Council
Council
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
FR-T
Drama, Action
Giles drove slowly up to the house. The driveway was almost two miles long.
“Does everyone in this country live in their own private apartment block?” Faith asked.
“No, Faith,” Giles sighed. “Nor, as I understand it, is this exactly a private home. Rather, it is one of a number of facilities run by the remnants of the Watchers’ Council.”
“Oh. Well, that explains three things,” Faith decided. As she spoke she was pulling her hair back and fixing it with three quick twists of a scrunchy.
“Three?”
“Well; if this is a Council place, that’s why you need to do research here.” Faith wriggled in her seat to get out of her jacket. “It’s also why you didn’t tell me anything about it before we arrived, seeing as how I don’t exactly have the best record with the Watchers.”
“You mean because they tried to kill you that time?”
“Those times,” Faith corrected. “I’m still pretty sure someone smuggled that girl a shiv when I was in the hole and you know they wanted me to pass the parcel to the next Slayer. Must’ve driven ‘em mad. All that time in critical and I never coded once.”
“And the, uh, third thing?” Giles asked uncomfortably.
Faith grinned. “Don’t sweat it, Giles. I know you were out of the loop by then. Yeah; the third thing. It explains why there were vampires in the bushes back there.” She punched the release button on her seatbelt, snatched a stake from the glove box, opened the car door and leaped out.
“Impetuous girl,” Giles sighed. He slammed the car into a violent turn and leaned on the horn to alert the house.
Three vampires rose from the bushes at Faith’s approach. They looked more confused than anything, but they rallied fast and the biggest of them even managed a snarl before Faith drove he stake into his chest. She rolled clear as he exploded into dust and turned to face the other two.
A solid kick drove one back, allowing faith to close with the second, driving blow after blow at the vampire with feet and fists in her usual, brutally efficient style. She was easily dominating the fight, but unfortunately she had left her stake in the first vamp and now had no way of finishing the battle.
Recovering his balance, the vampire managed to land a punch which knocked Faith off her feet. She landed at the bottom of the screen of bushes which had been hiding the vampires. He hand flung out over her head, and she felt thick wood beneath her left palm.
A powerful blow with her right fist broke off the wood. Faith rolled back, flipped to her feet and brought her arm up and over, planting the whole, large rose bush right in the vampire’s heart. It crashed to the ground and dusted, just as the second vamp grabbed Faith’s arm and flung her clear across the driveway.
Faith landed hard and the wind was knocked out of her. The vampire stalked towards her, but Giles’s car blindsided it and it bounced across the roof of the convertible like a rag doll.
The car slid to a halt. Giles stepped out and threw Faith a stake. She finished the vampire before he could pop his bones back together.
“Nice driving, Giles,” Faith said. “Sorry about your car.”
“A good panel beater will get the dents out,” Giles assured her. “Besides, if the worst comes to the worst, as the de facto head of the Watchers’ Council it would be easy enough to replace. I can’t say the same of you.”
“Couldn’t you ask Buffy for a new Slayer?”
Giles smiled faintly. “Even these days, Slayers are a little harder to come by than sports cars,” he assured her. “Besides; it wouldn’t be the same.”
Faith grinned at him. “That may just be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she told him, “which is… kinda sad when you think about it.”
“Well, be that as it may, we should get on to the Grange. When vampires attack Council strongholds…”
“They come in force?” Faith asked.
“Ah, yes.” Giles put a hand to his brow. “Faith; which would you say I would regret more? Asking how you knew that, or simply turning around.”
“Giles, move!” Faith replied.
Giles moved, vaulting over the boot of the car while Faith went over the bonnet.
“Weapons!” Faith called, launching into a series of repelling blows to drive back the six new vampires while Giles fumbled with the boot.
“Keys,” he snarled at himself and ran to the left-hand door. He flung the door wide and stared in horror at the passenger side. “Back on the right side of the road again.”
