Amy Madison walked along the back streets of Sunnydale looking at the dirty alleyways she was forced to navigate through with a bit of distaste then looked back a something written on a piece of paper. She stilled when someone just appeared out of nowhere looking like they were lost then they curled up next to the wall across the way shivering. She looked back to the wall he had just come out of and looked to her notes once more. She stepped up to the wall and reached out to touch it. Her hand went through and her body followed.

She staggered out into a dirty, unkempt living room with a bunch of couches around it and everyone looked like they had a drug problem. "Um," she said as she looked to the note again. All it said was. 'Power is the key. Rack in the disappearing doorway, he will give it to you, for a price.' It was in her mother's handwriting.

The only door in the room opened and there stood one of the biggest, scariest men she had ever seen. His face weathered with a few scars on it and his eyes were freaky. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. A woman stumbled out from behind him and passed out on a couch.

"You," he said looking at her, and a little through her. Amy looked behind her and he laughed, it wasn't a nice laugh. "Yes, you, I feel her on you. You are the daughter."

"I'm Amy, yeah," she got out.

He opened the doorway a little wider and ushered her in. She followed and he closed it behind her as he stroked her hair possessively.

oooooooooo

Buffy hummed to herself walking along the sidewalk on patrol. She had a mocha in hand and her trusty nail polish in her pocket. She figured if there was no one out to be slain she could do a little manicure to pass the time. It had barely turned nighttime, about eight or so when she saw a familiar redhead about three blocks ahead of her walking quickly. Not that Buffy could blame her; this wasn't the best area of town to be in, which made her wonder why the shy girl was out and about. Willow wasn't a fighter, she willingly admitted it too. Not that she wasn't without courage; Willow was tough in other ways.

She followed her and noted that Willow carried a bottle of holy water in her hands. That alone would get her in trouble with her Jewish parents. She saw Willow stop a few times and look around nervously watching for anything that might go bump in the night. Buffy began to jog forward to talk to her friend and see why she was out. She could have called and Buffy would have walked with her.

Willow looked around once more then ducked under a chain that held an old chain link fence together then she disappeared from view into the dark. Buffy ran for the fence. She saw down an overgrown path and an abandoned house she had checked out for vampires a month or so ago. She followed her, now very curious as to what her friend was up to.

Buffy crept up to see Willow had made it inside to the old dining room and there were lights from somewhere. She didn't sense anything bad and it felt like Willow had put up some kind of spell to warn her if someone was too close. The Slayer reached out her hand and felt the magic just next to it, she didn't touch it, she didn't want Willow to be alarmed. She also didn't want anyone to hurt her so she stayed to watch over her. Willow said something and out of thin air appeared a small stack of books. Buffy blinked in surprise at this.

"Okay, that was cool," she said softly.

Willow began to read through one book and set a few things out. A match, a-, Buffy had to tilted her head a little to see what it was, it looked like a beetle, wow, Buffy looked to her redheaded friend again. She must be serious if she's touching bugs. Buffy smiled at that remembering when Willow had a spider in her locker and she had a little fit over it until Buffy killed it then she made Buffy go wash her hands.

Buffy smiled at the memory as she sat down Indian style and watched her friend read through her book and then begin to cast spells. The match disappeared and Willow reached down and picked something up carefully. If it hadn't of been for Buffy's excellent eyesight she would have missed seeing the needle between Willow's fingers. She smiled though; it still had the head of a match on the top of it.

Willow worked for about an hour, most of the stuff she did worked. One time Buffy was worried when she set the table on fire and Willow panicked for a minute until she did a spell that shot water out of thin air and put it out. Willow rested for a while then made her books disappear and Buffy hid as Willow dropped the spell around the house and warily left. At least she was cautious. Buffy followed her home, she was proud of Willow for keeping up with her skills but where she was doing it wasn't the safest place. She'd talk to her about letting her go with her to watch her back at school tomorrow.

Buffy was starting to think that maybe she'd be the first Slayer to make it past twenty.

oooooooooo

Buffy rushed up to school five minutes before it started. She had planned to talk to Willow this morning about last night, but the day had just started out wrong and then she and her mom got in an argument and that was not something she wanted was angry mom on her back.

