Smoke and Mirrors
The fragrance of gardenias mingled with the rich scent of salt and sand, and though the hotel room was both
extravagant and lovely, Maya could only think of death.
Xander lay with her, his breathing slowly returning to normal. Her head rested on his solid bicep. She knew what she
should be thinking. She wanted to think of the sweet things she would like to say to him, about how really, truly
unbelievable he’d been, and about how completely starving she was now, because all of those things were true.
Instead, the fading blooms brought images of the half-remembered dead. One of them, in particular.
“Ahhhh,” Xander moaned. “Just like some lovin’ to solve everything, right?”
Maya willed herself to respond, but could only push a weak, “Mnmmgh,” from her lips.
“I know. That was capital A-mazing,” he said. He wrapped his arm around her neck and drew her close, kissing the
damp curls on her forehead. “And now, I’m ravenous. I think we should head back to that coffee shop on the pier
and give their Spanish omelet a whirl.”
“I think something’s wrong,” she said.
“You think that place had rats? I thought they might, this being a wharf town. Okay. Room service it is. Saves us
the anguish of actually putting on clothes, especially since mine are still soaked with brine.” He took a breath, and a
moment to look into her eyes. “Maya?”
“There’s something wrong, Xander.”
“Not exactly the ego boost a man seeks to have after, you know…”
Maya offered him a smile. “That wasn’t wrong. That was very, very right. But something else…” She felt too close to
him. She pulled away to arm’s length. “Xander, during, I mean… while we were… I heard something.”
“I didn’t,” Xander said, shaking his head. “Well, except you. And me. And, those sounds…”
Maya interrupted. She said, “That’s the thing, you know? What I didn’t want to tell you. The thing Lance
mentioned.”
“I don’t think I followed you around that bend,” Xander said, his brows marked with creases of confusion.
“I guess I should tell you,” she said to herself. She got to her knees, pulling the sheet up to her chin. “I should tell
you about what happens.”
Xander sat up too, with his back against the headboard, his chest all bare and sweaty. Maya had to look away.
“Okay,” she said. “Sometimes, when I lose control…”
Xander chuckled. “You’re saying I made you lose control?”
“Almost,” she said, sneaking a glance his way.
He shrugged, crestfallen. “Go on.”
“In times when I’m close to losing control, I can hear Them. The Dead,” Maya said.
“Well, if that isn’t a buzz kill.”
Maya nodded slightly. “I think I heard I Nighna.”
“Who now?”
“Andrew’s girlfriend.”
“Oh that,” he said. He sat all the way up now, his wrists resting on his knees.
“Xander,” Maya said. “I think Nighna’s dead.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the heel of his hand. “Well, Maya. She was a hardcore demon wench. It was
bound to happen.”
Maya fidgeted with the sheet. “I think something bad’s happened, Xander.”
He swallowed. “Think or know, Maya? Should we call Buffy, because the last thing she needs is for us to ring up with
a false alarm?”
Maya considered for a long moment. She tried to recall the image of Nighna and the things the demon had tried to
convey, but everything was garbled up with the sweaty desire of Xander’s carpentry-toned pectoral muscles. That
was the single worst part of this. She wanted a decent shag with Xander, because it was both their first time and
make-up sex, so it was really, really spectacular, and that omelet sounded dang good right about now.
But, why would she think of Andrew’s ex at a time like this? It was just a thought, a fleeting flicker of many images
that came to her at times like that, when her mind was else-wise occupied. Instead of her life flashing before her
eyes, Maya got bits and pieces of others’ lives. It was unsettling, yes, but it always meant something.
“I think it’s serious,” she said, finally. “I think you should go home.”
They wound their way downward, running toward the heart of the town and away from the sea. Raindrops pounded
the ground as they darted from one overhang to the next. Rachel tried not to look into the vacant windows, tried
not to imagine Rosal del Virrey in high season, full of fat Americans in Bermuda shorts and string bikinis – bad tan
lines as far as the eye could see. She told herself that the grating, scraping noise was the wind on metal rooftops,
but that never set her teeth on edge like this. No, something was coming. Something was close. She felt if she
slowed or turned, she’d see it just as it snapped its dripping jaws around her throat.
“Here!” Ethan Rayne called out. He vanished into a stooped doorway. Rachel plunged down the three steps to
follow, but Mr. Giles caught her, sweeping her gracefully behind him.
