Disclaimers as in Part 1. The usual casual swearing.
13 FULL CIRCLE
All you need to know about Cordelia Chase for this instalment is that
she was mysteriously impregnated by the demon spawn of the
never-heard-from-again Haxil Beast in Angel 1.12.
Ethan transforming Giles into a Fyarl Demon happened in BTVS 4.12 "A
New Man". Buffy refrained from killing Fyarl Giles because she
recognised him as described; and then Ethan was beaten into
un-demoning Giles.
===================================
Full Circle
Grace Archer stood near the end of the runway, staring out over the
flat black surface of the lake, trying to keep her cigarette alight in
the bitter wind. Al came over from the squad car, rubbing his hands
against the cold.
"You know that was the Carter Jeep back there," she said to Al. She
took
another drag. "And we let it go."
"No telling who, or what, was on that plane," said Al. "You gonna look
the Commissioner in the eye after 9/11 and tell him the Carter Jeep
was more important?"
Grace exhaled. "Suppose this turns out to be nothing. Would the
Commissioner look the Carters in the eye and tell them their Jeep was
less important then?"
"Never heard they weren't patriotic," said Al. "Besides, this isn't
nothing. Too many crates for nothing, I reckon. Illegals, at the
least: or drugs. Maybe worse."
Grace nodded. "And what if it's something belonging to the Carters?
That
Jeep being here, reported stolen. Too big a coincidence."
Al considered. "This isn't their MO. They're respectable business
people, remember? This feels like small fry. Comparatively, anyway.
Could be Russians."
"Yeah, but if it is the Carters?" said Grace. She ground her cigarette
out under her heel. She wasn't going to reproach him for letting
Control know they'd sighted the Jeep headed towards Meigs Field.
She'd have done the same. Any cop in Chicago would have.
"Oh, then we're fucked," said Al. He shrugged. He wasn't going to
waste time apologising for telling Control they were in pursuit of the
Jeep. That was what you did if you were a cop in the city the Carters
owned.
"Nothing we can do about it now. You gonna stay out here and freeze
your
butt off waiting for the Fire Dept and the FBI or what?"
========================
Weaver parked in the first spot she could find within three blocks of
her house. "You're going to have to walk," she said. "It's only three
blocks."
"I don't think I can," said Giles. "My knee ... it's bad . Ethan
really did some damage."
Weaver was pointedly silent.
Giles gave in. "OK. Make sure you haven't left any evidence in the
car." Weaver handed him the travel mugs.
They shut the doors quietly. As Weaver led the way, Giles said, "One
of us really ought to torch it." He wasn't keen on the idea. Burning
down the lock-up had been as scary as hell.
"In this neighbourhood?" said Weaver. "Don't worry. One of the
neighbours will get it towed first thing in the morning, which is - "
she checked her watch under a street light - "only about four hours
away."
Giles noticed just how heavily he was leaning on her dented crutch.
She went on, "Of course, that won't get rid of any DNA evidence, but
as long as there's nothing to connect either of us to the Jeep, I
don't see that matters. Ethan's not going to the police, and nobody
else can prove anything. There's no film in the security cameras in
the parking lot at County."
Giles was appalled. The woman was as amoral as Anya. She nodded.
"Ironic, isn't it? All those hours I've spent in committee arguing
that security at County was a joke, and now it works in my favour. And
yours," she added, very much as an afterthought.
"Delighted to hear it," he muttered.
"You don't sound it," said Weaver.
He rested on the railings of one of the houses to lessen the pain for
a moment or two. "Not entirely," he said. "Ethan got away."
Weaver shrugged, impatient to get indoors before her neighbourhood
woke up. "That's what he does," she said. "Gets away. With things. And
murder." She realised with a shock that this time she didn't mean
Randall, and reached out to the railings for support herself. Without
realising it, her hand went to her mouth.
"He might still have got the Tablet of Destinies," said Giles. She
took a while to compose herself, relieved for once that she could
pretend she was distracted by physical pain. Giles continued talking.
"At least we cut the odds down to one in three. Ethan knows we're on
to him, so he has no reason to put off breaking the Tablet and
unleashing Chaos. Which hasn't happened yet. The longer the world
doesn't end ... the greater the odds that the Tablet is at the bottom
of the Lake, or seized by the police. Two to one we stopped him." He
didn't add, *this time*.
