"Where are you taking me, you naughty man?" Lena said, and slipped a hand down the back of his pants.
Giles shifted her weight forward and stepped up his pace. He nudged at the chemistry lab door with his shoulder. Sure enough, somebody had blocked the door from the other side. He knocked loudly, and thought he heard male giggling from inside.
He let Lena slide down his shoulder and set her on her feet. "Please tell your crewmen to unblock this door."
"But of course, tesoro." Cigarette in mouth, Lena was rummaging through her purse again. "Do you have matches, Rupert?" She produced her lighter. "Never mind."
Giles plucked the lighter from her hand. "We don't know what they're mixing up in there."
Lena took the cigarette from her mouth. "Oh very well." She rapped soundly on the door. "Boys," she called out. "We are running a tight schedule. Please let's not play amusing games until we've done our work."
The giggling behind the door silenced, and then the door rattled as something heavy was dragged out from behind it. Lena raised an eyebrow at Giles. "See, bambino? Firm yet tenderly appreciative. One must develop the proper working relationship with one's crew."
The door creaked open and a craggy face peered out at them. "What do you want?" the man said suspiciously.
"We need to come in and see what you clever boys are up to."
"We're going to surprise you," the old man said. Somebody behind him started giggling again.
Lena frowned. "Russell, you know I don't take well to surprises."
"Oh, you'll get a bang out of this," Russell said, and started cracking up.
"Stop it," Lena snapped. "Right now." She reached for the doorknob, but Russell slammed the door in her face. "Russell, dearest," she said. "You're going to lose your primo studio parking space if you continue to piss me off."
More giggles issued from behind the door.
Giles steered Lena to one side. "Let me try." He turned and kicked the door open.
"Muy macho, darling," Lena gushed. "There's nothing like a forceful father figure to keep the children in line."
Four special effects men scurried about the lab. Giles stepped inside and flipped on the overhead lights. The sharp smells of sulphur and tobacco smoke were heavy in the air, and other less identifiable smells. A large puddle of some iridescent green liquid was pooled on the floor near one of the counters. Something was smoking in one of the sinks. Bottles had been pulled from the supply shelves and lay in emptied clusters over the counters. Empty Band Candy boxes and crumpled packs of cigarettes were scattered among the bottles.
"Well this is just wonderful." Lena glared about her, with her hands on her hips. "I thought you boys knew better than to eat in your work area."
"Russell started it," one of the special effects men said with a smirk.
"Shut yer yap," Russell growled, and hit his colleague on the arm, jolting a burning cigar butt from his hand.
Giles noticed then that the man was missing several fingers on that hand. They were all missing one or more fingers. He hurried to stomp out the still burning cigarette, which lay next to the pool of green liquid. Russell sneered at him. "This is my crew, and they'll do whatever I tell them to do. We never get to have any real fun."
"We have a sequence to shoot in fifteen minutes," Lena said irritably. "Get the special effects out to the set now. Or do I have to get Rory in here to have a word with you?"
"We're not afraid of Rory," Russell said defiantly. He puffed furiously on a cigarette. Except for the fellow who'd just dropped his cigar, they were all smoking, Giles noted in alarm.
He grabbed Russell by the back of the shirt and shook him. "Then pay attention to me. The building is my responsibility, and my temper is running thin. Put out the cigarettes and clean this mess up or I'm going to run your asses through the disposal over there. Do we have an understanding here?"
"All right," Russell said sullenly, refusing to meet his eyes.
"And I'm vetoing any and all explosions." He looked at Lena.
She was shaking her head. "I'm the smoochies expert. The explosions are Rory's thing, so you'll have to talk to him about them. I think you've made your point with Russell there, put him down?" She pulled Giles aside. "I appreciate your help darling, and I'm swooning in admiration of your style -- but let me handle Russell and the crew from now on. They are responsible for the explosion in your scene. You don't want to tick them off, particularly given the bizarre state tonight of their already strange minds."
