Chapter One – Beautifully Broken
They found me while I was working.
Weather's strange in New Jersey. Summers are uncomfortable: hot, humid, sticky-- unpleasant in general. Winters are rainy rather than snowy, and rarely get too cold. Spring and Fall are where New Jersey really shines: not hot, not cold, not too rainy, nor too dry. Just right, as Goldilocks would say. My boss, Madame Zelda (nee Shirley Bonakowski) won't allow us to open the windows so when the weather's nice, we take our clients outside.
And so it was on this pleasant just-right late September day that I was giving Mrs. Greenbaum her weekly tarot reading out on the front porch. We were sitting at the old card table, its padded surface ragged and stained, in equally ancient folding chairs that creaked every time we shifted (which was a lot, since they were dented and really uncomfortable). The porch itself, all creaky boards and peeling paint, could have used a bit of help but if it were spruced up it wouldn't have matched at all with the unkempt yard sprouting weeds and garbage and contempt from passers-by.
I'd just plunked down the 7 of swords (treachery, dishonesty, theft) when an awareness of stealth edged into my mind. Intrigued (who wouldn't be?), I pretended to be thinking about the import of the card on Mrs. Greenbaum's spread and concentrated.
There was stealth, yes, but not a malignant sort— whoever was watching didn't want to hurt me. Can't be too sure in a neighborhood like this one. The city of Plainfield is trying to make a comeback to its former glory days but it isn't there yet. No, this person was interested in me. More specifically, in what I could do. I dealt another card (3 of cups; festivity, joy, pregnancy?) and felt the mental equivalent of an eye-roll from my watcher. Apparently, he thought I was wasting my talents.
Chill air raised goosebumps on my bare arms, and I pulled on the sweater I'd brought out for that reason. Peering out from under the sagging porch roof, I saw that the sun was starting to go down, and sped up the reading so I could go home. It doesn't do to be in Plainfield at night, especially if you're white, as I am. Doesn't do at all.
Last card: Chariot reversed. Great momentum, abuse of energies, car crash? I "accidentally" brushed my hand against Mrs. Greenbaum's and the entire picture fell into place in my mind. "Your son's wife has sabotaged his condoms, and will become pregnant, but will be in a car accident and miscarry."
Most women would stare at me in shock, or shout in fury, or demand how I would know such a thing, but Mrs. Greenbaum's been coming to me for years. She just nods grimly and hands me a crumpled twenty. Gathering herself up— purse, umbrella, shopping bag, hat, eyeglasses— she murmurs to me about her next week's appointment and then leaves. I watch her go, her sturdy body picking through the cracked pavement to the street in a surprisingly dainty way.
No wonder, I think— the first time I touched her I'd seen a fascinating possible life she could have had, if she'd stuck with the ballet lessons at 13 instead of quitting to get an after school job. Instead of being a professional dancer, with a happy and profitable career, she was Mrs. Greenbaum: wife of Murray, mother of Marla and Samuel, important in the B'nai Brith but little else. But that's how life is— one insignificant choice made, and everything can go to hell.
The person watching me was still there, I knew, as I scooped up the cards and tapped them into a neat pack, then wrapped them in a square of violet silk. He was wondering if he'd get a chance to talk to me today, or if he'd have to wait until tomorrow.
Usually I just get into my car (parked in the fenced-in back yard so there's less of a chance of someone stealing or stripping it) and drive away, doors locked and windows up, my hands a death-grip on the steering wheel until I pull into my garage and push the button that closes the door. I look at no one, pick up no hitchhikers, and wouldn't dream of dropping any coins into the cans shaken on dingy street corners by men with flat, hard eyes.
This time, however, I think I'll take a detour.
I go inside, put Mrs. Greenbaum's twenty into the cashbox on top of the stack of other twenties from the rest of my clients today, six in all, and take six tens. I scribble a receipt for Zelda and sign it, then tuck it under the coin tray. Hide the cash box in the freezer, use the bathroom, grab my bag, lock the doors. Get in my car, a fifteen-year-old Cadillac my grandfather gave me, with surprisingly few dents and scratches marring its dark-blue paint.
At the end of the driveway I usually turn right, to go home. I follow the pull of my watcher and turn left. He jolts in surprise; he's watched me before, I realize, and had expected me to turn right. I make another left onto a side street; now he's alarmed. I grin; surely he would have expected me to pick up on his presence eventually? I pull into the parking lot of the burned-down nudie bar, in the back of which, behind a fragrant dumpster, he is hidden, and he panics.
