“So, no actual witches in your witch group?” Buffy was walking with Willow back to their dorm room, discussing their day.
“No, bunch of wannabes. Except they don't wannabe. Nowadays every girl with a henna tattoo and a spice rack thinks she's a sister to the dark ones.” Willow opened the room door. “Except when it comes to actually doing something. There was this one girl who maybe was a bit interested, but the others just squashed her. They were all bake sales and newsletters. No magic. I was hoping to learn some control, you know.” She dropped her books down onto her bed. “Maybe learn to float something bigger than a pencil without launching the Space Shuttle. I do something, and end up going off like a badly made firework. I don't want to do that any more. I've caused enough problems.” She sat down. “Hey, you and Riley? I saw you together after class.”
“Zilch,” Buffy told her. “Nada. Absolutely nothing there. He's nice enough, but, how can he compare to 'a caress from Buffy is delight beyond the dreams of men', and ‘I'll take that delicate pearl that waits there and circle it with my tongue'? I just can't stop thinking about the things Spike said. I just wish I could hear him say them again.”
“Still not getting through to him?”
“Nope. I just can't make him see. He thinks he's not good enough for me. Anything I say just upsets him, so I've stopped trying. He just wants to be friends, and I'm good with that. For now. But I want that fire back.”
“No throwing yourself at him like I did,” Willow cautioned. “I saw you zone out in class, you looked a bit misty. Dreaming about him?”
“Yeah, he was in there. Doing some of those things he talked about, which was - well, I think I'm going to have to boil wash my panties. But then it turned sort of weird. Everything vanished, and there was this little girl carrying a box, and she said this creepy rhyme, and there was a monster. I think maybe that bit was the sort of dream I oughta tell Giles about.”
“Hey, you and that Buffy girl. I saw you together in the hall. Any progress, my man?” Forrest and Riley were descending into the Initiative complex.
“Zilch. Nada.” Riley looked glum. “I still think she's special, but, not for me. Ever since that practical joke where she and Spike were supposed to be getting married she's just not interested in anyone else. She's known him for years, never thought of him that way before, but now - well, I don't think I can compete.”
“This is the burden we bear, brother,” Forrest commiserated. “We have a gig that would inevitably cause any girl living to think we are cool upon cool. Yet we must Clark Kent our way through the dating scene, never to use our unfair advantage.”
“Don't think it would help. Martial arts ace, bummed around every country in Europe and South America, fourteen languages, he's pretty damn cool upon cool himself. And he kicked our lily asses. No point in beating my head on a brick wall. I give up. The phrase about fish looms.” Riley shrugged.
“In the sea, plenty more. Yeah, pretty much what I was going to say. Hey, that tall dude with the horns is a new one on me.”
“Can't even shout, can't even cry,
The gentlemen are coming by.
Looking in windows, knocking on doors;
They need to take seven, and they might take yours.
Can't call to mom, can't say a word;
You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard.”
“It does sound vaguely familiar. And ominous,” Giles remarked into the phone. “You're sure it's nothing you heard when you were a child?”
Buffy replied in the negative. Giles questioned her some more, agreed that it might indeed be one of her prophetic Slayer dreams, promised to do some research, and then broke the connection. He dialled Spike, recounted Buffy's dream, and asked if the vampire knew anything about the ‘Gentlemen’. Spike didn't, but agreed to look into it. Giles hung up.
He turned to his houseguest. “You're quite sure you've packed absolutely everything? None of your undergarments left in embarrassing places to give Olivia the wrong idea altogether?” Xander and Anya walked in just in time to catch that last sentence. Giles stared at them reproachfully. “Thank you for knocking.”
“Well, mom said you wanted me to swing by,” Xander explained. “Knew you'd be expecting us.”
“Yes, but not until after sunset. I want you to escort Harmony back to her lair. Now that we know she can defend herself against demons she should be safe enough there, and she must be out of here before my friend arrives.”
“So this Olivia is an orgasm friend?” Anya asked brightly. “Otherwise you wouldn't be bothered about the undergarments.”
Giles sighed. “That really is the most appalling thing you could have said. And not necessarily. She could be a maiden aunt.”
“But she isn't,” Anya replied confidently.
“No, she isn't,” Giles agreed wearily. “Harmony has to go.”
“She could stay with me,” Anya offered unexpectedly.
“Oh, could I?” Harmony exclaimed delightedly. “That would be wonderful.”
“It's not much,” Anya downplayed her offer. “Small. But I spend as much time as I can with Xander, so we should cope. More or less. And not for long. And you can't bring too much stuff.”
