Rainbow in Sunnydale

by Joe Black

Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and characters. Josh Whedon owns Buffy and characters. I make no profit off the following except having a little fun.

Chapter 1:

Andrew's AFB
Washington DC
25 Oct 2002 - 1950 hours

John Clark came out of the cockpit of the VC-20 and said to his partner Domingo Chavez, "Ding, it's official; I just finished talking with Allister and he says they just got the alert notice. He already started getting things organized and thinks he can be on the ground there in 24 to 36 Hours."

Ding sat in front of his laptop with several piles of paper around him. They had been in town attending a secret anti-terror summit and had just wrapped it up when they had been contact by Ed Foley for a Rainbow Tasking for Sunnydale, CA. They had gone immediately to Andrews and had been waiting for whoever was going to brief them since.

Ding had decided to see what he could find out about Sunnydale and had been at it for over an hour now. He had some problems at first but had been working steadily with a growing pile of paper from the printer to show for his effort. "What have you found?" Clark asked.

"Well I know I am not taking Patty or Little John to Sunnydale on a vacation." Ding replied.

Clark sat down facing Ding and leaned forward, "What do you mean?"

Ding tossed a pile of print outs over to Clark and said, " Check out the per-capita death rate for one."

Clark looked down at the sheet and started reading; Sunnydale was easy to find one Ding had highlighted it with a yellow marker, and two it was at the top of the page. John looked up and said, "This can't be right Ding, if New York had a death-rate like this we would be looking at sixty to a hundred thousand deaths a year! This has got to be a misplaced decimal or something."

"If it is then the Census Bureau, The Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the FBI are all using corrupted data," Ding replied. "Here check it out yourself," as he tossed another printout pile at him.

John caught it and scanned the first sheet, frowning he went through the next two or three pages and said "I don't see it on the list."

"Put your finger at the top of the first page and scan down till you hit the first 'S' then follow the word over," Ding explained. Clark did as Ding instructed and caught his breath as he found Sunnydale, California in the number one slot. "Spooky isn't it?" Ding asked.

"Bizarre!" John agreed.

"It took me 15 minutes to figure out to do that. That's why I highlighted it for you." Ding leaned forward and turned his laptop toward John. "Then I did a search of the AP archives to see how many stories came out of Sunnydale. Over the last ten years I found almost 2000 stories that went up on the wires, of them only 3 where picked up nationally."

"Only three?" John wondered.

"The first was 4 years ago, their high school blew up in the middle of the graduation ceremony killed 10 including the town mayor, and the principle of the school. According to the story a boiler exploded, but check this out." Ding used the mouse to explode a picture on the screen showing the wreckage left over from the explosion and fire that had destroyed the building. "Do you see it?" Ding asked.

"Yeah." John said. One thing he knew was an explosion, and the way the wreckage around the school was distributed was totally wrong for a basement blast, now a first floor one on the other hand…

"What do you figure? A demo pack?" Ding wondered.

"Or about two or three hundred pounds of AMFO" John supplied. "No investigation from the FBI on a terrorist strike?"

"According to a story I dug out of the local paper the investigation was handled by state inspection officials and they determined that it was caused by a faulty gas valve that caused a build up in one of the boilers that then detonated for unknown reasons."

"And people bought that?" John was shocked.

"Heck from reading the local paper up till 3 or 4 years ago the standard answer seemed to be gangs on PCP for anything bad that happened, no matter how gruesome."

"Define gruesome." Clark demanded reaching for a coffee cup.

"Okay how about this, the last principle, before the one that was killed in the graduation explosion, was killed by a group of his students," Ding started.

"That happens a lot Ding, it's bad but hardly gruesome," John chided.

"Yeah Mr. C, but they ate him…raw," Ding said shaking his head. "We had gangs on PCP back in the neighborhood I grew up in. They never ate anyone."

"Raw!?"

"Or cooked for that matter," Ding replied. "The other two were about the same story. About 3 years ago, the November after the school explosion everyone in town lost their voice for about 48 hours."

"So the whole town had laryngitis, hardly a national news story," Clark argued.

"Not laryngitis Mr. C, their voices where gone. There was not one person in the whole town that could manage a peep. One morning they woke up and nothing, on the third morning when everyone got up they could speak normally again."

"No indication on what caused it?" Clark asked.

"The CDC quarantined the town, and Detrick was supposed to send a team, but as far as I can tell neither did. One other thing of interest happened while no one could talk, five people where killed all the same way; their hearts were cut out."

Clark sat back in his chair and stared of into space for a few moments, he then looked at Ding and said, "I see what you mean about not going on a vacation there. Okay two things, one get Allister back and tell him to put team two on alert also. I've got a feeling that we might need them, also tell him to pack the heavy artillery."

"And the other thing?" Ding asked.

"When you got the chance, I want you to research a fairy tale that I remember as a kid that seem to be close to that story you just told." He took a drink of coffee then said, "Now what else have you found out about this place."

"Fairy tale?" Ding asked, reaching for his own cup.

"Yeah I can't remember the name right off the top of my head, but my mom told it to me when she was tucking me in at night," Clark replied.

Ding sat there for a minute trying to picture someone tucking Mr. C in at night, the image did not come easy. "Okay a fairy tale where every one in town loses their voice and someone goes around ripping peoples hearts out, got it. So how did the story end?" Ding was curious.

John sat back and thought for a moment. "I seem to remember that the princess in the village got her voice back and screamed. That killed the bad guys. I doubt that an American city has a princess living in it. Probably nothing to it anyway. What else have you got?"

Ding went back to rooting through the stuff he had acquired. "Okay how's this. The Christmas before the high school blew up it snowed there, they got 3 inches."

"So it snows lots of places on Christma… wait this is around LA isn't it?" John said.

"Yeah about sixty miles outside. As far as I can tell this is the only recorded accumulation of snow in that area since the last ice age," Ding replied, "Out of curiosity I checked out the other crime statistics for the town and I found that while murder and disappearances are off the charts, other crimes are way low. Burglaries, Rapes, and Assaults are running at about 25% of what a city this size should be, if you factor in the murder rate as an indicator for violent crimes its at about 10% of what it should be. The only other crime I found that was disproportionately high in the area is grave robbing."

"GRAVE ROBBING!?!" Clark exclaimed.

"Depending on the year I found that between 1 in 20 and 1 in 3 bodies disappear in town. Don't ask me as far as I can tell there are no medical schools in the area that could be using them, heck there isn't even a dog food factory that might explain it."

"Don't even joke about stuff like that," Clark said reprovingly.

"I wasn't joking," Ding said. "At least not about the med. school part. Patty and I got into a discussion one night and I can't remember how the it came up, but she says that back in the 19th century grave robbing was a big problem because med. schools need human bodies for anatomy classes, it was big business in towns that had medical colleges."

Clark was just about to say something else, when lights cut across the windows of the jet. "Looks like our briefer is finally here," Clark said, putting on his mission face. A few minutes later two people came through the door. The fist was a man with all-American good looks, marred only by a Bloefeild type scar reaching from his left eye down toward the corner of his mouth. He was as tall as Clark but thinner in build, blond hair cut short, and wearing a grey suit. Following him was a woman with long red hair, almost as tall and beautiful. She was also dressed in grey and she had a briefcase handcuffed to her left wrist.

"Just a moment and I will be with you both," the Blond said and stuck his head into the cockpit.

The redhead continued into the cabin area and sat down across from Clark and Chavez. "Hi I'm Samantha Finn; my husband Riley will be with us just as soon as he finishes with the pilots, then we will get started."

Up in the cockpit Riley was saying, "Colonel I have to order you and your crew to remain in the cockpit for the entire trip to California. If we receive any communications just pipe it back, please repeat what I just said."

The pilot looked a little annoyed at being treated like a raw lieutenant but repeated, "My crew and I are to remain in the cockpit for the entire flight, if you receive any communications we are just to pipe it back to you."

"Thanks Colonel, I'm sorry for the cloak and dagger stuff," Riley said.

"That's okay we get it a lot," the Colonel replied.

Riley left the cockpit as the engines started to turn over. Over the intercom the Pilots voice said, "We will be taxiing and taking off momentarily. Please strap in and enjoy the flight."

Riley sat down next to his wife and held out his hand to John and Ding. "I am Riley Finn, this is my wife Samantha. I am sorry for the delay, the briefing we gave President Ryan lasted a little longer than we thought when you were called."

"That's okay Mr. Finn," Clark said. "We put the time to productive use." He pointed at the stack of papers and such in front of Ding.

Riley nodded, "So what do you think of Sunnydale?"

"We are going to contact England and have a second team put on alert for deployment."

Riley and Sam laughed. "Looks like you are beginning to see the real Sunnydale." The plane stopped and prepared for its take off roll. "When we get in the air we will begin the briefing."

Twenty minutes latter the VC-20 had reached its cruising altitude. "Gentlemen before we begin the briefing I have something for you to watch. Please hold any questions till the end of the video."

Sam opened the case and extracted a DVD from its case. Taking a laptop also out of the case she inserted the disk in the player on the side of the machine and turned it on. Once the machine finished its boot process the disk started playing automatically.

When the video started it showed an entranceway made of concrete. Stretching out behind the entrance as far as the eye could see were grassy plains. At the bottom of the display was a date/time stamp showing that it was 05:47 on Oct. 15, 1984. In the center of the display was an irate individual pounding what Ding and Clark assumed was a door just out of sight. The individual looked to be in his early twenties, had blond hair, and was wearing jeans and a work shirt. The video also had sound so they where able to hear him yelling, "Come on Bill open up, its cold out here and the sun will be up soon!" It was also totally obvious that the man was drunk out of his gord. "Come on Bill. I know I was gone awhile, but you can let your old buddy in!" The drunk resumed pounding on the door with renewed vigor, behind him the horizon was lighting perceptibly. "Corporal William Goodwin, you open this door now and invite me in! That bastard got me drunk and tricked me into coming out here and then left!" The man screamed. "Come on Billy its me Tom Price!" Seeming to sense something behind him, the man on camera turned and said, "Well heck," as the sun crested the horizon behind him. Tom Price suddenly burst into flames, he screamed for perhaps ten seconds then collapsed into dust slowly falling out of camera view.

Clark and Ding both stared at the computer screen in shock. Neither had seen any sign of something striking the man. Plus the way he had disintegrated had been like something out of Star Trek. They looked at Riley and his wife for an explanation.

Riley looked at them and said softly, "That gentlemen was a vampire, any questions?"

*****

Chapter 2:

The White House
Washington DC
25 Oct 2002 - 2130 hours

John Patrick Ryan, President of the United States, finished up with the last of the reports he needed to look at and tossed his glasses onto his desk. He then leaned back into his chair and went over the events of the day in his head one more time.

The day had started out normally enough. He was going over some budgets concerns with Ed and Mary Pat Foley, the Director of the CIA and its Deputy Director, Operations, when Tony Bretano, the Secretary of Defense, had called and said he needed to see Jack with the whole senior cabinet and that it should be a quiet meeting. Jack had called everyone in, fortunately Robby Jackson, the Vice President, was in the building and the Foleys where also in. Dan Murray, the Director of the FBI, came in with George Winston, the Secretary of the Treasury, through the underground tunnel that connected his building with the White House. Pat Martin, the Attorney General, was scheduled later in the day so they just moved his appointment up. So when Tony Bretano arrived with Pierre Alexander, the Surgeon General, and an unknown Colonel in tow, they where ready to begin.

"Sorry for the dramatics," Tony said. "But we have a real problem." He then motioned the Colonel forward and introduced him. "This is Colonel Joshua McCloud, he is the current commanding officer of a Special Forces unit called The Initiative."

Everyone in the room frowned because the name did not ring any bells. "I don't remember that one," Robby Jackson the VP said. "I don't think that one came over my desk when I was J-3."

"Uh it did not," said Colonel McCloud. "We where handled strictly in shop by the DIA."

President Ryan looked the Colonel over. He was just over six feet tall, obviously had some Native American blood in his lineage, with straight black hair, and a long aquiline nose. "You did not know of this group Tony?"

"Not before today, I didn't," the SecDef replied. "The unit was run by Brig. General Thomas Billingsly. They were apparently covered as an intelligence group that was supposed to be keeping track of the intentions of the PRC. When they totally blew the call in the last war, I had some people take a good look at their estimates and found out that everything that came out of their shop was just retread from other sources. Some of it was from quite deep, but nothing original. So I fired the good General yesterday and got a team of auditors in there to find out where all the money went."

"And they found?" Ryan asked.

"Colonel McCloud and some really interesting files. I want everyone to look at something then we can pick up the story," Bretano said. So saying he watched as an assistant set up a video in the machine in the office and left. Once the assistant was out of the room Tony started the tape. It showed the same scene that Clark and Ding would watch some hours later. The silence in the room when it stopped playing was profound.

