Part 4 - Check and Mate

It was mid-day and Rose had searched around the entire house, which was rather large, trying to find the boys.

She finally peeked into the library and smiled at the sight that was presented to her.

Each one of them sat in a soft leather chair on either side of a chess board, talking. Their tones were almost identical and their movements very similar.

Someone watching them would have assumed that they were very close, and probably near inseparable, though the fact was the opposite was true...for the time being. She had a feeling that things were going to work out between them. When they were children they had been nigh unto inseparable.

She slowly closed the door behind her, walking down the hall to James' room.

As she began to strip the sheets from the bed, she saw the picture. On the bedside table was a picture of a young woman, around her mid-twenties, leaning back into James' arms.

She couldn't see the girl's face, as the picture showed an interesting angle of James' back with his arms wrapped around the young woman, his face in profile, her head leaning against his shoulder. His face held a look of complete rapture, as if he were staring into heaven itself.

She quickly deduced that it must be his wife, whom she'd never met.

Whoever the girl was, she'd been a force of nature for good, turning James into the man that Rose had always known he could be.

Rose finished taking the sheets off the bed, and handed them to the maidservant who had just walked into the room, and departed with a small smile on her face.

"So," said James, moving his knight further up the board. "You had no idea abut how you felt about her until last night?" Giles nodded, staring intently at the board, trying to figure out what his next move would be. In chess they were about evenly matched, and he wasn't going to let his guard down.

He finally moved a piece. "Check."

James looked down at the board and then moved his king. "Was it hard? You know, realizing it too late?"

Giles began to respond. "Well, I guess so. It was more-"

He suddenly cut himself off, suddenly sitting straight up, and he tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something in the distance.

At first he thought he'd said something wrong, but suddenly James felt something stirring in his gut, almost like a low vibration, causing him to sit up as well. But it soon escalated to a stabbing pain that shot through his abdomen with all the subtlety of a hot skewer. He doubled over at the waist, crying out in pain at the severe sensation.

It finally receded, and so he looked up at his brother, gasping for breath. "What...what the...what the bloody hell was that?"

His brother was also slightly out of breath, but looked to be handling the pain better than James. Giles looked at James in shock. He shouldn't have been able to feel it.

He knew exactly what it was. It was the vibration of dark magicks being used from a great distance. He could feel it because he was connected, but James shouldn't have.

"Are you telling me that you felt that?"

James looked at his brother as though he were a complete imbecile. "No, I just felt like doubling over in pain just for the hell of it! What do you think I bloody meant? Of course I fucking felt that!" He rubbed his midsection, trying to ease the residual ache from the initial pain, hoping that it would go away soon.

Giles decided to let the coven in Devon deal with it. If he had felt it, then he knew that they had.

He looked back down at the board and quickly moved a piece.

"Checkmate."

James looked at him in surprise, trying to understand the mercurial change in his brother's attitude, but deciding not to question it. He looked down at the board...yes, it was a checkmate.

He finally straightened and watched as his brother was up from his seat and walking to one of the many bookshelves that lined the library's walls. What he was going for, James honestly didn't know. They had too many books to count, and, at least as far as he knew, they weren't arranged in any particular order.

Something was most definitely up. "Rupert, what's wrong?" James looked at his brother in trepidation, recognizing his brother's look of desperation.

Rupert didn't answer, instead reaching for a book on the bottom shelf nearest to the reading desk and began to rifle through it.

James couldn't see the cover, but he had the feeling that it wasn't one of his ordinary classics.

Suddenly, Rupert's face paled. This was a reaction that he'd never seen before in his brother, and never expected to see. But it confirmed his suspicions that something was wrong, and he had a feeling that it had something to do with magic. When it came to magic, his brother was severely protective and fierce.

He walked over to his brother, placing a gentle hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Rupert..." His voice was soft and unassuming as he repeated the question he had spoken only moments before. "What's wrong?"

Giles shook his head, glancing once more at the book in his hands before answering his brother.

He spoke, the words coming out slightly broken and disjointed. "It-it's a spell...a-a restoration spell..." His voice drifted and his eyes stared out the window as if he was seeing something that no one else could. It disturbed James more than he cared to admit, not that he would ever tell Rupert that.

"What are you talking about, Rupert?"

Giles shook his head, clearing and organizing his thoughts before answering. It was complicated and he didn't want to disturb his brother any more than he already had been. He finally spoke.

"You said that you had felt that jolt earlier? Tell me exactly what it felt like, James. Don't leave anything out."

His brother gave him an odd look, but went ahead and described it. "Like a, a hot skewer straight in the stomach...exactly like one, actually, or, well, as I imagine one would feel. Why do you ask, Rupert?" His brother didn't answer, instead falling silent once more. James waited a moment, but Rupert still didn't answer.

Giles finally broke the silence. "Did you feel anything else? Anything at all?"

James thought for a moment, sitting back into his chair, thankful for its' supporting solidity behind him. He rubbed a hand absently against his abdomen, which was still sore.

He racked his brain, trying to remember if he'd felt anything else, anything that wasn't excruciating pain. Wait a minute...

James lifted his head. "Yes...as a matter of fact, I think I did." Rupert looked at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. James continued. "It was a...a connection of some kind, but it was extremely faint. Like a dimmer had been turned on in a room down a hallway, and I could just barely see a glimmer of light."

He then shrugged, realizing he was probably not making any sense, but at his words his brother sank down onto the couch just on the other side of the chairs, as if unable to stand.

He got up and walked over to Rupert, wondering what was wrong.

"Rupert...what's wrong?" His brother remained silent, unable to put to words what he had just realized.

Giles was silent for a moment, and then lifted his eyes to his brother's, his face drawn tight. "James...my Slayer's alive."

Part 4/?