Ripper’s Girl
Ripper, escorted by five masked Initiative soldiers, led the Slayer down the stony path toward the TriadCorp compound.
Surprisingly, she put up no kind of fight, and Command Squadron Captain 042 massaged his jaw in secret relief, remembering
the uppercut she’d once planted on his robot girlfriend.
Two others soldiers remained behind with the CSC – Numbers 009 and 028 – to take care of the vampire, who lay motionless
on the mossy ground between them.
028 said, “Shall we dust this guy and be done with him?”
CSC 042 gave a noncommittal shrug. “Ripper left no order. It’s probably best we take him to Containment.”
“It’s the Day of the Raising,” 028 argued, a note of fanaticism in his voice. “No one’ll mourn one less vamp in the world.”
CSC 042 thought it unfortunate he was stuck with 028. He was a zealot, a hardcore Coven minion. CSC 042 cast a cursory
glance at the pair of crosses looming like scarecrows behind him. Thinking fast, he said, “I’d hate to be in the wrong and
dust some vitally important figure in Ripper’s schemes. If he wants this vampire poofed, let ’im do it himself, and later. Till
then, I say we should get the stun ray out of here.”
Soldier 009 twitched. He scratched his neck and fiddled with the shoulder holster of the weapon. Solider 028 squared
shoulders with his Captain.
“What did you just say?” 028’s voice grew deadly cold as the edge of a finely polished knife.
CSC 042 cleared his throat, struggling mightily against the urge to take a retreating step. “I said, ‘maybe we should get the
stun ray out of...’”
A blinding red flash sizzled through the air, and in the next second 028 was a smudge of black ash on the ground beside the
unconscious vampire.
009 peeled his mask up to his forehead and said, “Oopsie.”
CSC 042 ripped his mask from his face in turn. “Way to go, you freakin’ Gungan! Green is stun. Red is incinerate!”
009’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t see in this mask” he whined, “and these gloves limit my manual dexterity. Besides, this
turtleneck is itchy.”
CSC 042 snapped, “Whine more, please.”
Behind them, they heard a scuffling followed by a thud. They turned to see a familiar blond vampire striding toward them,
rubbing the raw red patches on his wrists where the ropes had chafed his pale skin.
Relieved, the captain said, “Spike. Took you long enough.”
“Was a bit tied up,” Spike said, without irony. He bent to pull Angel to a sitting position. He examined the bloody gash on the
back of Angel’s head. He’d seen worse. Hell, he’d caused worse. Spike slapped his sire’s face in an effort to bring him
around. When that didn’t work, he tried again with more fervor, and had to admit to himself a small jolt of satisfaction at
the sanctioned roughing-up. After four or so smacks, Angel groaned and feebly brought up his hands to block another blow
to his bruised cheekbone.
Angel recoiled from the trio of figures, scuttling away before collapsing into the dust of Number 028. He then turned, tried
to stand, but managed only to get to his knees before his vision seemed to clear enough for him to see.
He shook his head. “Spike?” he said.
Spike cocked his head to the side. “’Ello, Peaches,” he said. “Have a nice nap?”
“They’ve got Buffy,” Angel said, urgently.
“I got her, I got her,” CSC 042 said testily. He turned to 009. “Get to Surveillance. Tell Echo 2 to run through Kessel
Sequence Kappa. I’ll meet you at the designated rendez-vous point at oh-nine-hundred. Copy?”
009 scratched his nose. “I thought I was Echo 2.”
“Go!” Spike growled.
009 yelped, tugged his mask down over his face, and ran up the path toward the compound.
CSC 042 turned to Angel. “You have radio equipment on you. I’m guessing Buffy does, too. If Ripper didn’t already know
about the others he does now, which gives us so little time at this point, I can’t even believe I’m still talking. More
important, though, is getting you both underground. The sun’s due to rise in…”
“Eight minutes,” Spike said.
“Six minutes,” Angel said.
“Whatever,” the captain said. “Follow me. No time for questions.”
“Just a minute,” Angel said. Spike uttered a low growl.
“We haven’t the time, Mr. Poncy Pants,” Spike said. “Now go as the man says.”
