Tribulations - Chapter 3

"I beg your pardon?" Giles shot Quartermass a look of utter disbelief.

"We want you to lead us to victory. It's why you came here, isn't it, Mr. Giles? To defeat your bitter enemies?" The young Watcher gazed up at him with calm blue eyes, looking once again entirely innocent, like one of God's holy fools. Only a little something in the set of his mouth told Giles otherwise--but was that glimpse of an innser spark enough to rely upon?

"I came here to consult with Mr. Briggs in the Archives, and to borrow a book," Giles answered, but even as he said the words, he knew them to be a lie. He hadn't ever wanted to meekly beg the Council's indulgence--he'd come here because he wanted to give the human part of Ripper free rein. He'd wanted heads to (not quite literally,perhaps) roll. Quartermass must have seen the truth of that in his eyes, because the younger man smiled slightly.

"I knew that we could rely upon you, Mr. Giles," he said, rising to his feet.

"I..." Giles began, but even as he spoke his senses leapt to attention--booted footsteps sounded on the stairs, still two levels below, but rising rapidly. "Quartermass, have you weapons?"

The young Watcher nodded, drawing out from beneath the bed a short sword of exquisite workmanship, obviously quite old. Giles wished he had time to study its markings more clearly, but there wasn't time. Instead, he practiced a move or so to measure the weapon's balance, while Quartermass rooted through the wardrobe for a cricket bat.

The footsteps ceased and the door sprang open, jolting on its hinges, rebounding from the wall until it almost shut again. Relying upon the element of surprise, Giles flung himself into the fray, fighting dirty, head-butting the first man, stomping the second's instep, flinging an elbow against the nose of the third. Crashing through the doorway, he spied Travers at the end of the hall, keeping himself carefully out from the fray.

"Rupert Giles," Travers began, in a voice that only mocked its usual plummy tones, "We arrest you in the name of the Watchers' Council of Britain, for treason against our..."

"Bugger yourself," Giles answered, executing a half-turn to knee one of the Council thugs. The man gasped, clutched his offended manhood, and toppled like a felled tree. Giles could hear Quartermass's bat smacking sharply off kneecaps and skulls. Before he knew it, he'd reached the end of the corridor, and the tip of his sword pinked the skin of Travers's throat.

"Call off your goons," Giles said softly, "Or, God help me, I'll skewer you where you stand."

"Rupert..." Travers began, then swallowed convulsively. His eyes kept up a series of nervous motions in his head.

"Call them off!" Giles snapped. Younger men, and one or two women as well, had begun to fill the entrance, Quartermass's friend Ishmael at their head.

"This is treason," Travers answered coldly.

"If you like," Giles answered pleasantly, though he felt far from pleasant. A red rage seemed to fill his chest, his brain, his eyes. He found the fingers of his left hand clutched round Travers's throat, squeezing ever tighter, the older man's struggles useless against his strength. "I ought to kill you this second," he hissed, and knew, in that second, that he wanted to do no less. He would kill every last one of the Council, every last Watcher alive, if that would keep Buffy and the others from harm. The totality of the feeling thrilled and frightened him.

"Mr. Giles," Quartermass said quietly. "I believe this isn't the time." His gentle tug meant nothing, in terms of strength, but it brought Giles to his senses. He released Travers abruptly.

"You're bleeding," the young Watcher told him.

"It doesn't matter," Giles answered, half-sick with the aftermath of the poisoning, and of his own rage. It took all his strength of will merely to keep his own voice under control. "Take the injured to the infirmary. The rest can be locked in the Council chamber--for the time being."

"You've no right," Travers stated, in the same flat, cold voice.

"Actually," a feminine voice responded, one that sounded quite cheerful, and painfully young. "He has every right, Mr. Travers, sir. Bylaws of 1710. Shan't quote, must paraphrase. If a schism arises between factions within the ranks of the Watchers, then the totality of that body is allowed to take a vote of no confidence. In other words, you wait, we meet, we vote. Oh, and naturally you're allowed a vote too. You may even vote for yourself, Mr. Travers, if it makes you feel better."

