beams

"braiding pretty girls' ..."

And, dumb me, I was expecting the next word to be hair.

lovelovelove

Wow. And wrod to the lovelovelove.

I'm torn between it making me want to write more Dru, and it making me abosultely pertified that my Dru is terrible.

Because that's, um, a very good Dru.

Go, Brits! With the Dru writing and everything. I'm so not worthy.

It's somebody else's fault. They pulled down the bunny-proof fence

Something squeaked behind him. It sounded like shoe leather. Giles knew he should be worried, but, dammit, Robson was trying to bleed to death on the floor in front of him, there was a dead girl on the other side of the room, so forgive him for being a mite distracted.

The gunshot made him duck, though, and the swinging axe that was aimed for his head slammed into his shoulder instead as the Bringer fell.

He clutched the wound, staring at the new corpse. This was going to be difficult to explain. Someone must have heard that shot, this wasn't America, people would report gunplay--and who the hell was that, anyway ...

New hands held him up, pressed a cloth to the bleeding wound. Robson had passed out again, but he was still breathing. Giles tried to focus on the person next to him.

"You're a difficult man to find, Rupert," Ethan Rayne said calmly. He looked around, then tugged Robson's necktie off to tie the cloth around Giles' wound.

"Ethan? How--why--"

"Who, what, when, and where. Not now, old boy." He got his shoulder under Giles' good side and lifted. "Upsy daisy."

"No ... Robson ... hospital ..."

"No, you, hospital. I'm sure Robson's very civic-minded neighbors have already called the police, they can deal with this mess. I'd rather not be here."

Giles saw the pistol shoved in Ethan's belt. "I don't understand..."

"You don't have to. Just stand up as straight as you can, keep moving, and hope no one gets a good look at us as we leave.

The next hour was a blur. There was a car waiting at the curb, then a hospital emergency room and Ethan telling the story of a mugging with such flaming high drama that the nurses thought Giles was going into shock rather than trying not to laugh himself sick. By the end of it all, Giles almost believed in the gang of drunken hooligans who had taken exception to Giles' taste in soccer teams and drinking companions and Ethan being too panicked to call the police because "all that blood, poor dear Rupert, I just couldn't *think*, I just knew I had to get him here." Ethan's description of the "attackers" was vague enough to be believable but detailed enough to make the policeman nod knowingly.

Finally Giles was released into Ethan's care, and Ethan escorted him out to the car, babbling in concern. Once they were in the car and away from hospital, though, all the extravagent gestures and words faded. Two blocks away, Ethan pulled into an alley and leaned his forehead on the steering wheel.

"Are you all right?" Giles asked softly. Pain drugs, lovely things.

"Yes, I'm--I think so--that thing wasn't human, was it? That I shot?"

"What? Oh, no, no, it wasn't. It was a Bringer, or Harbinger, a servant of the First Evil, its hands in the world. They've been killing the potential Slayers, trying to end the line, Robson said it's started, everyone is in such dreadful danger." He didn't think Ethan was listening, though. The other man clutched the steering wheel, eyes tightly closed. "Ethan, what is it?"

"Half a second slower, a breath slower ... you've have been ..."

Giles reached out with his good arm and put a hand on Ethan's shaking shoulder. "Yes. Thank you for that, by the way. Tell me why you were there, with a gun. I didn't even know you could shoot."

Ethan took a deep breath and relaxed his grip on the wheel. But he didn't look up. "Choices are being demanded. Sides are being drawn up. I thought I knew mine, but then I remembered your annoying little habit of always pulling some miracle out of your hat. I'm playing the odds."

"Ethan, are you telling me you want to help save the world?"

"You needn't sound quite so disbelieving, you know." A look of unwonted seriousness went across his face. "Chaos isn't evil, you know. Well, not solely. Stagnation is evil. The forces coming up on the other side want unending pain and torment. No room for the delicate touch, that bit of whimsy."

"Turning me into a demon was not delicate. How did you get away from the Initiative, anyway?"

That mobile face suddenly went guileless and sad. "Such a weak, ineffectual man, without his magic what kind of threat could he be?" The grin was pure wicked Ethan. "They actually left me alone in a room with a working telephone with an outside line for ten minutes. I had to burn half a dozen favors, but in 20 hours I was free and the Initiative was suffering an infestation of fire ants, ghost scorpions and skunks. I was almost reluctant to leave."

"Ghost scorpions became extinct in the 1830s, how in the world--"

Ethan shrugged. "Well, in this dimension they are. I'm sure those mad scientists were ever so grateful to have several specimens of an invisible stinging insect to study." He turned to look at Giles. "Was that creature swinging an axe at you in particular or were you just convenient?"

"I'm afraid I was just convenient, though I'm sure that will change. All the potential Slayers are being hunted, and the Watchers Council is in danger--"

"Damn," Ethan said with as little sympathy as was possible to put into a word.

"Stop it, we don't have time for that. The Council may be full of berks and idiots, but they're still the organization best position to mount a defense against primal evil."

"There is no defense against primal evil. One might as well defend oneself against primal gravity. Despite whatever spasms are happening now, the balance will be maintained."

"But what if it won't be?" Giles said quietly. "What if there were a way to tip that balance, and darkness is trying just that? You said it yourself, sides are being drawn. The darkness thinks it can win this, it thinks that the light can be defeated."

Ethan stared off frowning. Giles felt something of his turmoi

Ethan stared off frowning. Giles felt something of his turmoil. Chaos played on both the light and dark sides, playing the eternal balance like a teeter-totter. But up must always be matched with down, good with bad, dark with light.

"I need your help, Ethan," he went on. "We must move quickly. The potentials are in dire danger, and the Council won't be able to move fast enough. They'll want to debate and discuss and study, and by then ..."

"By then the darkness will have won and the Council will be looking for knee pads."

"Ethan!"

"I heard that snicker." He sighed deeply. "What do we have to do?"

"Find the potentials, take them somewhere safe. I have a list of them and their locations. Between us, we can--" He saw the look on Ethan's face. "What?"

"You're actually going to trust me to find potential soldiers for good and convince them to accompany me to some unknown location for their own safety? Me?"

"You're a very good liar, Ethan. The gods only know all the foolish things you've convinced me to do."

They stared at each other a moment, then Ethan began laughing. "All right, Ripper, all right. And they call me the mad one."

Giles smiled, but there was worry in his eyes. "You do realize that this could completely wreck your reputaton. Will this be a problem for you?"

"Fortunes of war, dear Rupert, fortunes of war. I didn't start this game to die of old age anyway. We agreed with Peter Townsend once upon a time."

Giles nodded. "'I hope I die before I get old.' Yes. Well, we're certainly doing our best to live up to that one. We'd best be going, we have a great deal to do." He shifted his shoulders and winced. "Dammit, I don't have time for this."

"Don't worry, Rupert, we'll think of something."

if I keep going it'll just keep going and going. And I don't have time!

Write more.

Please?

Brava! Encore?

No room for the delicate touch, that bit of whimsy.

Lovely. And invisible scorpions! VERY Mrs Longbottom. Lovely.

(And do let there be more Dru, Am. Especially in the British Museum. I'm sure she'd love the old stones with their voices, and William might come over all Ozymandias. Possibly. Wonder if he made the Grand Tour? Were the Elgin Marbles there already at this point, I wonder?)

love that, Connie. Don't stop!