Watchers

I limped out of the carpark and to the barrier, slipping my hand inside the device that's meant to read one's pulse and temperature, thereby ensuring that only living beings pass through the first gate. For those unable to qualify, there's the Aqua Saliens--a high-powered water cannon, by any other name. Blair once told me he'd seen a vampire attempt to circumvent the barrier, and be drilled straight through by the jet of holy water--that is, of course, before the demon went to dust. Whether this account is true, or merely our own version of what the Americans call an "urban folktale," I cannot be sure. Blair has a look of probity to him, but has been known to jest, upon occasion. I'll be first to admit that I am not always the best judge of such matters.

The steel doors opened before me, allowing entrance, then just as quickly shut. Despite a more-than-lingering soreness, aftermath of the previous day's Physical Trials, I chose to take this as proof that I yet lived. Upon first rising that morning, in the overheated fussiness of my mother's guest room, I'd considered the truth of my continued existence somewhat subject to doubt. In short, I'd felt like death warmed over--a day of soul-destroying exertion followed by one of Mater's formal dinners, all heavy food and desperate, aging debutantes, will do that to a man.

I shook myself into something approaching awareness. Only a few seconds were actually allowed to navigate the passage, and so I strode down the corridor to the second barrier with as good of speed as I could manage. The red lenses of the security cameras trailed my progress.

"Password," said a disembodied voice.

I rubbed my eyes. "Homunculus." For God's sake, who chose these things? The second door lit with a green indicator as the human operator compared my response to that day's list, then with a second, brighter light as the computer matched my voiceprint. Again, a door opened.

Stepping through, into an expanse of walled grounds scarcely different from those that might compose the gardens and playing fields of any exclusive school, I immediately spied my Handler, Lady LeFaye, huddled in close conference with one of her colleagues--an older chap called Hobson, whom my Uncle Quentin had described to me as "not our sort." That, I'd been willing to believe: Hobson had a face like a worn brown-leather suitcase, and he perpetually slouched about in the most ill-fitted, disreputable tweeds I had heretofore encountered. In addition, Hobson was a burly man, like the publican of the more rowdy sort of bar, and yet the top of his head reached only to Her Ladyship's chin. At that moment, her hand was clutched tight to his forearm, and her head bent close to his, so that she might whisper fervently in his ear.

Good God! I thought, half hoping the two were only fomenting dissension, not carrying on some liaison of a more personal nature. The thought repelled.

Her Ladyship spied me as I attempted to sidle past. Her eyes, seeking mine, appeared troubled. "Wesley?"

I froze in position. "Ma'am?"

Her elegant hand rested on Hobson's cheek. "Only a moment, Peter." She swooped down, drawing me off just as little, after casting one near-anguished look back in Hobson's direction. "We've just had word, from America," she murmured, her breath warming my ear. "His son's been killed, in the Cruciamentum."

"Dear Lord, is the Slayer dead?"

"I've heard nothing." She cast a second, troubled look. "I came across Peter in the carpark, drunk as a lord. God only knows how he drove here. Please, Wesley--" She wanted to ask me something, I could tell--perhaps not to carry tales to my uncle, or perhaps merely not to be an utter berk about the matter. Obviously, she thought me capable of either. "I need to discover what's happened."

"I could walk him to the Handler's Common Room, if you like. Perhaps Mr. Tsu might be there, or Mr. Palmer."

"Yes, do, Wesley." She squeezed my shoulder. "You're a love. Geoffrey was his only surviving son, his older boy was killed in the Falklands, and his wife's got cancer."

I stared at Hobson, who swayed in place, tears running down his seamed face to stain the frayed collar of his disreputable shirt. "I shall be the soul of discretion."

"Thank you. I'd rather the others of the Council did not see, just now." We hurried back toward the bereaved man; he gazed up at Her Ladyship with stricken eyes. "I thought you might like a sit-down, Peter, and perhaps a cup of tea? Wyndham-Price is going to walk you to the Commons, in case you feel a bit unsteady."

