cried Buffy.

"Er..." began the nearest dwarf, casting an anxious look at the wizards, who were gathered in a whispering circle just behind him.

"More dead, that is," said Buffy impatiently. "I need him walking and talking." She stopped, aware that Porphyry had ceased to be the centre of attention. Instead the eye of the crowd was resting on her, and.... "Identical twin sisters, all right?" she snapped. "Only it was a complicated birth, and she got starved of oxygen, which is why she's a complete moron, while I'm perfectly normal." Buffybot grinned happily beside her, admiring Buffy's quick thinking, and the crowd relaxed and nodded. Yes, you could see the half wittedness shining through on the second one, which was no doubt why the family had put her in the Watch.

Buffybot went and looked at Porphyry's mangled head as it dangled upside down over the lip of the spotlight. "Perhaps the wizards can fix him, Buffy. Zombies are magic. At least I think so."

Buffy's nostrils flared. "Wizards always make things worse. They may not mean to, but you can bet they will. No wizards, Bottie, if there's any way to avoid it."

"Now that," said an approving voice behind her, "is the first sensible thing I've heard anyone say all day."

Chapter 15 - Aftermath

Buffy swung round, to find herself face to face with a strong featured man with dark, slightly mad eyes, and a heavy blue chin. He had a dented helmet on his head and a whistle round his neck.

"Hi! Commander Vimes, sir!" Buffybot was saluting the new arrival. When did Buffybot get conscripted? Buffy squared her shoulders. No way was the local militia going to pressgang her bot. She could see she was going to have to sort this Vimes guy out.

..............

The Temple of the Brotherhood of the Orb smouldered, as coals and burning chunks of incense blackened and charred the wooden floor around them. All the Brothers able to run had fled, leaving Lady Margolotta alone with their erstwhile captives. She gave a brief contemptuous look at the statues, the altar and the pentagram, then she stepped neatly across the silver marks to lift the young woman in the underwired white nightdress from the altar and carry her from the room. A moment later she returned, and collected the unconscious Spike from his position dangling half in and half out of the now empty censer. Moments passed and then she entered again, to lift the supine form of Count Boris from the threshold. After a last backwards look at the temple she made an annoyed 'tchah' under her breath and, Count Boris slung neatly across her shoulder, stepped over the pentagram a second time, to scoop up the trussed cockerel from the rapidly heating altar.

"Thank the Dark Lord no one saw me do that!" she said, and she exited for the third time, and all was silence.

After a cautious interval, the Death of Rats stepped out of the shadows, watching as the fire crept towards Mr Winkelson's Gladstone bag, and the circle of head fetishes, bones, and dried and desiccated furry bodies that lay in a circle around it. Soon the flames licked a wisp of hair, and then it caught with a roar, and with a greedy crackle began to consume the objects laid there, and then the bag itself. The leather blackened and cracked, and then the bag exploded in a massive blue fireball of released magical energy. The Death of Rats stepped forward. Emerging from the smoke was a shrunken, bald and bedraggled succession of rats, cats, rabbits, mice and rarer creatures, blinking painfully and stretching cramped limbs. As they moved away from the blue smoke they gradually filled out and became plumper, their fur bristled and their eyes darkened and began to shine. The first rat in the line stopped, the others jostling behind. "Squeak?"

"SQUEAK," the Death of Rats confirmed. He raised his scythe and pointed, gently. Then he took his place at the head of the line of tiny creatures and walked away into the darkness, his latest charges following in an obedient train behind him.

Over by the shattered door, the raven hopped from leg to leg, agitated. "Is no one going to move this bleedin' door?" he cried. "There's two perfectly good eyeballs going to waste under here, you know!"

"Go away," cried a desperate voice from beneath the woodwork. "I'm not dead, you bloodsucker! Help!" the Brother cried into the darkness, "Heeeeelp!!"

................

Vimes stared at the two Buffy Botts in front of him. Except one of them insisted she was Buffy Summers. Were they both bots, or was one of them human? At least Buffy number two seemed to have her head screwed on straight, unlike her feeble minded sister. He just needed to deal with the crowd in front of him, and the one that had followed behind, then solve the mystery of the crushed zombie troll, and he thought they might have a very interesting chat.

"As soon as he reached the balcony he just went nuts," said Buffy, pointing to Porphyry and glossing neatly over how she and the zombie had arrived at the balcony in the first place.

Vimes opened his mouth, when he was interrupted.

"Oh, excellent!" said an enthusiastic voice. A particularly spotty and Adam's-appled apprentice wizard stepped forward. "Protection spell did the trick, then," he said proudly.

"Hello, Mr Jeavons, is it? Set a protection spell, did we sir?" Vimes turned away from Buffy and opened his notebook, licking his pencil. Mr Jeavons swallowed, suddenly nervous.

"Well, yes, I mean to say." He rallied. "We jolly well did. And it worked." He waved at Porphyry, draped over the spotlight.

"And what was the precise nature and purpose of this spell that you admit here in black and white that you set, would you say?" Vimes held his pencil poised over the page.

Jeavons hesitated, looking for a trap. "To protect the tower, as I said. From vandals, and, er, people stealing the lead, and so on. It sends the fellow mad. Damned effective spell." He puffed up his chest, and his fellow students nodded approval.

"I see, sir." Vimes began to write. "So, the purpose of the spell is to protect the fabric of the tower from thieves and vandals, is that right?"

"Right." Jeavons looked sideways at the wreckage, and a slightly worried expression began to dawn on his face.

"Whereas, the effect of the spell has in fact been to result in the almost entire demolition of the fourth floor balcony, structural damage to the lower floors caused by falling debris, including one stone troll zombie, and the destruction of your bloody big lantern, which I expect was rather expensive?"

Vimes snapped his notebook shut, as Jeavons wilted, and began to edge back into the pack of his fellow students. "I see. Still, looking on the bright side, all the lead's still on the roof isn't it? I'll send a report to the Arch Chancellor tomorrow, and congratulate him on his security arrangements.” Vimes smiled a shark’s smile. That was the sort of note to Ridcully that he actually enjoyed writing.

“Right now," he turned and looked at Angua and Detritus. "We're all going back to the Watch House, where I have some more questions to ask you, Miss Summers. Igor can take a look at your friend here, Bott - it'll be a challenge for him. And if he can be fixed up I'll put him in the nick for trespassing on University property, once I've checked to see if the undead can technically trespass." He nodded to the cluster of apprentice wizards. "Of course, since it's your defence spell that sent him nuts and led to him falling off this tower, if he does recover he may decide he wants to prosecute the University for damages. Should be interesting, either way. Detritus!" He pointed at the supine zombie troll, and Detritus lifted Porphyry effortlessly from the spotlight and strode off into the night.

Vimes shouldered his way through the throng of angrily protesting wizards and hangers-on, took Buffybot by the arm and began to march firmly away. Buffy followed, walking beside the so far silent woman sergeant, axe swinging moodily. She should have known none of this was going to be even remotely simple.

................