"People don't burn to death that way," Dr. Alexander said. "The amount of heat that would be required to do what we just saw probably could not be generated short of a nuclear blast, I think we would have noticed that."

Colonel McCloud spoke up, "That's because that was not a person, Dr. Alexander, that was a vampire."

"A what?" just about everyone in the room exclaimed. (The Secret Service agent in the corner of the room was the exception. He was watching with interest though.)

"A vampire," the Colonel replied like it was the most reasonable thing in the world to watch a vampire spontaneously combust.

"I am afraid he is serious," Tony said, "and just wait, it gets better."

Ryan set back in his chair and let his advisors hack this one out, as he thought about what the repercussions of this, if true.

"There can't be any such thing as vampires," Alexander said.

"Can't be?" Ryan asked looking at his Surgeon General.

"Alright lets assume for a minute that vampires are real," he began. "One vampire kills a person. That person rises, and becomes a vampire, and proceeds to go and start eating people, I'm sorry, drinking their blood, and so on, and so on. It's a geometric progression. According to legend these things are immortal, so even if they only have to feed a couple of times a year, eventually we would all be vampires, or at least there would be so many of them that they would not be able to hide."

"You are partially right, Sir," Colonel McCloud said. "Vampires are in fact immortal as far as we can tell. The act of making another vampire however, a process they call Siring, is a strictly voluntary act on the part of the vampire. They are the top predators in their food chain, and they don't want to over graze the food supply."

"Us," Dan Murray, the head of the FBI, said quietly, obviously quite disturbed.

"Er yes," replied the Colonel, rather uncomfortable with notion himself.

"What was your unit tasked for Colonel McCloud?" President Ryan asked.

"Sir, we where originally formed to investigate ways of neutralizing these creatures and others like them."

"There're more of them?" George Winton the SecTres asked.

"Well yes Sir, most, if not all, of the classical monsters we have found to actually exist somewhere on the planet. Most are demons of one sort or another. Most are half or quarter breeds, some are more. We found that there are well over a thousand species of 'demons' on the planet; we have not encountered that many, but research bears that number out."

"Where do they hide?" Ed Foley the DCI asked. "I can't believe that they are that good at hiding that no clue of their existence leaked out!"

"With respect Sir, it did; it's called legend and myth," the CO of the Initiative replied. "Today if someone spots a demon or something, they look the other way, they don't want to be labeled a nut. Someone who has dealings with these creatures doesn't usually take out ads about them. Finally, most demons themselves take up a live and let live attitude, so they do not go out of their way to make trouble. We humans outnumber them by a good bit, so a low profile is often called for."

"What about the vampires?" the Director of the FBI could not seem to get off that subject.

"Some are very predatory, all will kill if a target presents themselves however, most enter into an almost symbiotic relationship with humans who agree to become… donors for them."

POTUS was repulsed, "You mean that people willing let themselves be drained by these things?"

"They are hardly drained, Mr. President. A vampire need not kill its victim. If it is an attack, the victim is usually killed, but I think this is as much for the vamps amusement as a need to hush up a witness. When a person voluntarily allows a vamp to feed on them, the vamp in question takes only as much blood as it needs. I am told that it is an interesting experience."

"So is jumping off a bridge till you bounce," replied the President.

"As you say," the Colonel replied.

"Ah Jack I think we are getting a little off topic here," Tony said. "I understand, I went through a lot of this myself, but we got a real problem going on here."

"Hmm?" POTUS looked over at his SecDef.

"Billingsly has gone AWOL, and it looks like he took most of the Initiative with him," Tony said.

"What?" Jack exclaimed. "All right lets take this from the top." Looking at the Colonel, who was looking more uncomfortable by the minute, he said, "Why didn't General Billingsly come forward and explain all this himself?"

Looking like he would like to be anywhere else than where he was, Colonel Joshua McCloud did the only thing he could do, he told the truth. "Well Sir, the General was convinced with how you came to be President that you were the Anti-Christ."

*****

Chapter 3

Sir John Patrick Ryan, President of the United States, KCB, Ph.D., and holder of 2 intelligence stars almost came out of his seat. "What???" he yelled. Everyone else in the room was also making angry noises, this time including the secret service agent.

"Mr. President, please, I was not saying that I thought you were, only that General Billingsly thought so," Colonel Joshua McCloud said. "In the General's defense however, you do have to look at how you became President with a little suspicion."

"What do you mean, Colonel? I never asked for this job. Ask anyone in this room how many times I wished I could just walk away from it. This is a prison, people out there want to hurt my family just to get at me, or have you forgotten the terrorist attack against my youngest daughter right after I became President?" Ryan returned with more than a little heat.

"I understand, Sir, but consider: For the last 12 or so years you have been at exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time, over and over again. You have done stuff that is straight out of the movies. You helped steal a Russian nuclear submarine, and caused the head of the KGB to defect to our country. After that you managed to lay the ground work that has led to peace in the Middle East, and stopped a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

"Also consider how you became President. Vice President Kealty's proclivities had been an open secret for decades around D.C.. Then just after you were back into the picture as Presidents Durling's National Security Advisor, a close personal friend of yours started a rape investigation on him."

"Hey, I did not instigate that investigation, the victims psychologist came to me, after she found out about it from the victim!" Dan Murray said.

"As you say Sir, but it was not exactly a bolt out of the blue, after all you have had a long professional relationship with her, have you not?" The Colonel replied. "And please Sir, I am just reporting what the General believed, not what I do," He attempted to forestall an argument with the head of the FBI.

"Dan, relax okay? No one here thinks you acted improperly," Jack said to his friend. "Continue," he directed the Colonel.

"Yes Sir. Then the US found itself in a shooting war with Japan where the initiating event was a car wreck. Again you and your friends were in exactly the right place, at the right time, to solve the problem. Finally President Durling offered you the Vice Presidency and no sooner were you sworn in, not only was President Durling dead, but most of the rest of the government was gone and you were suddenly in the position of not only running the government, but of actually being most of it as well. Personally at the time, Sir, I thought the General might just have a point."

Ryan had no response to that. He forced himself to look at his ascension to the presidency from the standpoint of someone that dealt with magic and demons on a daily basis and he could, almost, see Billingsly's point. He remembered the wall of fire that had come at him and his family in the tunnel under the Capitol, and how it had suddenly stopped and withdrawn. Maybe the General might not have been so wrong after all.

"Bunk!" snorted Robby Jackson, the VP, and the son of a Baptist minister. "Your good General missed something, didn't he? For Jack to be the Anti-Christ the Rapture would have had to happen, right?"

"The General thought that nuclear attack on Denver qualified as that event."

"Huh?" POTUS exclaimed. He knew some of the people who had been killed in Denver, and if they counted as the faithful then he had been going at his whole life the wrong way for awhile.

"General Billingsly believed that with the number of times that the Bible has been translated that it was not the most accurate source for prophecy. We have been trying to get a hold of The Pergramum Codex, but so far no luck. And before you ask, The Codex is the only known book of prophecy that has never been wrong. Makes Nostradamos look like Miss Cleo."

"Better not let my Pappy hear you say that about the bible," The VP growled.

"Or anyone else," said Arnie Van Damm. "Jack I didn't know about any of this."

"He didn't, Sir," Colonel McCloud agreed. "He was kept completely out of the loop."

"Why?" POTUS asked.

"Because when Elisabeth Elliott helped put the Initiative together it was felt that there should be several high-ranking members of the administration that could be used for plausible deniability. Mr. Van Damm was at the top of the list as he is someone the press contacts to both confirm stories and to see what the administrations position is on stories. It was felt that if he did not know of the Initiative and what they were fighting, he would be that much more believable."

"Liz Elliot was the founder of this Initiative?" Ryan asked.

"She was the contact in the Fowler administration, but the President okayed everything that was done. General Billingsly was her liaison with the Pentagon during her stint as National Security Advisor. This may have something to do with his antipathy toward you."

"Okay do we have any idea what he might be up to?" Ryan asked.

"We found some files in his office," the SecDef said. "There was one op that we found that was an outline only, and a broad one at that. It was called Operation Gotterdammerung."

"That's the Germanic version of Ragnarok, isn't it?" Van Damm asked.

"Yes, Arnie, it is," Tony said. "He took everything else on this op with him. He must of smelled what was coming after China and got it out."

"So you think he is going to try to end the world?" Mary Pat Foley asked. "If you can't save the world blow it up? What's he going to do, steal a nuke?"

"No, MP," Tony answered. "He is going to try to open the Gates of Hell."

*****

Chapter 4

"Oh Lord, please be speaking metaphorically," George Winston prayed.

"'Fraid not, George," Tony said grimly. "It's a real place, and from what Colonel McCloud has told me, and from the little bit I have read, it may be possible for him to do it. If he succeeds the results would be apocalyptic."

"Where is it?" Ryan asked. "Can we get people in there to defend it?"

"It's in California, Mr. President, a small town called Sunnydale," said the Colonel. "As far as being able to defend it, one of the Initiative teams apparently did not run. The CO of the team, a Riley Finn, was with the Initiative when they were deployed in Sunnydale from 1999 to 2000."

When he mentioned Sunnydale both Pierre Alexander and Dan Murray's faces lost a little focus as if they were trying to remember where they had heard that name before.

"Why didn't the General take this team along with the other teams?" Ryan wanted to know, and then realizing that he did not even know how big one of these teams were, so he asked, "Speaking of which how many people are we up against?"

"There are…or rather were, three Initiative teams operational. General Billingsly took Teams One and Two with him when he bolted. Both of those teams where made up by him of hand picked people that were completely loyal to the General. Team Three was put together by Riley Finn when he rejoined the Initiative in 2001 and was made up of people who survived Sunnydale. Each team is made up of ten people drawn from the various Special Forces Commands."

"When you say survived Sunnydale, I take it that the initial experiment did not end well?" Robby Jackson queried. "How bad was it?"

"We took 100% casualties of field personal. 60% were fatal," the Colonel said quietly to the shocked listeners. He went on, "Any questions about what went on in Sunnydale should wait until the Finns show up, they are on their way in right now and should be here soon."

"Okay we will give them a couple of minutes, then if they are not here, you can give us an overview of what went on," Ryan agreed. "What happened after Sunnydale?"

"The Initiative was shattered. Dr. Margaret Walsh who was the initiator of a lot of the control technology that was used, was killed earlier, and most of the technicians and other scientist that she had trained were killed in the last battle. So there was no one to really carry on the research. The Oversight Committee decided and President Durling agreed that the research end of the organization should not be rebuilt and that instead the Initiative should be rebuilt into a group of search and destroys units. He believed that at a later time when things had quieted down and certain researchers became available, it would be possible to restart the science end and find a non-lethal way of dealing with these creatures, but until then we needed to protect people from them."

"So you just kill them?" Pat Martin, the Attorney General, asked.

"Yes Sir." Seeing the look of shock and disgust on the Attorney Generals face he went on, "Please understand Sir, what we are fighting are not things that can be reasoned with. We were dealing, in many cases, with what amounts to a rouge bear or a mountain lion."

"Margaret Walsh, would that be Maggie Walsh?" Dr. Alexander asked.

"Yes Sir, did you know her?" Colonel McCloud said.

"Yes her death in that auto acciden…" The Surgeon General began, "I guess she didn't die in a car crash did she?"

"No, she was killed by something that she was working on," Colonel McCloud said. "Again, Agent Finn was present when she was killed, so he would probably be the best person to answer specific questions. As for what she was working on, just before her break down Sue Elliot had authorized Dr. Walsh to begin an experimental program to see if she could make a 'Super Soldier' utilizing parts from demons, technology, and human remains. She apparently succeeded, but when it woke up the first thing Adam did was kill Dr. Walsh."

Robby Jackson looked disgusted and said, "Adam huh? Kind of egotistical you think."

"That would described Maggie Walsh just about to a tee," Dr Alexander said, shaking his head. "I never liked her much, but I can forgive a lot if the person knows what they are doing." Looking at the VP the Surgeon General said, "Maggie Walsh was one of the best behavior modification people out there. She had to be, since she didn't have much by way of people skills."

"You mean if you can't do, teach?" Mary Pat asked.

"Actually her cover at the UC Sunnydale was as a psychology professor," Colonel McCloud said. "We chose UCS because it was possible to cover a large group of young/fit men as grad students and teaching assistants. Plus the campus itself gave us access to computers and labs."

"Why was Sunnydale chosen?" Ryan asked. "Did you know about the Hellmouth going in?"

"No Sir. Sunnydale was chosen because its death rate was too high to be statistically improbable. It was concluded that it would be an area rich in HSTs'," The Colonel explained.

