Chapter 17.
"I didn't see anyone at all out tonight," Giles observed as they were toweling off in the Summers' entryway. They wouldn't get dry like this, but they might track only half the amount of water into the house at the very least. "I don't think we need to patrol at all, but we do need to dry out our electronics and discuss where we are going to spend the day."
"Well, why don't you stay here?" Joyce offered. She was still holding a few extra towels as she had just grabbed a big stack to make sure everyone had at least one.
Buffy flinched a little at that.
"You don't want to stay here?" Joyce asked her daughter, just a little hurt. True, her daughter was getting ready to have a baby/lay an egg in a nest, but she wasn't ready for her little girl to leave her own proverbial nest just yet either.
"Quite the opposite. She was very eager. I talked her out of it though." Giles hesitated again. He really didn't want to spread unfounded accusations around but he couldn't think of another reasonable reason. "The fact of the matter is that the watchers council does not always play well with others," he cleared his throat uncomfortably under Joyce's stare.
"You mean to tell me that the same council that my daughter used to work for might now be out to hurt her?" Joyce said icily.
"Not all of them, of course. Not the majority, even."
Joyce glared. "But this one? This Sam Zzz-"
"Zabuto," Giles supplied. "He's well respected among the council for being especially adherent to tradition."
"And we don't like the way he looks at us," Buffy said, then paused. "Ew, I just realized how that sounded."
"Anyway. I would rather we didn't spend the day somewhere he might look for us. Just in case," Giles finished.
"But he doesn't know you suspect him, right?" Joyce said. When Giles nodded, she went on. "Spread out."
"There's strength in numbers tha-" Giles was cut off.
"She's right," Willow spoke up. "He can't do anything unless we're all together. If he smashed one of us in our sleep the rest would tear him apart. He knows that. So he can't act unless he knows where all of us are."
"Maybe," Giles allowed. "But there is strength in being together as a clan," he finished his thought from earlier.
"That's what the radios are for," Willow countered.
"Which we already found don't work all that well in the rain despite claims to be 'water-proof'," Giles pointed out.
"So?" Xander jumped in. "So we set meeting points if it's raining or the radios go down. We already have those five you set up. Add a couple more and we're good to go."
"At least until we know where Zabuto stands," Amy said.
"Very well." Giles gave up as he was thoroughly outvoted. "As long as we aren't going to be patrolling tonight, we can use the time to come up with contingency plans. Then we shall retire to the basement for training."
"While I put some frozen pizzas in the oven," Joyce rose from the couch.
"Ooh! Mom, do we have any room in that chest freezer downstairs?" Buffy asked.
"I suppose. Why?" Joyce said as she paused halfway to the kitchen.
"Well, we," Buffy pointed to the three female gargoyles. "Need a bit more than frozen pizzas."
Joyce smacked herself in the head gently. "I forgot. I can run and get more groceries."
"Actually, there's a butcher on 49th that sells cows by the half. But even we couldn't eat a whole half of a cow in one night. I talked to the butcher, a half is somewhere between 200 and 500 pounds of meat and bone. But we can pick our own to control the cost," Buffy said.
"Anyway, if we can refrigerate or freeze what we don't eat tonight, then it's really cost effective," Xander added.
"How would we get-"
"We'll take care of the buying and transport if you'll allow us the use of your freezer," Giles said.
"Of course," Joyce nodded.
With that, Giles sent the children to the basement to empty the freezer down there and bring everything upstairs. Then Buffy took some money from Giles and went out in the rain to buy a side of beef. She was told by the butcher that Angel hadn't been by and he didn't expect him until the weather improved. Apparently, older vampires could go pretty long without blood if they needed to. Or if they just didn't feel like getting wet, which a lot of them didn't. Between the rain and the weight of the meat, it was too much to try and fly back in. Plus there was no one out to see her, so she just walked home, carrying the entire side of beef over her shoulder.
After a breakfast of several pounds of raw beef each, they started training in the basement. They changed their minds and decided to train first so that Joyce could get some sleep later and not be woken by strange noises in her basement. Their quiet planning would be much more conducive to sleep.
"Man, late night TV blows," Xander grumbled. "Can we go back to planning for contingencies? That's starting to sound like a lot more fun."
"Either that or go to New York. We really get screwed for late night TV here on the west coast," Amy added.
"You are all making amazing progress in your training, but I would still prefer several more months before we think of taking a trip out there," Giles said. Or preferably several more years, he thought.
