Chapter Three
“Where are you going?” Spike asked, already looking at home leaning against the banister. He’d mastered the art of leaning. He got an ‘A’ in leaning. His gaze burned through her like he had read her mind earlier about the kisses and the wall, and now he was letting her know that he knew.
She gripped her stake to remind herself of. . . herself. She was the Slayer. She continued her descent down the stairs. “Out for patrol.”
“Isn’t that taking things a little too far?”
Buffy brushed past him, her bare forearm grazing his. She bit the inside of her cheek to avoid thinking about his skin pressed against hers. “How so? It’s my job and who knows when this hurricane is going to show up.”
He crossed his arms. “When’s the last time you checked the telly?”
Buffy sighed. “Is that what you’ve been doing down here?” She’d been avoiding him by staying upstairs on a very long bathroom break that wasn’t really a bathroom break. “Watching the weather report?”
A smirk grew on his face. “Maybe. Some of the time.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “When does it hit?”
“You haven’t heard the wind picking up out there?”
Glancing at the big window in the living room, Buffy paused and listened. The winds had started so subtly that she hadn’t noticed quite how loud they were now. As if to punctuate Spike’s point, she heard a branch tapping against a window upstairs in a steady, insistent staccato. Her eyes rounded. “I need to call Giles.” She was already hurrying toward the phone before she even finished the sentence. His phone number flew off her fingertips, and the ringtone was familiar and reassuring.
“Hello?” Giles’s familiar voice sounded calm on the other end of the line.
“Giles. It’s Buffy. The winds are picking up. Where are you?”
There was a long pause, and Buffy wondered if the call had dropped. The tiny phone screen continued to count down the seconds until Giles came back on the line. “It appears that I’m stuck in my home for the time being.”
“Crap.” She suddenly had the urge for her Watcher to be there, in her home, with her.
“I’m sorry, Buffy. I was caught up in my research, and well, the time got away from me.”
The thing she was most worried about burst out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Do you think this hurricane has anything to do with Glory?”
Her eyes found Spike’s. He was watching her intently, taking everything in. Somehow, though she had told no one but Giles, she felt okay with Spike knowing. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt almost relieved to have someone else in the know.
Twisting the phone cord around her finger, she urged, “Giles?”
“I honestly don’t know, Buffy. I was able to find a spell in ‘Magica Caelo,’ but the only thing to come from it is that there is magic driving this storm.” Buffy didn’t ask what the title meant; she trusted Giles’s research implicitly.
“Where is it coming from?”
“It wasn’t a location spell – ”
Buffy’s heart sank. She wanted to nip this thing in the bud. “Great. It could be coming from anywhere.”
“But!” There was irritation in Giles’s tone. “But from what I can tell, the magic is coming from the general direction of the hellmouth.”
“I’ll head there now.” Buffy moved to hang up the phone.
“Buffy!” Giles practically shouted from the tiny speaker. “You can’t leave now.”
“Why not?”
“The storm. It’s already blowing in. You need to hunker down.”
Buffy looked up at Spike, who said, “Your Watcher’s right. You’ll have to wait.”
“I’m not good at waiting.”
Spike took a step toward her as if he’d try to stop her if he could. “Hundred and fifty mile an hour winds would blow even the best of Slayers away. You’ll get yourself killed walking out the door.”
“As much as I hate to say this,” Giles offered, “you need to listen to Spike.” Giles didn’t even ask what Spike was doing with her.
As the winds howled louder, the house whined in protest – a sound Buffy had never heard. That was not of the good.
She clenched her jaw. “Fine. I’ll stay. When should it be safe to go out?”
“Wait for the eye,” Giles said.
“The eye? The eye of what?”
Spike sighed. “Hurricanes rotate. The space of low pressure in the center is the eye of the storm. You’ll be able to investigate your little heart out then.”
“Okay.” She had a game plan. Then, she addressed Giles. “You stay put, too. And let me know that you’re okay.”
“I will, Buffy. Be careful.”
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