“So, Buffy stood under the mistletoe, and just looked at Spike. And he looked at her, and didn't make any move, and Buffy gave this little smile like she was trying to pretend she wasn't hurt. So Spike reached out to her, and said ‘As you wish’, and he kissed her, and you could practically hear the string section and see the fireworks go up. And it was just so romantic.” Willow sighed.
“S-so they're going out t-together now?” Tara asked. It was the first day back at college after the Holiday break. Willow was filling her in on events over the holiday.
“Yes. Although Spike still seems a bit nervous about the whole boyfriend thing. Like he'll wake up and find it was all a dream. Which is all my fault, I guess.” Willow sighed again, but this time guiltily.
Tara knew about the ‘My Will Be Done’ spell and its unfortunate results, but she avoided commenting. “I still haven't met any of your f-friends apart from S-Spike,” she reminded Willow.
“You should come to Buffy's birthday party tomorrow. Which is a surprise party. You can meet everybody then,” Willow suggested.
“I d-don't think it's the best time,” Tara declined.
“Come on. You won't be left on your own, Spike will look after you if I get tied up,” Willow urged her. “He really likes you, remember.”
“Which is not calculated to endear me to B-Buffy, if her new b-boyfriend spends too much t-time with me,” Tara pointed out. In truth she was still very nervous around Spike, even though he treated her with respect and affection.
“Guess you're right,” Willow agreed. “I'll hit you with them one at a time rather than you having to face the whole crowd all at once. So we probably won't see each other tomorrow. But the day after tomorrow we will, and we'll do that spell.”
Hostile 17 was at the birthday party. Riley couldn't believe it. A vampire, at the Slayer's birthday party. In the very University building in which he had tried to recapture the escapee. Chatting to, among others, Forrest and Graham. Spending most of her time with Xander's girlfriend Anya, with Willow, with Spike, with Buffy herself, and with the middle-aged man who was some sort of old family friend of Buffy's; but still coming into direct contact with the other Initiative agents.
They noticed nothing. The search for the missing Hostile had been downgraded. Mail to Harmony Kendall's parents had been intercepted, and read before being replaced, and it had included a Christmas card from the Hostile to her parents, postmarked Los Angeles. The Hostile had made it out of Sunnydale, free and clear, hadn't gone to the Press, and was no threat to humans. Her capture was no longer regarded as an urgent priority. Gates and Miller had made less of a point of studying the pictures than he had done himself; they tended to rely more on the technology, the thermal imagers and the like, and to distrust the human eye. The resemblance between this redhead and the missing blonde didn't strike them.
Could he be wrong? He looked for mirrors, but someone had ensured that there were none in the room. Blinds covered the windows. He tried to use a cake server as a makeshift mirror, but reflections in it proved to be so blurred that he could tell nothing for sure. He could have borrowed a make-up mirror from one of the female guests; but did he really want to? She had saved his life. Without her intervention he would have fallen to a terrible death. Could he betray her, have her captured, have her subjected to further experiments? Not if he wanted to be able to live with himself afterwards, he decided.
He said nothing to his two colleagues. He chatted to Harmony Kendall, alias Michelle McNab, himself. She seemed to be interested in him, and he had to admit he found her attractive. Except that he knew she was a walking corpse, a dead body animated by a ‘Viral Alien Microscopic Presence, Infection Risk Extreme’, to use the contrived designation coined by one of the lab personnel with too much time on his hands. A Hostile Sub-Terrestrial inhabiting the body of its victim. Who was flirting with him, had a distracting cleavage and a pert ass, and who had saved his life.
It was confusing, and upsetting. Perhaps not as upsetting as seeing the girl he had almost fallen in love with so blissfully happy with someone else. Stroking the present Spike had given her with a dreamy expression on her face. What was so special about it anyway? A simple gold chain with one single pearl? What was the big deal with that?
“So, spill,” Willow pressed Buffy, as they sat on their beds. “You and Spike. All the way yet?”
