Transitions - Ch. 37

Giles hesitated with his hand on the polished brass knob that would open the door to Sebastian's house. He had turned the key, and heard the bolt slide back; the knob awaited only a simple twist of his hand, and yet he could not force himself make the turn.

"Are you waiting for the stars to align, Rupert, or for some other fortuitous omen?" Moira asked. She was tired from her journey, he knew, and from spell-casting, and the weariness made her cross. Giles threw her an apologetic smile over his shoulder.

His old friend gave only a faint scowl in return.

"I--er--it seems..." Oddly enough, his voice seemed to begun recovering itself. A bit of soreness lingered, and he sounded unusually gruff, but he was no longer reduced to pathetic squeaks and whistles. For diverse reasons, this relieved him no end.

"Did you intend to actually open the door?" she said crisply, "Or does that also require my intervention?"

"Em," Giles said quietly. He turned, placing his hands on her shoulders, gazing down into her shadowed eyes.

Moira appeared troubled, far more so than she'd ever admit. To his surprise she'd seemed bothered more than anything by how near Celeste had come so near to losing her child. He realized, too, that despite Mr. Stanley and his ilk, Moira had to some extent believed in the Council, in the good intent of the Council, at any rate. He remembered well enough the pain of having the last of one's illusions ripped away.

"Em," he repeated, and drew her close, feeling her body melt into his. He would always love her, in some form or another, and always had done, nearly from the moment they'd met. It had, perhaps, never been a romantic love, yet both of them lived in some part of the other's heart.

"Ah, Rupert," she breathed into his chest. "If you only knew how lovely it feels to have you hold me. I've always felt entirely safe in your embrace."

"Have you?" He'd never known that--he'd always thought she considered him, albeit affectionately, a bit of a prat.

Moira drew back slightly, though she didn't move out of the circle of his arms. She searched his eyes in turn, a faint smile playing over her mouth. "Rupert, my Rupert, darling, you've really no idea of the effect you have upon the female of our species, have you?"

Giles wasn't sure exactly what to say: he thought his old friend might be twitting him gently. "I... Er... Em...?"

"You sweet, sweet man." Her hand rubbed the fabric of his waistcoat, over his heart. "Once your Buffy opened her pretty blue eyes, it's no wonder she went head over heels. And you've no idea whatsoever what I mean and, there, I've made you blush." She brushed his cheek lightly with her fingertips, then set them lightly, for a moment, on his mouth. "When all's quiet, my dear, ask her some time. See what she has to say, and believe her answer--you might be surprised."

Giles cleared his throat. He could feel that he was blushing, quite strenuously, and it was true--he'd no idea whatsoever of her meaning. The things women said to him often seemed strangely incomprehensible, but that never stopped him from trying to understand. "Ah--I'll open the door then, shall I?"

Moira gave her Sphinx-like smile. Giles often felt, seeing that smile, that if she asked him riddles he'd be bound to fail--the answer couldn't always be "a man."

Giles turned, and without pausing to think, twisted the knob. He could feel clearly a chill in the air, and with it a lowering, baleful quality that had no place in Sebastian and Celeste's comfortable Bloomsbury home. He hated to think of Celeste lying there, ill and alone, waiting for her husband to come to her aid, hoping every moment for his step upon the stair.

Seb, where are you? Giles asked silently, stepping into the entry and switching on the lights, unable to bear, in the midst of such uncanniness, even the afternoon shadows. He shivered helplessly, whilst Moira gave him an odd look. Her talents had never tended in that direction, and neither, for many years, had his own.

Everything seemed to have changed since the events of a fortnight past. The corrupting Wild Magic gone, and with it the protective layers he'd built over time to control its influence, he seemed to have returned to the talents of his youth. He saw ghosts, he felt leylines, and the presence of evil made him shudder, just as the presence of good gave him a sense of peace.

"What's that you're feeling, Rupert?" Moira asked.

Giles moved through to Sebastian's study, turning on that room's lights as well. He felt he could touch, reliably, every place where the lead jar had rested, the jar that contained the demon he'd driven from his son's helpless body.