Angel got to his feet with agonizing slowness. At his full and most intimidating height, he turned to the captain en fang, and
demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
The captain shrugged. With the faintest trace of a smile, he said, “Dude, I’m Warren Meers: CEO of TriadCorp most days,
but Command Squadron Captain today. It’s a disguise.”
“A disguise,” Angel said doubtfully.
“Yeah,” he said. “You gotta believe me, man. I just saved your life. Or, un-life, such is the case. More importantly, I’m
gonna save your girl.”
“Not his girl,” Spike hissed.
“His girl, your girl… Right now, she’s Ripper’s girl. C’mon,” Warren said, warbling slightly with imploring. “I’m the good guy.”
Angel looked to Spike, who gave a nod of assent.
“In my experience, people who say they are good guys are never the good guys,” Angel said.
Spike groaned. He clenched his jaws and kneaded his fists. “Angel, would you just…”
“Look, trust me or don’t. You can bite me as soon as we’re in the sewers. But believe me, you’re running out of time, and I’
m not talking about the rising of the sun here.”
Angel did not trust this hairy, fast-talking guy any farther than Fred could possibly throw him, but the way he saw it, with
the sun fast approaching, Ripper in possession of Buffy and his friends in danger, he didn’t have any choice.
“Fine,” Angel said reluctantly. “Lead the way.”
Warren let out a shaky sigh, and then pulled his mask down. He nodded to Spike, and the three of them took the left branch
of the path that wound beneath the foot of Dr. Kriegel and the cross formerly occupied by Spike. They had to run the last
six hundred yards and dart across a desolate strip of road, but they climbed into a dank open sewer culvert just as the sun’
s rays spilled over the hilltop and spread like copper dust across the choppy ocean beyond.
There, Warren left Angel with Spike. He repeated the instructions he’d given to the other soldier: Meet at the rendez-vous
at oh-nine-hundred. Before Angel could ask anything else, Warren was gone.
The word was catatonic.
Buffy had been there before, when she’d lost Dawn to Glory, and she felt in herself a sense of receding, of sinking into the
inner depths of despair.
She could not afford that. Not this time. But fighting it was a lot like trying to wriggle free from a pit quicksand with no
tether or handhold within sight. Whatever thoughts she’d had now scattered like leaves before a tortuous wind, which left
her with the stark tabula rasa of instinct.
Giles guided her along by her elbow, but she scarcely felt his touch on her skin. Four armed Initiative soldiers flanked them,
another one in the lead, and they continued along a scuffed cement path until they came to a high concrete wall trimmed in
shining razor wire. Buffy concentrated on the sound of the soldier’s boots, clomping in unison, keeping time with the
thudding of her heart.
The concrete wall curved and soon they arrived at an iron gate with the kind of keypad she expected to see in a spy movie.
The lead soldier typed in a code on the keypad and the locking mechanisms sprung open with a heavy shunk. Buffy
instinctively noted the sentries posted above the gate on either side – two men with semi-automatic weapons, the pointy
muzzles of which were trained on her.
Giles nudged her. Numbly, she fell in behind the lead soldier. After a few paces, she heard the gate clunk once more into
place.
Whatever hold she had, she felt it slipping. Her fingers and toes tingled, as if the blood flow had reversed in the effort of self-
preservation, and she thought, crazily, dizzily, that if her platelets had taken up the call of retreat, who was she to argue
with her own cellular biology?
And then, so unexpectedly that it made her jump, Giles spoke. He said, “Your timing is perfect as always.”
Her ears registered that he’d spoken, but she could only groan miserably in reply. In the way of comeback, it was eons away
from snappy.
“Ah, yes. The Slayer has come home,” he said, more to his soldiers than to her. The two ahead of her jerked their heads up,
but lowered them simultaneously as if unsure they were expected to respond. Buffy got the impression that severe
punishment might be in store if one of them misspoke.
She smiled at that, in spite of herself. That was encouraging.
“Look at you, Ye of the Iron Fist,” she said quietly. “You must get a real kick, seeing them scrape and bow before you.”
Buffy watched his marred face for a reaction; got none. They walked on in tense silence. They reached an interior building
in the compound, a squat and unattractive structure of pewter gray stone. They reached the eastern wall, and the lead
soldier turned left, taking them along the sidewalk toward another gated checkpoint.