"HSTs'?" The President wondered.

"I am sorry Sir, Hostile Sub-Terrestrials. Its what we called the various demonoids."

"One thing I don't understand," Pat Marten wondered. "What does the General hope to accomplish by opening this Hellmouth? Wouldn't that end the world?"

"I think I know the answer to that one," Robby Jackson said quietly.

"Go on Robby," POTUS directed.

"Hollywood mostly gets it wrong. They portray the Anti-Christ as this horrible monster out to destroy the world. That isn't what his job will be. The Anti-Christ first and foremost is a seducer. He will try to get as many people to follow him to damnation as possible. I think that General Billingsly has decided that the war is lost so he is going to limit the devils victory."

"Looking at Gotterdammerung's outline, I think you may be right in that assessment, Mr. Vice President," Colonel McCloud agreed.

Pat Marten was quiet, everyone was, as he or she all just sat back and absorbed what they had just learned. "Okay," President Ryan said into the quiet. "Ed, John, and Ding are in town, right?"

"Yes, they are attending the Anti-Terror Round Table they are having over at Fort Meade," the DCI replied.

"Okay, get in contact with them and have them stand by for a deployment. I know we have to go through NATO to get Rainbow, but I want them ready to go."

"Do you want them to report here?" Foley asked.

"No, have them report to Andrew's and wait there. When we finish the briefing we will send the Finns to them, and then send them on their way."

"Tony, I'm sorry, I know we have some good people in the Special Operations Command, but Billingsly has been recruiting from that pool, we don't know if he has left any moles behind, and this is too important to take the risk," Ryan apologized to SecDef.

"I understand Mr. President. Personally I was going to suggest that we either use Rainbow, or, if they weren't available, then the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team," Tony Bretano said to his CIC.

"Thanks Tony. We are going to need Scott Adler to make the request for a Rainbow activation, bad week for him to be in Mexico. I want to keep this information at the top level only, so Tony could you Tap-dance a message down to Scott and have him send the request to The Hague for Rainbow? I think one team should work, but leave the option open for the second one as well. Tell Scott that we will send the information to the NATO Security Council by courier but we need the teams immediately," the President said. "Do you have someone that we can use as a courier for this info?"

"Yeah, Joe Spano, he is bringing in the Finns right now," the SecDef replied.

"Okay, brief him in, then set him up with a briefing packet and send him to The Hague," the President ordered.

"Sure Jack," the SecDef said, as he got up and left the office.

Jack Ryan turned and said to the Secret Service Agent in the Office, "Ben, could you ask Andrea Price to join us in this meeting?"

"At once Sir," the agent replied, and then passed on the request to the command center across the street.

Ryan then pressed the intercom on his desk and said, 'Ellen could you ask Dr. Goodly to come down to my office please."

"Yes Sir," the secretary replied.

As they were waiting for the rest of attendees to arrive, President Ryan said to Colonel McCloud, while he nodded at the TV set. "Who was he?"

"The Vampire?"

"Yes."

"He was Airman Second Class Thomas Price. He disappeared during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was a perimeter guard at an Atlas missile silo near where he eventually perished. At the time and given his discipline record it was thought that he had deserted. It is still possible that he did and was turned at a later time."

"Cuba Crisis? That video was from..."

"Yes, sir. Becoming a Vampire does not enhance the brain any. If anything they become less intelligent. And alcohol still affects them normally."

"Does he have any surviving family?" Ryan wondered.

"Some distance cousins only, Sir," the Colonel responded. "His immediate family was killed in a house fire about 2 months after he went AWOL. It is just about standard operating procedure for a vampire to kill his family and friends."

"How can they kill their own families?" George Winston asked.

"When some one is turned, it is no longer the original person. From what we have learned, the Siring process prepares the body to be inhabited by a demon, this demon has the person's memories, and usually some of their personality, but it is not them. Families and friends make easy marks, it's easy for them to get an invite in," Colonel McCloud explained.

"Invite?" Dan Murray asked.

"Yes. One thing that Hollywood and Bram Stroker got right is that vampires may not enter a house unless invited. This is one of the reasons that we think they go after their loved ones. If you think about it, it makes sense, if your son or daughter, husband or wife, or even a good friend showed up at your door, would you think twice about asking them in?"

Everyone in the room shuddered when they thought about the number of times that they had done just that.

The Secret Service Agent broke the silence when he announced, "The Finns have just arrived at the back gate."

*****

Chapter 5

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC
25 Oct 2002 - 1630 Hours

Bob Holtzman was an investigative reporter/columnist for the Washington Post. He was walking around the fence that surrounded the White House as he made his way to the back gate. He had received a call from one of his sources inside the White House that the President was meeting with most of his Senior Cabinet, and that the meeting had been called for by one of the cabinet.

He had hurried down to see if he might be able to catch any latecomers. Up ahead he saw a car pull in the back gate of the White House, he stopped and watched as it drove up to a back door and three people got out. One he recognized as Joe Spano, Tony Bretano's right hand man. The other two he didn't, both were tall, one a blond haired man, the other a red haired female. He raised his camera and got about ten or fifteen frames off before they disappeared inside. He took a couple more pictures after they had entered the building in case anyone was watching.

Bob stood there and thought. If the SecDef was bringing in the briefers for this meeting then they probably were military, too. So he turned and started heading down the street, he would hit the Library of Congress and check out the Service Academy yearbooks and see if he could find the two-mystery guests in them. In the back of his mind he was fairly certain he had seen the redhead before, he just could not put his finger on it. If the Library were a bust, he would try the face recognition technology they had just installed at the Post and see if it could find anything. If not then he had other sources he could draw on.

*****

Inside the Oval Office
Washington DC
25 Oct 2002 - 1635 Hours

Ben and Andrea arrived about two minutes before the Finns and were given the briefest of explanations, they were watching the Price Video as Riley and Samantha Finn were escorted into the room.

The President invited them to take a seat and introduced them to the people present, ending with, "This is Dr. Ben Goodly my National Security Advisor, and Andrea Price-O'Day, head of my Secret Service detail."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. President, Gentlemen and Ladies," Riley Finn answered. "I am Riley Finn, this is my wife Samantha." The Finns then sat down facing the President.

Looking at the President for permission, which he received, Colonel McCloud began, "Agent Finn, General Billingsly has deserted with Teams One and Two. Secretary of Defense Bretano relieved him after the recent war with China. Pending a review by competent authority, he has been relived of command and I have assumed command of the Initiative. I am here by placing Team Three on alert status." Colonel McCloud breathed a mental sigh of relief when no one contradicted his assumption of command.

"Sir our team is on a full stand down. It will take a three to five days to get the alert to everyone," Riley said.

"Sir, with your permission I will start making the calls to the people we can reach," Sam said starting to get up.

"Sit," Ryan ordered. "I want you here for the briefing. You can start calling people when it's done."

Both Riley and Sam nodded and Sam sat back into her chair. "Do you have any idea's where he has gone?" Riley wanted to know.

"Where he is now, no. But we believe that he is heading for Sunnydale," the Colonel answered.

"He's going to go after the Hellmouth?" Sam asked.

"We believe that is what he is after," McCloud replied. "You should also know that the President was not briefed in on our activities until today."

"What?" Riley exclaimed.

"Article 12," Sam said. Seeing the look of confusion in her husband's face she went on, "'If an administration is changed in a suspicious manner then it is the responsibility of the officer in charge of the Initiative to decide who should or should not be informed of the Initiative's existence or operations.' With how Mr. Ryan became President you can almost see his point. Sorry, Sir," she said apologizing to Ryan who waved it off.

"I know what Article 12 states Sam. General Billingsly told me six months ago that he had informed the President and Congress of our activities. I threatened to quit if he did not. He told me we had."

"Did you verify that Mr. Finn?" Mary Pat Foley asked.

"No, I trusted my superior officer to tell me the truth," Finn said quietly.

"The General never mentioned that conversation to me," Colonel McCloud said. "However he did order a security check done on the Finns at about that time. He said it was to check on Samantha's security clearance. They both passed with flying colors, in fact she scored higher than you did."

"Not surprising since she has never gone UA," Riley joked. Then turning serious, "What would you like to know Sir?"

"Colonel McCloud has said that we should hold our Sunnydale questions for you, Mr. Finn, as you where actually there," Ryan began. "To start with I was wondering what assets we have guarding this Hellmouth."

"We do not have anything guarding it currently," Riley replied, seemingly unconcerned.

"What?!" Dan Murray almost shouted. "There is a gateway to hell and it's left unguarded?"

"I never said it was unguarded, Mr. Murray," Riley said. "I just said that we didn't."

"Then who is guarding it?" POTUS wanted to know.

"A Vampire Slayer," Riley replied.

"Is that a title or a job description?" Ed Foley wondered.

"Both," Riley responded. Then seeing his answer did not go over well he went on, "A Vampire Slayer is a chosen warrior for the side of good. Lets see how did it go?" He paused trying to remember what Giles had told him once, " 'One Girl in all the world with the strength and speed to hunt the vampire, to stop the spread of evil.' Or something like that."

"So there is only one of these Slayers?" Ryan wanted to know. "And is she defending this place by her self?"

"Right now there are two," Riley said.

Ryan dropped the pencil he had been toying with as soon as he heard that there were two Slayers and looked Riley straight in the eye, "Mr. Finn, I am an easy man to work for, but one thing I hate, I mean really hate, is having to play twenty questions with a briefer!" Ryan growled.

"I'm sorry Sir, I'll try to be more concise," Riley apologized then going on, "She also is not alone in her defense of the Hellmouth. She has a group of people, her friends and associates, who assist her in its defense. They are a diverse and effective group. As far as there being two Slayers currently; originally there was only one Slayer. The Slayer in Sunnydale died briefly in her sophomore year. She was almost immediately revived by an associate, but it was still long enough to activate the next Slayer."

"Where is this other Slayer right now, do you know?" asked the president.

"She was killed the year after she was called. Slayers do not have a great life expectancy, another was called when that one died, but the new one went rouge and is serving time in a California prison."

"For?" Mary Pat prompted.

"Multiple murders that she committed while working for the Mayor of Sunnydale," Riley said.

"The Mayor of Sunnydale had a professional assassin working for him?" Dan Murray asked.

"Yes, he was a sorcerer and had been around since before the turn of the century. He incorporated Sunnydale to provide a feeding ground for him when he turned himself into a demon," Riley explained. "We did not know who or what he was when we first set up shop. We had been ordered by the oversight committee to stay out of Sunnydale proper; that is to limit our activities to the UCS campus and its area. One of the senior committee members had Sunnydale in his district. He was killed by Sato in the crash."

"I take it he did not succeed in his attempts to become a demon," Ryan commented.

"Yes, Sir, he did," Riley answered. "But the Slayer and her graduating class mates stopped him. He managed to transform himself, but Buffy got him to chase her back into the school that they had rigged to explode. He was destroyed in the blast."

"Is this Buffy the Slayer?" Ryan asked. Then went on, "You said she was killed in her sophomore year. Did you mean college or high school?"

"Buffy Summers is the Slayer's name, and she died in High School," Riley replied.

"My God, she was what, sixteen or seventeen at the time?" Ryan asked aghast. "How long has she been doing this?"

"She was called when she was fifteen, Sir. She is 23 now."

"How was she called?" Robby wanted to know. "And how did they know when she died to call the others?"

"I don't know, Mr. Vice President. I asked when I was with Buffy. She did not know how a Slayer is chosen. If Giles did he did not say."

"Giles?" Ryan asked.

"Rupert Giles was Buffy's Watcher. A Watcher is a mentor to the Slayer, also the representative of the Watcher Council; they are based in England right now. By the time I knew her, Buffy had quit the Council over several incidents."

"So why was this Giles still around?" asked Andrea Price.

"Buffy and Giles have a very close relationship, almost father/daughter. One of the bones of contention between the Slayer and the Council was an incident when Buffy turned eighteen. She never went into details, but the result was that the Council fired Giles. I never met the replacement but it's my understanding that he performed less than brilliantly. Buffy blames him chiefly for Faith, the other Slayer, going rouge. Or at least for the situation getting out of hand."

"Did you ever meet any of the Council, or do you know how to contact them?" Ryan asked.

"No," Riley replied.

"What is Buffy's family situation if this guy is the father figure in her life?" Arnie Van Damm asked.

"Buffy's parents are divorced, the mother is dead, and the father is living in Europe somewhere. They have not had contact in several years. She has a younger sister still in school," Riley told the Chief of Staff.

"Let me understand this," Ryan said. "She's raising a sister and in her spare time saving the world?"

"Yes, Sir."

"What does she do for a job?" Ryan wanted to know.

"When I saw her last year she was working at a fast food place."

