"Xander went where?" demanded Buffy.

        Andrew shifted uneasily from foot to foot.  "The high school," he muttered.  "He was all worried about you."  He looked over her shoulder down the hospital corridor.  "Did you see the house blew up?  I heard it on the news, and when I went there, it was really gone."

        He looked back just in time to see Buffy nod at Spike and hear her say to Dawn, "Take care of things here.  And watch Willow."

        Andrew blinked as Buffy and Spike ran off down the long hallway while Dawn marched off in the opposite direction.  "Hey!  Where are you guys all going?" he cried.  There was a pause.  "Can I come?"  His voice echoed pathetically down the corridor.

"Everything is all wrong," said Anya.  She frowned worriedly at Giles.  "I don't like this."

"No one likes this, Anya," said Giles, as he buttoned his shirt and looked around the room.  "My jacket's not here," he complained, sorting through the plastic bag where a nurse had dumped his personal possessions earlier that evening.

"You took it off before the kaboom," Anya reminded him.

"It was my favorite."  His voice was bewildered.

"It's gone," said Anya again.  "Along with lots of other stuff, some of it my stuff.  Not to mention Vi, who's dead."  She was huddled in a chair in the corner of his hospital room, looking miserable.  "I can't get too upset about tweed right now."

"It was corduroy," said Giles.  He pressed a hand to his forehead.  "But you're quite right.  I'm still a bit disoriented, from the blast, and from being poked about so much.  I still don't understand why that doctor insisted on all those x-rays."  His voice broke and he began coughing, leaning against the bed he had just been allowed to vacate.  Anya watched him anxiously.

"Those x-rays showed that you were lucky," said a nurse who had come into the room in time to hear his last comment.  "You two got out quickly."  She dropped a clipboard on the credenza by the wall and tapped it with one finger.  "Unlike these poor girls."

"Are they—" Giles stopped.  "I'd understood that they'd stabilized."

"Stabilized, yes.  But they're all unconscious and either in intensive care or the burn unit."

"Love, you are aware we're walking into a trap?" asked Spike.

"Yes, of course," said Buffy.  She stopped halfway down the high school corridor, broke the glass covering a fire axe with her elbow, and helped herself to the weapon.  "It's not like I have a choice, not with Xander down there."

"Right.  Just wanted to make sure you were using your head. "

Buffy glanced at his pale, drawn face, her heart lurching at the still raw burn on one cheek. "You have a choice," she said.

"Same as yours," said Spike, finding another fire axe further down the corridor and copying her actions.  "I've got your back, Slayer.  Let's go."

"No," said Buffy, and added when he turned to her in surprise, "You know the basement better than anyone else.  You lead this time."

At that, his surprise turned to astonishment.

"At least, until we find them," she added quickly.

"Well, all right then," said Spike, pushing open a basement door.  "I thought for a minute there my girl was slipping."

 "Faith is dead?" Giles was staring at Willow, his expression stunned.  He looked at Dawn, who was standing next to the witch, and seemed to read confirmation of the bad news in her face.

Willow nodded sadly.  "Angel called.  He was positive.  The First really is going after all the Slayers and the Potentials."

"Very successfully," said Giles.  He sat down on the hospital bed, staring up at his visitors.  "It's done it," he whispered.  "It's won."

"No, no," cried Anya, horrified at his expression.

"No," Dawn hastened to agree with her.  "Only Vi is dead.  And the other girls are going to get better.  The doctors say so.  They'll all recover, eventually."

"Eventually is too late," snapped Giles.  They stared at him.

"Are we in time?" demanded Buffy.

Spike had stopped, one arm outstretched to halt Buffy's progress, his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply.

Buffy tried to make out his features by the dim light trickling in from a side tunnel.  "What is it?" she insisted.

"Bringers.  And Harris.  Alive.  Scared."  He frowned.  "And one other human—familiar, but not— "  He pointed.  "Over there."

Giles tried to control his voice enough to explain.  "In order for the Power to pass from the dying Chosen One, the new Slayer must be awake and at least reasonably competent, both physically and mentally.  An unconscious girl in Intensive Care cannot become the next Slayer.  Even the Council doesn't—didn't know everything about how the Power chooses Slayers, but we were sure of that."  He paused.  "There are no Potentials anywhere who meet the qualifications to become the new Slayer."

"None?" asked Dawn.  "Are you sure?  I mean, there could be one in Timbuktu or Peoria, or someplace—"

But now Willow was shaking her head.  "The coven's been searching.  The ones at Buffy's house were the last that were the right age to be Chosen.  There are no others."

"So," said Anya, trying to be cheerful, "when Kennedy or one of the other girls wakes up, and starts talking and walking a little—"  She stopped, catching sight of Giles' face.

