Chapter Seven
----====Giles====----
I should have guessed it would have all gone pear-shaped. Really, it’s just a cosmic joke on me. On all of us, I should say. We were in it together, after all.
After a summer of helping Willow through her recovery, I finally had my flat to myself again. She’d gone back to Sunnydale, a wiser magic-practitioner than when she’d, er, tried to end the world. And at last I set in motion a plan I’d been mulling over since the day the Magic Box had crashed down around our ears.
Anyanka was visiting for the evening.
I’d proposed it as a semi-business meeting: we’d talk about the rebuilt shop, discuss her ideas for expansion. If I took her to a romantic candle-lit restaurant in one of the hidden passages here in Bath, well then, fair play to me. Right? If I plied her with wine and bought her flowers, it could be construed as simple kindness from one business partner to another. Or not, should it please her. I so hoped it would please her. It all depended on Anya.
You may laugh now.
It had begun well. She’d teleported in, bang on time, and we’d walked from my flat, over the Pulteney Bridge to the town centre. Cool air, warm handclasp. She’d been favourably impressed by the roses, insisting on bringing them with her to the restaurant. We’d talked about everything and nothing, the stuff of our phone chats of the past few months. The supper had been delicious, the Merlot soft and full-bodied on the tongue. For a moment there I thought – well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.
The sun had just set as we left: with the sky pink-and-grey, it could have been an advert’s backdrop for successful post-supper conversation. As we crossed over to the pavement that was above and parallel to the River Avon, she’d taken my hand. "Rupert. I’ve really had the most wonderful time. But you’ve never done anything like this for me before. Are you trying –"
Before she could finish, a car careened up Pierrepoint Street. It jumped the kerb just opposite the Bath Abbey, spinning wheels across stone. And then Spike popped his head out of the passenger window. "Oi, Watcher! A little help, please!"
"Spike! What the bloody hell –"
And then, in a moment of surrealism, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce called from the car’s interior, "Giles, we’re in some difficulties here!"
Spike. Wesley. Together in Bath, asking me for help. I cast a quick glance back up, expecting to see the sky dripping fire or something equally portentous. But I only saw a first burst of stars through the thin, streaky clouds. Anya’s fingers tightened rather painfully on mine, saying, "Did you expect them tonight, Giles? When you’d set up a date with me?"
"No. God, no." I smiled at her reassuringly. Then I said to the two of them, "What’s going on?" With some heroism, I refrained from adding, "You stupid gits."
Spike tumbled out of the car. "Followed. Nasty buggers."
Wes stuck his head out of the driver’s window. "We were attacked in Los Angeles, and Spike decided that you might provide shelter. Thus, here we are."
I rather felt that he had skipped at least half the necessary steps in that syllogism, yet here they indisputably were. What would draw such an unlikely pair together – and what the hell they thought I could do for them – were quite different things. Which was exactly what I said.
Anya followed up with "We were having an incredibly pleasant evening. I got roses and wine and compliments, and I think Giles was going to give me more of all three. So this had better be good, Spike."
"Emergency! Fascinating new baddies, posing a bloody threat to the world or some such! Thought your gigantic brain would like nothing better than to tease over what we’ve found."
"Or more precisely, what has found us," Wesley said. He pointed behind Anya and me.
What the – I turned, to see a second car jumping the kerb and powering toward us. I pulled Anya out of the way, and the hire vehicle zipped by and crashed into a lamppost. Glass shattered, raining down on the pavement.
Spike and Wes crossed over to stand with us.
Three men (or so I assumed at the time) got out. "You have something that doesn’t belong to you," the largest of the three said. He didn’t seem friendly at all.
Spike said, "Spoils of war, mate. You attack, you lose, you don’t get to keep the goods. Like the spray or the disc."
"The what?" I said.
"Tell you later," Spike said out of the corner of his mouth.
Could have smacked the little bastard. But at that moment the men started to wheeze, just a bit: an odd sound, harsher and deeper in the lungs than a normal breathing problem. Each one pulled out a small inhaler and applied it.
Wes and Spike looked at each other. And then Spike charged.
Anya dropped my hand. "I suppose you’ll be fighting too," she said, resignation heavy in her voice.
I was going to do no such thing. Probably. Spike had reached the big pillock and smashed his fist against the man’s chin. There was no writhing, no howl of pain – from Spike, anyway. "Dear Lord, is the chip out?"