“Ethan,” Mr. Giles yelled. “Stay where we can see you.”
Ethan appeared in the doorway with a shark’s grin on his angular face, his hands held up in supplication.
“Oh, I assure you, if I meant you harm I’d simply bar the door. It’s far safer in here than out there,” Ethan said.
Rachel pushed Mr. Giles, but he stood firm.
“Can’t you hear them, Ripper? They’re coming, mate. They’ve not eaten for days.”
Mr. Giles hesitated a moment longer before pulling Rachel into the dark building along with him. Immediately, he
slammed the door and all three set to work dismantling benches and a crude cot to block the entrance. Once it was
done, they receded to the shadows of the room, Mr. Giles and Rachel on one side, Ethan Rayne on the other.
“It won’t be enough to hold them,” Rachel whispered to Mr. Giles.
“It will,” he answered. “This was a church. We’re on hallowed ground.”
Ethan chuckled. “This town is theirs now. You haven’t got a prayer.”
Mr. Giles did not answer. He moved closer to Rachel, keeping a cautious distance from the door and from Ethan.
Rachel could sense the tension between them, palpable as the static charge of the storm. Generally, she disliked
anyone within her 18-inch bubble of personal space, but now was no time to complain about close quarters.
The sound of the creatures, whatever they were, grew in volume with each second. The scraping was soon joined
by a calliope wailing, a carnival’s dirge. It was a horrid sound, like something straight from Hell. Which is what it is,
Rachel thought wildly. From the mouth of Hell.
Rayne clapped his hands theatrically. “Ah, listen to that lovely Chaos. Ripper, old chap, Order has held sway in this
realm far too long. It’s time for some fresh blood in the mix.”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “You can’t believe that…”
Mr. Giles turned to her. “He does believe it,” he said.
Rayne watched them, eyes gleaming. “Of course I do. Change is the great Catalyst, my dear. It’s the very heart of
Darwinist thinking. The strong adapt and the weak are devoured whole.”
Rachel squared her shoulders. “The weak? Those are people you’re talking about. Human beings.” Fat Americans.
Blonde Brazilians. Mayan shopkeepers. Shoeless children begging for change.
Ethan Rayne clucked his tongue appreciatively. “My, my. Look at Rupert, Jr.”
Both flabbergasted by the comparison, Rachel and Mr. Giles stammered, but Eathan went on.
“Yours is a worn philosophy, Ripper. It’s best abandoned like every other false doctrine,” Ethan said. “Humanism
has no future. There’s a Kimaris in Hell who means to bring about another Demon Age. With the fall of The Black
Thorn Circle, he’s seized the opportunity we’ve all been waiting for…”
“Dear Lord,” muttered Giles.
“That’s right. Pray while you have breath to do it,” Ethan said. “And, since you’re both my prisoner, I’ll be taking
the Taonyx Parchments.”
“There are two of us,” Rachel spat. “You’re our prisoner!”
Rayne pulled his left hand from the pocket of his trench coat to reveal the barrel of a heavy pistol.
“I think you’ll find you are quite wrong about that,” Ethan told them.
Rachel held up her hands in surrender, but again Giles remained as he was.
“A gun? Ethan, could you be more clichéd?” Mr. Giles said.
“It does make a rather tired statement, but you see I’m in a bit of a rush,” Rayne said. “I have my orders.”
Mr. Giles put his hands on his hips. “Well, we haven’t got it. You are wasting your time, and ours.”
Ethan cocked the pistol and trained it on Rachel. She felt all of the blood rush down from her body and into her legs,
leaving her cold. She stared only at the gleaming barrel of the gun.
“We’ll not be doing anything until I have the Parchments you took from the Tomb of the Satu,” Ethan said.
Mr. Giles pursed his lips. “You were there first, Ethan,” he said slowly. “Her life is not her own? If that wasn’t your
message…”
Rayne's eyes flickered doubt. “Not her own,” he muttered. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “Ripper, I’ve
tracked you across worlds. Don’t pretend you haven’t got it.”
Mr. Giles patted his soaked flannel shirt. “Search us, you twit! Go through everything we have.” He wrenched
Rachel’s backpack from her shoulder – she was too shocked to protest – and dumped a few food tins, their flashlight,
travel papers and the wrinkled remains of her printed research onto the dirty stone floor.