I maneuver the Caddy so the lights are shining directly on the guy, who is trying (unsuccessfully) to scrunch his large frame into a tiny, inconspicuous ball amongst the empty Popeye's buckets and discarded bongs. He's wearing… is that tweed? Yes, it is tweed. It might help him blend in back in Jolly Olde England but here in Central Jersey, tweed won't do jack shit. Especially if you're a really white guy in a town like this.
Taking pity on him, I get out of the car. This isn't an especially smart thing for me to do, as by now it's almost totally dark and there are Rumours that the crack whores and heroin dealers aren't the only distasteful and dangerous things out here at night. In a city as old as Plainfield, there are cemeteries aplenty, and never a lack of vampires inhabiting them, or so I've heard.
"So," I begin conversationally, as if I'm not addressing a strange man squatting behind a dumpster outside a defunct titty bar, "What can I do for you?"
The courtesy seems to revive him, and he straightens. Putting a professional-looking smile on his face, he steps forward and offers me his hand. I look doubtfully at it—he has been rolling around in the filth— but decide it looks clean enough. Grounding quickly— gotta get a good impression from his touch, gotta know who I'm dealing with— I give his hand a fast, firm shake and let the images jump into my head.
England (explains the tweed). Books, a library (no surprise there, he looks bookish). Ripper (as in, Jack The?). California (now, there's a surprise). Slayer (the metal band?). Buffy (stupid name). Vampires (I knew it!). Demons (ditto). Jenny, Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, Mayor Wilkins, Adam, Glory, Warren, Willow, Spike (again). The names fly so fast I can't see more than the word itself— no images to accompany them. Just as I release his hand, a final word— prophecy— leaps into my mind.
And his name? It's Giles.
***
By the time her car spotlit his hiding place, Giles was almost relieved she'd found him. Spending the past hour crouching in heaven-knows-what was not his idea of a productive or pleasant afternoon. He wished Spike had been able to do the reconnaissance on her; the vampire never minded an opportunity to be alone with only his cigarettes and a bottle of cheap liquor, location and smell thereof be damned. But she was a canny one, and rarely left her house after dark, thus eliminating the vampire from the pool of available spies.
He wasn't pleased that she'd taken the initiative in finding him; he'd known she'd realize his presence eventually, but had wanted to be the one to approach her, had wanted to have the upper hand in making the first move. Take her by as much surprise as was possible with a psychic of her magnitude.
Dusk had fallen, but even in the diminished light he could see that she matched the photos in his portfolio of her. Rose Freemartin, average height, average weight, average appearance in general. Medium-length brown hair, eyes of indeterminate colour. Her clothes were trendy (low-riding jeans and cropped sweater over a brief t-shirt) but not ridiculously so. She wore little cosmetics, and minimal jewellery. Though she'd exited the car, she'd kept the door between herself and him; smart.
His Watcher's eye having catalogued her, he turned to other issues. She'd sensed his presence, and not found him threatening; that was good. He smiled tentatively at her, and she didn't tense or back away; excellent. He offered his hand, she took it. Good firm handshake, nice to see in a woman.
Just as he was getting comfortable, she withdrew her hand and said, "So, Giles… how does an Oxford grad like yourself come to spy on a girl like me in a dump like this?"
Surprised, he stuttered; he couldn't help it. "I—I—I have a proposition for you," he managed, then winced at how it sounded even to his own ears.
To her credit, Rose only grinned. "I bet you say that to all the girls," she replied, and swung herself back into the ridiculous vehicle. Leaning over the seat, she pushed the door open for him. "C'mon, get in."
Giles hesitated. Spike was supposed to meet him there soon; should he take the opportunity to talk to her and desert Spike, or should he risk the tantrum he was sure to receive when the vampire arrived to an empty hiding place?
The decision was taken from his hands when a soft thud was followed by the faint crunching of gravel, and Giles knew his partner had arrived.
"Oi, Rupert, going to abandon me, were you?" He swooped round the car to stand in the glare of the headlights and Giles couldn't help but smile. Really, Spike was such a drama queen. "'Ello, pet," he called to the woman behind the wheel. "Glad we're done with the cloak n' dagger bit, it was getting dead boring."
"I can well imagine," she replied, then reached out to tug on Giles' trouser leg. "You two getting in, or are we gonna stand here and watch Mr. Cheekbones model the latest in dead cow?"
