Enemy IncognitoBy Wynn
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Calm Before the Storm
"Excuse me? Where do you think you're going?" Sprinting down the alley, Faith slid in front of Wesley, blocking his escape out of the trash covered passageway.Wes stared at her for a moment, his blue gaze cool and level, before he replied, "I need to get back. I told you. There isn't much time. If I'm gone too long, they will begin to be suspicious."
"You got yourself tied to a pretty short leash there, Wesley," Faith said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Can't even take a walk by yourself without Mama Lilah yanking on the chain and calling you back home like a good little doggie." She smirked as irritation flickered in his eyes, a minute crack in the cold, emotionless façade he wore like a tarnished suit of armor. She spoke again before he could compose himself. "There's something I don't understand, Wes. You're banging Lilah. You helped in the fucked up plot to spy on me and B. You sprung me out of prison with a little help from the demon law firm from hell. And… you're warning me about the ambush waiting for us at Evil Central. Something isn't adding up here. Care to shed a little light on the matter?"
"And if I don't, what will you do? Torture me for information?"
Faith stilled at the mention of torture, her mind flooding with memories of broken glass and home made torches, cotton gags and nylon bindings.
"There were five types of torture, correct?" Wesley said his voice flat and his eyes hard. Only the slight trembling of his fingers betrayed the collected exterior of indifference. "Blunt, hot, cold, loud, and…"
"Sharp." She flinched as he lifted his hand and brushed her dark hair away from her neck exposing the thin white scar stretching across her throat to the hot and humid evening.
"What happened?"
Faith snorted, stepping away from Wesley, turning her back to him as she ran a hand over her throat. "You're telling me Mr. 185 IQ doesn't know his golden boy psycho slit my neck? Left me for dead?"
"No."
"Figured you would've thrown a party, popped a few bottles of champagne. Maybe you're saving that until the day I actually die instead of almost but not quite. You wish hard enough that day just might come." Shrugging, Faith turned and faced Wesley again. He stared back at her, face impassive, as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket. She tilted her head to the side, dark eyes assessing his lean form, as she said, "Maybe Lilah's already getting suspicious of you since she's keeping secrets."
"It doesn't matter what Lilah thinks."
"Really? I doubt she'd agree with you." Faith brushed a strand of hair out of her face and said, "You're playing a dangerous game, Wes. I find out you're playing me, there's still cold, hot, and loud for us to play with."
He moved towards her, and she felt her heart begin to pound in her chest, her body tensing in anticipation of how he was going to react to her whispered promise of torture. Would he fight back? Take her down and pound her into the rough, slime coated concrete of the alley? Maybe he would finish the job Tyler started so he could open that celebratory bottle of champagne, make a toast to the heavens for her demise.
"I know what it's like," Wesley said softly. He stood so close to Faith she could feel his breath on her neck, smelling of whiskey and complications, could feel his arm brush against hers, hard and unyielding. "To feel powerless and helpless. To feel your life slipping away from you and to know there's nothing you can do to stop it. I know what it's like to feel scared and to hate yourself for being weak enough to feel scared of death and dying and the possibility that no one would care whether you're dead or alive."
"I'm not scared," she said, the softness of her voice subverting the bravado of her words. Faith lifted her chin in the air and stared at Wesley. "But you should be."
He smiled, a wry grin stretching his lips. Stepping around Faith, Wesley walked to the end of the alley and said, "I probably should be." Without looking back, he turned the corner and disappeared into the sunlight soaked Main Street.
* * *Faith paused as she approached the dining room in the Summers' home, Wesley's warning screaming through her mind. Was he telling the truth about the ambush waiting at Mulholland? She couldn't read him, couldn't glean any useful information from his guarded demeanor, and her thoughts were warring within her between the logical belief that he lied to her, that he was playing her, and the instinctual emotion that he was telling the truth, that he was helping for reasons known only to him.
