Chapter 3 - The Flâneur

"Taking a walk is a haeccity...Haecceity, fog, glare. A haecceity has neither beginning nor end, origin nor destination; it is always in the middle. It is not made of points, only of lines. It is a rhizome". Walter Benjamin, German Philosopher, The Arcades Project

Buffy rolled over in the bed, slapping at the nightstand, searching. Something was ringing and ringing damn loud. "What the hell?" she muttered.

Blinking her eyes open as far as they’d go, she spotted the alarm clock on the nightstand, its red digital numbers flashing four three zero. Her brain, negotiating through a fog of six apple martinis and an all night dance club, couldn’t register what she was seeing. She blinked again, forcing the last of the cobwebs out of her eyes until she finally got it.

It was four-thirty in the morning and it wasn’t her alarm clock ringing. It was her cell phone. Damn. She didn’t like it when that happened. Nothing good had been said to her on the other end of a phone since…well, ever. She couldn’t even remember the last time she answered a telephone before eight o’clock in the morning.

Buffy heard a moan and remembered the naked man lying next to her. The corded muscles of his arms and legs were sprawled on top of the sheets. His head was buried face down in the pillow. In the pre-dawn light, she could make out a cascade of curly black hair and a hand groping sleepily in her direction. He hadn’t stirred, except for the hand. He hadn’t twitched. Dead to the world—except he wasn’t dead, dead. He was Jerry from Bath, a small town forty miles outside London. At the dance club the night before, he’d told her he was a grad student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Buffy’s eyes had popped wide open when he’d spat out that mouthful. But she didn’t ask him about school in Germany, or why he was in Paris. He had an accent, talked a lot and was a good dancer. That usually did the trick. So, she’d brought him home.

Now close to frantic, she shoved the clock aside, nearly tipping over the glass of water next to it, as she finally found the phone. Seeing the caller ID, she moved Jerry’s leg out of the way and eased out of the bed.

Barreling toward the living room, she flipped open the phone. “Hello,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Yes, this is Buffy Summers.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll take a call from Mr. Giles.”

Buffy had to stop herself from cursing. Giles was super-Watcher guy now, the man in charge of the International Council of Watchers. He was responsible for directing the physical training and emotional development of thousands of slayers all over the world. Buffy had read that in the last issue of the Watcher’s newsletter.

Annoying how absolute power corrupted absolutely, thought Buffy rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Guess that’s why Giles’ staff acted like he was the second coming.

“How ya doing, Giles?” She hoped the sarcasm resonated in her voice.

“Buffy?” He greeted her. “How’s Paris?”

“Parisian,” she said brusquely. “What’s up?”

“Rogue slayers in the US…”

Buffy plopped down on the sofa, staring out the narrow windows of her apartment at the lights sparkling on the Eiffel Tower. “Where’s Andrew? Isn’t he your expert on hauling in bad seeds?” She kept her voice low, not because she was worried about waking Jerry. How dare Giles call her at this hour about fucked up slayers? They weren’t her job. She was Hellmouth girl. One popped up, she and her crew squelched it. Andrew’s team dealt with emotionally crippled slayers.

“This is not a project for Andrew,” Giles said. “We cannot bring these slayers back to England for bed rest and rehabilitation. They must be…” He took a noisy breath. Buffy frowned as the silence turned awkward. Early morning telephone calls and pregnant pauses were harbingers of ensuing badness.

“They must be what, Giles?” Buffy probed.

“This assignment is extremely s-sensitive.”

It wasn’t like Giles to state the obvious when he was talking slayer business. “All of these assignments are sensitive.”

“Yes, but this one particularly so.”

“How’s that?”

“There’s a new Hellmouth brewing and it’s growing faster than anything we’ve ever charted.”

“That’s not good.”

“We believe the rogue slayers are fueling its growth.”

“How many slayers are we talking here?”

“We know about five, but there could be more.”

“That’s a lot of bad slayers.” Buffy got up from the sofa and walked from the living room to the kitchen, holding the cell phone between her ear and shoulder. “Andrew and I can split up. Bring them in twice as fast. Then we hook up and end the Hellmouth before it gets apocalypse size.” She grabbed the kettle from the stovetop and turned on the facet, watching the water flow into the pot. “Should take less than a week.”

“These slayers can’t be brought in just like that.”

“Why not?” Buffy turned off the faucet. “Andrew has rounded up a hundred girls in the past five years. Sure, he’s never dealt with a cluster…but it's still nothing more than a bunch of isolated incidents.”

Giles was quiet again, giving her another bad feeling.

“Do they know each other?” Buffy asked.

“Yes.” Giles replied.

“They live in the same town?”

“Yes, and they’re working together.”

“That can’t be good.” Placing the half-filled kettle back on the stove, Buffy pulled the hair away from her face.

“They’re assassins and work…for a law firm.”

“Definitely, not good.” Backing away from the stove, she plopped down onto the stool in front of the kitchen counter. “We’ll send in the militia then. Get a group of twenty or so slayers to take them down.”

“If we go at them full force, the law firm might get involved.” Giles then added pointedly. “And we don’t want to go head to head against…”

“Wolfram and Hart.” Buffy interjected.

“Yes,” Giles responded solemnly. “That is the firm.”

“Which office?”

“LA headquarters.”

“Angel’s old office?” Buffy cleared her throat. Angel had been dead five years, but it still made her chest tight to say his name out loud.

