TITLE: WARLOCK 2/14
AUTHOR: vatwoman
DISCLAIMER: JOSS WHEDON, MUTANT ENEMY AND FOX/UPN OWN EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ‘BUFFY.’ NO INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. THE CHARACTER OF KOVACS IS MINE.
FEEDBACK: YES PLEASE, TO VATWOMAN@Y...

Jenny made it into school at more or less her usual time, exhausted from Rupert's nightmare and glowing from his lovemaking. He'd carried her, still wet, from the bathroom, laid her on the bed and had ravished her ... or maybe she'd ravished him? She grinned at the memory.

She'd left him in bed insisting that he got a few more hours sleep before starting work. She'd let the office know that he was going to be a little late, a doctor's appointment, the old standby, that'd cover it.

"Oops! Sorry!" She hadn't been watching where she was going and had walked into someone. She stretched out a steadying hand and looked up into the deep blue eyes of Andy Kovacs. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. <Please, not this morning. > She'd brought this on herself; she'd badly misread the situation - harmless flirting on her part had been taken as encouragement by him and she now found herself faced with a young man who had a pretty serious crush on her. Protestations of being already involved with someone had been met with a look that said, 'I know you're only saying that to palm me off, but I forgive you.' Bluntness wasn't really her style, she preferred subtlety, the light touch, but subtlety hadn't worked and bluntness was pretty much the only weapon left in the arsenal. <Ok> she thought, taking a deep breath. <Here goes nothing>

"I'm fine, Jenny. Have a good day," and he walked on down the corridor to the stairs that led to his first floor classroom.

"O ... kay." Jenny frowned at his retreating back. "Maybe it's worked. Finally." A last look at Kovacs and she continued on to the library to check in with Buffy, as Giles had asked her to do.

"Hey, Buffy!" The young woman was sitting at the table and she jumped at the sound of Jenny's voice. "You ok?" Buffy's eyes were a little sunken, shadowed by the blackness of lack of sleep. Jenny sat down across from her. "What's up?"

Buffy shook her head slowly and offered a little shrug.

"It's no big ... bad dreams."

"Bad dreams?" <Oh great, Calendar, jump all over her, why don't you. She has bad dreams, a lot - you know this. You're just freaked out because Rupert has had one and he never has them. Back-pedal, you need to back-pedal> "Can you remember it?" <Better - casual interest>

"Where's Giles? Is he ok?"

Buffy's voice was sharp, not at all fooled by Jenny's attempt to cover up the worry evident in her first reaction to Buffy's pronouncement. Even so, Jenny actually spent a few seconds seriously considering not telling her the truth and going instead with the story that Principal Snyder was to be fed. <Oh yeah, and you think Buffy will believe that?>

"He's ok - now. He'll be in later this morning. I left him in bed trying to get some more sleep: bad dreams." A peculiar look passed across Buffy's face, a look that Jenny, for a moment, couldn't decipher and then ... <Oops! > "Rupert and I ... that is, we ... ah ..." Jenny grimaced. <God, I sound more like him every day!> She took a deep breath. "And I've just told you too much ... "

"Way too much!"

The two women shared a look and then laughed, both a little embarrassed.

"You can deal?" This was important: if Buffy couldn't accept Jenny's increasing role in Giles's life then the potential for emotional disaster for all concerned had just increased a thousand-fold.

Buffy was quiet for what seemed like an age but then smiled gently and nodded, "Yeah, I can deal."

Jenny returned the smile, pleased, "Do you want to talk about your dream, or do you want to wait until Rupert comes in?"

"No, I'll tell you, but what about Giles? What did he say about his?"

Jenny shook her head, "He can't remember anything about it but it scared the hell out of me - I couldn't wake him up."

"Not waking?" Buffy's voice suddenly sounded very small. "I know how that feels."

"And last night's dream?" Jenny's voice was a gentle balm.

"Was weird, even for me! It was like I was in one of those tanks, you know, when you can't see, or hear, or touch anything."

"Sensory deprivation."

"Yeah, sensory deprivation." Buffy frowned, trying to bring the remnants of the dream into some sort of focus. "It felt like I was dying." She shuddered. "But ... "

"'But'?"

"I know it was me in the dream, but it didn't feel like me."

"How?"

"I don't know!" She looked frustrated. "It just felt like it was happening to someone else!"

"And you don't know who?"

Buffy shook her head then asked, "Giles is really ok?"

"Just tired."

"And he doesn't remember his nightmare?"

