Or was he?
“Where the hell have you been, Ethan?” Rupert demanded, removing his glasses and setting them on top of a bookcase. “You disappeared in the labyrinth. Now you’re here. What are you up to?”
“Doing my best to help, Rupert.”
Ethan didn’t even see it coming. Giles’s right hand whipped out with ferocious speed and strength that belied the mild-mannered librarian exterior. Knuckles cracked across Ethan’s nose and mouth, splitting his lip, and the magician tumbled out of the chair to the floor, where his head cracked the glass front of a bookcase. The antique tea set slid off the top and crashed to the ground, shattering.
But Ripper wasn’t through.
With his lips curled back in fury and his eyes narrowed dangerously, he hauled back his right leg and kicked Ethan hard in the ribs. Ethan grunted, but he didn’t fight back. He was frightened, but there were several valuable pieces of knowledge that came from having been in the same position with Ripper Giles in the past.
The first was that he had no chance in a one-on-one against Giles, and no time to concentrate enough to defend himself magickally, not without Ripper noticing his attempt to use magick and caving his skull in or something.
The second was that Giles wasn’t going to kill him.
Not this time.
Ripper grabbed Ethan by the hair, hauled him up and screamed into his face.
“Liar!”
Ethan didn’t even reply. He knew what that would do, and he was right. Giles seemed to deflate suddenly, the rage going out of him. He let go of Ethan’s hair. But he didn’t withdraw. Instead, he loomed over Ethan and scowled down at him.
“You’ve got something going on the side, Ethan. You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t a percentage in it for you. I want to know what you’re up to, and I want to know now. You lie to me, and I’ll know it. Or don’t you remember, Ethan? I know you, you cowardly bastard.”
Ethan didn’t move. But finally, he did respond.
“I’ve said all I can, Rupert,” he replied calmly, nursing his bleeding lip and mashed nose, feeling to see if anything was broken in his face. “You don’t believe me, and of course, I’m not at all surprised. But there isn’t a bloody thing I can do about it, old man. There’s certainly no percentage in the world ending, is there?
“I don’t think there’s a way I can convince you to believe me. If there is, I wish you’d tell me what it is.”
Giles only stared at him, still fuming. Then, suddenly, he spun on his heel and walked out of the office. Ethan rose and went to the door to watch him. Ripper went into the library cage and fished through several boxes there until he pulled out a dusty leather volume, apparently just what he’d been looking for.
Then he strode purposefully across the library and pushed past Ethan into his office. The Watcher carefully closed and moved the various volumes on his desk, but he ignored those stacked on the floor. He slapped the dusty book on the wooden desk and glared at Ethan.
“There’s a certain wonderful irony, even a perversion, in this,” Giles said, a mad smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You recognize that volume?”
Ethan nodded. “Slaves of Order. It’s the opposite of everything I love about this world. Order is sterility, Rupert. It’s gray death and the boredom of perfection. Inaction and impotence. It has its own horrors, as you well know.”
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “But today, it is the only hope we’ve got.”
They both looked at the book. Ethan sighed. His entire life was dedicated to the perverse exploitation of magick for his own amusement. Chaos was a joy. That was the whole point of it for him, really. Or, at least, one of them. Which was how he had become aware of the Sons of Entropy to begin with. But they were just a bit too psychotic for him. He enjoyed chaos for its own sake. But in a world of chaos, with chaos become the norm, he knew he would grow bored very quickly. Even if Fulcanelli hadn’t sold out to Hell, he might have helped Giles and the Slayer.
But this . . . this was an insult to everything he lived for. Everything he believed in. If chaos was everything, then order was nothing. And this book was a compendium of magick and arcane power rituals performed for and drawing upon the power of the Lords of Order.
“What are my options, hmm?” Ethan asked aloud.
Ripper began to reply, but Ethan cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“A rhetorical question, I assure you. Now, what do you want me to do?”
