TITLE: The Watcher: Absolution pt.1 - `Til You Loved Me 6/7
AUTHOR: vatwoman
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN etc own Giles and anyone else in the Buffyverse, Anna and everyone I invent are mine.
FEEDBACK: Will be gratefully received on list, or at: vatwoman@yahoo.co.uk

"Go and get Rupert Giles."

"Even though he knows nothing?" Green cautioned.

"Even though *says* he knows nothing. I want him in here saying it."

Green smiled slightly at the hint of anger she heard in her boss's voice. "Get to you did he, guv?"

Conlon turned away from the window, a deceptively calm look on his tired face. "In much the same way as I'll `get to you,' sergeant."

"31 Bailey Street, right?"

Conlon nodded. "Send one of the constables with a car. Make sure he comes." Green nodded and turned to leave. "And Helen?"

"Yes?"

"Make sure your constable says `please.'"

"Yes sir."

The door banged shut behind her, leaving Conlon alone in the observation room. Barry was sitting exactly as Conlon had left him ten minutes before, with his hands in his lap, his head tilted back slightly, and his eyes closed. If it weren't for the fact that Conlon could see the rise and fall of Barry's chest, he'd think that the man had been turned into stone. Which was just about as believable as the cock and bull story that his chief and only suspect had been spinning him for the past thirty-eight hours. <What does he think we are? Idiots?>

The door behind him opened and Helen Green popped her head around it. "He's here."

"Who?"

"Rupert Giles."

"Hell, that was quick."

Green shrugged. "He's come in himself. He's downstairs signing in."

"Really?" The lines around Conlon's eyes deepened as he frowned. "Best go and get him, then. I'll see him in my office."

The two officers left the room together and headed down the corridor, splitting up at the staircase, Green going down to the front desk and Conlon going up to his office. He could tell that his team had heard about Rupert Giles being in the building: there was a buzz about the incident room that only a new suspect brings. Malcolm handed him Giles's file and the two men exchanged determined smiles. "Send Helen straight in with him."

Malcolm nodded once. "Yes, boss."

He was sitting behind his desk re-reading the slender file on Rupert Giles when Helen Green knocked on the door and came in. "Sir? Mr Giles."

Conlon stood and offered his hand as Giles followed Green into the room. "Mr Giles."

"Inspector."

The handshake was firm and dry. If Rupert Giles was nervous there was no clue to it in the grasp of his hand. "Please have a seat." Conlon waved his hand towards the chair on the opposite side of his desk and Giles settled into it. "Thank you for coming in to see us."

Giles crossed his legs and picked at a stray piece of fluff on his trousers. He looked up and smiled. "I've come to see Adam Barry."

Conlon sat back, a confused look flitting across his face. "Mr Barry is assisting us with our enquiries. You can't see him at this time."

"Have you charged him with anything? Is he under arrest? Does he have a lawyer?" Conlon glanced across at Green who was standing leaning against a filing cabinet, only to see her shrug, unsure of where this conversation was going. Conlon answered Giles's questions with a shake of his head. "Then I think you'll find that I can."

"I don't understa …"

"I'm a prisoner-in-custody visitor." Giles reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his police authority authorisation and handed it to Conlon. "Consider this an unscheduled, but official request for immediate access to Adam Barry." A deathly silence settled on the room. Helen Green spread her hands helplessly and mouthed, `We didn't know.' Caught off guard, Conlon started to shake his head again. "The law's very clear regarding these type of requests, Inspector, as I'm sure you know." Giles stood up. "Shall we?"

"Wait!" With Giles's eyes gleaming at him, Conlon knew he'd been wrong-footed. He had to regroup. "You only have the right to see prisoners who are in custody and he's not."

"Which I'm sure you've made clear to him." Giles raised an eyebrow, as if something had just occurred to him, and smiled expansively. "Well then, if he's not in custody you won't mind releasing him, will you?"

"He's here voluntarily and I'll let him go when he asks to be let go."

"I'll make sure he does so."

"Of course you will." Conlon nodded. "And in the meantime we'd like to question you."

"About?"

"A murder that took place in Butcher's Lane somewhere between 10.15pm and 10.45 pm the night before last."

"Yes?"

Becoming more and more angry with the man before him, Conlon gritted his teeth, "Where were you at that time?"

"I've already answered that question, but for the benefit of your colleague and for the sake of clarity … it's none of your business."

"This is a murder enquiry!"