She went down the hallway and found Willow and Xander at Willow's locker and Xander was talking about something that was exciting and Willow rolled her eyes where he couldn't see it but she could. Buffy smiled as she came up to them. "Hey guys," she told them. Xander grinned her way.

"Hey Buff," he said.

"Buff?" she replied. She hated that nickname.

"Buff, Buffster," he started.

She held up her hand. "Be careful where you go with that," she warned him. "I can hurt you, badly."

"Hey Buffy," Willow said with a smile.

"Hey Will," Buffy replied as they headed down the hallway. "Mom and I got into a thing," she said apologizing for not being ready to walk to school together.

Willow shook her head. "Oh, don't worry about that. My mom is into that now. I think she's getting cranky being home all the time."

"Social services still coming?" Xander asked.

Willow shrugged. "Once so far." She looked his way, social services had gone to his house a few years ago, but they just squeaked by on being 'okay' parents, they were always home. Apparently being a drunk and abusive parent wasn't as bad as being an absent one.

"Hey, we get out of classes altogether next Monday," Xander said. "That's good, right?"

"What's Monday?" Buffy asked.

"The zoo field trip," Willow told her as they stopped, letting the Cordelia horde go past them, the brunette gave them a scathing look but said nothing she went by.

"Then Cordelia can go back to her home of buttmanian devils," Xander told his friends and a little louder for others to hear and Cordelia stopped and looked at them.

"Watch it monkey boy," she retorted. "Your whole family belongs there seeing where your mom works. I'm sure the zoo will want you all back in the white trash exhibit."

The group and others around laughed. Buffy looked put out, Willow looked embarrassed and Xander was just a little mad. "Yeah, well I have King Kong in my family tree then! What do you got?" he said but they were gone.

Willow bit on her lower lip a little. "King Kong was a gorilla, Xander."

"That's not a monkey?" Buffy asked as they continued on to class.

"Not technically no," Willow replied as the first bell rang.

Buffy and Xander headed off together while Willow went to her physics class. Buffy'd have to catch her at lunch.

oooooooooo

Later that morning Willow headed for her computer class when Amy came up to walk by her. "Hi Amy," Willow said.

"Hey," Amy replied.

Willow looked to her, she was a little heavier than before but it didn't look bad on her, she looked healthier, except now she looked pale. "How's it going?" she decided to ask.

Amy nodded. "Good."

Willow turned a corner and Amy went with her. Okay… "Sorry that, um, 'thing' didn't work out," Willow told her.

Amy nodded again. "It's okay." She looked her way finally and her eyes were really bloodshot. "It's why I was looking for you," Amy said.

"For me?" Willow asked as she stopped in front of the computer classroom.

"I found some things in my mom's stuff, Dad's selling the house for me seeing that Mom's gone and the state decided to award him custody. There's some witch stuff that I think you'd want to see maybe you could use it seeing I can't," Amy told her quietly.

Willow looked to the student who passed them, some going into the classroom. "Okay, after school?" she asked.

"After dinner if you could," Amy said. "Dad's got the whole family thing going."

Willow smiled until she saw Amy wasn't smiling with her, she looked irritated about it. "Seven?" Willow asked.

Amy nodded at that. "Come to Ninth and State street."

Willow thought about it. "That's not a really good part of town."

"Storage, my dad just moved it all," Amy told her.

"Okay, I'll see you then," Willow replied.

"Great," Amy said with the first true smile she'd seen yet on the blond. She left and Willow turned to go into her classroom but stopped almost bumping into Ms. Calendar.

"Sorry," Willow said.

Ms. Calendar smiled. "It's okay; I thought you were going to be late. Let's get started." Willow passed her and Ms. Calendar watched Amy disappear around the corner.

oooooooooo

It was almost seven as Willow headed along Main Street looking a little worried. Buffy had ended up talking to Giles about something all through lunch and then had to go to her mom's gallery after school because she was still in trouble with her. Ms. Coltrane had come by that afternoon to find both of her parents were working but still in town. Then dinner had been tense and honestly, Willow wanted her parents to go away again, she liked it better when they were gone.

She turned down Ninth and headed for State street. She spotted Amy who was waiting in an alleyway. Willow looked around; there were no storage units in this area. She walked towards her a little slower. She didn't like this, she didn't like this area. It made the magic in her feel bad. She crossed the street but stood just outside the alleyway.

