Chapter 3: The Honourable Council of the Watchers
The band is more subdued tonight, the notes floating through the room one joining the other with muffled ease. Buffy likes it better like that, having the music at the back of her mind, her attention free to roam over Angel. It is strange though; they seem to be the only people in the Bronze tonight. Even the band has gone but the music keeps coming. It is nice, just her and Angel. Their bodies sway slowly with the rhythm of the monotonous tones and she runs a hand down the curve of his lower back. He returns her smile.
'We don't have a lot of time,' he whispers.
'I do,' she tells him, tilting her playfully. 'I have all night.'
His hand closes around hers and he leads her to a window that has not been there before. The music is still playing.
'It is very dark outside,' Angel observes and she nods. It is. 'Can you find your way home?' He looks worried.
She does not want to go home. 'We have more time.'
'It is late. You should not be here.' He sounds anxious. 'You will have to run.' He touches her face gently; his fingertips cool against her cheek. 'Can you do that?'
'I don't want to run.' She doesn't. Her back hurts and she is too tired to run. 'I want to stay here with you.'
He looks sad. 'You can't.'
'Run with me!' She grabs his arm, trying to drag him with her but he doesn't move.
'No, Buffy!' He is frightened now. So is she because she does not understand. She tries to pull at him but her hand passes through his chest; he is disappearing, fading into the night. She screams. 'No! Angel, don't go! Don't leave me here – I don't know what to do!'
A sad smile. 'You will.'
But she does not know what to do and she is afraid. 'Angel – please – I don't want to be alone.'
Then he is gone and only his voice comes through the darkness.
'You will be.'
Buffy startled awake. Her bed was strangely hard and her back was sore. She lay still, gazing at the back of her eyelids. It did not smell like her bedroom.
She forced her eyes to flutter open and white surfaces leered down at her, forcing the realization upon her. It had not been a dream. She had not woken up to find it all a horrible nightmare but rather a horrible reality. A reality she wanted nothing to do with.
Her body jerked into a sitting position. The wool of the rug was rough against the sensitive skin on her palms as her fingers dug into the coarse material. There was the couch, the table, the white walls, all as they had been the night before. Suddenly her former life felt like it was truly slipping from her grasp and for the first time she began to doubt her own certainty. Maybe he was telling the truth. But what then? If her mom, Giles, Willow, Xander, Angel...everybody only existed in her head, how was she to live in a world where she would forever be a stranger? Her eyes burned and her stomach twisted against the pain, leaving her glad she had not eaten for days. However, dry heaving did not make her feel any better, and for a short moment even the thought of Principal Snyder having never existed seemed sad.
Yet, the dream; she remembered everything of it, but understood very little. Angel had been warning her, that much was obvious and his point of her being alone – pretty much spot on. It was eerie, unsettling, not knowing whether to believe in dreams or rationality.
Her eyes brushed over the newspaper's still, ominous form and she picked it up. The photograph was still little more than a confusing muddle of blacks and greys and the date burned the side of her eyes as she determinedly looked past it to the headline:
Head of Watchers to report on 'Pet' situation at forthcoming summit
So the Watchers Council was not as anonymous in this reality. The paper hissed under her fingers as she turned the page. Scanning the articles she was stunned to find that every single one referred to demonic activity, if not directly reporting on some aspect of it. It seemed that the Council was neither ambiguous nor merely a small society but rather a large political corporation, controlling many if not the direct majority of activities within the 'City'. Names or place locations were rarely mentioned, only the cryptic address of 'The City' resurfacing again and again.
That was something she would have to ask Mark about.
She could hear his voice coming from the study next to the living room but the door was closed and she could not make out the words. Swinging her legs off the edge of the couch she got to her feet, feeling the floor swim briefly underneath her.
Glancing down her front Buffy was struck by the tackiness of her appearance. Her blue sweatpants and pink top seemed too colourful in the bland surroundings of the room, and whether she decided to believe her head or Mark's, the fact was that the clothes had not been treated kindly of late and it showed. She would have to talk him into buying another outfit before she was to be paraded before the Council. The floor screeched and Buffy jumped.