"Of Michael Grove, aged 19, killed outside the club `Storm' somewhere between 10.15pm and 10.45pm two nights ago and to which I …"

"… how do you know that …" Conlon interrupted with heat in his voice.

"… and to which I am not remotely connected."

"You're connected to Barry."

"That's just a little bit of a stretch though, isn't it?" Giles pulled a `tired-of-all-this' face. "You know as well as I do that you're never going to make a case against him. He hasn't done anything."

"How can you possibly know that when you've never met him?"

"I've met clairvoyants before, Inspector. Has he told you what his life's like? The things he has to do to stop himself from going mad?" Giles stepped across the room to stand by Helen Green's side. "If you'll allow me?" he murmured, and at her nod, he brushed his hand against hers, the type of casual barely felt contact that happens all the time between passers-by in busy streets. He turned back to face Conlon. "If that had been Adam Barry and if he's as powerful a clairvoyant as I suspect he is, he'd already be deep into a vision that would leave him pretty well incapacitated. You apparently have a very short window of attack and escape with this murder: if he'd committed it you would have found him at the scene. He's a witness, not a suspect and if you could put aside your prejudices against him, you'd be using him in rather more positive ways than you are at present." Giles smiled. "Now, do I get to see him?"

The standoff lasted for a few more seconds before Conlon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He stood up, facing Giles across the desk. "Alright, what do you want?"

Giles nodded. "I'm on Barry's `To Do' list - I want to know why."

Conlon shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and studied the grain in the wood of his desk for a moment. "And you've never met him before?"

"No."

"You'll let us listen in on the interview?" Giles's standing as a prisoner-in-custody visitor would normally ensure that all conversations between him and any prisoner were private, in the same way that those between prisoner and lawyer are.

"If he agrees, yes."

"Ok, I'll take you down." Conlon held up his hand to forestall Green's objection. "One thing before we go …" he saw Giles raise an eyebrow, "… where were you at 10.15 two nights ago?"

Giles seemed to sigh, and then he smiled a little. "In bed with Anna Freer."

"Asleep?"

Rather than be outraged, Conlon thought, the question seemed to increase the other man's amusement. "Possibly … I've discovered over the years, Inspector, that when you're in bed with a woman she, quite rightly, expects your undivided attention. Clock-watching is really not the done thing."

"Do you mind if I confirm your story with Ms Freer?"

Giles laughed. "Do you mind if I watch?"

Conlon's brow furrowed. "I have a murder enquiry on my hands, Mr Giles. I don't find any of this even remotely funny."

"Good …" There was a mildness to Giles's voice that did nothing to disguise the sudden, hard, bleak glint in his eye, "… because neither do I."

"Come with me." Conlon could feel the set of his shoulders, the tightness in them, as he marched out of his office, through the incident room and down the stairs. It had been a long time since he'd let anyone get as far under his skin as Rupert Giles had done. "Here." They walked into the observation room and looked into the interview room beyond the panel of the one-way glass dividing them. "Adam Barry." He watched as Giles took a step towards the glass.

"He knows we can see and hear him?"

"Oh yes, like the rest of the population, he's seen his quota of tv cop programmes. Just knock on the glass if he agrees to us listening in." Conlon pulled open the door again. "He's all yours."

Giles nodded and left the room. He walked the short distance to the door of the interview room, nodded to the constable on guard outside it, and went in.

The room was a little cooler than the corridor outside and Giles shivered slightly as his body reacted to the drop in temperature. Barry was sitting at the table, eyes closed, humming quietly to himself. He was a small man, fine featured even with the bruises visible around his mouth and eyes, the sandy hair that Giles remembered from his photograph sat up in clumps as if he'd been running his hands though it.

The door clicked shut behind him and Adam Barry opened his eyes. It was like looking into the heart of a glacier, all blazing blue white light. The two men stared at each other then Giles walked to the table and held out his hand. "Hello, I'm Rupert Giles, I believe you wanted to see me?"

Adam stood up and gestured angrily at Giles's outstretched hand. "Did they put you up to this? Is this some sort of macho game?"

Adam Barry's voice was light and lilted with an accent that placed him as coming from somewhere other than here, no matter that both Anna and Conlon had known him for decades. Ice-blue eyes, light voice, fine features, small stature: he could have been faerie-born, Giles thought.

"No, it's a handshake. Still the accepted form of greeting in polite society."

The frown was a tiny pull of skin in the middle of Adam's brow. "Then you mustn't have heard what happens when I touch people?" He held up his hands to Giles; bare hands.

