Shadow Though it Be: An Excursus – Chapter 16

This time there was no music emanating through the front door. Giles breathed a weary sigh of relief and lumbered across the threshold.

Elisabeth was not immediately visible, but he could hear sounds from the kitchen area. He glanced left, toward the dinner table, and received his first surprise of the evening. She had set the table with two full place settings—plate, knife and fork, cloth napkin, placemat—and filled two glasses with cold water. The condensation on the glasses was still fresh, and between the place settings stood an opened bottle of wine and a single stemmed glass.

He stopped, staring thoughtfully at the bottle of wine. He was still staring when Elisabeth popped busily into view, slinging a tea towel over her shoulder. She saw him and said, "Ah, you're there. Help yourself to the wine; dinner's almost ready."

Giles put down his satchel and slipped off his jacket to hang on the desk chair. He went slowly to the table and picked up the wine bottle—read the label—poured himself a full glass. He took glass and bottle with him into the kitchen, where he found Elisabeth slicing a pear onto a plate. "Won't you have some wine, too?" he asked her.

"Got some," she said, indicating her own glass with her knife. She had either poured herself a full glass and drunk three-quarters of it, or poured a half-glass and drunk half of it; Giles could not tell which.

"Ah," he said, and set the bottle down on the counter, taking a sip of his own.

"If you want," Elisabeth said, with her eyes on her task, "you can take plates to the table."

"Certainly." Glad of a task, he went to set his wineglass by his plate and came back to help. On his way back to the kitchen he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, pulled his tie loose, and unbuttoned his collar. He took the platter she indicated, which was draped with a cloth napkin, and carried it to the table. "So what is on the menu?" he asked her, twitching the edge of the cloth napkin out from under the platter.

"Well, it's not a secret," Elisabeth said from the kitchen. "You can unveil the dish."

He glanced at the top of her head, visible through the bar window, but she did not look up. The corner of his mouth twitched thoughtfully.

The platter, when he took off the napkin, proved to hold a bowl of olives, a quantity of salami rolls, and an arrangement of hard-boiled egg slices. He went to get the other plate, which he found to contain an assortment of cheeses, meticulously arranged. Elisabeth set a small basket on the bar; he went to get it and found that it was full of different kinds of crackers. When he turned around she had put up the plate of pear slices too. "An antipasto meal," he said as he picked it up. "It looks nice."

Elisabeth was scraping bits of pear skin off the counter into her cupped hand. "That was my whimsy," she said airily, dumping the bits into the trash. "But I forgot to buy any fruit. It's lucky you had this pear in the fridge. Otherwise we wouldn't have all the four food groups."

"Well, you got the alcohol group," Giles said. "That's the important one."

She smiled, eyes downcast as she dusted her hands together over the trash.

"Is it all ready now?" he asked, tentatively.

"Yes—go ahead and sit."

He did as she bid him; and a moment later she came out into the livingroom with her glass and the bottle. She poured herself another glass of wine, set down the bottle, took a reverent sip, and sat down across from him, only to notice that she still had the soiled tea towel over her shoulder. Her hands fluttered to grab it off, and she got up and took it back into the kitchen, then came back and plopped herself into her chair. He was taking his napkin out from under his silverware when she heaved a deep sigh, shut her eyes briefly, and said: "Thanks to thee, Lord, for these and all thy mercies."

"Amen," Giles said promptly. He went back to his efforts to free the napkin and drape it across his lap.

For several minutes there was only the silence of them choosing elements to build their crackers with. Giles watched her surreptitiously, and saw that she was building her crackers as meticulously as she had arranged the plates. "So tell me," he said, swallowing and clearing his throat in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner, "is this how you eat when you're at home?"

"Are you kidding," she said. "When I'm left to myself it's cream cheese and saltines."

"Ah," he said, as if that cleared everything up.