''morning.' Mark stepped into the room. 'Any better?'
Yes, Buffy felt like saying, there's nothing like a nap on a couch of stone to make you accept that your world never was. She nodded. The daylight spilled into the room as he pulled a pair of ragged curtains aside and Buffy looked at him for the first time. He was slim and tall, his brown hair speckled with grey and as he turned she could see the lines wrought by stress and hardship etched into his face. And yet his eyes shone with a youth and enthusiasm she could not hear in his voice. He was hardly older than thirty-five.
'We are going to the Council - have to be there at 11,' he was saying, 'They have some trouble with a rogue Pet that needs sorting out but I guaranteed we wouldn't be long.' His eyes travelled from her face down and up again. 'And we need to find you some clothing first.'
Buffy couldn't agree more.
'So, what's the sitch?'
Mark closed the door after them. 'What do you mean?'
'Where am I? In the World, you know...'
He sighed heavily. 'You are in the city commonly referred to as Metropolis or simply The Last City. We are on the West Coast, not far from the Hellmouth -'
'UH! – Sunnydale!'
He shot her an odd look. 'Pardon?'
'Sunnydale was on the Hellmouth – I lived there – or rather I thought I...' her throat tightened painfully. 'Go on.'
'Thank you. The Hellmouth opened and the humans who survived took refuge in cities of which this is the largest. We have a population of around forty-five million, not counting the Pets who would probably push us nearer the sixty mark. After that the Council stepped forward and took charge. There was just not a whole lot a president could do in this scenario.'
'So you guys kinda control everything now. Wow.' She whistled through her teeth as something occurred to her. 'And Giles always said it was bad enough you had so much power in the supernatural world.'
Irritation flashed across Mark's face and he did not answer.
The street looked different in daylight. Given, it was deserted as it had been at night but at least she could make out the boxed shapes of hastily assembled accommodations, all of which seemed to have been constructed in an awful hurry. White block followed white block of windowless, gardenless structure, none of them showing any sign of life. There was no sidewalk but only a single streak of roughly laid tarmac.
It was all so strange, so alien from her world.
Then the street bended and widened and the surroundings changed again. There were people scurrying to and fro, small shops at either side of the narrow road and the buildings looked older, more familiar; more real.
Buffy glanced down herself as they walked, self-consciously straightening a fold in the red tank-top that had replaced the pink horror; the sweat pants were gone too, exchanged for a pair of ordinary black jeans. The shop keeper had been oddly thrilled at the prospect of requiring a pair of ugly, worn trousers, the words tumbling over each other as they left his mouth in a state of exaltation. It had done nothing to dull her uneasiness.
'This -' she had to swallow. 'This whole Second-World-War-and-espresso-machine-only-existed-in-your-head thing has happened before?'
'Yes.' Mark kept walking.
'To other Slayers?'
A moment passed before he answered. 'Yes.'
She frowned in confusion. 'Who – who would do that?'
'The Council has its enemies,' he replied dismissively.
'I bet!' she exclaimed, rather too briskly.
They rounded a corner and Buffy abruptly fell silent to stare at the magnificent white building that rose before her. Mark paused. 'Please do refrain from making such rash remarks when you face the Councillors.'
Buffy's eyes swept over the marble stones of the steps that led to the heavy wooden front door. It had probably once been a church but so much had been added since then it now rose in its pompous, elevated arrogance high above the other buildings, like a king with its watchful eye ever scrutinising its underlings. She narrowed her eyes. 'On it.'
There was marble on the floors and candelabra on the walls. The many-layered ceiling arched upwards, the echo of their footsteps through the empty hall lingering between the arcs of stone that supported the roof.
It was like nothing Buffy had seen of this world.
