Chapter Text
Flames leap in the darkened cave of the fireplace, teasing at the tiled surround, sending light out into the dusk-brushed room. Dark comes early on December afternoons in Devon, which means that Anya can stand in the hallway and enjoy unobserved the picture of her men safe together, listen to the boyish voice finishing his recitation–
"...chi, psi, omega."
On the hearthrug, Rupert rolls over onto his back and stretches himself lazily toward the fire. "Oh, very well done, David," he says to their son, who's perched on the new ottoman, looking deceptively like a small scholar-angel. "Next, do the five levels of obeisance in the Mikh social system. And then, er, name the current Chelsea side."
For a second David doesn't understand his father's humour, something to which Anya can relate. "Dad, that's not fair!" he yelps before he gets the joke, and then the scholar-angel transforms into a small, giggling figure of vengeance and pounces from the ottoman. Although his goal in the dive-bomb is his father's stomach, Rupert's too fast for him, and the wrestling match begins in good earnest. There's a tangle of big Giles and little Giles, and wild laughter, and finally – "you're so mean," David gasps while trying to squish Rupert, which attempt is roughly akin to a cub climbing on a silver-maned, tea-and-muffin-sated lion.
Still, time to intervene. Balancing her own fresh cup of tea and an apple, she steps into the lamplight and announces, "Be careful with your father, David. His bones become increasingly brittle with age."
Rupert glowers at her, then with one hand casually flips David over and pins him to the rug. "Ha," he says.
"Take it easy, honey," she says, smiling, and then tosses David the piece of fruit, which he catches with both hands. "There, son, that's for excellence in study and for not breaking your dad."
"Thank you, Mum." He bites down – he has strong teeth, which pleases her– and then around a mouthful of fruit says, "'s Macallan...?"
"He and Cava are outside, waiting for Aunt Dawn and Mr Camp to arrive, which should be any minute now." She takes a breath to steel herself for what comes next. "If you pick up your coat on the way out, you may go play with the dogs and watch for the car lights."
"Oh, brilliant!" He scrambles to his feet, still clutching the apple. He does adore Dawn, whom he's missed terribly during the past months that she's been in Cleveland on Watcher business. Anya focuses on that, and not on the early December sunset or the dark settling over the moors and dells.
Not on the things that can't get past the wards on the grounds, anyway.
"Take the bell so you can alert us when they arrive," Rupert says, waving his hand at the cowbell on the side table. "And your jacket's on the rack by the door."
"Yes, Dad," David says in an overly patient tone amusingly like his father's, and then sprints out of the room as if a pack of werewolves is after him. Of course he forgets the bell.
"David!" Rupert shouts.
"Right, sorry–" A blur of boy returns, fetches what he needs, and then disappears.
"Coat!" She and Rupert are in unison that time.
Another blur of boy in the hallway as he zips back to get his jacket. The sound of footsteps sends Cava into a fit of barking outside; Anya thinks she can also hear the terrier bounce against the door. "Be careful," she begins to say, but then the cold breeze reaches in as the front door opens. There's a definite dog-squeak as wood hits terrier, although the impact doesn't sound too bad.
"Oh, sorry, Cava," David says from outside, and then the door shuts. She tells herself that nothing will happen to him in their front garden, he's got guard dogs, he'll be just fine. And then she gulps at her tea.
Sighing, Rupert lies back down on the rug. He winces a little as he moves, his hand surreptitiously going to his ribs, and Anya's heart thumps painfully. The memory of his ugly multi-coloured bruises from his last surveillance gone wrong is far too fresh for her, and David is growing fast. "Honey, did he really hurt you?" she says, and with due care of her tea, she drops to her knees beside him–
And then he's up, pushing her mug to safety and then rolling her underneath him with an apparent lack of aches. His shoulders block out the light from the fire as he presses down on her, all warm and solid and bulky-jumpered. "'His bones become increasingly brittle with age'?" he says, and his head lowers, his mouth coming closer, closer – but not close enough. "I do believe you'll need to be punished for that, darling."
"Yay!" It's hard to exclaim properly, what with oxygen loss and sudden ill-timed lust amidst all the nerves, but she manages. "I was aiming for that all along, in fact."
"Were you now," he says, then kisses her. He's just teasing, though, only a brush of lips and a quick taste – and long before she's done, he pushes himself off her and sits up, bracing his arm against the ottoman. It moves a little under his weight, makes a funny sound. He pushes at it again. "For fuck's sake, what's wrong with this thing?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing." She knows that he's still a little annoyed that she bought the vintage piece at Camden Market without his input. When she brought it home to Islington, he spent a good fifteen minutes pointing out the frayed cording around its top, the worn places in the old velvet upholstery, and the wobbly leg, all of which he declared he wouldn't fix, it wasn't his bloody idea to buy the thing, blah blah blah. But even his grumbling had quieted when after David had been put to bed that night, she'd reclined on the ottoman and done a slow, sultry strip-tease for him, which had led to fast but equally sultry sex. Okay, the wobbly leg broke off during their pleasure-moment, which he then had to repair after all, but still. There's something undefinable about the ottoman she likes, something that spoke to her in the dimness of the dealer's stall.
He pushes at it again. "No, Anya, seriously. Doesn't that sound odd to you?"
She wriggles around so that she can rest her head in his lap, curl her hand around his waist. "Nope," she says into his thigh. His jeans feel weathered and smooth against her lips, and when he shifts underneath her, she can feel the beat of his blood. It's very soothing, and she sinks a little further down into him, as far as she can go.
It's not far enough. David's out there in the dark, and there could be things in the yews....
But Rupert's fingers begin to thread through her hair, the slightly roughened tips caressing her skull as they slide. "I'm impressed," he says quietly. "Another minute or two, and we can check on him without it looking too strange."
She closes her eyes and arches into his hand. "Did you notice how it was my idea that he go outside?"
"I did indeed. Let me correct myself – I'm very impressed, dearest." The fingers circle in place, gentle yet firm, and it's like he's trying to erase all the terror – the memory of the July sunset when she came out of the front door and saw David at the front gate talking to a hooded, cloaked dwarfish figure, the echo of her screams when the figure had extended his claws over the wall as if to grasp at her baby. She'd run down the steps and onto the path so fast that the creature hadn't been able to disappear before she'd smelled the rotten-eggs and heard the distant flute.
Much as she loves the way he touches her, not even Rupert will be able to take away those screams.
His hand lifts away. "Shall we go out and wait with David, then?"
Rupert worries too, she has to remember that. Even though they both know that the Devon Catcher was awakened by a spell gone wrong which they then counter-spelled with Willow, even though they both further know that the Catcher hides in winter and only hunts children during the short hazy summer nights, she's found him more than once in the middle of the night standing in David's doorway, watching him sleep. He keeps watch that their only child is safe, because that's what Rupert does.
The cowbell being rung shatteringly loud mingles with hysterical barking, deep and high, from outside, and she pushes herself up. "Sounds like Dawn's here."
