Chapter Five

Giles was deep in the Grimoire when Ethan arrived back at the houseboat just after five o'clock. The spell alerting him to someone's approach went off. He grabbed a dagger out of his bag and positioned himself behind the door. Chances were good it was only Ethan, but he didn't care to be caught unawares if it weren't.

The door swung open and nearly broke Giles's nose. “Put the great bloody sharp thing away, Ripper, it's just me,” Ethan said.

“No harm in being careful,” Giles replied, lowering the dagger.

“No,” Ethan agreed, turning to him. “Especially since I was nearly followed. Oh, don't worry,” he added at Giles's look of alarm. “Laserpía's servants took care of them. She does not take kindly to people who interfere in her deals, and even less kindly to those who have just murdered her favorite shaman.” Ethan smiled, very thinly. “Still, it seems they know who we're dealing with now. I think we had best dress for this meeting tonight. I hope you have something for me in your bag of tricks.”

“Er . . . yes.” Giles frowned. “Meeting?”

“To hand over the cash and the Grimoire in exchange for the maps and the amulet.” Ethan sat down on the bed and picked up the book in question. “We're to meet them at nine, which should give me just enough time to get the information I need before we have to give it up. And eat something, I'm famished.”

“Ah – yes,” Giles said. “I was looking through it just now. This spell here,” he reached over and flipped to the page he'd marked, “coupled with one of the spells in the other book – well, you'll know better than I, but I think they should do the trick.”

Ethan read quickly down the page, and then glanced at the one Giles pointed out to him in The Twelve Elements of Magic . “Yes,” he said, “good.”

“We'll need these herbs,” Giles said, “but they're all standard. Will that be a problem?”

Ethan shook his head. “We can get them tomorrow morning before leaving upriver.”

“Would it be possible to get them now?”

Ethan glanced at him. “Probably. I could call my contact with Laserpía and ask him to add them to the list. Last minute changes will cost you though. Why?”

Giles sat back on his own bed and then leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “Because I've been thinking about what the cult members in Josué's apartment said about having until tomorrow morning to find us, and I think it would be helpful if we were at the Mouth of the Beast before them.”

“Ah,” Ethan said. “I do see your point.” He looked thoughtful. “We have to take Josué's canoe to the meeting point anyway, and it's several miles upriver – we may as well leave from there. Not that I wasn't looking forward to one last night of relative comfort,” he added in a mutter. “Can I at least talk you into a decent meal before we go?”

“Yes, yes,” Giles said. “I don't propose to starve you. Do you need my help with the research? There are things I should buy if we're leaving tonight.”

Ethan was already taking notes from the Grimoire and, rather than answering Giles directly, merely gestured impatiently to indicate he'd heard. Giles had to smile as he'd left; Ethan could complain like no one else Giles knew, but he had always loved a challenge. In their younger, more foolish days, it had often led to them all biting off more than they could chew. Strangely enough, as Giles made his way back toward the center of the city in search of the nearest small grocer's, he found himself trusting that Ethan had learned his limits in the intervening years.

Three hours later, Giles was glaring at the back of Ethan's head and wondering why he would ever trust Ethan Rayne about anything. The man himself seemed oblivious as he attempted to maneuver the canoe into the shallows of one of several large islands that dotted this portion of the Amazon. Ethan finally cut the motor, letting them drift the last few feet. “Perfect,” he said in satisfaction. He glanced over at Giles then, and, apparently reading his expression by the light of the torch, rolled his eyes. “Oh, come off it, Ripper. You've lost all sense of adventure in your old age.”

“I most certainly have not,” Giles replied, standing. He checked the dagger at his hip and hoped that it and the knife concealed in his boot would be enough, if things came to that. He made his careful way down the length of the canoe and jumped out to help Ethan pull it up further onto the soft ground of the shore. It had begun to rain and Giles's glasses were wet and fogging. He pulled them off to glare first at them and then at Ethan for good measure.

“You most certainly have,” Ethan retorted, swinging his torch around in an arc to find the path. “You've become one of those Brits who could go all the way to the tip of Patagonia and only want bangers and mash.”

“Excuse me,” Giles said, following Ethan as they started up the hill, “but do you have any idea what I ate last year when I was globetrotting, trying to find the Potentials?”

“And yet,” Ethan threw back at him over his shoulder, “here you are all worked up at me over a little alligator meat. You liked it well enough before I told you what it was.”

“That's not the bloody point, Ethan.” Not that Giles expected Ethan to ever understand the actual point – which was, as far as Giles had been able to articulate it to himself, that he would never be able to trust Ethan more than twenty-five percent if he persisted in pulling stunts like tricking Giles into eating alligator. All things considered, Giles supposed he should be grateful he didn't have horns and a tail this time, but it aggravated him to no end that even working together against a common enemy, he had to constantly wonder what trick Ethan had up his sleeve.

On the other hand, Giles had to admit that perhaps it was the very quality that drove him mad that made Ethan so formidable an ally.

It was perhaps for the best that there was no opportunity to continue the argument. Giles was more than occupied picking his way up what could only have been termed a path in the very loosest sense while carrying a very heavy, very valuable book. The nightlife of the jungle had woken and Giles, listening to the cicadas and the croaking frogs, thought of that very first night, less than two weeks ago, when he had found Ethan and Willow in that derelict lodge. The first night he had fallen asleep holding Willow. To his annoyance, he found he couldn't stay angry at Ethan while thinking about her; if not for him, she would never have had a chance.

“Here we are,” Ethan said as they crested the hill.

Giles could feel something in the air, not a crackle of magic, nor even a hum, but more of a . . . tingle. He cast Ethan a questioning glance.

“A minor place of power,” Ethan said. “Not answerable to us, I might add.”

“To whom, then?” Giles asked uneasily.

“Laserpía, of course.” Ethan looked at him, as serious as Ethan Rayne ever was. “Do let's avoid pissing her off.”

“Agreed,” Giles said, and refrained from demanding to know exactly why Ethan had arranged for them to meet this woman, who was certainly more than human or at least something else in addition, in her place of power. Most likely Ethan hadn't been given any choice in the matter.

“They should be here soon,” Ethan said.

“I think they already are,” Giles replied, pointing down the hill. He could see three cloaked figures with lanterns climbing toward them and felt the adrenalin start to flow, but there was nothing to do but wait. Eventually he was able to discern that the one in the lead was very tall, perhaps three inches taller than Giles himself, but clearly feminine in form. One of the other two, who were both considerably shorter, carried a black cloth bag.

“Good evening,” Ethan said, when the three stopped just a few feet away. “I don't mean to offend m'lady, but would the three of you care to remove your hoods? My friend Mr. Giles and I are just a mite skittish at the moment.”

“As you wish,” the woman in the lead said in a deep, hissing voice. A hand emerged from her sleeve. It was beautifully shaped, with long, elegant fingers and well-formed nails polished pearl white, but there was no mistaking scales where there ought to have been skin. Strangely, the scales themselves were not the least bit ugly; they had the same shifting colors as the insides of some seashells, from dark blue to dark green and everything in between. The hand pushed back her hood, revealing a face that was half-woman and half-serpent: her nose was flat, her eyes large and oval-shaped, her skin the same hue as her hands. But she had high, elegant cheekbones, a lovely mouth, and a fall of thick black hair. Giles thought he'd rarely seen anything so simultaneously beautiful and disturbing in his life.

When at last he stopped staring at her long enough to look at her servants, he saw they were human. One man and one woman, both expressionless.

“Satisfied?” Laserpía said at last.

“Yes, thank you,” Ethan said. “I'm sure you understand.”

“I do,” she said. “These are troubling times.” She turned her large, oval eyes on Giles then. He would have described them as reptilian, except he quickly realized they lacked the coldness of a reptile's gaze. It was almost more unnerving. “Rupert Giles,” she said clearly.

He cleared his throat. “Yes – m'lady.” That was what Ethan had called her and Giles found himself very much wanting not to give offense.

“You are most eager for the contents of the bag my servant carries.”

“Yes, m'lady. We have a journey,” Giles replied, spine straightening instinctively. “And there is . . . much at stake. The end of the world.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is a reason. But that is not your only reason. That is not your first reason.”

“M'lady, I have sworn an oath –”

“Yes, an oath.” She smiled at him. “But your oath, if that were all you were thinking of, would not allow you to give me that most venerable book you carry. You do not trust me.”

Giles swallowed. “That's true,” he admitted.

“Your oath, therefore, is your second reason. Your first reason is love. A foolish reason,” her voice deepened, took on a dangerous edge, and the tingle of power in the air was no longer minor. “A mortal reason.”

“One that has served well enough in the past,” Giles replied evenly.

“So you tell yourself,” she replied, lifting her chin, “even as you break your oath.”

“I break no oath. Mr. Rayne has vouched for you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Mr. Rayne. Who, I sense, you trust only slightly more than me.” She turned her gaze toward Ethan. “You, Mr. Rayne, have no oath.”

“No,” Ethan said, “thank all gods.”

“And you are not in love. Why, then, are you here?”

Ethan smiled. “For a reason no less mortal, but perhaps less foolish. Money.”

“Ah!” she said, apparently relieved. “A most excellent reason for doing anything. And so, Mr. Rayne, it is from you that I must exact the final part of our bargain.”

“Wait,” Giles said, “no one ever mentioned anything –”

“Quiet,” she snapped, her large eyes narrowing. She turned her gaze back to Ethan, the movement of her neck sinuous and mesmerizing. “I charge you, Mr. Rayne, with ensuring that Mr. Giles's foolish, mortal reason does not stand in the way of his oath. The Children of the Dark Eye must be stopped; a young woman's life means nothing to that. Are we in agreement?”

Ethan glanced at Giles, who nodded as imperceptibly as he could manage. “Yes,” Ethan said.

“Good.” She stepped forward. “And just to be clear, Mr. Rayne. If you fail in this, all hell will quite literally break loose. And in the midst of it, I will find you and I will punish you. Think on that, if the time comes.”

Ethan nodded, almost smiling. “I will think of little else, I assure you.”

“Very good then. The cash and the Grimoire , if you please.”

They made the trade, Giles and the female servant with the bag. Since Laserpía immediately counted the bills, Giles decided it would not be unforgivably rude if he looked in the bag.

He pulled the maps out first, and handed them off to Ethan impatiently. He could feel the weight of the amulet, coiled at the bottom of the bag beneath the satchels of herbs. He reached in and retrieved it, let it hang between his fingers and turn in the light of the torches and the lanterns, and felt his breath catch in his throat. It was white gold formed in the shape of a knot, not large but with weight to it, mostly from the enormous emerald at the center. In this light, the color of the stone closely resembled the color of Willow's eyes. If he had had time to commission something, it would have been very like this.

“Will it do?” Laserpía asked. “Is it worthy to keep safe the power of your beloved?”

“I – yes,” Giles managed. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “We are done then. Remember your oaths, both of you.” With that, she and her servants turned away and retreated down the hill, taking the lanterns with them. It seemed much darker than it had before their arrival.

By the time Ethan had finished inspecting the herbs, it had begun to rain harder and the trail back down to the canoe had turned into a mudslide. Giles fell once, right on his arse, and accepted Ethan's hand up, which surprisingly came without comment. They would have to talk eventually about what Laserpía had said, but Giles was glad Ethan wasn't forcing it at that moment. His elation at the successful procurement of an appropriate amulet was rapidly fading in the face of being wet, muddy, and now bruised as well. Not to mention his glasses were fogging again. He ripped them off and shoved them in his pocket.

Between the rain and Giles's myopia, everything was a blur by the time they reached the canoe. Ethan got there first and made a disgusted noise, the first sound either of them had uttered since Laserpía and her people had departed. “It's half-filled with rainwater,” Ethan reported to Giles, who was moving somewhat more slowly in an effort not to repeat his earlier pratfall. “We'll have to bail it out before we can go anywhere.”

“Lovely,” Giles muttered. He climbed into the canoe, which tilted precariously, and accepted the bucket Ethan offered him. He set to bailing out clear, clean rainwater with a grumble.

He hadn't been at for more than thirty seconds when the spell hit him, square in the back. It wasn't flashy, but it was startlingly effective; Giles felt as though something were pressing down on his shoulders, crushing him, and he had no choice but to bend with it until he pitched forward over the side of the canoe and into the river. He felt it as a slow motion fall, each second drawn out interminably by the crushing pressure, but time sped up once he was underwater. The pressure ceased as suddenly as it had begun and he surfaced sputtering.

“Ripper, what the -” Ethan started to demand, but broke off as something – a spell, a rock, Giles didn't know – struck him in the chest, knocking him backwards over one of the benches. Giles looked frantically for the source of the attack, but between the rain and the dark and the fact that he had, in an act of supreme idiocy, taken off his glasses, he couldn't see a damn thing. He didn't know which way to move, much less where to throw a counterattack. Giles heard Ethan climbing to his feet in the canoe – at least he wasn't unconscious.

Movement on shore caught Giles's eye. He squinted; there were two figures, he was almost sure of it, and even they could not be quiet while slogging through several meters of water to get to them. Giles was ready for the first blow, aimed at his face, but the second to his stomach left him off balance and gasping. His attacker hooked his foot behind Giles's and he went down into the brown, murky water. He managed to surface once to grab a breath that was only half air before being shoved underwater again and held there this time.

His eyes were wide open but the water was dark with every kind of organic matter imaginable. The bottom was too soft, he couldn't get his feet under him to stand, and his lungs were already aching. He was using too much oxygen in the struggle.

His hand closed on the dagger at his hip. He pulled it out and shoved upwards without any notion of aim. It connected, slid in – he knew that feeling too well, the moment a dagger broke through the scant resistance offered by human flesh – but still the attacker did not let go. Both his hands were occupied though, holding Giles's head beneath the water, which left him open to attack. Giles yanked the dagger out and thrust it back in again. This time he felt the attacker's hands clench once, spasmodically, and then release him.

Giles surged to the surface, simultaneously gulping air and gagging on river water. His assailant was floating face down in front of him, dead or unconscious and drowning. Giles pushed him aside and staggered toward the boat, pausing halfway to vomit again. God, if they lived through this he'd probably end up with hepatitis and amoebas and salmonella and whatever other nasties one contracted from drinking the Amazon.

He reached the canoe at last, but in his dazed state it took him several seconds to realize it was empty. Where the hell was Ethan?

“Fuck,” Giles muttered, and belatedly fumbled his glasses – thankfully not broken – out of his pocket. It was still raining, not that it mattered. He could go after Ethan and the second assailant, except Giles hadn't the foggiest idea what might have happened after he'd gone under. They could have teleported away, though that seemed rather unlikely, or any number of other things.

Finally Giles decided the first thing to do would be to get out of the water. He clambered into the boat and stood dripping, before finally stripping off his poncho and flinging it to the side. He would check the supplies, he decided, bail out some more of the standing water, and then make a circuit of the island in the sodding canoe. The cult had probably sent their assailants upriver the mundane way, and if he could find their boat he might find Ethan.

He found the black bag at the bottom of the canoe, half in and half out of three inches of rainwater. The maps were slightly damp, but at least the herbs were dry. Giles winced and set them aside, hoping they hadn't just gone to all this trouble for nothing. The other supplies, their food, water, and (relatively) dry clothes, seemed untouched. He shoved his hand in his pocket then to check for the amulet in a gesture he thought would quickly become a compulsion, and froze.

It was gone.

“No,” he said, “no, no, no!” He checked it again and then his other pocket too, but it wasn't there and a thorough search with the torch revealed that it wasn't at the bottom of the boat either. He shined the torch into the river, but all it lit up was murky water and the body of his assailant, which had washed up against the roots of a tree. Impossible to see the bottom.

Ethan would have to take care of himself. Giles pulled off his boots and soaked socks; if he was going to find the amulet at all it would have to be fast. Protected as the inlet was from the massive current, it would still be covered over with silt within a few minutes.