"No." Jenny's eyes narrowed in thought. "You and he haven't ever shared a dream before, have you?"

"No," Buffy confirmed, "Not even when I've been having really super-scary prophetic ones!"

"And not when Eyghon came back and Rupert was having nightmares?"

"No. What are you thinking? You think I dreamt about something that's going to happen to Giles?"

"Or he dreamt about something that's going to happen to you? I don't know ... " She glanced down at her watch and grimaced. "Come on," She rose and stepped around the table to Buffy's side, "We've both got classes. Rupert should be in school by lunchtime - how about we talk to him then?"

"That'd be good." Buffy hesitated and looked around her. "It's weird him not being here."

Jenny's smile was one of complete understanding; she'd felt a bit of the 'weirdness' herself. She laid a gentle hand on the young woman's shoulder. "I'll walk you to your class."

Buffy smiled her thanks, picked up her bag and walked out with Jenny, their footsteps sounding in time as they left the empty library.

**********************

The library was deserted when Giles entered. <Good> He glanced up at the ceiling and grimaced: someone had been in and had left the main lights on. He switched them off and sighed in relief. <That's better> He screwed his eyes up behind his sunglasses; now all he had to do was work out a way of switching off the sunlight that was streaming in through the windows and skylight. <As if ...>

He switched on the computer and while it was going through its start-up routine he surveyed his domain; half-a-dozen returned books, a couple of deliveries and a stack of new periodicals. Another quiet day on the Hellmouth. In truth, it was starting to concern him, this inactivity on the part of the demon denizens of this place. Not that he was wishing them on Buffy and the Gang, but still ...

The terminal beeped its readiness to do business and he navigated into the e-mail system and sent Jenny a short message telling her that he'd made it into school, "Although what good I’m going to be to anyone today ..." he muttered.

It had started the moment he'd woken up again after Jenny had left. The light from the windows had all but blinded him with its intensity. Pulling the curtains closed had helped but when he'd then winced in almost physical pain at the bright light above the bathroom mirror he'd realised that the after-effects of the nightmare were still with him.

Then there was his skin; he just felt so ... uncomfortable in it. His usual school garb irritated everywhere within seconds of putting it on: shirt collar and tie made him feel like he was being strangled; he could feel every thread of his tweeds; even his feet felt too big for his shoes. It had taken him almost an hour to find some clothes that his body could tolerate: soft chinos and a white t-shirt. He'd looked at himself in the mirror and shaken his head in despair, <I cannot go into work dressed like this! > but he had and here he was chinoed, t-shirted, sneakered and sunglassed, sitting in the library, wondering when his head had started pounding.

The bell for lunch-break sounded. Giles gasped as the noise made the bones in his skull resonate. Headache tablets, he had headache tablets in his office. He stood up and was struck by a wave of dizziness that staggered him against the side of the table. The pounding intensified and he heard the beating of his heart in it. Then the nausea struck. His stomach heaved. <No! No, I am not going to throw up! > But his body had other ideas: he bolted for the door heading for bathroom almost knocking over Xander and Jenny as they came in.

"Giles!" Jenny's voice was filled with worry; she'd seen the pallor of his skin as he'd rushed past her. "Stay here, Xander." She caught the young man's "Ok" as she started down the corridor after Giles. She charged into the boys' bathroom with a warning, "Woman in the bathroom!". Silence greeted her announcement and then she heard the unmistakeable sound of someone throwing up. Jenny rushed over pushing at the doors until she found him. He was crouched over the toilet heaving up the little that was in his stomach. Jenny left him for a second and went back out into the main area of the bathroom and grabbed some paper towels, wet them and brought them back to Giles. As she re-entered the cubicle he flushed the toilet and sat on the down-turned seat, his face a sickly white.

"You look like hell!" Jenny observed as she handed him the wet towels.

"Thank you." The towels muffled Giles’s voice as he pressed them against face, but there was just enough bite audible to give his comment a sarcastic double-edge, so she managed a smile as she crouched down in front of him and rested her arms on his knees.

"You ok?" Giles shook his head. "Rupert?" She pulled his hands away from his face and grimaced at him. "You're right; you're not ok."

"Perhaps I really should've gone to the doctor this morning?" He tried to smile but then his face twisted and his eyes suddenly unfocused, "Oh, sh ... ", and he jumped up, raised the seat and once again retched into the bowl. Jenny stroked his back gently, feeling the sweat soaking him and wondered just how much liquid he could lose without collapsing completely. The spasm passed and he flopped down beside her on the floor. "You can't say that I don't show you the nicest places!"