"The transfer is immediate," he said.  He pulled off his glasses and scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "It must be completed as the previous Slayer breathes her last, or it will not happen at all."

"Then," said Dawn quietly, "like, there aren't going to be any more Slayers?"

"Except for Buffy," said Giles.  "She is truly the last of the Chosen Ones.  And I am the last Watcher." 

Buffy swung her axe again, severing the last of the chains that held Xander to the wall.  Behind her, Spike was holding the Bringers at bay.  Buffy grabbed Xander around the waist and pulled him towards the exit, yelling at Spike to follow. 

"Sorry, Buffy," said a voice from the opposite end of the room.  "Recess hasn't been called yet."

 Anya had been mulling things over, and she was the one who finally broke the stunned silence.  "There are a couple of things I don't get," she said.  "Like the bomb."

They all turned to stare at her.

"The bomb," she repeated impatiently.  "Remember that?  The reason we're in this hospital?  The thing that almost killed me?  I want to know who set it, and how!" 

"Bringers," said Dawn, almost absently.  Like the rest of them, she was still overwhelmed by the enormity of Giles' announcement.

"The Bringers couldn't get in," said Anya.  "Or so Willow said."

Willow winced.  "They shouldn't have been able to," she said after a moment.  "I didn't put any of my own magic in that spell, but the coven helped me design it, and it was a good one.  It could be set or removed by anyone in that house, Anya.  I taught you all.  Did you set it when you came back?"

"Yes," said Anya.  "I did it myself.  So unless someone else removed it—"

"Now, Anya," interjected Giles.  "I'm sure that you don't mean to say Willow had anything to do with the bomb.  For one thing, she was nowhere near the house, and for another, well—" he gazed at Willow like a man trying to hold on to a last illusion.  "I just can't believe it."

"Me either," said Dawn, but her voice was less assured.

Anya looked unconvinced.  "Who else—?"  She stopped, as she suddenly thought of someone else.

The same thought struck them all, and they turned as one to stare at the person who had followed Willow and Dawn into the room, and who had been hovering near the doorway ever since.  But Andrew seemed not to be paying attention to their conversation at all.  He was holding the clipboard the nurse had dropped earlier and staring at it intently.  His lips were moving, and he was counting on his fingers.

While they watched him, he shook his head, made a fist, stuck out his thumb, and began to count again.

"Andrew!" called Dawn.

He started at his name and blinked at her.

"We need to ask you a few questions," she said in a threatening voice, folding her arms across her chest.

"Oh," said Andrew vaguely.  "Hey, Dawn, how many Potentials are there?  Besides Vi, I mean."

"Never mind that," snapped Dawn.  "What—?"

"Wait," said Willow, stepping between Dawn and the boy, holding up her hand.  She looked at Andrew.  "Why does that bother you?"

"It's like the seven dwarfs," said Andrew earnestly.  "You try to count them while you say the names, but you keep forgetting one, and saying another twice, and—"

"Andrew, why are you saying their names?" interrupted Willow.

"Because," he said, "this list of girls in Intensive Care—"

Consumed with impatience, Dawn snatched the list from his hands and skimmed it quickly.  "Rona's missing," she said in a tight voice.

"So," said Buffy.  "Rona is dead too."  She stared at the thing that had moved between her and the exit.  "I don't know why you think using her body is going to do anything except make me angry."  She saw out of the corner of her eye that the remaining Bringers were trying to regroup, and nodded at Spike and Xander to follow her.  She strode towards the exit, intending to march straight through the First's smirking, illusory form.

She was caught in the stomach by Rona's sneaker as the girl in front of her threw a very solid and powerful roundhouse kick.

"What's the other thing?" asked Willow suddenly.

"Huh?" asked Dawn, still bemused by the discovery that Rona was lost.

"Anya said she didn't understand two things," said Willow.  "One was the bomb."  She turned to the ex-vengeance demon.  "What was the other?"

Buffy crouched on the basement floor, staring up at Rona's body in horror.  "You're the new Slayer," she said.

"Of course I’m the Slayer."  The girl was smiling from ear to ear, almost bouncing up and down on her heels.  She looked like a child with a wonderful new toy.  "Kind of a gimme, really.  With all the other Potentials dead or unconscious, the Power had to pass to me.  No place else for it to go."

        Buffy pulled herself to her feet, managing to put some more space between herself and the girl as she did so.  "You set the bomb in my house and left before it went off.  I've been wondering about that.  It had to be an inside job."

        "Sure.  But I bet you've been all upset, suspecting Willow of not playing fair with her spell, or of messing it up out of guilt and nerves.  I knew you'd do that, instead of thinking of me.  The only time you think of Rona is to be annoyed that I'm so scared."

        "And just who are you?" asked Buffy.  "Rona, or the First?"