"No," she said, with her eyebrows casually high, "for other people I'll take some trouble, but not usually for myself. But sans presentation, of course, this is the sort of thing I like to eat." She took another sip of wine, eyes closed. He followed suit.

"If this were summer," she added after a moment, "I'd be going more for the vegetables."

There was nothing to say to this. Giles refilled his plate with several bits of cheese. He glanced up in time to catch her looking guardedly at him; their eyes met, and both of them looked away again in an instant.

Without quite looking at her, he could see her drawing a long tense breath. She reached for a large square cream cracker and a salami roll. She bit off half and unrolled the other half onto the cracker, then piled it with two slices of cheese and a single olive on top. When she raised the cracker to her mouth, the olive rolled off onto the plate. She picked up the olive and put it back on top of the cheese slices; but again before she could take the first bite, the olive rolled off, this time onto the placemat and almost onto the floor, except Elisabeth caught it first. She would have tried to balance it on the cracker again, but at that moment she looked up at to see him watching, made a wry grimace, and popped the olive into her mouth. He tempered a grin.

This seemed to give her courage: she took another breath and spoke, with the air of plunging in. "So…how'd it go with Buffy?"

Giles shut his eyes. His hand made a move to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he had a laden cracker in the other and couldn't take his glasses off to do it. "I don't want to talk about it," he said wearily.

"That bad, huh?" Her voice was mild, but when he opened his eyes to look at her she compressed her lips and dropped her eyes to her plate again.

There was another long silence while they consumed crackers and cheese and salami, and the level of wine in their glasses sank steadily. Occasionally he glanced up at her—caught her glancing at him—lowered his eyes to his meal again. This was intolerable: he would have to say something. She'd gone to all this trouble—

"Elisabeth?" he said faintly.

She looked up immediately, flushing. "Yes?"

"I—" Of course he had had nothing lined up to say. He watched her resettle her glasses on her nose—which was ever so slightly off-center, he noticed for the first time—and set her eyes on him expectantly. When she saw that he had really nothing to say, her mouth quirked into a grim smile. "It's like a British film," she said. "All full of people walking into rooms and saying, 'Oh…dear….I should go.'"

He glowered at her a moment before allowing the justice of the remark. He offered her a smile and hooded glance before reaching toward the plate at his side. "Pear?" he said, proffering the plate across the table. "I've been hogging them."

"Oh, no," she said, her hand making a broad refusal. "I don't much like pears."

He couldn't quite stop the shadow of hilarity crossing his face, but he could mask it by picking up one of the last slices of pear and biting off a large chunk. "Are you sure?" he asked her coolly, chewing his bite. "You'll miss out on the fourth food group."

"Quite sure," she said, lifting her chin. The corners of her mouth were drawn suspiciously tight.

"Because," he said, "if you're only pretending to dislike pears to give me a chance to eat them all with a clear conscience, I beg of you—" He held out the plate again, and she refused with her hand again.

They looked at each other for the briefest of moments, then as one they began to laugh—silently, painfully, at first; then he snorted and set her off into a storm of giggles.

Before long they were both sobbing and red-faced. Giles dragged off his glasses and wiped at his streaming eyes. "It's awful, isn't it?" he choked out. She nodded, pulling her napkin from under her silverware to dab at her face, laughing too hard to speak.

They were still giggling uproariously when a voice said, "Oh, for God's sake."

They turned in their seats to see Buffy standing impatiently just within the open door. She was wearing black jeans, a dark leather jacket, and an expression of slightly hysterical exasperation. Their laughter choked to a stop; and for extra emphasis Buffy dropped her weapons bag with a thump on the floor of the entryway. "Is that all you two do, is laugh?"

"Of course not," Giles said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He lifted the plate toward her. "Pear?"

Elisabeth put her hand to her mouth too late to stop the snorting giggles. Giles was marginally more successful at holding his expression in check; his face purpled, and he sucked in his lips.

"No," Buffy said, for all the world like Humphrey Bogart.

