Oz and Devon were barricaded behind a small fortress of boxes of Dingoes cds, which they'd pulled about the DJ's desk with its music board command center. They both were clad in foreign legion grab. The three demon groupies, dressed in green, pink, and blue versions of "I Dream of Jeannie" garb, danced back and forth before the fortress, giving a good imitation of barbarians at the gates. The broadcast booth was ankle-deep with white sand, and the parlour palm had metamorphosed into a bedraggled fig tree.
"Right, then," Giles growled and whipped his book out to thumb through it. He attempted a dissipation spell, but it did no good. This magic was firmly locked into place through the music of this world.
"Giles!" Oz yelled, as plaintive as it was possible for Oz to sound. "What should I play next?"
"Damn -- damn -- damn -- damn --" Giles muttered, still leafing through the book. He finally found the footnote he'd needed for the banishment spell -- but he'd forgotten that it referenced yet another footnote in another book, an obscure volume that he was fairly certain currently resided in one of the several scores of boxes sitting in a storage unit at Store-Yer-Stuf, where he'd been keeping the less relevant volumes of his collection.
He turned to the CD shelves, grabbed an album and tossed it over the groupies' heads to Oz. "Track four," he yelled. Oz caught it neatly, flipped the case open, and put the CD onto the player.
Giles put his glasses on and pulled his leather jacket up around his face, as the opening stanza of Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" rolled from the speakers. Those unblessed with faulty vision were hit with an eye-stinging blast of a wind that whipped the white sands up from the floor. Giles footed it past the cowering groupies and vaulted over the Dingo's crates and into the DJ's trench, where the wind faded to a fluttering breeze.
"Good call," said Oz.
"Hey dudes, check it out. I'm Gunga Din," Devon said happily, waving his rifle about. "Somebody put something radically trippy in the nacho chips. This gun feels real!"
Giles yanked it out of his hands. "Yes, let's not get carried away. I've got a show to do." He slid his LP collection out from under the desk, sheltering it from the stray grain of sand with his back. He turned the case so that he could read the playlists on the backs of the albums and thumbed through them. "No -- no -- good heavens... no --I suppose I should purchase some New Age music."
"70's rock and roll not being conducive to mellowing the crowd out," Oz guessed.
"Not the music I listened to," Giles said.
"Peek-a-boo I see you!" Buttercup popped up next to Giles in the DJ's trench. She'd thrown several layers of diaphanous green veil over her face, which proved proof enough against the blowing sand. She had the Michael Jackson Thriller album in one hand.
Giles slapped her away from the CD player. A shower of green sparks nipped at his fingers. Buttercup grinned maniacally at him. "Electric!" she said.
He made a decision, shut the feed off from the CD player and turned the microphone on. "All right, babies," he said in a low voice to his audience at large. "It's time for some seriously rocking. He plopped one of his vinyls onto the turntable, set the needle on the proper track and let Jagger and Bowie's rendition of "Dancing in the Streets" out onto the unsuspecting audience.
Everyone outside the DJ's pit, demons included, instantly went into dancing overdrive.
"Good call yet again," Oz approved.
"Fun!" Buttercup clapped her hands. "But let's play "Thriller" next, 'kay? Then we'll put on 70's Disco Jukebox Inferno." She held up a clunky CD set.
"I'm not going to 'Red Shoes' my audience to death," Giles said. "My numbers are going to be low enough as it is. And in any case, to the devil with disco."
"That's sort of the point," she pouted. "'Specially if you let me play "Thriller". Oh, com'on! You know you want to."
"Michael Jackson? I know no such thing."
"Uhm, 'kay then." She slipped another CD from her cleavage. "How about this one?"
Oz shoved her hands down. "Don't give into the temptation, Giles."
Giles looked at him in annoyance. "As if I would for an American band. This is the album with the original cut of 'The End', yes? I've still got --" he checked the clock on the wall "-- fifteen minutes left to my show. They're mine and I am going to use them." He nevertheless took the CD from Buttercup and flipped it over to ponder the playlist.
