Secrets Part 2

[shapinglight]

Part Two. For setting/rating etc, see Part One.



Part Two

At the bottom of the stairs, corridors snaked off in both directions, lit only by a row of dim, emergency lights, which did little to alleviate the gloom. The air was still and dusty.

It was very quiet, except for the occasional raised voice coming from the direction of the war room, which was some distance down the right-hand corridor.

Giles could imagine the scene within - the long oak table, with its rows of high-backed chairs, one for each senior Watcher on the premises, and a much grander one at the head for Travers. What were they talking about, Giles wondered. After the terrible events of last night, had anyone dared challenge Travers' authority? Probably not, and even if they had, the damage was already done.

"This way." Griffiths led them down the left-hand corridor, following the route that Giles had taken when he'd come down here - was it only a few days ago? - trying to discover what had become of Spike.

They were walking the way Giles had run. Soon, they were passing the row of holding cells. As they came to the one where Spike had been confined, Giles saw that the metal gurneys and their associated medical equipment were still in situ. He shuddered and glanced at Norah, but of course she would have no memory of what had been done to her in there.

Moments later, Griffiths motioned them to silence again. They were approaching another room, from the open door of which light spilled out into the corridor, along with the crackling of radio static.

The basement security post. Giles realised it too late to even try to stop Griffiths from killing some other poor soul simply going about its business.

But the room was deserted. No one sat at the desk watching the banked rows of monitors. On one screen, the bodies of the two men Griffiths had killed outside Annabelle's room could be plainly seen, still lying undiscovered.

Of course, Giles thought. This was Griffiths' command post. Watching over the Watchers. Travers probably thought he'd been here all this time.

Griffiths had taken a set of keys out of his pocket and opened a metal locker in the corner, from which he drew a heavy-looking army issue backpack. He swung it onto his shoulders and fastened it securely. Giles eyed it with suspicion. He had a nasty feeling the contents were as deadly as Griffiths himself.

Suddenly, there was a loud burst of static from a microphone on the desk, and a man's voice speaking in urgent tones, "Benson to Commander Griffiths. Two men down. Over. I repeat, two men down. Over."

On the monitor that showed the upstairs corridor, two of Griffiths' men could now be seen outside Annabelle's room, one standing, walkie-talkie in hand, the other kneeling by the bodies.

Griffiths frowned. Seating himself at the desk, he spoke into the microphone.

"This is Commander Griffiths. What is the status of the prisoner? Over."

"The prisoner is missing," Benson's voice came back. "Repeat, the prisoner is missing. What are your orders, commander? Over."

"Secure the area," Griffiths snapped. "I repeat, secure the area. I'm on my way up. Over and out."

He stood up, then bent down and yanked open the metal panelling under the desk. A moment later, the air was filled with the smell of burnt plastic and all the monitor screens went dark.

Without a word, Griffiths led them back out into the corridor, past several closed metal doors, which looked like further holding cells, then stopped again in front of one no different to any of the others. Taking his set of keys from his pocket, he unlocked the door and yanked downwards hard on the handle.

The door didn't budge.

Griffiths tried again, but with the same lack of success.

"Open it!" he snapped at Giles, looking ruffled at last. "Magic -" he said the word with pursed lips and flared nostrils - "is not my area of expertise."

Giles was taken aback at Griffiths' evident disgust. It seemed, until this moment, he hadn't believed - or hadn't wanted to believe -Lydia's statement about the door being spelled shut.

Surely, Giles thought, he must have witnessed things during his assignment to the Watchers' Council that had made him realise there were indeed more things in heaven and earth, to coin a phrase? He seemed accepting enough of the existence of vampires, for instance.

But vampires were physical beings, of course. What's more, you could kill them. Easier to grasp, perhaps, than the rather airy-fairy concept of magic.

"What are you waiting for?" Griffiths said, suddenly, and Giles jerked out of his reverie. He brought the scrap of paper with the counter-spell out of his pocket and set his palm to the cool metal surface of the door.

At once, he felt the familiar tingle of magic in his fingertips, like pinpricks in the skin.

"Hurry up," Griffiths said, at his shoulder.

"I'm going as fast as I can." Hand still pressed to the door, Giles began to speak the incantation, each word like a blow, battering against the barrier of the spell. He felt the moment when it began to soften and yield, like metal turned molten. A moment later, the spell gave way in a burst of blue light, which made Giles throw up his arm - too late- to shield his eyes, and left a smell of sulphur in the air.

"Fucking hell!" Molly said, coughing and waving her hand in front of her eyes. "What just happened?"

"Magic," Spike growled. "Bloody stinks, doesn't it? More even than usual."

Giles sagged against the wall, feeling dizzy, while stars danced in front of his eyes. Griffiths yanked on the door handle again, and this time the door swung open, to reveal a long passageway with cream-tiled walls and a low, curved ceiling, like an Underground station. Once again, it was lit only by emergency lighting and snaked away into darkness - on and on, as if there were no end to it. Chill air blew out into their faces.

