Chapter Two - Drastic Measures
Xander shuffled home, alone, glancing here and there, trying to look nervous. Considering how nervous he actually was, it wasn't hard.
"Look at me," he said softly to the darkness, "Poor, defenseless me, walking the walk of the innocent and untroubled. Tasty and unspoiled, that's me. Definitely not a trap, nope, no way. Not into the whole bait thing. Just walking home slowly, uh...unarmed. Pretty harmless. Did I mention the whole tasty thing?"
Angel had wanted Willow to be the bait, much to her obvious discomfort, but Giles had made her stay behind to control the technological side of research. For being a librarian in twentieth century high school, he seemed to know next to nothing about computers. Back in the relative safety of the library, it had seemed like the gallant thing to do for Xander to volunteer for bait duty. Now it just sounded utterly stupid.
"Don't try to be heroic," Angel had warned him, "At the first sign of trouble, back off. I can handle it."
That had also gone under the category of things that sound cool in the well-lit library, but which lose their coolness when you're alone in the dark. In fact, when Xander stopped babbling nervously to himself, when he tried to listen over the hammering roar of his heartbeat, he could swear he heard footsteps. From behind him. And not comfortably behind him. They were almost at his shoulder -
He whirled around to find...nothing. A dark and scary nothing, which really didn't help much. If he could just see whatever he was supposed to be the bait for, he could at least decide whether to stand his ground or run away, shrieking like a girl. Come to think of it -
A pair of cold hands grabbed him from behind, smooth and hard like granite, and very suddenly he was in the air, thrown over the vamp's shoulder as if he weighed nothing. He hit the ground hard and felt the air leave his body in a painful rush. Of course he would have it back in a moment, would be up and ready to fight, but Xander didn't think the vampire would give him that moment -
And then Angel was standing over him, motioning for him to stay down, vamp face on. He snarled at the other vampire, who snarled back, and they leapt at each other. The other vampire was apparently not a newbie - he actually held his ground. For a few seconds. But Angel didn't seem to mind the fight. In fact, maybe it was a figment of his slightly dazed mind, but it seemed to Xander as if Angel enjoyed taking his time in staking the other vamp. Xander closed his eyes, climbed slowly to his feet, shaking his head to clear away the dizziness, and when he turned back, Angel was alone. A cloud of dust that once might have been a person swirled away in the darkness.
"Alright," Xander said hoarsely. "Fine work. But is there any way we could do this where there's less of me being thrown all over the place? It's not exactly the flying through the air that bothers me," he grimaced, gingerly rubbing his sore shoulder. "It's the hitting the ground part that hurts."
Angel smirked one of his patented little smirks, the ones that were rapidly getting on Xander's nerves. "Hey, this me-hero, you-bait thing isn't set in stone. If you wanna be the one to fight the vampires -"
"No, no," Xander said quickly. "Just...uh, just keep up the good work. Maybe just a tad faster on the offensive, though."
Angel looked around, sniffing the air. "I think that's all of them. Tonight, anyway."
They started to walk back toward the library.
"So..." Xander said, his voice very loud in the midnight silence. "Uh...how long have you been at it?"
"At what?"
"This," Xander said. "This whole...soul thing. Giles said the history books say you haven't been the 'Scourge of Europe' for-"
"For 99 years," Angel finished stonily. "Though it was quite a while after that before I decided to get off my sorry ass and do something with the hand I was dealt."
"Uh-huh," Xander said, stepping slightly away from the vampire at the tone of his voice. They walked in silence for a few minutes more. When Xander spoke again, his voice was hushed, almost a whisper. "This is hopeless, isn't it?"
Angel turned toward him sharply. "What's hopeless?"
Xander waved around at the night. "This. Killing three or four vampires a night? When there are hundreds out there already?"
"We're keeping the balance. That's not hopeless. That's essential."
"But what about when the Master shows up? We're just holding our own as it is -"
"That's why we've got to stop him before he does rise again," Angel started to walk again.
"Do you think you can stop him?"
Angel couldn't look in Xander's direction. He kept his unblinking eyes trained forward. "I...it doesn't matter what I think. If I can stop him, then I will."
"And what if you can't?"
Angel shrugged, though it seemed to sap a lot of his strength just to lift his shoulders.
Willow nodded off in front of one of the computers.
They had spent three hours looking into the Watcher's Diaries that Giles had stashed safely in his office. It had all added up to a great, wide nothing. Willow couldn't help feeling useless, just sitting here, while Angel and Xander went out to actually accomplish something. Besides which, Giles had told her he had already been through most of these volumes before, when he had first learned of the Master's presence in Sunnydale. So what the hell were they doing in here? Giles had claimed it to be important in the long-run, though he had started to look pretty restless himself in the last half-hour or so...
Xander walked into the library. Angel was nowhere to be seen, and when she glanced around, Willow realized that, mysteriously, Giles had left the library, as well. Perhaps it's for the best, some naughty little part of her said craftily. Then Xander took off his shirt. Definitely for the best. She smiled, closed her eyes, as he strode boldly toward her, swept her into his arms, spoke soft words into her ears...
"Miss Rosenberg?" he said in a British accent. She opened one eye to gaze at Xander in puzzlement. He smiled back at her.
"Miss Rosenberg? Are you awake?"
She sat up quickly at the sound of Giles' voice at her side, and blinked the sleep away. "Awake. Yes. The Master. Rising. Bad things."
Giles smiled slightly. "Go home, Miss Ros-...uhm, Willow. It's nearly 1 AM."
She nodded gratefully. "You're leaving too?"
The smile waned slightly. "Uhm...yes, right behind you. May I offer you a ride home?"
"Uh...sure. Just let me get my things together."
Xander walked into the library. Willow's heart leapt for a moment, shocked by deja vu - the feeling ended when she realized he was nearly leaning against Angel in exhaustion. Xander yawned a long, deep yawn, his eyelids somewhere around his chin.
"Thought I was a night kind of a guy," he said sleepily, then glanced over somberly at Angel. "Maybe not."
"Xander, Willow," Giles said to the teens, though he was looking at Angel expectantly. "Uhm...why don't you go wait by the car - I'll be along in a moment."
Xander and Willow took the cue and walked out of the library quietly.
"I don't wish to dance around this," Giles started after the door closed behind them, "any more then you do, I think. How are you doing? Uhm, out there?"
"I don't know how well I'm doing," Angel replied earnestly. "I don't know how to judge. If I say I'm making a dent in the... population, then what does that mean? Xander asked me the same question, and I gave him this - we're killing three or four nearly every night. If we assume that that's how many the Master and his minions are making, then we're breaking even. Xander seemed to think that it was hopeless. Is that what you think?"
