Enemy IncognitoBy Wynn
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Nothing but the Truth
Despite the peeling paint, dirt encrusted windows, and gloomy locale of the surrounding cemetery and forest, Spike's house was surprisingly neat and comfortable. Although Wesley shouldn't have been surprised at the neatness; Angel had mastered the art of obsessively compulsive cleanliness, so it shouldn't have been much of a stretch to think the second vampire with a soul in existence would have a penchant for the neat and tidy too.
A massive marble fireplace dominated the living room, shedding a cozy orange glow upon the hardwood floor and the sparse furniture, which included two faded armchairs, a low glass coffee table, and a thin gold floor lamp. Opposite the fireplace resided a tall oak bookcase, half filled with books on witchcraft, demons, and other otherworldly subjects, dotted occasionally with a few volumes of poetry and literature. Wesley raised an eyebrow as his eyes searched the spines, tracing over works by Milton, Dickens, Tennyson, and Shakespeare, among others.
"Not quite what you expected?"
Glancing at Spike, Wesley shook his head. "No. First editions of Dickens and Tennyson are rare."
Smirking, Spike said, "Not if you happened to be around at the time of their publication. I used to have more, but I lost them. Or destroyed them. Carting around volumes of literature tends to interfere in one hundred years of mayhem and slaughter."
"Yes, I imagine it would." Glancing around the living room, Wesley said, "Your house… It's… nice."
Spike shrugged. "It's a start. Haven't had much time to decorate the place. Been too busy dealing with attempted slayings and the like."
"Not too busy, I should think."
"What do you mean by that?"
It was Wesley's turn to shrug. "The forces sent after you were by no means the strongest any of you have faced."
Cocking an eyebrow, Spike said, "So you're saying you and Head Tweed didn't want us dead?"
"He did. And he still does, which is probably why he's taken Dawn and Connor."
"But-" Whatever question lay poised on Spike's lips remained dormant as Buffy strode into the living room, followed by Giles, Faith, Angel, Cordelia, Anya, Willow, and Charles. Approaching Wesley, Buffy pointed to one of the armchairs and said, "Sit." He didn't move, remaining where he stood by the bookcase and calmly gazing back at Buffy. She placed her hands on her hips as she said, "Are you waiting for me to say please?"
"No."
"Then sit down. I want to know how you got involved with Quentin, and I want to know now."
Stifling a sigh, Wesley moved to the armchair and sat down. He felt as though he were set up before a firing squad with twitchy trigger fingers. One wrong word, one wrong movement, and he would be a dead man. He brushed away the thoughts of his imminent demise; dwelling on his potential death would do him no good in this volatile situation.
"Any day now, Wesley."
His gaze slid over to Faith, who stood before the fireplace off to his right. Her dark hair gleamed in the amber glow, auburn highlights illuminated by the flames; her ruby lips, curved into a feral smile, shone from the light shed by the crackling blaze. "What would you like to know first?" he asked her.
"How about why Travers wants us dead."
Wesley nodded, drew in a deep breath, and began his tale of secrets and lies. "Buffy was correct when she stated Travers wants replacement Slayers. He feels that Buffy has lapsed in her duties as a Slayer and is no longer a fit guardian for the Hellmouth. And he's always wanted Faith dead, ever since her alliance with The Mayor of Sunnydale. "
"Travers thinks I've lapsed in my duties?" Buffy snorted as she shook her head in disbelief. "Does he know how many times I've saved this world from complete destruction?"
"Yes, he does. And he also knows that the last threat to this world did not come from a vampire or demon or any other demonic force." Wesley looked at Willow as he said, "The threat came from within those assigned to protect it." Turning his attention back to Buffy, he continued, "You spent a great deal of last year fighting against each other and dealing with your own traumas instead of protecting the Hellmouth. According to Travers, you've lost your focus as a Slayer and therefore you've lost your usefulness to him. He thinks you and your friends have become a liability to the fight against evil and are inadequate protectors of the Hellmouth."
Giles spoke up. "And how exactly does Travers know what occurred last year? I thought after his last visit to impart information about Glory he decreased his attention on the Hellmouth."
Shaking his head, Wesley said, "He never lessened his attention on the Hellmouth. If anything, after Glory's appearance he increased his informational sources here in Sunnydale. He just chose not to inform you or Buffy of his monitoring."
"What do you mean by informational sources?" Anya asked.
Wesley glanced at Charles. Moving into the center of the room, Charles said, "Sources like me."
"And who are you?"
A sardonic grin crossed Charles' face. "I'm a Watcher."
"Excuse me? You're a what?"
Charles turned towards Buffy and repeated his identification as a Watcher. A beat passed. A dark chuckle escaped Buffy's lips and she ran her hands through her golden hair. She said to Charles, "How long have you been in Sunnydale… watching us… reporting back to him?"
"Three years, close to four. Travers assigned me to the Hellmouth after you quit the Council during the fight against the Mayor."
"Are you the only Watcher here in town or are there more hiding underneath the woodwork, ready to tattletale on us at a moment's notice?"
