(Posted 29/4/01)
The brown liquid trickled down the dusty glass tube, bubbled, churned and ran into strange pools and eddies, before finally collecting in fat, sweaty drops falling into the beaker below. In the dim light of the battered desk lamp, Dale's eyes followed each droplet along each centimetre of its journey, as if without his concentration the flow might suddenly stop or deviate from its path. Only once the beaker had collected a few hundred drops did he allow his eyes to drop to the leatherbound book on the desk. He read the words again, but he already knew them by heart.� He turned off the burette tap and then carefully, making sure to catch every precious drop, he poured the contents of the beaker into a tall silver chalice. With the same precision, he added a dark cloud of dried herbs. Next came a drop of red wine, casting a dark shadow across the surface. From a wooden box he took two fine splinters of petrified wood and placed each reverently in the cup. Lastly, he reverently removed the small silver cross from around his neck and lowered it into the mixture. After a few moments, a waft of cool white smoke began to peel off the cloudy surface. Clasping the cup tightly, he returned his gaze to his book.
"Ave Deo, Ave Corpus Christi, Ave Sanctus Spiritus" he read. "Ex mortis viva. Ex sanguis et corpus illuminati. Via illuminati deo. Satanis illuminati deo. Satanis perdite deo - "
"Dale! The pizzas are here!"
The shout came from the door, which had crashed open and let a wash
of drab daylight into the classroom. Dale remained perfectly still, completing
the chant under his breath. When he was finished, he slowly rose to his
feet and spoke without turning around.
"What did I tell you about being disturbed?"
"Sorry, Dale, I - Hey, you've got - did it work?"
"What did I tell you, Paul?" Dale spat.
"Sorry, sorry Dale. I-I just didn't - "
"You didn't think, Paul," he said, condescendingly, now finally turning
to face the other. "You never think. You are a mindless sheep, Paul." He
took a few steps towards the boy who was beginning to crumble under Dale's
cold calm. "You are all mindless sheep, Paul, without me to lead you. And
you know nothing of the holy work that I do. Do you understand?"
Paul nodded fearfully.
"And you will speak of my research to no-one. It is not yet the time.
Understand?"
Paul nodded once again.
Dale suddenly smiled widely and patted him good naturedly on the back.
"Good. Excellent. You are a good steward of the Lord, brother Paul. Now,
let us go enjoy these pizzas!"
"OK," said Paul, running thankfully from the room.
Dale crossed back to the table and carefully poured the now perfectly
clear liquid into a glass bottle. He screwed on the lid tightly, and, slipping
it into his shirt pocket, went to join the others.
The dark classroom emptied onto a larger lecture hall where tables had been set up to hold a wide collection of pizzas and Coke, around which milled around a dozen politely-dressed young men. Dale walked among the small crowd, smiling at all of them, slowly making his way up the stairs until he was above them all. He stood still and in a few moments the room was quiet. Hands behind his back, Dale smiled warmly.
"Thank you. I just wanted to say a few things before we have grace
and enjoy our pizzas. First, it's good to see so many of you back again
this year. I'm sure we're going to have another great year, and hopefully
bring a lot of people to the Lord. The most important thing, though is
to increase our numbers. The more we are, the more people will see us and
know God is with us. So it's very important that you really go out there
and talk to those freshmen in this coming week!"
"Remember, they're stepping into a big new world; a world that the
lies of their movies and TV shows has taught them is all about sex and
drugs. So their souls will be in great danger, and if we don't catch them,
they will fall. It's up to us to tell them the truth. To show them the
way. To show them the evil of their ways and bring them into the light
of God. Because if we don't - who will?"
This got a small round of applause, which Dale waved down. "Now, to kick things off, I've arranged for us to do some freshmen recruiting this very evening. Tonight," intoned Dale, a spark of devout ecstasy surging through him every time the hard glass bottle in his pocket touched his flesh, "we are all going to a party�"
"So are we going to this party or not?"
Anya stood at the end of Xander's bed, her hands on her hips, glaring
at his prone form with her fiery eyes. Xander didn't move.
"Xander!"
Xander sighed, and rolled over. "Fine. Whatever. Let's go to the party,"
he said in monotone.
"Oh, no," cringed Anya. "I know that voice. When you talk that way you
don't really mean what you say and I get in trouble for not noticing you
are being ironic." Anya shook her head in disgust. "Can't you be depressed
another night? I bought a pretty dress and I want to show it off."