Giles turned away from the vampire. "I don't know what to think, either. The Harvest is not moving any further away, for all of our efforts. And we seem to be no closer to finding where the Master is then we were a few weeks ago."
"Then we have to step up the effort," Angel said plainly, firmly, though it almost seemed as if he was even paler then he had been a moment before. "We fight darkness...with darkness."
The vampire never saw it coming. He was young, so young that he could not bring the demon off of his face. He followed Giles back into an alley, coincidentally the same one where, a few weeks before, Darla and Angel had wrangled over Jesse's fate. In the back of the alley Angel sat, waiting patiently with the tranquilizer gun in hand.
Now the vampire was trussed up in the corner of Giles' living room, snapping and snarling like a caged dog. Giles sat on his couch, a troubled look on his face, a double shot of bourbon in his left hand, trying in vain to shut the noise of the raging demon out of his head.
Angel watched him sadly for a few moments, then walked to his side, pointing at the cross on the table in front of him.
Giles looked up at the vampire. "What?"
"The cross. You'll have to do it. I can't touch it."
Giles stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then nodded. "Of c- course, how stupid of me."
He picked up the cross, and walked woodenly to the vampire, who shuddered at the sight of the cross.
"Uhm..." Giles played with the cross nervously, unsure of how to begin. "Tell us where the M-Master is."
The vampire cackled hideously. "Never, mortal scum. The Harvest is upon us. The great and powerful -" Giles waved the cross closer to the demon's face. "Alright, alright, Jeez, watch it with that thing. He's in the tunnel system."
Giles brought the cross closer.
"Corner of fifth and main! Lay off me, why dontcha?"
Giles glanced expectantly back at Angel, who calmly and subtly shook his head.
"You're lying," Giles said, turning back to the demon.
The vampire glared at Giles. "You know what the Master'd do to me if I told you the truth? Make whatever you're gonna do to me look like, hey, surprise birthday party."
Angel stepped forward.
The vampire grinned up at him nastily. "Yeah, fuck you too, you poor neutered son-of-a-bitch. Master's told us all about you and the gypsies," the vampire tried to affect a look of pity, though there was sarcasm in his tone. "Real drag, dude."
"So you know me."
"Yeah, I know you."
Angel vamped out. "And you know my reputation."
The grin faded a bit from the other vampire's face. "You were a sadistic torturer who murdered countless thousands in a reign of terror that lasted for a century and a half. Yeah, you're like our Michael Jordan, man."
Angel nodded. "So tell me...what kind of torture did I enjoy doling out the most?"
The other vampire reflected for a moment. "The Master told us that you...uh, that you...you liked to break the bones first. Said you liked the sound it made."
"Uh-huh. Go on."
Giles sat down, picked up his bourbon, and downed half of it in a single swig.
"He said...you were fond of acid. Liked to burn the extremities off."
"Yeah," Angel said, his voice hollow and empty. "Any more?"
The vampire was starting to sweat anxiously. "I don't know, man. Where's this goin', anyway? You gonna try that shit on me?" The vampire tried to smile, though it came out as more of a pained grimace. "Bring it on, tough guy."
"I could try that stuff," Angel said calmly, switching back to his human face. "But I've tortured demons before. That stuff you mentioned works pretty well on humans, but sometimes to get to the demons you've got to resort to more drastic measures."
"Drastic measures," the vampire said, trembling noticeably. "Drastic measures means what?"
Angel said nothing, simply backed out of the room, into the adjoining kitchenette. There was a silence for a moment - then a ping that the vampire didn't recognize for a moment. When he finally did remember what the noise was, he was more confused.
It was the sound of the microwave timer running out.
"Drastic measures," Angel said thoughtfully as he came back in, hand behind his back.
The vampire watched him anxiously. "What you got, there, Angel-face?"
Angel leaned down into the other's face - the vampire flinched, trying to prepare himself for whatever punishment was coming.
Angel brought his hand around - in it was a mug. Steam rose out of the contents, waving lazily in the gentle night breeze. The contents of the mug were red - the vampire sniffed delicately, found that it was blood.
"That's it, man?" the vampire tried to smile, though his mouth began to water. "That's the b-best you can do?"
"Oh, I or the librarian could probably think of something more...elaborate, perhaps faster, to get the information we need," Angel smirked, spoke sarcastically, "but this is the only way my poor, soul- ridden conscience will be at ease."
Angel walked slowly around the room. The vampire followed the mug around with yellow, hungry eyes.
"You were sired, what," Angel said, looking the vampire up and down appraisingly. "Three days ago?"
"Two," the vampire said distractedly, unconciously tugging at his bonds.
"Two days ago," Angel calculated placidly. "Means tonight was your first night out. No wonder you walked into the alley so blindly."
The vampire growled, though he was still looking at the mug.
"Bet you want this real bad," Angel baited mercilessly. "It's probably about body temperature now. Took it off of a young lady coming out of the metroplex tonight, so it might as well be fresh brewed. Only the best."
Very suddenly the vampire screamed, leapt out at Angel, who watched him without flinching. The chains strained, but held.
"Now, wait a minute," Angel said, icily pleasant. "Don't be rude to the host. You give us the information, the Master's whereabouts, and we give you this mug. And who knows, maybe the rest of the girl waiting for me upstairs."
It was enough. The vampire spoke, though his words could barely be understood as English. "Alright, you asshole, the Master's hiding beneath the school. Beneath the library."
Giles started abruptly at the words. The glass of bourbon, half- drunk, fell out of his suddenly nerveless hands, splashing across the rug.
Angel regarded the other vampire, reduced now to a quivering mass of appetite. He hesitated for a moment before holding the mug close enough for the vampire to drink. The demon accepted it eagerly...and then disappeared in a flash of light and dust.
Angel threw the mug disdainfully into the sink, and walked back into the living room. "He was so young he didn't even smell the holy water."
Giles didn't look up, and Angel doubted he had heard. "My God," he said hauntedly, "the school."
The Master sat contentedly in his underground chambers, lounging with his feet slung lazily over the arm of his chair, contemplating his latest meal. Luke's tastes were obviously improving under his tutelage - the girl he had brought for dinner tonight was obviously a strong one, hot-blooded and fierce, though she was steadily beginning to wilt under the Master's unblinking gaze. Her dark hair gleamed dully in the flickering candlelight, the picture of victimhood, save only for the eyes, full of fear and anger in admirably equal proportions. He thought that she would make an excellent minion.
