the cut

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Joss Whedon does. I just borrow them.

chapter 8: leviticus – blood on the ears

When the portal jumper grabbed him by the throat, he didn't scream.

Giles slammed his fists into the mattress on either side of his body, struggling to pull himself out of the dream. He rolled over onto his side and reached out blindly, searching in the dark for the small table he knew was there. Finding it, he slapped his hand down on the surface. Hard. Then he did it again.

A thin pale hand spread sinewy fingers over his stomach and began clawing at his naked torso, brittle nails sliced small cuts into his belly and chest.

He had to wake up. Patting around the tabletop, he touched a stack of leather-bound books piled three high. Then he felt a sticky half-filled tumbler of whiskey sitting next to the bulb-shaped base of his antique Victorian Cranberry lamp.

He pulled his hand to his mouth as his throat closed and he started to gag.

I'm choking.

He bolted upright in the bed and grabbed his chest as a sharp, burning pain spread across his sternum. He had to swallow, get air into his lungs. His heart was being torn apart and his windpipe was snapping shut.

If I could just take a few deep breaths—

He couldn't breathe. Falling forward onto his stomach, he buried his face in his pillow. He'd read that lying flat, face down, relieved tension. He waited a few seconds, but it wasn't working. Retching gasps were still erupting from his throat. Turning abruptly toward the nightstand, Giles splayed both hands frantically over the surface, sending the books, the lamp, the tumbler and his last fifth of single malt Scotch flying across the room. He barely noticed the splintering noise the bottle made as it crashed onto the floor and broke apart. He'd found the curved wire ear pieces of his spectacles and clutched them in his hands.

I have to be awake.

Giles' fingers roamed slowly over the frames of his glasses as he allowed himself the comfort of a compulsion denied for weeks. As he stared at the glasses, his breathing slowed. The image in his mind of a monster bathing in the sunlight, eyes shining gold and sweat pouring from its skin was fading. He'd stopped coughing, too. Using his thumb and index finger, he pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed the skin soothingly. Then he eased the glasses onto his face. It was still pitch black in the room, but for an instant, he thought he could see.

Swinging his bare feet onto the floor, Giles grimaced as his toes touched the cold wooden planks. He shoved the matted hair away from his brow, stood stiffly, then stumbled across the floor, heading for the bath.

He didn't flip on the light switch as he staggered through the shadows into the hallway. By the time he flung open the bathroom door, he figured he could see better in the dark anyway. He hadn't had any success in the daylight remembering lost thoughts or forgetting about his newly acquired fears.

Maybe I'll become a creature of the night.

He laughed hoarsely, a deep cavernous sound in his quiet apartment.

Taking off his glasses, he searched in the dark for the ridge of the porcelain sink, and carefully placed his glasses down. He turned on the faucet, cupped his hands and splashed the cool tap water over his eyes. Then he paused. The boy was on the sofa downstairs. But he couldn't hear any sounds coming from the living room where Xander was sleeping. There was no indication that Giles' noisy dream had disturbed his guest's slumber.

He splashed more water on his face and raising his head without thinking, searched for his reflection in the mirror above the sink. It was still too dark to see himself, but he did see a glimmer of light, a yellow streak flash in front of him.

“Well, bugger me backwards,” whispered Giles as he grabbed his glasses and placed them back on his nose. “He's a human vampire.” He dropped his head forward, chin bouncing on his chest as he pressed his hands against his temples. "By God, he's more than that," he blurted. "Bloody hell—!” He reeled around as he remembered what he'd seen in the eyes of the monster in his dreams. He stumbled out of the bathroom into the hallway. He needed to examine the passage in the Zy Qasdor, where he'd first found the portal jumper. Memories were flooding into his head so fast, he felt dizzy.

He stormed down the hall, making his way back to his bedroom in a matter of seconds. He flipped on the switch of the ceiling lamp but stopped abruptly in the doorway, the fluorescent light momentarily blinding him. Removing his glasses, Giles stared at the floor, searching for the volumes he'd knocked off the nightstand.

A dozen small pools of blood were scattered across the floor amidst the broken glass and books. He leaned against the door jam and crossed his leg over his knee, examining the sole of his foot. He hadn't felt any pain when he'd walked over the glass. Hadn't realized he'd been cut. Too busy thinking about having his bloody head ripped off, he imagined.

Perhaps, the monster had devoured him, cut open his flesh and butchered his soul, and now this was the dream.

He shook his head, trying to shake the remnants of the vision from his mind. Placing his foot back on the floor, he reached down and picked up the second volume of the Zy Qasdor, which had conveniently landed near the entranceway. He brushed a few pieces of broken glass from its cover and opened the book to the page he hadn't been able to read since he, Willow and Tara cast the spell that stole a thought from each of them.