"What's going on Amy?" she asked.

A man stepped out of the shadows and Willow's eyes went wide. He was tall and lean, with a bit of a pock-marked face. He didn't look kind, which was clear to Willow since blackness just radiated off of him. "Rosenberg, Willow," he said looking her over. "You're no Jewish Princess; you gotta know that, right?"

Willow saw Amy watch them; the blond girl's face was flushed but excited, like this was a good thing happening.

"She told me you had power," he said as he came closer. "A wandless wizarding witch, but you have power." Willow stepped back from him and he stopped. "You afraid of me little girl?" he asked. "I only want a taste of what you got. All I get is hopped up black magic users who want another taste of real power or those like Amy who've got a little but nothin' to do with it." Amy looked embarrassed but her eyes were drawn to him.

"What did you do to her?" Willow asked bravely making sure she stayed a good ten feet from him.

"Gave her a taste," he said with a laugh. "I think she liked it, don't you?" he asked.

Willow was stunned before but now she realized what he was. She backed off completely. "That's- that's bad, very, very bad!"

He laughed as Amy came forward passing him to get to her. "Willow, it's so wonderful, you'll love it," she told her grabbing onto Willow's arm.

Willow fought to get her arm off of her. Amy's eyes were misty black and her face was sweating and pale. "No, Amy! Don't do this! You don't want to turn into your mom!"

The man spoke a few words as he came forward and sent a bolt of black magic at her. Willow put up her free hand. "Protego!" she said. It hit a shield around her.

"Very good," the man said as he strode forward and caught her hair as Amy held onto her arm. "Just a taste." He held her hair and she felt that darkness go into her and some of her light leave. The ends of her hair shifted to black.

"Expelliarmus!" she got out and both of them flew back hitting the wall.

He laughed as he got up, but Amy groaned in pain on the ground. "Strawberries, you taste like strawberries." He faced her down as he caught a trickle of blood from his cheek where a chip of brick had hit him. "Delicious, you are going to be my favorite."

"Stupefy," she said and light flashed from her hand, Rack was caught a little by it but shook it off.

"You'll have to do better than that Strawberry," he told her as he sent more magic at her.

"Expelliarmus!" she said stopping it but it warped around her a little and her hair turned a little darker. "Petrificus totalus!" she got out angrily.

His legs and arms snapped together and he dropped over into the trash on the ground like a block. Willow felt tears come to her eyes, her hands were shaking and she was scared. Amy was up crawling by then looking to Rack then at Willow. Willow sprinted away from them silent tears running down her cheeks.

Willow didn't watch where she was going as she past the building she had walked by first and ran into a ballpark. Ms. Calendar stepped out of the shadows to watch her go. She glanced back to see Amy kneeling over Rack looking lost and scared. The man wasn't moving. She looked them both over then left following Willow's wake.

oooooooooo

The knock at the door was insistent as Joyce came from the living room to open the door to see Willow there with tears running down her cheeks and her hair wasn't its beautiful shade of auburn, it was blackish looking. "Willow!" she said taking her arm she saw bruising there from Amy. She drew her in and shut the door. "What's wrong?"

Willow shook her head as she wiped her eyes. "I kno-know she's in trouble, b-but c-could I see Buffy?" she stuttered out.

"Of course. Buffy come down here please!" she called out.

"I swear, mom, I didn't do anything else," Buffy said as she came to the top of the steps to see Willow in her mom's arms crying. She hurried down the steps. "Will, what's wrong?"

Willow looked to her as she wiped her eyes again and Buffy saw the black in her hair. "I – I," was all she got out and Buffy wrapped her arms about her friend and Joyce motioned it was okay for her to take her upstairs.

Buffy nearly carried her there the redhead was almost to scared to move. She set Willow down on the end of her bed and sat down by her. Willow told her what happened to her in fits and starts of panic. Buffy saw her hands were trembling. There was a knock on the door and Joyce came in with two mugs of cocoa. "Oh honey, you're going into shock," she told her as she took a blanket out and put it around her. "What happened? Was it your parents?"

Willow shook her head. "A girl at school," Buffy told her mom as she handed her best friend some of her mom's cocoa. "She wanted to meet her after school but she didn't tell her about her drug dealer boyfriend."

