by Various
He might get thirsty, after all. There was no telling how long he’d be out there.
The longer the shapeshifter went unidentified, the greater the danger. It needed to be neutralized. Yesterday.
I’ve already let it get far too close to the Slayer, Giles thought.
There was no time for self-flagellation now, however. Wallowing had its uses, but they would simply have to wait.
Giles shouldered the bag, pulled his front door open and hurried down the front walk.
“Rupert Giles here —”
Jenny stood in her apartment, clutching the phone with suddenly sweaty fingers. She’d gotten the machine. Damn.
Was Rupert home and just not picking up? Was he at the library? Out patrolling?
Where?
“Rupert, it’s Jenny,” she said into the phone as soon as the message beep had ended. “I need you to call me right away. I may have some information about that thing that attacked us the other night.”
She heard a click, as if the message she was leaving was being interrupted. “Jenny?” Giles’s sleepy voice said.
Jenny felt relief shoot through her tired body. “Rupert, thank goodness you’re there,” she said. “Listen, I think we’ve got big trouble. That thing that attacked us the other night may have been —”
“— a shapeshifter,” Giles filled in.
“So you know,” Jenny said.
“Just figured it out this evening,” Giles said. “Are you up for helping, or are you too tired? Did you just get back?”
“Yes, no, and yes. In that order.”
“All right then,” Giles said. “This is what I want you to do.”
Jenny listened intently for a moment, trying to ignore the way her stomach was quietly folding itself into tighter and tighter knots.
“You’re sure about this?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Giles’s voice said. “It’s the thing that makes the most sense. And it’s not as risky as it sounds. I’ve asked Angel to meet me there.”
“If you say so,” Jenny finally agreed. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Excellent,” Giles said. “And Miss Calendar —”
“Ms. Calendar.”
“I’m glad you’re back.”
The line went dead. Jenny pressed the “off” button. Closed the mouth she suddenly discovered was hanging wide open.
In that order.
Then she headed for the door, and the rendezvous point Giles had given her.
Standing in Giles’s apartment, the shapeshifter smiled as he hung up the phone. He’d come here hoping the apartment might contain information on the whereabouts of the Slayer. If it did, he hadn’t found it. But the trip could hardly be considered wasted. Not after what he’d just accomplished.
“And that,” he murmured softly, as he flowed back into his own form. “Is the way we do that.”
The shifter let himself out of the Watcher’s apartment, locking the door carefully behind him.
What on earth am I doing here?
It was a question Giles had been asking himself for at least the last five minutes. Ever since it had become apparent that the most likely place for the shapeshifter to be hiding out was the last place Giles wanted to look.
The Master’s lair.
The quick sweep Giles had done of the locations he and Angel had agreed on had turned up nothing. No activity of any kind, not even of the juvenile delinquent variety. Giles was willing to bet Angel was discovering the same phenomenon in the places he’d agreed to check out.
That left just one location. The obvious one. The one right in front of him.
I do not want to go into that tunnel. I don’t want to see the place where Buffy lost her life.
And had been brought back because her friends had the courage to follow her, Giles reminded himself. An example he’d do well to emulate.
He could do anything Xander Harris could do. That he wanted to, of course.
Taking a deep breath, Giles started down into the tunnel.
The first thing he noticed was the cold.
The second was the wet. Water seemed to be seeping from everywhere. Weeping like dirty tears down the tunnel’s walls. Concrete first. Then, as Giles went lower, dirt.
Perhaps I should have included a snorkel in my bag of tricks, Giles told himself sarcastically.
Something on the floor of the tunnel caught his eye. Giles pulled out the flashlight and snapped it on. On the muddy surface of the tunnel floor before him, he could see a set of footprints, smaller than his own. They looked fresh.
Someone else is down here, he thought. And it didn’t look like Angel. Unless there were things Giles had never noticed about the vampire’s feet before.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the stake he’d tucked there within easy reach, and continued down.
Not much farther now.
The tunnel widened just ahead. Giles snapped the flashlight off. He didn’t really need it. The tunnels seemed to have their own illumination. He didn’t really want to think about how. But it did mean his light wouldn’t give him away.
Never look a gift stealth in the mouth.
He hesitated for a moment at the entrance to what appeared to be a large chamber, straining his ears for any sound.
Nothing. As in, well here goes.
Giles whipped around the corner. Encountered something solid. Raised the stake high.
“Rupert! No!” he heard a voice cry.
Slowly, Giles lowered the stake, his head swimming. “Jenny?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “When did you get back? What on earth are you doing here?”
“You told me to meet you here.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“You did, too,” Jenny insisted. “Just tonight, over the telephone. I told you there was a shapeshifter. You said you were glad I was back.”
“I know that, and I did no such thing,” said Giles. “Wait a moment. Let me clarify those statements.”
“So you know about the shifter,” Jenny interrupted.
Giles nodded. “I just put it together earlier tonight. Jenny, I’m sorry, but I most definitely did not speak with you on the telephone.”
