__Dark__
By Exfilia



Giles had to be dreaming. He had never ridden a horse through a swamp in the dark in his life. He'd never ridden through a swamp at all. He had too much sense. Only in a dream would he plod through unbroken darkness, listening to his horse's hooves glop mud with every step. Only in a dream would he come out into a clearing on a ridge to see a sliver of crescent moon sliceing up from the eastern horizon, and black treetops all around stretching to meet a black sky glittery with starshine.

Nowhere Giles had ever been was this dark. Always there had been city lights.

The horse let him look for a while, and then ambled on its own down a sucky-wet trace not wide enough to qualify as a path and paused in front of a giant tree with foot-long straps of leaves and huge white flowers like water lilies.

"Ripper?"

It was the voice he least expected to hear in the depths of a swamp. Or perhaps it wasn't. If anyone could get the two of them into an unimaginably uncomfortable position, it was Ethan Rayne.

"Where are we, Ethan?"

"I'm not sure. I suppose it could be an alternative universe...."

"And how did you manage to transport us to another world?"

"Me? Not me, old man. I just found the gate open and wandered in."

"And?"

"And," said Ethan with a bit less bravado, "I got stuck."

"And?"

"Called for help?"

"Bother. Do you think I exist solely to bail you out of whatever you've got yourself into at any given time?"

Ethan's eyes sank to the ground.

"It would be an expensive bail-out."

"How so?"

"We are occupying the personas of people who existed in this universe to start with."

"Bugger all, Ethan, did you send someone from the depths of the dark to take my place in Sunnydale when the fate of the world depends on...." Giles searched for words, found none, and instead slashed at Ethan with his riding crop.

"Don't do that," gasped Ethan.

"What, I barely touched you!"

"Yes, but I was whipped recently."

"Why?"

"I was caught reading."

"Reading what?" Giles fought down visions of forbidden tomes of chaos magic.

"An alphabet book one of the schoolboys had dropped in the road. I was bringing it back, and I glanced inside, and... well, that was all it took."

"You were whipped for reading...."

"This fellow... this person I am... he... he is apparently the descendent of a long line of women who knew how to ingratiate themselves with their oppressors. They had no need of a male, though, so I... he... he was sold down here to be... reeducated."

"Sold?"

"This is Mississippi, Ripper, in 1849, and I, well, I'm a slave. Paler than pale with eyes as blue as they come, and legally I'm a black slave."

"Bloody hell, Ethan."

"Yes, quite literally."

"Well, who am I?"

"I never saw you before. You're white, though."

"So are you, and that doesn't seem to have helped...."

"You're riding around alone in the middle of the night on horseback with a rifle attached to the saddle. Whoever you are, you're...." Hoofbeats sounded from the high ground in the distance, punctuated by the baying of hounds. "Ripper," Ethan urged, "when they come near, call out."

"What?"

"Say you've caught me, or they'll shoot me. I was... I was running."

"You call me back in time a hundred and fifty years into one of the most contemptible social systems that ever existed and you want to make me complicit in slavery?"

"They might shoot you, too, for stealing me."

"You are a right piece of work, Ethan, you know that?" The stream of riders dropped down the slope and slowed when they hit the soft swamp ground. Giles could take Ethan up on the horse with him, but they couldn't outrun horses with only one rider. He could make himself scarce and let Ethan get himself out of this fix as best he could. Ethan probably deserved it. Of course, Giles had no idea how to get himself back to Sunnydale, and Ethan did. Well, Ethan might. Perhaps they could stand and fight.

"Ripper...."

Perhaps not. There were at least a dozen riders out there.

"Ripper!"

"I say!" called Giles. It came out an embarrased squeak. He cleared his throat and called again, this time aloud. "I say, you chaps! Did some of you lose this... person?"

The riders slowed, and one of them lifted a lantern. Ethan crowded close to Giles's horse.

"I'll be durned," said the rider. "Where did you find him?"

"The horse shied at a log a ways back, and he was under it."

"You hear that, Cuffee?" snarled one of the riders. "You could have made this white man break his neck! You come on home, now."

"You whip me again, and I'll run again."

The man casually swung the butt of his gun and knocked Ethan to the ground.

"Uppity son of a bitch," he growled. "It ain't gonna be the whip this time, boy," he said. "It ain't gonna be that easy." He turned to Giles. "I'm obliged to you, mister, for catching him for me. I hadn't had time to post a reward yet...."

"Oh, I couldn't take your money. I'm only passing through, after all...."

"You got a place to stay?"

"Well, actually...."

"You come light with us, then. Least I can do."

Someone had tied Ethan's hands together with a long rope. Giles's would-be host looped the other end around his saddle horn and turned for home, and Giles, for lack of anything else to do, followed.

* * * * *

The house had started out as a log cabin, or possibly several cabins which were now connected by a series of passages so that the structure sprawled over the ground like an teenager who'd suddenly grown long legs and wasn't sure what to do with them.

