VISITORS

by Laura Anne Gilman

“I have never in my life said ‘afoot,’” Giles retorted.

  “Okay, so now we know what it is,” Cordelia said so suddenly that everyone else started. Putting down her book, she glanced expectantly about at the others. “How do we make it go away? Because, you know, if it keeps hanging around, it’s going to start killing people. They always do.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Buffy woke slowly, hearing something screaming at her . . . no, it wasn’t a scream, just the stupid alarm beeping away. She reached out blindly, fumbling, missing, finally hitting home, to shut it off.

  Morning already? Way not fair.

  She had kept waking up every hour or so, sure someone was giggling outside her window—but there’d never been anyone there. And then, when she’d finally gotten some real sleep, she’d dreamed that some shadowy, faceless creature was chasing her, cackling madly. And when it caught up with her, it jumped on her back as she ran, then morphed into Xander with a quill pen, the kind with the long purple feather attached to it. And the feather had tickled the soles of her feet, making her twitch, and she’d started laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

  That was seriously bizarre. But not prophetic—just pepperoni.

  One of these days, she’d learn to take Pepto before they ordered from Genero’s.

  Getting out of bed, she stretched and groaned. What was today again? Friday, right. For some other girls, Friday might mean the end of the week, time to relax and get ready to party. For the Slayer, Fridays were kickboxing practice. Buffy shook her head at the thought. This time she would really try not to do any more damage to her Watcher than was absolutely necessary. If Giles landed in the emergency room with a concussion again this year, he was going to seriously lose his health insurance.

  So. Shower. Brush teeth. Morning stuff. Buffy snagged her robe off the hook on the back of the door and was about to head for the bathroom when her gaze fell on the textbooks sitting, unopened, on her desk.

  Friday.

  Math test.

  “Oh no!”

  The telephone rang at an ungodly hour of . . . Giles stared blearily at the clock . . . seven A.M. Watchers, like their Slayers, tended to be night owls from necessity, so it was a very unhappy Rupert Giles who fumbled for the phone, barely managing to wake up by the time the receiver made it to his ear.

  “Yes? Hello?”

  “Good morning, Ripper. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Suddenly, the phone joined the computer and the VCR on the list of evil inventions designed to make Rupert Giles’s life miserable.

  “What do you want, Ethan?”

  “What, I can’t just call and see how—”

  The patently false hurt in his former friend’s voice was more than Giles could take this early in the morning. He reined in his temper with an effort and closed his eyes, still holding onto the receiver. “No. You can’t,” he replied, biting off the words. “What do you want, Ethan?”

  “Just wanted to let you know that I was going to be in town for a few days. See if we could get together, have a few drinks, maybe talk about the good old days . . .”

  “When hell freezes over, Ethan.” And with that, he dropped the receiver back into its cradle and fell back onto the bed.

  If he could have put Ethan and the vampire Spike in a room together, locked the door, and then conveniently lost the key, at that moment he would have done it. Without remorse.

  Groaning, Giles forced himself to sit up and push the covers away. Ethan’s merely trying to shake you up, he tried to convince himself. He wouldn’t dare come back to Sunnydale. Not with Buffy still actively looking to . . . what had been her words? Oh yes, “kick him until he bleeds.”

  The memory made him smile. While occasionally impetuous, and regrettably prone—as all Slayers were—to using violence before words, Buffy did have an instinctive grasp for what the Americans called “frontier justice.” Quite poetic, really . . .

  Just then, the alarm clock began to shrill. Giles reached across the bed and slammed it into silence. Time, like it or not, to once again become Sunnydale High School’s one-and-only school librarian.

  But, he thought to himself as he got out of bed, just because Ethan has always been a coward, there was no reason not to take precautions. Perhaps he would make a check of the local hotels and motels, just to make sure his old friend hadn’t decided to take the risk . . .

  Willow glanced sideways at her friend as they walked down the school hallways, sliding through the noisy crowd like seasoned veterans of the mass chaos called period change. “So, I shouldn’t ask?”