"I'd appreciate it if you would stop staring at me like that," he said evenly, "Not exactly proper vampire ettiquette, I'm afraid."
"Yeah, well, where I come from, it's not exactly proper ettiquette to eat someone."
Luke growled at his side at her insilence, but the Master chuckled. Fluidly, he got up from his throne to stalk slowly around her.
"What's your name?"
She continued to follow him with her eyes. "Jenny. What's yours?"
He stopped for a moment, somewhat surprised. "You know...nobody's asked me that in quite a while." He thought hard for a moment. "I'm not sure I quite recall. Got used to everyone just calling me Master, or Sire, or what have you. You know these servile types," he gestured disparagingly in Luke's general direction. "Not much of a chance to get personal these days, I'm afraid."
Tears began to well in her eyes again, and he cursed to himself. Just when he thought she might last a while.
"Child," he said tenderly. "What makes you so afraid?"
She turned away from him, fear beginning to overtake resistance in her eyes. "You do. He does," she nodded in Luke's direction. "But you're not as scary as that is." She turned to an empty cavern, unlit. "Darkness is scarier."
He nodded, understanding completely, sympathizing, even.
She tried to be defiant again. "So do whatever you want with me."
The Master began to walk around her again, slowly, closing in almost imperceptibly. "Luke knows me better then I know myself, I believe. Not only does he bring to me a deliciously beautiful meal, but a worthy servant as well."
Finally the fear sparkled fully in her eyes. "What do you mean?"
A slow grin enveloped his hideous face as he turned to regard the darkness of the empty cavern. "You say you are frightened of the darkness? Soon you will be the darkness. You will never be afraid of anything again." He turned back to her. "Don't you see -"
She was ignoring him - in fact she had closed her eyes, and was mumbling something to herself.
He whirled to stare venomously at Luke, who cowered, confused at his Master's furious gaze. "You brought a -" he started, but was interrupted when the room was filled with a blinding light. The rest of the vampires in the room screamed, fooled for a moment into thinking that somehow the woman had brought the hated light of the sun into their home. The Master was not fooled; however, his eyes were blinded for a moment, and when he could see again, she was gone.
He strode purposefully back toward his throne, where Luke trembled in fear.
"You brought a witch into my presence," the Master seethed icily.
"Master, I..." Luke said timidly. "I...could not have known she was a witch... She seemed..."
The Master held up one bony, gnarled finger. "No excuses, Luke. I want her found. I want her brought back to me," he tone turned tender again, though it was a false and chilling tenderness. "After your many years of loyal service, this one mistake can be overlooked. Consider it a warning, my childe."
The Master leaned back in his throne patiently. "You will not receive another."
Jenny Calendar groped her way madly out of the sewer system, searching desperately for a way out. Behind her she could hear the snarling and skittering of her pursuers, close, perhaps close enough for them to hear the terribly loud sound of her fluttering heartbeat. She calmed herself enough to throw down a quick baffle spell, though she doubted it would give her more then a few minutes of protection. What she needed was a way up, but the only way the alleys and junctions seemed to lead was away, parallel to the surface and deeper into the caverns.
Finally, just as she thought the vampires were beginning to lock onto her scent, she found a ladder in the darkness - above it she could see the outline of a manhole cover in the twilight. She climbed gratefully toward it like a swimmer nearly out of oxygen approaching the water's surface.
She pushed against the heavy manhole cover - for a moment it wouldn't budge, and she was terrified that she would be trapped down here, the vampires closing in, only a few inches from salvation. But then with an echoing screech it began to give. She strained against it, and was out of the sewer.
Cold air swirled around her as she emerged, and she was surprised to find that the sun had set while she had been in the caverns. She got to her feet, trying to brush off some of the crud and dirt from the sewer, and didn't see the Citreon coming down the street toward her. It swerved to avoid her, and rolled over onto the sidewalk.
She ran toward it as the driver, an older man dressed in tweed and slightly graying at the temples, climbed out, reaching up to wipe his glasses off.
"Are you alright?"
He surveyed his car quickly, and nodded. "Yes, yes, I believe so. I might have -" he turned to her, and his eyes widened. "Oh, Miss Calendar, uhm, I didn't recognize you for a moment."
For a moment she didn't recognize him, either, then realized with a start that it was the new librarian, Rupert Giles. They had been introduced at one faculty get-together or another - she remembered he had been rather reserved (even for a Brit, a few of whom she had known in the past), with a halting pattern of speech, and she recalled that she hadn't been impressed by him much at all, just another foppish bookworm, as musty as some of the oldest books in the library. Indeed she couldn't remember ever seeing him again after the first introduction, though as the computer teacher, she didn't have much occasion to visit the library anyway.
Apparently the last few months had not been good to him. He looked worn out, a little grizzled - the suit he was wearing seemed a size too big for him, as if he had lost weight. With a little inward smile, she realized that she probably looked nearly as bad.
He glanced past her at the open sewer manhole.
"Uhm," he started, choosing his words carefully. "Is there something...with which I might be of assistance?"
She shook her head, started to reply, when a little knot of vampires struggled out of the sewer, growling at the sight of her. Giles pulled her away roughly, backpedalling, at the same time reaching into his pocket to pull out...
A cross. She nearly laughed in relief. The vampires cowered away from it, but moved to surround the two of them.
"Car," Giles said simply, pointing over his shoulder. "Better hurry. This little thing won't keep them all off for long."
She hurried to the Citreon, and climbed in across the front seat, Giles just behind her. He started the engine and sped off just as the demons were grasping hungrily for the door handles. One of them was caught in front of the car - he ran it over without a second's worth of hesitation, and it fell into dust as the Citreon squealed away.
Giles drove without a word or a glance, his unblinking eyes glued to the road in front of them as if he expected a dozen more of them to pop up before their eyes. Finally after he had driven a mile or more he began to relax.
"Now," he began, and it was back to the same old dry librarian. Jenny felt unnacountably disappointed for the change. "Uhm, you may not believe what you just saw. They were v-vampires. I know -"
"I know what they were, Rupert. I already knew they were here."
He looked at her for a moment, his mouth open slightly. "You knew? How...I mean, if you knew -"
"Teaching computer ed is my day job. By night I'm Batwoman."
He looked confused for a moment, and she began to laugh. It was a nervous kind of a laughter, a tension reliever, and when she stopped chuckling she felt much better.
"I'm a techno-pagan. But anybody with even the least amount of power has got to feel something seriously weird in this town," It was not exactly the truth - she hadn't arrived in Sunnydale on a whim, or by accident. She had a job to do. But Rupert Giles didn't need to know that.
