Trust - Chapter 6

Wesley hated the daylight hours, that sense of being trapped inside his small cottage like a not-quite-right-in-the-head recluse, his only alternative the foetid sewer passages beneath Sunnydale's sun-drenched streets. He hated to be left alone with his thoughts, especially in aftermath of the news he'd received that morning.

No hope now, after all. No magic tricks, no demons deceived, no waking up warm and alive with his Emmy asleep beside him, no long, lazy afternoons beneath the apple tree.

In a way, Wesley supposed it hadn't quite sunk in yet, the realization that this was the way he'd remain until the end of his days, however long he decided those days ought to be. Giles's eyes had been kind as he'd delivered the news, and the older man had masked his own pain, both physical and emotional, his words quiet, considered, measured. Aware as he was of the inherent selfishness of his reaction, at that moment Wesley found himself too devastated by his own loss to spare any sympathy. Giles's beloved, after all, remained vibrantly alive, however distant she might be, while his was now, incontrovertibly, gone from him.

It didn't help in the least that he'd dreamed of Moira in the night. That is, he'd dreamed of the Moira-who-had-been, her long, powerful body stretched beside him in the bed, her hair, like dark fire, brushing his bare skin, her hands a study in roughness and satin, stroking his chest, his abdomen, his thighs, fingertips brushing his manhood as she leant to kiss him with lips like moonlight and cool water.

Wesley had awakened burningly, painfully hard, with no relief for it but a solitary, unfulfilling wank in the postage-stamp-sized bathroom. He wept bitterly all the while, and his release brought him no pleasure, no real sense of relief, only self-contempt and a return of the leaden, inescapable despair that had become his constant companion.

All day, beyond his windows, the sunlight beckoned. Would it hurt? he wondered. Would it take long, or would the end come quickly? Best to go out into the back yard, so as not to frighten the neighbors. Ought he to leave a note behind, or would they know?

If he were to leave a note, who would care, really? His mother and his sisters, back in England? Not bloody likely. At most, the news of his death would bring a handful of platitudes and a spate of sanctimonious head-shaking His father? Oh, his father would have words to say on the subject, but at least, this time, Wesley would be spared the trial of having to listen to them. In many ways, his father would no doubt be overjoyed to hear that he'd ended in such a manner. After all, it would provide a final, enduring proof of his son's unworthiness to carry on the family line.

He'd left no one behind at the Compound to remember him with particular kindness, no friends from school or university to miss or mourn him. Would it remain to those who'd the greatest reason to resent his presence here, in Sunnydale, to remember him with any fondness? Would Delacoeur speak the familiar words over his coffin, and Giles and Buffy lay flowers upon his grave?

They would, at that. Wesley knew they would. He'd gotten off to a dreadful start with them, in a time that now seemed decades past, but these were good people, kind people. They would let him rest with his Emmy, even though he'd no right to ask such a favour. He must write, after all, to let them know his wishes.

Try as he might, however, the words would not come to him. Instead, Wesley found himself playing with the heavy curtains, twitching one aside the merest fraction of an inch, allowing, again and again, a sunbeam to ripple over the back of his hand. Where the light touched, his skin stung as if scalded, the physical pain distracting him for seconds at a time from his endless loop of loss and self-recrimination.

Now night had fallen, freeing him, if he wished, from his prison. He'd nothing to distract him indoors, no reason to stay, and yet, Wesley did not stir from the window. Indeed, it seemed to him that he'd lost the power of motion, that by looking so fixedly backward into his past he'd transformed himself, like some figure in legend, into stone, or a pillar of salt--something hard, inorganic, immovable.

As Wesley stood, frozen, the doorbell rang, then rang again, louder and more insistently, as if to say, You might as well open up, I've no intention of leaving you in peace.

Stiffly, feeling removed from his body, Wesley made his way to the door.

"Wes, it's me, Xander," shouted the boy's voice, from outside.

Wesley's first impulse was to tell him, "go away," but breeding, inevitably, won out--at least, momentarily. "My loyal watch-dog," he said wearily, opening the door wide. "By all means, come inside. Were you sent to guard me, or had you no better place to go?"

"Nice," Xander answered, the truth clear enough in his pale and haunted face, and Wesley felt instantly sorry to have spoken so tactlessly.

You remember what it feels like, he reminded himself, To feel so uncertain, so awkward, so unwanted. Can't you find it in yourself to spare the boy a bit of kindness?

"Forgive me, Xander," he said quietly. "I'd no call to speak to you in that manner. Do come in?"

Still, Xander lingered in the doorway, letting in the cool, scented breezes, letting in, it seemed, something of the essence of the darkness itself. Wesley stepped backward, shocked by the sensations the mere setting of the sun aroused within him. Night was temptation, and the dark called to him--to hunt, to feed, to revel in this hidden, secret time. The young man's blood, so close to him, became a torment. Wesley could hear every beat of Xander's heart, every faint susurration of liquid through his veins. The boy's flesh smelled salty and delectable, and Wesley knew it would have been the easiest thing in the world to touch his lips to that smooth, youthful skin, to break its tension with one swift, sure bite, to pull into his mouth a deep, heady draught of human warmth...

