"7:15 PM."
Rupert Giles frowned at his watch and then shook it. It refused, however, to take back the last hour or two. Stubborn thing; that was the problem with so many technological devices. They never did what you needed them to do.
He reluctantly pulled himself out of the book that he'd apparently been immersed in for the last four hours. It took him a minute to place where he was: the Sunnydale University Library Rare Books reading room. Friday night. The tome he'd needed to consult had fortunately been available at the University, but he had of course to use it here.
The reading room, half full when he'd arrived, was deserted now. Almost deserted: a lone student was snoring quietly at the table at the back of the room. Giles collected his belongings -- coat and briefcase -- and walked out into the Rare Books Room to return the book to the student clerk.
The place was very quiet. "Hello?" he ventured, craning over the reference desk to peer into the shadowy aisles of books beyond. After what seemed like a decent wait, he placed the book on a shelver's trolley and walked behind the reference desk to collect his driver's license.
The clerk had earlier filed it in a lower drawer. The license was easy enough to locate, being the only ID left in the file. Giles pulled it out and sat back on his heels to examine it. The Rupert Giles in the picture looked uptight, dyspeptic -- desperately in need of a social life. No wonder Jenny Calendar teased this chap unmercifully. He resolved to call her as soon as he went downstairs, hopefully to arrange a remedial late dinner.
The door to the Rare Books Room creaked open and footsteps sounded their way towards the desk. Guiltily, Giles shut the drawer and straightened to greet the returning clerk with an apology.
"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in." A grinning Spike leaned across the desk, reaching for his tie. Giles hastily backed out of reach, uncomfortably aware that with only a reference desk between them he wasn't likely to remain out of reach for long.
Spike turned to the wispy creature at his side. "We're in luck, Dru my luv. Tonight we can kill two birds with one stone."
"Don't kill the birds," Dru said. She held a tattered bouquet of violets in one hand, with the other hand she freed a bloom and tossed it at her companion. "You said I could have another bird. A white bird in a red cage. All shiny and lovely."
"It's a figure of speech, my winsome pet."
"You promised," Drusilla pouted, then began to whine.
Giles backed up slowly towards the shelter of the dark stacks behind the desk.
"Dru . . ."
She hit Spike over the head with the bouquet. Spike looked so distraught over this ineffectual attack that Giles almost felt sorry for him.
"Precious pomegranate, I'll get you a score of parrots --"
"I want lovebirds," Drusilla wept, still whacking him with her flowers. Violets scattered the floor about them.
Giles slipped into a book aisle, trying to emulate a shadow as far as possible. A very unassuming, uninteresting sort of shadow. He followed the line of books down to the first break in the aisle, made a quick dogleg to the aisle one over, and continued to work his way down. He hadn't realized that the collection went so far back. Very grateful he was for the University's generous Rare Book Fund. He resolved to write them out a cheque as soon as he got home.
Drusilla's temper tantrum had given away to quiet again, interspersed with a few sniffles. Giles wondered, inanely, if vampires really did get runny noses. He must ask Angel sometime.
"Oh, Watcher?"
Giles froze at the closeness of Spike's mocking voice.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are." The vampire was stalking him along the next aisle. He thought.
Well, he could creep down to the next break in the aisle and walk into Spike's arms, double back and take a chance on Drusilla's frightening unpredictability, or wait here for the two of them to come looking for him from both ends.
The bookcase rattled as, several shelves down, Spike shoved some books to one side to peer through.
Or the vampire simply had to shove the bookcase down on top of him. His hand went nervously to a shelf in an abortive attempt to forestall the possibility. It gave slightly under his grasp. He looked up. They were very new, cheap, flimsy constructs, top-heavy with thick, leather-bound books. A torts lawyer's dream.
Do unto others before they do unto you, Giles decided. Or at least die making an attempt. He grabbed the closest shelf and threw his weight into it.
The bookcase tilted, started to settle back; then with another desperate shove, it slowly toppled.
He hadn't heard that many books hit the floor at once since the last earthquake. All in all it was a fairly impressive spectacle: the floor bounced under him and a thick layer of dust puffed up into a flat mushroom cloud. He sneezed, then winced as precious volumes continued to rain down from the shelves beyond; he'd set up a rather awful domino effect.
"Ouch," an aggrieved voice sounded from beneath the collapsed case and mounds of books at his feet.
Best not to be around when the owner of that voice made his way out of the collapse. Besides, Drusilla was scrambling towards him over the hillocks of books, looking --
He couldn't describe that look, other than to decide that it was equally not a good thing to loiter around in the face of it.
"Spike!" Drusilla wailed, pawing at the fallen books.
"Forget me, get that effing Watcher!"
Fortunately, she chose to not attend that bit of directive, and Giles chose not to remain around to hear it repeated. He dashed for the door, taking a precious moment to look for a latch before realizing that it wouldn't likely be possible to lock anybody inside the room. Not that locked doors were ever very effective barriers against angry vampires.
The hall outside was fairly unpopulated; only two students had been alarmed enough by the noise to come investigate. They simply gawked at him as he hurried by. With luck everyone else on the floor had taken cover in the nearest doorway.