"WHAT!!!!!!!" Ryan exploded.

"She has bills to pay, Sir." Riley explained. "With the Council cutting her off when she quit, she has to make ends meet somehow."

Ryan was clearly not happy with this state of affairs, but there were other things to be settled first. "Will the Slayer in Sunnydale help us with this problem?" Ryan asked.

Riley looked a little uncomfortable, but as he was about to answer, Sam spoke up, "I think it will be more likely that we will be helping her, Sir."

"I don't understand, are you saying that she is that capable?"

Riley looked over at Colonel McCloud and spying the brief case that the colonel had brought with him. He asked, "Did you bring a copy of training tape '018 with you, Sir?"

"Yes I did," the Colonel said as he reached for his briefcase.

"This is a video of the Slayer in a training exercise against two of the Initiative's capture teams," Riley explained. "We were in Sunnydale for almost a year before we became aware of her. We were operating mostly outside of the town itself around the UCS campus; she on the other hand had been concentrating on patrolling in the town itself, so we did not cross paths. When she started her freshman year, she moved onto campus, and we began interacting while on patrol. We did not even realize what she was, or even that the Slayer was real and not just a bogeyman invented by the HST's to scare their children, until we literally tripped over each other during a mission. She volunteered to join the Initiative and help out. Dr. Walsh wanted some kind of a benchmark of what she was capable of, so she set up this test. She was given a five-minute head start, then two of our best capture teams would attempt to capture her. Team One was made up of three soldiers that had finished in the top fifteen percent of their Ranger training, and were lead by a class mate of mine in Army Special Forces Officers School. Team Two had two SEALs, an Army Special Forces trooper, and was lead by an ex-platoon leader of Marine Recon Team Three."

Riley Finn started the video player. He had been there when this was made, so instead of watching the tape, he watched the reaction of the people in the room to the video. He started with the President, he was watching the tape with interest, Riley could tell exactly when the squad found Buffy, his eyes widened with surprise, and he leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. Next to him the VP grunted with surprise, ah the bodies must be flying now. Now! Enter Buffy swinging. Cries of shock and amazement as the small figure in a puffy jacket and bluestocking cape exploded into view and started throwing larger soldiers around like straw dummies. The fight was over quickly, lasting only several seconds. When it was over, everyone in the room let out a breath that they seem not to know that they had been holding.

"That was amazing," Andrea Price, Head of the President of the United States' protective detail, breathed.

"Yeah," Mary Pat Foley, Deputy Director, Operations, of the Central Intelligence Agency agreed. Both women looked at each other and silently agreed; to the victor go the spoils.

"Can we see that again?" Pierre Alexander wondered. "I can't quite accept what I just saw. It does not seem possible that a women that small could throw men around like that."

Receiving permission from the President, Riley rewound the tape to the start of the fight and let it play through again. When it was over Dr. Alexander turned to the Finns and said, "When she was with the Initiative was any test performed to determine what gave her that kind of strength?"

"No. Buffy was with The Initiative for only a brief time, the test you just saw was the only one that was able to be performed."

"Why did she quit?" Ben Goodly wondered.

"Dr. Walsh tried to have her killed," Riley replied matter of factly. Seeing that the group wanted to know more, he continued, "She tried to set Buffy up. She told her that she wanted her to check out a low power demon contact. In reality she sent her after a pair of very high power demons. Picture grizzly bears with toothaches that are bipedal and carry battleaxes. The weapon she had been given was faulty so once she was locked in with the demons Dr. Walsh assumed her problems were solved. She based her assumption on what she saw in the tape. She did not realize that Buffy had taken it easy on the troops because she did not want to hurt anyone. So it was more of a case of the demons being locked in with Buffy, than she being locked in with them. She killed them both."

"She was holding back when she took out those two teams?!" Andrea gasped.

"She killed a couple of grizzlies hand to hand?!" MP choked out.

"I fought that particular species, I think that the bears would be an easier kill," Riley returned. Then turning to Andrea Price-O'Day. "She was at about 2/3 speed, Ms. Price"

Both Mary Pat and Andrea looked at each other again and scowled.

"Why did Dr. Walsh decide to have Ms. Summers killed?" Dan Murray wanted to know.

"We had encountered a wizard by the name of Ethan Rayne. He had informed Giles of something he called three-one-four that had the demon community stirred up. It turned out that Adam…" He paused, but when he saw that they seemed to know what Adam was, he continued. "…. Was being put together in Room three fourteen at our complex. Dr. Walsh concluded that when Buffy started asking about three-four-one that she knew something about what she and Dr. Angleman were working on. She concluded that Buffy was a threat to Adam and so had to be removed."

"Nice person," Robby Jackson snorted. "Must have went to the Darth Vader school of Personnel Management."

"That doesn't sound like the person I knew," Pierre Alexander quietly said. "She lacked people skills, sure, but if you had asked me, I would have said it would be impossible for her to set up someone to be killed."

"I did not think it was possible either," Riley responded. "I trusted and respected her. In return she experimented on us with drugs and hormones, she also implanted a control chip in my shoulder. Buffy had tried to tell me that something was not kosher in the Initiative, but I would not listen until it was almost too late."

Pierre Alexander digested what Riley had told him. You could tell when it sunk in about Dr. Walsh experimenting on humans, as a deep scowl formed on his face.

Ryan, not wanting the discussion to be sidetracked by a medical ethics debate, asked Riley, "Have you ever seen the Hellmouth, Agent Finn?"

"Yes, Sir. I camped on top of it for two weeks when I went UA from the Initiative," Riley replied. "It doesn't look like much, just a crack in the floor."

"You went UA?" Mary Pat asked.

"Yes Ma'am, I found out that Buffy was right about what the Initiative was up to. I originally agreed to stay inside to keep an eye on things. Unfortunately one of Buffy's acquaintances, who was a werewolf, was captured, and it was decided that they were going to vivisect him."

"Wait a minute!" Pierre Alexander shouted. "I have to accept that people don't raise automatically by being bit by a vampire. But werewolves are something else. Any one bit by a werewolf becomes one, right?"

"They do, the werewolf in question, it is my understanding, was bit by his infant cousin while baby sitting."

"That makes my point. Any one bit by one of these things becomes one. Geometric progression," he said as pushed his point home.

"One problem Dr. Alexander," Sam said almost gently.

"And that is?" the Surgeon General demanded.

"How many people do you think survive a werewolf attack?"

The Surgeon General pondered that for a second and, "Point to you, Ma'am," the SG said sheepishly.

"Most werewolves lock themselves up during the full moon. There are those of course who embrace the wolf and become dangerous. The were in question had actually found a way to keep the wolf at bay, unless he experienced extreme emotions," Sam explained.

"How did you know he was a werewolf then?" Dan Murray asked.

"He found out his ex-girlfriend had a girlfriend," Riley said. "That generated some strong emotions. He changed into his were form in the middle of the day in a hallway of UCS. He was captured almost immediately. Once I found out what was going to happen, I made the decision to break him out, and then stay low. Unfortunately the CO of the base didn't trust me and had me under surveillance. Buffy ended up having to break both of us out. After that, I basically hid. Adam was able to use the chip that had been implanted in me, to summon me to him. I was able to remove it and help in the fight to get people out of the complex. I was then given the option to receive a honorable discharge in return for my silence on what happened there."

"Why did you rejoin the Initiative?" Ed Foley asked.

"I was in a relationship with Buffy. Unfortunately as much as I loved her, she did not reciprocate. I have to admit that the fact I could not compete with her on a physical level had a little something to do with it, too. In the end I was offered a chance to rejoin, I gave Buffy a chance to try to make a go of it, she did not take it," Riley explained quietly. "I met Sam down in Mexico when we were helping the Mexican Army with a Suvolte demon problem. Her Peace Corps group had been attacked, and Sam was the only survivor."

"What's a Suvolte demon?" Tony Bretano questioned.

"Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live sketch with the Land Shark?" Sam answered.

"Sure."

"Okay cross a land shark with a Tribble, and subtract about 100 points of IQ. That's a Suvolte Demon," Sam explained.

"They reproduce that fast?" Ben Bascome, the Secret Service agent, exclaimed! Then looked sheepish as everyone in the room turned to look at him. "Sorry, Sir," he said sheepishly.

"No, no, Ben. I think that is a wonderful question. If I remember what a Tribble is from Star Trek," Ryan laughed. Then turning serious, "If you ever have something to add to this kind of briefing Agent Bascome, please feel free. You would not be in this office if you were stupid, and sometimes, the experts miss things."

"To answer the question, Sir," Riley began. "No they do not breed quite that fast. However, like Tribbles they are born pregnant and lay 12 eggs, so the rate that their population can explode is staggering. In this case, a local drug lord had obtained a Suvolte egg on the black market, and decided to plant it in a competitors area of operations. The egg hatched and then bred."

"What happened?" Arnie Van Damm wanted to know.

"They ate the competition, and a couple of local villages, then moved in, and ate his operation, too. We had been loaned to the Mexican Government and managed to kill off the infestation. We followed and killed the last of them in Sunnydale last year," Riley finished.

"Okay, thanks for the quick overview, Mr. Finn," Ryan began. "I am planning on sending you and your wife out to Sunnydale. I want you to reassemble your team and set up a guard on the Hellmouth. To assist you I am sending a top anti-terror team called Rainbow. They normally operate in Europe, but have operated elsewhere."

"The Men of Black. I think I could work with them," Riley smiled.

"You've heard of them?" Mary Pat Foley wanted to know.

"Yes, we keep an eye on all special forces/black ops teams for potential recruits," Riley answered. "They would be acceptable till I can get my team together."

"I have The CO of Rainbow and one of the team leaders standing by at Andrew's. When we are finished, you and Sam will join them there, and brief them on the way to Sunnydale," Ryan ordered.

"Yes, Sir," Riley responded. "They will probably need to be equipped. We have some night vision and anti-HST equipment with us, which are stakes, crosses, and holy water. They could probably use some shoulder arms."

"We can raid the HRT armory for basic equipment if we need to. I think the HRT's load out is about the same as Rainbow," Dan Murray offered.

"Thanks Dan," Ryan said. "Have a basic load sent along to Andrews for John and Ding."

Dan went to the back of the room and used his cell phone to put a call into the duty desk at Quantico.

"I thought that bullets didn't hurt vampires and such," Andrea Price wanted to know.

"They don't kill vampires, but knee-capping one will slow it down a lot," Sam replied.

Andrea made a mental note of that piece of trivia.

"All right Agent Finn, thank you for the overview. Now I want you to start when you were first approached by the Initiative and stop when you left for the White House today, and I would like you to make it as detailed as possible," Ryan ordered.

Riley Finn started talking, it took a while.

*****

Chapter 6

The White House
Washington D.C.
25 Oct 2002 - 2140 Hours

John Ryan came forward in his chair and tossed his reading glasses onto his desk. Glancing over at Ben Bascome, the Secret Service agent standing post in the office, "Ben, I think I am going to call it a night," he told him.

Speaking into his radio, "Swordsman moving to the Residential Wing," Bascome said.

Getting up and moving around his desk Ryan asked the agent, "What do you think of what was discussed today?"

Ben was uncomfortable with his principle asking him his opinion. Andrea had warned him that this might happen, but it was one thing to have someone tell you the President might ask your opinion about something, it was something else when it happened. He considered his answer carefully, finally he said, "Scary Sir, and not just the demons and stuff. I have a 3 year old daughter, what if she gets chosen to be this Slayer thing?"

Ryan, who had two daughters of his own, understood the agents concern perfectly. Ben went on, "You heard Agent Finn, most of them don't make twenty. Kendra lasted what six or eight months? What kind of a life is that?"

Ryan had been troubled to his core when Riley had finally explained exactly what a Slayer was, the kind of life they led, and the usually violent and bloody end they suffered. The fact that there was this long unbroken line of warriors, stretching back to before there was even language, who had fought, suffered, and died in secrecy, protecting a world that not only did not know of them, but largely that they were even fighting. Ryan considered the current Slayer, a young women who according to Riley had already saved the world 4 times by the time he knew her, and saved it twice more while he was with her, and probably had saved it a time or two since, if Riley was to be believed. She had saved countless millions of people without asking for anything in return. What was her reward for this selflessness? A short life, a bloody death, and no one would even know what she had done for them. "Not this time," he promised himself.

"So are you planning on picking up some garlic on the way home?" Ryan asked to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I know of an all night grocery store that sells strings. They're going to think that I am making a couple of hundred pizzas' with what I'm planning on buying."

Ryan smiled. "Hold it a minute Ben, I want to leave a note for Ellen," Ryan said to the agent, as they were passing Ellen's desk in the outer office. Ryan leaned over and wrote.