"Wait, I thought you didn't want us to meet them?" Buffy said.
Giles sighed. "Not yet. I said I didn't want you to meet them now. But eventually. Once we have exhausted all avenues for restoration and you have all adjusted more to being gargoyles."
"And after the eggs hatch," Buffy said, taking most of the joy in the room out and replacing it with uncomfortable silence. On the TV, Jack LaLanne continued to peddle his juicers.
And then the power went out.
The Master sat in his cave. He was not pleased. Not pleased at all. Apparently his cave wasn't so much a cave as it was part of the underground sewer system of the town of Sunnydale. That hadn't been so bad before. Before the rains came. Before Tod had converted him from candle power to electricity. Electricity that did not mix well with water and soon shorted out.
He couldn't say for sure that his candles wouldn't have been put out by the raging torrent of water he could hear rushing through his cave but he did know that if Tod had allowed some backup candles then they wouldn't be blind at the current moment. Even vampires couldn't see in complete darkness.
Several vampires had stopped answering him. Likely they had been washed out to sea. They would survive as long as it wasn't daylight out, which he was pretty sure it wasn't.
"I just don't understand," Tod whined. "I had them put all the lines above the water."
"My dear," the Master said as patiently as possible. "Did it occur to you that the sewers are right now handling more water than normal?"
"No," Tod said.
Silence.
"Fine. From now on, we'll have some backup sources of light. Candles and waterproof flashlights," he decreed.
"Great idea!" Tod clapped energetically.
She's going to bring me the Slayer. She's going to bring me the Slayer. She's going to bring me the Slayer... he repeated to himself.
The power came back on about three hours later.
Joyce came down about an hour before sunrise wearing a robe. "Kids, do you mind if I have a talk with Mister Giles?"
The rain had, by then, finally stopped, so all the kids tromped outside.
Joyce looked towards the door long after it was closed. "What's the long term plan, Mister Giles?"
"Please, call me Rupert. And I honestly don't know for sure. Slayers are noted for being rather territorial, though Buffy shared with Xander and Willow rather well, so I don't know if that will be true this time around. We haven't known Kendra or Sam long enough to make a call there," Giles said. "If it came down to it, I would rather move the clan rather than risk any sort of confrontation with Kendra or the council. Would that be alright with you? If we moved, I mean. I know you've only just arrived here, but perhaps if it meant us leaving, I could talk Sam into having the council buy your house from you."
"They would do that?" she asked.
Giles gave a nod. "Not ordinarily, but maybe if conflict were likely, and the fact that all of their books are already here could be a good selling point."
Joyce shrugged. "It would save us from having to move all those books again," she gave a small smile.
"Indeed."
"You'll need to decide soon. Before their- their eggs are laid," Joyce swallowed around the uncomfortable word.
"A fact I ponder every night, I assure you," Giles said. "Do you have any preference for where we might go?"
"Would LA be far enough away?" Joyce wondered. "I have friends there. I might even be able to get my old job back if not my old house."
Giles nodded. "Buffy would be familiar with the area and the other children would likely have at least a general knowledge of a city so close. Barring a reason not to, I think that might be best."
"When do you want to tell them?" Joyce asked.
"At least a month from now, if I can help it," Giles said. "They've had so many shocks already in so short a time. I want to give them some time to adjust before hitting them with this."
"Don't wait too long," Joyce advised.
It wasn't Buffy who stayed at the Summers' house that day. It was Xander. He had an idea that he wanted to try out but he needed to know how he looked doing it.
He wanted to disguise himself as much as possible as a plain, ordinary rock. He had done more reading of Biology textbooks since the attack by the giant mantis than he ever had all his years in school. And he'd come up with a (to his mind) brilliant idea. Camouflage.
He decided that there were two basic types of insects. Those that hid and those that fought. Fighters also included poisonous types, those that wore bright colors to ward off attack. Basically, they reminded Xander of Giles the first morning; striking a ferocious pose to scare off... something. But gargoyles during the day weren't fighters. They were the bluffers. Like insects that mimicked dangerous insects and hoped no one called their bluff. Except the council already knew they were bluffing. So now they needed to hide for real.
So, in Buffy's room with Joyce watching, he laid down on the floor in a spot where he thought he'd catch some rays and pulled his left wing up and over his head and then back over his back. "Let me know how it looks," he called out just before he turned to stone.