"Well, then," Giles said, not yet back to earth, "I can't imagine what'd bring you here this evening, if not pears." Elisabeth groaned and took her glasses off to put the heels of her hands in her eyes, still giving the occasional sob of laughter. Giles set down the plate and looked at her with a bright expectancy that only seemed to incense Buffy further.

"I'm here," Buffy said, "because I'm about to go on patrol. You know, that certain thing I do, with the funny pointy sticks?"

"Yes," Giles said gravely.

Buffy drew a sudden breath, as if to strengthen herself. "And I want to take Elisabeth with me."

"What?" Elisabeth took her head out of her hands to stare at her, still red-faced.

"What?" Giles squinted at her. "Why?"

"Because," Buffy said, "I want to see what she's like in the field." She straightened her spine, in that way that made Giles instantly suspicious.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he said mildly.

"Well, if we're going to do a group patrol tomorrow, there's no time like the present for finding out the unknowns."

Even Elisabeth appeared to think this speech rehearsed: she exchanged glances with him, her hilarity gone.

"I'm not going to have her do any slaying," Buffy said.

"I should think not," Giles said. "Buffy…."

She did not invite him to articulate his protest by mounting any further defense; instead, she merely raised her eyebrows and looked at him: a mild look she had learned from Giles himself.

"Buffy, she's a civilian," Giles said gently.

"But, if I'm not mistaken, she knows how a patrol works, for the most part." Buffy lifted her chin. "And we've taken civilians on patrol before."

He opened his mouth in an attempt to conjure the words for a protest, but none came. A moment later Elisabeth spoke quietly.

"I think I'd probably better go," she said.

He turned sharply to look at her. "Are you sure?"

Elisabeth was looking very shrewdly at Buffy. "Yeah," she said slowly, "I think I should."

He was wishing fervently now that he had related the afternoon's confrontation with Buffy to Elisabeth; but looking at her now, he saw that although her eyes were steady on his Slayer, her hands folding her napkin trembled a little. It occurred to him that Elisabeth had a very good idea what she was getting into; and that she intended to find out the rest of it on her own.

"Well, then," Buffy said. "Shall we go?"

"Sure," Elisabeth said quietly. "I'll get my shoes and jacket."

He watched helplessly as she got up from the table, leaving her napkin beside her plate, and went to put on her shoes by the front door. She shrugged her (slightly faded) black twill jacket on over her black cotton shirt and turned to Buffy. She and the Slayer were much of a height, and they were dressed much the same, but there the similarities ended: Giles was struck by the contrast between Elisabeth's shabby-academic air, her glasses and straggly ponytail, and Buffy's blond warlike beauty.

"Later," Buffy said to him, hefting her weapons bag.

Elisabeth gave him a single silent wave.

"I'll do the washing-up, shall I?" Giles said, evoking a sudden smile from his new friend; she nodded, and followed Buffy out into the evening.

Giles sighed to himself as the door closed. This couldn't possibly go well.

*

The night was still quite young, but darkness had descended completely over Sunnydale. Buffy strode quickly from street to street, taking sudden turns as if varying a bobby's beat; Elisabeth kept up with her a half-stride behind. Neither of them spoke.

Elisabeth wasn't sure if it was her awareness of the Hellmouth that made her think so, but it seemed as if the absence of sunlight was thicker here than she had ever known it. The few people who were out and about seemed to move with the subconscious alertness of rabbits feeding far from their holes. Indeed, the whole air of the town seemed both unnerving and commonplace at once.

Buffy too wore an unnerving air—but for altogether different reasons. Her strides were long and slack, like those of a lioness stalking a waterhole, and her eyes cut unerringly from corner to darkened corner. Elisabeth tried not to think she had made a mistake putting herself in the hands of a Slayer on the hunt; but the feeling persisted despite her attempts to ignore it.

