Summary: Giles discovers Azarael’s identity. Willow and Marcus get better acquainted, but things do not go smoothly ...

“Where is he?”

Giles requested the information in a deliberately dulcet voice, not wishing to antagonise the person he was seeking.

“Don’t know.” The demon eyed Giles derisively, sneering at the apparently weak man before him.

Before he had realised what was happening, Giles had pressed his thumb hard against his neck.

“Listen here you obnoxious little sod,” he whispered. “I don’t give a damn what the person paying you has said. You tell me where he is, or I’ll jam my digit through to your gills.” He decided that cordial relations were now irrelevant.

The demon gasped, the air being circumvented from entering his body. It tried to claw at Giles’s face, but was repelled by a vicious butt from the watcher’s head. Its horned cranium was coursed with agony as it impacted against the solid brick behind it. Its vision blurred, and it knew it had to talk.

“Alright,” it coughed. “Get off me, and I’ll tell you.”

“No deal mate,” Giles rebuked cruelly. “Tell me where he is this instant, or you’re on a one way ticket to hell.”

“Soho,” came the gargled reply. “The Pussy Club, in Soho.”

Giles cringed at the crudity. He released the demon, delivering a brutal kick to the solar plexus to prevent any retribution for his actions. The creature collapsed gasping to the ground, and Giles turned to leave.

Enlightenment would soon be brought to the enigma facing him; who was Azarael?

* * *

“What the hell were you playing at?” Marcus screamed. Willow staggered back, the terror coursing across her features.

“I take you into my home, walk around this city with you trying to find some way to help you, and its all been for nothing!” The rage was palpable. “I’ve gone through all this crap because you got off at the wrong goddamned stop. You stupid, self-centred little jerk!”

The restaurant had come to a complete halt due to the man’s outburst. The table where the two of them had been sitting was now lying upturned, the contents strewn across the floor. A waitress moved to a phone.

“Don’t you even think about touching that,” Marcus said. The cold threat exuded in his voice deterred the woman.

“So you could have reported this to the police yesterday?” Willow nodded reticently, tears streaming down her face.

“I p-panicked,” she stammered. “I’m sorry. You don’t know her; she’s awful. She’s going to make my l . . life a misery. I can’t survive what she’ll do.” The words came cascading out. “Then that man came at me, and …” she trailed off for a second. “I wanted to tell you this morning, but when you said you would get your friend to help, I thought …” This time, she did not recover.

“What?” Marcus demanded caustically. “Get him to make everything alright? Sorry darling, but it doesn’t work like that. You screwed up, so you live with the consequences. I have to every single godforsaken day.”

Willow felt the visceral guilt sear her body, chastising her unremittingly for her selfishness. Of course she should have told Marcus the truth. But her fear of Shelia’s response had been overwhelming.

“I’m sorry.” The tears had yet to abate. “I just … goodbye.”

She turned and ran, he sobs clearly audible from outside the café’s entrance. Marcus let her go, assuming she would now go to the police as she should have done the previous day. He was determined not to let her utilise him as an excuse in what he perceived as a simple family quarrel, for any longer.

He picked his coat up off his seat, and began a casual walk away from his problems.

* * *

It was remarkable, Giles speculated, how a Vampire’s impenetrable aegis vanished with the threat of a crossbow bolt pressed against the heart. The creature squirmed as he was held against the wall, his features morphing back to their human guise. He had revealed his demonic appearance to scare off the intruder; the tactic had badly misfired.

“Open the door,” the watcher demanded. “Now,” he added to expedite the vampire’s actions.

The undead guard reached across to a digital keypad set into the wall, and entered the appropriate sequence of numbers. There was a terse buzz, which pre-empted the release of the lock.

“Right, now get out of here,” Giles stated bluntly. “If I see you again tonight, you’ll be supping with the Devil.”

The vampire decided that his affinity with his employer was at an end, and ran from the building. Giles slung the crossbow across his broad shoulders, his hand withdrawing an automatic pistol from a holster secreted under his jacket.

