TITLE: WARLOCK 7/14
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...

“Hey, welcome back, G-Man!”

“Good to see you, too, Xander, and don’t call me that!” Giles, on the sofa, pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Jenny?”

Xander tossed his head towards the loft. “Upstairs. I just checked on her, she’s fine. Completely not awake, but fine.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About twenty minutes.” Willow’s voice came from behind him and he turned to look at her. A sharp pain lanced through his head, causing him to hiss in a deep breath. He caught Willow’s sympathetic look. “Yep, fell on your head again. But you’re awake so - hey! - can’t be that bad!”

“Tell that to my head.” Giles muttered and slowly got to his feet, clutching the arm of the sofa for support as he did so. Gathering himself, he crossed the room and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. As Xander had said, Jenny was all but comatose. He sat beside her on the bed and brushed a gentle hand across her hair. She didn’t stir. Her expression, in sleep, was, however, serene and carried the faintest hint of a smile. He was just self-centred enough to hope that it was dreams of him that had caused that smile. He pressed a kiss to her cheek. Her skin was warm and her breathing was slow and steady. She was fine. “I’ll be here when you wake up, love; sleep well.” He picked up the photograph and took it downstairs with him.

“Where’s Buffy?”

As Giles asked the question the front door flew open and Buffy came in carrying a box of donuts and a large brown paper sack.

“Hey, Giles!” She smiled brightly at him. “Hey, guys!” She held out the goods. “Food!” Willow and Xander took everything from her and carried it into the kitchen. The sound of the kettle being refilled was music to Giles’s ears. Buffy closed the door and bounced back over to him. “Howya doin’?”

“Quite well, thank you.” He reached up and gingerly fingered the bump on the back of his head. “No blood, I trust?”

“Nope, we looked.” She confirmed. “Just the lump.”

“That’s gratifying to know.” They settled together on the sofa. “Has Willow managed to find anything?”

“She has a list.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask how many there are.”

“Seven.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Less than I expected.”

“Me too. But only four fit the bill exactly: ‘young,’ ‘untimely dead,’ ‘dead at someone else’s hand’ … course I’ve staked two of them already. Does that rule them out? Or maybe it rules them more in?”

Giles pondered the question for a few moments. “I’m inclined to think that it would rule them out, at least it would if Kovacs knew that they had died as a result of a vampire attack and would therefore, more likely then not, rise again.” Off Buffy’s puzzled look, he added, “He wouldn’t want the tablet disturbed once he’d placed it in the grave.”

“But?”

“But I don’t think we can afford to make any assumptions.”

“So, all seven?”

“Well, we’ll start with the four most likely and work our way out from there.”

“Yuck!”

“Indeed.”

“So what about you? We got some bad boo in the batcave?” Giles pointed at the photograph lying on the coffee table in front of them. “That’s low.”

“But obvious given what he wants.”

“What’s obvious?” asked Xander coming over with drinks, Willow behind him with a tray of Buffy-bought snacks. “What’s with the photo?”

“The tablet’s with the photo …”

“… ooh, I know this one!” Willow interrupted Buffy, grinning. “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle …”

“… the chalice with the palace holds the brew that is true!” Xander finished triumphantly.

“Very funny, guys.” Buffy pulled at face at her friends – then frowned. “I thought it was the flagon with the dragon that held the pellet with the poison?”

“It was,” Willow confirmed, “The chalice with the palace got broken …”

Giles cleared his throat and found three pairs of eyes innocently staring at him. “Much as I, as ever, am entranced by this sojourn into the annals of popular American culture …”

“… Hey, guys!” Xander, grinning broadly, rode roughshod over Giles’s words. “Giles knows this! A pop-culture reference and Giles knows it! “

The older man rolled his eyes. “… as I was saying …”

“The tablet’s with the photo!” Buffy finished triumphantly.

“Why don’t I just open it.” Giles muttered to himself and carefully picked up the photo. It felt heavy in his hands, the tablet adding an unnatural weight to the light wooden frame. He prised open the pins holding the back in place and then removed it. The tablet was there just as he and Jenny had sensed in the spell.

Xander nudged Willow’s arm. “Guess that means you were right, Will.”

“I guess.” She looked a little dismayed. “Wish I wasn’t though.”