"They wanted you to assassinate both Vimes and Vetinari?" With a delicate twist of her lips Lady Margolotta managed to suggest that the Brotherhood's plan was distressingly lacking in both craft and subtlety.

Spike nodded, "And there's meant to be a dragon swooping around burning down houses, feasting on livestock and snatching up virgins - but they seem to have got a poor performer. She's here somewhere, but not getting down to the burning, feasting and snatching."

"Hmmm, fermenting instability, and no doubt planning a coup. How ambitious of them. And how very foolish. I think we should visit Lord Vetinari, don't you?" She waved to Count Boris, who was sitting in a bath chair, his sore knee raised on a cushion, and his chest swathed in bandages. "We shall not be long, my dear Boris. Enjoy your barley water." She turned to Spike, "Poor dear Count Boris is visiting me for a rest cure. His papa thought a place ruled by the laws of the black ribbon would be a peaceful spot for him to calm his nerves a little. I fear he hasn't found it as refreshing as he expected."

Lady Margolotta turned to ring the bell pull summoning her carriage, and Spike smirked at the Count.

"As for this 'behaviour modification' chip that gave you such a nasty headache," said Lady Margolotta. "How very ... crude, and distasteful. And yet so very human."

"You've been neutered, sir!" exclaimed Count Boris from behind them. A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"Oh I can still kill vampires," said Spike, glaring meaningfully back at him.

"Now, now, gentlemen." Lady Margolotta wagged a finger. She frowned, "We must make quite sure that no human in the city gets to hear of this ... experiment. There are far too many prominent citizens who would think such a chip for vampires was a simply splendid idea."

"Don't tell anyone about the chip, gotcha," Spike rose, "though I don't see anyone in this city capable of making a micro chip. They're more at the hammer and chisel stage of chipping, seems to me."

Lady Margolotta placed a slim white hand on his shoulder. "My dear Mr Spike. You know humans. Once one of them has had an idea - however bad - how long, on average, is it before that idea is put into practice?"

Spike shrugged, "About five hundred years if he's Leonardo, but I get your drift. Ingenious buggers, aren't they? And most with not even two grains of common sense to rub together and keep 'em warm on a cold night. It's a miracle they don't blow themselves to kingdom come more often, really."

"Yes, murmured Lady Margolotta. "Isn't it fascinating?"

Spike pulled on his duster. "Of course, our little tin pot friend Buffybot has probably babbled about every single thing on her tiny processor board, by now, including my chip. Never shuts up, that girl. Yada yada yada. So me keeping schtum may not help that much."

Lady Margolotta stopped, becoming very still. "I've met her," she said distantly, "a very single minded young creature, I thought."

Spike shook his head. "Gawd, no. Natters night and day, about everything from Daniel Bedingfield to Girl Guide achievement badges, to guinea pigs, to applied astro physics. All in one sentence sometimes. Drives me nuts - but what can you expect from a bot when it's being programmed by a babbler like Willow 'Gay Now' Rosenberg?" The look in Lady Margolotta's eye stopped him short, and he gave an embarrassed cough.

She turned away and stepped out into the darkened porch. He followed, closing the front door firmly on the distant figure of Count Boris. "And I'll just stop babbling myself now," he muttered, "Since I'm making such a sad bloody spectacle of myself." He leapt athletically up the step and into the carriage behind her ladyship, resolving to keep his lip firmly buttoned, and his jaw firm, and to sit at an angle to her, so as to give her a proper chance to admire his very fine cheekbones. That should do the trick.

Chapter 16 - Discoveries

The Watchmen marched smartly along the alley, still trailed by the more determined members of the crowd. They hadn't seen a zombie troll before, and they were hoping he might wake up, or failing that, his head might fall off. And, even with only a few days experience, they already knew that the new little blonde Watchman was worth trailing. She attracted trouble like the zombie troll was attracting flies.

So far, however, nothing exciting had happened - and several of the crowd began to drift away as the expedition reached the residential quarter. Then Angua's head came up, and her nostrils flared. "Fire!" she said sharply, just as Buffybot and Buffy's heads turned in unison in the same direction.

"And someone's crying for help!" cried Buffybot, thrilled. She broke into a run, closely followed by the Slayer.

Vimes paused only to blow his whistle, and then he hurried after them, cursing. First dragons, then vampires, then zombie trolls, then revolutionary politics, and then a fire. It was another crappy week in the Watch.

The two Buffys and Angua proved to be humiliatingly faster on their feet than a middle-aged watch commander, although he did just manage to outstrip Detritus, who was still burdened by Porphyry. He arrived, out of breath, to find a milling mob standing outside a large anonymous warehouse, from the open doors of which smoke billowed. The more organised members of the crowd were already setting out to demolish the buildings on either side of the warehouse, to try and contain the fire. Vimes pointed Detritus in their direction, and walked over as near to the fire as he could bear. He frowned. The shattered doors had been blown inwards - surely a fire, or explosion would blow them outwards? He filed the observation to consider later, and moved toward the open door, just as a small blonde figure emerged from the smoke, a robed figure draped over her shoulder. Sergeant Angua followed a pace behind.

There was spontaneous applause from the crowd, and the flash of a photographer's fire salamander. Vimes rolled his eyes. He might have guessed Otto would be here somewhere.

Buffy slid her burden from her shoulder, and into the waiting arms of several burly bystanders. "Bottie's just checking around the back, but I guess everyone else must have gotten out. I couldn't sense anyone anyway." She looked around. "Is the fire department coming?  If you have a fire department?"

Vimes resisted the temptation to explain the difficulties associated with trying to scoop the contents of the Ankh into a bucket, and the danger of it catching fire if you threw it over something hot, and instead raised an eyebrow at Angua. She nodded. "No sign of any more people. But it would be nice to preserve the evidence in there." She counted off on her fingers, "a lot of what you might call 'interesting' statues, a silver pentagram, an altar with suggestive stains, and several knotted ropes, a number of them broken - plus some very shiny knives and axes scattered on the floor among a number of odd scorch marks. It might be the weekly meeting of the Ankh Morpork Hobby and Crafts Group, but I doubt it, Sir."

Vimes snarled. Bloody magic again. Why wouldn't people leave it alone? He looked coldly at the robed figure lying on the pavement, and resisted the urge to kick it. "Awake, is he?"

The man bending over him - Albert Grimper, thought Vimes absently, got a cobbler's shop in the next street - looked up. "E's awake Commander Vimes, sir, but deeeleerious. Babbling about some kind of bloodsucker tryin' to peck out his eyeballs. Poor feller."

Vimes looked down at the prone figure. He did have a feverish look, under all the smoke stain and bruises. Skinny bloke, with receding hair, and unfortunate teeth. Ah. He gazed around the small crowd. "Anyone recognise him?"  There was a general shaking of heads.

"Sounds posh, though," offered Albert. "Like he's got a plum stuck in his gob. And I just happened to notice he's wearing a very nice ring on his pinkie finger."