"And her guest." Rupert's voice is neutral, but she knows how irritated he is by the very idea of the man who's been sent to them to interrupt their holiday. "Let's go, darling."
They help each other up – now he is wincing in earnest. She thinks again of those Mykin demons ambushing him four days ago when he was staking out the lair in East Ham, thinks of him limping through their door in London and waving away her help. But she doesn't say anything, merely makes a mental note to coddle him further that night.
It's cold in the hall away from the fire; the four lit wish-candles flicker when they open the front door onto the night. David, without bell but with dog-attendants, is dancing around their well-dressed Dawnie, who's just emerged from the hire car. "Look, Mum, Dad! It's Aunt Dawn, finally!" he sing-songs, laughing as she grabs him.
There's something not quite right about the way Dawn's holding him, a little too desperate and trembling for their self-possessed Summers girl, and the impression is strengthened when she looks up and tries to smile. "Hi, you guys. I've missed you all so much."
"An important Watcher like you, my dear? We're flattered." Rupert's words are dry, but he hurries Anya down the steps with almost as much eagerness as David, and hugs Dawn as if he's never been a repressed, standoffish Englishman in his whole life.
Dawn throws one arm around him and then gathers Anya in too. "You guys, I've missed you so, so much," she whispers again, her face tucked in between their shoulders, and Anya knows something is wrong.
A cough from behind them spreads into the night, rather like an infection. Anya peeks around to see not the grey old man she's expecting, but a handsome young blond, his well-cut overcoat flaring in the wind like he's a poor imitation of Spike back in the day. However, the voice is Watcher-formal, though with an American Southern accent: "Hello there, I'm Edward Camp. Thanks so much for extending your hospitality to me for the next few days." He reaches out and puts his hand on David's head, which makes their son quite rightly squirm away. "Come on now, little fella. Nice to meet you too."
"Yessir," David says, visibly resistant. She doesn't correct him.
Macallan and Cava on either side of him, Rupert steps in front of both Dawn and David as if to shield them from this Camp person. He extends his hand, says quietly, "Mr Camp – welcome to Swallow's Nest."
Anya keeps an arm around Dawn and then gets David as he tiptoes backward. "Yes, welcome," she echoes, and then holds on tighter.
She can almost hear a distant flute in the wind through the yews outside the barrier.
***
There's something outside flickering at the edge of Giles's peripheral vision, a jump in the shadows, a shape in the trees, a thing....
He steps closer to the window. It's long past dark, however, and the warmth and light from inside the lounge makes it difficult to identify anything beyond its safety. Putting his nose almost to the pane, he struggles to see past the reflections, discern whatever's lurking out there. But there is only night.
As far as he can see.
Behind him, loud enough to fill the lounge and spill over into the hallway, that bloody drawl keeps on going: "–requires more analysis, of course. At least we've got some understanding of the new way the Call works, after those two Slayers fell in the Bolivia incident and the subsequent uptick in the number of Potentials identified. Whenever the next Slayer dies, we'll know more. We're paying close attention to the Potentials gathered in Cleveland and at the new training facility I'm setting up at the secondary Hellmouth in Atlanta. Nice to be going back there, of course–"
Giles pulls the curtain across the glass, moves away from the threats he imagines waiting beyond the walls of his home, and sips at his after-dinner coffee. Unfortunately that doesn't drown out Edward Camp, who started talking the most appalling shit three hours ago and has stopped only to draw an occasional breath, shovel in random bites of Willow's famous experimental roast-with-root-vegetable dish at dinner, and touch Dawn in an offensively proprietorial manner throughout. All attempts to interrupt him have been swallowed up by the great maw of Camp's self-absorption.
Giles is worried about Dawn, in fact. When she first called to say that she was bringing Camp for a visit and that the Council felt it important for the man to talk to the Investigations and Acquisitions team, she hadn't sounded right, nor had she really answered Giles or Anya's subsequent questions. And although she's stayed next to the tosser all evening, she's shrinking into the corner of the sofa, into herself. Her hair hides her face.
However, Anya could find out soon enough what the problem is, he thinks – or she could if Camp ever stops talking. Sipping again at his coffee, he moves to stand behind her chair. When she reaches around to catch hold of the belt loop on his jeans, he can feel the need for vengeance thrumming in her fingers. He leans down to whisper in her ear, "We're going to have to do something, darling. Let's just choose our spot carefully."
She turns her head, brushes her lips across his cheek, then whispers back, "I know at least two good silence-curses, and I bet Willow knows more. How about it? You want me to signal her to let loose?"
He muffles his laugh with a kiss to her hair.
Curved around each other in the largest easychair, trying not to yawn, Willow and Fred have also given up on interrupting Camp. There have been a few valiant attempts to discuss Fred's new research appointment in the School of Physics at Exeter and some matters of coven business that Willow wants to share, but not even the greatest witch of her generation and her talented partner are enough to break through Camp's impenetrable pomposity. Not without one of those silence-curses or one of Fred's space-time alteration devices, at any rate.
Possibly David's got the right idea. While his son has been remarkably patient all evening – perhaps because he's the only one who's got Dawn away from Camp for any breath of time – he's currently drumming his heels against the side of that wretched ottoman Anya loves, in a thud-thud-thud-thud that, if encouraged further, might pound their visitor into shutting up. The ottoman does still sound a little strange, Giles thinks.
"–Robson has entrusted me with a corresponding new project as well, one I'm extremely excited about. But more of that later." Camp sits back, silent at last, and sends a smile around the room.
Anya seizes the moment. "Great! Wonderful! But I think it's time for David to start getting ready for bed –"
"Mum," David moans, "I haven't hardly got to talk to Aunt Dawn at all!"
"It's bath and then bed time, David. If we ask nicely, though, perhaps Dawn will help me set out your pajamas and get your room ready." Anya beams, one of her most irresistible expressions in Giles' eyes. His wife's force of personality alone should sever that disturbing connection between Camp and Dawn.
"Please, Aunt Dawn!" David says.
But she says, "Well, maybe I should stay down here for a while. You know, just in case." Her glance at Camp is nervous, yet so fleeting that Giles almost wonders if he's imagining it.
He thinks again of dark shapes and shadows outside, of other threats he might be imagining, and he says, "David's been waiting to see you all day, my dear. Go, visit with him and Anya – no one here will mind, I'm sure."
Camp's smile doesn't change, but he shifts his weight on the sofa and sighs. Flinching, Dawn looks down again. It's not like her to hide this way, and Giles' worry deepens.
Fred says, "Willow and I have to be going anyway, don't we, Willow? I've got some online work to do yet tonight, need to be getting gone."
"We'll come back and hang out a little tomorrow, Dawnie," Willow says. "We haven't heard anything about your work in the archives, you know, and I want to hear about all your dusty adventures. Wait, that didn't sound right." When she frowns at her own phrasing in a wholly characteristic manner, Fred starts to laugh, and even Dawn manages a smile.
