Through a Glass Darkly 2/4
Mar. 20th, 2007 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hobgoblinnHere, at last, is Part 2 of my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tenyearsofbuffy ficathon entry. Yes, I know I said it would only be 2 parts, but the rewrite took some new turns. It really will be only 4 though. With an epilogue, tacked on to the 4th part.
Many thanks go to the following for perceptive comments and helpful advice:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rahirah, clavally, theblackmare, rainkatt, gillo, slaymesoftly, partri65. Special thanks to antennapedia for final, final beta. All remaining mistakes are my own, of course.
Spoilers/ Time period: End of Season 3 to Start of Season 5.
Please note: the rest of this story takes place early in the summer after Season 4. Takes a while for those ghost batteries to warm up, okay?
Characters: Core Scoobies + Anya and Tara, with a special guest appearance by someone not quite dearly departed.
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Strictly for entertainment, and no profit is being made. Please sue somebody else.
Distribution: If you're planning on asking me, I'm planning on saying "yes." Just let me know where it's going.
Word Count: 5,097
Through a Glass Darkly, part 2/4
(Previous part here: Part 1/4)
“I just... I can’t find it anywhere.” Giles’ voice sounded a little muffled in Buffy’s ears, occupied as she was just then searching underneath the couch. It was amazingly, almost frighteningly, dust-free. She reflected, not for the first time, what a neat freak the guy was. But at the moment, even muffled, there was an edge to her friend’s voice that was starting to scare her.
“I always replace the phone in its charger,” he continued. “Always. But lately, whenever I go to use it it’s just....” He trailed off in frustration as she sat up and blew the hair out of her face. She watched as he began rifling frantically through a pile of papers on the floor beside his desk. Again. For, like, the fourth time.
There were several such piles scattered around the otherwise immaculate apartment, unusual for him, careless clutter left in the aftermath of their stopping yet another apocalypse. Her place was much worse, of course. The joining spell they’d used had had strange effects on them all, and she suspected Giles was also not getting nearly as much sleep as he would have them believe. These papers, and the way Giles was shuffling through them, were just the tip of the iceberg, the clue that things were really not okay in Giles-land at the moment.
She pushed aside her fear as she watched him descend slowly into a very unGiles-like panic. Trying for a calming, soothing tone, she said, “Um, well, I said I’d help you look, and I will. It’ll be okay Giles. Really.” But even as she said it, a doubt niggled at her. Something else was off about today, this place. She shivered, then realized what it was. Cold, but no AC on-- she knew Giles didn’t believe in it. Frowning, but a little relieved to find something which might divert him, she continued, “But Giles, stop for a second. Doesn’t it feel kinda cold in here to you?”
Buffy saw the familiar pause and blink. “Yes, I do believe it does,” he replied slowly. He glanced toward the window, where the late afternoon sun streamed through brightly. “Wasn’t it supposed to get up into the 90s today?” he asked, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, a little surprised that he’d known. Though in the weeks since the joining spell, she had been spending more time with him, and he’d frequently surprised her with the things he knew, the things he noticed. Maybe they were things he always knew, always noticed. Maybe it was just that now she was paying more attention.
There was something about this cold, though. She had an odd feeling, like there was something hovering just beyond her conscious sight. The same feeling she’d had the previous night, in fact. She said, “You know, I’ve been cold a lot lately, at funny times. Like out on patrol last night. Willow noticed it too.” She hesitated, then went on, “Do you think it might be... because of the spell we did?”
“Well, if we could ever find my telephone, we might ask Willow and Xander if they also have noticed anything unusual of late....” They both started slightly at the sound which interrupted the beginning of the Watcher’s rant: a *thump* behind Buffy, in the corner of the living room. There, on the floor, lay the object they had both spent the better part of an hour looking for.
Buffy traded a look with Giles. “I’m sure that wasn’t there a minute ago,” she said slowly. “I checked those bookshelves. And the floor.”
“So did I, before you arrived.” They watched for a moment, but the handset continued to lie on the floor, unmoving. They traded another look. Buffy approached it cautiously, picked it up, and shivered again.
“What is with the deep freeze in here, Giles?” She handed the phone over to him and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.
“I don’t know,” he replied absently. He had that funny look in his eyes, the one he got sometimes, when he was trying to see something just beyond the surface. She held her breath, reaching out with Slayer senses, too. But, other than the cold, there was nothing. Giles shook his head as he, too, gave up the attempt.
“I’m not getting anything,” he said apologetically. “You?” Buffy shook her head. Giles considered a moment, then said, “Perhaps Willow might have better luck.” He began dialing, and Buffy heard the faint electronic beeps as he pressed each number on the keypad.
“Good idea,” Buffy agreed. “But, Giles? Mind if I borrow a sweater?”
“What? Oh, not at all,” he replied, raising the handset to his ear as Buffy ascended the stairs to his loft in search of warmer clothing.
She returned as Giles was replacing the phone in the charger base with a dull but emphatic click. She saw him look up and smile as she held up a second sweater, then tossed it over to him. “Thank you, Buffy.”
He pulled the green sweater over his head. “Xander was not home, or at least, there was no answer.” Buffy suppressed a grin-- it wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that Xander and Anya were far to wrapped up in each other to bother with picking up a ringing phone. Giles’ expression mirrored hers as he continued, “So I left a message on his machine thing.”
“Cool,” Buffy said. “What about Willow?”
“Willow said she would be on her way over as soon as she cancelled a study session with a friend.”
Buffy nodded, relieved. “Help’s on the way, then. Good.” She noticed that her breath was starting to come in misty puffs as she exhaled. “This is really creepy, Giles.”
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. He rubbed his hands together, then started toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“Yeah,” Buffy answered, going back to the corner where the phone had appeared, trying to work out where it could have fallen from, and why.
She was still examining the corner very carefully for clues and expanding her search out into the rest of the living room when she heard a knock at the door. Giles was closer, just coming out of the kitchen, so she let him get it, but she rose and moved to join him as he opened the door. She felt, more than saw, his back stiffen a little. “Willow. And ah... Tara. How good of you to come.” He stepped aside to allow them entry.
“Hey Giles,” Willow greeted him. “I... uh, you said it was cold but....”
