Transitions - Ch. 33

Wesley remembered the night he and Rupert Giles had faced the demon Balthazar--or perhaps, for him, "faced" was an inappropriate word. Rupert stood up to the demon--with something of the air of a man who's experienced an extremely difficult day, then come out to the carpark only to find he's left the headlamps of his car on since morning. Wesley himself had cringed, cowered, and pleaded for his miserable life, all the while thinking how repelled Moira would have been by his behavior.

At this moment, in the only-too-real carpark of the Los Angeles International Airport, Wesley thought of Rupert's cool green eyes, his dry humour in the presence of danger, the way he would rise to seemingly any challenge and boldly face it down, apparently without fear, without hesitation.

He thought, too, of the dark green flame in Moira's eyes, and her gentleness with him, even though she was not, perhaps, by nature, a gentle woman. He thought of lying beneath the tree outside their little house in Sunnydale, of the soft golden glow of his ring on her finger. He thought of loving her, that sweet completeness of their bodies meeting.

Frightened as he was, this time Wesley would not plead, or cower, or cringe. Perhaps the demon in Maria looked forward to such behavior. He refused to give it such satisfaction.

Wesley grieved for the woman Maria Del Ciello had been--a woman who was never, after all, his enemy. Who would never have hurt him. The demon purloined snippets of her personality--may even have thought it was Maria--but Wesley knew better, and felt sorry.

He grieved for his Emmy, and hoped that she would miss him. No, he knew that she would. She looked into him and saw something worthy. She had depended on him when all else failed her. Wesley would try not to fail her now. Even though she might never know, he could attempt not to disappoint. Perhaps she saw him as something more than he was--he would catch hold of that something now, at the end, and for this minute, be it.

"Run, Wesley, run," the vampire Maria mocked him. Her pack, nest, whatever one wished to call them, circled like wolves: a young girl with long silky hair, no more than Buffy's age, an man, American, perhaps the same age as Rupert, a tall man of, apparently, about his own age, with bleached blonde hair.

"You said he'd scream," the girl said, pouting.

"'e's not screamin' now," said the blonde man.

"Wes-ley," Maria called, in the manner of a child playing a taunting game of hide-and-go-seek.

Wesley pulled himself upright, shoulders squared, hands at his sides. He met her gaze firmly, trying to give her the sort of look that Rupert might have given. "I should like to ask you, Maria," he told her, amazed by the calmness in his voice. He almost sounded, as Cordelia might say, "Way James Bond." The thought made him smile a little. Dear Cordelia.

Maria smiled, anticipating his pleading.

"I know that you will kill me, and I can, perhaps, comprehend your reasons." He cleared his throat, a slight pause to give him time to compose himself, to say his next words with equal coolness. "I would, however, like to request that you not turn me. I--er--might become tiresome throughout an eternity." From somewhere, he found the courage to smile at her. "Think how much so you found me during the past three years."

"If you get boring, we can always dust you." Maria shrugged. "Now or later, there's nothing to stop its being an it's always an option." Already her face had begun to crease, the yellow to wash in behind her caramel-coloured eyes.

"I shan't drink from you," he told her.

Maria shrugged again. "You're human, Wes. Don't you think we can make you?"

Sadly, Wesley believed exactly that.

He did, at the end feel obliged to struggle, but all four held him firmly. The tearing of teeth into his throat hurt every bit as much as he anticipated--after all, that was a sensation he'd already experienced, and this time he'd no Xander there to embark upon a timely rescue.

Maria drank from him, and then the others followed suit--had he been destined to live, Wesley couldn't help but consider, he'd have possessed scars to rival Moira's.

The yellow lights blurred and turned to streaks in his vision. The carpark spun. Wesley closed his eyes and pictured his friends: Cordelia with her bright smile, dressed in a crisp summer frock, sweet Willow rising on her toes to kiss him, Xander's sideways smile, Buffy laughing as she said "Mouth looks better closed, Wes"--he hoped, with Moira's help, she would recover from the dreadful sorcery that now consumed her. Odd as it seemed, behind their constant quarreling, he'd quite liked his Slayer, even if she would never, truly, be his. He imagined Rupert, the man he had been sent to replace, who'd become his friend.

As Wesley fell, his legs unable to bear his weight any longer, he pictured Moira. His Emmy. The first and only woman he had ever loved, body and mind and soul.

