"Watch Over Me" Chpt 4 (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
Chapter 4
The alleys near Sunnydale's docks were much more damp and dank and smelly than the ones in the middle of town, and Buffy was ready to be out of them. She was ready to find something and make it lead her to Giles. She was ready to find Giles and know that he was all right. More than ready.
When two vampires came around the corner, she decided that for the moment a fight would have to do.
They didn't look surprised to see her. They were both male-a big thick one and a...not-quite-so-thick one. Neither of them were small. But that didn't matter.
Buffy raised the stake that had been in her hand all along. “Looking for some fun, boys? Come on; I'm in the mood to party.”
“Slayer,” one of them grinned.
“Very good. You have all A's on your report card; you get to come to the party.”
They both lunged at her, and Buffy lashed out with a chest kick that sent the smaller of the two back into a dumpster, leaving just the big one to fight for the moment. He managed to get to her side and grab a shoulder before her foot found the ground again, and she head-butted him. He staggered back. Buffy kicked him in the face, disorienting him further, and she staked him. He was turning to dust when his smaller friend made it back to his feet.
Buffy spun with a two-fisted blow that knocked the vamp into a wall, and before he could blink away the shock she was pressing him back against the bricks with the point of her stake pressed into his shirt just over his heart.
“What do you know about what's going on around here these days? Hmm? You working for somebody? Is there somebody new in town?”
The vampire smirked, and his demon visage dissolved into a normal human face. “He was right. You're looking for the Watcher. A lot of us had doubts, considering he not really a Watcher anymore...”
She pressed on him harder, letting the point of the stake cut into his skin. “He? He who? What are you talking about and where the hell is Giles?”
The vamp winced, attitude disappearing. “Let me live and I'll show you where they have him!”
Alarm bells went off. True, vampires had a strong sense of self-preservation...but this could just as easily have been planned. It could be a trap. It was probably a trap. If he was working for someone he likely wouldn't have said anything at all if whoever was in charge didn't want to be found.
Which might mean they wanted her.
“How about this? You tell me where he is right now and I don't kill you.” Not that she would ever really let him live, of course, but lying to a demon wasn't high on her list of sins to avoid.
When the vamp only smirked at that, Buffy huffed. “Never mind.” She dusted him, and she was gone before his ashes settled. As much as she was still worried for Giles, she welcomed the small surge of triumph. Finally, some type of lead.
She had to be close.
The sound of fighting somewhere just out of sight brought her running, and Buffy rounded a corner into a new alley to find a demon having it out with-
“Spike??”
The bleached-blonde vampire had gotten hold of the blue demon's neck, and he twisted, breaking it. He let the thing's body fall to the ground and strolled toward her, brushing his hands off. “What?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Same thing I've been doing for months, pet-finding thr action where I can. Been a pretty busy summer, too, what the Initiative going down in flames and all.” He glanced back at the dead demon. “Guess it's not over.” he looked back at her. “What do you want?”
Buffy crossed her arms, knowing he wouldn't care but answering the question anyway. “Giles is missing. I'm beginning to think there's some kind of vampire-demon conspiracy going on, because something broke into his house-obviously not vamps, but I just ran into one who seemed to know something. But I had to dust him.”
Spike just stared at her for a moment. “Yes, well, have fun with that. I'm all over the demons, but if my own kind are involved I'll stay out of it, thanks. Not quite to the killing of my own kind yet, unless I have to, and all that. Now if you'll kindly sod off, there are more buggers around here waiting to be killed, and I was here first.”
She scoffed. “How do you know? You don't know how long I've been here.”
“Hey, I called it, so you can go find your own hunting grounds, Slayer.
Done with the niceties, Buffy closed the distance between them and punched him in the face.
Spike reeled back, holding his nose. “Hey! This time I didn't do anything!” He glared at her angrily, but she knew he couldnt hurt her, and he knew it too--thanks to the Initiative's technology.
“You've done enough in the past to earn punching-bag priveleges for the rest of your possibly very-short afterlife. I don't have time for this right now, Spike. Either help me find Giles, or get moving and stay out of my way.”
He snorted. “And seeing as the helping doesn't appeal much...” He rounded her and kept on his way down the alley, rubbing at his nose once more before letting his hand drop again as he took up his usual cocky stroll.