Ethan’s lips twitched over his teeth. “You’ve hidden it.”
“We didn’t hide it, Ethan,” Mr. Giles snapped, raising his voice over the cacophony outside. “We thought we were
pursuing you.”
“You?” Rayne grimaced. “Following me?”
Mr. Giles stared hard at Ethan, and Rachel, who felt incredibly insignificant, understood what it must feel like to be
the pawn standing between the bishop and the rook on a chessboard. After a long moment stretched tense, Raynes
lowered his gun. With a sheepish shrug, he slipped it into his pocket.
“Well, then,” he said. “My mistake. I’ll just be going.” He tossed a vial onto the floor and it exploded in a puff of
purple smoke. When the air cleared and Rachel could see again, Ethan Rayne had vanished.
Mr. Giles was laughing.
In spite of the demonic howling outside, he was laughing. Rachel gaped at him.
“He could have killed us. Those things out there probably will. What can you possibly find funny in all of this?”
Mr. Giles dropped to the ground, picked up the flashlight and clicked it on. On hands and knees, he searched the
floor until he found a rough-hewn latch.
“Idiot,” Mr. Giles snorted. “It’s a trap door.” He shone the light down into the narrow metal hatch and beheld a
pair of blue eyes gazing back up at him.
Rachel heard Ethan Rayne's feeble laugh. “You’re not supposed to look for it,” he said.
Mr. Giles pulled a chair from in front of the small niche that had been used as an altar and sat down on top of the
trap door. He covered his face with his hands and lightly laughed.
“Is he really…?” Rachel asked, with a nod toward the hole in the ground.
“He is indeed.”
“Amateur,” Rachel sighed. She took another chair and pulled it up beside him. She folded her arms and leaned toward
Mr. Giles. After a long moment, she asked, “So, what do we do now?”
Mr. Giles bent his head low and whispered, “He’s given us everything we need.”
Rachel gave him a searching stare.
He nodded. “Everything,” he went on the same hushed tone. “We wait out the out night, and head home to London
as soon as we can find a pilot.”
After a restive moment, Mr. Giles stretched. He kicked a food tin with the toe of a muddy shoe.
“Can you reach that one?”
Rachel nudged it with her shoe until she was able to pick it up.
“What is it?” Mr. Giles asked.
“I’ve got…” she turned it in her hands “Mandarin oranges.” She raised her brows. “Care for some dinner?”
“Sure, yeah,” Mr. Giles said. He leaned sideways, body precariously balanced on the edge of the chair. He plucked
up a tin and turned it upright. “How about,” he flipped it, “Bean dip to go with it?”
“Hmmm. A feast,” Rachel said.
The wind rose up in a chorus of wretched wails. Rachel ground her teeth and tried to ignore them. She popped the
key on her tin of oranges and peeled the lid back. When she started eating them, she realized she was famished.
She’d gobbled half the can before thinking to offer some to Mr. Giles.
“Um, Ripper?” Ethan called up. “Any chance you’ll let me out? I have information.”
Mr. Giles ignored him. He took a few orange slices and nibbled one.
“Ripper, I do have the gun…”
“Probably isn’t even loaded,” Mr. Giles quipped. Ethan Rayne stopped short.
“Why does he call you that?” Rachel asked.
“It’s a long, long story,” Mr. Giles said.
She crossed her legs at the ankles and stretched. “I’ve got all night.”
“So have I,” Ethan sang.
“Shut up, you berk,” Rachel shouted. Mr. Giles stared at her appraisingly, and then he grinned.
“It’s not a story for now, but I do have others,” he said. “If you’re interested.”
Rachel held her breath. For a moment, she thought she would tell him that she had heard a lifetime of stories about
Rupert Giles. Those, in addition to the things she had read in her family’s journals, gave her a fairly full portrait of
the man and his life; including some of the details she was sure he wasn’t proud of.
But she had not heard them from him. It was the one thing she’d wanted from the beginning.
“Heavens, are you all right?” Mr. Giles asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “And yes. I’m interested. Please, tell away.”
Ariadne and Margot held hands in the bus station, whispering the chant that would let Buffy and Dawn pass through
the city limits undetected by the Coven. Buffy watched their sweet upturned faces as the bus shuddered into
motion and pulled away from the platform.