“Yeah, it’s gotten colder since he called,” Buffy said from behind him. “You might need even warmer clothes than those; sorry.” She looked over at her Watcher, sensing his uneasiness-- no, embarrassment. She remembered then that the last time he had seen Tara, he had not really been at his best. Of course, neither had she. She stepped forward into the breach and smiled brightly. “Thanks for coming, Tara. Will says you have some experience with magic-- whad’ya think? Are you getting a little supernatural vibe in here, or what?”
Tara returned the grin shyly. “I--I’d be happy to help,” she said. “And yeah,” she agreed, relaxing into a more wry smile, “I think this might be from something other than natural causes.”
Buffy caught the uncertain glance Willow flicked from her to Giles. “I hope you don’t mind,” her friend said, a little anxiously. “Tara said she sensed something last time she was here. She’s a lot more sensitive to auras and supernatural phenomena than I am.”
“Not at all.” Giles finally found his voice, and a warm smile as well. Buffy sighed in relief as he continued, “You shall always be welcome here, Tara. I was inexcusably rude on our last meeting, but-- I am really very happy for you both.” Willow and Tara exchanged slightly embarrassed grins and murmured their thanks.
Buffy smiled at the unexpected apology and blessing. Her Watcher was usually so reticent, but he still could surprise her at times. She wondered what about Willow and Tara had brought this out in him now. Before she could reflect further, she noticed how both girls were trying to conceal their discomfort, rubbing their hands over their arms and shaking a bit from the cold.
“Here, let me get you both something warmer-- ok Giles?”
“Of course. I’ll go put the kettle on for tea. Make yourselves at home, please.”
As she went upstairs, she heard Willow say, “Only if my home is an arctic cave, Giles. What’s going on?”
“We don’t know,” Buffy heard him reply. “It wasn’t like this earlier.” She moved out of earshot and pulled a couple of heavy woolen sweaters out of his dresser drawer. She started back down the stairs in time to hear Giles continue, “The temperature has been dropping since I called you. I don’t know what to make of it....”
As Buffy reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw Tara peering intently into the shadowed corner where they had found the phone earlier. “Um, Mr. Giles?” she called, a little tentatively. “Did you know your apartment is haunted?”
Giles and Willow rushed to her side, and Buffy joined them, silently handing sweaters to Tara and Willow. “What do you see?” Giles asked softly, peering into the shadows at the edges of the dimly lit room.
“There-- by that shelf. Can you see him?” Tara pulled a dark sweater over her head and smiled gratefully at Buffy.
“No, Baby,” Willow replied slowly, trading a glance with Giles and Buffy before she
pulled on her own borrowed sweater. “Is-- is he evil?”
Tara thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Not especially. More lost? Sad. He knows you.”
“Can you see what he looks like?” Buffy asked trying without success to penetrate the gloom and see what Tara was able to make out.
“No. He’s like a shadow, a vapor....” She paused, listening and looking at something beyond their perception, then sighed and turned to them apologetically. “I can’t get anything else. Just some emotions-- fear, confusion.”
Buffy watched Giles remove his glasses to rub tired eyes. She glanced back at his desk, and as she’d expected, his phone was not where he’d left it. She heard Giles sigh as he noticed the same thing. “As soon as we find my phone, again, we should see whether Xander... is available. And we’ll need to do some research, of course.”
Two distinct thuds were heard in the room-- one under his desk, where the kitchen light now illuminated the cordless phone handset, and the other by the corner shelf where Tara had seen his unwelcome guest.
“Ah, well. It would appear our friend does want to communicate with us,” Giles commented mildly as he reached down to retrieve the fallen book in the corner. He held it up, and Buffy read the title: Conversations with the Dead - Methods and Techniques.
***
Snyder watched from the shadows as they slowly-- painfully, haltingly slowly-- put it together. It really should not have taken so long, he thought, even allowing for the time it had taken him to figure out how to move things in his ghostly state. He had worked hard to build up his control, with the same disciplined attention and concentration that had gotten him through two Master’s degrees and certification in both Mathematics and school administration on his way to becoming a high school principal for the best paying and most challenging school district in the state.
But once he’d figured out how, he’d been dropping some fairly obvious clues. He hadn’t expected Summers to get it. But in this bastion of almost obsessive order, much akin to his own house when he himself had been alive, it really should not have taken so long for them to suspect his presence.
But they finally had, and all he had to do now was wait for them to figure out how to help him make contact with them. They couldn’t see him, and he was feeling more drawn and stretched all the time, like something was trying to pull him away, but he was still firmly anchored here. It was becoming almost painful, which was saying something, considering his ghostly body was incapable of feeling anything. Only in memories could he feel anything at all, and those were more emotions than physical sensations, feelings like regret, sadness, and lost, icy terror.
He watched now as Giles flipped through the book, pausing on the page he had dog-eared before dropping it on the floor. After a few moments, he saw Giles look up, an excited light kindling in his eyes. Snyder had seen it a few times over the past year, when Giles had solved, or partially solved, some vexing puzzle.
“Buffy,” the ex-librarian said slowly, casually. “Do you think you might be able to locate Spike and get him here?”
“Sure, she replied, standing up and stretching, laying her own book aside. “Why?”
Giles shook his head, but he was grinning. “Trust me,” he said.
Snyder watched as the two of them traded another of those communication-without-words looks, and then she grinned too. Sometimes the connection between those two was almost uncanny. Snyder did not approve.
“All right,” she said, still grinning. She tugged off the heavy oversized sweater, called out, “Be right back,” over her shoulder, and was off into the night. Oddly, Snyder felt no pull to follow her, as he usually did.
Instead he drifted over to Rosenberg, looking over her shoulder and decrying again her choice to cut her hair in so unflattering a style. The laptop screen glowed softly as she pulled up the building commission records on this apartment building, obviously searching for likely candidates for resident ghost. He wasn’t much of a computer geek-- computers had been mostly after his time, but even he could see that she was bypassing security systems in highly illegal ways. It helped that he had seen her at this sort of thing before over the past year. He wondered again whether she had broken into the Mayor’s files at some point, or if her corruption had taken place after her time at Sunnydale High. Given her friends, probably before.
He glanced up as Harris and his strange girlfriend banged in through the door. A little disheveled--- yep. They’d been having premarital sex again, he thought disapprovingly. He shook his invisible head, wondering just how that relationship had started. Or why it continued. Aside from the obvious, of course.