Buffy shook her head in disgust and returned to her search. She thought she heard movement, at the opposite end of the alley, but even though she ran there was nothing there when she got there. Only a disappearing shadow told her that she'd been right.
“Gotcha,” she whispered.
Silently, she followed it.
Giles wasn't certain how much later it was, but his internal clock told him it had to have been at least a couple of hours since Sohlehk and Dagkel had taken an interest in him again-only one or so since they'd abandoned him once more. If there had been any doubt in his mind before about the possibility of cracked ribs, it was gone. It was more a question of how many now.
But he almost had the ropes loose enough. He could ignore the injuries long enough to make a move if it meant getting out of here. He had to try, or Sohlehk might have the chance to use him against Buffy. And now was the time to try, with fewer obstacles, while the vampires were still out. Of course it would be suicide to try to fight even the few demons that were here by himself, especially in his current state, but if he could cause a distraction just long enough to slip out...
There wasn't much chance of success, but if he failed...Sohlehk didn't have Buffy, and Giles was counting on the demon wanting to keep him alive for insurance until he had her.
He was contemplating just what kind of move to make when a single vampire burst through one the side doors. “The Slayer is nearby! She's already killed two of us, but so far I don't think she's seen any of the rest of us...”
Rupert's eyebrows went up in alarm, but he stayed quiet. Buffy...
Sohlehk looked up from where he'd been standing quietly. “Find the group closest to her, and have them herd her here. Then find the others, and the rest of you come straight back.”
“Of course,” the vamp grinned. It turned and left again.
Giles straightened, with some difficulty, grunting in pain as he redoubled his efforts anew with the ropes. He was running out of time. If he couldn't free himself before the vampires began to return...
He only needed a few more moments. Then, perhaps, he could get out. He could find Buffy first, and warn her.
He wondered if he had a few more moments.
From the fire escape ladder that led to the roof of the warehouse Buffy could see in through one of the high, dingy windows. With the dark out, they wouldn't be able to see her unless they were really looking. But she could see them, and she watched as the vampire she'd followed here left again. She thought about going after it, but it would be long gone by the time she got down the ladder and went around the building to the door it had left through. So she focused again on taking stock of the situation inside.
“Giles,” she whispered.
He didn't look good. He wasn't half dead, either, but he looked bad enough to cause some serious silent freaking out. His face was bruised and cut, and when he moved he grimaced in a way that made it pretty clear there was more damage there than the glaringly obvious shoulder wound-said wound which had left too much blood soaked into his sweater for Buffy's peace of mind.
Then she realized he was working at the ropes.
Buffy resisted the urge to yell at him. Bad bad bad...Where's Willow when you need her? I need some silent communication here: Giles, just sit tight! Don't get yourself killed!
Of course it didn't work. Not without Willow to boost.
Five demons. There were five demons in there, and there was no telling how many vamps were on the way. If she acted now there was a good chance she could take the demons on her own and get Giles out, but there was no way to know how much time she had before their friends started showing up. She'd have to call for backup. She hated it, hating waiting to get Giles out of there, but she had no choice.
Buffy started to back down the ladder, but a noise below stopped her. Freezing, she looked down to see four vampires round into the alley and start toward the closest side door into the warehouse. She remained silent until they were inside; if she started a fight here everyone inside would know she'd found them.
When they were gone she shot down a few more rungs and then dropped the rest of the way to the ground, cursing quietly. She'd thought it would take longer than that, but apparently at least a few of them hadn't gone very far.
She had to get the rest of the gang here, and she had to get them here now.
His hands were free, but Giles froze as four vampires came in from outside, grinning. They had to have been close; they looked as if they'd already heard the news.
“Slayer's comin'?” one of them asked.
Yes. They'd heard.
Sohlehk smiled coldly. “We will have her soon.”
Rupert's heart sank. Whether or not that meant they really would, he didn't know-but he knew his chances of escaping on his own were even smaller now. Not that he'd had much of a chance before, but...hope was a powerful thing. He could could feel what of it he had fading.
Damnit, Buffy, you have to have noticed something by now. Get out of here; get backup...