Vimes bent down and looked at the ring for a moment. After all, it probably wouldn't still be there by the time the fallen brother reached home. "So I see," he said, getting to his feet, "so I see."

"Hi everyone!"

Vimes turned, his back stiffening. Why was that voice so very annoying?

Buffybot came bouncing around the corner of the warehouse, her face heavily smudged with soot, orb swinging from its chain around her neck, and axe gleaming in her hand. The salamander flashed again, just as Buffybot delivered a dazzling smile to the waiting crowd.

"This is great," she said happily, "I've never been to a fire before!" She looked at the prone figure on the pavement, and her eyes widened, "Ooh! Buffy got to rescue someone." She looked sad. "I didn't rescue anybody, except for a big black bird - and he swore at me and flew away. I don't think that was very polite, do you?"

There was a great clanging sound in the distance, and everyone turned. Barrelling along the street was the Ankh Morpork fire cart, buckets of sand dangling from every strut, wrecking ball swinging, and ten solemn golems on board. The fire didn't stand a chance.

...........

Ernest Winkelson limped painfully along beside the banks of the River Ankh, cradling his injured arm against his chest, and cursing under his breath. Curse all vampires! Especially husky-voiced lady vampires, with curvaceous figures, exotic perfume, luminous dark eyes - and fingers that could close on a man's arm like a bear trap. He'd nearly had her, he knew it. He paused for a moment to savour the thought of what he could have done to Lady Margolotta with his binding spell in place, and then he cursed again, with even greater vigour. Last night he had had nearly everything and the Orb had been close enough for him to almost feel it in his palm.

Now he had nearly nothing. The Brotherhood were scattered or dead, and those left alive were extremely likely to blame him for their troubles. His plot was in disarray, and his secret plan almost certainly uncovered to the authorities. His bag was lost, and with it most of the banked and bottled magic he had worked so hard to acquire, leaving his power over the world of the dead much diminished. And to top it all a goat had trodden on his foot.

But he still had his ring. And the orb was still at large. He looked down at his clenched fist, where the sapphire glowed in the darkness. And with that he still controlled that annoyingly crude and slouching alien vampire he had summoned from another world, as well as that hulking idiot Porphyry. With a pair of servants like that at his beck and call, surely he could still pull something out of the fire?

................

Vimes paced Lord Vetinari's anteroom, trying not to look at his fellow visitors. Two sodding vampires, in one place. Sitting side by side and looking offensively relaxed. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and his hand twitch for the feel of a stake resting in its palm. He looked across at Buffy, who stood against the wall, giving Lady Margolotta a narrow eyed cop’s stare. It would seem that she didn't like vampires either. Smart woman.

Lady Margolotta whispered something and patted the other vampire - Spike, wasn't it? - on the arm. Buffy's gaze narrowed still further, and her nostrils flared.

The blond vampire smirked at her, and quirked an eyebrow. "Got a problem, Slayer?"

Buffy folded her arms. "I'm just trying to decide, when I finally get to stake you, if I should dump your ashes in a pot and grow a dandelion out of them, or if I should scatter them on the lawn to keep down the slugs."

Lady Margolotta smiled. "How sweet that you should want a memento, my dear."

Vimes growled under his breath. Vampire repartee. If Vetinari didn't show up very soon, he would..... The doors to Lord Vetinari's office opened with an ominous creak. It's like he knows, thought Vimes, savagely. He strode through the door, his steel capped boots echoing like pistol shots on the floor tiles. Buffy, Lady Margolotta and Spike followed behind him, their footsteps universally silent.

............

"So," said Vimes, sitting heavily in Captain Carrot's chair, "we're looking for a bunch of stupid upper class twits with splinters, minor burns, and or the imprint of goat's horns on their bums."

"I suppose we could look for anyone sitting on a cushion, Sir," said Carrot brightly.

Buffybot nodded, excited.

Vimes gave them a look, and they gazed innocently back. They both probably really did think that was a good idea, he thought wearily. He looked around his assembled officers. "We are also looking for a skinny necromancer in an opera cloak and a top hat. Plus that bloody dragon, of course. Do give out those descriptions, please."

Sergeants Littlebottom and Detritus began to write in their notebooks, tongues curling in concentration. After a moment Detritus looked up.

"Do we know what colour is der dragon, sir?"

Vimes closed his eyes. "Multi-coloured, sergeant."

"And very pretty," added Buffybot. "A multi-coloured very pretty dragon. With big, big wings." She bounded over to help Detritus with his spelling.

Vimes leaned back in his chair. Vetinari's agents were no doubt hunting down the Brotherhood as he spoke, but Winkelson might be more of a challenge for them. Surely a necromancer knew a few tricks? His mind went back to the recent interview, and the vampire Spike’s revelations. It wasn't news to him that various people in the City would like him - and Vetinari - dead. Many people, in fact. But trying to assassinate him by vampire was a new trick. He supposed he should be flattered. When he wasn't so furiously angry, of course. As for trying to foment unrest by unleashing a dragon - death's too good for them, he thought savagely. In fact, even what Vetinari has planned is probably too good for them.

He turned his jaundiced gaze to Buffybot, who had finished helping Detritus and was standing at ease, clearly full of pep. Vimes loathed pep. Especially first thing in the morning, and even more so when he'd gone 48 hours without sleep and his eyeballs felt as though they’d been rubbed with sandpaper. Buffybot’s eyes were clear and bright, of course, and her breastplate gleamed. It was worse than working with a golem, he reflected, it really was.

Meanwhile, though, he had a problem. And it was hanging round his newest Lance Constable's neck. Lord Vetinari had not asked for the Orb, of course. Or indeed expressed any great interest in an artefact that could move the wearer between worlds. Nor had he seemed more than mildly interested in the news that The Slayer and Spike the Vampire came from such another world, not to be found on any map. Other than expressing a polite hope that they had not suffered from the Morpork Trots or caught any particularly virulent alien parasites during their time in the city, he had skated over the delicate matter entirely. Nonetheless, Vimes did not doubt that all things being equal, within a week Lord Vetinari would be in possession of the Orb, unless he took action fast. He cleared his throat. "Bott!"

Buffybot snapped to attention. "Yes, Commander Vimes, sir!"

Vimes gestured her to step forward. "I have a job for you."

Chapter 17 - Following Orders

Vimes frowned. Just as he had been about to explain what he wanted Bott to do, her doppelganger had barged into the room uninvited, demanding that he discharge the Constable from the Watch, and accusing him of conscription.  As if anyone in their right mind would conscript someone as perky and annoying as Bott.

"We did not conscript your so-called ‘simple minded twin sister’," he said, for the second time. "She volunteered, and has been duly sworn in. And," his voice grew harder, "she isn't your twin sister; she is a mechanical golem fashioned in your likeness by an evil genius named Warren. She told us so, and my werewolf confirms it, so don't bore us all by lying."

Buffy blinked and stared accusingly at Buffybot, who was standing smartly to attention besides Vimes’ desk. Buffybot looked at the toes of her military issue boots. 