“No, Willow,” Giles objected, “Better that we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Is it ok to pick it up?” Willow’s voice was laced with concern. Giles, as he had earlier with the front door, held his hand over the tablet. Energy seemed to spark across the tiny distance between the tablet and his palm; it felt warm, a deceptively innocuous echo of the magicks that the tablet had carried. He picked it up. Willow gave a rueful smile and answered her own question with a softly observed, “Guessing that would be a ‘yes.’ ”

Giles pushed the photo aside and put the tablet on the table.

“Ugly looking thing.” Xander offered after a few moments spent scrutinising the tablet. “What’s it made of?”

“Lead.”

“Why lead, Giles?” Buffy queried absently as she, too, stared at the tablet. “Is that Greek?”

Giles leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his chin balanced on his steepled fingers. “Yes, it is.”

“What does it say?”

He held up a finger asking Buffy to wait a moment as he continued to translate the writing. “Tablets have been made of a variety of materials, pottery, papyrus, even gemstones, however lead became the most popular, first because it was an abundant material and then later the metal came to be regarded as having a certain compatibility with the use to which the tablet was put.”

Buffy waved her hand, “Not understanding that last – the words went in but then there was a ‘duh’ factor!”

Giles sat back and turned sideways in his seat so he could see all their faces. “Lead is considered to be a very inert metal - ‘dead,’ one might say.”

A small silence developed after his words. “What does it say, G-man?”

He smiled at the softness he heard in Xander’s and bent to retrieve the tablet. He adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat and then read the words on the tablet:

>>> ‘Just as you, spirit who lies here, are powerless to love maidens, so too may Rupert, to whom Sally gave birth, be powerless to fuck Jenny … and Hecate, I deliver to you Rupert, to whom Sally gave birth, so that you may chill his intentions towards Jenny … and may Rupert, to whom Sally gave birth, be separated from the body, touch, kisses and lovemaking of Jenny … and Hecate may you cool his knowledge, his passion, his charm, his mind and his reasoning. I bind Rupert, to whom Sally gave birth, in the presence of Hecate.’ <<<

“The language is kind of violent – sexually, I mean.”

Giles could hear the care behind Buffy’s words and appreciated the sentiment – he didn’t particularly want to discuss the details of how this spell was affecting him any more than she did. Still, he had to respond with something.

“Deliberately so.” Almost a ‘non’ answer and one of which he was quite proud.

“Sally’s your mother?” He nodded his answer to Willow’s question. “How would he know that?” He looked at her in mild disbelief and watched as her expression cleared. “The Net, huh? Your Births, Deaths and Marriages bureau online?”

“I believe so.” They smiled at each other. “Ten minutes?”

Willow’s smile broadened, “Well, maybe twenty. Depends on how good they are at retrieving the information at the other end.”

Xander reached over and picked up the tablet. “Heavy.” He hefted it and drew a finger across the words inscribed in the soft metal. “What does it mean, that line about ‘spirit who lies here’?”

“It means that we were right about there being more than one tablet. This one is designed to amplify the power of another – probably the main one, the one in the grave.” Giles sat back, removed his glasses and massaged the skin at the top of his nose. Feeling his neck stiffening he rolled his shoulders, grimacing at the pain. “And it means that grave digging duty is required.” He glanced at his watch. “It will be dark soon. I suggest you all go home and get changed …”

“… like we have a clue what to change into …” Buffy muttered under her breath.

“… and grab whatever tools you need: spades, pickaxes and the like.”

“Along with torches, stakes, crosses, holy water, crossbows and all the other things we normally carry when we’re out at night.” Buffy pulled a face. “Hey, maybe when we’re loading up with supplies we should go out and get ourselves a packhorse!”

“Nah!” Xander shook his head. “Don’t need one, we’ve got you!”

“See and that’s another thing,” Buffy whipped around to face Giles, “Slayers are excused actual digging duties, yes?”

“No!” Willow and Xander chorused.

Giles lifted his hands in self-protection. “This is your responsibility, Buffy, how you marshall your resources is up to you.”

“Cool!” Buffy’s eyes took on a wicked gleam.

“Hey, no fair!” Xander objected. “How come she gets to be the Boss of this chain gang?”