"'Baby Light My Fire'?" Buttercup said hopefully.
Oz held up a CD. "Not that I necessarily recommend this..."
"This is supposed to be the 70's; and what the world needs now is not love," Giles retorted. "We'd probably end up with an orgy."
"They'd all be on the floor." Oz nevertheless put the CD down.
Giles fixed a stern no-nonsense look on Buttercup. "How long will the realization effect last?"
She pursed her lips and studied her long green fingernails. "Not gonna say," she said petulantly, "unless you say pretty please. And give me a tongue kiss."
"I can cope with this without you," he told her.
"Hah! Gonna be fun seeing you try."
"Dancing in the Streets" boomed to an end, and the crowd fell exhausted to the floor like string-cut puppets.
"Makes you all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?" the green demoness said as she surveyed the gasping dancers with a dreamy smile.
Near their bunker, a prostate Blossom, collapsed over the stomach of a prone Anya, twitched. "I'm so going to get you, Butt."
Buttercup glared at her over a bunkered chair. "This was your idea, Miss Bossy. And don't call me that."
"What are you doing?" Xander protested from his sprawl by the door. "You're letting the demons call the shots, G- Man?"
Giles and Buttercup exchanged looks. She handed him the 'Disco Inferno' three pack, and he took one of the CDs out of the case.
"No-no-no-no!" Xander yelled even as he staggered to his feet along with the rest of the crowd to the opening strains of 'Boogy Woogy Dancing Shoes'. "Giles, we'll be good."
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," Oz said as he popped a broccoli floweret into his mouth.
"Nonsense." Giles sat back to enjoy the show. "I'm simply ensuring my audience gets sufficient exercise to make up for all the junk food they've consumed tonight."
"Looks like fun!" Devon enthused. He'd retained his French foreign legion garb and looked dashingly Beau Gestic as he jumped over the barricade to join the dancing crowd.
"Dang," said Buttercup. "There goes the third cutest guy in the pit, and the only one in uniform. I had plans."
Giles and Oz exchanged looks. "You could join him," Oz suggested.
"You'd make a very picturesque couple," Giles agreed. "Sprung from the tales of Sir Richard Burton."
"Do I look like a young 'Liz Taylor?" She fluttered her dark eyelashes at them.
They assured her that this was indeed the case.
Buttercup stuck her tongue out at them. "'Cept I'm not a dancing maniac. Good try, guys, but I like being at the seat of power."
"Behind every despot is a woman who wants to sit on his lap," Oz continued with the quotage.
"When did you become so loquacious?" Giles said irritably, and pulled his LP case up into his lap. Buttercup glowered at it.
"There's Buffy," Oz nodded at the door to the broadcast booth. "She's dancing and she looks mad. That's all I'm saying."
"Better put on 'Disco Demon'," Buttercup said. "You're complicated now, whether you like it or not, Rupie. Look how she's glaring at you."
"Your sister demons look no more enchanted with the situation," Giles pointed out. "We have the tigers by the proverbial tails, I fear. Time to start sending everyone home."
The green demon groupie shook her silky head. "Can't. The realization spell is a super solipsism. The whole party is like a self-contained universe now."
He considered this. "No one can leave then? Even if they want to? Even if I tell them to?"
She blew a big green bubble gum bubble, then sucked it in again and tucked it back under her tongue. "Yep. Nope. Nope. We're in party limbo."
Buffy had danced her way grimly halfway to the DJ's pit. Giles sighed. "This may be a mistake, but these are times of . . ." He put The Doors album on the CD player.
"'quiet desperation'?" Oz said loudly.
"Are you mad?" Giles shouted back, and synched to "Break on Through".
Buttercup and Oz ducked under the DJ's table as the crowd, en masse, threw themselves at every potential exit. The building shook. Giles hastily passed his LP case down to the musician and groupie, then joined them under the table. "I hope that the University is up to date on their earthquake insurance."
The building shook again. Buttercup threw her arms around them. "In case we don't make it," she declared, and gave Giles a tonsil-tickling kiss. Oz fended her off when she turned to him. "Sorry. Taken."