Giles stared at her. "Do you deliberately make a habit out of listening to only 50 percent of what people are saying to you, or am I somehow using the wrong language here? What part of the 'no explosions' dictum is failing to get through to you?"
Lena gazed at him over the tops of her glasses with intensely violet eyes. Giles attempted to stare her down. "Stop that," he finally said, with a squirm. "I'm not going to let you put yourself above the rules."
She smiled. "Don't pull that one on me, Ripper. Why are you so worried about rules that you don't give a hang for?"
"I've got a responsibility --" he began. She grabbed him by the ears and kissed him. "-- you're not going to get around the rules by --" She kissed him again. "Damn." He started to pull her closer, but a furtive movement behind her caught his attention. The special effects men were huddled together snickering at them. They were also tucking various bottles, boxes and other objects under their shirts. "Put those back now," he snapped at them over Lean's shoulder.
The men glared at him.
Lena sighed and wriggled out of Giles' grip. "The school will be reimbursed, Rupert." She turned to look at the crew. "I'm certain that we're taking nothing more than we need to set up the scene, yes my dear boys?"
They stared at her stonily for a moment, then Russell pulled a beaker of potassium nitrate from his pants pocket and put it on the counter. He followed it with a bunson burner, several packets of powdered chemicals, and a formaldehyded frog. His crew followed suit, producing a heap of bottles, beakers, flasks, and other unidentifiable but alarming-looking containers.
"Do we have everything ready for the shoot now?" Lena said patiently. She slipped a hand into Giles' coat pocket and reclaimed her lighter. "Good boys. You toddle down the hall and set up. When you're done, I want you to come back here and put everything back the way you found it."
The four men shuffled out the door -- and burst out giggling as soon as they were on the other side.
"All's well that ends well." Lena lit her cigarette. "Now where were we?" She grinned at him.
"Are you certain they're going to behave themselves once they're on the set?"
"Absolutely, darling." Lena backed him up against the counter. "They're licensed professionals."
"I wish you'd stop saying that," Giles said. "The phrase is beginning to make my hair stand on end."
"As long as you're being hypersensitive. . ." She wound her free hand behind his neck and touched noses with him. "We've got ten minutes to kill."
"TEN MINUTES!" Debi Marble bawled loudly from the open doorway. "Mr. Vitali said for me to come remind you, Ms. Wertheimer."
"Thank you, darling girl!" Lena said, still looking into Giles' eyes.
"Do you need any help rehearsing?" Debi said. "I could be the stand-in, you know. I was stand-in for the lead in my high school production of . . ."
"Yes dear, you're obviously very experienced," Lena said. "We don't need any help, thank you. Did Rory sign you on as one of his extras? Why don't you go practice running up and down the hallway?"
"Nope, I get to get mowed down." Debi tripped in. "Besides I can't run very well in these platforms. Mr. Vitali says it'll be fucking great. I'll flee, stumble over my own feet, and the knife-wielding psycho will get me. He says it'll make a great moral about wearing practical footwear. Plus there's no fun in chasing women who are always falling over their own feet. He's a card. Euwww! Who blew snot all over the floor here?"
"I can see we're not going to get any more practice in now," Lena sighed. "All right darlings, back to the set then." She grabbed Giles and Debi each by an elbow and turned them towards the door. "Do we need to round up our little ingenue?"
"Which engineer?" Debi said. "You mean that cute sound guy?"
"Darling, you're a sublimely representative woman to be fronting for this fine example of an American educational institution," Lena said, steering them both down the hallway to the library. She brought them to a halt in front of the doors and released Debi with a pat on her arm.
"Huh?" said Debi.
"The sound engineer is present and doing his job as expected," Lena said with the gentle patience of a teacher of small children. "But my starlet is still adrift somewhere in the building. If you can find her for me and bring her back to the set, I will be your love slave forever."
"Okay!" Debi said. She started to trot down the hallway, then turned with a frown. "You were kidding about that 'love slave' stuff, right?"
