Fic: Fimbul (2/?)

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Fimbul (2/?)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: Several characters in this belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I'm poor, I'm harmless, I'm just borrowing.
SUMMARY: It's got Buffy and Willow; it does have ice, but no alcohol. And no real violence
SPOILERS: None; some peripheral smut (it's cold out there)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome -- thanks for the nice comments so far. Hi again to anyone that knows me 
ARCHIVING: Wait and see if I ever finish the thing
 


 
FIMBUL  

By Soren Nyrond

Part 2 :: To Sleep, Perchance to Freeze

 
 
Blasted kids.
It was always the same with kids - they insisted on doing everything they could to make life hard.
Emil Haucott had been janitor at Sunnydale High for eighteen years, man andelderly man (his career as an industrial chemist had suffered a blow when three of his colleagues all died of the same obscure metallic poison, but Mayor Wilkins had somehow heard about it and arranged the school job).
At the old Sunnydale High they (the kids) had run rampant - and they'd keptmessing up his closets. At this new, temporary, site (and Emil could see the "temporary" arrangement running on till the State authorities found out- he knew well how the chairman of the School Board had afforded the new hot-tub suite in his summer-house . the one Emil had been told to spend halfsummer plumbing in - whatever funds were voted for the new school buildings would go the same way, he reckoned), they seemed to have decided to mess up the plumbing.
There was some sort of blockage in the pipes under one of the classrooms, and Emil was going to have to fix it before school started because it was too cold in there.
 
He pulled out a hexagonal key and unlocked the four catches on the access panel in the floor, before hoisting it up to look beneath.
It was frigid down there, colder than it had any right to be - they must have blocked the hot water pipes somehow.
He reached down to check, and then tried to snatch his hand back as icy cold lanced along his arm. But his muscles were already stiffened - his hand barely withdrew at all, and the shock toppled him forward and his hand hit the pipes again. The cold flooded up his arm like something alive. His heart seized, his skin crackled and blistered, and burst as his blood froze and forced its way out. He turned grey; one last convulsive movement turnedhis head even as his eyes froze over, and then his whole body became entombed in ice, as the water in the air froze round him.
 
 
It was Buffy who had to get up early - a nine o'clock class, and the need for at least half an hour's cramming in the library straight ahead of it. And since it had been nearer one than eleven when she'd got in (Giles' suspicions had been right and wrong - right that something was going on at Embervale; wrong as to what: not vandalism but a small horde of nasty little demons trying to nest inside the late lamenteds . in the end it had taken quite a while to be sure they were all dead) snuggles and smoochies had been limited. 
"I'll make it up to you tonight," Buffy promised, as she ducked out the door.
"Okay," Willow called after her: "I'll hold you to that."
It was while she was having a hasty breakfast of nut-bars and decaff, and looking over the results of the "unusual occurrence" program that she suddenly saw something that she hadn't expected to.
It called for a quick detour from her plan to spend her class-free morning engrossed in Sophocles, and instead a fast call to Rupert Giles.
 
 
"What's the matter, Willow ?"
In reply the hacker-witch held out the sheet of print-out.
"Number eighteen," she said.
Rupert Giles read the item three times before the significance struck him.
"It doesn't make sense - the High School is a burned-out wreck, and the warding spell we left on the Hellmouth would have told us if anything was trying to get out."
"But the prediction is specific," Willow replied: "Great danger, coming from the High School."
"All right. As I remember it, you put in a sub-routine, or whatever you call it, so that you could analyse individual responses."
Willow nodded and was about to go on to explain how the program worked while Giles pressed on: "I wouldn't understand any of how it does it, but if itdoes, then we can ask it on what basis it makes this particular prediction."
"I can program that as soon as I get in," Willow said.
"You're sure that no-one at the University minds, you using their computer for all this ?"
"Not unless they want their accounting software to fall over or find every meal has toffee-roasted termites on the menu -- the Health Department hadme install a dietetics program for the kitchens."
Willow smiled sweetly, and Giles made a mental note to do his own shopping lists from now on. He'd been wondering why he kept getting deliveries of fresh oysters every four weeks or so .
 
 
"***king H*ll !" Ricky Mendez pulled his leather jacket back on and rubbedhis hands together vigorously. "What is it with this room ?"
The rest of the class were in agreement, albeit less vehemently.
Mr. Bobczik came in, ready to invoke binomial calculus, and raised an eyebrow.
"The heating was supposed to be fixed overnight," he said. "Mr. Mendez, find the janitor: everyone else, go along to the chemistry lab - I happen to know that Mr. Mortenson has organised a field trip for his morning's classes to the West Boulder nuclear facility."
Ricky had no time for calculus - his grade-point average was high enough for him to stay on the squad as an all-purpose tackle, Uncle Benny had promised him a job pumping gas on the autoroute, just down from Skinny-Dip Beach,and Coach Curtois said he might be able to fix a trial for a college side,see if a scholarship could be fixed. Then he'd be on the Beach, not just five minutes' drive away.
 