“But that would mean —”
“Ms. Calendar,” a voice at Giles’s elbow said. “When did you get back?”
Giles jumped, then backed into the center of the cavern, pulling Jenny with him.
“Stay back,” he warned.
“Oh, for crying out loud, not this again,” Angel said.
“I know who I am,” Giles said. “But I don’t know who you are.”
“And I don’t know who you are,” Jenny said, shaking loose Giles’s grip on her arm. She put some distance between them. Now the three formed an uneven triangle with Angel as the point. “Either one of you could be the shifter,” Jenny remarked.
“In which case, Giles has just acquired the ability to become you,” Angel pointed out, indicating her arm.
“I have not.”
“Well, naturally you’d say that,” Angel said.
“This is completely ridiculous.”
Angel nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. I’d say we’ve got a stalemate.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said a voice from the far side of the cavern.
A second Angel stepped out into the light.
Instantly, Giles and Jenny moved closer together. At least that was one problem solved, Giles thought. Or . . .
“I’d say what we have is a trust exercise,” the second Angel went on. “Just how much does Giles really trust me?”
“I think you mean me,” the first Angel remarked.
“Why doesn’t he just give you the signal?” Jenny whispered.
“What signal?” Giles whispered back.
“What do you mean what signal?” Jenny answered, her tone rising slightly. “The one you guys must have worked out. When you knew it was a shifter. You did have a plan, didn’t you?”
“My title
is Watcher, not Planner,” Giles snapped.
But he knew that Jenny was right. He should have thought of this possibility. Should have been prepared for it. And because he hadn’t . . .
“Giles,” the first Angel spoke up as if he’d overheard the frantically whispered conversation. “How about this? Remember the time —”
“Stop!” Giles cried out. “Don’t tell it anything it doesn’t already know.”
“Very good,” Angel Number Two commented. He moved a little farther into the cavern, closing the distance between himself, Jenny and Giles. The two humans stood back to back now, each facing a vampire.
“You knew he wouldn’t let you finish, so it was safe to give that a shot.”
“If you say so,” the first Angel said. “Too bad we’ll never really know.”
“Visitors, how nice,” a new, powerful voice said. One that made Giles’s blood run cold.
Absalom?
As if things weren’t bad enough.
A vampire strode farther into the cavern until he stood opposite Jenny and Giles. Now the three of them formed a triangle, flanked by the twin Angels. Giles could feel cold sweat snake down into his eyes.
The number odds might still be in Team Slayer’s favor, but Absalom had placed himself so that there was no way Giles or Jenny could keep their eyes on Absalom and watch the Angels at the same time. They had to divide their focus.
Divide and conquer.
A tactic that definitely had a way of evening the odds.
“I have a score to settle with the two of you,” Absalom said. He took a gliding step forward. Giles swiveled his head to see if the Angel closest to him, Angel Number Two, had changed position. He hadn’t. So far.
“Evening it is going to give me a great deal of pleasure,” Absalom went on.
“Talk about things I’d rather think about another day,” Giles heard Jenny murmur under her breath. He felt a swift burst of emotion. He thought that it was pride. Jenny was actually reminding him of the Slayer, right at that moment. Even when things looked truly desperate, she didn’t back down.
“Too bad the Slayer’s not here,” Absalom continued as he took another step forward. “But her time will come.”
Angel Number Two took a sidling step toward Absalom. Giles felt his whole body tense in reaction as a wild thought flashed through his mind.
“Did he move?” he whispered to Jenny.
“What?”
“Your Angel, did he move?”
“He took two steps straight toward me. And he didn’t say, Mother, may I?”
“Your time, however,” Absalom said. Giles jerked his attention back to the Master’s servant. “Is up. Right now.”
He lunged.
Instantly, the figures in the cavern became a blur of motion. Absalom dove forward. Angel Number Two lunged straight for him. The two went down in a tumble of arms and legs. Angel Number Two on top. Absalom on the bottom.
Giles had time for just one thought.
I really hope I’m right about this.
“Take her!” he shouted. He whirled and shoved Jenny straight into the arms of Angel Number One, who was already running toward her. He heard Jenny cry out as the vampire’s strong arms wrapped around her.
With a cry, Giles raised his stake and rushed forward to where Angel Number Two still grappled with Absalom.
“It’s all right, Giles. I’ve got him,” the Angel panted.
“I was thinking more along the lines of I’ve got you,” Giles replied.
He brought his fist down. Hard. Thrusting the stake through the center of Angel Number Two’s unprotected back. He threw his head back, face snarling.
This is where we find out if I got it right, Giles thought.
The impaled body of the thing that looked like Angel twisted, then began to change form. Body after body, all the shapes he’d ever assumed, all the beings he had ever been, flowed into existence, then vanished, like a film on fast-forward.
Then, for one split second, Giles was looking down into the shapeshifter’s own true face. Those strange, quicksilver eyes stared straight up at him.
“How did you know?” the shifter asked.
Before Giles could answer, the shapeshifter’s body crumbled into dust. Giles was left staring down at Absalom.
