*~*~*~*~* Chapter 4 *~*~*~*~*

Giles glared at Ethan Rayne as he stood in the doorway, outlined by the darkness in the hall, a stark contrast to his garish luminous green shirt. Giles fists clenched as he moved towards Ethan,

"Now Ripper, what did I just finish saying." He heard Joanne screaming and he turned back to the window, her figure was gone. He ran to the window and saw that she had dropped; now hanging inches above the ground. Giles turned back to Ethan,

"Let her go, whatever you've got planned this time Ethan, leave the innocent out of it." Ethan walked into the room a few steps and Giles glanced back out the window, seeing Joanne rising up again to be level with the window,

"Well you see Rupert old man," he sighed and clasped his hands in front of him,

"She's not very innocent our Joanne." He smiled as he watched Giles face, and then looked past him at Joanne,

"Are you Jo?" Joanne's eyes went wide as she watched Ethan, she knew who he was and she wished she had never got involved with him in the first place, she had later been warned about Ethan Rayne, yet she only wished it had been earlier she had been warned. Her eyes pleaded with Ethan not to tell Giles but Ethan just smiled back at her,

"O dear. Not very good at keeping secrets am I?" Giles looked between the unlikely team,

"Joanne?" he said looking at her, but all she could do was make apologetic eyes at him. Giles turned on Ethan and Ethan smiled back,

"Wanting a little bedtime reading?" he asked mockingly. Giles continued to advance,

"Tell me what you've done." He said through gritted teeth, as he launched himself at Ethan, but the screaming of Joanne stopped him before he lashed out. He pulled away from Ethan as he heard a dull thud. He went to the window,

"Joanne -" he whispered, feeling dread well up in him, knowing that he had been the cause of her now lying on his drive, but as he watched her she moved. Ethan sighed and moved towards Giles,

"Now are you willing to listen Rupert?" Giles stood where he was and Ethan continued,

"I met young Joanne in a pub. The one down the road none the less. I believe you were there tonight?" he said smiling as he watched Giles expression change,

"She was feeling rather lonely and she told me that she was fed up with the Academy she attended. She wished she could get her revenge. And to cut a long story short she got her revenge, nasty buggers vampires are. Scandal about London gang rivalry coming further north to Hampshire." Giles eyes went wide,

"Nothing like a little Magic and Chaos to kick start the day. Although Jo here was caught in the thrall too; got a little mixed up with what was real and managed to lose one of her friends one night. Terrible tragedy." He waved his hand and Joanne flew back up to the window and through it. The window shutters closed behind her, catching Giles hands there. Giles face contorted in pain and Ethan smiled,

"Sorry." He said before the shutters opened just enough for Giles to get his bleeding knuckles out.

"But then I don't really mean that Rupert, mate." He emphasized the mate bit as Joanne dropped to the floor behind them both in an untidy heap, clearly unconscious,

"Two years of bloody hell the Initiative put me through Rupert. You really think a man would forget that?" Ethan asked, advancing on Giles, somewhat different from the spineless weasel Giles had come to know and hate so well,

"I was actually hoping you would remember it. A little memento of me when you finally reach hell." Giles retorted as Ethan began to chuckle, smiling back at his once fellow wizard, obviously in on some joke he was no doubt about to gloat about,

"I think it will be you needing the memento, Rupert buddy." Giles stood there slightly confused for a moment as the storm continued to rage outside and Ethan's slight chuckles became manic laughter that rang throughout the house. He heard his grandmother's voice booming out loudly and clearly again, chanting in Latin, and pleading to the god of the underworld to bring back her son to her.

"I call thee Osirus, god of the underworld, I inflict on another what was inflicted on my son with the hope that you may take one for the other."

The windows shattered open again as he launched himself forward into an attack on Ethan as Joanne cried out in pain, still unconscious. He felt himself batted away from Ethan easily, into the wall by some unseen force. Giles pulled himself to his feet, going at Ethan with fists of fury,

"What is this Ethan?" he called above the howling wind, pinning the foolish man against the wall,

"Who's doing is this?"

"Your grandmother." Ethan squeaked through a pained gasp for air,

"No Ethan, the truth. What's this got to do with me?" There was a pause as Ethan considered his options as the storm continued to lash on, the chanting and screaming mingled in, creating background noise,

"Ethan!" Giles demanded, slamming the man's head against the wall,

"Ven- vengeance demon." Ethan finally croaked out,

"Two in one deal." He finished as Giles dropped him and he landed with a thud on the floor. Ethan Rayne reverted to the coward he was as Giles ran to Joanne's aid. He was within a foot of her when he was swept to the side by an invisible hand. When he pulled himself from the bottom of the wall, the sight of a vengeance demon met him.