"I need to know what's happened, Moira," he answered, his usual grumble of a voice quite broken. I could not help but pity the man, even while I found him most un-Watcherlike in the extremity of his grief.

"It's your right, Peter," she answered, "And be assured, I shall discover the truth for you. Only go just now; I'll return to you soon."

She watched us depart. As we entered the Main Hall, Hobson muttered to me, "If this is another cock-up by that bastard uncle of yours, I'll kill him with my own hands, boy." More of the sort followed, as if I could be held accountable for what Uncle Quentin does or does not do. Personally, I dislike and even fear the man--and yet I'm indebted to him. Indebted to him most dreadfully.

By the time we reached the Handlers' Common Room, I was quite happy to surrender my charge to the care of Mr. Tsu.

One didn't like to think of Handlers having private lives, or families, though I supposed they must. Had unflappable Mr. Tsu a tale of hidden sorrows? Had our own Lady LeFaye? I recalled our strange encounter on that Cotswolds riverbank three months past, the oddly elastic texture of her scarred skin, and supposed that she must. Moira, her name was--that, I hadn't known. Lady Moira LeFaye? Moira, Lady LeFaye? Somehow, the name made me smile--even as I winced at the early-morning stiffness of my abused muscles, remembering the savagery of yesterday's exertions. I'd no doubt at all that my Handler was, in fact, an evil sorceress--quite capable, if it suited her, of plotting Camelot's fall.

I reported to Mrs. Khatkar at the Secretary's office, and was informed that today's examinations had been postponed until after the memorial.

"Memorial?" I asked.

"Go cool your heels in the archives, Mr. Wyndham-Price." Over the top of her steel-rimmed spectacles, Mrs. Khatkar's caste-mark glared at me like a baleful third eye. "Surely you can accomplish something useful, hmm?"

One should know when to beard the dragon in its lair--or was that the lion in its den? I was far too weary to distinguish--and when to beat a strategic retreat. I withdrew, but when I saw that Maria Del Ciello had come to the archives before me, I nearly retreated again. To my misfortune, she spotted me before I could take my leave and, worse luck still, we'd the room to ourselves. Without others present, Miss Del Ciello would feel no great compulsion toward silence.

"Hey. Windy," she greeted me, extracting a heart-shaped lolly from her mouth. The sweet had stained her lips and tongue quite red--all this while she pored over twelfth century manuscripts. It oughtn't be allowed. Actually, it wasn't allowed. She's so dreadfully American, our Miss Del Ciello--for all that her maternal grandfather was one of our own--sitting there in her white singlet and black denims, in utter violation of our Standards of Dress and Comportment. I doubt very much she knows the meaning of the words. Her father was a butcher, for God's sake, or some such thing, and she makes no attempt to hide the fact. "What's the buzz, Wes?"

"I don't follow." I set my briefcase, carefully, on a chair, secure in the knowledge that my own dress and comportment could not be faulted. "There's to be a Memorial, is all I've been told."

"A Memorial?" She looked stricken, a great deal of the color fading from her naturally olive skin, the wild, curly hair flying about her head as if it were a particularly agitated nest of Medusa's snakes. "Was it the Cruciamentum? Who's been killed? Mother of God, not Buffy or Rupert, I hope."

I could not quell a flash of irritation. "Buffy or Rupert?" As names, especially paired together, they sounded utterly unlikely, like pair of soft toys on child's bed, a kitten and a bear, perhaps. "Who on earth are they?"

"Buffy Anne Summers, the Slayer?" She gusted out a loud breath of exasperation. "Rupert Giles, the Active Watcher? Ding ding, Wes, those names ringing any bells?"

"Bells?" Quartermass ambled in behind her, soundless as a little caramel cat. "Did you know our examinations are canceled? There's to be a Memorial."

"We're up on that," Miss Del Ciello told him. "Who for?"