Lena shot Giles a sideways look. "Yes, dear child."
"Because sometimes I don't know whether you Hollywood types are kidding or not."
"I promise if I take it in my mind to jump your bones I'll let you know."
"Oh. Okay. I didn't want you to think I was being naive. I scored thirty-two on the Purity Test. Just that I haven't been around many Hollywood types lately. For all I know you're all into that whole bondage scene all the time." She looked wide-eyed at Giles then, as if startled to rediscover him there. "Don't think I'm into that stuff though! I mean, not unless you are. I've had a couple of boyfriends that were into it and you know you go along to get them to quit hassling you about it and oh Mr. Henderson liked me to tie him to a tractor tire when we --"
"Dear, please don't go into the whole itinerary now," Lena said. "Someday we'll have an afternoon and get trashed and tell each other all our sordid secrets -- we might need a week for mine -- but at the moment I have a scene to shoot and you have a missing actress to locate for me."
"Right! Better hurry!" Debi rushed off on her errand.
Lena huffed in exasperation, then turned back to Giles. "Now, where were we?"
"TWO MINUTES!" Rory Vitali bellowed out the door. "Where the fuck have you been, Wertheimer? I didn't go to the trouble of blackmailing you so you could go shag your leading man instead of filming my scene." He slammed back into the library.
Lena sighed, dropped her cigarette on the floor and killed it with her heel. "No smoochies for the dedicated. Don't worry. I'm a stubborn bitch when it comes to my snugglies. But at the moment, destiny awaits."
"I'm bloody tired of destiny," Giles complained. He was fatigued and, despite his best efforts, his bloodstream was getting buzzed from all the second-hand smoke. The stress was apparently triggering a mild Band Candy flashback -- and he didn't care.
Lena patted him on the head. "Don't pout. It's adorably jejune and very actorly of you, but we don't have time for it."
"Here we are!" Debi Marble came clattering back up the hallway with a bewildered Cordelia in tow. Wardrobe had exchanged Cordelia's thigh-high miniskirt for a calf-length red silk dress. "Wow you guys are magic makers. I almost didn't recognize her when I passed her in the hall. I thought she was somebody important.
That roused Cordelia out of her daze, and she gave the secretary a shove. "Hey, I was Homecoming Queen!"
"Last year you were Homecoming Queen," Debi said. "This year you're just a photo in the yearbook. You didn't even make any of the club listings. If you're not going to hang with popular people, you've gotta at least try to look busy."
Cordelia glared at her. "I've been busy doing stuff. Important stuff." She switched her glare to Giles. "What are you staring at?"
"Well, you," he admitted. "It's a different look for you."
"Mmmm," said Lena. She stepped forward to pull the curls from behind Cordelia's ears. "She did turn out nice, didn't she? Good enough for you, Rupert love? Good! Places people! We so need to get started; I'm not dying to spend the evening here and Rory's got a schedule to keep."
"What does she mean, am I good enough for you?" Cordelia asked Giles indignantly as the director herded them into the library.
"I -- oh Lord. I'll tell you later," Giles said. He'd caught sight of the book cage across the room. The door was wide open and there were people milling around inside. "Where are Xander and Willow?"
"How should I know?" Cordelia said, dragging at his jacket and preventing him from getting away from her. "Has anybody bothered to tell me anything tonight? I'm feeling like Barbie here, Giles. I mean the new outfit is great and I could get used to the hair style, but what's the point if nobody's paying any attention to me?"
"I'll tell you what," Giles said. "Go to Ms. Wertheimer and Mr. Vitali and try to assert some authority and control over this mess. I guarantee you'll get more attention than you can cope with. And much good may it do you." He gave her wrist a complex twist that neatly loosened her grip on his jacket, and he darted away into the crowd.
Xander, Willow, and Boris the borzoi were in the book cage. The teens were trying to guard the weapons cache, but had apparently arrived too late to prevent it from being rifled.