"Oh boy." Buffy leant forward and rapped her on the helmet, making it ring. "You are in so much trouble when we get home, Bottie."

There was a very pointed clearing of the throat somewhere below her, and she looked down. The dwarf with the strangely ringleted beard and the oversize earrings was scowling at her. She scowled back. No fashion-challenged dwarf was beating her in the scowling stakes.

The dwarf gazed up at her fiercely through bushy eyebrows. "Just what gives you the right to order Buffy around? She's a free dwarf ... woman ... bot."

Buffy scowled more. "I'm called Buffy; she is called...”

"Der lance constable is a fully paid up member of der union. She can now dis-aggre-gate herself from der oppressive slave economy of der Revello Drive regime." Oh boy, it was the troll. The really hugely enormous troll, who was carrying Porphyry casually over one shoulder. He was scowling as well, and twiddling a dial on the huge helmet that sat on his rock-like head.

"And, she's enrolled in the Watch." That was the sergeant. The slim, blonde and tall sergeant, with the alarming golden eyes. Were they golden a minute ago? Buffy couldn't remember.

"Which means, she doesn't have to go anywhere with you if she doesn't want to," finished the dwarf triumphantly.

The troll nodded. "She is emancipated, and has thrown off der shackles of your autocratic oppression. She is a free Bot." He laid a huge and heavy hand on Buffybot's shoulder.

Buffy glared accusingly at Bottie, who had straightened up and was beaming proudly, clearly thrilled that so many people were interested in her future. What had she been telling these guys? And since when was she a slave in Revello Drive? She was a robot; she liked taking orders. "She is a robot," she said, trying to keep her tone reasonable. "She has a serial number printed on her ass!"

"She is not a number," said the troll solemnly, "And we is refusing to tolerate your intolerance.” He twiddled the temperature control on his helmet rather self consciously, as dry ice wafted around his temples.

“Shame on you," added the dwarf, nodding vigorously.

Buffy's jaw hung open, and she turned to Vimes.

"Don't look at me," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "I've already been through this routine. We're very progressive in Ankh Morpork - rights for all, including dwarfs, trolls, zombies - and golems. Employing Lance Constable Bott here is just a new, wonderful opportunity for us to embrace diversity and a vibrant multicultural future."

"Hear, hear!" cried Captain Carrot.

Vimes spared him a quick glance, and then turned back to Buffy. "If she wants to stay, she stays - though you could ask her nicely to go with you," he added, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.

..............

Spike and Lady Margolotta had retired to her tasteful town house, to wait out the daylight. Heavy black drapes hung at the windows and candles cut through the perpetual gloom, striking reflections from the gilt furnishings, the rich fabrics, and a series of huge oil paintings that depicted some of the gorier scenes from Uberwaldian history. Spike lay back on the chaise longue, taking a leisurely sip of his drink. Then he sat up hurriedly, grimaced and held his glass up to the candlelight. The liquid inside it was red, sticky, and salt, with a distinctive metallic tang. Sadly, though, his taste buds told him it was tomato juice with bitters, and completely haemoglobin free. He put it down on the little fancy table beside him. Trust his luck to wind up with a bunch of vampires who didn't suck so much as a throat pastille these days.

Lady Margolotta patted his thigh. "You get used to it, Spike my dear," she said comfortingly, "after the first twenty years or so." 

She leaned forward and her milky white bosom strained against the tightly laced bodice of her dress. Spike brightened; perhaps this place wasn't too bad after all. He looked up at her through his lashes. "So, tell me Lady M, which of your natural urges do you still feel the need to satisfy these days?"

Lady Margolotta laughed, and struck his arm with her fan. "Naughty man." Her eyes darkened to black, and ridges began to appear over her beautifully manicured eyebrows. Her teeth lengthened, and her tongue flicked out between her ruby lips. "I may decide to discipline you if continue to be so very forward."

Spike smirked, "And I may decide to let you."

Lady Margolotta swept the fancy table with the glass of tomato juice aside and pounced on him, pinning him to the chaise longue in one easy movement. Spike growled, and rolled with Lady Margolotta in his arms. He landed on the floor in a sea of tomato juice, Lady Margolotta on top of him. "This is more like it," he said, grinning.

Then he thrust Lady Margolotta roughly aside, dragged himself jerkily to his feet, and began to the head for the door. "Bugger it," he cried furiously over his shoulder, "It's that bastard Winkelson and his sodding ring!" He turned his head with great difficulty towards Lady Margolotta, who had already risen to her feet, and smoothed her hair. "Chuck a blanket over me before I make it out of the front door, he cried, "I'm going to burn otherwise." He ripped the handle off the door in front of him, and stepped into the hall, moving like a like a wind-up soldier. His lips had almost frozen now, as Winkelson's spell gained complete ascendancy, but still audible was a monotonous, "bugger, bugger, bugger!” as he marched down the hall towards the front portico and the rain-swept street outside.

……………

Buffy paced up and down, watching Igor's back as he bent over his work. Vimes had asked her to wait downstairs, and she'd been happy to go. The solid wall of disapproval emanating from Buffybot's military companions was galling. And totally unfair, she told herself. In no way was Buffybot a slave. Even if she did do all the housework. And the cooking. And the shopping .... and of course she'd painted the trim this year, and Buffy was still trying to decide what shade to get her to paint the rest of the house in spring. But still.

Buffy shook her head irritably, and looked over at Igor. One of his shoulders was significantly higher than the other - not because he was hump backed, she noted absently, but simply because one of his arms came in a different, larger size. Meeting Igor for the first time had come as a bit of a shock, since in her past experience, people sewn together out the bits of other people had never been a good thing. But Igor seemed to buck the trend, and besides, she recognised an artist when saw one. She had passed Porphyry into his mismatched hands, and now she was anxiously awaiting the outcome.

Igor put down his tools and straightened his back with a big sigh. "There, done. Thome of my finest work, I do believe." He looked earnest. "Dead flesh is tho much more difficult. Muthy, and very liable to tearing. Luckily I've invented a new type of glue. I've been trying it out on Lance Constable Shoe, and he hasn't lost a finger in ages. He held up a small pot with a skull and crossbones on it. "Zombie Goo, I call it. And I've got a slogan, 'Zombie Goo is good for you - stop the rot with this monster pot!"   He beamed proudly. "Mr Dibbler and I are going into bithneth together to make our fortune. I've got the product and the capital. He'th got the marketing skillth."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Did this guy Dibbler try and sell you insurance too while he was at it?" she asked, taking the pot and holding it up to light. The black stinky contents of the pot stirred, and belched, and she startled, nearly dropping it.

"It reacts with light, mithtress." Igor held it up to admire it, and it belched again. He put it down again on the table edge. "But luckily I am inthured with Mr Dibbler, as you thay."

Buffy drummed her fingers on the table, looking at the prone Porphyry, whose head was back to the traditional lumpy troll shape.  "He's looking good - well, as good as he can look." She lowered her voice a little. "Um, I don't suppose you were able to do anything about the dental hygiene issue?"

