Whistler. That sounded familiar, somehow.
"Balance demon, My Host. Working for the Powers That Be." Taziel whispered into my ear. "You can trust him to some extent, I have met him before. Whatever they are, they are not known to randomly betray you."
Yeah. Sure. Your endorsement is really valuable for me.
Even so, her reminder did get my memory working. He was the one who sent Angel to Sunnydale in the first place.
"If you think I'm going to invite a demon into my place, you have another thing coming. Balance demon or not." I said and showed the gun without pointing it in his direction.
Whistler looked less than impressed. "Look, kid. Either you talk to me or the slayer gets visions of somebody possessed by a fallen angel. How's things hanging by the way, Taziel?"
Buffy that was already out of balance from seeing me blow up her former boyfriend.
I clenched my jaw for a second before unhooking the chain of the door and stepping back, allowing it to swing open. "Can I get you some tea?"
"Thanks, that would be great." the demon said as he wandered inside, looking around. "Man, this place looks even smaller from the inside."
Flicking the safety onto the gun, I put it into the rear of my belt before moving towards the small kitchen unit to get some water boiling, keeping my eyes on the demon at all times.
"Kid, relax. I have been shot in the past, it didn't take. If I wanted to rip your face off, your gun wouldn't stop me."
"No, but a bullet to the face might slow you down enough for me to get away."
He looked thoughtful and then nodded. "Might, actually. Fair enough."
"Why are you here and what do you want?"
Whistler sank down by the small table and took his hat off, putting it on the table as he leaned back against the chair. "You fucked up quite a few fates today. The entire thing with the chaos sorcerer was one thing. Stuff like that happens and things were poked back on track easily enough, no hard feelings. But you had to go blow Angelus up, didn't you?"
I didn't have much to say about that. He was right, after all.
"The Powers wanted you killed before you messed even more up." He continued. "I talked them into allowing me to talk to you first. See if there is any way to solve this."
Oh boy. Great. I had attracted the direct and hostile attention of a bunch of gods. Fuck everything.
"What do you want?"
"You want it straight? Work for us and fix what you have messed up or we stick the slayer on you. Slayers." Whistler said with a shrug.
"You would have stopped me in the first place. Who put me here anyway!?"
He shook his head. "No idea, kid. You were not even on the radar until you iced the chaos sorcerer. You were still thought unimportant and I was in Japan on business so I couldn't check things out anyway. It was only when you derailed a couple of dozen prophecies when it was important enough to pull me out. You just killed a peace treaty twenty years in the making between a pair of Oni tribes, by the way. Thanks for that. Intercontinental portal work is not exactly cheap either."
I just stared at the water that refused to boil for a long moment before I looked at the demon. "...What do you want from me?"
"You killed Angel. You take over his stuff in Los Angeles." Whistler said rather bluntly. "That's a year and a half from now. Right now, priority one is to get you the hell out of Sunnydale at the very least. We'll let you know if we need you before then."
"Where would I go?"
"We don't care as long as it's not LA or Sunnydale. In fact, I would advice that you stay away from the west coast entirely, just to be safe. The chance that you will fuck something else major up is limited as long as you do and we might still be able to fix this before the world ends." He said and frowned. "Taziel, tell him that he should listen to us."
"I'm not listening to it, why would I listen to you?"
"Because otherwise, you die before you can mess something else up."
Taziel appeared next to me. "My Host, may I borrow your mouth? I need to speak to him."
"No, fuck off." I said and looked at her before turning back to Whistler. "What is this, kick the mortal day? Like my life isn't bad enough already!?"
Whistler actually smirked. "Any day is kick the mortal day in Sunnydale. But the fact remains that you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it. You got involved, now you are involved."
"...What about money, my things. I don't have anything."
"I'll drive you to the bus and buy you a ticket. Anything else is up to you. Maybe the money will continue showing up in your account and maybe it won't. Not our problem."
I looked down at the pot. The water had started to boil.
Whistler sighed. "Look... I know it's a really sucky deal. What's happened to you is bottom tier scum levels of unfair. But reality is what it is and I'm sorry to say that it's the best one you are going to get..."
Staying quiet, I poured the water and dropped the bags in. On top of everything else, the tea here sucked. Brilliant.
"...At least from our side of the fence." he finished before allowing the silence after that stretch out.
I wasn't entirely sure what to say about that. "The other side... they know about me?" I finally asked as I put the cups on the table.
"Not yet, as far as we know. Well, other than the obvious one. Only a matter of time, though, especially when you are involved. Killing the Judge and Angelus? Kinda get a guy some reputation on its own. Keep your head down and you might be able to stay off the infernal radar, at least until we need you in LA."
I slowly sank down in the opposite chair to rest my head against my hands. "...How long until I have to leave?"
"You have until I finish my cup to pack." He said before he shrugged, "Sorry kid. We are kinda in a hurry to catch the last bus out of here."
AN// Many thanks to Grey Rook for betaing this section. Double feature friday!