        "Both.  But mostly the First.  I needed a vessel.  A volunteer.  Rona was scared enough of dying to agree.  She even used all those little books and toys you had Xander gather up to make the bomb for me."  Her arms stretched towards the ceiling, and her face glowed with pleasure.  "This is really, really cool, you know.  Well, of course you know.  What it's like to have all this Power."

        "The ritual to obtain the Power," said Anya.  "I thought Rupert and I had figured out how it worked.  But if Buffy is the only Slayer left, we must have been wrong."

        Giles, who had been staring gloomily at nothing in particular, finally looked up at that.  "Good God, yes," he said. "I'd forgotten.  If all the Slayers are dead except Buffy, then the First cannot complete the ritual.  Unless—"  He looked around, and seemed to become aware of the Slayer's absence for the first time.  "Where is Buffy?"

         "Go," muttered Spike, shoving Xander's shoulder.  He'd maneuvered the two of them towards the exit.

        "No!"  Xander pulled away, his gaze was fixed on Buffy and the First.

        "It's forgotten us for the moment.  And you'll be useless in a fight.  Go to the hospital and tell your Scooby mates what's happening."

        "Hospital?"  Xander's eyes were finally drawn to Spike's face.  "Why are they at the hospital?"

        "You'd better run and find out, hadn't you?"  Turning away from Xander, Spike shouldered his axe and turned to watch the Bringers, who were huddled in a corner, clearly waiting for their next orders to attack.

"This is terrible.  We need to keep Buffy safe!  Why did you let her go?" demanded Giles.

"Hello?" said Dawn.  "We're talking about Buffy, remember?  It's not like I could stop her.  Besides, Spike went with her."

        "Spike?"  Giles' voice was hoarse.

        "Is that bad?" asked Dawn, taking a step backwards, away from what she saw in his face.

        "It's very likely the only thing that could make things worse," said Giles.

        "So," said Buffy, "What's next on the agenda?"  She'd seen Xander, his expression agonized as he threw her a backwards glance, scoot off down the corridor.  Spike had moved to position himself a few steps behind and to the side of her, his axe at the ready.   Xander's safe.  No point in dragging this out any more.

        "I'm going to kill you," said the First happily.  "Because while you were busy killing some more of my minions and releasing poor Xander, I finished the ritual.  At dawn tomorrow, all of the Power, not just the tiny bit you and I share right now, is going to pour into the blood of the current Slayer.  And that will be me.  Corporeal and all powerful.  Because, you know, I'm all about the Power."

        "Except," said Buffy, "I'm still alive.  And while I'm alive, there's always a little question about who the current Slayer is."  She tried to back up a few steps, to position herself closer to Spike and the exit.

The First watched her with a sarcastic smile, but made no move yet.  "A problem, yeah, but the joke is that it's also part of the solution.  I couldn't have started the ritual without your participation.  It needed two Slayers, you see.  Your escaping Principal Wood, just as the rest of the Potentials were being slaughtered and one of my Bringers was slashing his knife into Faith’s chest—that was a pain," the First said.  "I’d counted on Spike coming to rescue you, but not on his getting there so soon, or that he'd be able to attack a human.  But it didn’t matter.  Because you came back. You just don’t know how to back down from a fight, do you, Buffy?"

"No," Buffy agreed.  "I don't."

        The First gave a hand signal, and the Bringers moved in.

        Too much melodrama there, and not enough of an element of surprise, thought Buffy critically as she glanced at Spike, assuring herself that he too was moving to the defense.  She should have just had them attack us without bothering to explain like the bad guy in a James Bond film.  But the First was always big with the talking.  Probably because of not having a body.  At least, not until now.

        This was no time to critique the First's speechmaking talents.  She and Spike were outnumbered by Bringers, which might not have been fatal.  But the thing in Rona's body really was a Slayer.  A Slayer who hadn't been shot full a load of tranquilizers just a few hours ago.  She moved to block Buffy's every blow, and threw immensely powerful kicks and punches of her own.

        Spike had killed two Bringers, but in the process, he'd lost his weapon.  Buffy thought the Bringers' next blow would take him down, but instead of stabbing him, they were merely pushing him back, further into the cellars, away from Buffy.  She gauged the distance between them out of the corner of her eye, and dropped down, hands to the floor as one leg swept out to knock Rona's feet out from under her.  The newest Slayer fell back, snarling, then flipped herself upright again.

        But Buffy had taken advantage of the First's momentary retreat to run to Spike's side and slash her axe into the back of one of the Bringers attacking him.  She shoved another aside, and saw a dark space behind her.  A doorway.   Her axe was pulled from her grip by another Bringer, just before she grabbed Spike by the arm and pulled him inside.  It was a desperate attempt to buy a momentary reprieve from death.  There was no other possible escape, so she risked retreating, even though she knew it was probably—

        "—a trap," said Buffy, as the door swung shut.