It's a perfect cover for an intervention. Giles and Anya move at the same time, he to pull Dawn to her feet, Anya to grab David off the ottoman. His son resists the maternal control – rather invested in being a big boy, is David – but then Dawn isn't much easier to budge. However, experienced parents and herders by now, they manage.
David throws his arms around Dawn for a fleeting hug, says quickly, "Come on, Aunt Dawn," and then explodes toward the hallway, followed by the dogs, who've been lying on the hearth rug guarding him. When he stops for a breath, the three collide, and he says over his shoulder, "Are you going to read me my story tonight, Dad? After my bath?"
"Right, absolutely. We'll carry on with The Sword in the Stone, but not until you're clean."
"Yeah! Come on, Aunt Dawn!" David zips around the corner, then zips back to hover in the doorway, feet turning in and out in the nervous energy he can't suppress any longer. "Er, sorry. Night, Aunt Willow, Aunt Fred." Feet in and out, a frown. "Night, Mr. Camp sir." He bobs a little, not quite a bow, and then takes off.
"Well done, David," Giles says under his breath. Only Anya hears him.
Smiling, she cups his arse, her fingers teasing, but she lets go so quickly that if he weren't so tuned to her touch he might have missed it. Then she says briskly, "Willow and Fred, thanks, see you tomorrow; I'll give back your casserole pan then. And as for you, Watcher – " she brings Dawn's arm through hers in an inescapable hold – "you're with me."
"Well, what can I do?" Dawn says, laughing a little, although she again sends Camp a nervous look. The man doesn't speak. When Willow and Fred converge on her for a brief, warm hug, she hides her face against Anya's shoulder again.
For only Giles's eyes, Anya shakes her head and mouths, "I'm on it." Without any more ceremony, she pulls Dawn out of the room. Their footsteps – thud-thud-thud-thud – echo in the sudden silence.
Willow, of course, is the first to speak: "Well, now that we're up, we might as well be out, 'cause Fred's got work and I've got...stuff. And the Great Cat's probably missing us, too, needs our attention–"
"Great Cat doesn't care two bits if we're around, sugar. He's a Great Cat, with great powers," Fred says. When Willow gives her a look of eloquently squinched-up reproof, she amends, "But yes, we should be going."
"I'll walk you two out." Giles puts his coffee cup down, then turns to look at Camp. The man's pose and expression touch some memory-note in a minor key, which dies too quickly. He'll have to think about it. But in the meantime: "If you'll excuse me, er, Camp? Do you need anything at the moment?"
"I'm fine, Giles. Say, it's okay to address you that way, isn't it? I understand you were called Giles back in the days you were a Watcher." Camp smiles again.
"He's still Giles, still a Watcher even if he doesn't have the title," Willow says, fingers twitching.
"No, never mind," he says to her. The gibe has no power to hurt him any more – he could have rejoined the Council at any time, which he feels sure this wanker knows, but he's content to serve as independent consultant and as part-time instructor at the London academy. His MI5 work and Investigations and Acquisitions, not to mention the attention required by a much-loved wife and son, give him quite enough to do. To Camp he says, "I'll be back in a moment."
"Fine." The man's smile doesn't fade. "However – and you just say if this is going too far – would you like me to find you something else to read to the little fella? I've got a book or two in my bags, and The Sword in the Stone's not going to give him any real facts about Merlin or magic, now, is it."
"Yes, that's going too far," Giles says pleasantly. "I'll be happy to discuss my son's reading programme when I return, however, should you wish."
The image of Camp's smile stays with him as he helps Willow and Fred on with their coats, as he whistles the dogs to come with him from upstairs, as the front door opens on frost and night and the dogs gallop past him. For some reason he thinks he sees a shape lurking outside the gate – Christ, how the terror lingers, long after the night he'd run out to see Anya rocking David in her arms and just beyond them the fluttering cloak of the Catcher as the creature disappeared into dusk –
But he can't see anything now, not really, and he makes himself shut the door. As soon as the door catches, Willow says, "Oh, geez, could that guy be any more...icky? Cute enough if a person likes that sort of floppy-haired boy, but a nightmare, with the yapping and the stupidity and the kind of sexist overtones. Kinda like Wesley way back in the day, you know?" When she pauses, Giles nods. That's the connection he's missed – although at the thought of Wes, he has to repress a wave of sadness. "I'm so glad I've missed Edward Camp on my trips back to Cleveland."
"A full-grown tosser, there's no question. Anya will find out what's going on from Dawn, er, I hope." He shepherds them down the steps and toward their car parked in the drive behind the hire car from London. The garden is dark, with only the lights from the first-floor windows and the slices of Macallan is nosing at the front gate, while Cava plays with something in the dead grass – oh, it's David's discarded apple core from earlier.
"That guy gives me the creeps. You let us know what's happening, okay? But right now we need to tell you something, Giles," Fred says.
"Oh, yeah." Willow's voice drops into her official tone. "Gillian wanted you to know that there's been something running around on the tor."
"'Something'–" His breath huffs out in a frost-cloud of fear. "But it's winter, the Catcher should be sleeping."
"No, Giles, not the Catcher. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Willow says, and Fred puts her hand on his arm. He realizes that he's begun to shudder, and he breathes in cold, makes himself calm down. "But it's still bad. The coven think it's a wish-hound, wakened nobody knows how."
"The Black Dog, you say." Giles looks again at the front gate beyond Macallan's familiar shape, straining to see if something else slinks, uncanny and feral, in the shadows.
"It hasn't been seen down here yet, and I haven't felt anything. But hey, it's good to know," Willow says. "Tell Anya and David to watch out for paw-prints. As well as for any giant supernatural canines that look kind of phosphorescent."
Fred half-laughs. "'Mr Holmes, they were the footsteps–'"
"'Of a gigantic hound!'" they all chant in unison, a note of humour in the dark. The note lingers as he sees them into their car, opens the gate of the drive for them, waves them safely on their way. But the humour fades, and he's left with the snick of the latch echoing in the cold, with shadows and rustlings outside the stone wall.
He looks back at Swallow's Nest. The light from the first-floor windows seems brighter now, and he fancies he can hear his wife and son laughing upstairs. Safe for the moment, he thinks.
Macallan stirs at the front gate. In a sliver of light Cava throws the destroyed apple core up into the air and, growling, snaps at it as it falls.
Something outside the gates flickers at the edge of Giles's peripheral vision. When he turns his head, though, there is only night.
As far as he can see.
***
The water isn't quite hot enough on Anya's wrist. The boiler at Swallow's Nest is old and temperamental, given to pouring out bursts of scalding liquid after minutes of cold, and vice versa; although it'll have to be replaced soon, for now Anya contents herself with running David's bath herself. It's a small thing, but one she can control.
