Transitions - Ch. 38

"I've something for you, Rupert," Moira said, and abruptly rose to her feet.

Giles watched his old friend go: her determined stride, the flash of those long, powerful legs carrying her back into a house he would not have entered again, just then, for any amount of money, even though nothing remained inside there, now, to fear--no actual evil, only the telltale fingerprints of evil. Still, he did not like to see the door close behind her.

He wondered what she'd gone to fetch for him--a book? A weapon?

Giles rubbed his eyes and blinked. He didn't want to fight any more. He just wanted his son, and all his family to be safe, and to see an end to this.

In an upper window, Celeste's cursed cat glared down upon him, then vanished with a flick of its pumpkin-colored tail. He'd noticed, on his way out, that Moira appeared to have left fresh water and food for the ungrateful beast. He thought of Buffy's assertion that they must have a cat, and hoped it had only been a passing fancy. With their luck, the creature would end up possessed, like that malodourous feline Oz had dubbed "Patches."

"Cats," Giles said to himself with a heartfelt distaste, and looked away from the windows. Moira, he noticed, had left her digital telephone on the table. He picked up the small device almost without thinking, running his thumb over the tiny buttons.

After a moment's confusion about how the blasted thing actually worked, Giles found he'd punched in a number.

His Aunt Flora answered almost immediately. "Rupert? Is that you?"

Giles gave a little sigh, not sure what to say in the face of that firm, determined voice. "It is," he answered at last.

"Have you found Sebastian?"

"Yes. That is--I think we have. We shall have to see if my theory proves correct." A pause fell between them, as his aunt waited for him to enlighten her, and Giles attempted to find the words he must say. "I believe we shall find him in Whitechapel, at the place where I lived when...when there was...in the place that I lived with Ethan, and Randall, and the others."

Giles hoped that Flora would answer, but all he heard was her quiet breathing, until at last she told him, "You were not yourself during that time, Rupert."

He gave a small, dry, pained laugh. "Aunt Flora, dear, truer words were never spoken."

"Will you find Sebastian...safe?" she asked.

"I...we...I don't know. I hope that we shall."

"Yes," Flora said. "I hope that as well. Do be careful, Rupert."

"Yes'm," he answered, as he had as a boy. Giles could hear a bit of a scuffle in the background, and suddenly Buffy's voice came on the line.

"Giles, you are SO in trouble."

"What have you done, dearest? Struck my elderly aunt to the floor?"

"Elderly aunt, my ass! She was done talking to you, and passed me the phone, only I tripped over the footrest-thingy."

"The ottoman?" Giles shut his eyes, seeing the sitting room at Appleyard so clearly: the white walls with their dark beams, the deep-cushioned, comfortable furniture in which one could curl up with a book and be lost for hours. He heard the sound of the television in the background, and Willow and Xander's low voices.

"Who knew?" Willow was saying. "It's educational."

"You're in trouble, mister," Buffy informed him, "And don't try to talk your way around it."

Giles leaned back in his chair, feeling both amused and terribly tired. He'd no wish to go to Whitechapel, nothing but dread of that location existed in him, to the utter depths of his soul. He wished that instead of Buffy's angry voice, heard distantly over a telephone line, he could experience her warm arms, soft but strong round his body, the firm, delicate brush of her lips against his.

"Giles?" she said, suddenly uncertain.

"Yes, I'm here. How are you, Buffy?"

"I feel crappy, with that whole 'I'm gonna fall down, hungover, sponge-woman' feeling. And on top of that, my period started, so I'm all crampy too." He could hear her, loudly, fling herself into a chair. "And does anyone have any decent drugs in this entire country?"

"I'm sorry you're feeling unwell," he answered. "Have Aunt Flora make you some raspberry-leaf tea. That's meant to help."

In no uncertain terms, his true love told him what he could do with his raspberry-leaf tea. Giles had known she possessed an extensive vocabulary in certain areas, but hadn't known she'd been aware of those terms, exactly. It was instructive, if nothing else.

"At least you're not squeaky anymore," Buffy finished, with something approaching sympathy. "Did you get any rest on the trip?"

"Moira was driving," he reminded her. He could hear Buffy shiver.

"Is Celeste okay?" she asked, in a more subdued tone.

"She caught a bit of the same spell that hit you, but we've taken it off. The doctors want to keep her a little longer, for the rest, and to make sure the baby's quite safe, then I believe she should come up to Appleyard."

"What about you, Giles? You found Seb?"

For a moment, Giles couldn't answer her. He wished fervently for the touch of her hand, to have her strength by his side--yet at the same time, he did not wish her to enter that place. That dreadful place, where God only knew what he would find.

