Summary: Transfiguration

Morning was a disappointment. Skulking across the horizon like a spent lamp sunrise was a pitiful sight, but it didn't matter since it was buried under a bank of fog that rose enthusiastically from the ocean to smother the small house where Sam and Ruth lay in each other's arms.

"Morning, hon. Sorry to be with the waking, but it's gone 11."

Yawning for England, Sam rubbed her eyes and sat up. "Morning." She didn't look at Ruth.

"Hon, like I said, it really doesn't –"

"Yes, it does."

"Sam –"

"I'm getting coffee." Shrugging away Ruth's touch, Sam slid from the bed to her wheelchair and across the open-plan house to the small kitchen. Coffee beans were already brewing in the caféterie before her girlfriend joined her.

"We need to –"

"Talk. Yeah, I know, just not overly keen on the subject."

"Then here's the abridged version. You take all the time you need; so long as it's with me I plain don't care."

Looking intently at the Mocca, Sam whispered, "I think we might be looking at long haul."

Ruth clasped Sam's shoulder with her newly freed right hand. "So be it," she said with a little smile.

"Baby, remember what you said about me and –" a beat "– Lucinda?"

"One night might be the sum total of some relationships, but not ours. It's me, my bad, I rushed us, because of what ... hey, it's just made me double-determined to see tomorrow."

"But what happens when we see tomorrow? You've got an excuse if you need it, but you don't. Me –"

"Pretty major get-out-of-jail-free card in my book."

"Not if we want this to work it can't be. I can't let it become an excuse baby 'cause you're right, it's a good'un – too good."

"Give it a week or two at least hon, please."

"A week or two?"

"Hon, see my resolve face?"

"Willow'll have you for breach of copyright!"

"Bring her on."

"Okay, a week or two," conceded Sam.

"Good, that's my girl, and I'm going to see she stays that way." Sam had to surrender her frown to that. "Now, what's the coffee?"

"Mocca."

"Mocca? Ewww! Some things have no excuse."

"No, some things don't."

James stood in the doorway, fog lapping around him like dry ice in a horror movie. But the bloodstains caked across his gaunt face were all too real.

"Christ," breathed Sam.

"I'm starting up with that cunt when I'm finished with you two," breathed James in a voice neither had heard before and immediately hoped never to hear again. He did not oblige. "Got out just before the party girls, well done."

"James, what –"

"Dead, Sam, they're dead. Christopher, Ibrahim, dust in the wind both. Or rather blood on the pavement, and lots of it, quite a bit on me. No, this isn't mine. Ah, good to see you've some feelings left – though feelings, that's the problem isn't it ladies?" Still no words but his. "Too many feelings, feelings making you an offer you can't refuse, feelings telling the pair of you to hightail it out of there so you could –"

"We –"

"We?"

"Didn't, James."

"Didn't?"

"We didn't –"

"You didn't? Didn't what, Sam? Fuck each other? No, I think you'll find you need a man for that. Crying shame all the good ones are dead now, isn't it?"

"For Christ's sake James, what happened?" demanded Sam as she caught Ruth, the devastated girl's legs at that moment as much use as her own.

"You deaf as well as queer? They're dead. Oh right, how? Want to know the details? Grays Anatomy in Technicolor? Okay, happy to oblige. Farelli showed up and moved faster than the eye could see; or my eyes at any rate, don't know about the others and I'm never going to, am I? Got Christopher first: one crack, one broken neck. Ibrahim gets a cut in, a great cut. Shame the leech pulls a David Copperfield on him before it connects. So now it's two down. And the third, where's the third you wonder? There's no third because the third ran. Not that he need have bothered – you need to find a backbone before you can break it."

"Oh James –"

"If you think I want your pity, you're even more bent then I thought. I know the differently-abled have problems in the bladder department, but pissing yourself doesn't qualify as empathy."

"James, t-this isn't fair –"

"Oh it speaks. It isn't, is it Ruth? Welcome to my world. That why you two didn't make third base, is it? The Virgin Mary not ready for a golden shower on her first spin –?"