''Ellen,
Could you please set up an appointment for the Secretary of the Interior and the Head of the INS for as early on Monday as can be arranged?
Jack'

They had just reached the main hallway leading to the stairs going up to the Residential Wing of the White House when they saw Andrea Price coming their way, holding a folder in her hand. "I'll tuck The Boss in Ben, you can take off." Then more formally, "You are relieved."

"I stand relieved," Ben responded. "Thanks Andrea, Mr. President, good night."

"Good night Ben, thank you. Have a safe trip home." Then turning to the head of his protective detail, "Shouldn't you be home with your kids, too? Pat's out of town, isn't he?" Pat O'Day was a Roving Inspector with the FBI. One of Dan Murray's chief troubleshooters, he had joined the Ryan family the day he had saved his then youngest child, Katie, from a group of terrorist who had taken over her day care center in a failed attempt to kidnap her. O'Day, who had been inside picking up his own daughter at the time, had managed to get the drop on them. Andrea and Pat had come in contact with each other while Pat was briefing the President on the investigation into the crash that had elevated him to office and things had sort of grown. She had given birth to a son recently and had just started back to work.

"Yes, Sir. He is in San Francisco. There is a serial killer out there, and the local SAC is screaming for all the help he can get."

"Andrea, I'm off duty. It's Jack," Ryan chided her. "Dan hasn't sent anything over on that yet, what's the situation?"

"The perp so far has killed two victims. What makes this one so nasty is that he kidnaps his next victim as soon as he drops off his last. He takes his time with them, too. With his first two victims he kept them alive for about a week. He's been holding his third victim now for almost three days. So the local authorities are grabbing everyone they can beg, borrow, or steal, trying to find her."

"If I forget, remind me to call Dan tomorrow, and see what else we can shake loose to help," Ryan ordered her. Then thinking about it he made a mental note to have Ed Foley call Sir Basil, the head of Britain's Intelligence Services, to find out what he knew about the Watcher Council.

"Yes…Jack," she replied.

"Do the victims have any similarities?" Jack wanted to know.

"So far one was a fortune teller, one ran a new age store, and the current one is a high priestess of a store front church. Given what we learned today it might be smart to brief Pat so that he may be looking for something weirder than your normal serial killer."

"Not a bad idea," Ryan agreed. "Why are you still here? You must have a really understanding sitter."

"Very understanding, Jack," Andrea smiled. "It's Megan's Grandparents on her mother's side. Thankfully they have adopted Don as their own, and they don't mind if I have to work late," she told her President.

The two began climbing the stairs that led to the residential floor of the White House. Andrea began explaining what kept her here so late, "I was thinking about what we discussed in the Oval Office today, Sir. I'm thinking that we're going to need some new security protocols. I am hoping to get out to Sunnydale sometime next week, and talk to some of the people out there."

"I would make plans to head out there sooner, if I were you. If you want to recruit anyone, anyway," Ryan told her. "I've seen that expression on MP's face before, usually when she has spotted a promising recruit."

"I wish her luck with Buffy, Jack," Andrea said deadpan.

"You wouldn't want to have a Slayer in the detail?" Ryan questioned, clearly surprised.

"Didn't say that, Sir. But I was thinking, that even if Buffy was interested in joining up, I believe that she would probably have to stay around the Hellmouth and protect that. Even if that wasn't a problem, she would probably end up being called away to deal with paranormal problems."

"I see what you mean. Someone nice to have around, if she was around," Ryan responded.

"I haven't given up on Slayers though Jack," she said, handing over the folder.

Glancing at the name on the other folder Jack looked up in surprise. "The other Slayer?" he asked incredulously. "Andrea she is a confessed murderess!"

"Yes, Sir," stepping back into the persona of the head of his Protective Detail. "And she is still in prison."

"Shouldn't she be? She killed three to five people Andrea."

"Jack, if she is half as capable as Riley suggested Slayers are, then she is in there because she wants to be. That suggests two possibilities. One: That she is hiding from something or someone, and is using the California Penal System to provide security. That's unlikely as she surrendered herself under her own name, and has made no attempt to hide her presence. Prison being what it is, anyone that wanted to could probably arrange an accident."

"That's more of a Hollywood cliché than a real threat Andrea," Ryan said reprovingly.

"Normally I would agree, Mr. President, but given the circles she traveled in, there may well be any number of people who might want her dead. Riley said that the Council of Watchers was interested in her, they at least would have a reason to kill her, if only to generate another Slayer that they would be able to control."

Ryan clearly unconvinced said, "Okay, I'll grant you that one for arguments sake right now. What's the other option?"

"That she is offering up an act of contrition," Andrea said in all seriousness. "If that is the case then I think we can provide her with a more useful form of redemption."

"There is a third possibility," Ryan countered.

"That is Sir?" Andrea questioned.

"That she doesn't trust herself outside of prison. If that's the case then I don't think I want her on my detail," Ryan told Andrea.

"I agree, Sir, which is why I want to send a psychologist out to talk with her. I was planning, if I got a positive report, to then go out and talk to her myself," Andrea explained.

"Do you have anyone in mind for the initial contact?" Ryan wanted to know.

"I was thinking of using the one that Dan Murray uses," Andrea said.

"You mean the woman who is responsible for me being here?" Ryan joked.

"Yes Jack, her," Andrea smiled. "I thought she might have used up her quota of coincidence for the century."

"Alright, I approve of her going out and talking to Faith, but no promises are to be made to the woman, in fact it would probably be better not to mention who she is representing in the first meetings. I want to read Dr. Golden's report when she puts it out. If she gives a positive report then you can go out and talk to her. If you think that there is anything there that we can use, we will look into what we can do to help each other," Ryan instructed Andrea.

Stopping at the top of the stairs, Ryan turned to Andrea and asked, "So if you aren't looking to recruit a Slayer then why do you want to go to Sunnydale?" Ryan was actually curious.

"I am hoping to recruit Tara Maclay. She is apparently estranged from the 'Scoobies right now, so I would not be disrupting group dynamics, if she accepted. If she is not interested in signing on permanently, then I am hoping that she will at least come and look the White House over to see what might have to be done to make it more secure from magic. God I can't believe that I just said that," Andrea said rubbing her eyes. "Anyway if nothing else, I thought that I could talk to Willow Rosenberg. Hopefully she can point me at a credible witch, or warlock, who could act as magical security for your party when you travel."

Ryan nodded. "All right. I approve your trip to Sunnydale. But for the love of God be careful out there, I cannot afford to loose you. Pat and your kids would never forgive me."

"Yes, Sir. Hope to be out of town by sundown. If not, then I will stay with Mr. Clark and Ding. I promise, no wandering the town at night," Andrea assured her President.

"Okay, and Andrea?"

"Yes Sir?"

"When you get a witch or wizard on staff, I want them to check out the events leading up to my inauguration."

"You don't think that Billingsly is right, do you?" Andrea asked incredulously.

"About me being the Anti-Christ? No, or if I am, no one has bothered to tell me anything. But I have to know that there is nothing moving in the background that I don't know about. I have to know," he finished quietly.

"I'll get someone on it as soon as I can," she promised.

Ryan nodded, "Andrea I meant what I said about Faith. I approve in writing before you move onto the next step, and I will want to have an interview with her myself, before I make the final decision," Ryan ordered.

"Understood Mr. President," Andrea said formally, then in a more relaxed tone. "Good night, Jack."

"Good night, Andrea, be careful going home. I meant what I said about not being able to replace you." Turning from the head of his security detail, Jack turned and started down the hallway that led to his bedroom. Even here though Jack was not alone for a number of secret service agents lined the hallways protecting him and his family from potential intruders. Jack wished that they did not have to be there, he knew that his family found it claustrophobic, but grim experience had taught them that they were needed.

Jack decided that after today he was going to spend some time with his kids before he turned in. He found Sally and Jack Jr. awake and doing homework, so he helped them with what he could. One of the things Jack hated most about being President was the amount of time it took away from his kids. Tonight was an exception; as he had called it a night at an extremely early hour. After spending half an hour with his two oldest kids, he looked in on the other two, four year old Katie and six month old Kyle were both asleep. Looking at Katie, Jack remembered Ben Bascome words, 'What kind of a life is that?' Jack needed to find out if either of his daughters had a chance of becoming this Slayer thing. He would call Sir Basil himself tomorrow and find out what he knew. Finally he came to his bedroom door; he stepped through and quietly closed it. As soon as it was closed he leaned back against it, rested his head back against it, and let out a loud sigh. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate this job?" he asked his wife.

Cathy Ryan was sitting up in bed wearing a comfortable nightgown. An ophthalmic surgeon, the empty wineglass on the nightstand indicated that she had no procedures tomorrow. She looked up and said, "I believe that you may have mentioned it a time or two honey." She said as she was glancing up. Catching sight of her husband leaning against the door she quickly started putting the files away.

"Bad day huh," she asked her husband as she moved across the bed and motioned for him to come over so she could give him a neck rub.

"Made the top ten, maybe the top five," Ryan responded as he gratefully removed his coat and tie. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back into his wife's breasts as she started rubbing his neck.

Cathy Ryan was shocked, considering some of the days they have had, the day that Jack had become president, the attack on Katie's daycare center, the day they had realized that someone had hit the US with a biological attack, or the day that Washington almost got nuked. "What happened?" she wanted to know.

"I found out today that we have been lying to our kids, that our parents lied to us, and probably theirs lied to them," Jack responded despondently.

"About what?" Cathy was perplexed. She had never seen Jack like this before.

"Monsters are real, babe," Jack said quietly.

"I don't think that you would have a problem convincing our kids that they were," Cathy replied, thinking of the time that Sally was almost killed when terrorists had ambushed her and Sally. So long ago, really at the beginning of journey that ended here in this building.

"Not human monsters Cathy." Jack continued quietly, "Real ones, vampires, werewolves, and demons."

Cathy looked at her husband in alarm, had the pressure of the job finally made him crack?

Jack saw the look and smiled a lopsided smile at his wife. "I only wish I was cracking up honey." He then went on to explain about all he had learned, about things that went bump in the night, about the Initiative and its fight against the more malign aspects of the supernatural. By the time he had finished Cathy had climbed down off of the bed, and Jack was holding her hands in his.

"Are you sure of this?" Cathy asked dazed.

"Yes, I sent John and Ding out there. Rainbow is going to help set up defenses for the Hellmouth."

"Will it be enough?" Cathy wondered.

"It should be. You see I received one piece of good news in this mess," Jack said, a tired smile coming to his face.

"And that is?" Cathy asked.

"Superheroes are real, too," Ryan finished.

*****

LAX
Los Angeles, California
25 Oct 02 - 2135 Hours

Riley, Ding, and Mr. Clark stood outside of a private hanger and watch as the VC-20 that had brought them there, and was carrying Sam Finn taxied out into the dark.

"We managed to contact Graham, and he will be able to get in contact with most of the my team, Sam will be able to get the rest, but it looks like my three to five day estimate till I can get them here was accurate," Riley said. He then proceeded to lead Mr. Clark and Ding over to the suburban that had been brought for their use.

Reaching the set of cases that had been left next to the SUV he pointed at the two new cases in the mix. "Those are for you. Loaners from the FBI, I did not know what you preferred so I asked them to send you over some MPK's. I thought that it would be better to have something that could be hidden under street clothes," Riley explained.

"I thought that bullets didn't hurt these things," Ding said as he reached for a case and lifted it onto the tailgate of the suburban.

"Bullets won't kill a lot of the creatures that are running around in Sunnydale, but it will hurt or slow down the majority of them. If we run into vampires, remember to shoot low. Chopping their legs out from under them is always a good way of slowing them down," Riley told him. Then reaching for another battered case, he clicked it open, and passed a stake, something that looked like a steel squirt gun, and a cross small enough to fit easily into a jacket pocket. "The squirt gun is loaded with holy water, it acts as acid to a vamp. Be careful with the cross, they don't like it, it will burn them if it touches bare skin, but they can bat it away, and vampires have incredible reflexes."

Riley then opened another case and pulled out a shoulder rig. Ding looked over and recognized a Desert Eagle pistol. "That's a lot of gun," Ding said, nodding at the pistol.

Riley slipped it out of the holster and put it down on the tailgate so he could get the holster on properly. Then Ding saw the size of the opening on the barrel of the gun. "Is that the .50 version?" He asked looking at the 9mm opening on the SMG he was slipping under his coat.

"Some things need a lot of stopping power out there," Riley explained. "This won't be enough for some of them."

Ding looked over at Mr. Clark. John Clark said to Ding, "Once we are on the way, get in touch with Allister and make sure that he brings ours."

Once on the road to Sunnydale, Riley gave the two Rainbow troopers an overview of what Sunnydale was like, what help they could expect from the locals, favorite hotspots for the local HSTs, and the area around the Hellmouth and answered any questions they had on the town.