In this case, the lead had provided meagre protection--the monster was far more powerful than Giles originally thought, and its influence had seeped out into the very wood of the shelves and furniture. No doubt it had called to poor Seb, and if in a weak moment he'd found himself near...

Giles cursed his own blindness--true, he'd been less than well, but why hadn't he seen the thing as entirely dangerous and malign? Why hadn't he, personally, arranged for its disposal at once? Why had he left it here, as if it were nothing more than some unpleasant chutney, to be placed on the back of the pantry shelf and shunned? The demon had once more captured his son, and he'd only himself to blame.

"That's ridiculous, Rupert," Moira chided, as if he'd spoken aloud. "How can you blame yourself? Sebastian must have known the danger--it's his work, after all--and he had the connections to see to the thing's safe storage, or disposal. Isn't that what you asked him to do?"

"Yes, but--"

"You were unwell, you were on your way to your mum's funeral. Rupert, you needn't bear the entire weight of the world."

"But to ignore the danger, Em--" His eyes pleaded with hers. To ignore the danger wasn't like him. It was the sort of thing his mother would have done, the sort of thing that had undoubtedly cost Clara her life.

"So lovely for you, to be able to entirely predict the future," Moira said drily. "Rupert, let it go. Focus on the moment--we'll need to act soon."

Giles shut his eyes, attempting to focus, as she said. Seb must have uncorked the jar, that much was clear. The sense of evil here had become far too pervasive to be explained by mere seepage through the lead. Yes, the jar was uncorked, the Djinn let loose from its bottle, all the evils in the world freed into this attractive, comfortable room. Giles felt the presence clearly, the monster that spoke to him in Ethan's voice, and in Randall's. Had it known? Such a wicked presence, so violent, so...

Giles's breath caught in his throat. His heart seemed to beat wildly, unable to capture a steady rhythm. What was it about that presence he sensed, that he couldn't quite catch hold of? Evil, yes. Violent, yes. But what else?

"Rupert?" Moira said.

God, what was it? What was it? Giles pressed his fists against his temples. His head pounded suddenly, in a way it hadn't since his younger days, the days in which he'd kept Ripper caged as much as he could, yet Ripper would attempt to beat his way out.

"Rupert, answer me at once," Moira's familiar voice insisted.

Familiar, that was it. Familiar. Something in the presence felt familiar, felt like something so terribly well known it could only be feared. Lord, why wouldn't his head stop? Not for twenty-five years. Not since Ripper...

He went cold. Utterly cold. Ripper.

Next thing he knew, Giles found himself in water. Shivering in water almost too hot to be borne, yet that possessed no power to make him warm again. Moira's green eyes burned down upon him like the suns of alien worlds. He was in one of the huge bathtubs in Sebastian's and Celeste's house, not transported twenty-five years into the past, into a house where one had to wash in cold water at the basin, because none of the plumbing worked.

"He was real," Giles told her. "He was real."

His old friend responded with a slight frown, setting her hand on his brow.

"Lie back," Moira told him. "Get warm. I'll make us some tea, and then you will explain what exactly it is that you mean." She rose before he could say another word, returning a moment later with a pair of Sebastian's flannels, and a heavy pullover quite unsuited to the mild summer weather, but for which Giles suspected he'd be grateful.

"I thought I was half-mad, you see, that I'd imagined him," Giles attempted to explain, through chattering teeth. "But he was there. Before we'd ever summoned Eyghon, he was there."

"Hush, my dearest," Moira soothed, topping off the tub with yet more steaming water. "You've had a shock. Try to recover yourself."

"Em--"

"Hush," she commanded. "Whatever it is can wait a moment, until you're better able to bear it. When you can, come join me in the garden, and I'll hear your tale."

Giles lay back in the tub, shutting his eyes. He wondered if he'd ever be warm again. Certainly not in this house, or anywhere in London. Perhaps when he lay safe again beside Buffy in Appleyard--which now seemed so distant it might well have been heaven. Giles suspected that his return to that blessed place lay far, far in his future.