There was a short silence. Then, Annabelle said, "I don't like it. It's creepy."

Her words bounced off the tunnel walls and seemed to catch in the curve of the ceiling, which echoed them back, amplified. Annabelle winced and shrank closer to Molly, who elbowed her away.

"Stop pushin' me, you!"

"Sorry," Annabelle whispered, but she stayed close to Molly.

"Quiet, all of you!" Griffiths hissed, and again there was instant silence.

Griffiths had taken off his backpack and was rummaging in one of the many zip pockets.

"Here." He handed a small torch to Giles. "Just in case."

"In case of what?"

Giles was still seeing stars. With an effort, he pushed himself upright, but at that moment, the ground under his feet began to shake - hard enough to throw him off balance. He caught himself against the wall, which was vibrating like a drum skin.

"It's an earthquake!" Norah let out a shriek, which she tried to muffle by a hand over her mouth. Annabelle and Molly clutched each other, until Molly appeared to realise what she was doing and pushed Annabelle away.

"Can't be," Spike said, quickly. "Not in London." He turned on Griffiths. "What the bloody hell was that?"

Griffiths had switched on another torch. The glow lit the underside of his face, and cast the upper part into shadow, from which his eyes glittered coldly.

"It's just the Underground," he snapped. "The Piccadilly line passes right underneath the building. Get inside, and hurry."

"Giles?" Spike raised an eyebrow at him.

Giles stared down the tunnel. He didn’t like the look of it at all, but how long till Griffiths' man Benson realised his commander wasn't coming? Surely it couldn't be long. And soon after that, Travers would know everything.

"We've no choice," he said, and he stepped over the threshold. Spike hesitated a moment, but then he shrugged.

"Always did say I belonged down here in the dark."

The loaded words raised the short hairs on Giles's neck. "Wait..." he began, but yet again it was too late. Griffiths had herded the three girls in front of him into the mouth of the tunnel and slammed the door shut behind them. At once, the darkness closed in, licking at the small circles of blue light under each emergency bulb, like a hungry beast prowling at the edge of a campfire.

Pushing past Giles, Griffiths set off, walking fast, and, at the sight of the bobbing torchlight rapidly diminishing, Annabelle and Molly hurried after him. They might be scared of him, but it seemed they were even more scared of the darkness.

"The Underground, my arse!" Spike muttered, at their departing backs. "Sounded like drilling to me."

"You're sure?" Giles set his hand to the wall again. This time, he felt nothing.

Spike shrugged. He took a firmer grip on Robson's body, while his eyes bored into Giles's. "Not sure of anything any more. Least of all you."

"Spike..." Giles began, but Spike had already turned his back.

With a sigh, Giles switched on his own torch and made to follow, but Norah stepped in his way.

"Where's he taking us?" she asked, in a whisper.

Giles glanced down the tunnel, to see that Spike had stopped again and was waiting for them. Meanwhile, the torchlight flickered in the distance, then disappeared abruptly as Griffiths went round a corner.

"He works for MI5." Giles tried to smile at the girl. "He won't hurt you, Norah. He's taking you to a safe place."

Norah didn't smile back. "That's what you said about where we've just come from - that it was safe. It wasn't." She shivered. "And what about Mr Robson and Spike? Will he hurt them? Or you," she added, as an afterthought. "He killed those other men, didn't he? He might kill you too."

Spike had come back to join them. He'd gone into vampire face, Giles realised, the better to see in the dark. The torchlight made a golden lion's mask of his features.

"Yeah," Spike said. "Been wondering about that myself. Bloke doesn't seem too keen on Watchers."
The yellow eyes blinked slowly, catlike. "Don't think he likes vampires much either. Can’t blame him for that, I s’pose."

"You're right on both counts," Giles admitted. He began to walk, trying to draw them with him. It wouldn't do to let Griffiths get too far ahead. "But he offered us a way out - all of us, including you, Spike, against his better judgement. In the circumstances, I couldn't see any other course of action available. In fact, I still don't."

"But why did you bring us here to start with?" Norah persisted. "Why did you shoot Spike? He saved me from those men with no eyes. I don't understand." Her voice wavered and broke.

"I want to go home," she said, in a small voice. "And I can't, can I? Not ever."

Giles felt a pang of guilt. What had happened to her was his fault, and no amount of telling himself that he'd had no choice would change that.

He tried to sound a note of optimism, for her sake. "Of course you can go home. Not until our enemy is dealt with, but after that..."

Norah shook her head. "He won't let us. Or MI5 won't. They think the men with no eyes will kill the Slayer, don't they, and that one of us- me, or Molly, or Annabelle - might be the next one."

"That's..." Giles began, but choked as one hand, heavily clawed, grabbed him by the throat.
Spike's heavy brow ridges were drawn down, his yellow eyes narrowed to angry slits. "You right bastard."

