"Sum corpus," Ramie said when they reached what he thought had been the Council in his time. It was hard to tell, with the new storefronts and painted walls, added buildings and large glass windows. A small slot slid open in the door and a very shocked pair of brown eyes looked back at him.
"Wh-who are you? How did you know we were here?" The eyes skittered back and forth, accompanying the nervousness of the man's voice.
Ramie's brow furrowed as he leaned a bit closer to the door. It didn't slip by his notice that the man on the other side jerked back as though bitten. "This is where the Council always was—at least a long time ago." How in the hell was he supposed to explain this? And of course, Spike wasn't helping at all, but rather smoking those nasty little white tubes, one after the other, and throwing the remnants all over the street.
"Listen," Ramie said, planting one large hand next to the watchman's slot. "I refuse to stand on the street like a commoner while I shout into you. I will tell you as much as I want to, and you will let me in. Understood?" When the man nodded convulsively, Ramie plowed ahead. "Have you any knowledge of someone or something referred to as the Hub?"
The man's eyes grew impossibly wide and the sounds of a key turning in a lock were audible through the thick door. "You! It is you who summoned the Hub." He threw open the door, a thick-bodied man who looked more like a blacksmith than someone who would be working for the Council. "We have had word of you."
Word? Ramie frowned in thought. Who would give word to the Council about the Hub?
The guard glanced at Spike, a mixture of awe and horror on his face. "This is 'im, then? The one who paid with 'is—"
"Yes," Ramie interrupted the man, not caring to hear how he would finish his sentence. Spike still stood on the street, regarding the two other men as calmly as he might have regarded paint drying. Flicking yet another cigarette butt away, he drew out another whole one.
Ramie had had enough. He slapped the cigarette out of Spike's hand, watching Spike's eyes narrow in anger. "I refuse to watch you smoke another one of those horrid things with their eye-watering stench. They are not good for you. Try and remember you have the body of a human now." Though he had worked hard to avoid it, he was still speaking in a tone of voice appropriate for a child. No matter what the incongruence, though, it seemed to work.
Spike shifted his weight from one foot to the other and leaned forward, his face close to Ramie's. It was odd, Ramie thought, to see the gentle-looking man with his long poet's face and his curly, boyish locks, and then to look in his eyes, an ever-changing blue that should have been charming but was instead bored and vacant. For a small moment, Ramie thought Spike would try and hit him, or attack him in some other way, but all he did was open his mouth and let a single puff of lingering smoke waft into Ramie's face.
"Charming," Ramie sneered, snatching the pack of cigarettes away from Spike and dragging him into the Council building.
"This isn't our regular building," the guard said hastily, leading them through corridors Ramie still found familiar. "The other one got bombed."
"Bombed?" Ramie repeated incredulously.
"Eh, I remember that." Spike put in flatly, still glaring at the back of Laramie's head. Bloody ponce had lifted his smokes.
"In this room, please." The guard gestured to a room, ushered them in, and then made a quick exit.
"Well, well." A tall, thin man stood up from the table, stopping in mid-conversation with two young Watchers. "So you're the ones who summoned the Hub, and now you've managed to get into our… offices ad temporum. Care to tell me who you are?" His cultured voice held nearly no accent, the mark of a much-traveled man. Before Ramie could answer, Spike had withdrawn the sealed papers Ramie had given him and tossed them on the table.
"That is all you need to know," he said carelessly, shrugging a shoulder and turning to Ramie. "Now can we leave? This place makes my fucking skin itch."
The tall, silver-haired man took the papers but kept his eyes on Spike. "And here is the soulless wonder." He gestured subtly to the two men he'd been conversing with, watching expressionlessly as they jumped up from the table and grabbed Spike.
"You're absolutely right," he said in a quiet, pleasant tone of voice, keeping his eyes on Spike. "That's all we need to know. Take him away."