“Yeah,” Willow backed up Xander, “I’ve got the list!”

Xander waved his hand in Willow’s direction, “Yeah, she’s got the list!” As if that settled the matter.

Blithely ignoring the argument, Giles looked at his watch again. “You’d best get going, you have a lot of digging to do. “ Three pairs of eyes drilled into him. He ignored them to ponder what he’d just said. “Perhaps you could get some help? Cordelia?”

“Cordelia?” Buffy sneered at the very idea. “Oh yeah, and we all know how that’ll go: ‘You want me to dig mouldy graves with a bunch of lame brains …?”

“Angel, then?”

Xander did no more than roll his eyes. Even Willow looked askance at this one.

“You done suggesting?” Buffy was standing, arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently. Giles waved them on.

“Buffy!” His voice caught her as she was halfway out the door. “When you find it bring it back here. I d0n’t care how late it is, I don’t want it near any of you any longer than it has to be. Understood?”

She nodded. “Get the tablet. Bring it back.”

………………………….

“So how many’s this?” Xander asked as he gratefully swallowed down water from the bottle Willow had handed him.

“Four.” Willow took the bottle back. “Only three more to go.” Her expression perked up. “Hey, over halfway!”

They both leaned back tiredly against the wall of the grave they were three feet into and watched as Buffy, on level ground above them, hand sifted the earth that had been dug out. All three of them were covered in dirt and sweat and becoming more cranky by the minute.

“What’s the time, Will?”

Willow rolled her head and looked at her oldest friend. His Snoopy watch was in its usual place. This was an old game, one that they’d been playing since they were kids. She’d learned to tell the time months before he had and it had been years after that before he’d been given a watch of his own. ‘What’s the time, Will?’ Over the years, what had started off as a simple request for information had turned into their own verbal shorthand for so many other things: ‘This class is the most boring class since the last one. When does it finish?’, ‘When does summer end?’, ‘When will I stop feeling like I’m a complete spaz?’, ‘Is it time to go home already? Why can’t I stay here with you tonight, Willow?’

“Snoopy giving you a hard time?” She nudged Xander and then settled back, glad to draw out the break.

“Snoopy’s in his puppy pyjamas, all tucked up in bed.” He blew out a tired breath. “And why aren’t we?”

“Cos we’re not leaving until we find this de-fix … def-con … thingy.” Buffy growled from above their heads. “And if we don’t find it I’m going into school and I’m gonna punch Kovacs until he tells me where the hell it is!”

“Buffy!” Willow stepped across the hole and grabbed Buffy’s arm, pulling her around until she could see her face. “You can’t – you heard what Giles said.”

There was no softening of the expression on Buffy’s face. “He said I couldn’t kill him. Didn’t say anything about not hitting him until he bleeds …” The glare sharpened and her eyes glittered. “… a lot.”

A sudden, shocking, surge of brutal rage rushed through her and she screamed it out.

Willow scrambled out of the grave and knelt by her friend, clasping her strongly by the shoulders. “He’s going to be ok! We’re going to save him!”

“You don’t know that!”

“I know it!”

“How?” She pushed at Willow, got to her feet and stepped away, giving herself some space. “How do you know it?” She turned around to face the others. “God, Willow, you saw him after that spell … and Ms. Calendar was worse!”

“So you think we can’t cut it?”

“Yes!” Xander’s question caught her unawares and had her answering with the truth before any thought of guarding her words kicked in as the better option. “No! I don’t know! It’s just … it’s just … he’s always got it done for us. Always. What if …”

“… what if the one time he needs us to get it done for him, we don’t?” Willow finished.

Buffy nodded and then in soft, anguished, tones asked, “How can I be me without him?” A single tear fell onto her cheek, silver in the moonlight. “And you guys, too? How can we be the Scoobies if we have a missing man?”

Willow stepped up to Buffy’s side. “We can be the Scoobies ‘cos we are the Scoobies! And not getting it done is not an option! Alright?”

The vehemence made Buffy blink. She dragged a palm across her wet face and managed a watery laugh. “Whoa, way to motivate!”

The two girls grinned and hugged each other tightly.

“Hey, you might want to save some of that for me!” The girls looked down at Xander and suddenly the grins were ferocious. “Look what we’ve found!”

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