"What?" said Weaver. "Oh. We did? Fine." She let go of the railings
and began walking towards her house.
They turned the final corner into Weaver's street. She dug out her
keys ready, to Giles's immense relief. He was convinced that his knee
would explode after another hundred yards. He could see the front door
that he'd sat outside earlier that day, when he'd followed her home
from the hospital.
She slowed down to check the parked cars, and flinched when she
spotted one of them. He had no idea which one. Giles caught up with
her as she reached the bottom of her steps, where she'd stopped dead.
She was staring at her front door, which was wide open.
He had to hand it to her, she didn't cut and run. He followed her
painfully up the steps. The hallway was trashed. A small side table
was matchwood: its phone was plastic dust; a pile of coats were cut to
ribbons on the floor; the lights were smashed, and glass from the
picture frames littered the floor.
Who did this, thought Weaver, and her heart lurched with fear as she
thought of Sandy.
What did this, thought Giles as he noticed the splintered grooves on
the floor, and walls.
Weaver stepped over a fresh dark stain on the floor, and cursed as her
foot slid on some glass. She pressed on into the silent house, towards
the stairs.
"Sandy?" she called.
Giles crunched towards her, steadying himself on the less damaged of
the two walls. "Sandy's your husband?" he asked. He shouldn't have
been surprised that she was married, but he was.
Kerry took a deep breath, and Giles was sure she changed her mind
about what she was going to say. "Stay out of this, Giles," she said,
and then, inexplicably, "Please." She made her way up the stairs,
slowly.
Giles stepped into the sitting room. He blinked. It made no sense.
This room was untouched. Pristine, in fact, if you discounted the
carton of cranberry juice slopping over the coffee table, and a TV
tuned to some macho sports channel. He'd have thought Kerry had
better taste in men than that. He fought the remote to turn off the
TV.
Then Giles went to the kitchen sink: opened the dishwasher: snooped in
the bin. No bloody knives, machetes or skewers anywhere. He took the
travel mugs out of his jacket pocket and put them in the sink. Then he
limped as quietly as he could to the door, and stared at the scene in
the hall, trying to put things together.
"JESUS CHRIST!" yelled Weaver, nearly deafening him. No wonder she
was loud: she was about three feet away from him. "You're still
here?"
"You told me to wait, " he said.
"I told you to go," she snapped.
"I wanted to make sure you were safe," he mumbled. "I think it's
gone."
She looked blank. He pointed down the hall. "Whatever did this. Is
Sandy OK?"
Kerry stared at him. "It," she said. "IT? ... Oh." She made her way
down the hall to shut the door. To her surprise, it shut, locked and
bolted perfectly. "Sandy's gone too. I'd better have a look at your
leg." She
pointed to the sitting room.
He slumped on the couch. He couldn't figure her out at all. Maybe she
was in hysterical denial, or shock. If a demon had broken in, and
Sandy was gone, there was only one explanation.
Weaver snapped her fingers loudly, twice. "Pants," she said. She
examined his knee efficiently and quickly, but it still hurt. He
glanced down, and wished he hadn't. Of course it hurt. It was the size
and colour of an inside-out watermelon, and throbbing rhythmically.
"Concentrate on something else so you don't hurl," she said.
"It's just - ow - my knee feels like it's been knocked up with demon
spawn."
She cringed, then said, "Nothing's broken - as far as I can tell
without an X-ray. You can walk on it so your ligaments are probably
ok. There's no wound so you don't need stitches. You've got deep
bruising. Ice and stay off your feet for a couple of days. If you
need further treatment, don't come to County. You're on record."
He accepted her impersonal advice. She went to the refrigerator, and
he could hear her digging around for ice. With her back to him, so he
could pull his pants back up with a little dignity, she said very
casually, "That can happen? I mean, getting knocked up by demon
spawn? For real?"
Thinking about it helped Giles take his mind off the pain. Even if it
did involve Cordelia Chase. Kerry handed him a plastic bag of ice that
stung like hell when he put it on his knee. Then she handed him a
large scotch, and had one herself. "Yes - technically - but
procreaparasitic demons are very rare. In all my years as a Watcher,
I've only ever heard about one case. A Haxil Beast."
"Procreaparasitic?" She worked it out and shuddered. " Like 'Alien'?