Giles took the first staircase down several steps at a time, nearly clearing the last six steps in a set. He righted himself shakily against the rail and descended to the main floor in a more dignified manner.
The Sunnydale University Library's lobby itself was fairly well populated for a Friday night, with enough professorial types about that he could blend in. Nobody here seemed to have picked up on the disaster upstairs. He walked quickly to the front doors and halted, looking out on the spot-lit quadrangle out front.
The three dark figures that lurked about the benches at the front of the building might be fraternity boys out for some weekend reading material, (although, given the behavior of some fraternities in this town, that wasn't necessarily a reassuring possibility). But Giles had recently began to pick up some of Buffy's slowly improving "slay-dar", as she'd called it, and these three had just sent that rudimentary sense chittering. Of course, even if these were some of the toothsome ones, they wouldn't necessarily pick him out of the dozens of people entering and exiting the building.
That is, until Spike came down and sicked them after him. With luck, he'd be about halfway to the parking lot by the time that happened.
Decisions, decisions. Giles clutched his leather briefcase to his chest and looked about.
Someone with very blond hair was coming down from on high. Giles moved to the nearest out-of-sight locale: the top of the stairs leading down to the student snack bar in the basement.
There seemed to be a healthy concentration of people down here -- almost an impromptu party. Hopefully, enough to dissuade an attack by five vampires. He moved past tables of boisterous students (there was some inter-school sports rivalry in the offing), an oddly placed decorative water fountain with pond, and dozens of snack and caffeine machines; to a bank of telephones on the far wall.
Buffy's home phone was picked up by the answering machine. Mrs. Summers had been holding Friday night receptions at her gallery and would be out. Since Giles hadn't actually made any arrangements with Buffy for the night, she had apparently taken it as an implied night off. The lot of them would be at the Bronze. He recalled Xander enthusing about some musical group called "The Nazgul."
How to contact them, then... The last time he'd tried to page Buffy though the Bronze management, the boy at the other end of the phone had laughed at him.
He called Ms. Calendar's home, and got a humorously abusive machine message that suggested that the caller relax, get laid for the night, and call back tomorrow.
Paging, he thought again. "Ah!" He dug out his wallet and pulled out the index card that Willow had passed out to each of them. She'd hit them all up for cash and purchased pagers for everyone (heavens knew how she'd lined up the free paging accounts). Good girl, that Willow. He'd have to buy her a new computer hamster or something.
Unfortunately, the budget pagers had a limited message capacity. (Should've pitched in more money, he supposed.) Giles sent Buffy a terse message and the pay phone number. Now if only the legendary teen sense of a phone call received got through the din of a Bronze concert. Until then, he'd best buy something from one of these machines and lay low until Buffy returned the call.
He turned and almost walked directly into Spike and Drusilla, who had been standing over-companionably behind him.
"Having trouble calling in the reserves, are we?" Spike said pleasantly, apparently no more worse for the wear than a bit of dust about the shoulders.
"No, as a matter of fact, I -- quite successful, actually." Giles edged off to the side, casting a quick look around.
"You're a terrible liar." Spike paused to check for change in the telephone coin return. "You need to get more practice."
The phone he'd used to make the call began to ring. Spike picked up the receiver, clicked the hook, and let the receiver drop. "Not to worry though." The vampire threw an arm across his shoulders. "Spike can give you some pointers."
Giles slipped a hand into the briefcase that was tucked under his arm. Somewhere, amid the jumble of notes, was a stake. His fingers closed around a thin wooden object. The cross --
Spike grabbed the briefcase and pitched it into the trash bin in the corner. Giles watched it drop out of sight helplessly. Not that he had highly estimated his chances of actually driving a stake home against this particular vampire, but it would have provided him with more of a fighting chance than the cross would.
"You're going to make me lose my temper," Spike said, still smiling. His grip tightened, painfully. "Which you really don't want to do." He pulled his captive closer and turned him around. "Dru --"
Drusilla had lost interest in Giles and was approaching a bright red and white Coca-Cola (TM) machine with the awe of a novice lost in rapturous contemplation of some holy revelation. "Spike..." she said. "Buy me a can. . ."
"What for, dovelet? You can't drink it." From the look on Spike's face, she might as well have been asking for a can of fish drool.
Giles eased the cross into his coat pocket and picked out three quarters instead. He tentatively held them up. "Allow me."
Drusilla beamed at him. "Let him go, Spike. He wants to buy me a pre-sent."
"He's asking to go to the devil --" Spike growled; but at a look from his Princess, he removed his arm from Giles' shoulder. "Go ahead," he said to Giles with exaggerated politeness.
He fed the coins into the machine, eyeing Spike warily as he did so. He had a sinking feeling that the vampire could strong-arm him through the crowd without causing undue attention. Of course, he could scream bloody murder, but he really didn't want to trigger a massacre either.
"Let me push the button," Drusilla breathed into his ear, almost causing him to faint dead away with the creeps.
"Of . . . of course." He stepped away to let her at the machine. She dithered at the panel for what seemed like dozens of minutes. Spike didn't take his eyes off him. Giles stared back, feeling rather like a snake-hypnotized mouse.
"That one," Drusilla finally decided, and pushed the glowing red and white button. A can thunked down into the dispenser. She claimed it with a gentleness one usually reserved for fine china or small-boned animals. "Isn't it beautiful, Spike?"
"Yeah, sweet, whatever."
"The green cans are very attractive too," Giles interjected. "Quite striking with the red. As a pair. As I recall."
Drusilla turned back to the Coke machine, the can cradled in the crook of one arm. "Spike . . ."
Spike was staring long, sharp, pointy daggers at him, but his voice was gently smiling. "We need to be on our way, my gem. I'll give you a nice treat when we get home, much better than that sludge, and then we'll all sit around and have a cozy chat --" He reached for the Watcher again.
Giles quickly moved to Drusilla's other side. "Excuse me, my dear." He scooped her up in his arms.
She looked startled, then smiled at him dreamily. "Look, Spike. We're a knight and his Lady."
"Put her down, now," Spike growled, bearing in on them with mayhem in his eyes.
The 'Lady' was nuzzling at Giles' neck, whispering sweet non sequiters in his ear. Best to do as asked. "I really must apologize," he said to Drusilla.
"Whatever for?" she wondered.
He turned and pitched her into the fountain.
Slimy water sprayed up, soaking those at the nearest tables. Shrieking sports revelers suddenly noticed him where they'd been oblivious to the odd interchange that had come before.
Quite a splash for such a feather-weight woman, Giles thought, as he dodged some husky fellow apparently bent on pitching the perpetrator in after his victim. The assailant fell into another boy instead, which triggered some mutual antipathy apparently centered around the fact that they wore differently logo'd sweatshirts. Insults were traded and promptly expounded upon. Third and fourth parties interjected their unasked-for opinions.
He suddenly found himself in the midst of a violent debate.
Somewhere in the ruckus, he glimpsed Spike homing in on him, but a Drusilla-flavoured shriek deflected that bullet for the moment. He risked a quick look back at the fountain. She had lost hold of her Coke can and was wading deeper into the fountain after it. Spike was climbing in after her.
Too bad that business about vampires and running water was a myth. He beat a indirect retreat towards the stairs, doing his best to keep a low and uninvolved profile. He managed to avoid getting sucked into several mini-scuffles, was congratulating himself on successfully negotiating the melee. The stairs loomed just ahead --
A heavy object caught Giles just above the left ear, tumbling him to the ground. Not again, he thought. But he was getting better at getting hit, managing to retain enough sense to roll out of the way of a second blow. He snatched the cross from his pocket and waved it around in the general vicinity of his attacker.
"I might have known! Religious loony!" the young woman yelled at him, and swung her book bag back for another go. "Batterer!"
"I beg your pardon, but please stop hitting me," Giles panted, and grabbed the girl just above the knees, pulling her down hard on her ass.
"Hey, stop hoggin' the phone," some moron was shouting behind her. Buffy resisted the urge to give him the phone in a painful and embarrassing manner, hung up and dialed again. The line was still busy. She hung up and flounced back to where Xander and Willow were sitting. It was a good table; they'd gotten to the Bronze early for a change. The opening band had just finished up and everyone was milling around in anticipation of the main event.
"What earth-shaking disaster is it tonight?" Xander queried, sucking on his fifth Mountain Dew of the evening. "Vampires? Mummies? The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man?"
"spkcllglslibunib7425651," Buffy said, plunking herself down at the table.
"You need the Heimlich maneuver for that," Xander said.
"Whose bright idea was it to get cheap pagers with such a short message space? And we shouldn't have given Cordelia the pager numbers. The line was busy."
"Cordelia's here," Willow pointed out. "Anyway, she looked too preoccupied with that college guy to be playing pranks."
"College guy. What college guy?" Xander leapt up to peer about the room.
"Just some incredibly good-looking business major who's a closet Nazgul fan." Willow craned her neck to watch Xander beetle off in the general direction of the bar. "Why do you care?"
"If Cordelia's going to make a fool of herself, I want to catch every delicious minute of it," Xander yelled, as he disappeared into the crowd.
Willow sighed and turned back to Buffy. "It must've been Giles; he's the only one other than Ms. Calendar who has the numbers, and she's proctoring an exam tonight."
"The number isn't his office number," Buffy said. "I called his home too. He wasn't there."
"Let me see the message," Willow pried the pager from Buffy's fingers. "Oh! Oh! I remember. He was going to the University Library this afternoon to look up some stuff in one of their books. This is a University prefix!"
"Damn, he pages us and can't stay by the phone for two minutes to wait for the call. Probably couldn't wait to get back to the books. Well, I'm not going to put up with it. I'm going to stay right here and listen to the rest of the concert, maybe Angel will show and we'll dance, and I'm not going to worry about whatever 'spkcllglslibunib' means."
They sat without speaking for a minute. Buffy pried sharp splinters off the bottom edge of the table with her fingernail.
"Should I go get Cordelia to drive us?" Willow finally ventured.
"Yes, and arrange for lobotomies for all of us while you're at it."