"If this is bothering you, you can step out," Willow suggested quietly.
Buffy flinched and turned to stare at her. It occurred to her that as Willow developed her magick more, she might well have found herself able to read thoughts, or at least sense emotions.
"I'm fine," Buffy replied, somewhat defensive.
"You seem pretty conflicted." Willow gazed at her with obvious concern.
"It's... it's not this. We'll talk later," Buffy promised.
"All right."
"You done?" Xander snapped. "Can we get on with it?"
Buffy narrowed her gaze. "Why don't we? In fact, why don't we just get right to it."
"Do your worst," Spike grunted. "I woulda just told you everything you'd like to know and got the hell out of town. But now? You get nothing."
Willow shook her head and tsked like the teacher she briefly was, once upon a time. "You don't really think we could let you go?"
"Did once," Spike replied with a sniff of hauteur. He looked at Buffy. "Me and the Slayer had a deal back then, didn't we, Buffy? Weren't too good for old Spike in those days."
"I had to choose between killing you and averting the Apocalypse, Spike," Buffy said. "It was a harder decision than you'll ever know, but I figured I'd always get another shot at you."
"And here we are," Willow said, but without humor.
Buffy was relieved to see that, unlike Xander, she did not seem to get any pleasure out of this situation.
Slowly, defiantly, Spike struggled to stand. "To hell with the lot of you," the vampire said. "Do it."
Xander raised the water pistol again, but Buffy had had enough. She reached into the deep pocket of her oversize sweatshirt and pulled out a stake Willow had given her, then shoved past Xander and grabbed Spike by the throat for the second time that day.
He did not even bother to defend himself. "What are you gonna do, Slayer?"
Buffy slammed him against the wall, held him there, and drove the long stake right through the center of his chest, splitting ribs. Spike roared with the pain of it, but his eyes were wide with surprise as well, for Buffy had purposely avoided his heart.
The stake jutted out four inches. With an open palm, Buffy slammed it home, drove it deeper into his body until it was buried all the way. Spike growled and tried to move, and only then did he realize that the stake really had gone all the way through.
Buffy had pinned him to the wall.
She put her face up, only an inch from his. "Remember me mentioning how you killed my mother?"
Spike sagged a bit, hung there on the stake.
"Xander isn't pretending, Spike. Neither is Willow.
Things have changed. You better wake up to that right now," Buffy told him. Then she glanced over at the others. "Hurt him. Do whatever you have to do to get the information we need and do not let him die until we have it."
Buffy turned away from him, crossed the room and leaned there, opposite Spike, her arms crossed.
Xander and Willow started toward him, and Spike's bravado collapsed. "All right," he said. "All right!"
For hours they asked questions about Giles's operations in Sunnydale and beyond, and Spike answered. The Council had spies there, of course, mostly humans posing as vampire worshipers. They had been able to provide a great deal of information about the various nests and lairs that Giles's minions had established in Sunnydale, and Spike confirmed all of that information. A great deal of what he told them, the Council already knew. But he also revealed that Giles had already turned a sizable percentage of the LAPD, a number of Hollywood executives, and the mayor of Los Angeles. With that kind of infiltration already in place, L.A. might well be under tacit vampire rule within months, or even weeks. And that was only the beginning.
A shiver went through Buffy. Giles had the wisdom and the patience to fulfill his ambitions. Unless someone stopped him, he would slowly, inexorably, take over the state of California and then spread his influence from there.
Buffy knew that the federal government had secretly told the Council they would resort to full-scale military assault if necessary. The civilian casualties would be enormous and there was no guarantee that Giles himself would be destroyed. Even worse than that, however, was Buffy's fear that the government would not act quickly enough, that they would be so afraid of public backlash at massive destruction on American soil that they might hesitate to act.
If Spike's information was right, if he were telling the truth, the Council had to act quickly. Any other resolution to the situation would be disastrous.
It was after ten o'clock at night when they were through with Spike. He was still pinned to the wall. Buffy stretched, stiff from standing in one place for so long. When she glanced over at her old friends, she found them both watching her expectantly, particularly Xander.
Buffy nodded grimly.
Xander did not smile. Instead he reached for a stake he kept in a sheath clipped to his belt at the small of his back. He brought it out and Spike grimaced when he saw it, as though even now he did not really believe it was over.
Buffy expected to feel something, some emotional conflict or simply melancholy. But for all his charisma, all the times it had seemed he might be an ally, Spike was a vampire. He had slaughtered Buffy's mother, and Anya, and hundreds, probably thousands of others.
There was only one way the night could end.
"This is for Anya," Xander said.
He staked Spike through the heart. The vampire's eyes went wide and he snarled at Xander. "Oh, you rotten bast—" he said. Then he exploded in a puff of cinder and ash.
They agreed to return to their rooms to wash up, and then reconvene in the conference room in half an hour, just the three of them.
But when Buffy got back to her quarters, Giles was waiting.