Joyce looked horrified, her over alert maternal mind going into protect mode as she thought about what could have happened to Willow. "You drink your cocoa and I'll call your mother."

Willow shook her head. "She's working, she-she," she stopping talking and just looked to her cocoa and two tears spilt into it. "Could I stay here?" she asked timidly.

Joyce nodded. "Sure you can. You can stay in here with Buffy, how's that?"

Willow gave her a teary smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Summers."

Joyce smiled at that. "I'll call your mother and tell her you're staying over." She left and Willow looked to Buffy.

"I'm sorry," she told her.

Buffy shook her head. "Don't be. I'm going to kill Amy when I find her," she said angrily.

"Killing's not worth it," Willow told her.

"Then I'll stick her wherever her mom is," Buffy said as she turned her attention to her scared friend.

Joyce made a phone call downstairs out of the girls hearing. She couldn't believe what parenting went for nowadays. "Yes, this is Mrs. Joyce Summers," she told the person on the other end of the line. "I'd like to speak to Agent Coltrane."

oooooooooo

Willow was so angry she could have spit nails, if she wanted to do something like that. She stormed down the street for her abandoned house. She needed to get away, to do magic, something that she knew she was good at.

They had gone to the Zoo the day before and Xander had come out of the hyena house – wrong. It was the only word she could think of for it. He had become mean and cruel, especially to her. He had essentially told her he didn't want to see her pasty face anymore, and then he and Kyle's evil group of bullies laughed about it. Buffy had talked to her trying to soothe the pain but it still hurt. Willow sighed to herself as she ducked through the chain link fence. At least she didn't have a crush on him anymore, that would have been worse.

It didn't help either what had happened with Amy. She hadn't come back to school and Agent Coltrane had showed up at her house again the next day. She sat down with Willow and her parents and talked about drugs and abuse and Willow though she was going to die it was so embarrassing, worse the agent shamed her parents who were both psychologists about not talking with her. It didn't seem to faze them much, they had gone back to work the next day, she was pretty sure they were gearing up to go to a seminar for a week. How they were going to get around Agent Coltrane on that one she didn't know.

She went into the house and headed for the living room area of the dilapidated house. It was the largest room and the best place to practice. She looked around before she lit the place up and just sat down in a dark corner on an old sofa cushion and took in everything that was going on and felt sad. Xander had always been there for her. Buffy was more it now, not that she didn't love Xander, but he focused so much on Buffy it really did hurt.

"Hey," a voice said in the dark. "When did dinner start coming to us?"

"Lumos," Willow said softly and there were over a dozen vampires spilling in the room with her through the windows, a few had started her way only to be blinding by the light. She screamed and let the spell go as she scrambled up. "Protego!" she got out as she ducked out of the way of an arm that didn't even touch her, it seemed to scrape off of a shield.

"Magic user!" one said. "She's a magic user!"

It was like a mad dash for her. Willow felt a few hands get past her shield as she struggled to reach the doorway. There were a few grunts behind her and something hit the wall as a hand caught her ankle. "Reducto!" she cried out and the vampire screamed as it was dusted.

"Watch where you're aiming, Will!" Buffy said in the darkness as more vampires fought.

"Buffy?" Willow got out as one vampire hit her hard and she was slammed back into one of the crumbling walls. Her chest stung as she sat up.

"A little light couldn't hurt though," Buffy told her from the darkness. There were dark figures all over the place.

Willow thought of light and a blue flame appeared in her hand as she stayed against the wall, her head hurt really bad. She watched as Buffy fought with a large male vampire, she did a double front kick snapping his head back hard crashing him into the wall. Then she flipped over to ram a stake into another male vampire running up behind her. Buffy spun around in a high wheel kick and took the first vampire out against a broken table leg. Coming down she did a high snap kick to one male vampire then whirled into a roundhouse kick at a female one flipping it over onto the floor. It scrambled up and took off with the three others that were left. Buffy came over to look at her.

"Bad week?" Buffy asked looking at the back of Willow's head and came out with blood on her fingers. "This looks bad."

"Not the hospital," Willow whispered. "Agent Coltrane will come."

"Giles can help," Buffy said. "We – you need to tell him. You can't do this anymore, not here."

Buffy helped Willow along the street and Willow just leaned against her as they slowly made their way to Giles's apartment.