* * *
A short time later, Giles arrived back at the cemetery. Buffy, Oz, and Micaela were piling large stones pried away from the cemetery wall on top of a manhole cover in the middle of the graveyard. Giles knew immediately what they were doing. There were other exits from that underground.
There was no way they would be able to get to them all. And even if they did, the demons would still escape eventually. Which was why he was now counting on Ethan.
And several others, for that matter.
“Giles, are you all right?” Buffy asked when she saw him.
He ran his hands through his hair, pushed up his glasses, and smoothed his jacket as best he could.
“A bit tense, of course,” he told her, avoiding the subject of Ethan, and his behavior at the library. He had that violence within him, but he wasn’t proud of it.
“Can I ask a question?” Oz ventured.
All three of them looked at him.
“Where are all the creatures from the Otherworld? I mean, I think I saw a troll down there, and something else that looked vaguely like a hairy dragon, but it’s mostly demons now, right? Why?”
Giles grew contemplative a moment. It was a good question.
“Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “perhaps it is simply that the creatures of the Otherworld fear the demons. They were attempting to enter our world before, but now, many of them may be withdrawing, letting the demons hold sway. Most of the creatures of the Otherworld are not truly evil, but rather savage, killing by instinct. Some are malicious, but many simply primitive. Either way, they would fear the denizens of Hell.”
Oz nodded. “See, now that’s what I thought.”
“Great,” Buffy said, clapping her hands together. “Now that that’s settled, what’s the plan?”
Giles glanced away a moment. When he looked up again, he was sorely troubled. “Micaela,” he said, “you and Oz must come with me to Angel’s home. Jacques must be returned to the Gatehouse immediately, and I’ll need you both, as well as Angel.”
“But Angel can’t go anywhere while the sun is up,” Buffy said.
“And, I hate to bring it up, but this is the third night of the full moon. I’ll get all wolfy by sundown,” Oz noted.
“Yes, yes,” Giles replied, even as he turned to walk back toward his car. “I’ve taken all of that into consideration.”
He started for the car, and Micaela and Oz followed after.
“Hello?” Buffy called.
Giles turned to face her.
“Have we forgotten about the Slayer here? Trying to keep the forces of Hell from breaking out of the underground and swarming over the sleepy town of Sunnydale?” she demanded.
“Ah, yes,” Giles said. “Keep at it. If all goes as planned, Ethan should have that all taken care of shortly.”
He turned toward the car again.
Behind him, Buffy called out, “Ethan. You’re trusting Ethan?
“We’re all gonna die.”
Chapter 11
TIRED AND WORRIED ABOUT BUFFY, Oz sat behind Micaela and Giles in the Gilesmobile on the ride back to the mansion. In addition to processing everything that had just happened, he was wondering exactly how Giles was taking his third night as a werewolf into consideration. No dignity there, no matter how you looked at it. Not a lot of help to the others, either. The world was in danger of ending, and he might just go out looking like the lead in a frame-by-frame color remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf instead of kissing his Willow good-bye.
Speakin
g of kissing, the two big people were not talking; now that they were coming down from the battle, there was lots of unspoken intensity between those two. Oz thought they’d be a lot better off if they really hashed it out about her father and got through it. Maybe did some, ah, grappling. However, no one was asking his opinion. No one was even speaking to him.
But that was cool.
He sat back and watched Sunnydale go by. It was almost two P.M. By five-thirty or so, he would be transformed. Three hours to go.
When they arrived at the mansion, he climbed out and stood by the car while Micaela unbound her wards and spells of protection over the house. She remarked casually that Jacques’s spells were still in good shape, and she wished she were as good at magick as he was.
Oz figured she was lucky. Next thing you knew they’d be forcing her to be the Gatekeeper. Which maybe could not happen, because, hey, chick and all. On the other hand, one of the rules was also that your last name had to be Regnier, and last time he’d seen Xander’s ID, it had said Harris. So maybe the only rule was that rules were made to be broken.
