Tribulations - Chapter 11

Merely to approach the part of London known as Whitechapel made the hair on Sebastian's nape stand on end. To wait across the street from that tower-block that had been the source of his greatest fear and his greatest humiliation felt nearly unbearable. He stole surreptitious glances at his companions to see how they reacted to the location: the two LeFayes Moira had brought up from Cornwall clung to one another's hands so tightly that their knuckles appeared fashioned from marble, at least three of the young Watchers had been sick, either from fear, or from the concentrated essence of evil that hung about the place; his mum and dad stood side by side in earnest conversation, their heads bent close together--though Rupert had one arm slung round Buffy's shoulders. None of this seemed to trouble her--perhaps she'd faced so much already in her life that the terrors of the day seemed commonplace. He couldn't ever remember her pretty young face so much as clouding, unless some danger to his dad was involved.

Buffy noticed Sebastian's gaze and smiled, tossing back her long, golden hair.

"She's quite a peach, isn't she?" Simon Quartermass asked beside him. "One expects a Slayer to be plucky--but perhaps not so charming."

Sebastian had rather a difficult time adjusting to the new, quiet, authoritative Quartermass. They'd been close at school--shared rooms, in fact--but the Quartermass of that time had been a bubbly, effusive boy, given to great enthusiasms. He'd wanted to be an actor, Sebastian recalled, and hadn't so much as balked at being forced to take, by virture of his smallish stature, the female parts in their school theatricals, despite the fact that some of the boys, Wyndham-Price included, had been insufferable to him.

Simon, if memory served, had made a remarkable Ophelia.

"Bearing up, are you, Delacoeur?" Quartermass asked him, sounding perfectly calm in his own right.

"Yes, yes, fine, Quartermass." Lord, but he was off balance. To be reunited with someone who'd been his best boyhood friend, to be attempting to close a demon portal in the company of his mum and dad, a pair of odd witches and a girl who was called a Slayer--the path of life did, at times, turn in odd directions.

His discussion with Moira completed, Rupert turned to address them. "I realize that this place seems utterly appalling, but all of you were chosen for your particular skills, and we're very glad indeed to have you in our company. If you feel, however, that you absolutely can't continue, you'll be missed, but we will certainly understand. Otherwise, we shall proceed as planned." He gave a slight smile. "Think of it as the practical application of your training."

"Your dad would make a fabulous Handler," Quartermass whispered. "I can't believe that berk Travers had him sacked."

"I think he has his hands quite full handling Buffy," Sebastian replied.

"But when she's gone..." his old schoolfriend began.

"She shan't be. She's going to live." Sebastian had to believe that, because he knew the rest of what would occur--the day that Buffy fell, Rupert would fall beside her. He shouldn't care to walk off the field of battle.

Sebastian shuddered, thinking how close his father had been to death only the day before. He'd mixed feelings about Rupert's seemingly complete restoration to health: there was gratitude, naturally, but also a creeping apprehension. As the Americans might say, there was no such thing as a free lunch. He feared the cost of his father's recovery.

Quartermass must have seen something in Sebastian's eyes, for he took a step backward. "Why yes, of course she shall. One can see that." His own eyes, however, said he believed the words to be a lie. It was a given that Slayers did not live. They died, and died young.

Sebastian could not accept such a fate for Buffy.

They'd begun to cross the street, and he hurried to catch up to his companions. Moira climbed first up the steps, her demeanor betraying no hesitation. The building itself looked entirely unsafe--every one of its windows had broken out, making the pavements round its foundation a veritable minefield of shattered glass. The walls, in addition to their foul, mysterious stains, bore myriad cracks, and islands of broken concrete stood out amongst the glass.

"I can't believe it's still standing," Buffy said. "Last time we were here, I was sure the whole place was gonna drop down on our heads."

"It's far from safe," Rupert answered. "One imagines that quite a few floors or ceilings have fallen in."