Can ...can all demons do that?"
"No," said Giles. "Some can do things others can't. The Gallu demon?
That's a shape-shifter. Only a few types of demon can do that. The
Haxil Beast can't shape-shift, for example: conversely, Gallu demons
aren't procreaparasitic. Demons are a different order of being from
humans, and within that order, the many distinct types of demon have
different powers, different specialities, different qualities."
"They can't, huh." She smiled for the first time that evening. Giles
wasn't sure if that was the scotch. Her next question was so quiet he
had to strain to hear her. "How can you tell? How do you know if it's
a demon or a human you're -How do you know the difference?"
That was easy, and painful at the same time. He had a perfect memory
of being trapped in the body of a Fyarl demon, with Buffy about to
kill him, and being completely unable to tell Buffy who he really was.
And yet she'd spared him, because she'd recognised something in his
eyes. He sipped Weaver's very good scotch. Buffy realised the demon
was him because, in her exact words, "you're the only person in the
world that can look *that* annoyed with me."
And wouldn't you just know it, he thought, it was bloody Ethan who
transformed me into the sodding Fyarl demon that time. He drank some
more scotch. It really was extraordinarily good. He pulled himself
back into the present. He looked at Kerry Weaver, who was trying to
grapple with an unknown world that was beyond her limited
comprehension, and decided to skip the parts where demons and vampires
can identify other demons easily, where amulets can reveal non-humans,
and where witches can divine the presence of beings without souls.
"Instinct," he said. "It's in the eyes, You look into their eyes and
you
can tell. If you trust your instincts."
Weaver nodded, and took this in, slowly. She finished her scotch.
"So," she said. "The different sorts of demons ... they're like genera
and species?"
That threw him a little, but he supposed Weaver needed to hear about
the
majick worlds on her own terms. She still looked like she'd rather
have her fingernails pulled out. He shook his head. "There's no
Linnean taxonomy, if that's what you mean. There are plenty of field
descriptions, but the precise relationship of one kind of demon to
another - nobody's ever worked that out. It would be a fascinating
research subject."
"Also lethal," she said, and refilled her glass.
"That too," said Giles. That was a good opening, he thought. "Listen,
Kerry ... about Sandy ... you do realise- "
"Yes," said Kerry.
" - that if a Gallu demon came to the house," continued Giles.
"I got it," said Kerry.
"- then I'm afraid there's a strong chance, a very strong chance in
fact, that .."
"Giles!"
He looked at her, and she looked back at him.
"Oh," he said.
"You can sleep on the couch tonight," she said.
======================
Golden Arm's agent was perfectly delighted to hear that Ethan had the
Sacred Vase, and suggested they bring forward the handover a hour, and
move it to Golden Arm's house.
His house turned out to be the size of a museum and stood in its own
parkland. Ethan and Lindsey, and their pickup with its crates, were
directed to the discreet tradesman's entrance, some distance from the
official tradesmen's entrance, hidden by shrubbery and protected with
talismans.
They carried the Sacred Vase of Warqa into a small panelled salon deep
in the heart of the mansion, and put the crate on a table in the
middle of the room. Two perfectly polite servants who were
unofficially also their guards, calmly served coffee and pastries at
side tables.
Of course they were made to wait. Lindsey stoically washed almond
croissants down with latte, while Ethan took stock of the night's
events. The world was exactly as it had been when he woke up
yesterday morning. The Tablet of Destinies was therefore intact. So
what if it was at the bottom of Lake Michigan? People dive there all
the time. It can be recovered. Things may be a little more difficult
if it's in police custody, but it can't stay there forever, and cops
and curators alike can be bought. Both possibilities were setbacks,
but they were only temporary. There was a three in one chance he
already had it in his possession. Really, after nearly losing
everything last night, things were looking good.
Footsteps down the hall outside. Lindsey wiped his mouth, and stood
up. One of the guards opened the door, and in walked Golden Arm.
Ethan's first impressions weren't good. Tallish, thinnish, losing his
hair, looking every day of his thirty-something age and then some, and
looking down his long patrician nose.
Three steps behind him was the agent, with a briefcase full of cash.
He placed it on the table. Three steps behind the agent was a third
guard, carrying a silver jug.
"The Sacred Vase," murmured the Agent. Ethan opened the crate, and
lifted out the three foot high column of alabaster, and rested it on
its three feet. He felt a small pang as the little fox looked up at
him. Golden Arm didn't even notice it.