She followed Mark in silence as he strode through the overwhelming hall whose stone walls were separated by well near fifty metres of marble floor. Church-like windows lined the area where the walls met the sloping roof, allowing only the tiniest amount of daylight to enter.
At the far end of the hall was a single door, unguarded and unbolted. Buffy followed Mark through, perplexed and intrigued. The corridor they had entered was long and narrow, the panels were made of light-brown timber and the floor was covered by thick brown carpets that swallowed the sound of her footsteps. The only light came from the occasional torch burning from the walls in between the closed doors on either side of the passage.
After three more corridors like the first Mark finally paused before a large oak door, whose face was ornamented by broad slivers of black metal that wound their way down the textured surface in delicate patterns and intricate designs.
He knocked once and a low grumble sounded from within. Mark gave her a quick glance before pushing the door open, a voice immediately rising in greeting from within.
'Ah. Miss Summers. So very obliged to have you back.'
It was a court-room. Rows upon rows of wooden benches covered the ground to the far end where marble steps led to the podium upon which the Councillors, twelve of them, were seated in rows behind a long, narrow table. Every single one was clad in the same brown gown Mark had donned for the occasion. The long, narrow window that spanned out behind them were covered in painted glass, the faint light it admitted into the room silhouetting the figures seated at the table.
The voice belonged to a small, stout man, his portly face expressionless as he got to his feet in greeting. Buffy felt a nudge at her back as Mark pushed her through the doors and she forced her legs into a walk.
The speaker stood unmoving as he watched her approach. Buffy felt a familiar tingle running down her spine and she paused twenty metres before the podium, quite intent upon moving no closer.
Silence, then:
'Take a seat, please.'
She did, but rather than taking a place in the chair directly before the committee as his gesture had indicated she took off to the left, falling onto one of the wooden benches. Whispering erupted towards the right of the table. The speaker glared. The whispering stopped.
Retaking his seat, he turned his face to Buffy.
'Miss Summers. Very pleased to see you well. You – are well, I assume?' There was a haughty quality to his speech that sent shivers down her spine. 'Mr Keat's impudence does not extend so far as to him performing the same blunder twice, so the Council has deemed it unnecessary to transfer you to another Watcher. Though it has been understood that your absence has been – significant - the Council will expect you back on duty by tomorrow at five. Until then Mr Keat will enlighten you on the current state of affairs with the Pets.'
Silence fell.
Buffy wondered whether she was supposed to leave. The Councillors were staring strangely at her, something she found immensely aggravating. She was the one not remembering any of them, not vice versa.
The speaker shifted in his seat in irritation. 'You can leave.'
'Thanks,' she retorted sarcastically, striding down the aisle without looking back.
Mark stood waiting for her as she stepped into the corridor, carefully closing the door after her.
'Who's the small, fat guy?' she asked matter-of-factly.
"The small, fat guy' is the Archdeacon of the city, second only to the Head of the Watcher's Council,' he stated irritably, 'and you would do well to speak of him with the same respect as you used to do.'
She fixed him with a withering glare. 'Sorry but no thank you. See since then, I have been a trip to Denial Land and automaton Buffy has returned all new and improved but undeniably less dutiful towards ridiculous authority figures.'
He seethed with anger. Buffy did not care. Actually, she found it rather amusing. The experience with the Council bothered her, their manner and pretending of her having never been away making her uneasy. The more she saw of this world, the less she wanted to be a part of it and she vented her frustration any way she could.
And annoying the heck out of new Watcher seemed a good place to start.
She started down the corridor, waiting for him to come chasing after her. After three steps, he did. 'Did you speak to him like that in there?'
'No,' she admitted sadly. 'He talked way too much for that. So,' she changed the subject. 'What are 'Pets'?'
She could see he was aware of her deliberate change of conversation though he seemed relieved of it. 'Ah, yes, I suppose now might be as good a time as any for that. Truth be told I had completely forgotten about it -'
'No!' she exclaimed with mock astonishment.
'- seeing how used I have become to the situation. Of course, you wouldn't remember -'
'Could you stop saying that? It makes me feel like Guy Pearce!'