"White columns, it ain't," grunted Giles's host as they rode up the drive. "My daddy's got the kind of big house you hear about, back in Carolina. 'Course, he owes more money to folks than he'll ever see. Mississippi, you can about make a living. 'Spec you know that?"

"I had heard something of the sort." From students researching American history, Giles finished to himself. His companion peered at him. Had Giles said something suspicious. "Er...I thought it worth a look around, at any rate."

"You looking for a place to settle?"

Now Giles had done it. He was not, not, NOT going to pretend he was considering working a gang of slaves. No. It was simply not on.

"Getting a return on one's capital is no easier in England than in Carolina," he said, trying for a noncommital tone. The other man smiled.

"Yeah," he said, "that's what my brother-in-law says. He's stove up right now, and can't ride, or he'd have been out with us. There he is on the porch."

It took Giles a moment to decide which of the tiny porches he was meant to look at, but then his jaw dropped. At the top of the steps, leaning on a cane, stood Wesley Wyndham Pryce.

"This is Mr. Rupert Giles, Simon," said his host. "He caught that boy that run, and I asked him to stay and visit a while. Talk to him while I get Cuffee took care of. Lester, bring me the irons."

Giles stepped down from the horse and handed the reins to a waiting groom. Ethan spared him a warning glance as he was dragged away by the rope. Did Ethan know...? Had Ethan ever even met Wesley? Giles supposed nothing was impossible. He climbed the steps until he could speak quietly.

"Wesley?"

"Wesley? No, I'm Simon Hawkins." The man certainly didn't have Wesley's accent, unless Wesley had unknown connections in the East End. Giles smiled and held out his hand.

"I'm sorry, you must think me a proper idiot, but you bear a striking resemblence to a friend of mine. I'm Rupert Giles, from... from Bath."

"Glad to know you, and heaven help your friend, if he looks like me."

"He does need all the help he can get." So, of course, did Ethan. This not-Wesley might be more amenable than a native Southerner. "What are they going to do to that fellow?" Giles asked.

"A day in irons, probably in a punishment cell they keep. Look here, if you're an abolitionist, keep it to yourself, will you? The last fellow that came through with any such talk rode back out on a rail."

Well, so much for that idea.

"Oh, no, it was just that the fellow told me some tales as I brought him back, and I was curious. I suppose if all he gets is a day's confinement, he should count himself lucky."

"Indeed," said Simon, giving Giles a strange look. He might have said more, but a woman stepped outside, tall and sleek with a mop of dark hair and absolutely enormous eyes above a mouth too thin to house any generosity at all.

"Did they catch him?" she asked.

"They did, or rather this gentleman did. Bill was rather chuffed. I'm sorry, my dear. This is Rupert Giles, who'll be staying with us for a while. Mr. Giles, this is my wife Lilah."

"I'm very pleased to meet you," said Giles automatically, his mind busy wondering why the woman's eyes had widened in panic at the mention of his name.

* * * * *

"If you need anything," said Giles's host at the door to the guest room, "just ask Chokey here."

"That's very kind," said Giles. That couldn't be the man's name. Giles wracked his brain for the little he knew about African languages and came up with the name of the brother of a fellow he'd known at school. "Chioke?" he tried.

"Yes, sir," said the dark man, obviously concealing surprise. "I put your things in the drawers, and what was in your saddlebags, I put on the dresser. It hasn't been opened."

"Very good, thank you." Giles had no idea what might have been in those saddlebags. In fact, he had no idea who he was supposed to be. If he could get Bill and Chioke out of there, he could go through his things and perhaps find out.

"I'll say good night, then," said Bill. "Chokey, you get them to bring my horse around right after breakfast."

"Yes, sir, I sure will," said Chioke. "I'll make sure of that." He kept nodding until Bill was out of the room, then turned to Giles. "Would you like me to work on those boots, sir?" he asked in an accent somewhat different than the one he used with Bill.

Giles's feet did seem to have most of the swamp stuck to them. "Yes, please," he said. He started to remove the offending footwear, but Chioke motioned him to a chair and gently tugged them off. "You're African, are you?" Giles asked. "The name is Ibo, isn't it?"He didn't know much about American history, but he thought they'd stopped importing slaves well before 1848.

"My mother was," said Chioke. "I was born here. The story she told is that my father had another wife, senior to my mother, who had no child, and when my mother became pregnant, this other wife arranged for her to disappear." Chioke grinned up at Giles. "I suppose it is as good a story as any."

"Why do you stay?" asked Giles.

"Because I am this man's property, and to remove myself would be theft."

"No, really, why do you stay here?"

"There are things in the dark night worse than the lash and the irons. Two days ago we found a herd of swine with their throats ripped out."

"Are there wolves hereabouts?"

"I never heard of any wolves, and I never heard of any animal that kills as these swine were killed. There was not a drop of blood in them, or on the ground anywhere around."

Giles closed his eyes, and opened them again. "Their throats were ripped?" he said. "Were there any other injuries?"

Chioke shook his head. "You have heard of this before?" he said.

"Perhaps," said Giles. "I'd have to see them to be sure. I will tell you this, though: If I'm right, this would be a very bad time to be wandering around outside at night."

