Even More of Chapter 1 "I've got some free time during fifth period, so I'll scope the net," Willow told him. She glanced sideways at her boyfriend's eggplant colored hair, "you'll help?" The multi colored head bobbed up and down in agreement. Willow beamed.
"Good, it's settled then. We meet here after school." They all nodded their agreements as they made their way to class.
"What are we going to do?" Cordelia asked Xander.
"What we always do, get the doughnuts."
She eyed him coolly. "Great, not only are you people going to get me killed, I'm gonna get fat in the process."
Buffy smiled at them fondly as she watched them leave, then turned to Giles. "I had that dream again," she told him when the room had emptied out.
He looked at her with sympathy in his eyes, "do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. She'd told him only the sketchiest of details, but nothing of the way the dream made her feel. "I wanted to know if you found something, some prophecy?"
He shook his head sadly, "sometimes your dreams are just that- dreams."
The Slayer's shoulders drooped with disappointment, "I'd better get to class, then. You know, before Snyder decides to put me on detention just because, or something like that."
Giles nodded his agreement and watched with haunted eyes as his crestfallen Slayer left the room.
Buffy pushed open the library's swinging doors. Her mood had brightened up considerably during the last several hours, her history teacher had called on her in class and she'd blurted out a semi-correct response, not to mention she'd managed to turn in a math assignment on time. Things were definitely looking up. One look at the group of people sitting by the great mahogany table made things flop back down again.
"What's wrong?" She demanded, her body tensing involuntarily. She lovingly fondled the stake buried in her sleeve. Not much of a chance for vamps in broad daylight, she mused, but then again not many things could stand up to a nice, sharpened stake.
"Buffy, sit down." Giles said motioning to a pulled up chair.
She sat, peering at her friends' faces. Under closer observation it seemed that Xander and Cordy were as clueless as she was. The pretty redhead who called herself Buffy's best friend stubbornly diverted her eyes. Oh god, she thought, if Willow can't look at me it has to be bad.
"Am I gonna die again?" She asked bluntly. The effect was like sticking a pin in a highly inflated balloon. Suddenly the quiet room burst into sound as Willow and Oz almost fell over each other to assure her that she was firmly among the living, while Xander was loudly proclaiming his objections at being left in the dark just because he wasn't a computer geek. Cordy, however, decided that the best course of action was to nibble quietly on a jelly doughnut. At this point Buffy fervently agreed with her as she grabbed one for herself before the May Queen could munch them all up. "That's enough!" The quiet librarian snapped, the seriousness of his voice pushing them back into the awaiting arms of a dark, gloomy mood. "Buffy, Willow and I ran across something when we looked up Cirta's name." He rushed on ignoring the question in her eyes, "we couldn't find any mention of her in any of the Watchers' diaries."
"So that would mean that either she's very old or very new," Cordelia interrupted, obviously very pleased at her newfound logic.
"Or that she's got a very different name she's hiding under," Xander said, unable to resist proving his girlfriend wrong.
"Actually she doesn't," Giles began, ignoring the beaming Cordelia on general principal.
"But you have found her eventually," Buffy murmured. "This morning you didn't even know that she was a 'she'." Buffy knotted her fist into a hard white ball, what did it matter how they got their information? There was something that Giles was deliberately not telling her. Something big.
"Yes we have. Apparently Cirta existed before the Watchers, before the slayer." The Watcher looked deep into his Slayer's eyes, wanting her to be very much aware of the gravity of the situation. "She existed in a time when there was no man, only chaos. A time when demons walked the earth." Buffy stared at him, his words hypnotizing her into a trance where no one existed, but her and her watcher. "She ruled them all, Buffy. She was in many respects the Devil incarnate."
"What happened?"
Giles shook his head, "the book I found wasn't that clear. It only says that somehow man and demon joined together to defeat her."
"I take it she wasn't a very nice ruler," Xander murmured.
Buffy's eyes narrowed with suspicion, "if this she-devil existed before the Watchers, how come they have a book on her?"
Giles exchanged a guilty look with Willow, "this isn't Watcher lore," the redhead said as gently as she could. "It's demon lore."
The Slayer's green eyes widened, "HE gave it to you."
Willow nodded briefly and went back to staring at Giles. There was more to this, Buffy could feel it. "So she's back and she wants to have it all again, yadda, yadda, yadda. Cut to the chase."
"It's not that simple," Giles told her softly. "She wants it all cleanly this time, and that means no humans."
Buffy almost choked on that one, "she's out to kill the entire human race?"
"She's already begun doing just that. I've been getting reports from European and Asian watchers, apparently that black cloaked man you met last night has several hundred twin brothers all over the world, they've been busy wiping out whole sections of the continent. They're the ones who are preparing for the day of Cirta's return."
Xander's eyes widened, "for once Sunnydale is the last to hear about a coming evil."
Buffy paled visibly, the thought of something she couldn't beat multiplied by several hundred had shaken her to the core. "So how do I stop this thing?"
Giles and Willow exchanged another look. Here comes the clincher, Buffy thought.
"You can't." Willow said flatly. "You're not the one whose supposed to fight it."
"How long has this killing humans spree been going on?" Xander asked suddenly.
"A little over four months," Willow replied staring him straight in the eyes.
A horrible suspicion flooded Buffy's mind even as Giles began explaining, peering over at Xander she knew he was thinking the same. Oh god, she thought, I can't ever win. "There's a prophecy in these books, Buffy. As clear as I've ever seen one. It tells all about this situation, all about how to beat it."
"All about HIM!" Buffy suddenly lashed out, "this started when I sent HIM to hell. Tell me that's just a coincidence, Giles! Tell me!"
The Watcher shook his head, "I can't do that Buffy. It is related to him, but so is the way to stop this." He rushed on, afraid his Slayer would fall apart before his eyes. Wishing more than anything that he could spare her this, "the prophecy, it speaks of the return of the Angelic One."
"Read it to me." She said flatly.
Giles raised his eyes to meet hers in an attempt to read what she really wanted, but they were unfathomable. "What?"