It had taken him quite a while, including listening in on some late night conversations between the librarian and the boy, before he’d figured out why the girl was so different. She knew about so many unnatural things. Knew about, as if from personal experience. And then there were the joking references to her age, which, he’d gathered over time, were not jokes at all. She really was over a thousand years old. A former vengeance demon.
And the worst of it was, he hadn’t even suspected it, before. He’d been told he was impervious to magic, which was why the Sunnydale job was such a good fit for him. But even he’d had his perceptions altered, to accept the girl as a student in his school. He knew for a fact that he had never seen her transcripts or given her the “Welcome to Sunnydale” talk he always gave new students. She’d just suddenly been there, and he’d never noticed. He, who noticed everything. He shied away from the thought, as he always did. The thought of magic touching him in any way made him distinctly uncomfortable.
Ah well, he thought, turning back to the scene at hand. It didn’t look like marital sex was in the cards anytime soon, which was probably a good thing. Snyder didn’t hold with mixing races, although the young woman seemed completely human now. No matter. He was sure Harris could do better. Though he had to admit, grudgingly, that since the Harris had gotten serious about her, he had left behind that endless series of dead end jobs. It was a shame he hadn’t pursued wood shop while in school, but his attendance had been so erratic, and he’d been so distracted by that Summers girl, that he probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of it. He was proud to see the boy settling down now.
“Whoa,” Harris was saying as he slammed the door shut behind them. “You weren’t kidding, Giles. It’s freezing in here. What’s up?”
Giles replied from the chair in the corner, where he was paging through the book Snyder had pretty much dropped into his lap. “We’re not quite sure yet. We appear to have a ghost, but so far, we haven’t been able to ascertain its identity.”
Harris’ girlfriend opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at Giles with new respect. “Wow. Who’d you kill?”
Giles removed his glasses and sighed. “No one. Yet,” he murmured. Then more loudly, “Willow is looking into the building’s history now.”
Rosenberg turned back to her screen, frowning. “Yeah, I’ve been trying old records on this building, and searching the newspaper archives, but there’s just nothing. The only incident we know of...” Snyder saw the flicker of pain in her eyes as she spoke, and how she faltered and glanced over at Giles, whose own eyes closed briefly. Harris’ lips compressed into a grim line.
She took a steadying breath and turned back to Harris. “We know she didn’t die here. And before that, I’ve traced the history back to when this building was built, and even the structures standing here before that. But.... nothing really jumps out. Or at least, it seems like we would have seen something before now.” She smiled sadly up at Tara as her lover rose to press a comforting hand on her shoulder. Snyder narrowed his eyes as he watched. Usually, these displays of affection bothered him, all the more so because he found their relationship unnatural. But the “incident” the Rosenberg girl had mentioned attracted his restless curiosity.
Snyder had to think a little before he realized who “she” was. The computer teacher, Miss... Calendar. He’d never known all the details, just that her body had been found in the librarian’s apartment, and he had been cleared as a suspect in the death relatively quickly. Seeing them talk about it now, he realized that the woman and Mr. Giles had been pretty close. He had known that the kids had liked her. He wondered how she had really met her end.
Harris cut through the gloom with his usual inane babble. A frequent habit, Snyder had noticed, though it didn’t irritate him as much now as it had. He’d begun to understand that this particular group led pretty grim lives, and Harris’ attempt to keep fear at bay was, if not always effective, at least well-meant.
“Do we really need to know who it is, though? Why not just haul out the old exorcism candles and go to it? Banish the big boo back wherever he came from?” The boy shivered despite his heavy sweatshirt and jeans, and Snyder saw him grin a little sheepishly. “Um, Giles, do you have an extra pair of gloves?”
Giles sighed, something Snyder would have done, had he still been breathing. “No, Xander,” the librarian replied patiently, “but you’re welcome to a cup of tea. Or in your case, hot water with sugar in it.” Giles sniffed disdainfully, and Snyder grinned a little. He had seen this particular teasing exchange more than once between them, and somehow, it was comforting.
While Harris poured himself a steaming mug, probably, Snyder thought, mostly for the purpose of wrapping his numb hands around it for warmth, Giles continued, “I don’t want to be too hasty choosing a course of action here. There is the possibility that this is somehow related to our joining spell. If so, we must tread cautiously. We may have attracted more supernatural attention than just the spirit of the First Slayer. Have either of you noticed anything... unusual over the past few weeks?”
“Not unless you count those creepy dreams we all had that night,” Rosenberg replied.
Harris nodded agreement. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just a Watcher - Slayer thing,” he added hopefully. Then, in response to the librarian’s scowl, he grinned and changed the subject. “Yeah, so. If research isn’t panning out, what then? Are we going to hold a seance, or what?”
Giles looked expectantly past him, and Snyder also looked up, hearing a noise at the doorstep. “Not exactly,” the librarian replied, as Summers burst through the door behind them, hauling a cursing and sputtering bleached-blond vampire in her iron grip.
“I brought him, Giles, but why....” She paused, looking around. “Is it just me, or is it colder in here than when I left?”
“Quite possibly,” Giles replied, rising to meet them. “As for Spike,” he grinned, and Snyder detected a hint of menace behind it, as the older man looked the struggling vampire in the eye. “Do you recall my telling you, Spike, that you would regret it, if you betrayed us? Paybacks, as they say, are hell.” He muttered a swift Latin incantation, reading from the open book in his hand. The vampire’s eyes went wide with fear as his body began to glow an eerie green.
“Oi, now, Watcher, what the-- bloody hell...” Halfway through his curse, there was a flash, and the vampire blinked, then stared in shock at his hands, down at his body. He glared at each of them in turn, the expression oddly familiar, even as it was completely different from Spike’s usual glower. He opened his mouth, and when he spoke, and the voice was not Spike’s either. It was flat, nasal, unmistakable.
“You. You people blew up my school.”
*******
There was a stunned silence. Buffy released the vampire’s cold wrist and stumbled backward. “Principal Snyder?” she whispered, horrified disbelief washing through her.
Xander murmured, “Somebody please tell me I’m dreaming. Again.”
The vampire ignored him, looking hard at Buffy. He nodded, but the nod was not the lazy, cocky motion she had grown accustomed to seeing from Spike. “Yeah. Nice to see you too, Summers.” The icy blue eyes glared at each of them in turn. Then, she heard that eerily familiar voice again. “What the hell are you people?”