Absurdly, insanely, Buffy decided to push. She was with the Man Behind the Curtain; after all, she may not get another
chance.
“It was you,” she said. “You cut out Tara’s tongue. Took Dawn’s eyes.”
“Improvements,” he replied coolly. “All in the name of Progress.”
“Progress?” she repeated, appalled.
“Restoring order to this town was not a simple task,” he said. “After the mess you left, did you honestly think I could
reclaim it without spilling some blood?”
“Order,” Buffy said. “You call this order? It’s fascism.”
Giles chuckled darkly. “So you paid attention in World Cultures. However, you’ve always been a little slow,” he said, his
condescension chilling her. They went on in silence while she struggled to find another soft spot to mentally jab, but Giles
was right: mind-games were never her forte. Buffy was about to settle on mentioning The Coven when Giles surprised her by
speaking again.
“Dawn should have died. Was a bloody mercy, taking her eyes. It was her destiny, not yours,” he said.
Buffy tried then to pull away, but his grip on her arm was astonishingly, unaccountably strong.
“I’m here now, Giles,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic. “It’s not too late to stop this…”
His grip on her elbow tightened painfully. “You stupid bint,” he said through clenched teeth. “You return here, knocked up
like a common whore. How completely –” he spun her to face him, and his expression was one of devastating disappointment
underpainted with revulsion. “Ordinary.”
Buffy’s hands twitched instinctively toward her belly, but within her two dominant emotions raged – protection versus
aggression.
Defensiveness won out.
She opted for a catty muttered comment. “You should see someone about that lingering Anger Phase,” she told him.
Giles merely laughed. They had come to the second checkpoint now. The lead soldier keyed in the pass code, and the three
soldiers ushered them through into a gleamingly white tiled corridor that looked more like a hospital than a prison. They
turned immediately right. The lead soldier remained behind, but the other four continued along with them in the wide
hallway.
“I predicted accurately,” Giles said. She didn’t look at him, but could feel the grim smile in his words. “I knew you would
attempt an appeal to my sense of humanity.”
Buffy, more alert now, paid attention to the turns and twists they took. At the end of the first corridor, they took a left
into a shorter hallway lined with dentist’s office-style doors, a white card-swipe pad outside each one. This hallway
terminated in a stairwell leading in one direction: down.
This sent a flutter of panic into Buffy’s stomach. Four guards, she thought, and Giles. She thought maybe she could handle
the odds in a fight, but getting back out… that was a whole other inconvenience.
Her thoughts were quicker now. “So you’re saying basically that you have no heart left?” she asked with a derisive snort.
“Now who’s ordinary?”
“You haven’t the slightest inclination, do you?” he asked in a tone that suddenly recalled Thellian to Buffy’s mind. She
remembered his imperturbable calmness and reserve, his passionate indifference. Giles was like that now. Her heart sank.
They reached the top of the steps. Buffy could see that they doubled back on themselves as they led down by several flights
into comparative dimness. Below them lay what must have once been The Initiative. TriadCorp gave them a public face, but
the underground laboratories needn’t go to waste.
She found herself once again incapable of contemplation. Her throat went dry. Her stomach rolled. He pushed her, and she
took a hesitant step down. She let him and his soldiers guide her down the staircase and into a grimy, scant-lit corridor
below. The walls, which were stained with rust, glistened with dampness under bald halogen bulbs. The left side was lined
with matte black windowless doors, which Buffy counted as they passed. The first two soldiers stopped in front of number
19. Giles himself stepped forward, keyed in a code, and the locking mechanisms thunked inside. The door hissed inward.
Buffy looked into the cell, and the tears finally came.
A satisfied smile traced his lips. “There are no prophecies for what I’m about to do, Buffy. Have you any idea at all what that
means?”
“Giles, please…”
He pushed her into the cell, and she turned to see him framed in the doorway, a smirk twisted his scarred face.
“One thing is certain,” he said, leering. “The world is definitely doomed.”
At 7:19 a.m., Cordelia stood outside the Conoco Truxtop on Highway 1, bouncing a groggy Connor on one hip, her cell phone
pressed to her ear with her free hand.
A terse voice answered the line.
