Beheading the Hydra - Ripper
Thanks go to Lesley and Magpie of course, and to my friend Winsome who provided crucial background and a sounding board. Naturally, all mistakes are my own.
"If only there were a perfect moment in the book;
if only we could live in that moment,
we could begin the book again
as if we had not written it,
as if we were not in it.
But the dark approaches
to any page are too numerous
and the escapes are too narrow."from 'The Story of Our Lives' by Mark Strand
Part One
Heated towel racks were a marvellous invention; she’d always thought so. Anya draped the toasty (albeit now damp) towel over the chrome warmed so perfectly from the inside, and reached for her clothes. Lingerie went on first; then she pulled on her black silk sweater. Her hands stopped for a second, just as they brushed over her nipples –
"Mine forever," he’d murmured as he kissed around each extremely sensitive point–
"Uh oh. This could be sort of distracting, and that’s not good," she said to herself. She shook her head to clear it, and wiped at the slightly fogged bathroom mirror. She needed to get ready.
A face she barely recognised looked back at her. Same hair (in his favourite Copper Brown colour), same jaw, same nose: those identifiers hadn’t changed.
The eyes seemed different, though. Bigger, darker, all pupils.
Laser-focussed, yet blurry in that way of something too close, his gaze had been so bright that she’d had to shut her eyes. Then she had felt the touch of his mouth, the slide of his tongue where her lips met. Each nerve-ending fired. Even with eyes closed, it was blinding. Dazzled, she hadn’t been able to voice what she felt --
Mine forever. Longer than "forever" would last.
She ran a brush through her hair, played with eyeliner and mascara – trying to look like the woman she’d been that morning. Lipstick, however, was useless. She knew he’d just kiss it off when she walked out of the bathroom.
The woman in the mirror smiled at her. It was kind of smug, that smile, and Anya immediately tried to change it, to make it merely happy rather than tempt-the-Powers blissful.
The thought of the job they had to do that evening was enough. In fact, the smile of the woman in the mirror disappeared completely.
Anya picked up her jeans and pulled them up her legs. When she had the denim almost to her hips, though, she stopped for a breath. Rupert-finger bruises were just starting to show there –
The velvet throw had cascaded off the sofa when he’d slid her onto his lap, onto him. Her fingers had slid off the satin cushions supporting his back, impossible to grasp.
He had thrust up and in, up and in, up and in. The principles of equilibrium said that he had to have come down for every stroke up, but she didn’t feel it. He was just right there: constant. She had been afraid for a moment that she might fall away -- fighting an urge to arch back from him, too much too deep too good -- but then he’d shifted and pulled her forward.
His fingers had held fast, held her open for him.
And when she had moaned something about him never leaving oh please, he had leaned in, impossibly there right there, to say "Yours forever."
Impossible. It was as if he was the first man to ever say that to her. He wasn’t, of course, but it felt like it.
And impossibly, she believed him.
She zipped up the jeans, frowning. Was something going on with her weight? She hadn’t felt very good in the past week, especially in the mornings, which was odd – or not, perhaps. She closed the snap, shutting the thought away. She could run the numbers later, do the tests.
She pulled on her boots – functional, not pretty. Well, right now they had work to do. Or to be accurate, he had work. She would be there to keep him from doing something stupid.
From the main room came the beginning of a familiar guitar-growl. She’d known about his insane attachment to this song, but he usually didn’t play the CD when she was around. She’d only just figured out what it meant to him.
It was his battle-song.
He hadn’t blown out all of the candles, she realised when she stepped out of the bathroom. Soft light washed the rumpled sheets, the crushed throw returned to the sofa, the pillows and duvet strewn on the floor.
The light also flickered over his still form. He leaned against the half-open window: one forearm braced shoulder-height against the grey glass, hand outside in the evening damp; shirt unbuttoned and jeans not completely fastened, even though she could feel the November cold from here. He got overheated quite easily these days.
"There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief," he sang along with the Hendrix person’s first words. Then he brought his hand inside and – hey wait a minute, she hadn’t said he could have a cigarette.
She opened her mouth to complain, but he took a deep drag, then blew out a perfect smoke ring. Then another. She watched the way his lips moved, so precise, so concentrated. She knew what they felt like on hers.
This could be more than distracting.
Instead of melting, however, she moved forward. "Are you wasting your magic on that?" she asked.