Giles stepped forward and Buffy felt his calming hand on her shoulder. “Are you Principal Snyder?” he asked evenly.
The lips curled in a sneer. “Took you long enough.” He shook his head. “I really expected you, at least, to be a little quicker on the uptake, here, Mr. Giles. I’m the one who’s dead.”
Buffy hadn’t wasted a thought on Principal Snyder in a very long time-- not since the week after the Ascension, when she had forced herself to remember everyone. She’d remembered how he died, and grudgingly acknowledged that, at the last, there had been a spark of courage in the blustering little man. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much now, to see the familiar disapproving glare.
Giles was eyeing the possessed vampire thoughtfully. “Interesting,” he mused. Buffy glanced back toward him.
“Share, Giles,” she prompted, when he didn’t continue. “What’s interesting?”
“Well, most ghosts aren’t this self aware. And they frequently are not even aware that they have died. Often, they’re merely psychic echoes of their former selves, replaying some traumatic event, or trying to set right something left undone in the world of the living. Perhaps they tell someone a secret-- where they left a cache of money, or where their bodies can be found so their families can have the comfort of a proper burial. But, it’s a very limited sort of consciousness, and it tends to fade quickly, whether the trauma or unfinished business is resolved or not.”
“I always thought Snyder’s consciousness was kinda limited to start with,” Xander quipped with his usual lopsided grin. Buffy grinned too. Trust Xander to bounce back from the supernatural unknown with a joke. Even one as hellmouthy as this.
“Hey!” the vampire protested. He drew himself up with dignity, glared at Xander. “At least I was never fired from Starbucks.”
Buffy blinked and looked at him curiously. “How did you know that?”
The blue eyes met hers. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
Giles cleared his throat. “All right, enough. How long have you been haunting my flat?”
“I... I don’t know,” he sputtered defensively. “Do you really think I’d choose to come here, if I’d had a choice? One minute I was somewhere else....” He paused for a moment and the eyes took on a far away look.
“And then, I heard voices. You two.” He indicated Buffy and Giles with a shaking hand. “And then I was wherever you were. Here in this place, or,” he looked to Buffy, “out in some graveyard at night with you.” He paused, then admitted, quietly, a little sullenly, “I don’t know which is worse.”
Buffy saw a new thought flicker across the pale face. He lifted a hand and looked at it with careful, sickened horror. “My God. What have you done to me?” he whispered.
Giles raised his eyebrows. “It’s temporary, I assure you,” he said. “I needed a way to talk to whoever you were directly, and Spike... well, Spike will, regrettably, take no permanent harm.”
“Spike? That vampire you had living here?” As Buffy watched the sickened expression, she wondered if it was possible for a vampire to throw up. She hoped she wasn’t about to find out. It took him a few seconds fighting for control, but then he managed, weakly, “And what was that all about, anyway?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’ve often wondered that, myself,” she said, a little relieved. “But, fun as this reunion is-- Giles, do we have a plan?”
She saw Giles repress a fond smile. Well,” he replied slowly, thinking it through, “It’s been a long time since I participated in laying a ghost, but I imagine it shouldn’t take too long to gather the necessary materials. We’ll have to do a bit of research, for me to refresh my memory on the procedure....”
“Laying a ghost?” Xander interrupted. “And what would that entail, exactly?” Buffy grinned to see him blink, as one obvious interpretation occurred to him. He continued in a smaller voice, “No wait-- please, don’t tell me.”
Giles glanced toward the heavens as if for strength. “Not what you’re thinking, at any rate.”
Tara spoke up shyly, to explain. “It’s what they call it when you find a way to set a ghost free, so it doesn’t haunt the mortal world any more. My grandmother laid a ghost to rest once, when I was little. I don’t remember it all, but.... I think we had to find out what bound it to the world.”
Giles looked at Tara keenly. “Yes, Willow told me-- you can read auras, too?” Tara nodded. He continued, “What do you read in his?” Tara looked at the vampire consideringly.
“Well, I see two auras. One is bound up very small and tight-- a kind of yellow gold rage. I think that’s Spike. The other one is mostly blues, some green. I see someone who really values order, rules, predictability.”
“Gee, that doesn’t sound like anyone we know,” said Xander.
Tara, still looking intently at the vampire, went on as if she hadn’t heard. “There’s something else there-- very faint. A kind of reddish glow. I think it might be....” She looked over at Giles. “Could a spell be keeping him here?”
Giles nodded. “It’s certainly possible.”
Buffy saw a new expression, for Spike, wash across the pale features-- a kind of blind panic. “A spell?” His head shook in emphatic, dogged denial. “That’s not possible... I mean, I’m -- I was....” He shook his head again. “They tested me, before I came to Sunnydale. I was magic resistant. ‘Impervious,’ they called it. That was one of the reasons they offered me the job. After all the problems they’d had, they thought it would be safer.”
“Safer for whom?” Giles wondered, as if to himself. Then he blinked and said, “Well, regardless, we have some work to do. But, I wonder....” He hesitated, looking from Snyder to Buffy, and Buffy had the feeling she was not going to be pleased with his next suggestion. She was right.
“You say you sometimes leave this flat, to accompany Buffy out on patrol?” The blond head nodded warily. Giles continued, “Then perhaps, Buffy, you would be good enough to take him out with you now? We would probably be quite a bit warmer.” As Buffy opened her mouth to protest, he added, “And we might be able to find a solution to this situation more quickly.”
Buffy had to concede the logic, but.... “All right, but do we have to leave him like this? It’s kinda giving me a wiggins, hearing Snyder’s voice coming from Spike.”
Giles glanced back at the book in his hand, flipped back a page or two. “It says here that often, once a spirit has made contact in this manner, it is able to manifest in its own form, without the need for a vessel like this.”
Snyder nodded. “Do it,” he said grimly. Then, more quietly, he added, “Please.”
Buffy watched as Giles raised a hand and muttered another incantation. The vampire convulsed for a moment, then fell to his knees. He looked up, froze for a beat, then was out the door and off into the night like a scalded cat.
In the place where the vampire had stood, there was a pale outline of a balding, middle aged man in a dark suit and a striped tie. He looked up from examining his translucent hands, and met Buffy’s gaze. She rolled her own eyes in disgust. “Let’s go,” she said. “But Giles-- you are so gonna owe me.”