Xander just sighed and slowly pulled himself into a sitting position.
Anya stared at him a few seconds longer, and then softened.
"OK" she said, sitting down next to him on the bed. "We can talk about
your depression. Again. So what happened � you went to see your friends,
and they made you feel inadequate about having no job while they go on
through university, right?"
Xander turned to her, confused. Anya tutted with impatience. "It's
what you're ALWAYS depressed about, Xander!."
"Gee, I'm sorry my neuroses aren't more interesting for you," Xander
replied bitterly.
"Well, the thing is, we've been through this. I keep telling you that
you're a wonderful person, and it doesn't matter what they do or say and
so on, blah blah blah.� So what's the problem? Why don't you listen
to me for once, so we can stop talking about this and go to the party?"
Xander started to say something, but once again found himself speechless
against his girlfriend's logic.
Anya seized the moment. "Great!" she said hurriedly. "Now, are you
going to wear your blue pants or your black?"
Buffy scowled at the roof and jumped again. This time, her fingers just
grazed the door jam. She fell heavily to the floor, cursing.
"What's up?" said Riley, coming back into the common room.
"Stupid high ceilings," said Buffy, looking sulkily at the bundle of
balloons in her hand.
"Give me a go," said Riley kindly. Buffy pouted slightly, then handed
him the balloons without looking. He had already wrapped his arms around
her legs before she realised Riley had a different solution. "Riley!" she
shrieked with surprise as he lifted her easily to ceiling height. "What?"
he asked, unabashedly. Buffy just shook her head and determinedly pressed
the stickytape to the wall. Riley lowered her back down but didn't break
the embrace. "Next time warn me when you're going to be all manly like
that," Buffy teased.
"It's not so much fun that way," Riley replied with a grin. They kissed
quickly, breaking apart as they heard Willow enter from the kitchen.
"All the balloons are up," said Buffy happily.
Willow looked up from the large bowl of hot pink liquid she was carrying.
"Great! I've made the punch. I hope it's OK."
"Wil, as long as there's a few bottles of rum or tequila in it, nobody
cares how punch tastes"
"Oh good." Willow set the bowl nervously down on the main table, then
stood back to admire her handiwork. "Anyway," she said, "the book says
that Dragon's Tears is totally harmless when diluted�"
Behind her, Buffy and Riley shared a shudder.
"Remind me not to make her the chef ever again," said Buffy quietly.
"No problem" said Riley.
Suddenly, a familiar voice filtered through the nexus of streamers in
the corridor.
"Wil, I just love what you've done to the place."
"Xander!" said Willow, excitedly.
Xander strode into the room, then paused and looked behind him. There
was a large scratching sound, then some tearing, and a female voice swore.
A second later, Anya stumbled into the common room, trailing half a dozen
strands of torn crepe paper.
"Are those defences strictly necessary?" she demanded.
Xander smiled with gentle mockery. "Anya's first encounter with streamers.
Sorry about that."
"Oh, that's OK. Really." said Willow. "We thought we had too many anyway."
"It's just good to see you came," continued Buffy. "We were worried
you might stay sulking down in your basement again."
"You say it like it's a bad thing."
"So what do you think?" asked Buffy, gesturing at the decorations.
Xander smiled glibly and admired as due. "Very nice. In fact, I'd say
you've taken the balloon-and-streamers milieu to new heights of artistic
genius."
Buffy pouted and slapped him gently on the arm. "Don't be mean," she
said with a laugh. Xander just shrugged.
"Ooh and punch!" he exclaimed. "The ultimate party starter. I can see
it's going to be another wild night of unrivalled hedonism at Stevenson
Hall."
"Oh stop it," Buffy said. "They're freshmen. We don't want to freak
any of them out."
Xander poured a glass for himself and Anya. "Speaking of freaking people
out, did you know one of those evangelist guys is hanging around outside?"
"What?" said Buffy. "Oh no, Riley, you didn't invite Dale?"
Riley swallowed. "I'm sorry. He - he tricked me."
Buffy glared at him. "This is going to ruin everything. Come on," Buffy
and Riley took off at a run down the corridor. Xander watched them leave
then swivelled back to face the others. "So Wil," he said, sipping his
punch, "so where's the divine Ms T on this fine evening?"
"Oh, Tara's still on holidays. She gets back tomorrow. It's going to
be so cool," Willow gushed.
