Chapter 4 - Head Games
"Xander."
He stirred in his bed at the sound.
"Xander."
This time slightly more compelling, more forceful - it penetrated the thin wall of sleep he had positioned uneasily around himself during the long night. In the haze of half-asleep he mistook it for Willow's sweet voice - it spoke of innocence, of cold love, long and slow.
"Xan-der...."
This time the voice was sing-song, a travesty of innocence - his fantasy world was shattered by the cold slap of recognition. He didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to see her standing outside his window, but he couldn't ignore her forever -
Jenny Calendar smirked at him, pale and beautiful face framed by moonlight. Her hands were stuck in the pockets of her leather coat - her breath, if she had still had the need to breathe, might have been fog in the cold night air.
"Relax, boy," she said contemptuously, observing his fright. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Really not particularly comforting," he said hoarsely. "What do you want, then?"
Her head tilted to one side. "Why do I need a reason to visit an old friend?"
Xander glanced at the alarm clock by his side. "It's 3 o'clock in the morning. Not what I'd call social-visit time."
She shrugged. "Gotta convert to vampire standard time. It's like, tea-time for me."
His heart nearly broke at the icy carelessness with which she said the words.
"God, Ms. Calendar, I'm so sorry -"
"Somehow I think I'll be hearing the same thing from you food-types for the rest of your lives. Would you be so sorry if I said I wanted to kill you and drain the blood from your pathetic body?"
He seized upon what small comfort he could. "You can't come in. I never invited you."
Her smile slackened only slightly. "True. But you can't stay in there forever. And what if I was to walk up and ring the doorbell right now, wait for your Ma and Pa Know-nothing to come answer it, tell them I've got a flat down the road, and could I just come in for a minute and call a tow-truck, pretty-please? I bet they'd welcome me right in."
"Then I'd say you've got a lot to learn about my parents," he replied sourly, though the point was well taken.
She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Fair enough. But I have been invited into the librarian's house, before. Bet he'll be happy to see me," she finished this with a grin that chilled Xander to the bone.
"They why come to me at all?"
"The pleasure of your company," she said sarcastically. "Or maybe just a word of warning. You and yours killed the Master's right-hand chica; word has it he's looking for a replacement, and the red-head fits the job description."
He almost threw himself at the window right there, knowing full well that the gesture would be both foolish and useless. He cursed at the former teacher, but he was as much trapped inside the house as she was trapped outside of it. The being that was once Jenny Calendar backed slowly away, chuckling, under the glaring full moon.
Willow picked herself up off the bed groggily to answer the telephone.
"Will?" Xander said as she picked up the reciever. He sounded out of breath.
"Xander, what's the matter -"
"Will, was Ms. Calendar ever in your house?"
The question seemed completely absurd in the dark of the morning hours, and she had to ponder silently before she answered.
"No, I don't think so. Why?"
"I..." he paused for a moment. "N-no reason."
She almost laughed, though as the buzz of sleep wore away, she was beginning to feel nervous. "You don't call at 3 o'clock in the morning without a reason. So spill."
He ignored the question. "Will, do you have Giles' home phone number?"
"Well, yeah, I think so, but -"
"Give it to me."
She did so, her confusion mounting with each moment that he hid the reason for his concern from her. "Xander, if there's something -"
"Stay inside," he said, desperately, "please, until morning. No matter...what happens, stay inside."
"But -" she started, but was answered only by the dial tone.
Xander frantically dialed Giles' number, keeping a wary eye on the window where Jenny had been a few moments before.
It took five rings, five breathless rings, before Giles did pick up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Giles," Xander said, feeling relieved. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice."
"Xander?" Giles said, more alertly. "Is something wrong?"
"I...I think so," he paused, not sure of how to break the news. They had all been prepared for the possibility of the Master sending Jenny back to hurt them. But now that the possibility had become a reality, he was uncertain of how to say it. Instinct told him that whatever feelings had been developing between the two adults, Giles would take her undeath the hardest of all of them. "I think...I think I saw Ms. Calendar tonight."
There was a long silence. "Did...did you invite her in?"
"No," Xander said quickly.
"Good," Giles said, his voice haunted and distant. "S-stay inside, uhm, till morning. We'll decide...what to do then."
"Giles?" Xander said before the other man could hang up. "She was in your house, wasn't she? I mean, before?"
Again there was a pause before the librarian spoke. "I'll be careful. We'll try to find a spell...or something, to revoke the invitation. In the morning."
But Xander couldn't leave the issue just standing there. "Giles, she said the Master was going to go after Willow next."