For the foe he faced was resolutely human.

He thumbed back the pistols cock, the click slicing through the cold silence of the room. Each footstep sounded a crescendo of sound, which could at any time cause a maelstrom of death to be unleashed upon him.

“Rupert.”

Giles spun on the balls of his feet, his finger taunt on the gun’s trigger. “Don’t move Ethan, I’m armed.”

“My dear Rupert,” said Ethan Rayne, “I have not the slightest intention of attempting to assail your esteemed person.”

“Cut the bull,” Giles demanded coldly. “I need information, which you are going to provide me with.”

“Would you be overly offended if I told you to sod off and die Rupert?”

“No,” Giles responded levelly. “But I would be impelled to smear what little brains you have across the wall.”

“You have neither the inclination nor the will, my friend,” his nemesis taunted. “I could say what the hell I like, and you’ll just stand there and bluster.”

The bullet must have passed within inches of Ethan’s ear. He fell to the ground, real fear now evident in his usually stoic features.

“Now, if you continue to prevaricate,” Giles breathed, “I’ll put one eye out with a bullet, and you can spend eternity looking at the earth with the other.”

“You always were a crazed bastárd ripper.” The beads of sweat were running into Ethan’s eyes, blurring the vision of his tormentor. “Alright,” he conceded, “I’ll talk.”

“Who is Azrael?”

Ethan cursed upon hearing the name, but a further click of the pistol’s hammer imbued him with the impetus to respond.

“He’s a fallen Angel.”

Giles fired again, the bullet clipping the edge of Ethan’s jacket.
This time he screamed, the petrified cry ricochetting around the confined space.

“Christ alive Rupert, I’m telling you the truth!”

The third bullet smashed into the floorboards between his quaking legs.
“I hear the Vatican are interested in obtaining the services of a castrati; fancy the post?” The hammer clicked again, the scathing tone of Giles’s voice now filling every orifice of Ethan’s being.

“That’s it.” Ethan rose to his feet, trying to recover some semblance of dignity to his person. “I’ve told you all I can. Now either spread my goolies across the floor, or let me go.” He prayed that this deadly gambit would pay off.

Rupert came within seconds of ensuring it did not. However, the Watcher managed to check his homicidal urge, and began a gradual move towards the room’s door.

“If you have lied to me,” he stated acidulously, “not even the vampire quislings you hire will be able to salvage any of your blood.”
He backed out of the door, not turning his back until he had re-entered the brothel Ethan currently resided below. He ignored the salacious stares directed towards him, knowing that their instigators were only after his wallet.

A fallen Angel?

Surely, Giles reasoned, his old enemy had been mocking him. It had, he chastised himself, only been his pusillanimous lack of will that had caused him to break off the interrogation. Doubtless, despite his threat, Ethan would now ensure he was out of his clutches.

At that moment, the neurons within his brain made the connection.

“Shite,” he breathed, and began to run.

* * *

It was just past mid-day when Marcus walked into St James’s Park. The sun was bearing down pleasantly upon him, its rays swathing intricate shadows beneath the multitude of trees. On a day like this, he ruminated, it was hard to imagine the horrors that waited within the cities crevices.

He strolled casually through the agrarian surroundings, letting the gentle beauty of the park entwine itself throughout his body. There were young couples in each other’s arms on the grass, birds making graceful flights through the lines of foliage, and a soft breeze against his face.

It was almost enough to make the pain rescind.

Almost.

He was passing by Birdcage Walk when he saw her. Willow sat against a tree, her tiny body almost unnoticeable because of the ball she had curled herself into. He could not hear from his current position, but Marcus was sure she was crying.

Just walk on by, he told himself. She’s just another rebellious teenager who’s fallen out with her parents. She’ll get the angst out of her system, then go and find her mother.

