Chapter Four:
The darkened room the mirror showed him now was unoccupied, save for a svelte grey cat, who lay curled around her master’s crystal ball. He grinned a little and looked back into his own room, seeing Ari at his ablutions, one back leg stuck up at an angle and his head twisted round in a very undignified pose.
“Do you have to do that on a surface I occasionally eat off?” the Watcher asked, unable to keep a wry note of affection from the question. Ari merely lifted his head and looked at him for a moment before returning his attentions to his back paw.
“Yes,” Giles breathed, realising that it had been a rather stupid question. “Well, at least you keep yourself clean. Which is more than I can say for some of my visitors.”
Ari’s tail twitched at that: a cat’s polite version of a snigger. It wasn’t that long ago that the desk in question had been smeared with jammy handprints, souvenirs of Faith and Robin’s tearaway toddler. Giles was very fond of his young godson, and he was always pleased to see the boy’s parents, but a three-year-old and a senior Watcher’s study were never going to be a sensible mix. Fortunately most of the participants in that little encounter had survived more or less intact, and little Nicky had learnt two very important lessons in life.
Firstly never go into your godfather’s study when he wasn’t there to protect you from some of the things he kept in it – and secondly, that a jam sandwich is never going to fit into a computer’s CD drive, no matter how hard you push.
The PC was still away getting fixed. Nicky, being young, resilient and impossibly curious, had taken slightly less time to recover from the experience. Giles wasn’t so sure about his desk, but several applications of polish and a little elbow grease had managed to get rid of the stickyness at least.
Robin had spent the rest of their visit apologising.
Faith had simply laughed.
“Don’t tell his mother,” the Watcher confided wryly, “but I rather enjoyed having the holy terror charging around for a while. Made me feel … proud, somehow. Although I rather expected to have been a father before I turned into somebody’s grandfather. Or at least a substitute for one.” He took another swallow from his glass and moved to stand in front of the second mirror. This was a more recent piece than the first, but still an antique. Its wooden frame was polished to a high sheen and it boasted intricate leading around its silvered edges. “Not that things ever turn out quite the way you expect …”
He lifted his left hand and ran it down the surface of the mirror, directing the shimmer of light that the gesture summoned with accustomed ease. The mirror magic was much less demanding than many other aspects of the art, and – once Geoffrey had shown him the trick of it – he’d found he had a talent for manipulating the mysteries of reflected light. Although that could be the result of the vissatuk’s taint, the echoes of the demon’s essence that had pierced his skin and still danced through his blood.
“Megmutat,” he murmured, emptying his mind of that thought so that he could focus on the task in hand. Light flared briefly in the mirror, filling it with a swirl of mist; Giles nodded with quiet satisfaction, stepping back so that he could settle himself into the padded arm chair put there for just that purpose. This was one of the moments in his week that he liked the best; freed for a while from the reports, the paperwork and the demands of his vocation, and blessed with a little time and the ability to do what he was really called to do. To Watch over his family.
Buffy first.
She was always first, her image forming within the glass almost without him having to think about it. It was a good hour later in Rome and he’d half-expected to have to pick her out from a crowd. There were many times that he thanked the fashion for putting up mirrors in bars and clubs, since it generally meant he could find her on a Friday night whether she was at home, or out on the town. She rarely patrolled now, leaving the routine work to less experienced Slayers and focusing her energies on dealing with the really difficult problems. Like running the little art and crafts gallery she’d bought into, acting as the Council’s liaison with the Vatican , and mentoring a few Slayers in training in her spare time.
He knew she was between boyfriends at the moment, having ditched the last one about a month before. Giles rarely considered any of her choices in male companionship to be worthy of her, but this one had been particularly unsuitable. True, he’d been good-looking, earned a pretty lira as a soccer player, and had possessed a heartbeat – but that hadn’t made up for his lack of conversational wit, his belief that he was in charge of the relationship, and his overweening vanity. Giles had tired of seeing his pretty face in mirrors long before he had – and Buffy had tired of it eventually, recognising that surface beauty held little appeal when the man who wore it was as shallow and insincere as his publicity campaign.
