Chapter 30
Something Wicked
Giles opens the door in either the ugliest sombrero I have ever seen or the ugliest lampshade I have ever seen.
His smile shifts from amped up jolly to genuine warm.
"Xander."
"Tricky treaty?" I say, with an awkward grin. The door is opened to me but no invitation is issued to enter. Lessons learned. I step over the threshold by way of confirmation, and he relaxes a little.
"Happy, er, Halloween. Care for some, frankly, god awful American candy?" A bowl is offered, but I shake my head. Giles leads me through to the kitchen.
"No Olivia?" I say, glancing around the festively decorated house. It's campy and spooky and I love it.
"Uh, no." Giles says, automatically setting about the task of making tea. "Unfortunately, our relationship ended on a rather sour note. Some of my past came back to haunt us, as it were."
"I know the feeling." I say, and perch myself against the countertop. "So tell me, how is everyone? What's been happening previously on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer?"
"To be honest, I am the wrong person to ask. Supernatural occurrences have fallen to, well, practically non existent. In the lull, Buffy has been, well, swept up in the college lifestyle."
"Oh."
"Still, I am happy for her. She gets to have some semblance of the normal life she so craved. It's good that she gets to be an everyday girl, without the weight of the world hanging on her shoulders."
"She doesn't come around much I take it?"
"No." He says. "Her visits are rather infrequent."
"And Willow? Anya? Still a thing?"
"Yes, I believe their relationship is going very well." He says, handing me a mug of tea. "Bafflingly enough."
"Love is a strange thing." I say, and take a sip of my drink.
"That said, I have to give the girls credit, my initial concerns about the relationship proved to be unfounded. If anything, they are both flourishing in each other's influence. Willow has helped Anya get a grasp on human interactions, to some degree, and Anya, in turn, has been a guiding hand in Willow growing as a witch. Both in skill, and, you may perhaps be comforted to know, in responsibility."
"Anya is teaching Willow responsibility?" I say, and yes, the emphasis goes where you think it does. "Anya? The former demon of vengeance? The girl who we had to thank for meeting Willow's fangy doppleganger?"
"That was an accident. But you must understand this to understand Anya. Vengeance comes in response to a wrong doing. Anya is very responsible. When she understands a law, she sticks to it to the letter. She was not a demon of chaos, but of justice. Certainly, the chaos she caused in wake of the wish making was for the entertainment of the elder gods who revel in human suffering, but she herself, nonetheless, was absolute in her understanding of responsibility, consent, promises, fidelity and honesty. Brutal, though the latter often is, in her hands."
"Huh." I say. "So you are okay with her being a thousand year old demon responsible for… who knows how much death and destruction?"
"Anya is a teenage girl." Giles says. "Struggling with finding her place in the world. Of waking up one day just a regular girl with no parents, friends, income or any idea how to function on a day to day basis. And she is trying."
"Faith killed two people. One by accident. One because she wanted to please the Mayor. And yet she is the villain. How does Anya get a clean slate and Faith doesn't?"
Giles sits down across from me. He takes off his hat (lampshade?) and his glasses, and sets them down upon the table.
"Xander, Faith chose to betray her calling, her duty and her friends. She chose to lie to us. She chose to take life for selfish gain. I doubt she would want forgiveness or even see her acts as wrong."
"And what if she does?"
"Well, that's all purely hypothetical. She woke up from her coma recently and escaped. Buffy looked for her, of course, but she must have left town."
"Yeah. I know." I say, rubbing my face. "She came to The Bronze. Looked sick as hell."
"My god, when did this happen?"
"Old news. She didn't recognise me. Obviously." I drink the tea and ponder how much I should reveal. Giles' words are sinking into that mix too. Choice. Betrayal. Lies.
Buffy lies. Buffy is a liar.
"Did you know about Buffy and Tara?"
"Yes. Well, I found out when Willow came to me, crying her heart out, poor girl. She had her heart rather set on Tara, I gather."
"She was in love with Tara and I was in love with Buffy." I say with a shake of my head. "That's what explodes the scoobies."
"Buffy told me about the... confusion that happened. I am so sorry Xander."
"Lexi." I say. "My name is Lexi now."
"Very well, Lexi." Giles says." So I gather Willow knows how to break the spell, but it is no longer your wish to do so."
"Yeah. Yes. I am Lexi now. I want to be Lexi, and forget Xander ever existed."
"If that is your wish. I will make sure that Willow respects that."
"Thank you, Giles."
"Of course, my name is Rupert."
"Yeah, no, that is just weird."
"It's alright Lexi, I must confess I rather find it amusing that you all call me Giles. Makes me feel like I am back at University. "
"Well, Giles, if Faith comes back. I want to give her the same clean slate Anya got. And that I got."
"If she comes back. And she wants it. Genuinely wants it, I am willing to give it to her. Though as for trust? She will have to earn that back."
I nod.
"Of course there is another problem she has to face if she does."
"And that is?"
"Faith was hidden from The Watcher's Council whilst in her coma. The Mayor had seen to that. She was on record as Sarah Wilkins. Had they known, they would have... taken steps to ensure the next Slayer was called."
"They want to kill her?" I say. "How is that...? Buffy left the council, why didn't they kill her?"
"Faith is the active Slayer." Giles says. "If she dies, a new Slayer is called from the potentials. If Buffy dies a second time, she may trigger another Slayer, she may not. Even if she is out of the Watcher's control, she is still fighting the good fight."
"A numbers game."
"Quite." He says, darkly. He then looks at me with a sad, comforting manner. "So. Faith. How is she?"
I swallow. Looking down at my tea. I see a girl in a golden tiara looking back at me.
I drop the damp grey bundle on the Magic Box reading table among all the open books and slump down in the chair. Giles looks up from a tome and nods.
"I got these too." I say "For old times sake." I place a box of doughnuts next to him. He smiles at this, and turns his attention to the bundle.
The double bladed dagger glimmers wickedly in the dim light. Brown wood and blackish, grey guard and heel. It is all barbs and sharp edges, much like the girl herself.
"The knife isn't ancient or custom, it's made in America this century, it's actually from a mail order catalogue. But the metal itself has undergone a… shifting, a… a… sort of swapping of matter from our world to a hell dimension. See how it sort of resonates on a different sort of… uh… uh..."
"It looks wiggy."
"It looks wiggy." He confirms.
"So it's made of bad stuff. Which is why it has scarred Faith. Does it explain her weakness?"
"Not directly. But according to this reference to Infernal Steel in the writings of Abraham Lees, such metals can hold 'poisons of words'. Which I am guessing means a curse of some kind that is transferred to the victim."
"'Poison of words?' Why doesn't any of the guys writing this stuff just say what they mean.."
"Everyone needs a hobby."
"So, we break the curse. Faith gets her strength back."
Giles nods. And then he leans back his chair, looking very tired.
"Lexi, are you absolutely certain that Faith isn't manipulating you? She has a past history…"
"No." I say, as firmly as I can. "No." And then, I sigh and say "but… even if she is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't. Because this is the right thing to do. The good thing. We are still the good guys, right Giles?"
Giles smiles sadly, and places his hand on my shoulder.
"Sometimes, surrounded by all this darkness, all this fighting, one can lose sight of why we are fighting. Thank you, Lexi, for reminding me."
"Well, it's good to know I am not entirely useless."
"You never were, Lexi. You never were."
That tender moment is broken when a giant candy pink and white rabbit appears at the shop window, violently pounding at the glass.
It's Anya, with a look of terror on her tear streaked, blood spattered face.
