Lurking about, Giles

“So, do I take the front door like a certain be speckled goodie two-shoe prat or do I sneak in through the back way par usual?” Of course he already knew the answer it was just common place to get a second opinion from the only person he trusted-himself. Earlier in the day he actually thought about calling the bookstore he was thinking.. thinking.. thinking and pushed it aside, because there was absolutely no fun in prank calling a bookstore He did come up with a back-up plan that he wanted to go out and try, Ethan has always been an active person when it came to his diabolical schemes but if it meant that his body would be at risk then he usually did the deed from a safe distance.

Today though he was feeling particularly brave(mostly liquid courage) but in scoping out the area he stumbled upon their security system, of course this place would have a security system in case a normal vandal decided to try breaking in the alarm would go off and the vandal had a choice to either try and disable it or flee then of course the police would come an hour or so later, but a magical security system was a bit more technical depending on the magic that went into it. He knew of only two people who could put out a nice piece of work like this and he was quite sure that one of them would be quite cross if he ripped right through their magic and the other would try to repair it and she would also be cross afterwards, so either way they would both be angry with him no matter what he did at this point. Ethan whispered a few choice words under his breath just to determine the weakest point in the magic-it wasn’t easy… apparently the little wiccan was busy with fortifying their defenses, but they never counted on someone like Ethan finding a little hole and exploiting it and if there was one thing he prided himself on it was the fact that he could basically disrupt any magic with just a little prompting on his part.

After dealing with that little annoyance he made his way to the back rather quickly because he only disrupted it for a short time, which meant that he only had a small window to jimmy the lock on the back door and rush in before the alarm went off while he was at work. Luckily the lock was an old but extremely sturdy model it would take him a second if he used magic, but he wanted to be a real man and pick it himself Ethan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his kit choosing a file and a pick it took a few minutes but he managed it and rushed in closing the door gently behind him.

"Well that was bracing but I must say they would have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on me." he muttered standing in the doorway just to catch his breath he took this time to take a good look around, it was almost identical to the layout of the "Magic Box" with quite a few noticible alterations. There were boxes lining the walls with magical odds and ends and quite a few books waiting to be sheleved so Ethan assumed that this was the storage area or the service entrace, but where he wanted to be was somewhere near the front. He would need to tread carefully but first he was going to have a look at all the little goodies Giles had saw fit to squirrel away from the paying customers, but the moment he picked up a book he accidentally dropped it and it fell to the floor with a loud thud. Ethan cringed a bit and looked towards the door waiting with baited breath.

Running a shop was no easy task and Giles learned that the hard way, from the time when he took over the Magic Shop in Sunnydale. One had to know a thing or two about accounting, in order to make sure that the shop earned enough to pay the current expenses; one also needed to have a way with people, in order to make sure that the clients were happy with the service and felt inclined to return the next time they needed something as well. Due to the nature of the business, one also needed to be careful how the magical supplies were arranged, where certain books were displayed and which of them were better left away from the clients' eyes, in order to avoid a disaster occurring because someone picked up a book and read aloud a couple of lines. Certain spells were in place specifically to ensure the fact that no magic ingredients or artifacts in the shop would start reacting to one another and give rise to a disaster.

Other spells were in place to avoid violence occurring in case a client was particularly dissatisfied or, worse case scenario, in case a vampire or demon decided to follow one of the girls all the way here. Magic and Mystics was meant to be a cover up story and, naturally, that implied the fact that they could not take the chances of someone seeing past the cover. Willow had a fairly good job securing the place against all kinds of dangers, including against the most common type of intrusions – although, for these, they also had in place a more conventional alarm system that was turned on at night.

Giles was in his office, going through the list of orders placed during the past week, when the silent intruder alarm was activated – he supposed it was called silent only for the reason that it could not be heard in the entire shop and by the culprit because, in his office, it was rather noisy and irritating. Frowning, he stood and walked over to a shelf in his office, upon which a crystal globe was resting, a globe which, within mere moments, was displaying the image of intruder. ”Ethan...”, Giles muttered, a look of displeasure on his face. The bane of his existence, he could say – and the last man he wanted to deal with these days. After placing the crystal globe back where it belonged, Giles walked out of his office and headed towards the storage room, in which Ethan seemed to be interested. He opened the door and walked inside, audibly closing it back behind him. ”Oh dear, we seem to have a rat infestation...”, he commented. ”What are you doing here, Ethan?”

Ethans heart actually skipped a beat when Giles opened the door; of course, he knew that his presence would not go unnoticed not only that he was actually happy it was his old mate and not one of his little girls that caught him. Ethan looked at his old friend in what he hoped was a look of innocence, not that he had ever been innocent to begin with, however he was determined to get at some amusement out of this conversation the bit he didn’t like much was Ripper referring to him as a “rat” for some reason that word had never sat well with him.