Then he saw his opening. The one demon covering the other side door, the one nearest him, moved away away from his post just enough to hear the conversation going on across the room. But it was enough that Giles thought he might be able to slip out behind the thing as long as he moved carefully and kept quiet.
Sohlehk glanced at him once. Giles didn't make eye contact, rested heavily against the beam behind him for a moment and casually made a show of looking worn out. When the demon turned away again, Rupert moved, thankful that they seemed to have thought that it would be easier to keep on eye on him if they kept him in a corner. In theory that might have been true, but now it gave him the advantage of less light-less of a chance of being noticed.
His shoulder and ribs complained loudly, but he got to his feet, holding his left arm-the one with the damaged shoulder-close to his body. He slipped back to the wall to press himself there as he inched toward the somewhat-unguarded door.
He was nearly there when they realized he wasn't in his place.
“The human!” one of the vampires snarled suddenly. “Where is he?”
Giles made a break for it. The door was mere feet away. It was dark, and these were Sunnydale alleys. If he could get outside, he had a chance. If he couldn't run far, he could hide.
The demon that had come dangerously close to shirking his duties shot back to his post and grabbed at him, and Rupert managed a vicious punch that wrenched a shout from his lips and left his entire body screaming at him even though he'd used his good arm. It did send his attacker reeling backward though, and he felt some satisfaction at that.
But he couldn't fight. Not like this. He kept going, but even the time it had taken to get the demon off his back had been too much. He was just barely out the door, but two of the vampires caught up with him and dragged him back inside. They pulled him by the arms, and the stress on his wounded shoulder nearly caused enough pain to black him out right then and there. As it was, his vision and the sounds around him dimmed, and if he was making any noise in protest at all he would never have known it.
Then he was on his knees, and the feet in front of him he could hardly see were Sohlehk's.
Buffy was only halfway down the alley on her way to search for a phone when she heard the first shout. It wasn't a voice she recognized, but what it said was what made her freeze.
“The human! Where is he?”
“Giles!” She turned on her heel and ran back to the ladder. Before she was all the way up she heard the next shout.
This one was an angered shout of pain, and this time it was definitely Giles.
By the time she was high enough to see inside they were dragging him back in to a chorus of shouts and jeers from the other demons and vamps. By the time the two vampiers who'd snagged Giles dropped him on his knees in front of the largest demon she saw in there-the leader, she assumed-he seemed barely aware of anything at all. He let himself stay doubled over, his right hand clamped over the wounded shoulder and his other arm clutched around his ribs as he sucked in air through his teeth.
Buffy was frozen where she stood. “No...”
Her first thought was that the demon was going to kill him.
“So you had more left in you than I supposed,” the large demon growled. “Perhaps you deserve some credit for that; but not enough to allow you to interfere with our plans.” He looked up again. “We don't need this one causing trouble when the Slayer arrives.” Then he motioned to one of vampires, and Buffy was sure her heart stopped. “Make certain he can't.”
“Gladly,” the vamp snickered.
Buffy saw Giles flinch, saw him try to move...and saw him fail.
No!
The vampire was moving in on him, and though she heard the demon add, “But don't kill him,” it didn't register enough to stop her from dropping off the ladder and running for the door. She only paused long enough to pick up a jagged length of pipe from the alley floor to add to the stake in her other hand, and then, just as she heard another shout from Giles, she was through the door before she'd really thought any further.
“Get away from him!”
Every single one of them turned to stare, and the vamp that was crouched over Giles jerked up, lips already bloodied. Buffy's heart skipped a beat, but in another second she realized her Watcher was still alive, albeit sans some of his blood. His eyes flickered open groggily.
“Buffy...?”
The vampire she was glaring at murdurously released the grip he'd still had on Giles's sweater, and Giles shakily let a hand drop to the floor and was able to steady himself just enough to keep from toppling off his knees.
Buffy said what she hadn't been able to communicate to him several minutes before. “Sit tight, Giles. This'll be over in a minute.” One way another, it would be over. Five demons, four vampires, and it looked like one of the smaller demons was injured.
She could do this. She had to do this, and get Giles out of here, or in a few minutes they'd likely both be dead.
The largest demon, the one is charge, nodded once. That was all he did, and then the others were on her-or were trying to be on her. She drove her stake into the heart of the first vampire that came at her, and turned to shove the jagged end of the pipe through the throat of one of the demons. The vamp dusted, the demon dropped; her stake was covered in ash, and the pipe coated in brown blood as she threw herself into fighting the others.