Over the sound of the water she can hear Dawn and David talking across the hall: new lessons, questions about the airplane ride (David is very fond of planes, for reasons that escape both her and Rupert), Cleveland and the people he knows there. It takes Anya a moment to realise that Dawn isn't talking much and is hardly laughing when David makes a joke. Not that the jokes are very funny, he's six years old and given to terrible puns, but Dawn usually laughs nevertheless.
She turns her head and watches the water slide over and between her fingers. It's getting hotter now, so she leans over the edge of the old tub and puts the plug in the drain. The drumming of water on porcelain fills her ears, reminds her strangely of David's heels on her ottoman.
Still, the question comes across the hall loud and clear. "Aunt Dawn, do you really like Mr Camp?"
Anya holds her breath – but then the water suddenly is all but boiling, hissing against her skin. In her rush to regulate the temperature, to make the bath safe for her son, she misses the answer.
The slight burn on her skin doesn't disappear right away.
As she's testing the water in the appropriately filled tub again, Dawn and David appear in the doorway. "One young Giles, reporting for bath-time duty," Dawn says, her hands on his shoulders. He's rocking back and forth in her hold, in what Anya thinks of his boyish version of Rupert's occasional penchant for pacing, and his pajamas are crumpled in his hands. He's unsettled too, then.
Anya makes herself smile. "One bath, ready for young Giles." One last check of the water temperature before she pushes herself to her feet. "I'll be with Dawn across the hall if you have any problems...." Such as trying to drown yourself, she finishes silently.
"Mum," he says, blowing out a breath. "I've been having my own baths for years and years and years. I'm fine."
"David, you are unmistakably your father's son." She kisses the top of his head as she passes him.
Then she grabs Dawn before she can get away and drags her into David's bedroom. "Sit," she says, pointing to the oversized chair in the corner from which Rupert does his nightly reading when they're here.
"Anya," Dawn says, in a voice just like David's. But, like David (most of the time), she sits where she's told.
This is not in fact a good sign, Anya thinks. As she begins to straighten up the books and clothes that David has somehow managed to strew everywhere in a mere nine hours, she says, "Okay, out with it. Is it sex or work that's making you act so strange with and toward Edward Camp?"
"I'm not acting strange...oh, hell." Dawn turns her face away.
"You knew I was going to ask, and I can't carry on a conversation with you when you're hiding. Come on, sweetie."
"It's both." Dawn shudders, then covers her face in her hands. Her words are jumbled together, muffled by building tears and her own pressure: "It's both, and it's too hard, Anya. I'm just so confused."
Tossing down a small jumper, Anya moves to sit on the arm of the chair, and then puts her hand on Dawn's shoulder. One touch is enough to make Dawn bury her head against Anya's cashmere sweater, and Anya begins to pet that shiny Key hair. "Let's make this easy and uncomplicated. Sex first. How long, how much, and is either one of you calling it love?" She pauses. "I'd ordinarily ask 'how good' as well, but that might be... no, it's relevant. How good?"
"I've really, really missed you," Dawn says, accompanied by an odd laugh-sob-gurgle.
"I've missed you too. Now answer me."
One hand scrubbing at her face, Dawn says, "Two months, just after I got to Cleveland. We went out, had a few drinks and whatever, got to talking–"
"Did you actually get to speak?"
A snort of sad laughter against her sweater. "He doesn't shut up, doesn't he? I never really noticed until recently."
"Uh-huh. I guess that answers my question about the quality of the sex."
Another snort of laughter, then a sigh. "I've never... I mean, I've had other lovers? But he just takes me over, just....Yes. It's great sex. Orgasm City and its furthest suburbs."
"Okay. And then there's that slight resemblance to Spike, with the blondness and the cheekbones and the coat-flaring, which might also be attractive to you." Ignoring Dawn's slightly appalled chuckle, she adds, "Out of bed, how does he treat you?"
"Well..."
Dawn stops talking, and for a minute it's quiet enough that Anya can hear the soothing splashes (if slightly worrying in terms of tidal waves on the bathroom floor) from across the hall. David's singing to himself, too, something that Rupert's taught him about an octopus's garden. Downstairs the front door opens and shuts, a solid gate-keeping sound, and she can just barely hear the enthusiastic entry of the dogs. Rupert must be back inside. Safe for now, she thinks as she pets Dawn's hair. "How does Edward Camp treat you out of bed?" she says again.
"He says he loves me." There's doubt in Dawn's voice, and surprise – as if this is the first time she's articulated what she knew good and well. "But, but he doesn't listen. He... I mean, he's not mean, you know? But he knows best or at least better than me, he thinks, and he doesn't... listen." She snuggles in more. "That doesn't make sense, does it."
"No, sweetie, it does. In the vengeance-days it was one of the leading causes of Wishes. Almost every woman has had the good-sex, bad-patronizing-boyfriend experience." Anya plays that back in her head. "Say, how is Xander these days? Did you see him when you were in Cleveland?"
Dawn looks up at that, grinning. "Anya, you're terrible!"
"I fail to see why honesty is terrible."
"And that's just so you." Dawn hugs her and then gets out of the chair. She starts picking up the books Anya's left, stacking them just so as she talks. "No, I didn't get to see Xander. He's been out of town, and now he and Andrew are off working a nest of Mykin demons in Wisconsin – which is why Andrew hasn't come home yet, he's missing everyone too and he's going to try to be back for Christmas Hanukkah Solstice Kwanzaa Gurundar's Ascension. But when I talked to him a couple of days ago, he said Xander's okay."
"After 'the Rift'–" Anya makes the air-quotes, then frowns. "Why does Andrew call it that, anyway? What's it from? That Tiny-town show, or what?"
"Smallville, Anya." Dawn giggles before she crouches for another book. "Yes, 'the Rift' is alive and well. Wes and Faith are off with Angel, somewhere undisclosed. Still doing Council work, though, I know the Inner Council has regular reports."
Anya gets up too, joining her efforts to Dawn, bringing order back into chaos. They don't really need to talk about the disaster that happened that summer, when Wes and Faith's long-time affair was discovered and lines were drawn, cutting off friend from friend, family from family. On one side is Wes – whom Rupert and that stupid Jools had to fish out of a drunken, self-loathing, half-crazy binge in London after it all came out– and Faith. On the other is Xander who is admittedly the wronged party, and with him Buffy and Spike. It culminated in a horrible Buffy and Faith screaming match turned into fist-fight in the middle of Council headquarters, which has led to their reassignment far, far apart.
But at least Rupert and Anya have maintained some sort of tie to everyone, even though it's hard to be a neutral nation since Zoe, the other wronged party, is one of Anya's closest friends. "Being Switzerland is no easy task," as Rupert often puts it.
Anya never adds that Switzerland has its share of monsters, like the cave-demons that live on the Matterhorn. But she thinks it.
A couple more moments of noise-laced calm, of octopus's gardens and gentle splashes while they fold up the clothes and put them in the armoire or hamper as the state of cleanliness requires. Downstairs there's a rustle of movement – and one of the dogs must not be happy. Fading in and out is a high whining howl.