Now she was alone again, but not unhappy for it. She was still at home on this particular evening, and he found her sitting by her dressing table, working on fixing her hair into a frothy cascade of golden silk, ready for yet another evening on the town. Dinner with a patron of the gallery by the look of the elegant dress she was wearing – or perhaps dinner with one of her artists, all of whom adored her, even if half of them were gay.
He watched her with affection, smiling at the little touches she put into her coiffure and nodding approval at her choice of corsage. He smiled even wider when he saw her slipping a stake into her handbag; you never knew who you might run into on a warm Italian night, and he’d heard that the Immortal was still sending emissaries to lure her back into his bed. There was no danger of that, of course, but it was good to see that she remembered to take sensible precautions all the same.
Certain of his Slayer’s well-being and safety – and he still thought of Buffy as his Slayer, no matter how many of them he trained, advised or worked with these days – he turned his attention to the rest of his adopted family, summoning their images in the mirror while he finished his scotch and Ari came to sit on his lap, purring and padding as he made himself comfortable.
Dawn had grown into a beautiful, elegant young woman and he never tired of telling her so; she’d giggle on the end of the phone when he offered her such compliments, denying them with amusement while basking in his praise. She was a well into her studies at Oxford now, enrolled in his old College and taking pleasure in following some of his footsteps. Only some of them – he’d told her in no uncertain terms that if she even thought about abandoning her studies, joining the music scene and summoning a few demons, then he’d inform her sister and she’d find herself in real trouble. She’d giggled at that too, and promised to be good – which she had been on the whole, finding real enjoyment in her studies and the excitement of student life.
She was in the Union bar when he located her, drinking what looked like a pint of shandy and engaged in animated conversation with some of her fellow students. Not for the first time he mourned the lack of sound that came with the mirror images; from the snippets he surmised from the lips he could see and half-read, he suspected it was the kind of conversation he’d have enjoyed listening to. No matter. Dawn was enjoying herself and that was the important thing.
He let her image fade and called up Xander’s instead. The young man was on his annual search-and-recruit duty, tracking awakened Slayers across the world and offering them the chance to develop and hone their skills. That meant he wasn’t always easy to find, but on this particular evening Giles knew that he was staying in a Hotel somewhere in Bucharest, snatching a brief respite before he headed out into the Romanian hinterland. Travelling in the Carpathians was never safe, but Xander was well-prepared for the trip and equally well guarded. He had three trainee Slayers with him, all of them veterans of basic training and at least two moving towards full graduation. It was late in the evening in eastern Europe; he found Xander and his escort sitting in the bar, discussing the next days travel plans. There were maps spread out around them, along with phrase books and tourist guides. Xander looked tense and anxious, which was only to be expected in the circumstances. The girls were more relaxed, laughing a little at his attempts to instil earnest concerns. A sudden sense of Déjà vu caught at the Watcher’s heart. Hadn’t there been days, when he’d sat in the library back in Sunnydale, with that same furrowed look on his face while the Scoobies laughed and joked around? It was rare now, that Xander laughed impulsively. He took his work very seriously, and he viewed each loss in the field, each wounded Slayer – or worse, each renegade lost to darkness before they’d had time to find them - as a personal burden. Giles made a mental note to have a quiet word with him when he was next in England . Not to tell him to give up those concerns, but to remind him he wasn’t the only one who carried that particular cross on his shoulders.
And maybe assign him some different duties for a while.
Just so that he could have some space to regain his perspective.
Then there was Willow …
The images in the mirror swirled and bubbled for a while as both he and the magic struggled to seek her out. Flickers of distant places came and went, the search flipping from mirror to mirror, from reflection to reflection; flashes of stone walls, opulent palaces, even the interiors of dirty shanty town shacks, came and went, shimmering and shifting under the firm focus of his will and intent. Eventually – a little too long for comfort, but not quite long enough to raise real concern - the image rippled, shivered and grew still. He was looking at a night sky, high above the world; a sight reflected, not in glass or silver, but in the deep still waters of a formal pond somewhere high in the Himalayas.