“Giles!” Where Buffy could sound impatient when waiting for weapons, Faith just sounded furious, as though she were planning to come and kick his ass for keeping her waiting and then take on the vampires.
Giles lunged across the seats and wrenched the boot release. He looked up through the side window of the driver’s door. Faith was doing well just to keep a space around herself, but she was fighting against her natural style.
Giles slid back out and ran to the boot. He lifted the boot-lid and grabbed a pair of broadswords.
“Faith!” he called. He threw one of the swords. She caught it without looking and swept a powerful circular cut all around her, driving the vampires off.
Each of the six vamps took a step backwards, and one of them kept moving back, and up, carried aloft by a creature with huge, batlike wings. The vampire was held in the demon’s clawed feet, and after a moment it swung her up and drove a stake into her heart.
The vampire’s paused; the hesitation proved fatal. Faith and Giles took one each with their swords and a crossbow bolt accounted for the fourth. Another of the winged demons swooped down and drove a lance through an undead heart and a searing blast of lightning burned the last to ashes.
Faith lifted her sword and faced off against the demon with the lance. It was short in the body and long in the limbs, and looked like a church gargoyle. Its black combats and t-shirt looked rather out of place, but after a moment it changed, the wings folding away to nothing and the body and face changing into those of a dark, rather pretty young woman.
“Neat trick,” Faith said, “but vampires can look pretty too.”
“It’s alright.” A woman walked out of the night. She wore her dark hair in a thick plait which hung to the back of her knees and moved with an athletic ease which screamed ‘Slayer’, although at perhaps thirty-five she was the oldest Slayer Faith had ever seen. “She’s on our side,” the Slayer finished.
Faith lowered the sword a little. “But are we?” she asked.
“I hope so.” A young man followed the Slayer out of the shadows. He was slim and he had the prettiest green eyes Faith had ever seen. She took an immediate, but not severe, dislike to the brunette who was holding his hand.
“Karl!” Giles stepped forward and seized the young man in a hug. “Are your parents…?”
Karl nodded. “And Petra,” he replied. “Thankfully, they were up here when…”
“Reminisce later!” The last of their rescuers was the other demon. He looked much like girl, both as a gargoyle and after he had transformed to his passing face. From his accent they were Eastern European. “There are other vampires; at least a dozen and probably stronger than these.”
The Slayer nodded. “Karl, Ellen; take us on back.”
Karl and his companion moved to stand on either side of the group, facing one another. They spread their arms wide and began to chant.
“Hold onto your stomach, Mr Giles,” the Slayer advised. “Translocation can be… unsettling. You’ll be okay,” she assured Faith. “Slayer constitution.”
“Right. Giles; you definitely trust this lot?”
“Well; more or less,” Giles assured her. “Karl is my godson and I don’t think I’m behind on birthday presents.”
At last, Faith lowered her sword. “Alright then. Let’s…”
One moment they were in the dark grounds, the next they were in a brightly lit sitting room. The glossy, hardwood floor beneath their feet was deeply etched and stained with an intricate magical circle. The furniture was upholstered in dark leather.
“…trans-whoa kay! That was a trip.”
“Yes,” Giles agreed. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”
“Lambach; you and Tessa keep an eye on the vamps from the air,” the Slayer ordered. Karl; we might need another Slayer on the case. Go and wake up…”
“I’ll get her!” Ellen interrupted sharply. “Karl should check the wards; he’s the one with the theory.”
“Yes,” Karl agreed. “I’ll do that.”
“Right.” The Slayer winced. “Sorry. Karl; before you do that, can you let Abba know that Mr Giles is here and chucking his guts up in the translocation lounge?”
“Trouble in paradise?” Faith asked as the demons and sorcerers spread out to attend to their various duties.
“Something like that,” the Slayer agreed, “except for the paradise part. Trouble in… Well, in Seacroft Grange. It’s a bit of a one off, especially now. Don’t worry about Karl and Ellen though; they’re quite inseparable. Literally, I think. It’s a witch thing.”
