Wesley awoke him with a shout, after what felt like no more than a second's sleep. He opened his eyes and looked up, certain that he looked as bleary as he felt. Was that really Pryce looking down at him? How did he come to be here in London? Wesley smiled at him.
"Well done. If I'd known about those four doors, I'd have stayed with you."
"I was starting to think you'd gone for good." He yawned and stretched. "Couldn't you have let me sleep for a little longer?"
"Not really, no. Time's passing, Giles. We might not be very clear on how much of it is going by in this place, but it's passing all the same."
"Where have you been?" He stood up slowly, stretching as hard as he could, and thanking the god of ageing Watchers that his life was still such an active one. If he could go half a dozen rounds with Buffy in the training room still, then he could struggle through the weird labyrinths of Doctor Corbio. Or he liked to think that he could, anyway.
"Here and there." Wesley looked cautious. Wherever he had been there was something he had discovered, and it was clear in his eyes that he wasn't very happy about it. Giles let him simmer for a moment, and looked about at wherever it was that he had wound up. They were inside again; a big, stone room with an arched ceiling and walls, and a floor of coloured tiles. Empty suits of armour stood to stiff attention at regular intervals, and coloured shields bearing many different coats of arms hung from the walls. It was cold and damp, in a way that only old castles could be, and black fingers of mould gripped at every corner. Giles wasn't any more enthusiastic about this new place than he had been about the last one, but it beat suffocating in an airless dust bowl. He glanced back at Wesley.
"Looks like there's only one direction we can take right now. Any chance you can skip ahead and see what's coming?"
"I tried to when you were asleep. There was nothing there. It's quite possible that this place only exists when there's somebody in it, and presumably a ghost doesn't count."
"Your friend Lilah managed to jump ahead to kill that Grakh beast."
"True. But Lilah has a physical presence. She's solid, at least when she wants to be. Even though she's dead, she probably has enough corporeality to make this place react to her. I don't." He shrugged. "I can go a little ahead, we know that, Just not very far."
"Great." He sighed. "So what else did you find? Aside from this complete inability to warn me of my impending doom? You were going to see about the Watcher who's working with Wolfram & Hart."
"Yes." Wesley's unhappiness was even more clear than before. "He's Anthony Forsythe. You'll know the name?"
"Oh yes." Giles's brow darkened. "I know Anthony Forsythe. We've had our encounters now and again. He completed his training at the same time I did. That was after I'd had my little detour courtesy of London's darker side, and er..." His hand strayed unconsciously to the place on his arm that bore the Mark of Eyghon. "Well, he was insufferable, anyway. There were a lot of people who didn't think that I should have been allowed back after all of that, and he was one of the more vocal ones. Little oik. The family had some minor connections with aristocracy, and he was the only one of them destined to be a Watcher. It went to his head, along with his family tree."
"You didn't get along?" The question seemed innocent enough. Giles laughed shortly.
"That's one way of putting it. The man's a complete bastard. He finished his training, and he did very well, but he didn't last long in the Watchers after that. I suppose I'm the last person who should be casting stones when it comes to dabbling in the dark arts, and summoning demons and such like - but I never turned against my own. Not once they were my own. He must have killed a dozen fellow Watchers. More than that; and several who were friends of mine. Do you know him?"
"We've met." Wesley shrugged. "He tried to recruit me when I was fired. How he found out about that I don't know, but I suppose he must have had friends in the Council still. He belonged to a dark sect. The Order of the Purple Iris. I got the impression it was quite wide reaching."
"And now he's working for Wolfram & Hart." Giles shot his companion a particularly disparaging stare. "Not that he's the only one."
"Are we really going there again? If I was evil I'd--"
"Glare at me a lot?"
"And be a damn sight more rude than I am being." Wesley smiled faintly. "You're an aggravating sod, and you always were. But I have changed, and I'm not a stupid little idiot anymore, Giles. I went into Wolfram & Hart with my eyes wide open, just like Angel did. He took us in there for a very particular reason, which I don't have any intention of sharing with you. It has nothing to do with whatever reasons Forsythe might have had for joining them."
"I believe you." He didn't know why, and a few days before he certainly wouldn't have believed it; but Wesley had changed. The man he had once been could have signed his soul away to Wolfram & Hart without even realising it. The man he now was had more about him than that. Anthony Forsythe on the other hand - Anthony Forsythe would have gone to Wolfram & Hart looking for power and wealth and dark secrets of many kinds; and he would do whatever in the world he could to make sure that he reached Philarbus's box first. That meant one more danger to be faced here. So long as Forsythe survived, he couldn't help but be a lurking threat waiting to be overcome. Giles rather fancied the idea of meeting with him, somewhere among the twists and turns of this peculiar place. It was a place beyond the laws of men, and that made it ideal for the settling of old scores. No doubt Anthony Forsythe was thinking much the same thing.
"He'll try to stop you," affirmed Wesley. "Magic I can combat; monsters you can fight. But Forsythe could crop up with a gun and end this without either of us being able to do anything about it. Our paths have to cross some time."