Giles managed to stem a fit of coughing. Being kissed by a demon with a long forked tongue wasn't as much fun as he would have guessed it might be. Plus she'd been chewing on eucalyptus leaves or something similarly vile.
Jim Morrison sang 'break on through to the other side' for the fifth time and the sound of breaking glass coincided with the definite sensation of something dropping away around them. The lights flickered and turned a sallow pink, and the volume of the music became at the same time louder and more distant, as if racing from them.
"That's done it, I think," Giles said. He poked his head out from under the desk for a look around. The crowd continued to dance frenziedly.
"One might ask about the quality of 'it'," Oz said, staying put.
"Kewl," said Buttercup. "But can't you play a song about annoying, overly violent blonde bimbos dropping dead?"
A worse-for-the-wear Buffy loomed, or rather danced and loomed, up to the DJ's bunker. Gritting her teeth with a scary determination, she executed a stylish high disco hop and landed in their midst. "Are you possessed?" She shook Giles until his glasses rattled, then turned to shake Oz. "Well, is he?"
"It's Friday night," Oz said, not resisting.
Buffy stared at him, while Oz smiled serenely back. "You guys," she said disgustedly. She snaked out a hand to nab Buttercup, who was about to scamper over the barrier. "I don't know whose fault all this is, chickie, but I'd rather pummel you anyway."
"Hey, I'm just a girl!" Buttercup yelled. "Yeah okay, I'm a demon too. But a girly demon. And we girls just wanna have --"
Buffy caught Oz's movement out of the corner of one eye. "No!" She lunged for him. Unfortunately that meant turning her back on Giles, who grabbed her from behind and pitched her back over the makeshift barrier. With a small assist from Oz, Buttercup went tumbling after the Slayer.
"Cyndi Lauper is not 70's," Giles told Oz.
"Sorry. The power of suggestion," Oz said. "I don't think we're in Kansas any more." He sniffed the air. "Maybe a brimstony version of Topeka."
Giles sorted frantically through his record collection. "We've broken through to the other side. The dimension the demon girls come from, I suspect. I need something that will get us back home." He looked up at Oz. "Kansas?"
"You've already played 'Dust in the Wind'."
"No, damnit, the quote." Giles yanked an album from the case. "You've given me an idea. I just hope we don't end up in some bizarre demonic version of L Frank Baum's home town. Or, worse, the MGM equivalent."
Oz craned over to examine the record on the turntable. "That has to be a bootleg."
"No, there was a very small press. I prefer this version to the Tim Curry movie rendition." Giles settled back to watch the girls bopping with frantic glee about the broadcast booth, the males in the booth barely managing to keep to their feet and thereby untrampled. Buffy looked torn between exhaustion and murder. Poor girl. She'd had a long night, and her broken hand had to hurt.
The last bopple of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" had no sooner played, when Giles cut straight to the 1990 Rocky Horror Show London Stage version of "Going Home".
Every person in the building seemed to stagger to a standstill simultaneously. Several of the woman fell to the floor. Buffy kept to her feet, but only by hanging onto Blossom, who in turn was draped around Xander's neck.
Giles picked up his microphone and keyed it on. "It is time, you pathetic children. Go home. This is a radio station, not a rave."
Like somnambulistic three-year olds, the students, punks, hippies, film makers, and demons stumbled out towards the exits, some of rubbing at their eyes, some of them bawling. The three demon groupies vanished with pink, green, and blue poofs! as the building returned to its plane of reality and they to theirs.
"Cool," Oz said admiringly.
"Yeah," gasped Xander, and collapsed against the Dingoes crates barrier, Anya swooning in his arms. "Right, Really cool. Don't do any more of that, okay?"
"It worked," Giles said. "For the large part. Why are you still here?"
"Possibly because my wonderful little bachelor pad isn't very homey?" Xander guessed, with the air of one not caring much. "Oh my god, what have you done to Anya?"
The ex-demoness stirred groggily in his arms.