"There is never a good time to be caught outside at night without a pass," Chioke said. He smiled, tucked the boots under his arm and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Giles latched it, and turned to the dresser. The mirror atop it showed his own face, framed with hair somewhat longer than he was accustomed to. Glove-tight buff leather trousers hugged his lower body. Above them was an amber-colored vest of some satiny fabric, a billowy white shirt, a string tie and a beautifully fitted frock coat the color of chocolate. The effect was impeccable craftsmanship with no nouveau-riche flash to it at all. He looked like a rich landowner in a Western movie. Buffy would have laughed herself silly.

None of this told Giles who he was meant to be, though. Perhaps there was something in the stuff Chioke had mentioned, the stuff from his saddlebags. It appeared to be a leather pouch that might have held a gallon milk jug. Gile hefted it. It was far heavier than it had any right to be, and the contents shifted like so much gravel. He pushed the flap open, and gaped.

The pouch was full and brimming over with twenty dollar gold pieces.

Giles stood very still. There was a great deal of money in there, enough... yes, probably enough to set up a small plantation of his own. Perhaps that genuinely was what his alter ego was about. Or perhaps not, since he was travelling away from the largest slave markets in the area. Who could he be, and what was he doing in the Mississippi back country, miles from anywhere?

If Giles hadn't been standing quietly, pondering, he might not have heard the rustle outside his window. Something was moving on the ground beneath him. He blew out his candle and waited for his eyes to adjust. Someone darted across the yard toward a small building, perhaps a chicken coop. A few steps at a time, careful to keep to cover, someone moved. It was probably one of the servants out to pinch some auxiliary rations. Well, good on them. It showed they weren't completely cowed. Giles started to unbutton his shirt, and then stopped. There was something sitting on that small building, something that hadn't been there before. It could have been an animal, or several animals. It could have been a great many things, but somehow Giles was chilled by the sight. The steps in the yard stopped, and then began again, headed back to the house, furtive at first, then less so, and finally hurrying. They disappeared around the corner, and then Giles heard a faint sound as the door closed downstairs.

When he looked back at the tiny building, the roof was empty.

* * * * *

By morning, of course, Giles had a plan. He didn't know how to get himself, much less Ethan... and why did he care what happpened to Ethan? At any rate, he didn't know how to get them back to Sunnydale, but he thought he knew how to get them away from here. He made his way down the rude stairway to a breakfast that would have shamed a palace, served by a staff better trained than most four star restaurants.

Of course, mused Giles, restaurants couldn't actually flog someone for serving cold toast. In the name of establishing his cover, Giles devoured eggs and ham and fresh biscuits and a very tasty white cereal that he didn't recognize. Giles's host, who had finally admitted to being called Bill, exchanged a smile with Lilah. She kicked her husband under the table.

"See?" said Bill to Simon. "I told you grits was good."

Giles stopped chewing, and then swallowed so he could speak. "These are grits?" he asked. These couldn't be grits. Grits were vile and inedible and the butt of countless regional jokes. Whatever this was on his plate, it certainly wasn't....

"Yep, grits," said Bill. "From corn we grew right here. Simon says they ain't fit to eat."

Giles stirred the grits with his fork, then ventured another taste. It was still delightful. Simon was glowering at Giles, much to the amusement of Bill and Lilah.

"Simon," said Giles, "must have happened on an ill-prepared batch at some point, because these grits are quite nice."

"You might be right," said Lilah. "The cook we had in Carolina was a good soul that we got when we bought her sons, but I do believe she could have spoiled hot water. Who cooks for you, Mr. Giles? Do you have a family somewhere?"

"You got her with her sons?" asked Giles. "A package deal of some sort?"

"Well," said Bill, "we don't like to separate families. A man that'd do that is just heartless."

"Also there's a problem with absenteeism," said Simon.

"There's a great deal I don't know," said Giles, "about this sort of operation. I wonder if I'd be able to pull it off at all."

"Have you never kept slaves before?" asked Simon.

"Where do you come from, Mr. Giles?" said his wife.

"I'm from Bath, actually, and I've only ever had a body servant, and he died in New Orleans, which brings up another matter. Bill, that fellow I found last night can't be doing you a great deal of good. Would you sell him to me, once he's finished with his punishment?"

"You're going to try to make a house slave out of that?" Simon sputtered.

"I think he would be somewhat more tractable if I kept him under my own eye at all times. What would you take for him, Bill?"

"I don't know if it's a real good idea," said Bill, "for the rest of them to see what looks like Cuffee getting rewarded for running off."

"I wouldn't want to disrupt your operation, of course," said Giles, "but I can guarantee you that no one will believe he has it easy when I'm through. And for that matter, we'll be away from here shortly, anyway."

"Where were you headed?" asked Lilah.