"I'm rather hoping that they will." Giles turned sharply on his heel. "Come on. Time's wasting, remember?"
"Yes, of course." The dead Watcher kept pace with the living one, keeping quiet, but apparently with something weighing on his mind. Giles let him stew for some time, as they walked together down the cold stone corridor. The ceiling rose higher and higher above them as they went, and gradually the place seemed darker. There had been a sense of natural daylight to begin with, although what the source of such daylight might have been was impossible to tell. Now the way was lit by candles; many hundreds of them standing in tiny alcoves along the walls, all flickering and spitting and never seeming to melt the wax that carried their flames. The flames cast shadows, and the shadows leapt and danced in huge patterns against the stone, and all was strangely cheerful and homely. The place was still cold, though, and still smelt of damp, and the suits of armour still stood guard. Only then, after so long in silence, did Wesley finally speak.
"Giles..."
"If it's Forsythe that you're worried about, it needn't be. Given the chance I have every intention of confronting him, but I won't let that take precedence over getting to the box."
"That's not what I was thinking about. If I was the one with real fists to hit with, I'd be wanting to deal with Forsythe myself. I tried to take him down the day he offered to recruit me into his order, but I wasn't nearly up to the task then. No, I was thinking about that Grakh; or more precisely what else might be in here with us. The way has been pretty clear so far. You haven't had to fight anything."
"A source of great disappointment to me." Giles's sarcasm was sharper than the dagger hidden in his clothing. "No doubt there's some charming surprise hidden around a corner somewhere. Just so long as it isn't another Grakh. They drool, and it's really quite revolting."
"I'll drop by the Underworld for a moment, shall I?" Reacting to Giles's barbed tone, Wesley responded just as caustically. "Ask Corbio if there's any more drooling monsters hiding down here. Maybe you can avoid them then. Only go for the ones that have bad breath instead."
"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know." Choosing to ignore that it was also his favourite, Giles shot a sharp glare at Wesley, who glared back just as sharply in return.
"Bully for it. I notice you're not exactly a fan of the higher forms yourself."
"Oh... shut up Wesley." Giles quickened his pace. "And get a move on if you're coming." He lowered his voice to a faintly petulant mutter. "Otherwise bugger off."
"I see. We've gone past the courteous part of the expedition then? Fine. I don't much enjoy trying to be polite to you, either." Wesley also quickened his pace, provoking Giles into walking faster still. "Great. Take an even more mature approach."
"I'm not trying to be mature. I'm trying to make a point." Giles glowered at the petty tone of his own voice. It was like being back in the library of Sunnydale High, when he had first worked alongside Wesley. The other Watcher had brought out this adverse side of his nature then, too, and he had found himself gradually losing his usual gravitas, sinking instead into antagonistic prickliness. He hadn't liked it then; he didn't like it now. Wesley, who felt rather similar, was just as frustrated, and just as increasingly annoyed.
"This is daft," he offered, in an attempt to smooth the troubled waters. Giles nodded, without turning around.
"Granted."
"We're supposed to be on the same side."
"Also granted. We just can't stand the sight of each other."
"True." Wesley stopped rather abruptly. "Although I could suggest that--"
"Don't suggest." Giles slowed to a more gradual halt. "Just shut up."
"Because that sounds like a good way to help bury the hatchet."
"Screw the hatchet, Wesley. Listen."
"To what? You? No thanks."
"Don't be an idiot!" Giles turned slowly around, looking back the way they had come. "Oh, great. Well that's just bloody marvellous."
"What?" Following the older man's lead, Wesley also turned around. He could hear something now; what Giles had been trying to draw his attention to before, presumably. A clanking, soft but persistent. Metal moving slowly but with force. He guessed what he was going to see before he saw it, and it was less with surprise than with mere displeasure that he saw ten suits of armour coming down the corridor. Ten large, broad suits of armour, empty of anything alive, but apparently nonetheless determined for all that. They carried no armaments, but presumably there was no immediate need for weaponry when you were six feet tall and made from thick plates of iron. "Oh."
"Now would be a good time to tell me that you know the perfect spell for this kind of situation."
"I'm sure it would. Now might also be a good time for you to announce that you're superhuman."
"I think it might have been mentioned in my Watcher records, if I was." Giles thought about drawing his dagger, but had to conclude that it would just look ridiculous. "Okay. A plan. A plan would be good."
"Running away?"
"Down a corridor filled with even more suits of armour, yes. Any one of which could come to life at any moment, and join in the party. I think I'd rather stay here and face ten of them than run away and risk getting surrounded by several hundred."
"We have to go that way some time."
"Yes, but by then one of us will have made use of the years of remarkable training, not to mention the superior intellect and hugely impressive knowledge that we're supposed to have, and will have come up with a brilliant plan of action. Right?"
"Possibly." Wesley tried throwing a punch at the nearest suit of armour as it drew level with him, but of course his fist passed straight through it. Giles rolled his eyes.
"Oh, way to go Wesley. Punch the thing. Because that's going to work even if you're not incorporeal. It's made of iron you prat."