Just behind, the LeFayes let out a flurry of their native Cornish, and Moira turned round to answer them in the same tongue, her tone reassuring, even if the words were obscure. The three Watchers who'd been ill moved together in a huddle, until one--a powerfully-built young man with thinning sandy hair--stopped abruptly.

"Please do forgive me," the Watcher said, in the most pristine of public-school accents, as if he'd arrived late to tea. "It's simply...it's all very well on paper, d'you see?" He raised his pale-grey eyes, studying their company one by one. "I'm not afraid to die, per se--merely afraid to die here."

"Jenkins, that's ab..." Moira began, but Rupert laid a cautioning hand on her arm.

"It isn't absurd, Em. It's human and reasonable. Let him go."

"He's a Watcher, for God's sake, and ought to act like one," she snapped in return, glaring at Rupert from her position atop the steps. Eventually, though, the steady gaze he returned to her made Moira avert her eyes.

"You're quite free to go, Mr. Jenkins," Rupert told the young Watcher kindly, even as Buffy gave him a questioning look--but Jenkins remained rooted to the spot, staring as Rupert and Buffy took up their weapons with the ease of long practice, and continued their ascent. Sebastian trailed after, like the last, straggling duckling, the one that's barely noticed its parents were in motion.

"This place is utterly..." Moira could be heard to mutter as she stared up at the building's scrofulous facade. Apparently she could think of no adjective vile enough, for her voice trailed off to nothing.

Rupert stepped past her to fight the main door, finally tucking his sword under one arm in order to tug with both hands at the apparently greasy brass handle. It gave way suddenly, almost as if someone holding it on the other side had suddenly let go. Stifling a curse, Rupert struggled to maintain his balance, catching it at last just before he tumbled down the stairs. He and Buffy exchanged looks.

"Flashlights?" she asked, switching on her powerful torch. Nodding, Rupert followed suit.

Despite the daylight hours and the absence of window glass, an impenetrable darkness filled the tower-block's lobby.

"Major ceiling damage, check." Buffy commented. "Think someone left the bathtub running upstairs?"

"Watch your step," Rupert cautioned, smiling slightly at his fiancee's jest. "There seem to be mounds of rubble all round us." Stepping softly, he edged through the doorway--and, as he did so, the structure gave a sort of wrench, like a living thing that, having pretended death, now contorted itself again to menacing life.

Without a thought, Sebastian clutched his father's arm, meaning to tug Rupert backward to safety--but was instead himself dragged forward into a dark, hellish place like a hot, cavernous mouth. The impact, as he fell, knocked him breathless, but he never released his hold on his father's sleeve.

The floor hummed beneath them, and a voice spoke out of the darkness, more horrible than any Sebastian ever imagined.

"Bannister. Giles. And the Chosen Girl." It was a voice like blood and bile dripped over gravel, amused and cruel, it made Sebastian's skin draw instantly into gooseflesh. His hair stood on end, and his throat tightened to the point that he couldn't swallow, and could hardly breathe.

"Who the hell are you?" Moira snapped--she must have sprung after them into the dark. Even now Sebastian could hear her adjusting her fighting stance and altering her grip on her weapon. The switch on her torch clicked rapidly as his mother tried in vain to make it light. "Show yourself, you bloody coward!"

For one second, the torch-beam flashed, illuminating a scene that seemed taken straight from one of those vile medieval depictions of hell: the body of a man, a big man, drawn and quartered and pinned up against the wall that ought to have contained the cellar door.

The room laughed about them, a soundless vibration that made it impossible to keep one's footing. Buffy let out an involuntary cry as she fell against Sebastian. Her hand gripped his shirt tightly for the mere seconds it took her to recover herself.

"That was wigsome," she murmured, only the slightest tremble in her voice.

Lord, she's a plucky girl, Sebastian thought, as Buffy's hand strayed to his shoulder.

"Okay, roll call," she told them. "Seb, I know you're here. You okay?"

"Aye, on both counts," he answered.

"Moira?"

