The Serengeti stretched out before Xander. The wildebeest were moving in the distance. It was a warm, sunny morning and there was no sign of the demon he was looking for, but a shiver ran down his back. He whispered to himself, "Something isn’t right here..."

In Rome, Buffy left her immortal lover lying in bed and went to look out the window. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

In a Rio nightclub, Willow stopped dancing.

"What’s wrong?" Kennedy asked.

Willow turned to her, eyes wide. "Somebody’s doing a spell, and we’re in it."

The cartoonist, chained to his desk, sketched the first lines across the enchanted paper. Reference snapshots labelled with post-its covered the bulletin board on the wall; many were long-distance surveillance photos, so blurry they were virtually useless. The cartoonist was sweating profusely. "Another hour," he promised. "In another hour they’ll all be trapped in the comic."

Ethan Rayne was only half listening. "Yes, yes," he said. "If any of them escape, you’ll die horribly." Smiling, he held a skimpy little nightie up to his chest. "But I might even let you have tea if you can get Buffy into this."