But then he let Giles go with a yelp of pain. "I barely touched him," he complained, to the empty air above his head.

The cool, detached part of Giles's brain was relieved to have proof - finally! - that the chip did indeed still work. But Norah was right, of course. That was the thinking behind Griffiths' actions. Giles had always known it. Hearing the words from Norah's mouth made the calculated coldness of it seem even worse.

He cleared his throat. Spike's stranglehold - no matter how brief - had been painful.

"You're wrong, Spike. Dead wrong, if you think I would be complicit in such a scheme. The only thing I've done during this whole sorry mess -including bringing you all to Watchers' HQ - that wasn't to try and protect Buffy and save the Slayer line - the only thing I regret, because it was selfish and stupid - was..."

Giles let the words hang. Having sex with you, he thought. But he couldn't say it aloud. Not in front of Norah, whose eyes went from Spike to him and back again, full of fear and doubt.

In any case, it seemed Spike had understood him. His vampire face, eerie and alien, set hard, like stone.

"S'okay," he said. "I get the message." He put a hand on Norah's shoulder to steer her after the others. "Come on, love. Can still smell 'em in front of us, but we'd better get a move on. Don't wanna let 'em get too far ahead."

But Norah shrank from his touch. The sudden violence seemed to have upset her. Her eyes went from Giles to Spike and back again, and her mouth had set into a stubborn line.

“Not until you explain. Not until you tell me!” Her voice rose to a wail.

Spike shrugged. "Dunno about the other stuff, but I do know Mr Giles, here, had a bloody good reason for shooting me. 'Sides, I'm fine now."

Norah stared at him, eyes huge. "I don’t understand,” she said, again.

Spike frowned. “S’like this-“

“Wait!” Giles cut in, past the pain in his throat. This really wasn’t the time or place. In fact, Spike’s timing could hardly be worse.

But Spike only glared at him.

"Stop pussy-footin' around the kid. I keep tellin' you, she's a potential Slayer. She can take it. Fact is, love," he said to Norah, "our enemy - whatever it is - has got its claws in me. I keep blackin' out, an' when I come round I've...well, I've done stuff."

Norah's face, in the gloom, was washed out and pale, her dark eyes deeply smudged. "What stuff?"

Spike hesitated, and Giles realised he regretted starting the conversation. He raised an eyebrow at him. Too late to stop now.

"It wanted me to kill you," Spike blurted out, all in a rush. "I would have. But Giles, here, snapped me out of it. That's why he shot me. Because he couldn't be certain I wouldn't do it again."

“But you saved me," Norah insisted. “You told me not to look.”

Spike looked more and more uncomfortable. "Yeah, after I came out of my...whatever it was."

Very earnest suddenly, he shook his vampire face away. "Look, love, I'm not tellin' you this to scare you. I'm tellin' you because you have a right to know. I wouldn't hurt you for the world, but...you can't trust me. Not completely."

Norah's shoulders slumped. For a moment, it looked like she might cry. But then she said, softly, "I wish Mr Robson would wake up."

Spike shifted Robson's body on his shoulder. "Yeah, you and me both. Bloke weighs a bloody ton."

Norah gave him a shaky smile, but Giles could see she was very rattled.

"We really had better catch up with the others,” he said, quickly.

"Yeah, ‘spose." Spike shook his head again, and sulphur-yellow eyes glared back into Giles's. "You still got that gun?"

Giles shook his head. "Unfortunately not."

"Pity."

They began to walk, but this time, Norah hung back, much nearer to Giles than to Spike.

*

The moment they rounded the corner, Giles knew there was something badly wrong.

Ahead of them the corridor snaked away into darkness. There was no sign of Griffiths and the other two girls - no torchlight save their own flickering on the walls - no footsteps. They were gone, as if the dark had swallowed them whole.

"Where are they?" Norah wailed, then put her hand over her mouth again, as the curved ceiling and tiled walls picked up the sound and amplified it once more. As the echoes faded, Giles thought he could hear distant voices again, like muffled laughter.

Or singing.

His blood ran cold.

Not that. Not now.

"Wait." Giles put his hand on Spike's arm.

Spike had been sniffing the air. He shook Giles's grip off, and for a heart-stopping moment Giles thought it might already be too late. He pushed himself between Spike and Norah. If he could hold Spike off for long enough, maybe she had a chance.

Spike was still in vamp face. He looked irritable, but there was no sign of the eerie calm that had heralded his previous 'episodes.' He glared at Giles. "What're you lookin' at me like that for?"

A little annoyed himself, Giles glared back. "Just making sure you haven't been listening to certain...songs, Spike. That's all."

"Oh. That." Spike sniffed again. "Huh."

"What is it?" Giles was careful to keep himself between Spike and Norah.