The third guard handed Golden Arm the silver jug containing the Water
of Life. Golden Arm wiped his habitual smirk off his face, and poured
the water into the Vase.
Nothing happened. Nothing was supposed to happen. The benefits of the
Vase stretched far, far into the future. Only if the Vase was fake did
anything happen in the here and now. If rumour could be trusted, it
was short, nasty and involved the wrath of Ereshkigal, Queen of the
Underworld.
Things were looking very good for Golden Arm, and for Ethan Rayne.
The Agent picked up the briefcase, opened it to show Ethan that it was
full of hard cash, snapped it shut, and handed it over. Ethan felt the
weight of money tug at his arm with pleasure.
He nodded politely to Golden Arm, turned to the door and noticed the
three guards were standing in his way.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Not at all," said Golden Arm, speaking for the first time.
"So. Can I go now?"
"I don't think that's wise, Mr Rayne," smirked Golden Arm. "You've
made Chicago a very hot place. At least, it's hot for you."
Ethan began to feel uneasy.
Golden Arm continued. "You were careless with the delivery. I
understand certain objects were lost -"
How the hell did he know that, thought Ethan. Only Lindsey and I know
- oh *shit*. He looked at Lindsey, who shrugged. The evil little
shit,
thought Ethan.
Golden Arm went on. "There are some members of my family who will be
disappointed. They had a special interest in certain objects that I
had
mentioned to them, based on your conversations with my agent. You
raised their expectations, Mr Rayne. You've placed me in a very
awkward position. They will be disappointed in you. As I am. I
understand," - he nodded at Lindsey - "that you nevertheless salvaged
crates of cuneiform tablets. At first, I thought I might suggest a
trade, but it's hardly a fair exchange ... getting a tray of ancient
mud-pies when you'd been expecting the Royal Harp of Ur, or the statue
of King Entemena ... and then I thought, what is in those mud-pies
that's more important than the Harp, or King Entemena?"
Ethan felt sweat trickling down his back.
"Needless to say, my family have other questions they'd like to ask
you about the delivery. Serious questions. Rip off your skin and
staple it back on inside out kind of questions. You are of course free
to go - and evade them if you can. You will have a few minutes' start
on them. It's only sporting. Or you can remain here."
You chilly bastard, thought Ethan. "I would be delighted to accept
your
hospitality," he said through gritted teeth.
"I thought so," smirked Golden Arm. "Officially .. since my
grandfather's
time, the family has always been committed to supporting the arts. We
are very grateful that you have agreed to catalogue these finds for
the Art Institute. Unofficially ... I will find out what's in those
mud-pies that's so important. Got that?"
Ethan nodded miserably.
"You can ask the butler for anything you want. George will show you to
your quarters now. Ah, and the money? Best left with us for
safe-keeping."
Ethan was politely shown his rooms, then taken to, and locked in, a
large basement room with eleven crates of cuneiform tablets. Working
shelves and tables ran the length of the room on both sides. The
enormity of his task sunk in, and he kicked one crate, hard, then
spent the next five minutes hopping on one foot and swearing.
He slumped onto a reasonably expensive office chair. He reckoned the
crates represented slightly more than a third of the tablets.
Somewhere in those twenty-eight thousand, six hundred and sixty six
tablets might be the Tablet of Destinies. If he found it, he could
smash it and then Golden Arm would be smirking on the other side of
his pointy-nosed face, and so would Lindsey.
It was his only way out.
He picked up the crowbar, levered open the first crate, threw out the
tissue paper and cotton wool padding, and stared at the first nasty
little handful of dried mud for what seemed like hours.
"If any one buy a male or female slave, and before a month has elapsed
the benu-disease be developed, he shall return the slave to the
seller,
and receive the money which he had paid."
The Code of Hammurabi. Damn.
Twenty eight thousand, six hundred and sixty five.
The next one was damaged, and even harder to read.
"The king spoke to Sargon: "Go and deliver my bronze hand-mirrors to
the chief smith!"
The Story of King Sargon. Bronze somethings, anyway. Swords? Earrings?
Mirrors? Who knew, who cared. Bugger.
Another day in paradise.
Twenty eight thousand, six hundred and sixty four ...
=======================
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