Transitions - Ch. 41

After her pummeling of Quentin Travers, it had taken Celeste's familiar face and a lot of smooth talking on her part to keep Buffy out of trouble with the law. Those anxious minutes were almost made worthwhile, though, by getting the chance to see Celeste give Travers a look as if he was dog poop to be scraped off her shoe. She also liked seeing the way the police bent over backwards to be nice to the well-known TV lady, but didn't seem so inclined to put up with the Watcher. Travers didn't seem to have any mode but pompous jerk, and the officers, or whatever they were called in London, responded just about as well to that as Buffy herself had.

Celeste, on the other hand, put on her smiling face, signed autographs, and chatted, giving Buffy and company the chance to pull back into the shadows, and for Willow to do a little inconspicuousness spell. As Xander said, the whole thing was too surreal. That a shiny black car had driven up, in slow motion, and whisked Travers away seemed pretty much more of the same.

When she joined them again, Celeste looked tired and sad.

"I thought you were supposed to be in the hospital," Buffy said to her. "And, thanks."

"You're welcome," Celeste answered, sounding distracted. "I removed myself from their care."

"Celeste, was that a good idea?"

"It was only hiding. I don't hide." Celeste pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead. "Moira rang me from the house, and I couldn't...I just couldn't let them go on their own. I had to come here. One doesn't like to imagine..." Her voice trailed off. "Oh, Buffy, I can't think what to do next."

Buffy took her hand, and the two of them stood clutched onto each other, watching, along with the others. They waited for the fire to eat up the lower floors, and for the building to collapse, but that never happened. Smoke continued to boil out of the windows, and fire to burn, for the next half hour, and then, abruptly, the flames just stopped. After awhile, the smoke stopped too.

"Celeste..." Buffy began, not knowing what she meant to ask, knowing that this would be a good time to come up with a plan of her own--she'd come with plans before, after all. Plenty of plans.

"My dears," Aunt Flora whispered, a look of tiredness in her eyes, too--and scaredness. "God help me, if there isn't someone left alive inside that building."

Celeste's hand tightened on Buffy's arm. "Is it Bastian? Auntie Flora, tell me it's my Bastian."

Flora, looking really old for the first time, shook her head. "I can't...I'm not at home, love...I'm not strong here, and I can't tell."

"We must see!" Celeste insisted. "Immediately, we must see!"

"I'm goin' in," Buffy told her. "Will, can you cover me?"

Willow looked startled--she'd been concentrating really hard, her lips moving as she said her spell, one of her hands cupping the flame of the little candle that she held in the other, to protect it from the wind. "I--uh--I--it's too far. I've gotta go with you."

"No, that's too dangerous," Buffy told her. "I can't let you."

"Buffy." Willow glanced up, her eyes looking, for a minute, like Moira's eyes. "This is Giles. Resolve face. I'm in."

"Me too," Xander said.

"And I," Celeste insisted. Buffy didn't like to tell Will, but Celeste's resolve face left hers behind in the dirt.

Buffy turned to Aunt Flora. "If we...that is, uh...if this turns out to be a mistake, will you let people know for us? Call our parents, and everyone? Just not until you're sure though, okay?"

Slowly, Flora took a little notebook from her purse, and they all took turns writing down the names and numbers of people that wanted told, just in case that walked into that recently burning building, that should have fallen down but hadn't, and didn't walk out again. Buffy was last, and she wanted so badly not just to write down her mom's name and number, but to hear her mom's voice again--which was stupid, she told herself, because this was just going to be another day at the office, and then they'd be back. Same old-same old. Ho-hum.

Slowly, the police and the firefighters gathered their stuff together and began to move away, though they left warning signs up all around the building. Hand-in-hand, the Scooby Gang, plus Celeste, approached. Willow chanted out her spell way too quickly, so that she sounded like she was on fast forward. Xander held onto Buffy's hand so tight that if she'd been anyone else he'd have totally crunched her fingers. Celeste, up ahead of them, looked brave and lonely and tired.

Buffy wanted to reassure the older woman, the way Celeste had reassured her, but both of them knew there weren't any for sures, that anything they said to each other would be wishful thinking. Buffy and Willow, being short, ducked under the ropes, Xander and Celeste stepped over.

"Oi! You kids!" a voice called as they reached the top of the stairs. "You can't go in there! It's bloody dangerous."