"She's perhaps a little fagged out from the penultimate track," Giles suggested. "I wouldn't have thought that you'd object to the teddy, feather boa, and fish nets."
"Well, not as such --" Xander began, then Anya sat up. "Xander, what did they do to you?" she exclaimed.
Xander sat up, got a good look at his own state of dishabile and blushed violently. "Excuse me," he said, and bolted for the door, red feather stole fluttering in his wake.
Anya staggered to her feet, wobbling violently on her new spiked heels. She had an even lustier gleam than usual in her eyes. "Xander! Wait for me!" She fell flat on her face on her rush out the door, but was instantly up and away again.
"Guess Anya's home is where her heart is." Oz smiled at Willow as she wobbled through the door on her own unfamiliar spiked heels. "Excuse me. I have a date with a redhead and a feather boa."
"Go. Leave me in peace," Giles said. He surveyed the broadcast booth, which was adrift in white sand, figs, feathers, and Dingoes cds. "Oz . . ."
Oz looked back, as gathered Willow against his side.
"Thank you for helping out tonight."
Oz smiled and ushered Willow out the door.
"Okay, that was fun," Lili hauled herself half over the crate barrier. She was dressed in a black teddy, Cyndi Lauper glad-rag skirt, and a harem girls veils. "You sure put on a hell of a radio show, Rupert, but how are you going to top it?"
"Didn't you want to go home now?" Giles asked curiously.
"Oh, well --" she huffed as she dragged herself over the barrier and fell into the co-dj's seat. "I got evicted from my apartment last week, and I've been sort've camping here at the station until I find new digs." She looked up at the clock over the door. "Your first show is almost done. Congrats." Lili offered him a black-lace gloved hand. He accepted it with a strange but real feeling of having earned her congratulations. She leaned in towards him then and smiled flirtatiously. "One for the road, partner."
"What the hell," he said, and leaned in to return the kiss.
"NO SMOOCHIES!" a voice interrupted them. Giles and Lili looked at a sadly tattered and drooping Buffy as she crawled across the floor towards them. An almost demonic gleam flashed in her eye as she fixed a Slayer's glare on Lili.
"She's very monogamous, isn't she?" Lili sighed.
"She's not my girlfriend," Giles said.
"Well, geez, in that case she's just being territorial. Not to mention unenvironmental."
Giles turned to put a final album on the turntable. "Unenvironmental?"
"Why keep a good hottie out of circulation if you're not going to take advantage of him?"
Buffy mustered a supernatural burst of energy and hauled herself back over the barrier to collapse in a feathery puddle at Giles' feet. "You guys are so dead." She managed to lift her head to glare at the turntable overhead. "What is that? Giles, you've been playin' wiggiest music."
"'Mr. Sandman'," Giles said. "It should put everyone to sleep until the spell has run down."
"Won' work on me," Buffy said crossly. "I've reached sanctuary now." And she lay her head on her arms and promptly fell asleep.
"She's exhausted, poor thing," Giles explained to Lili. "I'd best take her back to her dormitory."
Lili pulled Giles' scotch out from under the desk and had a long drink. "There's a pull-away over in Trent's office," she suggested. "Put her in there."
Giles eyed the floor space between the DJ's desk and the door. "Perhaps we'd best wait until the song is over. . . ." He stared at the dark, stern figure that appeared in the doorway.
"Hey, Trent!" Lili waved the bottle of Scotch. "You're just in time."
A tall black man, dred-locked and svelte in black leather pants and a black and red Georg Philipp Telemann tshirt, moved into the office, regarding them with all the enthusiasm of a cat watching a pool party. "And why wouldn't I be? It's my shift." He settled his eyes on Buffy. "If you're going to put your leftovers in my office, the least you could do is leave her with some energy," he told Lili sternly.
Giles growled at him and pulled the floppy Buffy protectively to his side.
"Gawd, don't worry Rupert," Lili said with a roll of her eyes. "Trent is either the most gentlemanly or the most hard- to-get guy I've ever known."