They had given Dawn a sleeping draught, knowing that she would not willingly leave Spike. Her sister lay limp against
her shoulder, a thick mourning veil concealing her face. Buffy waved goodbye to the Witches as the bus rumbled
onto the freeway. Buffy was leaving, finally, but she knew it wasn’t forever.
She sat back and settled into the seat, one hand curled over the bump in her belly. A girl bump. Her’s and William’s
bump. Healthy and living and real.
The bus smelled of sardines and feet. The lady across from her was playing Sudoku. Behind her, three seats back, a
pair of Latino teenagers was running away to the big city where all of their dreams would come true. Buffy leaned
against Dawn and let all of the sounds and her worries fade into the blacktop.
Buffy felt it ironic that the best thing she had done since she came back to Sunnydale was leave. She laced her
fingers in Dawn’s and soon fell fast asleep.
Halfway between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, Dawn awoke with violent convulsions. She flung her head against the
glass, spider-webbing it and bruising her temple. Buffy got her arms around her sister’s shoulders and hauled her
into the center aisle.
Dawn tore at her hair. She whipped the funeral veil from her face. The people around them – mole-eyed from slumber
– drew back in fear at the sight of Dawn’s eyeless face.
“Dawn!” Buffy shouted. Dawn continued to flail her arms and legs like a rag doll. She moaned and shrieked and
gnashed her teeth while Buffy tried desperately to subdue her.
Dawn wriggled from Buffy’s grasp, sliding half under the seats. The passengers closest to her cringed away; it was
as if they didn’t want her to touch them.
Buffy caught her again, pulled her sister into her arms.
“I’m here, Dawn. It’s me,” she said, soothing her, patting her hair. “It’s Buffy.”
Dawn sat bolt upright. She pressed her hands to her eyes and the scales fell away.
She turned slowly to Buffy, blinking against the light.
“Oh my God,” Buffy breathed. “Your eyes…”
Dawn reached with trembling fingers to touch Buffy’s cheek. A tear slid down her own face when she realized that
Buffy was really right there, beside her.
“Buffy,” she said, “Where have you been?”
The fragrance of gardenias mingled with the rich scent of salt and sand, and though the hotel room was both
extravagant and lovely, Maya could only think of death.
Xander lay with her, his breathing slowly returning to normal. Her head rested on his solid bicep. She knew what she
should be thinking. She wanted to think of the sweet things she would like to say to him, about how really, truly
unbelievable he’d been, and about how completely starving she was now, because all of those things were true.
Instead, the fading blooms brought images of the half-remembered dead. One of them, in particular.
“Ahhhh,” Xander moaned. “Just like some lovin’ to solve everything, right?”
Maya willed herself to respond, but could only push a weak, “Mnmmgh,” from her lips.
“I know. That was capital A-mazing,” he said. He wrapped his arm around her neck and drew her close, kissing the
damp curls on her forehead. “And now, I’m ravenous. I think we should head back to that coffee shop on the pier
and give their Spanish omelet a whirl.”
“I think something’s wrong,” she said.
“You think that place had rats? I thought they might, this being a wharf town. Okay. Room service it is. Saves us
the anguish of actually putting on clothes, especially since mine are still soaked with brine.” He took a breath, and a
moment to look into her eyes. “Maya?”
“There’s something wrong, Xander.”
“Not exactly the ego boost a man seeks to have after, you know…”
Maya offered him a smile. “That wasn’t wrong. That was very, very right. But something else…” She felt too close to
him. She pulled away to arm’s length. “Xander, during, I mean… while we were… I heard something.”
“I didn’t,” Xander said, shaking his head. “Well, except you. And me. And, those sounds…”
Maya interrupted. She said, “That’s the thing, you know? What I didn’t want to tell you. The thing Lance
mentioned.”
“I don’t think I followed you around that bend,” Xander said, his brows marked with creases of confusion.
“I guess I should tell you,” she said to herself. She got to her knees, pulling the sheet up to her chin. “I should tell
you about what happens.”
Xander sat up too, with his back against the headboard, his chest all bare and sweaty. Maya had to look away.
“Okay,” she said. “Sometimes, when I lose control…”
Xander chuckled. “You’re saying I made you lose control?”
“Almost,” she said, sneaking a glance his way.