She sighed. Separating the truth from lies was becoming too complicated in the face of contradictory motives, explanations, and information. Moving to the threshold, Faith peeked into the dining room, her gaze landing on Giles. She crossed the room, stopping before him as he looked up at her. Drawing in a deep breath, she said, "Wes is here in Sunnydale. I think he might be trying to help us."
* * *"He's lying."
Stifling a sigh, Giles rubbed a hand across his forehead, attempting to ward off the headache rapidly blooming behind his eyes. Angel's anger regarding Wesley's warning was not unexpected, but there wasn't time for debate or discussion. They needed to act instead of talking uselessly about past sins and conflicts. Gaze flickering to Angel, Giles said, "We don't know if Wesley's lying. We don't know why he's working with Lilah against us, so we have to consider the possibility he's trying to aid us by working with the enemy, especially if he did leave those pictures for you and Buffy to find."
Angel laid his hand on the counter and leaned close to Giles. "Wesley's changed. He's not the same man you used to know."
"I agree that he has changed and that it is entirely possible he wants us dead. But we are working with fractured information. We cannot ignore the possibility he told Faith the truth simply because you do not like the man."
"It's not that I don't like him-"
"And you tried to smother him with a pillow out of your love for him?" Buffy asked, one eyebrow arched, arms folded across her chest. "Cordelia told me what happened between you and Wes. You tried to kill him while he was lying helpless in the hospital-"
"He stole my son, Buffy."
"Wesley took Connor because he wanted to protect him. From you." She pushed off the refrigerator and moved over to Giles and Angel. Leaning against the counter, she continued, "And yeah, he made a colossal mistake. Prophecies are tricky, all worded in ambiguous language and multiple interpretations. But the fake ones are the trickiest though. You knew Wesley didn't know the prophecy was fake, you knew he was trying to help, and you still tried to kill him anyway."
"He took Connor without an explanation. I didn't know what to think. I was angry."
"You still are. Your opinion is a bit biased concerning Wesley, and your reservations about what he told Faith are not enough to stop us from investigating this house. We have no other choice, unless we want to sit and wait for them to try and kill us again."
"Buffy is right," Giles said. "If Wesley is lying, we have no way of ascertaining why he's lying and what else he has planned. So we can either wait or we can fight back and try to discover who is trying to kill us and why."
"And we still need to check out this house sometime soon given what Willy told you and Spike," Buffy said. She straightened, her hazel eyes darting from Angel to Giles, before she turned and walked towards the hall. "And I vote for sooner rather than later."
Giles spared a glance at Angel, taking in his fisted hands and hunched shoulders, and he sighed. He moved across the kitchen, crossing into the hallway, and walked through the dining room, into the living room. He locked eyes with Buffy and nodded once as he leaned back against the wall.
From her position before the fireplace, Buffy looked around the crowded living room as she spoke, "We're hitting this place tonight. Giles, Spike, Angel, Cordelia, Willow, Xander, Faith, and I will stock up on weapons and head over to Mulholland. Dawn, Connor, Anya, Emilia, Lorne, Clem, Gunn, and Fred will pack up our supplies, all of our books, extra weapons, blankets, food, and the like and move over to Spike's house. Wesley knows where I live. It's doubtful he knows where Spike lives. It's safer over there. Any questions?" She paused, waiting a few seconds for someone to speak. "No? Good. Everyone knows what to do. Time to do it."
* * *Time to do it. Meaning time to sit and wait, again, and be left behind, again, while everyone else went out to fight. Not that Anya especially wanted to engage in combat in an ancient, crumbling house, but it was better than packing and moving and worrying. She may not have been a demon anymore, but she had over a thousand years of experience in all things demonic and mystical. She was much more suited for combat than Xander, whose experiences with demons stretched back only seven years, and so what if he saved the entire world by himself? That only happened once, and it was because his best friend went completely black haired and psychotic. The yellow crayon speech did not make for a fierce combat fighter. But was he here, shoving bath towels into boxes? No. She was. Again.