Part 3/4
tenyearsofbuffy ficathon entry. Yes, I know I said it would only be 2 parts, but the rewrite took some new turns. It really will be only 4 though. With an epilogue, tacked on to the 4th part.Many thanks go to the following for perceptive comments and helpful advice:
rahirah, clavally, theblackmare, rainkatt, gillo, slaymesoftly, partri65. Special thanks to antennapedia for final, final beta. All remaining mistakes are my own, of course.Spoilers/ Time period: End of Season 3 to Start of Season 5.
Please note: the rest of this story takes place early in the summer after Season 4. Takes a while for those ghost batteries to warm up, okay?
Characters: Core Scoobies + Anya and Tara, with a special guest appearance by someone not quite dearly departed.
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Strictly for entertainment, and no profit is being made. Please sue somebody else.
Distribution: If you're planning on asking me, I'm planning on saying "yes." Just let me know where it's going.
Word Count: 5,097
Through a Glass Darkly, part 2/4
(Previous part here: Part 1/4)
“I just... I can’t find it anywhere.” Giles’ voice sounded a little muffled in Buffy’s ears, occupied as she was just then searching underneath the couch. It was amazingly, almost frighteningly, dust-free. She reflected, not for the first time, what a neat freak the guy was. But at the moment, even muffled, there was an edge to her friend’s voice that was starting to scare her.
“I always replace the phone in its charger,” he continued. “Always. But lately, whenever I go to use it it’s just....” He trailed off in frustration as she sat up and blew the hair out of her face. She watched as he began rifling frantically through a pile of papers on the floor beside his desk. Again. For, like, the fourth time.
There were several such piles scattered around the otherwise immaculate apartment, unusual for him, careless clutter left in the aftermath of their stopping yet another apocalypse. Her place was much worse, of course. The joining spell they’d used had had strange effects on them all, and she suspected Giles was also not getting nearly as much sleep as he would have them believe. These papers, and the way Giles was shuffling through them, were just the tip of the iceberg, the clue that things were really not okay in Giles-land at the moment.
She pushed aside her fear as she watched him descend slowly into a very unGiles-like panic. Trying for a calming, soothing tone, she said, “Um, well, I said I’d help you look, and I will. It’ll be okay Giles. Really.” But even as she said it, a doubt niggled at her. Something else was off about today, this place. She shivered, then realized what it was. Cold, but no AC on-- she knew Giles didn’t believe in it. Frowning, but a little relieved to find something which might divert him, she continued, “But Giles, stop for a second. Doesn’t it feel kinda cold in here to you?”
Buffy saw the familiar pause and blink. “Yes, I do believe it does,” he replied slowly. He glanced toward the window, where the late afternoon sun streamed through brightly. “Wasn’t it supposed to get up into the 90s today?” he asked, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, a little surprised that he’d known. Though in the weeks since the joining spell, she had been spending more time with him, and he’d frequently surprised her with the things he knew, the things he noticed. Maybe they were things he always knew, always noticed. Maybe it was just that now she was paying more attention.
There was something about this cold, though. She had an odd feeling, like there was something hovering just beyond her conscious sight. The same feeling she’d had the previous night, in fact. She said, “You know, I’ve been cold a lot lately, at funny times. Like out on patrol last night. Willow noticed it too.” She hesitated, then went on, “Do you think it might be... because of the spell we did?”
“Well, if we could ever find my telephone, we might ask Willow and Xander if they also have noticed anything unusual of late....” They both started slightly at the sound which interrupted the beginning of the Watcher’s rant: a *thump* behind Buffy, in the corner of the living room. There, on the floor, lay the object they had both spent the better part of an hour looking for.
Buffy traded a look with Giles. “I’m sure that wasn’t there a minute ago,” she said slowly. “I checked those bookshelves. And the floor.”
“So did I, before you arrived.” They watched for a moment, but the handset continued to lie on the floor, unmoving. They traded another look. Buffy approached it cautiously, picked it up, and shivered again.
“What is with the deep freeze in here, Giles?” She handed the phone over to him and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.
“I don’t know,” he replied absently. He had that funny look in his eyes, the one he got sometimes, when he was trying to see something just beyond the surface. She held her breath, reaching out with Slayer senses, too. But, other than the cold, there was nothing. Giles shook his head as he, too, gave up the attempt.
“I’m not getting anything,” he said apologetically. “You?” Buffy shook her head. Giles considered a moment, then said, “Perhaps Willow might have better luck.” He began dialing, and Buffy heard the faint electronic beeps as he pressed each number on the keypad.
“Good idea,” Buffy agreed. “But, Giles? Mind if I borrow a sweater?”
“What? Oh, not at all,” he replied, raising the handset to his ear as Buffy ascended the stairs to his loft in search of warmer clothing.
She returned as Giles was replacing the phone in the charger base with a dull but emphatic click. She saw him look up and smile as she held up a second sweater, then tossed it over to him. “Thank you, Buffy.”
He pulled the green sweater over his head. “Xander was not home, or at least, there was no answer.” Buffy suppressed a grin-- it wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that Xander and Anya were far to wrapped up in each other to bother with picking up a ringing phone. Giles’ expression mirrored hers as he continued, “So I left a message on his machine thing.”
“Cool,” Buffy said. “What about Willow?”
“Willow said she would be on her way over as soon as she cancelled a study session with a friend.”
Buffy nodded, relieved. “Help’s on the way, then. Good.” She noticed that her breath was starting to come in misty puffs as she exhaled. “This is really creepy, Giles.”
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. He rubbed his hands together, then started toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“Yeah,” Buffy answered, going back to the corner where the phone had appeared, trying to work out where it could have fallen from, and why.
She was still examining the corner very carefully for clues and expanding her search out into the rest of the living room when she heard a knock at the door. Giles was closer, just coming out of the kitchen, so she let him get it, but she rose and moved to join him as he opened the door. She felt, more than saw, his back stiffen a little. “Willow. And ah... Tara. How good of you to come.” He stepped aside to allow them entry.
“Hey Giles,” Willow greeted him. “I... uh, you said it was cold but....”
“Yeah, it’s gotten colder since he called,” Buffy said from behind him. “You might need even warmer clothes than those; sorry.” She looked over at her Watcher, sensing his uneasiness-- no, embarrassment. She remembered then that the last time he had seen Tara, he had not really been at his best. Of course, neither had she. She stepped forward into the breach and smiled brightly. “Thanks for coming, Tara. Will says you have some experience with magic-- whad’ya think? Are you getting a little supernatural vibe in here, or what?”