"She said that?" Giles replied, though there was still unnervingly little emotion in his voice. "Call Willow. Tell her to stay -"
"I already did. She said she'd stay inside," Xander paused, unsure of how to ask the next question. "Uh...should we...uhm, make contact with Angel?"
"Even if we knew how, I'm not sure if we have anything useful to tell him. We all...we all knew..." Giles spoke with an effort, as if it physically hurt the librarian to say the words. "This w-was a contingency...we anticipated. It was only...a m-matter of time."
"Yeah," Xander agreed, though just hearing the words didn't make him feel any better.
Xander called Willow back, and was unsurprised to find she had been waiting for him. He reiterated what had happened - Willow started to cry. Fervently he wished he could be there, right now, at her side, to pull her into his arms.
"It's all my fault -"
It came so far out of left field that for a moment Xander was speechless.
"I should have tried to....to... to do s-something. To...help her -"
"No, Will, don't ever say that," he finally found his voice. "There was nothing...nothing you could have done differently. You did the absolute best you could do, to get away alive."
"But, Xander," she said it almost pleadingly, "I'm alive, and she's...she's not, and what does that mean?"
He didn't know the answer to that. "Why does it have to mean anything? It was just an accident -"
"It wasn't an accident," she said darkly. "He...he let me go."
Again, Xander was stunned. He had just assumed that she had managed to escape somehow, simply wriggled her escape, darted off before the slower vamps could grab her back again.
"Will -"
"Why did you tell me to stay inside?"
His throat contracted into painful knots. "Because...because there might be more of them out there now -"
"No," she said anxiously. "You tell me that everyday. There was some other reason you told me so tonight," she paused as if to gather her strength. "What did she say about me?"
"God, Will -"
"Tell me."
"She..." he felt suddenly desperate to just hang up the phone, to wait and tell her in the morning, when the sun was warm and bright on her face and she was in his arms. He tried to convince himself that it would do more harm than he could fathom to lie to her now. But his throat was too tight to speak.
"She's coming after me next," Willow answered for him, matter-of- factly.
"Willow," he whispered. "I'll always be there to protect you -"
"You're not here now," she said stonily, but almost immediately, "Oh, God, I'm s-sorry, Xander, I didn't mean -"
"I'm coming over there now," he replied, looking for his clothes. "Just stay -"
"No," she said. "I do want you here. You know that. But I want you to be safe. With...with her out there, I want you to be safe more then anything else."
"I love you, Will," he said earnestly - it got easier and easier every time he said it.
"I know. I love you, too."
"Head games."
The rest of the group turned to Angel. Xander had just finished detailing Jenny's visit of the night before, and they were all readying themselves for the night's patrol, but as always they payed attention when he had something to say. Angel had suspected that the Master would send the computer teacher back among them, and knew the reason why.
"It's all about psychology with them. They've got all the time in the world - rather than just bringing who they want across, still clinging to the human physiology, they'll drive them out of their minds, even if it takes years," he said it clinically, but there was an element of self- loathing in his tone. "It's just better business policy that way."
Willow blanched at his words; Xander gathered her delicate hand into his, but he appeared just as sickened and scared as she did. Giles....Angel worried about the librarian. While he allowed for the possibility that what Ms. Calendar had said to Xander was true, that the Master's next target would be Willow, Angel thought it more likely that it was just so much bluster. He knew vampires, knew the basic nature of the demon, from personal experience - Jenny would go after those she loved most in life first. He didn't know anything about her family life, where she came from, who her kin were, but one thing he did know was that her feelings for the librarian had gone far beyond the platonic level. Judging by the cloud of grief which now wreathed Giles' countenance, the feelings had been mutual...and perhaps still were. Rupert Giles, as strong a man as he had proven himself to be, would be the weakest link in the chain.
"Funny," Xander said bitterly, "Vamps don't strike me as being really into the whole patience gig."
"No, it's not patience," Angel replied in kind, "Just a desire to see the job done right."
He addressed Willow and Giles together. "Have you been able to find a spell to revoke the invitations?"
Willow spoke, glancing worriedly at the librarian. "Yeah, I think so. I need some supplies from the Magic Shoppe"
Angel nodded. "Alright, then you and Giles gather them together. Xander and I will -"
"No," Xander interrupted, with more iron in his voice than any of them had ever heard him use. "Willow and I stay together. At. All. Times. You take Giles out to patrol."
Angel pondered this for a moment, unsure of whether to feel anger or pride toward the boy. After a moment, he decided to split the difference. "Fine. Take her, but go armed, and for God's sake, steer clear of trouble."
Xander looked down at Willow. "Don't worry about it," and they walked out of the library.