So this was what Anya had once looked like when she had been Anyanka, vengeance demon to scorned women? He admitted that she was rather unattractive.

"I implore thee Osirus," she said one more time, her voice eerily like his grandmothers, but the demon looked nothing like her as her head reeled back in an menacing laugh before she reared back and disappear into thin air,

"Wish granted." She said menacingly as Giles watched the empty space, confused, before stealing a look at Joanne who had now come to rest curled up on herself, looking far from peaceful. Ethan, on the other hand, was smiling mischievously.

"Hell hath no fury…" Ethan mumbled under his breath, a smile spreading onto his face as he recoiled further against the wall, waiting for his wish to play out and leave him with the satisfaction of revenge, able to move on and cause more chaos.

The shutters on the window shattered into the room, the wind and rain lashing in through the gaping hole in the wall as Giles tried to make his way towards Joanne but soon found his feet dragging along the ground as he was pulled towards the window.

He caught one last look at the room as he clung desperately to the windowsill before he was dropped fifteen feet to the ground. He landed with a painful thud; face down on the muddy drive. He rolled over as the rain pelted down on him and saw the familiar face of his grandmother looking down at him from her window above.

He panicked then, the feeling of déjà vu that much stronger than before as he pulled himself to his feet, hastily, not registering the fact his body was protesting profusely against his movements. He ran from the front of the house, rounding the corner only to be faced with the grotesque face of a vampire.

Giles stared for a moment, but it was a moment too long as the vampire retracted his arm before wielding down on Giles. He stumbled back, stunned for a moment as vampires moved in from all sides.

Vampires had always been a Sunnydale thing, a part of his life he had left behind; he had always told himself that. Yet he knew for a fact that vampires wandered. There were many tales of the infamous Angelus round the world, in China, Europe, America, Africa, yet he found it so hard to believe that there were vampires, here in the grounds of his home. They were allowed in the local graveyard, but not here in his childhood home; that was wrong.

He was brought quite sharply away from his thoughts as another vampire slogged him in the jaw, his head snapping back. He regained his footing before he was hit again and blocked the next punch as vampires came at him from all angles as he tried to search desperately for a weapon.

He could see 'his' tree a short distance away as he ducked another blow and swept the feet from under one of the demons, leaving him a path to run. He took off, his sodden pyjamas and jumper weighing him down as he ran on in bare feet. He stumbled over a root as he heard hungry growls behind him. He hit the ground again as a vampire rugby tackled him, leaving him spitting mud before it bore down on him. He elbowed it in the face as he rolled and kicked out, knocking down two more.

The fight continued and he got no nearer to the tree, unable to find the time to pick up a piece of wood let alone find one. There was at least half a dozen of them, snarling, ravenous, staring for the kill. But Rupert Giles would not die here, not now, not when people needed him.

"Master Giles!"

He turned back towards the house, hearing that otherworldly voice, the one he heard so many years ago when he had run from the house, scared because he had been seen looking in the front window when his parents had company. The pause allowed a vampire to floor him and he smashed into the tree with a deafening crunch, whether it was him or the tree that had broken he wasn't sure, but he found a branch and was on his feet again in a matter of seconds, dusting what was a threat on his, and others lives.

Lightening flashed overhead, thunder sounding almost immediately after as the rain continued to pound on him, making the fight so much harder. At least in California they very rarely had the rain to contend with when fighting vampires and demons. He took another blow, another fall, another drop of blood fell and another body part ached acutely, but he would not give up, he would not let Ethan Rayne win after all these years. He would not let the bastard have the satisfaction of knowing that he had beaten Rupert Giles.

There were two left and Giles was tiring, growing weary with the night that surely had to end sometime, but as he glanced at the sky dawn was not in sight. Hope leaving with it as he dived behind the tree that had once been his safe haven, his home away from home. He paused for breath as he searched for his lost branch, grabbing it before rounding the tree again straight into a kick that knocked him backwards into the tree. He slouched there, dazed for a moment, feeling cold, lonely and insecure, like he was seven years old again, hiding in the rain from what would surely be a beating.

"Rupert!"

His mother. A voice he had not heard in so long; a voice he longed to hear again; a voice he longed to tuck him in at night, sing him a lullaby and say how much she loved him. But as his eyes rose to find the woman who had nurtured all his hopes and dreams he was met with the face of everything his fears and nightmares were made of.

He was pulled to his feet by the throat, pinned against the tree that had once provided him protection, now only bringing him death and the darkness that unconsciousness brought.