"Then you bloody well do something!" Frustrated beyond measure as the marching suits of armour walked right through him, Wesley raised a furious fist and sent a blast of magical energy after the beings. It glanced off the helmet of the leadmost suit, and showered Giles's head with sparks. He swore, very loudly and extremely eloquently.
"Wesley! Damn it, I have little enough hair left as it is, without you trying to set fire to it!"
"You're going to have little enough of anything left in half a second! Pardon me for trying to do something!"
"Trying to do something?! Would that be trying to kill the monsters, or trying to explode me?" Ducking a powerful iron fist that came slamming towards his stomach, Giles caught the arm as it passed by him, and hurled the suit that belonged to it into the next one in line. Both suits collapsed into a pile of constituent parts and lay still.
"Nice work!" Argument forgotten, Wesley smiled broadly at this development, though the smile soon vanished. Giles was swamped immediately, the eight remaining suits marching relentlessly towards him. He could do little save try to stay out of their reach.
"Don't congratulate me! Do something!"
"Oh. Yes." He sent another ball of energy after the suits, this time catching one of the suits directly in the back. It exploded, showering gauntlets and helmet parts all over the corridor. Giles was vanishing from sight though, borne to the ground by creatures he no longer had any chance of fighting. Wesley ran into the thick of it all, passing through the suits, and swearing when his fists still failed to make contact. He did manage to hurl a spell Giles's way though, and drag him back out of the reach of the marching armour. The older Watcher staggered to his feet as though resoundingly drunk, and spat dust and metal shavings from his mouth.
"I hate this place!" He had to dodge immediately as one of the suits came for him again, its fists passing straight through Wesley's chest as it tried to get to Giles. "And you could at least have the decency to get in their way properly!"
"Oh, because I really prefer being a ghost!" As Giles ducked and dodged, managing to slam one of the suits into the wall so that it collapsed into pieces like the first three, Wesley blasted another. "You're supposed to be understanding of my condition. Tolerant." He blasted another suit. "Sympathetic."
"You got yourself killed. I'm supposed to be sympathetic? Sarcastic is suiting me much better." Giles had to duck very suddenly, and Wesley laughed at the near miss.
"Sarcasm doesn't help the fighting much though, does it." One of the suits aimed a punch at him, which sailed smoothly through his head, and it was Giles's turn to laugh.
"You said it." He fell back against the wall as another of the beings rushed him, then ducked down and bodyslammed it in the stomach. It staggered back just as Wesley fired at another of the things, and both suits exploded together.
"And then there were three." Giles was feeling better about it all now, although his ribs felt decidedly tender. "Maybe this isn't so hard after all."
"They are just basically inanimate objects. Or animated inanimate objects, anyway. No brains I suppose." Wesley exploded another in a shiny burst of energy of which he was really rather proud. He was getting quite good at this. It had been hard at first, getting the hang of it all again since the whole business of dying and ceasing to truly exist; but it was feeling natural again now. Giles hurled another of the things into the wall, then sensing the approach of the final one behind him, ducked quickly so that Wesley could shoot over his head. For a second the two Watchers shared a triumphant grin, then remembered that they were angry with each other, and looked away. Giles straightened his clothing.
"Okay. That was exhilarating. And strangely not difficult."
"I shouldn't complain."
"I wasn't." He smiled to himself happily. "Shall we go on?"
"Fine." Wesley gestured to the awaiting corner in the musty stone corridor. "After you."
"I'm on it." It was with a spring in his step that Giles walked on. Ten magical monsters defeated with only a few bruises and a mild singeing. That wasn't too bad. Maybe this wasn't going to be so tough after all. And then he finished going around the corner, and saw what was waiting ahead, and came to an abrupt halt. Behind him Wesley jerked to a halt to avoid a collision, then remembered that he was incapable of colliding with anything and carried on walking instead.
"What's wrong?" he asked, passing jauntily through Giles's right elbow. The older Watcher glared at him.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe everything?" He nodded on ahead. Wesley looked. Saw the way ahead barred by a massive, snarling, two-headed dog. Smiled nervously. And things had been going so well.
"Oh." He frowned, not finding great encouragement in the size of the creature's teeth. "This doesn't look good."
"I was preferring the suits of armour, certainly." This time Giles did draw his dagger, although it still felt faintly absurd. Next time he went on holiday he was definitely taking his full compliment of weapons along. To hell with Customs. "Any bright ideas?"
"Offer it a bone and call it a good dog?"
"You see any bones around here other than mine?"
"Not in the immediate vicinity, no."
"Then let's forget the bright ideas, shall we." Giles sighed, and raised his dagger in a display of blind optimism. Maybe he should trying shouting "Sit!". Or possibly just running away. All things considered, being bored in the flat back in London definitely seemed a better option right now. He never had finished reading Olivia's letter.
But the dog was coming for him, and that was all that he could think about now.