To feed. To live, even where there was no life. To know, once more, a kind of joy.

"You're staring at my neck, Wes," Xander said to him, sounding frankly more annoyed than frightened.

"I-I wasn't. Not..." Had he been able, Wesley would have blushed. The intensity of his desire shamed and sickened him, and all he could do, in his own defense, was to lie, and lie badly. "I was merely thinking that..."

The young man regarded him, one brow cocked in a way that could only be read as deeply skeptical. He seemed to have learnt the expression from Giles.

"That we might, perhaps, patrol in Buffy's place?" Wesley knew he'd thought no such thing--the words had came to him suddenly, unthinkingly, as he'd sought with desperation for something, anything, that would allow him to save face. "Or that I might, if you weren't up to it."

Xander shrugged, which Wesley took to mean, "Why not?"

"You're certain that you're strong enough?"

As his answer, he received a second shrug, and a slight grimace that seemed to say, "What does it matter if I'm not?" Wesley understood that look. He scarcely felt differently himself.

For a quarter hour they gathered their weapons: Xander locating crosses and vials of holy water, then adding to them a wide-bladed axe which he zipped into a case intended for a tennis racquet. Wesley himself collected a small forest's worth of stakes. Thus prepared, they left the cottage behind, walking past the small, shadowed houses of that neighborhood and onto the overpass. Wesley halted a moment at its highest point, staring fixedly at the lights streaming below.

Here. This was the place. Wesley could recall with perfect clarity his own cruel glee as Moira fled before him. He'd toyed with her, but Moira was no one's plaything, man or monster. She'd not even hesitated, merely flung her body into the void, trusting to nothing.

Given no other alternative, caught between evil and evil, would he himself have possessed the courage to leap into that dangerous river?

He thought not, and yet the memory of another river took him: Em in the Cotswolds, standing beside their kayak, her water-chilled fingers tracing the slight marks on his skin. He hadn't been able to tell her, then, of his deeper scars, the ones left by an expert, that would never show.

"Wes," Xander was saying. "Earth to Wesley."

He shook himself into alertness. What had the boy thought he'd do? Follow Moira out into that darkness? Wesley knew better. Such an act would avail him nothing. However grievous the injury, his inhuman body would always heal.

"You're wigging me," Xander told him, shouting to be heard over the stream of traffic speeding past them along the bridge. He tugged on Wesley's arm. "C'mon. Time's a-wastin'."

Time for what? Wesley thought, and yet he followed docilely enough.

Things were better on the other side, quieter, the sounds of the world around them less of an assault upon his sensitive hearing. The cemeteries, he found, were quieter still. If Wesley held still and concentrated, he could hear the unquiet sleepers as they stirred beneath the earth.

His own movements produced no sound whatsoever, but Xander made excellent bait indeed, his footfalls loud, his blood warm and clean, nicely spiked with adrenaline.

Not speaking, Wesley motioned the boy to stillness, and Xander stopped. The nearest of the undead ones burst from what had been meant as his final resting place, tearing through the ground directly behind the boy, clawed hands reaching for Xander's throat even as Wesley slipped a stake beneath the boy's upraised arm, sliding it neatly between the vampire's ribs. The creature exploded into dust without having tasted so much as a moment of un-life.

"Holy toads!" Xander squealed, pressing his hands over his own heart as if to prevent that organ from leaping out of his chest. "Wes, I'm begging you, warn me." He caught sight of the gravestone behind him, which read "Presley," then glanced at the ragged hole in the earth. "Elvis has left the building?"

"Apparently," Wesley answered, a species of excitement coursing through his own veins. It wasn't precisely the joy of the hunt he'd experienced, but it had, at least, the power to stir something within him.

Better to feel something than nothing at all.

"Come, Xander," Wesley said. "The night's young."

The boy's dark eyes watched him a moment, and then Xander nodded. "Just let me know, next time, when you want me to be baity."

"If I can," Wesley replied, to which Xander gave a half-mirthful laugh, shaking his head.

"Wes, you make me feel so much better," he said.

"Rupert," a voice called to him insistently, somewhere down toward his feet, but Giles felt very little inclination to heed its call. For one thing, he'd at last found a comfortable position in which to lie. For another, he knew perfectly well that this was the middle of the night, and as it wasn't Buffy's voice calling him, he'd no intention of being awakened.

"Rupert, wake up," the voice said again, sounding, at this point, fairly aggrieved. "I need to talk to you."

Giles heard himself making a sound halfway between a grumble and a groan.