Buffy turned. The voice belonged to a large man with blonde hair going gray, tall, with a broad big-nosed face that wasn't handsome, but looked kind. His English accent wasn't anything like her other British friends--not crisp like Moira's or Wesley's, or soft and educated like Giles's or the aunts' voices. Half the letters he said were squashed-sounding, and the other half stretched out in weird directions.

"Hello," Willow said to him. "We aren't just playing."

The man's blue eyes flickered over them. "Strewth," he said--or something that sounded like that. Buffy had no idea what he meant. He focused on Celeste. "You're that bird on the telly. No offense meant--but this place would make you a bloody great job of redecorating."

"That's not what I'm here for," Celeste answered, smiling a little, though her eyes didn't get warm. "We need to go in now, Mr...?"

"Harker," he said. "Jonathan Harker." He pronounced his "h's" carefully, as if he really wanted to drop them, but had been taught not to.

"Like in Dracula," Willow piped up, the blushed. "Or not."

The man stepped over the ropes too. "I was the one who called the priest. I could see..." His voice trailed away. "I could see things were about to happen against, same as they happened before, no matter the council didn't want to hear, stupid buggers. Me dad was the baby that didn't get killed, in the '07 murders, so I might, you say, have a family interest."

Oh-seven murders? Buffy thought. She wanted to trust this man, with his bright blue eyes and big, kind face--but she'd long since gotten past the point where she trusted anyone on sight. "The Watchers' Council?" she asked, her own eyes narrowing.

The man gave her a different look, like maybe he thought she was a little slow. "The Borough Council, the daft buggers who put up a block of flats over this hellish place. Thick as whale omelettes, them. Couldn't feel it...couldn't feel..." He shivered, staring up at the high-rise with a weird, blank look on his face. "I can't seem to leave it alone anymore."

"Well, you're best to leave it--and we need to go," Celeste repeated, firmly.

That being said, no one seemed to want to open the door. They stood in a little knot, looking at each other nervously.

At last, Mr. Harker pushed his way between them to pull on the handle. "Damme, but that's cold," he said.

"But the fire..." Willow began, then shivered. It was cold. Beyond cold. It was fall-in-the-sewer, get-soaking-wet, stand-all-night-in-an-industrial-refrigerator freezing, with all of the accompanying yucky, damp, shivery feelings.

"You know, you'd expect hotness," Will continued. "Not coldness. Because fires are. Hot. Usually. Except this one."

Xander put an arm around her. They huddled in through the half-open door, all of them shivering now like crazy. One by one they switched on the flashlights that Aunt Flora, in her wise Giles-fashion, had insisted they carry, staring up at the burn-marks and the smoke-stains. Buffy still couldn't help believing that the whole building would come crashing down on their heads any minute--but she couldn't make herself move any faster, either.

"Ya know," Xander said, "On a scale of one to ten for bad smells--"

"Ten," Willow whispered.

"Ten," Buffy agreed. She tried not to breathe through her nose, but when she breathed through her mouth she could actually taste the badness, and it was the baddest badness she'd ever been near, it was like her own personal Hellmouth back in Sunnydale, only smellier.

"Oh, Giles," Willow said, still whispering. "He did magic here, right where we're standing."

"How do you know?" Buffy asked.

"Moira taught me. It's like recognizing someone's voice--they're all different. I felt Moira outside, but I don't feel her here. Just Giles, and--oh!"

"What?"

Willow shivered even harder, her arms wrapped around herself, her teeth chattering so hard she could hardly talk. "O-oh, it's b-b-bad. It's so b-bad." She moved toward one of the doors like she was sleepwalking. "D-down here."

"Careful, Will." Buffy reached into her bag, passing out weapons. Just doing that made her miss Giles even more, because it was usually so much his job.

Willow put her hand on the doorhandle, then snatched it off again. "Oh!"

"Will?"

"I know it's w-wimpy wimpy. I know. But I c-can't!" She looked over her shoulder, wide-eyed. "I mean, I'll go d-down and everything, but I just c-can't touch."

Buffy bit her lip and shut her eyes, and in one quick motion tugged open the door. The minute she did it her stomach turned over, and she just had to stand there a minute, quivering and wiping her hand over and over on the leg of her jeans, until Celeste charged past her and down the stairs.

"Celeste, stay with the group," Buffy yelled, reminding herself of her first grade teacher, Mrs. Munoz. The stairs down were covered with baked-on crusty, gritty stuff, like the inside of an oven that hadn't been cleaned for a hundred years.