"So you gonna celebrate then?" Xander raised his eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh yeah," said Willow exclaimed. "We're going to hit the Bronze after
I pick her up from the station. Then we've got some magic planned. Tara
sent me this spell which allows two people to � er, well," Willow stopped
short, horrified that her exuberance had carried her conversation too far,
"it's actually, well, kind of, um, a � personal � thing, between us, that
I really shouldn't be talking about at all now I think about it.
Huh." Xander looked down to give her a moment. Willow blushed and desperately
tried to find another topic of discussion. "er, so, yeah, she�"
Suddenly Anya made a choking noise and violently spat a mouthful of
punch over her two friends. Blinking away the moisture, they both turned
and stared in silent shock.� Anya looked up at them.
"Why does this taste of Dragon's Tears?" she demanded.
Buffy stopped short at the top of the steps. The business shirt and
black tie had the look of Dale, but as he turned, they could see it was
not him. Seeing them, the boy waved pathetically. "Hi�?" he stammered.
"What are you doing here?" Buffy demanded with a death stare.
"Er, well, I heard about the party, and um, I thought maybe I could,
um, hand these out." He waved a handful of thin pamphlets as explanation.
"Why?"
"W-well, because it's gonna be for freshmen, right? And we always have
a - this freshmen recruiting night in the first week. So, um, we thought
maybe, we could, um, you know, do some advertising."
Buffy paused, studying her prey with cold scrutiny.
"Hey, Buffy, this is a f-free campus. I c-can do this, if I want to"
A muscle in Buffy's neck tightened. Riley remembered the stories about
last Thanksgiving. When it came to entertaining, Buffy didn't always see
straight. So he had to act before she did.
"OK. You can hand out your forms or whatever. But don't stand out here
and do it.� Come in and mingle."
The boy smiled and walked past them into the hall. As soon as he was
inside, Buffy punched Riley incredibly hard on the shoulder.
"Are you crazy?" she shouted at him in a whisper. "You invite that
freaky godboy inside?"
"Ow! Buffy, if he's out here, he'll probably drive people away before
they even get inside. At least if he's inside, people can walk away without
leaving the party."
"Oh" said Buffy. "Well, that's�a very good solution, but I think mine
was better, actually."
Riley looked down at her. "And did it involve pummelling an innocent
student?"
Buffy scowled. "No, not at all." Riley kept looking. "OK fine, it did.
But not all my plans involve pummelling, you know."
"Sure."
"Many times," Buffy said with mock disdain "I have been seen to not
pummel. I can go pummel-free any time I want."
"Uh-huh," said Riley, without a trace of disbelief.
Suddenly, the door opened behind them, and the boy appeared again.
"Oh, by the way," he said, with regained confidence, "I also invited some
friends, too. Is that cool?"
"Sure," Riley said, feeling Buffy's incensed glare burning into his
shoulder.
"Great!" the boy replied, ducking back inside.� The two stood
motionless for a second, Riley hanging his head in apology under Buffy's
continuing stern gaze. Then they heard the voices, and turning, saw almost
a dozen more men crossing the quadrangle, all in the same uniform. Buffy
turned back to Riley and pouted savagely.
"You just had to stop the pummelling, didn't you?"
"We're just two lost souls living in a fish-bowl, year after year�..running
over the same old ground�..but have we found�.the same old fears�.wish
you were here�."
Giles strummed the last chord, and then looked around pensively.�
Damn it, he thought. He'd played through all the Pink Floyd songs he knew
and it was still early.� He had to admit it � he was at a loose end.
Of course he was.� The decision was hanging over him now, and it would
continue to do so until he talked to the others.� But that wouldn't
happen until tomorrow night.� Unless of course he joined them at tonight's party.� Giles snorted at the suggestion. He wasn't past his partying days yet, but he had no wish whatsoever to attend this particular
event.� A plague of barely post-pubescent, sex crazed teenagers, slamming
their heads to ridiculously loud techno music, and pretending to be drunk
on half a glass of punch because they somehow had arrived at the conclusion
that that was how adults behaved.� He could well and truly do without
that.� He was perfectly happy with his music, his books and his scotch.�
He would simply wile away the hours in his own simple fashion, and talk
to them all tomorrow.� That was the sensible thing to do.�
Giles stared down at his music books, his empty glass.� He glanced again at the green folder the man had given him.� He drummed his fingers on his guitar for a few seconds and hummed a few notes. There was a pause. "Oh, damn it all" he cursed, and grabbed his jacket on the way out.