Cecil regretted allowing Mother to drag him to the Council's labs or he would regret it if he'd had any say in the matter. He hadn't. Mother ordered and he obeyed. The last time Mother had sent him to the labs, Cecil had been made to wait. This time Mother was escorted directly to Alan Wyndham-Price's office. Cecil merely followed after, a piece of flotsam caught in her wake.

The office didn't display the usual Council accouterments: no ancient artifacts from dead civilizations so favored by the old guard, no representations of deity-heroes that could be used as a metaphor for the Slayer, and most tellingly, no Council Seal. It seemed to suggest that Alan's power came not from the Council but from himself.

As they entered the office, Alan rose from his chair. He didn't fawn over Mother but greeted her as one professional to another. It was the right tactic. Mother despised sycophants. Alan ignored Cecil completely which, frankly, was perfectly fine with Cecil. He'd rather not be involved at all but baring that he'd settle for being ignored.

If only Cecil could ignore his surroundings. This time he wouldn't see a vampire being tortured, if one could call it torture when the being in question was an undead monster. It had looked like torture from the observation room. This time it would be a man, a member of the Council even. Cecil didn't care that Rupert Giles' mind had been invaded by a demon. He didn't care that Giles had killed his uncle. No, that last bit wasn't true. He did care about Uncle Roderick, but even Giles didn't deserve to be tortured like this or tortured at all really. A quick death would have been quite enough.

Cecil felt sick when he realized that Alan had led them to the same observation room he'd been in the last time. Trust Alan to use every opportunity to make him feel uncomfortable. Rupert Giles was already laid out on the operating table. His arms and legs had been bound against movement. Giles' body appeared unmarked as if it hadn't been touched yet but Cecil doubted that Alan hadn't hurt the man already. Alan was a malicious beast. He wouldn't have been able to wait. When he saw them, Giles started struggling against his bonds. The audience had arrived. He must know what would come next.

The surgical team entered but instead of starting in on their … patient? Victim? Cecil wasn't certain how they would refer to Giles until the surgeon started speaking. Ah, subject. Giles wasn't a man but the subject of a procedure. Of course, they had to make him seem less than human before they could start in on him. Cecil shuddered. Mother sniffed in disapproval but both she and Alan gave their attention to the surgeon.

"We will be testing Richardson's theory that pain will drive a demon out of a human body." The surgeon's statement was wrong in so many ways. First, Richardson's theory had been disproven for more than a century. Everyone knew pain would not drive a demon out. Second, there was no true test to determine whether a demon inhabited a body. Either you saw signs of a demon or you weren't sure. Third, even if pain could drive out a possessing demon, it was useless in a case of domination. A demon that was connected to a person's mind wouldn't even feel the pain. This was nothing more than torture.

The surgeon described in detail how they would be cutting into the subject's hand. Ugh, why did it have be be his hand? Couldn't they have picked something slightly less gruesome? Cecil wasn't sure what body part would be less awful but Giles would never use his right hand again. Cecil shook his head at the thought. Not that the poor fellow would ever need his hands again. They'd keep him here, torturing him for as long as they liked, and then they'd kill him.

When the surgeon started cutting, Cecil stared above the procedure so he wouldn't have to watch. The screaming did him in. Giles held out for a remarkably long time but once he did start screaming, Cecil glanced down, more by instinct than anything else, like one would look around to search for a wounded puppy, and saw flayed skin and bone. Cecil threw himself out the door, hoping he remembered the way to the closest bathroom before he vomited on the floor.