"Get out!" screamed Sam, throwing the caféterie and its contents at James's head. It missed, barely, and when it shattered into the wall its target had already fled.

And Cassandra, ghostly as the mist she peered through, knew everything was going to plan.

* * *

The Alaskan morning was piercing. Though walls, through clothes, through skin it burrowed like a hungry parasite, but there was one man in America's farthest State who was unconcerned; so deeply was he buried in meditation that even the merciless winter was an irrelevance. Meditation on what he had done, meditation on what he would soon do, and it troubled him. Not what he'd inflicted – that brought a contented smile to his frostbitten lips – but its pointlessness. Going through the motions was comforting enough but he knew he couldn't seek refuge in familiarity forever. He also knew there was little choice until the message came.

Martin Jakes had never been alone. That was the problem. He might have become isolated from his followers but they hadn't left him; separation only fired their loyalty to the name cloaked in myth by its bearer's absence. Crouched amidst the rolling Alaskan tundra was one of the humblest followers, but what he lacked in stature was made up in devotion. Long hair with the texture and appearance of damp bracken fell around an unremarkable face frozen in its early thirties; the most fitting adjective was dependable, and the brow was creased, not by the demon but sheer concentration.

That overcast morning word finally arrived, courtesy fellow vampire, a scrap of a woman who made Nancy Spungen look upmarket. Lank strands dyed every colour under the sun and quite a few that weren't were scattered about a face so gaunt it looked ready to implode. Blue eyes as hollow as her cheeks shattered his solitude without a word being spoken.

"Good morning," he said in a voice carrying the last trace of his Parisian past. "Nice day for it."

Shrugging, his visitor threw herself across the small log cabin's bed, and absently began to file at talon-like nails.

"So, this what I think it is?"

She gave a brief nod.

"Finally." He joined her on the bed, craving information as desperately as she did her next hit. "Details."

"Details?" Her rasping, guttural voice was incongruous yet appropriate. "Okay sugardaddy. He has gone from this world."

Facing the unthinkable news through his wet eyes, he asked the only question he could ask. "How?"

"Wiped courtesy of some crazed bitch from the Council." His twitching face said all that was needed. "Hey, I know, but don't sweat it – his shit was sorted before he left us."

"My God, you mean –?"

"I mean."

He let out a whistle to shatter glass and souls. "His death will not be in vain."

"Hey sugardaddy," she called as he rose and began to pack his few possessions; "what you go by anyhow?"

"Jean Paul. Me and him, we go back a while."

"That so?"

"That's so."

"I only met him the few times. Were introduced at a virgin blood party. I was the virgin."

Jean Paul laughed. "He always had a way about him. I remember – been doing a lot of that lately – back in Paris, where we met. 1893. Back then I was nothing, a rat from the banks of the Seine, but then he came. Not him, but another, black as tar inside and out. One of us, and he took me that night, said he saw something in me. Whatever it was he destroyed it, sired me, set me loose on his enemies.

"I slaughtered – a wild, febrile slaughter upon which there was no checking. Not until he found me. Told me to wise up, lay low, and wait. Told me he had a plan for us, a plan to thrust us to our rightful place. Half-breeds they call us, the others, but he, he told me it was nothing of the kind, simply the best of both worlds. We're not half-bred; we're the purest, the refinement of men and demon. Something better, superior, and we just had to wait until we could take our place. That time – it's here, by God but it's finally here." His eyes were moist, his hand curling around the hilt protruding from the lip of his canvas holdall. It was a blade simple but deadly, the twin of Martin's own sabre. "He gave me this, and told me to keep it idle until I was called. It's been dead for over a century now; I'd say it's grown as restless as I. And now he's gone from us I can take it up at last. You cannot know how I have longed for this, ached to fight the battles I've had to let him fight for me – please forgive a lonely man a little selfish jealously."

"Hey, no sweat off my wrinklies."