He shrugged, crestfallen. “Go on.”
“In times when I’m close to losing control, I can hear Them. The Dead,” Maya said.
“Well, if that isn’t a buzz kill.”
Maya nodded slightly. “I think I heard I Nighna.”
“Who now?”
“Andrew’s girlfriend.”
“Oh that,” he said. He sat all the way up now, his wrists resting on his knees.
“Xander,” Maya said. “I think Nighna’s dead.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the heel of his hand. “Well, Maya. She was a hardcore demon wench. It was
bound to happen.”
Maya fidgeted with the sheet. “I think something bad’s happened, Xander.”
He swallowed. “Think or know, Maya? Should we call Buffy, because the last thing she needs is for us to ring up with
a false alarm?”
Maya considered for a long moment. She tried to recall the image of Nighna and the things the demon had tried to
convey, but everything was garbled up with the sweaty desire of Xander’s carpentry-toned pectoral muscles. That
was the single worst part of this. She wanted a decent shag with Xander, because it was both their first time and
make-up sex, so it was really, really spectacular, and that omelet sounded dang good right about now.
But, why would she think of Andrew’s ex at a time like this? It was just a thought, a fleeting flicker of many images
that came to her at times like that, when her mind was else-wise occupied. Instead of her life flashing before her
eyes, Maya got bits and pieces of others’ lives. It was unsettling, yes, but it always meant something.
“I think it’s serious,” she said, finally. “I think you should go home.”
They wound their way downward, running toward the heart of the town and away from the sea. Raindrops pounded
the ground as they darted from one overhang to the next. Rachel tried not to look into the vacant windows, tried
not to imagine Rosal del Virrey in high season, full of fat Americans in Bermuda shorts and string bikinis – bad tan
lines as far as the eye could see. She told herself that the grating, scraping noise was the wind on metal rooftops,
but that never set her teeth on edge like this. No, something was coming. Something was close. She felt if she
slowed or turned, she’d see it just as it snapped its dripping jaws around her throat.
“Here!” Ethan Rayne called out. He vanished into a stooped doorway. Rachel plunged down the three steps to
follow, but Mr. Giles caught her, sweeping her gracefully behind him.
“Ethan,” Mr. Giles yelled. “Stay where we can see you.”
Ethan appeared in the doorway with a shark’s grin on his angular face, his hands held up in supplication.
“Oh, I assure you, if I meant you harm I’d simply bar the door. It’s far safer in here than out there,” Ethan said.
Rachel pushed Mr. Giles, but he stood firm.
“Can’t you hear them, Ripper? They’re coming, mate. They’ve not eaten for days.”
Mr. Giles hesitated a moment longer before pulling Rachel into the dark building along with him. Immediately, he
slammed the door and all three set to work dismantling benches and a crude cot to block the entrance. Once it was
done, they receded to the shadows of the room, Mr. Giles and Rachel on one side, Ethan Rayne on the other.
“It won’t be enough to hold them,” Rachel whispered to Mr. Giles.
“It will,” he answered. “This was a church. We’re on hallowed ground.”
Ethan chuckled. “This town is theirs now. You haven’t got a prayer.”
Mr. Giles did not answer. He moved closer to Rachel, keeping a cautious distance from the door and from Ethan.
Rachel could sense the tension between them, palpable as the static charge of the storm. Generally, she disliked
anyone within her 18-inch bubble of personal space, but now was no time to complain about close quarters.
The sound of the creatures, whatever they were, grew in volume with each second. The scraping was soon joined
by a calliope wailing, a carnival’s dirge. It was a horrid sound, like something straight from Hell. Which is what it is,
Rachel thought wildly. From the mouth of Hell.
Rayne clapped his hands theatrically. “Ah, listen to that lovely Chaos. Ripper, old chap, Order has held sway in this
realm far too long. It’s time for some fresh blood in the mix.”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “You can’t believe that…”
Mr. Giles turned to her. “He does believe it,” he said.
Rayne watched them, eyes gleaming. “Of course I do. Change is the great Catalyst, my dear. It’s the very heart of
Darwinist thinking. The strong adapt and the weak are devoured whole.”
Rachel squared her shoulders. “The weak? Those are people you’re talking about. Human beings.” Fat Americans.
Blonde Brazilians. Mayan shopkeepers. Shoeless children begging for change.