The bottom of the river was soft. Giles's bare feet sank into the mud; he grimaced in disgust as he began shuffling back toward where he thought he'd been attacked with small, questing steps, searching through the mud for anything small and hard. He did not want to think about what they might have to do if it were well and truly lost.

Ten minutes later he was still searching, this time by the boat since it might have fallen out when he'd fallen in. His mouth was dry and his movements were becoming less careful and more desperate; he thought he might only be stirring up the bottom, causing more harm than good. Panicking would not help one whit, but it was a rather appealing notion all the same. A nice panic attack would at least give him a break from reality for a few minutes. He stopped, leaned against the canoe, and forced himself to think everything through.

He'd not got very far when he heard someone coming down the hill through the brush. Giles scrambled over the canoe's benches to the motor – how did the damn thing work anyway? “Ethan managed it,” he muttered to himself, searching desperately to for a cord to pull or a button to push. “It can't be that hard.”

“Ripper, old mate, I hope you weren't planning to take off without me.”

Giles sagged with relief. Ethan was almost as wet as Giles was, but he was grinning and seemed fiendishly invigorated by it all. He had a limp body, presumably his attacker, draped over his shoulder.

‘Thank God,” Giles managed at last.

“You weren't worried, were you?” Ethan asked, letting the unconscious body fall into the front of the boat, where it lay in a crumpled heap of sodden black fabric. He pulled a face at the water in the bottom of the canoe as he stepped in. “No harm done,” Ethan went on. “Just the thing to wake us up. Plus,” he smiled, teeth white as a shark's in the torchlight, “I caught us a live one. What say we see what we can get out of him? Not here though – I know a spot on one of the other islands.”

Giles had to clear his throat twice before he could answer. “We can't,” he said. “Leave, that is.”

Ethan, who had been about to start the motor, raised his head. “Pray tell why not?” He nodded toward the assailant. “I didn't see much grappling with him, but I'm pretty sure he and his friend aren't the only ones here. Once they figure out we're not dead –”

“I lost the amulet,” Giles ground out.

Ethan blinked at him. “What?”

“The amulet,” Giles repeated. “I lost it in the fight.” He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I just spent ten minutes trying to find it, but I think it's gone.”

“You mean this amulet?” Ethan said, and held it up. Giles stared. “I pilfered it while we were bailing the canoe out right before.” Giles narrowed his eyes and made a grab for it; Ethan pulled it back, just out of reach.

“Why?” Giles demanded.

“Given Laserpía's charge to me, I thought it . . . prudent, shall we say.” Ethan looked at him, almost expressionless save for a twitch of the lips that might have been a smile or a frown. “Is this a problem?”

“Yes, it bloody well is,” Giles snapped. “You couldn't just tell me, could you? You had to be underhanded about it.”

“You would never have given it to me freely, Ripper, and you know it. Look, we don't have time to discuss your so-called trust issues now, though believe me, we will, because I'm so sick of them I could spit. Let's get out of here.”

“Agreed,” Giles said, and barely had time to climb in the boat and sit down before Ethan pulled the throttle and they went tearing out of the inlet.

They spent nearly an hour going up and down the river, winding through the islands, until Giles was thoroughly turned around. By the time Ethan was convinced they weren't being followed, Giles had no idea where they were. Ethan's assailant, revealed in the torchlight as a young man of no more than eighteen or nineteen years old, started to come to a few minutes after they had left the first island; Giles tied his hands and feet and taped his mouth. Once fully conscious, he lay in the still-flooded bottom of the canoe and glared murderously.

The inlet Ethan finally maneuvered them into was much deeper than the one they'd left behind and very still, though the considerable noise of the jungle seemed amplified. The water lit up by the torch was more black than brown. The canopy had closed over their heads and Giles felt he had stepped back several thousand years. This was a primordial place and it did not necessarily welcome their trespass. Giles ducked vines hanging from the trees and was relieved when Ethan cut the motor back, allowing them to drift forward with just the barest mechanical rumble. This was more eerie than Laserpía's place of power, and Giles did not like to think what they might be angering with their noise. Or what they might be waking.

“Almost there,” Ethan said, and tossed Giles a wooden paddle. “Make yourself useful.”

It was harder than he expected to paddle the canoe into the spot Ethan had selected. When at last they managed, Giles was sweaty and irritable; he had finally begun to dry off from his swim in the river, no small feat in this sort of humidity, but now he feared he would never be dry again. He was even more soaked once he and Ethan had manhandled the assailant out of the canoe and onto relatively dry land, propping him against a tree and tying him to the thick roots. Then he stepped back, wiped his brow on his sleeve, and looked to Ethan. “What now?”

“I suggest a good old-fashioned round of Good Cop/Bad Cop,” Ethan replied. “I, of course, will feature as the Bad Cop. What do you think?”

“That depends,” Giles said. “I'm not sure my Portuguese is proficient enough to be the Good Cop. Does he speak English?”

“Possibly,” Ethan said, “but I doubt he'll feel inclined to make this easier for us. All right then, just stand there and glower. Try to look threatening if you can.”

“Pardon me, but I assure you –” Giles stopped. Infuriating as Ethan was in this sort of mood, it probably wasn't a brilliant idea to bicker in front of the prisoner.

Ethan, smiling, went and ripped the tape off the prisoner's mouth. “Good evening,” he said, apparently having decided to play both cops himself.

“I am a Servant of the First,” the prisoner intoned. “You cannot frighten me.”

Ethan rolled his eyes at Giles. “Not a very creative lot, are they?”

“It wouldn't seem so, no. Get on with it, will you? I'd hoped to be halfway to the site by now.” Giles crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the prisoner, hoping the torchlight made him look more intimidating.

“Right then,” Ethan muttered in English, before switching back into Portuguese. “There are a few things we'd like to know, and you're going to tell us nice and easy, or,” he picked up one of the prisoner's hands and gave it a pat, “I'll break every one of your fingers.”

“Ethan,” Giles managed in a low voice.

Ethan ignored him. “So, first of all, just to confirm – where is this little ritual of yours going to take place?'

The prisoner looked up at Ethan without the slightest trace of fear. “The Mouth of the Beast,” he said, and then, astonishingly, laughed.

Ethan cast Giles a strange look; Giles merely shook his head, though he wasn't sure Ethan could see even that much. He'd lowered the torch when Ethan had first mentioned breaking the man's fingers, as he didn't want either of them to see how he'd blanched. Just his luck that some very particular buttons had been pushed on this trip. Giles hunched, wishing his clothing were better suited to hiding, but he was damp and sticky and laid bare. Or so he felt.

“You mind telling us what's so funny?” Ethan asked, crouching down to the prisoner's eye level.

“You think you can stop us,” the prisoner said, still giggling in a most disturbing way, “but you're too late. The first part of the ritual was performed days ago. The First is here - here !” he gasped, eyes suddenly wide.

Giles froze. Perhaps it was only his own paranoia, but something in the way the prisoner spoke made Giles think he was telling the truth – in so far as he knew at least. He was too mad to lie, for one thing, and there was a glint in his eyes that Giles didn't like.

“That ritual failed,” Ethan pointed out, his voice very even. “Tomorrow night –”

“The ritual will be completed,” the pirsoner said, smiling almost beatifically now. “Dead or alive I shall be present when the First is made manifest and grants us our reward and you your everlasting torment.”

“I wouldn't count on that,” Ethan muttered, before saying more loudly, “Is that it then? ‘You're too late'? I've heard it before, I think. Usually seems to mean the exact opposite.”

“Not this time,” a new voice from behind them said. “This time you really are much, much too late.”

Giles turned slowly, already knowing what he would see. He had thought this part of it to be over. He had hoped not to have to go through his days half-expecting to see his ghosts at every turn: Jenny, Buffy, Angelus. Those had been the First's favorites when it had wished to torment him. It had never become the boy standing before him now, wearing the same black leather jacket, torn t-shirt, and faded jeans he had worn the night he'd died. All his clothes had been ripped and bloodstained by the end, of course, but these were clean, or at least only normally dirty; the First had gotten every detail right down to the faint brown stain on the collar of Randall's shirt. And his accent – the twisted vowels of a boy raised in one of the wealthiest families in England, trying to sound as though he hadn't been. Randall had never quite mastered the working class accent of London they had all done their best to affect.

“You're not real,” Giles heard Ethan say, voice shaking.

The First frowned and held his hand out, inspecting it. “Real? I think I am. Alive?” The First smiled. “Well, that's a different story. But you know that. You killed me.”

Giles swallowed. “It's not him,” he managed. “It's the First. It can take the form of – of anyone who's died.”

The First shook its head. “You always were the smartest of all of us. I told you that once, didn't I, Ripper?” Giles nodded before he could stop himself. “Weren't smart enough to save me, though. Or any of the others.”

“This is ridiculous,” Giles said, turning away. “Not corporeal so it can't do anything but stand there and taunt us.”

“Not corporeal yet,” the First corrected. “But I am well on my way, and as my young friend tied to the tree said, you are much too late to stop me. As you might have guessed by the fact I'm here.”

Giles gritted his teeth, glanced toward Ethan, and realized suddenly that the First's show was not for him. It had never become Randall for him before, because Giles had long since made his amends with that part of his life. Had spent decades making amends for it, and found forgiveness in himself and others. He had been lucky that way, he supposed.

Ethan, it seemed, had not been.

“Just keep on,” Giles said in a low voice, still with his back to the First.

“Yeah,” the First said. “I think you were about to break some of that boy's fingers.” And then, in a different voice laden with irony, it added, “Doesn't that bother you, Rupert? Watching him do what I did to you?”

Giles stiffened, fists clenching involuntarily. “All right,” he said, “we're done. Leave him.” He turned away, not waiting to see if Ethan would follow, and stopped.

He should have known. Where there was the First, there were bound to be Bringers. Three of them in this case. Behind him, Angelus – the First laughed.

“If you could only see your face, Rupert,” it snickered.

“If we can get to the boat –” Giles said, pulling out his dagger.

“Yeah,” Ethan replied, and then the Bringers closed in, two of them on Giles.

He ducked the first blow, a predictable and easily dodged swing of the Bringer's axe, and came up with his dagger at the ready, only to find his hand knocked aside with a force that sent a painful shock all the way up his arm. The second Bringer kicked him low in the back, right over his kidneys, and Giles fell to his knees. He struggled to his feet almost immediately, but it cost him; one of the Bringers had hold of his arm and when he twisted to drive the knife in between its ribs, Giles felt his right shoulder dislocate with a sick popping sensation. He cried out, but the knife went in. The Bringer fell.

His respite lasted less than a second before the other Bringer moved in, swinging his sword at Giles's stomach. He avoided it by moving closer rather than further away, since close combat at least made the sword less of a threat. His arm was useless though, and the Bringer's strength superior; a few painful seconds of hand-to-hand found him in a chokehold, gasping for help from Ethan. But Giles could see out the corner of his eye that Ethan had problems of his own.

The Bringer tightened his grip and shook him like a rag doll, causing hot pain to shoot from Giles's shoulder down to the tips of his fingers. His dagger was gone, out of reach, stuck in the back of the Bringer he'd killed, his oxygen was cut off, and he couldn‘t fight, couldn't break the Bringer's grip. He heard Angelus's voice saying something, but Giles didn't even know if it was the First or just some echo in his rapidly fading consciousness.

The Bringer let go so suddenly that Giles was left gasping on the ground. There was a blur of motion overhead and then that Bringer fell as well, straight across Giles's chest, crushing the air out of his lungs so that his yell of pain became a silent gasp. Ethan shoved him off, helped Giles sit up, and then hauled him to his feet.

“Urgh,” Giles groaned.

“We'll do your shoulder in the boat,” Ethan said. “Let's go before more of those blasted things show up.”

“Yeah, hurry up,” the First said. It was Randall again, Giles noticed dimly. “Run away. It's what you do best, after all, Ethan. Like you ran away that night, leaving Ripper to clean up your mess.”

To Giles's relief, Ethan didn't answer. Instead he bundled Giles into the canoe and sat him on the bench closest to the engine. Giles cradled his arm against his body and clenched his teeth. It had been thoroughly wrenched on top of being dislocated; he could feel cold sweat on his face and the back of his neck, and he felt lightheaded and ill. He bit his lip until he tasted blood, hoping the sharp pain would help him focus. He could not pass out. “We must have missed something,” he managed, even though he didn't think Ethan was paying any attention. His voice echoed from far away, down a long, dim tunnel. “Another part of the ritual, or . . .”

“So it would seem,” Ethan said, and then there was the rip of the engine catching.

Once they were underway, far from the Bringers and the prisoner (though not the First, Giles thought dizzily, because you were never further from the First than it wanted you to be), he gave in to the lightheadedness. If he could just go to sleep for a few minutes, the pain might be gone when he woke up.

It wasn't, of course. He came to lying on the bottom of the canoe, soaked again from the rainwater and staring up at a sky swirling with stars. The moon was full and gleaming on the water and they were drifting – or perhaps it was he who was drifting. But no, he realized quickly, the motor was off and the boat was being swept slowly but surely downstream with the current. His shoulder still hurt like the devil, but not as badly; Ethan must have done him the favor of popping it back in while he'd been out, which meant there was a bright side to having fainted so ignominiously from the pain. He sat up slowly, trying not to move his arm and wishing he had a sling to keep it immobile. He knew from experience that he would forget and gesture in exactly the wrong way at exactly the worst possible moment.

Once he'd managed to sit up without further damaging himself, Giles saw that Ethan was sitting beside the motor, hunched over strangely. “Ethan,” he said, suddenly worried he had sustained some injury Giles had noticed at the time.

Ethan looked up. “Well, Ripper,” he said, in a poor approximation of his usual sardonic tone, “nice of you to join me. I was starting to think you'd be out all night.”

“It seems not.” Giles managed to haul himself onto one of the benches. “The First?”

“Gone.”

“Well, that's a blessing.” Giles leaned on his good arm and wished in vain for very strong painkillers.

“Ripper,” Ethan said, and then stopped. “Rupert,” he began again after a moment, “when it became that vampire –”

“Angelus.”

“Yes. It said something about breaking all your fingers.”

“Not all of them,” Giles said, feeling a discomfort that had nothing to do with his shoulder. “Just the ones on my left hand.” He cleared his throat. “It's a long story.”

“Would this long story also explain why you vomited at the sight of a man you'd never met tied to a chair?”

“Yes,” Giles replied shortly.

“Angelus tortured you.”

“Yes.”

Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “For a long story, that was rather short.”

“Ethan,” Giles said in as even a tone as he could manage under the circumstances, “it might not shock you to learn that it's not something I enjoy talking about.”

“Especially with someone you don't trust.”

Giles's jaw clenched. “It has nothing to do with that.”

“Like hell it doesn't. Laserpía was right. You don't trust me and you never have. Not since Randall, anyway, and maybe not before.”

“Ethan –” Giles shut his mouth on words that would have been pure lies. “You're right,” he said at last. “I don't trust you to, to not turn me into a Fyarl demon, and not feed me alligator meat, and not steal things out of my pockets. Since these are all things you've done in recent memory, some of them very recent, I don't think that's as unreasonable as you do. But . . .” He hesitated. “It doesn't have anything to do with Randall. Or at least only tangentially.”

“You'll excuse me if I find that difficult to believe,” Ethan replied coldly.

Giles nodded. “I'm not surprised.” He paused to choose his words with care and then continued, “The First never became Randall for me at all last year, did you know? It chose . . . other people. That was all for you. I regret deeply my actions that led to Randall's death. But he made a choice, as did we all. It was a stupid, dangerous one and he died. I am sorry. But I've left my guilt behind. About that particular incident, at least.”

Ethan turned his face away, into the deep shadows. “How nice for you.”

