tarnished -- part one -- trekker |
Chapter Twelve | |
Worst Case Scenario |
Ethan caught the door before he could close it in his face.
"No, wait."
In the past few weeks, avoiding Ethan had been a great deal easier than it had before. He'd suspected Ethan would eventually get tired of waiting and track him down again.
"Why should I? I've told you a thousand times to stay away from me."
"This isn't about that."
"No? Strangely, I find that hard to believe."
"Don't you feel that?"
Giles frowned.
"Feel what?"
Then he noticed that Ethan looked genuinely concerned. He let go of the door.
"It's like all the birds the world have gone quiet all at once. A storm is coming. The Hellmouth. Something... Someone. Powerful. Very, very powerful." Ethan paused, then said, "And incredibly angry."
Giles froze inside. Oh, no.
"It isn't the Slayer."
"No, I didn't think it was."
"Then who?"
"No one." Willow.
He never should have left. Oh, god, he never should have left. He'd known, Tara had known, he just hadn't wanted to believe it and now...
"Well?" Ethan said, impatiently shifting about at the threshold like an uninvited vampire, "What are you going to do about it?"
Giles grabbed his coat and his address book as he called back to the door, "Nothing that concerns you."
"The continued existence of the world does, in fact, concern me," Ethan said, falling into step with Giles after he locked the door and began heading downstairs.
"No one's ending the world," Giles snapped.
"Perhaps not *yet*," Ethan said as they stepped out into the dreary grey rain.
"Go away, Ethan."
Giles unlocked his car and got in, but Ethan dashed around the hood and got into the passenger's side before he could drive away.
"No."
He had no time to argue.
"Fine. Then shut up."
Of course, that didn't last even until they reached the city limits. Ethan twitched and fidgeted for about three minutes, then finally said, "So, where are we going?"
Giles just sighed.
***
The rain was coming down in serious sheets by the time they reached the gates of the Devon coven. Giles wasn't entirely surprised to find a small contingent of three waiting at the gates when he pulled up. He and Ethan jumped out of the car and ran up to join the three women, one of whom immediately split from the group and held up her hand in a restraining gesture aimed in Ethan's direction.
"You. You cannot cross our threshold."
Giles glanced over at Ethan who opened his mouth, then shut it, then said, "Fine."
Giles was surprised by the lack of a fight, but shrugged it off as Ethan headed back to the car.
"He's the one who told me something was wrong," he said.
"Be that as it may, his kind is not welcome here," Marianne said, then said, "Come to the house, we need to talk."
***
They stopped on the covered porch, no time to worry over trivialities such as keeping the carpets dry, and the youngest girl in the group, whom Giles didn't recognize, looked up at him, and said, "I had a vision."
"Tell me," Giles said. He could feel fear, cold as the rain water trickling down his back, but what was worse was the aching, useless hope that perhaps he was wrong. He knew he wasn't.
"I-- I woke up, and I saw this girl, standing in front of me. And then... then she was just shot. Just like that... I looked down and there was blood on my shirt--"
Dear god.
"Describe her," Giles said, urgently, disregarding her distress, though later he would regret it, and Maryanne's eyes widen in surprise.
"Um, she, she was blond. Pretty? I-- I don't know how tall, I was seeing her as someone else?"
Buffy?
"What-- what was she wearing?"
"Um. Long skirt? Her hair was long and straight, past her shoulders. She, uh, she had a nice figure, not too skinny."
Then it clicked.
"Tara," he said.
The hope vanished in a small, painful implosion. So it was Willow. No doubt about that, now.
Yet another person he loved whom he had failed.
It only took him an hour to decide what he had to do.
***
"You think you can stop her?" Ethan shouted above the wind, incredulously, as Giles slogged back to the car.
They both got in, and the windshield fogged up immediately from the rainwater they brought with them.
"No."
"Then what the hell are you doing?"
"I don't have to fight her. Or at least, I don't have to win."
"That's the insanity talking, Giles. Take me with you. I could help."
"No!"
"Why the hell not? For god's sake Giles, she's dangerous, I felt her thousands of miles away. You can't take her on alone... at least together we'd have the advantage of numbers."
"I said no. In fact," Giles said, leaning forward and squinting through the deluge on his windshield, "If you come anywhere within a hundred miles of Sunnydale, I'll kill you."
"Dammit, Giles, someone has to do something. Together we could, we could bind her, send her to another dimension, something!"
"No one will beat her in a fight."
"Then why'd you go to the trouble of getting loaded down with magic?"
Giles didn't answer. A few miles passed in silence, then Ethan suddenly said, "You're insane."
Giles still did not reply. Instead, he pulled over and got out, deeming himself far enough away from the coven to do what he had to. He got out and Ethan did too, following him to the edge of the rain-soaked field.
"Dammit, Giles, it'll kill you."
"She's worth it," Giles said, closing his eyes and summoning the forces.
"No. Wait," Ethan said, and Giles stopped and opened his eyes. Ethan's tone had changed from angry to something quieter.
"What?"
"Let me help. I don't care what any stuck-up Wiccas say, my power is as pure as anyone's."
Ethan held up his hand. The rain poured down around them.
"Come on," he said, after Giles stood for a moment, silent and indecisive. "You need all the bloody help you can get, Giles. Do you want to save her, or not?"
His personal feelings on the matter aside, Ethan was right, though Giles wasn't entirely sure what was provoking this act of generosity. But the situation was severe, and there was no time, and he *did* need all the help he could get.
He crossed the space between them in two paces and clasped hands with Ethan and the power flashed between them, hot enough to evaporate the rain around them for a split second.
Giles gasped at the rush as Ethan's magic joined with the rest he had been loaned.
Ethan fell to one knee and curled in on himself. "Shit, that hurts."
"You'll be fine in a day or so," Giles said.
By then, it would be over. One way or another.
Chances were good he wouldn't be around to care either way.
He swept his arms up and felt the roar of teleportation, and an eye-blink later, he was standing in the warm, dry air of Sunnydale.
tarnished -- part one -- trekker |