Part Five

Ethan turned to look at the pile of unmarked papers on his desk. The perfect ending of a miserable day. Nothing could make it worse, could it? As he sat down, he heard a knock on the door. "If you have a soul, come in."

Ethan dropped his pen. His question was just answered. "Ripper."

"Ethan," Giles replied tightly, closing the office door firmly behind him.

'I should have known better,' Ethan thought in disgust. 'Nothing could make it worse, indeed.' Outwardly, he remained casual, speaking lightly. "I wondered when you'd be around for a visit. Do let's get the requisite beating out of the way so we can chat." He stood up, continuing, "But please don't get any blood on the papers, I don't know what I would tell my students."

"Much as I would enjoy hitting you till you bled -" Giles paused; where had he heard that before? "- I'm afraid I'm here for a different purpose." He crossed the room to Ethan's desk and leaned forward, bracing his hands against the top. "We need your help," he said bluntly.

Ethan arched an eyebrow. "My help? Rupert, I'm touched."

'Yes,' Giles wanted to say, 'but your sanity isn't the subject at hand.' Instead, he swallowed it and replied, "Don't be. It wasn't my idea." As briefly as he could, Giles told Ethan about the assassins and how they had systematically destroyed the entire Watchers' Network. Upon finishing, he waited for one of Ethan's smart ass comments. Ethan, however, remained uncharacteristically silent.

A painful sinking sensation in his stomach, Ethan cast about for something to say. A way to find out if Wesley had somehow survived, without letting Giles see the cold fear that always gripped him at the thought of Wesley dying because of his profession. ...but, perhaps, somehow - no. Hope, Ethan had learned long ago, was a treacherous creature, and he wouldn't let it take hold of him now. Wesley knew nothing about fighting. He could never escape a hired assassin. Couldn't possibly survive the assault.

And yet, the first sentence that came from his mouth was foolish, hopeful drivel, delivered in a faintly pleading tone that his fifteen-year-old self at the Academy had used.

"Are they all dead?"

"Where's Sharna?" young Ethan demanded, voice shaking, as he caught up to a man he recognized as a Council Member. "Where is she??"

"Calm down, young man." Quentin Travers, on his way to an important meeting with a superior - one of the very few people left in the Council who ranked above him - turned sharply and glared. Ethan obeyed, but only in hopes of getting a straight answer about Sharna's whereabouts.

"Sharna -" Travers spoke her name with the subtle inflection of distaste used by most Council members when referring to the Bhavikan Slayer "- was killed last night, during patrol." The lie came to him easily, as did every lie he told.

Ethan gaped at him in shock.

Travers, not for the first time, found himself suppressing an urge to slap the boy. There was something about him that set the Watcher's teeth on edge. Glancing at his watch, he said impatiently, "I have somewhere to be, and I believe that you have a class to attend. I want you there in five minutes." Without waiting for a reply, Travers turned and strode away. It was a shame, really - there was no denying the Rayne boy had potential, but it had been all but destroyed by that disgusting family of his. Here, he realized, was a hidden benefit to Sharna's death: with her gone, maybe the boy would settle down and focus his attention to where it should be.

Ethan stood still, watching him walk away. Most boys his age would have gone into a terrified rage of denial, storming after Travers to demand that he say what they wanted to hear. Ethan, however, stayed where he was, thinking carefully.

Something was very wrong. Where the hell was Wilson? If Sharna had been killed on patrol, he would have told Ethan about it before he even informed the Council, simply to keep him from finding out from someone like Travers, who didn't give a damn about him or Sharna. Despite all his blustering, Wilson was grateful to Ethan for accepting Sharna and forging a relationship with her when all the others had scorned her. He would have felt that he owed it to Ethan to break the news gently. So where was he? Watchers didn't just disappear when their Slayers died.

And Ethan did believe that Sharna was dead. He'd already known it; Travers had merely confirmed it. He hadn't been able to find her in any of the places she should have been. He knew that she wouldn't have been elsewhere - repeating the same routine as long as possible was a deeply ingrained cultural trait of her race. And, dammit, either she or Wilson would have told him if they had been assigned to another part of the world. For that matter, Travers would have told him just now if they had been.

She was dead.

And it hurt so deeply . . . but there was no time for that. He had to think.

Where was Wilson? Why had Travers lied to him? What had happened to Sharna?

Or maybe . . . a chill shot through him. Maybe the question should be, What had they done to Sharna?

Giles blinked at his once best friend, taken aback by the slight tremor in his voice and the apprehension in his eyes as he waited for Giles's answer. He had never seen Ethan vulnerable before and he began to wonder - could it be that he might be worried about Wesley? Giles had assumed that Wesley had just been another one of Ethan's conquests. Could it have been more? Was Ethan even capable of more?

"No," he said finally, looking directly into Ethan's eyes. "No, there are a few left." He wanted to reassure Ethan and get rid of that disturbing vulnerability - at least he knew how to deal with that arrogant Ethan. But he had promised Wesley . . .

There was something in Giles's tone as he spoke that made Ethan wonder if maybe he knew about Wesley. 'Hell, for all I know, they sat around and compared notes about me,' he thought.

But there was a chance that Wesley was alive. It was a slim chance. Maybe it only existed in his mind, but it was enough to make him sit down and say, "Tell me more about these assassins."

Wesley was in a vague, gray half-sleep when the doorbell rang. He snapped awake, instantly and fully alert. Then he remembered - very little time had passed since the most recent attack, and the assassins didn't really bother with doorbells, anyway.

Nonetheless, he went downstairs warily, keeping his body tense and ready to fight as he opened the door.

The visitor was an older man, around sixty or sixty-five. The right sleeve of his nondescript black jacket dangled limply from the elbow down - the rest of his arm was gone. His voice, when he spoke, carried a light British accent.

"Well. I was looking for Rupert Giles, but you, Mr. Wyndham-Price, will do just as well." He offered his left hand to shake. "My name is Lucius Wilson."