Spike shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, that's the sodding problem. Scent's gone suddenly. It just…stops right where we’re standing. S'like they disappeared into thin air."

At the ominous words, Giles’s heart missed a beat. He shone his torch into the darkness and saw, a little way ahead, a black opening in the right hand wall of the tunnel. Giles frowned. What on earth...?

When they reached the opening, he shone the torch into it. The beam picked out the walls and floor of a side passage, completely unlit, like a mouth leading down into darkness. "What is this doing here?"

His eyes met Spike’s. Behind his back, Giles was intensely aware of Norah hanging on their every word.

"Well, that's just..." Spike began, but at that moment, the ground trembled again, and this time it was far more than just a feeling in the earth.

Spike was right. It was the sound of drilling.

What's more, it was coming from the new tunnel.

Giles’s heart skipped another beat, then began to pound inside his chest. "Take Norah and go on," he said. "I'll investigate."

Spike's jaw dropped - not a pleasant sight, given his mouthful of gleaming fangs.

"You're kidding, right?"

Norah grabbed hold of Giles' sleeve, holding tight with clutching fingers.

"No, please!"

Giles disengaged her hand as gently as he could. "I don't need to tell you, Norah, I'm sure, that we shouldn't be hearing what we're hearing just now." He indicated the entrance to the side tunnel with a nod of his head. "Or seeing what we’re seeing. Someone needs to find out what's going on down there."

Norah shook her head vehemently. "Please don't go. It's something bad, I know it is."

That rather went without saying, Giles thought. He tried to smile at her.

"Yes, it probably is. But you'll be safe with Spike."

"Will she?" Spike growled. "Weren't we just talking about how she can't trust me? You bugger off, and who the hell knows what might happen."

Giles opened his mouth to respond, though he had no idea what he was going to say, but Spike shook his head.

"We stay together," Spike insisted. "Sod whatever's goin' on down there. Some Watcher bollocks, probably. Let's get the kid out of here while we can."

Norah said nothing, but her eyes, huge and scared, clung to Giles. It was clear she couldn’t take much more.

"You're right," Giles agreed, reluctantly.

Perhaps, he thought, once they were safely out of the building, he could contact Travers and inform him that there appeared to be unauthorised drilling taking place beneath it.

Devouring it, a voice inside his head insisted on adding. From beneath.

The drilling noise stopped abruptly. For a moment, the silence was complete - so complete, Giles thought he'd gone deaf. Then, the musty air was rent by distant screams.

"Help!" a voice cried. "Mr Griffiths - Molly! Where are you? Don't leave me!"

It was Annabelle's voice, and it was coming from the side tunnel.

*

The torch beam wavered wildly as Giles ran. Annabelle's screams had sunk to terrified whimpers, just audible over the sound of their pounding feet.

"Don't hurt me." Annabelle's voice rose to a shriek again, echoing down the tunnel, which was more like an animal burrow, the floor bare earth, rather than concrete, clay-ey and clinging. "Don't hurt me! Please!"

Giles opened his mouth to call to her, but thought better of it. If there was someone else with her, or something, best not to give it any warning.

The feeble torchlight showed a bend in the tunnel ahead. Around it, cold air, smelling of damp, rolled at them, like a wave, hinting at a bigger space beyond.

Giles stopped short, panting, then staggered as Spike barrelled into him from behind. Spike's eyes glowed sulphur-yellow in the gloom.

"Why've you stopped?" he hissed.

"Because we don't know what we're facing," Giles hissed back. "Can you smell anything now?"

Spike's nostrils flared wide as he inhaled. His heavy brow furrowed. "Not a damn thing. 'Cept this weird chemical smell, an' wossername." He indicated the bend ahead. "The posh kid."

"She's alone, then?"

Spike shrugged. "Seems like it."

Annabelle was sobbing brokenly now. "I'm not stupid. I'm not, I'm not."

Giles's skin crawled. There was someone with Annabelle, he was sure - someone that Giles very much did not want anywhere near Spike.

"Giles?" Spike hissed."Kid's crying. What're you waiting for?"

Giles wished he'd thrown caution to the winds long ago and told Spike exactly what they were facing. Too late now.

He led the way around the bend in the tunnel. On the far side of the curve, the beam of the torch revealed that it opened out into a vast cavern. How it could be here, right under Watchers' HQ, Giles had no idea.

The torchlight picked out Annabelle, crouched against one wall, hands over her face, shoulders shaking with sobs. The opposite wall was stacked high with boxes, one on top of another. Their outsides were blank, giving no clue to their contents. In the centre of the open space, a hole, like a black maw, led deeper into the earth. The wave of cold air, tainted with mould, blew out of it.

"What the fuck?" Spike exclaimed. At the sound of his voice, Annabelle lifted her head. Giles had expected her to be glad to see them, but instead she shrank back against the wall.

"It's a trick," she wailed. "You're not really here."

