part two

Nobody walked alone. Nobody went anywhere alone. Nobody even breathed alone. That was the new standard of the day. Or, rather, the night. Xander called in sick from his job and spent his time in Giles’ apartment, whittling stakes, and tried not to look at Oz, sitting across the table from him. The Scooby Gang, huddled in Giles' apartment, planning a course of action. Same as always. Everything, same as always. Except, not. Buffy was pacing, okay, normal. Oz was sitting, okay again, normal. Willow, not perched on Oz’s lap. Not hunched over her laptop. Not normal. Cordelia, dressed in black, chewing in her nail until it bled. Very not normal.

Giles, absent. MIA, presumed undead. Way not normal.

Xander wanted very badly to scream.

"I’m going to take a leak."

Oz looked up, put his book aside.

"I can take a leak by myself," Xander said in exasperation.

"No, you can’t." Buffy, her voice firm. Her eyes red-rimmed and puffy like they hadn’t been ever.

"Right. C’mon, wolf-boy. Let’s do like the girls, and pee in a pack."

The bathroom was sparse, clean, and echoingly empty, like it knew its owner wouldn’t be coming home. They’d thought about leaving town, at least until they had a plan. But....

this is where Willow would come.

If she could.

She had gone back to the dorm, at least that’s where she had last been seen. Willow's roommate had spent the night in her boyfriend’s room, but someone had seen the redhead that night, carrying a bag of supplies into the room. Nothing since. No screams, no fight...

The police had been called, once Xander made her folks aware of the fact that she was missing. Parents, on the Hellmouth -- they never got real attached to their children. Some kind of survival thing, Xander had figured. It beat the hell out of them just not caring.

He left Oz outside, staring into the hallway mirror like it was going to give him some answers. Closing the door for some badly needed privacy, Xander drew down his fly, then froze.

Was that a noise? He looked out the small bathroom window. Nothing. Paranoia. Nerves. Extreme wigginess.

"Oz?"

No answer.

Oh, shit.

He had known vampires were strong. He’d been thrown around by enough to be aware of demonic strength. But it was different, somehow, when the hand holding him a foot off the ground was attached to the arm that was attached to the body that was topped by the head with a face that was so familiar.

"Giles."

He was proud of the fact that his voice was steady.

The familiar face had eyes that glittered green and gold, and a heavy ridge over those eyes. And fangs.

Oz swallowed hard. The night air was cool against his skin, but the hands that held him were cooler still.

"Puppy." The voice was familiar, too. Smooth. Educated. "They say wolves mate for life. Pity if it’s true..."

Oz couldn’t help it -- as terrified as the human was, the wolf rose to the fore, snarling its agony and defiance. He let it, riding the wave of feralness that was such a part of him now.

"Shhh, puppy," the thing that had been Rupert Giles soothed. "She’s not dead. Not yet."

He smiled. "But you are."

"His house," Cordelia said "Guess he didn’t need an invitation."

Buffy stood by the window, staring at the receding lights of the ambulance as it moved off down the street. Angel sat on the sofa, Cordelia next to him. They seemed to be comfortable with each other. Buffy felt a million years away from comfort.

Xander had gone with Oz, shoving his way past the paramedics before the doors had shut, promising to update them as soon as he had news.

"He was in and out so fast...why didn’t he drain him completely?" the brunette asked now.

"He didn’t have time," Angel said. "He’s still new to this."

The Slayer shook her head. ‘No. I know has fast they can kill...he didn’t. Something else is going on."

"Yet," Cordelia said. "Oz could still die."

"Cordelia..."

"Sorry," she said. "But it’s true."

Buffy went on as though she hadn’t heard them. "I know Giles. I know the way his brain works. The demon’s using that brain, using those memories...he doesn’t want to kill us. If he did, we’d be dead already. He knows us too well, we wouldn’t be able to fight him, any more than Oz could. Something’s going on in his head..."

Cordelia looked at her boss, worry shining in her eyes. She'd lost weight since Doyle's death, lost more than weight. Lost an optimism that normal humans took as their birthright, that the world, somehow, would not only make sense, but be fair and impartial in handing out the hurts. He didn't know what to tell her, what to say.

How many friends could a person lose, and still be expected to go on?

Then her hand crept into his, warm fingers curling around his cool ones, and they sat on the sofa, and waited for Buffy to remember they were there.

#

Buffy and Cordelia went to the hospital once the sun rose, leaving Angel behind. He told them that he intended to do some poking around among the undead community underground, see what the word was, while they followed more sun-friendly leads.

But Angel knew before he started that there was no point in trying his usual sources. A Watcher-vampire would be powerful enough to cow other vampires, even most pure demons, even if he was freshly turned. And with Dru as a sire..

No, there was no point to searching for gossip.

Instead, he went looking for the source. The mansion was deserted, as expected. But there was an envelope on the table, with his name in a careful scrawl. Also expected.

"The time has been

my senses would have coddled

to hear a night-shriek;

and my fell of her would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors;

Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,

cannot once start me."

Angel crumpled the paper in his fist. The scent of blood rose from the stone floor. Blood, and the stink of pain.

{like this, Watcher?}

His own voice, in tones not his own.

Demons took the bodies available to them, no picking or choosing. But somehow, like always found like. His demon was vicious, petty -- and emotional. That was its weakness.

What sort of demon would have been drawn into Rupert Giles? Intelligent, certainly. Strong. a survivor.

Angel stopped, seeing again the broken, torn body tied into the chair. Bleeding, but defiant. Until is heart was used against him.

