Yes, I travel on the good ship Snark and HoYay

Am, I've got tiaras, I've got more tiaras than heads.

I've been grossly misled about your appearance, then, connie.

Now with the praise. Plei, you do that world-weary thing so well. You can taste how tired and defeated they are. connie, love the HP refs. That is exactly how Ethan would react. sa, you know how the cross story was my favourite? This is my favourite now. It's very much Xander. It really captures him and (especially number 4) what his relationship to the gang is and has been.

Ah, Elena's up. She gets to read the conclusion to Ethan and the Potentials

Giles applied himself to his eggs for a moment. "I need to go to the Watcher's Council headquarters today. There are some manuscripts and files on what we're facing, the Bringers and the First Evil and such. You all will have to come with me, it's not safe to separate. And we can't let the Council know we're there."

Annabelle frowned. "But you told me that the Watchers were organized to help the Slayer, to find the potentials and train them. Why are we hiding from them?"

Ethan beat Giles to the explanation. "It may be in the Council charter that they exist to help the Slayer, but they tend to see the poor girl more, shall we say, in terms of the job than of the person."

"That's not why we're avoiding them," Giles said sternly. "We don't have time to deal with the bureaucracy and the explanations. I told them a few weeks ago about what I suspected, and they wanted to form a committee to look into it. It's best if we just avoid them altogether and just get the job done ourselves."

"You rebel, you," Ethan said with a muted smile.

"But, the Bringers are killing Watchers, too," Molly said. "Shouldn't we warn them?"

Giles didn't look at her. "They've been warned. They have the benefit of a millennia and a half of experience and 21st century technology. If they can't use those resources properly, I don't have time to show them how."

They finished their breakfast in silence. Giles paid for the meal after glaring at Ethan's suggestion of a small cloaking spell to allow them to slip out unnoticed.

The Tube took them down to The City, the ancient heart of London, where the Watchers Council anonymously occupied an old building on an innocuous side street not far from Lloyd's of London.

"It might be time for that cloaking spell of yours," Giles told Ethan as they reached street level. A few tourists wandered about, but most of the crowd was business folk. A pair of battered sorcerers and two potential Slayers did not blend in well.

"Surely the Council has wards and detectors on the doors. They'll pick up on the spell."

"If we were using those doors, yes." Giles led the way down the street. Molly and Annabelle trailed along, staying close together.

Ethan sighed and followed. "So which doors are we going to be using, Rupert? No, let me guess, your mysterious contact is going to leave the service entrance open."

"Not exactly. She said she'd have the wards disabled near the service entrance, but getting through the door was my job." He pulled a small leather case out of his coat pocket.

Ethan gasped in delight. "Ripper, you devil, you still have them."

Annabelle cleared her throat uneasily. "Still have what?"

Giles knew he should feel ashamed of himself, but he also knew he was smiling in that way that made the Sunnydale contingent very nervous. "Lockpicks. A chainsaw would be a bit obvious."

Ethan plucked a hair from each of them for his cloaking spell. The girls pouted at him and rubbed their heads, but Giles barely noticed. The spell got them down the sidewalk past the guards at the front door, then through the parking area gate when it opened to let a Rolls Royce glide in.

"They've done nicely for themselves," Ethan commented quietly, looking at the Rolls Royces, Bentleys, and the lone Lamborghini parked behind the walls.

"Yes, they have. Over here." Giles led the way to a side door. Ethan kept watch while Giles picked the lock, but Molly and Annabelle watched in fascination.

"Can all the Watchers do that?" Molly asked softly.

"No, only those of us with disreputable friends."

"You're welcome," Ethan said.

The door clicked. "And there we are," Giles said proudly. "Everyone in."

"Just a moment," Ethan interrupted. He put his hand out cautiously, first touching the doorframe, then reaching carefully through the doorway itself. He nodded. "Nothing magical that I can feel." He smiled at Giles. "You may trust your friend, but if I were in charge of the place I'd have alarms no one else knew about."

"That's because you're a paranoid bastard."

"Which is why I'm still alive." He gestured Annabelle and Molly to precede him through the door.

The service areas were prosaic enough, with bland office doors and men and women in standard business wear. Several flights of stairs took the foursome to the upper floors, where elegant carpets, dark paneling, and old paintings gave the air of a very respectable bank or legal firm. They stayed close to the walls, avoiding people passing by.

There was more bustle than Giles was used to. Watchers generally never hurried unless something was actively trying to eat them. 1500 years of history did tend to give people a less urgent view of things. Now, though, people rushed back and forth, worried looks on their faces. So, at least they knew something was wrong, something had happened that required a quick response. He wished he could have brought Buffy here, shaken them out of their complacency with the energy and fire of a true Slayer.