"On the contrary."

"Aren't you frightened of what I'll tell you?"

"About how I'll die?" Adam nodded. "I already know."

Adam rocked back slightly in surprise. "You've been read before?"

"Yes. Twice."

The message would not have changed between the first reading and the second. Adam knew that. The message would not change now. He took the outstretched hand.

To the observers it looked as though the two men had merely clasped hands, as people still do, and were holding on perhaps a little too long than was accepted. To the observers the vibration in the floor felt like a passing truck. Then the glass of water on the table in the interview room moved. They watched it slowly slide sideways, a graceful dance across the polished wooden surface that ended with it falling to the floor. Glass and water on the floor, spreading as silently as the fall had been.

Adam let go of Giles's hand. The residual energy between them discharged out into the table that Adam was leaning against, causing it to move fractionally towards the other man. He looked up into Giles's eyes and saw that the green in them had darkened almost to black. He looked up, saw shadows and shades around the other man, and he saw the monumental effort of will that was holding them back. Adam felt humbled by it, and when he spoke, he couldn't remember a time when he'd heard his own voice sound so small and yet so sincere. "You have my condolences, Mr Giles."

Giles pushed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head towards the mirror covering half the wall at the far end of the room. "They want to listen. Do you have any objections?"

"Does it matter if I do?"

"My status here is like that of your lawyer – all our conversations are privileged. If you want them to be."

Adam looked towards the mirror and smiled at the officers he knew were there. "Do you really think they're not already listening?"

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"Doesn't it?" Adam turned back. "I think it matters a great deal."

"To?"

"What's going on."

"And what is going on?"

There was a pause, and then Adam nodded. "Perhaps you'd better tell them I've agreed that they can listen in."

"It might be easier if they just *came* in?"

"No, my concentration's poor when I have to deal with too many people at once."

There was an undertone to Adam's words. "Have they tried that with you?"

Adam shrugged. "It's of no consequence."

"You know you're not under arrest and that you can leave at any time?"

"Yes. Now go and tell them that they may listen in." He smiled when all Giles did was walk to the mirror and knock on it. "Very efficient."

Giles came back across the room and settled himself at the table opposite Adam. "So?"

"The inspector thinks I killed the boy."

"I know. Has he told you what your motive is supposed to be?"

"Jealousy." Giles raised an eyebrow. "Michael was gay. Conlon thinks we were lovers and that I became jealous because Michael was stepping out on me."

"You've explained to him, surely?"

"That I can't sustain a physical relationship? That the only relief I get is from a wank in the shower or in bed because I can't have anyone touching me? That someone else's bare flesh on my own for any length of time would eventually put me into a catatonic state that I might not wake up from? And who would want me anyway? I can't lie. I can't keep from my face what I see about people when I touch them. Gay? Straight? I've never had the opportunity to find out." Adam took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

Giles shook his head, and spared a pointed look at the man he knew was standing on the other side of the mirror. "You were coming to see me?"

"Yes, I was."

"Why?"

"Because in the circles I move in you have a certain reputation."

Giles smiled faintly. "For what?"

"Not dismissing the outlandish."

"And …" Giles let the question hang there.

"And finding a way of dealing with it?"

This time the question was Barry's, but it was a question that didn't reach the man's eyes. Giles knew that Adam Barry was quite aware of who and what he was.

"What do you know?"

Adam nodded. "There have been three deaths …"

"… four."

"Four?" Adam's voice was faint and his right hand drifted to his heart, feeling it pounding hard in his chest. "Last night?" His gaze drifted to the mirror. "He didn't tell me."

"As I said, you can leave at any time."

A frown flitted across Adam's features, and he nodded. "Yes … soon ... I'll be leaving quite soon now …"

"Adam?"

Adam pulled his concentration back. "Yes?"

"What do you know?"

"The creature that is carrying out these killings … it is not as we are."

"Not human?"

"Not anything."

"Can you explain that to me?"

"There is a void, a vacuum where something should be."

Giles frowned. "A void?"

"It bends this world around it, and in that way goes unseen."

"A chameleon."

Adam's smile was of praise, like a teacher to a favourite pupil. "Yes, but you must go further than that."

"A shape-shifter."

"Better."

"The creature has form …" Giles was thinking out loud, "… albeit a borrowed one. It has mass, structure and volume. So the void isn't a literal one?"

Adam nodded. "An absence of light does not mean that the light does not exist. The void speaks only of the creature's otherworldliness." He dropped his hand back onto the table, finding comfort this time in the steadiness of the aura he'd found in the wood. "It does not resonate as we do."