Lilah was bored. It wasn't that the trip so far had been uneventful; toying with Wesley was always fun, and the way to the vault had turned out to be highly entertaining. There had been three vampires, a chaos demon and a pair of flying swords so far; all hidden in peculiar places. She had walked along a stormy beach, what had appeared to be a piece of quaint English countryside, and something approximating a rainforest, as well as a sizeable length of particularly drab corridor. Corbio had created a masterpiece of a labyrinth, and she knew that Wolfram & Hart were taking notes with every step that she took. It required every piece of her Watcher companion's knowledge to work out the clues that told them which door to take next and which path to choose, and if it hadn't been for her own status as somebody already dead, she was quite certain that she would never have survived the tussle with the chaos demon, let alone the three vampires. The problem really was Forsythe. He wasn't entertaining company - and when Wesley was on the same mission, who knew how near or far away, it wasn't exactly fun to stay at the side of a man like Forsythe.
He was everything that Wesley wasn't, which perhaps was why he was working on her side, instead for the opposing faction. Loud, crass, boastful and easily corrupted, and clearly anxious to get whatever he could out of this particular deal, he walked with a swagger, talked constantly about himself, and whilst he could competently deal with the puzzles and the monsters that crossed their paths, he did so distastefully, and with far too much smug satisfaction. Lilah didn't like him. He didn't care, and he flirted with her anyway, as though he believed that she was sure to be won over in the end. As a means to an end he was acceptable; as anything else she found him merely repugnant. Maybe she should have chosen rather more figure-concealing clothes; but then Lilah was used to dressing how she liked, without having to suffer for it because of some imbecile with the brain of a dinosaur. A highly intelligent, extremely well-educated dinosaur, who could apparently speak some twenty-five languages. Not that she let that impress her.
"This place is fascinating." Forsythe was walking on ahead, peering at everything, and explaining it all to her as though she wasn't even capable of knowing what a vase was without his assistance. She nodded. She had already heard his discourse on the abilities of Corbio at least three times today, and knew exactly how Forsythe felt all of this could have been improved upon, given a designer of greater vision.
"I'm sure it is." She sped up, overtaking him and walking on down the corridor before he could drag her into another conversation about his own genius. She found herself wishing that he would do something to refute that supposed genius, but since the only way he could do that would be in making a wrong move that risked losing the game for Wolfram & Hart, she had to swallow the desire, and wish him well instead. He caught her up.
"Any idea how our rivals are doing?"
"Well enough. My employers are only keeping a passing eye on them to check on their progress, since there's nothing they can do to interfere. But so far everything seems to be going well."
"Well for them or well for us?"
"There haven't been any fatalities yet, if that's what you mean." She wondered what would happen if something did happen to Giles. Would Wesley give up? Unlikely. He would probably come after her and try to stop her own attempt to get through. Wesley might succeed in wiping the unpleasant smirk from Forsythe's annoyingly handsome face, but technically speaking she would have to stop him. The notion of taking Forsythe's side over Wesley's - hell, over anybody's - was not a nice one.
"Good." Forsythe drew level with her, grinning in what he apparently believed was an irresistible fashion. "You know Rupert Giles?"
"Not really." She knew him by reputation, and by Wesley's opinion of him. He was a talented Watcher with a past murky enough to impress even her, and that was an undeniable source of interest. Dark magic, rebellion, supposed murder, arrests, tales of sacrifices, connections with any number of known bad apples across the globe - how could she not be interested? He still bore, so the tales went, a mark on his arm that linked him to a powerful demon currently incarcerated in hell; but which, if ever it managed to escape, was likely to embark on a killing spree in celebration that would make the whole world tremble. And do so whilst in possession of Giles's own body. And people called her morals dubious.
"Well I know him very well. He's a few years older than me, but we did some of our training together thanks to him taking a sabbatical in his early twenties. The guy practically turned London on its head, doing spells that made even the normal citizens realise that something was up. Personally I'd never have let him into the Watchers, mystical destiny or otherwise, but that lot never did know up from down. They seemed to think that because there'd always been one of his family in the organisation, there always should be. They completely overlooked the contribution of people such as myself, who weren't from the traditional familes. Not a single one of the Council ever took any interest in me at all; it was always Giles, Giles, Giles. I suppose I should be glad. When I realised that I was going to get far more from the other side of magic than I ever got from the Watchers themselves, none of them noticed until it was far too late." He sniffed. "Nobody except Giles. He kept coming to me, saying that he could see what I was up to, and that it wouldn't do any good. Him, with his forbidden library, and the Mark of Eyghon tattooed on his arm, and his meetings every week with a coven of witches to help him give up his thing for black magic. Cocky bastard. Accent all over the place. Cockney guttersnipe one moment, jumped up public schoolboy the next. I told him exactly where to get off; I mean what exactly was he going to do about it? Rupert Giles, telling tales on one of his fellows, for the sort of acts that he'd been getting away with for years?" He laughed shortly, and Lilah found herself disliking him even more. "We finished our training, and I got sent out on some expedition to the Far East. I found scrolls of magical knowledge that the Watcher Council would have given everything to own, and I kept them for myself. I learnt things that other men would have killed to learn. And then Rupert bloody Giles turns up in the middle of the night, and leaves me lying in the gutter with a broken jaw, and takes the damn scrolls back to Watcher HQ. I'd have killed him then, as soon as I recovered, but he'd got himself sent on some expedition to Central Europe. All clandestine stuff, sneaking over the border into the East, and spinning little spells to make the authorities on both sides look the other way. I got sent in as back up, and picked apart all his little spells like old knitting. Bastard still managed to escape."
