Shortly after they escaped yet another one of Buffy's speeches, their peace and quiet was disturbed by Andrew scampering down the basement stairs. He asked if he could include Spike in his little film, and Spike, reluctantly, agreed.
Removing the cigarette from between his lips, Spike turned around and spotted Andrew videotaping him. "I thought I told you to piss off with this bloody camera!" He yelled at him. "Yet, here you are again with that thing in my face. Would you sod off—" he flicked his cigarette butt at Andrew, "before I rip your throat out and eat—"
"Okay, Spike, the light was kind of behind you." Andrew interrupted.
Spike glanced around himself for a moment. "Oh, right. Uh, what? Is this better then?" He asked, repositioning himself. " With the go-ahead from Andrew, Spike started over for, the beginning: "I thought I told you to piss off with this bloody camera, yet here you are again with that thing in my face. Would you sod off?"
Hel stood behind Andrew, her arms folded across her chest and an amused smirk on her lips.
Spike caught her gaze, smiling sheepishly.
"Okay, I think we've got it." Andrew declared, lowering the camera. "Thanks, Spike." He gushed, beaming up at him.
"Yeah, whatever." Spike strode past him dismissively, over to the staircase. "Now, seriously, sod off."
Hel uncrossed her arms and shoved her hands into the front pockets of her rolled-up jeans. She crossed the room, the cement floor cool beneath her bare feet, and followed Spike up the steps.
"Yes, sir!" Andrew called after him, raising his hand to his forehead in a salute.
Upon reaching the landing at the top of the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder at her and arched an eyebrow. "Sir."
Once they were in the kitchen, he turned around and took a step closer to her. He tilted his head slightly to one side, and a suggestive smirk crept across his lips as he slid a hand onto the curvature of her hip. "Why don't you ever call me sir?" Spike asked her, in that irresistible, gravelly tone of his that she loved.
"Because you're not the boss." She stated matter-of-factly, crossing her arms. "I am."
"Is that so?" He rasped softly, his low voice taking on a sensual quality.
"Oh, definitely." She crooned, smiling smugly up at him.
Without another word on the matter, Hel manoeuvred around him and strolled into the dining room. Spike was close behind her.
She pulled out a chair, taking a seat at the nearest end of the table.
He sat down directly across from her. "So, I'm curious. I've seen that little magic trick with the flame— but is there anything else you can do?"
Resting her elbows on the table, she leaned in closer. "Any requests?"
He mirrored her forward inclination. "Surprise me."
Her eyes shone with mischief, and pushed out her chair to stand. "Like this?"
A ripple of luminescence materialised, gradually rolling down her in waves. Her hair lightened, from blackest ebony to a rich chestnut brown with honey-blonde highlights, and shortened by a few inches. Her black, long-sleeved T-shirt was swapped for a white white V-neck with short sleeves. Before his very eyes, her irises also changed colour— from one moonstone silver and one emerald green to identical shades of bright hazel.
A sound of disbelief escaped his parted lips, his incredulous gaze fixated on her. "Bloody hell."
She smiled crookedly, pleased with his reaction. "What do you think?"
"Holy crap." Willow uttered from the opening into the front foyer, eyes wide as she clutched her laptop.
Hel turned her head, regarding her calmly.
Willow strode further into the room and set her laptop carefully down on the table. "I had no idea you practiced magic. How did you learn such advanced spells?"
"My father taught me many illusions when I was a child." Hel replied smoothly. With a shimmering flash of green-tinged gold, three duplicated images of her appeared beside her.
Willow's eyes widened, looking each duplicate up and down. "They're so realistic." She extended a hand, and her eyebrows rose as her fingers passed straight through the convincing façade.
Hel smirked, eyeing Willow with interest as she took a step closer to her. "Like what you see, red? They can be made corporeal, if you want to see for yourself just how realistic they are," she flirted boldly.