Angel turned back to Giles, who was still sitting in the corner, absently checking and rechecking to see whether the crossbow in his hand was loaded.
"Do you feel up to patrolling tonight?"
No answer. Angel felt as if he were conversing with a stone wall. He sighed, and turned back to the door.
"Then just stay here," Angel sneered. "Read over your books. See what good they can do. Certainly didn't do her much good."
"What did you say?" Giles finally spoke, softly, but with an infinite amount of hate and pain in the words.
"I said, it certainly didn't do the computer teacher much good, you sitting on your ass in here all day and night. At least the kids are out there doing something. Trying to protect your worthless hide, if memory serves, while you're busy in here battling lethal hordes of dust mites and -"
Giles flew at the vampire, leading with his right hand curled into a fist. Angel let him come, rolled with the punch to leap to his feet by the counter.
"I wanted to save her," Giles raged at him. "I...I argued with her, when she told me she was going to try the spell, but she wouldn't listen. She knew full well the risks -"
"Risk. You don't know the meaning of the word. She tried because she knew you would be there to save her if she got in trouble. And yet you weren't."
"NOOO!" Giles screamed, charged again. This time Angel grappled with him, and threw him across the floor. Giles rose again, trembling with fury and exhaustion.
"You cared about her -"
"You know I did," Giles replied shakily.
"You loved her."
The librarian seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, trying to keep the edge of his anger sharp...but finally he broke down, sobbing into his hands. Angel walked slowly to him, reaching into his dark coat to pull out a stake.
"You still love her. Use that feeling. It can be your most powerful weapon."
After a moment, Giles gathered himself together, and wiped his face clean with a hankerchief. He gazed at the stake in Angel's hand as if he had never seen one before, but finally took it.
"You did that on purpose," he said hoarsely to the vampire, "to infuriate me."
"Worked, didn't it?" Angel smirked, holding out his hand to help Giles to his feet. "Looked like you needed a cold bucket of perspective dumped on you."
Giles stood up, and used the hankerchief to wipe off his glasses. "You're an evil bastard. I'll give you that."
"This is what they tell me."
"So explain to me why we have to kill Jenny first?"
Giles winced, but forced himself to answer Willow's question. "Believe me. This...was a d-difficult choice to make, a decision -"
"Why does there have to be a decision at all? I mean, whatever else she is n-now, she's still Jenny under there. I thought...I thought you loved her."
Giles looked down at his lap, opened his mouth to answer, but to his surprise, Xander beat him to the chase.
"Will," he said patiently, "that's just the point. Whatever it was that came to my window the other night...it-it wasn't her. There's none of her left in there. She's just a demon, now."
"A-alright," Willow stammered, pleading with her eyes at Angel. "So she doesn't have a soul. We know how to solve that."
"Hey," Angel stepped forward, said angrily, "this isn't some reward I got for good citizenship. It was a punishment. There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish Darla had drained me and left me to die in that alley. And Jenny will wish the same thing."
"I..." Willow started, and then swallowed, her eyes glistening. "I- I'm sorry. I just don't know if I can l-look her in the face, a-and..."
"It won't be easy...for any of us," Giles remarked seriously, taking one of Willow's hands in his. "But for her sake, and our own, we must. That...that thing, it knows too much about us. It poses much more of a danger to us personally then the Master ever could, simply because i-it knows our weaknesses."
He stood up to look at all of them. "When we do see her again...I'll be the one to end it. You can rest assured of that."
Angel looked at him strangely, almost sadly, seemed on the verge of saying something, when the doors at the head of the library burst open. In the space of a second, a mob of vampires stormed into the library. Angel backed away toward the weapons locker, motioning for the others to do the same.
Jenny and the Master walked into the library, arm in arm.
"You know, it's been ages since I was in a school," the Master said, wistfully admiring the room. "In my day, they were church-organized. Most of the school buildings weren't even as big as this one room. My, but time does fly when you're stuck in a mystical convergence of the space-time contiuum."
"How did you get in here?" Giles said, staring at Jenny.
She cocked her head, smirking at him. "We were invited. The sign in front of the school - 'Formatia trans sicere educatorum' -"
"'Enter all ye who seek knowledge'," Angel said, grimacing.
"Remind me to have a word with the janitor about that," Xander said, reaching for one of the crossbows. "So...uh, bad guys, you've had the standard tour. Don't let the door hit you on the ass as you're leaving."
The Master turned to regard the boy. "Bold words. But rather rude, especially coming from the hosts. If there is one thing terribly wrong about these modern times, it is the woeful lack of old world manners. Perhaps a lesson is in order," with that he waved the minions forward patiently.