Spike was frowning as he came toward the passenger door so Giles just shoved him into the back seat and got in front. "Careful with the delicates, mate," Spike muttered around a cigarette as he patted his pockets for a lighter.
They drove for several minutes in silence, punctuated by the repeated rasping of Spike's lighter and the occasional "bloody hell". "Is there a problem?" Giles finally asked, twisting round on his seat to face the vampire.
"S'there a window open?" Spike asked irritably. "Every time I get a flame up, it blows out before I can light my fag." He tried a few more times before giving up and carefully tucking the slightly-bent cigarette back in the packet.
"Tragic," Rose Freemartin commented, drawing Giles' eyes like a magnet. Her profile was carefully blank but he knew she was the cause of Spike's unwilling abstinence.
"So, where we headed?" Spike asked, skootching forward to brace his arms on the back of the seat and planting his head in what would have been the driver's direct line of rearview vision… had he been visible in the mirror.
The discovery didn't alarm her as Giles had thought it might. She hadn't known what he was when he got in the car, of that much, he was sure; she glanced in the mirror and not seeing the face that hovered so close to her own, she merely laughed out loud and exclaimed, "Should have known you'd be a vampire."
Giles and Spike exchanged glances. "You're not afraid of vampires, pet?" Spike asked, his mouth closer to her ear so he could purr the words into it. "P'raps you should be."
She took her eyes off the road long enough to meet his gaze. "I'm not afraid of much anymore." Her voice was tired, much older than the dossier had reported her to be (30), and the men fell silent for a while.
Rose signaled and pulled into a parking lot beside a building whose neon sign proclaimed it to be The Palmyra Tea Room. "Here we are, gents. 5,000 square feet of shabby-chic décor, bored-rich-kid art, a few dozen types of herbal tea, and possibly the best collection of old poetry and literary classics in Central Jersey. Besides my own, that is."
Giles and Spike trailed behind her as she strode into the place, not bothering to lock the car doors. "I'd love someone to steal the old heap," she declared with a laugh, and pushed the door open. "What kind of tea do you want, chai? Green? Lemon zinger?"
Giles looked discomfited. "Do they have normal tea?"
"Englishmen." Rose rolled her eyes. "Just for that, I won't let you choose between Lapsong Souchong and Darjeeling."
The men watched her walk to the counter to place the order.
"She doesn't seem phased at all," Spike commented calmly, his hyper-kid act gone.
"Yes, well, she is psychic," Giles reminded him.
"Mmm." Spike made a noncommittal noise. Then: "How are you going to tell her she's got to come to England with us?"
Giles shifted in his sprung armchair; really, these trendy coffee houses didn't have to be quite so authentically down-at-heels, he thought. Would it kill them to have somewhere to sit that didn't attempt to sodomize the customers with stray springs? "Judging from where she works, the car she has, and the way she lives in general, the opportunity to leave it all behind and make a new life in England should seem like a dream come true."
"Giles the Poncy Godmother," Spike murmured slyly, and Giles just knew the vampire was picturing him in a frilly pink frock. holding a magic wand.
"Spike the Neutered, Impotent Vampire," Giles countered and grinned when Spike's smile slid away.
"Not anymore, you dumb git," Spike growled. "Just you remember."
"Oh, please," the Watcher waved his hand. "As if your soul is any less a restriction on your behaviour than the chip ever was. You—"
"Fascinating as this cat-fight is, ladies," Rose interrupted, her hands laden with a tray, "I doubt the rest of the customers are interested. So shut up, okay?"
Giles shut his mouth with an audible click and took the tray while Spike sniffed appreciatively at its contents.
"I got a blend of Orange Pekoe and China Black, with half a Dark Side of the Moon cake for us to share, and since it's on you—" she grinned at Giles, who choked on his first mouthful of tea— "I also picked up a sandwich for my dinner."
They ate in silence, Rose briefly greeting a person here and there whom she knew. When the tray was empty but for a few crumb-strewn plates, she sat back with her cup of tea and sighed contentedly. "So, what was the proposition you had for me?"
Giles replaced his cup on the saucer with exacting care, selecting his words precisely. "Are you familiar with the concept of prophecies?"
"Well, I know what the word means," she replied easily, not giving anything away.
"I see." Giles removed his glasses and began polishing the lenses. "What would you say, were I to tell you that there is an elaborate underworld of supernatural creatures, and an equally elaborate system created to deal with them? And, this system has discovered an ancient prophecy that would seem to mention you specifically?"