“Okay, bad news,” she blurted.
“Me first,” Angel said. “Call the others. Have them fall back. Soldiers were waiting for us. They knew…”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve lost Dawn,” Cordelia said, panic apparent under her sarcastic tone.
Angel turned away from Spike to face the cave wall. Under his breath, he said, “Lost her? How could you lose her?”
Cordelia adjusted Connor, who in his sleepiness was sliding down her thigh. “She gave us the slip,” she said, agitated.
“She’s practically an invalid…”
“I know that!” Cordelia answered in a hiss. “She had to go to the bathroom, so she went. And now she’s gone. She pulled a
David Blaine and vanished.”
Angel turned back to find Spike watching him intently, his fists clenched at his sides, his pale blue eyes almost white with
restrained fury.
“Just find her,” Angel ordered. “But call the others first. And Cordy… be careful.”
Cordelia looked out over the empty parking lot and the vacant roadside beyond. The sun’s first rays had just brushed the
low clouds with a heavy and unattractive shade of ochre, which did not bode well.
“I will,” she said, and since she couldn’t kiss Angel, she kissed Connor, who made a perfect proxy. “You, too.”
She hung up the phone and speed-dialed Wesley to signal a retreat.
Maya leaned out of the window with Xander, watching in disbelief the place where Faith had just disappeared around the
corner in pursuit of Connor. Both had fled with inscrutable speed and grace, and now were gone, leaving Xander and Maya
alone with Thellian, Willow, and a third unmarked person-sized crate downstairs. Maya could not help feeling more than a
little intimidated by the present company, especially since Thellian had leveled an accusation toward her downstairs, before
Connor erupted rather unexpectedly from his wooden confines.
Maya turned then to face her accuser and found him staring at her with an implacable expression that made her feel like one
of those poor, helpless bugs pinned inside a display case. Behind him, Willow leaned in the doorway, and though she looked
casual enough, her slim hand resting on the jamb, Maya got the impression she would bar her passage should Maya decide to
bolt.
She dared a glance at Thellian’s startling green eyes, and wished she had not. They were warm, inviting, accepting, and she
thought, wildly, that she could look nowhere else but at his eyes for the rest of her life and that would be fine by her.
Distantly Willow said, “Let’s go back downstairs. We have stuff to talk about.”
Equally distantly Xander said, “Why not talk here? You said ‘she’s involved’. Involved in what?”
“It’s better if you sit down,” Willow said.
“Willow, stop the cryptic,” Xander replied. Maya felt Xander’s shoulder brush hers as he came to stand by her side. She was
touched by that, but also slightly annoyed because it divided her attention from Thellian’s breathtakingly deep, placid gaze.
But whatever Willow was going to say was interrupted by the sound of screeching tires, followed by a loud grinding crunch
on the street below.
Maya tore her attention away from Thellian. She and Xander returned simultaneously into the window sill to stare down at
the black sedan that had just crashed into the redbrick fence that framed the Flat’s front yard. The long bonnet crumpled
against the column, and coils of white steam curled into the frosty night air.
After a few seconds, a young blond woman sprung from the driver’s side. She wore mud-streaked khaki pants and a
sleeveless black tunic, her hair pulled back into a messy knot at the back of her neck. She struggled on the icy sidewalk to
pull open the back door.
“Please!” they heard her cry out, and then she managed to wrench the door open. A pale hand reached to take hers, but
missed, and the figure slumped sideways. Clumsily, the young woman caught him, dragging him to ungainly feet, where he
stood dazed as a newborn deer beside her.
“Willow, uh…” Xander began.
The young woman looped the man’s arm over her shoulder and began to guide him with obvious tenderness up the front walk
to the Flat’s front door. But there was something wrong with the way the man walked – more like a somnambulist, and Maya
hoped it was the lingering effects of just having endured a car crash, though something told her it was much worse.
“It’s Giles,” she said suddenly, turning to Willow. “Something’s wrong.”
With an exchanged glance that was almost telepathy, Willow and Xander charged downstairs to greet the young woman and
Giles as they reached the front door.
Which left Thellian alone with Maya, and though she knew how dangerous that should be and how scared she should feel,
Maya couldn’t help feeling glad.