"Hobson and Blair, is my understanding." Quartermass drifted down into a chair, weightless, hardly more robust than when I'd met him, years ago, at school, when I'd been in the Fourth Form and he in the First. He'd the same look of insipid innocence that brought him the parts of Juliet and Ophelia in our school theatricals--I'd played both Romeo and Hamlet, and had cause to despise him, boy and man. That, and he'd bested me at fencing twice the previous day. For all that he looked frail as a holy wafer, Quartermass could be quick. "I met Her Ladyship in the corridor; she told me. Is Mr. Hobson pere all right?"

"Poor man." Miss Del Ciello shook her head, then grinned, unpleasantly. "Guess what, Simon? Our Wesley didn't know the Watcher's or the Slayer's names."

"I did," I protested. "It's just that I'm not accustomed to hearing them used so...ah...informally. As if they were characters on Eastenders, or such."

"Wesley's never even looked at the tapes," Quartermass informed her. He was wrong about that, but I knew better than to protest. I grew up in the presence of those films. I was made to watch them, when other children were watching Thunderbirds or Dr. Who.

Both Quartermass and Miss Del Ciello gazed at me, and I attempted not to squirm beneath their scrutiny.

"You really ought to, Wes. It's instructive."

"I don't see--" I began.

"Really, Wyndham-Price, you ought to. Truly." Between the two of them, Quartermass and Miss Del Ciello dragged me to one of those dark little viewing chambers behind the stacks. Being American, she was quite the expert on video, raised by television, no doubt.

"Shall we start you with a tough one, Wes, just to see if you flinch?" Miss Del Ciello ran her crimson nails along a shelf of video cassettes. "Do you like horror movies?"

"Video nasties," Quartermass corrected her, every bit her accomplice.

"Oh, yeah, right." Miss Del Ciello chose a random case. "Here's one for you, then--indexed but not labeled. We can all be surprised."

"No." I attempted to hold onto my dignity. "I don't wish to be surprised. I've no wish to view any of these films; there's no use to them at all." I knew quite well what the films contained: certain battles, certain rituals, worst of all, interviews with the Slayers. Young girls, bright-faced or haggard, depending on the time at which they'd been caught for posterity. Often, it was nearly too much for me even to read of their fates. As a boy, they had sometimes made me cry, and each time I'd been punished for my weakness. One didn't weep for Slayers, I'd been taught. One observed and learned.

"No use, or too much like reality? Get your nose out of the books for five seconds, Wes, and look at the nice people." Miss Del Ciello switched off the lights; the television screen flickered.

The film itself started abruptly, the filmmaker obviously no expert in the field. I watched a young woman's lips move--at least, I thought she might be young, for though her face was unlined, her dark eyes appeared ancient. Most of her black, wooly hair looked to have been burned off. Hard angles of bone showed though taut skin that must naturally have been a lovely golden colour, but now appeared yellow with want and pain.

The sound came on so suddenly it made me start. "...too much, just too much. Thank God we got the last of the live people out this morning, as soon as the sun rose. Only fifteen of them left, holed up at the school, from a town of what used to be two thousand. The vamps just kept coming. Wave after wave. You never saw so many in one place at one time." The young woman's entire body trembled. Her eyes flashed at me, out of the screen, as if she'd truly been alive and with us in the room. "Oh, God, you bastards. You fucking bastards. How could you send us here? We did everything you ever told us, followed your every shitty little command." Tears began to roll down her cheeks. "We had no idea."

For a time, the camera only recorded her crying. "Okay, okay. I can make my report. Not a proper one, the way Em would do it, beginning, middle, end. Not the way she'd write it in her journal. I'd write, but my arm hurts too much to do that anymore, and my penmanship sucks anyway--always did. Father O'Casey's helping me make this tape instead, so the next Watcher and/or Slayer will know. I apologize in advance to the good Father, for language and violent content. And to all of you Watchers, when this stops making sense. I can't hold things together very long anymore.