“He's going to make me wait, the mean pig,” Buffy revealed, with a pout of mock annoyance. “Stupid Victorian! He insists on courting me first. Nothing more than smoochies. Says he needs to prove to himself as well as to me that he can be what I deserve. But if we make it to summer and I still want him, then he'll ‘shag me senseless’. And he'll ... do other things.” Buffy went misty-eyed. “He's got a real way with words, when he lets his guard down enough to use it.”
Buffy lost herself in dreamy thoughts for a moment, then remembered Willow's crush on Spike from not that long ago, and decided that it might be tactful to change the subject. “Hey, ‘Michelle’ at the party, maybe not so bright an idea. Anya's?”
“Mine. The Purloined Letter technique. Hide in plain sight. I mean, where's the last place they'd look for her? Also, I thought it'd be a good idea to reinforce her bond with the leader of the pack. Which is you.”
“That's creepy. Makes me sound like a ...” Buffy was about to say ‘wolf’, but realised that that might not be the best analogy to use with Willow, and scrambled for an alternative. “Hell's Angel. Vroom, vroom. Or a dog.”
“I got the idea from something Professor Walsh said in class. She ...” Willow's voice trailed off. She looked at Buffy unhappily. “She's doing it herself, isn't she? Down there. Behaviour modifications. Punishment and reward. We're trying to help ‘Michelle’ be a good person. But what's Professor Walsh trying to achieve?”
Giles had not been having a good few days. Buffy's birthday party had been excruciating. He had felt completely out of place, almost an interloper. An uncomfortable feeling, which had paled into insignificance compared to the utter dread he had experienced on seeing Harmony Kendall actually flirting with the young man he had been told was Riley Finn. One of the very commandos who had captured her in the first place. Apparently she had acquired a taste for unliving dangerously. Pulling the tail of the tiger, or something like that. There had been no harm done; no alarms, tazers, handcuffs; but he felt as if he'd aged five years over the course of the party. He'd even checked his hair on returning home to see if it had become visibly greyer.
His encounter with Professor Maggie Walsh had been dreadful. That awful woman had been so dismissive of him. A poor father figure substitute indeed! Then Willow had let slip that the others had deduced that Walsh must be a senior figure in the organisation that was experimenting upon demons. A behavioural psychologist, whose assistant was known to be one of the commandos - it was obvious now he thought of it. But they hadn't told him. Apparently Willow had thought Buffy would have done, Buffy had thought Spike had done, Spike had thought Willow had done; but no-one had, even though they had come to their conclusion before Christmas.
His encounter with Ethan Rayne had actually been a high spot. The prospect of beating the sorceror to a pulp had appealed; going out drinking with him instead had turned out to be an acceptable alternative. What Rayne had told him about the rumours in the demon world concerning the secret facility, and its doings, had been valuable information. An evening well spent. Or it would have been, had Giles not awoken the following morning to discover that he had been transformed into a demon.
Blundering through his own house, breaking things, destroying the telephone in a futile attempt to use it with mighty demon hands. Going to Xander's basement for help, only to be driven from it in a hail of crockery by a panic-stricken young man who obviously couldn't understand a word Giles was saying. Fleeing frantically through the town, scattering terrified humans in his wake, abandoning his attempt to reach Buffy when he realised that the commandos would undoubtedly get to him first. Hiding out all day, then emerging to lurch through the cemeteries like one of the creatures of the night that he normally spent his time destroying. Things couldn't possibly get any worse.
Then he encountered Spike and Harmony. Spike was teaching the young vampire how to use a crossbow. She saw Giles, screamed, and ran to cower behind the master vampire. Who'd reached into his coat and produced his new favourite toy, the kukri, with which he had displayed skill worthy of a Ghurkha. Yes, things could get worse.
Spike was in a bad mood. Giles had disappeared, and his empty apartment showed signs of there having been a fight. A demon had attacked Xander. Willow had informed him that she and Tara had detected a major use of magic during the night. Connected? Probably, but how? Everyone was looking into it, but nothing had turned up yet, and to make things worse he'd ended up stuck with the bimbo for the night's patrol. She had insisted on carrying a crossbow, hoping to keep things that could harm her as far away as possible, but had displayed such ineptitude with it that he had been forced to stop to give her a few lessons. Then a Fyarl demon had turned up, and she'd panicked.