Oh. Hi Giles , Willow mouthed, turning to smile down at him in greeting. Hold on ‘mo …
She bowed politely to someone just out of sight, then came and perched at the edge of the pond, reaching down to gently touch the surface of the water. The image briefly broke up and then reformed, even clearer than before.
“Can you hear me now?” she asked, her voice sounding tinny and distant, like a bad phone connection. He smiled.
“Sufficient for communication, yes. I’m sorry, Willow , I didn’t mean to disturb you. Just … doing the rounds. Making sure – “
“We’re all all right. Yeah, I know.” The young witch smiled with affectionate amusement. “Cheaper than a phone call – and you hate the internet. A web-cam would be easier on the soul, you know.”
“Less personal,” he pointed out. “And I seriously doubt that a little scrying is going to count against me in the overall scheme of things.”
“So do I,” she said, grinning at the thought. “That wasn’t what I meant. You should save your energies for the serious things.”
“These are the serious things,” he retorted, taking another swallow of scotch and savouring its mellow burn. “Speaking of which -”
“Done and dusted,” Willow interrupted firmly. “Quite literally in some cases. You were right. They did manage to break the seal – but we chased them down, put the bindings back in place, and brought the casket up here for safe keeping. The abbot’s promised to keep an eye on it. And we’ll know where it is, if we ever need to open it.”
“I hope to God we never do,” the Watcher said with a shudder. “Some things are better left undisturbed. Any casualties?”
The witch shrugged. “None worth reporting. You’ll have the report in a couple of days. Kennedy’s out hunting yeti. Thought you might like a new rug. Kidding. Kidding,” she reacted hastily, catching the horrified look with which he greeted this information. “The monks leave them food and stuff up on the mountain altars, you know? Ken volunteered to help. She’s hoping she might pick up a discarded tusk or two.”
“Yeti ivory?” It was said to be almost as translucent as ice, could be carved into the most intricate of details, and yet kept an edge sharper than steel. “Now that I would like a piece of.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Her image rippled as a breeze ruffled across the surface of the water, and she looked up and away, distracted by something he couldn’t see. “I have to go,” she said. “Take care of yourself, okay? See you in a week or two?”
“As soon as you get back,” he promised softly. “You know where I am if you need me.”
“I know.” She swept her hand across the water, wiping away the reflected stars. Her smile was the last thing to fade, lingering in the glass with teasing warmth. Giles sat back with a sigh, considering just how much Willow had grown over the years. She was a long way from the quiet, insecure student that had once slipped so apologetically into his library, and from there into his affections almost without him being aware of it – but she was still his friend, still Willow in a way that he found hard to define. It was a friendship he’d prized almost right from the start, and had continued to do so as she grew older. Her struggles to understand her gifts, and her determination to master them reflected – not just her inner strengths – but her comprehension of the role they allowed her to play in their on-going war.
The Watcher sighed a second time, staring down into his glass with glum consideration. Willow was out there in the thick of things, fighting the good fight and using her talents to protect the world, and here he was, locked up tight behind carefully guarded walls. It was true that – like Xander – she had her own personal Slayer escort wherever she went, but he didn’t think for one moment that Kennedy considered herself to be her girlfriend’s bodyguard, and he seriously doubted that Willow did either. Everyone in their organisation had a good idea of what the white witch was capable of. A good many of them were afraid of her.
Whereas most people – even the Slayers assigned to his personal staff - seemed to think he was little more than a toothless tiger these days. They tended to forget who and what he was. What he’d done, the things he knew, and how much power he could call on if it was needed. Sometimes even the Scoobies forgot that; it was easy to let the formal suits and the patient, long suffering sighs label him, to let the image become the man that hid within it. But he’d never really been a stuffy, tweed clad fuddy-duddy, even when he’d been trying to convince himself that he was - and he’d been through too much, done too much, to ever go back, to ever retreat behind that safe and certain semblance again.
Which was probably why the tender care they wrapped him in could feel so oppressive and restricting sometimes.