His attempt at humour unaccountably annoyed her, "Don't give me that British stiff-upper-lip number!" Giles blinked at the fierceness of her reaction so she reached out a reassuring hand and laid it on his arm. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still edgy from last night." The hand was raised to his cheek. "It's a bug; last night must've been the start of it."

Giles nodded, "Yes, yes, a ... a bug, that must be it." The stammering answer made his reply sound hesitant and he mentally kicked himself as Jenny's hand pressed more firmly. "Hey, you're worrying me. What else could it be?" He shook his head and curled his hand around hers. "It's a bug. I'll be fine." He pushed against the cubicle wall and with her help got to his feet. With an arm on her shoulders he stood there swaying: at least the nausea was gone. Shame about the headache.

"I need to get you home."

"No! Buffy. I have to ..." he shook his head and immediately regretted it as the movement exaggerated the pain that he was feeling: he groaned.

"You were saying?" She tightened his arm around her shoulders and pulled at him. "Come on, I'll drive you." His reluctance was obvious and so she stopped and turned to face him. "I'll talk to Buffy. I saw her this morning, told her about last night. I'll just fill her in; tell her you've got a bug."

Giles looked at her for a long time before he got out the smile that he'd been trying for earlier. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

"What's this for?" Jenny asked, looking up at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

"Because I can't kiss you, my mouth tastes foul."

"I'll take a raincheck."

Her voice was soft and warming and he basked in it. "I'm good for it."

"Only reason you're getting it, England!" And she looked into his eyes as his smile deepened. "Your chariot awaits!"

"Lead on, then." he whispered.

***************************

The clouds of incense that had served to relax him now wreathed about him, cloaking him in a grey mist. Kovacs kneeled before her image; Hecate, goddess of the underworld and sponsor of his art. He‘d pledged himself to her decades ago and she had not failed him – supporting his ageing body when he should have faltered years ago and doing his bidding when he sacrificed to her. But she was a hard taskmistress. The sacrifice of his body had become more extreme and he felt it again now, now when he was asking her to bless his challenge. There was jealousy, he thought, in the resistance he felt coming from the goddess. She was possessive of him and the fact that he wanted Jenny Calendar … but the plan for Rupert Giles? That had found favour in her eyes and even now the spells were being given a life of their own: a life designed to rob Rupert Giles of his.

Sweat ran in rivers down his naked body and his cock, hard with magicks, begged for its release. The hand he reached down to finish marking the last of the tablets was covered in blood. It ran down his fingers from the deep cuts on the inside of his arm. The spell he’d performed on himself to keep the blood flowing swirled in a dark cloud around the wounds. The air, already heavy with the perfume of incense, reeked with the sickly sweet smell of iron rich blood.

He threw the tablet into the fire and watched in satisfaction as the flames blackened for a moment. Hecate had pronounced the spell to be good. He put his arm into the flame, feeling the pain of it, letting that pain join him again to his mistress. She resisted him again, holding him back from his final release … why? There was something else. He sensed it … something else she had to show him. He removed his arm and let himself be guided by the goddess’s wise counsel and … and she showed him Rupert Giles … boy to man … and he saw him as no others had seen him: the depth and power of him. He was blessed again by the goddess’s wisdom. He’d had no idea. Perhaps if he’d not been so blinded by lust he would have remembered what he’d felt when he’d first met Rupert Giles and recognised that a man who carried the Mark of Eyghon was no mere spell-dabbling amateur. It had been his intention to simply kill this man but now that he could see Giles for what he was … the goddess was showing him another way.

Her power rang in him and Kovacs welcomed it, knowing that she was jubilant as he. Power would be turned and magick would call to magick. He wondered if Giles even knew how strong he was. Layer after layer, Hecate had stripped Giles down until she’d uncovered the core of him – that part of him where his power lay. Kovacs could feel the heat of it and the wildness of it. His eyes glowed. This was everything he’d ever wished for - a magickal ability so strong that gaining it and becoming the master of it would surpass any deed of his long lifetime.

He laughed out loud, dizzy with the possibilities of it all: Rupert Giles’s woman; Rupert Giles’s magick; and Rupert Giles’s life.

She had shown him the way and now showed him the way to it. The spell was dark indeed, designed, as it was, to pull a man’s magicks from him intact. Kovacs smiled. <And kill him in the process> It seemed the tablets would not be required after all. Still it seemed a shame to waste them; they would serve just as well as a means to weaken him as they would a means to kill him. The flames flared again and Kovacs closed his eyes in deep satisfaction; this would be the plan.