“I did a warlock once,” Faith mused. “Once. Weird guy.”
The Slayer shrugged. “I’m Allenby,” she said, offering a hand.
“Faith.”
“Just Faith?”
“Just Allenby?”
“Touché,” Allenby allowed. “My Watcher insisted I just use my first name, so when it became clear I wasn’t going to be called I decided not to use anything else. Either way around, it’s a bit of a Slayer tradition, I suppose.
“Come on,” Allenby said. “I’ll sort you out some clothes.”
“Clothes?” Faith asked.
“Well, you don’t think the remaining vamps will go easy on your luggage, do you?”
“Damn,” Faith muttered. “There goes all my good stuff. And my bad stuff. In fact, pretty much all my stuff.”
*
Giles returned from the bathroom to find his travelling companions gone. In their place, a sturdy man of about seventy sat on one of the sofas. At Giles’s entry he stood and held out his hand. “Rupert Giles?” he asked, with the air of one who already knows the answer.
“Indeed. And you must be Rabbi Lazarus Cohen.” Giles gripped the man’s hand and shook it. “I knew Elias; he was a good man. He’ll be sorely missed.”
“He will,” Lazarus agreed, “if not by my team. Still, what Allenby thought of as a love of ‘obstructive bureaucracy’ saved all of our lives. If he’d rushed through the paperwork, Seacroft Grange would have been listed in the Council Archives as a Chapterhouse of the Council.”
“And when the Bringers of the First raided the Archive…”
“They would have come for us here, and they would have cut us to ribbons,” Lazarus agreed. “Back then we only had a handful of field operatives and a Golem looking after this place. As it was, tey never knew we were here.”
“So much was lost in those attacks,” Giles grieved. “Thirty-nine Chapterhouses, our greatest books and treasures, and so many good people.”
Lazarus nodded. “After the first assault and the bombing of the emergency Council session, they came back for the Library,” he explained. “The Chief Librarian…”
“Dr Walenska,” Giles said sadly.
“Yes; Natasha was a brilliant woman. When the Bringers were battering down the door she managed to send a substantial part of the library to us using a ritual of sympathetic magic.”
“Sympathetic magic?” Giles asked.
“Books call to books. It’s always been the theory, but it took Natasha to prove it. She managed to move almost two-thirds of the library to us here.”
Giles smiled. “That must have created… something of a storage problem.”
Lazarus shook his head. “She didn’t just transfer the stock,” he explained. “She transferred the library. The library here used to be three big rooms; now… Well, now there’s some really weird geometry going on. Unfortunately, the Bringers arrived before any of the librarians could escape.”
“Then Dr Walenska…?”
Lazarus nodded. “But we have shed our tears for our fallen comrades. We are what remains of the Watchers’ Council and we have work to do.”
“Indeed we do, and you said in your message that you had a proposition.”
“We’ve got a fair slice of the library here, and plenty of protection,” Lazarus explained, “but all of one-and-a-half experienced librarians and no catalogues. We need help organising the books, and if we’re to rebuild the Council we need to start training again. That needs a teaching staff.”
“And you’d like me to help find people?”
“And put us in touch with the Slayers’,” Lazarus added. “The Council exists to help the Slayer and the knowledge we hold needs to be used.”
Giles chuckled. “I can give you a number,” he offered, “although I’m not her favourite person at the moment. But you’re right,” he added. “The Council has a purpose, and it needs structure to achieve that purpose. If you can provide the base, I’m more than willing to do my part of the, uh, legwork.”
The two Watchers stood and shook hands to seal their agreement.
“Now, you said you needed to do some research?”
“Yes.”
“Well, our librarians will do all they can to help you,” Lazarus promised. “Good luck.”
“To us all,” Giles agreed.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon. Seacroft Grange and its inhabitants come from an old fanfic series I never really finished, so there's a bit of self-indulgence here.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
FR-T
Drama, Action
Giles drove slowly up to the house. The driveway was almost two miles long.