Giles said nothing. A great many things suddenly made sense, though he thought it wisest not to voice them aloud. Giles had run after Randall's death, just as far and as fast as Ethan had. He had run to his family, to the structure of university, to the Council. He had buried his guilt in books and rules. Ethan had run the other way, burying his guilt in Chaos and dark magics until, he'd told himself, he'd become the sort of man to whom guilt meant nothing. Giles had wondered for years how Ethan could have kept on with it all after Randall; now he realized that Ethan had seen no way out. He'd had no family, no future, no destiny. He'd needed something. It was a pity he'd chosen so badly.

“Laserpía was wrong about some things though,” Giles said on the heels of a long silence. He was aware the river was drifting them away from their goal, and thought it was time to remind Ethan why they were there. That seemed to be what the First was best at: making one lose sight of one's purpose. “I might not trust you not to make a complete fool of me at every opportunity, but I trust you to do what Laserpía told you to.” Ethan gave him a sharp look, and Giles nodded gravely. “Do you really think I haven't known all along that it might be necessary? And that I might not be able to do it? That's why you're here, Ethan. And,” he added, realizing it was true only at that moment, “it's why Buffy isn't.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “I had wondered why your precious Slayer wasn't along. We could have used her back there with those, those –”

“Bringers,” Giles supplied. “And she wanted to come. I wouldn't let her.” He sighed. “Buffy . . . has always put her heart first, before everything else.”

“That's ridiculous,” Ethan said, frowning. “How can she possibly have lived so long if that's true?”

Giles smiled a little sadly. “Sometimes I'm convinced it is only through the most extraordinary luck. But in all honesty, while it may be foolish, it is also something I have always loved about her. It's been her strength more often than her weakness.” He looked down at his hands. “But she could not have let me destroy the talisman knowing . . . what it would mean. Much less do it for me if I could not.”

“Oh,” Ethan said, and fell silent.

“Speaking of which,” Giles said, “we have a long journey ahead of us and it gets longer every moment we spend drifting downriver.”

“Yes.” Ethan eyed Giles shrewdly. “And just out of curiosity, Rupert, what happens if it comes down to that? Would you ever forgive me for killing your sweet Willow? Or will we be back to you beating me to a pulp every three years?”

Giles smiled thinly. “I don't know. I suggest we not find out.”

Chapter Six

It was nearly daybreak when they arrived at the Mouth of the Beast, where the river widened and then split. There was nothing but lush green rainforest to be seen to either side and before them, an unending and unbroken span of ferns and palms and a hundred other types of trees whose names were a mystery.

In the early morning light the vegetation was more black than green, or perhaps it was always so. It took Giles a few minutes to realize he was bothered not by anything mystical, at least not yet; what made him uneasy was that the forest was too quiet. No howler monkeys screaming in the dawn. No nocturnal frogs giving their final croaks before settling in for the duration of the wet, hot Amazonian day. Not even any bird cries. All things living and innocent avoided this place. Giles's shoulder ached.

Ethan found them another inlet, this one even smaller and darker than the last, and wedged the canoe inside. They sat in the near perfect stillness and said nothing for some time. Giles supposed he should have felt sleepy after the night they'd had, but this place put him on guard.

Predictably, it was Ethan who broke the silence. “Well, this ought to be fun.”

To his own surprise, Giles managed a laugh. “I will admit, there is nothing quite like going into battle outnumbered, outgunned, and crippled for the sheer adrenalin rush.”

Ethan stood and stretched, balancing carefully before making his way up the canoe and jumping out onto solid ground. “I suggest we do some scouting now,” he said, “and then we can rest in the heat of the day.”

Giles followed his example with even more care; his shoulder had stiffened during the night, and to his embarrassment, Ethan had to help him out of the boat. He winced and reached to probe the injury gingerly.

“How is it?” Ethan asked.

“Swollen,” Giles said. “But as we are lacking in ice and heat packs and I don't have the luxury of lying about with my arm in a sling, it will just have to do. Pass me some water, will you?” Giles took a long swallow from the water bottle and felt steadier. “All right, let's go.”

Ethan had charge of the maps and took the lead, which Giles was only too happy to let him do. There was no trail here, and the undergrowth was thick and stubborn, as though the jungle were reluctant to yield her secrets, especially to the likes of them. Ethan slashed through the worst of it using a huge knife with a wickedly curved blade.

It was deadly quiet once they got away from the negligible noise of the river; the hair on the back of Giles's neck and arms stood up and he had to fight the almost physical urge to flee. “Not a very hospitable place, is it?” he muttered.

“The place I found Willow was much the same.” Ethan replied. “Except possibly worse.”

“God, how frightened she must have been. To wake up in a place like this . . .”

“She didn't seem too pleased about it, no.” Ethan's tone was dry. “At least not judging by the way she clawed at me. This way.”

The next ten minutes were increasingly slow going. It was all Giles could do to pick his way forward without falling, until the tangle of vines and bushes and twining roots finally gave way to a clearing with a wide stone table at the center. The unpleasant low-grade tingle Giles had been feeling became a sudden, painful shock along his nerve endings, like plunging into icy water. He only just managed to swallow a gasp.

“I think those were wards,” Ethan said, sounding a bit strangled. “New, if I'm not mistaken. They'll know we're here.”

“They already know we're here,” Giles said. The shock was past, though the urge to turn and run was not. “Let's be quick about this.”

“How many can we expect, do you think?” Ethan asked, pacing the length of the clearing until he paused beside the stone table.

“Willow said there were only ten before, and I've killed three since then. But they won't be alone.”

“Right,” Ethan said. “Bringers.”

“Yes. I imagine they'll be acting as guards if nothing else. This is going to be tricky.” Giles frowned and stepped into the clearing for the first time, though he stayed well back from the table. “I would like to take charge of the focusing spell and the amulet, if you don't mind.”

Ethan grinned. “Not at all. Explosions are much more fun.”

“Yes, well.” Giles took a turn around the clearing while Ethan studied the table, though what he saw that so fascinated him, Giles couldn't guess. “We'll need to have a good view of the, er –”

“Altar,” Ethan supplied absently.

Giles stared. Yes, that was the right word after all. He wondered suddenly who it had been dedicated to originally; not the First, though the Children of the Dark Eye had appropriated it easily enough. The indigenous peoples native to the region were not known to have consorted with demons or worshipped the hell-gods, though the black arts did have a long history in the area. Who had built the altar and to what ends were questions without answers now, but Giles had to wonder if the ancient, forgotten god to whom it was dedicated would appreciate having it used for such purposes. Not that the old gods had much of a say in anything.

They spent half an hour surveying the site, until they had identified three places that would allow them to see the altar and also provide some shelter. Ethan had suggestions as to spells that would conceal them or at least make them less noticeable, but Giles was dubious about how useful they would be against the Bringers. All the same he felt somewhat encouraged as they hiked back to the canoe – though perhaps some of that was simply the relief of being away from the wards and the creeping power of the clearing.

His shoulder was aching too much to sleep, so Giles offered to take first watch once he and Ethan had set up their makeshift camp. A tarp propped up on a few metal poles was all Giles had been able to find in the way of a tent in Macapá, but at least it would keep the rain off. Ethan didn't argue; he retreated under the tarp with his sleeping bag, leaving Giles standing outside, rubbing his swollen shoulder.

He moved the last few supplies out of the canoe and under the tarp so they wouldn't get soaked during the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm, and then crawled beneath it as well. Ethan was snoring, which made Giles glare in both annoyance and envy. His exhaustion was starting to win out over his general discomfort. He dug a package of dried fruit out of one of the rucksacks and set to munching to keep himself awake. Though it had been well over twelve hours since his encounter with the alligator meat, Giles realized he had very little appetite.

It was while tucking the wrapper back in the rucksack that Giles found the black cloth bag with the amulet inside. Ethan had had charge of it all night and had submitted to Giles's insistence on checking on it every hour or so with a roll of the eyes and a cutting remark. Now Giles drew it out, cupping the pendant with the huge emerald in the palm of his hand and allowing the chain to drape over his fingers. It was afternoon at the coven, he thought. They would have finished lunch and perhaps she was walking to the beach with Buffy and Dawn, or meditating with Mary. He felt very far away from her at that moment, not just in a physical sense, and perhaps that was why he could stand to ask himself that which he had dreaded and avoided thus far: the question of what would become of them once this was over. Or, more accurately, the question of what they would become.

He suspected it was foolishly insecure to assume she would not want him once she was well, but he could not help it. Far better to assume that and then find out she did want him than the reverse. Still, he knew Willow better than that; she didn't use people and when she loved, she loved long and deep and with great devotion. Too much, perhaps, but after so many years of solitude, Giles thought that too much sounded like just enough.

He couldn't let himself think about any of this. Not really, not yet. The future would have to wait until he was sure they had one; anything else was just . . . masochistic. He slipped the chain over his head, tucked the pendant into his shirt, and went to patrol around the perimeter of their camp, such as it was.

When he was finally able to go to sleep a few hours later, Ethan having woken to relieve him, he dreamt of Willow, sitting on the couch from his Sunnydale apartment, which had somehow been transported to the high school library. Willow was certainly her current self, though, in long, flowing skirts, a peasant blouse, and bare feet.

“Hi,” she said, looking up at him. “Sit down. You look like you're about to fall over.”

“Is this –” Giles stopped. He didn't need to ask. This was not a true dream; he could tell by the persistent ache in his shoulder. “Should we be doing this?” he asked instead, trying to sound concerned rather than censorious.

“Miss Harkness said it was okay. Doesn't take much more than meditation, after all. Seriously, Giles, you better sit down before you fall down.” He sat at last, reassured. She shifted closer to him and took his hand. “So yeah, this is totally approved and everything, but I kinda didn't have a lot of control about where we ended up.” She shrugged and gave an almost embarrassed smile. “I guess it's where my unconscious wanted to be.”

“That's . . . a little strange,” Giles said. Though he missed the library at times, if his unconscious had to choose a place to be with Willow, he rather hoped this wouldn't be it.

“Not really,” she said, her smile widening to a smirk. “Remind me to tell you some of the sordid library fantasies I had about you back then.”

Giles felt his mouth drop open. He closed it quickly enough, and had opened it to reply – though what he would have said to this stupefying revelation, he had no idea – when she noticed his shoulder and frowned.

“Giles, I thought I told you not to get hurt.”

“I did my level best, I assure you,” he replied wryly. “The Bringers had other plans.”

“Bringers?” she repeated, her eyes going wide.

“Unfortunately. Things have gotten a bit . . . complicated.”

“I guess.” She reached to touch. Giles winced, and she snatched her hand back. “Sorry,” she said, in such a way that gave Giles the impression that touching his shoulder was the least of what she was apologizing for.

“Don't be,” he said, capturing her hand in his. “You can't possibly think it isn't worth it to me, and much more besides.”

She nodded, but looked no less miserable. “If things were normal, I could just –” She made a vague gesture toward his shoulder that somehow managed to indicate healing. “If things were normal,” she added after a moment, “I'd be there.”

There was a level of bitterness in her voice that Giles had not expected. He had known from their earlier conversation over the phone that she was chafing under the forced inactivity, and he had expected nothing else – but he had not known that it would make her angry. Frustrated, yes, but not angry. “I would like nothing more than to have you with us,” he replied at last; it was the only thing he could think to say, even if it were not quite true.

She squeezed his hand and he could see her struggling to master her emotions and put on a cheerful face for him. He didn't know how to tell her she didn't need to. “I know. It's just . . . I'm really not into sitting around, waiting to be rescued. It makes me growly. Buffy too. We've been a pain, or at least that's what Dawn says. Well, she says a lot more than that, actually.”

“I can imagine,” Giles said, smiling faintly.

“So yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, it's not like there was any other way.”

“No,” Giles agreed. He watched her for a moment in profile as she bent her head, her red hair falling gracefully over the nape of her neck. “Though there might be something you can do.”

She looked up. “Research?” she asked, with a notable lack of enthusiasm

“For now. A . . . fairly complex spell, I imagine, later on.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly, her eyes already brighter. “It seems that what the cult did with, with you was only the second part of the ritual. They had already done something – I'm not sure what, and the information Xander and the researchers unearthed didn't say anything about an earlier ritual. But it seems to have let the First back in.”

“Hence the Bringers,” Willow said. “I get it. They must've, I don't know, cracked the inter-dimensional back door open.”

“Exactly,” Giles said, pleased at the apt metaphor.

“You want me to figure out how to close it?”

“And dead-bolt it, if you can. The sooner, the better. I realize it isn't –” he started to add when she only nodded.

“No, no,” she said, quickly. “It's way better than the whole lotta nothin' I've been doing since you left. I bet Buffy'll even help and you know she'd rather face a Polgara armed with a Wiffle bat than crack a book.”

Giles chuckled; she grinned and kissed him, threading her fingers through the back of his hair. When they broke apart, she stroked his good arm and caught sight of the pendant beneath his shirt, visible because of the two buttons she'd undone during the proceedings. “What's this?” she asked, pulling it out and letting it lay in her palm, much as Giles had earlier.

“It's yours,” he said. “That is, it will be. I'm going to use it to safeguard your power, but afterward, if you want –”

“I want,” she said, and smiled up at him, eyes sparking. “But . . . won't we have to break it?”

“I hope not. That would be a shame.”

She nodded, rubbing her thumb over the emerald, and then kissed him again, lightly this time. “I should go,” she murmured against his lips.

“As should I. I'll talk to you –”

“Soon.”

“Yes. Soon.”

The dream dissolved. Giles woke slowly, as from a long, refreshing sleep rather than an all-too-brief nap. He basked in the feeling for a moment, and then, remembering the circumstances, sat up quickly. He gritted his teeth against a groan as he jostled his arm.

It was later than he'd expected – he could tell the sun was setting by the orange glow on the water – and Ethan was sitting in the canoe, pitching rocks or possibly seeds into the black water by the shore.

Giles rubbed a hand over his face. “You should have woken me sooner.”

Ethan twisted around to grimace at him. “Believe me, I would have, but I tried everything short of dumping you in the river. You could not be woken.”

Giles paused. “Oh.”

“Indeed. And how is Willow?”

“Going starkers from the inactivity.” Giles ducked back into the tent for water and some of the strangely addictive peanut candy.

“Ah.” Ethan said nothing until Giles had returned. Then he raised an eyebrow at him and said, “You know . . . I would just like to take this moment to say –”

“Ethan –”

“I told you so. Because we'll very likely be murdered in the next few hours, and I wanted to say it before then. Invited you into her bed because you were safe. Idiot.”

“Thank you, Ethan, for that refreshing dose of . . . perspective.”

Ethan shrugged and climbed out of the canoe. “I am, as you know, always glad to be of service.”

They packed up the canoe again in case a quick escape became necessary. Giles took the opportunity to study the motor; it was ridiculous that he had thus far avoided learning how to operate it. If Ethan were injured or worse, they would be in dire straits indeed. Ethan apparently thought similarly, and pointed out how to start and cut the engine and how to steer. Giles nodded, though he hoped he would not have to test his new knowledge in any sort of practical setting.

They approached the clearing with great caution. When they were near enough to see dark-robed figures milling about inside of it, Ethan indicated with hand gestures that he would circle round the back way. He held up five fingers to indicate five minutes, and pointed back toward their canoe. Giles nodded and made his own way around to the best of the three hiding spots they had found. It was a small copse of trees grown unusually close together about fifteen meters away from the clearing itself. Crouched down inside, it was possible to see the stone slab and probably three-quarters of the clearing. Giles touched the pendant at his neck and then the knife in his boot before taking stock.