He began thumbing through the pages rapidly, tearing the edges of a few in the process. He inhaled deeply when he found the illustration he'd first seen of the portal jumper hidden within a drawing of the god Glorificus. He had believed that this image had shown him how to stop the creature from finding Dawn. Giles bit his lip and stared at the drawing. The monster held a rose in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other. He hadn't remembered seeing anything in the portal jumper's hands before. But now, etched on the parchment, he could make out the sign of the legend Lucretius.

Giles swallowed. The dryness in his mouth was nearly unbearable as he gulped and tried to clear his throat. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh God,” he moaned. “Lucretius—and I sent Spike to New York.”

Giles ran down the hallway shouting to Xander to wake up. Jumping down two steps at a time, he reached the bottom of the staircase and out of the corner of his eye caught a glimpse of the first rays of daylight coming through the window blinds. He could also see that Xander wasn't there. No wonder the boy hadn't come up to his room to see if he was alright.

“Shit,” Giles exclaimed. He had to make a call, and right away. If he was correct, and the ancient Lucretius—the legend Watchers refused to believe in the daylight, but whispered about fearfully in the dark—was the portal jumper, well, Giles had to warn them all before it was too late. He picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed.

“Willow, Giles here,” he said after listening to her recorded message, mildly conscious of the irony of her girlish voice. “You were wrong about the thought. It was never fear. Call me. Dear God, girl, call me as soon as you get this message. I remember everything, and you've got to tell Buffy, she can't trust—.”

Giles dropped the phone as a deep pain sliced through his skull. “Aaaargh!” he cried. The arteries in his head were twisting like knotted wet rope. He dropped to his knees, the agony traveling throughout his body.

He looked down at the book still clenched in his hands and began to crawl across the floor to the oak weapons chest he kept against the wall near the fireplace. If he had the fourth volume of the Zy Qasdor it was in that trunk.

Bloody hell. He had to have it.

He edged closer to the chest. His mind reeling from the pain and from the effort of trying to remember the ritual and the chant the young Watchers would whisper late at night. They believed it saved them from the legend of Lucretius, the vampire that lived forever in the daylight and butchered his prey throughout the night as gifts for its brethren. Lucretius didn't feed, he hunted for sport. As Giles inched across the floor, he realized Lucretius was more than a legend; he'd met him face-to-face in his dream. As the thought once taken returned to him, he knew that, just like Dawn, the pain in his head was the portal jumper, traversing through his mind, searching for his next victim.

What had Anya said about the monster?

It doesn't leave anyone around to tell stories.

Giles reached the chest, and pushed it open. He had to find the book, perform the ritual and recite the chant.

If he could only endure the pain a little bit longer, he thought dimly.


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It was over in a matter of moments. The heel of her boot caught Jacob squarely in the balls. He doubled forward letting out a girlish scream as he grabbed his crotch with both hands. Spike immediately dropped a two-fisted blow solidly on top of Jacob's back as Buffy dropped to her knees, tucked, rolled and then snapped up onto her feet in front of a slender female vampire spinning a metal braided chain above her head.

Buffy buried her stake into the vamp's chest quickly and snatched the chain from the demon's hands as she turned to ash. Swinging the weapon side-to-side, Buffy then knocked down the row of demons that had stood behind the chain-swinging female, staking them one after another as they tumbled to the ground. As she wiped the dust from her eyes, she wondered why the arrogant bloodsuckers always insisted upon attacking one at a time when they clearly outnumbered her. Teamwork just wasn't a vampire thing, she figured.

A wail behind her drew her attention as she turned in time to see that Jacob had recovered and Spike was paying the price. She impulsively raised her hand to cover her mouth to stifle a gasp, but withdrew it quickly not wanting any one to see her and misunderstand. She wasn't startled by the sight of vamp blood, and she certainly wasn't concerned about Spike.

Buffy looked around. She was the only one left in the alley besides the two male vampires trying to tear each other apart. The demons that weren't dust had retreated to the rooftops and were staring down at the war raging between Spike and his friend Jacob. The battle had turned into a spectator sport. She might as well join the crowd, she decided.

Buffy could tell from Jacob's welcome that these two knew each other well except Jacob had been surprised to find Spike not trying to do in his third Slayer. And what had Jacob said about the portal jumper being brethren, whatever that meant, thought Buffy. Sure sounded like they were family, though, which couldn't be a good thing.

Buffy turned her attention back to the action in the alley. She wasn't certain how much longer she could watch Spike being bloodied this badly even if he seemed to be enjoying it. From his howls that sounded more like joy than pain, she couldn't tell if he was winning or losing. It looked like both he and Jacob enjoyed trying to beat each other to death.