Not that he could blame her all that much. Scary buggers, the Fyarl. Horns, claws, ridged spine, bloody strong. Plus there was that mucus thing. Took silver to kill them, if he remembered correctly, and he didn't have any silver on him. Still, it might know something about Giles. Might even be the thing that had attacked him and Xander. Chopping off a limb or two would probably put it into a cooperative frame of mind, and he could look for something silver later, after he'd asked it a few questions. The chopping would give him a chance to work off some of his worry and anger. It'd be fun. Well, not for the Fyarl demon.
“Oh, dear,” Giles moaned, as Spike strode confidently towards him wielding the kukri. The prospect of dismemberment loomed. He knew his current body could never outrun the lithe form of the master vampire. Fighting back would only postpone the inevitable at best. Talking would probably be futile; he had discovered during his encounter with Xander that he was unable to communicate with humans. The rest of his life was likely to be nasty, brutish, and short. There was a ‘twang’, a thump, a pain, and Giles found that he had a crossbow bolt protruding from his chest.
“I got him!” Harmony yelped excitedly. “Yay me! Right in the chest. Did you see that, Spike? I got him. And, why isn't he dying?”
“Oh, that just takes the cake!” Giles burst out. “A perfect end to a perfect day. Shot by Harmony Kendall. You bloody annoying woman!”
“Giles?” Spike asked, wonderingly. “Is that you?”
“Of course it's me,” Giles replied angrily. The anger left him as he realised that Spike seemed to have somehow recognised him. “Spike - you know me? Am I speaking English now?”
“No, but I happen to speak Fyarl,” Spike explained. “Had a couple of them working for me once. Don't shoot him again, Ha - Michelle. It's Giles.”
“Mr Giles? You're in there? Wow. Sorry. Oops. Although it was a good shot, wasn't it?”
Giles sighed, and raised his eyes heavenwards. “Yes, Harmony. It was a good shot. Well done.”
Spike translated to a delighted Harmony, and then turned back to Giles. “You're slipping, Watcher. You called her ‘many-sing-together sweet-mint-cake’, instead of - well, not sure there is a Fyarl word for ‘Michelle’, so I suppose you can be excused. Anyway. What the sodding Hell happened? Buffy's been out of her mind with worry, and so's Willow. I take it you were just trying to talk to Xander?”
“Ethan Rayne,” Giles replied, as if that explained everything. Which it did, once Spike had managed to decipher the Fyarl equivalent of the name.
“What, that bugger who turned Buffy into Cinderella and Willow into the Ghost of Hookers Past? We'd better get him to change you back.” He pulled out his cell phone and began to dial Buffy.
Giles relaxed. It seemed the worst was over. At which point a Humvee full of masked commandos loomed into view. “Hostile, range eighty!” one commando yelled. “Engage and destroy!”
Wrong again.
They fled through the sewers, pursued by commandos. Harmony was terrified, of course, but managed to keep her mouth shut and to obey Spike's instructions. The commandos fell behind, outdistanced by the three supernatural creatures, and Spike made another try at calling Buffy.
“Can't get a sodding signal down here,” he muttered. “Got to get out and clear. This way, Rupes, Mickey.”
“Mickey?” Harmony protested, outraged.
“Got to get out of the habit of calling you ‘Harm’, haven't I, pet? Come on.” He led the way to a vertical access shaft and up it to a manhole, which emerged close to the mall car park. “Hang on a sec.” He made his way to a nearby car, popped the lock out of the door, and hotwired the vehicle. “Okay, come on.” The other two rushed across and joined him in the car, and he drove off.
“You can't just steal someone's car,” Giles complained.
“I can't let you get bleeding well whipped off into that place and taken apart to see what makes you tick, either. They're tracking us. Stay in the sewers, or run for it on foot, and they'd bloody have you. Mickey, ring Buff. Tell her Giles is okay, except for being a demon, and ask her to track down Ethan Rayne.”
“He gave his number to a waitress in the bar we were at last night,” Giles volunteered.