"Oh," he said softly. "I-I see."
"How did you know what they were?"
He appeared greatly discomforted by her question. "I...I mean, myself and a f-few others in Sunnydale...are trying to stop them from taking over the town. It was necessity, I'm afraid. There is...something wrong with this t-town..."
"You mean the Hellmouth?"
This time he couldn't keep the surprise from his face. "What else do you know?"
She grinned. "I can tell you how to get to the Master."
And by the time they had pulled into her driveway, she had finished her story, and he was smiling, too.
Xander and Willow were waiting for Giles when he arrived at the library the next morning, he sharpening a stake, she staring blankly at the computer.
"Morning," Giles said distractedly, setting his briefcase on the counter. "I've got news."
Neither of them looked up. "Of the good?" Xander said bitterly, intent on the piece of wood he was whittling.
"Yes, very good news. I -" he stopped. They both had bloodshot eyes - Xander's face was locked in a grimace of hate and pain, and Willow seemed to be trying not to cry. "What's happened?"
Willow began to sob into her hands.
"They got Jesse," Xander said without looking at Giles. "His parents found him this morning. Pernicious anemia." He threw the unfinished stake to the floor. "The doctors said it was pernicious anemia."
"God," Giles said, all the elation he had felt from Jenny's story gone in an instant. "I'm...s-sorry."
Xander picked up the stake, twirled it in his fingers like an expensive cigar. "The only thing I can think about -" he swiped violently downward in a staking motion -"is how much fun it'll be to put this through her chest -" swipe -"watch her dissolve and scatter like just so much smoke -" swipe "-but I'm afraid that Jesse'll be the one in the way." swipe, though it was half-hearted and trembling. "That I'll have to do him first. I don't think I can."
Willow walked slowly to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Giles backed away quietly, into his office, leaving the two of them alone.
Angel patrolled the town, alone. He preferred it this way - as much as he had to admit having the Xander boy with him was helping, it eased his mind to know that the only life he was risking out here was his own. Besides which, the boy would probably be back out within the week, as soon as he could overcome his grief and anger enough to be a useful part of the hunt. That was not Xander's judgement to make - of course, he wanted to be out here tonight, but to go half-cocked and reckless with guilt and anger was not the way to defeat the Master. So Angel came alone.
Willow and Xander both seemed to be content to suffer in silence, or at least between themselves, at a distance from the adults. Angel had not been human for more than 200 years, but he retained the ability to feel that they were not coping well. Normally he thought they would have been able to deal with the loss, even one so staggering as the loss of a best friend. But the method in which the boy had died had been anything but normal. He sensed that they would not be at peace until they knew that he was really dead. Until they could be sure that, on some dark and lonely night, Jesse wouldn't come back for them.
Which was why, when Angel did spot the fledgeling demon that had once been Jesse Turturo, standing over the prone body of another youth, he moved forward to make the kill.
Before he could get to the boy, there was a sharp whistle in the darkness, and Jesse whirled around, blood splattered across his demonic face.
"Angel," the boy said through a mouthful of teeth, "Friend! Buddy! I was hoping I'd see you tonight," his expression tried to feign sincerity, though it really didn't work. "I really have to thank you."
"Thank me?" Angel said increduously. "Thank me for what?"
"This," the boy smiled, pointing at his deformed face. "Helping me see things in perspective. You introduced me to your world."
"Don't try to blame this on me. Darla -"
"Oh, Darla may have finished it, but you were the one that showed me the light, as it were. As messy an image as that is."
Angel was speechless for a moment. "She was going to kill you that night."
"How do you know that?"
"I..." but he didn't know.
"But don't worry. I'm living the high unlife, now."
Angel's face set itself like stone. "I didn't bring you into this world, boy, and I pity you that you were. But I'll bring you out of it."
He advanced, stake drawn and poised to strike. The boy didn't move, and the smile never left his face. Angel came within striking distance, began to bring the stake down...
And Darla stepped in between them. An invisible force halted his hand, midway down. He struggled with it for a moment, but realized that it was totally useless, and backed a few paces away.
"Angel, my childe," Darla spoke, and he shuddered at her tone. "You shouldn't treat Jesse like that. He's family, after all."
Jesse began to run his fangs lightly over the side of her neck, and she hissed in pleasure. "You and he are like brothers," she said, dreamily.
They turned to leave. Jesse looked back over his shoulder.
"Oh, yeah, tell Xand and Wills hey for me. Or don't, I don't care. I'll be seeing them soon enough, anyway."
Angel walked in to the library at nearly 1 AM. Giles sat, poring over a journal, the opera Carmen playing softly in the background - Jenny Calendar was asleep in his arms. Angel tapped him on the shoulder, and they crept into the office.
"Where are the others?" Angel asked as Giles closed the door.
Giles glanced over the scattered papers on his desk, looking for one of the journals. "They, uhm, they went home. I don't believe either of them has b-been sleeping particularly well of late."
Angel looked over the librarian appraisingly. "You don't look so well yourself. Are you sure -"
"I'll be fine," Giles said crossly, stacking some of the loose papers together and stuffing them into the file cabinet beside his desk. "Any news tonight?"
"No news. I only killed two tonight. They're laying even lower now than they were."
Giles nodded. "With the Harvest approaching the Master will want to keep a low profile. Lord knows they'll make up for it when he does rise."
"If he rises. Giles, we have got to take the fight to him."
Giles began to pace the room, rubbing his glasses. "Yes, I know. And you can't defeat him alone. Not on his terms."
"And I can't touch Darla."
"I can fight," Giles said stonily. "If it comes to that...I can fight her."
Angel frowned. "As much as I appreciate the offer, we'll need someone else."
But Giles was shaking his head fiercely. "No, no, absolutely not. We cannot ask them to -"
"Shouldn't they be the ones to decide?"
"No," Giles said. "I don't think so at all. They're only sixteen years old. In high school."
"She's sixteen years old. And in high school. She would have fought."
Giles looked at him, but Angel's expression was as unreadable as ever.
"Alright," he finally whispered, "Though I swear to God it feels as if we're condemning them."
Angel was nodding sympathetically. "But if we don't ask them, if we don't have help, we might be condemning the town."
As Giles expected, Jenny, Xander and Willow agreed readily, without a moment's hesitation. Even after he told them the risks involved. Even after he fairly pleaded with them to give a night's worth of thought, to consider the implacations. They wanted to fight.
Angel began to train them in the use of the crossbows - Giles remained steadfast in his assertion that the three of them would get only so close and no closer, and he would broke no argument on the subject. He and Angel would be the only ones in hand-to-hand combat, if and when it came to that.