~~~
"Buffy!" Dawn burst into the house, a rush of spangled tank-top and long, smooth hair. "Buffy?" Her voice was reaching the upper octaves, so Buffy knew something was either seriously wrong or seriously right.
She stopped in mid-kick with Kelly and rolled her eyes. "Sorry. Sibling emergency." Throwing open the door to the extra bedroom, which was the makeshift training room, she looked at Dawn. Seeing the panicked look in her sister's eyes, she stepped forward and grabbed her arms. "Dawnie, tell me what's wrong."
"Vampires, at the college," Dawn gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. She was on her second week of advanced courses at the local college, and it had been on the campus that she'd seen them. "They aren't all lumpy or anything, but I could tell… there were two of them, they were strange. I knew…"
"All right," Buffy said calmly, glancing at Kelly, whose face had gone ashen. "Hmm… strange looking college gang. Are you sure they weren't just philosophy majors?" She felt a cool tide of relief wash over her at her sister's small smile.
"Positive. Please, you need to go now."
Buffy didn't need to be told again. Tucking a stake into her sleeve, she headed out of the house at a trot. "Stay in the house," she called over her shoulder, gesturing impatiently to Kelly. The younger Slayer wanted a fight, she would have one.
She was in a full-out run by the time they reached the campus. "None too soon," Buffy muttered, hearing a woman's scream.
The two vampires never expected interference until they were flung away from their prey in mid-bite. "Hey!" one of them said loudly.
"Awww," Buffy said sympathetically, prowling around the vampire as she twirled her stake. "Yeah, I hate it when people interrupt my meals, too." Not waiting to finish her sentence, she kicked the vampire square in the chest, sending him stumbling back.
Kelly couldn't think of a single thing to say, or a single reason to make conversation with the lumpy-looking, yellow-eyed creature in front of her. She just wanted it gone, and preferably by someone else's hand. But she was a Slayer, and Slayers did not delegate. She launched herself in the air, raising her left knee. The vampire ducked to her right as she predicted, so she pistoned her left leg back to the ground and kicked hard with her right. She contacted squarely with his chin, sending his head snapping back. She staked him while he was still trying to gain his bearings, wincing at the cloud of dust that settled on her. As soon as her adrenaline-sharpened senses settled into some semblance of normality, she heard the most incredible thing on earth.
Buffy… was lecturing… the vampire.
"I'm really amazed—" KICK "That you would have the nerve to come to a town—" PUNCH, ROLL "In which two Slayers live." SPIN, KICK "You know, you must not have that whole vampire networking thing going on." So saying, she sped the stake toward his chest, stabbing and withdrawing without looking. As the dust rained around her, she turned back to Kelly.
Kelly's mouth hung open in an ungainly gape. "Do you… is it… are you always like that?"
Buffy stared at her blankly, then scowled in annoyance at the dusty smudge left on her black pants. "Darn it! These are dry-clean only." Brushing at them, she kept her eyes on Kelly. "I'm sorry… what were you saying?"
"It was like… it was fun for you. You were having fun with that… thing. You were playing with it."
Buffy shrugged and smiled as though it was the simplest thing in the world. "Hey, I figure the more I change it up, the less likely I am to burn out. You didn't do so bad yourself."
"Um… yeah," Kelly said, and promptly turned to throw up on the ground.
~~~
"Grab a bag, we're leaving." Giles slammed into Wesley's room without pausing, his car keys in his hand. "If you don't grab your bag, you'll just have to go naked, I'm afraid."
"I don't suppose you would mind telling me what we're in such a mad rush for?" Wesley said pleasantly, though he was already gathering his things.
"I don't suppose I would, Wesley, if you'd just hurry as I do so. I was just contacted by the Council. Two men have entered the Council, one of them claiming to be a Watcher from two centuries ago, the other belligerent but saying nothing useful. The one who claims to be a Watcher says they came by Hub. Now, if you're quite up to speed—"
"What are we waiting for?" Wesley asked, walking out the door ahead of Giles.