"You won't be leaving any too soon, I hope," said Bill. "I was hoping you could spare us a couple of weeks and let me show you around the place some, so you could see how it worked, if you follow me." Giles did follow, eagerly so. If Bill showed him enough about his operation, Giles might find a way to get himself and Ethan out of it. "And then," said Bill, "Simon's sister's due here any day. Seems like most of their family up and died. It'd be nice to have a gentleman in the house, to help her get her bearings."

"There may have been a change in plans," said Simon. "She was thinking of travelling in Europe for a while. I'm something of a black sheep, Mr. Giles, and my family may not trust me with a respectable young woman."

"She didn't say that," said Lilah.

"She didn't say anything that made much sense," said Simon.

"She'll be here, sweetie. You know how much she wants to see you. Don't you want her to come?"

"Y'all argue about this some other time," said Bill. "If she shows up, we'll be glad to have her. Mr. Giles, won't you ride out with me this morning and take a look at the place, and maybe get a feel for things?"

Giles followed with some gratitude. Simon Hawkins didn't just look like Wyndham Pryce. He was as big a prat as the other Watcher had ever been. Giles would have loved to have seen what Simon would have made of Faith. Simon was still arguing with Lilah when Giles followed Bill out into a yard already baked to blistering by just the morning sun. A knot of people waited, milling a bit with nervous energy.

"Something's been at the box," one of them said.

"At it, how?" said Bill. "Did he break out?"

"No, sir, but just come look."

They went and looked. The box in question was the structure Giles had taken for a chicken coop the night before. It sat in the open, well away from other structures, or even tall grass. In length it was somewhat less than two meters, and perhaps a meter each in height and breadth. Its top and each of its sides, all solid wood, had been cracked as if by an immensely strong fist.

"Looks like something tried to break in," said Bill. "Bear, maybe, but bears ain't usually this bold, to come up where people is. You all right in there, Cuffee?"

An snarled oath emerged from the box, and Giles's blood ran cold. This was the "punishment cell," this nearly airless tomb about the size of a steamer trunk, and Ethan was locked inside. While Giles had been playing planter over breakfast, Ethan... Ethan had lain in who knew what state.

"Sh-should we open it," proffered Giles, "and see if it's still sturdy enough to hold him?"

"He knows better than to bust out," said Bill. "He'll stay there 'till the end of the day like he's supposed to, and then we'll fix it up. You can't let them off once you've set a punishment, or you won't never get no respect. Cuffee, you just stay right there and enjoy your day off." Bill slapped the top of the box and turned away. "Now, then, where's the horses?"

There was no help for it. Ethan would spend the whole scorching summer day in what amounted to an oven, while Giles took lessons in slaveholding.

He'd better pay attention. If Ethan died, Giles might be here for the rest of his life.

* * * * *

It seemed to be the tail end of spring in Mississippi. Songbirds twittered, butterflies fluttered, and an enormous variety of exuberant blossoms bloomed everywhere Giles looked. Bill and Giles rode through fields carpeted with young cotton plants where teams of slaves hoed away the merest hint of any intruding weed.

"You work them in gangs," Bill told Giles, "with a driver to each gang."

Giles looked around, but saw only slaves.

"A driver? You mean an overseer?"

Bill shook his head. "Drivers is slaves themselves. On big places they'll be a white overseer over the drivers, but any overseer worth paying can set up his own place, and will. Best to run things yourself, if you plan on making any money."

"Speaking of money, does it not affect the slave's value when... is there no damage from the sort of punishment...?"

"You thinking about Cuffee?"

"It wouldn't seem that damaged goods would bring a top price."

"Damaged goods. You been reading the abolitionists, haven't you? No, the scars might bring the price down a little bit, but it's not really the scars, it's the temper, and that's fair enough. You go to put together a gang, get hands that ain't been whipped to death, 'cause they'll make less trouble. The kind somebody's selling 'cause they do make trouble ain't worth having."

"You're buying someone else's problems." Gods, they were talking about buying and selling people as if they were used cars! Giles was surprised at himself. He understood Bill. He didn't approve, but he could follow the man's logic, and somehow he found that disturbing. "I suppose anyone being sold has some sort of history."

"Ain't that the truth? But that's what they do with them. They sell them."

"Eh?"

"Nobody in his right mind screws a thousand dollar slave down in a bale press and leaves him for the rats to eat like in that book. You might as well throw away good money."

"Now you sound like Simon."

"He may not have good manners, but he's got good business sense."

"How was he hurt?"

"He shot a fellow over in England that said something about his sister. It seems like he was right partial to her. He said they was something older than the others, and they stuck together."

"But he left her, and came to America?"

"He don't talk much about it, but I get the feeling this fellow wouldn't have had no call to talk about the lady if she hadn't been getting Simon out of trouble, and got herself in. Anyway, everybody and his brother was kin to the fellow that got shot, and they all laid for Simon, all together. His daddy put him out for the sisters's sake, and when he could walk again, he came to Charleston."

"And married someone else's sister?"

"And he couldn't treat her better. He's real good with the books, too. He more than earns his keep, and having Lilah around spares me the trouble of getting married."

"Confirmed bachelor, are you?"

"Durned right. I'd rather spend my time with a man with a bit of sense than the sweetest belle in Mississippi."