Xander shuffled home, alone, glancing here and there, trying to look nervous. Considering how nervous he actually was, it wasn't hard.
"Look at me," he said softly to the darkness, "Poor, defenseless me, walking the walk of the innocent and untroubled. Tasty and unspoiled, that's me. Definitely not a trap, nope, no way. Not into the whole bait thing. Just walking home slowly, uh...unarmed. Pretty harmless. Did I mention the whole tasty thing?"
Angel had wanted Willow to be the bait, much to her obvious discomfort, but Giles had made her stay behind to control the technological side of research. For being a librarian in twentieth century high school, he seemed to know next to nothing about computers. Back in the relative safety of the library, it had seemed like the gallant thing to do for Xander to volunteer for bait duty. Now it just sounded utterly stupid.
"Don't try to be heroic," Angel had warned him, "At the first sign of trouble, back off. I can handle it."
That had also gone under the category of things that sound cool in the well-lit library, but which lose their coolness when you're alone in the dark. In fact, when Xander stopped babbling nervously to himself, when he tried to listen over the hammering roar of his heartbeat, he could swear he heard footsteps. From behind him. And not comfortably behind him. They were almost at his shoulder -
He whirled around to find...nothing. A dark and scary nothing, which really didn't help much. If he could just see whatever he was supposed to be the bait for, he could at least decide whether to stand his ground or run away, shrieking like a girl. Come to think of it -
A pair of cold hands grabbed him from behind, smooth and hard like granite, and very suddenly he was in the air, thrown over the vamp's shoulder as if he weighed nothing. He hit the ground hard and felt the air leave his body in a painful rush. Of course he would have it back in a moment, would be up and ready to fight, but Xander didn't think the vampire would give him that moment -
And then Angel was standing over him, motioning for him to stay down, vamp face on. He snarled at the other vampire, who snarled back, and they leapt at each other. The other vampire was apparently not a newbie - he actually held his ground. For a few seconds. But Angel didn't seem to mind the fight. In fact, maybe it was a figment of his slightly dazed mind, but it seemed to Xander as if Angel enjoyed taking his time in staking the other vamp. Xander closed his eyes, climbed slowly to his feet, shaking his head to clear away the dizziness, and when he turned back, Angel was alone. A cloud of dust that once might have been a person swirled away in the darkness.
"Alright," Xander said hoarsely. "Fine work. But is there any way we could do this where there's less of me being thrown all over the place? It's not exactly the flying through the air that bothers me," he grimaced, gingerly rubbing his sore shoulder. "It's the hitting the ground part that hurts."
Angel smirked one of his patented little smirks, the ones that were rapidly getting on Xander's nerves. "Hey, this me-hero, you-bait thing isn't set in stone. If you wanna be the one to fight the vampires -"
"No, no," Xander said quickly. "Just...uh, just keep up the good work. Maybe just a tad faster on the offensive, though."
Angel looked around, sniffing the air. "I think that's all of them. Tonight, anyway."
They started to walk back toward the library.
"So..." Xander said, his voice very loud in the midnight silence. "Uh...how long have you been at it?"
"At what?"
"This," Xander said. "This whole...soul thing. Giles said the history books say you haven't been the 'Scourge of Europe' for-"
"For 99 years," Angel finished stonily. "Though it was quite a while after that before I decided to get off my sorry ass and do something with the hand I was dealt."
"Uh-huh," Xander said, stepping slightly away from the vampire at the tone of his voice. They walked in silence for a few minutes more. When Xander spoke again, his voice was hushed, almost a whisper. "This is hopeless, isn't it?"
Angel turned toward him sharply. "What's hopeless?"
Xander waved around at the night. "This. Killing three or four vampires a night? When there are hundreds out there already?"
"We're keeping the balance. That's not hopeless. That's essential."
"But what about when the Master shows up? We're just holding our own as it is -"
"That's why we've got to stop him before he does rise again," Angel started to walk again.
"Do you think you can stop him?"
Angel couldn't look in Xander's direction. He kept his unblinking eyes trained forward. "I...it doesn't matter what I think. If I can stop him, then I will."
"And what if you can't?"
Angel shrugged, though it seemed to sap a lot of his strength just to lift his shoulders.
Willow nodded off in front of one of the computers.
They had spent three hours looking into the Watcher's Diaries that Giles had stashed safely in his office. It had all added up to a great, wide nothing. Willow couldn't help feeling useless, just sitting here, while Angel and Xander went out to actually accomplish something. Besides which, Giles had told her he had already been through most of these volumes before, when he had first learned of the Master's presence in Sunnydale. So what the hell were they doing in here? Giles had claimed it to be important in the long-run, though he had started to look pretty restless himself in the last half-hour or so...
Xander walked into the library. Angel was nowhere to be seen, and when she glanced around, Willow realized that, mysteriously, Giles had left the library, as well. Perhaps it's for the best, some naughty little part of her said craftily. Then Xander took off his shirt. Definitely for the best. She smiled, closed her eyes, as he strode boldly toward her, swept her into his arms, spoke soft words into her ears...
"Miss Rosenberg?" he said in a British accent. She opened one eye to gaze at Xander in puzzlement. He smiled back at her.
"Miss Rosenberg? Are you awake?"
She sat up quickly at the sound of Giles' voice at her side, and blinked the sleep away. "Awake. Yes. The Master. Rising. Bad things."
Giles smiled slightly. "Go home, Miss Ros-...uhm, Willow. It's nearly 1 AM."
She nodded gratefully. "You're leaving too?"
The smile waned slightly. "Uhm...yes, right behind you. May I offer you a ride home?"
"Uh...sure. Just let me get my things together."
Xander walked into the library. Willow's heart leapt for a moment, shocked by deja vu - the feeling ended when she realized he was nearly leaning against Angel in exhaustion. Xander yawned a long, deep yawn, his eyelids somewhere around his chin.
"Thought I was a night kind of a guy," he said sleepily, then glanced over somberly at Angel. "Maybe not."
"Xander, Willow," Giles said to the teens, though he was looking at Angel expectantly. "Uhm...why don't you go wait by the car - I'll be along in a moment."
Xander and Willow took the cue and walked out of the library quietly.
"I don't wish to dance around this," Giles started after the door closed behind them, "any more then you do, I think. How are you doing? Uhm, out there?"
"I don't know how well I'm doing," Angel replied earnestly. "I don't know how to judge. If I say I'm making a dent in the... population, then what does that mean? Xander asked me the same question, and I gave him this - we're killing three or four nearly every night. If we assume that that's how many the Master and his minions are making, then we're breaking even. Xander seemed to think that it was hopeless. Is that what you think?"