Angelus struck out against whatever made him feel. He wanted to destroy it, obliterate all witnesses to his own weakness. Rupert -- Ripper, the cocky, arrogant, powerful core Rupert Giles tried to deny....

Ripper would want to take what was important to him...and twist it...want to own it.

"Buffy," he whispered, then stopped. No, not Buffy. Not first. Innocence would appeal to him more, the combination of innocence and power that had appealed the Giles as a human as well...

Willow. Alive...and in Ripper’s hands...

He turned, and ran up against a grinning Ripper, Dru lurking like a mad harpy behind him. Damn!

Angel backed up cautiously, only to hit Spike and a couple of lackeys entering late.

"Going somewhere, old friend?" Ripper asked conversationally. "But this place has such...memories, for all of us."

Angel looked into those hazel eyes, and felt his sphincter tighten in an instinctive, useless gesture. He could try to get away...and he would die. Five against one, and he suspected none of them suffered from the wait-your-turn-to-attack mentality you saw in the dumber vamps. His only hope was that Buffy was right, that there was something other than their deaths this demon was planning...

"We’re going to have fun," Dru said gleefully. "Isn’t he pretty?" she asked Angel conspiratorially. "All sparkly and sharp. His thoughts cut me, cut me something cruel."

Ripper smiled down at Dru, a parody of the approving glance he used to give Willow. And Dru, like Willow, practically glowed under it.

He’s handling Dru -- and not alienating Spike, Angel noted. Smarter than Angelus ever was.

Screw this. Angel made a sudden lunge for the doorway, hoping to catch them unawares.

And then the others were holding him down, dragging him to the wall, chaining him with the same cuffs he’d used on Faith, once upon a time, at Giles’ reluctant request.

"Don’t worry," Ripper said to him now, standing over him, Spike to one side like a good lieutenant "You’re not my type." His gaze slanted sideways towards Dru, a private joke. "But I’m sure those boyish, buff good looks would appeal to some..I hope that you’re not overly particular about privacy..."

Ripper stepped back, and one of the other vampires filled Angel’s field of view.

"Poor Slayer," Dru said from somewhere else in the room. "No Watcher, no witch...and now her Angel’s going to be all busy...." She giggled, the anticipation of a mad little girl. "The stones are screaming, Watcher. You’re making the stones scream."

"You got lucky," Cordelia said flatly. Oz, propped up on the sofa, nodded agreement.

They were camped out in the Summers' house now, Giles' apartment having been abandoned after the attack the day before. Buffy and Cordelia had done the un-inviting ritual, just to be on the safe side, although they weren't clear on whether the invite had to have been issued before the vampire was made, or if a standing invitation to the human would suffice.

Joyce was in the kitchen, taking refuge in hot chocolate. Xander was on the phone, checking in again with the local cops. Not that anyone expected the typically ineffectual cops to have found anything.

"He could have killed you," Buffy said, but her voice wasn't as convinced -- or convincing -- as before.

"I know," Oz said. "I thought he was going to. "

"But he didn't. Why? I mean, not that I'm not glad you're still here," Cordelia said, "but that's twice now we should have been dead meat. He's holding off, like he's trying to Gaslight us."

"Huh?" Xander had gotten off the phone in time to hear that last comment."

"Old movie, my mom loves. Heroine thinks she's going crazy, turns out her husband's messing with her mind, then denying anything's wrong, trying to make her crazy."

"You think?" Oz said. "Making us expect to die….and then not?"

"And the million dollar question is -- why?" Xander asked practically.

"And…" Cordelia hesitated, unusual enough for her that everyone knew what she was thinking.

"And what if Willow and Angel are dead, and we just don't know it?" Buffy finished for her. Xander started to protest, and she shook her head. "No. It hurts -- god, it hurts! But we can't afford to go into denial. Me least of all." She set her jaw, looking at each of them in turn. "Willow's been missing for four days. Angel's been gone for two. If there was any way they could have gotten back to us, they would have. So we've got to assume they couldn't. And, and that means, probably dead."

There was silence.

"Angel was right," Buffy continued. "Whatever's going on, Giles…the demon isn't going to be easy to take down And without Willow's notes, we don't have a prayer of resouling him."

"Which leads us back to the big question," Joyce said, coming into the room with a tray of steaming mugs. "Why is he playing this game? Is it just cruelty, like Angelus?"

Buffy looked at her mom sadly. I tried so hard to keep you out of this…

"Doyle once told me that if you want to try and understand a vampire, you have to understand the human it took over. He said a vampire's basically kind of dumb, as demons go, and that it can't think much beyond its host's brain."

"Which means we've got a genius Watcher demon on our hands. Thanks, Cordy, we'd kind of figured that out already." Xander said, holding a mug in both hands, as though trying to soak up its warmth.

"No, wait," Oz interrupted. "Think about it. All this stuff, him warning Cordy -- he didn't know if she knew or not. And taking Willow, who'd be the only one with the curse know-how, and maybe taking down Angel…think about it the way Giles would. "

"He's testing us," Buffy said slowly. "Testing me. Seeing how well I can do on my own."

"So, what, he warned me because…" Cordelia nodded her head even as she was speaking. "Yeah. Because if I didn't know, I couldn't be prepared… so the test would be, what, invalid?"

"Makes about as much sense as anything," Xander said. "Only…what's he testing us for?"

"Don't know," Oz said, one hand touching the welts ringing his neck. "But I'm pretty sure we're not going to enjoy it."