"I never used to talk like this; I used to be cool. I grew up in New Orleans, raised by nuns in what was euphemistically called an orphanage, went to college, almost had a life. I became a P.E. teacher--pretty funny, huh?--a good one. Things were okay. A little intense on the vampires and demons, but okay. Not until I was eight, nine years into my little nighttime career did stuff seriously start to unravel. I started to unravel--the first time Em got hurt bad, I think that's what did me in. Those nights after patrol, sitting by her bed, thinking that if she didn't wake up, I'd be all alone.

"It scared me more than anything, the idea of being alone. Still does. The thought of not having Em there, all starchy and British, correcting my grammar, brewing her horrible tea. For twelve years I've been drinking tea that puts fur on my tongue and makes my hair stand on end. For six years I've been tasting it in her mouth when she kisses me. Sorry, Father O'C, but I've got to be honest here, and I won't deny Emmy, or what she is to me. Always my Watcher. Always my friend. For six years now, my lover. It's funny, I used to whine about boys, wanting boyfriends, wanting privacy, wanting...I don't know. Things. Other things.

"Now I just want everyone to know--I was the one who started it, not Em, and I think it took us both by surprise. It was my choice, my need. She never needed anything, not that she let on. If what the Council wanted from her was to get me out on the street every night, she did that. And look, the fucking world didn't end. I never even got hurt bad, not physically. I want you guys to realize, too, that she was the only thing in this whole sad mess that you Watchers got right The guy she talks about, Merrick, who trained her--in my book he deserves a gold medal. As for the stuff in her reports--don't be a bunch of assholes. Use it. Maybe it's not tradition, but it works.

"I know I'm rambling. I know. I want to remember everything, and I'm tired, so the thoughts swim round and round. That's one of Emmy's sayings. She used to like to visit the Aquarium and watch the fish, all the tropical colors that we never saw at night. At night, all the color's neon, and that isn't the same. Where was I?

"Oh, yeah. Emmy got hurt, and I came unglued. But even after that--for a while, anyway--it still wasn't too bad. I teased Em about the way she gimped around on crutches all those months, limping along after me when I went on patrol. I'd tell her what good bait she made--and that was true, the vamps came after her like bugs to a lightbulb. Really, she could see inside my head. That's what made her do it. She always knew where I was going, even when I didn't know myself. She knew she couldn't let me go out alone anymore, the way she sometimes had after I was grown up and fully trained. It was then she first started using the magic--there are spells, you know, that can help us do this, that can bind demons, or blind them, even increase a human's strength, until she can nearly hold her own with a Slayer. At least until after the party's over.

"I used to wonder why Em just didn't use the spells on me--make me really super-amazing, like...I don't know. Superman or something. That's before I figured out what magic really does--makes you use more of it, and more, while it starts ripping you out inside. That's what happened to her. And I--I just wasn't capable of maintaining my decorum any longer. That's another one of Em's phrases, in case you didn't recognize it.

"One morning we looked at ourselves, and we were like junkies, like those lost people half-dead on the streets around St. Aloysius's Children's Home, in the bad part the Big Easy, back when I was a kid. We were existing like vampires. We'd given up our jobs and started living on Em's family money, which for years she'd said she would never do. We'd sleep most of the day, then as soon as it was dark go out hunting, looking to kill--call it Slaying if you like, but we were just like them, the enemy. The only difference was, we still had pulses.

"That's when Em called you guys. I remember standing in the phone booth one night, pressed up against her, shaking, while she fed quarter after quarter into the slot, enough to reach England. Junkie that I was, I needed to go out there, into the dark, and she wasn't going to leave me alone. I was cussing and muttering things, like some kind of nutcase, and she was trying to put on her Watcher voice, so the Council wouldn't know she'd gone nearly as crazy as me. I don't know who she talked to--Travers, I guess. He never liked her--I think he'd figured out that Em helped me fudge that Cruciamentum thing, which was his baby, and afterwards he never forgave her, 'cause he couldn't prove it, and the Council wouldn't let him take her away from me.