He smiled at her, light chasing away the shadows on his face. "No, Anya. Naturally acquired skill. I learnt how to do this when I was young."
"When you were Ripper." It wasn’t a question.
She saw the shadows edge back, but he shrugged them off. He took one last pull and then blew out a stream of grey which swirled, shifted into the form of a multi-horned demon. The smoke-monster reared up, claws and threat – but a blast of wind, called by his hand, shredded the beast. He grinned. "That, however, was magic."
She walked to him and took his toy away. "And it was really neat. Now stop showing off, honey." He burst into a laugh, and after she crushed out the Not Allowed cigarette, she smiled up at him. "It’s not like I don’t already know you’re powerful."
His arms went around her -- she was wrapped up in nothing but Rupert-warmth, his open shirt pushed back out of the way so she could get as close as possible. She rubbed her cheek against his chest. "Did you have a nice bath?" he said into her hair.
"Would have been better if you’d been with me."
"The purpose of the exercise was actually to bathe, I thought." She smiled against his skin, and he added, "Anyway, you almost exhausted me this afternoon, and it’s going to be a long night. Best to conserve my strength. You can have lots more orgasms later."
She pinched his arse, and he yelped. "Rupert, you know I’m the only one who gets to make annoying comments like that."
"Oh dear, didn’t mean to break another rule. Let me make it up to you." And finally he kissed her, an exchange of breath touch love, and she stood on her toes to get a better angle, a truer taste. Tobacco, Shiraz, and devotion.
It ended too soon, though. He just stood there and held her close.
The guitar on the record screamed, and she could feel him shudder. He’d retreated into his head again; flashbacks to that horrible vision kept him awake some nights, kept him churned up some days. She understood about bad dreams. She knew what it would take to shake them off.
So, then: work (although that would be bad enough). She took a step back, while her hands went to his jeans, fastening them. He was so warm, so still. He let her move on to his shirt, her fingers pushing each button firmly into place.
He stopped her before she was quite done, though – his left hand crossed over and caught hers. Palm to palm, they aligned fingers (his so much bigger), matched pulses.
The rings they’d given each other that morning glittered in the candlelight. They, too, matched. Gold met gold.
"I’m so sorry, beloved. Not much of a wedding evening." He kissed each eyelid shut.
"Really great wedding afternoon, though." She spoke through a lump in her throat. Rupert was concentrated on her; she needed to savour it now, before he became Giles again. If only she wasn’t quite so scared .... she opened her eyes and said briskly, "Even though you didn’t make your quota."
He didn’t laugh or ask her what she meant, which surprised her. "I’m very proud that you would cast your lot with me. Love you," he whispered.
She pressed her fingers into his. So, so warm. "Love you too. Mine forever, that’s what you said, right?"
"Absolutely."
"So you’ll be careful tonight, even though you’re charging out to destroy evil world-domination plans and property, and it’ll be very dangerous?" She knew he was going to be difficult, well, male about this, but it was important. He had to understand.
"I will take every care of you." He kissed her neck, just at the pulse-point.
"That’s not what I asked."
"I know it’s not." He bowed his head for a moment, then looked up : serious, as focussed as he had looked that morning in the Registry Office, speaking his vows. "I will take every care for us both. Even though I’m still very angry that you’re going with me."
"Remember what you’ve promised." She kissed him, and the sparks leapt. She pulled away, just for a second, and asked, "Are you really still mad?"
"Anyanka, you have no idea." A gust of wind blew the drapes out, whipping fabric around them both, pulling them even closer. Lost in the heavy folds, she kissed him again. The sound of the guitar, reaching the height of its fury, was all but lost in the wind and the softness.
All she could hear was their synchronised breaths and movements.
Oh, and a very, very irritating knock at the door.
"George," she and Rupert sighed into each other’s mouths.
One last taste, before they reluctantly separated. He went to get the door, flicking on lamps and turning off the stereo on his way; she hastily threw pillows on the bed and then tossed the duvet over pillows, straightened the sofa. Not that their efforts made the room look any less what it was: the space in which she and Rupert had celebrated their wedding multiple times, in highly enjoyable ways.
George knew it, too; he edged into the studio, fixing his eyes somewhere on the ceiling. "Hullo, both. Are we ready to go?"