Except the sound's from outside and the dogs are in, which strikes Anya as strange.
She takes the last load of books and shoves them in the bookcase in the one spot that's left. Dusting her hands, she says, "All right. David's going to be finished soon, so you'd better tell me the rest of it."
As if her legs suddenly lose strength, Dawn sits down on David's bed. Rubbing at her thighs, she says, "Okay, so I was already worried about Edward. What I'm doing with him and everything, but I can't seem to stop. Then, the Council offers me this choice of jobs, and now I'm just...." One long fingernail begins to pick at the outer seam of her trousers.
Anya sits down next to her. "Stop destroying your clothes and explain this to me."
"Yes, Mother." Dawn tries to laugh again and fails. "I don't know what Edward's going to be doing in Atlanta – okay, the Potentials-school, but there's some other thing he keeps talking about without actually saying anything. He's asked me to be the archivist for the facility, though."
"He wants you to move to Georgia with him, without actually telling you what he's doing." Anya doesn't like this at all.
"Yes. And it's a good job with the Council, really, but I just don't know. I don't know, Anya. The other job the Council offers would keep me based in London; I'd be collecting materials from several private collections, building a secondary library for the European region. There'd be some travel – and I'd have to work closely with the geniuses at Investigations and Acquisitions to source some texts, I think."
"Well, obviously I know which job I want you to take, even aside from the possible nice commissions. But it's your choice. Still, sweetie –" Anya puts her arm around Dawn– "why did you bring Edward Camp here in the first place? Do you want me and Rupert to vet him? We have contacts, you know. Good contacts. Deep-background contacts, in case he turns out to be a shape-shifting demon."
"Yes, please spy on my lover," Dawn says. Regrettably, this is sarcasm. "No, see, it's just like I told you guys on the phone. Last week Robson called me in and asked me to bring Edward when I came to see you. I mean, Edward had already been asking, and I'd been thinking, but now, officially and all...."
"Now I am officially not happy about this," Anya says.
Dawn says quietly, "Me either. But at least I've told you. I feel a little better now."
It's quiet in the bedroom. Tick of David's little alarm clock by his bed, a bit of settling in the old house –
And Anya realises that there's no boyish singing, no splashes from the bathroom. "David?" she says, loud enough that he should be able to hear. "David?"
No answer. Her heart stops, and in the deep, deep silence she can hear the flute in the yews again.
It takes four steps to get across the hall, a couple of shaking seconds to push open the bathroom door which has somehow shut – "David!"
Her son erupts from the bottom of the tub, blowing out water, and then drags his dripping hair out of his eyes and frowns at her. "Mum, please! I can take my bath by myself!"
As she all but collapses with relief, Rupert runs up the stairs with the speed of a much younger man, the dogs hot on his heels. "What's wrong, darling?" He braces her, his arm going around her waist to hold her against him, and then looks over her shoulder. "David?"
"I don't know what's wrong, Dad. I was just playing Octopus Under the Sea. You know, 'resting my head, on the sea bed–'" He sings the last bit in his croaky little-boy voice.
Anya doesn't know why it makes her want to cry. But she manages to say evenly, "I called you and you didn't answer. You know that makes me worry."
Rupert's arm tightens around her; he must be able to feel her shaking. "Let's not play Octopus in quite that literal way again, David. Your mother's right, you know the rules."
"Yessir," David says, perilously close to a pout.
"You should get out now, anyway. I think you're probably turning into a prune, or some other type of unattractively wrinkled fruit." She makes herself smile.
David smiles back, sunshine again, and then waves his arms around. "No, Mum, this is what octopus tentacles are supposed to look like!"
"Out, David," she and Rupert say in unison. But she lets Rupert pull the door closer to shut, and then she allows herself to rest against him, breathe him in for a minute to calm herself back down. His hands pass up and down her spine, gentling her, as the dogs settle themselves at their feet.
"Everything's okay, then?" Dawn says, smiling at them, and then a heartbeat later, an echo from the landing of the stairs–
"Everything okay up there?" Edward Camp stands in the shadows of the landing, that damn smile of him turned on high. "Sorry, I heard the noise."
"Everything's fine, thank you," Rupert says.
"Well, great." Camp's smile widens even further. Anya doesn't like it, not one bit; it makes her think of fangs for some reason, which is stupid because he really is very handsome. Then he extends his hand and says, "Dawn? You want to come on down with me?"
Dawn hesitates – hiding again, Anya thinks – before saying in a rush, "Well, okay. Okay?" The second 'okay' is addressed to Rupert, to Anya, maybe Dawn's better self, but she doesn't wait for an answer; she runs lightly down the stairs toward that outstretched hand. He grabs hold of her, and he pulls her the rest of the way down and out of sight. She doesn't say anything else as she descends.
"For fuck's sake," Rupert mutters against Anya's hair, and he pulls her against him, close as she can go. She snuggles in and tries to ignore the fact that he's trembling a little too.
From inside the bathroom comes the sounds of draining water and a wet little boy slipping around on the floor, humming to himself again. But from outside, louder, comes a high whining howl.
Which is not only strange but rather scary, Anya thinks, because Macallan and Cava are still lying silent and anxious at their feet.
***
Dawn knows it's a mistake the minute Edward clutches her hand on the staircase. She can feel the not-rightness, the edge of too tight in his clasp. She always could feel it, maybe, but only now after Anya's pointed questions can she acknowledge it fully.
But there's also that warmth, a good sex-touch rushing between skin to skin like a river between its banks, and for a moment she lets herself go down with the current. She tells herself it's just for the moment.
He pulls her down the steps and into the front hallway, where the wish-candles still burn. She takes a second to notice that four pillars flicker with light, to realise that one has been wished for her. It's love and safety for all the family members staying under their roof, she knows – and a different warmth spreads through her, one that makes her remember who she is. She's Dawn Summers, sister of the Queen Slayer. She's part of Giles and Anya's family.
And she's a Watcher.
Think, she tells herself, even as Edward spins her into a pool of darkness and crowds her against the wall leading to the kitchen. Even as her knees begin to buckle and her breath comes short and fast, even as his toned body pushes against her, chest belly hips, God so hard, so good, she tells herself again.
Think.
His mouth takes hers for a heartbeat – she can taste his after-dinner coffee, its warmth going sour, smell the travel on them both – and he leans in further. His free hand flows up to her neck, his fingers flexing on her nape under her hair. "Hey, sugar," he says in that voice he saves for their private moments, the drawl so thick and deep she could drown in it. Drown in him. "Don't leave me like that again. I don't like it when you're gone from me."
"Edward–"
Another kiss cuts off her words. His tongue steals her breath, and then he pulls back to gaze at her. She can't see the colour of his eyes in the shadows, but she knows how blue they are. She doesn't know if they're warm or cold now, though. "So what did you and Mrs Giles talk about, sugar?"