"Whoever it was, she told him it was time to let us stop. She even told him how to swing it--that she could kill me and bring me back, just like Snow White, just the way we'd discussed. Stop my heart for a second so the next one could be called, bring me back--wake me up, her princess, with a kiss--so that we could just be. We would still help the great cause, make ourselves useful back in England. Em had everything worked out perfectly. She even offered to put it in writing. I don't know what the guy--Travers, I'm picturing Travers--said to her, but Em just out and out lost it, and started screaming at him in Cornish. That's a completely dead language, in case you didn't know. Deader than Latin. I was pushing up against her, squeezing her arm, digging my nails into her skin, trying to get her to pull it together enough to talk English again. I knew we wouldn't get anything if she didn't speak English.

"'Nine years,' she yelled at him, 'Is bloody long enough!' She screamed a whole bunch of bad words, and then she started to cry. The guy at the other end said a lot of words of his own to her, while Em was weeping but not making any sound, and at the end she just hung up. "That's it?" I asked. Em shook her head. "No, love. No. They're sending us to Prague." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve; she didn't wear makeup anymore, so nothing smeared. After that, I never heard her Watcher-voice again.

"Later on, I found out the guy had told her that she could retire and come home, but not me. Never me. Prague nearly finished us. We went all the way crazy there, so bad it disgusted even the vampires. I can still remember that blonde one, Spike, staring down at me, right after he'd run one of those huge railroad nails of his through Em's guts, and saying, 'Ducks, you need to get yourself some help. Bloody 'ell, look at you!'"

The young woman on the tape began to laugh; I could see the vampire's point. She appeared no more than half sane, and quite like a habitual user of drugs.

"The next Slayer, my poor little heiress--I wonder who she'll be?" the woman said at last, when she had contained her laughter. "One of those sad, dumb kids brought up by the Council since she was in diapers, trained to walk and talk and think like you? That kind never lasts. Two months, six months, a year--they're gone, time to pull out the next ticket in the Slayer lottery. Or maybe someone like me, who almost got a taste of quasi-normal life? Who will you send out to her--some dickless wonder like the first Watcher you gave me, Mr. Oliphant? 'You will obey orders, young lady'--he actually said that to me, and made this dumb little hand-signal of crossed fingers over his breastbone, like he was in the fucking Boy Scouts.

"Maybe my successor will get lucky, and you'll send her a cool Watcher, like Emmy. Maybe you'll send Rupert, who took care of me while Em was in the hospital in Prague, and then in London, too. During that month, before you bastards made us come back out again, we holed up in his apartment, and slept in his bed while he slept on the couch--but he always acted like he didn't mind.

"Em trained with Rupert under Mr. Merrick, who was their Handler--but you know that. You probably know everything I say. Emmy used to have a photo of the three of them together, until our weird old apartment building burned down. Mr. Merrick was an older guy, but elegant, and Em and Rupert were younger, about the age I am now. A nice-looking couple, as English as crumpets and Earl Grey tea. I get a little jealous of Rupert sometimes, which is pretty stupid, since I know Em left him to come to me. I don't even know if they were in love, ever. Em doesn't kiss and tell, but from the way she talks, let's say probably. All I know is that, aside from the jealousy, and the holes in my brain where I used to have memories, I miss him, and I miss London. We were nearly like a family there.

"Sometimes, when Em was hurting too badly to be touched, Rupert would hold me tight in his arms so I could sleep--tight but nice, nothing weird, just the way I always imagined a dad would hold me, if I'd ever had one. Rupert smelled good, and his arms, when he held me, were very strong and comforting. I know I'm not a kid, haven't been in forever, but I always wanted a dad.