Ethan Rayne clucked his tongue appreciatively. “My, my. Look at Rupert, Jr.”
Both flabbergasted by the comparison, Rachel and Mr. Giles stammered, but Eathan went on.
“Yours is a worn philosophy, Ripper. It’s best abandoned like every other false doctrine,” Ethan said. “Humanism
has no future. There’s a Kimaris in Hell who means to bring about another Demon Age. With the fall of The Black
Thorn Circle, he’s seized the opportunity we’ve all been waiting for…”
“Dear Lord,” muttered Giles.
“That’s right. Pray while you have breath to do it,” Ethan said. “And, since you’re both my prisoner, I’ll be taking
the Taonyx Parchments.”
“There are two of us,” Rachel spat. “You’re our prisoner!”
Rayne pulled his left hand from the pocket of his trench coat to reveal the barrel of a heavy pistol.
“I think you’ll find you are quite wrong about that,” Ethan told them.
Rachel held up her hands in surrender, but again Giles remained as he was.
“A gun? Ethan, could you be more clichéd?” Mr. Giles said.
“It does make a rather tired statement, but you see I’m in a bit of a rush,” Rayne said. “I have my orders.”
Mr. Giles put his hands on his hips. “Well, we haven’t got it. You are wasting your time, and ours.”
Ethan cocked the pistol and trained it on Rachel. She felt all of the blood rush down from her body and into her legs,
leaving her cold. She stared only at the gleaming barrel of the gun.
“We’ll not be doing anything until I have the Parchments you took from the Tomb of the Satu,” Ethan said.
Mr. Giles pursed his lips. “You were there first, Ethan,” he said slowly. “Her life is not her own? If that wasn’t your
message…”
Rayne's eyes flickered doubt. “Not her own,” he muttered. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “Ripper, I’ve
tracked you across worlds. Don’t pretend you haven’t got it.”
Mr. Giles patted his soaked flannel shirt. “Search us, you twit! Go through everything we have.” He wrenched
Rachel’s backpack from her shoulder – she was too shocked to protest – and dumped a few food tins, their flashlight,
travel papers and the wrinkled remains of her printed research onto the dirty stone floor.
Ethan’s lips twitched over his teeth. “You’ve hidden it.”
“We didn’t hide it, Ethan,” Mr. Giles snapped, raising his voice over the cacophony outside. “We thought we were
pursuing you.”
“You?” Rayne grimaced. “Following me?”
Mr. Giles stared hard at Ethan, and Rachel, who felt incredibly insignificant, understood what it must feel like to be
the pawn standing between the bishop and the rook on a chessboard. After a long moment stretched tense, Raynes
lowered his gun. With a sheepish shrug, he slipped it into his pocket.
“Well, then,” he said. “My mistake. I’ll just be going.” He tossed a vial onto the floor and it exploded in a puff of
purple smoke. When the air cleared and Rachel could see again, Ethan Rayne had vanished.
Mr. Giles was laughing.
In spite of the demonic howling outside, he was laughing. Rachel gaped at him.
“He could have killed us. Those things out there probably will. What can you possibly find funny in all of this?”
Mr. Giles dropped to the ground, picked up the flashlight and clicked it on. On hands and knees, he searched the
floor until he found a rough-hewn latch.
“Idiot,” Mr. Giles snorted. “It’s a trap door.” He shone the light down into the narrow metal hatch and beheld a
pair of blue eyes gazing back up at him.
Rachel heard Ethan Rayne's feeble laugh. “You’re not supposed to look for it,” he said.
Mr. Giles pulled a chair from in front of the small niche that had been used as an altar and sat down on top of the
trap door. He covered his face with his hands and lightly laughed.
“Is he really…?” Rachel asked, with a nod toward the hole in the ground.
“He is indeed.”
“Amateur,” Rachel sighed. She took another chair and pulled it up beside him. She folded her arms and leaned toward
Mr. Giles. After a long moment, she asked, “So, what do we do now?”
Mr. Giles bent his head low and whispered, “He’s given us everything we need.”
Rachel gave him a searching stare.
He nodded. “Everything,” he went on the same hushed tone. “We wait out the out night, and head home to London
as soon as we can find a pilot.”
After a restive moment, Mr. Giles stretched. He kicked a food tin with the toe of a muddy shoe.