"He never forgot me y'know. Only weeks ago I received news that he'd slain the man who accompanied my sire that terrible night. He did that for me, after all this time." His lip trembled as tears tricked over it and breathed life into his dead heart. "I will repay that devotion."

"He raped me, sired me, got me on smack for good measure. Vicious bastard. I liked him."

"Well, shall we be off then?"

"Yep, truck's out front, airfare already booked."

"Where?"

"Let's just say don't bother packing your thermals. Speaking of which, long trip to the airport, might need some shared bodyheat to help us through."

"Did you miss the bit where we're at room temperature?"

"Hey, to quote our dearly departed, I'm a giver."

* * *

Unlike Martin's gathering acolytes Quentin wasn't dead, he just wished he were. Hungover to his whiskey-laced eyeballs the Watcher was sprawled in the corner of the bar, wrapped in the jacket the barman had retrieved from the floor of what passed for a bathroom. Alternating between agonised groans and his endless regrets Quentin advertised something no brewery was ever going to, but since the morning crowd comprised a few dedicated alcoholics who wouldn't be scared off by another of their number the barman was content to let the limey sleep it off and kick him out into the harsh light of day around noon. But he wasn't given the chance, for another man walked into the bar at just gone nine and beat a path to the ugly consequence of two bottles of cheap bourbon.

"Get up Travers," Giles said, poking his fellow Watcher violently in the ribs.

"Wha –?"

"Get up and get out."

"Make me," mumbled Quentin, wrapping the jacket tighter around himself.

"I will if I have to."

"Get stuffed, I'm busy dying here."

Giles hauled Quentin upright, and slapped him harder than was necessary across both ruddy cheeks. "You're neither of those things Travers, more's the pity."

The blow passed as quickly as the drunken evening but there was something in the words that sobered Quentin up very quickly. "What's happened?"

"Farelli has struck. The Strike Team are dead."

"Oh, bloody marvellous."

"Sober up you wretch, aggrieved as I am to say it, we need you."

"You need me? Well now, isn't that just fine and dandy, Rupert the Ripper needs me. Hup two, hup two, atten'shun! Click, click, click, good little toy soldiers marching off to war."

"You were right."

Genuine shock blew aside Quentin's clouded gaze. "Say it again," he whispered, the voice somewhere between disbelief and triumph.

"You were right," Giles said through gritted teeth.

"Heaven forefend, I was right? Of course I was right you confounded idiot! Rather a belated revelation, isn't it?"

"Take it or leave it."

"You bet your arse I'm taking it. After all you people put me through –"

"My own joy is of course boundless."

"To the victor go the spoils."

"I prefer inter arma enim silent leges. You were right Quentin, jolly well done. Now, you can either wank over your laurels while Rome burns, or you can help us."

"Inter arma enim silent leges – that's always been you motto, hasn't it Rupert? Never had much use for laws I note, war or no."

"The good of the people is the highest law. You want to play by Queensbury Rules, that's fine with me. You can debate cricket with your bottle to your heart's content – or pull yourself out and help me stop these leeches."

"You're scum Ripper. I'm with you." Quentin struggled to his feet and began the long walk to the door, flicking a fifty-dollar bill at the barman as he passed. "Think that's my bill in full. Keep the change."

* * *

"We should do something about that."

"What?"

"The coffee pot." Ruth nodded towards the shattered caféterie. "Going to stain something terrible."

"Jesus Ruth, Ibrahim, Christopher ..."

"Christopher was a jerk."

"Yeah."

"How?" Ruth was crumpled like mouldering leaf in Sam's arms, and felt about as strong. "They're dead, just like that, just ... gone."

"Yeah," repeated Sam, the word as inadequate as both women felt.

"James was worse."

"He'd just lost his friends," said Sam defensively, fuelled by the guilt that had been building since she'd sent the wretched James to flight.

"That's not an excuse."

"I think it pretty much is."

"No. No one has the right to talk to us like that."

"He –"

"Said things to you I never want you to think about again."