"The only people who call her Mrs Giles are official types and Jools Siviter, which irritates the crap out of her. Well, and Giles very occasionally, but he's allowed. She's Anya, okay?" Edward smiles at that, leaning on her a little more. And oh yes, she's thinking now. She edits what she says next. "We just talked about family stuff. David, and Xander, and the Wes and Faith thing."
"Right, the unfaithful ones," he says, but absently, like he's thinking of something else. A brush of a kiss, moisture lingering from before. "What'd you say about the little fella?" His breath is warm against her lips as he comes closer still. "Mrs Giles doesn't seem to take too good care of him, what with that bath time alarm just now and all."
Dawn flattens her hands against his chest. "Anya is an excellent mother," she says, enunciating every word with the precision of the woman she defends.
"Of course she is," he says. The hand on her neck tightens. "Just talking, my Dawn. Just talking."
"Really? Well, don't talk like that again–"
But before she can finish, he's taking her mouth again. This kiss is deeper, and his other hand steals underneath her sweater, sweeps up over her breast and holds on. He begins a rhythmic pulse, the heel of his hand rotating against her nipple, and she can feel the current deepen.
Think, she tells herself. Focus on anything but the pleasure.
Through the drumming of her blood in her ears, she can hear something in the December wind outside. Sounds like a dog crying, but no, it can't be – Swallow's Nest is too far from the village and from other houses. Maybe it's a stray or something.
Although his hands keep moving on her, making her curse her own dissolving, Edward lifts his head away from hers. There's that smile of his, wide as a river. "What are the chances of old Giles and Anya – see there, sugar, did just like you wanted – coming back down this evening?"
"Pretty good. But probably only for a little while to lock up, and not soon. David's story-time is always a big family deal." It's hard to get the words out. Hard to stay strong.
"Story-time, huh." She doesn't understand the way he underlines that with his voice, but she files it away for later consideration. "That means no more business tonight. Well then...." And he swings her further away from the brace of the wall and into the dark of the kitchen, his hands moving but never letting go. It dizzies her, like the current is splitting against rocks, like whirlpools are forming. Against her neck he whispers, "I know they put you in that little tiny room –"
"My room," she interrupts. She has to make it clear where she belongs. It may be just a small room off the kitchen, but one that Giles and Anya gave to her once they took the cottage back from the coven, once the house became all of theirs. She had spent a happy weekend with her then boyfriend Jack and Andrew and Ian, painting the uneven walls a soft peach and then doing the sills and doors in rich green. Green for Key-girl energy, Andrew said when he first poured the trim paint into the tray.
And she suddenly realises that it never even occurred to her to tell Giles and Anya not to make up the bed in her room. She realises that who she is comes in part from that cozy, protected space, and she never considered taking Edward in with her there. She doesn't trust him enough.
But she's brought him here to this safehouse, and that frightens her full awake.
He says, deeper and huskier, his lips etching her skin, his hands locking on her, "Sugar, don't go away from me like that. Come on down now. You stay with me."
She lets him lead her toward the door leading down – he's been put in the nice guest quarters built last year in the basement, dubbed jokingly by Andrew "the Tom Quinn Memorial Suite." She lets him control her passage through the dark of the kitchen, past table and counters, in and out of that mournful dog-howl creeping in through the crannies of window and door. Yet this time when she winds her arms around his neck, when she sways against him and then nips at his ear, when she allows him to trace his tongue along the vein in her neck, she's riding the river rather than sinking in it.
She's a Watcher, after all. She's going to watch this guy for real and figure out what's going on.
***
In the bathroom Giles splashes his face with cold water, and then grabs a towel to dry the moisture and perhaps scrape away his building headache.
The last notes of the Black Dog, if that's what it is, are still hanging in the air, even though the last howl was several minutes ago. The keening had accompanied Giles through his dramatic reading of King Pellinore's reunion with the forlorn Questing Beast, to which David listened while Anya rubbed dry his hair. After David was tucked up safely, Giles and Anya had gone downstairs to deal with the fire and the last of the day's mess. As he'd told her about Willow's message, the uncanny howl had come again.
No, he corrects himself, it had seemed to come closer.
One more time he'd switched on the outside lights, taken a torch and the dogs, and gone into the garden to patrol. His beam playing along the stone walls and on the shut gates, he'd tried to see something, anything, in the night. There had been only sound, different sounds like the scraping of large paws against rocks, like panting breath nearby. It hadn't been Macallan and Cava.
The final cry came when he and the dogs got to the threshold of Swallow's Nest, trailing in after them so that the entryway rang with it. But there was nothing there.
He warded the front door with everything he knew, nevertheless.
After putting the towel back on the rack, he pads out of the bathroom and into the hall. In the yellow glow of a small nightlight (provided for the youngest Giles' occasional midnight ramblings), Macallan and Cava make a canine barrier in front of David's door. Without eliciting more than a soft acknowledgement from Macallan, he silently opens the door and looks into the dimness.
From what he can tell, David is asleep in his favourite position: head half-under the pillow, body rolled up in the blanket, one arm outside the covers at an odd angle. Anya swears this is a mirror of one of Giles' own sleep-poses, although he doesn't believe it. While his son snorts in his sleep, Giles whispers a wish for safety – although he doesn't believe in it either, not really.
But he'll ward his loved ones with everything he knows.
When he goes into his and Anya's room, he stops on the threshold to savour. The picture would be called something like 'Lamplit Wife, with Brandy and Swatches': Anya in her reading glasses, tucked up in their four-poster, studying four squares of different upholstery fabrics strewn across the duvet and cradling a half-full snifter. Without looking up she says, "Everything okay, honey? No visible sign of the Wild Hunt encroaching on us so far? David asleep?"
"I walked around the house and checked the lane, but I saw nothing. And yes, as far as I could tell." He comes around to his side of the bed, discards his glasses, and then crawls in without disturbing her materials. She holds the snifter high so that nothing spills as he organises himself. "You were the last one downstairs, though. Everything all right there?"
Her gaze meets his, and he reaches over to pluck off her glasses. Half-smiling, she takes them from him and puts them on her bedside table. "Fine. Well, except that the door to Dawn's room was open, and there was no Dawnie inside and noises were coming from the cellar. More of her ill-judged time in Orgasm City, regardless of my own attempts to hint that Edward Camp's a creep and a jerk." Her smile disappears. "I think I was too subtle."
Wincing not at Anya's expression but the reality of Dawn's choice, he settles deeper into his pillow. "You did the best you could, darling. So what do we do now?"
"I vote for stabbing him with the toasting fork over the breakfast table." When he smiles, she hands him the brandy snifter. "Here, honey, I warmed this for you. And had a little, obviously, but it's yours."
"Thank you. A rare treat." Their fingers brush as the exchange is made, and he lingers on the touch.
"Well, tonight you deserve it. We've had a tough evening." She leans up to kiss him, the merest brush against his lips, and then returns to her own pillows.
He stares into the depths of the snifter, thinking of that odd comment Camp had made about reading material. Thinking about howls in the wind. "I suppose I could call Robson tomorrow, see what the bloody hell is going on."