Igor shook his head."Thath's a natural phenomenom, mithreth. A byproduct of their insides breaking down by putrefaction. Troll zombies sometimes immobilise their prey by spitting up their own rotting intestines over them. It's very interesting, biologically thpeaking."

"Hey, shouldn't that be 'thometimes?' asked Buffy, looking suspicious. And 'thpitting'.  And 'intethtines', come to that? And you said 'monster' a minute ago."

Igor blushed. "Thorry mithreth. It's just when things get scientific - thientific, I mean - I thometimes forget. I thpent thome time as a young Igor not lithping at all. Thought it was old fathioned. But we all learn from our mithtakes. And I'm older and wither now."

Buffy waved a hand. "Whatever. I mean I can see the sinister lisp is part of the whole Frankenstein's monster vibe you've got going here, but there's no need to impress me. I'm just passing through. Hey!" She grinned, “'sinister lisp' is thinithter lithp! Try saying that three times fast!"

Igor slammed his book shut, and began to put his needles and thread away. "Thath's kind of you, of course, mithreth," he said a little stiffly, "but one likes to keep up the family traditionth. I darethay thith Mr Frankenthtein you mention feelth the thame way."

Buffy shut up, feeling a little sheepish. Then, after a moment, she pointed at the unmoving figure on the slab. "So, when do you expect him to wake up?"

"I thall have to consult my almanac," said Igor, picking up a large black book and riffling through the pages. "Not that it'th ever right, but thtill it's nice to have an idea of what the weather will do - however wrong that idea turnth out to be in the end." He read a few lines and clicked his tongue. "Theemth it will be raining frogth in Klatch next Tuethday. Pity I didn't check that earlier. Frogth are always useful in my line of work."

Buffy frowned. "What's the weather got to do with it? Or frogs?"

"Lightning," said Igor succinctly.

Buffy looked at the enormous lightning conductor running up through the centre of the room. She'd wondered why that was there. "You mean he won't wake up until you zap him with lightning?" she said slowly.

Igor shook his head. "Oh goodneth me, no. He'th dead you thee. It needs an outthide force to animate him. He'th not going anywhere til we have a good old fathioned thunder and lightning thtorm." He looked wistful. "I do mith the old country thometimes. Electrical thtormth nightly. Here in Ankh Morpork, you'll be lucky to get two in a month, if that. Today, for exthample, we'll be getting nothing more than drizzle."

Buffy goggled. "What! Two a month! You've got to be kidding me. I can't stay here for weeks waiting for an electrical storm to come along."

"Thorry, mithreth," Igor shrugged. "But that'th the way it ith. He'th not going anywhere today."

At which point Porphyry slid his legs over the edge of the table, felled Igor from behind with one massive blow, walked through the wall of the Watch House, and disappeared into the street, leaving a gaping, zombie-sized hole behind him.

Chapter 18 - Nob Hill

Ernest Winkelson looked anxiously around him. Things were getting hot for a fugitive on the streets of Ankh Morpork. He was a wanted man, with a price on his head - and even worse, Lord Vetinari had placed it there. A couple of Ankh Morpork's less intellectually gifted citizens had decided to try to win the reward by hitting him with clubs. If that went on he would soon run out of detonations and poxes. The place to go, then, was up. Out of the stews of the city and into the more airy heights of Nob Hill. Lord Cyril Pownder, the erstwhile leader of the Brotherhood, lived in a huge and rambling mansion, ironically just beside that of Lord Vimes, of the City Watch.

Winkleson ran there, and gave his Lordship, who had supposed his secret identity to actually be a secret, a very nasty surprise. He was resting his bruised and battered buttocks on a velvet cushion*, and trying to calculate just how much his abortive plot had cost him, when Winkelson arrived, preceded by an outraged butler who had just had his shirt front singed for demanding a calling card.

Lord Pownder prepared to tell that frightful outsider Winkelson where to go. As he opened his mouth, Winkelson raised a casual finger and destroyed the priceless vases flanking his lordship with two thunderbolts, thus quadrupling the cost of the conspiracy in a moment.  Outraged, Lord Pownder shouted for his guards.

Winkelson sighed. "Do you really want me to blow your servants up as well as your vases, your lordship?"

"Yes!" cried Lord Pownder. He caught his butler's eye. "I mean, no. They will riddle your worthless carcass with holes, you ugly damned cockroach." Then he yelped as Winkelson set fire to the cushion beneath him.

"Do not call me a cockroach," said Winkelson between clenched teeth, "or 'Winkelson', come to that. I'm not your kitchen boy. You can call me Mr Winkelson, or sir." He paused, and drew a breath, looking at the frozen expressions of Lord Pownder and the butler. He had the upper hand, now. And he would have a real power base once the zombie and vampire arrived. Good, he should receive the respect he deserved. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, pushing Lord Pownder aside, brushing the burning cushion from his armchair, and taking the seat. "'Sir' is good."

.............

Buffybot sat happily on the convenient flat-topped chest she'd found, right next to a telescope. "Choose a nice high spot out of town, call that dragon - and give it that bloody Orb back. Then tell it to shove off." Commander Vimes' words had been very clear. And he'd had a smart idea regarding the twist the Orb needed to propel its owner between worlds - he'd told her to twist it three quarters of the way on its spring, and then shove a matchstick into the remaining gap to hold it open.  The dragon only needed to swing it around a bit until the match dislodged, and she'd be gone. Commander Vimes really was very clever, Buffybot thought, fingering the matchstick in her pocket. It should work perfectly - and she'd found an excellent high spot to say goodbye to the dragon as well. Commander Vimes was bound to be pleased when she told him.

She grinned across at her companion, who grinned right back at her. "Isn't this thrilling?” asked Lady Sybil, stepping out onto the balcony of the little turret, and looking out at the sky, "I do so hope she comes!"

The tower of the Unseen University was undoubtedly the tallest building in Ankh Morpork. Anyone could have told you that. And the second tallest building was the great bell tower by the city gate, which rang to warn the citizens of fire, flood or invasion (not that they could do anything about those things by the time that the watchers on the tower spotted them). But the third tallest building in Ankh Morpork might have come as a bit of surprise to most people. Because it was Lady Sybil Vimes' ancient family home, which, while not that tall in itself, just happened to be on a hill. And to have acquired an extra storey to one of its corner turrets in the last few years. (In which Commander Sir Samuel Vimes had just happened to install a telescope, as well as a small clacks tower which from time to time sent laconic signals to the Watch House far below.) All in all, it made a perfect spot to call a dragon.

"Do you find that chest comfortable, dear?" Lady Sybil was looking down at Buffybot. "I would have thought all the studs and metal bands might be a little uncomfortable. The High King of the Dwarves gave it to us. It's a great honour, apparently, but I couldn't really think what to do with it. Sam said we should put it up here in case we had to withstand a siege." She winked, "Take a look inside."

Buffybot threw open the chest, and her mouth formed a 'ooh' of delight. Battlebread! Chakram bagels, hard dough batards, batch loaf bricks, discus naans, rock scones and, most precious of all, the almost invariably lethal Glazed Bloomer.