Ripper, escorted by five masked Initiative soldiers, led the Slayer down the stony path toward the TriadCorp compound.
Surprisingly, she put up no kind of fight, and Command Squadron Captain 042 massaged his jaw in secret relief, remembering
the uppercut she’d once planted on his robot girlfriend.
Two others soldiers remained behind with the CSC – Numbers 009 and 028 – to take care of the vampire, who lay motionless
on the mossy ground between them.
028 said, “Shall we dust this guy and be done with him?”
CSC 042 gave a noncommittal shrug. “Ripper left no order. It’s probably best we take him to Containment.”
“It’s the Day of the Raising,” 028 argued, a note of fanaticism in his voice. “No one’ll mourn one less vamp in the world.”
CSC 042 thought it unfortunate he was stuck with 028. He was a zealot, a hardcore Coven minion. CSC 042 cast a cursory
glance at the pair of crosses looming like scarecrows behind him. Thinking fast, he said, “I’d hate to be in the wrong and
dust some vitally important figure in Ripper’s schemes. If he wants this vampire poofed, let ’im do it himself, and later. Till
then, I say we should get the stun ray out of here.”
Soldier 009 twitched. He scratched his neck and fiddled with the shoulder holster of the weapon. Solider 028 squared
shoulders with his Captain.
“What did you just say?” 028’s voice grew deadly cold as the edge of a finely polished knife.
CSC 042 cleared his throat, struggling mightily against the urge to take a retreating step. “I said, ‘maybe we should get the
stun ray out of...’”
A blinding red flash sizzled through the air, and in the next second 028 was a smudge of black ash on the ground beside the
unconscious vampire.
009 peeled his mask up to his forehead and said, “Oopsie.”
CSC 042 ripped his mask from his face in turn. “Way to go, you freakin’ Gungan! Green is stun. Red is incinerate!”
009’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t see in this mask” he whined, “and these gloves limit my manual dexterity. Besides, this
turtleneck is itchy.”
CSC 042 snapped, “Whine more, please.”
Behind them, they heard a scuffling followed by a thud. They turned to see a familiar blond vampire striding toward them,
rubbing the raw red patches on his wrists where the ropes had chafed his pale skin.
Relieved, the captain said, “Spike. Took you long enough.”
“Was a bit tied up,” Spike said, without irony. He bent to pull Angel to a sitting position. He examined the bloody gash on the
back of Angel’s head. He’d seen worse. Hell, he’d caused worse. Spike slapped his sire’s face in an effort to bring him
around. When that didn’t work, he tried again with more fervor, and had to admit to himself a small jolt of satisfaction at
the sanctioned roughing-up. After four or so smacks, Angel groaned and feebly brought up his hands to block another blow
to his bruised cheekbone.
Angel recoiled from the trio of figures, scuttling away before collapsing into the dust of Number 028. He then turned, tried
to stand, but managed only to get to his knees before his vision seemed to clear enough for him to see.
He shook his head. “Spike?” he said.
Spike cocked his head to the side. “’Ello, Peaches,” he said. “Have a nice nap?”
“They’ve got Buffy,” Angel said, urgently.
“I got her, I got her,” CSC 042 said testily. He turned to 009. “Get to Surveillance. Tell Echo 2 to run through Kessel
Sequence Kappa. I’ll meet you at the designated rendez-vous point at oh-nine-hundred. Copy?”
009 scratched his nose. “I thought I was Echo 2.”
“Go!” Spike growled.
009 yelped, tugged his mask down over his face, and ran up the path toward the compound.
CSC 042 turned to Angel. “You have radio equipment on you. I’m guessing Buffy does, too. If Ripper didn’t already know
about the others he does now, which gives us so little time at this point, I can’t even believe I’m still talking. More
important, though, is getting you both underground. The sun’s due to rise in…”
“Eight minutes,” Spike said.
“Six minutes,” Angel said.
“Whatever,” the captain said. “Follow me. No time for questions.”
“Just a minute,” Angel said. Spike uttered a low growl.
“We haven’t the time, Mr. Poncy Pants,” Spike said. “Now go as the man says.”