"Giles," she said, "You're scaring me."

"I believe that we shall locate him," he told her, low-voiced. "I failed to recognize the demon, previously, but have done so now. It's Ripper, Buffy."

"Ripper?" Buffy settled further back into her seat, he could hear the motion, could hear every tiny shift of her body. "But, Giles, Ripper's you."

"Yes and no, " he answered. "This will sound extremely silly..."

"Try me," she told him in a dry voice. "'Cause my surprise-o-meter's pretty much run down here."

"Ripper wasn't exactly as I thought." Giles forced himself to sit back in his own chair, to keep his voice steady. "You see, there was a wilder part of me that Moira gave that name, and I suppose he--I--was a bit of a pillock."

"Yeah," Buffy said, obviously with a clear memory of Band Candy night. "I'd say that fits."

"But after I left Oxford, Ethan brought me to London. There was a London Hellmouth once--had I told you that, Buffy? It's in Whitechapel, just as one might suspect. Long closed, but the scar exists, and malevolence still leaks through that weakness, into the world. The house I lived in then was built directly over that place, and it was..." He put his bandaged hand over his eyes, unable to stop the shaking. He could see that house so clearly: the walls like raw, days-old meat, the filth that spewed from the taps in kitchen and bathroom. And the cellar, the cellar where they'd said their spells, round a stone altar set over the scar of the old Hellmouth. The cellar where they'd summoned Eyghon, and he himself had ended the life of the first person, in years, who had loved him, and whom he'd loved in return.

"This would be where you did the Eyghon-calling spell thing?" Buffy asked, perceptive as always.

"Yes. Directly over the Hellmouth." Giles rubbed his forehead, then shivered. He wished that he had a really warm coat--perhaps that would help.

"Ooh, smart, Giles." He could practically hear Buffy shake her head. "And are you shivering? It's like seventy-five degrees out. Where are you calling from, the freezer?"

"Can't seem to get warm," he told her. "Quite ridiculous, really."

"Giles. Rupert. Sweetie," Buffy said in a gentle voice.

He knew the proper thing would be to hold in the words, to preserve the mask, the reserve that he had nearly always kept in place with Buffy for three long years. He ought not to burden her.

"Giles," she said, "You're about to do that protecting-thing, aren't you? Where you're not quite honest with me?"

"Buffy," he said, so softly he wondered if she could possibly hear him. "That house was a horrid place, putrid, decaying, full of ghosts. I'm afraid to go back there."

He listened to her breathing quicken, the shift of her fingers on the telephone receiver. "But you're gonna," she said, in just as quiet a voice, "For Seb?"

"Yes. For Sebastian. I must."

Buffy's breath became sharp, rough. At length, she asked him, "What about our kids, Giles?"

He couldn't answer her, couldn't continue the story, or find any other words. He'd begun to weep without realizing it, and yet blazed with anger that she'd said, dared to say, those five simple words, words that knifed through him as no others possibly could. Without even meaning to do so, his thumb found the "End" button, and suddenly Buffy wasn't there anymore.

When he looked up, Moira stood over him, the most beautiful sword he'd ever seen in her hands. Roman, he thought, possibly fifth century. Undoubtedly authentic.

"Em," he breathed, "That ought to be in a museum." Giles couldn't believe how well the sword had been preserved--magic, he supposed.

"She hurt you, didn't she?" his friend murmured. "Stabbed you clear through to the heart."

Giles shrugged, ashamed of himself. He would keep his control. He would, from this moment forth. He rubbed his eyes again, hoping they'd only look red with weariness, nothing else. "What's that you have there, Em? May I--?"

"I believe you ought to kneel down," Moira told him, lightly, smiling a little, as if she meant the words as a bit of a joke--but it wasn't a joke, and he did as she bade him, gazing up at her as she stood with the sword-hilt clasped between her hands. They might pretend to treat it all as a laugh, but both knew such actions had power. Her ancestors had been queens, Giles reminded himself, and his Moira was no falling-off from that line.

"By God, St. Michael and St. George?" Giles asked, meeting her eyes.

"That's not the way we do it." Moira gave her Mona Lisa smile.

She touched the flat of the blade to his right shoulder, left shoulder, the crown of his bowed head, then knelt before him, pressing the sword-hilt into the grasp of Giles's own hand. Her eyes intent, she leaned forward, to kiss him on one cheek, then the other.

"I'm not worthy of this, Em," Giles told her. In his hand, the sword felt magical, strong.

"But it hasn't rejected you--that's a good sign. If you truly weren't worthy, it would have burned your hand." Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "If your intent had been evil, Rupert, you would be dead now."