There were, as he had expected, seven cult members in the clearing, two of them drawing a pentagram, three more consulting demonologies, and two walking the perimeter on guard duty. Two of the three with the demonologies were unfamiliar, but one of them drew Giles's attention immediately; power fairly crackled from him. Giles would have bet that he was Saramargo, the one who had stolen Josué's power, although it seemed his own had been considerable even before then. If that had not been enough to confirm it, one of the other members began lighting the freestanding torches that demarcated the edge of the clearing, throwing it into a pool of bright yellow firelight that glinted off the gold inlay of the Dark Eye hung around his neck. Giles stared at it for a long, frozen moment before tearing his gaze away.

The pentagram could be either strength or weakness, Giles thought. Early on, breaking the pentagram would also break the ritual, but they had to let things get further than that. By the time they would be trying to reclaim Willow's power, the pentagram would be volatile, dangerous to anyone who tried to cross it. Giles frowned and watched them pour the blood-red sand; they were all wearing robes, but the hoods were back, and he clearly recognized the woman he'd seen in the café across the street from Josué's building.

Then there were the guards; only two of them, and they would undoubtedly be occupied during the ritual as well. But the Bringers would be there, and despite the lack of eyes – or possibly because of it – they were much more effective. Fortunately Giles had no intention of attempting to invade the clearing.

His five minutes up, Giles made his way back to the canoe. Ethan wasn't there yet. Giles paced along the shore as he waited, trying to think if there was anything to be done about the Bringers, not that there had ever been before. He pressed his hand over the pendant, which made a lump under his shirt, and thought of Willow. Sordid library fantasies, indeed. She had to be teasing him. But then again . . . perhaps not.

Another five minutes passed, and still there was no sign of Ethan. Giles wasn't sure if he should be worried or annoyed; after the stunts Ethan had pulled so far, he could well believe he was delaying his return just to piss Giles off. But somehow that didn't feel right. There was too much at stake at this point for Ethan to do something so juvenile – which did not mean he wouldn't, Giles reminded himself as he aimed his torch up the path.

Ten minutes later it was clear something was wrong. Giles crept back to the clearing; everything was just as it had been, except Saramargo was missing. Giles swore under his breath, entirely certain that boded nothing good. It didn't come as much of a surprise when, perhaps three minutes later, two Bringers dragged an unconscious Ethan into the pool of torchlight. Saramargo followed, the golden curves of the Dark Eye glowing against the black of his robes.

Giles swore again, rather more creatively this time. He hadn't actually held out any hope of his plan going off without a hitch; none of them ever had before, after all. But when he saw the two Bringers tying Ethan to the stone at Saramargo's behest, he felt his heart sink. Ethan's head lolled; Giles wondered if they had merely knocked him unconscious or if they had drugged him as they had Willow. Either way he would be unable to free himself or fight or perform the spell, which meant Giles would have to. With one arm, no less.

He stayed crouched there another few minutes, watching. Saramargo ripped Ethan's shirt open and then returned to his demonology, leaving the two Bringers to guard him.

Giles glanced at his watch; he and Ethan had assumed the cult would wait until midnight to begin the ritual, but it could be performed any time after full dark and moonrise. Giles needed to go back to the canoe to retrieve the herbs and a few weapons, so he could set up and be ready even if they did not wait for the witching hour. He ran more of a risk of being caught, staying so close to the center of the cult's activities for what would probably be several hours yet. But he suspected they would not come after him; they were no doubt using Ethan as bait, expecting him to come bursting into the clearing in the perfectly senseless tradition of heroes everywhere.

Well, they could keep waiting. Giles had no intention of leaving Ethan there, but neither was he a complete idiot.

Once back at the canoe Giles quickly packed the smallest rucksack with the herbs he would need for the focusing spell, as well as everything Ethan would need for the other; they would not be able to perform them simultaneously as they had planned, but Ethan had been right when he'd said that leaving the cult anything short of decimated would be criminally foolish. He added a small but wickedly accurate crossbow to supplement his dagger and the ever-present knife in his boot, and then eyed the larger bag of weapons; he had several swords in there, which would be useful against the Bringers. But they were simply too cumbersome to take with him, especially as he couldn't carry anything heavy in his right hand. He would force the Bringer into close combat if need be, where the dagger would be far more useful than their axes and swords.

He was able to get back into position without much trouble. He encountered a Bringer on the path, but he saw it in time and concealed himself behind a tree until it had passed. Once crouched down in his copse of trees, Giles assured himself that Ethan was the same as before – unconscious but unharmed. Giles had no idea what he would do if it seemed the cult was about to do to Ethan what they had done to Willow; he had to hope they wouldn't, since they already had adequate power for the ritual in the talisman. If Giles were forced to reveal himself to save Ethan, it would leave them with very little hope of ever actually re-capturing Willow's power.

Time crept by. Giles grew both increasingly uncomfortable and increasingly certain that the cult was determined to wait until midnight after all. His shoulder ached fiercely and his legs cramped up. He tried to stretch without much success, and watched Ethan for signs that he might be waking. He started to once, only to be knocked unconscious again by one of the Bringer guards.

At ten o'clock it started to rain. Giles hunkered down in the mud and began mixing the herbs for the spell under his poncho where they wouldn't get wet, in a small stone mortar they had brought with them for just this purpose. Then he unhooked the amulet from around his neck and coiled it in the bowl with the herbs, murmuring the words of the spell over the mortar until he felt the amulet begin to give off a pulsing heat. It was primed to receive her power now.

Giles settled back, leaving the amulet in the bowl as it was too hot to have next to his skin just yet. It would cool as the magics steadied, but for now he merely kept it out of sight and out of the rain.

Midnight found Giles crouched on the balls of his feet, which was not particularly comfortable, but seemed the best compromise between staying hidden and being ready to either run or intervene on Ethan's behalf, should either become necessary. It had stopped raining; Giles wasn't sure he should be grateful, but at least it meant he had been able to do away with the thrice-damned poncho. The amulet lay beneath his shirt once more, still warm but no longer uncomfortably hot. He wrapped his fingers around it and ran the words through his mind once more. He was ready, if only they would be.

It seemed they were. Ethan had begun to stir and they hadn't bothered to knock him out again. Giles watched him anxiously, until at last he opened his eyes to slits, looked straight at Giles, and shivered one eyelid closed in a wink. Giles smiled grimly and pulled the amulet out his shirt. He felt the magic dance along the nerve endings of his fingers and realized he was holding his breath.

“That's a nice little trinket you got there, Giles,” Buffy's voice said in his ear.

Giles jumped. The First smiled. As it often had last year, it had chosen to appear to him not as Buffy as she was now, but as she had been when he'd first met her – bangs and curls and a lollipop in one hand. He didn't reply, but he suspected his expression gave away his shock.

“You didn't really think I hadn't noticed you hanging out back here, did you?” it asked, cheerfully flipping its hair over one shoulder. “Crouched down here in the mud, useless and watching as usual. Your pants must be totally gross by now.”

Giles turned his face away with an effort and forced himself to focus on the clearing. Seven cult members, four Bringers, he saw. The cult members had positioned themselves one in front of each flaming torch. The clearing was almost ablaze with firelight, but for once Giles had been lucky and the harsh light merely served to throw him into deeper shadow. Not that hiding would do him any good now.

“I guess you're probably kinda worried I might give you away, huh?” the First went on when Giles said nothing. “Well, don't worry. Your secret's safe with me. I mean, you can't win. But it'll be hilarious watching you try.”

Giles didn't dare look over until nearly half a minute had gone by in silence. The First was gone. He let out a breath, but there was no respite, because at that moment the chanting began.

If Giles had found being near the dark energies of the place to be uncomfortable before, that was nothing compared to what it felt like now. Willow had described the air as becoming hot and thick, but that only covered half of it. There was the most awful thrumming in the air, as of a guitar string that had been plucked, but harsh, entirely unmelodic. It grated on him and the urge to flee had his adrenalin flowing and heart pumping. He mastered himself with the greatest effort, digging his fingers into the damp earth as an anchor.

And the sensation would not cease. It went on, building with the chanting, until at its height Saramargo drew the talisman over his head and placed it around Ethan's neck. Giles relaxed minutely; he had thought they might steal Ethan's power for themselves and then he would have to intervene, but it seemed that was not their plan. Giles wondered what would happen if the First possessed someone with as much power as Ethan: would it burn up along with Ethan's soul, or would it remain, a negligible addition to the First's own vast power?

The chanting was at a fever pitch now, the grating thrum as well, until it ended in a moment of shockingly still silence. Giles opened his hand so the amulet lay exposed and began murmuring the words of the spell. With a harsh cry, Saramargo smashed the talisman.

The focusing spell was simple and could be used for any number of things, but with Giles's mind and magic he called to Willow's power. There was some essence of her in it still, and he hoped that it would be drawn more to him than to them, even while their spell was undoubtedly the more powerful of the two. More than any romantic attachment they might have formed – still too new and tenuous to be put to this sort of test – he drew on their many years of friendship: on all the times they had celebrated together or grieved together; on his memories of those days after Angelus when she had first taken care of him, and later forced him to take care of himself; of those days after Tara's death and her trip into the dark when he had done the same for her. Surely that would remain the core of their relationship, no matter how it might change in the future.

There was an outpouring of white light the color of the moon in all directions before it narrowed and became a single, blinding channel, pouring straight into the amulet in Giles's hand. He heard an echo of Willow laughing and saw her for half a second, smiling and radiant, and then the light was gone. He blinked away the dazzled spots before his eyes – and realized he was in serious trouble.

The light show had given away his position as clearly as though someone had shone a spotlight on him. There was a single moment of stillness, and then he was on his feet, clutching his crossbow in his good hand, trying to fumble his dagger out with the other. He was running and they were close behind.

Bloody hell, but it was dark. He tripped over a tree root and barely avoided falling flat on his face, which would have been certain disaster with one arm already useless. The dagger was less use at the moment than the torch would have been, but he'd left the torch behind in his haste to achieve some sort of head start. He wouldn't have liked to give away his position in any case, not that he was being particularly stealthy at the moment, thrashing about in the undergrowth. Fortunately, from what he could hear, it seemed the cult was doing little better.

He plunged on, relying on blind luck and the small amount of moonlight filtering through the canopy to guide him, until at last his foot caught on a tangle of something and he went sprawling. He landed on his bad arm and was completely incapable of picking himself up at first for the pain, which was the only reason the bolt of pure magic shot over his head and burst the tree ahead of him into woodchips instead of disemboweling him. It was a tall tree, probably centuries old, and it toppled slowly, ponderously, bending younger and weaker trees in its way, until it lay at an angle, not quite on the ground, forming a blockade between Giles and the cult.

He crouched down behind it, peering over the top to watch them. All except Saramargo held torches and were muttering to each other in Portuguese, too low for Giles to hear. Saramargo glared into the dark, turning in a slow circle. Giles could hear others – Bringers, no doubt – creeping through the jungle around him, making the back of his neck itch. He ducked down and loaded the crossbow. He would have only one shot.

The sound of a crossbow bolt hitting human flesh still made him flinch after all these years. The sound was raw and a little wet and utterly grotesque. Saramargo staggered with the blow, which was slightly off the mark, as someone leapt to keep him from falling. He looked down at it in faint surprise, and Giles froze, waiting for him to collapse.

But he didn't.

Instead he closed his eyes, gripped the bolt with one hand, and yanked it out with an even more disgusting, meaty, sucking sound. Giles's stomach turned over, but already he could see the blood flow slowing, the edges of the wound starting to knit together. It was not instantaneous; Saramargo wasn't immortal, and if the bolt had found its mark it likely would have killed him. But he was so overflowing with magic that healing a gaping chest wound was almost nothing.

At least it would leave the cult's leader with no room for distractions for several minutes. Giles didn't try to raise his head again to aim the crossbow. Instead he stayed crouched down and pressed to the tree before crawling along its length on his hands and knees – or hand and knees rather, as he had to keep the crossbow and his sore arm tucked up next to his body. He had no intention in mind except to put as much distance between himself and the cult as possible before doubling back to free Ethan, but then he came to the part of the trunk that had been blown away by the spell. It had fallen facing away from the cult and looked as though something huge had taken a bite out of it. If Giles crawled inside and pulled his knees up to his chest, he doubted anyone not looking directly at him would be able to see him.

Without further hesitation he did just that, and none too soon. The cult members vaulted over the trunk, holding their torches high in every direction. Saramargo came last, moving slowly, one hand still pressed over the hole in his chest. “Spread out,” he ordered, his voice raspier than Giles remembered. “He can't have gone far.” The others moved off, each in a different direction, until at last only Saramargo remained. For a moment Giles was afraid he would sit down on the fallen tree to wait and then he would have a real problem. Saramargo was looking around still, as though he could sense Giles's presence – and perhaps he could; the amulet around Giles's neck still pulsed faintly with magic. But the whole area was so infused with it that Giles couldn't see how he could possibly tell one magic from another.

In the end, he moved on as well. Giles let out the breath he'd been holding, stood, and found himself face to face with a Bringer.

It almost had Giles's head off with its axe before he could even think. He had the crossbow in his good left hand and the dagger in his useless right one; he could not bludgeon the Bringer with the crossbow, it would likely break into pieces, so he clubbed it across the face with the hilt of the dagger and wished uselessly that he'd brought the sword. He had to swallow a yelp of pain at the bolt of strained muscle fire that shot up his arm and resorted to an unstable shove with his booted foot to the Bringer's midsection, which at least knocked its next swing off balance and gave Giles the split second necessary to swap his weapons.

He waited for the next swing of the axe and dodged it by ducking, though its attack on the backswing took him by surprise and clipped him on the thigh. He felt the warm blood welling up to soak his trouser leg first, and then the blossom of pain, which made him hiss. He evaded the next swing even more narrowly, this time by stepping forward so they were almost embracing. Giles braced himself with his bad arm around the Bringer's neck, much too close for the axe to be of any obvious use. Before it had the chance to discover any of the less obvious ones, Giles lodged his dagger in its heart.

He eased the body down to the ground, glancing about with disquiet. They had both been silent throughout the short struggle, but something might still have alerted the others. When no one appeared immediately, Giles set off back toward the orange glow of the clearing, feeling his way down the path – such as it was – with more care. The cut on his leg stung and the fabric of his trousers stuck to it unpleasantly, but he thought it was fairly superficial. If not, it would just be one more scar for his collection.

The clearing was deserted and unevenly lit, half the torches having been knocked over in the melee and then suffocated by the damp ground and rotting leaves. Ethan was pulling uselessly against his bonds and, after a brief hesitation between Ethan and fetching his torch and other accoutrements from the hiding place, Giles went to him.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his gaze caught by a vaguely eye-shaped burn in the center of Ethan's chest.

“It stings like hell. Get me out of these things, will you?”

“What are they?” Giles asked, bending to examine them.

“Rope, you horse's arse!” Ethan snapped, scowling in impotent fury. Giles raised his eyebrows in disbelief that mere rope could hold Ethan Rayne, and Ethan yanked on them again. “I can't do any magic – I think it's the altar itself. Just cut me loo –”

He broke off, eyes widening as he drew breath to shout, but Giles was rolling to the side already, even as the Bringer's axe whistled past his ear. It rang off the rock of the altar, taking a chunk out of the stone.

“Hey!” It was the First as Buffy at her most petulant. She scowled at the Bringer. “Watch the altar. It's mine now. Honestly, Giles,” she added, putting her hands on her hips. “Can you believe these guys?”

Buffy would have had a sarcastic retort, but Giles refused to answer. Not that he had time or breath in any case; the Bringer's next blow with the blunt end of the axe caught him with stunning force across his injured arm, and the one after that clipped the side of his head. He was down on the ground, vision blurring and threatening to go out altogether. A kick to his torso had him retching into the dirt, the taste-smell of damp earth filling his mouth and nostrils. The Bringer swung his axe again; Giles rolled and it buried itself in the dirt, buying him a few precious seconds to scramble behind the altar and haul himself up. He pulled his dagger out and managed to get Ethan's left arm free before the Bringer was on top of them again.