Angel got to his feet with agonizing slowness. At his full and most intimidating height, he turned to the captain en fang, and
demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
The captain shrugged. With the faintest trace of a smile, he said, “Dude, I’m Warren Meers: CEO of TriadCorp most days,
but Command Squadron Captain today. It’s a disguise.”
“A disguise,” Angel said doubtfully.
“Yeah,” he said. “You gotta believe me, man. I just saved your life. Or, un-life, such is the case. More importantly, I’m
gonna save your girl.”
“Not his girl,” Spike hissed.
“His girl, your girl… Right now, she’s Ripper’s girl. C’mon,” Warren said, warbling slightly with imploring. “I’m the good guy.”
Angel looked to Spike, who gave a nod of assent.
“In my experience, people who say they are good guys are never the good guys,” Angel said.
Spike groaned. He clenched his jaws and kneaded his fists. “Angel, would you just…”
“Look, trust me or don’t. You can bite me as soon as we’re in the sewers. But believe me, you’re running out of time, and I’
m not talking about the rising of the sun here.”
Angel did not trust this hairy, fast-talking guy any farther than Fred could possibly throw him, but the way he saw it, with
the sun fast approaching, Ripper in possession of Buffy and his friends in danger, he didn’t have any choice.
“Fine,” Angel said reluctantly. “Lead the way.”
Warren let out a shaky sigh, and then pulled his mask down. He nodded to Spike, and the three of them took the left branch
of the path that wound beneath the foot of Dr. Kriegel and the cross formerly occupied by Spike. They had to run the last
six hundred yards and dart across a desolate strip of road, but they climbed into a dank open sewer culvert just as the sun’
s rays spilled over the hilltop and spread like copper dust across the choppy ocean beyond.
There, Warren left Angel with Spike. He repeated the instructions he’d given to the other soldier: Meet at the rendez-vous
at oh-nine-hundred. Before Angel could ask anything else, Warren was gone.
The word was catatonic.
Buffy had been there before, when she’d lost Dawn to Glory, and she felt in herself a sense of receding, of sinking into the
inner depths of despair.
She could not afford that. Not this time. But fighting it was a lot like trying to wriggle free from a pit quicksand with no
tether or handhold within sight. Whatever thoughts she’d had now scattered like leaves before a tortuous wind, which left
her with the stark tabula rasa of instinct.
Giles guided her along by her elbow, but she scarcely felt his touch on her skin. Four armed Initiative soldiers flanked them,
another one in the lead, and they continued along a scuffed cement path until they came to a high concrete wall trimmed in
shining razor wire. Buffy concentrated on the sound of the soldier’s boots, clomping in unison, keeping time with the
thudding of her heart.
The concrete wall curved and soon they arrived at an iron gate with the kind of keypad she expected to see in a spy movie.
The lead soldier typed in a code on the keypad and the locking mechanisms sprung open with a heavy shunk. Buffy
instinctively noted the sentries posted above the gate on either side – two men with semi-automatic weapons, the pointy
muzzles of which were trained on her.
Giles nudged her. Numbly, she fell in behind the lead soldier. After a few paces, she heard the gate clunk once more into
place.
Whatever hold she had, she felt it slipping. Her fingers and toes tingled, as if the blood flow had reversed in the effort of self-
preservation, and she thought, crazily, dizzily, that if her platelets had taken up the call of retreat, who was she to argue
with her own cellular biology?
And then, so unexpectedly that it made her jump, Giles spoke. He said, “Your timing is perfect as always.”
Her ears registered that he’d spoken, but she could only groan miserably in reply. In the way of comeback, it was eons away
from snappy.
“Ah, yes. The Slayer has come home,” he said, more to his soldiers than to her. The two ahead of her jerked their heads up,
but lowered them simultaneously as if unsure they were expected to respond. Buffy got the impression that severe
punishment might be in store if one of them misspoke.
She smiled at that, in spite of herself. That was encouraging.
“Look at you, Ye of the Iron Fist,” she said quietly. “You must get a real kick, seeing them scrape and bow before you.”
Buffy watched his marred face for a reaction; got none. They walked on in tense silence. They reached an interior building
in the compound, a squat and unattractive structure of pewter gray stone. They reached the eastern wall, and the lead
soldier turned left, taking them along the sidewalk toward another gated checkpoint.