        "Let me see if I understand this," said Dawn, in the tone of someone who doesn't understand at all.  "This ritual has to take place in the presence of two Slayers and a vampire.  So even though the instructions were all written out and everything, nobody could perform it.  But when Buffy came back from the dead the first time, and Angel was still around, and Faith showed up, there all the ingredients were, right here in Sunnydale."

        "Of course," said Willow.  "And that explains why that time around, the First wasn't able to do more than play the Grinch and try to steal Christmas.  Because Angel's soul is only held in place by a curse."  She shrugged.  "It's a good curse.  I mean, I put it there.  But it's just a curse."  She and Anya exchanged a rare glance of understanding.

        "So the First goes away," said Dawn, still relentlessly trudging down the path to greater understanding, "but comes back when Spike earns his soul by trial, because that makes him a much better prospect than Angel.  And then—"  She frowned.

        "And then, the First, like Evil Incarnate—which, of course it is—kills or incapacitates all the Slayers and Potentials except Buffy!" announced Andrew triumphantly.  He shook his head in awe and admiration.  "What a demonically clever plan!"

        "Yes, except for the part where it makes no sense at all," snapped Anya.

        "It makes some sense if the First wants there to be only two Slayers," said Giles quietly.

        Dawn looked incredulous.  "So you think it was stupid enough to count wrong?" she asked.  "To do that, you'd have to be as stupid as—"  She glanced at Andrew, but refrained from finishing her sentence.

        "Perhaps.  But I doubt it."  Giles pointed to the clipboard with the list of names on it.  "It's more likely that—"

        "Rona isn't dead," said another voice. 

        Xander stood in the doorway, looking tired, dirty, and battered.  "She's just betrayed us," he said wearily.

        "Balls," said Spike.  His voice came from somewhere near the floor, and his curse was punctuated by the sound of a heavy object being pulled down to bar the door from the outside.  "The bitch has done for us now."

Buffy leaned against the door for a moment, even though she knew it would be unmovable.  She turned her back to it, and asked anxiously, "Where are you?  Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said.  She heard him moving, boots scraping along the cement floor, and then his voice came from higher up.  "Yeah," he said again, and his lighter flamed in the darkness.  "Not much in the way of interior design here, is there?" he asked.

Buffy's eyes were drawn to his face, not the walls of the room.  He looked drawn and exhausted, and his eyes were so dark they appeared black.  But his gaze was darting around, looking for a way out.

The lighter went out and he flicked it on again for just a second.  "Better conserve this.  But the damned bitch has thrown us into an empty room."

        "Are you sure?"  Buffy forced herself to stop worrying about him for a moment and to assess her surroundings.

        "Well, it's obvious she put a bit of thought into things," said Spike.  "I'm guessing this is where your pal the Principal was going to take you as soon as that ritual was over."  His voice came from near the wall now. "There's nothing in here.  Either it's never been used at all, or the First had it cleared out, just for you."

        "There has to be some way out," said Buffy, feeling her way along the wall in the opposite direction.

        Spike's voice came from the direction of the door.  "No keyhole."

        "No," said Buffy, still moving along the wall, searching for something to use as a tool. And then as a weapon.  Because once I bust out of here, I'm taking down that thing in Rona's body.  "They barred the door.  Why would they need a key?"

        "I don't know."  His voice was confused, uncertain, and she heard something like the bewildered tone he had used after they had discovered the bodies in the cellar.  "I just thought—maybe Dawn—"

        "Dawn?"  Buffy's voice sharpened in surprise.  "Why would you think she could help?"

        He was closer now, still moving slowly along the wall.  "Something the Mad Girl told me once about a key that opened more than one door."

        Buffy was very still.  The silence stretched out, and her voice sounded hesitant to her own ears when she finally forced out words.  "The Mad Girl?"

        There was another pause, ominous in the chill darkness of the cellar.  "Drusilla," he said at last, and she knew he was lying.  "I meant Drusilla."

        "No, Spike.  You said 'the Mad Girl.'  It was like you didn't know her name."

        "I—" 

She knew then that he didn't want to lie to her, but was afraid to confess to the truth.  "You remember, Spike."  Her voice was more assured now, almost strident.  "Why didn't you tell me?  You remember that place.  The mansion with the amazing garden.   The place where you were William and she was the Mad Girl."

        She heard a shuffling noise, as if he had stumbled and nearly fallen.  Then a rustle of clothing, and, finally, the flick of his lighter.  Sudden flame illuminated his startled features for a moment.  His eyes held astonishment, fear, and something like hope.  "You know about that place?"  The flame went out as he uttered his next, incredulous words.  "It was real?"

        "Of course," said Buffy. 

"You're sure?"

"Of course," she said again.  "I was there.  Or don't you remember that part?"

There was a long pause before he whispered, "I remember."

Chapter Eleven