"We talked about it last night, Emmy and me, before the bad thing happened. She really thought you should send him. You know, for the new girl--she wanted to tell you that, even though she didn't think you'd listen. She said he's the kind of Watcher who'd take care of his Slayer, and stick with her to the bitter end, the way Emmy's stuck with me. I know that's true because of the way he took care of us. He could convince me to do things--like get out of bed, and wash, and have breakfast--when I really just wanted to die. I didn't want to eat, but somehow he made me. The one thing Rupert ever did wrong was this: he'd make me tea, but it was never strong enough. I told him it had to be strong enough, so I'd know it was real.

"Sometimes I think nothing's real. Sometimes I think this is hell, because nothing real could hurt this much, and go on and on this way.

"I hope if by some chance Em pulls through this, Rupert comes to find her here in Maine, the way I asked. It's my last wish, and I wrote it in a letter, even though the writing hurt like a hot knife through my arm. I sent the letter with the schoolteacher, on the bus out of town. Sally--I'm going to call her Sally, 'cause I really can't remember the teacher's right name--said the words made sense. I had her read it, because I wasn't sure. I used to be able to put words together, one after the other, like a string of matched pearls. I want Rupert to get the letter. I want Emmy to see him again. I want him to hold her so tight it almost hurts, with her cheek pressed up about those scratchy clothes he wears, and have him talk to her softly, the way he talked to me, until he almost pulled me back into the light. I can say this because I like to think of my Emmy happy, since any bit of happiness I managed to snatch out of the past twelve years--well, that happiness came from her.

"This is what it boils down to: I love my Watcher, plain and simple, so In Memoriam I'm going to try to do this right. This tape is the first bit, the--how did Em put it in the old days?--the 'saving the information for posterity' part. Weird, but it's harder than the rest. It's so hard to keep making sense: it's been a long time since I had to try, since I didn't have Emmy to think for me. Funny, there was a time when I thought up the strategies.

"I'll do this thing right, then the next thing, too, and that's all she wrote. How does that song I like start? 'All the fear has left me now/I'm not frightened anymore?' It has. It really has. And I'm not. The woman I used to be is starting to wake up, just for a little while, before we both go back to sleep.

"This is how the last chapter starts, and how the story ends: we're in Pottersville, on the coast of Maine. The lifeblood of this town used to be a fish processing plant. Lobsters, Atlantic cod. Big old freezers--that's where the vampires sleep. Turn off the juice, a freezer makes a nice warm cave to wait out the daylight. Not too many windows in the whole factory, really, just little slits, high up. It's a huge, dark concrete box, the best vampire hotel you could think of. Six months ago we might have done some good here, might have been able to take back the town. Now it's just too late.

"Yesterday we wired the factory to explode, and Em did a Spell of Obscurement to hide the charges--afterward, she was bleeding a little, from the corner of her mouth, but she shrugged that off. She told me then that she'd set the spell up so that it would still hold, even if something happened to her--as if she knew. I'm still scared it won't work, that everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket. You know they don't sleep really, the vampires. Not really. Not the way you think, though they do get pretty groggy toward noon. That's the time to go in. I know it won't work if we do it by remote. One of us has to be there, and stay alive long enough to blow everything sky high. What am I saying, one of us? It's gonna be me." The Slayer rubbed her shoulder, absently--her upper arm had been splinted, I noticed, with what appeared to be a magazine and a pair of shoelaces.

"What else? Oh, that's right. Last night. We stole bows from the sporting goods store--there wasn't anyone left to stop us--and had Father O'Casey bless vat after vat of water. Poor man, he nearly freaked when Em started doing her thing--the Wards, and the flaming wall, all that stuff. His first exposure, I think, to the Black Arts. She looked different, too, more herself, really every bit the witch, the sorceress. I think it's true that her way-back ancestors used to be queens. I could see that clear as day, in her face, and the way she carried her body: she didn't look like a Watcher at all." The young woman gave a slight smile. "I can remember those suits she used to wear, proper enough to have tea with Her Majesty, and how long it lasted before she shed that skin.