Lady Sybil was using the telescope now, to cast around the skies in search of the dragon. Then she leaned out of the turret window and frowned. "Now what on earth is that coming up the street?" Buffybot rushed over eagerly, and looked down.

"A hunchback with a broken umbrella on his head?" said Lady Sybil doubtfully.

"No!" cried Buffybot, "Though that would be cool. It's even better than that. It's Spike!"

..................

Spike lurched down the street, the large black object slung about him by Lady Margolotta hanging round his head in heavy folds, and smelling of musky perfume. From time to time he bounced off a building, but no sooner had he regained his feet than the pull of the ring began again, dragging him relentlessly onwards.

"When I get my hands on that sod," he muttered indistinctly to himself, "tearing him limb from limb is going to be far, far too good for him. Much too quick and much too bloody painless. I'm going to take him to a butcher's shop, and get a cleaver, and in-between blinding headaches I am going to chop him smaller than any meat grinder could ever hope to manage."

There was a polite cough beside him. He looked down to see a pair of feet shod nearly in pointed patent leather shoes, keeping pace with his own jerky steps.

He strained to catch a scent. "And who the hell are you, dancing boy?"

"Excuse me, sir." The voice was thin, and expressionless. "My name is Wilkins. I've sent by my mistress, Lady Sybil Vimes, to try and assist you."

Spike snarled. "Know a bastard called Winkelson, looks like he's wearing his coat with the coat hanger still in it? Find him and club him with an axe, that'd be very helpful."

Wilkins gave a little disapproving cough. "I'm afraid I don't know the gentleman, sir." He kept pace for a moment. "Would I be right in thinking that sir is a vampire, and is wearing a lady's riding habit on his head to try and avoid the sun's rays? And obeying some sort of magical summons?"

"Oh no," said Spike bitterly, "I'm doing this for fun. Walking the streets of Ankh bloody Morpork with a woman's skirt on my head is a great lark."

Wilkins coughed again. "I am sure there are many young gentleman at the University who would agree with you, sir. However, if you did perhaps wish to change into something more comfortable, I think it can be arranged." Spike bounced off the wall beside the street. "Since your path appears to be taking you into our vegetable garden," said Wilkins smoothly. “There is a door just a little further along, sir. Please allow me to open it for you. Meanwhile, Lance Constable Bott has called for the attention of the Watch. Sir Samuel should be here shortly."

................

Having despatched Lance Constable Bott on her mission, Vimes had conducted a proper Watch meeting. Shifts were disrupted, and officers tired and disoriented, after days of working twelve hours on and twelve hours off**. And they still hadn't caught the bloody dragon.  So, he and Captain Carrot and the sergeants had needed to do some major work on the rota.  He had just been winding up, when the alarm was called below. That accursed zombie troll was loose again - and judging from the noise he'd caused some damage to City property.

He rushed out on to the landing, scattering rota sheets behind him, to direct the recapture, when a dwarf handed him a clacks message. He stopped, and the Watch officers crowded around him to hear what it said.

His lips moved as he made out the message. "What the hell is Bott doing at my house?" he hissed, "And why is that vampire there ... oh, never mind. There's bound to be some mind bogglingly annoying explanation."  And, pausing only to point Detritus and Littlebottom after the rapidly disappearing figures of Buffy and Porphyry, he and the rest of his troop took a sharp right and began to thread their way through the streets towards the ancestral home of the Ramkins.

.............

Porphyry was also travelling in the direction of Nob Hill, of course, but he had taken a more direct line, walking stiff legged, arms straight out in front of him, through the walls of the various buildings in-between. As Vimes and his companions ran first left and then right through the gridwork of streets and alleys he just kept ploughing onwards, shedding lumps of zombie flesh among the rubble as he went, and making a terrible mess of Igor's stitches.

Buffy headed stumbled along after him. So far he had bulldozed through twelve walls, several market stalls, a row of pigpens and a puppet show, scattering pumpkins, pigs, puppets, and finally screaming children, in every direction. Buffy dodged, jumped and swerved to avoid the chaos. Pausing only to disentangle her legs from the strings of one particularly tenacious puppet, she pounded grimly along the pavement in Porphyry's wake, her axe clutched in one hand, and Igor's pot of glue in the other. If Porphyry's head fell off again, she was just going to stick the damn thing back on and keep him moving until he'd summoned the void. 

She looked back. Two figures were steaming after her, one of them huge, with enormous legs pumping, head obscuring the sun; the other short, square and bearded, and waving an axe. She would have been more alarmed if she hadn't met them already. Sergeants Detritus and Littlebottom were on her trail, and gaining fast.

*thus showing that Captain Carrot's earlier suggestion hadn't been so foolish, after all.

**only without the twelve hours off. This arrangement simply meant that they were only paid for twelve hours, not twenty four. The news that this was something that the Union was planning to look into was going to give Vimes a nasty surprise in the near future.

Chapter 19 - Fireworks

Spike emerged from the Ramkins' potting shed rumpled, tousled and furious, with a small smelly dog yapping at his feet. As he had staggered in at the door of the shed, still drawn by the ring, Watkins had removed the riding habit from his head with a practised flourish, and then, while Buffybot hung on to his foot, acting as a partial brake, Wilkins had swiftly and skilfully clad him in a voluminous one-piece, all-embracing white suit with a huge saucer-like hat and a heavy veil. As soon as everything was in place, Buffybot let go, and he had staggered onwards once more.

"Down, Gaspode," called Lady Sybil. "I know he looks very peculiar, but he's a friend!"

She dragged Gaspode back by his collar, then Spike's helpers stood in a row admiring their handiwork.

"Well!" said Lady Sybil, "my new bee-keeping suit is certainly coming in very useful."

"You're ever so clever to have thought of it," said Buffybot admiringly. "And Wilkins is a whiz at dressing a moving target!"

"Well done Wilkins!" cried Lady Sybil.

Wilkins coughed modestly, "My years as a valet made me adept at dressing gentlemen in the most awkward of circumstances, my Lady. It is a skill once learned, never forgotten."

There was an explosion from the garden next door, a whistling sound, and a brilliant green fireball flew into the air.

"How peculiar," said Lady Sybil, "Cyril hates fireworks. He thinks they're common."

Buffybot broke ranks and skipped up beside Spike as he jolted his way to the bottom of the garden, "And we're going to follow you to Mr Winkelson and arrest him! Isn't this fun? Ooh, I can hear someone coming. That was very fast." For as she spoke, the sound of pounding feet was audible from the road outside the garden wall. Buffybot ran to the wall, leapt, and took hold of the spikes at the top and chinned herself up to look over to the road below. "Ooh! It's Porphyry - and he's going to walk into this wa..."

The wall exploded beneath her as Porphyry walked right through it, ancient stonework and mortar bouncing in every direction. He and Spike converged at the wall below. Moving quickly, Wilkins opened the garden door in the middle of the wall, and, after a brief struggle they both passed through the door and into the garden of Lord Pownder beyond.