“Room or phone? No, don't bother trying to answer that one in Fyarl. If we can make it there, I can get it from her. What the Hell were you doing, out drinking with that wanker? Don't answer that either. By the way, Rupert, better pull that crossbow bolt out of your chest. It won't harm a Fyarl, but it could be a bit of a bugger if you forgot about it and we changed you back. Seen it happen. Could ruin your whole day.”
Ethan was packing when the door burst open. A huge, hideous, horned, Fyarl demon entered. “I'm impressed, Giles,” Ethan said, calmly. “I never thought you'd be able to track me down. Now, don't do anything rash. I won't be able to change you back if you harm me.” He surreptitiously felt within his suitcase for his silver dagger, but was seized by the throat and lifted from the ground before his fingers had made contact.
He clawed futilely at the monstrous hand, panic beginning to strike, and then thought he saw salvation. Buffy came into the room, followed closely by Spike. “You've got to stop it! It killed Ripper, and now it's trying to kill me!” Rayne choked out of his constricted throat.
“Put him down, Rupes, you don't know where he's been,” Spike scolded the demonic Watcher, and Ethan's heart sank.
“Change him back. Undo it,” Buffy commanded.
“Or you'll kill me? I don't think so,” Ethan sneered. “You're the Slayer. You can't kill humans.”
“I could break several important bones,” Buffy reminded him. “Wouldn't be fun. Or pretty.”
“And I've got no objection to trimming a few bits off you that you might not want to lose, mate.” Spike produced the kukri and looked meaningfully at Ethan's crotch. “You won't die. Not if I'm quick enough with the hot iron, that is. Might want to, of course.”
“You're bluffing,” Rayne spat back. Giles picked him up by the hair, and then dropped him again. “Ow! Ow!”
“Bluffing? You endangered Giles,” Buffy pointed out. “If you want to bet that I'd stop Spike from doing some impromptu surgery, go ahead, don't change Giles back. Just remember what you're going to lose.”
Ethan met her determined gaze, and then looked away. “I'll do it,” he surrendered. “I really must learn to just do the damage and get out of town. It's the staying to gloat that gets me every time.”
“So, what do we do with him?” Buffy asked. Giles was human again, dressing in clothes from Ethan's suitcase. “I can't kill him, he's right about that. But if we let him go, he'll be back, causing more trouble.”
“Don't suppose you can let me kill him either, love, can you? I haven't got this whole morals thing totally sussed yet, but I bet I've got that worked out right.” Spike ran his finger along the edge of the kukri and watched Rayne with disconcertingly hungry eyes.
“I could just leave. Promise never to come back,” Ethan suggested hopefully.
“And we can trust your word, can't we, Ethan?” Giles stared at him accusingly. “You have made it abundantly plain how much your word is worth. Absolutely nothing.”
“Yes, leave, Mr Rayne,” Buffy said decisively. She saw hope, and cunning, flare in his eyes, and moved to crush it. “Leave forever. If you ever come back I'll unleash Spike. He can kill you, cut out your tongue so you can't do magic, whatever he likes. I won't care. I won't even ask him about it. If you set one foot in Sunnydale after midnight tonight your life is in Spike's hands. Or if any of us ever see you in Los Angeles, or anywhere else in California, or we take a holiday to Florida and bump into you there. Anywhere in the USA. Or if anything happens to Giles in England. Maybe I can't kill a human. But I can turn a blind eye. And I will.”
“Ripper, my old friend, you wouldn't ...” Ethan began to appeal, then his voice trailed off as he met Giles' gaze. “You would. You win. I'll go, and I won't be back.”
“Bloody right you won't. Not and leave alive again.” Spike's voice was chilling in its certainty.
Ethan quailed beneath the impassive gaze. He was defeated.
“I wonder how much of what Ethan told me can be relied on,” Giles mused, back at his apartment.
“Very little, I would say,” Buffy guessed.
“I'm not so sure. The rumours from the demon world he recounted do correspond with what we know. I am, however, puzzled by the mention of a mysterious ‘Project 314’, which is reputedly a secret within a secret. Why would Ethan bother making it up? He planned to turn me into a demon. Perhaps to scare me even more if I fell into the hands of the organisation? Even so, it would be far more effective if based on fact. Yet if it was genuine information, how would demons have heard of it? More escapees like yourself?” He looked at Harmony, who shrugged her shoulders.