"I remember how it used to scare us that we couldn't sleep alone anymore, not even in daytime. Now it doesn't even seem strange that we can't sleep at all. Or I can't. I don't think Em's ever going to wake up again. I think maybe she lost too much blood, and the magic's drained too much of something else. The one that got her was the biggest vamp I'd ever seen, and he nearly ripped out her throat. We bandaged it the best we could, but I don't know." She looked down at something, the camera following her movements. A woman's head lay on the Slayer's lap; the woman's chest scarcely moved. "It happened when she tried to save me. She'd done all these spells, six, seven of them, maybe more, so many she was nearly at the point of meltdown.

"We'd climbed up into the belltower, with as much holy water as we could carry, and all the ammo we could find. Father O'Casey and one of the schoolteachers, the young teacher who didn't get turned--that's Sally, the one I mentioned before--manned the crossbows. Em and I had our longbows, and a whole forest of wooden arrows. It was like fucking Agincourt--'Cry God for Harry, England and St. George.' That's what Em said, ironically. It's Shakespeare. For a little while I thought it was going to be okay, and then, from all the magic, Em started bleeding, at the nose and the ears. I looked at her, and I couldn't look away, and one of them on the ground clipped me with something. I came flying out, right through the open window. Em didn't stop to think, she dived right after. My arm broke when I hit ground, and I got the wind knocked out of me, but I could see the first light of dawn.

"Em stood over me, bleeding, but fighting just like one of us, like a Slayer, until I got my breath back. That's when the big vamp grabbed her. When I was fighting one of them in front, he caught her from behind, and by the time I turned around to stake him, it was all too late. He'd dragged her back into the shadows, and fed on her--I still don't know if he forced her to drink in turn. It didn't matter that the sun was coming up, and the rest of them had to run. It was too late.

"Father O'Casey helped me carry her inside. He splinted up my arm, and he did most of Em's bandages. Together we put everyone on the schoolbus, and told the schoolteacher to drive--hard and fast and don't look back, not for anything. Funny, I still can't remember that woman's name, but she was braver than she ever knew she could be, one of the good ones. Maybe it wasn't Sally. It might have been Sarah or Samantha. Something like that.

"Father O'Casey promised to stay here with Em until it's done, and then take her for help. I believe him. He's a good guy. I left him a stake and told him what to do, just in case. Em wouldn't want to rise as one of them, not ever. Father O'Casey did the Last Rites for her, even though she's not Catholic, and he heard my confession, and absolved me. There were things I confessed to him that I don't think were sins, like all the stuff between Em and me, but I told them anyway, and I think he understood. It's not even like we had any choice; all we had was each other. Funny, I never had much use for priests when I was a kid--the children at my orphanage weren't really orphans, and I remember one of the Fathers calling us, "the poisoned fruit of deadly sin," as if we had any choice about the way we got born. I'm kind of glad, though, at the end, that I met one who changed my mind. Father O'Casey says it isn't suicide if you die in war. That's what this is.

"I'm going to have him shut off the camera now, and I'll lie down beside Em just for a few minutes. I want to hold her in my arms one last time, and say goodbye. Then I'll go. I hope what the good Father says is true, and we'll see each other in another place. I'm trying really hard not to tell all you tweedy bastards, safe at home in Mother England, to go straight to Hell. Em and I were two decent people, and we fought the good fight. We deserved better than this at the end. That's all."

The screen dissolved to dirty snow. I turned about to see Lady LeFaye standing just behind my chair, her eyes glazed and one hand pressed to her throat, above the hidden place where unseen scars marred her skin.

"That tape oughtn't be in general archive," she said quietly, holding out the other hand. "Maria, will you give it me, please?"

Miss Del Ciello threw our Handler a look, but complied, although I could clearly read an official catalogue number on the tape's jacket.

"Your examinations have been canceled for the day. I've come to tell you that the Memorial for Mr. Blair and Mr. Hobson fils will be held in half an hour. Please do be punctual. Maria, I'd appreciate your finding something appropriate to wear. And, please do not force me to measure your skirt to determine if the length is acceptable. Remember: sober dress reflects respect for our fallen comrades."