"No," Wesley said. "Charles is the only Watcher in Sunnydale. Besides Giles and myself, of course. The rest of the information Travers has gleaned came from informal sources."
"Such as…"
Rubbing a hand over his dark hair, Wesley racked his brain for a few moments before replying, "Well, the witches employed by the Council detected the massive magical disturbance generated by Willow when she attempted to destroy the world. Travers gleaned the specifics of that situation from two young men, one named Jonathan and the other Andrew. One of Travers' lackeys in Los Angeles encountered them, and they told him what they knew, in return for safe passage to Mexico." He paused for a moment before he continued. "He learned of Anya and Xander's interrupted nuptials from a few of the demon guests at the wedding. They're Council informants here on the Hellmouth. They're kept in specialized apartments somewhere on Main Street. Dawn's bout of kleptomania was reported by the shopkeepers she stole from and Buffy's financial situation from her former employer. The Council has contacts in virtually ever business in Sunnydale. A lot of money goes a long way in gathering intel." Another pause. The room was silent, deathly so, as Wesley revealed the intricate web of information Travers had spun over Sunnydale. "And Buffy's relationship with Spike…"
"Was told to Travers by me," Charles finished. "After a few… interludes… you two had at the Bronze."
Face flushing scarlet, Buffy cast a sidelong glance at Spike, who kept his gaze firmly pinned to the floor as he developed a sudden coughing fit.
"Ok," Faith said, interrupting the uncomfortable moment stretching between the Scoobies. Her dark eyes locked on Wesley. "So Travers is more diabolical than we thought. No big shocker there. Guy seemed like the type to crave massive power trips. But none of this explains how you or elf chick or big red here came to work together."
Wesley smirked. "No, it doesn't."
"So why don't you tell us, Wesley," Angel said slowly, his voice tight with tension.
Wesley spared a glance at Angel as he said, "Alright. I will. Travers went to Lilah first. He needed someone close to Sunnydale and L.A. who would assess the current situation in both locations and report back to him."
"Why would he go to Lilah?" Cordelia asked. "She's not exactly one to walk the straight and narrow. Especially not since she works for Hell's personal law firm."
"He went to Lilah to get to me. The Council has a few connections at Wolfram and Hart. It was through them he had learned of my… dismissal… from Angel Investigations, and he thought I would be interested in taking revenge on them, as well as the people who had cared nothing for me in Sunnydale, while at the same time properly fight the good fight by taking over the Hellmouth and protecting it with a new Slayer and Council resources. Travers went to Lilah to seduce me to his side."
"And she agreed," Giles said.
"Yes. She would get free range access to the Hellmouth, as long as she did nothing to bring about an apocalypse or imbalance of the forces of good and evil. Basically, whatever she wanted to do she could do. Access to the demon black market, the opportunity to send her enemies to Sunnydale to be disposed of… anything." A wry grin twisted Wesley's lips. "Naturally, her bosses at Wolfram and Hart know nothing about this arrangement."
"And what would you get, Wesley?" Buffy asked as she folded her arms across her chest. "What did Travers promise you for working with him?"
"Reinstatement as an official Watcher and control over the planned Sunnydale branch of the Watcher's Council."
"What about you, Charles?" Giles asked.
A dark look passed across Charles' face. He glanced at the ceiling, towards the room in which Emilia lay, still unconscious from her psychic exertions. "If I worked with Travers, he wouldn't kill Emilia."
Giles blinked. Removing his glasses, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Quietly, with a hint of Ripper lying beneath the soft cadences composing his voice, he said, "Why would Travers want to kill Emilia?"
"I don't know. But he didn't need a reason when he killed her sister… my wife."
* * *He moved slowly into the kitchen, his grey eyes locked upon her as he slid into one of the white chairs circling the small round table. Emilia breathed a sigh of relief at Giles' acquiescence to her request for him to sit down and listen to her story. He was willing to listen to her, for a while at least. It meant she had a chance.
"Are you sure you don't want any tea?" she asked, suddenly nervous, her slim fingers dancing across the fine porcelain of her cup. He quirked an eyebrow and shook his head, obviously baffled by her rapid change in demeanor. Emilia rolled her eyes and laughed; she smoothed a stray hair away from her face and said, "Sorry. I wasn't sure whether or not you would actually sit down. I've never told anyone this before."
"You don't have to-"
"No. No, I want to." She flashed a smile, hoping for confidence but attaining a barely disguised nervousness. Giles stared back at her, the wary, suspicious expression upon his face softening a bit by her nervousness. He reached out and grasped the mug of tea she had fixed for him, lifted it, and took an experimental sip, smiling as the multitude of flavors cascaded over his tongue.
Relaxing at his gesture of cordiality, Emilia sucked in a deep breath and said, "Ok. There was this boy. There's always a boy in these types of stories, isn't there? His name was Michael. I met him at a pub about three years ago. He saved me from the pathetic pick up lines from a bunch of drunk and horny rugby players." She smiled at the memory. "Naturally, I was smitten. My own personal knight in shining armor. We spent the rest of the night together under the pretense of protecting me from the rugbies. By the end of the night, I was in love. He was… perfect. He could hold conversations about something other than football or liquor or other guy related things. And he had the most wicked sense of humor, absolutely naughty at times. And he loved me."