The transformation was strange and oddly beautiful. One moment there was a living, breathing being there, and then the edges started to get a bit gray. A few seconds later, and what had once been a purple gargoyle was now a lump of gray stone. Part of her was saddened as she realized that somewhere out there, Buffy was doing the same thing, though perhaps without trying to look like a real rock so much. Which reminded her...
Joyce cocked her head as she examined the hidden gargoyle. She wouldn't have said it looked like a natural stone, but whatever it looked like, it certainly didn't look like a gargoyle. She made a note to purchase a Polaroid camera and some film that day to show him what he looked like.
By the third rainy night in a row, Xander had convinced the rest of the clan of the need to camouflage themselves. And with the help of the others, Joyce, and her Polaroid camera, they had perfected a way of covering themselves with their wings in such a way that it would look pretty rock-like if you didn't look too closely.
Most everyone had been sleeping on rock outcroppings anyway. Giles had gone back to camp and reported that it and most of the Los Padres was nothing but mud. It was decided that from now on everyone would find their own rock to sleep on each day and they would meet at Joyce's each evening.
Kendra was not in a great mood. She had lived through several hurricanes and many tropical storms in her life before she ever became a Slayer. But patrolling in a cold winter rain in California when the air temperature was barely 40° was just intolerable. Only the fact that Mr. Zabuto didn't mind that she cut her patrols short each night after confirming that no one was out and that he had hot chocolate, a hot shower, and a warm blanket waiting for her when she got back allowed her to keep going.
Kendra was surprised to learn that Mr. Giles didn't make his Slayer hot chocolate every night like Mr. Zabuto did. Then again, Buffy had still lived at home with her mother, who presumably did such things.
Kendra felt that she got the better deal out of the bargain. She had one person to act as both parent and watcher, whereas Buffy had (until recently) been forced to split her life in two to keep the sides separate. It must have been painful to have to lie to her mother like that. Kendra didn't even want to imagine. She could never betray Mr. Zabuto that way.
Not to say she was free of jealousy. She'd seen a picture of three of the teens together when they'd still been human and they'd looked so happy. Even with the terrible curse they'd been hit with, they still had each other.
And she had her watcher. And the two of them had spent a great deal of time during the burst of rain researching spells that might have hexed the former Slayer and her friends and trying to find a way to undo it.
Jenny Calendar was getting frustrated. Her new clan wanted to hunt. Wanted to stretch their legs and kill something. And after she'd informed them about the supernatural underworld, they'd really wanted to hunt something like that. Unfortunately, three nights of rain had forced them inside. The children were able to take out a small part of their frustrations on a game of dodgeball. Jenny no longer considered trying to get them in trouble when they picked on Lance in that game, though she did give them a mild scolding about not turning on your teammates, even if they weren't Clan.
The next day, the skies had finally cleared and it looked like they'd finally get to hunt. Even with that promise, there had still been a close call with Herbert the Pig. Jenny didn't want to consider what might have happened if she hadn't stopped them. Raw pork, she shuddered at the thought of Trichinosis. Then again, the empowerment spell had improved their strength, speed, and night-vision. Why not their stomachs as well? She'd certainly found herself consuming a lot more meat than she used to.
Either way, they'd find out tonight. Clear skies were forecast and Angel hadn't had had any fresh blood for a while. She'd introduce her new clan to him tonight. Hopefully they wouldn't meet face to fang, but she wanted to use a known vampire to teach them how to tell the difference between the living and the undead.
Hopefully before whatever was coming, happened. Portents were pointing to something major happening soon.
Buffy finished throwing her bedding in the dryer not long before sunrise, the mess she, Amy, and Xander had made on the sheets having been washed off. It had been a fun game, trying to keep quiet with her mother sleeping just down the hall and Giles and Willow downstairs. But three nights of very little to do and Buffy was definitely looking forward to the clear night predicted for tomorrow. She was going to be sleeping in her own bed today even. Well, next to it, anyway. The sun hit the floor next to her bed half of the day so she'd sleep where she could catch that.
Kendra couldn't wait. Mr. Zabuto had a night-vision scope hidden under some trees and the two of them were going to stake out the butcher shop where Angel was expected to show. If they could track him back to his lair, Kendra could stake him the next day and no one would know he was dust for several nights at the very least.
A/N: Jack LaLanne was a body builder and health advocate who sold juicers on late night infomercials. Do not own.