Tribulations - Chapter 5

They've lost control, Moira told herself. The bloody fools have lost control.

Whatever hellish monster they'd called, the thing had broken its bonds, and the grey men could no longer contain it. She'd felt the wrench in the curtain between dimensions, and then the sudden end to the drain on her own powers, that ending nearly as painful as the violation itself.

Moira had caught the merest glimpse of something dreadful as the creature's relentless passage from the underworld caved in the far wall of her prison. The unbreakable mirror had long since shattered, spewing shards of glass across the formerly white matting, and past the remaining silvery jags that still lined its border, she could see that one of her captors lay dead. Another stood in shocked silence, apparently driven out of all sense by the horror he'd witnessed.

Slowly, painfully, Moira picked herself up from the mats Even that slight exercise brought on a violent coughing fit, one it took some minutes to quell. A deadly chill filled the air, and her skin puckered into gooseflesh. She wiped the blood from her face with her hands, shuddering. The creature had left behind a wake of undiluted evil, one that seemed to cover her body, and to fill her mouth and lungs with an indescribable foulness.

Treading carefully, if unsteadily, avoiding the splintered glass, Moira stepped over the rim that marked the mirror's lower edge and into the bare room from which she'd been observed. Without the least squeamishness, she felt for the pulse in the dead man's neck, assuring herself that he had, indeed, passed on to his just reward. The Watcher--Wainwright, she believed his name had been--lay sprawled over a canister of some sort of gas, most likely one of those with which they'd poisoned her.

"Hoist with your own petard, is it?" she murmured, fighting down the rising fury that threatened to overwhelm her. A series of red and green lights from the Watchers' recording devices provided the only color--other than that, the walls, floor and ceiling had been painted black, turning the room into a negative of her own cell. In all the gloom, Moira hadn't spotted at first that someone had left a black Mackintosh hanging from a peg at the back of the door. She slipped the garment over her arms, shivering as it passed over her painful, sensitive skin, then belted it round her waist.

Moira felt no inclination to linger, if for no other reason than that the floor now slanted alarmingly toward a precipice, torn girders and pieces of wood dangling into darkness. Neither did she feel an overwhelming need to rescue the catatonic man--and yet she did, grasping hold of his arm and turning him round to face her. She knew him, Moira realized. Chalmers, his name was. Philip Chalmers. He'd always been a soft-spoken, polite fellow, and she'd never thought him a particular enemy--and yet here he was.

"I fully intend to leave here," Moira told him, in a voice that sounded hardly better than Rupert's after the long hours of chanting he'd performed to save Buffy's life a few days previously. Her throat burned as if it had been stung inside by a hundred wasps, and she knew that, just at the moment, she was running on nerves and adrenaline, resources that would quickly deplete themselves.

"Whether you come with me or not is your choice," she told Chalmers. "However, I believe I'd be disinclined to trust too heavily in the stability of this room."

In answer, Chalmers began to weep, and Moira gave him a brisk shove toward the chamber's single door. She tried the knob and discovered it locked--and when she glanced at the crying man, she found him merely standing helpless with his hands dangling by his sides.

Very well, then, she thought. If that's how it's to be, you useless wanker. Moira grinned a bit at her own choice of words--in times of stress, the rougher language of her youth seemed to return to her, and she could not help but find it appropriate to the situation. She delved into Chalmers's multitudinous pockets, until she at last located a heavy ring of keys in the left-hand side of his jacket.

Now, which is it too be? Moira knew a simple spell for matching lock to key, but at that moment felt too knackered even to attempt it. Instead, she found the proper key by merest chance on her seventh try, twisting it in the lock with more force than she intended, a sense of urgency gathering in the back of her brain. The door swung open with a comical groaning of hinges, like something from an old-fashioned horror film.

The way out allowed her egress to a maze of corridors, and there Moira followed her instincts, running down hallways and climbing stairs that seemed so alike as to be virtually indistinguishable. Despite that, the identical passageways led her at last to the surface--or, more accurately, to one of the storage rooms that belonged to the Archives.

To see where her circuitous route had brought her made Moira give yet another slight, bitter smile. She wondered if Mr. Briggs had known what lay beneath his Sanctum Sanctorum. Moira rather thought not--she'd certainly possessed no personal knowledge of these hidden halls and chambers.

Moira left the storage room, passing into the Archives proper. There sat Mr. Briggs himself, a tiny, shortsighted man with odd bristling, hair that always reminded her rather strongly of a hedgehog's spines. If he'd a given name, Moira had never known it--everyone at the Compound called the Archivist either by his surname, or perhaps added the honorific "Mr." as a token of esteem or affection. Briggs was a strange little fellow, but she'd always liked and trusted him wholeheartedly. He'd been at the Compound years before her time, and would undoubtedly remain there for years to come.