"How did you- know?" Willow asked.

"I saw you the other night and followed you. That's what I wanted to talk to you about last week," Buffy said.

Willow looked to the small courtyard at Giles's place; she'd never been there before. Buffy knocked taking a few moments before knocking again.

"Coming, I'm coming," they could hear Giles say. He opened the door and saw the two of them. "What's happened?" he asked as he hurried them inside.

"You know, girls out having fun on the town," Buffy said putting Willow down on the couch. "A little magic, a little vampire dusting and then someone gets hurt and not so much the fun time anymore."

Giles gave Buffy a look of annoyance and sat down on the coffee table to look at Willow. "Willow?" he asked as he took the dishtowel from his kitchen and pressed it to the back of her head and saw the blood.

Tears came, mostly from the pain but part of it from just everything. "I'm a bad person Giles," she told him.

"You are not Will," Buffy said sitting down by her.

Willow nodded wincing from moving her head. "I can do magic," she admitted to the librarian. "Not evil black wiccan kinds but wizarding – I'm a witch."

Giles looked to her a little confused at what that meant then to Buffy who nodded and told him what had happened last Friday with Amy and the scary guy. "Wills doesn't do that, Giles. She's a good witch, our witch."

"I don't particularly like you doing magic, Willow. Power corrupts, this will corrupt you," he said looking to the bowed head of a scared young woman. "Let me look at your head." He did and he nodded. "It's a light flesh wound, it will be okay, they have a tendency to bleed profusely, ice should help it."

Giles looked to his two young charges as he got some ice, aspirin and some water, Buffy by council command, Willow by her association with Buffy and his friendship with the young woman. He came back with the items and Willow took a few aspirin and then held the ice to her head and laid gingerly back on it before he spoke. "I know you wish to continue your- hobby, Willow. But it might be in your best interest if you did not," he told her honestly.

Buffy gave him a look. "Have you seen her do this stuff Giles? She's really good." She stopped. "Other than the whole Amy and vampire thing which wasn't her fault, but she's good."

Giles stood up and looked to them both taking his glasses off. "I'm sure she is, but as I stated before. Power corrupts and magic is immense power –."

"There are others who can do it," Willow told him. "Amy's mom was one, but she lost her wand, so she turned to black magic."

"What?" Giles asked looking confused. "A-a wand you say?"

"Freaky isn't it?" Buffy said. "Whole bunch of them and they all use wands."

"What?" Giles stated again not understand. "What bunch of them?"

Willow looked his way; he didn't know what she was talking about. "A couple of years ago, I found a place in New York that was all witches – well men and women witches, they called it the wizarding world. No one else could see it and they didn't seem evil," she told him. Buffy nodded with her meaning she was totally on Willow's side.

Giles watched them for a long minute. Neither of them looked like it was a joke. How did he get stuck having to defend his wisdom over the whims of two teenage girls? He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Dear god," he muttered.

oooooooooo

Willow sat in the school library looking at a hyena video. Xander was to the side in the cage the library had pacing around and looking angry. They had found out why he was being so mean. Apparently she had taken the job of watching over her hyena possessed friend while Buffy and Giles tried to figure out how to get him back to normal. She also learned that he and the pack had eaten a pig, whole and raw, gross. And that the others, not Xander, had eaten Principal Flutie. Double gross.

Giles had spent the night before quizzing her about what she could do, even berating her a little over stealing spell books from Catherine Madison, though Buffy felt she was justified seeing how evil the woman really was and that she was going to switch with Willow's body if they hadn't of stopped her. Then he let it go telling her that he still didn't like the idea of her casting but what was he going to do about it? He couldn't stop her. Just warn her.

"Willow," Xander the hyena boy called out.

"I'm not listening," she told him. He probably just wanted to be mean to her again.

"Wiillllooww," a voice drawled out.

"Shut up Xander!" Willow said looking back at him to see him glaring at her.

"Wiiilllloooww," the voice said again. It wasn't Xander.

Willow stood up and looked around the large room as Xander watched the windows. Willow slowly looked to see Kyle and one of the girls looking back through them with scary grins on their faces. She screamed as they kicked in the windows and climbed in. The other two of their pack following them in, Xander began to pound on the cage door laughing that horrible hyena laugh and the others joined in.