If Giles had thought Bringers capable of emotion, he'd have said this one was pissed. Ethan must have seen their end written in the Bringer's eyeless gaze as surely as Giles did, because he reached over, ripped the dagger out of Giles's fingers, and plunged it to the hilt into its jugular.

Giles abruptly found himself splattered in Bringer blood, which was black and much hotter than human blood. It tasted foul as well; he spat some out and wiped more from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ethan used the dagger to finish cutting himself free. “Oh, I'm sorry,” he said to the First. “Did that throw a wrench into your plans?”

“Not a problem,” it replied in Buffy's bright voice, and then metamorphosed, growing six or seven inches, its hair turning brown, its clothes aging thirty years. “Don't worry, Ethan. I didn't expect anything else from you. You've always been . . . slippery. You get out of anything and everything, don't you? Even when you don't deserve to.”

“It's lying,” Giles said, retrieving his rucksack from the tree.

“Yeah, maybe,” the First said to Ethan. “But how do you know?” It paused, cocked its head, and smiled Randall's lopsided grin. God, Giles had forgotten the way his whole face had never seemed to smile at once. “Hey, what's that I hear? I think it's the pitter patter of the feet of the people who are going kill you.” It laughed and, to Giles's relief, vanished.

“Hell,” Giles said, because footsteps were indeed approaching, many of them, the noise muffled but unmistakable.

Ethan rubbed his wrists where the rope had chafed them and shook his head. “No, Ripper, you're not thinking right. We need them to chase us. We still have to set off that explosion or they'll catch up to us eventually. You might have a whole army of Slayers ready to pummel anyone who comes after you, but we aren't all so henpecked. Is the canoe ready?”

“Is the – yes,” Giles said, eyes widening.

“Let's go,” Ethan said, grabbing him by the arm – the injured one, as it happened, which was rather the worse for its encounter with the Bringer's axe, but Giles barely had time for a hiss of pain before the cult burst into the clearing. Ethan paused long enough to cast a spell at one of the members – not Saramargo – and he fell gasping and clawing at her neck.

Their flight through the jungle back to the canoe was headlong and reckless. The pounding of blood in Giles's ears was incredibly loud in the unearthly silence, his and Ethan's harsh breathing the only other noise the jungle had to offer. And, of course, the pounding of their pursuers' footsteps behind them.

The canoe came into view at last after a long, dangerous slide down the muddy track the trail had become. Together they pushed it into the water and jumped in, shoving themselves off with the paddles. Once they were afloat, Giles paused and listened; the footsteps seemed to have veered off at the last, as their pursuers apparently realized where they were going and that they would not catch them in time.

“One of us will have to drive,” Ethan said as they entered the main current. “And one of us will have –”

“You're more powerful than I am.” Any irritation Giles might have felt at making the admission was stripped away entirely by his desperation. “I drive, you fight.”

Fortunately for Ethan, he chose not to gloat. “Fair enough,” he said, and gave up the motor to Giles to crouch amidst the life vests and watch over Giles's shoulder for the cult to appear. There was no sign of them yet and the jungle was growing louder with every meter they put between themselves and that godforsaken clearing; still, over the reassuring sound of the cicadas and the croak of the frogs, Giles thought he could make out the buzz of a motor not their own, faint but becoming less so.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said, once he'd managed the first curve of the river without capsizing them, “where the hell are we going?”

“Damned if I know,” Ethan said. The stupid bugger grinned again, even as not one but two canoes shot round the same bend in the river they'd just navigated. “Pick any spot you think you can squeeze us into.”

“Right,” Giles muttered. He turned his attention forward and kept it there even when the spells began flying over his head, churning the water around them. He glanced back a few times when Ethan uttered a particularly colorful turn of phrase; they were closer each time and Giles put on a burst of speed and managed to pull away a little. He pushed the canoe for all it was worth and then some, apologizing under his breath for every resentful thought he'd had toward it in the course of their journey.

They might have gone all the way back to Macapá like that, Giles being too nervous to take his eyes off the water ahead of them long enough to watch the shoreline for a likely spot. But then Saramargo stood up recklessly at the bow of their boat and scored a palpable hit; the canoe rocked and Giles nearly pitched into the water. He managed to keep his seat, but the motor coughed ominously. He swore; they were losing speed, the gap between them and the other boats closing with frightening rapidity. He turned them toward shore, fighting with the motor and the rudder, both of which had suddenly grown reluctant in his hands. Ethan cast a defensive shield and turned to assist; together they managed to run the canoe up on shore, for once heedless of damage to either the boat or the undergrowth.

“You got the herbs?” Ethan demanded as he jumped out. To Giles's irritation he trained the torch on the path rather than the canoe.

“Yes!” Giles snapped, trying not to kill himself in his unlit scramble over the benches onto dry land. He snagged his sword on the way; he'd felt naked without it earlier.

He was barely clear when the first of the cult's canoes crashed into their own, splintering it. That had been stupid, Giles thought, huffing up the trail behind Ethan. It would take them seconds, perhaps even a minute or two, to get themselves sorted and onto dry land, and all the while he and Ethan would be increasing their lead.

“How many of them are left?” Giles asked breathlessly.

“Five, I think,” Ethan said. “I killed one in the canoe.”

“Wonderful,” Giles muttered.

“We can take five,” Ethan replied with all the cocky bravado of their youth.

“You just tell yourself that,” Giles said, and closed his hand over the amulet around his neck. It was warm now only from his body, its pulsing heat having faded with the intervening minutes. He couldn't hear anything but the cicadas; God only knew what noises they might be covering.

“Oh,” Ethan said suddenly. “ Yes .” He started to run. Giles chased after him, shoulder aching with every jolting step, until he realized where they were going and forgot about the pain altogether.

The tree was enormous: a Brazil nut tree, if Giles wasn't mistaken, at least two meters in diameter and stretching above them for an untold number into the canopy. It had, Giles saw, a sort of hollow where the tree's thick roots extended out and into the ground, leaving the area nearest the trunk sheltered, almost like a shallow cave. Ethan stepped into it and disappeared entirely from view.

“You'll have to hold them off while I set up,” he said, emerging once more.

“Right,” Giles said, glancing down the path over his shoulder. “How long?”

“I'll need to create a protective circle first, so it'll be a few minutes. Is that possible?”

“Yes,” Giles said with a confidence he didn't feel. He resisted the urge to rub his shoulder or check his leg, which felt as though it were bleeding again, presuming it had ever stopped. Something must have shown in his face, because Ethan looked dubious; Giles couldn't blame him. Still, it wasn't as if they had any other options, and after a moment Ethan fell to his knees in the dirt to begin tracing a circle about himself. Giles checked his dagger to make sure it was in place, and then hefted his sword in its scabbard.

“So, what's this?” a familiar voice said. The First was Buffy again, smiling at them from the path in that uncomplicated, cheeky way he remembered from his first months with her. Those few short months before she'd died the first time that Giles had not treasured enough. “A hole for you to crawl into?”

“I have no intention of crawling anywhere,” Giles replied, despite his general policy of refusing to dignify the First's taunts with a response. He drew the sword out in one smooth motion and sighted down the blade; he'd treated it before they'd left Macapá and the edge of it glinted wickedly even in the faint light of the torch. “I've been waiting for this.”

The First went on smiling and waved its lollipop. “That makes two of us. I gotta tell you, Giles, you've done a totally awesome job with all this. I'm impressed, ‘cause I mean, I really didn't think you had something like this left in you. Though I have been meaning to ask.” It metamorphosed, though not to Randall as Giles had come to expect, but to Jenny. Giles stared, too startled to do anything else as she stepped toward him and lifted her face to his as though she were about to kiss him. “How many dead lovers does one sexy fuddy-duddy librarian need?” With a peal of Jenny's achingly familiar laugh, it vanished.

Revealing the Bringer it had been hiding.

Giles barely raised his sword in time to deflect the axe and he still held it in his bad right arm; the shock drew a grunt of pain from him. He switched hands, but was forced back by the Bringer's next parry.

“Watch the circle!” Ethan called. Giles managed a nod of acknowledgment and lunged forward aggressively. The axe was deadly but slow compared to a sword; they relied on brute strength rather than speed, and Giles's attack made use of reflexes and instincts honed by years of teaching Slayers to fence. It forced the Bringer back in turn, so they were both well out of danger of destroying the circle Ethan had drawn.

Giles scored a hit off the Bringer's shoulder and gritted his teeth in satisfaction. Over the clang of their blades he could hear footsteps on the path, and he froze minutely, attempting to gauge their distance. The Bringer used Giles's distraction to slip in past his defenses; Giles fell backward, losing his sword in the stumble. The Bringer towered over him while he groped for it desperately, fingers questing and finally finding it at the very moment the Bringer's axe began its slow motion fall toward him.

Giles brought the sword up in a wide arc that lacked skill or grace but knocked the Bringer off balance, and then, with the raw force of both arms, shoved the sword straight up and into the Bringer's chest.

This time he managed to roll out of the way before the body fell. He yanked the sword out of its chest and stood breathing heavily. The footsteps on the path were closing in on them, and he turned to check on Ethan, who sat cross-legged in the circle. He opened his eyes to meet Giles's.

“Good show,” he said.

“Thank you,” Giles said, rather pleased despite the circumstances. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Ethan said. He, too, glanced toward the path. “Take out as many as you can with magic. I won't be able to help.”

Giles shook his head. “As long as the explosion does its job.” He touched the amulet, attempting to center himself. When he looked up again, Ethan was holding out his hand expectantly. “What?” Giles demanded.

“In all honesty, Rupert, the odds aren't looking great right now. We are, as you said earlier, outnumbered, outgunned, and crippled. And we don't have much time to argue.”

“You, you can't –”

“Not yet,” Ethan said calmly. “But if the time comes.”

“If the time comes,” Giles said, “it should be me. Making you do it is the coward's way out.”

“So?” Ethan replied. His hand never wavered. “You cleaned up my mess once. It's my turn now Besides,” he added, “the only thing more tedious than having you smash my face in every two or three years would be to spend the rest of our allotted span watching you beat yourself up over this.”

Giles stared at him with what he was quite sure was a very stupid expression. Then he pulled the amulet off and placed it in Ethan's hand, which withdrew back into the circle. “Don't lose it,” Giles muttered.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

There was no time to say anything more, because at that moment the first of their pursuers appeared on the path. They'd had to come single file, which gave Giles a temporary advantage. He followed Ethan's advice and used magic to lift the first one clear off the ground and into a tree; the impact knocked him out – or her rather, Giles realized, catching a glimpse of her long, tangled black hair. She slid bonelessly to the ground, torch rolling out of her hand and snuffing out in the ground. The second one had both hands free and was ready for him, blocking Giles's spell with a careless wave of his hands. Behind him came one of the Bringers Giles had predicted; beyond that, Giles couldn't see.

Giles raised his sword, but had no time to attack before he was flung backwards, arcing ten feet through the air to land on his back, where he lay too stunned to move. An invisible hand lifted him by the front of his shirt and held him upright and immobile. The cult parted like water before a ship as Saramargo stepped forward, a Bringer to either side. Giles dangled, the tips of his shoes barely touching the ground. He still had hold of the sword, not that it mattered: Saramargo had stopped a safe distance away.

It was the first time Giles had seen him up close. He had black hair, but was pale compared to the others, with a rather Roman nose that made Giles suspect he might actually be descended from one of the exiled members of the original cult. His dark eyes glinted and there was a cruel, mocking smile about his lips. He'd slapped Willow to wake her, Giles remembered, and for some reason this infuriated him more than anything else so far. He tightened his hold on his sword, but bided his time. A better chance would come. He hoped.

“Rupert Giles, yes?” Saramargo said, the corners of his mouth curving upwards unpleasantly. His English was surprisingly good. “I have heard much about you. It seems we have . . . mutual acquaintances.”

Giles tried to answer, but the invisible hand transferred its grip suddenly from his shirt to his throat and all he could manage was a gasp. Saramargo turned his head toward the cult members on his left and jerked it toward the tree where Ethan sat unmoving in the circle. “Take care of that,” he said in Portuguese.

Two of them nodded. Giles gasped, attempting to draw breath enough to warn Ethan, but it was futile: The more he struggled the tighter the grip of the invisible hand became. Black spots danced before his eyes and his clasp on his sword loosened.

They wisely didn't bother with magic, as it would have been impossible for them to predict how it would mix with the spell Ethan was weaving. Instead the two of them drew daggers and went in with little finesse or flourish. Giles watched as best he could, struggling to stay conscious, and to his relief the wards held. No one could enter the circle where Ethan sat, and the daggers were deflected harmlessly when thrown.

It was the first thing that had gone right in hours; Giles would have sighed in relief if he'd had enough air left to do so. Saramargo gave a snarl and shook him out of sheer frustration. “Where did you put it?” he demanded. “Where did you store the witch's power?”

“Nnngh,” Giles managed. With another shake and snarl, Saramargo loosened his grip. “Don't have it,” Giles gasped as blessed oxygen returned to his brain in a giddying rush.

“Liar. Tell me where you put it, or you'll suffer the same fate as that little bitch.” With a sweeping gesture he ripping open Giles's shirt – and then stopped, unable to hide his surprise. “Well, well,” he said after a few seconds. “Seems someone got here first. Not that it matters.” He leaned closer, raising his eyes from Giles's scar to his face. “You understand me perfectly then, when I tell you that I'll do it again unless you give me what I want. You were lucky last time, it seems; do you really care to test your luck twice?”

Giles didn't dignify this with a response. He cut his eyes to Ethan. He'd said it would take only a few minutes, but it had been longer than that already, which might mean things were not going well. Several of the cult members were busy casting, trying to find a way into the circle, but as yet with no luck. Giles tightened his grip on his sword hilt.

“No?” Saramargo said. “Very well then. I think taking your power for myself would be greedy though. Correia!”

One of the cult members who had been attempting to break into Ethan's circle turned away. Saramargo beckoned her over and turned back to Giles. “Take what he has to offer,” he told her, “the better to serve the First.”

“The better to serve the First,” she repeated solemnly, but with a note of excitement in her voice Giles thought had nothing to do with the First. Her hand rose; Giles waited, much longer than he wanted to, and just as she was about to touch him he brought the sword up. The tip reflected in the wavering firelight of the cult's torches as it sliced across Correia's stomach; she gasped, her hands going to the wound. In the dim light and with her dark robes, the spreading stain was visible only as a blacker black.

She swayed, tantalizingly close, while Saramargo gaped, and Giles knew this would be his one chance to take her out. But he could not; foolish as he knew it was, Giles could not bring himself to finish her. Like the prisoner he and Ethan had taken earlier, she was young. Who knew why she was there, what her reasons were, whether she really believed in what they were doing? She looked up, eyes wide and hands covered in her own blood, and Giles turned away toward Saramargo.

To his satisfaction Giles's first thrust with the sword forced the cult leader to take a step back and drop him at last. Giles landed on the balls of his feet with a grunt and pressed his advantage immediately. The cult leader had no weapon beyond his magic, and Giles's attack was too fast to let him collect himself enough to cast. But that was the last advantage he got; the Bringers swarmed in quickly, swords and axes raised.

“You should have taken the deal,” Saramargo hissed, prowling round Gile and the two Bringers. “I'm going to suck out your power and make you wish you were dead, and in the end we'll still get what we want. The First is immortal, omniscient, all powerful. It can never be defeated. You've spent your life in a losing battle, old man. How does that feel?”

“Right now?” Giles said and shrugged, figuring if it were ever a good time to channel Buffy, now was definitely it. “A bit tingly, really.”