Quick as lightning, one of the vampire’s legs kicked up. His booted toe caught Giles in the wrist and knocked the stake from his hand. Before Giles could step back out of range, Absalom vaulted to his feet, snagged Giles by one arm and twisted it viciously behind him. Then he swung Giles around so that the two faced Angel, Giles like a shield in front of Absalom.
“Now this is what I’d call a stalemate,” said the ancient vampire. Still holding Giles’s arm at a painful angle, he began to ease backward, toward the mouth of the nearest tunnel. “Another time, another place,” Absalom said. “You can count on it.”
Then he gave Giles a shove that sent him painfully to his knees and sprinted down the tunnel.
“Rupert!” Jenny cried as she hurried to him. “Are you all right?”
Angel silently extended one hand. Giles took it and let the vampire haul him to his feet.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said shortly.
“How did you know?” Jenny asked.
“I didn’t really,” Giles admitted. The three were aboveground and moving through the shell of the burned-out church toward Giles’s CitroÊn. “It was just an educated guess.”
“Why have I never appreciated the fact that you work in a library before now?” Angel asked.
“But an educated guess based on what, Rupert?” Jenny persisted. “You must have had some basis for making your decision. Since you didn’t have a plan.”
“Wait a minute. What does she mean we didn’t have a plan?” Angel asked. “We had a plan. Hunt the thing down and kill it.”
“She’s referring to the fact that we should have established a signal,” Giles said. “A way of identifying ourselves to one another. In the event that what actually did just happen actually happened.”
“Oh, you mean that kind of a plan. So, how did you know?”
“Well, for lack of something better, I guess I’d have to call it human nature,” Giles explained. “You see, a shapeshifter, no matter what it looks like, is fundamentally a creature of darkness, a thing without a soul. It’s actually quite breathtakingly evil, in fact.”
“But it attacked Absalom,” Jenny said.
“Exactly,” Giles said. “It attacked. That’s all it knew to do, all its — consciousness, if you will — would allow it to do. Absalom was the logical target, given those parameters.”
“Because it would make it appear as if the shapeshifter was on our side,” Jenny broke in.
Giles nodded. “But the real Angel could do something else,” he said. “He could —” Without warning he broke off, staring at the tops of his muddy shoes. “He could do what I would have done,” he finished finally.
“Try to protect me,” Jenny said.
Giles nodded. “It takes more than consciousness to do that. It takes conscience.”
“I knew it!” Willow’s voice called out.
The trio turned to see Xander and Willow hurrying toward them. They arrived out of breath.
“I knew there was something going on,” Willow gasped. “It just didn’t make sense. Oh, hi, Ms. Calendar.”
“Hello, Willow, Xander,” Jenny said.
“So, what’s the plan, and where are the bad guys?”
“There isn’t one, and there aren’t any,” Giles said.
“What didn’t make sense?” Angel asked.
“The way you two were talking all funny in the library,” Willow answered, her tone triumphant.
“Don’t forget about the door thing,” Xander muttered.
“And then there was the door thing,” Willow said. “You scooted me out.”
“I never scooted.” Angel looked at Giles. “Did you scoot?”
“Not in this lifetime,�
�� Giles answered.
“Well, okay, but how about the fact that it was really late?” Willow asked. “Anything could have happened to me, and you didn’t even pay attention.”
“Nothing can happen to you if there isn’t anything going on,” Giles said.
“All right,” Xander spoke up. “Then answer me this one, Jeopardy fans. If nothing’s going on, what are the three of you doing standing above the Master’s lair in the middle of the night?”
There was a tiny beat of silence.
“We were —” Giles began
“Taking a walk,” Jenny quickly filled in.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Angel said.
“Jenny and I were —” Giles continued.
“Walking,” Jenny said. “Because I just got back to town and —”
“I found them and then we all walked together,” Angel finished with a flourish.
“To the entrance to the Master’s lair,” Willow said.
Angel looked around, as if noticing his location for the very first time. “Is that where we are?” he asked.
Willow and Xander exchanged glances.
“I have an idea,” Giles suddenly said. “How about, seeing as how we’re all together, we go back to my place for some lovely hot cocoa?”
Willow and Xander exchanged glances once again.
“Well, you are kind of right,” Willow said.
“Thank you,” Giles answered. “About what, exactly?”
“It is pretty late. We should probably get going. If there really isn’t anything you need our help with.”
“There really isn’t,” Giles said, suppressing a smile.
“I’ll give you guys a lift,” Jenny offered.
“Thanks, Ms. Calendar. That would be great,” Xander said.
“See you at your place in a few, Rupert,” Jenny said.
“What? Oh, yes, right,” Giles answered.
“My car’s over here,” Jenny told Xander and Willow. The three moved off, leaving Giles and Angel standing by the Citroën.
“Can I give you a lift?” Giles asked.
There was a quick beat of silence. Then Angel stepped back.
“No, thanks. I’ll walk. I think it will be faster.”
“Not you, too,” Giles said.
A swift smile flickered across Angel’s features. “Next time, we make a better plan,” he said.