tarnished -- part two -- trekker |
Chapter Two | |
The Cheesy Catchphrase of Evil |
It started out so small. First, Willow and her vision, which applied to the Hellmouth, and so, while it was cause for concern, was nothing new. Then Bernstien was mugged one night by an unknown demon with a knife, though he'd managed to fight it off, and it had been alone. Then the normal reports of attacks on Watchers and Potential Slayers had climbed quietly, subtly, but unavoidably higher.
Today, Bernstien and O'Malley hadn't shown up for work.
Now, Giles and Haight were standing in Bernstien's flat. According to police, he'd been stabbed, brutally, very nearly eviscerated. There was blood everywhere. The door of his flat had obviously been broken down, and given the mess there had been more than one assailant, and none of them had been at all concerned with subtlety.
The scene was almost identical to what they'd found at O'Malley's house.
Haight had already lost his breakfast in the bushes back there, and now looked as though he was searching his stomach for something else to expel. He was as pale as a vampire, staring at the chalk outline on the floor.
"Good lord," he said, for about the thirtieth time since they'd left that morning to go check on their coworkers. "Who would do such a thing?"
Giles attempted to make his sigh of exasperation sound more like sympathy but ended up blowing it and saying, "Demons, Haight. You know, those forces of evil of which we are the sworn enemy?"
"Oh. Right. I mean, of course, but, but... all this blood. Is it truly... well, necessary?"
"Of course it's not necessary. They simply take pleasure in their work."
"That's, that's... that's a horrible thing to say!"
"Sorry. Gallows humor," Giles said, as he stepped carefully over a particularly vivid gout of blood on the floor, eyeing the felled bookcase nearby.
Nothing seemed to be missing, since there were plenty of obscure, valuable and dangerous texts still present and still more or less in alphabetical order where they'd fallen, though hopefully Bernstien had kept an inventory so that they could check and make sure.
"We need to contact the Council," Giles said. "This wasn't random. Also, it may be wise for us to find alternative living arrangement for a time. It may not throw them off forever, but it's better than being exactly where they think we'll be."
Haight made a small, undignified sound, "You... you think they're going to... come after us?"
"Well, as far as I know, we're no different in rank or assignment than Bernstien and O'Malley, so I'd say there's enough of a risk we should take precautions, yes."
"Good lord," Haight said, again.
***
"From beneath us, it devours!" The demon standing on the table crowed triumphantly, as though this phrase was at all sensical.
"What does that *mean* anyway?" Ethan heard one of the Parvo demons at the table next to his booth ask his companion.
"Dunno," the other replied, cheerily. "Catchy, though, ain't it?"
"The one, the original, the most dark and powerful of all!" said the demon on the table.
There always seemed to be a demon preaching about something in here. Usually they were promoting their own plans for the end of the world, supporting themselves with bits of out-of-context prophecy and a lot of hot air. This demon, though, had the attention of most of the patrons, in spite of his cheesy carnival cryer style.
"It *will* rise again, and it *will* reclaim this Earth! And we *shall* rule again, as was always meant to be!"
The bar patrons raised their glasses and roared in assent. Ethan got the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps now was not the best time to be a human in a demon bar. Not that there was ever truly a "good" time to be a human in such a bar.
He was about to get up and leave when a lithe young woman slid into the booth and blocked his exit.
"Hey, handsome," she purred. "Leaving so soon?"
Vampires and their pick-up lines. Honestly, some of them hadn't changed their style in a century. He smiled, only a little uneasily, and said, "Sorry, love. I'm not on the menu."
"Pity," she purred. "I could make it good for you, you know."
*You? Not hardly, my dear. Amateur.* "I'm sure you could. But I'm afraid I'm just not interested."
She sighed and pouted, and ran her long nails lightly over his jugular, and he shivered in a way that was not at all sexual.
"Aw, come on. Don't you hear this?" she gestured with her other hand at the preaching demon. "Now just isn't the time to be mortal."
"Clever. Ranks right up there with 'the world's ending, and you wouldn't want to die a virgin.' Good show. But I'm leaving."
Of course, he wasn't leaving, as long as she blocked his exit.
She leaned in and licked from collarbone to jaw with her cold tongue, then nipped his ear and whispered, "Too bad, sweets. You'll be sorry when it rises."
Then she stalked off as swift as she'd appeared.
Ethan let out the shaky breath he'd been holding, got himself centered, and then hurried out through the night to his car. Tonight was *definitely* not the night to be human in a demon bar.
And he needed to talk to Giles.
***
Giles paused in his packing at the sound of a knock on his door. For a moment, his insides froze with horror and an all-too-vivid mental image of his own blood all over his flat like Bernstien's. But then it occurred to him that, generally, rampaging murdering demons with large, sharp objects did not actually knock first.
So he answered the door.
Unfortunately, rather than murdering demons, it was Ethan.
Who quickly raised his hands and said, "I'm here on business, I promise."
Damn. He'd have to hear him out. He leaned out the door a bit, checked the hall for demons, then gestured for Ethan to come in. He locked and bolted the door, again.
"Make it quick."
"Going somewhere?" Ethan asked, in a decidedly non-businesslike way.
"I fail to see how that's your concern."
"Fine, fine. I'm here because I've been hearing things."
"Watchers have been dying at a disturbing pace for the last week at least. I think you're going to be a bit more specific in order to tell me anything I don't already know."
"Something's got the demons all riled up. Something rising. I don't know much, but they keep saying 'from beneath you, it devours,' and talking about the greatest evil of all time returning to the Earth."
Giles reeled back a bit as though from a blow. No. It couldn't be... they'd driven that off once before--
"The First?" he asked.
Ethan nodded. "Does that mean anything to you?"
God, did it ever. If the First Evil was responsible for all of this, if it was rising... they could be in a great deal of trouble.
No, they were just plain fucked, actually.
"The First is supposedly the force that actually created evil. It was banished along with the demons millennia ago, but... if it's coming back..." Giles stopped. There were things he needed to do. Immediately. "I-- I need to go. Now."
Ethan looked concerned.
"What are you going to do?"
"Get the hell out of here, for a start. Call my sister's family. Alert the Council."
"Ah," Ethan said, and looked, for a moment, almost as if he was about to ask what *he* should do. But then he just said, "Have fun with that," and left.
At least he was out of the way.
tarnished -- part two -- trekker |