He met the first Bringer in a clash of swords while fending off the other with a kick to the torso, and wished desperately for an ounce of Slayer grace and stamina. Thirty seconds of blurred and frantic fighting and Giles was bleeding from various near-misses. He began to tire in spite of the adrenalin that had been flowing for hours now, while the Bringers showed no signs of slowing. His attempt to trip one of them up with a foot behind its ankle threw him more off balance than the Bringer, and it was only by straining what felt like every muscle in his upper body that Giles managed to keep his feet. His sword work was getting sloppy, ineffective and predictable – and then he felt a spell hit him between the shoulder blades, thrusting him forward straight into the Bringer's axe.

Giles staggered back, looking down at his chest much as Correia had looked at her stomach only scant minutes earlier. Red blood welled copiously from the wound and began to run down his chest in a tide of crimson. He drew breath and felt it bubble in his chest, the taste of iron filling the back of his mouth.

He fell to his knees. “Willow,” he managed. “Sorry . . .” He took another breath, ignoring the searing pain, and though he didn't know if Ethan was even aware of what had happened, looked toward him. He still sat in the circle, working the magic, while the cult fought to break through; he could tell by their buzz of excitement that they nearly had it. They would break the circle and then they would break Ethan and then, finally, they would break the amulet. Willow would die, and so would Buffy and Xander and Dawn – everyone. “Ethan,” he managed. “It's over. Destroy it.”

Ethan didn't answer. Giles felt the most acute pang of loneliness he had ever felt in his life, and he had known loneliness intimately at times. He had started to believe he might not die like this, alone and far from everyone who loved him. But now even Ethan was gone, less than ten feet away and utterly unreachable. He struggled not to collapse; if this was the end, he preferred not to bleed to death, but to go quickly in the explosion and decimation of Willow's power. It would be a little less like dying alone, he thought, though it broke his heart to think of her waiting for him when he would not come. He closed his eyes and wondered if he would be able to reach her, touch her, as he went on.

And then everything went – white. Not black, as Giles had expected, but a blinding, searing white. Giles saw more than felt himself lifted off the ground by the force of the explosion. He slammed into the forest floor and only then did the blackness claim him.

Chapter Seven

Coming to was a slow return of sensation. It spread outward from the tips of his fingers, up his arms and legs and into his chest, until he could feel the ground beneath him and the sweat on his face, smell the rotting leaves and the damp earth. Awareness came as well, but even more gradually, and it seemed an eternity before he remembered he could open his eyes, much less that there was any reason he should.

He blinked, and the first thing he saw was Ethan, slumped over against the massive roots of the tree. Giles forced air through his lips in a groan, and Ethan raised his head.

“Dead?” Giles managed. And then, thinking that possibly he needed to clarify matters, “Us?”

“Not as far as I know,” Ethan replied.

Giles looked down at his chest; things were coming back to him in bits and pieces now, and he remembered an axe and his chest and a bleeding wound. All that was left now was a pink line, about eight centimeters in length. He looked up at Ethan. “Did you –?”

“Yeah. Almost couldn't – you were pretty far gone by the time I got to you.”

“Oh,” Giles said. “Er, thank you.”

Ethan waved this away. “Don't. I assure you it was entirely self-serving. I made a list in my head of all the people who would line up to murder me if I came back to England without you.”

Giles gave a weak laugh. He sat up slowly, head spinning, his shoulder still aching something fierce. He closed his eyes, waiting for the vertigo to end and trying to grasp and hang onto more bits of what had happened. Blinding white – he remembered at the end there had been an explosion of blinding white light – Willow. It had been Willow's power exploding as Ethan destroyed the amulet. He dropped his face into his hands; he'd failed her, and now he would have to go home and hold her as the coven severed their bond and she died.

It might have been kinder of Ethan to let him go. Except . . . except then he could not have been there for Willow, and he had promised.

“Do you have the pieces?” he asked at last, lifting his head.

Ethan had apparently dozed off against the tree again. “Of what?” he asked, slitting his eyes open.

“The amulet. Were they destroyed?” He wasn't sure why he wanted them, except possibly as a morbidly maudlin souvenir. They would be useless now. Worse than useless. But he wanted them all the same.

“What pieces? I didn't destroy it.”

“But I told you to, to –”

“You did,” Ethan said. “I heard you. I didn't do it.”

“But the explosion –”

“Was meant to mimic the effects, yes?” Ethan said, very slowly and with careful enunciation. Giles glared at him. He did not think this was an appropriate time to joke, but then, he supposed Ethan hadn't just had a near-death experience. Not to mention his complete lack of any sense of the appropriate. “So the idea was that it would be the same either way and fool any surviving cult members into thinking the ritual had simply gone awry.”

“Oh,” Giles said. “So it's not – it's not been destroyed then.”

Ethan reached into his shirt and pulled it out to show Giles before taking it off and handing it to him. “All in one piece. I just happened to finish the spell at the same moment you told me to go ahead and break it.”

“Oh,” Giles said again, more faintly. He closed his fingers around the amulet. “Erm,” he said, as something occurred to him. “Are there surviving cult members?” He glanced around; they seemed alone in an unusually quiet jungle. The trees and everything seemed intact, though, so Giles hoped it was merely that it had been shocked into silence.

Ethan shook his head. “I, er, took the liberty of disposing of the bodies.”

“Immolation?”

Ethan nodded, and Giles sighed in relief. Burning a body was really the only way to be sure it wouldn't come back nastier than it had been in life; cremation was specified in Giles's own will for that very reason. But it had obviously cost Ethan significant energy, and probably also taken some time. Giles checked his watch and found it shattered; he then glanced up, but it was impossible to tell from the position of the sun what time it was due to the density of the canopy. “How long was I out?” he asked.

“Half a day. Well,” Ethan amended, checking his own watch, “closer to a full day now, I suppose.”

“Hell,” Giles said, attempting to scramble up. “I told Willow I'd call her. She'll think the worst.”

“Rupert,” Ethan said with weary patience, “it's going to take five hours at least to get into mobile range. You nearly died, I'm exhausted, I suggest we both sit for a few minutes.”

But Giles was determined. He would not leave Willow wondering for one minute longer than was necessary, and he didn't trust his own energies enough at the moment to make contact with her the way she had with him – had that really only been yesterday? Less than twenty-four hours ago, even.

He dragged Ethan down the hill, ignoring his grumbling all the way, until they encountered the splintered remains of their canoe. They salvaged what they could of their belongings and crawled over the wreckage to the cult's canoe, which was, if not intact, at least river-worthy. They used the paddles to push themselves off and emerged into the wide stretch of the river and unexpected sunlight. Giles turned his face up to it and closed his eyes.

“Since you were so eager to get going,” Ethan said, “you can drive.” He spread out a few of the orange life vests in the front of the canoe and settled down, apparently to sleep.

“I won't argue,” Giles said, though he eyed the motor warily. He examined it; the engine looked much the same as the other one, and he'd managed that one while under attack. This could certainly not be harder, or at least he hoped not. He lifted his head and said, “Ethan?”

“You pull the thing,” Ethan said, raising his hand to make a gesture that might have been pulling the throttle or might have mimicked something obscene.

“That wasn't – I was going to ask if you'd seen the First since the explosion.”

Ethan did sit up then. “No. No more Bringers either.”

Giles nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Once Willow has her power back she can seal it off – the inter-dimensional backdoor, as she called it – and then –”

“It will find a way back in,” Ethan finished.

“Ever the optimist, aren't you?” Giles sighed without rancor. “You're right, I expect. But hopefully not in my lifetime.”

Ethan nodded, but did not lie back down. “It was like that all last year, I take it?” he asked. “ I see dead people ?”

“Yes,” Giles said. “There was a lot of that.”

“And . . . it never appeared to you as Randall.”

“No.” Giles hesitated. He had never discussed this with anyone, in point of fact; the First had made sure to appear to him only when he was alone, and the others had never asked him if it had. It had served to underscore his isolation within the group, as Giles was sure it had intended. “It came to me as Buffy, usually, to list off all the ways I had failed her. It came as Angelus, to mock me. And it came as Jenny. A woman in, in Sunnydale,” he explained when Ethan started to ask. “The one Eyghon possessed.”

“Ah,” Ethan said. He was silent; Giles let them drift now that the current carried them toward their goal. At last he said, almost casually, “It was very convincing.”

“Oh yes. The First has an eye for detail, if nothing else.” Giles leaned wearily against the back of the bench. “But what you must remember is that while it is real, the things it says aren't. They aren't the things our dead would say to us if they could. They're – they're what we fear they would say. The worst-case scenarios.”

Ethan nodded, but did not reply. After a moment, Giles pulled the throttle and the engine caught, making further conversation impractical. Giles kept one hand curled around the rim of the canoe for balance and one on the rudder as he steered them toward Macapá, the Council jet, and home.

*~*~*

Ethan drove from Heathrow to the coven this time, with Giles in the front seat and Xander in the back, where he could stomp on the imaginary brake all he wanted without annoying anybody. It was usually a three hour journey from London, but Giles thought they'd make it in two and a half today. Or at least they would if they ever managed to pass the sheep-toting lorry currently plodding along in front of them. Ethan let the string of cars on the other side of the road go by and then passed. Xander made a strangled noise.

“What's his problem?” Ethan asked.

Giles rolled his eyes. “He drives like a seventy-five year old grandmother, that's what.”

“I do not,” Xander objected. “I drive cautiously.”

“He never goes more than ten kilometers an hour over the speed limit,” Giles informed Ethan.

“Which is, you know, what's legal,” Xander said. “And those of us with no depth perception have to be a little more careful.”

Ethan made a disgusted noise. “Excuses, excuses.”

“Was he always this terrifying?” Xander asked Giles.

“Oh yes,” Ethan answered for him. “I was the get-away man every time. Ripper, do you remember that time in Edinburgh when we stole that –”

“Stop,” Giles said flatly. Ethan subsided looking smug and Giles thought about telling him to ease up on the gas after all. There was no real hurry; the amulet was safe around his neck, the cult was decimated, and Willow was waiting for him at the coven. It was only his own eagerness to see her that told him to hurry. But Ethan was a skilled driver and these back country roads were mostly deserted; the medical supplies on the Council jet had yielded a sling for Giles's right arm and a bandage for his thigh, and though they hurt rather more now than they had in his adrenalin-soaked state, he didn't mind the occasional bump.

It was early evening by the time they arrived, all in one piece despite Xander's dire predictions. The days were growing longer and it was still fully light out. Giles had his door open before Ethan had even finished parking the car in the coven's driveway. He was only halfway up the walkway when the door was flung open and Willow flew out. He caught her with his left arm and held her to him, sighing in relief. She clutched at him with both arms, until finally drawing back to look at his arm in its sling. She stroked it gently and looked up at him; he thought about reminding her that he was fine, after all, but decided that would be inane. Instead he removed the amulet from his neck and placed it around her own. She stepped away from him, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She opened her eyes and nodded.

“All right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “It's – it's good. I can feel it in there. Which is kinda weird because that's exactly the sort of thing I haven't been able to sense at all since – um. Anyway, I think I might even be able to get it back without breaking it.”

Giles nodded. “Where are Buffy and Dawn?”

“Oh, well.” Willow smiled a bit sheepishly. “Buffy asked me if I thought I was going to kiss you when you got here and I said probably, ‘cause with the life saving and all, and they decided maybe they'd rather stay inside.”

“I see,” Giles said, and glanced around to see if Xander was watching. But it seemed that both he and Ethan had gone inside, leaving Giles and Willow alone on the gravel driveway.

“They're really okay with it,” she said, stroking a hand down his good arm. “Just kinda . . . well, you know.”

“It'll take time.”

“Yeah. But, er, we should go inside because they do want to see you and I want to do this,” she held the amulet out, “but before then, you should actually kiss me. ‘Cause you haven't yet. Were you waiting for permission?”

“Oh,” Giles said in faint surprise, looking down at her. “Yes. A bit, actually.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you going to be silly about this now that I'm not dying and insist you're too old or something?”

“I . . . was considering it.”

“Don't. Kiss me instead.”

“Oh, very well,” he said, smiling despite himself, and did so. It was a little awkward with only one hand, but the essentials of kissing didn't really require hands. It just felt a bit off balance. At least Giles felt so, though Willow, when at last they broke apart, sighed happily.

“Don't do that again, okay?” she said. “The leaving me part, I mean, and the risking your life and the getting hurt parts. Not the kissing part, of course. That you can do as much as you'd like.”

The coven was once again gathered in the library. Willow held up the amulet for Mary to see as she entered, and Mary smiled broadly, first at her and then at Giles. Willow sat in the center of the coven's circle; Mary nodded to her and there was general murmur of anticipation before the coven joined hands.

“They're gonna have to be super careful with the timing, Will said,” Buffy's voice informed him quietly in his ear.

He turned from where he stood observing in the doorway and hugged her – mostly out of affection, but also to check that she wasn't the First. She was too thin – he had always thought her too thin – but reassuringly solid all the same. “I imagine so,” Giles said.

“Yeah,” Dawn said from his other side, a trifle more loudly than she should have. Buffy made a shushing noise and Dawn glared before continuing more quietly, “Miss Harkness said that if Willow still has her connection to the coven when she gets her power back, the whole thing could go kerblewy.”

“Yes,” Buffy said, smiling tightly. “Which is why I told you to stay in the other wing.”

Dawn rolled her eyes and didn't even bother to argue. She gave Giles a hug and leaned against the doorjamb, ignoring Buffy eyeing her with obvious annoyance and exasperation. Giles, trapped between them, wondered if it was quite the safest place to be at the moment. But then Willow began speaking in a careful, imploring voice, asking the goddess to return had been stolen from her, and Giles had no attention to spare for anything but her.

The emerald at the center of the amulet took on a deep green glow that reminded Giles of the rainforest at its most verdant. Willow reached up and . . . into it, it looked like, as though her fingers were passing into the stone to extract something, until she had a ball of white fire cupped in the palm of her hands. She nodded to Mary, and Giles heard the coven draw a collective breath at the same moment Willow closed her eyes and pressed the white fire to her chest, just at the place where her scar was.

The fire vanished and then seemed to spread throughout her. Her eyes flew wide open and her mouth gaped in surprise. She was radiant, her skin glowing, her hair lightening. Her eyes caught Giles's eye and she smiled; it was innocent enough, but there was something in it, some ecstasy perhaps, that made the tips of his ears turn red. It was possible he had never wanted her more, and it was unnerving to feel such arousal amidst so many people. It was both a relief and a disappointment when, seconds later, the glow faded and Willow sighed, slumping over.

“Wow,” Buffy said. “That looked like, um, fun.”

“It looked kinda like a –”

“Thanks, Dawn, we get it,” Buffy said quickly.

“All right, all right. I wasn't sure Giles – uh, I mean, not that you haven't – obviously you have and with Willow – not that, that – crap.” Dawn turned to Buffy. “It's not okay to make those jokes about Giles anymore, is it?”

“I've been making those jokes about Giles for ten years,” her sister replied, standing aside to let the coven members pass. “I kinda think there's no stopping now.”

Mary Harkness was the last to leave. She stopped to grace Giles with a rare hug. “Good to have you back,” she said.

“Thank you. Did Willow tell you –?”

“Of course.” She paused as though considering her words. “If the First doesn't know what you're doing, you shouldn't have too much difficulty.”

“Yeah, right,” Buffy said. “That's like the biggest if that ever iffed.”

“Er . . . quite,” Giles said. “I'm fairly certain it knows exactly what we're about to do.”

Mary nodded grimly. “Then I suggest she take back-up. There are a few coven members –”

“Ah, thank you, Mary, but I think Ethan and I should suffice. If he's still here, that is,” Giles added, suddenly realizing he hadn't seen Ethan since they'd arrived at the coven. He wondered if Ethan really had slipped away while they had all been preoccupied with returning Willow's power to her. The idea alarmed Giles to some extent – he'd counted on having Ethan along when they closed whatever portal the Children of the Dark Eye had opened – but more strangely, it disappointed him. Which was, perhaps, even more alarming.