When they reached the halfway point Mr. Clark finally said to Riley, "Tell us what you know about this Slayer person that we are supposed to meet up with."

Riley, who clearly had been putting of talking about Buffy till the last minute, began, "The first thing you should not do with Buffy is underestimate her. Dr. Walsh made that mistake, and it cost her. She has been at this for almost a decade, so don't let her youth and sex lead you to underestimate her. She has a real problem with authority, especially if she doesn't respect it. The easiest way to get her respect is to give her some. She'll generally try to work with you, until she thinks you are patronizing her, at that point she will let you get eaten."

"So we can expected to be tested by her when we get there?" Ding wanted to know.

"To an extent, but she isn't much for mind games. She will give you her advice on a situation, she won't really care if you take it or not. But if it blows up in your face because you ignored her she is not above saying 'I told you so' a couple of times," Riley told him.

"We'll have to play it by ear then," Mr. Clark said. "Okay Riley, I want you to tell us what you know about Ms. Summers, and be detailed."

For the rest of the trip to Sunnydale Riley regaled Ding and Mr. Clark with the adventures that he and Buffy had had when he was in Sunnydale. This took them up to the Sunnydale city limits. Once there Riley started driving past the various cemeteries in town.

"Shouldn't we make contact with Ms. Summers?" Clark asked after the second stop.

"That's what we are doing," Riley replied. "This time of night she is usually out patrolling, we are more likely to make contact in one of the cemeteries than at her house."

Pulling into one of the larger cemeteries, Riley stopped the SUV, got out several pairs of night vision goggles, and passed them out. Scanning the surrounding area, he suddenly said, "There we go."

Ding looked in the direction that Riley indicated and saw a slight figure fighting with four larger people. He immediately started toward the fight only to be pulled to a stop when Riley grabbed his shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Riley wanted to know.

"Where I come from four against one is not a fair fight," Ding replied.

"Yeah," Riley told him, "They should have done a lot more recruiting!"

Ding was non-pulsed; he looked again at the slim figure that had just finished slamming one of the people…vampires that she was fighting against the side of a crypt. "That's the Slayer!?!" Ding demanded.

"Yeah, what were you expecting?" Riley said smiling slightly.

"Someone nine feet tall and green," Ding admitted. "Not someone that tiny."

"I warned you not to underestimate her," Riley said as he started walking toward the fight.

Ding and Mr. C followed, neither taking their eyes off of the fight. Ding had to admit that the slim figure of the Slayer had to be one of the most formidable, if not the most formidable, hand-to-hand fighter he had ever seen. She kept complete control of the fight except for once when two of the vampires managed to get a hold of her arms and slammed her against the same crypt that she had bounced one of their own off of. She just bounced off the stonewall and did a spinning kick on one of the vamps. Finally she had everyone were she wanted them. She dropped the two in front of her with a double leg sweep, and then came over the top with a stake in each hand, and then there was an explosion of dust from behind the tombstones that were between the walkers and the fight. The third vampire came in from behind hoping to take advantage of the Slayer being on the ground. She simply braced herself and kicked backward. The sneaker clad foot struck the vampire in the solar plexus and he flew ten feet to strike a broken tree limb that stuck out six feet above the ground. The last vampire looking at odds that had suddenly gone from four to one, to mano a chica, and decided to call it a night. He got as far as the first line of headstones before a thrown stake turned a high-hurdle jump into a pile of dust landing on the other side.

Buffy looked over at the approaching men, leaned forward, and grabbed a backpack that had been on the ground. Approaching the group, that had stopped, taken off the night vision equipment, and waited for her to come to them, she got into easy talking distance, stopped and said, "Hi Riley, don't tell me, we have to talk." She did not look really happy.

*****

Chapter 7

"Hi Buffy," Riley said. "Yeah, we have to talk."

Buffy nodded her head, more to herself, as if confirming something for herself. "Where's Sam, and who are your friends?" she inquired.

"This is Brigadier General John Clark, and Major Domingo Chavez," Riley performed the introductions. "Gentlemen, this is Buffy Summers, The Vampire Slayer." Then to Buffy he said, "Sam is getting the rest of the team together; she should be here by the end of the week."

"Ma'am," John Clark said.

"Nice to meet you, please just call me Ding," Chavez said.

"Hi," Buffy returned. "General. That's bigger than Colonel, isn't it?"

"Yes it is," Riley said.

"Wow. Sunnydale got promoted. So what's the Initiative sending a General here for?"

John Clark studied the small figure that stood in front of him. Up close she was even more petite than she looked when she was fighting the vampires. She was wearing black leather pants, and jacket, a white blouse, and sneakers. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. That made sense; the hair didn't get in the way that way. It did give the bad guys a convenient handle though. Then again, yanking on that hank of hair would probably be the last mistake something ever made. What brought him up short, though, were her eyes. Green, losing the last vestiges of the adrenal high she must have been sailing on. They were old eyes, eyes like he saw looking out of the mirror when he shaved in the morning; part of him grieved that someone this young could have eyes like that. It was then that John realized that even though she had just had a knockdown, drag-out fight with four people, well vampires, she wasn't even sweating. Hell she wasn't even breathing hard! Maybe there was something to this superhero stuff.

Buffy was also studying the two newcomers. She wasn't getting the same vibes off of them that she got off the other Initiative soldiers that she had been around. They had been excited by what was going on around them. Riley still had a little of that same feel, that he was playing a game, still in it for the thrill and the rush. Not these two; they had a feel of been there, done that. They wanted to do the job and go home to the family. It was a nice change. The Slayer also noticed that they did not act like soldiers. Well the younger guy did a little, but it was as if he was falling back on old reflexes, rather than using fresh training. She also would bet that these two had been partners for a while because one of them was always scanning the area; when one stopped the other one picked up without missing a beat, and they did it instinctually, with no signal between them. They also seemed to be comfortable, well as much as one could be in a cemetery, in Sunnydale CA. Soldiers, she had discovered from her brief enlistment in the Initiative, were pack hunters; they were only comfortable while in a group. These two, however, were nervous with the situation, but not that they were involved in it. There was something else here, something she would find out from Riley when she could get him alone.

"General Clark is not with the Initiative. He is head of a group called Rainbow," Riley told Buffy. "They're a counter-terrorism unit."

"Someone is going to try to hijack the Hellmouth?" Buffy wondered, sounding slightly amazed.

"Not someone. The Initiative. Well, the rest of it anyway. From what we've found looking through papers that have been left behind, we believe that General Billingsly, the old head of the Initiative, is going to try to open the Hellmouth," Riley explained.

"Sounds like a long story," Buffy sighed. "There's a vamp near here that will be rising tonight, and as chasing him across the graveyard is not on my top ten things to do tonight, I need to be there when he wakes up. His grave is right over there. Let's take a walk while you explain things to me," Buffy said as she started walking up toward the top of the hill.

Clark and Ding looked at Riley who shrugged, and started following Buffy up the hill.

"Why is the General trying to open the Hellmouth? Not enough business and he's worrying about budget cuts?" Buffy questioned Riley.

"No, he thinks that the President is the Anti-Christ and wants to beat him to it," Riley told her.

Buffy stopped dead, turned to Riley with a look of total confusion on her face and said, "Huh?!"

"General Billingsly seems to think that the Devil has won the battle of Good vs. Evil and is trying to spare as many souls as possible by killing them before they can fall," Riley explained. "Kind of asinine when you think about it."

"Much?" Buffy agreed. She walked a little way farther and stopped in front of a fresh grave. Turning to John and Ding she said, "This one will rise tonight. I have to talk to Riley, but we will just be over there." She nodded to another gravestone just out of earshot. Then sounding a lot friendlier said, "Wait here please, and if the dirt starts being disturbed just call and I'll be right with you." Buffy turned and started to walk away when she stopped. "Oh, here," she said. She rooted around in her pack for a couple of seconds, then handed Mr. Clark a small bottle that said 'Holy Water' on it, and a cross. To Ding she handed a stake. She then grabbed Riley by the upper arm and started to lead him away. "Come on. Let's talk," she said.

John Clark watched as she led Riley away. It was obvious by the tight look on Riley's face that she was using more than a little Slayer strength in the grip. He then looked down at the small bottle, and cross in his hands, then at the stake in Ding's and said, "I think I have just been insulted."

Buffy led Riley to the tombstone she had indicated. She leaned up against it, crossed her arms, looked at Riley, and began, "So what's the story?"

"The Initiative was covered in the Pentagon as an Intelligence unit monitoring China. It was covered that way because when it was originally put together, it was believed that China was the major country that we were least likely to go to war with. But it was still large enough to justify a good-sized budget. When war broke out there last year, they were caught flat-footed. The info that was passed up the chain was less than stellar. The Secretary of Defense investigated and discovered that the Intel that he was being given was just retread from other sources."

"Didn't the Secretary know what you were really doing?" Buffy was perplexed.

"No, General Billingsly thought that with the incredible series of coincidences that happened for Jack Ryan to become President, that there must be some outside force, either magical or demonic, behind it," Riley went on and explained. "A Japanese fanatic crashed a 747 into the Capitol right after President Ryan became Vice-President."

"I know that, Riley. I may have been up to my ears in Glory when that happened, but I still noticed when the government got wiped out at the end of a war!" Buffy said exasperatedly.

"Sorry, I didn't know how much you had followed," Riley apologized. "The Initiative was set up so that if the CO was suspicious of the President, or of how he had come to power, then he had the option of withholding its existence from the administration. General Billingsly decided that, as he was the senior surviving officer, that the administration should not be informed. He also believed that the way that the war in China started was also highly improbable, and from what he left behind, he felt that it was a way to get rid of him without arousing suspicion."

"This General thought that starting a war was a good way to get rid of him quietly?" Buffy questioned, checking to see if she had heard right.

"It didn't make much sense to me either," Riley admitted, looking around. "So what's been going on around here?"

Buffy hesitated as if deciding where to start, deciding she began, "Did I ever mention The First to you?"

"Yeah, he tried to get Angel to kill you, right? I thought you got rid of it," Riley said.

"I convinced it to leave. It can't be killed," Buffy responded. "It's back, and we aren't sure what it's after. So now isn't a good time to have a bunch of newbies running around Sunnydale, especially since I would have to baby-sit them. Thanks for the warning, but I think that I can handle myself. You just might want to get the General and the Major out of town before they get eaten like the last group."

Riley shook his head. "This won't be like last time Buffy. I think that you'll really need some help."

"Why? I handled The Initiative all right," Buffy argued.

"Last time they had no idea what to expect, and we were generally trying to capture things, we only went lethal if we had no choice. It won't be that way this time. This time their intentions will be to neutralize you. That could mean capturing you, but more likely it will mean either killing you, or capturing someone close to you, to force you to sit it out. We've also worked out some anti-Slayer tactics. None of which include going hand-to-hand with you," Riley explained gently.

Buffy gazed at Riley, with a look of extreme betrayal in her eyes. Before she could say anything, he put a finger to her lips. "It wasn't personal Buffy, it's business. You told me yourself when I was trying to get you to date me that you had come from a long list of people that didn't live past 25. We knew that we would be dealing with other Slayers, and that we might eventually come to cross-purposes. And if Faith ever decides to break out of prison, we would be who would have to go after her.

Buffy looked away, not trusting herself to speak. "Now what's really going on?" Riley asked.

"What do you mean? I told you what's going on," Buffy protested.

Riley smiled and shook his head. "I know you, Buffy. If nothing was going on what you would have said to the General and me, would have been, 'Welcome to Sunnydale, stay out of my way, and try not to get eaten.' What, you have Spike tied up in your basement, and you don't want the Initiative to know?"

Buffy resigned herself to telling Riley the truth, "No I have Andrew Wells tied up in my living room."

"Andrew Wells?" Thinking where he had heard that name before, "Isn't he one of the Nerd Herd?" Riley asked, not quite believing it. "Jeez Buffy, are you still having problems with those guys? Adam didn't take this long to finish off." Looking at the expression that started to form on Buffy's face, Riley realized that he had seriously put his foot in his mouth. He glanced down and read the name inscribed on the tombstone to give Buffy a couple of seconds to get her emotions under control. He started to look up when the name on the tombstone registered. He looked down to make sure he had read it right. Unfortunately he had.

Tara Maclay
1981-2002

"My God," Riley said quietly, reverently, going down on one knee in front of the monument. He reached out and traced the engravings with a finger.

Buffy turned when Riley knelt and read the name on the tombstone herself, then jumped away as if it had suddenly turned red-hot. Riley looked up at her face and asked, "How?" in a voice barely above a whisper.