“Can you reach that one?”
Rachel nudged it with her shoe until she was able to pick it up.
“What is it?” Mr. Giles asked.
“I’ve got…” she turned it in her hands “Mandarin oranges.” She raised her brows. “Care for some dinner?”
“Sure, yeah,” Mr. Giles said. He leaned sideways, body precariously balanced on the edge of the chair. He plucked
up a tin and turned it upright. “How about,” he flipped it, “Bean dip to go with it?”
“Hmmm. A feast,” Rachel said.
The wind rose up in a chorus of wretched wails. Rachel ground her teeth and tried to ignore them. She popped the
key on her tin of oranges and peeled the lid back. When she started eating them, she realized she was famished.
She’d gobbled half the can before thinking to offer some to Mr. Giles.
“Um, Ripper?” Ethan called up. “Any chance you’ll let me out? I have information.”
Mr. Giles ignored him. He took a few orange slices and nibbled one.
“Ripper, I do have the gun…”
“Probably isn’t even loaded,” Mr. Giles quipped. Ethan Rayne stopped short.
“Why does he call you that?” Rachel asked.
“It’s a long, long story,” Mr. Giles said.
She crossed her legs at the ankles and stretched. “I’ve got all night.”
“So have I,” Ethan sang.
“Shut up, you berk,” Rachel shouted. Mr. Giles stared at her appraisingly, and then he grinned.
“It’s not a story for now, but I do have others,” he said. “If you’re interested.”
Rachel held her breath. For a moment, she thought she would tell him that she had heard a lifetime of stories about
Rupert Giles. Those, in addition to the things she had read in her family’s journals, gave her a fairly full portrait of
the man and his life; including some of the details she was sure he wasn’t proud of.
But she had not heard them from him. It was the one thing she’d wanted from the beginning.
“Heavens, are you all right?” Mr. Giles asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “And yes. I’m interested. Please, tell away.”
Ariadne and Margot held hands in the bus station, whispering the chant that would let Buffy and Dawn pass through
the city limits undetected by the Coven. Buffy watched their sweet upturned faces as the bus shuddered into
motion and pulled away from the platform.
They had given Dawn a sleeping draught, knowing that she would not willingly leave Spike. Her sister lay limp against
her shoulder, a thick mourning veil concealing her face. Buffy waved goodbye to the Witches as the bus rumbled
onto the freeway. Buffy was leaving, finally, but she knew it wasn’t forever.
She sat back and settled into the seat, one hand curled over the bump in her belly. A girl bump. Her’s and William’s
bump. Healthy and living and real.
The bus smelled of sardines and feet. The lady across from her was playing Sudoku. Behind her, three seats back, a
pair of Latino teenagers was running away to the big city where all of their dreams would come true. Buffy leaned
against Dawn and let all of the sounds and her worries fade into the blacktop.
Buffy felt it ironic that the best thing she had done since she came back to Sunnydale was leave. She laced her
fingers in Dawn’s and soon fell fast asleep.
Halfway between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, Dawn awoke with violent convulsions. She flung her head against the
glass, spider-webbing it and bruising her temple. Buffy got her arms around her sister’s shoulders and hauled her
into the center aisle.
Dawn tore at her hair. She whipped the funeral veil from her face. The people around them – mole-eyed from slumber
– drew back in fear at the sight of Dawn’s eyeless face.
“Dawn!” Buffy shouted. Dawn continued to flail her arms and legs like a rag doll. She moaned and shrieked and
gnashed her teeth while Buffy tried desperately to subdue her.
Dawn wriggled from Buffy’s grasp, sliding half under the seats. The passengers closest to her cringed away; it was
as if they didn’t want her to touch them.
Buffy caught her again, pulled her sister into her arms.
“I’m here, Dawn. It’s me,” she said, soothing her, patting her hair. “It’s Buffy.”
Dawn sat bolt upright. She pressed her hands to her eyes and the scales fell away.
She turned slowly to Buffy, blinking against the light.
“Oh my God,” Buffy breathed. “Your eyes…”
Dawn reached with trembling fingers to touch Buffy’s cheek. A tear slid down her own face when she realized that
Buffy was really right there, beside her.
“Buffy,” she said, “Where have you been?”
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.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Warning: This chapter is PG-13 due to implied sexual content.