Her words confirmed Giles's worst fears. Hurrying forward, he set his hand on Annabelle's shoulder, though she tried to flinch away from him.

"I assure you, Annabelle, we're very much here, and whatever it was you saw, it can't harm you."

Annabelle stared at him, gaze fixed on his face like a frightened rabbit trying to outstare a fox.
Giles beckoned Spike and Norah over. Not the time and place he would have chosen to explain this to the two girls, but it couldn't be helped.

"Listen," he said, to Annabelle. "What you saw wasn't real. It may have looked it, but it wasn't. That's the way our enemy works. It takes on the semblance of the dead - those we've loved, those we've feared - and tries to get at us through them. But it has no physical presence. It can't touch you."

Annabelle's gaze still clung to his face, but she looked a little reassured. She would believe him, of course, Giles thought. Trust in authority was in her nature.

"Who did you see?" he asked, gently.

"My...my grandmother," Annabelle stuttered. "She never liked me. Always said I was stupid and worthless. I was glad when she died. She was horrible."

She shivered. "She had this...thing with her - a monster with a bald head and big teeth, and ears like a bat. She had it on a lead, like a dog. She...she said it was a vampire and that one day soon she'd let it loose and it would kill me."

Her gaze slid uneasily from Giles to Spike. "It had eyes like his -all yellow and staring. I've seen pictures. He's a vampire too, isn't he?"

"It's all right," Giles soothed. "He's not like the other vampires. He has a soul. He won't hurt you." I hope, he thought.

"A soul?" Annabelle said, looking curious despite herself. "Does that mean he doesn't drink blood?"

"Not human blood anyway," Giles assured her. He helped her to her feet. "Where're Molly and Mr Griffiths?"

"I don't know," Annabelle said. "We were together, but then the torch went out, and I couldn't see anything. I tried to grab hold of Molly but she wasn't anywhere. So I ran."

"How did you end up here?"

Annabelle shook her head. "I don't know. It was dark. I couldn't see anything. Then...she came. She had her own light, like a sort of glow all round her. Then you found me. What's in those boxes?"

Giles shone the torch over the stack of boxes. Spike had wandered away from them and was standing in front of it, stock still, gazing upwards, head cocked as if listening. Giles felt a niggle of unease.

He took a step forward. "Spike?"

Spike turned. He'd shaken off game face. He tilted his head, gazing at Giles out of sultry blue eyes. "Yeah? What?"

Giles swallowed hard past the lump of fear in his throat. "Spike, snap out of it."

The head tilt was now accompanied by a slight smirk. "Dunno what you mean, Rupert, old chum."

"Mr Giles," Annabelle wavered, the fear back in her voice. "What's going on?"

"Get back," Giles hissed at her. "Stay with Norah."

Annabelle didn't need telling twice. Scurrying over to where Norah stood, next to Robson's slumped body, she grabbed hold of her arm. "What's happening?"

Spike had tracked Annabelle's movements, like a predator tracking its prey. Suddenly, his head snapped around to the right, staring off into the darkness, as if he were looking at someone.

"What d'you want now?" he growled, at empty air. "I'll find the other one afterwards. Just shut the fuck up and let me get on with killin' these two, can't you?"

Giles took his chance. "Run!" he shouted at Norah and Annabelle. Then he put his head down and charged at Spike, knocking him backwards into the stack of boxes.

Spike snarled like a wild animal, but the snarl was cut off abruptly as a toppling crate caught him a glancing blow on the head. He went down, buried in boxes, while Giles threw himself clear.

The hard earth jolted every bone in his body as he hit it. Somehow, he managed to keep hold of the torch.

He was too bloody old for this, Giles thought, as he pushed himself up onto his knees. The knapsack of books on his back seemed to weigh a ton suddenly, and gaining his feet felt almost impossible, but it wouldn't take Spike long to recover and he had to be ready for him.

Then the wavering torchlight settled on one of the boxes. It had split open when it fell, revealing the contents. Giles stared, aghast, as the torch beam revealed row after row of sticks of dynamite, all tumbled from their neat arrangement. No wonder Spike had smelt chemicals.

If every box was the same...

What was going on here?

Fear drove him to his feet. At the same time, the fallen boxes were pushed aside and Spike emerged from underneath them. He stared around him in bewilderment.

"What the bloody hell just happened?" He rubbed his head. "Oww!"

Overwhelmed with relief, Giles offered him a hand and pulled him up. "You don't remember?"

Spike stared at him, aghast. "Fuck! Not again! Did I hurt anyone?"

"Thankfully," Giles told him, "no. It was a near thing, though."

Spike looked at the two girls, who were crouched near Robson's body. Annabelle had her face in her hands again, and Norah was white as a sheet, eyes going from Spike to Giles and back again in terrified bewilderment.

Spike grimaced. "Fuck!" he said, again.