Buffy had been dusting vampires since she was sixteen years-old. She toyed with them, sure, but she didn't really get into the beating down of vamps like Faith, for example. For Buffy, it was all about a few well-placed kicks and punches and, of course, puns, then take them out. But it didn't look like these two vampires were fighting each other with the goal of killing. They were trying to find out how much vamp blood they could spill, and they were doing a good job of that. Blood was oozing from everywhere. Their faces and throats were covered in it as they clawed and ripped at each other as if they were peeling potatoes.

“Care to give a bloke a hand, Slayer?”

Buffy gave Spike a sideways glance, and pursing her lips together, folded her arms across her chest. She even thought seriously about tapping her boot on the ground for a moment. She was pissed. What had Spike been thinking by not telling her about Jacob? Okay, maybe he was going to say something and just hadn't had time. He'd been excited about seeing her and it just wasn't top of mind. Could be something like that, right? She should at least give him the benefit of the doubt. She realized she was trying to convince herself to trust Spike. She shook her head and sighed. She had to admit she was doing a good job of it, too, as she considered stepping into the fray. Still, she'd bet a bundle of stakes that he most likely deserved some of the ass whipping he was getting from Jacob.

Buffy pushed back her fading desire to turn her back and walk away—let Spike deal with his vamp friend alone. Jacob's large hands looked like a vice grip (whatever that was, Buffy thought) as they wrapped around Spike's throat. Perhaps, her theory was off. Maybe these two vamps were trying to dust each other after all. Sure, Buffy was angry. But she certainly didn't want to see Spike lose his head. No matter what he hadn't had time to explain.

Buffy grabbed Jacob by the collar of his flimsy tailored shirt, spun him around, and raising her stake, took aim at his heart.

The next thing she knew she was lying on the ground as a gale of cold wind stormed through the alley, knocking her on her butt, flinging Jacob into a steel dumpster and dragging Spike seemingly by his boots across the concrete surface.

“Spike!” Buffy yelled. “Hold on to something.”

He grabbed her and both of them skidded across the ground, ending up in a heap, legs and arms tangled. Then the wind stopped.

“What was that?” Buffy asked, not really expecting an answer.

“The portal jumper, preparing for his visit,” responded Jacob a large toothy grin on his dark face as he stood on top of the dumpster in the middle of the alley. “I told you he wasn't a legend,” he said, looking directly into Spike's eyes. “Ta-Ta, mates.” He gave them a half-salute then jumped straight up into the air to the rooftop, and disappeared with the rest of his vamp crew.

Her chest heaving, Buffy rolled off Spike's body and glared at him. “So, tell me about your friend.”


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A small fat-legged child wobbled by and blocked his vision. He was sitting on a wooden bench hunched forward, elbows on his knees and fingers in his mouth, chewing the dry broken skin hardening around his thumbnail. He'd been staring at a clump of shrubs at the opposite end of the crowded park since dawn. He'd been studying the clusters of pink flora in the bushes. The large spots of reddish-pink bled through the evergreen backdrop, transforming the horizon with their beauty. He was mesmerized. Even from a distance, the petals shimmered in the sunlight, reaching toward the bright globe in the sky as remnants of the morning rain glistened on their leaves. He closed his eyes and inhaled, languidly breathing in their aroma as he sucked his thumb and forefinger into his mouth. Then he moaned. He didn't care if he was heard. He missed the taste of rose pudding on his tongue and the feel of the flower's oil being rubbed over his skin. The wrinkles on the back of his hands had never been brittle when he bathed in rose water or dined on the essence of the reddish-pink petals.

His mouth suddenly pruned and his nostrils opened wide as the human infant gaggle interrupted his mind's journey. Their chortling pained his ears, and once again the scurrying bodies obscured his view of the landscape he'd sought to soothe him.

Chubby, thin, loud and mournful, snuggling against a breast or tugging at the hem of a dress or jean pant bottom, they beamed with self-importance. He despised them. Too strong a sentiment for an ancient, he knew, but for as long as he could recall he had never avoided the truth.

Then he saw her walking across the street. Her head bowed, her too tight skirt stretched over her ass and thighs like warm mud smeared onto a windowpane. He was amused as he watched her jerk then stumble, appearing as if she was trying to remember how to walk. Her awkwardness aside, she still pleased him. She was familiar. He had been like her once upon a time.

He stood, meticulously rubbing his hands over his clothing, straightening the rumpled fabric of his seersucker suit, tidying his appearance for their first meeting.

“Anya,” he whispered, and strolled toward the ancient young woman.

to be continued…