“Hello Ripper, you’re looking well. You know old chum the security in this place leaves alot to be desired” he said mildly as he picked up the book he had so carelessly dropped and replaced it in the box with the rest.

“Ripper is already cross with me best not add insult to injury though, to be honest I don’t expect to walk out of here unscathed.” he thought as he sauntered over to Giles and gave him one his most winning smiles, of course on him it made him look like a used car salesman trying to peddle his wares.

Giles didn't think that there were many people in this world that could brag with a perfectly spotless past. Everyone made mistakes when they were young and, in one way or another, they never failed to come back and haunt one. The head Watcher was a man whose past had been filled with what he, nowadays, considered to be grave mistakes. The young, proper man who had been raised to follow the family's legacy and become a Watcher had decided to take life in to his own hands and find his own path after he had faced the horrors the life of a Watcher implied and, unfortunately, he got involved with the wrong kind of people and he started walking down a really dark and dangerous path. Tainted with power, lusting for power, Ripper had been someone whom Giles loathed thinking back to. In a sense, Ripper was not too different from the person Willow turned to after Tara died. Of course, Ripper never flayed anyone alive but that wasn't to say that he had not done many other things which were just as gruesome and which had also altered many lives.

Ethan Rayne was a man that knew the kind of person Giles used to be and he didn't seem to have an issue with digging up the past every time the two of them walked into one another. It must have been the reason why Giles could not really suffer his company. He never knew when Ethan could open his mouth and say something which he would have liked to keep a secret from the ones who knew him as the kind Rupert Giles. Moreover, he never knew when Ethan might do something which had the potential of bringing out the Ripper in him. As much as Giles would have loved the opposite, Ripper had not simply vanished when he came to his senses and realized that being a Watcher truly was his calling, no. Ripper was simply dormant, as was his thirst for dark magic, that was akin to the feeling an alcoholic experienced when he was around the object of his addiction.

His old friend's greeting earned him a glare from Giles. ”It was a regrettable incident that you have found the only weak spot our security system had. Rest assured, however, that I will have Willow address the issue and reinforce the system as soon as you walk out the door. Preferably the front one.” Folding his arms in front of his chest, Giles stepped closer to the other man. ”Mind telling me what are you doing in my shop?”

"Not in them mood for company old man? And after I came all this way just to see you." It was a poor lie but he was still trying to gather his thoughts. He used to be good at this but seeing his old friend stirred alot of memories within him some good some bad, but regardless they were the only memories he chose to keep close to his black ruined shell of a heart. He knew that their friendship was over has been for ages, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that his old mate was still in there somewhere...just buried under years and years of repressed feelings.

The old Ripper he knew would have beaten him senseless or taken him out to the nearest pub (or bar as the case may be) but this rational Giles had his merits, barring the fact that he was less fun. Ethan wanted to make him remember what it was like to have the world at your finger tips and power surely he didn't forget about the power, to be pulled under its thrall to feel like your mind and your body were connected with everything. It was a heady feeling one that he himself had almost forgotten.

"Not in them mood for company old man? And after I came all this way just to see you."

Being called an old man certainly did not humour Giles. While he was aware of the fact that it was nothing more than a figure of speech which was colloquially used even by the younger generations, Giles was rather touchy about it lately – to be more specific, he had become so since he had the displeasure of meeting another familiar face from his Ripper days: Stephen Crowley. Like it happened to most men after they passed a certain age, Giles had also experienced the middle age crisis. He used to be convinced of the fact that he had also managed to surpass it. Circumstances made it so that Giles remained very active as the years passed – perhaps even more so than he had been back in Sunnydale – and knowing that he was useful and that he played a very important part in the running of two organizations helped the Watcher keep his mind off his age, most of the time.

After the meeting with the Wolfram and Hart CEO, Giles' age kept coming back to the front of his mind. Stephen would have been very happy, no doubt, to know that his words had left such a deep impression on his former (or current?) rival. As unimpressed as Giles had tried to act during the dinner, the truth was that he cared about the fact that he would soon make his exit from this world without leaving an heir behind. Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander, they all were like children to him and he loved them dearly, he had taught them many valuable lessons which he hoped that they would remember long after he would be gone. However, it was simply not the same thing. Giles was going to leave no one behind to carry on his name and the thought was hurtful.

Such thoughts were cast aside in order for Giles to deal with Ethan's unpleasant presence. ”I might be in the mood for company but it depends on the company and on how they make their way inside the book shop”, Giles replied, thinking it would be obvious to Ethan that he did not fit into his definition of pleasant and welcome company. ”I am fairly certain that you have an agenda that drove you to come here.” Giles could not imagine Ethan coming all the way to New York just for him. ”What do you want, Ethan?”