They continued at the same pace through more neighborhoods; Buffy showed not the least sign that she was tired, nor did she say anything at all to Elisabeth. Elisabeth did not attempt a conversation: the sudden exercise was giving her a bit of a headache, and it was hard work enough maintaining her composure between the malignant shadows and the cold anger of the young woman beside her.

Apparently Buffy had decided that the areas populated by the living were clean, for she struck off into a park path that ended in a low stone wall dividing the park from a large churchyard. Among the population of Sunnydale dead it too was quiet; but Elisabeth had an idea that that was an illusion: Buffy's movements became even more feral as she made a one-handed jump over the stone wall, and she landed in a crouch, lowering her weapons bag to the ground and swiftly taking from it a long, thin object that glinted in the distant streetlight. Only the dead know Sunnydale, Elisabeth thought again, climbing quietly after Buffy over the wall and letting herself gingerly down the other side so as to make little noise.

They worked their way silently over the perimeter of the graveyard. Twice Buffy held out an arm to stop her when the wind kicked up and changed the shadows of the foliage. Once she looked sharply at Elisabeth when their change of position put them in the light of a streetlamp, which glinted sharply off Elisabeth's glasses and made her give her head a shake.

Finally they circled their way to the center and thence halfway to the main gate; Buffy, who had retrieved her weapons bag when they had completed the perimeter, now set it down next to a headstone bearing the name "Goodwin"; she glanced around her at the quiet graveyard as one who has come to rule, and then deliberately set her eyes on her companion. Elisabeth's mouth went dry.

"So," Buffy said conversationally, "what are you?"

"What am I," Elisabeth repeated, unsure what to do with this question, though she had a fair idea of what Buffy meant.

"I've hit a large number of demonologies recently, looking for demons who can take human form, and I'm just wondering, y'know, just out of curiosity, what variety you are."

"I'm not," Elisabeth said. She pushed her glasses up on her nose, hoping that her hand did not shake too visibly.

"Not a demon," Buffy said, eyes narrowing as she gave a casual tilt to her head. "Then something else. A mage, or some other kind of evil, with the power to enchant several people at once."

Elisabeth's pique rose despite herself. "And who am I supposed to have enchanted?"

"Giles. Tara and Willow. Xander."

"But for what purpose?"

"You tell me for what purpose," Buffy said, taking a step as if to circle her opponent. "I don't know, maybe you're just doing it for fun."

"What," Elisabeth said, "like Ethan Rayne?"

It was a grievous mistake; Elisabeth knew it by the way Buffy's eyes widened sharply. "You know him?" she asked, her voice low.

Elisabeth drew a difficult breath. "I know who he is; like I know who you are."

"Maybe you work for him," Buffy said, taking another circling step. "Maybe you're his little girl lackey, sent to torment Giles some more—"

"Oh for heaven's sake use your wits, Buffy," Elisabeth said, her sharp voice betraying an edge of fear. "If I worked for Ethan Rayne, would I volunteer his name to you?"

Instead of refuting Buffy, this merely deflected her reasoning into a new path.

"Or maybe you are him," Buffy said, looking at her closely. She was only an arm's length from Elisabeth now.

"I think that's a bit farfetched, don't you?" Elisabeth worked for another breath.

"Farfetched? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You come from a world in which all our lives are a TV show. 'Cause that's not at all farfetched."

Elisabeth breathed a shallow sigh and shut her eyes briefly. "I don't deny my story is fantastic. But it's the only story I have to give."

Buffy stared her in the eyes for a long moment. "I don't trust you."

"I don't blame you," Elisabeth said hardily.

"Oh, that's noble of you." Buffy folded her arms. "If you want to be noble—if you really want to make my life easier—why don't you just get out of town?"

"Tried that," Elisabeth said. "Didn't work."

"Tried to take Giles with you, you mean."

Elisabeth pursed her lips. "You know," she said, a new note in her voice, "I don't think you'd be half so suspicious of me if Giles weren't involved."