The young woman who'd spoken paused, grinning cheekily. She was a tiny elfin creature, like a strange blend of fairy and schoolgirl, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles pushed up into her untidy yellow hair.

"Angela Tremayne," Quartermass whispered. "Mr. Briggs's Special Assistant."

"Ah," Giles answered. From the mentions his old friend Briggs made in his letters, Giles had imagined the Archivist's assistant to be more of a cross between a dragon and Lady Macbeth, but as the young woman stood there before them, Giles realized he could put that down to Briggs's abject fear of the fairer sex. He'd no doubt this particular Watcher ordered the old man about like a lapdog. Still partially stunned, he watched the young men and women clear the corridor, working quickly and silently, just as they'd been trained.

Quartermass was fussing with his sleeve, and Giles glanced at him with annoyance--true there was a jagged cut of some sort across his arm, but nothing to be concerned with. In fact, his only lingering concern touched on his worry that it had all been too easy--where were the rest of the Council? Where were their thugs? Most of all what had become of Moira?

"Have you seen Lady LeFaye?" he asked Quartermass. "Was she brought inside? And, if so, where might they be keeping her?"

The younger man shook his head, concern creasing his smooth, fair features. "I wish I could tell you, Mr. Giles. That concerns me too."

What sort of hardship is this meant to be? /i>Moira wondered, regarding herself in the looking-glass that covered one long wall. Undoubtedly, some old man or the other would be on the other side, watching. Always watching. That's what they did, wasn't it? Bloody voyeurs, the lot of them.

Helena--or even Buffy--at this point might have stuck out her tongue or started pulling humourous faces at the glass, but Moira found herself constitutionally incapable of doing so. Instead, she began a series of gentle stretches, taking it easy to start with. Her lungs still felt raw from the gas, and her bruised wrist ached a bit from its confinement, though she hadn't struggled hard enough to actually injure herself--she possessed too much good sense to go in for that brand of melodramatic foolishness. She knew to be still when stillness was called for, to observe and bide her time.

Moira straightened, staring back into the glass. Yes, someone moved behind it, detectable to her magical senses despite the chamber's dampening field. She wondered if the motion of her eyes troubled the Watcher, if it angered him that she knew he lurked there, that her gaze followed him. She hoped that it did, and that she frightened him.

Frightened men made mistakes.

She'd lain still in one position too long before wakening, and her hip ached, as it sometimes did, though she'd never admit to the pain. She rubbed it absently, following the movements of her double in the mirror. Moira had grown used to the sight of her own body, which was...what it was. The scars didn't trouble her anymore, though she most often kept them covered, in order not to distract others. Her skin had retained its youthful suppleness, and her form was remarkably toned for a woman of forty-five. Most people, until they caught sight of what lived behind her eyes, took her for ten years younger, at least. Her childhood training, all the LeFaye rites and rituals, made her indifferent to her own nakedness. Her Watcher training enabled her to ignore the chill in the air, as well as her growing hunger and thirst.

What sort of idiots are they? Moira dropped her hands to her sides, and padded closer to the looking-glass. The room's other walls, and its ceiling and floor, had been covered with mats of the sort used for gymnastics or wrestling. Their whiteness, and the harsh light overhead, could be construed as an irritation, but not much of one. If they intended to break her, they'd a long way yet to go. She only felt true concern for Rupert--she'd seen him shot with some sort of thin dart, a variety which experience told her would most likely be laden with poison.

Had Rupert made good his escape, or was he also here, a prisoner, somewhere in these rooms below the Compound, rooms she'd never known existed?

What a pair of idiots you were, her inner voice told her, but Moira didn't waste the effort of acknowledging the truth of that statement. Things were as they were; what more could be said?

"Watchers," she muttered, and shook her head.

"Moira," a cold, calm voice said to her, "Are you ready to begin?"