"She was shot last May," Buffy said quietly, emotion in her voice. "It was Warren. We had been having problems with him and the nerds all through the year." She stopped for a few seconds to collect herself then went on in a dead monotone, "Tara had just gotten back together with Willow the day before. That night I stopped Warren from robbing an amusement park. Xander had found out about Spike and me, and he took it bad. We had a fight. It was bad, he was upset, his mouth I don't think was attached to his brain, and he said some things that hurt a lot. The next day Xander came back and apologized, and we started talking it through. Warren came out of nowhere with a gun. He shot me, shot at Xander, and when he was running away he must have shot over his shoulder. Willow said that Tara was in the window watching Xander and me in the yard. She had turned back to Willow and the bullet hit her in the back." Buffy stopped and looked down, tears leaking down her face. "You where out of communication. We didn't want to leave the news as an e-mail, or a message on your answering machine."

Riley stood up and gathered Buffy against his chest. She leaned her head against his shoulder and said, "God Riley, I am just so sick of people around me dying."

"Thanks, it would have been harder finding out like that. I understand about losing people. How's Willow?" he asked, blinking his own tears away.

"She's better. It was bad right after it happened. Giles took her to England over the summer and she got some help," Buffy told him.

"Warren?" Riley probed.

"He's been dealt with," Buffy said in a voice that was a whisper.

"One less thing to do," Riley said grimily.

*****

Ding watched as Buffy lead Riley away with him. "So Mr. C, what do you think of her?"

"Impressive," he said, as he slipped the bottle of Holy Water into his pocket next to the squirt gun that Riley had handed him back at the airport. "I think I need to raise her estimation of me though," taking a close look at the cross she had given him.

"Do you think she might consider moving to England?" Ding asked.

"Trying to beat MP?" Clark asked with a smile, nervously eyeing the mound of dirt in front of him, wondering vaguely what he should be watching for.

"How long do you think it will be till she is out here?" Ding asked him.

Looking up at his partner John said, "Depends on how impatient Ed is, I would think. I wouldn't do any heavy recruiting just yet though."

"Why?" Ding demanded.

"From what Riley has said Ms. Summers has had some real unfortunate encounters with officialdom. We might not be the enemy, but we aren't friends yet either," Clark explained.

Ding just grunted. Sudden movement over by Riley and Buffy caught his eye. Riley had gone down on one knee before the tombstone. When he reached out and touched it, then looked up at Buffy, Ding said, "Ah damn, I think we lost someone." Both men were silent as they remembered their own dead. They were both looking as Riley took The Slayer into his arms, to comfort her. They ended up missing the first couple of disturbances to the dirt of the grave as if something was pushing up through the layers of dirt in the grave.

Ding glanced down to give Riley and Buffy some privacy when he noticed the dirt moving. "Ms. Summers!" he shouted.

Buffy pushed off Riley and had just started toward the two Rainbow troopers, when the vampire exploded out of the grave, dirt flying everywhere! He charged right toward Mr. Clark, fangs bared!

*****

Chapter 8

John Clark tried to bring the cross up between him and the vampire. Hell, it worked in the horror movies. He underestimated the speed of the vampire though, so his fist plowed into the vamps upper lip. The vamp was already starting to recoil from the cross, so when the cross itself slammed into it's forehead and started burning, the vampire reared back. Ding was there then and threw an arm around the vampire's throat and rammed a knee into the small of it's back. Ding could feel the strength of the thing and realized that he could only hold it for a short time. He punched into the vamps back, hard and fast, with the stake, praying he remembered were the heart was.

He did.

The vampire exploded into dust. This robbed Ding of the support keeping him up, and he started to fall backward. He compounded the problem when he sucked in a deep breath, and got a lung full of vampire. Coughing uncontrollably he slammed into the ground. Fortunately he missed the tombstone behind him and just landed on grass. He rolled over still hacking, trying to get the dust out of his nose and throat.

Mr. Clark dropped the cross and grabbed his bleeding hand. He saw Ding on the ground and started toward him. Buffy got there first and started slapping him hard on the back, to help him clear his airway.

"N..n…nnot so hard John," Ding gasped.

"Sorry," Buffy replied.

Ding glanced sideways and saw Buffy's smiling face a couple of inches from him, tears still on her cheeks. "That was well done," she told him.

"Thanks. My first," he hacked.

"Really? You must be a natural," she said.

"You're just saying that so I don't feel like a total loser right?" Ding wheezed.

"No, I'm serious. You should of seen my first. I tripped and fell on him," Buffy reassured him.

Buffy turned and looked at Riley and Mr. Clark. Riley was shining a flashlight on John Clark's right hand. Buffy could see the blood from where she was. "Are you alright? I want to check on your bosses hand," she asked Ding.

Ding shot a look at Clark, and when he saw the blood started to struggle to his feet. "I'll take that as a yes," Buffy said, watching Ding head over to Clark.

"Do I have anything to worry about?" Clark questioned Riley, real concern in his voice.

"No, you don't," Buffy answered for Finn. "In order for you to turn, the vamp has to suck your blood, then you have to suck his. It's a whole big suckey thing." Buffy, after considering for a couple of seconds went on, " I wouldn't do that to a werewolf though."

John Clark's face visibly relaxed. "I'll remember that," he told her. He looked her over again. She had taken down four of those things at once? Mr. Clark decided that there was something to this superhero stuff.

"Come on I have a first-aid kit at the house, this needs to be seen to. Just because you won't get vampirism from it, a vampire's mouth isn't the cleanest thing on Earth either," Buffy said.

"Ah, Buffy you were telling me about Andrew before I noticed Tara's tombstone," Riley asked gently.

"Tara?" John Clark asked. "That would be Tara Maclay?"

"Yes," Buffy said softly. "She was killed last May."

"You have my condolences," John told her.

"I'm sorry," Ding said an instant later.

"Thanks," Buffy replied. She explained about the Nerd Herd so John and Ding would have some idea what she was talking about, she didn't go into much detail though.

"Andrew and Jonathan were caught at the amusement park. Jonathan gave himself up, Andrew knocked himself out when he tried to fly off with his rocket-pack," Buffy explained as they began walking back toward Riley's SUV.

"Rocket pack?!" Ding exclaimed. "You mean like James Bond?"

"Yeah, but James Bond usually checks to make sure that there isn't a roof over his head. Cuts down on the cool factor a lot when you bounce off and knock yourself out," Buffy replied, not sharing Ding's excitement.

"Okay," Riley stepped into the breach. "How does he end up in your living room."

"When Tara was killed, Willow lost it," Buffy said, staring at the ground three feet in front of her feet, and returning to the monotone that she had started to tell the story in at the tombstone. "After she dealt with Warren, she went after Andrew and Jonathan"

John Clark had a good idea how Warren was 'dealt' with; well he wasn't one to throw stones, now was he?

"We couldn't let her do it. So we broke them out of jail. Well… Technically I guess that Willow broke the jail, we just made sure that the dubious duo didn't get fried."

"God," Riley said. "You didn't have to..."

"No!" Buffy was quick to reassure him. "It got tight for awhile, but Xander was able to talk her down. She went with Giles over the summer. She came home about a month ago. She's been good since she's been back." They arrived at the SUV Buffy helped Mr. Clark into the front seat of the suburban, and then she climbed into the back seat with Ding.

"I can put you up tonight at my house," Buffy explained. "It will be a little cramped with Anya sleeping over, but we have plenty of floor space."

"Anya? Why is she staying at your house? Did she and Xander have a fight?" Riley wanted to know.

"Kind of," Buffy said evasively.

"Give!" Riley ordered.

"Xander left Anya at the alter," Buffy said quietly. "A former victim of Anya's showed up and pretended to be a future Xander, when he heard what life after the wedding would be like, he spooked."

"What did Anya do?" Riley wondered.

"Er… went back to her old job," Buffy supplied. Seeing Riley's shocked reaction she quickly went on, "But she quit again last week. So her old boss is kind of ticked with her, so she's staying over for protection."

"I appreciate the offer of floor space Ms. Summers," Clark began, getting annoyed at being talked around, "But we can just get a room at a local motel. In the morning we will be able to get quarters at the local army base."

"Bad idea, Mr. Clark," Buffy said. "You don't know what's been invited into a motel room, or the visitor quarters on the base. If you insist on moving into a rented room at least have Willow do a revocation."

"Willow is doing magic again?" Riley wanted to know, and from the tone in his voice, he did not consider it a good idea.

"She doesn't have a lot of choice," Buffy said, "When she lost it last year she sucked in so much magic it's a part of her now."

Riley didn't say anything to that; he simply started the SUV and put it into gear. He pulled out into the street and headed for Buffy's house on Revello Drive.

"So how did this Andrew end up in your house?" Ding asked.

"Willow went down to the Butcher shop to get some blood for a friend. While she was there she bumped into Andrew, buying blood for a ritual. She sort of grabbed him and brought him back to the house."

Clark groaned, "Let me get this straight. You are not only harboring a federal fugitive, but you kidnapped him to boot?"

"Why was she buying blood for a friend?" Ding found that much more interesting.

Buffy ignored Ding; "We needed to know why he was back in town. A lot of weird things had been going on, we were expecting a new big bad to showing up, and all we had to go on was the expression, 'From beneath you it devours.' I had been having Slayer dreams of young girls all over the world being killed by guy's in robes. When Willow found Andrew she thought that it was interesting that he was back, so she grabbed him. She got him home and we questioned him. We found out that he and Jonathan had come up from Mexico, with the idea to close the Hellmouth. Well that was Jonathan's idea anyway, apparently the First had gotten to Andrew and tricked him into killing Jonathan trying to open a portal under the high school," Buffy explained, not sounding too contrite.

"Jonathan Levenson is dead too?" Riley wanted to know.

"Jonathan Levenson," Ding said. "Why is that name familiar?"

"You don't want to go there, Ding," Riley told him. "Trust me on this one."

Ding had a momentary mental picture of an autographed picture, and a calendar of a stocky guy on the wall of his cubical, and decided that Riley might have a point.

"Andrew said he stabbed him. But the body wasn't there when we went back to bury the disk again," Buffy continued.

"You can maneuver under the school then?" Mr. Clark asked Buffy.

"Sure, it's like a maze but I am starting to learn it."

"Okay, tomorrow would it be possible for you to show Ding around so he can start planning to set up defenses for the Hellmouth itself?"

"Sure. I have to tell you though, Principle Wood will be real upset if you booby trap his office."

"Principle Wood?" Clark asked turning around so he could look at Buffy, "We were told that you had destroyed the building, we saw the photo's!"

"It was, we did, they rebuilt it," Buffy returned.

"What?!?!?!?!?" All three of the other people in the car exclaimed.

"I don't understand," Ding, said. "How could you let them do that?"

Buffy shrugged, "I'm not on the school board. On the plus side I work at the school now so I can get in anytime I need to."

"What are you doing?" Riley asked.

"Student Councilor," Buffy replied, some pride in her voice.

Riley almost snorted; he managed to turn it into a very convincing cough. Ignoring Buffy's glare in the rear-view mirror, he turned onto Revello Drive and pulled up in front of Buffy's house at 1630.

Everyone jumped out of the suburban and started up toward the house. Riley, John, and Ding saw that the front window of the house was gone. Someone had nailed up plywood over it. As they started up the steps, a voice over by the window suddenly said, "Hey Buffy,"

The three men jerked and turned toward the sound. Hands dived under coats and grabbed gun buts. Buffy reached out and grabbed Ding's hand to prevent him from drawing, and said, "Hi Xander."

A dark haired young man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing a tool belt and holding a battleaxe. Seeing who was with Buffy, and not perceiving a threat from the others, he rested the axe back on his shoulder, and stepped further out into the light. "Nice to see you Riley," he said. "Your timing is great, we can really use the help."

"Xander," Riley said, rather coldly. Indicating the two other people with them. "This is General John Clark, and Major Domingo Chevez. Gentlemen, this is Alexander Harris."

"Mr. Harris," John said to him formally, Ding just nodded to him.

"I see my fame has proceeded me," Xander said somewhat bitterly. "Buffy, I got the window fixed, it should hold till the morning. I think that I can get some more glass cheap."

"Thanks Xander," Buffy said. "Come in, we have more problems."

So saying she went up the steps and entered the house. "I'm home!" she called out. "We have guests!"

Dawn charged out of dinning room and squealed, "Riley!" Ignoring the other people as she threw her arms around Riley and gave him a big hug.

"Hi Dawnie," Riley said, obviously pleased to see the girl.

"Who are they?" she asked looking at the two strangers.

"They are here to help," Riley said. "This is General Clark, and Major Chavez."

"Hello," Dawn said to the two men, then looking around, and realizing that Samantha wasn't here, she exclaimed, "Where's Sam? Nothings happened to her has it?"