Blushing, Willow took a half-step backward, flustered. She cleared her throat. "This spell in particular could be very useful." She remarked quickly, attempting to re-direct the conversation.
All three apparitions vanished.
Tentatively, Willow met Hel's gaze. "You're very... skilled."
"It runs in the family." In the blink of an eye, her altered appearance reverted to normal.
Willow, Spike, and Hel were invited by Kennedy to join a meeting being held in the living room. Andrew sat on a chair, surrounded, while Buffy, Spike, Hel, Kennedy, Willow, and Principal Robin Wood stared him down.
"I don't want to do this anymore. Everyone's staring at me." Andrew simpered.
"Just focus on the charm." Willow demanded, holding a large, glowing orange crystal in front of his face. "You have to focus on the charm to pull the memories out."
"Tell us about the seal." Principal Wood pressed.
"But it tickles, and I'm all tense." Andrew complained. "Can't I have a cool, refreshing Zima?"
"No Zima." Buffy said sternly, arms folded across her chest.
"Shut your face about the Zima." Spike ordered. "Just talk."
"You were the first one to uncover the seal and feed it blood. How did you know it was there? How did you know what to do?" Buffy questioned him, her stance interrogatory.
"I-I don't know, stuff happened." Andrew shrugged. "I forget."
"So remember." Kennedy interjected curtly. "Look at the charm."
"But I— I'm not part of this." Andrew evaded. "I document. I don't participate. I'm a detached journalist, recording with a neutral eye."
"Andrew!" Buffy snapped. "Stop it, or I'm going to smash this camera over your head. Actually, I'm gonna do that anyway, so you might as well talk."
"Stop going off topic." Willow added firmly.
"I wasn't off topic." Andrew said in his defence, "It's gonna get relevant in a second, because Jonathan's gonna go to the bathroom."
And so, Andrew resumed his rather melodramatic, most likely embellished story of how the First appeared to him in the image of his dead friend and killer Warren, convincing him to set his plan into motion and eventually murder Jonathan in cold blood.
"Wait a second." Willow interrupted. "Go back. What was that part again?"
"You mean this part?" Andrew backtracked to his fantasy of frolicking in a field of flowers, dancing and singing with Jonathan and Warren.
"Not that part." Willow cut him off. "We need to see that knife."
"Hel, search his stuff." Buffy instructed. "Find the knife."
Hel didn't so much as twitch a muscle, raising her eyebrows at the audacity of Buffy thinking she could order her around like some common mortal.
"It's not in my stuff." Andrew intervened, "It's in the kitchen, in the cutlery drawer. You didn't have any steak knives."
"You put your old murder weapon in with our utensils?" Willow blurted, incredulous, while Kennedy left the room in search of the knife.
"I washed it." Andrew assured her.
"What are you looking for?" Spike asked Willow.
"He said the First said something about words, 'Drive the words deep into him'." Willow explained.
"There was some carving on the blade." Andrew confirmed. "I just thought it was a pattern."
Kennedy returned, knife in hand. "Found it." She handed it to Andrew.
Willow set her crystal down carefully on the coffee table behind her. "Okay, you're Mr. Demon-Summoner. How are you with demon languages?"
"Whoa, you were right." Andrew said softly, in awe as he examined the curved, wicked-sharp blade. "It's in Tawarick. It's, uh, like proto-Tawarick. It's really, really old."
"But, what's the big?" Remarked Kennedy.
"We never knew anything about this seal. Now, we know this knife and this language are connected to it somehow." Principal Wood answered.
"Andrew, do you speak Tawarick?" Willow asked hopefully.
"Yeah, I'm okay with it. It says: 'The blood which I spill, I consecrate to the oldest evil'." Andrew translated with ease.
"Creepy." Kennedy commented.
"Will, what's your thinking? You think you can do something with that?" Buffy inquired, taking a step forward.
Retrieving the ancient knife from Andrew, Willow inspected the gleaming blade thoroughly. "I— let me work on it."