"Quite." Giles lowered his voice. "If we ever get out of here, Spike, you will tell me everything you're not telling me, and you will let me administer the Prokaryote Stone to you and get to the root of what's making you do this. Do. You. Understand?"

Spike ducked his head. "Yeah," he muttered. "I understand."

"Good." Giles shone the torch on the damaged box. "In the meantime, we have an even bigger problem."

"Bloody hell!" Spike's gaze went from the contents of the box to the stack of boxes behind them. "There's enough dynamite in here to blow up the whole fucking building."

"Agreed." Giles kept his voice low so the girls wouldn't hear. "We have to go back - assuming we can find the way. We have to warn them."

Spike's mouth dropped open. He shook his head vehemently. "No way. We go back, they'll never let us go again. I say we get the kiddies out of danger first, then warn your wanker mates."

"They're not my mates." Giles was exasperated suddenly. "But that doesn't mean they deserve to be blown to smithereens."

Spike shrugged. "You ask me, the world wouldn't miss that Travers bloke."

"That's not for you to judge," Giles snapped. "Besides, Travers isn't the only person in the building. Most of them are decent people, just trying to do the best job they can in very trying circumstances."

Spike gazed at him mutinously. Then he sighed. "'Spose you're right. An' it'd be a shame if that Lydia bint got blown to bits. Don't blame me, though, if they clap us both in irons." He grimaced. "S'pose I'm carryin' old Lardarse again."

But as he made towards Robson and the girls, Annabelle shrieked and even Norah glared at him.

"Stay away!" she wavered, arms out to shield Robson from Spike. "Don't touch him."

Spike stopped. "Giles?" He threw a look of appeal Giles's way. "Say something."

Giles sighed. From one extreme to the other. Nothing was ever simple.

"It's all right," he told Norah. "He's himself again. You don't need to be scared."

"Oh, I think she has every right to be," said a voice behind them.

Giles whirled. It was Griffiths, wearing a head torch, but minus the ominous backpack. He had a gun in one hand and a crossbow in the other. Deadly contents indeed.

The gun was aimed at Giles.

*

Griffiths looked different somehow - not jumpy exactly, but his usual composure was ruffled. Maybe he'd seen his own revenants somewhere in the darkness.

Giles watched him take in every detail of the cavern, from the stack of explosives to the huge hole in the floor, which looked as if it had been blasted open from beneath.

"I inspect this tunnel every week," Griffiths bit out. "This wasn't here before."

"My guess is that it was," Giles said. "You probably walked right past it many times. Someone with considerable magical power -enough to fool a whole building full of Watchers - has been concealing it."

Until now.

Griffiths' face twisted again at the mention of magic, as if he'd smelt something bad.

"That's impossible."

Giles shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not."

He watched as Griffiths tried to digest this unpalatable fact. At last, Griffiths said,

"This is the same someone behind all the murders." Not questioning, but stating a fact.

Giles nodded. "And it's plain what they intend here. Travers and the others are in mortal danger. We have to go back - warn them."

Griffiths' arm, holding the gun, didn't waver. "No. I have my orders."

Giles gaped at him. "That's unconscionable. All that's needed is a detonator and the building will blow sky high."

Griffiths didn't even blink. "I told you Travers had become a liability."

"But it's not just Travers!" Giles protested.

Griffiths shook his head. "The decision's been made. My orders are clear: the Council of Watchers is no longer fit for purpose." He indicated the boxes of dynamite. "This just makes my job easier."

Turning to Norah and Annabelle, he said, "Come over here. We're leaving."

The two girls had risen to their feet.

"Where's Molly?" Annabelle said, at the same time as Norah said, "You can't leave all those people to die. In any case, I'm not leaving Mr Robson."

Griffiths gave her a cold look. "Robson's not important. None of them are. Only you."

"No." Norah's voice wobbled, but her expression was defiant. "Spike can carry Mr Robson, like he did before."

Griffiths shook his head. "The vampire's not coming any further. Neither is he." He indicated Giles with the gun. "I told you. They're not important. Now come here."

Norah's mouth set stubbornly. "I won't."

"You will." Griffiths' voice was ice-cold suddenly. The arm holding the gun swung in Norah's direction. "Otherwise, I'll shoot your Mr Robson right here and now."

"You bastard!" Spike took a step forward, and the gun swung around to Giles again.

"That's far enough," Griffiths snapped. "Unless you want a close-up view of what a bullet can do to a man's head."

Spike put himself between Giles and the gun. "Been shot in the head before. Do your bloody worst."

"No!"

As Griffiths' finger tightened on the trigger, Giles pushed Spike out of the way. "There's no need for this. Go with him," he said, to Norah and Annabelle.

"Giles..." Spike protested, but Giles shook his head.

"You said yourself, Spike, that getting the girls out of here was what mattered most. Let him take them. At least they'll be safe."

"Yeah, define 'safe,'" Spike muttered, but he stepped back. "You know he's gonna kill us anyway."