"Remember that Robson sent him to us, honey," she says crisply.
She doesn't have to say anything else. Their ties to the Council are broken or strained – Wes and Faith in exile, Buffy, Spike, Xander, and Andrew off in the field, Willow more allied to Tor House – and the upper echelon of the Council apparently can't be trusted. He and Anya are on their own.
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. He takes another sip of brandy.
It's quiet in the house – no uncanny sounds from outside, only the merest stirring from the dogs in the hall – as he swirls the liquid in the bowl and as she fusses with the fabric squares, holding one and then another up to the light. He tests the nearest swatch, a blue patterned thing, with his finger. "Anya, must you turn to home decorating like a drug?"
"I'm choosing new material to re-cover my ottoman, whose shabbiness you've been complaining about. And ha ha, that attempt at a 'joke' rivals David's about the elephants wearing their ele-pants, with its substitution of a consonant intended to provide comedy."
"It saddens me that our wonderful senses of humour are lost on you."
"Ha ha ha, Rupert." The fabric swatches go flying as she leaps on him, and it's only with a superhuman effort that he saves the remainder of the brandy. But she pulls back almost at once, giving him time to put the snifter on his night stand. When he turns back, her hands span his ribs. "Let me see," she says, but her delicate touch, not her gaze, outlines the faded bruises from his last field-work.
It's so quiet now, and he shifts uneasily under her fingers – more the memory of pain than the sensation now. She slides down in their bed so she can kiss the worst mark, high on his side. Softly: "You're not going out tomorrow to look for signs of the Wild Hunt, are you, honey?"
"Anya," he says gently, firmly. "Someone has to. Not everyone is as protected as we are."
"Crap. I knew it." Another feather-brush of lips on his bruise, drawing out even the old ache, and then she slides her mouth up to his nipple, teasing until he shifts underneath her in pleasure. She raises her head. "Do you even know what to do if you find a supernatural hound? I've never actually had to shoo off a harbinger of doom in canine form, so – "
"I've got a few texts here, and Dawn can assist me. Or perhaps Dawn can watch David. You might come investigate with me, Tuppence." He pulls her up to him. Her mouth glistens in the lamplight, tempting him so that he forgets what he's saying.
"My Tommy. But I don't know if I want to leave David –" Then she stops talking, slides into position, and cuts off his vision of her mouth with its pressure on his. The kiss is long, deep and flowing, and he can taste her nerves and her arousal as well as the brandy. He circles his tongue around hers so he can catch every drop. "Yes, please, honey," she says when she can, and he doesn't think she's talking about searching for clues.
They have to be quiet, both of them know that. He doesn't speak as he unbuttons her nightshirt and then sends his fingers travelling down. Silent, he pauses as always at her C-section scar, caressing the mark of the most terrifying and wonderful night of his life, and she arches against him, encouraging him to go further, to dip inside that glorious heat and dampness and twist his fingers until she's wet. She doesn't speak when she helps him strip off his pajama bottoms, her mouth brushing at the jut of his hip, sipping at his cock. She doesn't speak when he rolls her over, brings her arms over her head and locks them onto the bedpost, and then settles into her as he does his most comfortable resting place. But he whispers praise and wishes as he begins to stroke into her, and she buries her moans in his shoulder.
He will ward his loved ones with everything he knows.
***
When David wakes up, he's lost for a minute. It's deep dark in the room, and he thinks he heard something in his sleep, he doesn't know what, but something. It sounds like that night he met the Catcher, like music, high and scary, in the trees outside as sharp finger-claws come out of ragged old sleeves–
For a minute he thinks he'll hide under the covers and pretend he's not there. But then his eyes get used to the dark. He can see the light from the hallway through the open door, and he can see the glowing numbers of his clock on the table. It's little-hand-on-the-one, big-hand-on-the-six, one-thirty. Then his ears get used to the middle of the night, and he can hear Dad and Mum's funny sleep-noises from down the hall. He mustn't call them snores, especially Mum's, cos that makes Mum all squeaky and "I do not snore" and then Dad laughs and then both he and Dad are in bad, bad trouble.
He rolls over on his back and looks up at the ceiling. It's dark up there, and wavy, like he's under the sea in the octopus's garden in the shade. There's treasure in the octopus's garden, maybe. Probably.
Then the music in the trees fades away, and Swallow's Nest begins to call to him.
David likes exploring. He likes finding new things, especially in familiar places – one of his very favourite stories is the family fairy tale of the time Aunt Dawn and Uncle Andy and Aunt Willow and Uncle Xander found the hidden staircase with the magic cup in the London-home. When Dad was reading The Magician's Nephew to him, David asked if they had a magic attic too. No, Dad said, because they didn't live in a house like the one in the book, and then Mum said that anyway dimensional portals rarely appeared in wardrobes or attics, and Dad got his usual look like he wanted to grin at Mum or kiss her or something bizarre like that.
His best friend Tariq at school has been calling everything 'bizarre' lately, and David likes that word. 'S cool the way it rolls out of his mouth, and the way he can make the 'r' sound all long, like he's a pirate. "Bizarrrrre," he whispers into the dark.
"Bizarrrrre," the house whispers back. "David, come seeeee." Come see what, he wants to ask, but he doesn't. He really should stay where he is –
But then the pipes in the walls make a weird gurgly sound, drumming like waves, drumming like a sword smacked on a treasure chest, like shoes on furniture, and he bolts upright.
There's something in the ottoman, he remembers thinking. Treasure, probably.
Before he can think twice, he's up and out of bed.
It's cold now in the house, cold enough that he reaches for a jumper to wear over his pajamas and then gets a pair of socks too. No shoes, though – Mum can wake up when a board creaks at the top of the stairs, she's always listening, always ready to take care of him, and then Dad sometimes wanders around at night too. 'S kind of too much sometimes. Just perfect-right other times, like when the Catcher came.
When he's working his jumper over his head, he gets the weirdest idea that he can see the thing's claws again reaching over the gate, coming for him in the dark – but then he pulls his head free, and it's fine, and he remembers Mum cuddling him close and then Dad coming outside and putting his arms around them both, carrying them back to the house where it's safe.
As he puts his socks on, he thinks about how Mum always says he's his father's son. One time he asked her who else's son would he be, and she said that it was an expression which meant that David was very, very like Dad in ways big and small, even though he's his own boy too. This is brilliant, he thinks, especially cos Mum then hugged him hard and told him so.
Like Dad, he likes books and stories. In the book Dad's reading to him now, Wart goes off on lots of quests to find out stuff, but he's mostly safe because Merlin is watching out for him. Dad's kind of like Merlin, except married to Mum and not so magic and mysterious – but he knows things, and that's important, that's what David wants too. Dad would probably say that David should go questing just like Wart.
Okay, the rules say not in the middle of the night, but anyway.
"Bizarrrre," the house says again, with a gurgle and a sigh. "David, come seeeee."
