Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Giles looked at the creature that was chained to the radiator in front of him, he thought creature as if he was telling anything near the truth he was a far from human as a vampire, albeit in the other direction but for the moment he remained uncertain, it was certainly a unbelievable tale but there was something in the almost brazen way in which he had told it that made Giles believe or at least want to. For the moment however he would err on the side of caution and seek a way to verify 'Luc's' claims, how to go about that was something that evaded him for the moment, so for a while he would have to leave the questioning, he wondered if he should phone Willow in Brazil to see if she knew anyway to learn if this creature spoke this truth. At this moment he was broken from his reverie by Luc speaking.
"Can I assume that since you are the ones questioning me that you are in charge here?"
Giles saw no need to withhold that piece of non-information "Yes, my name is Rupert Giles and I am the head Watcher of the Cleveland branch of the New Watchers Council."
This caused Xander to mutter under his breath "Try only Watcher," this in turn caused Giles to glare at Xander, when will that boy see his own potential he also saw Faith move to speak but she closed her mouth without saying anything. He looked back at Luc as he spoke again "I believe you said you wanted to make contact with us, do you wish our help?" at this Luc looked thoughtful "Yes and no, we wanted to give you some information and see if you could help us, but since there is no us just me it appears more that I will be helping you", he paused for a moment and then continued "the information is what's important, now your blow against the First coupled with you friend Angel's attack on the Senior Partner's of The Wolf, The Ram and The Hart," Giles noticed the distaste in Luc's voice as he spoke of the ensouled vampire it had turned out that he was wrong about Angel but he held little regret, maybe Angel had finally earned his absolution and he found himself wishing he had, Giles shook his head at that before returning his attention to the Angel at hand. "together knocked the 'Big Fucker Downstairs' back a couple of steps but it also made him step up his plans for The Apocalypse and I mean that for real as in the end of the fuckin' world and all that Jazz, the first step is right here in Cleveland where intends to open the Hellmouth and step onto this plane where he will be made flesh, and believe me when I say that if that happens this world is well and truly screwed."
Faith looked down at the guy who despite being handcuffed to a radiator was looking remarkably composed and tried to digest what she was being told, she didn't particularly like it. This would be the first apocalypse that she would face as the senior slayer as B was off living the dream or something in Rome. At least she had Jeeves to watch her back and guide her but still this sounded big and bad.
She looked and studied Harris who was standing to the side he looked about as shocked as she was, she took a second to look properly at the man she hadn't really spoken to since before she took her little walk on the wild side. He was definitely a man now not the boy she had known, he looked weathered and was tanned except around his left eye which she could see as his patch had slipped slightly in the fight. It was then that he shifted and turned to look at her so she quickly turned back to Angel dude (that was gonna get confusing) she really needed to get her shit together about him.
She switched her attention back to the matter at hand and opened her mouth but was cut off by Xander, "What kind of time scale are we talking about here weeks, months what?"
At that Luc's smile dropped a little "I don't know exactly but we're talking on the short side here coupla weeks tops probably less". At this everyone looked a bit worried at started looking around, it was then that Harris spoke again showing Faith how much he had changed.
"Is there anything useful you can tell us, like who is working for this guy cause I don't recognise these lizards and I've seen quite a lot in the past decade?", even as he spoke Xander's mind was going a million miles a minute trying to process all the information that had been thrown at him in the past couple of minutes. He wasn't happy for sure, an unproven source of information, a new place to work that he didn't know at all well, hell the only thing going for him right now was he had a lot of slayer backup but most were new and untested and the rest were ones he had barely known in Sunnydale and of course Faith.
How could he forget Faith, Faith who'd been his first, Faith who'd betrayed them all, Faith who'd tried to kill him. He didn't trust her even after Sunnydale even though he should he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Not that it mattered he had to work with her and Giles seemed to think she was okay and since Giles was about the only guy whose opinion he gave the slightest shit about that would have to do.
It was when he reached this particular cognitive stop point that he realised that the Luc guy had answered, " The lizard guys are twisted souls that the devil has managed to force out of the upper reaches of Hell, beyond that not a lot else is working for him yet, cause the big D doesn't trust most things with half a brain in case they try to over throw him but he's got enough of them to be beyond troubling".
"So how do we stop him?" Xander probed hoping for the easy answer that he knew wasn't coming.
"With difficulty, he plans to pierce the protective seals on the Hellmouth using some kind of weapon and blow it wide open"
Crap thought Xander "And how is going to do that?" with this Luc rolled his eyes and gave a slight snort before sarcastically replying "God, don't want much do you" he grew serious before continuing "I don't know what he's got or how he's going to use it, that why we were coming here for help researching, the Watchers are renowned for having one of the largest libraries on the earth." At this Xander winced and looked towards Giles who had already taken off his glasses to start polish them which left Xander to reply, "The Council had one of the largest libraries it was destroyed by an agent of the First" at this Luc looked for the first time truly shocked and finally said "Well bollocks"
Giles then spoke "Quite, Xander if you could release our guest I believe this conversation would best be continued in my office," Xander moved to do just that all the while thinking just how royally fucked they all were.