Lady Sybil began sorting frantically through the smoking pile of rubble. "Bottie!" she cried, "Where are you?" Then she stopped, and swallowed. Sticking out of the piled stones, toes upwards was a small pair of feet.

Buffy, Detritus and Cheery scrambled through the hole. Lady Sybil pointed dramatically at the feet, and in a moment a frantic rescue was in progress. Stones rained around the garden, until finally Detritus pulled Buffybot to her feet, and Cheery began checking her for dents.

"Bottie," cried Buffy, "are you okay?" 

"Knock, knock," said Buffybot happily, "Who's there? Kanga who? No! Kanga roo!" Then she sank to the ground. "I think my gyros are a bit wonky," she said to no one in particular.

Buffy sighed, "Oh well, she's sort of okay. And Willow can probably fix the knock knock thing again." She looked up, "What's with the Sound and Light Show next door?"

"Let's find out, said Vimes, his face grim. He and the rest of his troop had come up unnoticed as the others dug. He pressed the stitch in his side, and gazed at the prone, dust-covered figure of Buffybot, and at the hole in his garden wall. "And then, he said ominously, "Bott can explain to me why she is in my back garden instead of on a hill top somewhere saying her farewells to a dragon!"

He and Buffy set off for the bottom of the garden, trailed by Detritus, Carrot, Angua and - after she had given Buffybot a last anxious pat - Cheery Littlebottom.

"My goodness," said Lady Sybil, "I'd quite forgotten the dragon in all the excitement." She bent over Buffybot. "Do you think you can get up?" she asked anxiously. "She's due any moment now."

.........

Ernest Winkelson, self anointed Count, was feeling pretty pleased with himself. As they had come out into the grounds, some burly guard with a martyr complex had tried to creep up on him from behind, and he had blown the fellow 50 feet backwards with a green fireball. That had gingered everyone up. Lord Pownder's fastest coach had been called, and Pownder and his household were now cringing before him, as was his due. Now both his undead servants had shown up - both looking pretty repulsive, of course - and his stock had risen still further. All in all, he rather fancied he could have ordered a million dollars and a bag of rubies at this point - and received them without a murmur. Things were looking up. Except.

"Mr Ernest Winkelson? Of 29 Tallow Boilers Street?" It was the Watch. Led by that pernicious, officious, rule-obsessed, all-round nosey parker, Lord Vimes in person. Winkelson snorted. It was about time that his tame vampire did what he had been hired for. He pointed at Vimes, and tapped Spike on the shoulder. "Kill him, Spike!" he cried. He tapped Porphyry on the shoulder as well, grimacing as a piece of zombie flesh fell off in his fingers. "Kill them all," he said expansively. Then he sat back to watch.

............

Buffybot and Lady Sybil had regained the turret, and were watching events unfold. The Watch and Buffy might have Spike and Porphyry outnumbered three to one, but they were hampered by their desire not to kill either of their attackers. So Spike had flattened two Watchmen in his attempts to reach Vimes, and was now wrestling furiously with Buffy. Porphyry was creating mayhem; having grabbed an ornamental stone gryphon from Lord Pownder's terrace, he was swinging it around his head, trying to crush everyone in sight. Detritus had reached out a hand to catch the gryphon's head, and had caught a heavy blow from the plinth instead, crushing his helmet over his eyes.  The other Watchmen dodged and jumped, trying to hook a leg from under him, or score a direct hit on his huge stony head.

Meanwhile, a smart carriage had drawn up, and Winkelson was striding smugly towards it.

Buffybot stood on one foot, agonised. Then she threw open Lady Sybil's war chest, selected a chakram bagel, took very careful aim and let fly. The bagel flew, fast and true, zinging as it went, down the Vimes' garden, over the stone wall, and finally made a direct hit on the back of Mr Winkelson's head, just as he stepped up into the carriage. He fell back to the ground with a moan. After a frozen pause, Cheery crawled over to his prone body, grabbed hold of his hand, closed her fingers over the ring and shouted, "Spike, zombie troll! Be still!"

Spike, caught in the middle of trying to throttle Buffy, and at the same time throw her aside, froze instantly. Buffy, breathless from trying not to punch Spike in the face, gasped and rolled over on the grass. Porphyry paused, stone gryphon raised above his head. 

"Drop the gryphon!" cried Cheery, thrilled by her first success. "Oh, dear," she said, a moment later. "I didn't mean for him to drop it on his head."

Vimes bent over the prone figure of Ernest Winkelson. Spike leapt forward, only to find his eager reaching hand grasped by a small sinewy one. He glared at Sergeant Littlebottom, as Vimes slid the ring from Winkelson's finger and twirled it experimentally.

Beside him, Carrot lifted the chakram bagel reverently from the grass. "Battlebread," he breathed. "And not just any battlebread. This is the finest chakram bagel it has ever been my privilege to hold. Look at it - not a dent on it, or a scuff on the glaze."

"Is the villain dead?" said Lord Pownder hopefully.

Vimes looked up at him. "No sir, your average chakram bagel is not lethal from 200 hundred yards. Unlike the glazed bloomer. Although that requires a catapult for launching of course."

"You did listen when I took you round the museum, sir!" said Carrot delighted. 

Vimes sniffed. "I always listen, Captain." He looked at Lord Pownder. "I will be interviewing you and all your household shortly, sir. After I have seen all these prisoners taken into custody." He gestured to Detritus, whose helmet had just been removed by Buffy and Angua, pulling together. "Bring them all along, sergeant."

And then everyone trooped wearily through the door in the wall, leaving Lord Pownder looking anxiously behind them, and planning a swift flight from the city of his own.

Chapter 20 - The Dragon

Vimes stood in the courtyard of his home, surveying the prisoners. Winkelson lay flat on his back, still concussed by the chakram bagel. Porphyry, a gryphon shaped dent in his skull, was nonetheless sitting up and glowering. The vampire was slinking around looking ridiculous in what he vaguely recognised as his wife's beekeeping suit.

"Now," he said. "Let's sort out exactly what has been going on, shall we?"

"Um, said Angua, "Perhaps we should deal with the dragon first." They all looked up.

The dragon soared overhead, huge, shining, scaly and magnificent. Fire seemed to coalesce around her wings, as if the air itself was burning in her presence.

"Hoorah!" cried Buffybot.

"Oh my," said Lady Sybil.

Carrot squinted. "Is it my imagination, or has she got bigger?"

"And shinier," added Cheery.

Angua frowned up at the shimmering dragon. "And just a bit more ... unreal."

"It's the magic," said Vimes gloomily. "This whole bloody place is alive with it. Which is all down to history."

"Ooh, history!" said Buffybot, excited. She loved history.

Vimes spared her a glance. "The history, that is, of a bunch of blithering homicidal idiots." He gazed bitterly in the direction of the Unseen University. "Wizards," he said in withering tones. "Like a bunch of big kids playing with matches."