Giles's hand joined Adam's on the desk. Through the dark wood he could feel the tug of Adam's power, the vibration, and nodded. Wavelengths. Everything in this dimension, be it people, plants, animals, the very rocks themselves, resonated in a specific wavelength.

"A different dimension?" Adam nodded. "Can you tell me what shape it's taken?" This time Adam shook his head. "What it looks like in its natural form?"

The door swung open on his words and Conlon strode in. "Yes, why don't you tell me what it looks like in its `natural form.' "

"Inspector." Giles's low growl was a warning.

Ignoring him, Conlon sat down beside Giles and stared across the table at Adam Barry. "Talk."

Assaulted by the depth of Conlon's disbelief, Adam found he had to fight his way out from below it to respond to Giles's question, but, regardless, he was helpless to prevent his hands clenching into fists. "It goes unseen."

There was something in Adam's voice, Giles thought. Unseen, perhaps, but Adam had a sense of things that those without his abilities did not. "But not unfelt?"

"That, too, is cloudy."

"You told me you felt the man's exaltation." Giles turned and stared at Conlon. "Or what you `took to be exaltation.' Isn't that what you said?"

"It is not a man."

"Of course it is." Conlon sat back and folded his arms across his chest. "Although, I concede the fact that it's not you." He turned to the mirror, and crooked a finger in a `come here' gesture. Seconds later the door opened and Helen Green came in with Adam's belongings. She dropped them on the table. "The Avon Constabulary is grateful for your help, Mr Barry. I hope we haven't inconvenienced you too much. You're free to go."

"Just like that?" Giles stood up and found himself face to face with Conlon.

"Yes, just like that. Sorry, but we didn't have time to put together a farewell party for him. Perhaps next time."

"Was it the exaltation of killing?" Giles asked Adam, but kept his eyes fixed on Conlon.

"No, I got no sense of a blood lust."

"What about just lust?" Giles saw Conlon's eyes flick sideways as he snatched a look at Adam. "Adam?"

"Perhaps. You know what this is?"

Giles turned to face Adam. "Yes, I think so."

"Your question about lust? It's having sex with these people? Mating with them?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how to stop it?"

"Not yet. Do you? Did you get any sense of its weakness?"

"It does not have one."

"That's not possible; everything has a weakness."

"I could sense its power, its absolute certainty in itself. It believes that it is a dominant." Adam cocked his head to one side as if he was reading his own mind's eye. "It has no weakness."

A sudden ripple of fear made itself known in Giles's belly. He turned back to Conlon. "Have you got anything on CCTV?"

"I have Michael Grove being attacked by a man. One who's well over six feet tall, fortunately for Mr Barry."

Giles could feel the muscles in his face tightening in anger. When he spoke, he kept his voice deliberately low so that Conlon had to lean forward to hear him. "The creature is a demon. An Apostle demon. And it will take twelve victims, one a night for twelve nights. You have two before Michael Grove. One after."

"How the hell do you know about the other deaths?"

"Do you really think it's left to amateurs like you to deal with threats like this? That's four victims now. You're nowhere near the end of this, Inspector, so I suggest you either get on board or get the hell out of my way."

Not giving the man time to say anything, Giles dragged his attention from Conlon to Adam. "Can you help me?"

"Possibly. I would have to visit the crimes scenes."

"No!" Conlon shouted. "You do that and I'll have you arrested so fast it'll be the middle of next week before you know where you are!"

Adam opened his mouth to speak, but it was Giles who got the words out. "The middle of next week should just about see the end of this demon's work. At least for now."

Conlon's eyes became cold and hard as he turned them on Giles. "I want you take yourself, your new found friend here, your little madman's circus, and get out of my station!" He spun on his heel, gathered Green in his wake and strode out of the interrogation room.

"He'll blame us for all these deaths, won't he?"

"Yes." Giles sighed. "I have to get back. Would you come with me? To help?"

Adam picked up his things and clutched them to his chest. "I can't. Not today. Not yet."

Giles nodded, as if he'd expected this reply. "I'll take you home, then."

>>>>>>

Adam stepped into the living room of his home. It felt very different even though the police hadn't left much of a physical disturbance in their wake. The air was unsettled. The peace he'd so long looked for and had found here in this house was shattered.

He sat down, face to the window, surrounded by the plastics and metals that gave discipline to his life, and with tears slowly running down his cheeks, watched the sun set.

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