"Oh?" Buffy's voice carried a deadly lightness, but Elisabeth went on without heeding it.

"It's priceless how you keep showing up at a moment when we're laughing, because you know? most of the time we aren't. It's been damned hard for him this week, and damned hard for me too, but you don't know anything about that. All you know is, his attention's suddenly divided: and that's what makes me evil, isn't it."

Buffy's fury rose without her having to move a muscle, but Elisabeth was too angry to stop.

"Suspect me all you want, but why don't you give Giles the benefit of the doubt for once? For God's sake, you won't give him any independence though you demand it from—"

Elisabeth saw the fist coming, but it was a blur and she was not nearly fast enough. She had a short-lived sensation of flying through the air; the ground smacked her hard in the back, winding her and rattling her brains in her skull. Before she could recover, she found herself under the full weight of the Slayer, sitting on her chest with her knees pinning Elisabeth's elbows. Elisabeth's glasses were askew on her face; that, and a thin film of tears were responsible for the blur of her vision of Buffy sitting astride her.

"You don't know what you're talking about." Buffy's voice was light and almost sweet; Elisabeth had never heard her so angry.

"Let me go—" Elisabeth's voice was strangled, her chest still heaving to get her breath back.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Buffy said again.

Elisabeth got her breath back enough to retort: "Am I supposed to agree with that? Is that how I'm supposed to say 'Uncle'?"

Buffy was going to hit her again: Elisabeth could see it coming, and could do nothing about it. The blow took her glasses off her face altogether and crushed her head between hard earth and harder fist; a sharp light lanced behind her eyes. She lay in the pounding aftermath, tears sliding down her temples and a small whimper aching to get out of her throat. She swallowed, but the whimper escaped anyway. "Please," she said, before she could stop herself.

It was difficult to tell through tears and myopia, but Elisabeth had the distinct impression that Buffy's expression was that of one who had committed herself to a task she no longer quite felt able to see through. When she spoke, the tremor in her voice confirmed it. "'Please,' what?" she said. "'Please let me waltz in and blame you for doing your job'?"

"No—"

"Then what?" Buffy's voice shook even harder.

But Elisabeth could no longer articulate what.

Instead, she lay there and worked to get her breath back. She listened to Buffy also breathing hard, and her eyes soon cleared enough to see her as well.

"Let me get up," she said quietly at last.

"Why?"

"Because—" Elisabeth stopped. There were two faces looming above her, not one, and she suddenly knew what it meant. "Because there's a vampire behind you."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "That old chestnut," she said, just as the undead man took hold of her arms and bent his head to hers, fangs bared.

It happened quickly: Buffy reached up and yanked the vampire forward over her head, then let the momentum carry her off Elisabeth's chest into a roll somewhere above Elisabeth's head. Elisabeth scrambled to a sitting position and felt frantically for her glasses: where there was one vampire, there may be more, and she wanted her vision back. She found them finally, lying scattered upon a flat headstone; she put them on hurriedly, and although they didn't sit right on her face, she could at least see better what was happening. Her face throbbed hot as she got shaking to her feet.

In the thick of her fight, Buffy saw Elisabeth rise. "Stay down!" she cried, ducking a heavy-handed swing. Elisabeth did as she was told: she got behind a large marker and put her back to it. Several stones away, she could see the weapons bag; Buffy's first blow had knocked her farther than she thought. She peered around her stone to see how Buffy was faring.

Buffy was hardly out of her depth with this vampire, but he was big, and not easily knocked down. Once, he grabbed her arm before she could go for the stake in her belt, and twisted it behind her; she broke his grip so quickly Elisabeth couldn't tell what she'd done, and sent the vampire staggering backward into a large obelisk. "Oh, I get it now," the vamp said, ducking a kick. "You're the Slayer."

"You get a gold star," Buffy said sweetly, and swept in close to pummel his midriff.