“Right, then,” Giles said, and the three walked through the garden and into the house.
Despite the hour, it was very still, very quiet, a marked contrast to the situation at the cemetery. Oz wondered again how Buffy was doing back there.
“Everyone must be sleeping,” Micaela remarked. “Jacques has been out for a long time.”
“Grief can have that effect on a person,” Giles replied.
“This must be an unbelievably hard time for him.” Her face was very gentle, very sad. “He has no one in the world. He’ll have to go live in that house all alone for hundreds of years, except when he leaves to bind some monster or other. I don’t think I could stand it.”
“It’s all right, Miss Micaela,” the boy said from the entrance to the hallway, where he stood with Buffy’s mom. “I’m ready to take up my duties.”
He looked different, somehow. Older than eleven, but still not exactly grown up. Maybe the way Oz and the rest of the Scooby Gang looked these days.
Buffy’s mother had one hand on the boy’s shoulder, comforting him.
“I’m sorry you heard that,” Micaela told Jacques.
“Don’t be.” He smiled thinly. “It’s not a surprise.”
“But perhaps it is a shock,” she persisted.
He inclined his head. “Perhaps.” He regarded the three of them. “But you know it’s time for me to go to the Gatehouse. Past time, actually.”
Joyce cleared her throat. “It’s time I went home as well,” she said. “Nowhere’s safe now, and I want to be there until Buffy comes back or the world ends, whichever comes first.”
She looked at Giles as though he might protest. Instead, he nodded slowly.
“Be well, Joyce,” he said.
The mother of the Slayer looked at the Watcher a moment longer, and then she departed.
“Okay,” Oz said, “about Boston.”
Jacques spoke up. “We’ll stand a better chance if I travel only with those touched by the supernatural,” he said.
“My thinking also,” Giles replied. “However, as it seems likely the demons will soon break through in force, and Sunnydale has proven to be ground zero, Buffy must remain here. Which leaves only Angel and Oz.”
Oz frowned slightly and raised his hand. “Um, question here. It’s light out, so Angel can’t leave the mansion to get to the breach that leads into the ghost roads. Unless we hide him in the back of the van, I guess. And if we wait until dark, I’ll be a werewolf.”
“Right.” Giles cleared his throat and pushed up his glasses. “Here’s my thinking on that. Micaela has the ability to open the ghost roads where she wishes.” He bobbed his head in Jacques’s direction. “And one might assume that when you inherit your powers, you may do so as well.”
“True,” Jacques answered, “but I haven’t inherited them yet.”
“Quite so,” Giles said. “So, we open a breach right here. Jacques, Oz, and Angel leave immediately, which is a little after five Boston time.”
“But—” Oz began, but Giles held up his hand.
“One must assume you’ll arrive there after dark. At which point you will, indeed, transform into a werewolf. My suggestion for that is that Micaela work a spell to render Angel and Jacques invisible to you.”
“I can do that,” she said.
“So we won’t see each other on the ghost road?” Oz asked. “What if somebody attacks us?” He looked at Micaela. “Can you time it to happen at a certain point, like right before we arrive in Boston?”
“I also thought of that,” Giles cut in, “but the problem is, we really don’t know how long it will take you. It’s rather certain you’ll be attacked, plus there’s still the relative newness of the experience. In the sense of controlling it, I mean. Think of it this way: we assume it will take a certain amount of time for me to drive from the cemetery to this house—approximately ten to fifteen minutes—but if there were a traffic jam, it would take considerably longer.”
Especially if you’re the one who’s driving, Oz thought, but kept that to himself. Instead, he nodded.
Micaela warmed to her subject. As she talked, she moved her hands expressively. “You can each carry something, maybe wear an armband or a vest. Once they realize you’ve changed, Angel and Jacques take theirs off, and stay invisible until Xander deals with you.”
Oz raised a brow. “Deals with me?”