"Ruth, bruised feelings are the last of our troubles right about now. I shouldn't have –"

"If you hadn't, I would."

"I know."

"They're just gone," whispered Ruth. "What'd you do Sam? How'd you do?"

"I don't know. Must have missed that part of the training, 'cos it don't seem to get any easier."

"D-Darn."

"Ruth, breathe, I'm here for you."

"For how long?"

"He is not getting us."

"And you'll stop him how exactly?"

Knowing it to be true, Sam fell silent, and knew they had said what little could be said. Their supposed guardians had been wiped out – two dead, one who might as well be – and they had nothing but each other and for the first time, that didn't feel like much at all.

"Willow. Oz," said Ruth.

"What – oh no?"

Ruth has already sprinted to the telephone and begun keying in keying in Giles's number, which she had to repeat several times so hard were her hands shaking. Sitting where she had been left, Sam prayed silently to a God she didn't believe in.

"Giles? Hello, Giles?" Sam felt time grind to a stop as the words left her girlfriend's lips, and then catch up with itself when a broad smile broke Ruth's ashen face. She padded to Sam's side, fell back into her lap and pressed the cordless phone into her hand.

Accepting the handset and what went with it, Sam said gingerly, "Giles?"

"Hello Sam," said the Watcher, his voice more composed than it had any right to be. "Willow and Oz are both fine, they left a good hour before Farelli arrived."

"They know?"

"No, not as yet. I'm going to tell them after you ... a'hem, Sam, answer the following question 'yes' or 'no' only. Are you where I think you are?"

"Yes," said Sam haltingly.

"I'm coming to get you. As soon as this call ends, locate the book under the sink, and recite the incantation on page 50 in full. Please repeat the page number for confirmation. If you know it, do not repeat its name."

"50."

"Good. You will then be safe until I arrive."

"And when you do, we do what, exactly?"

"Sam –"

"No Giles. We do what? Our leech took out the best the Council had to offer in seconds –"

"Sam, please, no more over the phone." Sam heard the familiar squeak of a cloth moving over Giles's glasses. "I know this is difficult Sam – believe me when I say I'm feeling it as much as I can tell you and Ruth are – but for both your sakes I need you to give me the strength I know you both have. Can you do that?"

"Bloody have to won't we?" said Sam bitterly. Ending the call, she sank back against the kitchen cabinet and sighed deeply.

"Spell book under the sink?"

"Tut tut, know what I do to eavesdroppers?" Sam said, the joke as weak as it was futile.

"It worse than what vampires do to their enemies?"

"No. Sorry."

"It's not supposed to end like this," breathed Ruth, clasping Sam in a place she could not feel.

"No. But it usually does."

After taking the few minutes they needed, Ruth fetched the spell book and leafed through the cracking pages until they came to 50, a post-it note carrying the English translation of the Roman numerals.

"Needn't have bothered," noted Ruth.

"Geek," Sam gibed weakly.

Entitled with the single Latin word defender, the incantation was only a few lines long. Sam read it aloud, and the moment the final syllable left her lips the view of the ocean, now clear of fog, rippled like something had just skimmed a pebble across time. The effect was gone as soon as it had come.

"That it?" Sam sounded uncertain.

"Let's find out." Ruth walked out into the small garden, picked up a stone and tossed it towards the Pacific; the moment it passed the perimeter of the house, the view shimmered and the stone hung in mid-air for a fraction of a second before prising itself away from the invisible barrier like a limpet from the rockface and falling harmlessly to the earth. "That's it."

"Neat," Sam called from the kitchen. "Should keep the bloodsuckers at bay."

"Big ol' sun is giving us the double whammy deal." After its pitiful start, the day had become quite beautiful. "Suddenly not wanting to leave here," said Ruth as she returned to Sam. "Y'know?"

"I know alright. Tempting, isn't it?"

"Overwhelmingly."

"A world of little contented bubbles; I can sure think of worst things."

"Would have to evict James first."