Her hands began to tremble and she felt hot tears prick her eyes. Gaze focused on her cup of tea, Emilia continued, "A year passed and we were still together. I thought he was the one, that one magical person that you're supposed to find in life. The one that completes you, fills in your empty places, smoothes over your rough edges, while still loving you for all of your faults and quirks. I thought we were to get married, so I told him who I was… what I am. That I wasn't altogether human. That I could see his soul and read his mind."
Emilia's grip tightened on her cup. Her violet eyes dropped to the table. "He left. Called me a freak, screamed at me for lying to me, for tricking him into loving me. He left and he never came back. Never phoned. Never wrote. Nothing." A ghost of a smile curved her lips. "Needless to say, I didn't take his leaving very well. I drank so much I thought I would turn into a bottle of liquor. I did anything I could to try to forget. Forget him. Forget his hatred of me when I told him I was an Elf. I ended up in a pub one night. Real shitty place, like the one I found you in. I got completely pissed, much to the enjoyment of the regular Joes there for the night. I wanted to forget, so I picked a man out of the bunch and tried to forget. The rest of his mates wanted to help me forget too."
She dropped the cup onto its saucer, the sharp clack of porcelain on porcelain like a gunshot in the kitchen. "They had me outside in the alley, pushed up against the wall when he found me."
"Who?"
Emilia looked at Giles. Lost in her memories, she had nearly forgotten he was sitting across from her. His grey eyes were soft and warm, a steely gleam beneath the compassion, and she felt like crying at his kindness and his anger at her past and her pain. "Charles. He's a Watcher, like you. Like you will be. He was out roaming around the alleyways looking for vampires, and he stumbled upon a soulless evil of the human variety. He saved me. Completely beat the shit out of those blokes. He took me home, and he and my sister nursed me back to health."
"Your sister?"
"Ariana. Older sister and very protective of me." Another smile appeared on her face. "When she opened the door to me and Charles, she helped him place me on the couch and then proceeded to lay into him for my less than savory appearance. It truly is a thing to behold when my sister gets angry. She's like a force of nature. Charles didn't know what hit him."
"Did, um, your sister do something to this Charles bloke?"
Emilia giggled. "She did something alright. I think he fell in love with her right then and there while she was screaming at the top of her lungs at him because of me." Composing herself, Emilia looked at Rupert and said, "They both helped me recover, from the alcohol, from the attempted attack, from Michael. Helped me reclaim my life, my lust for life, if you will."
Leaning back in his chair, Giles gazed at Emilia for a few moments. One corner of his mouth quirked up as he said, "And you mean to do the same to me. Save me from myself and make me want to live again?"
"Something like that. I can never repay Charles or Ariana for what they did for me. But I saw you two nights ago, and I knew you. You were me. Trying to drink your life away. And I wanted to help you like they helped me." Placing her elbow on the table, Emilia cradled her chin in her hand and locked eyes with Giles. She smiled, a slow smile, a slightly naughty smile, and said, "So Rupert Giles, do you want me to save you?"
He laughed at her impishness. Grey eyes twinkling with sparks of life, he said, "Yes. I believe I rather would."
* * *He felt lightheaded, disconnected, unable to process what Charles had said. Slowly, Giles lifted his gaze from the floor and he looked at Charles. "Ariana is dead? How long…"
Hands tightening into fists, Charles replied, "About a year and a half."
"And Quentin?"
Charles' voice was flat and emotionless as he said, "I don't know for sure whether Travers ordered the hit on Ariana. Supposedly, the Watcher who killed her didn't know who she was, that she was married to me. His little demon detector said she was non-human, so he killed her. Said it was a misunderstanding, thought she was about to hurt this random bloke who conveniently ran away without identifying himself to the Watcher or corroborating his story." His face was grim as he gazed at Giles. "But Travers had to have been involved in some way. It's just too convenient that she died a few weeks after I put in for a transfer back to England."
"He… he killed her?" Willow asked, eyes wide with sympathy and shock. "He killed her just because you wanted to go home?"
"Quentin Travers is a ruthless bastard that'll use any means necessary to get what he wants. He's plotted this attack on you for years, ever since Faith went rogue and Buffy quit the Council. He perceived both actions as personal attacks against him and his organization, and Buffy's subsequent power play during the fight against Glory incensed him further." Charles paused and looked around the room, holding each person's gaze for a moment before moving on to the next. "Travers will stop at nothing to have you all dead. He knows you, your strengths, your weaknesses, everything, and he's not afraid to use them against you."
"And now he has Dawn and Connor," Buffy said. She gnawed on her lower lip as she began pacing the living room. Glancing at Giles she said, "He plans on us to go after him and rescue them."
Giles nodded. "Lure us away from Sunnydale, where we have the advantage."
"And then he can slip in here and have his lackeys take control of the Hellmouth while he kills us on his home turf." She shook her head as she continued, "He can try to kill us. He thinks he knows us. He thinks he knows what we're capable of." Buffy smiled, a cold, hard grin twisting her lips. "He has no idea."