THE CHINESE PEACH
by Lynn K. Hollander
Chapter 4 - Who's driving?
"Gang Long drives to Willy's, Filis drives back," Spike decided, settling comfortably in the back seat.
"Why?" Filis was ready to argue.
"He knows the way," Spike said.
"OK," Filis got in the passenger seat. "So how did Rupert become the guardian of Dawn? She's totally human in appearance, and humans have laws."
"Ann and a lawyer friend of hers forged a will for Joyce Summers, Dawn's mother, naming Giles if Buffy couldn't be her sister's guardian. We all thought it might be even more traumatic for Dawn to go live with her father--after all, she's never really met him--so we cooperated to keep her here."
"Ann said you were all very fond of the girl."
"We are. Why do you call her Ann and not Meliora?"
"Angel said her name was Ann Grove. I didn't realize till much later that she was Berengar's and Mellisande's Meliora. So why aren't you welcome where we're going and why, come to think of it, can't you hit humans?"
"The answers are tied together. Did Ann ever mention the Initiative?"
"Yes. Berengar was eloquent on the subject."
"They put a chip in my head, so I can't prey on humans." Spike looked out the window, then back at Filis. "When you realize you're a vampire, you're starving. Your instinct tells you only human blood can save you. You hunt, you kill, you drink. The violence keeps you alive. The violence, the hunt, can become comfortable. Comforting. You have the illusion of being in control of your life. With the chip in my head, I was helpless. I am helpless, I can't defend myself, not against humans. On the other hand, I can hit other vampires and all demons."
"Vampires and demons?" Filis asked. "You hunt them?"
"I can hit them, and sometimes hitting anything feels good."
"You can hit Jingwu, me and Dawn, too," Gang Long said.
"I suppose," Spike said.
"Probably me, too," Filis said
"Probably," Spike agreed.
"So why don't you?" Filis asked.
"Ann would kill me. I don't want to hurt you, anyway."
"Besides," Gang Long said, "the chip in your head broke the reflex. Now, when you're hungry you get a can of blood. If the chip was out today, you would probably still go get a can of blood."
"Says who?" Spike asked, his interest arrested.
"Claire. She and Jingwu were talking. She also says it's too bad she didn't run some IQ tests on you before the Initiative installed the chip, since you're probably smarter now than you were before and you depend more on reason than you do on reflex and instinct."
"Why hasn't she told me about this?" Spike demanded.
"When did you see her last?"
"Last spring."
"Go see her again," the boy said.
"Maybe I should." Spike was silent for a long moment, then said, "In any case, Filis, there may be vampires at Willy's who won't have a chip or a soul and who may think you're an ambulatory meal. Stake them."
"OK."
"Do you have a stake?"
"It's Sunnydale."
***
"Hasn't changed a bit," Spike said.
"And probably hasn't been swept since you were last here," Filis said. "Whenever that was."
"Get out," the bartender said.
"In a moment," Spike said. "Good, he's here. You."
The magenta haired demon, Burglar A, looked up and froze.
"Yeah, you: What were you doing running out of the Magic Box at three in the morning?"
Burglar A bolted.
"Out!" the bartender yelled, taking a stake from under the counter.
Spike grabbed Burglar A.
Gang Long shifted to dragon and hung in the air at Spike's back.
Filis drew her dagger and stood beside the long.
"He said in a moment," the dragon said.
"We just want to ask some questions," Filis said mildly.
"I can't talk," Burglar A said.
"Talk," Spike said, shaking him. The magenta hair flew about wildly.
"He put a thing on me. If I talk, my heart stops."
"I can fix that," Spike said. "Vampires' hearts don't beat at all. I'll just turn you, and you can talk all day."
"Yuck," Filis said.
"I know. Can either of you tell if that's true? The geas bit?"
"It is," Filis said, taking a quick, one-eyed look at Burglar A.
"All right, then," Spike said, entering full vampire display.
"It doesn't work that way. We don't become vampires. We don't, honest."
"How do you know?" the long asked, interested.
"We just don't."
"Sounds like hearsay," Filis said.
"I'd give it a try," Spike said, over more vocal protests from Burglar A, "if it weren't for the fact that we'd have to wait for him to resurrect to question him, and who knows how long that would take. You're blown," he said, tossing Burglar A free. "Stay away from the Magic Box or you're dead. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Let's go. Nice seeing you all again," Spike said, and left.
***
"Do you think he'll stay away?" Filis asked.
"Unless the geas includes something on the order of `get the object I want or your heart stops.' And who put it on him? Who is the imposer? Until I met Ann and Claire, I didn't know about geas at all. Now I know someone has to put one on you. Who in Sunnydale can put a geas on a demon?"
"Ann could, Beroule could," Filis said. "Willow probably could."
"You?"
"Probably not."
"It takes a strong witch, then."
"Yes."
"Could you cast the death spell?"
"I don't know it."
"Can you cast the privacy spell?"
"Not for so long, over so large an area. That takes more power than I have. The same with the repelling spell."
"Uh huh. The sleep spell?"
"Again, no. Not on so many people at once."
"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action," Gang Long said.
"James Bond," Filis said.
"Ian Fleming, at least," said Spike. "Yeah. Back to the Magic Box."
Filis drove silently for a while, then: "Spike? Would you really have bitten that thing?"
"No."
"So what could you have done to it?"
"Break its neck. Why?"
"You don't carry a weapon?"
"Other than the fangs, no. I don't really know how to use a knife, other than hack and slash."
"You move well enough. Come down to the playroom sometime, I can go over the basics with you, if you'd care to learn dagger."
"You know, Spike," Gang Long said, "what you said once about stoning them, how that makes it difficult to talk to them, also applies to breaking their necks."