“So not my unicorns?” Harmony's face fell, and then brightened again. “Still, running water? TV? And we can maybe hang out sometimes.”
“You sure about this, Anya?” Xander queried. “I don't recall you being all that close with Harmony back in school.”
“We sat beside each other in Math. We got on okay. Anyway, I owe her something. Graduation Day, I ran away rather than face the Ascension. Harmony stayed and fought beside you guys, and ended up this way. Not my fault, but still...”
“Point,” Xander agreed. “Okay, if you're cool with it, so am I. But you do anything to hurt Anya, Harmony, and I stake you.”
Anya hugged him. “That's sweet! So you do care about me.”
“Of course he does,” Harmony assured her. “It's obvious. If only someone cared about me that much.”
“I had no idea you cared about her that much, William,” Joyce told her friend, passing him a mug of hot chocolate. “Which is why the wedding announcement was such a shock.”
“Yeah, well, I was trying to play it cool,” Spike replied. “Sodding spell really put the cobblers on that. No way did I want her to know what I feel about her. I know she'll never love me. You treat me like a man, but I know I'm a monster.”
“I think Buffy might like a little monster in her man, you know, Spike. I wasn't against the wedding. Only the timing. Buffy could do far worse than you. I was opposed to her relationship with Angel, I admit. I wanted her to have someone normal, who could walk in the sun with her. But she's the Slayer, and normal might not be right for her. You can walk in the sun with her. I don't think you should give up hope.”
“I can only walk in the sun because of this ring. If anything happens to it, I'm right back in the sodding dark. Creature of the night here. Dead man walking. Mustn't let myself forget it. Never going to drag your daughter down to my level.”
“You're brooding, Spike. It doesn't become you.” Joyce smiled at him. “Any more than it did Buffy when she called by last night. She told me how much she regretted what she said to you when the spell ended. Give her a chance to prove it, William. For me.”
“Nothing to prove, Joyce. I know she didn't mean to hurt me. Not going to stop being her friend. Just a shame that me blurting out that I love her has made everything so bleeding complicated. Why couldn't I have just said ‘Buffy, there's a problem with my Green Card, do us a favour and marry me to make it legit’ or something? The spell just said we should get married, nothing about love.”
“Oh, William, why are you being so obtuse? If you can't see that Buffy is interested in you than you're blinder than Giles was.”
“Doesn't matter.” Spike put down his empty mug. “No good can come of it. The monster doesn't get the girl. This is real life, not a fairy tale.”
One a.m. in Sunnydale. In the upper chambers of the clock tower a mysterious figure opened an ornate box. All over town something strange began to happen.
A boy lay asleep. A white mist issued from his mouth and travelled towards his bedroom window. In the next bedroom the same thing was happening, and a mist escaped from his parents' mouths and left the house. In the next house it was the same story. And the next, and the next.
In Giles' bed, he lay beside Olivia, one hand resting on her chocolate brown breast. Both were sleeping the sleep of the thoroughly shagged. A white mist made its way from their mouths to the window, out, and across the town.
In Buffy and Willow's dorm room the mist left their mouths. In the basement where Xander and Anya lay in post-orgasmic slumber the story was repeated. Harmony lay asleep in Anya's bed, having adjusted to human hours while staying with Giles, cuddling Mystic the Unicorn. The mist left her mouth too. Spike was awake, touring the cemeteries on his way from Revello Drive back to campus, in search of a spot of violence before bedtime. His cigarette glowed as he inhaled a nicotine hit. The mist mingled with the smoke as he exhaled, and he noticed nothing.
From every house in town, every place where sentient creatures slept or walked or fought, the mist left their mouths and travelled across the town. To the clock tower. The streamers of vapour slipped in, and headed for the ornate box, disappearing into its interior. A gaunt figure in evening dress held the box. Its face was pallid grey, its head was bald, and its silver teeth were showing in a grin like that of a skull. White eyes glittered above its hooked nose. As the last streamer disappeared into the box the sinister creature slammed shut the lid.
And silence fell.
Buffy greeted an awakening Willow with a cheery “Good morning.” Or tried to. No sound came forth. Willow mouthed her own greeting, then stuck her finger in her ear and wiggled it. She mouthed an appeal to Buffy, who mouthed a reply. Neither could utter a word. When they went out of their room, into the hall, they discovered that neither could anyone else.
They returned to the room and dressed. The phone rang. Buffy picked it up, only to find herself completely unable to answer, and there was no voice from the other end, where a baffled and frustrated Xander eventually hung up. Then Buffy's new cell phone bleeped to indicate an incoming text message.
