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Part 6
“I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with Angel being a part of this,” said Giles.Hunter hefted the assault rifle off the table and placed it in a gun rack against the wall. She cast a dark look at him as she removed another and carried it back to the bench for its own maintenance.
“Live with it,” she said. “So the guy makes you uncomfortable. Big deal. We’re not exactly a mutual admiration society here to begin with. He knows Hell, and that’s important to me. You know the Slayer. That’s important to me, too. I don’t have to want to date either of you to recognize you bring assets to this op that I require. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you just put the first-grader, ‘I don’t want to play with Angel’ mentality on hold until this is over.”
Giles blinked a couple of times and looked embarrassed. “Yes. Yes, of course. I stand corrected. The success of this mission is paramount to any other considerations.”
Her eyes met his, and there was a compassion there that surprised him.
“I know how much Jenny meant to you,” she said. “I’ve been there more than a few times myself. For what it’s worth, I’d feel the same way, and while sometimes there are more important things than our own feelings, that doesn’t make them any less real.”
“Thank you for understanding,” said Giles.
When he didn’t leave, Elisa raised an eyebrow and asked, “Was there something else?”
Giles gestured at the arsenal lining the walls of the armory and said, “Is all this really necessary?”
“We’re not taking all of it. This is a covert infiltration, not an armored assault,” said Hunter.
“Conventional arms, will they be effective?”
“You’d be surprised at how many things a bullet can kill. And what it can’t kill, it can usually slow down. I alternate silver bullets with soft cold-iron alloy rounds and more conventional loads. You’ll find a three round burst will injure most things, one way or the other. You should’ve armed the Slayer with this sort of firepower years ago. It’s a hell of a lot safer and smarter to take out a demon at five hundred yards with a .50-caliber Haskins sniper rifle than to go toe-to-toe with it. Contrary to popular myth, even a vampire will go down if you put enough lead into one to overcome its regenerative ability.”
“I suppose I’ve just never been particularly fond of guns. They have a nasty tendency to kill the wrong things,” said Giles.
Hunter shrugged. “They’re just tools, Giles. Whether you kill with a stake or a sword or a gun, it’s still killing. The act of taking a life doesn’t become less horrible just because you use something on your approved Slayer weapons list. I’ve killed thousands over the centuries. I accept personal responsibility for every one of those deaths. I killed them. Not my sword, or my gun, or my longbow — I killed them, and some of those deaths were the wrong ones. Until you guys grow up and start taking some responsibility for what you do, you aren’t going to get very far as a race.”
“I suppose that’s what the Elder Powers’ game is all about, isn’t it? Forcing us to grow or die.”
Hunter opened the semiauto’s breach and ran a cleaning rod down the barrel. “Bingo. But that doesn’t make them right. You should be allowed to manage your own destiny, to rise or fall on your own without being pushed. But they don’t listen to me. Not too many people do anymore.”
Giles turned to leave and Hunter said, “Tell Angel I want the two of you down on the firing range at thirteen-hundred hours. Part of my responsibility is to make sure you two are qualified on this hardware. They aren’t toys. They kill what they hit, and I won’t have either one of you carrying a weapon on my team unless you’ve been thoroughly checked out on it.”
“What about Willow?” asked Giles.
“Willow stays here. With Prophet setting up a phase beacon for us, we won’t have to risk keeping the Gate open for our entire trip to the other side. But if we close it, someone has to open it for us again. If the technology fails, I want somebody here who can pull off a good old fashioned incantation to work the Gate. Besides, I like her far too much to take her where we’re going,” said Hunter.