"I'm sure--"
"And then - then - I get stuck on light duties because everybody assumes I screwed up when things got a little hairy on the Hungarian border. Screwed up? I took those spells apart on purpose, and anybody who'd bothered to look could have seen that. But I was just the new boy. The unknown quantity. The wildcard from a normal family, with no history of involvement in anything mystical. What was I going to know about bad magicks, right?"
"Mr Forsythe..." She really didn't care about his personal vendettas, but there was no shutting him up. His rich, marbles-in-mouth voice carried disgust well, and relished every syllable filled with hatred. She thought about killing him; not for her the lack of solidity in death that so bothered Wesley. She could break Forsythe's neck without too much difficulty. She was fairly talented as a pickpocket too, and she could have slid his dagger out of his belt and cut his throat with it before he'd had much chance to fight back. Not that fighting back would do him a great deal of good, theoretically, since she was already dead. She sighed though. It was all just wishful imagining. Forsythe was her ally; the man she had been detailed to assist on this mission for Wolfram & Hart. If she killed him the consequences for her could be extremely unpleasant. Being dead might save her from Forsythe, but it couldn't ever save her from Wolfram & Hart. Nothing could, short of the destruction of all levels of existence; and knowing Wolfram & Hart, they'd probably find a way past that, too.
"And he still hadn't turned me in. Like I said - it's hard to tell tales on somebody who's just doing the same sort of thing you used to do yourself. Hell, I hadn't done anything half as bad as he had, and he was still in the Watchers, so what could he say? And who to? And meantime he gets sent to Africa and comes back all covered in glory after wiping out some vampire cabal that he shouldn't even have been fighting - and which, if you believe the stories, he only managed to destroy because his evil sorcerer old friend was helping him - and I'm still stuck dusting library shelves. But one thing about the Watchers is that they always have good things in their libraries. The idiots kept underestimating me. Never let me show them what I could do. So I decided I was going to show them anyway." He grinned, in the sort of matinee idol/manic fiend way of his that Lilah had decided annoyed her almost as much as his infernally outsized ego. "I read every book I could get hold of, and I learned every secret that that pointless lot had forgotten they ever knew. And Giles kept getting drunk with old buddies, and wandering off the straight and narrow, and hiding it behind this tweed jacket façade that he'd managed to come up with, and none of that useless bunch of imbeciles ever seemed to notice. They didn't notice anything at all until the day one of them brought in a book that I knew would change my life forever. They were going to lock it away in a vault somewhere, and never let anybody see it, and what would be the point of that? So I stole it. I took out a dozen or more of them in the process, with a few little tricks none of them had a clue how to deal with. Giles came after me, but it wasn't so hard to stay ahead with my new book to help out. I've never looked back." He laughed again. "Wolfram & Hart couldn't get close enough to me, and I see that they came to me pretty quickly when they found out about this place. One day Wolfram & Hart will have to bring me into their inner circle. I might even become a senior partner in the end. I obviously have something that they feel they can use."
Expendability, thought Lilah with a wry smile, though she kept the thought to herself. Forsythe was an arrogant sod who could be easily manipulated, and left thinking that the manipulation had all been done by him. Wolfram & Hart would use him up the same way they had so many people in the past; be it towering intellects, ambitious law students, or the many people who recognised their own evil, and thought that it matched that of Wolfram & Hart itself. All of them thought that they could come out on top. All of them thought that they would be the one in control. All of them were wrong, and discovered it only when it was far too late. This chattering peacock would be no different, in the end. She only hoped that that eventual certainty was enough to keep her from throttling him in the meantime.
"I take it you're hoping to see them fail?" she asked, having learnt that he was less annoying if she tried to shape his conversation, rather than letting him ramble on unchecked. He grinned. She was rapidly coming to hate that grin, she decided. The smugness of it was bad enough; the fact that he was still certain she was going to melt at the sight of it just turned her stomach.
"They will fail." His confidence was impressive, she had to give him that much. The idea of him being the one to fail was simply impossible for him to grasp. "Giles isn't a good enough fighter to make it through here alone. And you say the other guy is dead? What bloody use is a ghost going to be?"
"That ghost could be a lot of use." She wanted to smile a fond little smile, but didn't. She and Wesley were privileged information. Whatever the nature of their relationship was - and she had no idea herself what it was, not really - she didn't plan on broadcasting it to everybody.
"Really?" Forsythe didn't sound very interested. "I didn't recognise the name. A former Watcher himself, you say?"
"And one that you've met. Apparently you tried to recruit him, at least according to my employers. To the Purple Iris?"
"Oh." He shrugged. "I probably thought he could be useful. Where was this?"
"Somewhere in America in 2000."