“If anyone else ever escaped I never heard of it,” she told him.
“Test runs,” suggested Spike. “They're letting some of their subjects out on test runs. Making sure they do what they've been trained to do. And some of them have chatted with their mates while they're out.”
“I would very much like to know what it is that they are being trained for,” Giles admitted. “Not enough to be willing to be taken there in the form of a Fyarl demon and subjected to said training, of course. Again, my thanks to you all.”
Ethan Rayne walked out to his rented car, carrying his suitcase. The others had gone. Leaving him to pay for the broken door lock and check out. He hoped he would never see them again. He deposited the suitcase in the trunk, and then made his way to the driver's door. And froze. There was someone in the driving seat. A figure wearing a ski mask. Pointing a Beretta M-9 pistol directly at Ethan's face.
“That's all I know. I swear it,” Ethan finished. It wasn't, but it was all he dared say without incriminating himself in activities that he would much prefer did not come to the attention of the US authorities.
Maggie Walsh stared at him unblinkingly. “Very well. You will leave the country, as they instructed. You will not return. You will never be granted a visa again. If you enter the country without a visa you will be presumed hostile.” She spoke in level tones, unemotionally, but the impression of dire menace was unmistakable. She pressed a button, and a masked soldier entered. “Replace his blindfold. Escort him from the premises and return him to his car. Make sure he gets to the airport and catches his flight. If he attempts to deviate from that course, you are authorised to use deadly force.”
Once Rayne had been removed, Professor Walsh made her way to the highest security level of the complex, and entered section 314. “We have a problem,” she announced. “Something that could jeopardise the entire project. My erratic student, Miss Summers, and her friend William Walworth. They are not just amateur demon hunters, seeking thrills, and causing mere incidental damage. They are part of a large organisation based within a foreign power.”
Dr. Angleman, her second in command, looked at her with concern. “So they're spies?”
“Unfortunately no. That would be so much simpler.” Walsh paced the room, talking as much to put her own thoughts in order as to inform Dr. Angleman. “It's called the Council of Watchers. It dates back at least to the time of the Roman Empire, probably longer, and it exists to combat Sub-Terrestrial activity. Of course they see it in terms of superstition, but they appear to be effective nonetheless. Currently they are based in London, England. They are well funded and have considerable influence. Most of this Council restrict themselves to studying Sub-Terrestrials and collecting data, but they have an active wing. One girl. Buffy Summers.”
“That hardly seems much of a threat.” Dr. Angleman could tell that there must be more to it than that, and spoke merely to show his willingness to be used as a sounding board.
“Not a normal girl. They call her the Slayer, and she is enhanced in some way. What the superstitious would term magic. Heightened senses. Reaction time accelerated. Extra speed. Remarkable healing. A natural affinity for combat skills. And, most dramatically, increased strength. To a completely inhuman level. My informant claims that she is ten times as strong as any normal human. She can literally lift a car above her head, or punch a hole in a brick wall. Her skeleton and ligaments must be reinforced by this process or they would break under the strain.”
Walsh paused for a moment, considering possibilities, and then went on. “It is, apparently, not possible to duplicate the process. Even the Watchers' Council themselves have no control over it. Only one girl can be the Slayer. When she dies another girl spontaneously develops the enhancements. The Council can spot likely prospects, and they recruit them, keep them under their wing, and train them. They send the active Slayer to the place of highest Sub-Terrestrial activity to, as they see it, fight demons for the protection of mankind. The Slayer is accompanied by one single Watcher who acts as her mentor.”
“Walworth.” Dr. Angleman put in.
“Apparently not. One Rupert Giles, an ineffectual Englishman, ‘old family friend’, who called on me yesterday to discuss Miss Summers' class work. His true purpose could well have been to gather information.”
“So who's Walworth, then?”