Tara returned the grin shyly. “I--I’d be happy to help,” she said. “And yeah,” she agreed, relaxing into a more wry smile, “I think this might be from something other than natural causes.”
Buffy caught the uncertain glance Willow flicked from her to Giles. “I hope you don’t mind,” her friend said, a little anxiously. “Tara said she sensed something last time she was here. She’s a lot more sensitive to auras and supernatural phenomena than I am.”
“Not at all.” Giles finally found his voice, and a warm smile as well. Buffy sighed in relief as he continued, “You shall always be welcome here, Tara. I was inexcusably rude on our last meeting, but-- I am really very happy for you both.” Willow and Tara exchanged slightly embarrassed grins and murmured their thanks.
Buffy smiled at the unexpected apology and blessing. Her Watcher was usually so reticent, but he still could surprise her at times. She wondered what about Willow and Tara had brought this out in him now. Before she could reflect further, she noticed how both girls were trying to conceal their discomfort, rubbing their hands over their arms and shaking a bit from the cold.
“Here, let me get you both something warmer-- ok Giles?”
“Of course. I’ll go put the kettle on for tea. Make yourselves at home, please.”
As she went upstairs, she heard Willow say, “Only if my home is an arctic cave, Giles. What’s going on?”
“We don’t know,” Buffy heard him reply. “It wasn’t like this earlier.” She moved out of earshot and pulled a couple of heavy woolen sweaters out of his dresser drawer. She started back down the stairs in time to hear Giles continue, “The temperature has been dropping since I called you. I don’t know what to make of it....”
As Buffy reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw Tara peering intently into the shadowed corner where they had found the phone earlier. “Um, Mr. Giles?” she called, a little tentatively. “Did you know your apartment is haunted?”
Giles and Willow rushed to her side, and Buffy joined them, silently handing sweaters to Tara and Willow. “What do you see?” Giles asked softly, peering into the shadows at the edges of the dimly lit room.
“There-- by that shelf. Can you see him?” Tara pulled a dark sweater over her head and smiled gratefully at Buffy.
“No, Baby,” Willow replied slowly, trading a glance with Giles and Buffy before she
pulled on her own borrowed sweater. “Is-- is he evil?”
Tara thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Not especially. More lost? Sad. He knows you.”
“Can you see what he looks like?” Buffy asked trying without success to penetrate the gloom and see what Tara was able to make out.
“No. He’s like a shadow, a vapor....” She paused, listening and looking at something beyond their perception, then sighed and turned to them apologetically. “I can’t get anything else. Just some emotions-- fear, confusion.”
Buffy watched Giles remove his glasses to rub tired eyes. She glanced back at his desk, and as she’d expected, his phone was not where he’d left it. She heard Giles sigh as he noticed the same thing. “As soon as we find my phone, again, we should see whether Xander... is available. And we’ll need to do some research, of course.”
Two distinct thuds were heard in the room-- one under his desk, where the kitchen light now illuminated the cordless phone handset, and the other by the corner shelf where Tara had seen his unwelcome guest.
“Ah, well. It would appear our friend does want to communicate with us,” Giles commented mildly as he reached down to retrieve the fallen book in the corner. He held it up, and Buffy read the title: Conversations with the Dead - Methods and Techniques.
***
Snyder watched from the shadows as they slowly-- painfully, haltingly slowly-- put it together. It really should not have taken so long, he thought, even allowing for the time it had taken him to figure out how to move things in his ghostly state. He had worked hard to build up his control, with the same disciplined attention and concentration that had gotten him through two Master’s degrees and certification in both Mathematics and school administration on his way to becoming a high school principal for the best paying and most challenging school district in the state.
But once he’d figured out how, he’d been dropping some fairly obvious clues. He hadn’t expected Summers to get it. But in this bastion of almost obsessive order, much akin to his own house when he himself had been alive, it really should not have taken so long for them to suspect his presence.
But they finally had, and all he had to do now was wait for them to figure out how to help him make contact with them. They couldn’t see him, and he was feeling more drawn and stretched all the time, like something was trying to pull him away, but he was still firmly anchored here. It was becoming almost painful, which was saying something, considering his ghostly body was incapable of feeling anything. Only in memories could he feel anything at all, and those were more emotions than physical sensations, feelings like regret, sadness, and lost, icy terror.
He watched now as Giles flipped through the book, pausing on the page he had dog-eared before dropping it on the floor. After a few moments, he saw Giles look up, an excited light kindling in his eyes. Snyder had seen it a few times over the past year, when Giles had solved, or partially solved, some vexing puzzle.
“Buffy,” the ex-librarian said slowly, casually. “Do you think you might be able to locate Spike and get him here?”
“Sure, she replied, standing up and stretching, laying her own book aside. “Why?”
Giles shook his head, but he was grinning. “Trust me,” he said.
Snyder watched as the two of them traded another of those communication-without-words looks, and then she grinned too. Sometimes the connection between those two was almost uncanny. Snyder did not approve.
“All right,” she said, still grinning. She tugged off the heavy oversized sweater, called out, “Be right back,” over her shoulder, and was off into the night. Oddly, Snyder felt no pull to follow her, as he usually did.
Instead he drifted over to Rosenberg, looking over her shoulder and decrying again her choice to cut her hair in so unflattering a style. The laptop screen glowed softly as she pulled up the building commission records on this apartment building, obviously searching for likely candidates for resident ghost. He wasn’t much of a computer geek-- computers had been mostly after his time, but even he could see that she was bypassing security systems in highly illegal ways. It helped that he had seen her at this sort of thing before over the past year. He wondered again whether she had broken into the Mayor’s files at some point, or if her corruption had taken place after her time at Sunnydale High. Given her friends, probably before.
He glanced up as Harris and his strange girlfriend banged in through the door. A little disheveled--- yep. They’d been having premarital sex again, he thought disapprovingly. He shook his invisible head, wondering just how that relationship had started. Or why it continued. Aside from the obvious, of course.
It had taken him quite a while, including listening in on some late night conversations between the librarian and the boy, before he’d figured out why the girl was so different. She knew about so many unnatural things. Knew about, as if from personal experience. And then there were the joking references to her age, which, he’d gathered over time, were not jokes at all. She really was over a thousand years old. A former vengeance demon.