Her footsteps made no sound whatsoever on the carpeted floors, and yet Briggs raised his head, as if scenting her presence--and perhaps, Moira thought ironically, she had become a bit fragrant during her captivity.

"My dear Ladyship," the Archivist said, in his soft, small, proper voice. Moira moved to his side, and Briggs sat looking up at her, seeming unalarmed by her battered, raincoat-clad appearance. As always, his posture was perfect, his spectacles immaculately polished, his hands smooth-skinned and tidy. Not for the first time, Moira found herself wondering if the man was even human--he never, that she could discover, had been young, and yet he never seemed to grow older.

To her surprise, Mr. Briggs reached to take her hand--she'd never before seen him touch anyone. The feel of his warm skin on hers provided such an exquisite sensation it nearly broke her. She drew in a gasping breath that, in turn, made her cough again. The archivist gave a small, tsking sound.

"My dear Lady LeFaye," he chastised. "The state of your hands."

For the first time, Moira noticed the blood smeared all over her palms, and the ragged nails and cuticles, from where she must have torn at the mats. She could not remember doing so, and the lack of memory disturbed her. "I know," she murmured in return. "I was...held."

Mr. Briggs nodded sagely, then shook his head. "We've come into dismal times, have we not, your Ladyship?"

Moira found herself suddenly legless, on her knees on the rough carpet, her cheek resting on the tiny man's knees. Quite to her surprise, one of the small, well-kept hands stroked her hair, and he crooned to her as if she were a child. "I know you're very tired, my dear. But there's the most terrible to-do outside just now."

Summoning all that remained of her strength, Moira raised her head. There sat Briggs in his tidy tweeds, seemingly unperturbed, and yet he lifted an ancient volume from the top of his cluttered desk and set it down atop his thighs, the pages turned so that she might easily study them.

"The demon Istirel," he told her, "Described as a monster from the depths of hell's ocean."

Moira laid her hand atop the engraving on the left-side page, unwilling to regard the hideous beast depicted there: she rather disliked crustaceans as a general rule, and this monster reminded her strongly of some vast crab, like those large, spiny, uncanny-looking ones found in the waters of Alaska--King Crabs, did they call them?--that had been magnified a thousand times, then combined with a hideous spider from the innermost zones of the Amazon rain forest. It appeared, to her, not only something that could not exist, but should not--a demon that went against the natural order of all things, and one that, should she glimpse it in the unnatural flesh, would no doubt fill her nightmares until the end of her days.

She looked up into the small reflective lenses of Briggs's spectacles. "Mr. Briggs, do you mean to tell me this beast is outside?"

"Oh, yes," he replied, with seeming unconcern. "And I rather think it's making short work of our remaining company. I'd imagine, as well, that Mr. Giles and young Mr. Quartermass might quite appreciate your help. I've a sword round here somewhere, I believe, if you'd like to take that with you when you go."

Moira nodded, rising numbly to her feet as Briggs brought the sword. Along with it he carried a largish plastic container, one which had been divided into compartments--apparently its original purpose had been to serve crudite´ at picnics. Now, however, each compartment contained a quantity of herbs, magical herbs that Moira easily identified by sight and smell.

"And you might find this useful." Diffidently, Briggs took a strip of paper from atop his desk, the words of a spell neatly written in old-fashioned copperplate script.

Moira scanned the verses, cold creeping into the pit of her stomach. She could feel the power of what she read, and to attempt such a spell in her current state struck her as foolhardy in the extreme. The entire proceedings had, in fact, begun to take on an aura of the unreal.

"Yes?" Briggs gave her an inquisitive look, his smooth brows raised.

"Yes, it shall do," Moira answered quietly. "I suppose I ought to be on my way, then, Mr. Briggs?"

"Oh, yes," Briggs answered. "I believe that's best." His lips flickered in an expression that might nearly be taken for a smile.

"Thank you," Moira told him.

"Yes," the Archivist repeated.

As Moira took off through the Archive doors, she thought she heard his voice call after her, "Godspeed, your Ladyship"--but she could not be sure.

Though Buffy kicked the iron doors as hard as she possibly could, they didn't so much as shiver. "Gosh-darned Hamilton School!" she yelled, mad not only that Seb's presence made her feel the need to edit her language, but that her second kick had no more effect than the first.

"Let me," Sebastian told her, putting his hands on her shoulders to move her gently aside.

"What are you gonna do, pick the lock?" she asked snidely. "Because, personally, I don't even see a lock."

Seb gave her a Giles-look that told her she was being too rude for words. "That wasn't my plan," he answered.

"Then--" Buffy shut up, watching Sebastian run his fingertips over the stubborn door. His face held another Giles-look, the one of total concentration that usually went hand-in-hand with either magic or a particularly interesting book.