"No Dawn, Sam is fine, she is just getting the rest of our team. I'm afraid that we have some real problems coming," Riley reassured the teenager.

"Come on," Buffy said impatiently, "The others are in the dining room."

At this point the Anya poked her head out from around the corner to see what the excitement was. "Hello Anya, " Riley said. "How are you doing? I'm sorry to hear about the wedding," he said, somewhat awkwardly.

"To late to help me out with a wish," Anya sighed, then going on in a normal tone, "Glad to see you, I hope that you won't run off this time though."

Riley flinched at the mention of when he rejoined the Initiative and left Buffy.

Willow came in then and said, "Hey Riley, how have you been?"

"Willow, I'm sorry for your loss. I'll miss Tara," he said kindly.

Willow misted up, "Thanks Riley, she would have appreciated that." Then, "Who are your fiends?"

"They're General John Clark, and Major 'Just-Call-Me-Ding Chavez," Buffy supplied. "They work for a group called Rainbow."

"You work for Rainbow?" Willow asked, very excited, "It must be great working with Jesse Jackson, and everyone. It must be very rewarding working toward affirmative actio….," Willow wound down as she saw the expressions on Ding and Mr. Clark's faces, "And I am guessing that you work for a different Rainbow," she finished quietly.

"Yes we do," Clark supplied. "We are a multinational, anti-terrorist unit. No affiliation with the other one."

"Oh," Willow said in a small voice. "Sorry."

Xander had come in behind everyone else and quietly had closed the door. He watched the by-play between his friends and the new comers. What drew his attention though was Anya, his former fiancée; she was staring at the new comers with a look of awe on her face. The last time that he could remember that look on her was when she had counted the till from last years Halloween sale. Suddenly she raised her finger and pointed it directly at Mr. Clark. "You're John Kelly!" she exclaimed.

John Clark visibly started, "Who?" Looking at the former vengeance demon and trying to figure out how she knew his real name.

"I can't believe that after all this time we finally get to meet!" Anya gushed, then turning to Willow she said, "Willow, you and John Kelly have a lot in common! You both hunted down and slaughtered the killer of your lover!"

*****

Chapter 9

Everyone held their breath and looked at the ex-vengeance demon. Xander finally said, "An, it's generally considered impolite to introduce your friends to strangers that have a good chance of being federal law-enforcement agents as a person who have slaughtered someone."

Anya glared at Xander, "But John Kelly isn't in law-enforcement, he's a CIA agent."

"CIA!!!!!" Three voices exclaimed almost as one. The first was Dawn, she sounded excited. The next was Willow, she sounded outraged, the last was Buffy, hers came out low and menacing. Then she continued, "I thought your name was Clark?"

John Clark silently thanked the media for the misinterpretation of what the CIA was and did. Looking at the Scoobies he said, "I was born John Kelly. I had to change my name because as Ms. Emerson said, I took the law into my own hands when a gang of drug pushers who used prostitutes as their mules, kidnapped and killed my lover. I killed as many of them as I could get, too. During this time I was asked to join the CIA because I had been a Navy SEAL and knew an area of Vietnam that it was believed that the North Vietnamese where holding American Flyers that they were not planning on giving back. My boss at the CIA found out about my extracurricular activities. He could have turned me in but decided that I was too useful of an asset so they arranged for my disappearance and gave me a new life. I worked for the CIA for thirty years or so, Ding has been my partner for the last five. However we do not work for the CIA now, Rainbow is not part of it."

"Riley?" Buffy was not convinced.

"Rainbow isn't part of the US Government at all Buffy. It's part of the NATO chain of command."

"Ms. Summers," Ding said. "If we were still in the CIA we could not be here. The CIA is forbidden by law to operate in the US. In this case the Justice Department, specifically the FBI, is paying for Rainbow's expenses. The President is a real stickler for the law."

"Stickler for the law? He helped invade Columbia!" Willow argued.

"There were about 40 of us," Ding said. "That doesn't count as an invasion."

"You were there?" Xander asked.

"Yes that's where I met Mr. Clark. Mr. Ryan," they all heard the respect in his voice, "wasn't part of the planning of the operation, but he sure pulled us out of a bad situation."

"I'm going to have to think about this, Riley must of told you what has happened in the past when I got involved with the government. Going up against The First, I can't be looking over my shoulder wondering if I can trust who's behind me," Buffy said.

"I understand Ms. Summers," Clark said. "We are not here to take over your job. Our orders are to protect the Hellmouth from General Billingsly and the Initiative. I believe that President Ryan would want us to render whatever assistance to you we can in this situation, but if you want us to back off, we'll do it. We will be patrolling the town regardless though, so any help we can give you, just let us know."

"Thanks," Buffy said, relaxing slightly.

"Can I ask a question?" Ding wondered.

"I might not answer, but go ahead," Buffy replied.

"What is this 'First' you keep mentioning, you sort of glossed over it in the car coming over here." Ding asked.

"Now there is the sixty-four dollar question," Willow said. "We found almost nothing on it Buffy."

Buffy sighed, "Giles hasn't called back has he?"

"No," Willow answered.

Buffy waved everyone into the dinning room, turning to Dawn she said, "Dawn could you run upstairs and get the first aid kit? Mr. Clark banged his hand up."

"Sure," Dawn said, running up the steps to get the kit.

"What happened?" Xander asked.

"Got jumped by a Vamp and Mr. Clark punched it in the mouth," Buffy explained.

"Ouch," Xander said.

"I was trying to get the cross between me and it," Clark told him. "It was faster than I expected."

"It looked impressive though," Buffy, said. "Especially when the cross slapped into it's forehead and started burning."

"That must of looked cool," Xander agreed as Dawn came down from upstairs with a good size first aid kit.

"Here Buffy," she said handing it to Buffy.

"Lets, see the hand Mr. Clark," she said as she opened the case.

"I'll get some hot water," Xander volunteered as he headed for the kitchen.

"Thanks Xand," Buffy said as she started examining the wound.

Waiting for Xander to return with the water she said to Ding, "The First is what evil things are scared of. Its proper name is The First Evil. I fought it about four years ago when it tried to get a friend of mine to either kill me, or commit suicide it would have got away with it too. Except that The Powers intervened and stopped him."

"Who?" Ding asked.

"The Powers That Be," Buffy said as Xander came back in with a bowl of water. "Thanks Xander," she said. "And yes, they are exactly who you think they are."

Ding and Mr. Clark tried to digest what that implied. "What did they do?" Ding finally asked.

"My friend was a vampire, he was waiting for sunrise, it started snowing, so the sun didn't shine," Buffy said beginning to wash the wound.

"That was Christmas in '98?" Ding asked.

Buffy sat back and thought, "Yeah I think that was it. Last time it snowed here anyway."

"How did you beat it then?"

"The First isn't a physical being, you can't fight it like a vampire or a demon. Fortunately that also means that it can't physical attack you either," nodding to Andrew still slumped in his chair she continued, "That doesn't stop it from getting stooges to do it's dirty work for it."

"It does have these priests called Bringers. We got attacked by a bunch of them tonight, we thought they were after Andrew but it turned out they wanted Spike. They got him too."

"Spike's been dusted?" Riley asked, clearly not too uncomfortable with the notion.

"They took him, but I think he is still alive," Buffy said, choosing to ignore Riley's tone. "I was hoping to grab something on patrol to beat some info out of, but the vamps tonight were out-of-towners. I don't think that they even knew I was the Slayer till after they jumped me."

Buffy went on, "The first is held in this plane by the Bringers, they hang out underground. You can find them because everything dies directly over where they are. Tomorrow I'm going to check out where they were last time. I think there were some passages branching out from the main cave and I want to scout them out." Buffy finished washing Clarks wound out and looked it over, "I think you lucked out, it didn't get down to the tendons." She then reached for the antiseptic and said, "This will sting a bit."

Clark winced as she applied it to the wound to finish cleaning it out, "I would see a doctor about getting a prescription for antibiotics in the morning, but you should be fine." So saying she took some butterfly bandages and gently closed the wound with two of them.

Clark looked down at the job she did; it was very professionally done. She probably got a lot of practice he decided. "Are you going down there to try and rescue your friend or will you just be scouting around?" John asked.

"If I find him, I'll try for a rescue, but mostly just for scouting," Buffy told him as she started putting the first-aid supplies away."

"Don't you have the underground mapped?" Clark asked.

Xander laughed, "The underground of Sunnydale has like ten thousand miles of tunnels."

Buffy nodded, "That's an exaggeration, but it is like a maze down there. Sometimes I think that the tunnels even change around from time to time."

"How deep is the cave that you will be checking out tomorrow?" John continued.

Thinking back to her first encounter with The First, "About twenty or thirty feet. Why?" Buffy asked, perplexed.

'Time to start earning our keep,' Clark thought to himself. "We can get you a map of the underground, The top thirty or thirty-five feet anyway," Clark said, then went on to explain, "We can have a KH-12 do a couple of passes over Sunnydale. We can have them send the results here."

"KH-12?" Buffy asked.

"It's a spy satellite," Xander supplied.

"Specifically it's a radar recon bird," Clark amplified.

"Okay so you can do a radar sweep, how does that help me?" Buffy wanted to know.

"It helps because it can see about 40 feet into the ground too. It was originally designed to find hidden missile silos," John told her. "We can have them do the runs tonight and should be able to get the results sometime tomorrow morning."

Buffy thought about it, "If you can do that it would be great. But if we don't get it by noon I am going in."

"Fair enough," Clark said reaching for his cell phone. Selecting a number Clark put the phone to his ear. Waiting as the two secure units negotiated with each other, he then heard the other end pick up.

"NRO duty desk, Robert Conrad speaking, this is a secure line, how may I help you?" the voice on the other end of the line said.

"This is General John Clark, authorization code Alpha Tango Michael One Four Five Eight Seven Six," Clark said into the phone.

There was a delay of several seconds from the NRO then, "Authenticate Echo Lima Alpha," Conrad said.

Taking a laminated card similar in size to a credit card from his wallet Clark scanned down the card then said, "Papa Charlie X-ray."

"Identity confirmed what can I do for you General?" Conrad said.

"I need a ground penetrating map of Sunnydale California, how soon can you get it done?"

Robert Conrad blinked; he had had some odd requests during his tour of duty. For a while there had been a General over in the Pentagon that had tried to get him to put his house under surveillance from one of his KH-11 birds. He thought his wife was having an affair with their pool boy. This was however the first time anyone had asked him to map the sewer system of a small American city. Oh well, the notation in his file said that the General had carte blanche, so what the General wanted, the General got. Checking the position of the new KH-12 satellite he typed some queries into his computer then read the answers into the mouth piece of his headset, "We need to slightly reposition the bird Sir, we should be able to start getting information in three orbits. It will take two more orbits to finish the map, call it seven hours, Sir."

"Very well. Send the information to FBI headquarters, they will know what to do with it," Clark instructed him.

"As you wish, Sir. Have a good evening," Conrad said.

"You too," Clark said as he disconnected. "When it's a little later in Washington, I will call our contact in the FBI and have them send the photo's to the local office, they can bring it here."

Buffy was impressed in spite of herself. She hoped this wasn't just a ruse to get on her good side.

John Clark pointed at Andrew's slumped form; he noted that they had him tied into a director's chair, "Would you like for Ding or I to have a chat with Andrew when he wakes up?" he asked.

"We already did," Buffy said. "Xander and Anya played 'Good-Cop, Bad-Cop' with him."

"How did he get hurt?" Riley asked, then looking at the two blood spots on the bandage on Andrews's neck he continued, "Those look like vamp bites."

"Spike did them," Xander told him. "Came right through the wall."

"Why?" Riley asked, then thinking about it, "How? His chip should of dropped him in his tracks."

"We think that The First has brainwashed him," Buffy said. "Or at least that's what Xander thinks."

"So he can ignore the chip?" Riley asked now genuinely concerned.

"He did when he made the dozen or so vampires that Buffy had to dust," Xander supplied.

"He's been killing again?" Riley said, then accusingly, "And you let him run around loose?"

"We haven't let him run around anywhere, once we found out what was going on, I locked him up here."

"With Dawn in the house?" Riley was starting to get worked up.

"He's changed Riley," Buffy said quietly, starting to withdraw a little.

"Changed? He sounds like the same old, tried and true, back to the basics, Spike to me!"

"He has his soul back Riley," Buffy said, starting to fight back a little. "The First has him programmed, we have to help him," Buffy pleaded.

Ding sat back and watched the by-play between the two people. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Xander Harris jerk back almost like someone had slapped him. It was a quick and angry movement. He did it when Buffy began defending Spike.

"The First wants him for something, whatever it is, we have to stop it," Buffy said, more firmly in command.