Giles felt his eyebrows rise, and brought them firmly back down again. This was 1848. The sort of talk that meant a man was available in twenty-first century California might... surely, was only a matter of words in antebellum Mississippi. Still, he found himself watching the way Bill sat his horse, watching the muscles move under the tight trousers.

"So," said Bill without noticing Giles's scrutiny, "have you got a little girl waiting for you somewhere, or something?"

Visions of Buffy flashed through Giles's mind. He could almost hear her voice: "That is *so* not what he meant!" Giles smiled.

"Yeah," said Bill, "you've got you somebody."

"Actually not," said Giles. The only living person who had any romantic claim on Giles was probably melting away in an airless box under Bill's orders. Suddenly the man's backside didn't look the least bit interesting. "It was just me and... and my servant."

"Yeah, well, I been thinking about that, and if you want that Cuffee, when he comes out of the box I'll give him to you. He can teach you more about uppity hands in one day than I could if we had the rest of our lives."

"Oh, I couldn't. I mean, thank you, but...."

"But nothing. It won't be a week until you're begging me to take him back. That boy is nothing but pure trouble."

Apparently Bill had sized up Ethan Rayne in far less time than it had taken Giles. The fellow had a brain in his head, if he did keep slaves.

"What's this up ahead?" Giles asked him.

"An old trading post, from when this was Indian territory. You want to take a look?"

Again Giles eyed Bill, wondering if this was a proposition of sorts. They rode across a small valley and up a hill to a log tower with its door hanging from one hinge and swung down from their horses.

"No windows?" Giles observed.

"You know about the Red Sticks?"

"The Native American rising that Andrew Jackson used as an excuse to displace most of the...."

Bill was staring at Giles.

"Native American?"

Trust Giles to stumble over twentieth century political correctness.

"Creek, mostly, weren't they?" Giles went on, grasping for vague memories of research requests from uncaring teenagers. "And the Cherokee were with Jackson?"

"The land they got 'displaced' off is what you're standing on, and they got displaced on account of they killed a good many folks that didn't deserve it. That's why there's no windows, so they couldn't sneak up and shoot nobody."

"Well, you can imagine what a distorted picture the London papers gave of all this. Shall we look inside?"

"We might as well look around," said Bill, still glowering. He led Giles into the tower. It was just a dark rectangular room with a dirt floor strewn with wrecked furniture and a rude stairway leading up into the blackness of... of the upper floor.

"What's up there?" Giles asked, suddenly certain that whatever it was was quite unpleasant. Apparently Bill felt it, too, for he was watching the opening overhead as a mouse watches the inside of a mousehole, as if he expected a furry arm to sweep down at any moment and scoop him away with sleek, sharp claws.

"There is something up there, ain't they?" Bill muttered.

"I believe so," said Giles, looking around the floor for something with which to improvise a stake.

"Reckon we ought to look?"

"I think we have to, yes." said Giles. "Here, take this." He snapped a table leg into two reasonable stakes and offered one to Bill. "We may find something rather unpleasant up there...."

"Unpleasant!" came a voice from the stairs, Lilah's voice. "Mr. Giles, I do believe you are no gentleman!"

"If you'll step out in the sunshine with us, Mrs. Hawkins, I'll play the gentleman to your heart's content."

She nodded. She actually nodded before she stepped outside into the light, spun around, twirling her cotton skirts, and shrugged at Giles as if to ask what he'd been expecting. She knew. She might not be a vampire herself, but she knew what Giles had been expecting to find, and she knew that he knew what a vampire was. The sense of evil from the floor above had not abated. It seemed to intensify when Lilah laughed.

"What on earth are you doing out here?" Bill asked her.

"Looking for a place to lock up what hogs we have left," Lilah told him. "It was Simon's idea. I thought we could store feed and stuff upstairs, but it's not sturdy enough. You two look like you have purely seen a ghost. Did I scare you that bad?"

"It's getting on towards dinner time," growled Bill. "Let's head back to the house."

* * * * *

Giles spent the afternoon on the porch listening to Simon and Lilah bicker while Bill glowered at them as he went about his duties. By teatime Giles had had enough. When Bill climbed the dining room steps, Giles held out his hand.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he told Bill. "I truly only knew what I'd read, and I'm sorry for offending you." Bill shrugged.

"I'd about decided that myself. You ain't got no way to know unless somebody tells you. And I was still going to give you the boy anyway."

"That's not what I meant," said Giles, thinking of Willow crossing her fingers behind her back when she felt she had to tell a lie.

"You're going to give him WHAT?" said Lilah.

"I'm going to give Cuffee to Giles, here. Like we said last night, he ain't doing me a whole lot of good."

Lilah appeared to be deciding in which direction she wished to sputter. "Bu... but...."

"What," asked Bill, "do you want him?"

"No, but...."

"Good, then it's settled."

"Well... well, okay," said Lilah. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. Probably PMS. I think... I think I'll go lie down."

Bill's eyebrows rose again. "PM...?"