"You're just p.o.'ed, girl, because you expended a bottle of Castello Banfi Cabernet trying to get me into the sack." Trent moved to the DJ's desk. Lili hopped up to give him her seat. "I take it that your first show was a raging success?" he asked Giles with a cocked eyebrow.
"We didn't do this. It was all those film students." Lili nonetheless quickly offered Trent the Lamphoraig. He took it from her without comment and pulled a chipped ceramic mug out from one of the desk drawers.
"I take a very serious approach to my music," Giles said defensively, as the station manager emptied the last of the bottle into the mug. "It wasn't my fault that all these -- film students -- got loose in the offices."
"Lord deliver me from Friday nights," Trent said in resignation. He pulled the Chordette's cd from the player. "It's midnight, and I am Trent Wanders here to put the children to bed and bring you the real adult music." He set a cd onto the player and switched it on. The dulcet sounds of a Chopin nocturne rippled up from the station speakers.
"Trent is into the real classics," Lili told Giles, a small swoon in her voice. "You know -- Beethoven, Bach, and -- uh Beethoven. And you should see him inn his reading glasses."
"You two can go now. Please," Trent informed Giles. "I won't ask you what you're planning on doing with the camel out in the hallway, but it looks as if it needs to go walkies."
Giles sighed. "Let me put Buffy to bed, and I'll see what I can do."
Lili led Giles, carrying a snoring Buffy under one arm and his LP case under the other, out into the studio offices and over to the small room at the back. "There you go," she beckoned to the already pulled-out bed.
Giles eased Buffy down on top of it and covered her with a blanket. "Where are you going to sleep?" he asked Lili. "I take it that this is where you've been staying."
"Oh well, there's this all night coffee shop next to campus. Wouldn't be the first time I nursed a cuppa until morning. 'Less you've got a spare couch or something at your place?" She grinned at him. "I make a mean pop tart."
Buffy muttered threateningly in her sleep.
Giles looked down at her and smiled. "Let's see about the camel first, and then worry about contingencies, shall we?" He hooked a hand under Lili's elbow and guided her out of Trent's office, shutting the door carefully behind them. They paused to survey the debris of the studio office. "I was hoping all this was a mirage. Do you suppose Mr. Wanders expects us to clean it up?"
"Nah." Lili stepped carefully over a slumbering Mick Jagger and held out her hands for Giles to follow. "That's what student interns are for. It'll be good for them, teach them responsibility and all that."
They found the camel still out in the hallway. It had settled into a disgruntled, dusty heap and looked in no mood to go anywhere. A diaphanous blue veil hung off of one of its ears, and a glowing winged figure snored between its knees. Giles and Lili stared at the figure.
"I do not," Giles said, "recollect playing any songs with angels in them."
"Is it a real angel, do you think?" Lili pondered. "I mean, my mom believes in them, but she also believes that putting razor blades under crystal pyramids will sharpen them."
"I think I would rather not find out," Giles decided, noting the uncapped bottles of bourbon, scotch, and beer poking out from beneath the angel's sprawled wings. There was little in the annals of Watcher history about angels or even about any beings resembling angels. Certainly nothing about what to expect from an angel caught in the nimbus of a George Thorogood song. "The camel and the angel can see to each other's devices." He nevertheless edged close enough to nip onto one of the bottles that looked to be only half-empty. "Hardly a fair exchange for my Lamphoraig, but oh well."
Lili hooked her arm through his, and they headed downstairs together, stepping over party debris as they went. Miraculously, there was very little fallen masonry, but then the building had supposedly been built to earthquake specifications.
They stepped out into a silent, cool, peaceful night and paused a moment in momentary shock.
"You never know how quiet quiet is until you leave a loud party," Lili declared. They looked at each other. "You know," she said, "I'm not sleepy at all."
"Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing," Giles agreed. "Do you have any ideas?"
She grinned. "Well, okay, yeah, there's this party that these musician friends of mine throw once a week. They jam and dance and talk about all these neat deep books that they're reading and jam some more. I warn you though. They're kind of weird."
"Believe it or not, I think I can cope," Giles told her with a small smile.
END