"This stuff is great!" one of the prop men -- obviously one of Rory's crew -- was enthusing as he hefted up a mace. "We could do a smash and crush bloody mediaeval epic with the crap out of this locker along!"
Giles pulled a handful of crosses from the filing cabinet and shoved the largest into the vampire's face.
The prop man yelped and dropped the mace, recoiling against the cage wall with a resounding crash. "What the fuck?"
"That is private property," Giles said, "and I'll thank you to get your filthy hands off of my collection and stay out of here."
"I just washed my hands!" the vampire protested.
"Out!" the Watcher yelled. "That goes for all of you!" Brandishing the cross, he herded up the lot of them, Xander and Willow and dog included, and forced them out the door. "Great lot of help you three are," he snapped at his supposed back-ups as he relocked the book cage and lashed one of the middling-sized crosses to the bars with a roll of book mending tape.
Boris whimpered and scuttled under a chair.
Giles snatched a quarterstaff out from under the arm of one of the fleeing prop men and gave him a clout on the back of the head for good measure. The vampire whirled and shifted into game face. Giles shoved the big cross at him again.
The vampire leapt back and snarled, "You watch where you put that, swine, or I'll suck you so dry your bones will crack."
A heavy hand seized the prop man by the back of the coat and hauled him straight off his feet. The vampire howled like an alarmed cat and trying to twist free.
"Crap," Rory said sadly, and turned the hanging crewman around to blow cigarette smoke in his face. "Gordon, what did I tell you fucking morons last night? What do I tell you fucking morons every night?"
"Keep the set clean?" the prop man squeaked.
Rory looked at Giles and reached over to yank the quarterstaff from his hands. He shattered it over one knee and used the jagged end to stake the prop man. "NO SNACKING ON THE CAST!" Rory bellowed from inside a cloud of vampire dust. "How many times do I have to repeat this to you morons anyway? You motherfuckers have the steepest learning curve this side of Everest."
All sound and activity in the library had hushed, and everybody was staring at Rory and Giles while trying to pretend not to stare.
"Sorry about the quarterstaff, Ripper." Rory tossed the makeshift stake to Giles.
The Watcher pondered the jagged point for a moment, then looked up at the director's cigarette. "Speaking of learning curves: I thought I earlier mentioned the 'No Smoking' rule."
"Yeah," Rory sneered, "and there's a difference, kid, between making up the rules and enforcing them." He blew a big cloud of smoke in Giles' direction.
"Uh oh," Willow said. "Giles, you've got your scary face on."
"Willow," Giles said. "I want you to take Xander and check on the mess they're making out in the hallway. I want you to talk to the tipsy special effects men and make them tell you what they've got planned."
"But --" she looked at him, then at Rory Vitali.
"Now," Giles said.
"Maybe we'd better stick around and make sure you --" Xander began.
Giles looked at him.
Xander swallowed. "Going now." He and Willow hustled for the door. "And I thought his scary face couldn't get any scarier," he was whispering loudly to Willow as they reached the exit. He realized that his intended whisper was booming audibly in the hushed room and looked back in alarm at Giles.
"And stay where you're put for a change!" Giles yelled after them.
"Having trouble with your minions?" Rory grinned. "You've got to knock your people about the place a bit, Ripper, or they're never going to take you seriously."
"This is my library," Giles said. "I am in control here. You'll play by my rules or you can bloody well take your toys and go torment somebody else. There is a 'No Smoking' rule in force here."
"You'd damn well better enforce it then," Rory said cheerfully.
Giles took a hard swing at the vampire's head with a point side of the large cross. Rory ducked, but not quickly enough to prevent its grazing him in the temple. "Fucking hell!" he yelled as he tumbled to the floor, slapping at his burning hair. Giles pressed his attack with the shattered quarterstaff, but Rory had rolled and was scuttling out of the way. His crew rapidly cleared a path for him. "Hah, lucky hit, you horse's ass!" Rory yelled back as he vaulted over a cluster of sound equipment. "You couldn't hit the tit of a sleeping cow if you got under her and aimed!"