‘lost voice. evry1 lse 2. how r u? spke.’
Buffy fumbled with the buttons, composing a reply. She was still unfamiliar with the process and it took her a while. ‘me + will 2. evry1 in plce. gils?’
‘cu thr. ok?’
‘ok’. Buffy and Willow grabbed a hasty and uncomfortable breakfast and then set off for Giles' apartment.
Riley and Forrest made their way down in the concealed elevator to the secret Initiative facility beneath their Fraternity house. It was nearly their last journey. Entry had become second nature; they went through the security procedures by unthinking reflex, and only remembered about the voice recognition part of it when they were speaking silently into the microphones. Their lack of response triggered an automatic defence mechanism. Riley managed to manually override the system in the nick of time. The lethal anti-intruder countermeasures were already commencing by the time he'd remembered the code. They completed the trip purple-faced from holding their breaths to avoid the poison gas which had already seeped into the compartment, and stumbled out at the bottom sucking in great gasps of fresh air.
Maggie Walsh and two subordinates greeted them silently. She shook her heads at their stupidity, and pointed to a sign behind her, which read: ‘In Case Of Emergency Use Stairwell’
Buffy and Willow made their way to Giles' apartment in silence. It was not the eerie silence of a deserted town; dogs barked, vehicle engines droned, music came from radios. But no-one spoke, and most businesses were closed. It was like the one-minute silence, commemorating some tragedy, extended to an interminable length.
There was a prayer meeting going on in the street. Silently. A placard told the crowd which prayer to read, and they read it together. An enterprising entrepreneur had set up a stall selling message boards at $10 apiece, and was using one around his own neck to both display the product and advertise the price. The two girls purchased one each and walked on.
They were the last to arrive at Giles'. Their message boards were greeted with silent approval, and pressed into service for the meeting. Giles had written a passage from Buffy's prophetic dream on a notepad: ‘Can't even shout, can't even cry, The gentlemen are coming by’. He showed it to all of them, and everyone nodded to indicate that they agreed that it was relevant, but no one could think of anything else constructive.
Throughout the Scooby meeting Olivia sat glumly alone, sipping a drink. Introductions and explanations were excruciatingly awkward when restricted to hastily scrawled notes. Spike made use of his cell phone text display to give her a brief welcome and explain that he was a fellow Brit, but more friendly interaction was made simply too laborious by the communication problems.
Xander switched on the TV news, where they caught an item about Sunnydale having been quarantined because of a ‘laryngitis outbreak’. The local authorities were, it appeared, blaming the problem on recent flu vaccinations. Businesses were closed, and travel in or out of the town had been suspended as a precautionary measure. Buffy frowned, and scribbled a note on her message board, advising the others that she felt that she and Spike should patrol through the town that night. She feared it would be a scene of chaos.
“Because there will be chaos,” Maggie Walsh explained to her Initiative commandos, using a text to speech program to broadcast her typed orders. “You will help keep order. Dress as civilians. A military presence would only increase panic.”
The commandos signalled in various silent ways that they would obey.
In fact there was no widespread rioting or other criminal behaviour that night. Muggers may have anticipated easy victims, unable to call for help, but the prospective victims were for the most part staying at home. Social events without conversation lacked appeal. There were a few fights, but no more than on a normal night.
Riley broke up one fight only for one of the participants to turn on him and try to brain him from behind with a length of broken pipe. Spike had been approaching to intervene in the fight when Riley beat him to it, and he was close enough at hand to catch the blow and save his fellow TA from a possible fractured skull. Riley turned in time to see Spike twisting the attacker's wrist painfully and disarming him; he acknowledged the assistance with a gesture and a grin, and then shook his saviour's hand. Buffy arrived to join Spike, and the two headed off together, giving Riley a wave as they departed.
One fifty a.m. and the town lay sleeping.
The Gentlemen emerged from the clock tower. There were six of them; eerie figures in formal wear, floating silently a few inches above the ground, their faces fixed in hideous smiles. Capering servants, shuffling along with their arms swinging wildly, accompanied them. The minions lurched with backs hunched, clad in untied straightjackets, their heads bandaged. The procession split into three groups, each pair of Gentlemen accompanied by a pair of minions, and headed off in different directions through the town.