"Stand back," Seb commanded--and to her own surprise, Buffy obeyed. He placed his hands flat on the two parts of the gate, pushing a little. "Here goes nothing," he said, sounding almost nervous, even as he grinned at her beneath one of those blankly green looks. The foresty smell started rising around him again. "You might want to...er...perhaps..."

"Stand back a little more?"

"Precisely," Sebastian answered. He shut his eyes, concentrating even harder. The gates got a little glowy for a minute, then turned dull black again.

"Well...darn," Buffy said. "Maybe we'd have better luck--"

The gates exploded with enough force to throw them both back into the street, and little BB's of metal showered down upon them.

"Ow," Sebastian said mildly, when the brief rain finally ended. He'd shielded her with his body, Buffy realized--such a Giles-like gesture that she was touched. Not a smart thing to do, maybe, when she had Slayer healing and he didn't, but sweet and well-intentioned.

Buffy squirmed out from beneath him, springing to her feet while Seb was still down on hands and knees. His shirt was torn and blood-stained, and for a minute she was afraid he might be badly hurt, but he shook her off when she tried to examine him, saying a little testily, "I'm all right."

"Celeste's gonna kill me," Buffy told him.

"She will not." Sebastian staggered a little getting to his feet, but then touched her shoulder, urging her along. "Let's just get inside, shall we?"

"Weapons?" Buffy asked.

"In the boot." Seb tossed her the keys. Sure enough, the trunk held a supply of those medieval weapons that no self-respecting member of the Giles family would leave home without.

"Sword or axe?" Buffy asked him.

"Er...sword, I'd say. And the larger crossbow, if you wouldn't mind?"

She hid a grin. What was that saying about apples not falling far from trees?

Armed, they headed in through the twisted wreckage of the gates and into the compound itself. Buffy stopped suddenly, feeling weird. She wasn't sure what she'd expected--a creepy castle like something from a scary movie, maybe--but the Watcher's compound just looked like a really old college, a bunch of ancient stone or brick buildings that were probably classrooms and dorms and libraries. It looked so...ordinary.

"Buffy?" Sebastian said.

"I expected...I don't know...something like 'there's a light over at the Frankenstein place.'"

"Just so." Sebastian squinted up at the ordinary-looking buildings--they were looking at the back side of the Compound, Buffy realized, and from the front she could hear yelling and see puffs of smoke going up into the air. "Instead, it rather resembles my old preparatory school. Let's hurry along, shall we?"

They started running, and to Buffy's surprise, Seb could almost keep up with her--but then, he wasn't even thirty, and he had those long Giles legs to give him an advantage, besides which, he obviously kept himself in shape. The yelling got louder and louder as they worked their way through the maze of buildings, until Buffy could hardly hear her own panting breaths. The air smelled terrible, like burning rubber combined with a barbecue that had gone way out of control, and underneath that lay an odor of rottenness, and something else, something sweet and coppery.

"Blood." Buffy froze at the end of a narrow little cobbled path. Sebastian barely stopped himself from crashing into her.

"Oh, dear Lord," he breathed. His hand found its way to her shoulder. Buffy couldn't stop herself from pulling back against him, blindly seeking a little bit of comfort from the solid warmth of his body.

She'd faced a lot in her career as the Slayer, from the Master, to the Judge, to the Mayor. She'd thought the Hellmouth demon and the critters in the Box of Gavrok were wigsome, but the thing she saw right there in the center of Watcher Central was like both of those scary things smooshed together, then multiplied a hundred times. It was all spidery and crabby and slimy, and it smelled like something dead washed up on the beach and left to rot for a week. Even though she put her hand up over her nose and mouth, trying to block out at least a little of the stench, she still couldn't keep from gagging.

Buffy glared at the sword in her other hand. It had seemed like a good sword, a powerful sword, but Buffy had the feeling it might as well have been a toothpick for all it would do her against that monster The thing's horrible, bristly legs waved busily, and she felt herself getting half-hypnotized, following the patterns they made in the air. Even when one plunged right through the chest of an Arabic-looking guy, and his scream tore at the air, she couldn't turn her eyes away.

"Dad," Sebastian breathed.

"What?" Buffy shook her head. A familiar voice penetrated her consciousness, but she couldn't seem to get anything to make sense.

"Buffy," Seb insisted. "It's my dad. We must go to him now!"

She shook her head again, and that time it seemed to clear, at least a little. The voice hit home: Giles's voice, the voice of the man she loved, saying what sounded like one of his spells. When Buffy looked, she could see him down beneath the monster's body. Even tall as he was, he looked tiny under its bulk.

Too close, Buffy thought. He's too close. But she couldn't say anything.

Another of the monster's legs lashed out, and though Giles turned in time to stop himself from getting skewered, the impact threw him what must have been twenty feet. He landed hard, rolling, and didn't get up again.