"12 against four," Giles murmured to Angel, who stood to his left warily watching the advancing vampires. "Not terribly good odds."
"I've fought against worse."
"Really?" Giles said, surprised.
"No," Angel replied flatly, glancing quickly sideways at the librarian. "But the next time we face eleven, I can say the same thing, and then it'll be the truth."
Giles found to his surprise that he could not help but smile. "You know, I think I'm actually -" but he was interrupted as the vampires roared, and charged as one body.
The next few minutes were a blur to Giles. Somehow they managed to duck the first wave of demons, though Xander came away with a nasty cut on his cheek, and Angel was being beaten from all sides. Giles hacked and slashed with the kind of reckless abandon he had not allowed himself since his adolescent days, and staked two of the vampires before they could mount another charge. But as the fight began to wear on, he could see that the side of right was rapidly losing the battle to both vampires and exhaustion.
Then he was facing Jenny, and all thoughts of exhaustion were banished from his mind.
"Earlier I believe you said you wanted to be the one to kill me," she said cruelly, opening her arms, and pointing at her chest. "I think you know how. So do it, Rupert. Put the stake through my heart. End my existence."
"Damn you," he said stonily. "Show me your real face."
"Oh, no, Rupert, this is it. This is all you get. But why should it be any harder this way?" she frowned, an expression of faux-sadness on her features, and walked up to him. "You fell in love with this face. Now I'm an evil, soulless demon, a Black Hat, a killing machine," she reached up, and brought the stake and his hand down to point at her heart. "All you have to do is raise the stake to give my tortured conscience its just reward." Her voice turned more and more sarcastic as she spoke, and as she finished, she laughed merrily. "My God, Rupert, you are still in love with me, or this would have been over long ago."
With a fluid and incredibly quick movement, she tore the stake out of his grasp. "Oh, well. Perhaps it's not too late to make some use of you yet."
With a roar of pain and anger that surprised them both, he reached back to backhand her across the face. She flew back into the counter, her mouth a perfect O of surprise, which quickly melted into the demon's sneer of rage.
To her astonishement, he sighed in relief. "Thank God, " he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out another stake, "I might not have been able to do it."
But before he could move, the Master grabbed him from behind, throwing him head-first into the wall. Giles slumped to the floor, unconcious.
"Not yet, Rupert Giles," the Master whispered thoughtfully, "Not...just...yet."
Angel tore through the vampires around him, growling furiously, nearly losing himself to the madness. Around him, in an extremely peripheral manner, he realized that the battle had been lost - Giles lay motionless against a far wall, dead or out cold. Xander was still fighting, but even as Angel stopped for an instant to look, the boy was hammered by one of the bigger demons, and fell to the floor. Willow was already draped across one of the minion's shoulders. He was the last one standing.
The Master waved his vampires away from the center of the library, and stood to face Angel.
"You know, I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to get out and actually handle my business personally."
Angel ignored the comment, and launched himself at the elder vampire. A quick exchange of blows proved that fifty years in the Sunnydale caverns had not diminished the Master's abilities one iota. The Master defended himself from Angel's attack with an air of boredom, bordering on disdain.
"I believe you're a better fighter now then you were without a soul, Angelus," the Master said, almost bored, blocking Angel's right with his own, and sending Angel flying back over the table with his left. "I don't know what it was, but it just seemed like sometimes, in the old days, you couldn't bring yourself to give your best effort unless you were pulling someone else's fingernails off."
Angel leapt to his feet, and rushed the Master again, leading with his foot; again, the other vampire anticipated, blocking the blow, but this time Angel reached up and under, drawing the stake that had been hidden in his sleeve into his hand to send toward the Master's ancient heart. It was a desperation move, and he knew it, but he didn't know how the situation could possibly get any worse...
The Master was caught off guard for the space of a millisecond, but a thousand years of careful study and training, and the reflexes of a vampire in the prime of a long, long life, saved the demon from death. He gave Angel a look of mixed pride and bemusement, and Angel took the opportunity to spit in his face.
"You -" the Master sputtered furiously. "I allowed you a seat in my council for a century, and you repay my generosity by spitting on me!"
He threw Angel across the room, and reached up delicately to wipe the blood-tinged spittle from his cheek.
"Perhaps," the Master said, calm and collected again. "Perhaps it is my own fault for believing I could sway you away from the side of...righteousness again." He smiled benevolently, looking down at the other three captives. "But not to worry, I very fortunately have the chance to correct my mistake, and to start anew."
Angel roared with anger, and stood up to charge again. The Master motioned at Jenny Calendar, who calmly drew a tranquilizer pistol from the pockets of her coat, and hit the vampire midstride. Angel fell to unconciousness at the Master's feet.