“Does everyone in this country live in their own private apartment block?” Faith asked.
“No, Faith,” Giles sighed. “Nor, as I understand it, is this exactly a private home. Rather, it is one of a number of facilities run by the remnants of the Watchers’ Council.”
“Oh. Well, that explains three things,” Faith decided. As she spoke she was pulling her hair back and fixing it with three quick twists of a scrunchy.
“Three?”
“Well; if this is a Council place, that’s why you need to do research here.” Faith wriggled in her seat to get out of her jacket. “It’s also why you didn’t tell me anything about it before we arrived, seeing as how I don’t exactly have the best record with the Watchers.”
“You mean because they tried to kill you that time?”
“Those times,” Faith corrected. “I’m still pretty sure someone smuggled that girl a shiv when I was in the hole and you know they wanted me to pass the parcel to the next Slayer. Must’ve driven ‘em mad. All that time in critical and I never coded once.”
“And the, uh, third thing?” Giles asked uncomfortably.
Faith grinned. “Don’t sweat it, Giles. I know you were out of the loop by then. Yeah; the third thing. It explains why there were vampires in the bushes back there.” She punched the release button on her seatbelt, snatched a stake from the glove box, opened the car door and leaped out.
“Impetuous girl,” Giles sighed. He slammed the car into a violent turn and leaned on the horn to alert the house.
Three vampires rose from the bushes at Faith’s approach. They looked more confused than anything, but they rallied fast and the biggest of them even managed a snarl before Faith drove he stake into his chest. She rolled clear as he exploded into dust and turned to face the other two.
A solid kick drove one back, allowing faith to close with the second, driving blow after blow at the vampire with feet and fists in her usual, brutally efficient style. She was easily dominating the fight, but unfortunately she had left her stake in the first vamp and now had no way of finishing the battle.
Recovering his balance, the vampire managed to land a punch which knocked Faith off her feet. She landed at the bottom of the screen of bushes which had been hiding the vampires. He hand flung out over her head, and she felt thick wood beneath her left palm.
A powerful blow with her right fist broke off the wood. Faith rolled back, flipped to her feet and brought her arm up and over, planting the whole, large rose bush right in the vampire’s heart. It crashed to the ground and dusted, just as the second vamp grabbed Faith’s arm and flung her clear across the driveway.
Faith landed hard and the wind was knocked out of her. The vampire stalked towards her, but Giles’s car blindsided it and it bounced across the roof of the convertible like a rag doll.
The car slid to a halt. Giles stepped out and threw Faith a stake. She finished the vampire before he could pop his bones back together.
“Nice driving, Giles,” Faith said. “Sorry about your car.”
“A good panel beater will get the dents out,” Giles assured her. “Besides, if the worst comes to the worst, as the de facto head of the Watchers’ Council it would be easy enough to replace. I can’t say the same of you.”
“Couldn’t you ask Buffy for a new Slayer?”
Giles smiled faintly. “Even these days, Slayers are a little harder to come by than sports cars,” he assured her. “Besides; it wouldn’t be the same.”
Faith grinned at him. “That may just be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she told him, “which is… kinda sad when you think about it.”
“Well, be that as it may, we should get on to the Grange. When vampires attack Council strongholds…”
“They come in force?” Faith asked.
“Ah, yes.” Giles put a hand to his brow. “Faith; which would you say I would regret more? Asking how you knew that, or simply turning around.”
“Giles, move!” Faith replied.
Giles moved, vaulting over the boot of the car while Faith went over the bonnet.
“Weapons!” Faith called, launching into a series of repelling blows to drive back the six new vampires while Giles fumbled with the boot.
“Keys,” he snarled at himself and ran to the left-hand door. He flung the door wide and stared in horror at the passenger side. “Back on the right side of the road again.”