Olivia woke. Her body clock had not yet adjusted to the change in longitude, and still said that it was 9.50 in the morning. She untangled herself from the sleeping Giles, rose, and slipped on a robe. She made her way downstairs and went to get herself a drink, and then movement outside the window caught her eye. A Gentleman glided silently down the middle of the road, its minion capering beside it, and she went to the window and stared in amazement. Then a second Gentleman passed within inches of the window, looking straight at her, and grinning at her with its ghastly rictus of steel teeth.
Olivia recoiled in terror and screamed. Silently.
A pair of Gentlemen entered the Stevenson hall of residence. They drifted through the corridors, lackeys capering beside them. They passed door after door, assessing them, signalling to each other with small hand gestures, and glided past the room where Buffy and Willow lay sleeping. Eventually one room met whatever mysterious criteria they were applying, and one knocked on the door. A sleepy young man opened it, and the minions seized him, forced him to his bed, and held him down as he screamed in futile silence. One of the Gentlemen drew forth a scalpel and passed it to his colleague, who nodded his thanks, and then lowered the scalpel to the young man's chest.
The late morning issues of the local paper were full of reports of brutal murders during the night. There had been at least two victims; the killings were obviously linked, as in each case the victim's heart had been removed. Giles read the articles with concern, and then turned to the sketch Olivia had made of the creature she had seen during the night. Something struck a chord, and he sought out a reference book. A book of Fairy Tales.
The University was closed. Lectures were impossible. It was therefore no problem for Giles to appropriate the use of a lecture hall, with a little help from Spike, and to set up his own little lecture for the Scoobies. He borrowed an overhead projector, prepared some transparencies, and set up a portable stereo to play some atmospheric music. Spike insisted on replacing Giles' choice of music, which was a violin instrumental, and instead the Scoobies were treated to some Gilbert and Sullivan.
“With cat-like tread,
Upon our prey we steal;
In silence dread,
Our cautious way we feel.
No sound at all!
We never speak a word;
A fly's foot-fall
Would be distinctly heard ...”
With that as the soundtrack, Giles laid out his displays relating the story of the Gentlemen. These creatures, the story said, came to a town seeking seven hearts. They stole all the voices so no one could scream. No weapon could kill them; until the Princess screamed once, and they all died. Giles looked meaningfully at Buffy at that point.
Willow held up a CD and gestured to suggest its possible use as an anti-Gentlemen device. Giles had anticipated the question and had prepared a transparency declaring that only a real human voice would work. Buffy pantomimed ‘How do I get my voice back?’ but Giles could only shrug and suggest that she patrol that night.
Spike was worried that one of the vulnerable members of their own group might fall victim to the ghoulish creatures. With gesture, scribbled notes, and text messages he communicated that fear to the others. Giles guessed that his own place, having been passed by the Gentlemen the previous night, was probably not on their agenda. However they could not be certain and he suggested gathering their forces. Xander, Anya, and even Harmony all would spend the night at Giles' place. Willow was invited too, but decided it would be just too crowded. The Gentlemen also had bypassed her own room the night before, as they had taken their victim from deeper in the building, and she was willing to take the risk. However, she prepared a text message and programmed Spike's number into her cell phone, ready to send for help if necessary. Spike was going to patrol between Revello Drive and Stevenson House; he was not insensitive to the danger faced by others, but his instincts were to protect those he regarded as family first. His priorities were Joyce and Willow.
In the middle of the night, as Spike and Buffy patrolled separately, and as Riley and other Initiative troopers patrolled in full combat gear, a student girl gave up her futile attempts to sleep and rose from her bed. She dressed, gathered together some books, found a Post-it on which she had made a note of Willow Rosenberg's hall and room number, and set off for Stevenson House.
Tara Maclay, who had been the one girl at the Wicca group meeting other than Willow to have any real interest in the occult, was setting off to make her own attempt to dispel the pall of silence over Sunnydale. She was also setting off into deadly danger. The lone walker attracted the attention of the Gentlemen. Two of the silent figures set off in pursuit of the girl, flanked by their shambling attendants. She walked on, oblivious to her danger at first, then some sixth sense warned her. Looking round, she saw the Gentlemen, and broke into a frantic run.
Tara crashed through the doors of Stevenson House, her books falling forgotten to the floor, and fled towards the dorms. She hammered frantically on the first door she reached, but the terrified students inside kept the door locked. The Gentlemen drew near. Tara fled on, banging on doors as she went, until eventually one opened. Inside stood a grinning Gentleman holding a human heart in a jar. Screaming silently, gasping for breath, Tara fled on.