"Xander."
He stirred in his bed at the sound.
"Xander."
This time slightly more compelling, more forceful - it penetrated the thin wall of sleep he had positioned uneasily around himself during the long night. In the haze of half-asleep he mistook it for Willow's sweet voice - it spoke of innocence, of cold love, long and slow.
"Xan-der...."
This time the voice was sing-song, a travesty of innocence - his fantasy world was shattered by the cold slap of recognition. He didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to see her standing outside his window, but he couldn't ignore her forever -
Jenny Calendar smirked at him, pale and beautiful face framed by moonlight. Her hands were stuck in the pockets of her leather coat - her breath, if she had still had the need to breathe, might have been fog in the cold night air.
"Relax, boy," she said contemptuously, observing his fright. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Really not particularly comforting," he said hoarsely. "What do you want, then?"
Her head tilted to one side. "Why do I need a reason to visit an old friend?"
Xander glanced at the alarm clock by his side. "It's 3 o'clock in the morning. Not what I'd call social-visit time."
She shrugged. "Gotta convert to vampire standard time. It's like, tea-time for me."
His heart nearly broke at the icy carelessness with which she said the words.
"God, Ms. Calendar, I'm so sorry -"
"Somehow I think I'll be hearing the same thing from you food-types for the rest of your lives. Would you be so sorry if I said I wanted to kill you and drain the blood from your pathetic body?"
He seized upon what small comfort he could. "You can't come in. I never invited you."
Her smile slackened only slightly. "True. But you can't stay in there forever. And what if I was to walk up and ring the doorbell right now, wait for your Ma and Pa Know-nothing to come answer it, tell them I've got a flat down the road, and could I just come in for a minute and call a tow-truck, pretty-please? I bet they'd welcome me right in."
"Then I'd say you've got a lot to learn about my parents," he replied sourly, though the point was well taken.
She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Fair enough. But I have been invited into the librarian's house, before. Bet he'll be happy to see me," she finished this with a grin that chilled Xander to the bone.
"They why come to me at all?"
"The pleasure of your company," she said sarcastically. "Or maybe just a word of warning. You and yours killed the Master's right-hand chica; word has it he's looking for a replacement, and the red-head fits the job description."
He almost threw himself at the window right there, knowing full well that the gesture would be both foolish and useless. He cursed at the former teacher, but he was as much trapped inside the house as she was trapped outside of it. The being that was once Jenny Calendar backed slowly away, chuckling, under the glaring full moon.
Willow picked herself up off the bed groggily to answer the telephone.
"Will?" Xander said as she picked up the reciever. He sounded out of breath.
"Xander, what's the matter -"
"Will, was Ms. Calendar ever in your house?"
The question seemed completely absurd in the dark of the morning hours, and she had to ponder silently before she answered.
"No, I don't think so. Why?"
"I..." he paused for a moment. "N-no reason."
She almost laughed, though as the buzz of sleep wore away, she was beginning to feel nervous. "You don't call at 3 o'clock in the morning without a reason. So spill."
He ignored the question. "Will, do you have Giles' home phone number?"
"Well, yeah, I think so, but -"
"Give it to me."
She did so, her confusion mounting with each moment that he hid the reason for his concern from her. "Xander, if there's something -"
"Stay inside," he said, desperately, "please, until morning. No matter...what happens, stay inside."
"But -" she started, but was answered only by the dial tone.
Xander frantically dialed Giles' number, keeping a wary eye on the window where Jenny had been a few moments before.
It took five rings, five breathless rings, before Giles did pick up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Giles," Xander said, feeling relieved. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice."
"Xander?" Giles said, more alertly. "Is something wrong?"
"I...I think so," he paused, not sure of how to break the news. They had all been prepared for the possibility of the Master sending Jenny back to hurt them. But now that the possibility had become a reality, he was uncertain of how to say it. Instinct told him that whatever feelings had been developing between the two adults, Giles would take her undeath the hardest of all of them. "I think...I think I saw Ms. Calendar tonight."
There was a long silence. "Did...did you invite her in?"
"No," Xander said quickly.
"Good," Giles said, his voice haunted and distant. "S-stay inside, uhm, till morning. We'll decide...what to do then."
"Giles?" Xander said before the other man could hang up. "She was in your house, wasn't she? I mean, before?"
Again there was a pause before the librarian spoke. "I'll be careful. We'll try to find a spell...or something, to revoke the invitation. In the morning."
But Xander couldn't leave the issue just standing there. "Giles, she said the Master was going to go after Willow next."