"Oh." He nodded suddenly. "Oh. Yes, of course. Pryce. Fired for losing a Slayer, which was something of a first if I remember correctly. He gave the Council a hard time for refusing to help save the life of some vampire, which is probably what made me think I could use him. He pulled a gun on me, and I had to grab a couple of passing civilians to get the idiot to leave me alone. So you think he's going to be useful to Giles, do you?"
"He will be. He has been." She didn't know how exactly, since she wasn't privy to all of the details, but she had a confidence in Wesley that he didn't even seem to have in himself. Forsythe nodded slowly.
"Well maybe if we all make it through we can meet up at some point. I've never fought a ghost before."
"We're not here for grudge matches and personal challenges." She was talking to a brick wall, and she knew it. "We're only here for that box."
"I won't endanger that." He was grinning again, no doubt seeing himself standing over the dead body of Rupert Giles, triumphant and delighted, and even more full of himself than usual. Well as long as his daydreams of personal grandeur didn't inspire him to start flirting with her again. There was only so much dribbling and invasion of her personal space that she was prepared to take before she did something drastic, and she wasn't ruling out trying the same trick on him that she had used to such entertaining effect on the Grakh demon. The Senior Partners were sure to know about that by now, and would be wanting an explanation before much longer, she knew - but what was a little gift for a friend here and there? Somehow she didn't think that they'd much appreciate the argument that there would be no fun at all in any of this if the opposition got killed too soon. The Senior Partners never seemed to appreciate excuses involving 'fun'. All part of being ethereal evil powers, presumably. As for Forsythe - as oblivious to her attempt to help the enemy as he was to everything else that didn't directly involve him, he was wandering into the lead again, once more peering at the things that they passed, and no doubt preparing his next lecture on the subject. She thought pleasant thoughts of Grakh beasts and bubbling internal organs, and followed on in the irritating sod's wake. She hoped he didn't start reminiscing again. The last thing that she had wanted had been to hear the story of his young life in the Watchers, but of course he had failed to notice her lack of interest. He probably thought that she had been enthralled, and anxious to hear more. She really, really wanted to kill him; or step aside when they met their next obstacle, and let fate take its course. Do the world a favour, and stop him ever going back into it. But she knew that she never would. How could she, when she was only here through the grace of Wolfram & Hart? When she belonged to them as surely as Forsythe soon would? She would do as they asked of her, and help the revolting individual through all of this, and probably stand by if he found some way to take out Wesley. Because that was what the Senior Partners wanted, and what she wanted was immaterial. There was a price to pay for being dead. And it was a price that she was only just beginning to pay.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What do you mean 'well what'?" Giles was exasperated, which wasn't entirely easy to convey in a hoarse whisper. "You're a ghost. There's very little chance of it eating you. Try something."
"Alright." Looking rather uninspiringly low on confidence, Wesley moved forward slowly. The last thing that he wanted was to antagonise the creature, and risk it charging. Judging by the direction in which it was pointing, it would go straight through him and land on top of Giles. He could foresee all kinds of people being very annoyed about that, only one of whom would be Giles himself. The dog growled at his approach, both heads following his every move. He smiled encouragingly at it.
"Good boy. Good boy."
"If it's a girl you're not making a great start there. Pissing off the big two-headed dog isn't very advisable."
"From over here I can't see which it is. It might be neither. Checking wasn't high on my list of priorities." He edged forward a little more. "Look at the size of this thing."
"I can see its size, believe me! And its two heads. And its teeth and its very large claws. And it can see my very small dagger, and by the look of it it's laughing. Can you see any weak spots?"
"No." Wesley had drawn almost level with the beast now, and was watching it rather nervously. It was not always easy to remember that nothing could hurt him now; or nearly nothing, anyway. He expected the giant dog to lash out at him at any moment with a paw full of gleaming, hooked claws. Instead it merely growled at him, and its hackles rose in spikes down the back of each head. He spoke quietly now, anxious not to spook the thing. "I could try hitting it with a few energy bolts."
"You know their strength better than I do. What are they likely to do?"
"Annoy it."
"Great."
"Might kill it in the end though."
"Yeah, after it gets really angry and tears me to shreds." Giles fell silent for a moment. "Okay, look. It let you get close. Maybe if I go really slowly and quietly, I'll be able to get past it too."
"You feel confident about that, do you?"
"Not in the slightest, since you mention it. I've always got on well with dogs in the past though."
"Any of them happen to be giant, slavering two-headed ones?"
"Not recently." He sighed. This was getting them nowhere though. If he stayed where he was, the thing was bound to go for him eventually. At the end of the day this was surely why it was here? On the other hand, if he advanced it was even more likely to go for him. Quicker, and more angrily, and probably with even more deadly accuracy. Well, no. The accuracy thing was probably going to be the same either way, in all fairness, but walking towards the animal still seemed daft. Standing still didn't really feel any more sensible though, so putting one foot in front of another, he began to move forward. The dog growled. One of its heads turned to watch him progress, and the other remained watching Wesley.
"We could run in different directions," he suggested as he walked. "Maybe that would confuse it."
"I doubt it."