Willow woke up. She was slumped over her keyboard, fully dressed, and she yawned and stretched. Then she heard frantic banging and running footsteps. Readying her cell phone, she went cautiously to her door, and peeped out. Tara crashed headlong into her, tripped, and both went sprawling. Willow rose awkwardly, clutching her leg, and saw the approaching Gentlemen. She pressed the dial button on the cell phone, sending her SOS to Spike, helped Tara to her feet, and both girls fled together towards the nearest stairwell.
Meanwhile Buffy had encountered Gentlemen near the clock tower, and became involved in a furious battle with their minions. She followed their retreating forms into the clock tower, where her battle continued. Riley had made his own way to the tower, following shadowy figures he had detected heading towards it, and he became involved in the fight too.
Spike ran to his DeSoto as if the hounds of Hell were at his heels. The engine roared to life, and the tyres screamed as he accelerated away, heading for Stevenson House at full throttle.
Buffy and Riley fought their way to the top of the clock tower. Minions struck at them, Gentlemen floated towards them with scalpels, and each had near misses from death or serious injury. A row of jars stood on a shelf, with human hearts floating within them. Nearby stood an ornate box. Buffy recognised it as the box carried by the girl in her prophetic dream, and fought her way towards it, but a minion seized her and entangled her in a giant spool of rope. Frantically she signalled to Riley, trying to direct his attention to the box.
Willow and Tara sought refuge in a laundry room and locked the door. Something began to bang on the door, and they tried to move a soda machine to form a barricade. All their joint strength achieved was to rock the machine from side to side. Giving up, they slumped to the floor, Willow clutching her leg. She then gathered her mental energy and attempted to move the machine by magic. It trembled, but did not move. Tara looked into her eyes and took hold of her hand. Willow entwined her fingers with the other girl's and looked from her to the machine. Tara nodded. They stared into each other's eyes then turned towards the soda machine. It shot across the floor, crashed into the door, and stood firm. The banging stopped.
Willow's cell phone beeped. She released Tara's hand and looked at the display.
‘at rm. m t. wr r u? s.’
She sent a response giving her location and sat back to await Spike, and to engage in non-verbal communication with her new magic partner.
Spike charged towards the laundry room, trembling on the verge of going into game face, and almost collided with a Gentleman and two lackeys. He tore into them in berserk fury. His blows to the Gentleman achieved little or nothing, but neither did the scalpel slashes with which the creature retaliated. He threw one of the minions to the ground and stamped on it while punching the other. Bones shattered under his furious assault.
The question of whether the minions were also immune to all but screams, and if they would have regenerated from his blows, would never be resolved. In the clock tower, Riley smashed his baton down on the ornate box and shattered it, releasing the mists. A tendril of vapour streamed into Buffy's nostrils. She opened her mouth, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. The heads of the Gentlemen in the tower exploded into fountains of gelatinous slime. The minions crumbled to ash. Seconds later the same fate overtook the creatures in Stevenson House, and Spike found himself alone in the corridor except for slime and scraps of clothing.
In the tower Riley and Buffy looked at each other. “We have to talk,” Riley said.
“Tomorrow,” Buffy replied.
Spike heaved the soda machine back into position and turned to the two girls. “Christ, Willow, you look bleeding knackered,” he told her firmly. “Back to bed. You and this lass can talk properly tomorrow. You from this House, pet?” He shot the girl a beaming smile, taking an instant liking to her.
“N-no,” she replied with a slight stammer. “I'm in Krege. You're one of the TAs, aren't you?”
“Yeah. William Walworth, known as Spike, Languages Department. Friend of Willow here. Give you a lift back to your hall, love?” Spike offered. The girl, with her heavy-lidded eyes and dark blonde hair, looked very familiar. He assumed he had seen her around the college.
“T-Tara Maclay. That would be nice - if it isn't too much t-trouble.”
“No trouble, pet,” Spike assured her. “I've got to get back to my own room in Fischer, and my car's outside.”
Willow and Tara parted, arranging to meet again the following morning, and Spike took Tara home. They exchanged few words. Tara looked searchingly at Spike, and seemed to be sensing that there was more to him than met the eye. He gave it no thought. He felt relaxed and at ease in her presence. He dropped her off at her dorm house then drove back to his own, singing as he went:
“I feel so good I'm going to break somebody's heart tonight.
I feel so good I'm going to take someone apart tonight.
They put me in jail for my deviant ways,
Two years, seven months, and sixteen days.
Now I'm back on the street in a purple haze
And I feel so good
I feel so good
I feel so good I'm going to break somebody's heart tonight...”
For the first time since Buffy had recoiled from his kiss, wiping her lips, he felt truly happy.