"She said that?" Giles replied, though there was still unnervingly little emotion in his voice. "Call Willow. Tell her to stay -"
"I already did. She said she'd stay inside," Xander paused, unsure of how to ask the next question. "Uh...should we...uhm, make contact with Angel?"
"Even if we knew how, I'm not sure if we have anything useful to tell him. We all...we all knew..." Giles spoke with an effort, as if it physically hurt the librarian to say the words. "This w-was a contingency...we anticipated. It was only...a m-matter of time."
"Yeah," Xander agreed, though just hearing the words didn't make him feel any better.
Xander called Willow back, and was unsurprised to find she had been waiting for him. He reiterated what had happened - Willow started to cry. Fervently he wished he could be there, right now, at her side, to pull her into his arms.
"It's all my fault -"
It came so far out of left field that for a moment Xander was speechless.
"I should have tried to....to... to do s-something. To...help her -"
"No, Will, don't ever say that," he finally found his voice. "There was nothing...nothing you could have done differently. You did the absolute best you could do, to get away alive."
"But, Xander," she said it almost pleadingly, "I'm alive, and she's...she's not, and what does that mean?"
He didn't know the answer to that. "Why does it have to mean anything? It was just an accident -"
"It wasn't an accident," she said darkly. "He...he let me go."
Again, Xander was stunned. He had just assumed that she had managed to escape somehow, simply wriggled her escape, darted off before the slower vamps could grab her back again.
"Will -"
"Why did you tell me to stay inside?"
His throat contracted into painful knots. "Because...because there might be more of them out there now -"
"No," she said anxiously. "You tell me that everyday. There was some other reason you told me so tonight," she paused as if to gather her strength. "What did she say about me?"
"God, Will -"
"Tell me."
"She..." he felt suddenly desperate to just hang up the phone, to wait and tell her in the morning, when the sun was warm and bright on her face and she was in his arms. He tried to convince himself that it would do more harm than he could fathom to lie to her now. But his throat was too tight to speak.
"She's coming after me next," Willow answered for him, matter-of- factly.
"Willow," he whispered. "I'll always be there to protect you -"
"You're not here now," she said stonily, but almost immediately, "Oh, God, I'm s-sorry, Xander, I didn't mean -"
"I'm coming over there now," he replied, looking for his clothes. "Just stay -"
"No," she said. "I do want you here. You know that. But I want you to be safe. With...with her out there, I want you to be safe more then anything else."
"I love you, Will," he said earnestly - it got easier and easier every time he said it.
"I know. I love you, too."
"Head games."
The rest of the group turned to Angel. Xander had just finished detailing Jenny's visit of the night before, and they were all readying themselves for the night's patrol, but as always they payed attention when he had something to say. Angel had suspected that the Master would send the computer teacher back among them, and knew the reason why.
"It's all about psychology with them. They've got all the time in the world - rather than just bringing who they want across, still clinging to the human physiology, they'll drive them out of their minds, even if it takes years," he said it clinically, but there was an element of self- loathing in his tone. "It's just better business policy that way."
Willow blanched at his words; Xander gathered her delicate hand into his, but he appeared just as sickened and scared as she did. Giles....Angel worried about the librarian. While he allowed for the possibility that what Ms. Calendar had said to Xander was true, that the Master's next target would be Willow, Angel thought it more likely that it was just so much bluster. He knew vampires, knew the basic nature of the demon, from personal experience - Jenny would go after those she loved most in life first. He didn't know anything about her family life, where she came from, who her kin were, but one thing he did know was that her feelings for the librarian had gone far beyond the platonic level. Judging by the cloud of grief which now wreathed Giles' countenance, the feelings had been mutual...and perhaps still were. Rupert Giles, as strong a man as he had proven himself to be, would be the weakest link in the chain.
"Funny," Xander said bitterly, "Vamps don't strike me as being really into the whole patience gig."
"No, it's not patience," Angel replied in kind, "Just a desire to see the job done right."
He addressed Willow and Giles together. "Have you been able to find a spell to revoke the invitations?"
Willow spoke, glancing worriedly at the librarian. "Yeah, I think so. I need some supplies from the Magic Shoppe"
Angel nodded. "Alright, then you and Giles gather them together. Xander and I will -"
"No," Xander interrupted, with more iron in his voice than any of them had ever heard him use. "Willow and I stay together. At. All. Times. You take Giles out to patrol."
Angel pondered this for a moment, unsure of whether to feel anger or pride toward the boy. After a moment, he decided to split the difference. "Fine. Take her, but go armed, and for God's sake, steer clear of trouble."
Xander looked down at Willow. "Don't worry about it," and they walked out of the library.
Angel turned back to Giles, who was still sitting in the corner, absently checking and rechecking to see whether the crossbow in his hand was loaded.