“I would assume he’d bind you into the Gatehouse,” Giles said. “I’ve tried phoning them to tell them about all this, but the line is out again, which would seem to indicate that the conflict in Boston has heated up once more. Xander may be Gatekeeper now, but it was clearly presumptuous to take comfort in that. He is not a Regnier. It’s possible that fact has handicapped his ability to access the power he has received. Still, we have little choice as to our course of action.”
“That’s not new,” Oz said unhappily. Getting bound into the Gatehouse did not particularly sound like his idea of personal bliss.
“I won’t give up trying to reach them.” Giles scratched the back of his neck and moved his head slowly, as if he had a kink. “I think you’ll be in good hands, Oz. Whether Xander is the Gatekeeper or the mantle passes to Jacques.”
Oz was a bit embarrassed that he was putting up such a fuss. He didn’t mean to. He was cool with the program, and he didn’t want to be any extra trouble.
“I’m in, totally,” he said.
“Which leaves only one, final problem,” Jacques said. “Angel’s asleep.”
“No, I’m not,” Angel murmured groggily from the pitch-dark hallway. “I can deal. I’ve had enough rest.”
Micaela nodded to herself. “I can open the ghost roads in the hall as well as anywhere.”
Angel replied, “That would be best.”
“All right.” Giles looked very serious, very concerned. Oz felt a chill down his spine. He hadn’t died yet, he reminded himself, and he’d been on a lot of thrill rides with Slayer and Company. Problem was, for most people, the first time one died was also the last time. Except for bad guys. They usually got extra innings. What was up with that?
“I guess we may as well proceed.” Giles gestured for Oz and Micaela to join him as he walked into the hall.
Angel was there, hair tousled. He was buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his black pants. He looked up and nodded at Oz. Oz nodded back.
Jacques moved to join them. They stood shoulder to shoulder, and Oz took a deep breath.
“I think I saw this on Sliders,” he said.
Angel actually chuckled.
Somehow that made it all a little better.
“Wait. Armbands,” Oz said.
Angel went into his room and returned with a white T-shirt and a pair of scissors. While the others waited, he cut three strips and handed one to Oz and one to Jacques. They tied them around their upper arms.
“Make sure it’s easy to take off
quickly,” Angel said to Jacques.
Jacques practiced tearing it off a couple of times, as did Angel. They nodded at Micaela.
“All right. I’ll begin,” she said.
She extended her arms and closed her eyes. Her voice was breathy as it dropped to a whisper. Oz could make out only a few syllables, and he was pretty sure they weren’t in English. He licked his lips and braced himself, not sure what to expect. The last time Micaela had intervened on the breach thing, he had been unconscious.
Suddenly the hall filled with a bright white light. Micaela said, “Move toward it.”
Oz was a tad not okay with that; how many books and movies had he read or seen where moving toward the light entailed dying? Okay, Micaela wasn’t a squeaky-voiced dwarf woman, and Angel was no Carol Ann, but still, creepy.
“You’re certain,” Giles said, adding to Oz’s concern.
“Yes. Move toward it, all three of you.”
Oz took the first step.
In an instant, he was surrounded by nothingness. Around him, everything was the color of the pewter chess set in Aunt Maureen’s TV room. Twilight time in the twilight zone.
So they were on the road again.
Beside him, a piece of white T-shirt floated in the air, and Angel said, “Can you see us?”
Another piece of white T-shirt floated on the other side of Oz.
“No. Can you see me?”
“Yes.”
Oz took that in. “Freaky.”
There was a brilliant flash, and then the landscape shadows around them snapped into focus: a throng of dead swarmed around them, terrified and screaming, as four or five slathering demons raged after them. Hulking and bent over, they were the color of rotten flesh, and smelled just as bad. Their faces looked like wet, loose clay, with black teeth and milky eyeballs pressed into it. They’d expected something like this, given how overrun the ghost roads had been the last couple of times. But still. So not what Oz wanted to see.
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