When I am changed, he pleaded to no one in particular. Let me not hurt her. Let the demon not require me to hurt her. Vain hope, he knew--but if only...

Wesley could no longer see. All the feeling had left his body. His mind moved only in faint, jerking surges, framing no thought more coherent than the disjointed words of a prayer he'd learnt from his beloved nanny as a little boy.

Perhaps they've left it too late, he hoped vaguely. It may be that they have taken too much from me.

All his hopes, however, seemed in vain. Maria had been correct in one thing, at least: Wesley was human, and he could not prevent the vampire's terrible blood from entering his body or making it the demon's own.

Some might have said that Buffy lay like the enchanted princess from a fairy-story, golden hair spread across the pillow, her face whiter than the linen pillowslip, a slight, thoughtful frown to her formerly rosy lips. Her chest scarcely rose or fell as she breathed.

Another might have thought she only awaited a prince's kiss to be awakened, but Giles possessed few illusions of any sort, and none whatsoever about the romance of enchantment.

It was not in his nature to expect any spell to end with an embrace and a happily-ever-after, although he might have, willingly, have faced any number of evil enchanters or fire-breathing dragons to save his beloved. He would have given his life, or anything, merely to see Buffy open her eyes and once more be well.

Aunt Rose had seen Buffy and confirmed his original diagnosis: this was no ordinary illness that seemed determined to take away her young life--no flu, as his poor dear Buffy had kept, so strenuously, insisting in her attempts not to trouble him.

Aunt Flora and Aunt Violet concurred--Violet stating, in her gentle way, softening the truth as greatly as possible, that she perceived the sorcery as a dark entanglement round Buffy's slight body, a web of black tendrils, like briars and piercing thorns.

This wasn't a Bloodstone Vengeance Spell, such as had felled her three years before--Giles knew that with certainty. It seemed, though, something equally virulent and malicious in its intent. He wished in vain for his books, for the chance to do something, anything, that would bring Buffy back to him.

Aunt Rose, ever the physician, had suggested a transfer to hospital, a suggestion which her sisters emphatically vetoed. At this moment, only Giles's protective circle kept Buffy amongst the living. Ordinary medicine would be less than useless, and hospital rules would no doubt prohibit the countering magic. At the end of the discussion, Rose at last nodded sadly, and set up a drip to prevent dehydration. Now Buffy lay motionless, the fluids flowing into her bare arm, whilst Giles crouched on the floor below her and chanted.

Giles wasn't certain how much longer, despite all his good intentions, that he could maintain the circle. The moment he ceased his repetition of the ritual words, the protection began to decay, eroded by the sheer viciousness of the Council sorcery, and with each respite, no matter how brief, Buffy slipped a bit closer to the abyss.

Giles's throat ached with constant use, and his need for sleep had become nearly irresistible--not a gentle urge to drift softly away, but a brutal force that made his eyes burn and bones of his skull seem to grind apart, great waves of utter exhaustion washing over him with a swooping nausea.

His aunts helped tend to Buffy's physical needs, and supplied him with endless cups of vile coffee. Oddly, for all their other talents, their uncanny perceptiveness, and Flora's collecting of herbs and spells, they possessed no ability whatsoever for ritual magic themselves. Despite their good intentions, in this they could not help him.

Giles counted the hours until Moira's arrival, never doubting--never daring to doubt--that she would save the day.

Flora had rung Sebastian and Celeste numerous times, but received no answer. Giles bitterly regretted that he'd ever allowed his son to depart, though that had seemed the most considerate path to take, under the circumstances. He tried to tell himself that he'd no idea of Buffy's illness, that it had come upon her suddenly--but each time he pictured her pale, drained face as she sat in church, or the limpness of her body, draped across his lap, as he sat on the steps of the mausoleum.

He'd supplied Flora with the numbers for Celeste's studio, and for the Archbishop's office, where she left messages that were never answered. He despaired of help from that quarter, and in the small part that remained of his consciousness, he worried for his son and daughter-in-law. Where could they have gone to for such a long while? Celeste, at the very least, had been meant to be filming.

The aunts watched with Giles in shifts, each charged with the task of not allowing him to slip away. Flora had once--powerful despite her petiteness--needed to slap him rather sharply back to wakefulness. He'd come to completely off balance, barely able to remember his own name, much less the difficult Old English words of the spell.

Moira must come. She must. The alternative was unthinkable.