Giles kicked a piece of sound equipment out of his way and pursued the director across the room. He peripherally noted that the vampiric members of the film crew were keeping studiously out of it. All the better opportunity to dust this pillock once and for all, he thought grimly.
Rory proved to be slippery in this respect however. He managed to make a round of the library and leapt up to the top of the checkout counter to face the Watcher down. "There, that's it!" he crowed. "You're fucking pissed off now, that's just what I want in my scene!"
"What about my scene?" Lena strode up to the counter and glared up at her co-director. Giles made an attempt to climb up after Rory, but she threw her arms around him from behind and forcibly dragged him down. "You've turned my tender and timid lover into Jack the Ripper, Rory you bastard!"
"No worries!" Rory jumped down from the counter. "We'll film my knife-wielding psycho scene first! Where's my knife- wielding psycho? Jeff! Get Grover's butt in here!"
A cluster of vampire stuntmen thrust a hulking human actor up front.
"Fucking great!" Rory said, then looked at the actor with a frown. He looked at Giles, then looked at the actor again. "Crap, my victim's looking scarier than my psycho."
"Great method acting, man!" Grover gushed to Giles. "Uh, he is just getting into the part isn't he, Rory?"
"Quiet, you annoying pinhead," Rory growled, munching down on his cigarette. "I'm thinking this out."
"Lena, get your hand off my crotch," Giles said through gritted teeth.
"Are you coherent again then, sweetling?" she said. "Tres bien! Please don't attack Rory while he's mapping his shoot. You might get hurt." She kissed the back of his neck and released him.
"Put out the cigarette, Rory," Giles said.
The director looked up at him, startled perhaps at the familiarity that Giles hadn't used with him before, then dropped the cigarette and casually stomped it out. "I can work with this," he declared with a grin. "Everybody on the hallway set NOW!" He grabbed his stunt psycho by the collar and headed for the doors, dragging the hapless man behind him.
His leather-clad crew scrambled to follow, pausing only to snatch up various bits of equipment. Lena's gaudy mortal crewpeople were left behind looking like a flock of bewildered flamingos in the aftermath of the stampede.
"Bloody hell, what now?" Giles said.
Lena patted him on the arm and set him free. "Part of the creative process, caro. You're cast and Rory is willing to work with your moods. He's very much the impulsive boy. Please do try to cut him some slack and I expect that the two of you will be the very best of friends."
"Great. The best of friends with a blood-sucking lunatic. That's all my reputation needs at the moment to give it an extra glow."
She eased the quarterstaff half from his hands and set it on the counter. "Don't question my judgement on these matters. I'm always right. But do stay pissed off at Rory in the meantime -- he'll love you all the more for it."
Cordelia popped up from her hiding place behind the checkout counter. "Giles, what's going on? I'm still totally confused."
"I suggest you stay in the land of confusion," he said. "You'll be happier." He felt a wet object nudging his hand and looked down to see Boris the borzoi peering up at him with I-don't-know-what-I-did-wrong-but-I'm-so-sorry-I-was-a- bad-doggy eyes.
"There, you see?" Lena bent down to pet the dog. "You do have friends here, Rupert. Trust us to keep your best interests to heart. Now let's all go out to the hallway and get Rory's knife-wielding psycho scene in the can. Then we can get to the good part."
Cordelia was scritching Boris's other ear. "Good part?"
"The smoochies scene," the older woman said with satisfaction.
"Oh good. I love smoochies scenes," Cordelia purred. "Which hot actors are going to be in it?"
Lena eyed her with amusement. "You really are confused, aren't you, poor dear? I think I like it -- it's very engaging. Let's keep you there for the moment. I promise everything will be untangled for you soon enough."
"What are you talking about?" Cordy whined as Lena shoved them towards the doors. "Why won't anybody explain anything to me?"