He walked on for another minute, stopped, cursed, and retraced his steps.
He approached her reticently, not wanting to cause the girl any further distress. The guilt welled up within him, and then he was by her side. She was indeed crying, the tears coming in slow, gaping sobs. He crouched down beside her, and spoke in a whisper.

“Hey Kid.”

Willow slowly lifted her face from her arms, and Marcus could see the depth of her misery. Her face was red, and stained by tears. Her bloodshot eyes could no longer produce the liquid, and were horribly dry. Her lips were quivering, a small bead of saliva caught between them.

She could not get the words out, so instead jabbed a middle finger into his face.

“I guess I deserve that,” he commented scathingly. “I’m sorry kid, that’s all I can say.”

It took her several gaping breaths to regain her voice, but she eventually came out with a choked, pained murmur.

“J-just go away.” Her voice was a torrent of competing emotions.

“Look, I’ll come with you to the Police,” Marcus offered. “Your mother will be frantic with worry. She’ll be angrier with herself than with you.”

Willow shook her head. “It’s over.”

“What?”

“My life,” she sobbed.

“I know this seems like the end of the world at the moment,” Marcus tried to console her. “But its not.”

“Yes, it is,” Willow stated bluntly. “The end of my world.”

“Come on, it can’t –”

Willow cut him off: “I’ll be sent away,” she wept. “This trip was the last attempt to help me. We were meant to be going to a world-renowned psychologist this morning,” she extrapolated. “Now its too late. He’s flying off to Japan this afternoon.”

“You can’t be blamed for what’s happened,” Marcus assured her. “I’m sure your mother will understand.”

“Have you ever been to Western Samoa?” Willow asked bluntly. “Cos’ that’s where I’m going to be sent to. I overheard my mother talking to the ‘escort company’,” she said the phrase with a bitter sarcasm, “over the phone. She’s already signed the papers. My last chance was this trip, and now it’s gone.”

“My God,” Marcus murmured. He had heard of the whole ‘teen camp’ racket, and although it did not rate highly in his list of evils, it was a more than worthy member. Parents could sign away their children’s freedom for a consistent wad of dollar bills every month, who would then be removed to either a remote section of the United States, or a foreign territory. They were virtual prisoners until they turned eighteen.

“So I suppose I should just enjoy the weather,” Willow remarked absently. “I doubt there’ll be much shade where I’m going.”
Marcus cursed his country. He was sure a similar system would be unthinkable in Europe, and indeed, a journalist from the London Times had been appalled when he had witnessed an abduction of a girl from a New York street. He wondered which spurious excuse was being utilised to consign Willow to this fate.

“I don’t fit in.”

She had answered his question as if some telepathic link existed between them. “I have serious trouble at school, my teachers have been reporting that I’m dangerously socially excluded. I live my life through a computer apparently.” Willow made no effort to hide the bitterness of her words. “And what does that bitch I call my mother do about it?” The tears, sensing they were required, erupted from her eyes. “She plans to send me to some dump in the Pacific for the next two years. They have wonderful therapy apparently.” A rare morose anger filled her voice. “Like P-Philip Larkin said, ‘They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.’ Mine are going to fuck me up in the best way money can buy.”

She ceased, shocked by her own language.

The protective urge welled up within Marcus yet again. He thought of the girl chatting with a casual rancour about a highly complex topic with a man who was years her superior. Her zest, her enthusiasm. Then the image of some pacific hellhole seared throughout his mind. Her talents squandered at the whim of some callous bureaucrat.

I won’t let this happen, he resolved to himself. How I’ll stop it, I don’t know – but it cannot happen.

Marcus had seen so much beauty lost. His family left in a pool of their own blood by the vampires, his mother lying raped and drained on the table. They had sired his own brother, who then led the clan to his home.

That sight, burned into his memory ever since he had come home from school that day, would remain with him always.

“Right,” he stated decisively, “we’re going to see Giles about this.” He held out his hand, and helped Willow to her feet. “I don’t give jack shit about any objections he raises, I’m not going to leave until he comes up with a solution.”