Celeste didn't slow down. She moved fast, yelling her husband's name, but holding her hands to her head at the same time, obviously feeling the same thing Buffy felt, which was a throbbing something like the worse sinus headache of all time.

"It's like..." Will began, then bit her lip.

"Like what, Will?" Buffy asked. They'd all bunched together at the bottom of the stairs, except for Mr. Harker, who'd stopped halfway down. The air wasn't cold there, it was hot, and stuffy, like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, and it had a red glowiness, even though there weren't any lights, or candles burning--never a good sign, in Buffy's opinion.

Celeste, her hands still at her head, sat down suddenly on the lowest step.

"You okay?" Buffy asked her.

"No," Celeste answered, her mouth in a hard, straight line.

"It's like at The Factory," Willow said, still shivering, despite the heat. "I can feel it. Like the trees."

"Wild Magic? But Giles--"

"Not Giles, Buffy." Willow tiptoed further into the room. "'Cause that magic left him, right? But it's like a family thing. So I'm guessing--Oh."

"Oh?"

"A guy." Willow knelt down--there was a man, flat out on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes, which made Buffy suspect...

"Dead guy?" she asked, in a little voice.

Xander got down on his knees beside her, and felt the man's pulse. The maybe-dead guy had white hair, whiter than any Buffy had ever seen, but his face didn't look old, it just looked totally brain-fried, worse than Giles's had been at his very, very worst after the scary-forest incident.

"Nope," Xander said. "Not-dead guy."

Celeste lurched up from the stair to crunch down on her knees beside them; the look on her normally pretty face scared Buffy. "Fergus!" She hauled back and slapped the man. "Fergus!" she yelled again. "Dammit, Fergus, where's Sebastian?"

The not-dead guy didn't even blink. Celeste got ready to slap him again, but Buffy caught her hand. "Stop, Celeste, that's not helping. He's not gonna be ready to play twenty questions any time soon."

Where another person might have been getting ready to cry, her face going crumple-y, Celeste got kind of a eagle-ish expression, as if she was about to swoop down and grab some little unsuspecting creature.

"But I must know!" she said, achieving a Moira-level of vocal crispness.

And where is Moira? Buffy asked herself, as if they didn't have enough problems. If she wasn't outside, and she never made it inside, where'd she go?

"Mr. Harker," she said out loud. "Can you take--" She paused, not wanting to call the poor man "not-dead guy" to his face, just in case he could hear her.

"Father Padraig," Celeste supplied. For the first time, Buffy noticed that the man was wearing a priest-suit, but that it was all whitened by frost. This place definitely had its own weather.

"Can you take...um...Father Patrick outside?" Despite his story, Mr. Harker's presence still bothered her. She definitely didn't trust people who just got involved in this kind of stuff out of the blue--but she had to hope he was legit, and maybe he had a right to his little obsession, if it really was kind of a family thing. And who else was there to trust? And as far as the poor priest was concerned, the sooner they got him out, the better.

Mr. Harker had a look of complete horror on his face.

"What, you've never been inside before?" Buffy asked him.

"I--ah--no--" He shook his head violently. "It's like...Hell. Like a wee bit of hell. And a tiny wee girl like you..."

"Nah, this is what I do." Buffy tried to make her voice sound brave, but this place got to her, and she was so worried... "You don't have to stay. Just get the priest-guy out, okay? Make sure he gets to a hospital?"

The big man's eyes had gone closed, and he looked like he was praying. Nothing could convince him to step down onto the basement floor, but between the four of them, they got the priest up and into Mr. Harker's waiting arms. Having something to hold onto, something to do, seemed to steady him. He and Buffy locked eyes for a minute.

"I'm really hoping you're on the level," she said.

"Aye," he answered, as if that meant anything--but maybe it did. He hoisted the priest's limp body over his shoulder and took off out of there as if being chased by hellhounds.

It's good to have a mission when you're that scared, Buffy thought. It's good for me to have a mission. Because, if she hadn't, this hell-basement would have scared her so bad she couldn't think straight. She couldn't think very straight as it was.

Buffy turned back to face her friends. Celeste had a grim expression, but Xander and Willow looked just as terrified as she felt.

"Scuse me for bringing it up," Xander said, "But what next?"

Buffy shut her eyes, waiting for inspiration to strike, waiting for something--because she was just tapped out as far as ideas were concerned. C'mon lightning bolt, she thought, not sure if she meant the lightning-bolt of inspiration, or the one to strike her dead, so she wouldn't have to think about this stuff anymore.