Lilah shrugged at him, and then saw Giles's expression and went white. Well, that was curious. Not only was Lilah a woman of Giles's own time, or something close to it, she knew that he, too, didn't belong here, and that frightened her.

"I... I really don't feel well," she said. "I'm going upstairs."

Giles watched Lilah and Simon out of sight, and then turned to Bill. "Has your sister been... acting...."

"She's been acting like a possum with a wasp in its pouch for some while now. It come over her all of a sudden."

"What, she just woke up one morning and...?"

"And it was like she was a different person. She was fine in the morning, but when she come back from riding at dinnertime, she was... she was powerful confused. For one thing, she looked to have forgot how to ride."

Giles smothered a smile. Poor Lilah. He was quite lucky that he himself was the horsey type, or he'd have been properly out of his depth when he'd arrived here.

"I expect she'll get over it," Bill said, "or if she don't, it won't matter much. Women are just like that."

"What does Simon think about that?"

Bill never got to answer, because a "halloo" came up the trace from the swamp, from a madly waving rider on a lathered horse.

"What is it, Sam?" asked Bill. "Won't you step down and take some lemonade?"

"No time," said the rider. "I got to spread the word. The Delta Lady was robbed!"

"What delta lady?" puzzled Giles.

"It's a steamboat," said Bill. "How much did they get, Sam?"

"Better than eighteen thousand dollars in twenty dollar gold pieces going up to the subtreasury at St. Louis!"

"I tell you!" said Bill. "That'll put a hole in somebody's plans! Who done it, do they know?"

"The purser, they think. Seems the money just walked out of the vault. They figure he handed it off to somebody, 'cause he didn't have none of it when they caught him."

"And ain't nobody seen nothing of it?"

"You know and I know it's in New Orleans by now," said Sam, "if it ain't on a boat headed to Cuba. Still, the Army wants the countryside warned, so here I am warning you, and here I go to warn Abner Capps."

"I never heard of such a thing! Are you sure you won't have some lemonade?"

"No, but look here, anybody that catches that fellow, there's a $2500 reward, and if it's a slave that catches him, he's free."

"Durn!" Bill shook his head and waved as Sam rode away. "Don't that just beat all?" Giles nodded, not trusting his voice. "Well," said Bill, "there ain't nothing we can do about it. Come on and let's get Cuffee out of the box, if you still want him."

Oh, thought Giles, I want him. I want to twist Ethan's scrawny neck until he comes to a full realization of the situation he's got me into. Giles followed Bill down the steps, musing on exactly how he would explain matters to Ethan, until he became aware that someone was watching him from behind. He turned and saw Lilah looking down from her window just before she dropped the homespun curtain.

She was smiling.

* * * * *

The box, of course, had not moved. It lay in the hot sun, ventilated only where the boards had splintered during last night's attack. Bill bent to open it, but jerked his fingers away from the metal lock.

"Damn," he spat, "that thing is hot!" He sucked his burned fingers for a moment, then pulled a kerchief from his pocket and used it protect his fingers as he turned the key in the lock. Two men flipped the lid back. The man inside didn't move, although a veritable swarm of insects milled about. Giles leaned close and almost gagged at the stench. At some point Ethan had vomited, and the result had been baking in the bottom of the box for several hours at least. His clothing and skin were dry, but caked with salt.

"You sure you want him?" Bill asked.

Giles pressed his fingers under Ethan's jaw and felt a rapid pulse beneath the burning skin, but at least the pulse was still strong. Beneath the filthy shirt his chest fluttered with tiny breaths. Giles breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Ethan was alive. Now, how to get his body temperature down to safe levels without bringing down the wrath of flouted Southern custom?

"Could some of your people get these clothes off him?" Giles asked Bill. "I'll lay him out some old things of mine. If we take him inside like this, Miss Lilah will have a fit." Bill nodded, and the slaves obeyed. "Scrub the stench off him while you're at it," said Giles, "and then put him in my room."

"You don't want to leave him in the quarters till he gets over this?" asked Bill.

"Sometimes it gets powerful messy."

"No, I want him under my eye from this moment on." I want him where I can take care of him, Giles added silently, and then wanted to kick himself. This was Ethan, who had come closer to killing him on more occasions than all the demons in Sunnydale put together. This was Ethan, who had got him into this mess. Chioke and another man lifted the limp body out of the box, carried him to a trough water beside the stable and laid him in the cool water.

Gods be thanked, thought Giles. He still had Ethan.

* * * * *

Lilah was standing on the porch when they reached the house.

"Are y'all ready for your supper, now?" she asked.

"Sorry to keep you," said Bill.

"It's not that," said Simon. "She's just put out that you wouldn't let her come with you."

"A lady don't need to be looking at nothing like that," Bill told him.

"I'll just pop upstairs for a moment," said Giles, "and get him some clothes."

"Hurry back," said Lilah, "or your biscuits'll get cold."