“My informant wasn't sure. He actually thought Walworth was a vampire, but we know that to be impossible. However he informed me that Mr Giles was at one time dismissed by the Watcher's Council for becoming overprotective of Miss Summers. A replacement was sent, but apparently proved unequal to the task. Walworth must be the replacement's replacement. The Council, my informant tells me, maintains a small group of wet work operatives. For such tasks as removing a Slayer who decides to use her power for criminal purposes, or who turns her back on demon fighting to seek fame and fortune on the professional tennis circuit. Walworth is presumably drawn from that pool. He is young, and inexperienced, but a killer. Rupert Giles must have been reinstated in an advisory capacity to provide the wisdom and experience the younger man lacks. I feel they could be a formidable team.”
“Must they be our enemies?” Dr. Angleman enquired.
Professor Walsh gave a grim, mirthless, smile. “They are do-gooders. They fight what they see as supernatural evil wherever it may be. They are in Sunnydale because that is where they believe to be the place of greatest need. In the past they have supported Slayers in China, Germany, Egypt, all over the world, regardless of the political situation at the time. They would see the Project as an abomination. They'd try to protect Arafat, and Qaddafi, and Hussein, and Kim Jong-Il, and all our other targets. They would try to destroy Adam.”
Her voice had been growing more and more angry as she went on. She paused, took a breath, and began again more calmly. “I don't believe it was a coincidence that Hostile 17 made its way to Buffy Summers' dorm room. It was seeking help. And it received help.”
“From the girl created to destroy creatures like it?” Dr. Angleman asked, perplexed.
“The creature talked its way out of here, remember? No doubt it appealed to some sense of fair play, mutual respect between enemies, or some such rot. It animates the corpse of a school friend of Summers'. Undoubtedly it played on that connection. The girl and her associates protected the creature, rescued it from A-Team, and have since assisted it in escaping to Los Angeles. Intolerable interference.”
Her voice changed, becoming soft, almost wistful. “We stand on the threshold of a new world. A safe, productive, world. The disturbed and the violent can be given a useful place in society, their destructive impulses curbed. An end to crime, to disorder. No more Americans will die in combat. External threats to our society can be brought to heel without risking American lives. That can't be threatened by nonsense about so-called ‘rights’, or by ignorant elements portraying us as making a deal with the Devil.”
She became brisk, business-like. “I'll give you the tape of my informant's revelations. You will collate the information and add it to Adam's database. He must be prepared to deal with this threat. We will dispose of Summers, but another Slayer may appear to replace her. Removal of the Council of Watchers becomes a long-term aim.”
Dr. Angleman nodded agreement. He had no opinion whatsoever regarding the sanctity of human life. His work was all that interested him. He was briefly puzzled, and slightly concerned, about one thing. Something he had noticed before. Professor Walsh was meticulous about regarding the Sub-Terrestrials as inhuman. Whatever their form, she always referred to them as ‘it’. Never as ‘he’, never as ‘she' even when talking about the extremely female Hostile 17. Yet she always called Adam ‘he’, even though the culmination of Project 314 was far less human than were many of the test subjects. He dismissed the thought. “So we remove Summers? And presumably Walworth and Giles also?”
“Correct. And also Willow Rosenberg.”
Project 314 lay on the laboratory table. Or did the monster lie on the slab? All a question of semantics. A patchwork man. Some parts human, some parts demon, some parts computer. Created to be fast, strong, i ntelligent, and deadly. Aesthetics had been forgotten. This was why it could never be more than a prototype, a test bed, a beta version.
Dr. Angleman had prepared a synopsis of the data from the informant. He had also activated Adam's audio inputs and played back the entire tape of the interview. The symbiotic fusion of human brain and computer might catch something of value in the information that he had missed. After completing that task he went off to brief the team who were to search for, and capture, the Polgara demon whose natural weaponry would make such a useful addition to Adam's arsenal.
Maggie Walsh called in briefly to take a look at her creation before going to join in the briefing. “Poor Adam,” she mused, looking down at the dormant figure. “Almost time to wake up and take your first look at the world. I know you're going to make me proud. The first of a new race. The first biomechanical demonoid. We'll learn so much from you. It's not your fault that you could never pass for human. That you will have to be disassembled once your purpose is fulfilled. Poor, poor Adam.”
Audio input received and decoded. Analysing. Understood. Threat evaluation complete.