"Incarcerous!" Willow said pointing to Kyle. Ropes formed and bound him together. The girls went to him as the other boy continued to advance on her. "Levicorpus!" she said pointing at him. He was flung up into the air upside down and he clawed at his pants to get free growling as Xander began to fling himself at the door of the cage. None of them were happy now.

Willow backed up towards the door as it opened. She screamed jumping around to face whatever else was coming. It was Buffy and Giles. All of them looked Buffy's way. "That's not good," Buffy said and Giles hustled both of them out of the door and down the hallway to regroup.

"They're going to keep coming," Giles said. "They will want to feed."

"On the weak right?" Willow said making a face, she was weak and they all knew it.

"You showed them, right?" Buffy told her. "Stopped them."

"We're going to need to get them back to the zoo to undo all of this," Giles said.

"And before their next meal. So that would be me," Buffy replied.

"Individually they are as strong as you," Giles said.

"Together-," Willow started looking at her friend and the danger she was truly in.

"I won't let that happen," Buffy told her. They heard the metal of the cage squeal as it was bent. "They're stupider though, you two go to the zoo, I'll get them there."

oooooooooo

Willow paced nervously outside the path to the hyena pens at the zoo. Giles had gone in to talk to the zookeeper while she was the early warning system. She stilled when she heard it, that laugh, a laugh that would haunt her dreams. She ducked under the tape and ran for the hyena house. She came in to see a magic circle drawn on the floor and she could hear the hyena's in the pit below.

"Giles?" she called out. He wasn't there. "They're almost here. Giles?" She saw the zookeeper, he was wearing some weird robe and had face paint on. "Are the hyena's ready?" she asked.

He nodded. "They are. In the feeding area." Willow went to look but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "They haven't been fed in a while."

"Where's Giles? They're coming," she told him.

"He's… laying in wait," the zookeeper told her as he brought out a piece of rope.

She looked from him to the doorway. "They're almost here. Shouldn't you bring the hyenas out?"

He came over to her and held her wrists up and put the rope around them. "When the time is right. I'm gonna need your help." He tied her wrists together.

"They're right behind me," Buffy yelled out from the pathway.

"There's Buffy!" Willow said looking to the zookeeper. "Get ready!" The zookeeper put her in front of him and drew out a big bowie knife and held it to her throat, her eyes going wide at that. "What's this?" she asked.

"A predatory act, remember?" he told her.

"Uh right," she got out her eyes not leaving the big knife so close to her throat. "You'll pretend to slash my throat and- and put the evil in the hyenas."

"Something like that," he said putting it a little closer.

Willow felt ill and stupid as everything connected in her mind. Buffy ran in a little winded from the chase they had led her on. "Buffy, it's a trap!" she called to her friend.

Xander ran through and jumped Buffy hauling them both to the ground inside the drawn circle. The other four of the pack ran in and the fight began.

"Yu ba ya sa na!" the zookeeper called out.

The five in the pack looked his way and their eyes flashed green then the zookeeper's eyes flashed the same green. He growled as he dropped the knife and grabbed Willow's head and yanked it to the side his teeth going for her neck. She cried out in pain, her head tender from the other night and now this.

"Willow!" Xander called out.

Willow went down in a tumble with the zookeeper and Xander. Willow watched as the zookeeper and Xander got up but the zookeeper hit Xander hard making the young man fall onto his butt. The pack had gotten off of Buffy and the Slayer fought off the zookeeper's charge at her seeing her as the enemy. She knocked him down, he got up again as Xander came over to Willow. Buffy knocked the zookeeper down again. Willow saw Kyle and his group quietly scramble out of the hyena house looking terrified.

The zookeeper growled at Buffy once again and she got under him this time and hoisted him up and into the hyena pit. There were howls as hands held onto the edge of the pit trying to get out. They were yanked off and Willow shivered at the sound of flesh and bones tearing up what was the zookeeper for dinner. Xander untied her wrists as Buffy sat down next to them exhausted.

Giles came out clutching the back of his head. "Did I miss it?" he asked. The three teenagers looked his way.

oooooooooo

Xander walked with his two best friends as they headed up the stairs to class the next day with Giles following them.

"I hear that the vice principal is going to take over until they can hire a replacement," Willow told them.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Buffy said then looked to them her brow furrowing, "unless they ask what happened to the last one."