When he gets to his bedroom door, the dogs wake up. Cava likes her sleep – she opens her eyes and grrs, but then rolls over against the floor so she can't see and doesn't have to follow. Macallan, though, always goes with David. Sighing a dog-sigh, he stretches and then stands at attention, mouth open like he's saying "Let's go!"
The door to Mum and Dad's bedroom is partly open; their sleep-noises are louder here. Then Dad moves around and mutters – he talks in his sleep sometimes, Mum teases him about it – something about "Hie thee hence." David doesn't know what it means, but as he hides against the wall and waits for them to quiet down, he repeats the words in his head.
"Hie thee hence." That sounds like a brilliant Merlin-spell.
He and Macallan start downstairs once the noises fade a little. He has to keep his hand on Macallan's neck, hold him close, so that the dog doesn't run with heavy feet all the way down like he always does. It's quest time, and that means quiet, even in the kind of scary dark.
David remembers the Catcher again, remembers how quiet that one night was except for the sound of the flute and the harsh breaths coming from inside the dwarf's hood. It's safe to remember when he's got his fingers in Macallan's fur and he's inside the wards. That one night, he'd been out playing with the dogs but they'd gone off sniffing at rabbit-track under the rosebushes in the corner, not staying with him. He'd had to face the Catcher by himself.
His fingers tighten in Macallan's fur so hard that the dog whines a little before he goes quiet again.
When they get to the landing, the light changes – Mum and Dad left the outdoor lights on, so that yellow creeps inside through cracks in the curtains. It makes the downstairs look weird, like the normal things change shapes in the middle of the night. But David's been downstairs in the dark before, and he knows everything's mostly the same, so he keeps on going.
But the things could change shape, he thinks.
After the Catcher was sent away, they had a whole family night in London where the grown-ups talked about how many different ways a Catcher could show up in different places and stuff. Dad read a poem about a pied piper who had a flute too and stole children, and then Mum told a story about a faraway dimension where children couldn't go out after dark because there were so many Catchers of all colours and sizes, she didn't say why, and then Uncle Andy and Aunt Dawn put on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Dad ran away to the kitchen early in the movie, though, cos he said the music was appalling, and then Mum followed him and started singing "Truly Scrumptious," and Dad said something else that was probably rude, and there was laughing and also kissing noises. Which was good if bizarre, cos David didn't like the Child-Catcher in the movie, and he had to hold on tight to Uncle Andy and Aunt Dawn and hold on to Mum and Dad laughing.
In the stories, all Catchers are the same, no matter what they're called. No matter what they look like. It's important to know that stuff, and hold on.
When David steps off the stairs, he puts his hand on the table where Mum keeps the wish-candles. The wood is solid under his fingers, just like always.
And Swallow's Nest is calling to him, "Come seeee," so he and Macallan go into the room with the ottoman. The dark is striped with yellow from outside, little lines of light, and it's enough to see the round thing waiting for him. He dives onto his tummy, Macallan going flat beside him, and he puts his hands on it.
It's soft but uneven – there are flat bits where it's all been rubbed off to just the shape underneath. When he rubs a little more, he can feel a crack underneath, where he's been kicking. No, two cracks. He pushes at the ottoman, and it goes all creaky, like it's going to break. He pushes again, harder. It creaks louder, and then there's this treasure-chest rattle.
"Bizarrrre," he says under his breath.
But his fingers find a hole in the stuff at the bottom of the ottoman. A little wiggle – Macallan scoots up so he can use his nose to help – and then there's a rip and a bigger hole. Underneath it he can touch the crack in the wooden base. The rattle inside gets louder, like something wants to be found –
And then from behind him, a room or two away, there's a click. It's like a light-switch, or maybe even a latch lifting on the gate. Click, he hears again.
Then he hears footsteps. Not Dad's, which are solid yet soft. Not Mum's or Aunt Dawn's, cos they don't make hardly any noise unless they're wearing high heels. These are strange footsteps, heavy and loud and echoing like a monster's.
The footsteps come closer.
He pulls Macallan in, and the two of them slide on their tummies away from the yellow stripe of light, into the full dark just past the ottoman. When the dog starts to whimper, David wraps his hand around his mouth and nose, holding the noise inside.
"Who's there?" comes a voice, all slow and thick and deep. More footsteps, closer now.
David thinks for a moment he'll just close his eyes and pretend he isn't there – but that's no good. He needs to see the monster, needs to know. Careful to keep in the dark, he lifts his head.
Out in the hallway, a stripe of yellow lights up a wide, wide smile, and a hand stretches out to touch the darkness. In the weird light, the hand looks like a claw coming out of ragged old sleeves.
And the voice of Mr Camp says, all slow and thick and deep, "Hey, is that the little fella? David, you awake?"
David Martin Giles knows the voice of a Catcher when he hears one.
He can't move, even as the footsteps come closer, as the Catcher comes almost across the threshold. But he can think Dad's Merlin-spell over and over – Hie thee hence, hie thee hence, hie thee hence –
One more footstep, and Mr Camp is almost inside.
Then there's a flash of shiny long hair, and a good smile, a warrior's smile. "Edward? Whatever are you doing?" Aunt Dawn says, coming up behind the monster and putting her arms around him. David wants to shout at her to get away from him, but Aunt Dawn's really tough and smart, smarter than the Catcher, probably. "The munchies are the other direction."
Mr Camp takes another look into the darkness. "I thought I heard something in here. Or someone," he says, staring right at the spot where David and Macallan lie.
"A house this old is always noisy," Aunt Dawn says, and she pulls him out of the room, in and out of the yellow stripes of light. As they go off to the kitchen, her voice fades, but David can hear her say, "Come back to bed, and stop worrying about night-sounds."
As soon as he hears the door shut, he and Macallan are gone – up the stairs, fast as they can, quiet as they can. First thing he sees is Dad, stumbling out of the door of his and Mum's room, and David throws himself at his father. "Daddy," he whispers, even though he's too old to call him that any more. Just this once it makes him feel safer.
"What the...are you all right?" And Dad manages to pull him up into his arms, holding him close and safe. David hides his face in Dad's neck, cos he doesn't have to look any more, he knows the worst now. The good Merlin-voice says, "Son, what's wrong?"
"Honey? What – David, what are you doing up?" Mum's there too, yawning a little and pulling her robe around her. "It's almost two in the morning."
"Catcher," he whispers. "I'm not like Wart after all, Daddy. Sorry, Mum."
His father's big hand cradles the back of his head, while Mum rubs his back in a very Mum way, sharp and comforting. "Nightmare," they say in unison, and they do their nightmare-things – Dad puts him back in bed, Mum brings him a little glass of water, Dad sings soft and quiet, Mum smoothes his forehead until his eyes close.
As he falls into sleep where it's safe, he thinks he'll have to tell them tomorrow that it's real, that the stories don't lie. All Catchers are the same, no matter what name they're called.