Giles said nothing. He had no intention of dying if he could help it, but just in case, it was still better if Annabelle and Norah were spared the sight. "Go on," he said to them, again.

Annabelle cast a nervous glance at Griffiths. "What about Molly?"

"She's down here somewhere," Griffiths said. "We'll find her."

That seemed to be enough to reassure Annabelle. "Come on," she said, to Norah, moving towards Griffiths.

Norah cast a despairing glance at the unconscious Robson, then at Giles and Spike. Then, step by reluctant step, she followed Annabelle.

Giles kept his voice to a whisper. "When I say the word, move. He can't shoot all three of us at once."

"Move where?" Spike hissed back. "There's nowhere to go, except....." He indicated the pit in the floor with a slight movement of his head. "Has to lead somewhere, I s'pose."

As if his words had conjured it, there was a sudden blast of air out of the pit, sulphurous and foul, and so strong it almost lifted Giles off his feet. He staggered against Spike.

"What the...?"

At the same time, Griffiths snarled, "Stay back! I'm warning you!" There was an explosive crack-crack, and something whizzed over Giles's head, so close he felt the heat of it.

"Get down!"

Spike kicked Giles's feet from under him, and threw himself on top of him, shielding him with his body as another bullet hissed overhead. Giles risked a brief glance up - enough to see Griffths' face in the wildly dipping torchlight gone wild and white, all his composure lost, as he fired at nothingness.

"At this rate," Spike shouted, in Giles's ear, "he's gonna set off the fucking dynamite!"

A moment later, he was on his feet and charging towards Griffiths, bent low and zig-zagging.
Griffiths seemed to come back to himself when he saw Spike approaching. His eyes widened, then he raised the loaded crossbow.

"No!" Norah jumped on Griffiths' shoulders from behind, clinging on like a monkey when he tried to throw her off. The crossbow bolt flew upwards from the bow and rebounded off the cavern roof. Annabelle made a grab for Griffiths' other arm, missed, and staggered forwards, right into Molly, who had just emerged from the tunnel, white-faced and scared-looked.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Molly said. Then the collision with Annabelle knocked her headlong into Griffiths.

Griffiths, who had just succeeded in dislodging Norah, backhanded Molly away with a shout of fury.

"Don't you fuckin' touch me!" Molly snarled, and she kicked Griffiths hard on the kneecap.

Griffiths shouted again, this time with pain. Then he went down with Spike on top of him.

"Get back!" Giles yelled at the girls. He climbed to his feet with difficulty. His knee had taken the brunt of the impact this time and felt swollen and tender. He limped towards the struggle, trying to keep the torch steady, eyes on Spike's body, which jerked this way and that as Griffiths tried to throw him off, and on Spike's raised fist.

The fist came down once, twice - both times accompanied by a ragged scream of pain from Spike. After the second blow, Griffiths' body was still, and Spike slumped forward, groaning and clutching his head.

Giles bent and put a hand on Spike's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Spike looked up at him. Tears were pouring down his face. "Fucking hurts!" he groaned.

"Is he dead?" Norah asked. "What was wrong with him? Why did he start shooting?"

"Yeah," Molly said. "Is anyone ever gonna tell me what the fuck is goin' on?"

Giles put his hand under Spike's arm and helped him to his feet. "Remember what I told you? I think he must have seen some ghost from his past."

God knows, he thought, there must be enough to choose from.

"Know how he feels," Spike muttered.

"Ghost?" Molly said, and it was only now that Giles took in her appearance. She'd been crying, and her eye makeup had run. Her pale cheeks were smeared with black. "Is that what I just seen back there? A ghost?"

"Who was it?" Annabelle asked her. "I saw my grandmother. It was horrible. She said I was going to die."

"Yeah?" Molly gave her a strange look. "Me too, 'cept I saw my mum's old boyfriend. Hated him. Was glad when he snuffed it. Said a man in black was comin' for me. Fucking druggie paedo."

Spike drew Giles a little aside.

"What're we gonna do with him?" He toed Griffiths' limp body with his foot. "Also, was a bit convenient, don't you think, that whatever-he-saw turnin' up when it did?"

He lowered his voice further. "An' what he said about this place not being here before, you gettin' the impression someone wanted us to see it?"

Giles grimaced, remembering the pure malevolence, glimpsed for a moment in the eyes of a woman he'd loved. He said nothing.

"What is it?" Spike asked. "You know, Giles. Tell me."

Giles drew a ragged breath. There were confessions to be made on both sides. "I will," he assured Spike. "After we warn Travers."

He indicated Robson. "Would you mind? As for Griffiths, we'll have to leave him here. I don't know what else we can do, do you?"

"S'pose not." Spike gave him a dubious look, but a moment later, Robson was slung across his shoulder again. Robson was still unconscious, but this time, he groaned softly when Spike picked him up. Whatever De Souza had given him must be wearing off at last.