"Oh no," Wesley answered. "Those aren’t human."
"Would you stop yapping and help me?" Spike growled. He pushed a second time at his opponent; it looked as if he was trying for the creature’s nose, but the human-type spun away. Spike hit it again. The momentum sent the creature reeling –
Right over the stone wall, down toward the river.
But I didn’t have time to do anything but defend against the other human-type coming at me. Wesley had his own hands full as well; when the third creature jumped him, he crashed backward onto the pavement.
I managed a quick elbow to the eye of my attacker. Spike shouted, "Right, old man, go for the nose!" as he sprinted by me on his way to help Wes.
‘Old man.’ In front of Anya, the undead git actually called me ‘old'. A surge of fury added force to the punch I threw, which sent the human-type reeling. Unfortunately, he fell into Anya. He recovered his balance with superhuman speed, his arm going around her neck; then he began to wheeze into her hair.
I lost control.
Rage coursed through me, sending shock after shock of power into my fingers. But before I could raise my hands, Anyanka rolled her eyes. "This is ridiculous. I’ll talk to you later, okay?" Then she clutched at her roses in one hand and held her amulet with the other. "Good night, Rupert."
She disappeared. Gone.
Of course, it was quite useful that she could teleport out of danger like that. It meant that she was safely out of the way when I did lift my hands. I wasn’t thinking, was only feeling – I said, "Back," blue sparks shot out of my fingers, and the creature crashed into the stone wall.
As I said, I wasn’t thinking. I’d no idea I was even capable of such power. But by that point Ripper had broken out of the gaol in which I’d locked that side of myself; he’d been battering at the door all summer. It was Ripper who pursued, who kicked the fallen creature in the face. My shoe crushed in its nose: Spike had said to aim there, yeah? Result: one bloody dead thing. Sodding brilliant.
And then, shaking, I took a step back. Jesus, what had I done? Given in to anger, used magic, assaulted that which still looked very human to my eyes – I appalled myself.
The sounds of scuffling, and that odd inhuman wheeze, intensified behind me. I turned around to see the human-thing get in one good hit at Spike, who staggered. Wesley was bleeding slightly from a scrape on his temple; still, he managed to shove the creature to its knees. Spike then back-handed it, his aim perfect, and the thing crumpled dead to the pavement.
Wesley, bending over with hands on his thighs, gasped, "Giles, quickly. Get the inhaler from yours before it dissolves."
Get the?... before it?... right, I was officially baffled. But when I looked back at the thing I’d killed, a blue viscous substance was bubbling out of the place where its nose had been. Foul, really. I barely had enough time to search for, find, then yank the inhaler-thing out of its coat pocket, before the form began to liquefy. Soon there was nothing but a mentholated puddle on the stones.
Definitely not human, then.
Spike and Wesley exchanged a "Good work" and "Well-done," helping each other stand up. It was as if they were mates or something. Spike pulled his boot away from where their creature was dissolving, and Wes took another step back. Then they looked at me as if I would have all the answers. Hell, I couldn’t even frame the right bloody questions.
The smashed car’s engine suddenly started up. The first creature, which Spike had punched over the wall apparently, had crawled back street-side. In the confusion it had crept to its vehicle and now was trying to get away. I jumped toward the hire car, grabbing onto the bumper, but the thing spun it into reverse. I fell hard against the wall. Damn it.
The car rattled back onto Pierrepoint and sped away.
I glanced across the street. A small knot of people near the Abbey gawked at us. I’m sure we looked a motley group – the bleached blond in black denim, the unshaven man in jeans, me in my new, now rumpled suit -- even before you added in Spike and Wesley’s car parked drunkenly across the pavement, or the spots where the attacking creatures now flowed, liquid across stone.
Spike and Wes looked at the bystanders, then at me for a lead.
I never would be able to escape my destiny, would I.
So I said to the two of them, "Right. We can’t stay here. Does one of you have the Bath office’s address for the car hire agency?"
Wes raised his hand. I said, "Fine. First we’ll all go to the hire office, where you’ll deposit the car. Second, we’ll get a taxi back to my flat, at which point you’ll explain what exactly is going on." I called on every ounce of training and experience to put weight behind my glare. It worked perfectly; both of them shuffled their feet, just a bit, and followed.
Would have been more satisfying, of course, if I’d known what the buggering hell I was doing.