At length he rose, dried himself, and dressed in his son's winter garb, that ought to have made him abominably warm, but barely served to take away the edge of the chill.

He found Moira in the garden as promised. She leaned back, apparently relaxed, in her wicker chair, sipping tea. Her auburn hair was afire with sunlight, her remarkable eyes hidden by a pair of extremely dark glasses with small oval lenses.

"Here," she said, passing him a second pair. They appeared rather trendy for his taste, but Moira smiled when she saw them on, and it seemed a smile of appreciation. "Lovely, Rupert. Buffy will be impressed."

Giles blinked at her through the darkness. The lenses, oddly, were his own prescription, but he'd long since ceased to marvel where Moira was involved.

"I got them for your birthday, then forgot to send them on," his friend explained. "One ought to have sunglasses if one lives in California. It's the done thing."

"Thank you," Giles answered, accepting the teacup Moira passed to him, cradling the warmth in his cold hands for a few moments before he attempted to sip.

"Now," Moira said, "Explain what you told me previously. 'He was real?'"

"When I--" he began. "That is, when..." Giles found it strangely difficult to continue. The thoughts formed clearly inside his brain, but would not seem to form themselves into words.

"Mr. Merrick taught us how to lay out a story," Moira said reflectively. "He taught us control and precision, you and I."

"Ah. Yes." At last, Giles drank from his cup, the warm liquid soothing his sore throat as he swallowed. He gave himself a few moments more to organize his meaning. What he meant to tell Moira felt oddly impossible, there in Celeste's pretty garden, with the lavender, the roses, the fresh herbs and the softly-droning bees. It seemed both horrid and improbable with the sun on one's face, sipping a proper cup of English tea.

And yet, it had been. It was. If they did not act, it would be.

"When I was a boy and my father died," Giles began again, "I waited for him on the back steps of Church House. I waited in the cold and the dark, and at last he came, as I'd known he would--yet I couldn't find the strength to act. I looked at the demon, and saw my father's face. I was ten years old. How could I act?"

"Yet, you did," Moira murmured.

"It was as if some other part of me arose, some part that could be colder, less caring, more violent. The part that you named Ripper, when we lived in the Underground."

"And quite the young hooligan he was," Moira said, smiling.

"Please, Em," Giles said to her, pained. "I gave that part of myself license to behave as it would. I thought of it as Ripper, and my better nature as Rupert, but we were, I suppose, one and the same. Ripper was the more violent, the less controlled. He was wild and vain and cared very little for the law--in short, he was a young idiot, but he was me."

Giles drank again from his tea. The next part troubled him. It was new and horrid, and he wished it were not true.

"When I went up to Oxford I tried to be good, but at last I couldn't seem to stick it anymore. I began to feel as if I never slept, as if all I had was a dreadful weight pressing upon my shoulders, that even Randall couldn't lift off of me." After twenty-five years, the sadness still lingered. "Randall was a good person, Em."

She reached out and laid her hand over his. "You've told me, love. I know."

"I found myself in London, with no idea how I'd got there, and for days I wandered in the streets, as we'd done when we were younger, not eating, not sleeping, merely drifting from place to place. I met some blokes who were in a band, and when I told them I played guitar, they asked me to sit in. Lord--" Giles set his cup on the small wicker table. "It was fun, Em. Amazing fun. I was, I suppose, entirely happy, for nearly the first time since I was a boy--the first time, except for moments with Randall, since the girls died."

"How do you think you got there, Rupert?" Moira asked.

"I know perfectly well. It was Ethan. Ethan Rayne. He did something to me, seduced me, I suppose one might say, though not in the way that sounds." Giles looked up, meeting Moira's look with his own, their gazes locked, though neither, behind the dark glasses, could see the other's eyes.

He glanced down at his hands: the one strong, though with the marks of the demon's claws in its palm, the other bandaged, the tops of its fingers appearing waxen and unnatural. "Or, not entirely," he muttered.