"I had nothing to do with that, right?" Xander asked worriedly.

"Oh, right," Buffy told him and she looked to Willow

"You only ate the pig," Willow informed him.

Xander smiled weakly at them. "As in crispy, crunchy bacon?" The girls shook their heads. "Oh gross!" he said covering his face in horror. "I ate a pig? Not to mention the whole trichinosis issue!"

"Well it wasn't really you," Buffy said.

"I remember going to the hyena house then waking up there with Willow and a knife to her throat," he told them.

"You saved me," Willow said happy to have nice, sweet, Buffy crazed Xander back.

He grinned at this. "Nobody messes with my Willow," he told her hugging her. "I didn't do anything else stupid, did I?" he asked.

Buffy and Willow looked to each other then shook their heads. "Nah." "Not at all." They replied.

"Good!" Xander said in relief.

"Come on," Buffy told Willow. "We're going to be late." They headed off and Willow looked back.

"See you at lunch," she told him before they went through the doors into the school.

"Goin' vegetarian," he replied to her as Giles looked to him.

"In all my books on animal possession it doesn't mention memory loss," Giles informed them.

The smile was gone and the horrible truth was there. Xander looked to Giles. "Did you tell them anything?"

Giles shook his head. "Your secret dies with me," he replied and left him.

"Shoot me, stuff me, mount me," he muttered. He looked dejected as he headed off for his own classes. He remembered it all. It was awful how he treated Willow and tried to mate with Buffy. What was really hard was remembering Willow in the library stopping the others with magic spells. When did she learn this? More importantly is why didn't she ever tell him and how long would it take for her to fess up to him?

oooooooooo

Rack was bored; he sat in his lair watching Amy dance around in a haze of black magic overload. He shook his head at this, she was a fool. At least her mother had ambition to use what he traded for. Well, she'd be a good underling. He looked at her again. And she wasn't bad looking.

He felt someone new come into his waiting room. An old magic flowed in this one's veins. He got up but the door flew inward. He looked to see a pretty, dark headed woman in her late twenties look his way. "Interesting, not many witches can open my door," he told her.

"A warning to you, black death," she told him as she stepped in.

He raised an eyebrow at the name. "Black death, I like it."

"You shouldn't," she replied holding up a talisman made from a large coin carved with stars and some symbol in it, it looked old.

"What are you going to do with that?" he asked snorting out a laugh.

Amy came over. "Pretty," she said looking at it with glazed eyes as she looked to the woman. "Ms. Calendar."

Ms. Calendar's eyes narrowed seeing what had happened to the girl. She grabbed the Amy's arm and pulled her out but Amy fought with her and went back to Rack's side and the dealer smiled. "Can't keep the pretty ones away," he told her. "What about you? You want a taste?"

"Hardly," Ms. Calendar told him. "I want you to stay away from Willow Rosenberg."

Rack smirked. "Strawberry? No. That one's mine, her power is so sweet."

"You've been warned, stay away from her," Ms. Calendar reminded him.

"Or what?" he asked pointing at the coin she held up. "You think you're going to stop me with that?"

"Yes," Ms. Calendar replied matter of factly. "Redimio vox of malum unus," she started to say.

"Oh shit!" Rack got out as the talisman began to glow.

"Macero quod fade ut meus cruor dico. Sic is vadum exsisto," she said as he began to form magic to counter it.

Rack grasped at his throat and thrashed about knocking Amy over as he collapsed to the floor. His magic faded and so did the color in his skin until he was translucent. It was almost as if he had the life sucked out of him.

Ms. Calendar swallowed as she rested against the doorframe looking like it had taken a lot out of her but she cleared any weakness from her face and came over to him, grabbing his stringy hair she forced him to look her way. "If you look at her, talk to her, touch her, I will curse you in the name of the Kalderash. I curse you to fear the name of Willow Rosenberg. Believe me, you really won't like it." She left him.

He rested there feeling so weak it was worrying. Damn witches.

Ms. Calendar appeared outside of his lair, the secret entrance faded, the black magic dealer's power weakening. She stumbled to her knees and threw up. It took her ten minutes to get the strength to pick herself up and head for her car.

oooo

Translation: Bind the powers of the evil one. Weaken and fade as my blood calls. So it shall be.

To Be Continued…