“Giles!” Where Buffy could sound impatient when waiting for weapons, Faith just sounded furious, as though she were planning to come and kick his ass for keeping her waiting and then take on the vampires.
Giles lunged across the seats and wrenched the boot release. He looked up through the side window of the driver’s door. Faith was doing well just to keep a space around herself, but she was fighting against her natural style.
Giles slid back out and ran to the boot. He lifted the boot-lid and grabbed a pair of broadswords.
“Faith!” he called. He threw one of the swords. She caught it without looking and swept a powerful circular cut all around her, driving the vampires off.
Each of the six vamps took a step backwards, and one of them kept moving back, and up, carried aloft by a creature with huge, batlike wings. The vampire was held in the demon’s clawed feet, and after a moment it swung her up and drove a stake into her heart.
The vampire’s paused; the hesitation proved fatal. Faith and Giles took one each with their swords and a crossbow bolt accounted for the fourth. Another of the winged demons swooped down and drove a lance through an undead heart and a searing blast of lightning burned the last to ashes.
Faith lifted her sword and faced off against the demon with the lance. It was short in the body and long in the limbs, and looked like a church gargoyle. Its black combats and t-shirt looked rather out of place, but after a moment it changed, the wings folding away to nothing and the body and face changing into those of a dark, rather pretty young woman.
“Neat trick,” Faith said, “but vampires can look pretty too.”
“It’s alright.” A woman walked out of the night. She wore her dark hair in a thick plait which hung to the back of her knees and moved with an athletic ease which screamed ‘Slayer’, although at perhaps thirty-five she was the oldest Slayer Faith had ever seen. “She’s on our side,” the Slayer finished.
Faith lowered the sword a little. “But are we?” she asked.
“I hope so.” A young man followed the Slayer out of the shadows. He was slim and he had the prettiest green eyes Faith had ever seen. She took an immediate, but not severe, dislike to the brunette who was holding his hand.
“Karl!” Giles stepped forward and seized the young man in a hug. “Are your parents…?”
Karl nodded. “And Petra,” he replied. “Thankfully, they were up here when…”
“Reminisce later!” The last of their rescuers was the other demon. He looked much like girl, both as a gargoyle and after he had transformed to his passing face. From his accent they were Eastern European. “There are other vampires; at least a dozen and probably stronger than these.”
The Slayer nodded. “Karl, Ellen; take us on back.”
Karl and his companion moved to stand on either side of the group, facing one another. They spread their arms wide and began to chant.
“Hold onto your stomach, Mr Giles,” the Slayer advised. “Translocation can be… unsettling. You’ll be okay,” she assured Faith. “Slayer constitution.”
“Right. Giles; you definitely trust this lot?”
“Well; more or less,” Giles assured her. “Karl is my godson and I don’t think I’m behind on birthday presents.”
At last, Faith lowered her sword. “Alright then. Let’s…”
One moment they were in the dark grounds, the next they were in a brightly lit sitting room. The glossy, hardwood floor beneath their feet was deeply etched and stained with an intricate magical circle. The furniture was upholstered in dark leather.
“…trans-whoa kay! That was a trip.”
“Yes,” Giles agreed. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”
“Lambach; you and Tessa keep an eye on the vamps from the air,” the Slayer ordered. Karl; we might need another Slayer on the case. Go and wake up…”
“I’ll get her!” Ellen interrupted sharply. “Karl should check the wards; he’s the one with the theory.”
“Yes,” Karl agreed. “I’ll do that.”
“Right.” The Slayer winced. “Sorry. Karl; before you do that, can you let Abba know that Mr Giles is here and chucking his guts up in the translocation lounge?”
“Trouble in paradise?” Faith asked as the demons and sorcerers spread out to attend to their various duties.
“Something like that,” the Slayer agreed, “except for the paradise part. Trouble in… Well, in Seacroft Grange. It’s a bit of a one off, especially now. Don’t worry about Karl and Ellen though; they’re quite inseparable. Literally, I think. It’s a witch thing.”