And the worst of it was, he hadn’t even suspected it, before. He’d been told he was impervious to magic, which was why the Sunnydale job was such a good fit for him. But even he’d had his perceptions altered, to accept the girl as a student in his school. He knew for a fact that he had never seen her transcripts or given her the “Welcome to Sunnydale” talk he always gave new students. She’d just suddenly been there, and he’d never noticed. He, who noticed everything. He shied away from the thought, as he always did. The thought of magic touching him in any way made him distinctly uncomfortable.
Ah well, he thought, turning back to the scene at hand. It didn’t look like marital sex was in the cards anytime soon, which was probably a good thing. Snyder didn’t hold with mixing races, although the young woman seemed completely human now. No matter. He was sure Harris could do better. Though he had to admit, grudgingly, that since the Harris had gotten serious about her, he had left behind that endless series of dead end jobs. It was a shame he hadn’t pursued wood shop while in school, but his attendance had been so erratic, and he’d been so distracted by that Summers girl, that he probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of it. He was proud to see the boy settling down now.
“Whoa,” Harris was saying as he slammed the door shut behind them. “You weren’t kidding, Giles. It’s freezing in here. What’s up?”
Giles replied from the chair in the corner, where he was paging through the book Snyder had pretty much dropped into his lap. “We’re not quite sure yet. We appear to have a ghost, but so far, we haven’t been able to ascertain its identity.”
Harris’ girlfriend opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at Giles with new respect. “Wow. Who’d you kill?”
Giles removed his glasses and sighed. “No one. Yet,” he murmured. Then more loudly, “Willow is looking into the building’s history now.”
Rosenberg turned back to her screen, frowning. “Yeah, I’ve been trying old records on this building, and searching the newspaper archives, but there’s just nothing. The only incident we know of...” Snyder saw the flicker of pain in her eyes as she spoke, and how she faltered and glanced over at Giles, whose own eyes closed briefly. Harris’ lips compressed into a grim line.
She took a steadying breath and turned back to Harris. “We know she didn’t die here. And before that, I’ve traced the history back to when this building was built, and even the structures standing here before that. But.... nothing really jumps out. Or at least, it seems like we would have seen something before now.” She smiled sadly up at Tara as her lover rose to press a comforting hand on her shoulder. Snyder narrowed his eyes as he watched. Usually, these displays of affection bothered him, all the more so because he found their relationship unnatural. But the “incident” the Rosenberg girl had mentioned attracted his restless curiosity.
Snyder had to think a little before he realized who “she” was. The computer teacher, Miss... Calendar. He’d never known all the details, just that her body had been found in the librarian’s apartment, and he had been cleared as a suspect in the death relatively quickly. Seeing them talk about it now, he realized that the woman and Mr. Giles had been pretty close. He had known that the kids had liked her. He wondered how she had really met her end.
Harris cut through the gloom with his usual inane babble. A frequent habit, Snyder had noticed, though it didn’t irritate him as much now as it had. He’d begun to understand that this particular group led pretty grim lives, and Harris’ attempt to keep fear at bay was, if not always effective, at least well-meant.
“Do we really need to know who it is, though? Why not just haul out the old exorcism candles and go to it? Banish the big boo back wherever he came from?” The boy shivered despite his heavy sweatshirt and jeans, and Snyder saw him grin a little sheepishly. “Um, Giles, do you have an extra pair of gloves?”
Giles sighed, something Snyder would have done, had he still been breathing. “No, Xander,” the librarian replied patiently, “but you’re welcome to a cup of tea. Or in your case, hot water with sugar in it.” Giles sniffed disdainfully, and Snyder grinned a little. He had seen this particular teasing exchange more than once between them, and somehow, it was comforting.
While Harris poured himself a steaming mug, probably, Snyder thought, mostly for the purpose of wrapping his numb hands around it for warmth, Giles continued, “I don’t want to be too hasty choosing a course of action here. There is the possibility that this is somehow related to our joining spell. If so, we must tread cautiously. We may have attracted more supernatural attention than just the spirit of the First Slayer. Have either of you noticed anything... unusual over the past few weeks?”
“Not unless you count those creepy dreams we all had that night,” Rosenberg replied.
Harris nodded agreement. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just a Watcher - Slayer thing,” he added hopefully. Then, in response to the librarian’s scowl, he grinned and changed the subject. “Yeah, so. If research isn’t panning out, what then? Are we going to hold a seance, or what?”
Giles looked expectantly past him, and Snyder also looked up, hearing a noise at the doorstep. “Not exactly,” the librarian replied, as Summers burst through the door behind them, hauling a cursing and sputtering bleached-blond vampire in her iron grip.
“I brought him, Giles, but why....” She paused, looking around. “Is it just me, or is it colder in here than when I left?”
“Quite possibly,” Giles replied, rising to meet them. “As for Spike,” he grinned, and Snyder detected a hint of menace behind it, as the older man looked the struggling vampire in the eye. “Do you recall my telling you, Spike, that you would regret it, if you betrayed us? Paybacks, as they say, are hell.” He muttered a swift Latin incantation, reading from the open book in his hand. The vampire’s eyes went wide with fear as his body began to glow an eerie green.
“Oi, now, Watcher, what the-- bloody hell...” Halfway through his curse, there was a flash, and the vampire blinked, then stared in shock at his hands, down at his body. He glared at each of them in turn, the expression oddly familiar, even as it was completely different from Spike’s usual glower. He opened his mouth, and when he spoke, and the voice was not Spike’s either. It was flat, nasal, unmistakable.
“You. You people blew up my school.”
*******
There was a stunned silence. Buffy released the vampire’s cold wrist and stumbled backward. “Principal Snyder?” she whispered, horrified disbelief washing through her.
Xander murmured, “Somebody please tell me I’m dreaming. Again.”
The vampire ignored him, looking hard at Buffy. He nodded, but the nod was not the lazy, cocky motion she had grown accustomed to seeing from Spike. “Yeah. Nice to see you too, Summers.” The icy blue eyes glared at each of them in turn. Then, she heard that eerily familiar voice again. “What the hell are you people?”
Giles stepped forward and Buffy felt his calming hand on her shoulder. “Are you Principal Snyder?” he asked evenly.