"Giles!" Buffy screamed. She found herself running. A million thoughts zoomed through her head, all of them adding up to one big "NO!"

Buffy skidded to her knees beside him, just as Giles lifted his head. He was bleeding from a bad cut at his hairline, and looked dazed, but he was getting up, he wasn't dead, the way, for just a minute, she'd feared he would be.

"Buffy?" he said, sounding so properly British she wanted to laugh. "How did you happen to reach the Compound?"

She latched her arms around his neck, kissing him savagely, needing to feel the familiar warmth and strength of him against her, the pressure of his lips on hers, everything she'd thought, for one moment, that she'd lost. She found herself cupping his face between her hands, running her fingers over his shoulders and back and arms. He was sweaty and bloody, and he made small protesting sounds when she touched him in certain places, but he was alive.

"Buffy, my dearest." Painfully, Giles got to his feet, bringing her up with him. "We haven't...the time..." His knees started to buckle, and for a minute she was holding his full weight.

"You're hurt," Buffy said, alarmed. "Giles, you're hurt." Well, of course he was. The blood would be his, and he'd just flown through the air and dropped like a rock. "You're sitting out the next round, Mister," she commanded.

"Buffy, I--" He straightened, doing that force-of-will thing to pull himself together again, though he kept one hand on her shoulder, looking down into her eyes. "You must understand, love. There's no one else to perform the spell."

"There certainly is now."

When Buffy turned around, Moira stood there, arm in arm with Sebastian. Weirdly, she held a Tupperware container and a scrap of paper in her other hand.

"Uh...we're gonna serve the monster a nice relish tray?" Buffy asked.

Moira let loose of Sebastian while she lifted the lid. The container held a bunch of herbs in different compartments, the way Buffy had suspected it would. Giles took the paper from her, squinting to read some stranger's tidy handwriting.

"Briggs?" he asked, when he'd finished.

"None other," Moira agreed, passing the paper to Sebastian. "It will work, I believe."

"It ought to." Giles ran a hand over his face, seeming surprised by the blood that ended up on his fingers. "I say--"

"Are you up to this, Rupert?" Moira asked him.

"I should ask you the same question." Giles gave a shaky smile, adding in a gentler voice, "What have they done to you, Em?"

"No time for that now," she answered crisply.

"No. Indeed." He took the plastic container from her hand, suddenly all business. "We shall attempt to control the demon, Buffy, but we'll need you to finish it off. One swift slice would be best, straight down through that hourglass-pattern on its belly. And stay well out of the blood, won't you?"

Buffy nodded. "Got it."

"That's my girl." Giles looked down on her with his familiar smile, the wonderful warm one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He turned his back and walked determinedly, if not completely steadily, back toward the monster.

"I love that man," Moira said softly. Sebastian and Buffy glanced at each other--neither of them could help but agree.

Moira put her hand on Buffy's shoulder, stopping her for just a second. "Give us time to set the spell in place, strike swiftly and hard, then get well away--this beast is bound to do a great deal of damage in its death-throes."

Buffy nodded again.

Moira set off running, Seb keeping pace with her. Giles had already thrown down his box of herbs, right beneath spider-thing's body--a body that looked to her like a giant rotten kiwi fruit. Giles had also managed--through magic, Buffy guessed--to set the box on fire.

The reek of burning herbs and melting plastic joined the other smells in the air. Giles, Moira and Seb were chanting in some foreign language, and as they chanted, the monster started backing away toward its hole--except that a straggly-looking bunch of what had to be Watchers, with a weird assortment of weapons and torches, got in its way. By that time it was too late for escape anyway, the spell had caught it. The demon rose and fell on its bristly, spiny legs, like one of those bobbing Halloween toys strung on a piece of elastic.

Your turn, Buffy told herself. Your turn NOW. For a minute, even though she knew the monster was mostly helpless, she couldn't move.

Chicken, she thought. You big chicken. Giles is counting on you. Then she was running, and the horrible dark bulk of the monster rose over her head, even the touch of its shadow making her feel tiny and scared. Bodies, or wounded people, lay there in the dark, and demon drool was showering all around her, but she could still see the white mark, exactly like an hourglass, the way Giles said it would be.

Buffy brought up her sword, slashing the blade down through the hourglass, the impact feeling like it was ripping both her arms from their sockets. Her weapon dissolved on its way through the bristly blackness, leaving Buffy with only a hilt to throw away.

At first Buffy thought she'd failed, that her blow hadn't done anything. She heard Giles shouting at her, telling her to get out of there, FAST. She couldn't move. There was a horrible rumbling sound, and the darkness got closer and closer--then Giles's strong arms wrapped tight around her, and they hit the ground together with his weight pressed against her back.

Someone screamed nearby, but Buffy didn't think it was her.

At least, she hoped it wasn't.