"Yes'm," Miss Del Ciello answered, unusually subdued.

"Well, then. Dismissed."

"Your Ladyship--" Quartermass seemed determined to linger. Weak as ever, he'd tears in his eyes. I can't imagine why they've promoted him so far--Handler's Pet, I suppose.

"Later, Simon." She sank into the seat Miss Del Ciello had lately vacated, turning the video round and round in her hands.

Rising, I glanced at the others' departing backs, then said, "You actually intend to remove an officially catalogued tape from the archives?"

"Bloody hell, Wesley, why should you care?" Her accent had shifted from its normally crystalline tones, into something a bit furry round the edges, softer in its vowels and consonants, with a hint of the sing-song quality one associates with the Irish or the Welsh.

"Because our task is not to suppress knowledge, but to use it--to learn from it, if one may state the obvious."

"Your task is, apparently, to be an officious little prick. Do you know what the others call you, behind your back? Uncle Quentie's lapdog. Grow some bollocks, Wesley. Learn to be your own man."

"I know that these people are not my friends."

"Then you ought to be at pains to make them so. Sit down," Her Ladyship ordered, pushing a chair toward me with her foot.

"I ought to--"

"You're already appropriately dressed. You're quite the most appropriately dressed young man I know. Please sit."

I sat, displaying good posture and an attentive manner, hands folded in my lap.

"I'm sorry for what I said to you, Wesley, a moment ago. For what I called you. That wasn't right."

"But, perhaps, true."

Lady LeFaye gave a feline smile. "If you say so, Wesley. And in answer to your first question: no, I don't intend to scarper with the video, merely to have the Archivist change its cataloguing from General Files to Special Request. That's all. Not much of what the Slayer taped is usable."

"But as an example of Slayer psychology--"

"I suppose, but perhaps we should protect her memory, poor girl, from those that would not understand?"

"And her Watcher's? What's described on that tape is a shocking disregard for nearly all of our tenets. The woman must have been mad."

"Oh, she was. Quite. And, Wesley, when you've kept a Slayer alive for twelve years in the field, please feel welcome to come back and criticize her to me." Lady LeFaye rose, limping a bit on one leg. "The weather's turning, I think. Perhaps we'll have more snow."

"Perhaps," I answered, pleased to take refuge in generalities. There was something, I knew, that I'd missed. Something obvious.

"Families can be bloody," Her Ladyship said at last, quite unexpectedly. She constantly caught me off guard in just such a manner.

"I...er...yes, I suppose."

"And your Uncle Quentin seems determined to steer your course for you. Pity you can't emulate Buffy--she had no trouble making her feelings toward him known."

"Which were?"

"She told your uncle, 'Bite me.'"

I laughed, couldn't help myself, even though I was shocked at the very thought. "Might as well sign my death warrant."

"Did you never want to be anything but a Watcher, Wesley? Anything at all?"

"I briefly entertained thoughts of becoming Indiana Jones, but I couldn't abide the rats and the snakes. Very insanitary. So no, Uncle Quentin aside, it's what I've wanted, always."

"You have a sense of humour. I never knew that." Her Ladyship regarded me, smiling. "You came through the Physical Trials swimmingly. I've certified you in five weapons instead of three, though you'll never make a fencer, I fear."

"Quartermass bested me. Twice."

"Simon's not strong, but he fights with his head. I wish you wouldn't think so little of him, Wesley--he's sensitive, but there's a good strong core. He thinks well of you."

"Yet he sided with Miss Del Ciello today."

"You take everything so personally. Were you teased a great deal as a child?" She regarded me. "Yes, I see you were. Forget I said that You truly went all out, did well, and you should be proud. Are you hurting today?"

"No," I lied to her, "I'm not hurting at all."

"Well, then," she replied, something showing in her eyes that, after three years, I still could not read. "Neither am I."