"I know of Mr. Rayne," Moira murmured. "He has a reputation, in certain circles, and has so far remained remarkably wily--though someday he'll prove to clever for his own good, and someone will tear out, and most likely eat, his heart."

"Ethan said he knew of a place," Giles continued, "A large Victorian place in Whitechapel, free for the taking, ours if we wanted it. There was a girl, Deirdre, in the band. Deirdre was always game for anything, and Ethan brought in two other boys, Robert and Philip. The place seemed odd, but Ethan kept us supplied with rather large amounts of hashish and alcohol, and so..."

"Most of the time you were too pissed to notice?" his old friend said, a little sadly.

"Unfortunately, true enough," Giles responded. "I was living the life of a rude boy, drinking and fighting, God knows what else--magic, of course, always the magic--when Randall found me. And, may I be forgiven, I brought him there. Brought him there to be with me. He felt at once the evil of the place, but he would not desert me." Giles fell silent, lost in memory, and regret, and--for the first time--understanding. "Ethan wasn't happy, that much was clear, but he made as if he wished to atone to me for his mood, and brought me something special, a taste of something special, he said. I lost two days. When I woke, up, everything had changed. Everything."

Giles dragged off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. To say all this made him feel weary, bitter, and filthy inside. "After that, there wasn't any more time, and the house, that had been fairly decrepit to start with, began to decay around us. After that, I felt the scarred-over remains of the Hellmouth below, and I saw ghosts everywhere I turned. After that, Ripper was not merely the worst part of my nature given freedom, he was real."

He felt ill, frozen, the half-drunk tea roiling in his stomach. "That you'd given me that name, Em, was an irony. Ethan knew the history of that place, he knew the events that had occurred within its vicinity, and within the house itself. He knew, in fact, what lived there, what had always lived there--and he conjured that terrible thing into me."

"Ripper," Moira breathed.

"Ripper," Giles agreed. "He wasn't a figment, a convenient name for my wrong-doing, or even a second personality. He was real, and ancient--a demon of a most particular kind. He'd taken others before me, usually to worse effect. Most of the time, being what I was, I could keep him bound, prevent him from doing all that he would. Ethan, though, would deliberately conjure him into the light. He did so that night, when we lost control. I may have killed Randall, but Ethan and Ripper murdered him--and that part wasn't me." He slumped over in his chair, shuddering, head resting on his knees. "By God, Em, it wasn't me."

Moira moved from her chair to kneel before him, her hands stroking his hair, the nape of his neck, his shoulders, with a slow, caressing touch. "Ssh. Ssh, love. I know."

"I tried to contain him," Giles sobbed. "Dear Lord, I tried. His thoughts. The things he wanted..." He straightened, gazing at his friend in bleary anguish. "The demon thought it was I. It made ME think it was I."

"I know," Moira repeated.

"I drove it from my body at the end, and thought it dead. But it wasn't dead, anymore than Eyghon was dead--and Em, what if it hurts Sebastian? What if it forces him to..." The thought was too horrid to put into words. "What if it can make Seb do its bidding?"

"How did Stanley and his cronies know?" she wondered aloud. "Some of this they'd have found in Merrick's reports, after you were brought back, but the rest, how could they have known? Have they been seeking strange bedfellows? Have they agents within the Church, spying upon Seb?"

"What if Sebastian hasn't the strength to resist, Em?"

"Rupert," Moira said, removing her own glasses carefully, so that Giles might see her eyes. "It's caught him now, and may even have him in its thrall--but Sebastian is yours and mine. Our son. He shares our talents."

"You can't know what it's like," Giles told her. He forced himself back under control, as he'd been taught by the wise old man, Merrick, so many years before. Hands steady, breathing calm, voice even.

"No," she answered gravely. "But you've driven it out twice, Rupert, and you can. You can know and understand it better than anyone alive."

His friend was correct, Giles knew. She was correct, and he was controlled, ready to face what they must now face.

But nothing could make him feel warm again.