"Me specifically how?" Rose enquired. Her voice was calm but Giles noted her finger tightened fractionally on her teacup.
"It makes mention of a psychic living in the new world— that would be the United States— who has turned her back on the ways of her people to find her own way—"
"Which could be anyone," she interrupted.
"—And her name is the Freemartin." Giles finished. Rose was silent. "It's not a common name, is Freemartin," he commented. The silence lengthened. "And it's not your actual surname, either."
Her eyes met his fiercely. "How did you know that?" she demanded.
"The organization to which I belong has a very long, very powerful reach," he replied, and winced inwardly at how pompous it sounded.
"I see," she said, her voice and eyes dull. She set the cup on the table with a clatter, crossed and recrossed her legs. Pleated the material of her sweater with fingers that were suddenly restless. Then, "Do you know why I chose Freemartin for a name?"
"A freemartin is the female twin of a male calf," Spike said, then when Giles glanced at him in surprise, followed it with, "What? My life's not all blood and fags, you know. I read. I watch Jeopardy. I know things."
"Yes, yes, Spike," Giles hushed the sullen vampire. "In any case, even if you hadn't chosen the name for yourself, the fact that your twin brother was supposed to be the most powerful psychic in recent history would have drawn attention to you." He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to peer more closely at Rose.
"I would be most happy to show you the prophecy, Miss Freemartin, if you would like to see it for yourself."
She waved his offer aside. "Not now." Planting both feet flat on the floor, she sat up straight. "What exactly does the prophecy say about me? What's my role in it?"
"It is generally agreed by all the experts of the cuneiform language in which the prophecy is written that—"
"Oh, shut it, you ghastly old sod," Spike told the Watcher impatiently. "The prophecy is about a group of reformed sinners— you, me, Prince Boring here, who do our part for the sake of truth, justice, and the American way." He ignored her skeptically raised eyebrows and Giles' red-faced sputtering. "You're supposed to join us in England to fight the badduns of the world, and along the way we're to convince some of them to join us." He sat back with his tea, satisfied.
"So I'm to leave my home here in glorious New Jersey—" this was said with no little irony "—and fight monsters? With a vampire and a member of some weird supernatural fraternity?"
Giles and Spike nodded.
"And how am I supposed to do that?" she wanted to know. "I took a self-defense course at the Y a few years ago, and I'm handy with a can of mace, but other than that, I'm afraid my ass-kicking skills are sadly lacking."
"With your psychic abilities, of course."
"My psychic abilities?" Rose started to laugh, laughed so hard that the café's other patrons began to look their way. "My psychic abilities…" she gasped and wrapped her arms around her middle. Finally, she wiped a tear from her eye and leaned forward, deadly serious. "My psychic abilities are a joke," she spat. "They're a parlour trick. I read cards, and palms, and tea leaves. That's all."
She stood, grabbed her bag, and stalked out. Spike went after her while Giles fumbled with paying the check.
Rose was almost to the car when the vampire grasped her arm, pulling her around to face him. "You bastards," she hissed. "Do you know what I went through to create a life for myself? What it took to walk away?"
"I know your family was a powerful group of psychics who wrought havoc around the world. I know you were a major part of that havoc until you couldn't bear the guilt any more." Spike's face, harshly shadowed by the sallow streetlight, was implacable. "I know you that you had to kill them to make them stop."
Rose was openly crying now. "I didn't kill them," she corrected, swiping at her wet face. "I tried everything to get them to stop, but nothing worked."
"You didn't kill them?" Giles asked as he hurried toward them. "All my information says that you had."
"No." She pulled out of Spike's grasp and slumped against the side of her car. "What I did to them was infinitely worse." She sighed, and jammed her hands in her pockets. "I took their powers."
Giles opened his mouth to ask another question, but she pushed off the car and dug out her keys. "Listen, I don't want to have this conversation here. Get in." Doors open, they piled in and maintained a steady, if not exactly peaceful, silence during the drive.
As she steered the monstrous old car through the streets, the houses became larger and more grand, with generously sweeping lawns and the skeletons of once-beloved rosebushes sagging over the tops of exquisitely wrought metal fences. The final street they turned down was lined with homes that could accurately be called mansions: palatial structures of three and four stories, trimmed with Mansard roofs and gables and garrets, frosted with lacy gingerbread and white porches.