For a second he looked almost as lost as Giles had done when she said things like that. 'G-Guy Pearce...?'
'Oops, forgot, my mind again. You were saying?'
'Are you listening?'
'I'm all ears.'
He shot her a look that told her he seriously doubted that. 'I assume you do remember vampires? Don't answer that,' he added quickly. 'Well, since the Hellmouth opened we have had a whole lot of them –'
'You don't say,' Buffy murmured. He ignored her.
'- and I guess you could say we have indulged in warfare. Pretty much open too. People came to the cities for protection and the Council was eager to provide it.' He was leading the way now and Buffy fell into stride beside him. 'There were a couple of decades of unrest, widespread bloodshed, horror, panic – but it changed. Slowly at first, but with the Council's discovery of how to trigger the calling of more than one Slayer and the development of the Subjugates we soon managed to have the situation in the urban areas more or less under control. Yet, money were few and a suitable workforce even smaller. That's when the Wiccas really started to come into the picture. See, the Council found a more effective way to battle the demon epidemic than with external force – with themselves. As you know, a vampire does not have a soul yet it can be restored-'
Buffy bit hard down on her lip and continued walking.
'- by a Wicca of considerable power. Now, it was not particularly stressing for the Council to round up the Practisers within the borders, and by giving a demon a conscience it becomes perfectly liable as a community worker.'
Not knowing whether to be disgusted, shocked or bemused, Buffy wondered whether she would be capable of feeling any kind of surprise after twenty-four hours in her new world.
'A cheap work force that allowed the Council to spend its finances for greater effect. At first the scheme was heavily criticised, and rightly so. But it was successful and the popularity of the Pets soared – you can find them in most households now – despite the occasional brush up.' They turned a corner and Mark pushed the heavy wooden doors that met them apart and marched into a room whose vastness struck Buffy with such physical force she froze in her tracks. The far end was lost as rows upon rows of bookshelves, every single one reaching from the marble floor to the arching ceiling, met her eyes. There were no windows in the book-covered walls; the only light illuminating the gloomy room came from the oil lamps that burned from the small tables standing scattered among the shelves.
It was empty and Mark's voice echoed between the rows of bookshelves as he went on.
'But then things became complicated. Certain people began to demand rights for the Pets, laws on their treatment - the Council refused of course.' He had taken a seat at the nearest table. Buffy remained standing.
'Why? If the vampires had a soul shouldn't they be treated as humans?'
Mark stared at her as though she had slapped him. 'No. No, no, no, no – that wouldn't work. A vampire is an animal, regardless of what shares its shell.'
'And yet you were still willing to release them on the population once they had their soul,' Buffy pointed out.
'True,' he nodded. 'But it is important that the Pets have their place in society. We are still fighting a war and we cannot let ourselves be distracted by such petty issues.'
Buffy felt her cheeks grow hot and she had opened her mouth to bite back when Mark jolted to his feet with an 'Ah!'. Buffy spun around to see a young, pale girl, possibly a year or so younger than her staring at them with wary disinterest.
'Famke,' Mark said in a tone that made Buffy believe he was grateful for the interruption. 'Brilliant. I believe Mrs Robson has informed you of your duties?' A slight nod. 'Perfect. Buffy this is Famke, one of the Slayers. She will show you the place - where you will sleep, where you will go and where you won't. Be back at four-thirty. Famke has patrol tonight.' He strode off and Buffy looked apprehensively at the girl who stared at with something between indifference and caution. Buffy decided that the awkward silence had reigned long enough and attempted a smile.
'Hi - I-I'm Buffy,' she began. 'I'm kinda new here.'
The girl's eyes scanned her appearance, taking in her general lack of height, somewhat to Buffy's irritation, before turning on her heel and wandering off. Buffy felt her eyebrows shoot upward in involuntary amusement.
'Okaaay, we can do it that way as well.' And biting her tongue she followed the girl out of the library.
