Season of the Witch: Interlude

Interlude: When Robert met Megan

Sunnydale, June 1976

"I am telling you I don't like this!" The man said for what may have been the twelfth time that evening. He was young, early or mid twenties. He still had the hair and mannerism of someone who had spent a lifetime in the military. In fact that is how he, Robert Maclay, got his current job as squad commander for S.A.V.E. He lit his cigarette and handed the lighter to his companion who lit his own.

"Well, too bad. Her orders came in from Dublin HQ and a fat all good it does talking to them. Sorry mate, she is our problem now."

"Well I for one have not spent the better part of a year and a half fighting god-knows-what just so I can invite a witch into my group" Robert swore.

"Cleanser." Came a feminine voice. "Cleanser or Craft-Worker, but never a Witch."

Both men turned around to see they had been joined a small, rather unassuming, but attractive woman. She was dressed in hip-hugging bell bottoms, sandals, and a tattered Led Zeppelin concert shirt. Her hair was long and blonde. She looked every bit like all the other California girls they had seen since coming to this hellhole of a town. She carried a burlap bag on one shoulder and wore sunglasses that covered half her face. She took them off to reveal sparkling blue eyes.

"Great." Bob replied. "I ask for a spirit removal expert and S.A.V.E. sends me a kid."

"Hey. I just graduated from Berkeley, I'm no kid. Besides you're like not much older than me anyway." She shot back.

"Oi. Don't listen to him." The other man rose to shake her hand, "Nigel. Nigel Delamort. Don't let the accent fool you, I'm French, not English. I just had the misfortune of having to grow up there. That over there is our fearless leader, Robert Maclay. Don't let the rough exterior fool you, deep down inside he is still every bit the humorless bastard we all know and love."

"Megan" the woman answered back, "Megan O'Kelly. Here are my papers. So. What brings S.A.V.E. to Sunnydale?"