"Not quite yet." Rupert nodded at a cudgel leaning against one of the closets (no, wardrobes – she lived in England now, should use the lingo). "You should take that, George, just in case."
She had to smile at the thumb-and-index-finger manner in which George picked up said weapon – like he feared contamination from the polished wood. Yet he said bravely, "Of course, Giles. Big stick with which to smash in the nose of any DH. I can do that."
Rupert was doing his usual storming-around-the-flat routine; Anya stopped him, her hand on his forearm, and said, "They’re on the table next to the ashtray."
Absently he picked up the keys, almost hidden by his smokes. "Thank you, darling."
Good grief. Despite his enormous brain and whole mage-powers thing, sometimes she wondered how Rupert ever left the house without her assistance.
Coats; Rupert’s staff and what he called his "magic kit"; her small sword for emergencies, and the atomiser Wesley had sent: that was all they needed. As the men went out the door, she blew out the last candles. The studio went almost dark. Still, she managed to find her way to the door.
Rupert smiled at her, pulling the door shut behind her as she joined him in the corridor. She hooked a finger in his belt loop, moved with him when he turned to lock the door. That meant her ear was perfectly placed for his whispered, "I forgot to ask earlier – I have a quota?"
"Mmm. I’ll show you the spreadsheet tomorrow. You’ll be relieved to know that there is some reduction on days you save your corner of the world," she said matter-of-factly.
His smile wasn’t quite enough to dispel her sudden shiver at the thought of the evening ahead.
***
Rupert glanced up at the Chelsea sky. The evening was chilly, yes, but at least it wasn’t raining. That could have played hell with his plans.
He helped Anyanka into the passenger seat, then shut the door firmly. At the thud, he somehow was thrown back –
The cave was dripping with blood-red moisture, waterfalls coursing down the walls and pooling on...the bodies. Oh God, oh God.
With another thud of his tail and a spurt of fire, the dragon’s breath illuminated the waste of those Rupert loved. The blood somehow came from them.
And Anya was first, closest to him. His heart stopped. He fell to his knees, his hand going out to touch her poor torn flesh. Cold."This is what you brought me. Death and pain," came her voice. Yet it emanated from the dragon.
He raised his head. The acid-tears made it hard for him to see, but he could make out the dragon’s claws coming closer, coming for him. He extended his hand, and blue fire singed the beast.
"Do you think that could warm me, Rupert? Too late, too late, you’re always too late--" Anya’s voice cried from the wounded dragon. Crimson light flashed from its eyes...
The flash of a car’s taillights shocked him awake. "Rupert, get in. Do you want to catch your death of cold?" Anya called from the interior of the Range-Rover.
Smothering the impulse to say that he hardly thought a hypothetical rhinovirus was his biggest problem, he crossed round and got into the driver’s seat. "All buckled up?"
"Yes," George said from the back seat. Giles looked in the rearview mirror; harsh street-lamp white reflected from George’s pinched face. The mission was going to be hard on him, poor sod.
Still, if George could act as a spy for weeks or bring himself to eliminate a DH threat all on his own, he could manage to get through a night like this. Giles hoped so, anyway; he sent a reassuring "Good lad" over his shoulder. And then he pulled the car into traffic.
Anya was smiling at him when he glanced sideways. "You just got all paternal with him. It’s very charming when you do that, when it’s not completely irritating."
"Anyanka, please, you know I hate that father nonsense."
"Well – and I’m not criticising, Rupert – maybe you’d be treated less like a patriarch if you stopped acting like one to everyone under the age of thirty. Or a hundred and thirty, in Spike’s case."
"Don’t be absurd. Honestly, darling." He ignored her giggle and headed toward Fulham.
She turned around, looking at George. "Did Mrs. Taylor enjoy her meal with you at the Chelsea Kitchen?"
Ah, talking of a woman (even a 72-year-old matron with the biggest handbag this side of Baroness Thatcher) – George immediately relaxed, a craftsman with his favourite tools. "Why, yes: such a delightful lady, really. We had a nice chat. Also, a very tasty chops-and-apple-sauce main course. And it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the wedding, actually."
"What did she say? Can I guess?" Anya said.
"Well, no, I suspect." George coughed. "It involved the fact that the two of you are, um, extremely loud, and her theorising that wedded bliss would, as she said, ‘calm the racket.’"
"She would be wrong of course. Even when we try to be quiet, we’re just not," she said. "Hence your taking her out after the wedding."