Giles turned away from the vampire. "I don't know what to think, either. The Harvest is not moving any further away, for all of our efforts. And we seem to be no closer to finding where the Master is then we were a few weeks ago."
"Then we have to step up the effort," Angel said plainly, firmly, though it almost seemed as if he was even paler then he had been a moment before. "We fight darkness...with darkness."
The vampire never saw it coming. He was young, so young that he could not bring the demon off of his face. He followed Giles back into an alley, coincidentally the same one where, a few weeks before, Darla and Angel had wrangled over Jesse's fate. In the back of the alley Angel sat, waiting patiently with the tranquilizer gun in hand.
Now the vampire was trussed up in the corner of Giles' living room, snapping and snarling like a caged dog. Giles sat on his couch, a troubled look on his face, a double shot of bourbon in his left hand, trying in vain to shut the noise of the raging demon out of his head.
Angel watched him sadly for a few moments, then walked to his side, pointing at the cross on the table in front of him.
Giles looked up at the vampire. "What?"
"The cross. You'll have to do it. I can't touch it."
Giles stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then nodded. "Of c- course, how stupid of me."
He picked up the cross, and walked woodenly to the vampire, who shuddered at the sight of the cross.
"Uhm..." Giles played with the cross nervously, unsure of how to begin. "Tell us where the M-Master is."
The vampire cackled hideously. "Never, mortal scum. The Harvest is upon us. The great and powerful -" Giles waved the cross closer to the demon's face. "Alright, alright, Jeez, watch it with that thing. He's in the tunnel system."
Giles brought the cross closer.
"Corner of fifth and main! Lay off me, why dontcha?"
Giles glanced expectantly back at Angel, who calmly and subtly shook his head.
"You're lying," Giles said, turning back to the demon.
The vampire glared at Giles. "You know what the Master'd do to me if I told you the truth? Make whatever you're gonna do to me look like, hey, surprise birthday party."
Angel stepped forward.
The vampire grinned up at him nastily. "Yeah, fuck you too, you poor neutered son-of-a-bitch. Master's told us all about you and the gypsies," the vampire tried to affect a look of pity, though there was sarcasm in his tone. "Real drag, dude."
"So you know me."
"Yeah, I know you."
Angel vamped out. "And you know my reputation."
The grin faded a bit from the other vampire's face. "You were a sadistic torturer who murdered countless thousands in a reign of terror that lasted for a century and a half. Yeah, you're like our Michael Jordan, man."
Angel nodded. "So tell me...what kind of torture did I enjoy doling out the most?"
The other vampire reflected for a moment. "The Master told us that you...uh, that you...you liked to break the bones first. Said you liked the sound it made."
"Uh-huh. Go on."
Giles sat down, picked up his bourbon, and downed half of it in a single swig.
"He said...you were fond of acid. Liked to burn the extremities off."
"Yeah," Angel said, his voice hollow and empty. "Any more?"
The vampire was starting to sweat anxiously. "I don't know, man. Where's this goin', anyway? You gonna try that shit on me?" The vampire tried to smile, though it came out as more of a pained grimace. "Bring it on, tough guy."
"I could try that stuff," Angel said calmly, switching back to his human face. "But I've tortured demons before. That stuff you mentioned works pretty well on humans, but sometimes to get to the demons you've got to resort to more drastic measures."
"Drastic measures," the vampire said, trembling noticeably. "Drastic measures means what?"
Angel said nothing, simply backed out of the room, into the adjoining kitchenette. There was a silence for a moment - then a ping that the vampire didn't recognize for a moment. When he finally did remember what the noise was, he was more confused.
It was the sound of the microwave timer running out.
"Drastic measures," Angel said thoughtfully as he came back in, hand behind his back.
The vampire watched him anxiously. "What you got, there, Angel-face?"
Angel leaned down into the other's face - the vampire flinched, trying to prepare himself for whatever punishment was coming.
Angel brought his hand around - in it was a mug. Steam rose out of the contents, waving lazily in the gentle night breeze. The contents of the mug were red - the vampire sniffed delicately, found that it was blood.
"That's it, man?" the vampire tried to smile, though his mouth began to water. "That's the b-best you can do?"
"Oh, I or the librarian could probably think of something more...elaborate, perhaps faster, to get the information we need," Angel smirked, spoke sarcastically, "but this is the only way my poor, soul- ridden conscience will be at ease."
Angel walked slowly around the room. The vampire followed the mug around with yellow, hungry eyes.
"You were sired, what," Angel said, looking the vampire up and down appraisingly. "Three days ago?"
"Two," the vampire said distractedly, unconciously tugging at his bonds.
"Two days ago," Angel calculated placidly. "Means tonight was your first night out. No wonder you walked into the alley so blindly."
The vampire growled, though he was still looking at the mug.
"Bet you want this real bad," Angel baited mercilessly. "It's probably about body temperature now. Took it off of a young lady coming out of the metroplex tonight, so it might as well be fresh brewed. Only the best."
Very suddenly the vampire screamed, leapt out at Angel, who watched him without flinching. The chains strained, but held.
"Now, wait a minute," Angel said, icily pleasant. "Don't be rude to the host. You give us the information, the Master's whereabouts, and we give you this mug. And who knows, maybe the rest of the girl waiting for me upstairs."
It was enough. The vampire spoke, though his words could barely be understood as English. "Alright, you asshole, the Master's hiding beneath the school. Beneath the library."
Giles started abruptly at the words. The glass of bourbon, half- drunk, fell out of his suddenly nerveless hands, splashing across the rug.
Angel regarded the other vampire, reduced now to a quivering mass of appetite. He hesitated for a moment before holding the mug close enough for the vampire to drink. The demon accepted it eagerly...and then disappeared in a flash of light and dust.
Angel threw the mug disdainfully into the sink, and walked back into the living room. "He was so young he didn't even smell the holy water."
Giles didn't look up, and Angel doubted he had heard. "My God," he said hauntedly, "the school."
The Master sat contentedly in his underground chambers, lounging with his feet slung lazily over the arm of his chair, contemplating his latest meal. Luke's tastes were obviously improving under his tutelage - the girl he had brought for dinner tonight was obviously a strong one, hot-blooded and fierce, though she was steadily beginning to wilt under the Master's unblinking gaze. Her dark hair gleamed dully in the flickering candlelight, the picture of victimhood, save only for the eyes, full of fear and anger in admirably equal proportions. He thought that she would make an excellent minion.
