Buffy scanned the landscape. "I don't see anything. What was he doing?"
"Might have been a scout. But how the hell they could have found us--" A jarring pothole knocked him off balance. He caught himself against the window, then yanked his hand back, swearing.
"Are you all right?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, yeah." He shook his hand, which was smoking just a little, then put a couple of fingers in his mouth. "Where the hell did the bastard go," he muttered, peering out the window.
Buffy stared at him. Would the old Spike, the pre-chip Spike, have dismissed a brush with sunlight so simply? Would that Spike have come on such a dangerous trip? But that Spike had come to her, his mortal enemy, in the first place to propose an alliance against Angelus.
A wise Slayer, one who had read and learned the handbook, would slip out that stake that was nestled in her sleeve and slam it into the back of the vampire who was paying more attention to what was outside the windows than to anything else, especially the Slayer at his back. It was a little insulting, being that dismissed Slayer. Sure, she wasn't supposed to know he was fully back in the game, but he didn't have to make such a point of the fact that he trusted her . . .
He looked over his shoulder and caught her watching him. He started to smirk, but it faded. "What?"
"Manchester United and dog racing, right? That's why you're here?"
He met her eyes easily. "No. You know why I'm here." He looked at her a moment longer, then headed back up the aisle. "It was one of those Knights all right, Ripper. How could they have tracked us?"
With much rustling and muttering, Giles sat up between the seats, wincing slightly at the brighter light. "They do have magical resources, but they're determinedly anti-technology. They couldn't possibly have kept up with us, even if they had known where we were going. And I only thought of it--" He glanced at his watch "--a bit over twelve hours ago."
Willow turned over the back of her seat to join the conversation. "There's divination, scrying. They might have read the future."
Giles frowned. "True divination requires a great deal of power."
"Could you have done it?" Buffy asked Willow, who thought a moment, then shrugged.
"Does it matter how they did it?" Spike said. "They're here, they're onto us. What do we do?"
Xander had been splitting his attention between the road and the debate. "Mark this down as a sure sign of apocalypse, but I agree with bleach-for-brains. What do we do?"
"How much farther?" Giles asked.
"According to the directions you gave me, another three miles."
Giles looked at Buffy. "I say we keep going. The place has walls, and the Knights may respect its sanctuary."
She shrugged. "I don't have any other ideas. We keep going, Xander." He nodded and put all his attention back on the road.
Willow frowned at Giles. "If this is holy ground, won't you and Spike have trouble?"
"I don't think so. It might be uncomfortable in their chapel, what with the crucifix and such, but the grounds themselves should be safe." He glanced at Spike for confirmation.
"Never stopped me," Spike said. "And the poof quite enjoyed strolling convent grounds. He'd challenge me to see if I could get as close the altar as he could." He remembered his audience. "Though that's probably not something that we want to discuss where we're going."
"No," Buffy agreed. "Probably not." She went back up to sit behind Dawn and her mother.