"I didn’t want to point that out to her," George said, and the two of them chuckled like drains.
Giles harrumphed, and then flicked on the CD player. The music mix he’d already loaded into the machine cranked up: loud indeed, just the way he liked it.
Anya cast a glance at him, said "Luckily we’re moving to Primrose Hill in a couple of weeks," and then put her hand on his thigh –
He’d been choking, agony closing his throat in a flashback, when he’d felt her warm hand on his thigh. He rolled over to face her.
In the dark he could barely see her gentle smile. "Bad dream again?"
"The worst," he’d whispered.
"Me too." She crawled into his arms, and they rocked together skin to skin. "I remembered what vengeance was like. It hurt. Me, I mean, not just the obvious victims."
"Bad indeed." He kissed her forehead, then her mouth. Then her mouth again. The restless movement of her leg between his was waking him up; his hands wandered down to that perfect bottom, pulled her close. He pressed into her, feeling her twist underneath his fingers.
With a slightly guilty thought, he lit the candles on the bedside table.
"I don’t ever want to go back there, don’t want to make you sad. Let’s not hurt each other if we possibly can avoid it," she’d said as she had wound her arms around his neck. One nail had scratched that patch of nerves which made him groan.
"It’s a pact," he’d said, as he slid one hand up and over, one finger teasing.
"Of course, consensual sex-pain is excluded, right?" she’d gasped, and so he’d bitten lightly, just where her shoulder met her neck. She tasted of honey-cream and spices. "Oh, Rupert" was his reward –
"Rupert," she said again. It sounded as if she’d been saying it for a while.
"Darling?" He sent the car zooming through a light just going red.
"I just wanted to review the plan. You can achieve your goals with the right kind of review. So -- George and I stay with you the whole time, right?"
"Not the whole time, as you very well know." They’d gone over this a dozen times, and each time the two of them came up with a new way to challenge him. He sighed. Once more, with conviction: "The plan is, as I’ve said -- we’ll go together to the records room; I’ve chosen the spell of protection. I stand guard: one of you accesses the computer and gets what you can, the other finds the paper files about the transformed individuals. The three of us get the goods downstairs. Then you and George will take the incriminating files and disks and whatever back to the car, and I’ll do the, er, other."
The explosion part. The levelling-the-nest-of-evil-to-the-ground-with-mage-fire part.
George cleared his throat. "Don’t you think that Anya should go with you for the final effort?"
"Well, I think so," she said. "After all, I’m like your battery-charger. Or something. Anyway, I make you even more powerful, don’t I? You might need to throw a nice lightning-bolt or to sense dark untold evil, or whatever."
Giles sighed again. For a moment he wished he could take off his glasses and clean them. "I can manage, really. But thank you for offering."
"Wesley and Spike both said –"
"Yes, I’m quite aware of what they said. They’ve been bloody clear in presenting their views. But I can manage."
"I think you’re making a mistake," she grumbled, arms folding across her chest –
"Mistake, game-player! You’ve made a crucial mistake!" the dying dragon said in its own voice, a rasp of flame and ash.
Giles stood over the smouldering form. His eyes were gritty from the smoke and the pressure of unshed tears. He never would be able to cry out the pain, he knew; the vision had left a wound that couldn’t be healed. Yet he wasn’t beaten. He put his boot in the middle of the dragon’s chest, crushing its scales. "What mistake would that be, lizard?"
Baleful, red-rimmed eyes just going dark caught his. "You think you’ve won, but you’ve lost. To win is to lose." Its fire had sputtered, gone out. The cavern went black and cold.
And Giles laughed, acid-notes in the darkness, because he couldn’t cry any more.
"Green light, sweetheart," Anya said helpfully.
Oh, right. He gunned the car forward, heading onto Putney Bridge. As the Range-Rover sped, he tuned into what was playing on the car stereo: Clapton, growling away. He heard the words of the song as if for the first time.
The lyrics made him frown just a bit.
"Rupert, what’s wrong?" his beloved asked.
"Nothing, darling. Just an irritating thing Wes and Spike used to say to me." Yet now that he thought about it, it could be rather amusing. A good omen, maybe. He joined his voice to Eric’s: "Living is so sweet, now there’s a Superman inside...."
And he sent the Range-Rover practically flying over the bridge.