"Do you feel up to patrolling tonight?"
No answer. Angel felt as if he were conversing with a stone wall. He sighed, and turned back to the door.
"Then just stay here," Angel sneered. "Read over your books. See what good they can do. Certainly didn't do her much good."
"What did you say?" Giles finally spoke, softly, but with an infinite amount of hate and pain in the words.
"I said, it certainly didn't do the computer teacher much good, you sitting on your ass in here all day and night. At least the kids are out there doing something. Trying to protect your worthless hide, if memory serves, while you're busy in here battling lethal hordes of dust mites and -"
Giles flew at the vampire, leading with his right hand curled into a fist. Angel let him come, rolled with the punch to leap to his feet by the counter.
"I wanted to save her," Giles raged at him. "I...I argued with her, when she told me she was going to try the spell, but she wouldn't listen. She knew full well the risks -"
"Risk. You don't know the meaning of the word. She tried because she knew you would be there to save her if she got in trouble. And yet you weren't."
"NOOO!" Giles screamed, charged again. This time Angel grappled with him, and threw him across the floor. Giles rose again, trembling with fury and exhaustion.
"You cared about her -"
"You know I did," Giles replied shakily.
"You loved her."
The librarian seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, trying to keep the edge of his anger sharp...but finally he broke down, sobbing into his hands. Angel walked slowly to him, reaching into his dark coat to pull out a stake.
"You still love her. Use that feeling. It can be your most powerful weapon."
After a moment, Giles gathered himself together, and wiped his face clean with a hankerchief. He gazed at the stake in Angel's hand as if he had never seen one before, but finally took it.
"You did that on purpose," he said hoarsely to the vampire, "to infuriate me."
"Worked, didn't it?" Angel smirked, holding out his hand to help Giles to his feet. "Looked like you needed a cold bucket of perspective dumped on you."
Giles stood up, and used the hankerchief to wipe off his glasses. "You're an evil bastard. I'll give you that."
"This is what they tell me."
"So explain to me why we have to kill Jenny first?"
Giles winced, but forced himself to answer Willow's question. "Believe me. This...was a d-difficult choice to make, a decision -"
"Why does there have to be a decision at all? I mean, whatever else she is n-now, she's still Jenny under there. I thought...I thought you loved her."
Giles looked down at his lap, opened his mouth to answer, but to his surprise, Xander beat him to the chase.
"Will," he said patiently, "that's just the point. Whatever it was that came to my window the other night...it-it wasn't her. There's none of her left in there. She's just a demon, now."
"A-alright," Willow stammered, pleading with her eyes at Angel. "So she doesn't have a soul. We know how to solve that."
"Hey," Angel stepped forward, said angrily, "this isn't some reward I got for good citizenship. It was a punishment. There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish Darla had drained me and left me to die in that alley. And Jenny will wish the same thing."
"I..." Willow started, and then swallowed, her eyes glistening. "I- I'm sorry. I just don't know if I can l-look her in the face, a-and..."
"It won't be easy...for any of us," Giles remarked seriously, taking one of Willow's hands in his. "But for her sake, and our own, we must. That...that thing, it knows too much about us. It poses much more of a danger to us personally then the Master ever could, simply because i-it knows our weaknesses."
He stood up to look at all of them. "When we do see her again...I'll be the one to end it. You can rest assured of that."
Angel looked at him strangely, almost sadly, seemed on the verge of saying something, when the doors at the head of the library burst open. In the space of a second, a mob of vampires stormed into the library. Angel backed away toward the weapons locker, motioning for the others to do the same.
Jenny and the Master walked into the library, arm in arm.
"You know, it's been ages since I was in a school," the Master said, wistfully admiring the room. "In my day, they were church-organized. Most of the school buildings weren't even as big as this one room. My, but time does fly when you're stuck in a mystical convergence of the space-time contiuum."
"How did you get in here?" Giles said, staring at Jenny.
She cocked her head, smirking at him. "We were invited. The sign in front of the school - 'Formatia trans sicere educatorum' -"
"'Enter all ye who seek knowledge'," Angel said, grimacing.
"Remind me to have a word with the janitor about that," Xander said, reaching for one of the crossbows. "So...uh, bad guys, you've had the standard tour. Don't let the door hit you on the ass as you're leaving."
The Master turned to regard the boy. "Bold words. But rather rude, especially coming from the hosts. If there is one thing terribly wrong about these modern times, it is the woeful lack of old world manners. Perhaps a lesson is in order," with that he waved the minions forward patiently.
"12 against four," Giles murmured to Angel, who stood to his left warily watching the advancing vampires. "Not terribly good odds."