"So do I, but it felt good to be suggesting something." The dog took one long, slow, deliberate step forward, and Giles stopped abruptly. He considered brandishing his dagger at it, but it was beginning to feel even more absurd. Why the hell hadn't he brought something else? He almost always had the dagger on him, for it was useful in certain spells, and truth be told made an excellent pencil sharpener, but when fighting massive mythical beasts it was about as much use as a fruit basket. "Okay. We can handle this."
"A little confidence would have made that sentence much more convincing."
"Yeah, well I'm the one who's actually going to get torn to shreds. I'm allowed to be nervous."
"Think positive." Wesley moved slowly, edging back between Giles and the dog. "Hold that dagger out."
"Wesley, whenever I move this thing I swear the dog giggles. It isn't even sentient, and it knows I don't have a bloody chance armed with something like this."
"Then let's make it into something else." The younger Watcher had his eyes closed now, and Giles could see his lips moving slowly. Either he had been doing some serious work on his magical skills prior to death, or death itself brought an impressive upgrade, but whatever the explanation, Giles felt the dagger begin to vibrate. The dog growled fiercely at the sight of it, and with a flash of light the blade grew to the size of a sword, and both of the dog's heads roared loudly. The dagger was heavier now, as befitted its new size, and its gleaming blade was a mass of flickering candlelight. It seemed to antagonise the dog greatly, and with a second rumbling roar, it began to advance once again.
"I don't know how long that spell will hold." Wesley was still trying to keep between the dog and its prey. "I can't do a permanent change. That would mean creating new matter, or diverting something that pre-exists, and there's very few magicians who can do that. You've got five minutes. Ten at the outside."
"Ten should be enough, one way or the other." The dog had slowed to a halt once again, but clearly it was gathering its strength. Its intention was to leap, and it was going to happen sooner or later. Where to strike with the sword though? The creature looked as hard as nails; harder. There were plenty of beasts that would barely be tickled by a sword of any size, and it would be just his luck, he felt sure, if this creature turned out to be one of them. After all, if you were a two headed dog, the chances were you had already been touched by magic of one sort. Why not another as well?
"Ready?" Wesley's right hand had begun to glow, a precursor to the bolt of magical energy that he was clearly about to launch. He seemed to have great faith in them, or was just proud of the ability to fire the things; Giles preferred cold, hard metal himself. There were too many things in the magical world that could counteract all manner of spells, or were just impervious to human sorcery entirely. Knowing Wesley the sorcery was not entirely human; but that was still no guarantee of success. There were, after all, more things in Heaven and Earth... and all that.
"Ready." He wasn't of course. 'Ready?' was such a damn silly question. Who the hell would be ready in a situation like this? Aside from Buffy perhaps. He smiled at that thought. Buffy; his tower of strength. His inspiration in moments of difficulty and danger. His arms seemed to fill with new energy, and the sword held itself a little higher. It was beautiful, he thought in that moment; something unreal, which of course was what it was. Something brighter and cleaner and shinier than any true sword had any right to be. In its blade he saw Wesley's ball of fire leap from his hand and fly straight as an arrow; saw the yellow and the white and the red of it all spark and burn. The dog turned one head towards the ball, and snatched it out of the air with its teeth, crushing the fire into a flash of hot orange light that skittered its way across the stone floor in broken pieces like shattered glass. Undiscouraged, Wesley summoned a second ball, but the dog was having none of it. With a roar that reverberated around the room, echoing in the arched stone ceiling far above, it leapt straight for Giles, both its jaws snapping, its hugely powerful legs propelling it forward with the sort of speed and power that made his heart leap straight for his throat. He jumped aside, slashing with the sword, catching it a tearing blow along one shoulder that didn't seem to worry it in the slightest, then had to twist away as it swung around in mid-air, coming at him again without a pause. He stabbed this time, feeling the point of the sword glance off a hard ridge of bone. A ball of fire hit one of the creature's heads, and it turned momentarily to glare at Wesley, then turned back to Giles and growled with all the menace of hell. Or so it seemed to him, standing before it now, feeling the heat of its breath on his face, and seeing so many teeth, all set out before him in stereo. He took a step back, held the sword out ready, and as the creature came for him once more, slashed furiously at the juncture of the two short necks. Both heads lashed back and forth and the sword was almost torn from his grasp. He saw new blood well forth against the dark of the demon dog's hide, but again it seemed to feel little pain. More fire rained down upon it; its coat gave off the faint scent of singed fur. It didn't care.
"You're going to have to do better than that!" Giles lashed out with the sword again, directing his words to Wesley, who had appeared at his side with both hands aglow. The younger Watcher had an expression of deepest concentration, but the dog was too much for his tricks and he knew that now. Moving between Giles and the dog once again, he muttered a spell and called forth a sword of his own. Giles rolled his eyes.
"A ghost sword. That's sure to work."
"Run for it. I can distract it long enough for you to get past, and then maybe this part of the way will cease to exist."
"It won't." Other parts certainly had as they had gone along, but Giles knew that this place wouldn't disappear. Not yet. "Not until this thing is dead. It's not finished with otherwise."