  “You shouldn’t ask,” Buffy agreed glumly.

  Willow’s face fell. “But, I gave you all the notes, and, and . . .”

  “And I’m sure they were good notes.”

  “Buffy. You didn’t study?”

  Buffy winced. She could face blood-hungry vampires, but a disappointed Willow was cruel-and-unusual punishment. “I know, I know. And I was doing so well on this school thing, wasn’t I? But I was busy. Slaying. Watching for lurking gigglers. Kind of filled up my night, you know?”

  Willow nodded her understanding. “Did it show? The giggler?”

  “Nope.” Buffy brightened. “But I did get this really weird chickenlike thing that was crossing the road—”

  Willow looked at her friend. “A . . . chicken crossing the road?”

  “Chickenlike thing, Will. Two feet tall, and teeth that weren’t going to be used on . . . whatever it is they feed chickens.”

  “Other dead chickens,” Willow supplied with scientific interest. “Ground up.”

  Buffy stopped short. “Will? Don’t share this stuff with me, okay?”

  Willow was used to the others not sharing her admittedly off-kilter interests. “Okay. Oh, I gotta go. I promised Mrs. Lee I’d stop by and explain that new database they’re making everyone use for grading.” She gave Buffy a quick smile. “One thing Snyder’s ever done that doesn’t make our lives miserable—just the teachers. And I could make a fortune, freelancing. Nobody’s got a clue how the system works, not even the guy who installed it.”

  “Now, Will. Those powers of yours should be used for good, not evil, remember? Um—how much money?”

  But the redhead had already disappeared.

  “Great. Back to hitting up Giles for loans, I guess. They’ve really got to reorganize, make the Slayer gig come with a paycheck.”

  Buffy breezed into the library, tossing her bag on the counter. “Hi, I’m home!”

  Giles, up near the stacks, looked up from the pile of books he was reshelving. “Oh. Hello, Buffy. I take it this is a, um, free period?”

  “Uh-huh. And so of course I thought I’d come spend it with my favorite school librarian.”

  “I’m the only school librarian,” he pointed out.

  “Details, details.” She waved it away airily, walking up the stairs to join him. “Don’t stomp on me, Giles, I’ve had a bad morning already.”

  “Oh dear. The math test?”

  “Uh-huh. Major no-go. Let’s move on to other, cheerier topics, okay?”

  “Indeed. How was the hunt last night?”

  “It might scare some people, Giles, that Slaying is what we consider a cheerier topic. And slow, that’s how it was. Oh, but I now know why the chicken crossed the road.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No, Giles, you’re supposed to say, ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’”

  “Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asked obediently.

  “To take a bite out of the Slayer.”

  Giles just . . . looked at her, as though unsure if he was supposed to laugh or not.

  “Not a joke. Big chicken thing, maybe two feet tall. Teeth, wings—the whole deal.”

  “Chicken don’t have teeth,” he began automatically, then froze. “Good heavens! That sounds very much like a basilisk!”

  “I didn’t stop to get its name, Giles.”

  “Yes, but Buffy, you didn’t let it meet your
gaze? No, of course not; you wouldn’t be here now if you had.” Giles settled his glasses more firmly on his nose and went directly to the shelf in the back where he kept all his personal faves. A Top One Hundred of all one ever needed to know about things that went bump in the Hellmouth. His voice came back through the walls of books, raised so she could hear him clearly. “A true beak? And what did its feet look like?”

  “Beak, check. I didn’t stop to count its toes, Giles. The thing was trying to have me for dinner. And not in the romantic way, either.”

  Giles had found his book, and was hunting busily through its pages so quickly that the parchment rustled. “Aha, there. Did your, uh, chicken look anything like that?”

  Buffy glanced at the blurry woodcut, then shrugged. “Kind of. Things were happening pretty fast.”

  “Still. I do wish that you would remember to write down the details of any new creatures you encounter. You never know when something is going to turn out to be quite important, and if—”

  “Oh goody. Tiresome speech about duty and responsibility coming up?”