One of the candles guttered, as they did only too frequently. Giles replaced it with another. The magic seemed to make the flames burn too hot, devouring the beeswax at an alarming rate, until the candles needed to be replaced with horrible rapidity. Not one must be allowed to extinguish, or the spell would be broken.

Elementals flickered at the edges of his vision, and with them other, darker spirits. Marianna appeared now and then, looking, for once, sympathetic. Even Laurence came to him, though Giles's half-brother's mirrored eyes remained unreadable, but for their ever-present anger. Clarice was his constant companion, kneeling just on the other side of the circle since she remained unable to cross over. Now and then, when he faltered, or the words escaped him, she would prompt Giles gently, not understanding what he said, only that the spell must be spoken. He read every syllable upon her pale lips.

"Rupert," Aunt Rose said, breaking into his near delirium. "Rupert, I believe it's time now."

"No." Giles shook himself awake, and found a stronger voice with which to continue.

"Rupert, if you wish to bid her farewell, I think it must be now. She's nearly awake. There's a chance she might hear you."

"No!" he shouted, but the denial of what must be came out nearly soundless.

Above him, he could hear the soft click of beads, the soft murmur of Aunt Violet's voice as she told her rosary.

Words returned to Giles from his childhood, "Be with us now and at our hour of need," but he could not pronounce them. Shakily, he rose, hardly able to stand in his weariness and the extremity of his grief. It must be a dream. A nightmare, such as he often had, of losing her. A nightmare such as he'd had every night for the past three years.

Monsters inhabited those dreams: vampires, demons, creatures of slime and scales and feathers. Never, except at the time of her Cruciamentum, had Giles dreamed that Watchers would kill her, that the organization to which he'd devoted his life--however, at times, unwillingly--would destroy all his hopes, all his love, all he dreamed of beauty.

In part of himself, he still could not believe. Still speaking the words, he looked down upon Buffy, so fragile now, seeming hollowed, the last vestiges of her life flickering through her. It must be a dream. Only hours, or perhaps days before she had been laughing, vibrant. This could not come upon her so suddenly. It could not.

Giles stroked her hot cheek with numb fingers. Aunt Rose had administered drugs to hold down her fever, but they seemed far less than effective. She burned, and he could not heal her. He tried to make his eyes focus sufficiently to detect her breathing, and he laid her hand, next, over her heart, straining to feel its slow, unsteady beat.

He could not lose her and hold on to himself. All he'd gained back at such cost would vanish if he lost her. This must not be.

He'd read a spell once, and wondered when one might use it, what the price of such a spell might be. The margins of the book had been rife with warnings, ones he'd assumed were true. Giles recalled, with his new clarity of memory, every word. He ought to have used them earlier.

The spell, in essence, transferred the life force of one into another--a ritual similar, in its intent, to what Buffy had done for Angel, offering up her blood. Now he'd thought of it, Giles felt nearly exhilarated. Of course! Why had he not considered this sooner?

His life for hers--childishly, ridiculously easy. His life for hers. There could be no hesitation. Smiling, he launched into the incantation.

"Rupert!" Aunt Flora said sharply. The other aunts had been passing by, but at her tone the entered at once into the room.

"Rupert," Aunt Violet said softly.

Aunt Rose only stared at him. She knew. Of them all, she would have done the same for her Gerald, to prevent the terrible disease from devouring its way through his bones. He'd been a strong man in life, a quiet, reserved man, but he'd died weeping.

Already, Giles perceived the slightest flush of colour creeping back into Buffy's cheeks, a faint reddening of her lips. Her lovely eyes, confused and unfocused, opened, gazing up at him. Giles sang the ritual to her gently, gently like a lullaby, and she smiled a little, her pain and weakness lessening. There ought to be enough in him, yet, to sustain her.

Giles went down suddenly, as if his legs had been cut from beneath him. With his last energy, he took her hand, holding it firmly as he could, hoping that, someday, he might understand, that his love was such he could not help but give all he had to her.

Unlike the circle, this ritual, once begun, sustained itself. Giles completed the words, his head falling against her shoulder, his cheek against the softness of her arm.

Oddly, as his visioned greyed completely, he thought he heard footsteps, noisy footsteps, just as he associated with Xander, and a soft quiet voice that sounded strangely like Willow's.

It was lovely, he supposed, to be able to think of them at the end.