“I did a warlock once,” Faith mused. “Once. Weird guy.”
The Slayer shrugged. “I’m Allenby,” she said, offering a hand.
“Faith.”
“Just Faith?”
“Just Allenby?”
“Touché,” Allenby allowed. “My Watcher insisted I just use my first name, so when it became clear I wasn’t going to be called I decided not to use anything else. Either way around, it’s a bit of a Slayer tradition, I suppose.
“Come on,” Allenby said. “I’ll sort you out some clothes.”
“Clothes?” Faith asked.
“Well, you don’t think the remaining vamps will go easy on your luggage, do you?”
“Damn,” Faith muttered. “There goes all my good stuff. And my bad stuff. In fact, pretty much all my stuff.”
*
Giles returned from the bathroom to find his travelling companions gone. In their place, a sturdy man of about seventy sat on one of the sofas. At Giles’s entry he stood and held out his hand. “Rupert Giles?” he asked, with the air of one who already knows the answer.
“Indeed. And you must be Rabbi Lazarus Cohen.” Giles gripped the man’s hand and shook it. “I knew Elias; he was a good man. He’ll be sorely missed.”
“He will,” Lazarus agreed, “if not by my team. Still, what Allenby thought of as a love of ‘obstructive bureaucracy’ saved all of our lives. If he’d rushed through the paperwork, Seacroft Grange would have been listed in the Council Archives as a Chapterhouse of the Council.”
“And when the Bringers of the First raided the Archive…”
“They would have come for us here, and they would have cut us to ribbons,” Lazarus agreed. “Back then we only had a handful of field operatives and a Golem looking after this place. As it was, tey never knew we were here.”
“So much was lost in those attacks,” Giles grieved. “Thirty-nine Chapterhouses, our greatest books and treasures, and so many good people.”
Lazarus nodded. “After the first assault and the bombing of the emergency Council session, they came back for the Library,” he explained. “The Chief Librarian…”
“Dr Walenska,” Giles said sadly.
“Yes; Natasha was a brilliant woman. When the Bringers were battering down the door she managed to send a substantial part of the library to us using a ritual of sympathetic magic.”
“Sympathetic magic?” Giles asked.
“Books call to books. It’s always been the theory, but it took Natasha to prove it. She managed to move almost two-thirds of the library to us here.”
Giles smiled. “That must have created… something of a storage problem.”
Lazarus shook his head. “She didn’t just transfer the stock,” he explained. “She transferred the library. The library here used to be three big rooms; now… Well, now there’s some really weird geometry going on. Unfortunately, the Bringers arrived before any of the librarians could escape.”
“Then Dr Walenska…?”
Lazarus nodded. “But we have shed our tears for our fallen comrades. We are what remains of the Watchers’ Council and we have work to do.”
“Indeed we do, and you said in your message that you had a proposition.”
“We’ve got a fair slice of the library here, and plenty of protection,” Lazarus explained, “but all of one-and-a-half experienced librarians and no catalogues. We need help organising the books, and if we’re to rebuild the Council we need to start training again. That needs a teaching staff.”
“And you’d like me to help find people?”
“And put us in touch with the Slayers’,” Lazarus added. “The Council exists to help the Slayer and the knowledge we hold needs to be used.”
Giles chuckled. “I can give you a number,” he offered, “although I’m not her favourite person at the moment. But you’re right,” he added. “The Council has a purpose, and it needs structure to achieve that purpose. If you can provide the base, I’m more than willing to do my part of the, uh, legwork.”
The two Watchers stood and shook hands to seal their agreement.
“Now, you said you needed to do some research?”
“Yes.”
“Well, our librarians will do all they can to help you,” Lazarus promised. “Good luck.”
“To us all,” Giles agreed.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon. Seacroft Grange and its inhabitants come from an old fanfic series I never really finished, so there's a bit of self-indulgence here.