“Nah,” Xander said, appearing suddenly. “He's here, he just said he'd rather give this a miss since it might blow us all up. I guess it didn't?”

“No,” Dawn said. “There was just some chanting and then Willow got all glowy and looked like she was having the best org –”

Dawn ,” Buffy said. “God, what is with you? Are you channeling Anya or something?” She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, you're not, are you?”

“No,” Dawn replied, managing to look both annoyed and satisfied at the same time. “Just ‘cause you're a prude –”

“I am not –”

“I'd forgotten how charming they could be,” Giles said in an aside to Xander while the two sisters went on bickering. “Where is Ethan then?”

“Right here. Ready and willing to be invaluable – for a bonus fee, of course.” Ethan grinned at Giles as he strode up the hall from the foyer. “Five thousand Sterling sound reasonable, Ripper?”

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Three thousand. And we're back to Ripper now, are we?”

“Four thousand and not a penny less,” Ethan returned easily.

Giles frowned. “Would you really leave Willow and me to go it alone if I refused?”

“Ah, but if I told you that, it would diminish my enigmatic charisma. We can't have that.”

“Yes, well,” Giles replied with heavy irony, “your enigmatic charisma is only worth three thousand pounds to me.”

“Don't be greedy, Ripper. Compared to what you paid for that amulet, four thousand quid is nothing.”

He couldn't argue with that, unfortunately; on principle he wanted to resist some more, but he knew it would only waste time. “Fine,” he said.

“Good,” Mary said, appearing relieved. For their part, Xander, Buffy, and Dawn – who had broken off their arguing in favor of looking back and forth between Ethan and Giles during their exchange like spectators at Wimbledon – seemed fascinated. “I will . . . leave you to it then. Good luck.”

“Thank you. I'd say we'll let you know how it turns out, but I expect you'll know if it goes badly.” Giles smiled grimly. “Speaking of which,” he turned to Buffy, “you might want to have a weapon on hand – or a small arsenal – just in case something gets through.”

“Okay,” she said, and left dragging Dawn with her. Mary followed, glancing back over her shoulder once. Giles gave her what he hoped was a reassuring nod.

“Unless you have other ideas, I thought I'd stand outside and lurk ominously,” Xander said.

“Thank you, Xander,” Giles said. “Most helpful.”

“Hey, I do my best.”

“Are you done with the obligatory witty banter yet?” Ethan demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. “I'd like to get this over with.”

“Yes, yes,” Giles said, frowning. He glanced toward Willow, who had not yet moved from her place on the floor. “Willow?”

She looked up and smiled slowly. “Hi,” she said.

“Are you – all right?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Just kinda . . . buzzing. You know?”

“Uh,” Xander said. “Giles, are you sure this is the best time to do this?”

Giles didn't answer. He exchanged a glance with Ethan and then eyed Willow once more. He certainly did know what she meant, but he didn't quite know what the effect would be on any magic they worked together. It could increase its power exponentially – or cause it to spin out of their control. If they waited an hour or two, her energies might be steadier and the spell would be more reliable, if not perhaps quite so powerful.

Giles was still staring at Willow, struggling to make up his mind, when a subliminal humming he'd hardly been aware of ceased. He blinked and shook his head, as though to clear his ears; Ethan rubbed at his, and Willow looked up, eyes wide with alarm. “That was –”

“The wards,” Giles finished. A chill crept down his spine. “The coven's wards just dropped.”

“Bloody hell,” Ethan said.

“What does that mean?” Xander demanded,

Giles glanced back toward the foyer. “It means –”

“GILES!” they heard Buffy shout from up the hallway toward the foyer. “Giles,” she gasped, coming into view and skidding to a stop just a few meters away, one hand out to brace herself against the wall, “we've got Bringers out front, at least a hundred. And they've got a guy –”

The building rocked as though in a massive earthquake. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling swung wildly and dozens of books tumbled from the shelves.

“– with them,” Buffy finished.

“I think they just blew the doors off,” Willow said, scrambling to her feet.

“It'll take more than that to blow the doors off this place,” Giles replied with a confidence he didn't feel.

“Even with the wards down?” Xander asked.

“I believe so. Buffy, the man they have with them – what did he look like?”

“Short, black hair, black cloak.”

Giles felt sick. “Hell. Ethan, how many bodies were there?”

“Four,” Ethan answered without hesitation. Their eyes met as they came to the same horrible realization of their mistake.

Giles had to ask, though he held little hope. “And was one of them Saramargo?”

“I was almost positive –”

“It's him,” Willow said quietly. She met and held Giles's gaze. “I can feel him. I – I'm sure it's him.”

There came then the sound of wood splintering and dull, rhythmic thumps, as the Bringers attacked the ancient front doors; apparently the sorcerer's spell hadn't quite done the job. Buffy glanced back over her shoulder, but it was impossible to actually see the foyer from where they stood.

“Go,” Giles told her. “Help the coven hold them off. We'll do this as fast as we can. Xander?”

“Lurking ominously. Right. With sword, I hope?”

“Here,” Buffy said, tossing one to him. “Don't swing from your shoulder like you always do.” With that she was gone, bounding up the foyer just as the splintering became cracking, and then a sound like gunshot.

“Good luck,” Xander told them, and then Giles shut the library door on him.

There was no way to lock it, of course, so the three of them shoved every stick of furniture they could move in front of it. “How are you?” Giles asked Willow breathlessly as they struggled to push one of the sofas across the carpet.

“Okay. That sobered me up in a hurry.”

“I meant –”

“I know. I'll deal. You think this is good enough?”

Giles surveyed the stack of chairs, sofas, and bookshelves that made up their barricade. It wouldn't hold the Bringers off forever, very likely wouldn't stop Saramargo at all, and they couldn't do anything about the skylight or the windows. But hopefully it would at least slow them down. “It'll do,” he said, and after a moment's hesitation shed his sling. He wanted both hands available for this.

It was not the best atmosphere for this sort of spell. Entering inter-dimensional space was tricky at best, and when entering one shared by a hell dimension it was downright dangerous. Concentration was key, and it was rather difficult to achieve with distant shouts and screams and crashes begging their attention all the while. It took them precious minutes of Willow chanting from a book of spells to achieve the meditative state required, but then, quite suddenly, it all fell away.

Giles felt uncomfortably adrift at first, his mind rebelling against the formlessness of the place, the utter quiet, the dark that wasn't really dark at all, just nothing. But then his mind made sense of it – forced sense upon it, rather – and in a sudden flash he found himself standing beside Willow and Ethan. It was no longer dark, but bright, bright white, as in very poor Hollywood approximations of Heaven, and Giles's mind – or perhaps Willow's, since she was in charge of the spell – had reassuringly provided him with solid ground to stand on and some vague notion of walls around them.

“Look,” Willow said, pointing. She seemed to have recovered herself much faster than Giles had – or Ethan, Giles noted with satisfaction, watching Ethan frown and shake his head. He followed her gaze and blinked.

“The inter-dimensional backdoor,” he said. It was a plain white door with a doorknob, cracked open just slightly. There was an unpleasant stench emanating from it – rotting corpses and sulfur and other things Giles was grateful he couldn't name.

Willow glanced to Giles. “Wonder what would happen if I just tried to close it.”

“Er.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That's what I thought. But it's not like we have too many other options.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward, hand outstretched, but at the last second before her hand touched the doorknob there was a terrific gust of hot, fetid wind. Willow stumbled backward into Giles, who staggered into Ethan, and so they were all three of them on the ground when the wind somehow inverted itself, reshaping itself into what Giles could only assume was the First in its true form – savage and satanic, something primeval that cut straight to the back of Giles's brain and had him shrinking away. The massive horns curled around the devil's face, framing the soulless black eyes.

They hadn't prepared for this, but of course the First would have more power here, in this space between their dimensions. It had a form of sorts, if not quite a body, and there was no doubt in Giles's mind that it could annihilate them.

“You dare trespass here?” it snarled.

“Yes,” Willow said, and to Giles's astonishment, picked herself up. Giles could barely move for his own fear and shock, but she stood between them and the First, that putrid draft out of Hell blowing over her, and lifted her chin. “You trespassed in our dimension, so here we are.”

“You cannot think to confront me –”

“We did before,” Willow replied, so quietly Giles almost couldn't hear her. “And we won. Go back.”

“How dare you –”

“GO BACK!” she screamed and spread her arms wide. There was a blast of power that blacked out everything for a moment, and Giles didn't smell sulfur and rotting bodies anymore; he smelled cut grass and salt from the sea and mochas and chocolate chip cookies baking in his Sunnydale kitchen.

But beneath all that, something was wrong. Off.

Giles had no time to determine what that might be. A huge, sucking vortex opened where the plain white door had been moments earlier, a swirl of black with bolts of blinding white light running through it. He felt Willow gather herself in, pull her energies into herself, Giles's and Ethan's too. She didn't ask for permission, though he'd have given it without a second thought, and he gasped at the rough invasion. She gave them no time to recover as she flung it all outward, a raw, unstoppable flood of energy.

The First screamed.

Giles wouldn't have thought it possible, but that was the only word he had for the noise that burst forth as their combined power crashed into it. He realized only then the fatal error it had made in confronting them here: Any form, even one that was purely mystical in substance, gave it power, but also made it vulnerable. Even if it could not be killed, it could be attacked.

The vortex widened, the lightning bolts becoming stars, the blackness transforming into swirling cosmos. Giles hardly dared lift his head for fear he might get sucked in along with the First, which was still fighting. It screamed again and, in its final moment, sent a blast of power back at them – no, at Willow, Giles realized. She rocked back and the faint tingle of wrongness Giles had been feeling all along was suddenly much stronger.

The last thing Giles saw as he was flung out of the inter-dimensional space was the vortex closing, devouring the First.

He slammed down onto the library carpet with all the wind knocked out of him, the smell of sulfur and corpses still in his nose. He had to fight to stay conscious, fight to lift his head to find Willow and Ethan. Ethan was sprawled unmoving several feet away, and seemed to have been knocked out altogether; at least Giles hoped he was merely unconscious. Willow . . .

She stood perhaps five feet away from him, apparently unharmed. He breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Willow,” he said, though speaking took massive effort. He wanted to tell her, You were incredible. But then she turned to him and he saw the lightless depths of her eyes, the veins on her face and wrists, the blackness of her hair. The praise turned to prayer. “My God,” he said.

“Ripper, don't be so paranoid,” Ethan said. Giles saw him struggle to pull himself into a sitting position and then, apparently, give up. “It's over.”

“No,” Willow said flatly. “It's not.”

She strode past them and out the library doors. Giles stared after her and then pushed himself to his feet as fast as his protesting head and body would allow. He staggered the few steps to the doorway, where he clung to the doorjamb. The hallway beyond was deserted, though the walls bore marks and there was an abandoned sword on the floor. Xander's, Giles thought, bending to pick it up. He felt depleted, but leaving Willow to her fate in favor of collapse had never been an option; sword in hand, he pushed himself down the hall.

He nearly caught up to her as she entered the foyer. She paused, head cocked to one side as though listening; Giles knew she was aware of him behind her, just as she was aware of every being in the building. He slowed, not wanting to approach her too closely.

The foyer had come into view at last around the bend in the hallway, and with it an almost frozen tableau. Everyone stood more or less as they must have when the First had been vanquished and the Bringers had vanished, weapons dangling uselessly in hand as they stared at the center of the floor where Saramargo stood, holding Mary Harkness three feet off the floor. He wasn't touching her at all, but Giles recognized the signs of the spell the sorcerer had used on him in the jungle; gasping and red-faced, Mary struggling against an invisible hand clenched around her throat.

“Stop,” Willow said, making a careless swiping motion. Mary fell immediately to the floor and one of the coven members rushed forward to pull back her into their protection.

Saramargo whirled to face her. “You,” he spat.

Willow didn't bother to answer. She thrust her hand out and he lay sprawled on the ground. She kept her hand out, holding him down, then yanked him off the floor and let him hang in mid-air as Mary had done, though she didn't choke him. Yet. A wave of her hand and his lips were gone, a horrible blankness where his mouth should have been.

“You stripped me,” she said, her fury sharp as diamonds. “You slapped me. You sucked me dry. And now I'm going to do the same to you.” Another wave and his clothes vanished.

Giles was dizzy with the effort of standing, but his terror was so great as to overcome it. He had feared for her life constantly in the last few days, though he had pushed it as far down and away as it would go so he could focus on the task at hand. Now it came rushing back with a different flavor: He was afraid for her, but he was also afraid of her. Horribly, horribly afraid.

He had to believe this was a parting gift from the First. Anything else shook him too badly to bear thinking about.

Xander, Buffy, and Dawn were gathered on the other side of the room. Giles caught Xander's gaze and gave the slightest shake of his head. He didn't want them to try to intervene; this would have to be between them two of them.

“Willow,” he said quietly.

She whipped her head around. “ Don't .”

He made a show of dropping the sword. Last time he had come armed, but he sensed they would get nowhere if he had a weapon in his hand. “Willow, this isn't you. Something happened when the First – when you banished the First back to its dimension. It – it possessed you somehow.”

She laughed at him and then smiled the slow, wicked smile he remembered all too well from those agonizing hours in the Magic Box. “See, Giles, that's where you're wrong. That's where you're fooling yourself. This is me.”

“I don't believe that,” Giles replied quietly.

“No, you don't want to believe that. Hard to love me when I'm black-eyed and veiny, is it?”

“No, as a matter of fact. It's as easy – and as difficult – as it always is.”

She stared at him a moment and then turned away. “Save your breath. I've got him right where I want him – where I've wanted him since the moment I woke up naked on that stone slab.”

“I don't think that's true.”

“It is true!” she snapped, and Giles barely managed to suppress a smile of grim triumph. She was angry, but anger caused cracks in the façade. She shook Saramargo; his head jerked, but her attention was no longer on him. “You know what he did.”

“I do know,” Giles acknowledged. “Intimately.”

He thought he saw something in her eyes then, some startled, guilty flicker, some spark of Willow, but when she spoke her voice was hard and cold again. “You claim to love me. How can you show him mercy?”

“Would you deny him the same mercy you were shown?”

It was unmistakable this time; she faltered and Saramargo, eyes rolling wildly, dropped several inches. “It's not the same. You said it wasn't. He isn't sorry.”

“It's not. But, Willow,” he said, stepping between her and the sorcerer, aware that he was treading a very dangerous line, “I cannot and will not allow you to play judge, jury, and executioner here. It's not your place. I have no doubt you're capable of killing him, but you'll have to do it over my dead body, and I mean that very literally. Is that really what you want?” She'd had no problem with it before, but Giles had to hope she had changed enough for it to make a difference. If she hadn't . . . well, he most likely wouldn't be around to worry about it.

“It's my right,” she said through clenched teeth.

“No,” he said. “It's not. Just as it wasn't last time. You have no right to vengeance.”

“I want him to suffer,” she said. There were tears in her voice now, but Giles held himself back. He could see it fading already, the color of her hair lightening, the ugly veins receding. When she was herself again, he would touch her; he didn't dare before then. “I want him to suffer,” she repeated, choking, “like I did.”

She took a gulping, gasping breath and Saramargo crumpled to the ground. Mary and two of the other coven members swept in immediately, binding Saramargo and removing him from her control. For an awful moment Giles thought she would resist, and that could only end badly, but in the end she relinquished him without a fight. They carried him from the room as quickly as possible, while Willow stared after him with a terrible expression of hatred and anger and bewilderment. The hatred and the anger faded with her hair, leaving her standing there in front of all of them, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut. He reached for her.

“Don't!” she said, flinching from him. “Don't.”

He didn't try again. She turned away from all of them and climbed the stairs. Everyone let her go, watching until she reached the top and disappeared down the hallway toward her room.