"It's worth trying! Maybe there'll be something else up ahead." The dog was gathering itself for another spring. "Just go, damn it! It can't hurt me."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that." All the same, it did seem a fair argument. Perhaps there would be weapons ahead. Perhaps there would be somewhere he could lose the dog. Perhaps there would be another of the blasted things, and he would run straight into its waiting jaws. There was only one way to find out. As the creature leapt, Giles ran. He saw Wesley, in the corner of his eye, swing his sword in desperation at the dog, but the blade passed straight through its chest. The creature growled nonetheless, swinging one head around to stare at the dead Watcher whilst its other head turned to watch Giles. Giles turned his back on it, running for the other end of the room - only to come to a dead stop. There was no way out. No other door, no continuation of the space. Everywhere there were dead ends; stone walls that gave no quarter. He was trapped here, as surely as could be, until he or the dog were dead. He groaned. The dog raced for him. He stumbled for somewhere to run, but the wall was behind him and there was nowhere to run to. Somewhere off to his right he saw Wesley, moving like the warrior he had certainly never been back in Sunnydale, executing a perfect dive and roll to bring himself into a better position. He came up with a speed and agility that Giles could only envy; and when he stood again he held an automatic pistol in each hand. The guns were firing even as he was straightening up; even as he was running closer to the beast. Giles heard each gunshot like an explosion in his mind; echoing powerfully in the stone-enclosed space. Something ricocheted; something ripped through the material of one of his shirt sleeves. The dog twitched and jerked. Real bullets - or something very like them. Galvanised into action, Giles stepped to one side, and as the dog began to wobble, began to show its first signs of weakness, he lifted the sword and drove the blade deep into its chest. It roared again, and the teeth of one great head grazed his arm. He stumbled back. The guns rattled on. With a last growl that became more of a sigh, the beast collapsed. So almost did Giles.
"I thought that was it, for sure." He leant back against the wall, shaky from exhaustion and relief. Only then did something occur to him, and indignation leant him new energy. "And what the bloody hell was that all about? Those were real bullets. Why didn't you do that earlier? No, forget that. Just how the hell did you do it?"
"I'm not sure. Self belief?" Not that that had ever been a particular trait of Wesley's in the past, but it was all that he could think of now. Giles shook his head.
"I don't think so. Oh a ghost might be able to touch things, and move things around, once it gets the hang of it - that's well documented enough. But to draw a gun and shoot real bullets? Like snatching swords from nowhere - even useless ones - and blasting everything with fire balls. Where exactly did you get all this new magic from, Wesley? Wolfram & Hart? Was it a part of your deal when you joined them?"
"Wolfram & Hart?" His companion didn't look angry so much as shocked. "Do you honestly believe that I would take anything from them? Anything at all? When Angel was playing along to fit the part, when Gunn was--" He broke off, something that appeared to be both grief and rage combined flashing across his eyes in an instant. "I took nothing from them. Not once. And don't think it wasn't offered. Possibilities here, suggestions there. Temptations of every sort every day. I took nothing. But every night, no matter how late it was when I got home, I turned to the books. New books, bought from demons and sorcerers in parts of Los Angeles even you might not believe exist. I knew that something was coming. We all did. And I've never had the muscle to play my part as well as I might. I studied, Giles. The same way you did, once. It's done neither of us any good in the long run, because it never does. Not when it comes from the sort of books we've always had to read. But if I have any powers now, I've earned them; and if that's what let me do what I just did, then I've earned that too." He put the guns away, lowering them into holsters that Giles could not see, and drawing a deep breath to regain his slender control. "Let's get on, shall we?"
"I'm sorry." He wished for a moment that he could shake the other man's hand, at least to show that he meant his apology. He really had distrusted the other man; he saw that clearly now. The distrust born from their time together in Sunnydale, and fed by the deal with Wolfram & Hart that he didn't think he would ever understand. "I just... I'm never at my best when I've been shot at."
"Yes. Sorry about that." There was the tiniest of smiles in the oddly young-old eyes. "Guns tend to bring out the zealot in me. I rather shut out the rest of the world."
"If that's what made the bullets real, let's both be thankful for it." Except that the bullets hadn't been real; not in the usual sense. He could tell that from the lack of cordite scenting the air. Still - real or not real, they had done their work. He went over to the dog and drew out his sword, discovering a dagger once again. He cleaned the blade carefully on the dog's tough hide, and gave it a final polish on his own shirt tail. It didn't look quite so absurd anymore, he decided. His little dagger, forged two hundred years ago not far from the mountains in Spain where he had begun this bizarre journey. He would never look at it in quite the same way again.
"I wonder what's next?" he commented idly, as he stowed the dagger away, and turned to look around at the waiting stone walls. One of them had already dissolved, and it showed a new way ahead. A way lit by moonlight, and a sky sparkling with thousands upon thousands of stars.
"Only one way to find out." Wesley moved ahead of him, his slight, dark figure already looking different in Giles's eyes. Prejudices were slipping away, the older man realised. Long held prejudices, finally being laid to rest. With a faint smile, he moved up to walk alongside his companion, and together they stepped out into the darkness. A new world swallowed them then. As strange as any they had yet seen.