Chapter 7 - Shopping Lists

"Well," Wesley said. "Dagmar von Hofmann is a real vampire, with that approximate date of origin, but Giles doesn't know about any of the others. However, the Scroll of Hecube is a well known piece of eschatological literature, and has been mentioned in commentaries for over a thousand years."

Ann said, "Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's real."

"What do you mean?" Wesley asked.

"This could be designed to deceive."

"Why?" Spike asked.

"Some immortals," Ann said, "get bored easily. They like to set humans up and watch them scurry around; and a hundred or two hundred years, or even longer, is not too long to wait for a good joke."

"What?"

"Spike, think of what fun the immortal you met earlier this summer would have planting something like this."

"I can't judge the quality of the writing in translation," Spike said, thinking of Barzilai, "but he certainly didn't strike me as a creator of deathless prose."

"He couldn't hire a hack?" Ann demanded.

"Yeah, he could. You're right."

"There's also misunderstood art work, narrative, fiction or sermons. Parables and metaphors are easy to misread. The most common misunderstanding is to assume that a recommended shift in one's mental state or point of view is really a universal prediction or a commandment."

"Do you mean to imply that those parts of some of the transcendental texts that can sound like a teenage girl's diary are..." Wesley voice trailed off.

"Are in fact, a teenage girl's diary, taken out of context." Ann smiled at the group. "That being said, I will also say Earth receives a number of what we might call `the message in a bottle' scroll. They pop through gates, float down from meteors, or the like, and may be spontaneously generated in the depths of the stacks of the oldest libraries."

"I thought so!" Wesley said.

"The most dangerous sort of scrolls, beyond the ones that promise to reveal the truth--"

"About what?"

"Anything--which end of the egg you should eat first, whether you should have 8 or 12 ribs in your umbrella. It doesn't really matter."

"How can you say that about truth?"

"If you are worried about which end of the egg to open, you may not notice that your child hates all eggs, or that you're keeping chickens in vile factory farms just to get the eggs. If you concentrate on the number of your umbrella's ribs, you may not notice that one of those ribs just poked another person in the eye or even that the sun is shining. Truth is fine, but frequently it's irrelevant. Anyway, the most dangerous scrolls of all have directions."

"Oh," Spike said.

"And this one," Wesley said, taking the top paper from Spike as the white haired vampire finished with it and started to put it face down on the table, "starts out with a list of materials or ingredients; or maybe tools, I'm not sure."

"And just when it would be helpful for Adan to use those sloppy code names of his, he switches over to single words: Ruby, knife, egg," Ann said, taking another paper as Spike finished with it.

"Maybe it's just a shopping list," Cordelia offered.

Ann nodded. "Very possibly."

"Vase, thunderstrike," Spike looked up from the sheet he was reading. "There's another knife over here. Same one?"

"What's this part?" Cordelia asked. "The numbers and letters?"

"Standard latitude and longitude. Huh. East longitude only goes up to single digits," Ann said.

"And 30 North to 60 North," Spike said, looking over her shoulder.

"While," Gunn said, looking over Ann's other shoulder, "going the other way, the numbers stop at 130 West."

"And those numbers are paired with 60 South to 50 North," Ann said.

"Which means?" Cordelia asked.

"Western Europe: England, most of France, maybe all of Spain and Portugal," Spike said.

"Both Americas," said Ann, "Rather broadly defined."

"Is this a list of thing Adan intends to steal?" Wesley asked.

"It may be," Konrad said.

"And the little check marks?" Gunn asked.

"Things he's got?" Spike said.

"I don't know," the shifter said.

"Diamond, sapphire and emerald. Those are nice," Cordelia said.

"And these are dates?" Spike asked. "These three and four digit numbers? What are they, years? Inventory numbers?"

"This is incomplete," Ann said.

"Adan may have the complete scroll," Konrad said.

"And at the very least," Wesley said, "he will probably have another copy of the list."

"But you said that this may be fake," Cordy said. "If it's fake, why worry?"

"Ah, Cordy," Gunn said.

"Yes," Wesley said. "It is true that the world may not be endangered, but Adan seems to think that the scroll is authentic, and is attempting to acquire the items."

"Yes," Ann said. "The world may not be endangered, but if Adan pursues all these items in his incredibly elephantine way, even the most oblivious humans may notice him, which would be bad for all of us, not to count the collateral damage."

"This may be real," Konrad said. "Adan is very confident. The world may really be endangered."

Ann looked at him, a cool amused stare. "It may," she agreed mildly. "Do you know Adan's schedule? When is he planing on ending the world?"

"I don't know," Konrad said. "There maybe still time to stop him, but you should not delay too much."

"How is Dru helping?" Spike asked.

"You know her? You're friends with her?" Konrad asked, displaying a new wariness.

"She turned me, about sixty years after Arval turned you. What?" Spike demanded, eyeing the listig. "Oh. She probably couldn't resist that pretty boy look of yours. She's played with you, hasn't she? She can be inventive."

"Adan wants to keep her happy, but sometimes he is not in the mood for all her little inventions."

"I thought you liked them," Drusilla said, from the double doors leading to the garden.

Konrad grew very still.

Chapter 8

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