The shadows passed a cooling air over them as they walked.

“I talked to a girl who had been there,” Willow said. “Not talk talk, virtual talk.” She gave a brief giggle. “We sent each other a few e-mails. She ran away from them eventually. They slaved them away in the sun,” she described, “made them chop wood, dig holes, scoop up excrement. I couldn’t do that. And the other kids. They were whacked out. I mean disturbed,” she corrected herself. “Half were on drugs, had alcohol problems, mental illness’s. Some even tried to . . .” she trailed off for a second. “The didn’t manage it though. But she said she was strong. Look at me.”

She stopped, and moved ahead of Marcus.

“What could I do to stop them?”

“Unarmed, very little,” he told her truthfully. She did not deserve it, he knew. He could see the veracious nature of what she was saying in her eyes.

Giles had to be able to help.

* * *

“Tibet?”

The airport booking officer’s voice was laced with incredulity.

“You heard me,” Giles groaned arduously, “I want to go to Tibet.”

“Sir, that might be, how should I phrase it, problematic.”

State the bloody obvious why don’t you. That moment, his mobile phone went off. He dropped the baggage he had been carrying, and scooped the device from his jacket pocket, cursing the “dread machine” as he did so.

“Rupert Giles,” he answered curtly. “Who’s speaking?”

“Rupe, its me, Marcus.”

Giles wished the groan had not been quite so audible.

“What do you want? I’m rather busy here.” He did not wish to state his intended destination over a hackable cellular line.

“It’s the girl,” Marcus explained. “She’s called Willow Rosenberg, she’s nearly sixteen, and her mother wants to send her away to some school in Western Samoa.”

The Watcher struggled to digest the onslaught of information. “What do you want me to do about it?” He asked irritably.

“Look Rupe, the poor kid needs help. I don’t know jack about your legal system.”

“If you’re suggesting that she should seek asylum, then forget it.” Giles did not have time for this. “The pair of you would be laughed out of the building, and she’d be on the first plane home to America.”

“Dammit Rupert, do something.” Marcus sounded desperate.

“You said she’s nearly sixteen. Then she can leave wherever they send her soon enough,” Giles reasoned.

“That’s not how it works,” Marcus said. “She’s ward of her parents until she’s eighteen. A minor. The US authorities will do squat to help her.”
“Terrible.” The callousness of his own words shocked Giles. “She’ll just have to buckle down then – I can’t rearrange the buggered-up legal system of your country. I need to go.”

The intrigue he had felt concerning Willow had been utterly dissipated by the latest turn of events.

“She can’t buckle down,” the anger of Marcus’s shouts was evidently clear in the mobiles earpiece. “They treat the kids like cold crap there Rupert. They parents sign away their rights on some damn form.” He was fast loosing all patience with Giles. “Two countries haven’t signed the UN declaration on the rights of children. One’s Somalia, and the other’s the US-of-friggin’-A.”

“I have matters of life and death to contend with,” Giles yelled. “You’ll just have to forget about her Marcus.”

“You callous, apathetic rat bas –” Giles thumbed the disconnect button to spare himself any more of Marcus’s tirade.

He turned again to the man at the desk.

“Tibet,” he stated emphatically.

* * *

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Marcus screamed, lobbing the phone across Giles’s office. “That cold hearted son-of-a-British-bitch!”

Willow rose to her feet, having ducked to avoid the projectile.

“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” the girl said resignedly.

“Not by a long shot,” Marcus said, a sudden, wild vagary entering his mind, “not by a long, long shot.”

* * *

Ethan Rayne reclined in the planes seat, and ordered another martini from the steward.

“Enjoy Tibet ripper,” he muttered caustically. “Because soon all the cards will be on the table. And I intend to receive the best hand; I always do.”

The plane flew on into the night, and Ethan slipped into a relaxed, contented slumber.

© Byron, 2000