But perhaps they'd actually come up with something helpful. The traditions had calcified into prejudice, but the Council's primary goal had always been the preservation of human life on earth. The current threat was nothing they could ignore.

He looked at his companions. Molly and Annabelle were huddled together, having realized that some of the paintings were historical works showing horrific battles and turning points of one sort or another of the fight against evil. The Hieronymous Bosch painting of a group of vampires rampaging through a village was particularly graphic. Just as well that most people believed he only painted allegories of damnation, they didn't to see his more accurate works.

Giles had expected Ethan to be staring

Giles had expected Ethan to be staring about in eager anticipation of mischief, but instead he was studying the people with a very solemn look on his face. "What's wrong?" Giles asked, sidling closer until he could whisper.

"I can't picture you here. This is nothing like the you I remember."

"That was rather the point, Ethan. I rejected all of this and all it stands for."

Ethan nodded. "But I still can't picture the current you, here. People must have made way for you here, afraid of catching whatever it was that made you different."

Giles did not like the way Ethan could still read him. "Two hundred years ago, they'd have burned you."

"Two hundred years ago? It was just last month." The quicksilver smile dared Giles to wonder if he was telling the truth.

Giles touched Molly and Annabelle's shoulders. "The library's this way."

Three stories tall, occupying the center of the building and going to the roof, where a skylight let in illumination. Powerful shields had protected the building during the Blitz, sending the German bombs onto less fortunate buildings. Protecting the library and its ancient, unique texts. Light filtered down through metal grill floors; small electrical fixtures shone just bright enough to allow navigation through the maze of the stacks. Too much light was the enemy here.

The place seemed empty. Giles paused just inside the doors to breathe in deeply. Oiled leather bindings, the wisp of decaying paper and cloth, a hint of dust, and, faintly, the sense of magic.

Now Ethan looked interested. "Odd," he said softly, "I always thought heaven would have more dancing girls."

"Wow," Molly breathed. "I didn't think there were this many books in the world."

"If I hadn't been chosen to go to California," Giles said wistfully, "I was hoping to work here. That would have been very pleasant." He shook himself. "Anyway, we mustn't dawdle. The books we need are on the second floor."

Ethan trailed behind as they moved deeper into the treasure trove. He ran his fingertips along the spines of the books, feeling the textures of vellum and leather and metal. Not all the leather was from any domestic animal. Faintly hooked scales caught his skin on one volume. Another binding had the suspiciously fine grain of the skin of something sentient. When he touched that one, he jerked his hand back at the sudden sound of screams in the back of his mind.

As he hurried to catch up with the others, he noticed a book with a familiar symbol, a profile of the two-faced god, Janus. He drew the book carefully off the shelf, holding his breath in wonder. "My god, I thought this burned when they sacked Rome," he whispered to himself. The Janusside Oracles, prophecies of chaos which, naturally, each had two perfectly accurate interpretations.

He looked around very carefully, then tucked the volume inside his shirt. Perhaps Rupert would be too distracted to notice until they were gone.

"There you are," Giles said when Ethan finally caught up to them in the stacks on the second floor. "Go take a look around, see if there is anyone else here. Molly, go down to the end of the row and keep an eye on the main doors. Annabelle, I'll need you to help hold things." He began pulling down file boxes and flipping through the documents inside.

Ethan smiled in encouragement to Molly as he went past. Hell of a job, waiting for a strange girl to die in order to take over her powers and shorten your lifespan.

He heard voices outside a side door, but they passed by without showing an interest in the library. Something about a meeting in the council room and a sense of buried panic. Served them right. He checked the smaller reading rooms, making sure no one was napping.

In the fourth one, he found the bomb.

How lovely, said the evil part of his mind in delight, and he was momentarily distracted by the image of beautiful flames and destruction. The calm part noted that the bomb was the fuel oil and fertilizer type, designed to destroy buildings. And that there seemed to be no obvious timer.

He actually stepped forward, thinking to disable the thing. But he was no engineer, and his magic was of no use here. The wires and circuits held too much order for the forces of chaos to get a reliable hold on, and the leashed powers of destruction were too primal to risk interfering with. Anything he tried might only trigger the explosion.

He managed not to run back, stepping nimbly past Annabelle to take Giles' shoulders. "There's a bomb in one of the reading rooms, we have to get out of here."

"I beg your pardon?" Giles blinked, as expected.

"There's a bomb in one of the reading rooms, we have to get out of here."

Annabelle squeaked in fear. Giles stared at Ethan, obviously wanted to accuse him of lying and just as obviously believing him. "A bomb? What kind?"

"Very large. The kind that took out that office building in Oklahoma City."

Giles looked around helplessly. "But--how would they have gotten it in here? My God, they're going to destroy the whole Council. We have to warn them."

Ethan tightened his hold. "We have to get out of here. We can't delay for anything."