"I could just shoot them," Spike said mildly.
"Only if you carry a gun," the dragon pointed out.
***
"So what we have are two spells which can only be cast by a strong witch, the death spell on the ship and the geas on the idiot gofer, and three other spells which by their spread and depth reveal that a strong witch cast them. The spells are connected in time and locale," Spike said. "I think it's reasonable to assume they may be connected in other ways, such as being cast, if not by the same person, at least for the same purpose."
Arriving back at the Magic Box, Spike, Filis and Gang Long discovered Giles had been joined by Dawn, Beroule, Gaufré, Xander, Tara and Willow.
"Which purpose is?" Giles asked.
"To obtain something that was not on the ship when the death spell was cast, but was probably there when the sleep spell was cast."
"Why like that?" Tara asked.
"The sleep spell was cast first, Filis said. Whoever cast that, took the object, whatever it is, and got into her motor boat and went north, as Frank said."
Giles thought that over, then nodded to Spike.
"And where did she go after that?" Beroule asked.
"We'll pick her up later. Back at the ship, a powerful warlock--the gofer said `he'--looked for the object and didn't find it," Spike continued.
"And this warlock, you think he cast the privacy spell?" Filis asked.
"So he could search without interruptions, yes."
"Why'd he kill everybody?" Dawn asked.
"Security? Temper? I don't know," Spike said.
"I don't think I like him," the girl said.
"Spike, how did the object get into my shop?"
"Hell, Giles, I don't know, but the place has been like any Grand Central Station you can name, all week. I bet the first witch, the one who took the object, ditched it here the first night, after hitting Anya or after I locked up and left."
"Why?" Tara asked.
"Ann said something, when we stood waiting on the mountain, about magicians knowing magic. If the first witch was close enough to sense the privacy spell being cast--or even if she just read the papers--she'd want to hide the object that had gotten so many people killed," Filis said.
"And it was right after that night, that the incursions became constant," Spike said.
"One damned burglar after another," Giles complained
"No, why hide it here, I mean," Tara said. .
"This was someplace she could get it again, and someplace she wasn't tied to," Filis said. "She could get it back and she'd be safer that way."
"Oh, oh, and don't forget the Purloined Letter effect," Willow said.
"Exactly," Spike agreed.
"What's the Purloined Letter effect?" Dawn asked.
"The best place to hide something is often right where it should be, where it is not out of place. In the eponymous example, a letter proved to be relatively unnoticeable among other mail," Giles said.
"So the object is something magical?" Dawn asked.
"I think we can assume that," Giles said. "We've had six or eight new customers, not college age children, serious types. They were all rather knowledgeable and very interested in the stock."
"You let them in?" Filis asked.
"It's a shop," Giles pointed out. "It's very hard to tell spies with expense accounts from serious customers."
"But they were quite well behaved," Tara said.
"And bought nothing suspicious," Willow said.
"Magical, then, and three dimensional," Filis said.
"About as big as a hen's egg, judging from what the gofer, aka Burglar A, was looking into," Spike said.
They all looked around the shop, which suddenly seemed twice as tall, twice as wide and twice as deep, and full of eight times as many items that could hold a hen's egg.
"Right," Tara said.
"And we still don't know what it is?" Dawn asked.
"Alas, no," Giles agreed. "But it won't appear on any inventory."
***
At 9:00 Beroule and Gaufré went off shift after Lian and Siride drove up in Tara's Saturn to keep a discrete watch outside.
"Uh, I'd like to keep helping, Beroule," Filis said.
"Go ahead. You're on shift in the morning, remember."
It was Filis who found the coin. She was searching a nest of boxes, apparently non-magical inlay work of exquisite workmanship, and suddenly gasped and dropped the last box.
Spike looked over at her. "What?"
"Is that silver? We can't touch silver."
Spike picked up the lid, the box and a strange coin. "Too heavy. Platinum, at a guess. Bloody hell, it's Glory."
"The demon deity?" Filis asked.
"Yes, and her alter ego, Ben. It can't be as old as the style suggests, platinum is a modern metal. Rupert, where did you get this?"
Giles came and looked at the coin: It was slightly larger than a Charles II crown, and Spike was right, heavier than an old coin should be. It showed a bisexual Janus figure--a male and a female head back to back--female facing right, male facing left. The female was Glory and the male, Ben. "The real question is not where, but when. Ann gave me this, saying she knew I collected coins and I might like it for my collection."
"You don't, do you?" Spike asked.
"No, so I looked at it closely. It had to be important, or she would not have given it to me. I understood what Ann was trying to tell me, then I forgot and carefully put the coin away."
"She was trying to help us all along," Willow said.
"Yes," Giles said.
Spike nodded. "Within the limitations of that damn geas."
"And she must have given it to me right before she was dragged away in chains, so she didn't have time to realize I didn't remember, and could think of another way to get around her geas."
"And she would have," Spike realized. "She's a clever and determined lady, and very fond of Buffy."
"Yes," Giles sighed. "I may have to grovel."
"Get in line," Spike said.
***
"Are we going to send out for pizza?" Filis asked.
"Yeah," agreed Dawn.
"We'd better, I suppose," Giles said. "Dawn doesn't care for pâté or smoked oysters."
"Liverwurst," Dawn disapproved.
"Those who want pizza, decide what you want and order it. Can someone bring in the picnic baskets, please? From both cars, I think."
"I will," Filis said. "I'll see if the others want something while I'm at it. Mushrooms."
"Good idea," Dawn said, dialing.
***
Filis went out the front door, then walked over to the Saturn, parked some distance down the block. After speaking with Siride and Gaufré, she cut through the small walkway into the back parking lot, where the Mercedes and the BMW were.