He looked at Count Winkelson, who was coming round, and was now writhing on the ground. "And he's worse. Thinking you can run a city by magic. Magic isn't about the mundane. Look at that thing!" He gestured at the dragon circling the turret above them.  "No one in their right mind should believe they could control that."

The dragon tucked in her wings, made a tight turn, and landed in the courtyard. Everyone stepped back. Except Buffybot, who stepped out, grinning.

"Thanks for coming, dragon!" She stared into the swirling multi faceted eye for a moment, and then turned. "She says she's hungry. She only ate a few sheep the whole time she's been here. And she says they were very stringy."

"The poor thing!" said Lady Sybil sympathetically. "I wonder if we have anything she'd like?"

The dragon turned her snakelike neck, snatched up Ernest Winkelson, crunched and swallowed. There was a terrible silence.

"Ooh!" Buffybot's eyes were wide. "You shouldn't have done that, dragon. Mr Winkelson was under arrest."

The dragon snorted dismissively. Then she frowned, and sat back on her haunches as a little smoke appeared out of her nostrils. Everyone stepped back uneasily. The  dragon burped a massive flame 20 feet long, which scorched everything in its path, then spat up a singed opera hat, a stiff white dickey, and a pair of braces.

"My swamp dragons do just the same thing," said Lady Sybil, delighted. She made a note in her notebook. "Often from both ends at once," she added. Those Watchmen near the back of the dragon moved hastily away.

"Down everyone! She's about to blow!" cried Lady Sybil, tackling Vimes from behind. There was a huge discordant clattering noise as humans, dwarfs, trolls and others - many of them dressed in chain mail - threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads.

The dragon belched a burning smoke ring, reared up on her hind legs, and then spat the corpse of the necromancer 20 feet upwards in a gush of fire. He sailed, a black clad fireball, in a high arc across the courtyard and hit the wall of the house with a dull squelch, then slid down it, still burning.

Two angry jets of steam emerged from the dragon's nostrils, and she spat ostentatiously on the courtyard floor. The flagstones sizzled.

"Silver nitrate," said Spike, risking a look from his safe position behind a horse trough. "I told you the silly bugger was poisoning himself with silver nitrate. I reckon the dragon tasted it and she didn't fancy blowing up as she digested him."

"Oh," said Lady Sybil wistfully, "if only her little cousins could have her common sense." She climbed carefully off Vimes, who lay spread-eagled breathlessly beneath her. "I do hope I didn't hurt you, dear?"

After a stunned moment, Vimes staggered to his feet, wheezing - and painfully conscious of the sea of eyes regarding him, and what they were all thinking. Well, everyone except Bott, probably - she was a simpleton.

"Can I check you for broken ribs, sir?" asked Buffybot eagerly. "I've got a first aid certificate!"

"No!" Vimes coughed. "That is, there's no need, Bott. I'm quite all right. Just a little winded." He glared at his Watchmen, daring anyone to so much as titter.

Buffybot turned her attention to the dragon. "I'm very sorry the bad man nearly poisoned you, but you really shouldn't have eaten him the first place. It's not really a good way to make friends in a new place, now is it?" She stepped forward, and wrapped the chain of the Orb neatly across the dragon's massive foot. Hot dragon breath ruffled her blonde hair as she bent to loop the chain around a talon. "There," she stood up and regarded her handiwork. "I've fixed it with a matchstick. It should turn the whole way if you swing it about a bit." She looked deep into the dragon's swirling multi-faceted eye. She smiled and stepped away. "You too!"

The dragon shrugged, massively. Then she took off, creating a huge swirling downdraft, and setting everyone's hair and shirtsleeves flapping. The Orb dangled from her claws, and as she looped the loop it flashed in the sunlight, completing the three quarter turn. In a moment dragon and jewel had winked out of existence.

There was a further silence in the courtyard below.

"Oh, wouldn't it have been wonderful to keep her!" sighed Lady Sybil, "Though I suppose the pet food bills would have become rather daunting."

"And now," said Vimes in a tone that brooked no argument. "You should all be getting along, to your own world, before something else happens to Porphyry. He seems to be a bit accident prone."

 There was a general clearing of throats, and Vimes sighed. "Although, Lance Constable Bott is welcome to stay if she wishes. Being emancipated, as we are all delighted to say that she is."

Buffybot beamed. "Thank you everyone! And I really, really wish I <i>could</i> stay. There are criminals to bring to justice here, and citizens to protect! But I need to go home to help Buffy kill evil demons, and Tara's teaching me how to make lentil casserole this Friday."

Porphyry scowled. "I stand by my word. Even though I have been cheated of my desire to rip the blackguard Winkelson into tiny pieces and spit on them."

"Yeah, well, said Spike, "I was planning the same. Without the spitting, though," he added. "Might have danced on them a bit."

Porphyry gestured, and a small swirling void appeared before him.

Lady Sybil smiled down at Buffybot. "Thank you for bringing the dragon here, anyway, Bottie. You and your twin," she smiled at Buffy, "and your dear funny vampire friend." Spike scowled.

"Now, where is Gaspode - I know I saw him running ... ah yes." When it appeared the dragon was about to explode, Gaspode had turned tail for the flowerbeds, and dug himself a hole. Unluckily for him, Lady Sybil had seen him do it. She stepped over, bent down and dragged him out by the collar, covered in black soil, and the heavily mulched horse manure that she used on her flowerbeds.

"Ooh! Can I take him with me?" cried Buffybot eagerly.

"No!" said Buffy.

"No!" said Gaspode, his ears flattening against his head. He'd heard Buffybot's plans for him, as they sat talking with Lady Sybil on the couch the other evening. Baths? Ear drops? Worming tablets? Flea powder? It was sheer madness.

"Goodbye then, little dog," cried Buffybot, a tear in her eye. She bent forward, and although Gaspode wriggled and did his best to escape, she kissed him firmly on the nose. Then she looked up at all her new friends, sputtering dog clasped to her bosom. "Goodbye everyone!"

"Make sure you hand in that helmet and breastplate before you go, Bott," said Vimes, "that's City property."

Buffybot unbuckled her precious armour, and embraced everybody, one by one. Then Buffy grabbed her arm and hurried her to the sputtering green vortex that surrounded Porphyry's fallen body. She looked back at Spike. "I suppose you should come as well," she said ungraciously. "If you can tear yourself away from your creepy Lady Cruella, that is."

Spike managed a smirk. "Jealous, are we? I'm not surprised. Classy lady, is Margolotta - and very ... responsive." Then he strolled across to the green vortex, tilting the hat of his bee suit against the sunlight. He gestured with a be-gloved hand. "Slayers first."

"Like hell," growled Buffy, and then she pushed Spike sharply into the vortex, eliciting a startled yelp, and stepped in behind him, dragging a waving and smiling Buffybot behind her.

The vortex closed with a faint snap.

"And good riddance," muttered Vimes. Then he dismissed his troops, kissed his wife, and took the emerald ring to the anvils of the dwarves, where he made sure they found an effective way to smash it.

The End

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