"I'd appreciate it if you would stop staring at me like that," he said evenly, "Not exactly proper vampire ettiquette, I'm afraid."
"Yeah, well, where I come from, it's not exactly proper ettiquette to eat someone."
Luke growled at his side at her insilence, but the Master chuckled. Fluidly, he got up from his throne to stalk slowly around her.
"What's your name?"
She continued to follow him with her eyes. "Jenny. What's yours?"
He stopped for a moment, somewhat surprised. "You know...nobody's asked me that in quite a while." He thought hard for a moment. "I'm not sure I quite recall. Got used to everyone just calling me Master, or Sire, or what have you. You know these servile types," he gestured disparagingly in Luke's general direction. "Not much of a chance to get personal these days, I'm afraid."
Tears began to well in her eyes again, and he cursed to himself. Just when he thought she might last a while.
"Child," he said tenderly. "What makes you so afraid?"
She turned away from him, fear beginning to overtake resistance in her eyes. "You do. He does," she nodded in Luke's direction. "But you're not as scary as that is." She turned to an empty cavern, unlit. "Darkness is scarier."
He nodded, understanding completely, sympathizing, even.
She tried to be defiant again. "So do whatever you want with me."
The Master began to walk around her again, slowly, closing in almost imperceptibly. "Luke knows me better then I know myself, I believe. Not only does he bring to me a deliciously beautiful meal, but a worthy servant as well."
Finally the fear sparkled fully in her eyes. "What do you mean?"
A slow grin enveloped his hideous face as he turned to regard the darkness of the empty cavern. "You say you are frightened of the darkness? Soon you will be the darkness. You will never be afraid of anything again." He turned back to her. "Don't you see -"
She was ignoring him - in fact she had closed her eyes, and was mumbling something to herself.
He whirled to stare venomously at Luke, who cowered, confused at his Master's furious gaze. "You brought a -" he started, but was interrupted when the room was filled with a blinding light. The rest of the vampires in the room screamed, fooled for a moment into thinking that somehow the woman had brought the hated light of the sun into their home. The Master was not fooled; however, his eyes were blinded for a moment, and when he could see again, she was gone.
He strode purposefully back toward his throne, where Luke trembled in fear.
"You brought a witch into my presence," the Master seethed icily.
"Master, I..." Luke said timidly. "I...could not have known she was a witch... She seemed..."
The Master held up one bony, gnarled finger. "No excuses, Luke. I want her found. I want her brought back to me," he tone turned tender again, though it was a false and chilling tenderness. "After your many years of loyal service, this one mistake can be overlooked. Consider it a warning, my childe."
The Master leaned back in his throne patiently. "You will not receive another."
Jenny Calendar groped her way madly out of the sewer system, searching desperately for a way out. Behind her she could hear the snarling and skittering of her pursuers, close, perhaps close enough for them to hear the terribly loud sound of her fluttering heartbeat. She calmed herself enough to throw down a quick baffle spell, though she doubted it would give her more then a few minutes of protection. What she needed was a way up, but the only way the alleys and junctions seemed to lead was away, parallel to the surface and deeper into the caverns.
Finally, just as she thought the vampires were beginning to lock onto her scent, she found a ladder in the darkness - above it she could see the outline of a manhole cover in the twilight. She climbed gratefully toward it like a swimmer nearly out of oxygen approaching the water's surface.
She pushed against the heavy manhole cover - for a moment it wouldn't budge, and she was terrified that she would be trapped down here, the vampires closing in, only a few inches from salvation. But then with an echoing screech it began to give. She strained against it, and was out of the sewer.
Cold air swirled around her as she emerged, and she was surprised to find that the sun had set while she had been in the caverns. She got to her feet, trying to brush off some of the crud and dirt from the sewer, and didn't see the Citreon coming down the street toward her. It swerved to avoid her, and rolled over onto the sidewalk.
She ran toward it as the driver, an older man dressed in tweed and slightly graying at the temples, climbed out, reaching up to wipe his glasses off.
"Are you alright?"
He surveyed his car quickly, and nodded. "Yes, yes, I believe so. I might have -" he turned to her, and his eyes widened. "Oh, Miss Calendar, uhm, I didn't recognize you for a moment."
For a moment she didn't recognize him, either, then realized with a start that it was the new librarian, Rupert Giles. They had been introduced at one faculty get-together or another - she remembered he had been rather reserved (even for a Brit, a few of whom she had known in the past), with a halting pattern of speech, and she recalled that she hadn't been impressed by him much at all, just another foppish bookworm, as musty as some of the oldest books in the library. Indeed she couldn't remember ever seeing him again after the first introduction, though as the computer teacher, she didn't have much occasion to visit the library anyway.
Apparently the last few months had not been good to him. He looked worn out, a little grizzled - the suit he was wearing seemed a size too big for him, as if he had lost weight. With a little inward smile, she realized that she probably looked nearly as bad.
He glanced past her at the open sewer manhole.
"Uhm," he started, choosing his words carefully. "Is there something...with which I might be of assistance?"
She shook her head, started to reply, when a little knot of vampires struggled out of the sewer, growling at the sight of her. Giles pulled her away roughly, backpedalling, at the same time reaching into his pocket to pull out...
A cross. She nearly laughed in relief. The vampires cowered away from it, but moved to surround the two of them.
"Car," Giles said simply, pointing over his shoulder. "Better hurry. This little thing won't keep them all off for long."
She hurried to the Citreon, and climbed in across the front seat, Giles just behind her. He started the engine and sped off just as the demons were grasping hungrily for the door handles. One of them was caught in front of the car - he ran it over without a second's worth of hesitation, and it fell into dust as the Citreon squealed away.
Giles drove without a word or a glance, his unblinking eyes glued to the road in front of them as if he expected a dozen more of them to pop up before their eyes. Finally after he had driven a mile or more he began to relax.
"Now," he began, and it was back to the same old dry librarian. Jenny felt unnacountably disappointed for the change. "Uhm, you may not believe what you just saw. They were v-vampires. I know -"
"I know what they were, Rupert. I already knew they were here."
He looked at her for a moment, his mouth open slightly. "You knew? How...I mean, if you knew -"
"Teaching computer ed is my day job. By night I'm Batwoman."
He looked confused for a moment, and she began to laugh. It was a nervous kind of a laughter, a tension reliever, and when she stopped chuckling she felt much better.
"I'm a techno-pagan. But anybody with even the least amount of power has got to feel something seriously weird in this town," It was not exactly the truth - she hadn't arrived in Sunnydale on a whim, or by accident. She had a job to do. But Rupert Giles didn't need to know that.
"Oh," he said softly. "I-I see."