Much of it was his own fault, of course. He’d let the situation develop around him almost without being aware of it, caught up in the work to re-establish the council, to locate both the newly awakened Slayers and sufficient remnants of his old order to Watch over them. Buffy’s insistence that he be protected had somehow turned into a determined crusade – and it was hard to argue with a Slayer’s sense of sacred duty, since that’s exactly what he was trying to drum into them in the first place. But it was a little wearing on the soul some days.
Ari was squirming in his lap, partly to get himself comfortable and partly to demand some attention. Both were successful, despite the man’s preoccupied thoughts; Giles leant back in the chair, stretched out his legs, took another sip of scotch, and abstractedly scratched the cat behind the ears – all of which earned him a comforting purr, and a slightly less comforting flex of claws into his denim clad leg.
“Ari?” he growled softly. “Claws.”
The cat went on purring and padding, but the offending weapons were considerately sheathed. The Watcher’s lips quirked in a moment of wry forbearance; he shook his head, gave Ari’s an affectionate rub and returned his attention to the mirror.
The mist within it swirled briefly then cleared, giving him sight of a sunlit room somewhere across the Atlantic . Faith was there, talking to a pair of much younger girls, while Robin was at work behind the desk she was perching on. Nicky was sitting in his play pen, occupied with demolishing a pile of wooden bricks with a plastic hammer – the first a gift from his godfather, the second a gift from Xander, who’d presented him with a ‘junior constriction kit’ for Christmas. The scene would look wonderfully domestic if Faith wasn’t busy flipping a stake with one hand and fingering the crossbow laid across the desk with the other; Giles relaxed at the sight, instantly reassured that the Cleveland branch of his organisation was functioning with its usual chaotic efficiency.
Not that it wouldn’t be, of course, but sometimes it was good to check in personally, just to make sure.
He sat and watched the scene for a moment or two, smiling at the antics of the child, and the stoic way his parents refused to let his attention seeking become reinforced behavior by their responding to it. Giles had always thought that Faith needed a little of the ‘me, want, take’ attitude knocked out of her – but he’d never dreamed that motherhood would teach her that lesson, or that she would thrive on it quite so wonderfully. Robin was looking a little worn around the edges, but then he was Head Watcher for the US , partner to a Slayer and proud father of a three year old. It would have been worrying if he didn’t look a little frazzled
“Titok, ” he ordered and the magical images dissolved, leaving his own darkened reflection staring back at him from within the glass. Dusk had finally sunk into true night, and the only light in the room now came from the single table lamp he’d flicked on as he’d it passed earlier. He paused for a moment, then clicked his fingers to light the main uplighter. Not magic, but simple technology. Willow had insisted on installing the system, saying that time spent fumbling for switches could also be time in which something could attack, unseen in the dark. Giles suspected it was also a subtle concern about his advancing age – which was not advancing any more rapidly than it had ever been, and in his opinion was a long way from being an issue, let alone potentially disabling – but which she’d been anxiously reminded of, the day she’d first met Geoffrey Davenport.
Geoffrey …
He clicked the lights off again and called up one more image. The room in the nursing home held several mirrors, at least three of which were at floor level to allow feline visitors easy access to the White Knight’s retirement home. Not that the nurses – or most of his human visitors come to that – understood why the old man insisted on such a strange eccentricity. The cats stopped by when no one else was around, and they tended to leave as soon as someone entered the old man’s room. When Giles visited, they came back, of course, as they did for the other regular visitor who knew Geoffrey’s remarkable history. The Walkers were well aware that his great-granddaughter was a Slayer, and also privy to their particular gifts; they had no concerns over her seeing them enter – or exit – Looking Glass House.
Melanie was there this evening, sitting at the old man’s bedside and reading to him. There were three cats lying on the bed, another one on the windowsill and a fifth curled up in on of the visitor’s chairs. Geoffrey himself was lying in the bed, hooked up to a monitor and looking every one of his eighty-plus years. His health hadn’t been good for a while; his long years behind the mirrors had finally begun to catch up with him, and his heart was slowly failing. For all that, his mind and his spirit were still strong. He looked up as Giles looked in – and he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges and twinkling, deep in their depths.