Shoving the last towel into the box, Anya closed the flaps and placed it next to the rapidly increasing pile of boxed and bagged supplies. She glanced around the living room once before slipping into the hallway and making her way down to the kitchen. If she had to do grunt work, she would be compensated with chocolate chip cookies. And maybe some pickles, too. Sweet ones, not the funny tasting bread and butter wrinkled cucumbers masquerading as pickles.
Torn from thoughts of pickles and cookies, Anya paused in the hallway, her eyes narrowing as she heard Emilia's voice drift from the kitchen. "They've left… About twenty minutes ago." Sliding against the wall, Anya peeked into the kitchen, golden brown eyes focusing on Emilia, who stood next to the counter, a small cell phone clutched tightly in her hand. "No, not all of them… Everyone else is moving to-"
Emilia broke off. Anya retreated behind the wall, brows drawing together in confusion as she listened to the Elf's conversation. "Everyone's moving the tables and chairs around, rearranging them among the pool tables. We're trying to widen the dance floor a bit. Do you need anything else, Charles?"
Charles? Who the hell was Charles? Anya racked her brain as Emilia finished her phone conversation, brow clearing as she remembered Charles, the big hulking red haired guy who owned the Bronze with Emilia. But what did moving tables in the Bronze have to do with "they," obviously Faith, Giles, and the rest, who left twenty minutes ago for Mulholland Drive? Anya shrugged and brought forth a bright, innocent, non-eavesdropping smile. She didn't know, but she was going to find out.
"Hello," she said cheerily as she entered the kitchen. Crossing the tiled floor, Anya glanced at Emilia, who smoothly slid the cell phone into the pocket of her black satin skirt. She reached the refrigerator and opened the door, rummaging inside the icebox and emerging with the jar of sweet pickles. As she opened the jar, she said to Emilia, "Who were you talking to?"
Emilia blinked at her blunt question, momentarily thrown. Recovering rapidly, she flashed a small smile at Anya and said, "Just Charles. We're redecorating the Bronze and he had a few questions about the new placements."
Anya nodded. "Really."
"Yes."
"So how do you know Rupert?"
"Excuse me?"
Munching on the pickle held in her hand, Anya said, "Rupert. Giles. Ruggedly handsome ex-Watcher with a split Ripper personality. The man you have some sort of mysterious history with. How do you know him?"
Emilia stared at her, and Anya wondered if the Elf was using her telepathic powers to scan her mind. She bought forth images of her more gruesome works of vengeance, mental pictures of blood, gore, and screams, and she smiled as Emilia flinched slightly and ran a hand over her long silver locks.
"Something wrong?"
Shaking her head, Emilia said, "No. I just have a bit of a headache."
"So how do you know Giles?"
"Why do you ask?"
Anya shrugged. She replaced the lid on the pickle jar and set it on the counter. "Natural curiosity. Well, that and Rupert trusts you even though he hasn't seen or heard from you in twenty years. For all we know, you could be some whacked out serial killer carefully manipulating us until the moment you can enact your gruesome but intricately plotted murderous ambitions."
Blinking once, Emilia cleared her throat and said, "Um, I'm not whacked out or a serial killer."
"That's reassuring." Anya paused and examined Emilia for a few intense moments. "Of course if you really are a whacked out serial killer you would probably lie about it and then kill me so I wouldn't reveal your secret of being a serial killer." She smiled, moved to the sink, and turned on the faucet, placing her hands under the warm water to clean off the pickle juice. She glanced out the window, the shadows of the evening deepening and darkening in the advancing night, and she frowned as one of the shadows began to move.
* * *The night was quiet and dark. Eerily so with the quietness and darkness reaching supernatural proportions, sending shivers of apprehension down all spines. There was no movement or light at the targeted house on Mulholland Drive, making slivers of suspicion slither through Buffy. She adjusted her grip on her crossbow and turned back to the group assembled behind her.
"All's quiet on the evil front," she said, hazarding another glance at the house over her shoulder. "No mystical barriers up or any other cloaking spells. And technically no one is living at the house, so Angel and Spike should be able to enter. So Angel, Cordelia, Faith, and Xander swing around and approach from the back, aiming for the back door. Giles, Willow, Spike, and I will enter from the front. Be on alert. If this is a trap, then they're waiting for us inside, armed and ready. We'll search all rooms for potential baddies before looking for information, Ok?"