"But the Council, everyone here--"

He stared Giles in the eye. "You go to the Council chamber, you announce there's a bomb in the library. They won't believe you. They will shout, they will demand explanations, they'll send someone in here to look, they'll accuse you and me of being involved." He shifted his hands to either side of Giles' face. "And then we will die."

Giles closed his eyes, knowing it to be nothing but the truth. "I know them," he whispered.

"I know. But it will kill you, and these two girls you saved, and any hope you have of stopping all this."

"And you." Giles looked up at Ethan. "It would kill you, too." Ethan shrugged a little at the obvious point. "We have to go," Giles said firmly. "Annabelle, pack up those papers. Molly! We're leaving."

As he gathered everyone together, though, he looked at the bookshelves around him, at the stacks, at the three floors of knowledge and mystery. "No ..."

"Mr. Giles, come on," Annabelle said, tugging on his sleeve.

Over there was Merganser's Treatise on Flying Monsters, from Fiorenza in 1454. The only known copy in the world. Next to it were da Vinci's collected sketches and notes on the dissection of a Fyarl demon. Up on the top floor, immune to the stronger light, was the engraved silver tablet describing a Babylonian Slayer's defeat of a wizard attempting his own demonic Ascension and her death in the struggle.

He reached for the Merganser, but it was two feet on a side, three inches thick and weighed ten pounds. Perhaps the da Vinci, but that was only an interesting curiosity, everyone knew the anatomy of Fyarl demons. The Katifore Dissertations?

Ethan grabbed him and shook him. "You can't save them all, Rupert! We may not have time to save any. Come on."

"But--the books ..."

"I know, luv, I know. Ladies, we're leaving!" He grabbed a book at random from the shelves. Giles grabbed two more, trying not to read titles and make judgements. He dropped them at the door, picking up two others, not even certain why those were more worthy of being saved than the first.

They ran down the stairs towards the service area, no longer worrying about noise.

"How long?" Molly asked.

"I don't know," Ethan said, one hand twisted in Giles' jacket sleeve to keep him moving. "There wasn't a timer."

"Then it could--"

"Yes, any moment, keep moving."

When they reached the outer door, Giles pulled to a stop. "Drop the cloak," he told Ethan. "Don't argue, just drop it."

Ethan shook his head but pulled the hairs, tied together with a string, out of his pocket. He pulled it all apart and shrugged. "Done."

Giles shoved the door open. "Bomb!" he yelled at the startled workmen. "There's a bomb in the building, run!" He ran for the gate, the others behind him. They shoved the gate open and ran down the street.

"They're following us!" Annabelle yelled.

"Good!"

A duck into an alley a block away and a small misdirection spell hid them from pursuers. Giles leaned against the side of the building, clutching the books to himself.

"It hasn't gone off," he said to Ethan. "Maybe--"

Ethan put a hand on his shoulder. "No, Rupert, there was no ti--"

The blast was deafening. Ethan and Giles grabbed the girls and pushed them to the ground. Windows all around shattered, car alarms blared. Then the rubble began slamming down. The two men hung onto each other, trying to make as small a target as possible.

Finally all that was left was the screaming and the sound of flames.

Giles stumbled out onto the street, staring towards the building. The top floors were burning, what hadn't been blown apart. Papers swirled in the vortex, catching fire and vanishing in sparks and smoke. He couldn't speak, not even to whisper a denial or a plea to whatever gods might care.

Ethan took his arm and pulled him away. "We can't stay. The police will be here, and there's nothing we can tell them."

Giles forced himself to stop looking and to walk away. "I knew them, Ethan. I knew them all."

"I know, Rupert. I know. Leave that, Annabelle!"

Molly pulled Annabelle away from some debris, debris that oozed and smelt of burnt meat and had fingers if you looked too closely. "What do we do now?" Molly asked.

Giles shook himself. "We keep running."

there will be a coda, but it's very late and I have to be up early. Deena, your tiara worked well tonight.

Jesus, connie.

Three stories tall, occupying the center of the building and going to the roof, where a skylight let in illumination. Powerful shields had protected the building during the Blitz, sending the German bombs onto less fortunate buildings. Protecting the library and its ancient, unique texts.

I can't bring myself to think that this is wrong. And I can't bring myself to speak about the horrible, horrible destruction of the library and collection of books you so beautifully and lovingly described. I'm in tears, darling.

The quicksilver smile dared Giles to wonder if he was telling the truth.

Wow.

The top floors were burning, what hadn't been blown apart. Papers swirled in the vortex, catching fire and vanishing in sparks and smoke. He couldn't speak, not even to whisper a denial or a plea to whatever gods might care.

You nasty person. Made me cry.

(Want more. Lots more.)

"Look! It's Giles! With a lockpick!"

Wowza! The description of the library undid me. Also, I want to see more of that book that Ethan nicked.