The Watcher smiled back, perfectly aware that it was almost as impossible to look in on the White Knight without him being aware of the scrutiny as it was Willow – although for different reasons, and with different results. Geoffrey lacked the strength and the skill to speak through the scrying glass, but he could – and did – send messages that way. Script flowed across the mirror, an elegant echo of the old man’s handwriting. The real thing was shaky these days, but the mirror writing was clear and confident in its execution.
It was also written backwards, since that was how the magic worked: Giles had become quite an expert on mirror writing ever since Geoffrey had demonstrated how he could leave himself messages to be conjoured up in any reflective surface he desired. His Slayers still hadn’t worked out how he managed to remember all his appointments without having one of those infernal pocket PC devices to hand.
Good evening, my beamish boy , the message read, widening the Watcher’s smile. Only the White Knight could – and did – address him as ‘boy’ these days. Hard day?
The usual , Giles scribed back, amused by the way that Melanie went on reading, oblivious to the silent conversation going on beside her. You?
The usual. The world oblivious to your vigilance, and the doctors oblivious to mine.
That was good news; Geoffrey, being bed-bound and frail with it, had focused his energies on assisting the best way he could. He’d discovered television and with it the myriad channels that both informed and entertained; he watched the news avidly, often spotting signs of supernatural or unknown Slayer activity hidden among the more mundane headliners. He also watched bad soap operas and over-the-top costume dramas with relish, but nobody held that against him; he’d spent most of his life living vicariously, looking in on a world he could never touch. The TV was an extension of that, an old familiarity with added sound and scriptwriters to make it semi-comprehensible.
Calloh! Callay! The Watcher sent, quoting Carroll as usual, and he saw Geoffrey chuckle.
Quite, the old man sent back. All is well, I take it?
As much as it can be. Sleep well. I’ll try and drop by sometime next week.
See that you do. My chess board is starting to gather dust.
Giles lifted his nearly empty glass and offered a silent toast to his friend before letting the image of him swirl away, leaving nothing but his own reflection in its place. His gesture – the wry smile, the half raised glass meant as a friendly courtesy – turned into one of self mockery; here he was, sitting in the dark on Friday night, drowning his sorrows and reduced, like Geoffrey, to watching the world through panes of glass.
It is a clear night, Ari announced, uncurling himself from the warmth of the Watcher’s lap and stretching with elegant attentiveness. The moon will soon be up.
“I know.” Giles sighed, waiting for the cat to jump down before he stood up and made his way to the window. “I hope no-one gets into trouble hunting down that werewolf tonight. And the signs all point to increased activity at Highgate again. That’s a nasty place to patrol at the best of times.” He sighed a second time. “Too many girls to worry about, Ari. And that’s all I can do these days. Worry. They’ve put me out to grass,’ he complained. “I’m just a figurehead and symbol these days, too important to risk, and too busy to bother with the real problems …’
They will call when they need you , Ari said philosophically. He jumped up onto the windowsill and rubbed his head against the Watcher’s hand. And they will need you. You are their Watcher, after all.
“True,” the man concerned acknowledged wearily, swallowing the last of the whiskey from his glass. “I don’t know, Ari. Walkers, Watchers and Slayers. All my concern, and here I am, practically a prisoner of their regard. What am I supposed to do with myself?”
Go hunting , the cat declared, leaping down from the sill and heading towards the third and final mirror in the room. The one with the plain frame and the glass that went down nearly all the way to the floor. The Watcher grinned, dropping his empty glass onto the desk and reaching across to draw a sword – not out of the rack beside it, but from within the silvered surface of yet another mirror. One that stood ready on the antiqued oak for just that purpose. The sword was a shimmering, barely visible weapon; the blade looked as if it were made of glass.
"Thought you’d never ask,” Giles declared with relish – and stepped confidently through the third mirror and into the halls of Looking Glass House. Ari, with a wild twitch of his tail, leapt after him.