"... than hear you sing": Part 3
by Mediancat
Okay, not mine, just wishful thinking . . . except for the story and the villain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part Three
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She walked into the library during sixth period and told Giles what she'd seen and felt during theday.
"Hmmmm," the librarian said. "That, unfortunately, added to what Buffy's told me, only goes to confirm my suspicions: You are, indeed, having a prophetic dream."
"Well, of course!" She said, shaking her head. "Hold on! You told Buffy?"
"Did you expect me not to?" he answered.
"Well, not until I was clear of all of it! Not until you'd figured out what was going on and told me how to avoid it."
He let out a deep breath. "Cordelia, it may not be that simple."
"That's the pattern! Someone notices a problem, you figue it out, Buffy Slays and the rest of us aren't even involved!"
"If you're the one having the dream, Cordelia, you WILL be involved, somehow, whether you want to be or not."
"Right now, that's a definite not."
"Just promise me this," Giles said. "Stay awake tonight. Forgo your 'beauty sleep" until we figure out what's going on." He pointed behind him. There were books aplenty lying around, all having to do with various deities, demons, and sorcerors of sleep. "The problem is," Giles explained, "That there are so many of them. We spend on the average one third of our lives in that state, so there is no wonder, but that makes our task all the harder. Fortunately, many are benign and a few of the rest are dead, dormant, or otherwise occupied. Which still leaves us a nice litany of several dozen."
She supposed it was the least she could do. "Done," she said. "After all, you are interpreting it for me."
"Interpreting. Right." Giles leaned over his books.
"One more thing," she said as she turned to leave. "Everyone seems tired and exhausted, and people have been sleepwalking, and everything. Does this help?"
"Actually, it probably does," Giles said, sounding a little surprised. She couldn't see why . . . she'd done a lot to help -- a lot more help than they'd ever been to her! What had contact with them ever gotten her? She wasn't nearly the person she'd used to be before she met them -- and while she didn't NEED anyone to establish who she was, she still hadn't redefined herself either. It was like . . . there was something missing, you know? Anyway.
"Well, there you go!" She said brightly, and left the library.
* * *
Giles and Buffy were hard at work . . . Giles was brewing up several pots of heavily caffeinated tea and coffee, Buffy bringing in the Diet Mountain Dew and Jolt Cola. When the phenomenon repeated, they'd be wide awake and for it, no question at all.
There had been a noticeable lack of vampires tonight; in four hours of patrolling Buffy had caught only a couple of newly risen undead at one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries. By itself, not so unusual, but added on to the sleepwalking, the tiredness, and Cordelia's dream, it was another factor in the equation.
Had Cordelia not explained her dream this morning, though, Giles doubted they would have caught on quite so quickly. Thank goodness Cordelia's alienation from Buffy and her friends didn't extend quite so far as to make the girl completely irresponsible.
Shortly, Willow and Oz straggled in, followed, surprisingly, by a weak- appearing Xander Harris.
Buffy grinned and then frowned. "You up for this, Xander?"
"Never let it be said," Xander answered, a bit unsteadily, "That when a crisis comes that Xander Harris isn't ready for action." He plopped into a chair. "Even if I am too weak to turn a page or do anything productive."
"He whined and moaned until we let him come," Willow translated. "Then he spent most of the ride whining and moaning in the back seat." Par for the course, this lacked Willow's usual good humor. Oz also looked more sullen than stone-faced, but they were both there ready to fight the good fight, as least insofar as they were capable of fighting it.
"Hey," Xander said, "Besides, who's the expert on sleep around here anyway?" Everyone stared at him. "Bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum bum bum . . . Mr. Xand-Man, bring me a dream . . ."
"Xander," Giles said, "If we were awake to appreciate that that might almost have been funny."
"Wow, Giles complimenting my sense of humor. Now I KNOW there's a crisis in Sunnydale."
THAT nearly brought a smile to Giles' lips, though he fought not to show it. "Will you be able to stay awake with the rest of us . . . given your condition?"
"For the last forty-eight hours I've done nothing but sleep and . . . something too gross to be mentioned. I don't think I'm going to go to sleep for a week."
"That leaves you several steps above the rest of us," Buffy commented. "So, what's the progress on the research? And have you puzzled out the meaning of Cordy's dream?"
Giles gestured to a dozen books lying on the table and the counter. "I've managed to narrow it down to seven . . . five of whom are demons, one of whom is some kind of djinn, and the seventh of whom is an ancient Greek sorceror who masqueraded as a god of sleep. What we need to do in the next couple of hours is go over the histories of these seven with a proverbial fine-tooth comb. We have caffeine so that, should the events described in Cordelia's dream come to pass, we'll be awake." Giles was still feeling as tired and sore as he had this morning, but now that he was in the flow of "research mode," he no longer felt like he was in imminent danger of falling facefirst onto the library floor.
"And what if we need to be asleep?" Willow groused.
Buffy turned. "Lack of sleep does NOT agree with you, girl."
"In any event," Giles broke in. "We do have chaff to separate from wheat here, so if we could get to it . . .?"
They all nodded, Giles passed out books. "Okay, Buffy . . . you can look at Yazusi, Oz, you can read up on Ghoti, Willow, you can look at the djinn, Almaghestos, and I'll handle the remaining three demons."
Xander waved his arm weakly. "Oh, right, Xander. You read up on the Greek sorceror . . . Hypnos."
* * *
Mayor Wilkins sat in his office; he'd kept his staff there late that night, supposedly to pull together information and a strategy on a public works bill -- no, actually, they had put together some numbers that should plow right through the city council. So two birds with one stone, which worked out nicely.
He did wish he knew a bit more about what Hypnos wanted; the sorceror, unlike the demons, didn't want any kind of tribute in the form of sacrifices; he wanted the mayor's aid in building some kind of mysterious device . . . which meant enlisting the population of Sunnydale.
Given the number of sleepwalkers and exhausted employees he had, it was obvious that Hypnos had already been flexing his muscles . . . mystically speaking, of course. But he needed guarantees that everyone would STAY asleep long enough for his contraption to be completed. Thus, the powder.
The Mayor looked up at the clock. It was almost time. He said, interrupting the city comptroller, "Okay, Lou. Fascinating as that isn't, I think it's about time to bring this meeting to a close." Then, from memory, he recited the five magic words from the book necessary to complete the spell.
Instantly Lou, and everyone else, dropped off into a deep sleep. He looked over at his deputy, who, amazingly, had managed to follow his instructions and was still awake. Mental note to self: He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. Schedule his death? Something to be thought about.
"So now what?" Finch asked.
"Now? Now we watch and wait," Mayor Wilkins answered. He looked over at Lou's snoring figure. "You know something? I think that's the most intelligent thing I've ever heard come out of Lou's mouth."
Then Lou's head shot up, and the Deputy Mayor let out a yelp and jumped backwards. "Hello, Hypnos," His Honor said.
In a high-pitched voice that most definitely was not Lou's own, Lou said, "Mayor Wilkins. Well done." Then he, and everyone else, rose. "Follow me," came the sorcerors' voice.
Not really having any other option, the Mayor followed.
This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=2003