"How did you know what they were?"
He appeared greatly discomforted by her question. "I...I mean, myself and a f-few others in Sunnydale...are trying to stop them from taking over the town. It was necessity, I'm afraid. There is...something wrong with this t-town..."
"You mean the Hellmouth?"
This time he couldn't keep the surprise from his face. "What else do you know?"
She grinned. "I can tell you how to get to the Master."
And by the time they had pulled into her driveway, she had finished her story, and he was smiling, too.
Xander and Willow were waiting for Giles when he arrived at the library the next morning, he sharpening a stake, she staring blankly at the computer.
"Morning," Giles said distractedly, setting his briefcase on the counter. "I've got news."
Neither of them looked up. "Of the good?" Xander said bitterly, intent on the piece of wood he was whittling.
"Yes, very good news. I -" he stopped. They both had bloodshot eyes - Xander's face was locked in a grimace of hate and pain, and Willow seemed to be trying not to cry. "What's happened?"
Willow began to sob into her hands.
"They got Jesse," Xander said without looking at Giles. "His parents found him this morning. Pernicious anemia." He threw the unfinished stake to the floor. "The doctors said it was pernicious anemia."
"God," Giles said, all the elation he had felt from Jenny's story gone in an instant. "I'm...s-sorry."
Xander picked up the stake, twirled it in his fingers like an expensive cigar. "The only thing I can think about -" he swiped violently downward in a staking motion -"is how much fun it'll be to put this through her chest -" swipe -"watch her dissolve and scatter like just so much smoke -" swipe "-but I'm afraid that Jesse'll be the one in the way." swipe, though it was half-hearted and trembling. "That I'll have to do him first. I don't think I can."
Willow walked slowly to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Giles backed away quietly, into his office, leaving the two of them alone.
Angel patrolled the town, alone. He preferred it this way - as much as he had to admit having the Xander boy with him was helping, it eased his mind to know that the only life he was risking out here was his own. Besides which, the boy would probably be back out within the week, as soon as he could overcome his grief and anger enough to be a useful part of the hunt. That was not Xander's judgement to make - of course, he wanted to be out here tonight, but to go half-cocked and reckless with guilt and anger was not the way to defeat the Master. So Angel came alone.
Willow and Xander both seemed to be content to suffer in silence, or at least between themselves, at a distance from the adults. Angel had not been human for more than 200 years, but he retained the ability to feel that they were not coping well. Normally he thought they would have been able to deal with the loss, even one so staggering as the loss of a best friend. But the method in which the boy had died had been anything but normal. He sensed that they would not be at peace until they knew that he was really dead. Until they could be sure that, on some dark and lonely night, Jesse wouldn't come back for them.
Which was why, when Angel did spot the fledgeling demon that had once been Jesse Turturo, standing over the prone body of another youth, he moved forward to make the kill.
Before he could get to the boy, there was a sharp whistle in the darkness, and Jesse whirled around, blood splattered across his demonic face.
"Angel," the boy said through a mouthful of teeth, "Friend! Buddy! I was hoping I'd see you tonight," his expression tried to feign sincerity, though it really didn't work. "I really have to thank you."
"Thank me?" Angel said increduously. "Thank me for what?"
"This," the boy smiled, pointing at his deformed face. "Helping me see things in perspective. You introduced me to your world."
"Don't try to blame this on me. Darla -"
"Oh, Darla may have finished it, but you were the one that showed me the light, as it were. As messy an image as that is."
Angel was speechless for a moment. "She was going to kill you that night."
"How do you know that?"
"I..." but he didn't know.
"But don't worry. I'm living the high unlife, now."
Angel's face set itself like stone. "I didn't bring you into this world, boy, and I pity you that you were. But I'll bring you out of it."
He advanced, stake drawn and poised to strike. The boy didn't move, and the smile never left his face. Angel came within striking distance, began to bring the stake down...
And Darla stepped in between them. An invisible force halted his hand, midway down. He struggled with it for a moment, but realized that it was totally useless, and backed a few paces away.
"Angel, my childe," Darla spoke, and he shuddered at her tone. "You shouldn't treat Jesse like that. He's family, after all."
Jesse began to run his fangs lightly over the side of her neck, and she hissed in pleasure. "You and he are like brothers," she said, dreamily.
They turned to leave. Jesse looked back over his shoulder.
"Oh, yeah, tell Xand and Wills hey for me. Or don't, I don't care. I'll be seeing them soon enough, anyway."
Angel walked in to the library at nearly 1 AM. Giles sat, poring over a journal, the opera Carmen playing softly in the background - Jenny Calendar was asleep in his arms. Angel tapped him on the shoulder, and they crept into the office.
"Where are the others?" Angel asked as Giles closed the door.
Giles glanced over the scattered papers on his desk, looking for one of the journals. "They, uhm, they went home. I don't believe either of them has b-been sleeping particularly well of late."
Angel looked over the librarian appraisingly. "You don't look so well yourself. Are you sure -"
"I'll be fine," Giles said crossly, stacking some of the loose papers together and stuffing them into the file cabinet beside his desk. "Any news tonight?"
"No news. I only killed two tonight. They're laying even lower now than they were."
Giles nodded. "With the Harvest approaching the Master will want to keep a low profile. Lord knows they'll make up for it when he does rise."
"If he rises. Giles, we have got to take the fight to him."
Giles began to pace the room, rubbing his glasses. "Yes, I know. And you can't defeat him alone. Not on his terms."
"And I can't touch Darla."
"I can fight," Giles said stonily. "If it comes to that...I can fight her."
Angel frowned. "As much as I appreciate the offer, we'll need someone else."
But Giles was shaking his head fiercely. "No, no, absolutely not. We cannot ask them to -"
"Shouldn't they be the ones to decide?"
"No," Giles said. "I don't think so at all. They're only sixteen years old. In high school."
"She's sixteen years old. And in high school. She would have fought."
Giles looked at him, but Angel's expression was as unreadable as ever.
"Alright," he finally whispered, "Though I swear to God it feels as if we're condemning them."
Angel was nodding sympathetically. "But if we don't ask them, if we don't have help, we might be condemning the town."
As Giles expected, Jenny, Xander and Willow agreed readily, without a moment's hesitation. Even after he told them the risks involved. Even after he fairly pleaded with them to give a night's worth of thought, to consider the implacations. They wanted to fight.
Angel began to train them in the use of the crossbows - Giles remained steadfast in his assertion that the three of them would get only so close and no closer, and he would broke no argument on the subject. He and Angel would be the only ones in hand-to-hand combat, if and when it came to that.