"Ruth –"

"Yeah, I know, he was ready to blame any comers. But that wasn't just grief talking was it? He hates us, doesn't he Sam?"

"Yes, I think he does," said Sam quietly. "But that's his problem."

"And he's made it ours."

"His brother –"

"Think it's pretty crystal that James isn't his brother."

"Ruth, I knew him, you didn't."

"Okay, you knew him. Tell me what they've got in common then? 'Cause from what you told me, I'm drawing a big ol' blank."

Sam looked stung. "Ego," she said after several seconds. "Stupid way of putting it, but hey, professional truant since 14 here. I don't know the word, but it wasn't just confidence – William knew what he wanted, and did anything to get it. Sounds crappy I know, but I always liked it, liked that someone knew where they were going."

"Okay, I get that," said Ruth softly, running her hand through Sam's hair. "And sorry if I'm on the verge of turning into the bitch monster of death, but I don't think you're letting yourself see how dangerous he could be."

"Dangerous?"

"Yes. Earlier, when he came over – he was enjoying it Sam. Why ever he did it, he was enjoyed it. Those eyes, that ... it wasn't grief, Sam, it was pleasure. I've seen those sort of eyes before, and I think you have as well."

Sam forced herself to say, "Yes."

"I think he might do something, Sam, something bad. How well have we got to know him since he came?"

"Well I hardly spoke to him, but that was – you know why."

"Yeah hon, I know, but it's not just you. 'Cept for all that dumb banter with Ibrahim" – Ruth trembled as she said the name – "he's been Mr Taciturn with everyone. This morning it's the first time he let anyone in, and I didn't like what I saw Sam."

"Feeling's more than mutual. But I just think ... he needs time Ruth."

"No Sam, I think that's the last thing he needs."

* * *

Centuries ago, when the British army was on the march, there was no time for formal court martials. With no shortage of malfeasants and rules to create them, the army hadn't the resources or inclination to detain offenders to face due process. Their solution was the drumhead. A battle drum would be upturned and a single officer would hear what little evidence there was and act as judge, jury and very frequently executioner. Summary justice – a soldier's justice. James knocked back his fifth bottle of Budweiser and again passed sentence: guilty as fucking charged.

No doubt the wretches flogged to death or pissing themselves in time to Tyburn jig had joined up with dreams of glory and a full purse, conned into the King's shilling with a glib word and empty belly. It was still that way really. Broke, disaffected kids lured into Her Majesty's forces with the promise of a trade, a job and a free world travel pass. No mention of the bombs, the offal, legs wet with fear and shattered minds only fit for that timeless pauper's refrain, "Spare any change?" Pro patria mori, queers need not apply, just do and then discretely die.

James had at least taken the soldier's wage under no illusions. And he could have carried on that way: no witnesses save his enemy; no indictments save his own tortured thoughts, and he'd ignored them often enough. But there was one thing he could not ignore, a word and concept that weren't very fashionable these days. Coward. A coward who emptied his bladder and ran while his friends died. Cowardice in the face of the enemy, they used to shoot men for that, and James reckoned it was a pretty merciful fate all told.

"Guilty," he slurred, slamming the bottle into the bar with all the sum of his torment. The crack ran through the glass and his soul and drew the barman's attention as he heard the unmistakable shattering from James's hand.

"I think you've had enough pal."

"Another," slurred James, leaving a trail blood from his cut hand to his wallet as he spoke. "I want another."

"More than enough. You want the first aid kit and a long night. You with anyone?"

"Not now, no."

"I'll get you a cab then."

"You'll get me a drink."

"Look, I've told you –"

"Get me a bloody drink." James grasped the barman by the scruff of his neck; he made a desperate lunge at his assailant, but this was easily deflected, and James responded with a vicious headbutt that ensured no more drinks would be served at the Bronze that evening.

The Bronze. James hadn't even realised he'd ended up there. He'd started the other side of town, moving from bar to bar as his dive into liquid self-pity met with a similar response every time.