Absurdly, insanely, Buffy decided to push. She was with the Man Behind the Curtain; after all, she may not get another
chance.
“It was you,” she said. “You cut out Tara’s tongue. Took Dawn’s eyes.”
“Improvements,” he replied coolly. “All in the name of Progress.”
“Progress?” she repeated, appalled.
“Restoring order to this town was not a simple task,” he said. “After the mess you left, did you honestly think I could
reclaim it without spilling some blood?”
“Order,” Buffy said. “You call this order? It’s fascism.”
Giles chuckled darkly. “So you paid attention in World Cultures. However, you’ve always been a little slow,” he said, his
condescension chilling her. They went on in silence while she struggled to find another soft spot to mentally jab, but Giles
was right: mind-games were never her forte. Buffy was about to settle on mentioning The Coven when Giles surprised her by
speaking again.
“Dawn should have died. Was a bloody mercy, taking her eyes. It was her destiny, not yours,” he said.
Buffy tried then to pull away, but his grip on her arm was astonishingly, unaccountably strong.
“I’m here now, Giles,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic. “It’s not too late to stop this…”
His grip on her elbow tightened painfully. “You stupid bint,” he said through clenched teeth. “You return here, knocked up
like a common whore. How completely –” he spun her to face him, and his expression was one of devastating disappointment
underpainted with revulsion. “Ordinary.”
Buffy’s hands twitched instinctively toward her belly, but within her two dominant emotions raged – protection versus
aggression.
Defensiveness won out.
She opted for a catty muttered comment. “You should see someone about that lingering Anger Phase,” she told him.
Giles merely laughed. They had come to the second checkpoint now. The lead soldier keyed in the pass code, and the three
soldiers ushered them through into a gleamingly white tiled corridor that looked more like a hospital than a prison. They
turned immediately right. The lead soldier remained behind, but the other four continued along with them in the wide
hallway.
“I predicted accurately,” Giles said. She didn’t look at him, but could feel the grim smile in his words. “I knew you would
attempt an appeal to my sense of humanity.”
Buffy, more alert now, paid attention to the turns and twists they took. At the end of the first corridor, they took a left
into a shorter hallway lined with dentist’s office-style doors, a white card-swipe pad outside each one. This hallway
terminated in a stairwell leading in one direction: down.
This sent a flutter of panic into Buffy’s stomach. Four guards, she thought, and Giles. She thought maybe she could handle
the odds in a fight, but getting back out… that was a whole other inconvenience.
Her thoughts were quicker now. “So you’re saying basically that you have no heart left?” she asked with a derisive snort.
“Now who’s ordinary?”
“You haven’t the slightest inclination, do you?” he asked in a tone that suddenly recalled Thellian to Buffy’s mind. She
remembered his imperturbable calmness and reserve, his passionate indifference. Giles was like that now. Her heart sank.
They reached the top of the steps. Buffy could see that they doubled back on themselves as they led down by several flights
into comparative dimness. Below them lay what must have once been The Initiative. TriadCorp gave them a public face, but
the underground laboratories needn’t go to waste.
She found herself once again incapable of contemplation. Her throat went dry. Her stomach rolled. He pushed her, and she
took a hesitant step down. She let him and his soldiers guide her down the staircase and into a grimy, scant-lit corridor
below. The walls, which were stained with rust, glistened with dampness under bald halogen bulbs. The left side was lined
with matte black windowless doors, which Buffy counted as they passed. The first two soldiers stopped in front of number
19. Giles himself stepped forward, keyed in a code, and the locking mechanisms thunked inside. The door hissed inward.
Buffy looked into the cell, and the tears finally came.
A satisfied smile traced his lips. “There are no prophecies for what I’m about to do, Buffy. Have you any idea at all what that
means?”
“Giles, please…”
He pushed her into the cell, and she turned to see him framed in the doorway, a smirk twisted his scarred face.
“One thing is certain,” he said, leering. “The world is definitely doomed.”
At 7:19 a.m., Cordelia stood outside the Conoco Truxtop on Highway 1, bouncing a groggy Connor on one hip, her cell phone
pressed to her ear with her free hand.
A terse voice answered the line.