Chapter 4
A ripple of disquiet went through Buffy as she pushed open the door to her room. It was dark within, and the feeling that some peril lurked there was instant and certain. Buffy stepped inside and reached for the light switch, but she hesitated. Something moved in the dark, then, a figure unfolding from the shadows, silhouetted only by the starlight from outside the window.
The window where there was no longer any screen.
"Shut the door," whispered the figure in a voice so familiar that Buffy forgot to breathe.
Her hand fell away from the light switch and her eyes began to adjust to the dark. "Why would I want to do that?"
"So we can talk. I think it's time, don't you? Time we talk?"
Despite the glare of the lights from the hall, she could see enough now to know that it really was him. Rupert Giles made no attempt to remain in the shadows. He slipped away from the wall and leaned, instead, on the sill of the open window. There was still a smattering of gray in his brown hair. He wore tan pants and a rust-colored V-neck sweater pushed up at the sleeves. In short, he looked for all the world like the man she had abandoned to Camazotz years before, save for one detail.
He no longer wore glasses.
Guilt cut Buffy deeply, for she had blamed herself from the moment Willow had told her Giles was a vampire. Though she had been following every lesson he had ever taught her by doing so, she had left Giles behind five years ago. This was the result.
Not just the monster he had become, but the nightmare he had made of what had once been her world.
"Oh, come now, Buffy," Giles said, his tone as impatient as she remembered. "Far be it for me to tell you not to feel badly, but at least try to focus, please? Now, why don't you close the door so we can have a civil conversation without being interrupted."
Buffy's throat was dry. She swallowed, stood up a bit straighter. It isn't Giles anymore, she reminded herself. This is not him, not any more than Angelus was Angel. It's just a parasite, a thing living inside his remains, making it walk and talk, like a marionette.
She had to remember that. In some ways, she knew, the vampire even thought it was Giles. It had
his memories, his personality traits, but it was not him.
"All right," she said, blinking as though waking from a dream. "Let's talk."
Buffy stepped aside and closed the door, casting the room into deeper darkness for a moment. The eyes of the vampire flickered orange in that darkness, cruel pinpoints like poisoned stars in the night sky.
Then she turned on the light.
Giles smiled sheepishly. "Well, that's better, isn't it? Does take away some of the mystery though, doesn't it?"
Buffy snaked a hand into the deep front pocket of her oversize sweatshirt and withdrew the stake. Her fingers flexed around it, testing its weight.
"Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you right now? All our problems would be over."
Giles had been studying her, a smirk on his features. Now his gaze seemed to linger on her for a moment too long before he blinked and a quizzical expression came over his face.
"Hmm?" he asked.
A chill deep as the marrow swept through her then. It's not him, she insisted to herself. But that hesitation, that moment lost in thought, was such a part of who Giles was that it unnerved her even more. She considered the possibility that it might have been a bit of show for her benefit, but it had seemed so real, so unconscious. Ever since the world of vampires had been revealed to her she had believed that the creatures were just spiritual squatters, taking up residence in empty husks. She had needed to believe that in order to fulfill her duties, to dust vampires without hesitation.
But this thing... that single moment made her realize that in all the ways that mattered, all the ways that would hurt her, it was Giles. Not the man she had known, not her Watcher, but somehow Giles nevertheless.
Buffy felt as though she were being torn apart.
As though he knew precisely what she was feeling, Giles's expression softened. Again, it was a look she was so familiar with, as though he wanted to reach out to her but was troubled by the emotions at hand, not at all adept at offering comfort.
The look was a lie. A mockery of all that Giles had once meant to her. It shook her free of her pain. Her fingers gripped the stake and she launched herself across the room at him.
His evasion was so swift that he seemed to slip between moments. Buffy struck out with her left fist, then her right, she whirled into a kick that had so much force it ought to have decapitated him.
Not a single blow struck him.
Giles did not smile now, did not mock or taunt her.
But he hit her, a backhand that sent her pirouetting down to the floor. Sweeping around like a scythe blade, she tried to knock his legs out from under him, but he danced lightly away.
Again, she pressed the attack. Once, twice, her blows missed. But now she had extracted herself from the moment, examining the conflict as though it were a chess match. Her attack now was merely a feint to draw another punch from Giles.
When he struck out at her a second time, she was ready. Buffy sidestepped, grabbed his left wrist and then twirled into his arms as though they were engaged in a macabre waltz. The stake held tightly to her, she wrapped herself in his left arm and then thrust the stake at his chest.
Giles stopped the wooden point with his right hand; it pierced the palm and then the tip appeared at the back of his hand, protruding from the skin. Buffy withdrew the stake and stabbed it down again, but the wraithlike vampire slipped away from her.
"Well done, Buffy," he said. "Bravo, truly. I couldn't be more proud. It makes me realize that coming here was precisely the right thing to do."
Wary, Buffy stood ready for another skirmish. Giles gestured toward the bed.
"I brought you a gift."