"Full circle," he slurred, getting to his feet. Cutting across the dancefloor in his lurching walk to the exit, what happened next was the definition of inevitability. James ploughed straight into a jock dancing with his girlfriend, sending the Queen Bee sprawling and her boyfriend into James's face. He looked down from several inches and snarled, and James half-expected his canines to elongate as spittle hit his face.

"Want something?"

"Apologise, and I might let you keep you teeth."

"Take a running jump, and I might let you keep your tart."

"What –?" It took the jock a few seconds to get James's meaning. "You limey piece of crap!"

Dodging his desired response James spun on the ball of his foot, caught the jock by the neck, and applied both thumbs to the pressure points. In a matter of seconds the terror of Sunnydale High was an unconscious fire hazard, and James started to feel good, more so as he beat off two of the jock's friends, sending the pair packing with broken noses and egos. Dancers parted like a herd of gazelles who'd just had a tiger land in their midst, and all that occupied the floor was James and the jock's last ally. Strutting like the football star he was, he knew he'd be alpha male after he took down this British smart-ass, and he smiled.

Returning the smile, James decided to go all out. "Let's have you," he said, pausing for a carefully judged second before adding, "nigger." The African-American visibly bridled, but kept his cool. James's gambit has misfired, but he didn't care, and met the onslaught of blows with an expert sequence of karate blocks. Coward he might be, but he was a superb fighter when the odds were his. Clasping his opponent's arm, he spun under him and judging the big man's centre in a split-second, used himself as a fulcrum and launched his adversary over his shoulder. There was a crunch that sounded like and probably was breaking bone as the jock landed on the dancefloor. James put him in a headlock, and reached for the pressure spots. He found them easily enough, and began to press.

"Surprise." Muscular hands clutched his wrists, and James was flailing through the air. Crowds scattered to allow him a clear passage into the pool table, and as his body thudded into its baize surface his would-be victim was already on him. James managed a quick kick to his broad torso, rolled out of his reach, and ducked as a broken pool cue, the age-old brawler's weapon of choice, tore past his head. Blocking a mechanical barrage of blows, he knew he was badly outmatched.

"Okay, call it quits," he gasped.

His opponent answered by bringing the pool cue into acquaintance with James's skull. It connected with a dull thud and blood spattered across the pool table, but the cue tip wasn't the only thing that turned red. This wasn't a brawl anymore; it was a challenge, a challenge to the coward who ran.

Shrugging aside the pain and catching the pool cue as it delivered the next blow, James brought his adversary over his head with all his strength and down onto the pool table, which 15 muscular stones shattered in a cloud of splinters and chalk dust. Following him down, James began to rain blows on his quarry.

"Bastard," he spat as his fists fell. "Bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard." The man's face was a pulp now, but he still managed to bring up a fist, a wretched, pathetic blow James could have easily deflected.

Instead he took the man's arm, clasped him against his thudding torso and separated his spine with a single, fatal snap that echoed through the accompanying cries of horror and into James's pounding heart.

When his victim died he was already running.

Several hours and many miles away, as dusk fell, James stood amidst the desert sands surrounding Sunnydale suburbia. Lost to the stars, he did not notice the approach of a very familiar figure.

"Mr De Lange, I presume?"

"Farelli." James turned. "Here for round two?"

"In a sense." Farelli wore his human face, and it carefully weighed up the young warrior. "You've become a murderer this day, Mr De Lange."

"You know."

"The town knows. I was in the town. I'll leave the deduction to you. Why?"

"Bastard got in my way," snapped James, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"Yes, I think he did. Tell me, how does it feel?"

"Like you don't know."

"Truly, I don't."

"Could have fooled me last night."

"You would have killed me as I slept; I accorded you more respect that you I. And I do not talk of the man I am, I talk of the man I was."

"Some man I bet."

"Yes, thank you, I was. I killed as a mortal, but in self-defence only. I never took life in cold blood. I'm intrigued."

Looking at Farelli through a bank of shadow, James said, "Felt pretty good, as it happens."