Giles didn't go to her then. He had the feeling he would not be at all welcome, and so he did what needed to be done elsewhere. No one had been killed, thank God, but there were a number of wounded members of the coven. Xander, Buffy, and Dawn had escaped unscathed, save for Xander's sprained wrist and a cut down Buffy's cheek that would heal within a day. When Giles ran out of people to mend, he went out to help with the wards, which needed to be reinstated as quickly as possible. The Bringers had all vanished when Willow had defeated the First, but there were still the usual dangers – “the creepy crawlies that went ‘Argh!' in the night” as Dawn called them. Ethan joined them, his usual sarcasm and smirk notably absent.

It was ten o'clock before any of them had the chance to sit down for a very late dinner. Giles was exhausted by then and glad for it. He was nodding off over his soup, which he'd hardly tasted anyway, when Mary appeared for the first time in hours. She touched him on the shoulder; he managed a reassuring smile for Buffy and Xander – Dawn was asleep with her head on the table – before following her out into the deserted hallway.

“How is she?” Giles asked once they were alone.

“I have no idea,” Mary replied. “She wouldn't let me in. I've been with Saramargo.”

“And?”

She sighed. “We've bound his magic, but I've little hope that he can be rehabilitated. He has no access to his power now at least, and is therefore of little danger to himself or anyone else.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps with the First truly banished –”

“Perhaps,” Giles said, though he thought it unlikely as well. Saramargo's fanaticism had seemed complete, not something he could come back from. The coven would not execute him, but he would live out his life in forced isolation in some lonely, deserted land far from anyone he might harm. His magic would be bound up tight and any attempt to use it would be punished with severe physical and mystical pain. Giles felt no pity. “And Willow?” he asked, returning to what seemed to him the more urgent matter.

Mary said nothing. Giles met her gaze unflinching, until at last she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “She's dangerous, Rupert.”

“Mary –”

“She almost killed a man. In the coven, on our ground. In violation of everything.”

“I know. But she didn't,” Giles said, striving to sound reasonable and not desperate.

“Because you stopped her. And if you're not there next time?”

“There won't be a next time, and if there is – I will be.”

Mary shook her head. “Not good enough. Not good enough by half. And feeling bad about it afterward isn't good enough either.”

“Mary.” Giles frowned. “Don't dismiss her remorse like that.”

Mary sighed. “I don't, Rupert. But you have to admit that she's . . . a problem. She's unpredictable –”

“No,” Giles said, shaking his head. “Mary, listen to me. I don't think that was her. Not really. It was the First.”

“Rupert –”

“No!” he said. “I'm not making this up. You weren't there – it, it felt like it went through her. She was worked up before then because of Saramargo, I think, and then it – it – I don't know what it did, but she was fine till then.”

“She took your energy, Rupert,” Mary reminded him in an even tone. “Stole it. Don't try to gloss over that.”

Giles sighed. “You talked to Ethan, I take it?”

“Yes. I asked his advice, actually.”

“You asked – why ?”

Mary raised an eyebrow at him. “Because I wanted another perspective.” She leaned back against the wall. “He agrees with you, as it happens, which relieves me in many ways. But if she's vulnerable to that sort of thing, then that's a different problem.”

“I don't think she is, not really,” Giles argued. “It was not the ideal time for us to be doing that spell. Her energies were unstable, her concentration was bad because of what was happening outside. You have to take all that into account.” He'd lost all semblance of reason, he knew. He sounded like he was begging, but he felt as though he were pleading for Willow's life. And he was, or close enough; he was pleading for them not to bind her magic as they had Saramargo's, for he knew that was what Mary thought might be necessary.

“I do,” Mary allowed. She studied him. “And I think you're right.”

“But?”

“Good luck convincing her of that.”

She left him standing alone outside the dining commons. He thought about going back in, but Buffy and Xander would have questions he couldn't answer. He thought about going up to Willow, but couldn't think what he might say. Not yet.

He chose the third option, outside, where day had melted into night. After the total darkness of the jungle, Westbury seemed positively bright: the light of the house spilling onto the driveway, the faint glow from the town, visible where it nestled between two hills at the far end of the valley, and the moon, just past full, spilling white light everywhere. He tilted his head back; the stars were still brilliant, but completely different from the ones he'd seen during their journey upriver.

They had yet to yield any answers when Giles was startled out of his daze – which had become less contemplative and closer to falling asleep on his feet – by the sound of a car door slamming. He blinked, squinted into the dark, and realized it was the car Xander had rented at the airport and that someone had just shut the boot – rather more loudly than intended, judging by the swearing.

“There's no use trying to sneak away now,” Giles called, following the noise; Ethan had moved the car further away from the house and into deeper shadow. “I know you're there.”

“Bugger,” Ethan said, emerging out of the dark. “I thought I'd actually managed to escape the final heart-to-heart.”

“Have we ever had one of those?”

“I think we came dangerously close a few times in that jungle. Fag?” Ethan held out a pack of cigarettes.

“The coven forbids smoking on the grounds.”

“Yeah, think someone mentioned that. You want one?”

“God, yes.” Giles selected one and held it between his lips while Ethan lit it. He shot a guilty look up at the building, but no one appeared to chastise them. He took a drag and let out the smoke. “Christ, it's been a long time.”

“You need some vices.”

“I have whiskey.” Ethan exhaled a cloud of carcinogens into the clean night air and made a scoffing noise; Giles ignored it. “I have to say, I didn't expect you to be sneaking off yet,” he said. “I thought you'd at least wait around to give me the information I need to pay you.”

“I left it all on the desk in your room. And don't forget the extra four thousand.”

“Four thousand for what?” Giles demanded, taking another drag. It was awkward smoking with his right hand, but his left arm was back in its sling where Mary insisted it belonged, at least until tomorrow when someone would have the time and energy to heal it for him. “Falling on your arse and being a useless prat?”

“Oh, and you were real heroic?”

“No,” Giles had to admit. “But at least I'm not charging anyone money for being a useless prat.”

“Only because you're salaried,” Ethan muttered.

“I heard that.”

“Good.”

They fell silent then. Giles finished his cigarette and snuffed it out on the ground before picking the butt up to throw away inside. Ethan rolled his eyes at him and left his own where he ground it out with his heel.

“Ethan,” Giles said as Ethan opened the driver's side door.

“What?” He settled himself in the front seat and closed it, leaning through the open window to look up at Giles.

“Do you believe what you told Mary? It wasn't really Willow?”

“We saw the same thing, Ripper. There was something else riding her, I think.” He paused, faced forward, and drummed his fingers briefly on the steering wheel. “But that wasn't all of it. I would say she's been sitting on that anger since those days in that hut.”

“And the First built on it. Or used it as a way in.”

Ethan nodded. “Or something. That's just my best guess, of course.” He raised his eyebrows at Giles. “You can't be too surprised though.”

“She . . . she's been doing so well,” Giles replied. He looked back toward the house, up to the second floor, and counted four windows over. Her room was dark. He wondered what that meant.

“But it'll always be there, that little piece of darkness. You wouldn't be interested otherwise.” Giles opened his mouth to protest and Ethan cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Don't deny it, Ripper. You like your lovers with a bit of dark, a bit of danger. Always have.”

“Yes, well.” Giles sighed. “I'd hoped I'd grown out of that.”

“Some things we never grow out of, Ripper.” He flashed Giles a smile laden with irony. “Be seeing you.”

“Be seeing you,” Giles replied, knowing it was only the truth. He watched the taillights of the rental car until it had disappeared round the bend in the unpaved road. Then he turned and went inside.

Willow didn't answer when Giles knocked, but the door wasn't locked. Giles pushed it open, afraid he might find her missing. But she was there, curled on top of the covers, sound asleep. The room was chilly with night air blowing in through the window. Giles closed it, wincing at the sound the latch made, but she didn't stir.

He sat on the edge of the bed and laid his hand on her shoulder. She did stir then, or at least her breathing changed, letting Giles know she'd woken. He stroked down her arm to where the sleeve of her shirt ended and rested his hand against her bare skin. He felt her sigh, a soft rise and fall under his hand, and then roll over onto her back. “Giles?” she whispered.

“Yes, of course,” he said, hand still resting on her arm.

“Not really ‘of course,'” she muttered. “Not after today. I waited – I thought you would come, but you didn't.”

“You told me not to,” he reminded her.

“I did?” she said, glancing away. “I don't remember. I don't remember much, I guess, except – except wanting to kill him.”

“You didn't.”

“I know. But I wanted to.”

Giles opened his mouth to tell her that it hadn't been her at all, it had been the First, and stopped. He remembered what Mary had said, and what Ethan had said. Anything he said to her now would sound like empty reassurances; she wouldn't believe him and she might shy away from talking about things she should.

“I wanted to kill him too,” he said at last. “For what he did to you. I thought we had.”

“Not the same.”

“No,” he agreed. It had felt like full-out war in that rainforest; killing Saramargo in those circumstances was entirely different from what Willow had nearly done. “Do you want to know what they've done with him?”

“I can guess. Same thing they're talking about doing with me. Binding the magic. Maybe it would be better.”

“I don't think so,” he said. “Is that really the life you want?”

“No,” she said, “but maybe what I want isn't – isn't safe. God, Giles, I was just – I was just so angry . And I knew I had to stop – I knew it the whole time, but I couldn't, it was like I was –”

“Possessed?” Giles said.

“Yeah,” she said, frowning at him. “How'd you know?”

“Because I rather think you were. Well, not quite possessed.” He kept his voice quiet and even as he explained his theory about the First. She said nothing and her expression gave nothing away, but at least she listened. “It's not that it wasn't you,” he finished. “But you would never have gone so far if it hadn't pushed you.”

“I don't remember being pushed. I remember that blast of power and then –”

“And then you were angry?”

“Furious. It was like I was drunk on it. But it, it shouldn't have been able to get in,” she said, sitting up in renewed anxiety. “It didn't do that to you or Ethan.”

“It didn't try,” Giles pointed out gently. “I don't know what would have happened if it did. That potential is there inside you, Willow, and it probably always will be. But what let it in wasn't that, I think, so much as your anger.”

She swallowed. “I've been trying . . . not to be.”

“Why not?” Giles raised his eyebrows. “You have every right.”

“You weren't,” she muttered, looking away. “With me, I mean when I did it to you. And don't tell me circumstances were different,” she added. “I know they were, I just . . . you weren't.”

“I was,” Giles said. He reached to take her hand and laced their fingers together.

“I never saw.”

“I never let you see. And,” he sighed, “I love you. I loved you then as well, perhaps differently than I do now, but that doesn't matter. I know you don't want to hear that circumstances were different, but they were.”

“I just –” She swallowed and looked away, down at their linked hands. “It wasn't – it wasn't that he stole my power. I keep thinking about that awful helpless feeling when I woke up and I couldn't move and I couldn't do any magic and there was just nothing I could do to save myself. And then having to stay here while you went – I don't – I'm not helpless .” She was shaking, her face very white, her eyes dry but wide.

“You're not,” he said. “Tonight facing the First – I was completely unprepared for that. You were the only one of the three of us not cowering on the ground.”

“You weren't cowering,” she objected, frowning at him.

“Well, I wasn't standing up either. You're one of the most capable people I know, Willow. You were just – hurt. Think about this,” he added when she only looked skeptical. “How many times did I have to sit things out because I'd got knocked over the head?”

“A lot,” she admitted, and managed a very small smile for him. “Did you get knocked over the head this time?”

“No,” Giles said, returning the smile. “It was Ethan's turn.”

She nodded, the smile fading. Giles sat without saying anything more until at last she said, “I know I'm not helpless. I know that.”

“But?”

“I can't shake that feeling. It's awful.”

“I'm sure it is. But remember what I said to you afterward? When you told me you thought you'd deserved what happened?”

She sighed. “You said it would take time.”

Giles nodded. “There's no magic that can fix the way you feel. But don't – don't sit on it,” he added.

“Coming from you, that advice is kinda hilarious,” she replied. “I'd just like to point out.”

He grimaced at her and she smiled wanly. Neither of them said anything. Giles thought the conversation was at an end – at least for the time being – but neither of them seemed to know how to go on to anything else. “How are you now?” he asked at last.

“Really, really tired,” she said. “You gotta be even more tired though, what with the changing time zones and me sucking your energy out of you and all.”

“Ah,” he said. “You remember that part.”

“Yeah,” she said, shrinking into herself a bit. “Sorry. I was sorta desperate and I knew you'd say yes if I asked, but there wasn't really time.”

“It's all right. It actually makes me feel better to know you did it on purpose – that sort of thing can be very dangerous if the person doing it loses control. But I am very tired, and so I hope you don't mind if I'm rather more direct than I might usually be in asking if –”

“Stay here,” she said. “Please?”

He had to suppress a sigh of relief. He went to his room get his valise, thankfully not running into anyone on the way. It seemed as though the coven had gone to bed; the building was quiet and still after the tumult of the day as Giles made his way through the softly lit corridors. He half-expected to find Mary waiting for him, but she wasn't. There was only his valise next to the bed, and Ethan's bank account information on his desk. Giles left it where it was for now; tomorrow he would fax it down to London and have his secretary take care of it.

Willow was sitting on the edge of the bed when he returned, swearing soft flannel pajama pants and her bra. It was the first glimpse Giles had had of the burn on her chest since he'd returned; it was better, he decided, more pink than red. She held the bottle of salve in one hand, staring at it, until he cleared his throat and she looked up.

“How does it feel?” he asked, setting his suitcase down in the corner.

“Better. But it still stings. Putting this stuff on isn't much fun,” she added, gesturing with the jar.

“May I?” Giles asked, holding his hand out for it.

She handed it to him and he sat on the bed beside her. She bit her lip as he spread it on, a little awkward with his right hand but careful to cover every bit of it. When at last he put the lid back on the bottle and set it aside she let out the breath she'd been holding.

“How ‘bout you?” she asked, touching him lightly on his arm in its sling. “You want me to take care of this?”

Giles looked down at it. “I certainly wouldn't say no. Are you sure you're up to it?”

She nodded and scooted forward on the bed. “It might even help. Healing magic always feels, I don't know, good, I guess. It's all earthy and stuff. Close your eyes.”

He did so, and felt her lay her hands on his shoulder; it got very warm, just shy of hot, and then, quite abruptly, all the pain vanished. He opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, removing the sling. “That feels much better.”

She smiled. “Me too, actually. Anything else I can fix for you?”

“Well, my leg, but I would, er, need to have fewer clothes on.”

“Good,” she said. “I am in favor of fewer clothes, as you might've guessed. Go” She made a shooing gesture toward the bathroom.

He checked the bandage while he changed; the stain there was the dark brown of dried blood, which meant that it had finally stopped bleeding. He brushed his teeth and changed his underwear, but if she really meant to do his leg for him then there wasn't much point in putting on anything else.

He came back out to find her drowsing; she made a charming, sleepy noise when he slid in beside her, and stroked her hand down his body until she encountered the bandage on his thigh. He held very still, and this time felt more than warmth; he felt the energy flowing through Willow, from the earth and out of her hand and into him, knitting his skin together. He matched his breathing to hers as she worked, until at last he felt the flow of the energy slow and then cease. It was a more gradual healing than his shoulder had been, perhaps because they were both half-asleep, but it seemed to do more than simply heal the gash on his thigh; for the first time since Giles had received Ethan's vision days ago, he felt safe.

Willow skimmed her hand back up his body and laid her head on his chest. “Tomorrow,” she murmured, “I want you to tell me everything that happened, ‘kay? And don't leave out the bad stuff. I want to know.”

He meant to answer her. He meant to promise her that they would make love in the morning as soon as they'd woken and then he would tell her every bit of what he and Ethan had done. But the words got lost between his mind and his mouth, and he slid into sleep without another word.

Fin.

 

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