Chapter Eight
----====Giles====----
I suppose all the excitement at first had kept me from noticing how bad off the two of them were. As the now clean and changed duo sat on my sofa, drinking tea (with medicinal slugs of whiskey prescribed by Dr. Giles), I could discern the deep stress-lines around their eyes and mouths. It was a wonder that neither of them had fractured.
I hadn’t seen Wesley in years, although we’d kept in touch desultorily. The Council grapevine had reported some kind of trouble with Angel in the spring, but what with troubles of my own I’d failed to contact Wes and he certainly hadn’t called me. The man drinking my tea didn’t seem anything like the prat he’d been in Sunnydale: the control of his movements belied by the occasional tremble of his hands, a dark edge in that smooth voice, even more darkness in his eyes.
The angry scar across his throat burned red, even in the lamplight.
Looked as if he’d been through hell and wasn’t quite out yet.
And then there was Spike. With a start, I realised I hadn’t seen him since we’d thought each other father and son under Willow’s forgetting spell. So odd – even without amnesia, I still had a feeling of familiarity and disappointment whenever I looked at him. He’d done terrible things to Buffy since I’d left, although I discounted Xander’s more extreme accusations. Had he tried what Xander said, Buffy would have dusted him. Equally troubling: from what I’d gleaned from Buffy, she had not behaved particularly well herself.
I should have wanted to stake him. I just felt, well, disappointed. And my urge to laugh at the idea of Spike and Buffy had gone completely. Didn’t know why.
Perhaps it was because he looked worse than Wesley. Oh, on the surface Spike was the same swaggering arse that he always had been. Yet – and I couldn’t fully explain it – in quiet moments, like this one, his head dropped with anguish I would never imagine he’d feel, his gaunt body weighed down with something so un-Spikelike that I couldn’t find words.
His hands trembled, too.
So there we were. My evening with Anyanka had ended badly, which was only to be expected with my luck. My darker self had emerged, which had been threatening ever since I’d served as vessel for the coven’s magic. After a fight with dissolving demons, I had two wounded blokes perched on my sofa. They actually hadn’t clarified their story much: Los Angeles meeting, a trip to an evil law firm, pursuit. A couple of demonic nasal inhalers held pride of place on my table, requiring analysis I didn’t feel qualified to give.
Bugger.
Spike, uneasy with my silence, leapt up. He took his tea and began to pace around my small sitting room, beating a path by my front window. Wesley sagged deeper into the cushions and refused to meet my eyes. Restlessness and withdrawal, both classic symptoms of exhaustion. I sighed.
And then Spike said quietly, "Bloody hell. It’s back, and it’s got friends."
"What?"
He pulled shut the curtain, which he’d opened so aimlessly. "The demon-humanoid bastard. The one we fought earlier. It’s in the smashed hire car, parked just outside? And it’s brought sodding reinforcements."
Wes crossed to stand beside him, taking his own look. "Oh damn. Giles, I’m so sorry we brought this on you."
"Never mind," I said. "The question now is how we deal with it." When they both turned to gaze at me, identical expressions of trust glowed on their tired faces. God, I loathe the way I’m always expected to fix things. Still, someone had to. "And here’s what we’ll do."
***
An hour later, the sprint to the Range-Rover went as I’d planned. Spike ran first, heading straight for the car with the DH’s (as we were calling them). He smashed in a window, then threw in a small, smouldering incendiary device which Wes had built and to which I’d added just a touch of magic.
The creatures shouted, drummed on the interior, tried to get out – Spike was there with fists ready, however. They were trapped.
Wes and I tossed our bags in the bag of the vehicle, and I took the wheel. Wesley barely made it in before I gunned the car in reverse. The Range-Rover zoomed back to Spike – mind, I didn’t come close to hitting him, no matter what he says – and he jumped into the back seat.
And we were off into the dark.
Before too long we had the hire car on our tail. I’d expected it. I punched the accelerator hard, and we put on a burst of speed up Bathwick Hill.
The pursuing car dropped back. Quite far back, actually. Couldn’t see its headlights as we crested each rise in the road.
"Tosser, why don’t you let me drive?" Spike asked from the backseat. "’d be nice to get there before Christmas."
Without looking at him, I threw him a two-fingered salute. Well, as I mentioned, Ripper had been close to the surface lately.
"Are you thinking that outrunning them will be enough?" Wes said. He didn’t sound as if he cared much, one way or another.
"No." And with that, I turned the car, hard and sharp, into a narrow dirt lane that only a local would know was there. I turned off the Range-Rover’s lights and the engine, threw on the parking brake.
"What the–" Spike began. Wesley turned around and put his hand over the little twerp’s mouth.
We sat in silence for what seemed like an aeon, but was more like a minute. The familiar lights whizzed by, behind us. But I let another several seconds pass before I started the car again.
I reversed onto the road, going back toward town. I knew another route to the motorway, one that would be almost impossible for outsiders to find.
"Wesley? Could you hand me the mobile, please?" He flipped it open and gave it to me, and I punched in a number. "Witherspoon? Rupert Giles here. Yes, indeed you can do something for me. I’m going to need the use of a Council safe house in Oxford for a few days – "
I ignored the panicked choking from my companions. I had left this part out of the planning discussion, in anticipation of just such a reaction. If they wanted me to fix things, then they’d have to follow my lead. "Right. No, this evening, actually."
When Witherspoon told me the safe house in Marston was available, I immediately closed on the offer. The house was in a suburban enclave, an easy walk from the Oxford town-centre, but separated by athletic fields, meadows, and the River Cherwell. I’d stayed there several times while taking courses or consulting, and I’d always enjoyed the cosiness of the place.
More important, the Council had warded the house against all manner of villains, demon and otherwise. We didn’t need a second visitation of dissolving creatures, at least not until we knew better what they were.
Even after I rung off, the demon riding in the backseat continued to splutter, as did the ex-Watcher in the front. Apparently the two of them felt that I was stupid enough to tell the Council who would be staying with me. Idiots, the pair of them. They were so tired, however, that soon enough the protests stopped and the snoring began. I’m not sure which one fell asleep first, but they were blessedly unconscious for most of the drive.
They must have felt safe.
It was a lovely night for driving, as it happened. I took a circuitous route, staying off the M4 most of the way; any tails would be easier to pick up (or deal with) if we weren’t on a heavily travelled road. Didn’t see anything, though.
Early in the journey, I cracked open my window. Cool night air blew through the space, bringing scents of grass and damp and ancient earth. The Range-Rover’s engine hummed as I pushed it to perform; it almost drowned out the soft, irregular mumbles and breaths from my sleeping charges. Even if it was hardly the end of the evening I’d planned, I would have enjoyed the trip –
Were it not for the residual sparks of magic still burning my fingers. So I clutched the steering wheel as tightly as I dared, holding the fire inside. And I worried.
Spike and Wesley didn’t wake up until I pulled up in front of the safe house. "Are we there yet, Dad?" came from the git in the back seat, while Wesley jolted himself out of what seemed to be uneasy dreams, with a choke and a breath rather like a sob.
"We’re here. You two get the bags while I open the house."
They must have been still groggy, because they did what I said without question. After crossing the gravelled front garden, I managed the keypad combination and the small spell required to allow me entrance.
Spike and Wes staggered up with their burdens just as I swung the door open. I wasn’t quite sure of the invitation-requirements for Watcher common space, but I wanted to... what? Welcome the difficult, irritating sods, I suppose.
So I stepped into the house first. Holding the door wide, I said, "Please come in, Wesley. Please come in, Spike."
The disgraced and the outcast need sanctuary too. I knew that from experience.