He removed the tablet from the fire, unafraid of the searing heat, stood and stepped into the flames. They licked up his body, twining around him, enveloping him, until he was a pillar of dark fire. He opened his eyes and saw her, the goddess, cloaked in hideously beautiful night. He smiled and the words of the spell fell easily from his lips. The rictus of her grin showed her pleasure in him and he felt her power grow in him, stronger now than it had ever been. The ‘pleasure pain’ built and surged across his nerve endings causing his body to tighten as if he truly felt the fire.

The power expanded outwards and felt for Rupert Giles, searching for the memory of the earlier vision. There … there he was. With Jenny. He hissed out an angry breath and heard it echoed by the goddess. Real pain flooded his body as she tightened her fist around his heart. He fought the gasp - she demanded his absolute control of himself - and pushed past his anger. This was now about so much more than having Jenny and killing Rupert Giles. This was about gaining the power of the ages … and he would not fail in his task to gain it.

He rode the burst of pleasure that bloomed through him. Again he had not disappointed the goddess. The paths opened up in his mind and he sent out the first of the many delicate tendrils of power that would be needed to ensnare Rupert Giles’s magicks: tendrils that would find the man’s control and, as they worked, leave him clear headed enough to know what was happening to him but be helpless to stop it. Control gone, his magicks would be free to be taken from him: a process so viciously destructive to the soul that the man would die.

Rupert Giles was found. The binding was done. The goddess appeased with the spells. She swirled before him, dead eyed. He dropped a hand to his cock, gripped himself and smiled at her. Blood for the binding. Cum for the offering.

His orgasm was a blinding release.

***********************

No sound ... no air ... can't breathe ...can't breathe ... walls ... I can feel walls ... trapped ... the pressure ... pressure on my chest ... in my head ... my head ... oh God ... it hurts ... open your eyes ... come on, damnit, open your eyes ... lights ... turn off the lights ... can't see ... can't feel ... can't hear ... can't touch ... no help ... no help ... help me ... help ... me ... hurts ...

"GILES!" Buffy's scream was agony itself.

***************************

"Help! I need help!" Jenny yelled desperately.

The passing orderlies dropped the boxes they were carrying and grabbed Giles from her. She slumped, bent over, trying to catch her breath. She'd half-carried, half-dragged him from the car she'd abandoned at the ambulance entrance to the emergency department. Her ears were still ringing with his screams even though he'd been all but unconscious for the last few minutes of the breakneck journey to the hospital.

She blamed him for leaving this so late and blamed herself for listening to his protestations that this wasn't as bad as she thought it was. Then the screams had started. The pain in his head, dosed up with as many pills as it had been safe to take in three hours, had suddenly become agonising and his body, drawn-in from touch all day, had developed a sensitivity so acute that touching him made him cry out. It had worsened rapidly; moans becoming cries, cries becoming screams.

In his delirium he'd fought her, blindly pushing her away, resisting both her attempts to minister to him and then to get him to hospital. His incoherence had conspired against her, making her struggle with him and thereby hurt him. He kept pleading with her to leave him alone, tears running down his cheeks - and every step of the way to her car brought fresh bouts of pain.

She'd stabbed her car into 'drive' and rammed her foot onto the accelerator, driving one-handed, her right hand pressed against his chest, holding him in the seat where he'd slumped: flesh on flesh - she cold with fear, he burning again.

The orderlies lifted him onto a gurney and dashed him into the examination area. Doctors and nurses appeared from all sides shouting orders: bloods; oxygen; heart monitor.

"What happened?" <Rupert. Oh God, please, don’t … don't die. > "Miss? What happened?" Jenny's eyes focused on the face of the woman shaking her. "What happened?"

"Ah ... " Jenny's gaze fixed on Giles, tubes and wires and machines suddenly all but obscuring him from her view. "He woke up screaming in pain; his head, his body ..."

"His body? Where?"

Jenny shook her head. "Everywhere ... everywhere I touched him."

"Anything else?"

"Light is hurting his eyes." She looked at the doctor, helplessly. "Since yesterday. And he was sick yesterday. Bad headache." She shrugged, "He had a terrible nightmare last night?" Her voice ended on a question as if asking the doctor if this was important.

"Just to confirm: you are?"

"His partner. Jenny Calendar."

"Ok. What's his name?"

"Giles. Rupert Giles. He's British." Again the helpless look as if to say 'I don't know if that is important.'

