Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Forty
by Shanyah
 

Seventh Ranking: Tresten’s Dinning Room

The slender tail of brown hair rustled with static as Tresten repeatedly brushed it. When the hair had achieved a high gloss, he tightened the rubber band that held the strands together, gripped the tied end between his teeth and sectioned the tail into three segments, his broad fingers deftly interweaving the segments into a braid. He used a thin velvet ribbon to secure the other the end of the braid and smiled, admiring his braiding skills. A sneer crept into Groza’s eyes.

“Does Amo wish Jude disciplined?” He asked.

“For what possible reason?” Tresten tickled his earlobe with a feathery braid end. “For having Tresten’s permission to convey to the Vampire his cargo? Jude behaved as Tresten expects him to behave.”

His sneer still circumspect, Groza refilled Tresten’s wine goblet, stood up and reached across the table, refilling Ruby and Sargo’s goblets. Their faces studies of blankness, the other two Advisors sipped wine, foisting upon Groza the burden of advising Tresten on the touchy subject of Spike.

Though emaciated, Groza’s shoulders were strong and he bore the burden gladly. “Perhaps Amo Tresten would consider restricting Jude’s duties to the Seventh Ranking until the Sealing is complete.”

“Does Groza imply that Tresten ought to retreat? Tresten thinks not,” said Tresten. “Tresten thinks Groza will sit down and let another speak.”

Groza took his seat and clasped his hands on the tabletop, palms pressed together and bony forefingers pointing at Ruby.

She drew her veil aside, giving her wind voice. “I must have the bookmark Mi Amo. Sealing will take eight nights more without it.”

“More, more, always you demand more. You have already appropriated a majority of the locks and cannot have Tresten’s bookmark in addition.”

The fleshy fibers on her lips writhing and her blue eyes deepening to indigo, Ruby watched Tresten swish the braid end back and forth across his earlobe. “I would not ask for the locks if I did not need them to quicken the Sealing,” her wind said.

Tresten grinned at Groza. “Ruby becomes more like Groza each day –obstinate.”

Groza’s circumspect sneer flourished into a blatant lip curl. “What tongue must one employ in order to penetrate the complacency that renders you deaf? The Vampire has acquired a Watcher and has closeted him in The Arches - to which we Advisors are forbidden access might I add. Watchers are incisive and their minds trained to ferret significance from the seemingly banal. Tresten can ill afford to grin.”

Ruby and Sargo shattered their bland expressions to look afraid for Groza. Tresten grinned the wider and pushed to his feet, hulking at the head of the dining table.

Groza ploughed on. “Permit Ruby the use of your bookmark and in a day you will have the child. She will be yours and you may shear her bald, gather all the braids you desire.”

“But they will not be this one,” Tresten clenched the braid. “They will not be pure and Tresten must have this one.”

In chameleon-like mood shifting, annoyance swapped for calm, Tresten sauntered to a bookcase along one wall and chose a book from it. “In any case Court is to be held in seven nights. The Vampire will be too frenzied preparing the boy to be concerned about Dawn,” he inserted the braid between the book’s pages.

Doubt sounded in Sargo’s nail clicking before he doubtfully said, “The boy has been thrown aside Mi Amo. He will cause no distraction to Master Spike if the Fifth Rankers’ gossip is to be believed.”

“You advise your Amo with gossip?” Annoyance replaced calm, venom replaced smiles as Tresten stoned the wise trio with a volley of hard-backed books. “At less than two centuries old, Spike is but a toddler compared to me and I will not abide any Advisor who would have me concede to a toddler’s scheming.”

The wind keened, hushing when Ruby dropped the veil into place as she left to resume the Sealing. Groza glided off for a fume in his courtyard. Sargo brought Tresten his goblet of wine and stood at attention before his Amo, decanter in hand.

“I have organized three dozen belly dancers for Court. Amo Tresten will enjoy their comely wriggling,” Sargo said.

Tresten regarded his boots. “Groza’s unfortunate manner angers me so.”

“Yet Amo would not be without him,” said Sargo.

“What use an hour-glass without sand? I would be as this without Groza.”

*    *    *    *

Dawn and Fred sat on Spike’s hearth-rug, bits of Sunnydale scattered around them. Spike stood by the table, peeved by the girls and their chaos. Peeved by having to admit to himself that he’d been waiting. For her, not for the Watcher. He’d been waiting for Buffy and now everything was pointless.

“Clear this lot up and get to bed,” he said, immediately wincing at his too curt tone. “Need my beauty sleep,” less curt. 

Dawn stroked a stuffed pig’s belly. “Aren’t you kicking back with Xander tonight?”

Now there was a thought. Buffy, Xander and him, getting up to all sorts in The Pool House. Stuff of Jerry Springer, that. My vampire wants a threesome with my male friend and I – hand me a stake someone. With a humourless chuckle, he went to the hearth and sat cross-legged on a cushion.

“Who’s this then?” He asked, taking the pig from Dawn.

“Mr Gordo.”

Mr Gordo had Slayer all over his stuffed being; fabric softener and wet, crushed grass. He stabbed his finger into Mr Gordo’s snout, imagined the toy would squeal if it had the mechanical voice box found in some dollies. Gordo would squeal, squeal, squeeee…

“Spike!” Dawn protested.

“Sorry,” he folded his finger away from Mr Gordo’s snout. “So what does Oink eat, apart from vampire pride?”

“Ouch,” said Fred.

Dawn took the toy back, scrunched its snout back into its original scrunched state and brought the pig up to her face. She looked steadfastly into its gleaming black eyes. “Shiny eye, what are you staring at?” She screwed her fingers into Mr Gordo’s flat eye-socket and plucked his eye out.

“Dawn,” Fred clanked her screwdriver back into her tool box, “Why would you?”

“Because,” Dawn laid Mr Gordo to rest on his back and sorted through her CDs. “Christina. Avril. Justin. Great,” she scowled, “they didn’t bring The Scissor Sisters.”

Premonition was a one-eyed pig sleeping on a rug. It was a centipede crawling into Spike’s ear; instinct he’d be a fool to ignore. It told him to stay with Nibblet and at the same time, told him to go spend the night with his boy.

Stay or go? Which one of them needed him more, Nibblet – who’d offed five Gangr’al men in ten minutes, or Xander – whose Pool House was a fortress within a fortress?

A waft of fabric softener, wet grass and Slayer rose from the one-eyed pig. He inhaled the scent like he was smoking his last ever fag. The deep breath cleared his head. He couldn’t be in two places at once, had to get his priorities straight. His priority was looking out for Nibblet like he’d told Buffy he would do. He stayed.

*    *    *    *

He had legs. He didn’t have to sit here waiting. He could go to the unit, surprise Spike. They’d open a couple of cans from his goodie bag, maybe swing awhile in the hammock. Stay all night even, not in the hammock, in Spike’s bed…Xander shook his head. Being Earned was like playing Simon Says. You didn’t use your initiative, you did what Amo said. 

“Suck it up Harris,” he said, pulling a block from the base of the Jenga Tower.

The building collapsed, blocks spraying across the balcony table and onto the floor. Sudden urgency to put several hundred miles between himself and the table. He went inside, brushed his teeth at the sink in his room, changed into pyjama pants and no shirt, doused the lamps and climbed into bed. Tried hard not to feel like a garage sale reject.

Sleep was several hundred miles away, but the memories were close by. They were tiptoeing through the dark towards his bed.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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