"No, I think not." The ancient vampire walked to James's side. "Let us dispense with the bravado; we're both cold warriors here. How does it feel?" James's eyes told him. "I thought as much."

Ripping apart his collar to expose a neck pricked by throbbing veins, James spat, "Do it leech."

"That's not why I'm here," said Farelli coolly. "You're free to go should you wish it." He swept his hand along the road back to town. "Do you?"

James stood still as a rock.

"It's too much, isn't it Mr De Lange? What you did. You did not think, you acted, which is commendable in its way, but only if you can live with the consequences. And you, I think, cannot."

James just looked on into the night.

"Very well: find yourself a priest; confess your sins; and then I shall be waiting. A clean death, I promise, and straight to paradise. Does that appeal?"

"No," whispered James.

"No. You want to live, but you cannot. Not with that pain, and it will never leave you Mr De Lange, not while you're alive." Allowing the demon onto his face Farelli raised a gaunt hand to his fanged lips and slit his wrist. "Not while you're alive."

Drip, drip, drip. Trickling from the vampire's wrist into the sand was the most inviting sound James had ever heard.

"Choose you road, Mr De Lange."

James had already sunk to his knees. His eyes took in the night as his mouth opened to receive the dark sacrament. It fell into his throat and it was the sweetest taste he had ever known, but he didn't have a moment to savour it before fangs severed his jugular to draw out the equal of the blood he had been given.

Falling to the earth, his dying hands clawing the sand, all James could see was stars. As he watched they grew closer, and he found he could look back to see his body lying in between the dunes. He felt very much alone and suddenly, whatever heaven was, he before it. No choirs of angels or St Peter but just stars, so many stars they blanked out the Milky Way, and he'd never felt so at peace.

But he'd killed a man without reason or atonement. Worse, he'd willingly turned himself over to something that would carry on in kind for all eternity. Heaven was not for him.

He was one star now, the morning star, and he fell, spiralling downwards and as he screamed a scream worthy of eternity he saw something rise in the opposite direction, and take over his dead body.

* * *

Giles spoke a short incantation that ended with, "Discedere," and the mystical barrier parted. Sam and Ruth emerged hesitantly as it faded, their beautiful dresses replaced with t-shirts and jeans in Ruth's case, a skirt in Sam's.

"Sam, Ruth," the Watcher greeted them as warmly as he was able.

"Hi Rupert," said Sam. Ruth just nodded awkwardly.

"A'hem, all ready?"

"No, but guess we're going anyway." Sam kept her hand in Ruth's as the couple moved into the back seat of Giles's Citron. "Willow, Oz ...?"

"They know."

"How'd –?"

"As well as could be hoped."

"Splendid then," muttered Sam ruefully. "So, now we're tap-free, mind telling us what you have in mind?"

Giles sighed. "Honestly? I don't know. But if I'd said as much over the phone, he could've known as well."

"Farelli?" surmised Ruth.

"Indeed. The barrier I had you place about yourselves currently envelopes my residence, including Willow and Oz therein. Quentin too, and ..." Giles trailed off.

"And –?" Sam pressed him.

"You'll see soon enough," said Giles awkwardly.

Sensing she had to accept his words, Sam turned her attention to Ruth and said in a whisper, "How you holding up baby?"

"Fine," lied Ruth. "First time you called me that since ..."

"Yeah, guess it is."

The rest of the journey passed in silence, and it was midday as the Citron pulled into Giles's driveway. Leaving Ruth to carry Sam as he knew she would want to, the Watcher ascended the short stairway to his door and stopped at its top. "Ruth, Sam, over here if you could," he said in a whisper as he stepped into an shallow alcove in the wall. The couple joined him in the shadow of a small palm-tree. "You might, a'hem, want to set Sam down, Ruth," cautioned the Watcher ominously.

"I got her. Giles, what is it?"

Giles took a deep breath and said, "Kundra Keffri is on my sofa."


© Byron, 2004