“Okay, bad news,” she blurted.
“Me first,” Angel said. “Call the others. Have them fall back. Soldiers were waiting for us. They knew…”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve lost Dawn,” Cordelia said, panic apparent under her sarcastic tone.
Angel turned away from Spike to face the cave wall. Under his breath, he said, “Lost her? How could you lose her?”
Cordelia adjusted Connor, who in his sleepiness was sliding down her thigh. “She gave us the slip,” she said, agitated.
“She’s practically an invalid…”
“I know that!” Cordelia answered in a hiss. “She had to go to the bathroom, so she went. And now she’s gone. She pulled a
David Blaine and vanished.”
Angel turned back to find Spike watching him intently, his fists clenched at his sides, his pale blue eyes almost white with
restrained fury.
“Just find her,” Angel ordered. “But call the others first. And Cordy… be careful.”
Cordelia looked out over the empty parking lot and the vacant roadside beyond. The sun’s first rays had just brushed the
low clouds with a heavy and unattractive shade of ochre, which did not bode well.
“I will,” she said, and since she couldn’t kiss Angel, she kissed Connor, who made a perfect proxy. “You, too.”
She hung up the phone and speed-dialed Wesley to signal a retreat.
Maya leaned out of the window with Xander, watching in disbelief the place where Faith had just disappeared around the
corner in pursuit of Connor. Both had fled with inscrutable speed and grace, and now were gone, leaving Xander and Maya
alone with Thellian, Willow, and a third unmarked person-sized crate downstairs. Maya could not help feeling more than a
little intimidated by the present company, especially since Thellian had leveled an accusation toward her downstairs, before
Connor erupted rather unexpectedly from his wooden confines.
Maya turned then to face her accuser and found him staring at her with an implacable expression that made her feel like one
of those poor, helpless bugs pinned inside a display case. Behind him, Willow leaned in the doorway, and though she looked
casual enough, her slim hand resting on the jamb, Maya got the impression she would bar her passage should Maya decide to
bolt.
She dared a glance at Thellian’s startling green eyes, and wished she had not. They were warm, inviting, accepting, and she
thought, wildly, that she could look nowhere else but at his eyes for the rest of her life and that would be fine by her.
Distantly Willow said, “Let’s go back downstairs. We have stuff to talk about.”
Equally distantly Xander said, “Why not talk here? You said ‘she’s involved’. Involved in what?”
“It’s better if you sit down,” Willow said.
“Willow, stop the cryptic,” Xander replied. Maya felt Xander’s shoulder brush hers as he came to stand by her side. She was
touched by that, but also slightly annoyed because it divided her attention from Thellian’s breathtakingly deep, placid gaze.
But whatever Willow was going to say was interrupted by the sound of screeching tires, followed by a loud grinding crunch
on the street below.
Maya tore her attention away from Thellian. She and Xander returned simultaneously into the window sill to stare down at
the black sedan that had just crashed into the redbrick fence that framed the Flat’s front yard. The long bonnet crumpled
against the column, and coils of white steam curled into the frosty night air.
After a few seconds, a young blond woman sprung from the driver’s side. She wore mud-streaked khaki pants and a
sleeveless black tunic, her hair pulled back into a messy knot at the back of her neck. She struggled on the icy sidewalk to
pull open the back door.
“Please!” they heard her cry out, and then she managed to wrench the door open. A pale hand reached to take hers, but
missed, and the figure slumped sideways. Clumsily, the young woman caught him, dragging him to ungainly feet, where he
stood dazed as a newborn deer beside her.
“Willow, uh…” Xander began.
The young woman looped the man’s arm over her shoulder and began to guide him with obvious tenderness up the front walk
to the Flat’s front door. But there was something wrong with the way the man walked – more like a somnambulist, and Maya
hoped it was the lingering effects of just having endured a car crash, though something told her it was much worse.
“It’s Giles,” she said suddenly, turning to Willow. “Something’s wrong.”
With an exchanged glance that was almost telepathy, Willow and Xander charged downstairs to greet the young woman and
Giles as they reached the front door.
Which left Thellian alone with Maya, and though she knew how dangerous that should be and how scared she should feel,
Maya couldn’t help feeling glad.
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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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal
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
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal