Giles had wandered out to the outside pool area, in search of the vanished chauffeur. He hoped that the small building that he could see at the back of the pool was a garage. Unfortunately, he first had to engage an obstacle course around the swimming pool of chattering people and flaming tiki lamps.
His progress was slowed by the eight white-and-black borzois that insisted on accompanying him. He kept stumbling over them, and they were hard to shove out of the way. The various party-goers kept whistling to them, petting them, throwing them bits of hors d'oeuvres. The dogs remained aloof to these blandishments, preferring to tag along with Giles.
The pack swarmed suddenly about his legs in a furry backwash. He fell over one of them. The dog growled and moved to stand on top of him. Giles twisted to fend it off, then realized that it wasn't growling at him.
Spike hovered a short distance away, glowering at him. "That menagerie isn't going to help you any, Watcher," he said. But he didn't step any closer.
"Waiting for backups, are you?" Giles said, as he used the back of his canine protector to sit up. "They'd better hurry, then. I see Buffy around the other side of the pool there."
Spike darted a look in the indicated direction. Buffy was indeed just across the swimming pool, but her hunt had been halted by the attentions of a young man in an expensive black designer suit. "I think we can ignore her for the moment."
Giles got to his feet and began to back off. "Let's just call it a draw tonight, shall we? I've things I'd much rather be doing, and so, I suspect, do you."
"You'd just love for that to happen, wouldn't you, you wanker?" Spike growled.
The eight dogs growled back.
"They can't hurt me," the vampire said.
"I think that if they took an active dislike to you that it might hurt," Giles retorted. "In any case, don't tell me. Tell them."
Spike glared at them a moment longer, then vanished into the crowd.
"I suppose it's too much to hope that he has given up," Giles muttered. He tried to catch the attention of Buffy, but she was smiling shyly into the eyes of her admirer. Hormones at work there. He'd have to go collar her.
Easier said than done. Someone switched on the sound system to the pool area -- another bouncy golden oldie from the Material Girl -- and immediately the crowd went into dancing overdrive. A dangerous situation, given the proximity of the swimming pool. He had to pull away from the edge and in the process lost track of Buffy.
Tracking her down to where he'd last seen her, Giles discovered that she'd vanished again. Dancing, no doubt, with the young man he'd seen her with. He'd have to work with her on that attention span, particularly where boys were providing the distraction. In the meantime, since he was close to the small building at the back of the pool, he decided to set about his original task of finding the chauffeur.
Rounding the pool to one side of the building, he began to suspect that it was more of a pool house than a garage. There were doors at both ends; the door at this end was a small, private entrance. A woman with long frizzy sun- bleached hair stood in front of it, peering pensively out at the party. Her attire seemed out of place -- over-large, rumpled white shirt and jeans. Maybe she was part of the household staff.
"Excuse me." He waved at her, barely saving himself from still another fall over a dog. "You wouldn't happen to know where the garage is, would you?"
She blinked at him with brilliant blue eyes, and pushed the stray bangs from her face.
"I was trying to find Roland. The chauffeur."
"Oh," she said, and pushed strands of wild hair from her face. "You won't find him. Not right now." She smiled. "I'm Rima. The pool girl. Why don't you come in, where it's quiet? You can use my phone give Roland a call. When he's not busy."
"Uh," Giles looked out at the party and spotted Spike again, shoving his way back through the dancers. He had four henchmen with him this time. "Oh, very well."
"You, puppies. Stay!" Rima firmly intercepted the dogs at the door, shepherded him inside, and shut the door. She stood with her back to the door, eyeing Giles intently. His scalp prickled. "They've taken a shine to you," she said in a low voice.
"Well, y-yes." He laughed nervously, and looked around the apartment. "Heaven knows why." It was a surprisingly lavish studio apartment. Glossy photographs papered the walls. There was a large quantity of camera equipment set up about the place.
She flicked on the light switch by the door. "They appreciate good bone structure," she said dreamily. A smile ticked up at the corner of her mouth and her eyes gleamed. She pushed the hair out of her face again. "Would you like a drink?"
He took a step back. "Tea, perhaps."
"You're awfully jumpy." She moved forward and pushed him back towards the red settee at the center of the room. "Sit down." She stepped on past him, brushing by in a pantherine fashion. "I know just what you need."
"I wish I knew," Giles said under his breath, and sat down. She apparently lived in this half of the pool house, so he supposed he was safe enough. From Spike, anyway.
There were spotlamps and cameras and videocameras in every corner of the room. He noted, uneasily, that they had all been set up to point towards the settee that he was currently occupying. "Are you a photographer, then?" he called out to her.
"You noticed?" Rima said from just behind his left shoulder. He jumped. She reached down, picked up his hand, and wrapped it around the icy glass she held. "Drink. You'll feel better." She drifted on past him, snagging the glasses from his face as she moved.
"Rima, don't . . ."
"Drink your drink and relax. I'll give them back." She slipped his glasses in the rear pocket of her jeans. "Unless you want to take them from me now." Thick eyelashes batted at him.
Giles glared at her, actually considering that course of action for a split second. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for this kind of complication in his life right now. Time to try the professorial approach, a la the esteemed Professor Wilson, he decided. He set the drink on the floor and stood up. "Young woman, I don't know what you expected when you invited me here. . ."
She turned on one of the spotlamps, causing him to blink in confusion as he lost track of her in the sudden flood of light. He tried to look sternly at her, but he couldn't see her, and the professorial glare worked best with glasses, of which she had his in her back pocket at the moment. "Rima --" Another light caught him from the other side. "What are you doing?"
She was suddenly in front of him again, pushing him back towards the settee. Her fingers plucked at his tie. "Don't worry," she said. "I take very tasteful photographs. . ."
Somebody was pounding on the door. Hard. Spike to the rescue, perhaps.
"Shit," Rima said, her hands still tugging at his tie. She hesitated, chewing at her lower lip. "That's either my husband or my boss." She pulled Giles towards the back of the apartment. "Better safe than sorry." She gave him a gentle kick through a door into a small bedroom. "Hide here for a moment. If that's my boss, I'm in big trouble if she finds you here."
"Hey!" Giles said, lunging for the doorknob. "May I please have my glasses back?"
"Oh, yeah." She tossed them to him. "Don't go away, now."
"Don't invite anybody in," he shouted at her as the door shut. "Damn."
"Very well put." He whirled, to discover that he wasn't alone in the bedroom.
A woman was seated cross-legged on the bed, a bottle of vodka nestled at the crook of one knee, a small book perched on top of the other knee. Despite her schoolgirlish position, she looked elegantly at ease. Her dark auburn hair, streaked liberally with grey, was piled in casual curls on top of her head. She regarded him quizzically over the tops of her horn- rim glasses.
"Has she gone to let her husband in on this, as well?" The woman shut the book with a crisp snap and tossed it to the end of the bed. Her voice had a faint Italian accent.
"Well, I --" Giles shook his head, then swallowed.
"That does it." She grabbed the vodka bottle and crawled off the bed. "It's bad enough that I let her seduce me, and that she promptly forgets about me the moment some younger face comes into the picture." She strode to the bedroom door and locked it. "And I can cope with a nice ménage as well as the next person." She shot Giles an arch look. "But when you get to be a certain age --" she jumped up on the bed and pushed the overhead window open "-- you have to establish some standards. Are you coming with me?"
Giles sighed. "I suppose I had better." He gave her a leg up and followed her on over the sill.
He almost stepped on the dog that was waiting in the bushes on the other side. The borzoi yomped, and he managed to deflect his landing without crushing the beast. It promptly reared up and began to lick his face.
"Do you mind?" Giles grabbed the dog by the ears and managed to evade the tongue.
"Oh, that's Boris," the woman said, throwing an arm around the dog's neck. "My baby, Boris Badanov. How are you, Boris, my baby?" She planted a kiss on the dog's head. Boris turned to place sloppy licks on her face. "Where's Natasha?"
Giles took a second look at her, then at the almost empty pint vodka bottle in her hand. "Are you quite all right?"
"A little smashed," she admitted. "Oh, all right. A lot smashed. Would you please help me find my driver? I am ready to leave this party now."
He pried the bottle from her grip and tossed it into the bushes. "Very well. I'm looking for somebody too. We can look together."
Dog at their heels, they poked around the corner of the building back out to the poolside. The party was still in full swing, but no vampires were currently in sight. Giles scanned the crowd and finally spotted Buffy again, dancing by the poolside with the same man he'd seen her with earlier. She looked so flushed and happy that he almost hated to intrude on her.
The look she gave him when they approached wasn't exactly thrilled. "Giles!" she said, at least attempting a smile. "There you are. I mean, we knew you were around here somewhere --"
"Gavin," the woman at Giles' side addressed the man at Buffy's side. "Have you seen Roberto? I lost track of the boy hours ago, and he's still nowhere to be seen."
"Last I saw of him, the Lady of the House had him in her clutches, Lena," the young man said, his voice pegging him from Giles' side of the Atlantic. "You'd best forget about him for the rest of the night."
She scowled. "I'm ready to go, but my blood alcohol's about four hours short of legal. The next driver I hire, I'm going to geld."
"No need," Gavin said cheerfully. "I'll drive you. Let me find Nigel, tell him where we're going."
"There's an all-night film festival at the Last Reel Cinema. Up in the City," Lena said, grinning at him. "A friend of mine is showcasing. A little culture will do you good, darling." She took his arm, and they moved away into the crowd.
Boris looked after them and whined, but sat down resolutely by Giles.
"Thanks a lot, Giles," Buffy said.
"What are you blaming me for?" Giles snapped back. Buffy looked startled by his vehemence. "I'm sorry I interrupted your dance --"
"Dance," she hissed. "Giles, do you have any idea who I was dancing with?"
"I wouldn't care if he were David Bowie. Can we prioritize here? A bit?"
"He wasn't David Bowie," Buffy sulked. "He was better than David Bowie." She looked at Giles and flinched. "All right, all right. I'm prioritizing, okay? You're okay, right?'
"Yes, I'm fine. Besides being menaced, driven back and forth like a frightened rabbit, and profoundly aggravated, I'm doing just peachy. Can we get the others and go home now?"
Buffy grabbed onto his arm to stop him from being jostled into the swimming pool. "Giles, as long as we're here . . . Well, it not as if we're in any hurry now. And it's going to take a while to find the guys, anyway. So you hang out here, when you see them tell them we'll all meet out here in about an hour, and we'll drive home together then."
"While you try to intercept that Gavin chap." He grabbed her wrist to keep her from slithering away. "Buffy, Spike's here --"
"S'okay, he doesn't have an invite."
"He somehow got himself an invite."
Buffy glowered. "Why does he have to show up at the one cool party I've been to this year?"
"If you like, we can loiter around here. I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to ask him yourself."
"Okay, okay," she said. "Look, you stay right here. I know where everybody's at. I'll get them together stat, and we'll leave."
"Buffy."
"I won't be long," she shouted at him, as she slipped through the crowd. He didn't have her litheness, much less her petiteness, and was promptly left behind.
Giles looked nervously about, then sat down on the concrete next to the pool. Boris moved to lean against him. "Good then," he said to the dog. "We'll sit here, out of sight. Buffy will be back with the others."
A slender figure sat down on the other side of the dog. "Musicians," Lena grumbled. "Are the most distractible people on this planet."
Giles looked at her. "Are they, really?"
She'd acquired another bottle of vodka during her brief absence. "Don't let your young friend get involved with them." She drank. "They're fun, but you can't depend on them." She threw an arm around Boris and started caressing the dog's ears. "A woman needs someone she can lean on from time to time."
Boris threw his head back and got a glazed, ecstatic look in his eyes.
Buffy stomped back into the house, feeling put upon. Where had everyone gone to? All having more fun than she was, she'd bet. She finally spotted Willow at the back of the room, looking like a wild-thing caught up in somebody's headlights. Feeling guilty, Buffy shouldered her way through the revelers to reach her friend's side.
"You okay, Willow?"
Willow surprised her with a slightly goofy grin. "Sure am! Oh, Buffy, this's John --"
Buffy nodded peripherally at the man that stood next to Willow. "Hi. Where's Xander?"
"Oh, dancing somewhere here," the redhead said.
"We've got to go. Spike's managed to get in."
"You get Xander and Cordelia." Willow smiled. "I'll wait here."
Buffy looked at her. "Some help would be nice." She looked closer. "Will, you haven't, like, been drinking anything?"
The girl looked horrified. "Oh, no! Just this real great fruit punch. You should try it."
"Yes, we all know about 'fruit punch'." Buffy grabbed her arm and dragged her away.
"'Bye, John," Willow said plaintively.
They found Xander at the other end of the room, dancing wildly with some Chinese chick.
"Xander!" Buffy snagged him in mid-gyration. "We're going. Say good-bye."
"But -- but -- but --" He tried to break away.
His dance partner smiled at him. "Too bad," she said. "You're a good dancer." She turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Xander whined. "Thanks a lot Buffy. Do you know what you just did?"
"Never mind that. I've found Giles. Spike is inside. Let's get Cordelia and get out of here."
Cordelia was not in the basement, although there was some really weird stuff going on there.
"Oh, great," Buffy said. "This's worse than the mall."
"She probably got wigged and went back to the car." Xander went to the patio doors and looked out.
"Well, go get her and have her bring the car to the front gate." Buffy grabbed hold of a wobbling Willow. "We'll get Giles and meet you guys there."
"There you are. My god, we've been chasing around after you all night, and here you are lounging around the swimming pool."
"I just sat down, Cordelia," Giles said tiredly. "Buffy told me to stay here."
"And we all do what Buffy says," Cordelia huffed. She gave him an odd look, then stepped back and lifted a camera to her face to snap a picture of him and his companions.
Giles struggled to his feet and reached for the camera. "I've had quite enough pictures taken of me tonight, thank you."
Cordelia threw the camera in its case and threw the case behind her. "Cranky much?" she said. "What are you on tonight, anyway? What's the deal with the road-trip?"
He spotted Spike and his henchmen making rapid headway around the swimming pool, back in their direction. "I'm on nothing tonight, but a doughnut, two sausages, and adrenaline. I think we'd better go. Now."
"Good notion, that," Lena said from the ground. She held up an impeccably manicured hand. "Give the director a hand up, won't you?"
"We're going to look for our friend. Why don't you stay here with Boris?" he said, edging off.
"Oh, no." She threw an arm around his waist and lurched to her feet. "You're not going to pull a Gavin on me. It would be too terribly embarrassing to be abandoned three times in a row."
Cordelia was staring now at the vampires, who'd now halved the distance. "I don't think we have time to find Buffy," she said fearfully.
Lena peered at the impending menace. "Who are they?"
"Creditors," Cordelia said.
"Ooops, crisis understood," Lena allowed herself to be prodded into a lope away from the pool. "Com'on, kids, ride with me, if you want a magic carpet away from all this. I need someone sober to fire her up."
They ducked out the gate, shutting it behind them. Giles paused to brace the exit with a pole that had been left leaning against the fence. The four moved around the side of the house to the front lawn. No sign of any of the other Slayerettes, although there was a drunken badminton game going on in the small patch of lawn not taken up by cars.
"Here, we go," Lena cooed, stumbling to a vehicle that had been parked to one side of the lawn. "My little rug. My precious."
Giles and Cordelia gaped. "What, may I ask, is that?" Giles finally managed.
Lena blinked at him, pausing in the act of pushing the driver's door up. "It's an automobile, silly. Here." She tossed him a set of keys, which he caught automatically. "You're driving."
"I'm afraid I don't have a license to drive this --" He waved a hand at the canary yellow vehicle.
She giggled. "Don't be timid, darling. It's just a little pussycat. A little, big-old Lamborghini Countach-cat." She crawled across the driver's seat into the passenger seat. Boris leapt in after her, and flopped across her lap.
Cordelia looked back towards the house. "Come on, Giles. I'll drive, if you won't."
"No, honey," Lena said. "Let the man have the wheel. My insurance broker says no more teens driving the car."
Giles allowed himself to be shoved into the driver's seat. "It's a two-seater," he protested.
Cordelia looked back again. Spike and company were swarming out from behind the house.
"Don't be shy, honey," Lena said to her. "There's plenty of room.
"Yeah. For perverts." Cordelia crawled into Giles' lap, and slammed the door down. "You keep your hands to yourself."
"Just lock the doors." He gingerly reached around her to put the key in the ignition.
Lena flipped on the door-locking mechanism and the headlights. "There's the steering wheel," she said, "Brakes there, gear shift. And two beautiful brunettes here and here. That's all you need to know, pet. Let's ride."
The 'car' seemed as wide as a tank. "How do I see to back up?" Giles panted, trying to look back. In the low- slung hyper-aerodynamic car, nighttime rear visibility was almost nil.
"Don't worry," Lena said. "There's plenty of room for the turn. Anybody in the way -- they'll get out of the way plenty fast."
He turned the ignition over. The car thundered to life like some primordial beast rousing itself from a centuries old sleep. He hesitated, then shifted to reverse.
A vampire landed on the hood. Cordelia screamed and threw an arm around Giles' neck.
"Fucking creditors." Lena added her foot to Giles' on the accelerator. The car lurched back with a muted roar, and the vampire tumbled off.
"Cordelia, a little room, please," Giles gasped.
"Sorry," she said in a small voice.
Another vampire jumped up beside the driver's window, apparently intent on crashing through the glass with his bare fist. Giles threw the car into first gear and tapped the accelerator.
The Lamborghini surged forward, savaging the vampires that stumbled into its path. He winced as the car rocked over one of them. It was like steering the Queen Mary, that is if that ship had rocket boosters attached to it. He fought down a sense of panic that he was about to take out the whole row of cars as they moved out off the lawn.
Xander was standing on driveway to the house peering off into the sea of cars. He turned and gaped at the Lamborghini as it glided up to him.
"Xander!" Cordelia called out to him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for --" Xander did a double take. "Cordy? Giles?"
She leaned towards the window, thrusting an elbow into Giles' face as she did so. "Brilliant guess, Jean Dixon. Where's Buffy? I mean, as the Slayer she's chalking up a big fat zero and -- HERE THEY COME AGAIN!"
"Xander, get back to the house," Giles yelled. "Buffy knows where we're going!"
"Ohmygod! They'll need my car!" Cordelia tossed Xander her purse. "If you wreck it, I swear I'll --"
Giles shoved her back down and grabbed the steering wheel. He reversed the car and plowed through some more vampires. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xander racing for the house. Back into 'drive' again, and they shot out into the road.
"Those people just never do give up," Lena said, taking a swig from her bottle. She shoved Boris to one side and moved closer to Giles. "Darling, I didn't spend a quarter of a million dollars on this car so you could drive it like a pushcart." She set her foot on top of his and gave it a nudge.
The Lamborghini screamed, and leapt out to gnaw up long swathes of the road.
"Ah, that's the music, baby," Lena shouted, and slumped back in her seat.