"Ok, we'll take it from here. Is he on any medication?"

Jenny shook her head but then added, "Just four aspirins in the last three hours."

"What about drugs?"

"No!"

"Alright, we have to ask." The doctor put out a hand to touch Jenny's shoulder. "How long has he been unconscious?"

"Just a couple of minutes."

"Doctor Anderson?" A shout from the examining room. "He's awake!"

"Rupert!" Jenny started towards the bed, a hand trying to hold her back but she shook it off and ran to Giles's side.

"Jenny!" His voice was no more than an agonised gasp but his hand stretched towards her, fingers spread, clawing the air, wanting, needing, her touch. She reached him and grasped his hand. "Jenny!"

She was pulled away from him. She struggled to stay at his side but the effort was too much for her exhausted body and the doors closed on his empty hand as she was led away to the waiting room. In her head she heard his voice, echoing, shutting out the prayers she wasn't even aware she was saying.

*****************************

Buffy ran across the car park, road, and sidewalks of the hospital and didn't see any of them. The dream. The nightmare. She ran and she'd been running forever; and she was blind, blind to everything except the after-image of the message on her pager, the message that had momentarily stopped her heart in her chest: 'GILES IN HOSPITAL. EMERGENCY. JENNY'. The Emergency department was just ahead ... so many people ... <Giles!>

"Where is Rupert Giles?" The clerk on the desk looked blank. "Giles! Rupert Giles! Where is he?" She heard her voice rising in panic and couldn't control it: didn't want to. "Where the hell is he?"

"Buffy!" Jenny Calendar. Buffy swung around and saw her standing in the doorway of the waiting room.

"Ms. Calendar?" Buffy started towards her. "Where is he?"

Jenny wrapped her arms around herself and frowned. "They're still working on him." She lifted her chin to indicate the door to the examination area.

" 'Still'? What's wrong with him?"

Jenny shook her head and joined Buffy at the window of the examination room. So much machinery. So many people. It was like watching some bizarre silent movie - frantic action but no sound at all. Crazily she thought that she really should be hearing music ... and shouldn't there be cue cards explaining what was happening? She bit down on incipient hysteria - neither Rupert nor Buffy would need that from her now. She took Buffy's arm, "Come on, sit with me?"

For long seconds Buffy's strength held them where they stood before she dragged her gaze away from the glass and followed Jenny into the waiting room. They sat side-by-side, lost in their own thoughts, and watched the hands of the clock tick around.

1 a.m.

1.30 a.m.

2 a.m.

Buffy took Jenny's hand.

2.45 a.m.

"Jenny Calendar?" Jenny shot to her feet at the sound of her name to face the man in the doorway. He smiled at her. "I'm Doctor Mark Evans, Head of Emergency."

"How is he?"

"Asking for you!" Evans's smile widened slightly. "We have him stabilised. If you'd like to see him?"

"Yes!" Jenny and Buffy spoke simultaneously. Evans frowned but didn't think it necessary to comment on Buffy's presence. “How is he?” Jenny repeated.

"We're admitting him for further tests. We're going to run a CAT scan and schedule him for an MRI. We'll know more when we get the results." The smile came again. "He's on his way upstairs so someone will come and get you in a couple of minutes and take you up."

"What's wrong with him?" Buffy asked.

Evans turned to look at her.

"We're not sure yet - the tests will help to determine that."

"But you're doing serious tests! Any ideas?" Buffy pressed.

Evans glanced at Jenny and got nothing but a silent affirmation of Buffy's right to ask this of him.

"Too early to say. We'll know more in the next couple of days. His breathing's better and we haven't had to intubate him. The pain is under control and he's become more tolerant of touch - those are good signs. We'll take it from there."

Jenny nodded and forced out a smile.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"You're welcome."

He smiled his leave of them. "CAT scans? MRI?" Buffy rounded on Jenny, her eyes wet and wide with fear. "What's wrong with him?"

Jenny put her hands on Buffy's shoulders and pulled the young woman into her arms. They held on, drawing strength from one another, until a nurse came to take them upstairs.

****************************

Kovacs slumped to his knees in exhaustion: blood-loss was always a problem with this spell. He struggled to his feet. Giles would keep for a couple of days. Someone had taken him to hospital - Kovacs had felt the effectiveness of the spell weaken as Giles had been pumped full of drugs. <But that is fine, the memory of the pain will continue to do its work> The smile came again, deeper, twisting his face. The goddess would see to that.

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