"Here--and bloody furious."

"Giles, sweetie?"

Sebastian couldn't help but smile.

"I believe I broke Seb's fall," Rupert answered in a nearly-amused voice. "Winded me rather."

Buffy moved past, her hand waving blindly as she sought to locate Rupert in the dark. "Okay, there you are. What's that sticky stuff on your sleeve?"

"Nothing," he answered. "It's nothing."

The torch flashed on again, lighting walls that billowed closer, as if they'd been caught inside something that meant to swallow them whole--as perhaps it did.

"I'd suggest we not hesitate with the spell," Rupert said drily, as the dead of night fell over them once more. "Buffy, you'll merely need to remember your training--you can function perfectly well in the dark."

"'Perfectly well,' he says," the Slayer muttered with mock indignation. "Like, what kind of creepy-crawlies do you expect to come bounding out at me?"

"Oh, any manner of monsters whatsoever," Rupert answered, with a false lightness. "Best to be prepared."

"Be prepared? What am I, a boyscout?"

"You are my dearest love," he told her, with utmost seriousness. "Do be careful, Buffy."

"You too." Her sword sang out. "Ha! Got one."

"Sebastian, Moira, take my hands. Back to back now, just as we planned."

They emptied their pockets of the bundles of herbs, packets of salt, and candles that they'd stowed away safely for the occasion, each carrying a complete supply in case of separation, or the event of one or more's supplies being damaged. Carefully, Rupert drew a circle around them with the point of his sword, the room jolting as he did so, its horrid voice shouting obscenities. The salt followed, a second circle painstakingly spilled round their feet. Sebastian forced himself to center, his racing heartbeat to slow, taking comfort from the pressure of his mum's shoulder to one side, his dad's to the other. He felt an overwhelming love for them--for the brave and confident woman to his right, the quiet, equally courageous man to his left, and the seemingly fearless young woman who guarded them with her sword.

Shutting his eyes against the dark, Sebastian prayed for guidance and protection, a great calm settling over him like a warm blanket. He could see the page of the ancient book they'd consulted in his mind's eye, and he began to read from it, surprised by the strength and steadiness of his own voice.

Beside him, Rupert's candle lighted, and his father took up the litany, his soft words bringing to Sebastian an even greater comfort. His own candle blazed, revealing to him more scenes of horror, but he concentrated on the colours of the flame, every colour but red. Moira began to speak, her voice commanding, the voice of someone who would not take no for an answer. Their words mingled, rising and falling, pushing back the darkness until they stood once more in a drab, ugly tower-block lobby, a place in which terrible things had occurred. Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed sharply.

A moment later, the four of them gazed at one another by torchlight and candlelight. Buffy bled slightly from a scratch across her throat. Piles of shadowy, malodourous corpses littered the floor.

"Is that it?" she asked. "Because...let me tell you--major letdown." She touched Rupert's sleeve again, which appeared dark in the reddish light, and he shook his head at her, a trifle impatiently.

"We've only driven it back," he said. "We'll need to descend to the cellar to finish the thing off entirely.

All four stared at the door and its grisly decoration with abhorrence.

"Poor Harker," Moira was finally heard to murmur.

"That...?" Buffy looked ill. "We met that guy. He carried Father Pat out for us." Tears flooded her eyes briefly, but with an obvious effort of will, she blinked them back. "Poor, poor Mr. Harker."

Rupert moved at last to clear away the unfortunate man's remains, and after a nearly losing struggle against his own squeamishness, Sebastian helped him. Once clear, the door swung open with a loud and ominous squeal, like something from a lower-budget horror film.

"You rang?" Buffy said, pitching her voice falsely low, shaking her head at their inquiring looks. "C'mon, guys. Lurch the Butler? The Addams family? You gotta work with me here."

Rupert set a hand on her shoulder, giving her a grave smile through which the love nonetheless shone. "Let's finish this, shall we?" he said.

Buffy took his hand in her own, and together they began to descend the stairs.