How anything could get cold in this heat was beyond Giles. How cooks survived the baking of biscuits in the hottest part of the day in such a climate was something he didn't even want to consider. He bustled into his room to find Ethan naked on a pallet on the floor with Chioke sponging Ethan's feet with a wet cloth.

"Is his temperature still high?" Giles asked, hunkering down beside them.

"It's down some," said Chioke. "We left him in the trough for as long as we dared, but Mr. Simon was watching, and besides, Cuffee's bright enough to burn badly."

"Bright?" asked Giles.

"Pale. He's brighter, I'm darker. We left the irons on until we got him up here."

Giles felt like a new student in a class nearing its final exams. He hadn't seen any chains.

"What irons?" he asked. Cuffee moved the cloth, and Giles looked away, and then made himself look back. Ethan's feet, his lovely long delicate feet, looked as if someone had attached a hose and inflated them almost to bursting. His ankles were spheres from which bulged cylinders where the arches had been, with little swollen sausage-toes at the other end. The whole was the color of a ripe plum. Above the ankles was the cause of the matter: an iron band was fastened around each ankle so tightly that it had cut into the flesh. Giles fought a surge of nausea.

"They hurt like the devil," Chioke said. "The part that's against the metal has no way to swell, so it just presses in on the nerves all day long."

Giles forced himself to whisper, or else he would have screamed.

"Get them off him," he said, "please."

"I'll get a couple of hands to help hold him, and I'll do it. Go eat your supper."

"I'm not hungry."

"You knew him from before?"

There was no answer to that. He certainly couldn't say how or where, and if he did, he wouldn't be believed. Finally he nodded, and left it at that.

"Go downstairs. You don't want to watch this, and you don't want to be missed. Go."

"Thank you, Chioke."

Dark eyes met Giles's.

"I put your bag in the chimney in an empty room. I didn't think you'd want anyone seeing it by chance."

"Thank you."

"You're really going to set up a plantation when you leave here?"

"What do you think?"

"Buy me."

"Eh?"

"Buy me, and take me with you, wherever that money's going."

"You don't need anyone to set you free."

"Freedom's a long way away, Mister Giles."

There was a knock at the door, and Giles looked up to find Lilah staring at Ethan's feet as if she were tempted to lick her lips.

"I'm glad you came up," said Giles. "He won't be able to move around tomorrow. Could you give him something to do, and keep him under your eyes all day? I don't want him unsupervised."

"What do you mean?" said Lilah, her eyes still on Ethan's tortured flesh. Her nostrils flared, and a flush spread itself over her cheekbones. Chioke dropped the wet rag across a strategic part of Ethan's lap, picked up the basin and moved to the door.

"I'll bring them boys up here like you said, Mister Giles. Cuffee won't break nothing when we take the irons off."

"Good man," said Giles, and Chioke left. Lilah was sucking the tip of her finger as she her eyes moved over Ethan's body.

"What I mean" Giles told her, "is that I'd just as soon not have him subjected to nineteenth century medical superstitions," he said. "Will you keep him with you tomorrow?" And incidentally keep herself under Ethan's eyes, Giles thought, if Ethan was able to open them by the morning.

"It'll all be over by morning," said Lilah. She tore her gaze from the injured man and met Giles's eyes. "Come on," she said. "They're waiting supper."

* * * * *

Supper was small breaded steaks in sauce, the kind Xander disparaged as "Mystery Meat" when they appeared in the school cafeteria. Giles couldn't eat. The sheen of the gravy reminded him of the reflection from the stretched skin of Ethan's feet, and Giles's stomach somersaulted. Lilah watched him across the table with mocking laughter in her eyes. As soon as he could, Giles excused himself, saying he wanted to indoctrinate his new servant while the man was too weak to resist.

Ethan was still unconcious, but someone had laid a blanket across him and raised his legs on a footstool covered with an old quilt. Giles knelt and touched the backs of his fingers to Ethan's cheek. It was still warm, but perhaps not too warm.

Something coughed behind him. Giles sprang to his feet, stake in hand, to find Chioke standing in the doorway with Giles's laundry.

"We got the irons off," he said. "He's going to be okay, if..."

"If what?" Giles scolded himself, then relented. Ethan was his ticket out of this. It was only natural that he be concerned. It was definitely not a symptom of any relapse on Giles's part into old habits. Bad habits, they were, habits in which he would never again indulge. It was just the urge to survive manifesting as worry about Ethan, not... anything else. "Is there something else we could do for him?" Giles asked Chioke.

"That depends. What did Miss Lilah mean, that it would all be over by morning?"

"I shudder to think," said Giles. "Where do you sleep, Chioke? Here in the house?"

"Usually down in the kitchen, but I can stay with Cuffee tonight if you think best."

"As long as you're not outside, you should be all right. They can't come into someone's home unless they're invited."

"They?"

"The creatures that killed the swine you told me about. They're called vampires."

"Vampires?"

"Are you superstitious, Chioke?"

"You mean do I believe in spirits and such? I believe there are strange things going on here, and that you know a good deal about them. If you tell me it has to do with spirits, I'll believe you until somethings shows me otherwise."