“Yes, that's correct.”

“We won’t be able to rehabilitate these slayers, will we?” said Buffy quietly.

“This will be a covert operation,” Giles said, without answering her question. “You’ll need to go in and evaluate the situation, and then proceed once you’ve made a determination on the status of the slayers.”

“Have they killed any humans?”

“We don’t know...but we think so.”

“You have proof?”

“We have an operative in the city, someone we trust and he’s thorough. Bloody meticulous even,” Giles’ voice was terse. “And he is getting us the proof.”

“So just me and my crew?”

“Eva is here in London and Gentile left Nairobi yesterday. They’ll meet you at Charles De Gaulle.”

Buffy had worked with the two slayers often in the past few years, most recently in Madrid. Eva was a little quirky, but superbly trained, and Gentile, well, she didn’t say much. Could pull out her teeth one by one and she wouldn't make a sound. But they were seasoned fighters and at twenty-one, the oldest and most experienced slayers in Europe, next to Buffy. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Buffy swallowed. She hadn’t set foot in LA in ten years. “Who’s the operative?”

“His identity must be kept secret.”

“Is it Spike?” She said his name without a noticeable change in her voice and was relieved. After five years, she expected the pain to be less, but she couldn't always count on it.

“Do you know the meaning of the word secret?” Giles was saying.

“Do you know the meaning of the words 'testy slayer'?”

“It’s not Spike, Buffy.”

She refused to let it go. “Doesn’t make sense to send me and my team into the lions' den without any other Christians to help us out...”

“When did you start using the Bible as a source for your quips, dear.”

“When was the last time you sent me into battle blindfolded?” She snorted, remembering. “Oh, yeah, I forgot about my eighteenth birthday.”

“Eva and Gentile will have all the documents you require.” Giles was ignoring her snippiness. “When you arrive in LA, go directly to the Culver City Bar and Grill to meet your liaison.”

“At least we have a liaison,” she muttered. “And this liaison is different from the operative, how?”

“Very different,” said Giles.

“And still not Spike, right?”

“I know this is going to be difficult for you Buffy.”

She wondered if he meant fighting the slayers, or seeing Spike after all these years.

“You, Eva and Gentile are the perfect slayers for this job.”

Buffy moved the phone to her other ear. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Buffy, you must deal without empathy with these slayers.” Giles said. “Are you ready for that?”

“I almost killed a slayer in Sunnydale once. You remember that.” Buffy mumbled and then promptly pushed the memory out of her mind. No point in thinking about Faith. She’d have all the ghosts she could handle once she got to LA. “Well, thanks for the call." She said sarcastically. "I’ve got to pack.”

“Keep your wits about you, Buffy. This isn’t going to be easy. The Council is not yet ready to face off against Wolfram and Hart. But we can’t allow these slayers to run amuck, especially with the potential of a Hellmouth.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you.” He was still on the other end of the phone.

“I’ve got it Giles. We’ll get it done.”

“There’s something else…the Council has asked me to inquire about Xander.”

“Giles, don’t bullshit me. You are the Council. What do you want to know about Xander?”

“Well, um, the Council is still waiting for his report.”

“Report. Well, let’s see. He’s still in Paris. Lives in a seven-story walk-up. Doesn’t like visitors, which he’s made very clear ever since he got back from Africa a year ago.”

“He’s never told us exactly what went wrong there, you know?”

“We already know all we need to know,” Buffy said hotly. “The Hellmouth went ballistic. Robin and ten slayers were trapped in its core. They went down fighting and the only two to come back were Xander and Gentile.”

“Buffy…”

“Now Xander has disappeared into his apartment, but Gentile will go wherever and fight whatever she's told to fight…just don’t expect her to say more than three words in a row.”

“Buffy, please.”

“Giles, I will not be your messenger. If you want to talk to Xander, you come to Paris and do it yourself.”

Temper lost, she slammed the phone shut.

Damn. She’d almost done it. She’d almost had a conversation with Giles where she didn’t slam something. But this was his fault. He’d provoked her, asking about Xander. And he didn't give her a straight answer about Spike.

She jumped off of the stool, stalking back through the living room and into her semi-dark bedroom. The man she’d picked up at the club the night before had curled into a ball pulling most of sheets and the pillows with him. She flicked on the light switch.

“Hey, Jerry, time to go,” She reached over to the chair near her dressing table and picked up her robe. Didn’t want to tempt the boy by kicking him out in the nude. “I’ve got to pack. It was great, but I'm on my way to sunny California.”

Grabbing a new bottle of her favorite peppermint shampoo from the dresser, she strolled into the bathroom and locked the door behind her before stepping in the shower.

As the warm water cascaded over her head, she thought about trying again. Sooner or later Xander would answer the doorbell. She didn’t care about Giles or the stupid Watcher’s Council and its freaking report. She just wanted to talk to an old friend. Someone who wasn’t living in LA. Or at least someone who, after she found out he wasn't dead, five years ago—for the second time in a row—hadn't bothered to pick up the telephone and give her a ring.

She stepped out the shower, hair dripping, as the front door slammed shut.

Buffy slipped on a pair of tight black jeans and pulled on a loose fitting blouse. If she packed now, she'd have time to visit Xander and she might even have time to go out dancing before getting on the long flight to LA.

to be continued...