Weird Emil the janitor wasn't in his cramped little office. Ruicky took the chance to check the pictures behind the door and picked the best two and tugged them clear of their drawing pins. If he screwed his eyes up, the blonde one looked a bit like Virginia Swensen - not that the Virtuous Virgin would ever do a pose like that .
Ricky lounged down the hall, then, hearing authoritative footsteps approaching, he ducked into the bathroom, only to recoil at the intense cold there.
It was Mr. Copes in the corridor: "Ah. Mr. Mendez - good: I need someone tocollect some books from the basement."
Copes could understand that, with the limited space in the temporary schoolquarters, some text books had to be stored until they were needed. Why italways seemed to be his and not, for example, Mrs. Hillier's geography texts, he didn't understand. On the other hand, he was also unaware of the slightly unorthodox uses Mrs. Hillier had devised for the School Board chairman's hot-tub.
 
Still, he had the key to the cellar, and Mendez was a muscular lad - five crates of World Bank Regional Analyses of the West Africas would be no problem for him .
They were partway down the stairs when it struck them how cold the cellar was. Ricky was leading, so when he stopped Capes couldn't immediately see what the problem was. Then, looking over the boy's shoulder, he saw, disbelievingly, that the cellar floor was covered with ice.
It made no sense but clearly today wasn't a suitable days for getting the books - someone needed to speak to the janitor or .
"Go back to your class, Mr. Mendez - I'll see the principal."
>From the far corner of the cellar, eyes watched them depart again. They were cold eyes; eyes with almost two millimetres of ice over them, but eyes with awareness nevertheless.
 
 
And, beneath the classroom floor, the Thing continued to wait. But now it was larger - perhaps the size of a good marble or a gall-stone.
 
 
"Hi, Will - how was your morning ?"
It was Buffy's turn for a clear half-day, so she'd gone back to the room tochange. She hadn't expected to find Willow there, but .
"Oh, okay," Willow replied. For a moment she looked embarrassed, then she said: "Buffy, Giles is going to ask you - and I don't want - "
"Ask me what ?" Buffy asked - she'd made that bit out, in between slipping off her white blouse (worn in the hope of avoiding for Professor Walsh's disapproving glare) and reaching for a gayer top.
Willow mumbled something - Buffy undressed, even when it was just without atop on, with her white bra cinching in the lovely breasts that Willow worshipped (along with other bits of her Slayer), tended to throw her line of conversation.
 
Buffy pulled the top on and said "There - now what were you saying about Giles ?"
"I don't want you going back to the High School," Willow said.
"Why would I - oh, is that what Giles is going to ask ? Well, why not ?"
"Well . " Willow went into mumble-mode again and Buffy went over to her.
"Come on, Will - whatever, you can tell me."
"I tried a foreseeing spell, to make sure you'd be all right - " Willow held out a cup "- and that's what I got."
Buffy looked at the cup - it contained something disgusting. Then she looked closer.
"Where did you find this ?" she asked.
Willow pointed vaguely, and Buffy gave a hearty laugh and hugged her friend.
"My oops," she said: "Xander came over to try to sell me some own-brand stuff he was calling jungle juice. That was the cup he used - there must havebeen some left in the bottom."
She hugged Willow again, and kissed her.
"Look, I'll be ultra-careful, okay ? And I promise, if Giles talks about the old High School, I'll find a reason not to go tonight, and we'll scope it out, all three of us - four, if Xander's free, tomorrow night - all right?"
Willow kissed her Slayer back, much relieved.
 
 
Through the darkness of the temporary high School, closed for the day now, a figure moved, making its way to the boiler room, turning all the boilers up to maximum. The water heated up and up, until it was almost at boiling point and the heat quickly melted all the ice in the pipes. Then the radiators began to shudder with the sudden violent expansions at all their joints. The High School began to take on the aspect of a tropical hot-house in a heat-wave.
Then, with awesome suddenness, the ice returned, sucking all the heat from the entire heating system. Ice formed throughout the system, in every pipe, every radiator, the cold flooding the boilers. Then, in one explosive expansion, the metal gave way before the pressure of the ice, and there was ice spilling out all over the school. Spilling out, accumulating, merging together. The ice in the cellar thickened and strengthened and the temperature plummeted even further.
 


End of Part 2