All around them, the foundations gave a sudden, apparently heartfelt groan, and Buffy realized that her apprehension about the building falling down was just about to come true.

"Guys," she yelled, "We've gotta--!"

And then she heard the whimper. A distinctive whimper, and one she'd heard before, Buffy was sure--there couldn't be two like it in the world. Dammit, could this get any more complicated?

"Ethan!" she snapped. "Ethan Rayne, come on out. I know you're there."

There were stacks of weird rubble in the far corner, and slowly the sorcerer's lean body appeared from behind them, crawling on hands and knees--or hand and knees, rather.

"Get up!" Buffy commanded, scared and furious all at the same time. He was behind this, she knew he was--she should have known it!

Ethan tried, but apparently couldn't make it to his feet. Even in the dim red light his face appeared pink and shiny, like he'd just received the world's worst sunburn, and his hair had been frizzled even worse than poor Willow's. He no longer had any eyebrows or eyelashes. There was a look on his face Buffy never expected to see--not sly, or cruel, or wearing one of those chicken-shit grins. His eyes were red too, and he looked like he'd been crying...he looked as if he'd seen something too terrible to see, and as if he'd lost someone, or something, and was actually grieving. That gave her a wiggins--Ethan, grieving?

She didn't trust him though. For all she knew he was faking weakness because he had something else up his sleeve.

"When they asked..." he began in a rough voice. "When I agreed..."

The building made another ominous sound.

"Buffy--" Xander cautioned.

"Ethan," Buffy said. Any other time, she might have been sorry for someone who looked the way Ethan was looking--but not now. There wasn't time for it now. "What did you do? Where's Giles?"

"Ripper..." Ethan started laughing, and blood came out of his mouth, looking black in the red room. "Two Rippers. Dark gods, what were you thinking, Ethan, old mate? You've fairly bolloxed up this one."

"Ethan! Now!"

"Wasn't me." The sorcerer glanced up at her, a crazy-scary grin on his bleeding mouth. "Wasn't me, Slayer. Didn't do it."

"I don't care who did it, Ethan--I just want you to undo it."

Instead, Ethan started crying, really crying, a weird, twisted, ugly sound. "Isn't fair. Isn't fair. I loved him too, you see."

The bare trees swayed in the wind, and a thin, gritty snow blew over their roots. God, it was cold! Hard to believe that somewhere, in the real world, existed the sweet warmth of high summer.

Giles swore to himself that, were he to survive this, he would never again complain about California weather, no matter how many days, unrelieved by rain, the sun beat down upon him. He leaned the hilt of Moira's sword against his chest, and flexed his stiff fingers. The blade had served him well--he only questioned how much longer he could continue to wield it.

Wield. He smiled slightly. That was one of the words Buffy would twit him about, as she did so many others. He knew, at times, that he really did speak like a textbook with arms, or like the omniscient narrator of some overwrought Victorian novel. Overwrought--there was another. Dear Lord, what he wouldn't give to have her beside him: his student, his friend, his sweet tormentor, his lover. His Buffy. Giles smiled again at the familiar, ridiculous name. His dearest Buffy.

The pinkish-gray glow at the edges of his vision seemed to promise that dawn would arrive soon--but a real dawn never did come to this place. This would be the third time now he'd seen that glow, though no actual day had followed. He ached to sleep, as Sebastian slept--but knew that he must not, even as he knew, absolutely, that sooner or later his body would betray him.

The ring of monstrous corpses round the clearing where they sheltered served as proof enough of that. This forest was, in truth, alive--and not with the friendly woodland animals that inhabited his kids' beloved Disney films. So far the unspeakable creatures had come upon him one by one, but Giles feared what would happen should they come together. Once or twice already the outcome of those battles had been, by no means, certain, and his ability to fight them off was not increasing.

Giles yawned, and rubbed his face with his cold, blistered hand. He must stay alert, for Sebastian's sake, and for his own. It wasn't merely the monsters to be feared. Somewhere out there, in the dark, The Ripper lurked. When the nights were blackest, Giles had heard his terrible, familiar voice: taunting, threatening, calling.

He yawned again, and made himself rise, to walk on stiff legs about the clearing, rolling his shoulders to ease their soreness.

He wanted so little: only to go home, back along a path that, with all his magic, he could not discover. Was that too much to ask? If he'd known where he was to start with, perhaps he might have found a way, but he'd no idea where Sebastian had brought them.

Giles tensed. Something dark sprang at him out of the darkness. His blade swung.