“Buffy! To your left!” comes a feminine voice from beyond.
The Slayer looks left to see a demon child with yellow snakes for hair getting launched out the door of a nearby building and into the crowded London street where she stands. Buffy lunges forward, knocking in to people before holding out her arms to catch the child. The demon thwumps into her grasp and Buffy gets a closer look.
She, or at least, Buffy thinks she's a she, opens her mouth and speaks frantically — but her language is foreign to the Slayer, and sounds like a series of clock ticks and seatbelt clicks. When the demon girl sees that Buffy will be no help, the snakes in her hair start to bite at Buffy's neck. The Slayer drops her and the demon runs off down the street, disappearing into the crowd.
Only one passerby seems to have caught the quick exchange, and her mouth hangs open. Buffy shrugs (consoling humans is not her problem right now) and purses her lips in disdain as the creature flees. She narrows her eyes at the door in which the child was expelled and speaks to her witchy friend Willow through telekinesis.
“Will, is this the place?” Buffy thinks.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Willow thinks back. “You have the Magia Marmore to make the trade?”
The Slayer reaches into her pocket and feels the small iron ball that the Scoobie Gang had searched to the ends of the Earth for (literally, they nearly fell off). She pulls it out and turns it over in her fingers while she walks to the entrance. It has small etchings of what appear to be Latin. Buffy can’t believe she recognizes the language; she never pays attention when the gang researches stuff.
“Yeah, I've got it,” Buffy thinks.
“Get the helmet. It’s really valuable so he’ll probably try to con you and give you a fake. Make sure it has the gold cross etched in the inside,” Willow thinks. “It’s the only way; we need it to save the world. There’s no room for error. Oh! And no pressure, Buffy. Have fun.”
Buffy looks at the sign above the door that reads, “Smith Black’s Blacksmithery,” and sees the sign hanging on the door below it that says, “GO AWAY, WERE CLOSED.” A modern day blacksmith? Buffy shakes her head. This demon really doesn’t know how to blend in.
She opens the door and walks into what appears to be a room from the 1700s. The place is dark save for the gray light from outside trickling in from the small front windows, and the hot coals in the furnace cast an orange glow. She slips the iron ball back into her pocket and puts her hands on her hips, looking around.
“Hello?” Buffy says. “Anybody home? I’ve got your magic ball.”
“Look, I caught your demon launching show,” Buffy said, running her fingers over the wall of pokers and tools. “Literally, I caught her. So let’s cut this hide and seek crap and play tag instead.”
“Poke,” an elderly voice whispers from behind her. “You’re it.”
Buffy feels a sudden stinging sensation followed by the feeling of being scorched in the small of her back. She cries out and whips around to see a short, old man with an iron ball for one eye and an empty socket for the other. He turns a hot poker over in his hands and clucks his tongue.
“We’re closed,” he says. “Why don’t you little girls ever mind the signs?”
The iron ball in his right eye swirls around and he chuckles.