But over the noise, somehow she could still hear Giles. His voice was weak but urgent, and she could only assume that she could hear him because, after all these years, her ears were trained to listen for him-even if sometimes she didn't want to listen at all.
“...too many....run!”
She didn't catch all of the words, but she heard what was important.
She heard it, but it was too late for that now.
There was no going back. They would never let her get away even if she did run.
After staking another of the vamps one of the demons sideswipped her, ripping the bottom half of her shirt and leaving clawmarks in her flesh, but with a Slayer's healing abilities it really wasn't something to worry a lot about.
Hurt like hell though.
Buffy swung and rammed the pipe into the thing's eye, straight through to the back of its head, and it went down. Another demon reached for her, but she danced out of the way and headed for the vamp that had taken blood from Giles. The bastard was going to pay for that.
She never got there. Something hit her from behind. She was sure she'd known where all of the remaining adversaries were, but then she realized that more of the group's vampire buddies must have arrived and come in the same way she had. Buffy twisted, fighting to get up, but there were too many of them. She only managed to dust one more before the stake and pipe were knocked from her hand.
“Buffy!”
She heard the breathless bark of her name and knew it was Giles, but there was nothing she could do. One of the vampires pulled her head up from the floor and she strained to pull away, but she wasn't able to do it before, laughing, the thing slammed her back to the floor and the lights went out.
When Buffy's head hit the concrete floor it made the kind of sickening sound Giles was certain he'd never wanted to hear, but the way Sohlehk ordered them to tie her up told him that at least she was still alive-though he wondered how they expected mere ropes to hold the Slayer.
His neck ached along with everything else, and he didn't have the strength to move much himself, or he would have made an effort to get to her before two of the vamps dragged him back to his own corner. The world fuzzed out in pain again, and when everything cleared he was tied to the beam again, much more tightly this time, and several feet away Buffy was tied to the next one. He wasn't sure how long it was before she started to come around again, but he knew it felt like an eternity to him.
“Wha...?” She blinked and picked up her head, grimacing. When she noticed the ropes she groaned. “Okay...who's the smart-ass?” she snorted. “Like this is gonna work for long.”
“Buffy? Are you all right?”
Her eyes snapped to him immediately, wide and searching as she examined him. “Giles? Yeah, I'm fine. You don't look so hot though.”
“Thank you very much for the vote of confidence...” Rupert knew his voice was weak. He knew he was weak. That much was made certain by the fact that he'd lost blood to a vampire.
It didn't mean he wasn't going to do his best to keep Buffy from worrying. That was the last thing she needed, if she was going to think clearly enough to get them both out of this.
Which was, undoubtedly, up to her now-seeing as he was having trouble just staying awake at the moment.
Buffy gave him a small smile. “Don't worry. We'll be outta here in no time.”
Giles just hoped she was right. There were only three demons left, one besides Sohlehk and Dagkel, but all of the vampires had returned to the fold. He figured there were eight or so left, but his vision wasn't good enough to allow him to count them, especially when half were well across the warehouse.
Buffy promptly began to push at the ropes, and he could hear them beginning to snap even as Sohlehk and Dagkel approached her.
“Buffy...”
She looked up and saw them, and raised an eyebrow once they'd seen her looking at them. “Like I was saying. Ropes? Really guys. In approximately two seconds I'll be out of these, and the rest of your night won't go very well after that.”
Sohlehk nodded once. “You are strong. You rely on your strength to defeat your enemies and extract yourself and your friends from harm's way.” His head cocked to the side a bit. “You will not have that chance now.”
“Okay, I'm not even gonna try to figure that one out; I'm just gonna kick your ass.” But before she could push once more and snap the ropes altogether, Sohlehk reached out and clamped a hand on her forehead. A bright blue light came from his plam and covered her for a moment, and Buffy shouted and dropped back against the beam behind her, unconsious again.
“Buffy!” Giles sat forward quickly, regretting it when pain shot through his chest and shoulder. “What did you-“
“I did nothing but trap her in her own mind,” Sohlehk said quietly. “It is her fears that will determine the nightmare.”