Off of their nods, Buffy turned back towards the house. Nothing had changed. No lights. No movement. Nothing. Buffy suppressed a shiver and said, "Here we go." She eased out of the shadows, soundlessly sprinting across the cracked asphalt of Mulholland Drive, and made her way across the dry grass lining the gravel path stretching from the sidewalk to the front porch. Flattening against the brick wall of the house, Buffy turned and locked eyes with Spike. "Ready?"
"Always, luv."
"Time to kick a little lawyer ass." Sliding away from the wall, Buffy climbed the concrete stairs of the porch, eyes darting to the darkened windows. Through the shadows, she could make out the rough surface of plywood covering the dirty glass. Moving to the door, she grasped the handle and carefully twisted the knob. It turned smoothly in its casing, and she slowly opened the door.
The interior of the house was pitch black, and the air was stale and smelled faintly of ammonia cleaning products. Glancing behind the door, Buffy moved inside, indicating for Spike, Giles, and Willow to follow. She eased the door closed and followed Willow further into the house, senses outstretched for any suspicious sight, sound, or smell and finding none. Buffy stopped, the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to stand on their ends. Something wasn't right. There was no one inside the house. "Guys…"
She heard Spike sigh. "There's no one here-"
Blinding white light flooded the narrow hall, assaulting Buffy's eyes and forcing them closed. Metal clinks began to sound through the house and Buffy whirled towards the door. Steel bars dropped down from the ceiling, covering the door and windows, blocking the way in or out of the house. They were trapped, locked inside the empty, barren brick house.
* * *Taking a deep breath, Dawn started across the dining room, taking a few hesitant steps before she quickly backtracked to the safety of the Connor-less living room. He hadn't spoken to her since his arrival the day before. The memory of his lopsided grin flashed in her mind, and she felt the butterflies begin to flutter in her stomach. Crushing on the spawn of Angel was wig worthy of the highest order. Connor was broody and sullen and less than monosyllabic, but his chocolate eyes were soft when they looked at her, causing her to go all gooey and mushy on the inside.
She peeked into the dining room again, jumping when she came face to face with said goo and mush causer. Dawn felt a blush creep up her neck, staining her cheeks, as she stammered, "Hi. Connor. I didn't, um, see you, uh, you know, standing there."
The crooked grin was back. "Sorry." His dark eyes dropped down to her hand, focusing on the two leather bound books held between her fingers. A faint frown pulled at his brows and he glanced at her from beneath impossibly long black lashes. "I can… do you… the books…"
Dawn stifled a nervous giggle. She lifted the books and handed them to Connor, watching as he spun, stalked back into the dining room, and deposited the books into one of the boxes covering the table. Stepping into the room, she racked her brain for something cool to say, something coherent and non-dorky. "So… Angel's your dad?"
A dark look crossed Connor's face. "He is not my father," he said as he shoved more books into the cardboard box.
"I wouldn't admit to it either. He's just too embarrassing for words."
Connor looked at her from the corners of his eyes. "You don't like him?"
Dawn shrugged. "Angel's Ok. Kind of dorky. It's, like, my job to hate him since he practically screwed up my sister for life."
"What did he do?"
"Major emotional trauma. Heartbreak. Loss. More trauma. For a while I thought she would be emotionally scarred for life, but Spike's pulling her out of the land of Angel angst."
"Oh." He paused, his eyes locked onto the books stacked in the box before him. "Your sister… She's… strong."
"Super strong with a tendency to be a super-bitch." Dawn rolled her eyes at the mention of her sister's infamous bitchiness. "She means well though, even if she is a little overprotective-"
Dawn screamed as the lights cut off and the windows exploded, glass flinging across the dining room, sharp shards slicing her exposed skin. She looked towards the window, eyes widening at the sight of the men surrounding her house, rapidly advancing towards the front door.