Giles knelt down, gingerly on his sore knee, to feel in Griffiths' pockets for the keys. It was unnerving touching him, and Giles half-expected Griffiths to grab his hand suddenly and break all his fingers. But Griffiths was as dead to the world as Robson. The head torch was still working, despite the struggle with Spike, and for a moment, Giles considered taking it. But it seemed wrong to leave Griffiths floundering in the dark when he regained consciousness, so Giles left it.

He climbed laboriously back onto his feet. Then, with a last look around the cavern, he shepherded the three girls towards the exit.

"Are we going back?" Norah asked.

"Yes," Giles said. He hadn't changed his mind on that point. "We have to warn them."

Norah grimaced. "Lydia was nice anyway."

"No, she wasn't," Molly protested. "Stuck up cow."

Giles hardly heard her. As they went back up the tunnel his sense of disorientation was growing. Surely it had been curved before? This time, it went straight. What's more, they'd been walking for at least a minute and there was no sign of the main tunnel up ahead. Instead, the one they were in made a sharp jink to the right and ended abruptly at a big metal door.

Giles set his ear to it and heard, on the other side, the unmistakeable sound of an Underground train entering a station.

He turned. Behind him, a single tunnel, white-tiled and with a curved ceiling, disappeared, arrow-straight, into darkness. "We've gone wrong somewhere."

"No, we haven't," Spike said. "There weren't any choices. This was the only way to go."

Giles tried to push past him. "We have to go back."

But Spike grabbed his arm and pulled him to one side. "You know what I think?" he said, "I think that's some pretty powerful mojo back there. I think whatever it was - the thing you're gonna tell me about- that wanted us to find that dynamite doesn't want us tipping off your Watcher mates. You wanna save 'em, Giles, best is, we get out of here and find a bloody phone pronto."

For a moment, Giles strained against Spike's grip, but he knew Spike was right. If they tried to go back again, either they would end up back here again, or be lost forever in the dark.

"Giles?" Spike let him go.

"All right," Giles said. He fumbled the keys he'd taken from Griffiths out of his pocket, and began to try them methodically in the door. After the third failed attempt, his hands began to shake. The surge of adrenalin that had got him through the last few hours had dissipated, and he was deathly tired.

"Here." Spike took the keys off him and passed them to Norah. "You do it, love. Old Mr Giles here's quite done in, I think. Not enough tea, probably."

"I beg your..." Giles began, but then he saw the gleam of mischief in Spike's eyes. You evil little shit, he thought.

But he was secretly pleased. It felt like Spike had forgiven him.

Norah tried one key after another, as the suffocating dark pressed in behind them. At last, the tumblers clicked and the door swung inwards. Blinding light flooded into the tunnel - along with noise. So much noise - loudspeaker announcements, the sound of footsteps, the howl of a train leaving the platform.

Giles led the way into the rush hour crowd, which parted to let them in, not without a few quizzical glances, especially at Spike and the unconscious Robson.

A blast of wind from the tunnel heralded the approach of another train. As it thundered into the station, Giles heard Spike say to one gawker, "Great party, mate. You really should've been there."

The man looked away, embarrassed.

Then the peculiar nature of their arrival was forgotten as the train doors opened and the crowd surged forward onto the already crowded train.

"Out the bloody way!" Spike pushed his way through, using Robson's dangling feet as a battering ram and with the three girls and Giles caught up in his slipstream. Giles breathed a sigh of relief as the doors shut behind them. Squashed right next to the door, with his face in someone's armpit, he managed to grab hold of one of the overhead handholds just as the train started, jerked, began to pull away from the platform, then stopped again.

A ripple of annoyance went through the passengers at the delay. Probably, Giles thought, someone had caught a garment in the closing door.

As they waited, Giles scanned the disconsolate travellers left on the platform - the ones who hadn't made it onto the train. Then, just as the train began to move again, he noticed that someone - a woman- was standing at the very edge of the platform, right by the entrance to the Underground tunnel - a sight to turn any Tube driver's blood to ice with the fear of 'one under.'

But the figure didn't move, except to raise an arm and wave at the passing train. Meanwhile, its eyes sought out Giles's, met them and gazed right into them.

It was Jenny – dark hair, dark eyes, white dress with the soft flower print.

But as Giles stared, horror-struck, Jenny’s form began to waver and flow, like water rippling, and suddenly she was Ms Harkness, tall and dignified, pinning him down with her forbidding gaze.

As the train picked up speed, the figure changed again to the lanky figure of Radley. Three arms all waving the same sardonic wave, three different faces, all wearing identical expressions of gleeful malice.

Suddenly, Giles knew without a shadow of a doubt, that for Travers, for Lydia and the others, it was already too late.

Then, the train screamed into the tunnel and they were once again lost in darkness.

TBC in the final story in the series.