"I'm so immensely glad you've seen fit to warn me," Giles told her.

Again, Moira gave him her mysterious smile.

"He hung up on me." Buffy couldn't believe it. "Giles hung up on me!"

"Yeah, and after you were so sweet 'n' everything." Xander was giving her a look, and for once he didn't look puppy-doggish. If she thought about it, he looked pissed.

"I don't have to take this from you," she started.

Her guy-friend got up and walked to the window, leaning all hunched over with his hands on the sill. "That's right," he said.

Buffy couldn't leave it alone. She followed him across the room, anger driving away the spongy feeling. It was starting to get latish, and outside the two girls who lived on the farm full time, and the guys from town who worked there during the day, had started to bring the horses in.

They were beautiful horses, Buffy thought, shiny-coated, and with rippling tails and manes. The real, living, breathing models for the plastic Breyer horses she'd played with as a kid. She wanted so badly to pet them, to rub her face against the horsey-smelling coats, that were rough and smooth all at the same time. Brown, brown, brown, black, brown, chestnut, white--she watched them go by, like something in a dream.

In the lengthening shadows, the white horse shone like a star.

"So pretty," Buffy breathed, not really meaning to say anything out loud.

"Do you know what it means?" Xander asked her. He still sounded mad, and not very much like his usual jokey self at all. Buffy couldn't figure out what was up with him--but then, when could she?"

"Do I know what what means?"

"A white horse. Giles told me a story once about a white horse meaning death. Like, symbolic."

"Thanks, Xand. That's helping."

"Guys," Willow said, for like the three hundredth time that day. She joined them at the window, and put an arm around each of their waists. "Buff, what did Giles say that made you say...uh...what you said? To him."

Buffy shrugged, not even sure why she'd said it--only that being scared made her mad, and being mad made her mouth open up and things she didn't even mean to tell him come out. If Giles, who was usually so much Mr. Placid could get that much of a wiggins--could get cold, shaking frightened--she knew there was something to worry about.

"He said he probably knew where to find Sebastian. There's an old Hellmouth in someplace called Whitechapel, and he was going back to the house where he and Ethan and those guys lived when they summoned Eyghon. And he said something weird before--that it was Ripper."

"But Ripper's him. Was him." Xander's face got all scrunched up, trying to work out that one. "Wait, no...remembering...uh, old movie, dark street, fog, screaming, scary music..."

"The Whitechapel murders," Willow said, in a soft little voice. "That's what they called it--the police--when those women got killed by Jack the..." Her voice trailed off completely. "Uh-oh."

"Ooh, doggies," Xander said quietly. "Weren't those like...missing organs and stuff?"

"You're not helping, Xander!" Buffy snapped.

"He signed his letters, 'from Hell.'" Willow hurried across the room, to where Aunt Flora's computer was already up and running. "Do you mind if...?"

Flora looked at her sadly. "Please, Willow."

Will slid in behind the keyboard, and her little fingers flew.

"'From Hell,'" Xander mused, "Like, literally? Like, I am a demon, admire my work?"

"There was a Hellmouth in the Whitechapel district of London, though I could not tell you precisely where," Flora said, "And the Watchers' Compound came to be established nearby for that very reason. That particular Hellmouth wasn't entirely closed until 1666, the year of the Great Fire, by the Watchers Rebecca Giles and Virgil Bannister, and Rebecca's Slayer Constance."

"Uh--" Xander scowled, a thought obviously trying to pull together in his head. "Umn...anyone else thinking Rupert Giles and Moira Bannister-St. Ives, and...that maybe Buff's supposed to be there?"

"333 years," Willow said, hunched over the keyboard, "That sounds like a magic number. Is it a magic number?" Her breath whooshed out. "I got into the Scotland Yard files. Murders. Lots and lots of icky murders, all within, like, five miles of each other. Oh. Ewww. Oh! There's a gap, though, starting in the middle seventies. No more bodies. But now--"

"I'm either thinking that 'entirely closed' was a little bit of wishful thinking," Buffy said, "Or somebody got stuck on the wrong side of the gate."

Xander flopped down on the couch. "And why can't we have a normal vacation, like other people?"

"'Cause we're the Scooby Gang," Willow told him. The printer whined as it spit out something. "Map," Will said. "And the center of the badness is right here."

Xander, Buffy and Flora all looked where her finger pointed.

Hellmouths, Buffy thought, Icky, murdering demons that liked to take over peoples' bodies, missing sons and pig-headed, stubborn, infuriating heroic fathers. Why couldn't they have a normal vacation like other people?

"C'mon, guys," she said. "Time to hit London."