  That stopped him. “Erm, yes. Tiresome speech about duty and responsibility.”

  “Right. I’ll go get the popcorn.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I thought so. Hey, Giles, could you loan me a twenty?”

  The Watcher sighed, removing his wallet and handing it to her with the air of a man who has done this so many times before, he’s not even going to bother protesting. But, being Giles, he just couldn’t let the moment go without a comment. “I don’t recall anything in my training that indicated it would be my duty to act as your banker, as well.”

  “Hey, if I could get a job that pays, I would. But you and my mom have this thing about me going to school and getting a couple of hours of sleep every day. That kind of cuts down on how many hours I can stand behind a cash register going, ‘Price check, please.’”

  “Yes, I know. It’s a terrible thing, to be dependent on such a pitiful allowance as your mother gives you.”

  “Okay, sarcasm heard and noted,” she said to his back as he went into his office to set down the book he had pulled aside. For further research, natch. By Monday, he’d know everything there was to know about two-foot-tall chickens, and if she was going to have to make soup out of it or not.

  Sighing at the unfairness that piled everything on her just as the weekend hit, she pulled out a twenty, wrinkling her nose slightly at the redesigned bill that looked like Monopoly money, and then did a double take, looking into the wallet again.

  “Giles? Why do you still have pound notes in here?”

  His voice, coming from his office as he continued a scholarly hunt, was muffled. “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  Placing the wallet on top of the book cart, Buffy went back down the stairs to put her bag under the counter. Security taken care of, Buffy leaned against the counter, enjoying the relative peace and quiet. For once, the student teachers who had pretty much adopted the library weren’t gathered in a bunch, giggling and whispering like . . . like a bunch of teenagers.

  “Gee, wonder if they’re actually, you know, teaching a class?”

  But even as she thought that, the door swung open, bringing with it the usual chatter and clatter from the outside hallway. Great, there goes her quiet time with Giles. And so much for the great chicken roundup.

  Braced for Invasion of the Student Teachers, Part Two, she turned to give them all a piece of her mind.

  The newcomer wasn’t a student teacher. It was a man, maybe a little older than Giles. Dark-skinned, silver-haired, wearing a nice suit—good quality, but not too expensive, her mind automatically categorized. He carried a silver-headed cane, which was currently tapping against the side of his leg, emphasizing the razor crease in his slacks.

  “Can I help you?” Giles would have been proud of her; she was being polite. But something about this guy was setting off alarms.

  Or maybe you’re just flipping out on anything new? Xander’s right, you are starting to lose it. Calm down and give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

  “I am looking for Rupert Giles?” His voice rose at the end of the sentence, as though he was asking a question. And there was the faint hint of an accent that she couldn’t place.

  Okay. Friend? Or old problem showing up at a really bad time? Giles, we have got to get a list from you sometime—y’know, friends who are okay, friends who need our help, friends who are really evil psychopaths in disguise . . .

  “He’s in his office.”

  “Ah. And you would be Buffy, yes?”

  Okay, so that answers that question . . . maybe. “I’m Buffy, yeah. And you are?”

  “Forgive me. My name is Gerald Panner.”

  “And you’re, what, an old college bud of Giles?”

  “College . . . ah. No. We have . . . worked together before. I am a researcher. And Rupert has been most helpful in the past. So, being in the area, I thought I would, as the saying goes, look him up.”

  “Panner.”

  They both turned to see Giles coming out of his office, a small, red-bound journal in hand. He didn’t look happy to see the newcomer.

  “You received my letter, yes? So I am not a total surprise?”

  “I received the letter.”

  Buffy sensed Go-Away-Buffy vibes in the air. Strong ones. And Giles was always griping about her not working hard enough on her other senses.

  “Okay. So, you guys have lots to catch up on, right? Old books to reminisce about, all that stuff. So I’ll just go now . . .”