"Go 'way, Em," he muttered into his pillow.

"Vicodin, hmn?" Giles heard the faint, distinctive click of a prescription bottle being lifted and set down once more on his bedside table. "I suppose it's no wonder that you're difficult to rouse." The mattress shifted slightly beneath him. "Though as I've come all the way out of the afterlife, I'd think you might make an effort."

"You couldn't came back at, say, closer to seven?" With an effort, he managed to turn over, all his injuries springing instantly to fiery life. "For God's sake, Em."

"Mmn. You know the rules as well as I, Rupert--vanishing before the first cock crows and all that?"

Giles struggled upright, the blankets pooling round his waist. He'd known what he would see, yet the sight of her made the hair at his nape rise and his skin break out in gooseflesh. She was beautiful, so very beautiful, all silver and darkness, like deep water under moonlight, and even in death she'd a power that would not be denied. His heart ached with love, pity, terror--with a host of emotions too complex to be given names. Once he'd met her merciless gaze, he could not turn his eyes away.

"Honestly, Em," Giles told her, struggling to keep his voice light. "I doubt you'd find a cock to crow anywhere within the confines of Sunnydale. It's not what one would call bucolic Besides which, you're not the ghost of Hamlet's bloody father."

"So one would imagine," Moira answered, "Except that a family of voodooiennes lives down on Lexington Street, and they keep quite a flock. All black cockerels, of course, and dramatically red-eyed." A current of something caught her: Moira faded and returned, spreading out her silvery hands as if to hold herself in place. "Be glad to see me whenever I can appear to you. It isn't much longer, now, that I'll be able to resist the river's pull. You'll need to bring me back before then."

"Bring you back?" The chill increased, and he felt Moira's desire, her will, tug at him. "Em..."

Moira's mirrored eyes flashed. "I oughtn't to have died, Rupert. You know that. I want to live again. I want to live, and breathe, and feel." For a moment, her face appeared quite young, as she'd looked when he'd first met her, fierce and proud and utterly unwilling to take "no" for an answer.

The sight of her as that young girl hurt his heart, but Giles answered softly, "Em, I'll not perform necromancy, even for you. You know better than to ask that of me."

"Necromancy?" The ghost gave a soft laugh, like the sound of frozen bells. "Good heavens, Rupert, how dramatic you are! "

Giles found himself mystified. "What, then?"

"Naturally, I'd never ask such a thing," Moira told him, shaking her head so that her hair rippled in dark waves. "I'd prefer my living body back, untainted."

"Anything else you ask, Em, you know I'd..."

"No, Rupert." Moira's silvery hands moved to cover his own. "Don't offer me so much as that, I beg you. This is the Twilight Country, and here we are liquid, changeable, not always subject only to ourselves."

"Then, tell me--" Giles said, still uncertain, his eyes still locked on Moira's sad, unreadable eyes. "What can I offer?"

"A quest, my Chevalier Mal Fete?" Moira smiled faintly: the name was an old joke between them. "May I ask so much of you?"

Giles turned his hands upward, intending to hold hers. The touch was like shock of plunging one's arms into a swift-moving, mountain-fed stream. He shivered violently, the contact almost more than he could bear, and yet he felt within himself no desire to pull away.

"Follow the monster," Moira told him, "Find the stone, and then..."

Already she'd begun to fade, her insubstantial body rippling, as if she was truly a Lady of the Lake, dissolving into the substance that contained her. Her voice, too, came through in waves, so that all Giles heard, at the end, were the words ...Lapis Desiderium and ...my Galahad.

"Em!" he called, his magical senses grasping desperately for some hint of her presence.

Whatever had taken her, however, had moved quickly, leaving Moira nowhere to be found. Giles cursed himself for wasting time, for not having listened to her from the first--for having been, truly, her Lancelot, eternally flawed, his attention drawn forever to the wrong things.

What had Em meant? That he ought to find the Zeit Räuber, certainly, and relieve the demon of its bartered treasure. And then? Make a wish to bring his old friend back?

He'd no faith whatsoever that such a wish would, or even could, work. Wishes were a notoriously tricky form of magic, certainly not to be attempted without considerable thought. Every word of the wish--every syllable--mattered, as well as the intentions of the one who wished. No greed, no doubt, no self-interest could be allowed to enter into the mix, or the results might well prove disastrous.

And how, by any stretch of the imagination, could this be his wish to make? The Lapis Desiderium acted, legend said, upon the heart's desire, and much as he wished to see Em restored and whole...

Stiffly, painfully, Giles drew his knees up to his chest, pushing his hands back through his hair. He'd no faith in himself to complete the task Moira'd set for him, and yet he knew he'd do as she asked, journey to whatever unknown place she required him to discover, perform whatever feats she required him to perform. Succeed or fail, live or die, he would do it for her.

He owed his Emmy, the girl she had been and the woman she was, that much, and more.