Despite being unobtrusively hidden behind a grave marker, Elisabeth felt horribly exposed; with Buffy's attention cornered by this vamp, Elisabeth would certainly be less well protected. That and—well, Elisabeth did not think Buffy would neglect to protect her from evil, but she wasn't going to take her goodwill for granted, either.

Elisabeth glanced about through her skewed glasses—all was clear except for Buffy's fight—and began to crawl quietly back toward the weapons bag. If she was going to be alone in a Sunnydale cemetery, she was sure as hell going to have a stake in her hand—not, of course, that she knew how to use one—

She made it to the weapons bag without mishap: opened it and dug inside. The wood items rattled together like beads. Stakes—crosses—a small vial of holy water—a small hatchet with a broad, paper-sharp blade (good, Elisabeth expected, for beheading)….

She took for herself a cross and a stake. The Goodwin headstone was not big enough to hide behind, so she crawled again, awkwardly, with the weapons clutched in her hands, to the stone she'd occupied before.

Neither Buffy nor the vampire was getting tired: they closed with each other for the umpteenth time, then broke apart as neither gained an advantage. Through the throbbing in her face Elisabeth watched as Buffy went for her stake at last and made a graceful dive beneath the vamp's lunge; when she was on her feet again she was in range to stake him—except the vamp caught her hand before she could raise it, and pinned it viciously against the obelisk. Again she moved too quickly for Elisabeth to follow, but whatever explosive thing she did could not stop the stake from winging out of their mutual grip, yards away out of reach.

Quicker than thought, Elisabeth raised the stake in her own hand. "Buffy!"

Buffy had knocked the vamp down, and she took advantage of the moment to glance sharply back at Elisabeth. Elisabeth flung the stake toward her handle-first. Buffy's hand was out to catch it, but the stake fell short and dropped into the grass. She dropped sideways to lunge for it, but just then the vamp took her in a flying tackle and they rolled over and over on the ground, fetching up against a small stone, which cracked on their impact. Elisabeth, horribly chagrined, had a glimpse of Buffy's face, nose wrinkled in a grimace, as the vamp's large hand clutched her throat and squeezed. The vamp rolled into his advantage, his shoulder blocking Buffy from Elisabeth's view.

Elisabeth, heart pounding, found herself on her feet, about to go and help; but before she could, the vamp suddenly went flying, landing several yards away on his back, as Elisabeth had done earlier, but with a lot more force.

Buffy wasted no more time. In a swift roll she had reached the place where the stake had fallen in the grass, and two dancing strides later she had reached the vampire as he got to his feet. Before the vamp could react, she drove the stake into his solar plexus, and he exploded into dust. The scream of the demon's demise, not a physical sound but an evil vibration of spirit, cut through Elisabeth where she stood. The wind dispersed the dust and carried it past her: Elisabeth smelled stone, and nothingness, and shuddered.

Buffy went to find her other stake. When she returned, the two stakes crossed together in one hand, Elisabeth still had not moved. The throbbing in her face had become rich and thick pain, with a sheen of heat at its surface.

The two women stood facing one another, unsmiling. Elisabeth poked her glasses in a useless attempt to straighten them. She held her mouth firm, but she was shaking.

"You're not hurt?" Buffy asked her, finally.

Elisabeth snorted, shaking even harder.

When Buffy spoke next, it was as if the words were resentfully pulled from her. "So you're not a demon."

"No," Elisabeth said, shaking so hard her voice wobbled.

Buffy's gaze was sharp on hers, and Elisabeth saw the living pain in it; for the moment, it only made her angrier.

"No," she repeated, her voice reedy, "I'm something much more inconvenient than that."

Buffy's eyes widened. "What?"

"I'm an ordinary human being."

And she turned and stalked off across the cemetery, up the main path and out the front gate.

"What are you doing?" Buffy cried after her. "Are you insane?"

Elisabeth kept going.

"Come back here! It's not safe—"

Which was amply illustrated when the second vamp tackled Buffy from behind.

*

Chapter 17