"Tell everyone, then. Be inside before dark, and don't ask anyone in. If they can't pass the threshhold unasked, let them stay out in the dark. Understand?"

"Yes, sir. I'll pass the word."

* * * * *

"Ripper?"

"You're awake?"

"I think so. What have we done this time?"

Giles opened his mouth to tell Ethan that whatever had been done, Giles had certainly had no part in it, but let it close again when he saw the man's face. Giles hunkered down and brushed an errant hair away from Ethan's eyes.

"Actually, I don't think we did it," he said.

"No?" Ethan sounded hurt.

"I think we've fallen into someone else's plot, and it's going to be the very devil getting... look here, you do remember how you got here, don't you?"

"We... oh. I was in Los Angeles, looking for clues as to where you'd got to, but I don't remember why."

"Because Sunnydale had become a heap of rubble?"

"That's right, I saw it on the news, and..." Ethan seemed to collect himself. His eyes met Giles's, then he looked away, biting his lip. "I didn't know what might be coming after me, you see, if you were gone. What had taken you down? I had to know, Ripper." Obviously Ethan's mind was clearing, or perhaps he was just dropping the pretence. One never knew, with Ethan.

"So you did some sort of scrying spell?" Giles prompted.

"No, I asked Wyndham Pryce, or tried to. He took off on the motorbike before he saw me, though, and I settled in to wait."

"And?"

"And a woman went into his apartment. Had a key, and all."

"Wesley? With a woman? It wasn't Cordelia again, was it?"

"Lilah. She was there, in his apartment in Los Angeles in the twenty-first century." Ethan paused, as if waiting for Giles to protest that that was impossible.

"I know," Giles said. "She seems to know my name, as well, but I've never seen her. I suppose she could have heard it from Wesley. So the two of you were swept up into some sort of...."

"She did it. I couldn't see exactly what, but there was a surge of magic that you wouldn't believe, and then she was talking to someone."

"To whom?"

"I didn't see, and I couldn't here what the other one said. Rupert, is there any water?"

Giles brought him a cup and held his head while he drank, and then remained sitting beside him on the floor.

"Someone laughed, some man, and then there was more magic, but this time it didn't die away. Things were quiet for a while, so I stuck my nose around the door...."

"She left it open?"

"Here, she could have been hurt!"

"What next?"

"I was here, hoeing. I tried a bit of a reccy, and got caught, and things went downhill from there. I went back to the... the place one night, but I couldn't get through, and I got caught again. I'm afraid I've grown something of a reputation."

"So how did I get here?"

"When I couldn't get through, I... I thought of you, how you always knew what to do, how...."

"You called, and I appeared?"

"Not just then. There was a bit of a ripple in the magic, but I couldn't tell what was happening, and then the dogs were there. I bloody hate dogs, Ripper."

"And that's all you know? Lilah made some sort of bargain with something to bring her here...."

"I don't think so. I did hear what she told it. She was taunting it, making fun. She offered to help it fix something."

"Fix what?"

"I'm not sure, but... but she told it 'You missed one.'"

* * * * *

Ethan lapsed back into a troubled sleep, and Giles sat beside him in the dark, wondering. Who was this Lilah who had a key to Wyndham Pryce's flat and enough magic to sweep Ethan and Giles a hundred and fifty years into the past and most of the width of a continent away from where they'd started? What did she know about vampires? Well, if she knew Wesley, she might well know Angel. That meant she knew sod-all about vampires, of course, if she based her experience on one souled vampire. Angel and Spike, for instance, were totally different creatures, and poor mad Drusilla was different again. Vampires... vampires were individuals. It was almost as if they were people.

Those had not been people in the top of the old fort, though. Those had been predators with designs on Giles's throat, and if Lilah was treating with them, her own blood would probably be forfeited before things were over.

If Ethan couldn't get back without Lilah, could Giles?

And what would become of Ethan, if he couldn't?

Who cared? Giles chided himself. Ethan Rayne was not his friend, much less anything else. He pulled his fingers away from the fine dark hair and folded them firmly in his lap. He did not care if Ethan got eaten. Ethan deserved it. The man had a nerve, just assuming Giles would appear and rescue him from the ravages of the nineteenth century. Bollocks.

Ethan's eyes flew open, and he struggled to sit up. Giles caught him before he fell and pulled him back against his own chest. There was a small sound, as if Ethan stifled something in his throat.

"What is it?" Giles asked him.

"They're here," said Ethan.

"Who's here?"

"Coming... they're coming."

If Giles had been through what Ethan had, he'd be delirious, too. He lifted the smaller man and pulled him into his lap.

"It's all right," he said, his face full of Ethan's hair. He traced the delicate collarbone with the tips of his fingers before tilting Ethan's chin up until the man's eyes met his own. "It'll be all right," he said. "No one's going to hurt you."

"Bollocks," said Ethan. "They're going to kill us all."

"Who?" Giles asked again, but before Ethan could answer he heard the front door being flung open, and Lilah's elated voice.

"Simon!" she called. "Simon, will you look who's here!"

* * *