  “Yes.” Giles didn’t even glance at her. “Why don’t you go home, Buffy? We will continue our discussion tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, Giles. Weekend, remember? I’ll call if anything comes up.”

  “Yes, fine. Until later, then.”

  “Right. Not wanted. Leaving.”

  But she was already talking to herself.

  Giles busied himself for a while in his office, clearing papers from a chair so that Panner could sit down, piling books more neatly on the desk and floor. Stalling. Knowing he was stalling. But—

  “Rupert.”

  “I’ll be right with you. Just have to see that this doesn’t—”

  “Rupert, please.”

  That was enough to get Giles’s attention. Rare for Panner to show any degree of humility.

  The newcomer moved further into the library, still holding his cane still at his side. “I am asking you to—what is the phrase? Yes, cut me some slack. I’m not here to cause you any discomfort. I am merely here as a researcher. Taking notes, as they say, by which future generations may learn.”

  “Research is a wonderful thing,” Giles retorted flatly. “Especially since it requires the impartial observer to do exactly that—just observe.”

  “Why, Rupert, what are you saying? I am not here as a threat, truly, nor as a disturbance. Not even as a warning.” Panner actually looked hurt. Or perhaps offended.

  “No. Of course not. An observer.” Giles knew his tone was harsh, but he couldn’t help the sarcasm that crept into it. He looked the Council representative—no, call it as you see it, the snitch—full in the eye for the first time and saw the man draw back ever so slightly. “Stay out of my way, Panner. Stay out of everyone’s way. I assure you, we will all be much happier if you do.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Battle of the Bands Fever!” screamed the sign over the Bronze’s door. “Open mike rehearsals today! Saturday afternoon special! Come early, come late! Music’s still gonna be great!”

  “Even if the poetry stinks,” Buffy said, leaning forward to read the list of bands scheduled. “Oz, you sure about this?”

  “Yep. Can’t tell the players without a scorecard.”

  “No, I mean, you guys had a rehearsal here last night. Do you really want to spend Saturday afternoon listening to—”

  “I think of it as penance for some really bad playing in a previous life,” he said, ta
king Willow by the arm and heading inside. With a glance at Xander, who shrugged, and Cordelia, who merely rolled her eyes as if to say, “musicians,” Buffy followed.

  Overkill or not, Saturday afternoon or not, the rest of Dingoes Ate My Baby were already in there, along with who-knew-how-many other bands—almost all of them taking notes about the sound, or jeering at their competition.

  “Battle of the Bands,” Buffy said under her breath as they grabbed a table off to the side of the stage. “Why does that phrase suddenly give me a bad case of Uh-Oh?”

  “Because we live on the Hellmouth?” Cordelia asked.

  Sometimes, Cordy really just made too much sense.

  Someone had finally managed to update the Bronze’s sound equipment. Or maybe they’d just finally kicked the amps in the right spot. Buffy leaned forward, trying to ignore the crowd around her and listening as critically as she could to the band currently onstage.

  They’re good, she thought with some dismay. Really good. Good enough that the noise level in the Bronze had toned down to where you could almost hear yourself talk without yelling.

  The lead singer, seriously cute, went for and actually hit a high note, then followed that triumph with a lightning-fast riff on his guitar. Buffy leaned back and sighed, and not because of the way his jeans fit. Well, not totally.

  Really good band, all right.

  And unfortunately, they weren’t Dingoes Ate My Baby. The White Star Express, and they’d already had more gigs, more paying gigs, than Dingoes, too.

  Beside her, Willow was looking more and more cheerful, in the desperate sort of way she had when things were going downhill. “You can play that riff better,” she assured Oz.

  He shrugged, classic Oz. “Guy’s not bad. The whole band’s not bad.”

  Xander snorted. “Yeah, but can you dance to it?”

  Cordelia, ever tactful, turned to Oz. “Aren’t you worried? I mean, they’re obviously better than you.”

  “Oh, way to go, Cordy,” Xander muttered under his breath, no longer wasting energy trying to clean up after Cordelia’s artlessly rude comments.