Even as she glanced over toward the bed, the vampire crossed the room and lifted a sword from the mattress. Its hilt was steel and wood and leather, not at all ornate and yet somehow elegant. The scabbard was black and plain, but when Giles drew the sword out, Buffy saw that the blade was inscribed with runes all along its length.
Giles turned the sword in his hand and starlight glimmered off the blade.
"For you," he whispered.
"I don't want anything from you," she snapped.
"But I insist."
"Fine, give it to me. Just the thing I need to cut your head off."
He smirked. "What else would you say?"
Suddenly there was no trace of the old Giles in his features, in his stance. It was as though the evil that burrowed inside him had emerged for a moment to gaze upon her with its own eyes.
The air seemed charged with the power that crackled within him, his eyes flickering with jack-o'-lantern flame.
"You might be able to kill me, Buffy," he confessed, though without losing his haughty air. "But it won't be easy. You think it's only speed that saved me tonight? You're nearly as fast as I am, maybe faster. But I trained you, remember? I'm inside your mind, crawling inside your skin. I'm the only real father you ever had, the only one who cared about you. I know every move you'll make before it's even been born in that ferocious brain of yours.
"Still, you might be able to kill me. If you really want to."
Suddenly it was too warm in the room. What little air rustled the curtains was stagnant and damp. Buffy felt her breath hitching in her chest; a vein pulsed in her temple; her heart beat too loud inside her head.
Hate and despair filled her in equal portions, but were inextricably tangled.
"What makes you think I won't?" she whispered.
Giles smiled, cocked his head to one side like a wolf listening for the steps of its prey.
"Hope," he said. "I forged you just as that sword was forged, Buffy. You belong at my side just as it should hang at yours. I was curious how you would change after so long without human contact. When you finally escaped, I observed you closely. I aided you as best I could. I had to see with my own eyes that the weapon I had forged had retained its fine edge. And you have, my dear. Truly, you have."
Horrible understanding bloomed in Buffy's mind. "The crossbow. You're the one who left it for me."
"Of course," Giles said, seemingly offended. "Wouldn't have been sporting if I hadn't given you a fighting chance. And now you have a choice to make. I am a creature out of time, Buffy. The years have no bearing on me. I can afford to be patient as I spread my influence slowly, quietly, until the world is roughly awakened one night to discover that their lives are no longer their own.
"You should be with me, Buffy. You may not be my daughter, but you can be, if only you surrender yourself to fate. Can't you hear the voice of destiny in this?"
Her fingers gripped the stake in her hand. "Oh yeah," she said. "I hear it. It's saying maybe you should start watching the clock again, 'cause your time is up."
Cautiously, her eyes on the sword in his hands, she slipped toward him.
"Ah, well," he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Perhaps you require a bit more time to contemplate the future."
With a single fluid motion he cocked his right arm back and hurled the sword at her as though it were a spear. Buffy sidestepped the ancient blade, her left hand whipped out, and she plucked it from the air, then turned to face him with the sword in one hand and the stake in the other.
But Giles was gone.
The curtains billowed as the breeze picked up, but only the stars and the broad lawn behind the installation were visible through the screenless window. Buffy went and leaned on the sill. For a moment she was baffled as to how Giles had made his entry. Her room was much too far above the ground for him to have climbed. Then she glanced up, and understood. Somehow he had reached the roof, come across the top of the place and then hung down to her window from there.
There was no sign of him on the grass below save for the screen he had torn from her window. At least, that was what Buffy thought at first. Then she noticed a dark form a ways from the building, the starlight not enough to make out much detail.
Her gaze fell upon a second. Then, far off to the right, only a
few feet from the building's foundation, a third.
Council operatives. Sentries.
Dead men.
The moon was little more than a sliver as the werewolf trailed the scent Giles had left behind. The incongruity of it still astonished Buffy. It was not supposed to happen this way. Yet Oz had strolled casually out onto the lawn with twenty people in tow, found a spot roughly beneath Buffy's window, and sniffed the air.
He had glanced at Willow with eyes heavy with warning. "Keep them back," he had said.
Then he had changed. Buffy had seen him transform under the power of the moon before, but this was different. It looked more painful, and that was saying quite a bit. His body contorted, his facial structure stretched and popped, and as the fur sprouted all over his flesh, Oz arched his back and snarled with the effort of it.
When the transformation was complete, Oz had growled low and dangerous at the people gathered around him. The Council operatives backed off and the werewolf set out on the trail.
Now they followed him as he tracked an invisible trail across the ground. Buffy wrinkled her nose at the werewolf's musky odor and wondered how Oz could smell anything other than himself. When the wolf came to one of the dead sentries, he nudged the corpse a bit, snuffled in its clothes, and then glanced toward a stand of trees on the far side of the property. Oz began to lope toward the small wooded area and then it was just a matter of the rest of them keeping up.
The operatives spread out to run. Buffy found herself in the lead with Willow and Xander to her left and Christopher Lonergan to her right. Wesley and the new Slayer were there as well, but they were back among a group of Council agents who trailed slightly.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - The Lost Slayer - The King Of The Dead Page 6