Rose pulled into the driveway of an immense Craftsman-style mansion. "Here we are. In you go," she said, her voice stronger, and led them to the front door. Giles entered without incident, of course, but Spike stood on the stone porch and waited, his scarred brow quirked.
She went to the invisible barrier preventing his entry and watched as his hands flattened against it, pushing unsuccessfully. "Cool," she murmured, looking up into his face. "Would you have to stay there all night if I didn't let you in?"
"No, pet," he replied, his voice husky. "I'd prolly leave and find me a bar and get right pissed."
"Pity," she told him, lifting a finger to trace the lines on his palm. "I kinda like the idea of you languishing on my porch."
"Not really a languishing kind o' bloke," Spike said, ignoring Giles' snort of irony. "Can I come in now, pet?"
"Oh, please do me the honour of entering my house, Sir Spike," Rose teased, grabbing the lapel of his duster and pulling him in.
He looked around in wonder: this house looked rather like the one he'd shared with his parents and siblings before Drusilla had turned him. Dark woods, floral wallpapers, stained glass in the windows, plump cushions on the seats, and…
Spike gave a whimper of joy and rushed to the bookcases. "First edition Coleridge?" He pulled the volume from the shelf and opened it with exquisite care, then replaced it to select another. "Autographed copy of Browning?" His voice was hushed, almost reverential.
Rose stood behind him, gaping. "A vampire who loves poetry?" she asked in disbelief.
Giles was somewhat more familiar with Spike's idiosyncrasies. "Er, yes. He is quite fond of the Romantics. May I?" he inquired, motioning to the overstuffed settee.
She nodded and they sat. In spite of her modern haircut and clothing, when she kicked off her shoes and tucker her feet up under herself, Rose Freemartin was perfectly at home in this house. It was as if the building and the woman were both pearls strung on the same cord, both attuned to the same vibration.
"This was your family's home," he stated, and she nodded. "And you're not going to come to England to work with us."
Another nod, and a smile. "Who's the psychic here?"
A ghost of a smile flitted over Giles' face. "I know what it is to feel like you belong somewhere," he said. "I had that, once. And may again." His glance moved around the room, from the bullion fringe on the velvet drapes to the fraying edge of the Aubusson carpet beneath their feet. Rose's chair was upholstered in figured velvet, the imprint of many years and many bottoms having worn away the pomegranate design until there was only the faintest hint of it. "You have the look of someone who has found where she belongs."
Rose nodded. "I have."
Spike replaced the book he held with great reluctance and sprawled on the other side of the settee. "So, does this mean you're not gonna shack up with the two o' us in Old Blighty?"
She smiled. "I'm afraid so, yes."
"Does that mean you won't also assist us with the aspects of the prophecy that pertain to you?"
Rose seemed to contemplate the question for a moment. "It would depend," she said finally. "On what it was, exactly. I don't think I have the kind of skills you think I have. Like I said before, I'm no good at all in a fight. The only battle I've ever been in was the one with my family, and that was purely mental…" she trailed off and bit her lip, blinking to hold back tears.
Spike glared at him, as if to say, Good going, Rupert, you made her cry.
Giles glared back. I'm doing the best I can. "If you would permit me, I could train you to do much more with your powers than you think you are capable of." The Watcher couldn't keep the enthusiasm out of his voice.
"How so?" she asked, and there was no disguising the interest in hers.
"There are many different schools of thought concerning psychic training…" he began.
Spike cut him off impatiently. "Giles has more books on magic mumbo-jumbo than you could shake a really big stick at," he said, and then his voice lowered to something more intimate, and infinitely pained. "He trained the Slayer to be the best of her line. He can do the same for you, I'd wager."
"Slayer?" She remembered the word from what she sensed when shaking the Watcher's hand.
Giles sighed. "Yes, thank you, Spike, for being of no assistance whatsoever." To Rose, he said, "It's a rather long story, Miss Freemartin, and one that should be heard when one is not tired and surprised, as I daresay you are after meeting us tonight."
"True," she admitted. "Where are you staying? I'll drop you off."
Their hotel was off a nearby highway, and the short trip was accomplished without speaking. Giles promised to visit her the next evening for supper, when they would discuss everything in detail.
He and Spike watched until the red glow of her taillights had faded into the night. "If she won't come with us, there's gonna be trouble," Spike commented, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he plucked the lighter from his pocket.
"Indeed," Giles agreed. "Indeed."