The lips curled in a sneer. “Took you long enough.” He shook his head. “I really expected you, at least, to be a little quicker on the uptake, here, Mr. Giles. I’m the one who’s dead.”
Buffy hadn’t wasted a thought on Principal Snyder in a very long time-- not since the week after the Ascension, when she had forced herself to remember everyone. She’d remembered how he died, and grudgingly acknowledged that, at the last, there had been a spark of courage in the blustering little man. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much now, to see the familiar disapproving glare.
Giles was eyeing the possessed vampire thoughtfully. “Interesting,” he mused. Buffy glanced back toward him.
“Share, Giles,” she prompted, when he didn’t continue. “What’s interesting?”
“Well, most ghosts aren’t this self aware. And they frequently are not even aware that they have died. Often, they’re merely psychic echoes of their former selves, replaying some traumatic event, or trying to set right something left undone in the world of the living. Perhaps they tell someone a secret-- where they left a cache of money, or where their bodies can be found so their families can have the comfort of a proper burial. But, it’s a very limited sort of consciousness, and it tends to fade quickly, whether the trauma or unfinished business is resolved or not.”
“I always thought Snyder’s consciousness was kinda limited to start with,” Xander quipped with his usual lopsided grin. Buffy grinned too. Trust Xander to bounce back from the supernatural unknown with a joke. Even one as hellmouthy as this.
“Hey!” the vampire protested. He drew himself up with dignity, glared at Xander. “At least I was never fired from Starbucks.”
Buffy blinked and looked at him curiously. “How did you know that?”
The blue eyes met hers. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
Giles cleared his throat. “All right, enough. How long have you been haunting my flat?”
“I... I don’t know,” he sputtered defensively. “Do you really think I’d choose to come here, if I’d had a choice? One minute I was somewhere else....” He paused for a moment and the eyes took on a far away look.
“And then, I heard voices. You two.” He indicated Buffy and Giles with a shaking hand. “And then I was wherever you were. Here in this place, or,” he looked to Buffy, “out in some graveyard at night with you.” He paused, then admitted, quietly, a little sullenly, “I don’t know which is worse.”
Buffy saw a new thought flicker across the pale face. He lifted a hand and looked at it with careful, sickened horror. “My God. What have you done to me?” he whispered.
Giles raised his eyebrows. “It’s temporary, I assure you,” he said. “I needed a way to talk to whoever you were directly, and Spike... well, Spike will, regrettably, take no permanent harm.”
“Spike? That vampire you had living here?” As Buffy watched the sickened expression, she wondered if it was possible for a vampire to throw up. She hoped she wasn’t about to find out. It took him a few seconds fighting for control, but then he managed, weakly, “And what was that all about, anyway?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’ve often wondered that, myself,” she said, a little relieved. “But, fun as this reunion is-- Giles, do we have a plan?”
She saw Giles repress a fond smile. Well,” he replied slowly, thinking it through, “It’s been a long time since I participated in laying a ghost, but I imagine it shouldn’t take too long to gather the necessary materials. We’ll have to do a bit of research, for me to refresh my memory on the procedure....”
“Laying a ghost?” Xander interrupted. “And what would that entail, exactly?” Buffy grinned to see him blink, as one obvious interpretation occurred to him. He continued in a smaller voice, “No wait-- please, don’t tell me.”
Giles glanced toward the heavens as if for strength. “Not what you’re thinking, at any rate.”
Tara spoke up shyly, to explain. “It’s what they call it when you find a way to set a ghost free, so it doesn’t haunt the mortal world any more. My grandmother laid a ghost to rest once, when I was little. I don’t remember it all, but.... I think we had to find out what bound it to the world.”
Giles looked at Tara keenly. “Yes, Willow told me-- you can read auras, too?” Tara nodded. He continued, “What do you read in his?” Tara looked at the vampire consideringly.
“Well, I see two auras. One is bound up very small and tight-- a kind of yellow gold rage. I think that’s Spike. The other one is mostly blues, some green. I see someone who really values order, rules, predictability.”
“Gee, that doesn’t sound like anyone we know,” said Xander.
Tara, still looking intently at the vampire, went on as if she hadn’t heard. “There’s something else there-- very faint. A kind of reddish glow. I think it might be....” She looked over at Giles. “Could a spell be keeping him here?”
Giles nodded. “It’s certainly possible.”
Buffy saw a new expression, for Spike, wash across the pale features-- a kind of blind panic. “A spell?” His head shook in emphatic, dogged denial. “That’s not possible... I mean, I’m -- I was....” He shook his head again. “They tested me, before I came to Sunnydale. I was magic resistant. ‘Impervious,’ they called it. That was one of the reasons they offered me the job. After all the problems they’d had, they thought it would be safer.”
“Safer for whom?” Giles wondered, as if to himself. Then he blinked and said, “Well, regardless, we have some work to do. But, I wonder....” He hesitated, looking from Snyder to Buffy, and Buffy had the feeling she was not going to be pleased with his next suggestion. She was right.
“You say you sometimes leave this flat, to accompany Buffy out on patrol?” The blond head nodded warily. Giles continued, “Then perhaps, Buffy, you would be good enough to take him out with you now? We would probably be quite a bit warmer.” As Buffy opened her mouth to protest, he added, “And we might be able to find a solution to this situation more quickly.”
Buffy had to concede the logic, but.... “All right, but do we have to leave him like this? It’s kinda giving me a wiggins, hearing Snyder’s voice coming from Spike.”
Giles glanced back at the book in his hand, flipped back a page or two. “It says here that often, once a spirit has made contact in this manner, it is able to manifest in its own form, without the need for a vessel like this.”
Snyder nodded. “Do it,” he said grimly. Then, more quietly, he added, “Please.”
Buffy watched as Giles raised a hand and muttered another incantation. The vampire convulsed for a moment, then fell to his knees. He looked up, froze for a beat, then was out the door and off into the night like a scalded cat.
In the place where the vampire had stood, there was a pale outline of a balding, middle aged man in a dark suit and a striped tie. He looked up from examining his translucent hands, and met Buffy’s gaze. She rolled her own eyes in disgust. “Let’s go,” she said. “But Giles-- you are so gonna owe me.”
Part 3/4
you do iz besz
Date: 2007-07-09 05:35 am (UTC)Looks good! Very useful, good stuff. Good resources here. Thanks much!
Bye