"I've fought against worse."
"Really?" Giles said, surprised.
"No," Angel replied flatly, glancing quickly sideways at the librarian. "But the next time we face eleven, I can say the same thing, and then it'll be the truth."
Giles found to his surprise that he could not help but smile. "You know, I think I'm actually -" but he was interrupted as the vampires roared, and charged as one body.
The next few minutes were a blur to Giles. Somehow they managed to duck the first wave of demons, though Xander came away with a nasty cut on his cheek, and Angel was being beaten from all sides. Giles hacked and slashed with the kind of reckless abandon he had not allowed himself since his adolescent days, and staked two of the vampires before they could mount another charge. But as the fight began to wear on, he could see that the side of right was rapidly losing the battle to both vampires and exhaustion.
Then he was facing Jenny, and all thoughts of exhaustion were banished from his mind.
"Earlier I believe you said you wanted to be the one to kill me," she said cruelly, opening her arms, and pointing at her chest. "I think you know how. So do it, Rupert. Put the stake through my heart. End my existence."
"Damn you," he said stonily. "Show me your real face."
"Oh, no, Rupert, this is it. This is all you get. But why should it be any harder this way?" she frowned, an expression of faux-sadness on her features, and walked up to him. "You fell in love with this face. Now I'm an evil, soulless demon, a Black Hat, a killing machine," she reached up, and brought the stake and his hand down to point at her heart. "All you have to do is raise the stake to give my tortured conscience its just reward." Her voice turned more and more sarcastic as she spoke, and as she finished, she laughed merrily. "My God, Rupert, you are still in love with me, or this would have been over long ago."
With a fluid and incredibly quick movement, she tore the stake out of his grasp. "Oh, well. Perhaps it's not too late to make some use of you yet."
With a roar of pain and anger that surprised them both, he reached back to backhand her across the face. She flew back into the counter, her mouth a perfect O of surprise, which quickly melted into the demon's sneer of rage.
To her astonishement, he sighed in relief. "Thank God, " he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out another stake, "I might not have been able to do it."
But before he could move, the Master grabbed him from behind, throwing him head-first into the wall. Giles slumped to the floor, unconcious.
"Not yet, Rupert Giles," the Master whispered thoughtfully, "Not...just...yet."
Angel tore through the vampires around him, growling furiously, nearly losing himself to the madness. Around him, in an extremely peripheral manner, he realized that the battle had been lost - Giles lay motionless against a far wall, dead or out cold. Xander was still fighting, but even as Angel stopped for an instant to look, the boy was hammered by one of the bigger demons, and fell to the floor. Willow was already draped across one of the minion's shoulders. He was the last one standing.
The Master waved his vampires away from the center of the library, and stood to face Angel.
"You know, I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to get out and actually handle my business personally."
Angel ignored the comment, and launched himself at the elder vampire. A quick exchange of blows proved that fifty years in the Sunnydale caverns had not diminished the Master's abilities one iota. The Master defended himself from Angel's attack with an air of boredom, bordering on disdain.
"I believe you're a better fighter now then you were without a soul, Angelus," the Master said, almost bored, blocking Angel's right with his own, and sending Angel flying back over the table with his left. "I don't know what it was, but it just seemed like sometimes, in the old days, you couldn't bring yourself to give your best effort unless you were pulling someone else's fingernails off."
Angel leapt to his feet, and rushed the Master again, leading with his foot; again, the other vampire anticipated, blocking the blow, but this time Angel reached up and under, drawing the stake that had been hidden in his sleeve into his hand to send toward the Master's ancient heart. It was a desperation move, and he knew it, but he didn't know how the situation could possibly get any worse...
The Master was caught off guard for the space of a millisecond, but a thousand years of careful study and training, and the reflexes of a vampire in the prime of a long, long life, saved the demon from death. He gave Angel a look of mixed pride and bemusement, and Angel took the opportunity to spit in his face.
"You -" the Master sputtered furiously. "I allowed you a seat in my council for a century, and you repay my generosity by spitting on me!"
He threw Angel across the room, and reached up delicately to wipe the blood-tinged spittle from his cheek.
"Perhaps," the Master said, calm and collected again. "Perhaps it is my own fault for believing I could sway you away from the side of...righteousness again." He smiled benevolently, looking down at the other three captives. "But not to worry, I very fortunately have the chance to correct my mistake, and to start anew."
Angel roared with anger, and stood up to charge again. The Master motioned at Jenny Calendar, who calmly drew a tranquilizer pistol from the pockets of her coat, and hit the vampire midstride. Angel fell to unconciousness at the Master's feet.